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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

THE FAITH OF THE MILLIONS.

ROEHAMPTON :
PRINTED BY JOHN GRIFFIN.

THE
FAITH OF THE MILLIONS
A SELECTION OF PAST ESSAYS

GEORGE TYRRELL, S.J.

SECOND series
Second Edition

" AND SEEING THE MULTITUDES HE WAS MOVED WITH
COMPASSION ON THEM, FOR THEY WERE HARASSED AND
SCATTERED AS SHEEP HAVING NO SHEPHERD." (.Matthew ix. 36.)

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
- 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1902

1R1I ©bstat : J. GERARD. S.J. CENS. THEOL. DEPUTATUS.
Smprimatur: HERBERTUS CARD. VAUGHAN, ARCHIEP. WESTMON.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
XIII. — Juliana of Norwich i
XIV. — Poet and Mystic . 40
XV.— Two Estimates of Catholic Life . . . 61
XVI.— A Life of De Lamennais . . . 80
XVII. — Lippo, the Man and the Artist . . 96
XVIII.— Through Art to Faith . in
XIX.— Tracts for the Million . .136
XX. — An Apostle of Naturalism . . . 158
XXL— "The Making of Religion" ... 215
XXII.— Adaptability as a Proof of Religion . . 277
XXIII.— Ideaiism in Straits . 348

XIII.
JULIANA OF NORWICH.
" One of the most remarkable books of the middle
ages," writes Father Dalgairns,1 " is the hitherto-
almost unknown work, titled, Sixteen Revelations of
Divine Love made to a Devout Servant of God, called
Mother Juliana, an Anchoress of Norwich." How "one
of the most remarkable books" should be "hitherto
almost unknown," may be explained partly by the
fact to which the same writer draws attention,
namely, that Mother Juliana lived and wrote at the
time when a certain mystical movement was about
to bifurcate and pursue its course of development,
one branch within the Church on Catholic lines,
the other outside the Church along lines whose
actual issue was Wyclimsm and other kindred forms-
of heterodoxy, and whose logical outcome was
pantheism. Hence, between the language of these
pseudo-mystics and that of the recluse of Norwich,.
"there is sometimes a coincidence . . . which
might deceive the unwary." It is almost neces-
1 Prefatory Essay to Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection.
B II.

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

sarily a feature of every heresy to begin by using
the language of orthodoxy in a strained and non-
natural sense, and only gradually to develop a
distinctive terminology of its own ; but, as often as
not, certain ambiguous expressions, formerly taken
in an orthodox sense, are abandoned by the faithful
on account of their ambiguity and are then appro
priated to the expression of heterodoxy, so that
eventually by force of usage the heretical meaning
comes to be the principal and natural meaning, and
any other interpretation to seem violent and non-
natural. "The few coincidences," continues Father
Dalgairns, "between Mother Juliana and Wycliffe
are among the many proofs that the same specu
lative view often means different things in different
systems. Both St. Augustine, Calvin, and Mahomet,
believe in predestination, yet an Augustinian is
something utterly different from a Scotch Came-
ronian or a Mahometan. . . . The idea which runs
through the whole of Mother Juliana is the very
contradictory of Wycliffe's Pantheistic Necessi
tarianism." Yet on account of the mere similarity
of expression we can well understand how in the
course of time some of Mother Juliana's utterances
came to be more ill-sounding to faithful ears in
proportion as they came to be more exclusively
appropriated by the unorthodox. It is hard to be

JULIANA OF NORWICH

as vigilant when danger is remote as when it is
near at hand ; and until heresy has actually wrested
them to its purpose it is morally impossible that
the words of ecclesiastical and religious writers
should be so delicately balanced as to avoid all
ambiguities and inaccuracies. Still less have we a
right to look for such exactitude in the words of
an anchoress who, if not wholly uneducated in our
sense of the word, yet on her own confession
"could no letter," i.e., as we should say, was no,
scholar, and certainly made no pretence to any skill
in technical theology. But however much some of
her expressions may jar with the later developments
of Catholic theology, it must be remembered, as
las been said, that they were current coin in her
day, common to orthodox and unorthodox; and
that though their restoration is by no means desir
able, yet they are still susceptive of a "benignant "
interpretation. " I pray Almighty God," says
Mother Juliana in concluding, "that this book come
not but into the hands of those that will be His
faithful lovers, and that will submit them to the faith
of Holy Church." 1 And indeed such can receive no
1 The Protestant editor of the Leicester edition (of 1845); not
understanding that an appreciation of difficulties, far from being
-incompatible with faith, is a. condition of the higher and more
intelligent faith, would fain credit Mother Juliana with a secret
.disaffection towards the Church's authority. How far he is justified

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

possible harm from its perusal, beyond a little
temporary perplexity to be dispelled by inquiry ;
and this only in the case of those who are sufficiently
instructed and reflective to perceive the discord in
question. The rest are well used in their reading
to take what is familiar and to leave what is strange,
so that they will find in her pages much to ponder,
and but a little to pass over.
It is, however, not only to these occasional
obscurities and ambiguities that we are to ascribe
the comparative oblivion into which so remarkable
a book has fallen ; but also to the fact that its
noteworthiness is perhaps more evident and relative
to us than to our forefathers. It cannot but startle
us to find doubts that we hastily look upon as
peculiarly " modern," set forth in their full strength
and wrestled with and overthrown by an unlettered

may be gathered from such passages as these : " In this way was I
taught by the grace of God that I should steadfastly hold me fast
in the faith, as I had before understood." " It was not my meaning;
to take proof of anything that belongeth to our faith, for I believed
truly that Hell and Purgatory is for the same end that Holy
Church teacheth." ¦• And I was strengthened and learned generally-
to keep me in the faith in every point . . . that I might continue-
therein to my life's end." " God showed full great pleasaunce that
He hath in all men and women, that mightily and wisely take the
preaching and teaching of Holy Church; for it is His Holy
Church; He is the ground; He is the substance; He is the
teaching; He is the teacher," &c.

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

recluse of the fourteenth century. In some sense
they are the doubts of all time, with perhaps just
that peculiar complexion which they assume in the
light of Christianity. Yet, owing to the modern
spread of education, or rather to the /indiscriminate
divulgation of ideas, these problems are now the
possession of the man in the street, whereas in
former days they were exclusively the property of
minds capable — not indeed of answering the un
answerable, but at least of knowing their own
limitations and of seeing why such problems must ;
always exist as long as man is man. Dark as the
age of Mother Juliana was as regards the light of
positive knowledge and information; yet the: light
of wisdom burned at least as clearly and steadily
then as now ; and it is by that light alone that the
shades of unbelief can be dispelled. Of course,
wisdom without knowledge must starve or prey on
its own vitals, and this was the intellectual danger
of the middle ages ; but knowledge without wisdom
is so much food undigested and indigestible, and
this is the evil of our own day, when to be passably
well-informed so taxes our time and energy as to
leave us no leisure for assimilating the knowledge
with which we have stuffed ourselves.
We must not, however, think of Mother Juliana
as shut up within four walls of a cell, evolving all

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

her ideas straight from her own inner consciousness
without any reference to experience. Such a barren
contemplation, tending to mental paralysis, belongs-
to Oriental pessimism, whose aim is the extinction
of life, mental and physical, and reabsorption into-
that void whence, it is said, misfortune has brought
us forth to troublous consciousness. The Christian
contemplative knows no ascent to God but by the
ladder of creatures; he goes to the book of Nature
and of human life, and to the book of Revelation,.
and turns and ponders their pages, line by line and
word by word, and so feeds and fills the otherwise
thin and shadowy conception of God in his own
soul, and ever pours new oil upon the flame of
Divine love. Father Dalgairns writes: "Juliana
is a recluse very different from the creatures of the
imagination of writers on comparative morals. So-
far from being cut off from sympathy with her kind,.
her mind is tenderly and delicately alive to every
change in the spiritual atmosphere of England. . . ..
The four walls of her narrow home seem to be
rent and torn asunder, and not only England but
Christendom appears before her view; " and he is at
pains to show how both anchorites and anchoresses-
were much sought after by all in trouble, temporal
or spiritual, and how abundant were their opportu
nities of becoming acquainted with human life

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

and its burdens, and of more than compensating,
through the confidences of others, whatever defect
their minds might suffer through lack of personal
experience. Even still, how many a priest or nun
whose experience had else been narrowed to the
petty domestic interests of a small family, is, in
virtue of his or her vocation, put in touch with a
far larger world, or with a far more important
aspect of the world, than many who mingle with
its every-day trivialities, and is thus made a
partaker in some sense of the deeper life and
experience of society and of the Universal Church !
The anchoress " did a great deal more than pray.
The very dangers against which the author of her
rule1 warns her, are a proof that she had many
visitors. He warns her against becoming a
' babbling ' or ' gossiping ' anchoress, a variety
evidently well-known ; a recluse whose cell was
the depository of all the news from the neighbour
hood at a time when newspapers did not exist."
Such abuses throw light upon the legitimate use
of the anchoress's position in the mediaeval com
munity. And so, though Mother Juliana "could no
letter," though she knew next to nothing of the
rather worthless physical science of those times,
1 Ancren Riwle.

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

and hardly more of philosophy or technical theology,
yet she knew no little of that busy, sad, and sinful
human life going on round her, not only at Norwich,
but in England, and even in Europe ; and rich with
this knowledge, to which all other lore is subordinate
and for whose sake alone it is valuable, she betook
herself to prayer and meditation, and brought all
this experience into relation with God, and drew
from it an ever clearer understanding of Him and
of His dealings with the souls that His Love has
created and redeemed.
It is not then so wonderful that this wise and
holy woman should have faced the problems
presented by the apparent discord between the
truths of faith and the facts of human life— a
discord which is felt in every age by the observant
and thoughtful, but which in our age is a common
place on the lips of even the most superficial. But
an age takes its tone from the many who are the
children of the past, rather than from the few who
are the parents of the future. Mother Juliana's
book could hardly have been in any sense "popular"
until these days of ours, in which the particular
disease of mind to which it ministers has become
epidemic. If then these suggestions to some extent furnish
an explanation of the oblivion into which the reve-

JULIANA. OF NORWICH.

lations of Mother Juliana have fallen, they also
justify the following attempt to draw attention to
them once more, and to give some sort of analysis
of their contents ; more especially as we have reason
to believe that they are about to be re-edited by
a competent scholar and made accessible to the
general public, which they have not been since the
comparative extinction of Richardson's edition of
1877. Little is known of Mother Juliana's history -
outside what is implied in her revelations ; nor is
it our purpose at present to go aside in search of
biographical details that will be of interest only
after their subject has become interesting. Suffice
it here to say that she was thirty at the time of
her revelations, which she tells us was in 1373.
Hence she was born in 1343, and is said to have
"been a centenarian, in which case she must
have died about 1443. She probably belonged to
the Benedictine nuns at Carrow, near Norwich,
and being called to a still stricter life, retired to a
hermitage close by the Church of St. Julian at
Norwich. The details she gives about her own
sick-room exclude the idea of that stricter " reclu-
sion " which is popularly spoken, of as " walling- up "
— not of course in the mythical sense.
With 'these brief indications sufficient to satisfy
the craving of our imagination for particulars of

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

time and place, let us turn to her own account of
the circumstances of her visions, as well as of their
nature. She tells us that in her life previous to
I373> she had, at some time or other, demanded
three favours from God ; first, a sensible appre
ciation of Christ's Passion in such sort as to share
the grace of Mary Magdalene and others who were
eye-witnesses thereof: "therefore I desired a bodily
sight wherein I might have more knowledge of the
bodily pain of our Saviour." And the motive of
this desire was that she might " afterwards because
of that showing have the more true mind of the
Passion of Christ." Her aim was a deeper practical
intelligence, and not the gratification of mere
emotional curiosity.
This grace she plainly recognizes as extra
ordinary ; for she says : " Other sight or showing:
of God asked I none, till when the soul was departed
from the body." Her second request was likewise
for an extraordinary grace; namely, for a bodily
sickness which she and others might believe to be
mortal ; in which she should receive the last sacra
ments, and experience all the bodily pains, and all
the spiritual temptations incident to the separation
of soul and body. And the motive of this request
was that she might be " purged by the mercy of
God, and afterwards live more to the worship of

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

God because of that sickness." In ether words,
she desired the grace of what we might call a
" trial-death," that so she might better meet the
real death when it came. Further, she adds, " this
sickness I desired in my youth, that I might have
it when I was thirty years old." And " these two
desires were with a condition " (namely, if God
should so will), "for methought this was not the
common use of prayer." But the third request she
proffers boldly " without any condition," since it
was necessarily God's desire to grant it and to be
sued for it ; namely, the grace of a three-fold wound :
the wound of true sorrow for sin ; the wound of
" kind compassion " with Christ's sufferings ; and
the wound of " wilful belonging to God," that is, of
self-devotion. She is careful to tell us that while she ever
continued to urge the unconditional third request,
the two first passed completely out of her head in
the course of years, until she was reminded of them
by their simultaneous and remarkable fulfilment.
" For when I was thirty years old and a half, God
sent me a bodily sickness in which I lay three days
and three nights ; and on the fourth night I took all
my rites of Holy Church, and weened not to have
lived till day. And after this I lay two days and
two nights, and on the third night I weened often-.

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

times to have passed, and so weened they that were
with me. . . . And I understood in my reason, and
by the feeling of my pains that I should die, and
I assented fully with all the will of my heart, to be
at God's will. Thus I endured till day, and by
then, was my body dead to all feeling from the
midst down." She is then raised up in a sitting
position for greater ease, and her curate is sent for,
as the end is supposed to be near. On arrival, he
finds her speechless and with her eyes fixed upwards
towards heaven, " where I trusted to come by the
mercy of God." He places the crucifix before her,
and bids her bend her eyes upon it. " I assented
to set my eyes in the face of the crucifix if I could ;
and so I did ; for methought I could endure longer
to look straight in front of me than right up " —
a touch that shows the previous upturning of the
eyes to have been voluntary and not cataleptic.
At this moment we seem to pass into the region of
the abnormal : " After this my sight began to fail ;
it waxed as dark about me in the chamber as if
it had been night, save in the image of the cross,
wherein I beheld a common light, and I wist not
how. And all that was beside the cross was ugly
and fearful to me, as it had been much occupied
with fiends." Then the upper part of her body
becomes insensible, and the only pain left is that

JULIANA OF NORWICH. 13
of weakness- and breathlessness. . Suddenly she is
totally eased and apparently quite cured, which,
however, she regards as a momentary miraculous-
relief, but not as a deliverance from death. In this
breathing space it suddenly occurs to her to beg
for the second of those three wounds which were
the matter of her unconditional third request ;
namely, for a deepened sense and sympathetic
understanding of Christ's Passion. " But in this
I never desired any bodily sight, or any manner
of showing from God ; but such compassion as I
thought that a kind soul might have with our Lord
Jesus." In a word, the remembrance of her two-
conditional and extraordinary requests of bygone=
years was not in her mind at the time. " And in
this, suddenly I saw the red blood trickling dowa
from under the garland;" — and so she passes from
objective to subjective vision;1 and the first fifteen.
1 It is clear from many little touches and allusions that through
out the " showings " Mother Juliana considers herself to be gazing,.
not on a vision of Calvary, but on the illuminated crucifix hung
before her by her attendants, in which crucifix these appearances of
bleeding, suffering, movement, and speech take place. All else is
shrouded in darkness. Yet she never loses the consciousness that
she is in her bed and surrounded by others. Notice, for instance :
"After this, I saw with bodily sight in the face of the crucifix that-
hung before me," &c. "The cross that stood before my face,
methought it bled fast." "This [bleeding] was so plenteous, to-
my sight, that methought if it had been so in nature and.

ii JULIANA OF NORWICH.
revelations follow, as she tells us later, one after
another in unbroken succession, lasting in all some
few hours.
" I had no grief or no dis-ease," she tells us later,
'' as long as the fifteen showings lasted in showing.
And at the end all was close, and I saw no more ;
and soon I felt that I should live longer." Presently
all her pains, bodily and spiritual', return in full
force ; and the consolation of the visions seems to-
her as an idle dream and delusion ; and she answers
to the inquiries of a Religious at her bedside, that
she had been raving : " And he laughed loud and
drolly. And I said : ' The cross that stood before
substance" (i.e., in reality and not merely in appearance), "it
should have made the bed all a-blood, and have passed over all
about." "For this sight I laughed mightily, and made them to
laugh that were about me." Evidently she is quite awake, is well
conscious of her state 'and surroundings, and distinguishes appear
ance from reality, shadow from substance. There is no dream-like
illusion in all this. Appearances presented to the outer senses are
commonly spoken of as " hallucinations ; " but it seems to me that
this word were better reserved for those cases where appearance is
mistaken for reality ; and where consequently there is illusion and
deception. Mother Juliana is aware that the crucifix is not really
bleeding, as it seems to do, and she explicitly distinguishes such a
¦vision from her later illusory dream-presentment of the Evil One.
This dream while it lasted was, like all dreams, confounded with
reality; whereas the other phenomena, even if made of "dream-
stuff," were rated at their true value. Hence it seems'to me that if
such things have any outward independent reality, to see them is
no more an hallucination than to see a rainbow. Even if they are

JULIANA OF NORWICH. i5
my face, methought it bled fast.' " At which the
other looked so serious and awed that she became
ashamed of her own incredulity. " I believed Him
truly for the time that I saw Him. And so it was
then my will and my meaning to do, ever without
end — but, as a fool, I let it pass out of my mind-
And lo ! how wretched I was," &c. Then she falls
asleep and has a terrifying dream of the Evil One,
of which she says : " This ugly showing was made
sleeping and so was none other," whence it seems
that her self-consciousness was unimpaired in the
other visions; that is, she was aware at the time
that they were visions, and did not confound them
projected from the beholder's brain, there is no hallucination if
they are known for such ; but only when they are confounded with
reality, as it were, in a waking-dream. As we are here using the
word, an experience is "real" which fits in with, and does not
contradict the totality of our experiences ; which does not falsify
our calculation or betray our expectancy. If I look at a fly through
a magnifying medium of whose presence I am unconscious, its
size is apparent, or illusory, and not real ; for being unaware of the
unusual condition of my vision, I shall be thrown out in my calcu
lations, and the harmony of my experiences will be upset by
seeming contradictions. If, however, I am aware of the medium
and its nature, then I am not deceived, and what I see is " reality,"
since it is as natural and real for the .fly to look larger through the
optician's lense, as to look smaller through the optic lense.
I cannot call one aspect more "real " than the other, for both are
¦equally right and true under the given conditions. For these
reasons I should object to consider Mother Juliana's " bodily show
ings" as hallucinations, so far as the term seems to imply illusion.

16 JULIANA OF NORWICH.
with reality as dreams are confounded. Then
follows the sixteenth and last revelation ; ending
with the words : " Wit well it was no raving thou
sawest to-day ; but take it, and believe it, and keep
thee therein, and comfort thee therewith and trust
thereto, and thou shalt not be overcome." Then
during the rest of the same njght till about Prime
next morning she is tempted against faith and trust
by the Evil One, of whose nearness she is conscious;
but comes out victorious after a sustained struggle.
She understands from our Lord, that the series of
showings is now closed ; " which blessed showing
the faith keepeth, . . . for He left with me neither
sign nor token whereby I might know it." Yet for
her personally the obligation not to doubt is as of
faith : " Thus am I bound to keep it in my faith ;
for on the same day that it was showed, what time
the sight was passed, as a wretch I forsook it and
openly said that I raved."
Fifteen years later she gets an inward response
as to the general gist and unifying purport of the
sixteen revelations. "Wit it well; love was His
meaning. Who showed it thee ? Love. Wherefore
showed He it thee ? For love."
Having thus sketched the circumstances of the
revelations, we may now address ourselves to their
character and substance.

JULIANA OF NORWICH. 17
There is nothing to favour and everything to
disfavour the notion that Mother Juliana was
an habitual visionary, or was the recipient of any
other visions, than those which she beheld in her
thirty-first year ; and of these, she tells us herself,
the whole sixteen took place within a few hours.
" Now have I told you of fifteen showings, ... of
which fifteen showings, the first began early in the
morning about the hour of four, . . . each following;
the other till it was noon of the day or past, . . .
and after this the Good Lord showed me the
sixteenth revelation on the night following." Speak
ing of them all as one, she tells us : "And from the
time it was showed I desired oftentimes to wit what
was in our Lord's meaning ; and fifteen years after
and more I was answered in ghostly understanding,
saying thus : ' What ! wouldst thou wit thy Lord's
meaning in this thing ? Wit it well : Love was His
meaning.' " But this " ghostly understanding " can
hardly be pressed into implying another revelation.
of the evidently supernormal type.
We rather insist on this point, as indicating;
the habitual healthiness of Mother Juliana's soul
— a quality which is also abundantly witnessed
by the unity and coherence of the doctrine of
her revelations, which bespeaks a mind well-knit
together, and at harmony with itself. The hysterical
c p.

18 JULIANA OF NORWICH.
mind is one in which large tracts of consciousness
seem to get detached from the main body, and
to take the control of the subject for the time
being, giving rise to the phenomena rather foolishly
called double or multiple "personality." This is
a disease proper to the passive-minded, to those
who give way to a "drifting" tendency, and
habitually suffer their whole interests to be absorbed
by the strongest sensation or emotion that presents
itself. Such minds are generally chaotic and
unorganized, as is revealed in the rambling, in
volved, interminably parenthetical and digressive
character of their conversation. But when, as with
Mother Juliana, we find unity and coherence, we
may infer that there has been a life-long habit of
active mental control, such as excludes the suppo
sition of an hysterical temperament.
Perhaps the similarity of the phenomena which
attend both on extraordinary psychic weakness and
passivity, and on extraordinary energy and activity
may excuse a confusion common enough, and which
we have dwelt on elsewhere. But obviously as far
as the natural consequences of a given psychic state
are concerned, it is indifferent how that state is
brought about. Thus, that extreme concentration
of the attention, that perfect abstraction from
outward things, which in hysterical persons is the

JULIANA OF NORWICH. 19
effect of weakness and passive-mindedness— of the
inability to resist and shake off the spell of passions
and emotions ; is in others the effect of active
self-control, of voluntary concentration, of a com
plete mastery over passions and emotions. Yet
though the causes of the abnormal state are
different, its effects may well be the same.
In thus maintaining the healthiness and vigour
of Mother Juliana's mind, we may seem to be
implicitly treating her revelation, not as coming
from a Divine source, but simply as an expression
of her own habitual line of thought — as a sort of
pouring forth of the contents of her subconscious
memory. Our direct intention, however, is to show
how very unlikely it is antecedently that one so
clear-headed and intelligent should be the victim of
the common and obvious illusions of the hysterical
visionary. For her book contains not only the
matter of her revelations, but also the history of
all the circumstances connected with them, as well
as a certain amount of personal comment upon
them, professedly the fruit of her normal mind ;
and best of all, a good deal of analytical reflection
upon the phenomena which betrays a native psycho
logical insight not inferior to that of St. Teresa.
From these sources we could gather the general
sobriety and penetration of her judgment, without

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

assuming the actual teaching of the revelations to
be merely the unconscious self-projection of her
own mind. But in so much as many of these
revelations were professedly Divine answers to her
own questions, and since the answer must ever be
adapted not merely to the question considered
in the abstract, but as it springs from its context in
the questioner's mind; we are not wrong, on this
score alone, in arguing from the character of the
revelation to the character of the mind to which
it was addressed. Fallible men may often speak
and write above or beside the intelligence of their
hearers and readers ; but not so He who reads
the heart He has made. Now these revelations
were not addressed to the Church through Mother
Juliana ; but, as she says, were addressed to herself
and were primarily for herself, though most that
was said had reference to the human soul in general.
They were adapted therefore to the character ands
individuality of her mind; and are an index of its
thoughts and workings. For her they were a matter
of faith ; but, as she tells us, she had no token or
outward proof wherewith to convince others of their
reality. Those who feel disposed, as we ourselves
do, to place much confidence in the word of one so-
perfectly sane and genuinely holy, may draw profit
from the message addressed to her need ; but never

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

can it be for them a matter of faith as in a Divine
message addressed directly or indirectly to them
selves. So far as these revelations are a clear and
jnoble expression of truths already contained im
plicitly in our faith and reason, which it brings into
more explicit consciousness and vitalizes with a
new power of stimulus, they may be profitable to us
all ; but they must be received with due criticism
and discernment as themselves subject to a higher
rule of truth — namely, the teaching of the Universal
Church. But to determine, with respect to these and
kindred revelations, how far they may be regarded
as an expression of the recipient's own mind and
latent consciousness, will need a digression which
the general interest of the question must excuse.
There is a tendency in the modern philosophy ot
religion (for example, in Mr. Balfour's Foundations of
Belief) to rationalize inspired revelation and to
explain it as altogether kindred to the apparently
magical intuitions of natural genius in non-religious
matters ; as the result, in other words, of a rending
asunder of the veil that divides what is called
¦" super-liminal " from " subliminal " consciousness ;
to find in prophecy and secret insight the effect of a
flash of unconscious inference from a mass of data
buried in the inscrutable darkness of our forgotten

JULIANA OF NORWICH.

self Together with this, there is also a levelling-up
philosophy, a sort of modernized ontologism, which
would attribute all natural intuition to a more
immediate self-revelation on God's part than seems
quite compatible with orthodoxy.
But neither of these philosophies satisfy what is
vulgarly understood by " revelation," and therefore
both use the word in a somewhat strained sense.
For certainly the first sense of the term implies a
consciousness on the part of the recipient of beings
spoken to, of being related through such speech to-'
another personality, whereas the flashes and intui
tions of natural genius, however they may resemble
and be called " inspirations " because of their
exceeding the known resources of the thinker's own
mind, yet they are consciously autochthonous; they
are felt to spring from the mind's own soil ; not to
break the soul's solitude with the sense of an alien
presence. Such interior illuminations, though doubt
less in a secondary sense derived from the " True
Light which enlightens every man coming into this
world," certainly do not fulfil the traditional notion
of revelation as understood, not only in the Christian
Church, but also in all ethnic religions. For common
to antiquity is the notion of some kind of possession
or seizure, some usurpation of the soul's faculties by
an external personality, divine or diabolic, for its

JULIANA OF NORWICH. 23,
own service and as its instrument of expression — a
phenomenon, in fact, quite analogous, if not the
same in species, with that of hypnotic control and
suggestion, where the thought and will of the
subject is simply passive under the thought and will
of the agent.
Saints and contemplatives are wont — not without
justification — to speak of their lights in prayer, and
of the ordinary intuitions of their mind, under
the influence of grace, as Divine utterances in a
secondary sense; to say, "God said to me," or
" seemed to say to me," or " God showed me," and
so on. But to confound these products of their
own mind with revelation is the error only of the
uninstructed or the wilfully self-deluded. There
fore, as commonly understood, " revelation " implies
the conscious control of the mind by another mind ;
just as its usual correlative, " inspiration," implies
the conscious control of the will by another will.
There can be no doubt whatever but that Mother
Juliana of Norwich considered her revelations to be
of this latter description, and not to have been
merely different in degree from those flashes of
spiritual insight with which she was familiar in her
daily contemplations and prayers. How far, then,
her own mind may have supplied the material from
which the tissues were woven, or lent the colours

24 JULIANA OF NORWICH.
with which the pictures were painted, or supplied
the music to which the words were set, is what we
must now try to determine.

n.
Taking the terms "revelation" and "inspira
tion " in the unsophisticated sense which they have
borne not only in the Juda^o-Christian tradition,
but in almost all the great ethnic religions as well,
we may inquire into the different sorts and degrees
of the control exercised by the presumably super
natural agents over the recipient of such influence.
For clearness' sake we may first distinguish between
the control of the cognitive, the volitional, and the
¦executive faculties. For our present inquiry we
may leave aside those cases where the control of
.the executive faculties, normally subject to the will
and directed by the mind, seem to be wrested from
that control by a foreign agent possessed of intelli
gence and volition, as, for example, in such a case
as is narrated of the false prophet Balaam, or of
those who at the Pentecostal outpouring spoke
correctly in languages unintelligible to themselves,
or of the possessed who were constrained in spite
of themselves to confess Christ. In these and
similar eases, not only is the action involuntary or

JULIANA OF NORWICH. 25

even counter to the will, but it manifests such intel
ligent purpose as seemingly marks it to be the effect
of an alien will and intelligence. Of this kind of
control exercised by the agent over the outer actions
of the patient, it may be doubted if it be ever
effected except through the mediation of a sugges
tion addressed to the mind, in such sort that though
not free, the resulting action is not wholly involun
tary. Be this as it may, our concern at present is
simply with control exercised over the will and the
understanding. With regard to the will, it is a commonplace of
mystical theology that God, who gave it its natural
and essential bent towards the good of reason, i.e.,
towards righteousness and the Divine will; who
created it not merely as an irresistible tendency
towards the happiness and self-realization of the
rational subject, but as a resistible tendency towards
its true happiness and true self-realization — that this
same God can directly modify the will without the
natural mediation of some suggested thought. We
ourselves, by the laborious cultivation of virtue,
gradually modify the response of our will to certain
suggestions, making it more sensitive to right
impulses, more obtuse to evil impulses. According
to mystic theology, it is the prerogative of God to
dispense with this natural method of education,

26 JULIANA OF NORWICH.
and, without violating that liberty of choice (which
no inclination can prejudice), to incline the rational
appetite this way or that ; not only in reference to
some suggested object, but also without reference
to any distinct object whatsoever, so that the soul
should be abruptly filled with joy or sadness, with
fear or hope, with desire or aversion, and yet be at
a loss to determine the object of these spiritual
passions. St. Ignatius Loyola, in his " Rules for
Discerning Spirits," borrowed no doubt from the
current mystical theology of his day, makes this
absence of any suggested object a criterion of " con
solation" coming from God alone — a criterion always
difficult to apply owing to the lightning subtlety of
thoughts that flash across the soul and are forgotten
even while their emotional reverberation yet remains.
Where there was a preceding thought to account
for the -emotion, he held that the "consolation"
might be the work of spirits (good or evil) whc*
could not influence the will directly, but only
indirectly through the mind ; or else it might be the
work of the mind itself, whose thoughts often seem
to us abrupt through mere failure of self-observation.
Normally what is known as an "actual grace"
involves both an illustration of the mind, and an
enkindling of the will ; but though supernatural,
such graces are not held to be miraculous or pre-

JULIANA OF NORWICH. 27
ternatural, or to break the usual psychological laws
of cause and effect ; like the ordinary answers to
prayer, they are from God's ordinary providence
in that supernatural order which permeates but
does not of itself interfere with the natural. But
over and above what, relatively to our observation,
we call the "ordinary" course, there is the extra
ordinary, whose interference with it is apparent,
though of course not absolute or real — since nothing
can be out of harmony with the first and highest
law, which is God Himself. And to the category of
the extraordinary must be assigned such inspirations
and direct will-movements as we here speak of.1
Yet not altogether ; for in the natural order, too,
we have the phenomenon of instinct to consider —
both spiritual and animal. Giving heredity all the
credit we can for storing up accumulated experience
in the nervous system of each species, there remains
a host of fundamental animal instincts which that
law is quite inadequate to explain; those, for
example, which govern the multiplication of the
species and secure the conditions under which
alone heredity can work. Such cannot be at once
1 For those therefore who make an act of faith in the absolute
universality and supremacy of the laws of physics and chemistry,
and find in them the last reason of all things, these phenomena are
interesting only as studies in the mechanics of illusion.

28 JULIANA OF NORWICH.
the effect and the essential condition of heredity;
and yet they are, of all instincts, the most complex
and mysterious. Indeed, it seems more scientific
to ascribe other instincts to the same known and
indubitable, if mysterious, cause, than to seek
explanation in causes less known and more hypo
thetical. In the case of many instincts, it would
seem that the craving for the object precedes the
distinct cognition of it; that' the object is only
ascertained when, after various tentative gropings,
it is stumbled upon, almost, it might seem, by
chance. And this seems true, also, of some of our
fundamental spiritual instincts; for example, that
craving of the mind for an unified experience, which
is at the root of all mental activity, and whose object
is ever approached yet never attained ; or, again,
there is the social and political instinct, which has
not yet formed a distinct and satisfying conception
of what it would be at. Or nearer still to our
theme, is the natural religious instinct which seeks
interpretations and explanatory hypotheses in the
various man-made religions of the race, and which
finds itself satisfied and transcended by the Christian
revelation. In these and like instances, we find will-move
ments not caused by the subjects' own cognitions
and perceptions, but contrariwise, giving birth to

JULIANA OF NORWICH. 29
cognitions, setting the mind to work to interpret
the said movements, and to seek out their satisfying
objects. This is quite analogous to certain phenomena of
the order of grace. St. Ignatius almost invariably
speaks, not, as we should, of thoughts that give
rise to will-states of "consolation" or "desolation,"
but conversely, of these will-states giving rise to
congruous thoughts. Indeed, nothing is more
familiar to us than the way in which the mind is
magnetized by even our physical states of elation
or depression, to select the more cheerful or the
gloomier aspects of life, according as we are under
one influence or the other ; and in practice, we
recognize the effect of people's humours on their
opinions and decisions, and would neither sue mercy
nor ask a favour of a man in a temper. In short,
it is hardly too much to say, that our thoughts are
more dependent on our feelings than our feelings
on our thoughts. This, then, is one possible
method of supernatural guidance which we shall
call "blind inspiration "—for though the feeling or
impulse is from God, the interpretation is from the
subject's own mind. It is curious how St. Ignatius
applies this method to the determining of the
Divine will in certain cases— as it were, by the
inductive principle of " concomitant variation." A

30 JULIANA OF NORWICH.
suggestion that always comes and grows with a
state of " consolation," and whose negative is in
like manner associated with " desolation," is pre
sumably the right interpretation of the blind
impulse.1 And perhaps this is one of the common
est subjective assurances of faith, namely, that our
faith grows and declines with what we know intui
tively to be our better moods ; that when lax. we
are sceptical, and believing when conscientious.
Another species of will-guidance recognized by
saints, is not so much by way of a vague feeling
seeking interpretation, as by way of a sort of
enforced decision with regard to some naturally
suggested course of conduct. And this, perhaps,
is what is more technically understood by an inspi
ration ; as, for example, when the question of
writing or not writing something publicly useful,
say, the records of the Kings of Israel, rises in the
mind, and it is decided for and in the subject, but
not by him. Of course this "inspiration" is a
common but not essential accompaniment of " reve
lation " or " mind-control," — in those cases, namely,
where the communicated information is for the
1 It was largely by this method,- supplemented no doubt by that
of reasoned discussion, that St. Ignatius guided himself in deter
mining points connected with the constitution of his Order, ,
according to the journal he has left us of his " experiences," which
is simply a record of " consolations " and "desolations."

JULIANA OF NORWICH. 31
good of others ; as, also, where it is for the
guidance of .the practical conduct of the recipient.
Such "inspiration" at times seems to be no more
than a strong inclination compatible with liberty;
at other times it amounts to such a " fixing " of
the practical judgment as would ordinarily result
from a determination of the power of choice — if
that were not a contradiction. Better to say, it is
a taking of the matter out of the jurisdiction of
choice, by the creation of an idee fixe1 in the subject's
mind. Turning now to " revelation " in the stricter
sense of a preternatural enlightenment of the mind,
it might conceivably be either by way of a real
accretion of knowledge — an addition to the contents
of the mind — or else by way of manipulating
contents already there, as we ourselves do by
reminiscence, by rumination, comparison, analysis,
inference. Thus we can conceive the mind being
consciously controlled in these operations, as it
were, by a foreign will ; being reminded of this or
that ; - being shown new consequences, applications,
and relations of truths already possessed.
When, however, there is a preternatural addition
to the sum total of the mind's knowledge, we can
1 i.e., A kinesthetic idea, as it is called, an idea of something to
be done in the given conditions.

32 JULIANA OF NORWICH.
conceive the communication to be effected through
the outer senses, as by visions seen (real or sym
bolic), or words heard ; or through the imagination
— pictorial, symbolic, or verbal ; visual or auditory ;
or, finally, in the very reason and intelligence itself,
whose ideas are embodied in these images and
signs, and to whose apprehension they are all sub
servient. Now from all this tedious division and sub
division it may perhaps be clear in how many
different senses the words of such a professed
revelation as Mother Juliana has left on record can
be regarded as preternatural utterances ; or rather,
in how many different ways she herself may have
considered them such, and wished them so to be
considered. Indeed, as we shall see, she has done
a good deal more to determine this, in regard to the
various parts of her record, than most have done,
and it is for that reason that we have taken the
opportunity to open up the general question. Such
a record might then be, either wholly or in part :
(a) The work of religious "inspiration" or
genius, in the sense in which rationalists use the
word, levelling the idea down to the same plane
as that of artistic inspiration.
(/?) Or else it might be "inspired" as mystic
philosophy or ontologism uses the expression, when

JULIANA OF NORWICH. 33
it ascribes all natural insight to a more or less
directly divine enlightenment.
(7) Or, taking the word more strictly as imply
ing the influence of a distinct personal agency over
the soul of the writer, it might be that the record
simply expresses an attempted interpretation, an
imaginary embodiment, of some blind preternatural
stirring of the writer's affections — analogous to the
romances and dreams created in the imagination at
the first awakening of the amatory affections.
(S) Or, the matter being in no way from preter
natural sources, the strong and perhaps irresistible
impulse to record and publish it, might be preter
natural. (e) Or (in addition to or apart from such an
impulse), it might be a record of certain truths
already contained implicitly in the writer's mind,
but brought to remembrance or into clear recogni
tion, not by the ordinary free activity of reason,
but, as it were, by an alien will controlling the
mind. (£) Or, if really new truths or facts are com
municated to the mind from without, this may be
effected in various ways : (1) By the way of verbal
"inspiration," as when the very words are received
apparently through the outer senses; or else put__
together in the imagination. (2) Or, the n^l^syrj
D

34 JULIANA OF NORWICH.
presented pictorially (be it fact or symbol) to the
outer senses or to the imagination ; and then
described or "word-painted" according to the
writer's own ability. (3) Or, the truth is brought
home directly to the intelligence ; and gets all its
imaginative and verbal clothing from the recipient.
Many other hypotheses are conceivable, but
most will be reducible to one or other of these.
We may perhaps add that, when the revelation is
given for the sake of others, this purpose might
be frustrated, were not a substantial fidelity of
expression and utterance also secured. This would
involve, at least, that negative kind of guidance
of the tongue or pen, known technically as
"assistance." Mother Juliana gives us some clue in regard
to her own revelations where she says:1 "AIL
this blessed showing of our Lord God was showed
in three parts; that is to say, by bodily sight-.
and by words formed in my understanding; and
by ghostly sight. For the bodily sight, I have
said as I saw, as truly as I can" (that is, the
appearances were, she believed, from God, but
the description of them was her own). "And for
the words I have said them right as our Lord..
1 P. 272 in Richardson's Edit., from which I usually quote as.
being the readiest available.

JULIANA OF NORWICH. 35
showed them to me" (for here nothing was her
own, but bare fidelity of utterance). "And for the
ghostly sight I have said some deal, but I may
never full tell it" (that is to say, no language or
imagery of her own can ever adequately express
the spiritual truths revealed to her higher reason).
As a rule she makes it quite clear throughout, which
of these three kinds of showing is being described.
We have an example of bodily vision when she saw
"the red blood trickling down from under the
garland," and in all else that seemed to happen to
the crucifix on which her open eyes were set. And
of all this she says : " I conceived truly and mightily
that it was Himself that showed it me, without any
mean between us ; " that is, she took it as a sort
of pictorial language uttered directly by Christ, even
as if He had addressed her in speech ; she took it
not merely as having a meaning, but as designed
and uttered to convey a meaning — for to speak is
more than to let one's mind appear. Or again,
it is by bodily vision she sees a little hazel-nut in her
hand, symbolic of the "naughting of all that is
made." Of words formed in her imagination she
tells us, for example, " Then He {i.e., Christ as seen
on the crucifix) without voice and opening of lips
formed in my soul these words: Herewith is the
fiend overcome." Of "ghostly sight," or spiritual

36 JULIANA OF NORWICH.
intuition, we have an instance when she says : " In
the same time that I saw {i.e., visually) this sight
of the Head bleeding, our good Lord showed a
ghostly sight of His homely loving. I saw that He
is to us everything that is comfortable to our help ;
He is our clothing, that for love wrappeth us," &c.
- — where, in her own words and imagery, she is
describing a divine-given insight into the relation
of God and the soul. Or again, when she is shown
our Blessed Lady, it is no pictorial or bodily
presentment, "but the virtues of her blissful soul,
her truth, her wisdom, her charity." "And Jesus
. . . showed me a ghostly sight of her, right as I had
seen her before, little and simple and pleasing to
Him above all creatures."
Just as in the setting forth of these spiritual
apprehensions, the words* and imagery are usually
her own, so in the description of bodily vision she
uses her own language and comparisons. For
example, the following realism : " The great drops
of blood fell down from under the garland like
pellets, seeming as it had come out of the veins ;
and in coming out they were brown red, for the
Blood was full thick, and in spreading abroad they
were bright red. . . . The plenteousness is like to
drops of water that fall off the eavings after a great
shower of rain. . . . And for roundness they were

JULIANA OF NORWICH. 37
like to the scales of herrings in the spreading of the
forehead," &c. These similes, she tells us, " came
to my mind in the time." In other instances, the
comparisons and illustrations of what she saw with
her eyes or with her understanding, were suggested
to her ; so that she received the expression, as well
as the matter expressed, from without.
But besides the records of the sights, words, and
ideas revealed to her, we have many things already
known to her and understood, yet " brought to her
mind," as it were, preternaturally. Also, various
paraphrases and elaborate exegeses of the words
spoken to her; a great abundance of added com
mentary upon what she saw inwardly or outwardly.
Now and then it is a little difficult to decide whether
she is speaking for herself, or as the exponent of
what she has received ; but, on the whole, she gives
us abundant indications. Perhaps the following
passage will illustrate fairly the diverse elements of
which the record is woven :
With good cheer our Lord looked into His side and
beheld with joy [bodily vision] : and with His sweet
looking He led forth the understanding of His creature,
by the same wound, into His side within [her imagination
is led by gesture from one thought to another] ."• And then
1 On another occasion, by looking down to the right of His
Cross, He brought to her mind, " where our Lady stood in the time
of His Passion and said : ' Wilt Thou see her ? ' " leading her by
gesture from the seen to the. not seen

38 JULIANA OF NORWICH.
He showed a fair and delectable place, and large
enough for all mankind that should be saved, and rest
in peace and love [a conception of the understanding con
veyed through the symbol of the open wound in the Heart] .
And therewith He brought to my mind His dear worthy
Blood and the precious water which He let pour out
for love [a thought already contained in the mind, but brought
to remembrance by Christ] . And with His sweet rejoicing
He showed His blessed Heart cloven in two [bodily or
imaginative vision] , and with His rejoicing He showed to
my understanding, in part, the Blissful Godhead as far
forth as He would at that time strengthen the poor soul
for to understand [an enlightening of the reason to the partial
apprehension of a spiritual mystery] . And with this our
Good Lord said full blissfully: "Lo! how I love
thee ! " [words formed in the imagination or for the ouiev
hearing], as if He had said: " My darling, behold, and
see thy Lord," &c. [her own paraphrase and interpretation
of the said words] .
Rarely, however, are the different modes so
entangled as here, and for the most part we have
little difficulty in discerning the precise origin to
which she wishes her utterances to be attributed — a
fact that makes her book an unusually interesting
study in the theory of inspiration.
Thus, in provisionally answering the problem
proposed at the beginning of this article, as to how
far Mother Juliana supplied from her own mind the
canvas and the colours for this portrayal of Divine
love, and as to how far therefore it may be regarded

JULIANA QF NORWICH. 39
as a product of and a key to her inner self, we are
inclined to say that, a comparison of her own style
of thought and sentiment and expression as exhibited
in her paraphrases and expositions of the things
revealed to her, with the substance and setting of
the said revelations, points to the conclusion that
God spoke to her soul in its own language and
habitual forms of thought ; and that if the "content"
of the revelation was partly new, yet it was har
monious with the previous " content " of her mind,
being, as it were, a congruous development of the
same — not violently thrust into the soul, but set
down softly in the appointed place already hollowed
for it and, so to say, clamouring for it as for its
natural fulfilment. This, of course, is not a point
for detailed and rigorous proof, but represents an
impression that gathers strength the oftener we read
and re-read Mother Juliana's "showings." Jan. Mar. 1900.

XIV.
POET AND MYSTIC.
A biographer who has any other end in view,
however secondary and incidental, than faithfully
to reproduce in the mind of his readers his own
apprehension of the personality of his subject, will
be so far biassed in his task of selection ; and,
without any conscious deviation from truth, will
give that undue prominence to certain features and
aspects which in extreme cases may result in
caricature. A Catholic biographer of Coventry
Patmore would have been tempted to gratify the
wish of a recent critic of Mr. Champneys' very
efficient work,1 and to devote ten times as much
space as has been given to the account of his
conversion, and a good deal, no doubt, to
the discussion and correction of his eccentric
views in certain ecclesiastical matters ; thus giving
us the history of an illustrious convert, and not that
of a poet and seer whose conversion, however
1 Coventry Patmore. By Basil Champneys. Geo. Bell and
Sons, i goo.

POET AND MYSTIC. 41
intimately connected with his poetical and intel
lectual life, was but an incident thereof. On the
other hand, one less intelligently sympathetic
with the more spiritual side of Catholicism than
Mr. Champneys, would have lacked the principal key
to the interpretation of Patmore's highest aims and
ideals, towards which the whole growth and move
ment of his mind was ever tending, and by
which its successive stages of evolution are to be
explained. Again, with all possible respect for the
feelings of the living, the biographer has wisely
suppressed nothing needed to bring out truthfully
the ruggednesses and irregularities that characterize
the strong and somewhat one-sided development
of genius as contrasted with the regular features
and insipid perfectness of things wrought on a small
scale. If idealizing means the filing-away of jagged
edges — and surely it does not — Mr. Champneys has
left us to do our own idealizing. The faults that
marred Purcell's Life of Maiming are here avoided
and yet truth is no whit the sufferer in con
sequence. In speaking of Patmore as a thinker and a poet,
we do not mean to dissociate these two functions
in his case, but only to classify him (according to
his own category) with those " masculine " poets
whose power lies in a beautiful utterance of the

42 POET AND MYSTIC.
truth, rather than in a truthful utterance of the
beautiful. We propose, however, to occupy ourselves with
the matter rather than the mode of Patmore's
utterance; with that truth which he conceived
himself to have apprehended in a newer and clearer'
light than others before him ; and this, because he
does not stand alone, but is the representative and
exponent of a certain school of ascetic thought
whose tendency is diametrically contrary to that
pseudo-mysticism which we have dealt with else
where, and have ascribed to a confusion of neo-
platonic and Christian principles. This counter-
tendency misses the Catholic mean in other respects
and owes its faultiness, as we shall see, to some
very analogous fallacies. If in our chapter on " The
True and the False Mysticism," it was needful to
show that the principles of Christian monasticism
and contemplative life, far from in any way neces
sarily retarding, rather favour and demand the
highest natural development of heart and mind;
it is no less needful to assign to this thought its
true limits, and to show that the noblest expansion
of our natural faculties does not conflict with or
exclude- the principles of monasticism. I think
it is R. H. Hutton who remarks that it is not
" easy to give us a firm grasp of any great class of

POET AND MYSTIC.

43

truths without loosening our grasp on some other
class of truths perhaps nobler and more vital ; "
and undoubtedly Patmore and his school in empha
sizing the fallacies of neo-platonic asceticism are in
danger of precipitating us into fallacies every whit
as uncatholic. It is therefore as professedly for
mulating the principles of a certain school that we
are interested in the doctrine of which Patmore
constitutes himself the apostle.
Lights are constantly breaking in upon me [he
writes] and convincing me more and more that the
singular luck has fallen to me of having to write, for
the first time that any one even attempted to do so
with any fulness, on simply the greatest and most
exquisite subject that ever poet touched since the
beginning of the world.
The more I consider the subject of the marriage of
the Blessed Virgin, the more clearly I see that it is the
one absolutely lovely and perfect subject for poetry.
Perfect humanity, verging upon, but never entering the
breathless region of the Divinity, is the real subject of
all true love-poetry ; but in all love-poetry hitherto, an
" ideal " and not a reality has been the subject, more
or less. Taking the " Angel of the House " as represent
ing the earlier, and the "Odes" the later stage of
the development which this theme received under
his hands, it seems as though he passes from the
idealization and apotheosis of married love to the

44 POET AND MYSTIC.
conception of it as being in its highest form, not
merely the richest symbol, but even the most
efficacious sacrament of the mystical union between
God and the soul. He is well aware — though not
fully at first — that these conceptions were familiar
to St. Bernard and many a Catholic mystic ; it
was for the poetic apprehension and expression
of them that he claimed originality; or, at least,
for their unification and systematic development.
" That his apprehensions were based generally —
almost exclusively, on the fundamental idea of
nuptial love must," as Mr. Champneys says, " be
admitted." This was the governing category of his
mind ; the mould into which all dualities naturally
fell; it was to his philosophy what love and hate,
light and dark, form and matter, motion and atoms,
have been to others.
It was, at all events, the predominance of this con
ception which bound together his whole life's work,
rendering coherent and individualizing all which he
thought, wrote, or uttered, and those who study
Patmore without this key are little likely to understand
him. And it is the persistent and not always sufficiently
restrained use of this category that made much of
his writing just a trifle shocking to sensitive minds.
These latter will have closed his works far too-

POET AND MYSTIC. 45
promptly to discover that far from gainsaying the
Catholic instinct which prefers virginity to marriage
(not a strictly accurate statement) he makes virginity
a condition of the idealized marriage-relation, and
finds its realization in her who was at once matron
and virgin. Following the fragmentary hints to be
found here and there in patristic and mystical
theology, he assumes that virgin-spousals and
virgin-birth were to have been the law in that
Paradise from which man lapsed back into natural
conditions through sin; that in the case of the
Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph the paradisaic law
was but resumed in this respect. Accordingly, he
writes of Adam and Eve in " The Contract,"
Thus the first Eve
With much enamoured Adam did enact
Their mutual free contract
Of virgin spousals, blissful beyond flight
Of modern thought, with great intention staunch,
Though unobliged until that binding pact.
To their infidelity to this contract he ascribes
the subsequent degradation of human love through
sensuality; and all the sin and selfishness thence
deriving to our fallen race :
Whom nothing succour can
Until a heaven-caress'd and happier Eve
Be joined with some glad Saint
In like espousals, blessed upon Earth,
And she her fruit forth bring ;

46 POET AND MYSTIC.
No numb chill-hearted shaken-witted thing,
'Plaining his little span,
But of proud virgin joy the appropriate birth,
The Son of God and Man.
The rationalistic objection to this suppression
of what seems to be of the essence or integrity of
matrimony is obvious enough, and yet finds many
a retort even in the realm of nature, where the
passage to a higher grade of life so often means the
stultifying of functions proper to the lower. As to
the pre-eminence of that state in which the spiritual
excellencies of marriage and virginity are combined,
Catholic teaching is quite clear and decided ; in
this, as in other points, Patmore's untaught intui
tions, and instincts- — his mens naturaliter catholica —
had led him, whither the esoteric teaching of the
Church had led only the more appreciatively
sympathetic of her disciples, from time to time, as
it were, up into that mountain of which St. Ambrose
says : " See, how He goes up with the Apostles and
comes down to the crowds. For how could the
crowds see Christ save in a lowly spot ? They do
not follow Him to the heights, nor rise to sub
limities " — a notion altogether congenial to Patmore's
aristocratic bias in religion as in everything else.
Undoubtedly it was this mystical aspect of Catholic
doctrine that appealed to his whole personality,

POET AND MYSTIC. 47
offering as it did an authoritative approval, and
suggesting an infinite realization, of those dreams
that were so sacred to him. As far as the logic
of the affections goes, it was for the sake of this
that he held to all the rest ; for indeed the deeper
Catholic truths are so internetted that he who
seizes one, drags all the rest along with it under
pain of self-contradiction.
No one knew better than Patmore the infinite
insufficiency of the highest created symbols to equal
the eternal realities which it is their whole purpose
to set forth ; he fully realized that as the lowliest
beginnings of created love seem to mock, rather
than to foreshadow, the higher forms of which they
are but the failure and botched essay, so the very
highest conceivable, taken as more than a metaphor,
were an irreverent parody of the Divine love for
the human soul. It is not the same relationship on
an indefinitely extended scale, but only a somewhat
similar relationship, the limits of whose similarity
are hidden in mystery. But when a man is so
thoroughly in love with his metaphor as Patmore
was, he is tempted at times to press it in every
detail, and to forget that it is " but one acre in the
infinite field of spiritual suggestion ; " that, less full
and perfect metaphors of the same reality, may
supply some of its defects and correct some of its

48 POET AND MYSTIC.
redundancies. We should do unwisely to think of
the Kingdom of Heaven only as a kingdom, and
not also as a marriage-feast, a net, a treasure, a
mustard-seed, a field, and so forth, since each figure
supplies some element lost in the others, and all
together are nearer to the truth than any one : and
so, although the married love of Mary and Joseph
is one of the fullest revealed images of God's relation
to the soul, we should narrow the range of our
spiritual vision, were we to neglect those supple
mentary glimpses at the mystery afforded by other
figures and shadowings.
And this leads us to the consideration of a
difficulty connected with another point of Patmore's
doctrine of divine love. He held that the idealized
marriage relationship was not merely the symbol,
but the most effectual sacrament and instrument of
that love; "yet the world," he complains, "goes
on talking, writing, and preaching as if there were
some essential contrariety between the two," the
disproof of which " was the inspiring idea at the
heart of my long poem (the 'Angel')." Now,
although in asserting that the most absorbing and
exclusive form of human affection is not only com
patible with, but even instrumental to the highest
kind of sanctity and divine love, Patmore claimed
to be at one, at least in principle, with some of the

POET AND MYSTIC. 49

deeper utterances of the Saints and Fathers of the
Christian Church ; it cannot be denied that the
assertion is prima facie opposed to the common
tradition of Catholic asceticism ; and to the apparent
vaison d'etre of every sort of monastic institution.
It must be confessed that, in regard to the
reconciliation of the claims of intense human affec
tion with those of intense sanctity, there have been
among all religious teachers two distinct conceptions
struggling for birth, often in one and the same mind,
either of which taken as adequate must exclude the
other. It would not be hard to quote the utterances
of saints and ascetics for either view ; or to convict
individual authorities of seeming self-contradiction
in the matter. The reason of this is apparently
that neither view is or can be adequate ; that one is
weak where the other is strong ; that they are both
imperfect analogies of a relationship that is unique
and sui generis — the relationship between God and
the soul. Hence neither hits the centre of truth,
but glances aside, one at the right hand, the other
at the left. Briefly,, it is a question of the precise
sense in which God is " a jealous God " and
demands to be loved alone. The first and easier
mode of conception is that which is implied in the
commoner language of saints and ascetics — language
perhaps consciously symbolic and defective in its
e 11.

50 POET AND MYSTIC.
first usage, but which has been inevitably literalised
and hardened when taken upon the lips of the
multitude. God is necessarily spoken of and
imagined in terms of the creature, and when the
analogical character of such expression slips from
consciousness, as it does almost instantly, He is
spoken of, and therefore thought of, as the First of
Creatures competing with the rest for the love* of
man's heart. He is placed alongside of them in our
imagination, -not behind them or in them. Hence
comes the inference that whatever love they win
from us in their own right, by reason of their
inherent goodness, is taken from Him. Even
though He be loved better than all of them put
together, yet He is not loved perfectly till He be
loved alone. Their function is to raise and dis
appoint our desire time after time, till we be starved
back to Him as to the sole-satisfying — everything
else having proved vanitas vanitatum. Then indeed
we go back to them, not for their own sakes, but for
His ; not attracted by our love of them, but impelled
by our love of Him.
This mode of imagining the truth, so as to-
explain the divine jealousy implied in the precept of
loving God exclusively and supremely, is, for all its.
patent limitations, the most generally serviceable..
Treated as a strict equation of thought to fact, and

POET AND MYSTIC.

pushed accordingly to its utmost logical conse
quences, it becomes a source of danger ; but in fact
it is not and will not be so treated by the majority
of good Christians who serve God faithfully but
without enthusiasm ; whose devotion is mainly
rational and but slightly affective ; who do not
conceive themselves called to the way of the saints,
or to offer God that all-absorbing affection which
would necessitate the weakening or severing of
natural ties. In the event, however, of such a call
to perfect love, the logical and practical outcome of
this mode of imagining the relation of God to
creatures is a steady subtraction of the natural love
bestowed upon friends and relations, that the energy
thus economized may be transferred to God. This
concentration may indeed be justified on other and
independent grounds; but the implied supposition
that, the highest sanctity is incompatible with any
pure and well-ordered natural affection, however
intense, is certainly ill-sounding, and hardly recon
cilable with the divinest examples and precepts.
The limitations of this simpler and more practical
mode of imagining the matter are to some extent
supplemented by that other mode for which Patmore
found so much authority in St. Bernard, St. Francis,
St. Teresa, and many another, and which he perhaps
too readily regarded as exhaustively satisfactory.

52 POET AND MYSTIC.
In this conception, God is placed, not alongside of
creatures, but behind them, as the light which
shines through a crystal and lends it whatever it
has of lustre. In recognizing whatever true brilliancy
or beauty creatures possess as due to His inbiding
presence, the love which they excite in us passes on
to Him, through them. As He is the primary
Agent and Mover in all our action and movement,
the primary Lover in all our pure and well-ordered
love ; and we, but instruments of His action, move
ment, and love ; so, in whatever we love rightly and
divinely for its true merit and divinity, it is He who
is ultimately loved. Thus in all pure and well-
ordered affection it is, ultimately, God who loves
and God who is loved ; it is God returning to
Himself, the One to the One. According to this
imagery, God is viewed as the First Efficient and
the ultimate Final Cause in a circular chain of
causes and effects of which He is at once the first
link and the last — a conception which, in so far as
it brings God inside the system of nature as part
thereof, is, like the last, only analogously true, and
may not be pressed too far in its consequences.
In this view, to love God supremely and exclu
sively means practically, to love only the best things
in the best way, recognizing God both in the affec
tion and in its object. God is not loved apart from

POET AND MYSTIC. 53
creatures, or beside them ; but through them and in
them. Hence if only the affection be of the right
kind as to mode and object, the more the -better ;
nor can there be any question of crowding other
affections into a corner in order to make more room
for the love of God in our hearts. The love of Him
is the "form," the principle of order and harmony;
our natural affections are the " matter," harmonized
and set in order ; it is the soul, they are the body,
of that one Divine Love whose adequate object is
God in, and not apart from, His creatures.
It would not perhaps be hard to reconcile this
view with some utterances in the Gospel of seem
ingly opposite import ; or to find it often implied in
the words and actions of Catholic Saints ; but to
square it with the general ascetic traditions of the
faithful at large is exceedingly difficult. Patmore
would no doubt have allowed .the expediency of
celibacy in the case of men and women devoted to
the direct ministry of good works, spiritual and
corporal : a devotion incompatible with domestic
cares; he could and did allow the superiority of
voluntary virginity and absolute chastity over the
contrary state of lawful use; but he could hardly
have justified— hardly not have condemned those
who leave father, friend, cr spouse, not merely
externally in order to be free for good works, but

54 POET AND MYSTIC.
internally in order that their hearts may be free for
the contemplation and love of God viewed apart
from creatures and not merely in them. He might
perhaps say that, as we cannot go to God through
all creatures, but only through some (since we are
not each in contact with all), we must select accord
ing to our circumstances those which will give the
greatest expansion and elevation to our natural
affections ; and that for some, the home is wisely
sacrificed for the community or the church. Yet
this hardly consists with the pre-eminence he gives
to married love as the nearest symbol and sacra
ment of divine.
Both these modes of imagining the truth, what
ever their inconveniences, are helpful as imperfect
formulations of Catholic instinct ; both mischievous,
if viewed as adequate and close-fitting explanations.
Patmore was characteristically enthusiastic for his
own aspect of the truth ; and characteristically
impatient of the other. Thus, of a Kempis he says :
There is much that is quite unfit for, and untrue of,
people who live in the ordinary relations of life. I
don't think I like the book quite so much as I did.
There is a hot-house, egotistical air about much of its
piety. Other persons are, ordinarily, the appointed
means of learning the love of God ; and to stifle human
affections must be very often to render the love of God
impossible.

POET AND MYSTIC. 55
In other words, the further he pushed the one
conception the further he diverged from a Kempis,
whose asceticism was built almost purely on the
other. Most probably a reconciliation of these two con
ceptions will be found in a clear recognition of the
two modes in which God is apprehended and conse
quently loved by the human mind and heart ; the
one concrete and experimental, accessible to the
simplest and least cultured, and of necessity for all ;
the other, abstract in a sense — a knowledge through
the ideas and representations of the mind, demand
ing a certain degree of intelligence and studious
contemplation, and therefore not necessary, at least
in any high degree, for all. The difference is like
that between the knowledge of salt as tasted in
solution and the knowledge of it as seen apart in
its crystallized state ; or between the knowledge
and love of a musical composer as known in his
compositions, and as known in himself, from his
compositions. The latter needs a not universal
power of inference which the most sympathetic
musical expert may entirely lack.
Of these two approaches to Divine love and
union, the former is certainly compatible with, and
conducive to, the unlimited fulness of every well-
ordered natural affection ; but the latter — a life of

56 POET AND MYSTIC.

more conscious, reflex, and actual attention to God
— undoubtedly does require a certain abstraction
and concentration of our limited spiritual energies,
and can only be trodden at the cost of a certain
inward seclusion of which outward seclusion is
normally a condition. Instinctively, Catholic tradi
tion has regarded it as a vocation apart — as, like
the life of continence, a call to something more
than human, and demanding a sacrifice or atrophy
of functions proper to another grade of spirituality.
Even what is called a "life of thought" makes a
similar demand to a great extent ; it involves a
narrowing of other interests ; a departure from the
conditions of ordinary practical life. The "con
templative life " is inclusively all this and more ; it
is a sort of anticipation of the future life of vision.
. Still, though for a few it may be the surest or the
only approach to sanctity, yet there is no degree of
Divine love that may not be reached by the
commoner and normal path; there have been
saints outside the cloister as well as inside. One
could hardly offend the first principles of the
Gospel more grievously than by making intelligence,
culture, and contemplative capacity conditions of a
nearer approach to Christ.
It seems to us then that Patmore failed to get at
the root of the neglected truth after which he was

POET AND MYSTIC. 57
groping, and thereby fell into a one-sidedness just
as real as that against which his chief work was a
revolt and protest.
As a convert, Patmore is most uninteresting
to the controversialist. His mind was altogether
concrete, affirmative, and synthetic, with a profound
distrust of abstract and analytical reasoning. As
we have said, Christianity and, later, Catholicism
appealed profoundly to his intellectual imagination
in virtue of some of their deeper tenets, for whose
sake he took over all the rest per modum unius-.
The idea [of the Incarnation] no sooner flashed
upon me as a possible reality than it became, what it
has ever since remained, . . . the only reality worth
seriously caring for; a reality so clearly seen and
possessed that the most irrefragable logic of disproof has
always affected me as something trifling and irrelevant.
Again : " Christianity is not an ' historical reli
gion,' but a revelation which is renewed in every
receiver of it." " My heart loves that of whose
existence my intellect allows the probability, and
my will puts the seal to the blessed compact which
produces faith " — an ingenious application of his
favourite category.
Of the efforts of Manning and de Vere to pro
selytize him, he says :
Their position seemed to me to be so logically
perfect that I was long repelled by its perfection. I

58 POET AND MYSTIC.
felt, half unconsciously, that a living thing ought not
to be so spick and span in its external evidence for
itself, and that what I wanted for conviction was not
the sight of a faultless intellectual superficies, but the
touch and pressure of a moral solid.
Whatever some may think or have thought of
his theology, none who knew him could have any
doubt as to the robust and uncompromising character
of his faith. It was because he felt so sure of his
footing that he allowed himself a liberty of move
ment perplexing to those whose position was one
of more delicate balance. He had a ruthlessness in
tossing aside what might be called " non-essentials,"
that was dictated not so much by an under-estimate
of their due importance, as by an impatience with
those who over-estimated them, confounding the
vessel with its contained treasure.
When he says : " I believe in Christianity as it
will be ten thousand years hence," it would be a
grave misinterpretation to suppose that he implied
any lack of belief in the Christianity of to-day. It
is but another assertion of his claim to be in
sympathy with the esoteric rather than the exoteric
teaching of the present ; to be on the mount with
the few and not on the plain with the many. For
as the glacier formed on the mountain slips slowly
down to the plain, so, he held, the esoteric teaching

POET AND MYSTIC. 59
of to-day will be the popular teaching of future ages.
However little we may relish this distinction between
"aristocratic" and vulgar belief; however strongly
we may hold that best knowledge of God — that,
namely, which is experimental and tactual rather
than intellectual or imaginative — is equally acces
sible to all ; yet just so far as there is question of
the intellectual and imaginative forms in which the
faith is apprehended, the distinction does and must .
exist, not only in religion but in every department
of belief, as long as there are different levels of
culture in the same body of believers. It is, after
all, a much more superficial difference than it
sounds — a difference of language and symbolism for
the same realities. Where language fits close, as it
does to things measurable by our senses, divergency
makes the difference between truth and error; but
where it is question of the substitution of one
analogy or symbol for another, the more elegant is
not necessarily the more truthful ; nor when we
consider the infinite inadequacy of even the noblest
conceivable finite symbolism to bring God down to
our level, need we pride ourselves much for being
on a mountain whose height is perceptible from the
plain but imperceptible from the heavens.
Hence to say that the distinction between
esoteric and exoteric teaching means that the

60 POET AND MYSTIC.
Church has two creeds, one for the simple, another
for the educated, is a thoughtless criticism which
overlooks the necessarily symbolic nature of all
language concerning the " eternities," and con
founds a different mode of expression with a differ
ence of the facts and realities expressed.
Matthew Arnold, too, believed in the Catholi
cism of the future ; but in how different a sense !
What he hoped for was, roughly speaking, the
preservation of the ancient and beautiful husk after
the kernel had been withered up and discarded;
what Patmore looked forward to was the expansion
of the kernel bursting one involucre after another,
and ever clamouring for fairer and more adequate
covering. With one, the language of religion was
all too wide ; with the other, all too narrow, for its
real signification. Arnold belongs to the first,
Patmore to the last of those three stages of religious
thought of which Mr. Champneys writes :
The first is represented by those whose creed is so
simple as to afford little or no ground for contention ;
the second by such as in their search for greater pre
cision enlarge the domain of dogma, but fail" to pass
beyond its mere technical aspect ; the third consists of
those who rise from the technical to the spiritual, and
without repudiating or disparaging dogma, use it mainly
as a guide and support to thought which transcends
mere definition. Dec. igoo.

XV.
TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE.
Dealing as both do so largely with the inner life
of English Catholic society, it is hardly possible to
avoid comparing and contrasting One Poor Scruple1
with Helbeck of Bannisdale, — one the work of a
Catholic who knows the matter she is handling,
almost experimentally ; the other the work of
a gifted outsider whose singular talent, careful
observation, and studious endeavour to be fair-
minded} fail to save her altogether from that
unreality and a priori extravagance which ex
perience alone can correct. To the non-Catholic,
Mrs. Humphrey Ward's book will appear a marvel
of insight and acute analysis; for it will fit in
with, and explain his outside observation of
those Catholics with whom he has actually come
in contact, far better than the preposterous notions
that were in vogue fifty years ago. It represents
them not as monstrously wicked and childishly
1 One Poor Scruple. By Mrs. Wilfrid Ward. London:
Longmans, 1899.

62 TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE.
idolatrous ; but as narrow, extravagant, out-of-date,
albeit, well-meaning folk — more pitiable than dan
gerous. Formerly when they lived secret and unknown,
anything might safely be asserted about them;
nothing was too wild or improbable. In those days
" Father .Clement " was the issue of a superhuman
effort at charity and fairness ; and the author
almost seemed to think an apology was needed for
such temerarious liberalism. But when Catholics
began to breathe a little more freely and to creep
out of their burrows somewhat less nervously ;
when, in fact, they were seen to be, at least in
outward semblance, much as other men ; some
regard had to be paid to statements that could
be checked by observation ; and the Papist's dis
appointing ordinariness had to be attributed to
dissimulation or to be otherwise interpreted into
accord "with the preposterous principles by which
their lives were thought to be governed.
Mrs. Humphrey Ward represents the furthest
advance of this reform. She at least has spared
no pains to acquaint herself with facts, to gather
information, to verify statements. She is never
guilty of the grotesque blunders that other high-
class novelists fall into about Catholic beliefs,
practices, and habits, simply because they are

TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. 63
dealing with what is to their readers a terra
incognita, and can, therefore, afford to be loose and
inaccurate. An artistic conscientiousness which
values truth and honesty in every detail, saves her
from this too common snare. But it does not and
cannot save her in the work of selection, synthesis,
and interpretation of instances, which has to be
guided, not by objective facts, but by subjective
opinions and impressions. History written in a
purely positivist spirit, ad narrandum, and in no
sense ad docendum, is a chimerical notion by
which Renan beguiled himself into thinking that
his Vie de Jesus was a bundle of facts and nothing
more. And Mrs. Humphrey Ward is no less
beguiled, if she is unaware that in threading
together, classifying and explaining the results
of her conscientious observation and inquiry, she
is governed by an a priori conception of Catholicism
hardly different from that which inspired the author
of "Father Clement." Hence, to us Catholics,
though her evident desire to be critical and
impartial is gratifying, yet her failure is none the
less conspicuous. Dr. Johnson once observed, that
what might be wonderful dancing for a dog would
be a very poor performance for a Christian ; and
so, to us, " Helbeck " as a presentment of Catholic
life is wonderful as coming from an outsider, and,

64 TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE.
perhaps, especially from Mrs. Humphrey Ward,
but in itself it is grotesque enough — not. through
any culpable infidelity to facts, but through lack
of the visual power, the guiding idea, whereby to
read them aright.
In One Poor Scruple, Mrs. Wilfrid Ward brings
to bear upon a somewhat similar task, an equal
fidelity of observation supplemented by a first-hand,
far wider, and more intimate experience of Catholics
and their ways, and, above all, by that key which
a share in their faith and beliefs alone furnishes
t o the right understanding of their conduct. Here
too, no doubt, a contrary bias is to be suspected,
nor is a purely, " pos itive " treatment of the subject
conceivable or desirable. The view of an insider
is as partial as the view of an outsider, though less
viciously so; nor can we get at truth by the simple
expedient of fitting the two together. The best
witness is the rare individual who to an inside and
experimental knowledge, adds the faculty of going
outside and taking an objective and disinterested
view. In truth this needs an amount of intellectual-
self-denial seldom realized to any great degree ; but
we venture to say that Mrs. Wilfrid Ward proves
herself very worthy of confidence in this respect.
There is certainly no artistic idealizing of Catholics,
such as we are accustomed to in books written for

TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. 65
the edification of the faithful. There is the same
almost merciless realism which we find in
" Helbeck " in dealing with certain trivialities and
narrownesses of piety— defects common to all
whom circumstances confine to a little world, but
more incongruous and conspicuous as contrasted
with the dignity of Catholic ideals. Without con
scious departure from truth, Mrs. Humphrey Ward
is evidently influenced in her selection and manipu
lation of facts by the impression of Catholicism
she already possesses and wants to illustrate and
convey ; but Mrs. Wilfrid Ward has, we think,
risen above this weakness Very notably, and should
accordingly merit greater attention.
It may well be that this judicial impartiality
may meet with its usual reward of pleasing neither
side altogether. Some will complain that she
brings no idealizing love to her subject, and does
little to bring out the greatness and glory of her
religion. Yet this would be a hasty and ill-judging
criticism ; for our faith is no less to be commended
for the restraint it exercises over the multitude of
ordinary men and women, than for the effect it
produces in souls of a naturally heroic type. That
it should bring a certain largeness into the smallest
life, that it should impart a strange stability to a
naturally unstable and frivolous character; that
F 11.

66 TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE.
it should check the worldly-minded with a sense
of the superior claims of the other world — all this
, impresses us, if not with the sublimity or mystic
beauty, at least with the solid reality and pene
trating power of the Catholic faith.
The most loyal and deep-seated love needs not
to shut its eyes to all defects and limitations, but
can face them unchilled ; and similarly there is
often more faith and reverence and quiet enthusiasm
in this seemingly cold and critical attitude towards-
the cause or party we love, than in the extravagant
idealism that depends for its maintenance on an
ignoring of things as they are.
Nothing perhaps is more unintelligible to the
Protestant critic of Catholicism, nothing more
needs to be brought out prominently, than the
firm hold our religion can exercise over souls that
are naturally irreligious.
This very phrase "naturally irreligious" will
fall with a shock on sensitive Protestant ears ; yet
we use it advisedly. While all men are capable ot
faith and of substantial fidelity to the law of God,
it is undeniable that but few are by natural inclina
tion "religious" in the common acceptation of the
term. As there is a poetic or mystical tempera
ment, so also there is a religious temperament —
not quite so rare, but still something exceptional.

TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. 67
We find it so in all ages, ancient and modern ; in
all religions, Christian and non-Christian — nay,
even amid agnostics and unbelievers we often
detect the now aimless, unused faculty. But most
men have, naturally, no ardent spiritual sympathy
with holiness, or mysticism, or heroism ; their
interests are elsewhere ; and even where there are
latent capacities of that kind, they are not usually
developed until life's severest lessons have been
learnt. Thus the young, who have just left the
negative faith and innocence of the nursery behind
them and stand inexperienced on the threshold
of life, are not normally religious; whereas we
naturally expect those who have passed through
the ordeal, and been disillusioned, to begin to think
about their souls, since there is nothing else left
io think about.
Now, the Catholic religion clearly recognizes
these facts of human nature, and accommodates
herself to them. However frankly it may be
acknowledged that a religious temperament — a
certain complexus of mental, moral, and even
physical dispositions — is a condition favourable to
heroic sanctity, it must be emphatically denied
that to be "religious," in the Protestant sense of
the word, is requisite for salvation. And this
denial the Church enforces by her recognition of

68 TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE.
the "religious state"1 as an. extraordinary vocation.
The purpose of "orders" and "congregations" is
to provide a suitable environment for people of a
religious temperament whose circumstances permit
them to attend to its development in a more
exclusive and, as it were, professional way. Not,
indeed, that all religious-minded persons do, or
ought to, enter into that external state of life ; nor
that all who so enter are by temperament and
sympathy fitted for it, but that the institution
points to the Church's recognition of what is
technically called the "way of perfection" as
something exceptional and super-normal.
But the Church has a wider vocation than to-
provide hot-houses for the forcing of these rare
exotics, whom the rough climate of a worldly life
would either stunt or kill. Her first thought is for
the multitudes of average humanity, who are not,
and cannot be, in intelligent sympathy with many
of the commands she lays upon them. They are
but as children in religious matters— however
cultivated they may chance to be in other concerns.
From such souls God requires faith, and obedience
to the commandments — a due, which, in certain
rare crises, may mean heroism and martyrdom;
1 We do not mean to imply that there is any close etymological
relation between these two uses of the term.

TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. 69
but He does not expect of them that refinement
of sanctity, that sustained ¦ attention to divine
things, which depends so largely on one's natural
cast of mind and disposition; and may even be
found where the martyr's temper is altogether
wanting. We recognize that there is certain
serviceable, fustian, every-day piety, where, together
with a great deal of spiritual coarseness, insensi
bility to venial sin and imperfection, there exists
a firm faith that would go cheerfully to the stake
rather than deny God, or offend Him in any grave
point that might be considered a casus belli. And
on the other hand a certain nicety of ethical
discernment and delicacy of devotion, an anxiety
about points of perfection, is a guarantee rather of
the quality of one's piety than of its depth or
strength. The saint is usually one whose piety
excels both in quality and strength; the martyr
is often enough a man of many imperfections and
sins, veiling an unsuspected, deep-reaching faith.
The day of persecution has ever been a day of
revelation in this respect — a day when the seem-
• ingly perfect have been scattered like chaff before
the wind, while the once thoughtless and careless
have stood stubborn before the blast.
Protestantism of the Calvinistic or Puritan type
shows little consciousness of the distinction we are

70 TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE.
insisting upon. It is disposed to draw a hard-and-
fast line between the " converted " and the reprobate.
Those who are not religious-minded, or who do not
take a serious turn, are scarcely recognized as
" saved " although they may not be convicted of
any very flagrant or definite breach of the divine law.
Their morality or their " good works " go for little if
they do not experience that sense of goodness, or of
being saved, which is called faith. Much stress is
laid on " feeling good " and little value allowed to-
what we might call an unsympathetic and grudging
keeping of God's law — however much more it may
cost, from the very fact that it is in some way
unsympathetic, and against the grain. The service
of fear and reverence, which Catholicism regards
as the basis and back-bone of love, is held to he
abject and unworthy — almost sinful.
Hence it befalls that no place is found in the
Protestant heaven for the great majority of ordinary
people who do not feel a bit good or religious, who
rather dislike going to church and keeping the
commandments, and yet who keep them all the
same, because they believe in God and fear His
judgments and honour His law, and even love Him,
in the solid, undemonstrative way in which a
naughty and troublesome child loves its parents.
That such a character as Madge Riversdale's

TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. 71
should cover a small, firm core of faith and fear
under a cortex of worldliness and frivolity; that
religion should have such a hold on one so entirely
irreligious by nature, is something quite incon
ceivable to a mind like, let us say, Mrs. Humphrey
Ward's ; and yet absolutely intelligible to the
ordinary Catholic.
The Church to us, is not what it is to the
Protestant — a sort of pasture land in which we are
at liberty to browse if we are piously disposed. It
is not merely a convenient environment for the
development of the religious faculty. She stands
to us in the relation of shepherd, with a more than
parental authority to feed and train our souls
through infancy to maturity ; that is, from the time
when we do not know or like what is good for us,
to the time when we begin to appreciate and
spontaneously follow her directions. Just then as
a child, however naturally recalcitrant and ill-
disposed, retains a certain fundamental goodness
and root of recovery so long as it acknowledges
and obeys the authority of its father and mother ;
so the ordinary unreligious Catholic, who has been
brought up to believe in the divine authority of
the Church, finds therein all the protection that
obedience offers to those who are incapable of
self-government.

72 TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE.
" In Madge's eyes the woman who married an
innocent divorcee was no more than his mistress."
Had Madge been a pious Protestant she naturally
might have examined the question of divorce on
its own merits; she might have weighed the pros
and cons of the problem ; she might have consulted
God in prayer, and have listened to this clergyman
on one side ; and to that, on the other : but
eventually she would have been thrown upon
herself; she would have had no one whose decision
she was bound to obey. But wild and lawless as
she is, yet being a Catholic there is one voice on
earth which she fears to disbelieve or disobey.
Looked at even from a human standpoint, the
consensus of a world-wide, ancient, organized
society like the Roman Church cannot but exert
a powerful pressure on the minds of its individual
members. It would need no ordinary rebellion of
the will for a thoughtless girl to shake her mind
so free of that influence as to live happily in the
state of revolt. But where in addition to this the
Church is viewed as speaking in the name of
God, and as so representing Him on earth that
her ban or blessing is inseparable from His, it is
obvious that such a belief in her claims will give
her a power for good over the unreligious majority
analogous to that possessed by a parent over an

TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. 73
untrained child^a power, that is, of discipline and
external motive which serves to supplement or
supply for the present defect of internal motive.
Thus it is that the Church reckons among her
obedient children thousands of very imperfect and
non-religious people for whom Protestantism can
find no place- among the elect.
Again, the solid faith of men with so little
intellectual or emotional interest in religion as
Squire Riversdale or Marmaduke Lemarchant is
something very puzzling to the Protestant critic
who, for the reasons just insisted on, can have
nothing corresponding to it in his own experience.
It is a psychological state of which his own religious
system takes no account. Where there is no inter
mediating Church, the soul is either in direct
and mystical union with God or else wholly
estranged and indifferent. A man is either serious
and religious-minded, or he is nothing. Like an
untutored child, if he is not naturally good, there
is no one to make him so. But when the Church
is acknowledged as our tutor under God, as em
powered by Him to lead us to Him; a middle
condition is found of those who are not naturally
disposed to religion, and yet who are submissive
to that divine authority whose office it is to shape
their souls to better sympathies.

74 TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE.
Riversdale is a far truer type of the Catholic
country squire of the old school than the somewhat
morbid and impossible Helbeck of Bannisdale.
With her preconceived notions, Mrs. Humphrey
Ward could not imagine any alternative between
' religious ' and ' irreligious ' in the Puritan sense.
If Helbeck was to be a good Catholic at all he must
of necessity be fanatically devoted to the pro
pagation of the faith and offer his fortune and
energies to the service of an unscrupulous clergy
only too ready to play upon his credulous
enthusiasm. His is represented as being naturally
a religious and mystical soul, but blighted and
narrowed through the influence of Catholicism.
We are made to feel that the only thing the matter
with him is his creed — " all those stifling notions
of sin, penance, absolution, direction, as they were
conventionalized in Catholic practice and chattered
about by stupid and mindless people."
On the other hand, in Squire Riversdale and
Marmaduke Lemarchant there is by nature nothing
but healthy humanity, no mystic or religious strain
whatever; they are not semi-ecclesiastics like
Helbeck; and yet we feel that their prosaic lives
are governed, restrained, and rectified by a deep-
rooted faith in the authority of the Catholic
Church. " The qualities most obvious are not

TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. 75.
those of the mystic, but of the manly out-of-door
sportsman who may seem to be nothing more than
a bluff Englishman who rides to the hounds and
does his ordinary ¦ duties. Yet one of these
red-coated cavaliers would, I have not the least
doubt, if occasion called for it, show himself capable
of the very highest heroism. Men of action, I should
say, and not of reflection — a race of few words but
of brave deeds."
It was just men of this unromantic type, men
of solid but unostentatious faith, given wholly to
the business of this life save for one sovereign secret
reserve, who in time of persecution stood fast
"ready any day to be martyred for the faith and
to regard it as the performance of a simple duty
and nothing to boast of." And if there is in the
type a certain narrowness of sympathy and lack of
intelligent interest which offends us, we may ask
whether, with our human limitations, narrowness
is not to some extent the price we pay for strength ;
whether where decision of judgment and energy
of action is demanded, as in times of persecution,
width of view and multiplicity of sympathies may
not be a source of weakness. Contrast, for example,
the character of Mark Fieldes with that of Marma
duke Lemarchant, and it will be clear that the
strength and straightness of the latter is closely

75 TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE.
associated with the absence of that versatility of
intellect and affection which make the former a
more interesting but far less lovable and estimable
personality. To see all sides and issues of a
question, is a speculative, but not always a prac
tical advantage ; to have many diversified tastes
and affections helps to enlarge our sympathies, but
not to concentrate our energies.
Of course great minds and strong hearts can
afford to be comprehensive without loss of depth
and intensity ; but our present interest is with
ordinary mortals and average powers. A man
who has all his life unreflectingly adopted the
traditional principle that death is preferable to
dishonour, that a lie is essentially dishonourable
will be far more likely to die for the truth, than
one who has philosophized much about honour and
veracity, and whose resolution is enfeebled by the
consciousness of the weak and flimsy support which
theory lends to these healthy and universally
received maxims. And similarly those who have
received the faith by tradition, who for years, have
assumed it in their daily conduct as a matter of
course, in whom therefore it has become an
ingrained psychological habit, who hold it, in what
might be condemned as a narrow, unintellectual
fashion, are just the very people who will fight and

TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. 77
die for it, when its more cultivated and reflective
professors waver, temporize, and fall away. Taking
human nature as it is, who can doubt but that this
is the way in which the majority are intended to
hold their religious, moral, philosophical, and
political convictions ; that reflex thought is, must,
and ought to be confined to a small minority whose
function is slowly to shape and correct that great
body of public doctrine by which the beliefs of the
multitude are ruled ? We do not mean to say that
such prosaic "narrowness" as we speak of, is
essential to strength; but only that a habit of
theoretical speculation and a continual cultivation
of delicate sensibility is a source of enervation
which needs some compensating corrective. This
corrective is found in the exalted idealism which
characterizes the great saints and reformers, such
as Augustine, or Francis, or Teresa, or Ignatius —
souls at once mystical and energetically practical
to the highest degree. It is something of this
temper which is parodied in Alan Helbeck. But the
Church's mission is not merely to those rare souls
whose sympathy with her own mind and will is
intelligent and spontaneous ; but at least as much
to the multitudes who have to be guided more or
less blindly by obedience to tradition and authority,
or else let wander as sheep having no shepherd.

78 TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE.
These considerations explain why One Poor
Scruple seems to us so far truer a presentment
of Catholic life than Helbeck of Bannisdale — the
difference lying in the incommunicable advantage
which an insider possesses over an outsider in
understanding the spirit and principles by which
the members of any social body are governed.
Of all religions, Catholicism which represents the
accumulated results of two thousand years' world
wide experience of human nature applied to the
principles of the Gospel, is least likely to be
comprehended by an outsider, however observant
and fair-minded.
To those for whom the lawfulness of re-marriage
for an innocent divorcee is, like the rest of their
religious beliefs, a matter of opinion, the scruple
of a character like Madge Riversdale is unthinkable
and incredible. Such women do not trouble their
heads about theological points ; still less, make
heroic sacrifices for their private and peculiar
convictions. But those for whom the Church is
a definite concrete reality — almost a person —
governing and teaching with divine authority, will
easily understand the firm grip she can and does
exert on those who have no other internal principle
of restraint ; who would shake themselves free if
they dared. Let those who despise the results of

TWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE. 79
such a constraint be consistent and abolish all
parental and tutorial control ; all educative govern
ment of whatsoever description; nay, the imperious
restraint of conscience itself, which is often obeyed
but grudgingly.
While some features of this portrait of Catholic
life are common to all its phases, others are
peculiar to the aspect it presents in England,
where Catholics being a small and weak minority
are, so to say, self-conscious in their faith — con
tinually aware that they are not as the rest of men
disposed therefore to be apologetic or aggressive or
defensive. Again, the circumstance of their long
exclusion from the social and intellectual life 01
their country is accountable for other undesirable
peculiarities which Mrs. Wilfrid Ward sees no
reason to spare.
We have not, however, attempted anything like
a literary estimate of this interesting, altogether
readable work, but have only endeavoured to draw
attention to an important point, which, whether
intentionally or unintentionally, it illustrates very
admirably. May, 1899.

XVI.
A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS.
The appearance of a work by the Hon. W. Gibson
on The Abbe de Lamennais, and the Catholic Liberal
Movement in France, invites us to a new attempt to
grapple with a problem which has so far met with
no satisfactory solution, and probably never will.
Up to a certain point we seem to follow more or
less intelligently the working of the restless soul
of De Lamennais; but at the last and 'great crisis
of his life we find all our calculations at fault ; " we
try to understand him ; we wish that penetrating
into the inmost recesses of his wounded soul, we
could force it to yield up its secret, and once more
sympathize with him, perhaps console him ; but
we cannot. He is an enigma, as impenetrable as
the rocks on his native shore."1
From whatever point of view the story of his
life is regarded, it presents itself as a tragedy.
The believing Catholic sees there the ruin of a
vocation to such a work as only a few souls in the
1 P. 222.

A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS. 81
history of the Church are called to accomplish— a
ruin desperate and deplorable in proportion to the
force of the talents and energies diverted from the
right path. The non-Catholic or unbeliever cannot
fail to be moved by contemplating the fruitless
struggles of a mind so keen, a heart so enthusiastic
in the cause of light and liberty — struggles ending
in failure, perplexity, confusion, and misery. But
while we allow a large element of mystery in his
character which will never be eliminated, yet as
we return time after time to gaze upon the picture
of his life, as a whole, and in its details, the
seemingly discordant items begin quietly to drop
into their places one after another, and to exhibit
unnoticed connections ; and the idea of his dis
tinctive personality begins to shape itself into a
coherent unity.
It is not our purpose here to summarize
Mr. Gibson's admirable work, or to give even an
outline of so well-known a history; but rather to
attempt some brief criticism of the man himself,
and incidentally of his views.
Temperament and early education are among
the principal determinants of character; and
certainly when we contrast Feli with his brother
Jean, who presumably received the same home-
training, we see how largely he was the creature
G n.

82 A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS.

of temperament.. Jean was by nature the "good
boy," tractable and docile; Feli, the unmanageable,
the lawless, the violent. While Jean was dutifully
learning his lessons to order, Feli, the obstreperous,
imprisoned in the library, was feeding his tender
mind with Diderot, Montaigne, Pascal, Voltaire,
Rousseau, and similar diet, and at twelve exhibited
such infidel tendencies as made it prudent to defer
his first Communion for some ten years.
From first to last, whether we consider his
childish waywardness and outbreaks of violent
passion, which persevered in a less childish form
through manhood ; or the fits of intense depression
and- melancholy, alternating with spells of high
nerve-tension and feverish excitement ; or the
restlessness and impatient energy which showed
themselves always and everywhere, and at times
drove him like a wild man into the woods, " seeking
rest and finding none ; " or the prophetic, not to
say, the fanatical strain which breaks out in so
much of his writing, especially in the Paroles d 'un
Croyant, — in all alike there is evident that pre
dominance of the imaginative and emotional
elements which, combined with intellectual gifts,
constitute genius as commonly understood. For
such a character the training which would suffice
for half a dozen good little Jeans would be wholly

A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS. 83
inadequate. So much fire and feeling ill submits
to the yoke of self-restraint in matters moral or
intellectual.. The mind is apt to be fascinated by
the brilliant pictures of the .imagination and to
become a slave to the tyranny of a fixed idea;
while the strength of passionate desire paralyzes
the power of free deliberation. It is precisely this
self-restraint, the fruit of a careful education given
and responded to, that we miss in De Lammenais
both in his moral character and in his mind.
Peace and tranquillity of soul are essential to
successful thinking, more especially in philosophy ;
and in proportion as a brilliant imagination is a
help, it is also a danger if let run riot. At times,
wearied out with himself, he seems to have felt
the need of retreat and quiet ; but he was almost
as constitutionally incapable of keeping still, as
certain modern statesmen in their retirement from
public life. We smile when we hear him in the
violent first fervour of his conversion, talking about
becoming a Trappist, and, later, a Jesuit. He
knew himself better when he shrank so long and
persistently from the yoke of priesthood, and when,
having yielded against his truer instincts to the
indiscreet zeal of pious friends, he experienced an
agony of repugnance at his first Mass. With
different antecedents he might have profited by

84 A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS.
the yoke, but as things stood it could but gall
him. In spite of Mr. Gibson's contention to the
contrary, it can hardly be maintained that De
Lamennais was well educated in the strict sense
of the expression. The evidence he adduces points
to a marvellous diversity of interests, and even to
close and careful reading. But on the whole he
was self-taught, and a self-taught man is never
educated. Without intercourse with other living
minds, education is impossible. This is indeed
hoisting De Lammenais with his own petard.
For, according to "Traditionalism," the mind is
paralyzed by isolation, and can be duly developed
only in society. An overweening self-confidence
and slight regard for the labours of other thinkers
usually characterizes self-taught genius. This it
was that led him to cut all connection with the
philosophy of the past, and to attempt to build
up, single-handed, a new system to supplant that
which- had been the fruit of the collective mind-
labour of centuries. " I shall work out," he writes
calmly to the Abbe Brute, "a new system for the
defence of Christianity against infidels and heretics,
a very simple system, in which the proofs will be so
rigorous that unless one is prepared to give up the
right of saying I am, it will be necessary to say

A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS. 85
Credo to the very end." Only a man with a very
slight and superficial acquaintance with the
endeavours of previous apologists, and the extreme
difficulty of the problem, could speak with such
portentous self-confidence. And the result bears
out this remark. For grand and imposing as is
the structure of the Essai sur I 'Indifference, it rests
on fallacies so patent that none but a man of no
philosophical training could have failed to perceive
them. Here it is that the self-taught man comes
to grief and often misses the mere truisms of
traditional teaching.
Doubtless ecclesiastical philosophy and theology
was then more than ever painfully fossilized, and
altogether lifeless and out of sympathy with the
spirit of the age. It needed to be quickened,
adapted and applied to modern exigencies. The
undue intrusion of metaphysics into the domain
of positive knowledge needed checking ; the value
of consensus communis as a criterion required to be
insisted on, defended, and exactly defined. With
characteristic impetuosity, De Lamennais, like
Comte, must bundle metaphysics out of doors
altogether as a merely provisional but illusory
synthesis, necessary for the human intellect in its
adolescence, but to be discarded in its maturity;
and thereupon he proceeds to erect his system

86 A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS.
of Traditionalism mid-air, quite unconscious that in
clearing away metaphysics he has deprived the
structure of its only possible foundation. But this
is the man all over. Because there is a truth in
Traditionalism, therefore, it is the whole and only
truth ; because metaphysics alone can do little,
it is therefore unnecessary and worthless. Had
he spent but a fraction of the time and trouble
he gave to the elaboration of his own system, in
a liberal and critical study of that which he desired
to supersede, his genius might have accomplished
a work for the Church which is still halting badly
on its way to perfection. One feels something like
anger in contemplating such hot-headed zeal
standing continually in its own light, and frus
trating with perverse ingenuity the very end
which it was most desirous to realize. For no one
can deny that from his first conversion to his
unhappy death De Lamennais was dominated by
the highest and noblest and most unselfish motives ;
that he was a man of absolute sincerity of purpose.
His earliest enthusiasm was for the defence and
exaltation of the Catholic Faith, for the liberation
of the Church from the bonds of nationalism and
Erastianism. Even those who repudiate altogether
the extreme Ultramontanism of De Maistre and
De Laniennais must allow their conception to be

A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS. 87
one of the boldest and grandest which has inspired
the mind of man. He realized more vividly
than many that the cause of the Church and
of society, of Catholicism and humanity, were one
and the same. It was the very intensity and depth
of his convictions that made him so importunate
in pressing them on others, so intolerant of
delay, so infuriated by opposition. For indeed
nothing is more common than to find a
thousand selfishnesses co-existing and interfering
with a dominant unselfishness, lessening or totally
destroying its fruitfulness for good. A man who
is unselfish enough to devote his fortune to charity
will not necessarily be free from faults which may
more than undo the good he proposes. The same
hastiness of thought which moved him to a
wholesale, indiscriminate condemnation of meta
physics, led him to conclude that because hitherto
no happy adjustment of the relations between
Church and State had been devised, there could
be no remedy save in their total severance.
Doubtless such a severance would be better, if
Gallicanism were the only alternative ; or if the
Church's liberty and efficiency were to be seriously
curtailed. A superficial glance might fancy a
fundamental discrepancy in this matter, as well
as in the questions of toleration, and of the freedom

A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS.

of the press, between the official teaching of
Gregory XVI. and Pius IX., and that of Leo XIII.
But a closer inspection shows no alteration of
principle, and only a recognition of altered cir
cumstances, either necessitating a connivance at
inevitable evils, or totally changing the aspect
of the question. But De Lamennais should have
learnt from his own teaching that liberty does not
mean the independence of isolation, but the full
enjoyment of all the means necessary for perfect
self-development ; that it does not mean the
weakness of dissociation, but the strength of a
perfectly organized association for mutual help
and protection. And this holds good, not for
individuals alone, but for societies, and for Church
and State. Aiming at one common end, the
perfection of humanity, they cannot but gain by
association and lose by dissociation. Each is
weaker even in its own sphere, apart from the
other. It is an unreal abstraction that splits man
into two beings — a body and a soul; that draws
a clean, hard-and-fast line between his temporal
and eternal welfare; that commits the former
interest to one society, the latter to another,
absolutely distinct and unconnected. But all this
holds true only in the hypothesis of a nation of
Christians or Theists. When a large fraction

A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS. 89
of the community has ceased to believe in
Christianity and the Church, the demands of
justice and reason are different. It may well be
allowed that, to determine the exact relation of the
Catholic Church and Christian State, and the law
of their organization into one complex society,
is a problem for whose perfect solution we must
wait the further development of the ideas of eccle
siastical and civil society. But to wait for growth
of subjective truth was just what De Lamennais
could not do. He saw that past solutions of the
problem had been unsuccessful ; that in most cases
the Church was eventually drawn into bondage
under the State as its creature and instrument
in the cause of tyranny and oppression ; that it was
insensibly permeated with the local and national
spirit, differentiated from Catholic Christendom,
and severed from the full influence of its head, the
Vicar of Christ. The independence of the Church
he rightly judged, to be the great safeguard of the
people against the tyranny of their temporal rulers.
In the face of that world-wide spiritual society,
whose voice was at once the voice of humanity and
the voice of God, he felt that " iniquity would stop
its mouth," and injustice be put to shame. Yet
all this seemed to him impossible so long as the
Church depended on the State for temporalities,

90 A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS.
and because he could devise no form of association
that would be guarantee against all abuses, he
therefore insisted on total severance, not merely
as expedient for the present pressure, but as a divine
and eternal principle.
When, therefore, it seemed to him that Gregory
XVI. had condemned Ultramontanism, it was, to
De Lamennais, as though he had condemned the
cause of the Church and of humanity, and thrown
the weight of his authority into that of Gallicanism.
Here again we see how his mental intensity and
impatience reduced him to the dilemma which
found solution in his apostasy. Holding as he did
to the Papal infallibility in a form far more extreme
than that subsequently approved by the Vatican
Council, he was bound in consistency to accept the
Pope's decision as infallible in respect to its
expediency and in all its detail. Thus it seemed
to him that the ideal for which he had lived was
shattered by a self-inflicted blow. The infallible
voice of humanity had declared against the cause
of humanity. He found himself compelled, in virtue
of his principles, to choose between two alternatives.
Either the cause of humanity, as he conceived it,
was not the cause of God ; or else the Pope was
not the Vicar of Christ and the divinely-appointed
guardian of that cause. But of the two denials

A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS. 91
the former was now to him the least tolerable.
"Catholicism," he said, "was my life, because it
was that of humanity." S acr amenta propter homines ;
the Church was made for man, and not man for
the Church. Given the dilemma, who shall blame
his choice ? But the dilemma was purely subjective
and imaginary. Though truths are never irrecon
cilable, the exaggerations of truth may well be so.
Had he possessed that intellectual patience in
perplexity, without which not only faith, but true
science, is impossible, he would have been driven
not to apostasy, but to a careful re-sifting of his
views, issuing, perhaps, in a reconciliation of
apparently adverse positions, or at all events in
a confession of subjective uncertainty and confusion.
Faith, in the wider sense of the word, would have
bid him to believe, without seeing, what we have
lived to see under Leo XIII.
This seems to be the intellectual aspect of his
defection, though of course there were many accele
rating causes at work. Perhaps if Gregory XVI.
had met his appeal with a few words of simple
explanation and advice, instead of with that
mysterious reticence which is falsely supposed to be
the soul of diplomacy, the issue might have been
as happy as it was miserable. De Lamennais
himself, in his Affaires de Rome, makes the same"

92 A. LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS.
remark in so many words. Again, the illiberal and
ungenerous persecution of his triumphant adver
saries, who endeavoured to goad him into some
open act of rebellion in order to bring him under
still heavier condemnation, can scarcely have failed
to embitter and harden a soul naturally disposed to
pessimism and melancholy. Nor can we omit from
the influences at work upon him, that dramatic
instinct which makes a mediocre and colourless
attitude impossible for those who are strongly
under its influence. Perhaps no nation is more
governed by it than the French, with their
partiality for tableaux and sensation; and in De
Lamennais its presence was most marked, as the
pages of his Paroles will witness. In the Too Late
with which he received the overtures of Pius IX. ;
in the studied sensationalism of his funeral
arrangements, and in many other minute points,
we are made sensible that if his life culminated in
a tragedy, the tragic aspect of it was not altogether
displeasing to him. Still it would be a grievous
slur on so great a character to suppose that such a
weakness could have had any considerable part in
his steady and deliberate refusal to see a priest at
the last. This is sufficiently accounted for by the
fact that he believed he could not be absolved
without accepting the condemnation of his own

A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS. 93
views, and so abandoning the cause of humanity.
While under the spell of his imaginary dilemma,
he was constrained to follow the rule for a
perplexed conscience, and to choose what seemed
to him the less of two evils.
After his ideal had been destroyed, and the
Church could no longer be for him the Saviour of
the Nations, he threw himself without reserve into
the cause of humanity and liberty. But his aims
were now almost entirely destructive and revolu
tionary. His enthusiasm was rather a hatred of
the things that were, than an ardent zeal for the
things that ought to be; and the bitter elements
in his character become more and more accentuated
as he finds himself gradually thrust aside and
forgotten — cast off by the Church, ignored by the
revolution. Even his friends, with one or two
exceptions, dropped off one by one; some fleeing
like rats from a sinking ship, others perplexed at
his obstinacy or offended by his violence; others
removed by death or distance ; and we see him in
his old age poor and lonely, and intensely unhappy.
When dangerously ill in 1827, he exclaimed, on
being told that it was a fine night, " For my peace,
God grant that it may be my last." The prayer
was not heard, for, as he felt on his recovery, God
had a great work for him to do. How that work

94 A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS,
was done we have just seen. Feli de Lamennais,
who would have been buried as a Christian in 1827,
was buried as an infidel in 1854.
It is vain to contend that he was not a man
of prayer. That he had a keen discernment in
spiritual things is evident from his Commentary on
the Imitation and his other spiritual writings, as
well as from the testimony of his young disciples
at La Chenaie, to whom he was not merely a
brilliant teacher, a most affectionate friend and
father, but also a trusted .guide in the things of
God. Yet this would be little had we not also
assurance of his personal and private devoutness.
All this would make his unfortunate ending a
stumbling-block to those who cannot acquiesce in
the fact that in every soul tares and wheat in
various proportions grow side by side, and that
which growth is to be victorious is not possible to
predict with certainty; who deem it impossible
that one who ends ill could ever have lived well ;
or that one who loses his faith, or any other virtue,
could ever at any time have really possessed it.
There is indeed some kind of double personality
in us all which is perhaps more observable in
strongly-marked characters like De Lamennais,
where, so to say, the bifurcating lines are produced
further. Proud men have occasional moods of

A LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS. g5
genuine humility ; and habitual bitterness is allayed
by intervals of sweetness; and conversely, there
are ugly streaks in the fairest marble.
And as to the fate of that restless soul, who
shall dare to speak dogmatically ? We cling gladly
to the story of the tear that stole down his face in
death, and would fain see in it some confirmation
of the view according to which the soul receives
in that crucial hour a final choice based on the
collective experience of its mortal life. We would
hope that as there is a baptism of blood or of
charity, so there may perhaps be some uncoven-
anted absolution for one who so earnestly loved
mankind at large, and especially the poor and the
oppressed; who in his old age and misery was
found by their sick-bed ; who willed to be with
them in his death and burial. And yet we feel
something of that agonizing uncertainty which
forced from the aged Abbe Jean the bitter cry,
" Feli, F6li, my brother ! " Jan. 1897.

XVII.
LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST.
*" What pains me most," writes the late Sir Joseph
Crowe in the Nineteenth Century for October, 1896,
" is to think that the art of Fra Filippo, the loose
fish, and seducer of holy women, looks almost as
pure, and is often quite as lovely as that of Fra
Giovanni Angelico of Fiesole." And indeed, if the
fact be admitted, it cannot but be a shock to all
those high-minded thinkers who have committed
themselves unreservedly to the view that personal
sanctity and elevation of character in the artist
is an essential condition for the production of any
great work of art, and especially of religious art.
As regards the fact, we need not concern ourselves
very long. If Rio and others, presumably biassed
by the same theory, are inclined to see Lippi's
moral depravity betrayed in every stroke of his
brush, yet the more general and truer verdict
accords him a place among the great masters of
his age, albeit beneath Angelico and some others.
Beyond all doubt it must be allowed that even

LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST. 97
in point of spirituality and heaveriliness of ex
pression, he stands high above numbers of artists
of pure life and blameless reputation ; and this fact
leaves us face to face with the problem already
suggested as to the precise connection between
high morality and high art — if any.
Plainly a good man need not be a good artist.
Must a good artist be a good man ? I suppose
from a vague feeling in certain minds that it ought
to be so, there rises a belief that it must be so, and
that it is so ; and from this belief a disposition
to see that it is so, and to read facts accordingly.
Prominent among the advocates of this view is
Mr. Ruskin in his treatment of the relation of
morality to art. He holds " that the basis of art
is moral; that art cannot be merely pleasant or
unpleasant, but must be lawful or unlawful, that
every legitimate artistic enjoyment is due to the
perception of moral propriety, that every artistic
excellence is a moral virtue, every .artistic fault
is a moral vice ; that noble art can spring only from
noble feeling, that the whole system of the beautiful
is a system of moral emotions, moral selections, and
moral appreciation; and that the aim and end of
art is the expression of man's obedience to God's
will, and of his, recognition of God's goodness."1
1 Vernon Lee, Belcaro.
H II.

98 LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST.
But a man who can characterize a vulgar pattern
as immoral, plainly uses the term " morality " in
some transcendental, non-natural sense, and there
fore cannot be regarded as an exponent of the
precise theory referred to. Still, as this larger idea
of morality includes the lesser and more restricted,
we may consider Mr. Ruskin and his disciples
among those to whom the case of Lippo Lippi and
many another presents a distinct difficulty. " Many
another," for the principle ought to extend to every
branch of fine art ; and we should be prepared to
maintain that there never has been, or could have
been, a truly great musician, or sculptor, or poet,
who was not also a truly good man. In a way the
position is defensible enough ; for one can, in every
contrary instance, patch, up the artist's character
or else pick holes in his work. Who is to settle
what is a truly great work or a truly good man.
But a position may be quite defensible, yet
obviously untrue. Again, if by great art we
mean that which is subordinated to some great and
good purpose, we are characterizing it by a good
ness which is extrinsic to it, and is not the goodness
of art itself, as such. If the end of fine art is to
teach, then its goodness must be estimated by the
matter and manner of its teaching, and a " moral
pocket-handkerchief" must take precedence of many

LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST. 99
a Turner. Yet it would even then remain ques
tionable whether a good and great moral teacher
is necessarily a good man. In truth, a good man
is one who obeys his conscience, and whose con
science guides him right. If, in defect of the latter
condition, we allow that a man is good or well-
meaning, it is because we suppose that his con
science is erroneous inculpably, and that he is
faithful to right order as far as he understands it.
But one who sees right and wills wrong is in. no
sense good, but altogether bad. Allowing that for
the solution of some delicate moral problems
a certain height of tone and keenness of insight
inseparable from habitual conscientiousness is
necessary, yet mere intellectual acumen, in the
absence of any notably biassing influence, suffices
to give us as great a teacher as Aristotle, who,
if exonerated from graver charges, offers no example
of astonishing elevation of heart at all proportioned
to the profundity of his genius. We do not deny
that in the case of free assent to beliefs fraught
with grave practical consequences, the moral
condition of the subject has much to do with the
judgments of the intellect. But first principles and
their logical issues belong to the domain of
necessary truth ; while in other matters a teacher
may accept current maxims and sentiments with

ioo LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST.
which he has no personal sympathy, and weave
from all these a whole system of excellent and
orthodox moral teaching. And if one may be a good
moralist and a bad man, why a, fortiori may one not
be a good artist and a bad man ? If vice does not
necessarily dim the eye to ethical beauty, why
should it blind it to aesthetic beauty ? In order
to get at a solution we must fix somewhat more
definitely the notion of fine art and its scope,
I think it is in a child's book called The Back
of the North Wind, that a poet is somewhat
happily and simply defined as a person who is
glad about something and wants to make other
people glad about it too. Yet mature reflection
shows two flaws in this definition. First of all,
the theme of poetry, or any other fine art, need
not always be gladsome, but can appeal to some
other strong emotion, provided it be high and
noble. The tragedian is one who is thrilled with
awe and sorrow, and strives to excite a like thrill
in others. Again, though the craving for sympathy
hardly ever fails to follow close on the experience
of deep feeling ; and though, as we shall presently
see, fine art is but an extension of language
whose chief end is intercommunion of ideas, yet
this altruist end of fine art is not of its essence,
but of its superabundance and overflow. Expres-

LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST. 101
sion for expression's sake is a necessity of man's
spiritual nature, in solitude no less than in society.
To speak, to give utterance to the truth that he
sees, and to the strong emotions that stir within
his heart, is that highest energizing in which
man finds his natural perfection and his rest.
His soul is burdened and in labour until it has
.brought forth and expressed to its complete satis
faction the word conceived within it. Nor is it
only within the mind that he so utters himself in
secret self-communing ; for he is not a disembodied
intelligence, but one clothed with body and senses
and imagination. His medium of expression is
¦not merely the spiritual substance of the mind,
hut his whole complex being. Nor has he uttered
his "word" to his full satisfaction till it has passed
from his intellect into his imagination, and thence
to his lips, his voice, his features, his gesture. And
•when the mind is more vigorous and the passion
for utterance more intense, he will not be at rest
while there is any other medium in which he can
-embody his conception, be it stone, or metal, or
line, or colour, or sound, or measure, or imagery,
¦which under his skilled hand can be made to shadow
out his hidden thought and emotion. We cannot
hold with Max Miiller and others, who make
.thought dependent and consequent on language.

102 LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST.
For it is evident, on a moment's introspection,
that thought makes language for itself to live in,
just as a snail makes its own shell or a soul makes
its own body. Who has not felt the anguish of
not being able to find a word to hit off his thought
exactly ? — which surely means that the thought was
already there unclothed, awaiting its embodiment.
As the soul disembodied is not man, so thought
not clothed in language is not perfect human
thought. Its essence is saved, but not its sub
stantial, or at least its desirable, completeness.
A man thinks more fully, more humanly, who
thinks not with his mind alone, but with his
imagination, his voice, his tongue, his pen, his
pencil. If, therefore, solitary contemplative thought
is a legitimate end in itself; if it is that ludus, or
play of the soul, which is the highest occupation
of man, a share in the same honour must be
allowed to its accompanying embodiment; to the
music which delights no ear but the performer's;.
to poetr}', to painting, to sculpture done for the
joy of doing, and without reference to the good
of others communicating in that joy. And if the
Divine Artist, whose lavish hand fills everything.
with goodness ; who pours out the treasures of His
love and wisdom in every corner of our universe ;
of whose greatness man knows not an appreciable

LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST. 103
fraction; who "does all things well" for the very love
of doing and of doing well; who utters Himself
for the sake of uttering, not only in His eternal,
co-equal, all-expressive Word, but also in the
broken, stammering accents of a myriad finite
words or manifestations — if this Divine Artist
teaches us anything, it is that man, singly or
collectively, is divinest when he finds rest and joy
in utterance for its own sake, in "telling the glory
of God and showing forth His handiwork," or, as
Catholic doctrine puts it, in praise ; for praise is
the utterance of love, and love is joy in the truth.
As most of the useful arts perfect man's
executive faculties, and thus are said to improve
upon, while in a certain sense they imitate nature ;
so the fine arts extend and exalt man's faculty of
expression, or self-utterance, regarded not . precisely
as useful and propter aliud ; but as pleasurable and
propter se. Even the most uncultivated savage
finds pleasure in some discordant utterance of his
subjective frame of mind ; and it is really hard to
find any tribe so degraded as to show no rudiment
of fine art, no sign of reflex pleasure in expression,
and of inventiveness in extending the resources
nature has provided us with for that end.
The artist as such aims at self-expression for its
own sake. It is a necessity of his nature, an

io4 LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST.
outpouring of pent-up feeling, as much as is the
song of the lark. Of course we are speaking of
the true creative artist, and not of the laborious
copyist. If he subordinates his work as a means
to some further end ; if his aim is morality or
immorality, truth or error, pleasure or pain; if it
is anything else than the embodiment or utterance
of his own soul, so far he is acting not as an
artist, but as a minister of morality, or truth, or
pleasure, or their contraries. If we keep this idea
steadily in view, we can see how much truth, or
how little, is contained in the various theories of
fine art which have been advanced from the earliest
times. We can see how truly art is a /iifirjac;, an
imitating of realities; not that art-objects are, as
Plato supposes, faint and defective representations,
vicegerent species of the external world, whose
beauty is but the/fcransfer and dim reflection of the
beauty of nature. Were it so, then the mirror, or
the camera, were the best of all artists. As
expression, fine art is the imitation of the soul
within; of outward realities as received into the
mind and heart of the artist, in their ideal and
emotional setting. The artist gives word or
expression to what he sees; but what he sees is
within him. His work is self-expression. We can
from this infer where to look for a solution of the

LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST. 105
controversy between idealism and realism. We
can also see how, owing to the essential dispro
portion between the material and sensible media
of expression which art uses, and the immaterial
and spiritual realities it would body forth, its
utterances must always be symbolic, never literal.
We can see how needlessly they embarrass them
selves who deny the name of fine art to any work
whose theme is not beautiful, or which is not
morally didactic. Finally, we can see that if fine
art be but an extension of language, there can be
no immediate connection between art as art, and
general moral character ; no more reason for
supposing that skilful and beautiful self-utterance
is incompatible with immorality, than that its
absence is incompatible with sanctity.
Yet, as a matter of fact, and rightly, we judge
of art riot merely as art, or as expression ; but we
look to that which is expressed, to the inner soul
which is revealed to us, to the "matter" as well
as to the "form." And it may be questioned
whether our estimate of a work is not rather
determined in most cases by this non-artistic
consideration. Obviously it is possible in our
estimate of a landscape, to be drawn away from
the artistic to the real beauty ; from its merits as
a " word," or expression, to the merits of the thing

io5 LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST.
signified. And still more naturally is our admira
tion drawn from the artist's self utterance, to the
self which he endeavours to utter, and we are
brought into sympathy with his thought and
feeling. Much of the fascination exercised over
us by art, which precisely as art is rude and
imperfect in many ways, is to be ascribed to this
source. Though here we must remember that the
soul is often more truly and artistically betrayed by
the simple lispings of childhood than by the ornate
and finished eloquence of a rhetorician.
It is in regard to the matter expressed, rather
than to the mode of expression, that we have a
right to look for a difference between such men as
Lippo Lippi and Fra Angelico. According to a
man's inner tone and temperament and character,
will be the impression produced upon him by
the objects of his contemplation. These will
determine him largely in the choice of his themes,
and in the aspect under which he will treat them.
Obviously in many cases there are noble themes
of art for whose appreciation no particular delicacy
of moral or religious taste is required. There is
no reason why- such a subject as the Laocoon
should make a different impression on a saint and
on a profligate. It appeals to the tragic sense,
which may be. as highly developed in one as in

LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST icy

the other. But if the Annunciation be the theme,
we can well understand how differently it will
impress a man of lively and cultured faith, a
contemplative and mystic, with an appreciative and
effective love of reverence and purity ; and another
whose faith is a formula, whose life is impure,
frivolous, worldly. Why then is there not a more
distinctly marked inferiority in the religious art of
Lippi to that of Angelico ? Why does it look
"almost as pure," and "often quite as lovely"?
Two very clear reasons offer themselves in reply.
First of all, the art of such a man as Angelico
falls far more hopelessly short of his ideal. Most
of the beauties which such a soul would find in the
contemplation of Mary, or of Gabriel, are spiritual,
moral, non-aesthetic, and can embody themselves
in form and feature only most imperfectly. Given
equal skill in expression, equal command of words,
one man can say all that he feels, and more, while
another is tortured with a sense of much more to
be uttered, were it not unutterable. Perhaps it is in
some hint of this hidden wealth of unuttered
meaning that skilled eyes find in Angelico what
they can never find in Lippi. A second reason
might be found in the external influence exerted
on the artist by society, its requirements, fashions,
and conventions. It is plain that Lippi, left to

10S LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST.
himself, would never have chosen religious themes
as such; it is equally plain, that having chosen
them, he would naturally try to emulate and eclipse
what was most admired in the great works of his
predecessors and contemporaries. It would need
little more than a familiar acquaintance with the
great models, together with the artist's discrimi
nating observance, for a man of Lippi's talent to
catch those lines and shades of form and feature
which hint at, rather than express, the inward
purity, the reverence, the gentleness, with which he
himself was so little in sympathy.
No doubt, were two such men equally skilled in
all the arts of expression, in language, in verse, in
song and music, in sculpture and painting, and
acting, their general treatment of religious themes
would be more glaringly different; but within
the comparatively narrow limits of painting, we
cannot reasonably expect more than we actually
find. The saint, as such, and the artist, as such, are
occupied with different facets of the world; the
former with its moral, the latter with its aesthetic
beauty. Even were the artist formally to recognize
that all the beauty in nature is but the created
utterance of the Divine thought and love, and that
the real, though unknown, term of his abstraction

LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST. 109
is not the impersonal symbol, but the person
symbolized ; yet it is not enough for sanctity or
morality to be attracted to God viewed simply as
the archetype of aesthetic beauty. On the other
hand, one may be drawn, through the love of moral
beauty in creatures, of justice, and mercy, and
liherality, and truthfulness, to the love of God as
their archetype, . and yet be perfectly obtuse to
aesthetic beauty ; and thus again we see that high
astheticism is compatible with low morality, and
conversely. Doubtless when produced to infinity,
all perfections are seen to converge and unite in God,
but short of this, they retain their distinctness and
opposition. At the same time, it cannot for a
moment be denied that keenness of moral, and of
aesthetic perception, act and react upon one another.
He gains much morally whose eyes are opened to
the innumerable traces of the Divine beauty with
which he is surrounded, and there are aesthetic joys
which are necessarily unknown to a soul which is
selfish and gross — still more to a soul from which
the glories of revealed religion are hidden, either
through unbelief or sluggish indifference. Yet, on
the whole, it may be said that sanctity is benefited
by art more than art is by sanctity, especially where
we deal with so limited a medium of expression as
painting. And so it seems to us that, after all, there

no LIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST.
is nothing to surprise or pain us in the fact that " the
art of a Fra Filippo, the loose fish, looks almost as
pure, and is often quite as lovely as that of Fra
Giovanni Angelico of Fiesoli." Dec. 1896.

XVI II.
THROUGH ART TO FAITH.
There are-few books more difficult to estimate than
those in which M. Huysman sets forth the story of
a conversion generally supposed to bear no very
distant resemblance to his own. It would be easy
to find excellent reasons for a somewhat sweeping
condemnation of his work, and others as excellent
for a most cordial approval; and, indeed, we find
critics more than usually at variance with one
another in its regard. To be judged justly, these
.books must be judged slowly. The source of per
plexity is to be found in the fact that the author, who
has recently passed from negation to Catholicism,
•carries with him the language, the modes of thought,
-the taste and temper of the literary school of which
he was, and, in so many of his sympathies, is still a
pupil, a school which regards M. Zola as one of its
leading lights. En Route, and its sequels, portray in
the colours of realism, in the language of decadence,
the conversion of a realist, nay, of a decadent, to
mysticism and faith. " The voice indeed is the voice

THROUGH ART TO FAITH.

of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau," and
according as the critic centres his attention too
exclusively on one or the other, such will his
judgment be.
That his works have commanded attention, and
awakened keen interest among members of the most
varying and opposite schools of thought, is an un
deniable fact which at all events proves them to be
worth careful consideration.
The story of a soul's passage from darkness to
light, of its wanderings, vacillations, doubts, and
temptations, must necessarily exercise a strong
fascination over all minds of a reflective cast -.
" The development of a soul ! " says Browning,
"little else is worth study. I always thought so;
you, with many known and unknown to me, think.
so; others may one day think so."1 It is from this
attraction of soul to soul that the Pilgrim's Progress,
together with many kindred works, derives its spell •;
and indeed it is to this that all that is best and
greatest in art owes its power and immortal interest-
Here, however, is one reason why The Cathedral^
can never be so attractive as En Route, ministering-
as it does but little to that deepest and most:
1 Introduction to Sordello.
2 The Cathedral. By M. T. K. Huysman. Translated by-

Clare Bell.

THROUGH ART TO FAITH. 113
insatiable curiosity concerning the soul and its
sorrows. It portrays but little perceptible move
ment, little in the way of violent revulsion and
conflict ; the spiritual growth which it registers is
mostly underground, a strengthening and spreading
of the roots. It deals with a period of quiet healing
and convalescence after a severe surgical operation j
with the "illuminative" stage of conversion — for
there is scarcely any doubt that the three volumes
correspond to the "purgative," "illuminative," and
" unitive " ways respectively.
Between pulling down and building up — both
sensational processes, especially the former — there
intervenes a sober time of planning and surveying*
a quiet taking of information before entering on a
new campaign of action. When the affections have
been painfully and violently uprooted from earth,
then first is the mind sufficiently free from the bias
of passion and base attachments to be instructed:
and illuminated with profit in the things concerning
its peace, and to be prepared for the replanting of
the affections in the soil of Heaven. The arid
desert, with its seemingly aimless wanderings, in
tervenes between the exodus from Egypt and the
entrance into the Land of Promise.
Dealing with this stage of the process of con
version, The Cathedral is comparatively monotonous
T II.

n4 THROUGH ART TO FAITH.
and barren of spiritual incident. What removes it
still further from all chances of anything like
popularity in this country is the extent to which it
is occupied with matters of purely archaeological
and artistic interest, and more especially with the
mystical symbolism of the middle ages as chronicled
in every detail of the great Cathedral of Chartres.
Little as may be the enthusiasm for such lore in
France, it is far less in England, where the people
have for three centuries been out of all touch with
the Catholic Church, and therefore with whatever
modicum of mediaevalism she still preserves as part
of her heritage from the past. Architecturally we
appreciate our dismantled cathedrals to some extent,
but their symbolism is far less understood than even
the language and theology of the schools* while the
study of it meets as much sympathy as would the
study of heraldry in a modern democracy. Yet we
may say that the bulk of the book consists of an
inventory of every symbolic detail in architecture,
in sculpture, in painting, in glass-colouring, to be
found at Chartres; to which is added a careful
elaboration of the symbolism of beasts, flowers,
colours, perfumes, all very dreary reading for the
uninitiated, and to be criticized only by the expert.
Little scope as the plan of the book offers for any
variety or display of character, being mainly occupied

THROUGH ART TO FAITH. 115
with erudite monologue, put sometimes into the
mouth of Durtal, sometimes into that of the Abb6
Plomb, yet the personalities of these two, as well as
those of Geversin, Madame Bavoil, and Madame
Mesurat, stand out very vividly, and make us wish
for that fuller acquaintance with them which a little
more movement and incident would have afforded.
But what will give most offence, and tend to
alienate a certain amount of intelligent and valuable
sympathy, is the violence, and even the coarseness,
with which the author, or at least his hero, handles,
not only the opinions, but the very persons of those
from whom he differs; the intemperance of his
invective, the narrow intolerance and absolute self-
confidence with which he sits in judgment on men
and things.
As a matter of fact, this is rather a defect of
style and expression than of the inner sentiment.
It is part and parcel of the realist temper to blurt
out the thought in all the clothing or nakedness with
which it first surges up into consciousness, before it
has been submitted to the censorship of reason ; in
a word, to do its thinking aloud, or on paper ; to
.give utterance not to the tempered and mature judg
ment—the last result of refinement and correction,
hut to display the whole process and working by
which it was reached. As it is part of M. Zola's art

ii6 THROUGH ART TO FAITH.
to linger lovingly over each little horror of some
slaughter-house scene, until the whole lives for us
again as in a cinematograph, so M. Huysman,
engaged in the portrayal of a spiritual conflict,
spares us no link in the chain of causes by which
the final result is produced ; he bares the 'brain, and
exposes its workings with all the scientific calmness
of the vivisector.
Whether we like or dislike this realism, we must
allow for it in forming our judgment on these
volumes, nor must we treat as final and approved
opinions what are often the mere spontaneous-
suggestions and first thoughts of the mind, the
oscillations through which it settles down to rest-
Over and over again we shall find that Durtal
subsequently raises the very objection to his own
view that was on our lips at the first reading;
of it. But even making such allowance, it none the
less remains a matter of regret that one who, with.
perhaps some justice, considers that in point of art-
appreciation " the Catholic public is still a hundred
feet beneath the profane public," and chides them
for "their incurable lack of artistic sense," who
speaks of "the frightful appetite for the hideous
which disgraces the Church of our day," who himself
in many ways, in a hundred passages of sublime

THROUGH ART TO FAITH. 117
thought, of tender piety, of lyrical poesy, has proved
beyond all cavil his delicacy of sentiment, his
exquisite niceness in matters of taste, his reverence
for what is chaste and beautiful, should at times be
so deplorably unfaithful to his better instincts, so
forgetful of the close and inseparable alliance between
restraint and elegance. What can be weaker or
uglier, more unbecoming an artist, more becoming a
fish-wife, than his description of Lochner's picture
of the Virgin : " The neck of a heifer, and flesh like
cream or hasty-pudding, that quivers when it is
touched ; " or of the picture of St. Ursula's com
panions, by the same hand : " Their squab noses
poking out of bladders of lard that did duty for
their faces;" not to speak of the characterization
of a " Sacred Heart " too revolting to reproduce ?
Surely when, after having reviled M. Tissot almost
personally, he describes his works as painted with
*•* muck, wine-sauce, and mud," it is difficult not to
answer with a tu quoque as far as this word-painting
is concerned — difficult not to see here some morbid
and " frightful appetite for the hideous " struggling
with the healthy appetite for better things.
However lame and ridiculous an artist's utter
ance may be, yet there is a certain reverence some
times due to what he is endeavouring to say, and
even to his desire to say it. We do not think it very

n8 THROUGH ART TO FAITH.
witty or tasteful or charitable to laugh at a man
because he stammers ; still less do we overwhelm
him with the coarsest abuse. One may well shudder
at most presentments of the Sacred Heart, but even
apart from all consideration for the artist, a certain
reverence for the idea there travestied and uninten
tionally dishonoured, should forbid our insulting
what after all is so nearly related to that idea, and
in the eyes of the untaught very closely identified
with it.
But an occasional trespass of this kind, however
offensive, is not enough to detract materially from
the value of so much that is meritorious ; nor again
will that outspoken treatment of delicate topics (less
observable in The Cathedral than in En Route), which
makes the book undesirable for many classes of
readers, prevent its due appreciation on the part
of others — unless we are going to put the Sacred
Scriptures on the Index. In this vexed question,
M. Huysman takes what seems the more robust
and healthy view, but he appears to be quite unaware
how many difficulties it involves ; and consequently
lashes out with his usual intemperance against the
contrary tradition, which is undeniably well repre
sented. It is not as though the advocates of the
" flight " policy in regard to temptations against
this particular virtue were ignorant of the general

THROUGH ART TO FAITH. 119
principle which undoubtedly holds as regards all
other temptations, and bids us turn and face the
dog that barks at our heels. This counsel is as old
as the world. But from the earliest time a special
exception has been made to it in the one case of
impurity by those who have professedly spoken in
the light of experience rather than of a, priori infer
ence. Both views are encompassed with difficulty,
nor does any compromise suggest itself.
What seems to us one of the most interesting
points raised by the story of Durtal's spiritual
re-birth and development is the precise relation
between the Catholic religion and fine art.
God has not chosen to save men by logic ; so
neither has He chosen to save them by fine art. If
the " election " of the Apostolic Church counted
but few scribes or philosophers among its
members — and those few admitted almost on
sufferance — we may also be sure that the followers
of the Galilean fishermen were not as a body
distinguished by a fastidious criticism in matters
of fine art. In after ages, when the Church asserted
herself and moulded a civilization more or less
in accordance with her own exigencies and ideals^
it is notorious how she made philosophy and art
her own, and subjected them to her service ; but
whether in so doing she in any way departed

THROUGH ART TO FAITH.

from the principles of Apostolic times is what
interests us to understand.
There is certainly no more unpardonable fallacy
than that of " Bible Christians," who assume that
the Church in the Apostolic age had reached its full
expansion and expression, and therefore in respect
of polity, liturgy, doctrinal statement and discipline
must be regarded as an immutable type for all
ages and countries; from which all departure is
necessarily a corruption. They take, the flexible
sapling and compare it with aged knotty oak, and
shake their heads over the lamentable unhkeness :
" That this should be the natural outgrowth of that !
O tempora, 0 mores ! "
Like every organism, in its beginning, the Church
was soft-bodied and formless in all these respects ;
but she had within her the power of fashioning to
herself a framework suited to her needs, of assuming
consistency and definite shape in due time. The
old bottles would not serve to hold the new wine,
but this did not mean that new bottles were not
to be sought. Because the philosophy, the art,
the polity of the age in which she was born were
already enlisted in the service of other ideas and
inextricably associated with error in the minds of
men, it was needful for her at first to dissociate
herself absolutely from the use of instruments

THROUGH ART TO FAITH.

otherwise adaptable in many respects to her own
ends, and to wait till she was strong enough to alter
them and use them without fear of scandal and
misinterpretation .
The Church is many-tohgued ; but though she
can deliver her message in any language, yet she
is not for that reason independent of language in
general. There is no way to the human ear and
heart but through language of some kind or another.
It is not her mission to teach languages, but to use
the languages she finds to hand for the expression
of the truths, the facts, the concrete realities to
which her dogmas point. This does not deny that
one language may not be more flexible, more
graphic than any other, more apt to express , the
facts of Heaven as well as those of earth. It only
denies that any one is absolutely and exclusively
the best.
It is no very great violence to include rhetoric,
music, painting, sculpture, architecture, ritual, and
every form of decorative art in the category of
language and to bring them under the same general
laws, since even philosophy may to a large extent
be treated in the same way. Christ has not
commissioned His Church to teach science or
philosophy, nor has He given her an infallible
magisterium in matters of fine art. She uses what

THROUGH ART TO FAITH.

she finds in use and endeavours with the imperfect
implements, the limited colours, the coarse materials
at her disposal to make the picture of Christ and
His truth stand out as faithful to reality as possible ;
and — to press the illustration somewhat crudely —
as what is rightly black, in a study in black and
white, may be quite wrongly black in polychrome ;
so what the Church approves according . to one
convention, she- may condemn according to another.
May we not apply to her what Durtal says of
our Lady : " She seems to have come under the
semblance of every race known to the middle
ages ; black as an African, tawny as a Mongolian ; "
— " she unveils herself to the children of the soil
. . . these beings with their rough-hewn feelings,
their shapeless ideas, hardly able to express them
selves " ? The more we study the visions and
apparitions with which saints have been favoured
and the revelations which have been vouchsafed
to them, the more evident is it that they are spoken
to in their own language, appealed to through their
own imagery. Indeed, were it not so, how could
they understand ? Our JLady is the all-beautiful
for every nation, but the type of human beauty
is not the same for all. The Madonna of the
Ethiopian might be a rather terrifying apparition in
France or Italy.

THROUGH ART TO FAITH. 123
There is no art too rough or primitive, or even
too vulgar, for the Church to disdain, if it offers
the only medium of conveying her truth to certain
minds. Though custom has made it classical,
her liturgical language, whether Latin or Greek,
when first assumed, was that of the mob — about
as elegant as we consider the dialects of the
peasantry. She did not use plain-chaunt for any
of those reasons which antiquarians and ecelesi-
ologists urge in its favour now-a-days, but because
it was the only music then in vogue. Even to-day
the breeziest popular melodies in the East are
suggestive of the Or alio J er emits. Her vestments
(even Gothic vestments !) were once simply the
" Sunday best " of the fashion of those days. If
to-day these things have a different value and
excellence, it is in obedience to the law by
which what is "romantic" in one age becomes
"classical" in the next, or what is at first useful
and commonplace becomes at last ceremonial and
symbolic; and by which the common tongue of
the vulgar comes by mere process of time to be
archaic and stately. To "create" ancient custom
and ritual on a sudden, or to resuscitate abruptly
that , which has lapsed into oblivion, is, to say
the least, a very Western idea, akin to the
pedantry of trying to restore, Chaucer's English

124 THROUGH ART TO FAITH.
to common use. Nascitur non fit, is the law in all
such matters.
While we assert the Church's independence of
any one in particular of these means of self-expression,
her indifference to style and mode of speech so
long as substantial fidelity is secured, we must not
deny that some of them are, of their own nature,
more apt to her purpose than others and allow a
fuller revelation of her sense; and that in propor
tion as her influence is strong in the world she
tends to modify human thought and language, to
leaven philosophy and fine art, so as to form by
a process of selection and refusal, and in some
measure even to create, an ever richer and more
flexible medium of utterance.
In this sense we can with some caution speak
of " Catholic art " in music, architecture, and
painting, so far, that is, as we can determine
the extent and nature of the Church's action, and
therefore the tendency of her influence in the way
of stimulus and restraint with regard to subject
and treatment. We do not unjustly discern an
author's style as a personal element distinct from
the language and phraseology of which no item
is his own. The manner in which he uses that
language, his selections and refusals make, in union
with the borrowed elements, a tongue that may

THROUGH^ ART TO FAITH. 125
be called his, in an exclusive sense. The Church,
too, has her style, which, though difficult to discern
amid her use of a Pentecostal variety of languages,
is no doubt always the same — at least in tendency.
Salvation- Army worship is certainly not of the
Church's style, but I do not think, were there no
absolute irreverence and scandal to be feared, that
she would hesitate to use such a language, were
it the only one understood by such a people.
St. Francis Xaviers " catechisms " were often hardly
less uncouth. Still, her whole tendency would be-
towards restraint, order, and exterior reverence.
Again, the stoical coldness and formalism of a.
liturgical worship, centered round no soul-stirring
mystery of Divine love where there can be feeling
so strong as to need the restraint of liturgy and
ritual, has still less of the Church's style about it.
For she is human, not merely in her reason and
self-restraint, but in the fulness of her passion-
and enthusiasm ; and restraint is only beautiful
and needful where there is something to restrain.
We are now . in a position to consider the
surface objection that will present itself to many
a reader concerning Durtal's conversion. " He-
has been converted," it will be said, "by a fallacy-
He has identified the Catholic religion with the
cause of plain-chaunt and Gothic architecture, and

126 THROUGH ART TO FAITH.
of all that is, or that he considers to be, best in art.
He has laid hold not of Catholicism, but of its
merest accessories, which it might shake off any
day, and him along with them. Indeed, he scarcely
makes any pretence at being in sympathy with the
Catholicism of to-day, which he regards as almost
entirely philistine and degenerate, if we except
La Trappe and Solesmes and a few other corners
where the old observances linger on. ' It was so
ugly, so painfully adorned with images, that only
by shutting his eyes could Durtal endure to remain
in Notre Dame de la Breche.' Yes, but what sort
of convert is this who is so insensible to substan
tial, so morbidly sensitive about mere accidentals?
We come to the Church for the true faith and the
sacraments, not for ' sensations.' In fine, Durtal
has not observed the route prescribed by the
apologetics for reaching the door of the sheep-
fold, but has climbed over in his own way, like a thief
and a robber ; he has not (as a recent critic says
of him) tombe entre les bras maternels de I'Eglise
se-lon toutes les regies."
Without for a moment denying one of the
legitimate claims of. scientific apologetic, we may
at once dismiss the idea that it pretends to represent
a process through which the mind of the convert
to Christianity either does or ought necessarily to

THROUGH ART TO FAITH. 127
pass. Its sole purport is to show that if it is not
always possible to synthetize Christianity, with
the current philosophy, science, and history of
the day, at least no want of harmony can be
positively, demonstrated. As secular beliefs and
opinions are continually shifting, so too apologetic
needs continual, adjustment ; and as that of a
century back is useless to us now, so will ours be
in many ways inadequate a century hence. It is
fitting for the Church at large that she should in
each age and country have a suitable apologetic,
taking cognizance of the latest developments of
profane knowledge. It is needful for • her public
honour in the eyes of the world that she
should not seem to be in contradiction with truth,
but that- either- the apparent truth should -be
proved questionable, or else that her own teaching
should be shown to be compatible with it. But
in no sense is such apologetic always a necessity
for the individual, still less a safe or adequate
hasis for a solid conversion, which in that case
would be shaken by every new difficulty unthought
of before..-Our subjective faith in the Church must be like
the faith of the disciples of Christ, an entirely
personal relation ; an act of implicit trust based
on no. lean -argument or chain of reasoning, but

128 THROUGH ART TO FAITH.
on the irresistible spell, the overmastering impres
sion created upon us by a character manifested in
life, action, speech, even in manner; as impossible
to state in its entirety and as impossible to doubt
as are our reasons for loving or loathing, for trusting
or fearing. No doubt we hear of men of intellect and
learning " reading " or " reasoning " themselves into
the Church; but others as able have read and
reasoned along the same line, and yet have not
come ; for in truth, reason at the most can set
free a force of attraction created by motives other
than reason.
What this attraction is in each case is impossible
to specify accurately — " Ask me and I know not,"
one might say, " do not ask me and I know."
Each soul is hooked with its own bait, called.
by its own name, drawn in its own way ; and as the
attractiveness of Christ is virtually infinite in its-
multiformity, so is that of His Church, nor is-
there a more unpardonable narrowness than that of
insisting that others shall be drawn in the same-
way as we ourselves, or not at all.
Let it also be noticed that a very prolonged'
and minute intimacy is not always necessary in-
order that we should feel the spell of personality.-
Much depends on our own gifts of sympathy,.

THROUGH ART TO FAITH. lag
insight and apprehension, on the simplicity and
strength of the personality in question, on the
nature of the incidents by which it is disclosed to
us. We know one man in a moment, another
only after years of intimacy, while others in regard
to the same individuals might experience the
converse. We must not then suppose that because
in one case the impression is the result of slowly-
accumulated observations, and in another the work
of an instant, it is less trustworthy in the latter
instance than in the former. It may be, or it may
not be. St. Augustine needed years to feel the spell
that one word, nay, one glance from Christ cast
upon St. Peter. Nor again is it always in some
striking and notable crisis that a character reveals
itself abruptly, but often in the merest nuance—
a manner, an intonation, something quite uninten
tional, unpremeditated. We know well, if we
know ourselves at all, how irresistible is the
impression created on us at times by such trifles,
and yet how more than reasonable it often is.
Who shall say, then, that to an eye and heart
attuned to quick sympathy, any indication is too
small to betray the inward spirit and character
of the Catholic Church, or to magnetize a soul
and render it restless, until it obeys her attraction
and rests in union with her ?
I n.

130 THROUGH ART TO FAITH.
To a sensitively artistic temperament' such as
Durtal s, the indications of the Church's " style,"
revealed in her influence upon art, in her creations,
in her selections and refusals, would be eloquent
of her whole character and ethos ; it would be to
him what the very tone of Christ's voice was to the
Baptist, or what His glance was to Peter, or what
His silence was to Pilate. We have known too
many instances of deep-seated and entire conviction,
based on seemingly as little or less, to wish for one
moment to indulge in any foolish rationalizing or
to question the possibility or probability of God's
drawing souls to Himself by such methods.
We must, however, remember that it is not
merely by the Church's mediaeval art that Durtal is
attracted, but still more by that mysticism which
created it, and by which it was served and fostered
in return. Mysticism must necessarily excite the
sympathy of one who is in devout pursuit of the
highest and most spiritual forms of aesthetic beauty.
Whatever be the long-sought and never-to-be-for
gotten definition of the Beautiful, of this much at
least a mere process of induction will assure us,
that men count things beautiful in the measure that'
they are released from the grossness, formlessness,
and heaviness of matter, and by their delicacy,
shapeliness, and unearthliness, betray the influence

THROUGH ART TO FAITH. 131
of that principle which is everywhere in conflict
with matter and is called spirit. Man at his best
is most at home, where at his worst he is least at
home, namely, in the world of those super- realities
which are touched and felt by the soul, but refuse
to be pictured or spoken in the language of the
five senses. A hard, " common-sense," labour-and-
wages religion, such as is consonant with the
utilitarianism of a commercial civilization, could
never appeal to a temperament like Durtal's.
Doubtless Catholic Christianity admits of being
apprehended under the narrower and grosser
aspect, which however inadequate and unworthy,
is not absolutely false. The Jews were suffered to
believe not merely that God rewards the just and
punishes the wicked — which is eternally true — but
that He does so in this life, which is true only with
qualification ; and that He rewards them with
temporal prosperity and adversity — which is hardly
true at all. Catholic truth, in itself the same, can
only be received according to the recipient's
capacity and sensitiveness. What one age or
country is alive to, another may be dead to ; nor
can we pretend that here all is progress and no
regress, unless we are prepared to say that in no
respect have we anything to learn from the past.
The Ignatian meditation on the "Kingdom of Christ"

t32 THROUGH ART TO FAITH.
evoked heroic response in an age impregnated with
the sentiments of chivalry, but to-day it needs to
be adapted to a great extent, and some have vainly
hoped to gather grapes from a thistle by substituting
a parable drawn from some soul-stirring commercial
enterprise — a colossal speculation in cheese.
Whatever signs there may be of a reaction, yet
the whole temper and spirit of our age is unfavour
able to that mysticism which is the very choicest
flower of the Catholic religion. The blame is not
with the seed, but with the soil. Even where
least of all we should look for such indifference,
among those who have built up the sepulchres and
shrines of the great masters of mysticism, we
sometimes observe a profound distrust for what is
esteemed an unpractical, unhealthy kind of piety,
while every preference is given to what is definite
and tangible in the way of little methods and indus
tries, multitudinous practices, lucrative prayers, in a
word, to what a critic already quoted describes as
les petitesses des ccrvcaux etroits et les anguleuses routines.1
It is one of the narrownesses of Durtal himseh
to ascribe all this to the wilful perversity of a
person or persons unknown, and not to see in it
the inevitable result of the vulgarizing tendency ot
modern life upon the masses. Things being as
1 R. P. Tacher, S.J., Di Dante a Verlaine.

THROUGH ART TO FAITH.

133

they are, surely it is better that the Church should
do the little she can than do nothing at all. The
" meditative mind " is incompatible with the rush
and worry of a busy life, especially where educa
tional methods substitute information for reflection,
and so kill the habit, and eventually the faculty, of
thought in so many cases. But if the higher
prayer is impossible, the lower is possible and
profitable. Again, if the liturgical sense has in a
great measure become extinct among the faithful
owing to the unavoidable disuse of the public
celebration of the Church's worship, it is well that
they should be allowed devotions accommodated to
their limited capacity. As the Church would never
dream of expecting a keen sympathy with her
higher dogmas, her mystical piety, her artistic
symbolism, her transcendent liturgy, on the part
of a newly-converted tribe of savages, so neither
is she impatient with the civilized Philistine, but
is willing to speak to him in a language all his own,
hoping indeed to tune his tongue one day to
something less uncouth. None can sympathize
more cordially than the writer does with Durtal in
his horror of unauthorized' devotions, of insufferable
vernacular litanies, of nerveless and sickly hymns,
of interminable " acts of consecration " void of a
single definite idea, more especially when these

134 THROUGH ART TO FAITH.
things are brought into the very sanctuary itself,
with stole and cope and every apparent endeavour
to fix the responsibility on the Universal Church.
But if the Church is willing to go in rags to save
those who are in rags, she is only using her
invariable economy. We know well the sort of
robe that befits her . dignity, and no doubt it is
this contrast that makes the trial of her present
humiliation more difficult for us to bear.
We do not for a moment allow , that the
difference between bad taste and good is merely
"relative, or that a language or art which is
externally vulgar can ever be the adequate and
appropriate expression of the Catholic religion,
whose tendency when unimpeded is ever to refine
and purify. But it is perhaps another narrowness
to suppose that a reform can only be effected by
a return to the past, to mediaeval symbolism and
music and architecture. No effort of the kind has
ever met with more than seeming success. What
is consciously imitated from the past is not the
same as that natural growth which i,t imitates, and
which was as congenial to those days as it is
uncongenial to ours. It is all the difference
between the Mass ceremonial in a Ritualist church
and in a Catholic church — the historical sense is
violated in one case and satisfied in the other.

THROUGH ART TO FAITH. 135
What is once really dead can never revive in the
same form — at best we get a cast from the dead
face. No doubt the old music and the old symbol
ism always will have a beauty of antiquity that
can never belong to the new ; but it was not this
beauty — the beauty of death, of autumn leaves,
that made them once popular, but the beauty of
fresh green life and flexibility. The effort to make
antiquity popular is almost a contradiction in
terms. What we may hope for at most is an
improvement in the aesthetic tastes of the Catholic
public which comes from freer and healthier
surroundings, from saner ideas and wider oppor
tunities of education and liberal culture. When
they begin to speak a richer language, the Church
will take that language and find in it a fuller
expression of her mind than she can in the present
patois; she will be able again to say to them in
other words, as yet unknown, what she said to the
middle ages in Gregorian chaunt and Gothic
cathedral. She, who in virtue of her Pentecostal
gift of tongues, speaks in sundry times and divers
manners, may in due season find words as eloquent
of her heart and mind as those which she spoke
to Durtal in the aisles of Chartres and in the
cadences of Solesmes. July, 1898.

XIX.
TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.
The paradoxes of one generation are the common
places of the next ; what the savants of to-day
whisper in the ear, the Hyde Park orators of
to-morrow will bawl from their platforms. More
over, it is just when its limits begin to be felt by the
critical, when its pretended all-sufficingness can no
longer be maintained, that a theory or hypothesis
begins to be popular with the uncritical and to work
its irrevocable ill-effects on the general mind. In
this, as in many other matters, the lower orders
adopt the abandoned fashions of their betters,
though with less of the well-bred taste which
sometimes in the latter makes even absurdity
graceful. In this way it has come to pass that at
the very moment in .which a reaction against the
irreligious or anti-religious philosophy of a couple of
generations ago is making itself felt in the study, the
spreading pestilence of negation and unbelief has
gained and continues to gain possession of the
street. Some fifty years ago religion and even

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. 137
Christianity, seemed to the sanguine eyes of
Catholics so firmly rooted in England that the
recovery of the country to their faith depended
almost entirely on the settlement of the Anglo-
Roman controversy; to which controversy they
accordingly devoted, and, in virtue of the still
unexhausted impetus of that effort, do still devote
their energies, almost exclusively. But together
with a dawning consciousness that times and
conditions have considerably changed, there is
growing up in certain quarters a feeling that we too
shall have to make some modifications in order to
adapt ourselves io the altered circumstances. It is
becoming increasingly evident that even could the.
said Anglo-Roman controversy be settled by some
argument so irresistibly evident as to leave no locus
standi to the opponents of the Petrine claims, yet the
number of those Anglicans who admit the historical,
critical, philosophical, and theological assumptions
upon which the controversy is based and which are
presumed as common ground, is so small and
dwindling that, were they all gained to the Church,
we should be still a " feeble folk" in the face of that
tidal wave of unbelief whose gathering force bids fair
to sweep everything before it. Also the lingering
impression left from " Tractarian " days as to the
intellectual pre-eminence of the Catholicizing party

138 TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.
in the Anglican Church, which pre-eminence might
make amends for their numerical insignificance, is
gradually giving way to the recognition of the
sobering fact that at present that party in no
exclusive sense represents the cultivated intellect of
the country. It is no disrespect to that party to say
that while scholarship and intelligence are therein
well represented by scattered individuals, yet it is
cumbered, like most religious movements after they
have streamed some distance from their source, with
a majority of those whose adhesion has little or
no pretence to an intellectual basis ; and whose
occasional accession to the Catholic Church is almost
entirely their own gain.
To give the last decisive push to those who are
already toppling over the border-line that divides
England from Rome, to reap and gather-in the
harvest already ripe for the sickle, is a useful, a
necessary, and a charitable work ; one that calls for
a certain kind of patient skill not to be under
estimated ; but there. is a wider and perhaps more
fruitful field whose soil is as yet scarcely broken. It
may even be asserted with only seeming paradox
that the best religious intelligence of the country is
to be found in the camp of negation rather than in
that of affirmation ; among Broad Churchmen,
Nonconformists, Unitarians, and Positivists, rather

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. 139

than among those who seek rest in the unstable
position of a modified Catholicism. The very
instability and difficulty of that position elicits much
ingenuity from its theological defenders, though it
also divides their counsels not a little; nor do we
quarrel with them for affirming instead of denying,
but for not affirming enough. But this attempt at
compromise, this midway abortion of the natural
growth of an idea, even were it justifiable as
sometimes happens when legitimate issues are
obscured through failure of evidence, repels the
great multitude of religious thinkers who are not
otherwise sufficiently drawn towards Catholicism to
care to examine these claims. To say that there is
no logical alternative between Rome and Agnosticism
is a sufficiently shallow though popular sophism. At
most it means that from certain given premisses
one or other of those conclusions must follow
syllogistically — a statement that would be more
interesting were the said premisses in Jisputable and
admitted by all the world. Still it may be allowed
that a criticism of these premisses, which is a third
alternative, opens up to religious thought a number
of roads, all of which lead away from, rather than
towards the extreme Anglican position, and hence
that the more searching religious intelligence of the
country is as adverse to that position — and for the

140 TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.
same reasons — as it is to our own. And by the
"religious intelligence" I mean all that intelligence
that is interested in the religious problem ; be that
interest hostile or friendly; be it, in its issue,
negative or constructive. For it must not be
forgotten that the enemies of a truth are as
interested in it as its friends ; or that the friendliest
interest, the strongest " wish to believe, " may at
times issue in reluctant negation. So far then
as the great mass of religious intelligence in
this country is not "Anglo-Catholic" in its
sympathies; and so far as it is chiefly on the
"Anglo-Catholic" section that we make any
perceptible impression, the conversion of England,
for what depends on our own efforts, does not seem
to be as imminent a contingency as it would appear
to be in the eyes of those foreign critics for whom
Lord Halifax is the type of every English Churchman
and the English Church co-extensive with the
nation — save for a small irreclaimable residue of
Liberals and Freemasons.
Those who, influenced by such considerations,
would have us extend our efforts from the narrowing
circle of Anglo-Catholicism to the ever-widening
circle of doubt and negation, are not always clear
about the practically important distinction to be
drawn between the active leaders of doubt, and those

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. 141
who are passively led; the more or less independent
few, and the more or less dependent. many ; between
the man of the study and the man of the street — a
distinction analogous to that between the Ecclesia
docens and Ecclesia discens, and which permeates
every well-established school of belief, whether
historical, ethical, political, or religious.
Dealing first with the latter, that is, with those
who are led; we are becoming more explicitly
conscious of the fact that in all departments of
knowledge and opinion the beliefs of the many are
not determined by reasoning from premisses, but by
the authority of reputed specialists in the particular
matter, or else by the force of the general consent of
those with whom they dwell. There may be other
non-rational causes of belief, but these are the
principal and more universal. And when we say
they are non-rational causes, we do not mean that.
they are non-reasonable or unreasonable. They
provide such a generally trustworthy, though
occasionally fallible', method of getting at truth, as is
sufficient and possible for the practical needs of life
—social, moral, and religious. There is an inborn
instinct to think as the crowd does and to be swayed
by the confident voice of authority. If at times it
fail of its end, as do other instincts, yet it is so
trustworthy in the main that to resist it in ordinary

I42 TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. *
conditions is always imprudent. That our eyes
sometimes deceive us would not justify us in always
distrusting their evidence. If a child is deceived
through instinctively trusting the word of its parent?,
the blame of its error rests with them, not with it.
And so, whatever error the many are led • into by
obeying the instinct of submission to authority or to
general consent, is their misfortune, not their fault
Of course there are higher criteria by which the
general consent and the opinion of experts can be
criticized and modified ; but such criticism is not
obligatory on the many who have neither leisure nor
competence for the task. For here, as elsewhere, a
certain diversity of gifts results in a natural division
of labour in human society ; those who have, giving
to those who have not ; some ministering spiritual,
others temporal benefits to their neighbours. Not
that a man can save another's soul for him any more
than he can eat his dinner for him, but he can
minister to him better food or worse.
The Mussulman child, then, may be bound,
during his intellectual minority, to accept the
religious teaching of its parents, just as is the
Christian child. That one, in obeying this natural
but fallible rule, is led into error, the other into
truth, only verifies the principle that right faith is a
gift of God, — a grace, a bit of good fortune. None

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. I43
of those who are not professedly teachers of religion
and experts, can be morally bound to a criticism
above their competence, or to more than an
obedience to those ordinary causes of assent to
whose influence they are subjected by their
circumstances. The ideal of a Catholic religion is
to provide, by means of a divinely guided body of
authorities and experts, an universal, international,
inter-racial consensus regarding truths that are as
obscure as they are vital to individual and social
happiness; and thus to afford a means of sure and
easy guidance to those uncritical multitudes whose
necessary preoccupations forbid their engaging in
theology and controversy. This ideal was
sufficiently realized for practical purposes in the
" ages of faith, " when -the whole public opinion of
Europe, then believed to be coterminous with
civilization, was Catholic; when dissent needed as
much independence of character, as in so many
places, profession does now. And surely it is a
narrow-hearted criticism to prefer the primitive
conditions in which none but those strong enough
to face persecution could* reap the benefits of.
Christianity. The weak and dependent are ever
the majority, and if Christianity had been intended
to pass them by or sift them out, " its province were
not large, " nor could it claim to be the religion of

144 TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.-
humanity. The Christian leaven was never meant
to be kept apart, but to be hidden and lost in that
unleavened mass which it seeks slowly to transform
into its own nature. The majority, in respect to
religion and civilization, are like unwilling school
boys who need to be coerced for their own benefit,
to be kept to their work till they learn (if they ever
do) to like it, and to need no more coercion. The
support that Catholic surroundings give to numbers,
who else were too weak to stand alone, cannot be
overvalued, although it may weaken a few who else
had exerted themselves more strenuously, or may
foster hypocrisy in secret unbelievers who would
like to, but dare not withstand public opinion.
Now it is the gradual decay of this support —
of this non-rational yet most reasonable cause of
belief, that is rendering the religious condition of
the man in the street so increasingly unsatisfactory.
Not only is there no longer an agreement of
experts, and a consequent consensus of nations,
touching the broad and fundamental truths of
Christianity, but what is far more to the point,
the knowledge of this Babylonian confusion has
become a commonplace with the multitudes. No
doubt there are yet some shaded patches where the
dew still struggles with the desiccating sun— old-
world sanctuaries of Catholicism whose dwellers

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.

hardly realize the existence of unbelief or heresy,
or who give at best a lazy, notional assent to the
fact. But there are few regions in so-called
Christendom where the least educated are not now
quite aware that Christianity is but one of many
religions in a much larger world than their fore
fathers were aware of; that the intellect of modern,
unlike that of mediaeval Europe, is largely hostile
to its claims; that its defenders are infinitely at
variance with one another ; that there is no longer
any social disgrace connected with a non-profession
of Christianity ; in a word, that the public opinion
of the modern world has ceased to be Christian,
and that the once all-dominating religion which
blocked out the serious consideration of any other
claimant, bids fair to be speedily reduced to its
primitive helplessness and insignificance. The
disintegrating effect of such knowledge on the faith
of the. masses must be, and manifestly is, simply
enormous. Not that there is any rival consensus
and authority to take the place of dethroned
Catholicism. Even scepticism is too little organ
ized and embodied, too chaotic in its infinite
variety of contradictory positions, to create an
influential consensus of any positive kind against
faith. Its effect, as far as the unthinking masses
are concerned, is simply to destroy the chief
K II.

146 TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.
extrinsic support of their faith and to, throw them
back on the less regular, less reliable causes of
belief. If in addition it teaches them a few catch
words of free-thought, a few smart blasphemies
and syllogistic impertinences, this is of less con
sequence than at first sight appears, since these
are attempted after-justifications, and no real
•causes of their unbelief. For they love the parade
of formal reason, as they love big words or
technical terms, or a smattering of French or
Latin, with all the delight of a child in the
mysterious and unfamiliar; but their pretence to
be ruled by it is mere affectation, and the tenacity
with which they cling to their arguments is rather
the tenacity of blind faith in a dogma, than of
clear insight into principles.
And this brings us to the problem which gave
birth to the present essay.
The growing infection of the uneducated or
slightly educated masses of the Catholic laity with
the virus of prevalent unbelief is arousing the
attention of a few of our clergy to the need of
coping with what is to them a new kind of
difficulty. Amongst other kindred suggestions, is
that of providing tracts for the million dealing not
as heretofore with the Protestant, but with the
infidel controversy. While the danger was more

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. 147
limited and remote it was felt that, more harm than
good would come of giving prominence in the
popular mind to the fact and existence of so much
unbelief; that in many minds doubts unfelt before
would be awakened ; that difficulties lay on the
surface and were the progeny of shallow-minded-
ness, whereas the solutions lay deeper down than
the vulgar mind could reasonably be expected to
3go ; that on the whole it was better that the few
should suffer, than that the many should be
disturbed. The docile and obedient could be kept
away from contagion, or if infected, could be
¦easily cured by an act of blind confidence in the
Church ; while the disobedient would go their own
way in any case. Hence the idea of entering into
¦controversy with those incompetent to deal with such
matters was wisely set aside. But now that the
prevalence and growth of unbelief is as evident as
the sun at noon — now that it is no longer only the
recalcitrant and irreligious, but even the religious
and docile-minded who are disturbed by the fact, it
seems to some that, a policy of silence and inactivity
may be far more fruitful in evil than in good, that
reverent reserve must be laid aside and the pearls
of truth cast into the trough of popular contro
versy. But to this course an almost insuperable objec-

148 TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.
tion presents itself at first seeming. Seeing that,
the true cause of doubt and unbelief in the
uncritical, is to be sought for proximately in the
decay of a popular consensus in favour of belief,
and ultimately in the disagreements and negations
of those who lead and form public opinion, and in
no wise in the reasons which they allege when they
attempt a criticism that is beyond them ; what wilt
it profit to deal with the apparent cause if we cannot
strike at the real cause ? In practical matters, the
reasons men give for their conduct, to themselves as
well as to others, are often untrue, never exhaustive
Hence to refute their reasons will not alter their
intentions. To dispel the sophisms assigned by the
uneducated as the basis of their unbelief, is not
really to strike at the root of the matter at ail-
Besides which, the work is endless ; for if they are:
released from one snare they will be as easily-
re-entangled in the next ; and indeed what can such
controversy do but foster in th'em the false notion
that, belief in possession may be dispossessed by
every passing difficulty, and that their faith is to be
dependent on an intellectual completeness of which
they are for ever incapable. Indeed the unavoidable
amount of controversy of all kinds, dinned into the
ears of the faithful in a country like this, favours
a fallacy of intellectualism very prejudicial to the

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. 149
repose of a living faith founded on concrete reasons,
more or less experimental.
As far as the many are concerned, much the same
difficulty attends the preservation of their faith in
these days, as attended its creation in the beginnings
of Christianity, before the little flock had grown into
a kingdom, when the intellect and power of the
-world was arrayed against it, when it had neither
the force of a world-wide consensus nor the voice
of public authority in its favour. In those days
it was not by the "persuasive words of human
wisdom " that the crowds were gained over to
Christ, but by a certain ostensio virtutis, by an
experimental and not merely by a rational proof of
the Gospel — a proof which, if it admitted of any
kind of formulation, did not compel them in virtue
of the logicality of its form. Further, when the
conditions and helps needed by the Church in
her infancy, gave way to those belonging to her
established strength, it was by her ascendency
over the strong, the wealthy, and the learned, that
-'she secured for the crowd, — for the weak and
the poor and the ignorant, — the most necessary
support of a Christianized, international public
opinion, and thereby extended the benefit ot
her educative influence to those millions whom
disinclination or weakness would otherwise have

150 TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.
deterred from the profession and practice of the
faith. If the Church of to-day is to retain her hold of
the crowd in modernized or modernizing countries,
it must either be by renewing her ascendency over
those who form and modify public opinion, who
even in the purest democracy are ever the few and
not the many; or else by a reversion to the methods
of primitive times, by some palpable argument that
speaks as clearly to the simplest as to the subtlest*
if only the heart be right. An outburst of miracle-
working and prophecy is hardly to be looked for ;
while the argument from the tree's fruits, or from
the moral miracle, is at present weakened by the
extent to which non-Christians put in practice the
morality they have learnt from Christ. Other non-
rational causes of belief draw individuals, but they
do not draw crowds.
If we cannot see very clearly what is to supply
for the support once given to the faith of the
millions by public opinion, still their incapacity fcr
dealing with the question on rational grounds will
not justify us altogether in silence. For in the first
place it is an incapacity of which they are not aware,
or which at least they are very unwilling to admit.
A candidate at the hustings would run a poor chance
of a hearing who, instead of seeming to appeal to

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. 15 r
the reason of the mob should, in the truthfulness of
his soul, try to convince them of their utter incom
petence to judge the simplest political point. Again,
though unable to decide between cause and cause,
yet the rudest can often see that there is much to
be said on both sides — though what, he does not
. understand ; and if this fact weakens his confidence
in the right, it also weakens it in the wrong ; whereas
had the right been silent, the wrong, in his judgment,
would thereby have been proved victorious. This
will justify us at times in talking over the heads of
our readers and hearers, and in not sparing sonorous
polysyllables, abstruse technicalities, or even the
pompous parade of syllogistic arguments with all
their unsightly joints sticking out for public admira
tion. Some hands may be too delicate for this
coarse work; but there will always be those to
whom it is easy and congenial ; and its utility is too
evident to allow a mere question of taste to stand in
the way.
Moreover, it must -be remembered that while
many of the class referred to are glad to be free from
the pressure of a Christianized public opinion, and
are only too willing to grasp at any semblance of
a reason for unbelief;' others, more religiously
disposed, are really troubled by these popular, anti-
Christian difficulties, the more so as they are often

152 TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.
infected with the fallacy, fostered by ceaseless
controversy, which makes one's faith dependent on
the formal reason one can give for it.
Though this is not so, yet mortal truthfulness
forbids us to assent to what we, however falsely,
believe to be untrue. Hence while the virtue of
faith remains untouched, its exercise with regard
to particular points may be inculpably suspended
through ignorance, stupidity, misinformation, and
other causes.
In the interest of these well-disposed but easily
puzzled believers of the ill-instructed and uncritical
sort, a series of anti-agnostic tracts for the million
would really seem to be called for. Yet never has
the present writer felt more abjectly crushed with
a sense of incompetence than when posed by the
difficulties of the uneducated agnostic, self-confident
in proportion to the depth of his incapacity.
Face to face with chaos, one knows not where
to begin the work of building up an orderly
mind ; nor will the self - taught genius brook
a hint of possible ignorance, or endure the
discussion of dull presuppositions, without much
pawing of the ground and champing on the bit:
"What I want," he says, "is a plain answer
to a plain question." And when you explain to
him that for an answer he must go back very far

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. 153
and become a little child again, and must unravel
his mind to the very beginning like an jU-knit
stocking, he looks at once incredulous and
triumphant as who should say : " There, I told you
so ! " Yet the same critical incompetence that
makes these simple folk quite obtuse to the true and
adequate solution of their problems (I am speaking
of cases where such solutions are possible), makes
them perfectly ready to accept any sort of counter-
sophistry or paralogism. .A most excellent and
genuine "convert" of that class told me that he had
stood out for years against the worship of the
Blessed Virgin, till one day it had occurred to him
that, as a cause equals or exceeds its effect, so the
Mother must equal the Son. Another, equally
genuine, professed to have been conquered by the
reflection that he had all his life been saying: "I
believe in the Holy Catholic Church," and he could
not see the use of believing in it if he didn't belong
to it. If their faith in Catholicism or in any other
religion depended on their logic, men of this
widespread class were in a sorry plight. Like many
of their betters, these two men probably imagined
the assigned reasons to be the entire cause of their
conversion, making no account of the many
reasonable though non-logical motives by which the
change was really brought about. Hence to have

15 1 TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.
abruptly and incautiously corrected them, would
perhaps but have been to reduce them to confusion
and perplexity, and to " destroy with one's logic
those for whom Christ died."
That we do not sufficiently realize the dialectical
incompetence of the uneducated is partly to be
explained by the fact that they often get bits of
reasoning by rote, much as young boys. learn their
Euclid ; and that they frequently seem to understand
principles because they apply them in the right
cases, just as we often quote a proverb appropriately
without the slightest idea of its origin or meaning
beyond that it is the right thing to say in a certain
connection. As we ascend in the scale of education,
there is more and more of this reasoning by rote, so
that critical incompetence is more easily concealed
and may lurk unsuspected even in the pulpit and
the professorial chair where logic alone seems
paramount. The " hagnostic " greengrocer, in all
the self-confidence of his ignorance, is but the lower
extreme of a class that runs up much higher in the
social scale and spreads out much wider in every
direction. But when we have realized more adequately
how hopelessly incompetent the multitude must
necessarily be in the problems of specialists, we
shall also see that it is only by inadequate and even

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. 155
sophistical reasoning that most of their intellectual
difficulties can be allayed ; that the full truth (and
the half-truth is mostly a lie) would be Greek to
them. If, then, Tracts for the Million seem a
necessity, they also seem an impossibility ; for what
self-respecting man will sit down to weave that
tissue of sophistry, special-pleading, violence, and
vulgarity, which alone will serve the practical
purpose with those to whom trenchency is
everything and subtlety nothing ? Even though the
means involve a violation of taste rather than of
morals, yet can they be justified by the goodness of
the end ? Fortunately, however, the difficulty is
jnet by a particular application of God's universal
method in the education of mankind. In every
grade of enlightenment there are found some who
are sufficiently in advance of the rest to be able to
help them, and not so far in advance as. practically
to speak a different language. What is a dazzling
light for those just emerging from darkness, is
darkness for those in a yet stronger light. A
statement may be- so much less false than another,
as to be relatively true ; so much less true than
a third, as to be relatively false. For a mind wholly
unprepared, the full truth is often a light that blinds
and darkness; whereas the tempered half-truth
prepares the way for a fuller disclosure in due time,

156 TRACTS FOR THE MILLION.
even as the law and the prophets prepared the way
for the Gospel and Christ, or as the enigmas of
faith school us to bear that light which now no man
can gaze on and live. Thus, though we may never
use a He in the interest of truth, or bring men from
error by arguments we know to be sophistical, yet
we have the warrant of Divine example, both in the
natural and supernatural education of mankind, for
the passive permission of error in the interest of
truth, as also of evil in the interest of good. Since
then there will ever be found those who in all good
faith and sincerity can adapt themselves to the
popular need and supply each level of intelligence
with the medicine most suited to its digestion, all
we ask is that a variety of standards in controversial
writings be freely recognized ; that each who feels
called to such efforts should put forth his very best
with a view to helping those minds which are likest
his own; that none should deliberately condescend
to the use of what from his point of view would be
sophistries and vulgarities, remembering at the same
time that the superiority of his own taste and
judgment is more relative than absolute, and that in
the eyes of those who come after, he himself may be
but a Philistine.
We conclude then that all that can be done in
the way of Tracts for the Million should be done ;

TRACTS FOR THE MILLION. 157
that seed of every kind should be scattered to the
four winds, hoping that each may find some
congenial soil.
But even when all that can be done in this way
to save the masses from the contagion of unbelief
has been done, we shall be as far as ever from
having found a substitute for the support which
formerly was lent to their faith by a Christianized
public opinion. Can we hope for anything more
than thus to retard the leakage ? The answer to
this would take us to the second of our proposed
considerations, namely, our attitude towards those
who form and modify that public opinion by which
the masses are influenced for good or for evil. But
it is an answer which for the present must be
deferred.1 , Nov. 1900.
1 The Introduction to the First Series of these essays attempts
to deal with this further question.

XX.
AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.

" A man that could look no way but downwards, with a
muck-rake in his hand " and " did neither look up nor regard,
but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and the dust
of the floor. . . . Then said Christiana, ' Oh, deliver me
from this muck-rake.' " — Bwtyan.

Naturalism includes various schools which agree
in the first principle that nothing is true but what
can be justified by those axiomatic truths which
every-day experience forces upon our acceptance,
not indeed as self-evident, but as inevitable, unless
we are to be incapacitated for practical life. It is
essentially the philosophy of the unphilosophical,
that is, of those who believe what they are
accustomed to believe, and because they are so
accustomed ; who are incapable of distinguishing
between the subjective necessity imposed by habits
and the objective necessity founded in the nature
of things. It is no new philosophy, but as old as
the first dawn of philosophic thought, for it is the

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 159
form towards which the materialistic mind naturally
gravitates. Given a population sufficiently educated
to philosophize in any fashion, and of necessity the
.bent of the majority will be in the direction of
some form of Naturalism. Hence we find that the
*' Agnosticism" of Professor Huxley is eminently
suited to the capacity and taste of the semi-educated
majorities in our large centres of civilization. Still
it must not be supposed that the majority really
philosophizes at all even to this extent. The
pressure of life renders it morally impossible. But
they like to think that they do so. The whole
temper of mind, begotten and matured by the
rationalistic school, is self-sufficient: every man
his own prophet, priest, and king ; every man his
own philosopher. Hence, he who poses as a teacher
of the people will not be tolerated. The theorist
must come forward with an affectation of modesty,
as into the presence of competent critics ; he must
only expose his wares, win for himself a hearing,
and then humbly wait for the placet of the sovereign
people. But plainly this is merely a conventional
homage to a theory that no serious mind really
believes in. We . know well enough, that the
opinions and beliefs of the multitude are formed
almost entirely by tradition, imitation, interest, by
in fact any influence rather than that of pure

160 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
reason. Taught they are, and taught they must
be, however they repudiate it. But the most
successful teachers and leaders are those who
contrive to wound their sense of intellectual self-
sufficiency least, and to offer them the strong food
of dogmatic assertion sugared over and sparkling
with the show of wit and reason.
Philosophy for the million may be studied
profitably in one of its popular exponents whose
works have gained wide currency among the class
referred to. Mr. S. Laing is a very fair type of the
average mind-leader, owing his great success to his
singular appreciation of the kind of treatment
needed to secure a favourable hearing. We do
not pretend to review Mr. Laing's writings for their
own sake, but simply as good specimens of a
class which is historically rather than philosophically
interesting. We have before us three of his most popular
books: Modern Science and Modern Thought (nine
teenth thousand), Problems of the Future (thirteenth
thousand), Human Origins (twelfth thousand), to
which we shall refer as M.S., P.F., H.O., in this
essay; taking the responsibility of all italics on
ourselves, unless otherwise notified.
Mr. Laing is not regretfully forced into material
ism, by some mental confusion or obscurity, but

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 161
he revels in it, and invites all to taste and see how
gracious a philosophy it is. There is an ill-concealed
levity and coarseness in his handling of religious
subjects which breaks,
At seasons, through the gilded pale,
and which warns us from casting reasons before
those who would but trample them under foot.
It is rather for the sake of those who read such
literature, imprudently perhaps, but with no sym
pathy, and yet find their imagination perplexed
and puzzled with a swarm of minute sophistries
and difficulties, collectively bewildering, though
contemptible singly, that we think it well to form
some estimate of the philosophical value of such
works. Nothing in our study of Mr. Laing surprised us
more than to discover1 that he had lived for more
than the Scriptural span of three-score and ten
years, a life of varied fortunes and many experi
ences. It seems to us incredible that any man of
even average thoughtfulness could, after so many
years, find life without God, without immortality,
without definite meaning or assignable goal, " worth
living," and that " to be born in a civilized country
in the nineteenth century is a boon for which a man
can never be sufficiently thankful." 2 [Thankful to
1 M.S. 319. a Ibid. 319.
L II.

1 62 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
whom ? one might ask parenthetically.] In other
words, he is a bland optimist, and has nothing but
vials of contempt to pour upon the pessimists, from
Ecclesiastes down to Carlyle. Pessimism, we are
told confidentially, is not an outcome of just
reasoning on the miserable residue of hope which"
materialism leaves to us, but of the indisposition
"of those digestive organs upon which the sensation
of health and well-being so mainly depends." " It
is among such men, with cultivated intellects,
sensitive nerves, and bad digestion, that we find
the prophets and disciples of pessimism." J The
inference is, that men of uncultivated intellects,
coarse nerves, and ostrich livers will coincide with
Mr. Laing in his sanguine view of the ruins of
religion. The sorrowing dyspeptic asks in despair :
"Son of man, thinkest thou that these dry bones
will live again ? " " I'm cock-sure of it," answers
Mr. Laing, and the ground of his assurance is the
healthiness of his liver.
Carlyle, who in other matters is, according to
Mr. Laing, a great genius, a more than prophet of
the new religion, on this point suddenly collapses
into "a dreadful croaker," styling his own age
"barren, brainless, soulless, faithless."2 But the
re.ison is, of course, that " he suffered from chronic
1 M.S. 229, 230. a P.F. 279.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 163
dyspepsia" and was unable "to eat his three square
meals a day." A very consistent explanation for
an avowed materialist, but slightly destructive to
the value of his own conclusions, being a two-
edged sword. Indeed he almost allows as much.
" For such dyspeptic patients there is an excuse.
Pessimism is probably as inevitably their creed,
as optimism is for the more fortunate mortals who
enjoy the mens sana in corpore sano." x However,
there are some pessimists for whom indigestion can
plead no excuse,2 but for whose intellectual per
versity some other cosmic influence must be sought
"behind the veil, behind the veil," — to borrow
Mr. Laing's favourite line from his favourite poem.
These are not only "social swells, would-be superior
persons and orthodox theologians, but even a
man of light and learning like Mr. F. Harrison."
" Religion, they say, is becoming extinct. . . .
Without a lively faith in such a personal, ever-
present deity who listens to our prayers, . . .
there can be, they say, no religion ; and they
hold, and I think rightly hold, that the only
support for such a religion is to be found in the
assumed inspiration of the Bible and the Divinity
of Christ." " Destroy these and they think the
world will become vulgar and materialized, losing
1 P.F. 280. 2 Ibid.

i64 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
not only the surest sanction of morals, but . . .
the spiritual aspiration and tendencies," &C.1 "To
these gloomy forebodings I venture to return a
positive and categorical denial. . . . Scepticism
has been the great sweetener of modern life." 2
How he justifies his denial by maintaining that
morality can hold its own when reduced to a
physical science; that the "result of advancing
civilization " and of the materialistic psychology
is "a clearer recognition of the intrinsic sacred-
ness and dignity of every human soul ; " 3 that
Christianity without dogma, without miracles [or,
as he calls it, " Christian agnosticism "], shall
retain the essential spirit, the pure morality, the
consoling beliefs, and as far as possible even the
venerable form and sacred associations of the
old faith, may appear later. At present we are
concerned directly with pointing out how Mr. Laing's
optimism at once marks him off from those men
who, whether believing or misbelieving or unbeliev
ing, have thought deeply and felt deeply, who
have seen clearly that materialism leaves nothing
for man's soul but the husks of swine; who have
therefore boldly faced the inevitable alternative
between spiritualistic philosophy and hope, and
materialism with its pessimistic corollary. That
l P.F. 281, 282. 2 Ibid. s Ibid. 210.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 165
a man may be a materialist or atheist and enjoy
life thoroughly, who does not know ? but then it
is just at the expense of his manhood, because he
lives without thought, reflection, or aspiration,
i.e., materialistically. Mr. Laing no doubt, as he
confesses, has lived pleasantly enough. He has
found in what he calls science an endless source of
diversion, he betrays himself everywhere as a man
of intense intellectual curiosity in every direction,
and yet withal so little concerned with the roots
of things, so easily satisfied with a little plausible
coherence in a theory, as not to have found truth
an apparently stern or exacting mistress, not to
have felt the anguish of any deep mental conflict.
His intellectual labours have been pleasurable
because easy, and, in his own eyes, eminently
fruitful and satisfactory. He has adopted an
established cause, thrown himself into it heart
and soul ; others indeed had gone before him and
laboured, and he has entered into their labours.
Indeed, he is frank in disclaiming all originality
of discovery or theory -,1 he has not risked the
disappointment and anxiety of improving on the
Evolution Gospel, but he has collected and sorted
and arranged and published the evidence obtained
by others. This has always furnished him with
1 M.S. Preface.

1 66 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
an interest in life ; 1 but whether it be a rational
interest or not depends entirely on the usefulness
or hurtfulness of his work. He admits, however,
that though life for him has been worth living,
"some may find it otherwise from no fault of their
own, more by their own fate."2 But all can lead
fairly happy lives by following his large-type
platitudinous maxim, " Fear nothing, make the
best of everything." 3 In other words, the large
majority, who are not and never can be so easily
and pleasantly circumstanced as Mr. Laing,
are told calmly to make the best of it and
to rejoice in the thought that their misery
is a necessary factor in the evolution of their
happier posterity. This is the new gospel :
Pauperes evangelizantur — " Good news for the
poor." 4 " Progress and not happiness " is the
end we are told to make for, over and over again ;
but, progress towards what, is never explained, nor
is any basis for this duty assigned. Indeed, duty
means nothing for Mr. Laing but an inherited
instinct, which if we choose to disobey or if we
1 " These subjects . . . have been to me the solace, of a long
life, the delight of many quiet days, and the soother of many troubled
ones, ... a source of enjoyment.
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being." (H.O. 3.)
2 M.S. 319. 3 Ibid. 320. ..4 Cf. Ibid. 104, 282.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 167
happen not to possess, who shall blame us or talk
to us of " oughts " ?
And now to consider more closely the grounds of
Mr. Laing's very cheerful view of a world in which,
for all we know, there is no soul, no God, and
certainly no faith. Since of the two former we
know and can know nothing, we must build our
happiness, our morality, our " religion," on a basis
whereof they form no part. He believes that
morality will be able to hold its own distinct, not
only from all belief in revelation, in a personal God,
and in a spiritual soul, but in spite of a philosophy
which by tracing the origin of moral judgments to
mere physical laws of hereditary transmission of
experienced utilities, robs them of all authority other
than prudential, and convicts them of being illusory
so far as they seem to be of higher than human
origin. Herein, as usual, he treads in the steps of Pro
fessor Huxley, " the greatest living master of English
prose " (though why his mastery of prose should
add to his weight as a philosopher, we fail to see).
" Such ideas evidently come from education, and are
not the results either of inherited instinct1 or of
1 This expression seems inconsistent with his here and else"
where explicit maintenance of the hereditary transmission of
gathered moral experiences. He means here to exclude innate ideas
of morality as explained by/Kant and by other intuitionists,

t68 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
supernatural gift. . . . Given a being with man's
brain, man's hands, and erect stature, it is easy to see
how . . . rules of conduct . . . must have been
formed and fixed by successive generations, accord
ing to the Darwinian laws."1
He tells us: "We may read the Athanasian
Creed less, but we practise Christian charity more
in the present than in any former age."2 " Faith has
diminished, charity increased."3
Of moral principles, he says : " Why do we say
that . . . they carry conviction with them and
prove themselves ? . . . Still, there they are^ and
being what they are ... it requires no train of
reasoning or laboured reflection to make us feel that
' right is right,' and that it is better for ourselves and
others to act on such precepts . . . rather than to
reverse these rules and obey the selfish promptings
of animal nature."* "It is clearly our highest
wisdom to follow right, not from selfish calculation,
... but because ' right is right.' . . . For practical
purposes it is comparatively unimportant how this
standard got there ... as an absolute imperative
rule."5 As to the apprehended ill effect of agnos
ticism on morals, he says : " The foundations of

1 M.S. 180. 2 M.S. 285.
3 M.S. 216. * M.S. 294. 6 M.S. 298, 299.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 169
morals1 are fortunately built on solid rock and not
on shifting sand. It may truly be said in a great
many cases that, as individuals and nations become
more sceptical, they become more moral."2 "If
there is one thing more certain than another in the
history of evolution, it is that morals have been
evolved ,by the same laws as regulate the develop
ment of species."3
These citations embody Mr. Laing's opinions
on this point, and show very clearly his utter
incapacity for ele mentary philosophic thought.
Here, as elsewhere, as soon as he leaves the bare
record of facts and embarks in any kind of
speculation, he shows himself helpless ; however,
he tries to fortify his own courage and that of his
readers, with " it is clear," " it is evident," " it is
certain." To say that "right is right," sounds very
oracular ; but it either means that " right " is

1 P.F. 297. " The truth is that morals are built on a far surer
foundation than that of creeds, which are here to-day and gone
to-morrow. They are built on the solid rock of experiences, and of
the 'survival of the fittest,' which in the long evolution of the
human race frcm primeval savages, have by ' natural selection ' and
heredity' become almost instinctive." (How careless is this
terminology. In the previous page he denies morality to be a matter
of hereditary instinct.)
2 P.F. 206. 3 Ibid. 207.

170 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
an ultimate spring of action, inexplicable on
evolutionist principles, or that right is the will of
the strongest, or an illusory inherited foreboding of
pain, or a calculation of future pleasure and pain, or
something which, in no sense, is atrue account of
what men do mean#by right. To say that moral
principles " carry conviction with them, and prove
themselves" {i.e., are self-evident), unless, as we
suspect, it is mere verbiage conveying nothing
particular to Mr. Laing's brain, is to deny that right
has reference to the consequences of action as
bearing on human progress and evolution, which is
to deny the very theory he wishes to uphold. No
intuitionist could have spoken more strongly. Then
we are assured that we " feel " Tightness, or that
" right is right " — apparently as a simple irresoluble
quality of certain actions — and with same breath,
that " it is better for ourselves and others to act on
these rules," where he jumps off to utilitarianism
again ; and then we are forbidden to " obey the
selfish impulses of our animal nature" — a strange
prohibition for one who sees in us nothing but
animal nature, who denies us any free power to
withstand its impulses. Then it is " clearly our
highest wisdom to follow right " — an appeal to
prudential motives — "not from any selfish calcula
tions " — a repudiation of prudential motives — " but

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 171

because ' right is right ' " — an appeal to a blind
unreasoning instinct, and a prohibition to question
its authority. We are told that for practical
purposes it matters little whence this absolute
imperative rule originates. Was there ever a more
unpractical and short-sighted assertion ! Convince
men that the dictates of conscience are those of fear
or selfishness, that they are all mere animal instincts,
that they are anything less than divine, and who
will care for Mr. Laing's appeal to blind faith in the
" Tightness of right " ? As long as Christian
tradition lives on, as it will for years among the
masses, the effects of materialist ethics will not be
felt ; but as these new theories filter down from the
few to the many, they will inevitably produce their
logical consequences in . practical matters. No one
with open eyes can fail to see how the leaven is
spreading already. Still the majority act and speak
to a great extent under the influence of the old belief,
which they have repudiated, in the freedom of man's
will and the Divine origin of right. It is quite plain
that Mr. Laing has either never had patience to
think the matter out, or has found it beyond his
compass. Having thus established morality on a
foundation independent of religion and of everything
else, making " right " rest on " right," he assumes
the prophetic robe, and on the strength of his

172 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
seventy years of experience and philosophy poses as
a Cato Major for the edification of the semi-scientific
millions of young persons to whom he addresses his
volumes. We have a whole chapter on Practical
Life,1 on self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
full of portentous platitudes and ancient saws ;
St. Paul's doctrine of charity, and all that is best
in the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, is
liberated from its degrading association with the
belief in a God who rewards and punishes.2 We
are " to act strenuously in that direction which,
after conscientious inquiry, seems the best, . . . and
trust to what religious men call Providence, and
scientific men Evolution, for the result," and all
this simply on the bold assertion of this sage whose
sole aim is "to leave the world a little better rather
than a little worse for my individual unit of
existence."3 ',
And here we may inquire parenthetically as to
the motive which urges Mr. Laing to throw himself
into the labours of the apostolate and to become
such an active propagandist of agnosticism. We
are told4 that the enlightened should be "liberal and
tolerant towards traditional opinions and traditional
practices, and trust with cheerful faith to evolution
to bring about gradually changes of form," &c. ; that
1 M.S. 298. 2 P.F. 225—227. s Ibid: 49. * Ibid. 217, ff.

AN APOSTLE OF NAfURALIsM. 173
the influence of the clergy is " on the whole exerted
for good," and it is frankly acknowledged that
Christianity has been a potent factor in the
evolution of modern civilization. It has, however,
nearly run its course, and the old order must give
place to the new, i.e., to agnosticism. But even
allowing, what we dare say Mr. Laing would not
ask, that the speculative side of the new religion is
fully defined and worked out, and ready to displace
the old dogmatic creeds, yet its practical aspect is
so vague that he writes : " I think the time is come
when the intellectual victory of agnosticism is so far
assured, that it behoves thinking men to begin to
consider what practical results are likely to follow
from it." 1 In the face of this confession we find
Mr. Laing industriously addressing himself to
" those who lack time and opportunity for
studying,"2 to the " minds of my younger readers,
and of the working classes who are striving
after culture,"3 "to what may be called the semi-
scientific readers, . . . who have already acquired
some elementary ideas about science," " to the
millions ; " 4 and endeavouring by all means in his
power to destroy the last vestige of their faith in
that religion which alone provides for them a
definite code of morality strengthened by apparent
1 P.F. 204. ** M.S. Preface. 3 H.O. 3. 4 P.F. 3.

174 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
sanctions of the highest order, and venerable at
least by its antiquity and universality.1 And while
he is thus busily pulling down the old scaffolding,
he is calmly beginning to consider the practical
results. This is his method of "leaving the world a
little better than he found it." He professes to
understand and appreciate " In Memoriam." Has
he ever reflected on the lines : " O thou that after
toil and storm,"2 when the practical conclusion is —
Leave thou thy sister, when she prays,
Her early Heaven, her happy views ;
Nor thou with shadowed hint infuse
A life that leads melodious days.
Her faith through form is pure as thine,
Her hands are quicker unto good ;
O sacred be the flesh and blood,
To which she links a truth divine.
On his own principles he is convicted of being
a lover of mischief. No, one is sorely tempted to
think that these men are well aware that the
moral sense which sound philosophy and Christian
faith have developed, is still strong in the minds
and deeper conscience of the English-speaking
1 "The simple undoubting faith which for ages has been the
support and consolation of a large portion of mankind, especially
of the weak, the humble, the unlearned, who form an immense
majority, cannot disappear without a painful wrench, and leaving
for a time a great blank behind." (M.S. 284.)
2 xxxiii.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 175
races, and that were they to present materialism
in all its loathsome nudity to the public gaze, they
would be hissed off the stage. And so they dress
it up in the clothes of the old religion just for the
present, with many a quiet wink between them
selves at the expense of the "semi-scientific" reader.
We have already adverted to Mr. Laing's utter
incapacity for anything like philosophy, except so
far as that term can be applied to a power of
raking together, selecting, and piling up into " a
popular shape " the scraps of information which
favour the view whose correctness he was con
vinced of ere he began. A few further remarks
may justify this somewhat severe estimate. After
stating that in the solution of life and soul
. . problems, science stops short at germs and
nucleated cells, he proceeds with the usual tirade
against metaphysics : " Take Descartes' funda
mental axiom : Cogito ergo sum. . . f Is it really an
axiom ? ... If the fact that I am conscious of
thinking proves the fact that I exist, is the converse
true that whatever does not think does not exist ?
. . . Does a child only begin to exist when it begins
to think ? If Cogito ergo sum . is an institution to
which we can trust, why is not Non cogito ergo non
sum ? " x Here is a man posing before the gaping
1 M.S. 261.

176 An aposTLe of nAturAlism.
millions as a philosopher and a severe logician, who
thinks that the proposition, " every cow is a quad
ruped," is disproved by the evident falsehood of,
" what is not a cow is not a quadruped," which he
calls "the converse." He sums up magnificently
by saying: "These are questions to which no
metaphysical system that I have ever seen, can
return the semblance of an ans wer ; " giving the
impression of a life devoted to a deep and exhaus
tive study of all schools of philosophy. Mr. Laing
here surely is addressing his " younger readers."
He tells us elsewhere1 that, "when analyzed by
science, spiritualism leads straight to materialism ; "
free-will "can be annihilated by the simple
mechanical expedient of looking at a black wafer
stuck on a white wall ; " that if " Smith falls into
a trance and believes himself to be Jones, he really
is Jones, and Smith has become a stranger to him
while the trance lasts. ... I often ask myself the
question, If he died during one of these trances,
which would he be, Smith or Jones ? and I confess
it takes some one wiser than I am to answer it."
Without pretending to be wiser than Mr. Laing,
we hope it will not be too presumptuous for us to
suggest that if Smith dies in a trance believing
himself to be Jones, he is under a delusion, and
1 P.F. 176.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 177
that he really is Smith. Else it would be very
awkward for poor Jones, who in nowise believes
himself to be Smith. Mr. Laing would have to
break it gently to Jones, that, " in fact, my dear
sir, Smith borrowed your personality, and unfor
tunately died before returning it ; and as to whether
you are yourself or Smith, as to whether you are
alive or dead, ' I confess it takes some one wiser
than I am to decide.' " That a man's own name,
own surroundings, own antecedents, are all objects
of his thought, and distinguished from the self, ego,
or subject which contemplates them, has never
suggested itself to Mr. Laing. That though Smith
may mistake every one of these, yet the term " I "
necessarily and invariably means the same for him,
the one central, constant unity to which every
non-ego is opposed. And this from a man who
elsewhere claims an easy familiarity with Kant.
"Again what can be said of love and hate if under
given circumstances they can be transformed into
one another by a magnet ? " What indeed ? And
how is it that the gold-fish make no difference in
the weight of the bowl of water ?
His conclusion to these inquiries is : " When
Shakespeare said, 'We are such stuff as dreams are
made of,' he enumerates what has become a scientific
fact." The * stuff' is in all cases the same — vibra-
M 11.

178 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
tory motions of nerve particles." 1 Thus knowledge,
self- consciousness, free-choice, is as much a function
of matter as fermentation, or crystallization — a mode
of -motion, not dissimilar from heat, perhaps trans
formable therewith.
Recapitulating this farrago of nonsense on p. i88,
he adds a new difficulty which ought to make him
pause in his wild career, " What is the value of the
evidence of the senses if a suggestion can make us
see the hat, but not the man who wears it ; or dance
half the night with an imaginary partner ? Am I
' I myself, I,' or am I a barrel-organ playing ' God
save the Queen,' if the stops are set in the normal
fashion, but the * Marseillaise ' if some cunning hand
has altered them without my knowledge ? These are
questions which I cannot answer." He cannot
answer a question on which the value of his whole
system of physical philosophy depends; uncertain
about his own identity, about the evidence of his
senses, he would make the latter the sole rule and
measure of certitude, and deny to man any higher
faculty by which alone he can justify his trust in his
cognitive faculties. Another instance of his absolute
ignorance of common philosophic terminology is
when he asserts that according to theology we know
the dogmas of religion by "intuition."2 This doctrine
1 P. 177. 2 P.F. 192.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 179
rests on Cardinal Newman's celebrated theory of the
" Illative Sense." Surely a moment's reflection on
the meaning of words, not to speak of a slight
acquaintance with the book referred to, would have
saved him from confounding two notions so sharply
distinguished as "intuition" and "inference."
Again, " There can be no doubt there are men
often of great piety and excellence who have, or
fancy they have, a sort of sixth sense, or, as Cardinal
Newman calls it, an ' illative sense,' by which they
see by intuition . . . things unprovable or dis-
provable by ordinary reason."1 Can a man who
makes such reckless travesties of a view which he
manifestly has never studied, be credited with
intellectual honesty? Doubtless, the semi-scientific
millions will be much impressed by the wideness of
Mr. Laing's reading and his profound grasp of all
that he has read, when they are told casually that
" space and time are> ... to use the phraseology
of Kant, ' imperative categories ; ' "2 but perhaps to
other readers it may convey nothing more than that
he has heard a dim something somewhere about
Kant, about the categories, about space and time
being schemata of sense, and about the categorical
imperative." It is only one instance of the un
scrupulous recklessness which shows itself every-
1 P. 245. 2 p F. 222.

1 8o AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
where. Akin to this is his absolute misapprehension
of the Christian religion which he labours to refute.
He never for a moment questions his perfect under
standing of it, and of all it has got to say for itself.
Brought up apparently among Protestants, who
hold to a verbal inspiration1 and literal interpreta
tion of the Scriptures, who have no traditional or
authoritative interpretation of it, he concludes at
once that his own crude, boyish conception of
Christianity is the genuine one, and that every
deviation therefrom is a " climbing down," or
a minimizing. He has no suspicion that the
wider views of interpretation are as old as
Christianity itself, and have always co-existed
with the narrower. He regards the Christian idea
of God as essentially anthropomorphic. Indeed,
whether in good faith or for the sake of effect, he
brings forward the old difficulties which have
been answered ad nauseam with an air of fresh
ness, as though unearthed for the first time, and
therefore as setting religion in new and unheard-of
straits. So, at all events, it will seem to the
1 Thus he assumes Mr. Spurgeon's definition of inspiration as
the basis of operations (See H.O. 189), and says, "It is perfectly
obvious that for those who accept these confessions of faith . . .
all the discoveries of modern science, from Galileo and Newton
down to Lyall and Darwin, are simple delusions."

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.

millions of his young readers and to the working
classes. Let us follow him in some of his destructive
criticism, or rather denunciations, in order to
observe his mode of procedure. " The discoveries
of science . . . make it impossible for sincere men
to retain the faith," &C.,1 therefore all who differ
from Mr. "Laing are insincere.. " It is absolutely
certain that portions of the Bible are not true; and
those, important portions."2 This is based on two
premisses which are therefore' absolutely certain.
(i) Mr. Laing's conclusions about the antiquity of
man — of which more anon; (2) his baldly literal
interpretation of the Bible as delivered to him in his
early infancy. On p. 253, we have the ancient
difficulty from the New Testament prophecy of the
proximate end of the world, without the faintest
indication that it was felt 1800 years ago, and hes
been dealt with over and over again. Papias3 is
1 M.S. 215. 2 Ibid. 251.
3 "The simplest straightforward evidence of the earliest Christian
writer who gives any account of their origin, viz., Papias."
(P.F. 236.) "What does Papias say? Practically this: that he
preferred oral tradition to written documents. . . This is a
perfectly clear and intelligible statement made apparently in good faith
without any dogmatic or other prepossession. . . It has alwa\s
seemed to me that all theories .. . . were comparatively worthless
which did not take into account the fundamental fact of this statement
of Papias." (238.) " Theclear and explicit statement of Papias." (250.)

1 82 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
lionized1 in order to upset the antiquity of the four
Gospels — which upsetting, however, depends on a
dogmatic interpretation of an ambiguous phrase,
and the absence of positive testimony. Here again
there is no evidence that Mr. Laing has read any
elementary text-book, on the authenticity of the
Gospels. He is "perfectly clear" as to the fourth
Gospel being a forgery ; again for reasons which he
alone has discovered.2 Paul is the first inventor of
Christian dogma, without any doubt or hesitation.
But " the undoubted results of modern science
. . . shatter to pieces the whole fabric. It is as
certain as that 2 + 2 = 4 that the world was not
created in the manner described in Genesis."
As regards harmonistic difficulties of the Old
and New Testaments, he assumes the same confident
tone of bold assertion without feeling any obligation
to notice the solutions that have been suggested.
It makes for his purpose to represent the orthodox
as suddenly struck dumb and confounded by these
amazing discoveries of his. He sees discrepancies
everywhere in the Gospel narrative, e.g.:3
"Judas' death is differently described." "Herod
is introduced by Luke and not mentioned by the
others." "Jesus carried His own Cross in one
1 Pp. 258—260. 2 p. 262.
3 P.F. 2C6.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 183
account, while Simon of Cyrene bore it in another.
Jesus gave no answer to Pi'ate, says Matthew; He
explains that His Kingdom was not of the world,
says John. Mary His Mother sat {sic) at the foot of
the Cross, according to St. John ; it was not His
Mother, but Mary the mother of Salome {sic) ' who
beheld Him from afar,' according to Mark and
Matthew. There was a guard set to watch the
tomb, says Matthew; there is no mention of one by
the others." At first we thought Mr. Laing must
have meant differences and not discrepancies ; but
the following paragraph forbade so lenient an inter
pretation. "The only other- mention of Mary by
St. John, who describes her as sitting {sic) by the
foot of the Cross, is apocryphal, being directly con
tradicted by the very precise statement1 in the
three other Gospels, that the Mary who was present
on that occasion was a different woman, the mother
of Salome." Even his youngest readers ought to
1 With regard to this "very precise statement," it is noticeable
that Matthew speaks of " Mary the mother of James and Joses; "
Mark, of " Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph and
Salome," but not "of Salome." If Mr. Laing's precise mind had
looked for a moment at the text he was criticizing he would have
seen that Salome is a common . came in the nominative case.
St. Luke does not give the names of the women at all.- These
points are trifling in themselves, but important as evidencing
Mr. Laing's standard of intellectual conscientiousness.

184 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
open their eyes at this. Similarly he thinks the
omission of the Lord's Prayer by St. Mark tells
strongly against its authenticity.1

II.
We must now say something about the great
facts of evolutionary philosophy which have shat
tered dogmatic Christianity to pieces, and have
made it impossible for any sincere man to remain
a Christian. To say that Mr. Laing is absolutely
certain of the all-sufficiency of evolutionism to
explain everything that is knowable to the human
mind, that he does not hint for a moment that
this philosophy is found by the "bell-wethers'''
of science to be every day less satisfactory as a
complete rationale of the physical cosmos ; is really
to understate the case for sheer lack of words
to express the intensity of his conviction. His
fundamental, fact is that, however theologians may
shuffle out of the first chapter of Genesis by con
verting days into periods, when we come to the
story of the Noachean Deluge^ we are confronted
with such a glaring absurdity that we must at
once allow that the Bible is full of myths. For
1 P.F. 235.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 1S5
history and science show that man existed probably
two hundred thousand years ago, at all events not
less than twenty thousand ; also that five thousand
B.C., a highly organized civilization existed in
Egypt, whose monuments of that date give
evidence to the full development of racial and
linguistic differences as now existing among men ;
that this plants the common stem from which these
have branched off, in an indefinitely remote pre
historic period; that to suppose that the present
races and tongues are all derived from one man
(Noe), who lived only two thousand B.C., is a
monstrous impossibility; still more so, to believe
that the countless thousands of species of animals
which populate the world were collected from the
four quarters of the globe, were housed and fed
in the Ark, landed on Mount Ararat, and thence
spread themselves, out over the world again
regardless of interjacent seas. Hence the Bible
story of human origins is a mere myth ; man has
not fallen, but has risen by slow evolution from
some ancestor common to him and apes, at a
remote period, long seons prior even to the miocene
period, which shows man to have been then as
.obstinately differentiated from the apes as ever.
Therefore " all did not die in Adam," and seeing
this is the foundation of the dogmatic Chris-

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.

tianity invented by Paul, the whole thing collapses
like a house of cards.1
And indeed, given that the Bible means what
Mr. Laing says it means, and that science has
proved what he says it has proved, that the two
results are incompatible, few would care to deny.
As regards the latter condition, let us see some of
his reasonings. We are told that " modern science
shows that uninterrupted historical records, con
firmed by contemporary monuments, carry history
back at least one thousand years before the supposed
creation of man . . . and show then no trace
of a commencement, but populous cities, celebrated
temples, great engineering works, and a high state
of the arts and of civilization already existing."2
Strange to say, Mr. Laing developes a sudden
reverence for the testimony of priests at the outset
of his historical inquiries, and finds that history
begins with "priestly organizations;"3 that the
royal records are "made and preserved by special
castes of priestly colleges and learned scribes,
and that they are to a great extent precise in
date and accurate in fact." Of course this does
not include Christian priests, but the priests of
barbarous cults of many thousand years ago, who,
as well as their royal masters, are at once credited
1 M.S. 332 ff. * H.O. 2. 3 H.O. 8.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 187
with all the delicacy of the accurate criticism which
we boast of in these days — how vainly, God knows.
We are .told one moment that Herodotus " was
credulous, and not very critical in distinguishing
between fact and fable," that his " sources of
information were often not much better than vague
popular traditions, or the tales told by guides;"1
and yet we are to lay great stress on his assertion
that the Egyptian priests told him "that during
the long succession of ages of the three hundred
and forty-five high priests of Heliopolis, whose
statues they showed him in the Temple of the
Sun, there had been no change in the length
of human life or the course of nature." 2 A valuable
piece of evidence if Herodotus reports rightly, and
if the priest was not like the average guide, and
if the statues answered to real existences, and
if each of the three hundred and forty-five high
priests made a truthful assertion of the above to
his successor for the benefit' of posterity.
Manetho's History is, however, the chief souree
of our information as to the antiquity of Egyptian
civilization. He was commissioned to compile this
History by Ptolemy Philadelphus, " from the most
authentic temple records and other sources of
information,"3 whose infallibility is taken for
1 H.O. n. 2 H.O. 9 and 199. 3 H.O. 10.

188 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
granted. He was "eminently qualified for such
a task, being," as Mr. Laing will vouch,1 " a learned
and judicious man, and a priest of Sebbenytus, one
of the oldest and most famous temples." Let us
by all means read Manetho's History; but where
is it ? It is " unfortunately lost, . . . but fragments
of it have been preserved in the works of Josephus,
Eusebius, Julius Africanus, and Syncellus. . . .
With the curious want of critical faculty of almost
all the Christian Fathers " 2 (so different from the
learned, judicious, upright priests of the sun),
"these extracts, though professing to be quotations
from the same book, contain many inconsistencies

1 This seems, later, to be an inference, not an assertion.
" Manetho was a learned priest of a celebrated temple, who must
have had access to all the temples and royal records and other
literature of Egypt, and who must have been also conversant with
foreign literature to have been selected as the best man to write
a complete history of his native country." (H.O. 22.)
2 He seems to think that Josephus was a Christian, and
Syncellus a " Father." We might mention that from the fragments
of Africanus' Pentabiblion Chronicon, preserved in Eusebius, the
author places the Creation at 5499 b.c:, which is certainly hardly
compatible with his giving such fragments of Manetho as would
place Menes one year before that date. If we know nothing of
Manetho's results except through these "orthodox" sources,
it is inconceivable that Mr. Laing's version of them should have
any historical basis whatever. It comes in fine to this, that because
their report of Manetho does not give Mr. Laing what he wants,
they have been tampered with.

AN ATOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 189
and in several instances they have been obviously
tampered with, especially by Eusebius, in order
to bring their chronology more in accordance with
that of the Old Testament, . . . but there can
be no doubt that his original work assigned an
antiquity to Menes of over 5500 B.C." x " On the
whole, we have to fall back on Manetho as the
only authority for anything like precise dates and
connected history."
Manetho, however, needed confirmation against
the aspersions of the orthodox, who thought he
might be deficient in critical delicacy, and prone
to exaggerate as even later historians had done.
Their casuistic minds also suggested that his list
comprised Kings who had ruled different provinces
simultaneously. But this " effugium " was cut off
by the witness of contemporary monuments and
manuscripts. " This has now been done to such
an extent that it may be fairly said that Manetho
is confirmed, and it is fully established, as a fact
acquired by science, that nearly all his Kings
and dynasties are proved by monuments to have
existed, and that, successively."2
What is needed for the validity of this argument
is a concurrence, which could not possibly be
fortuitous, between the clear and undoubted testi-
1 H.O. 11. 2 H.O. 22.

igo AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
mony of Manetho and of the monuments. But
first of all, what sort of probability is there left of
our possessing anything approximately like the
results of Manetho ; and if we had them, of their
historical accuiacy? Secondly, is it at all credible
that so fragmentary and fortuitous a record as
survives in monuments (allowing again their very
dubious historical worth) should just happen to
coincide with the surviving fragments of our patch
work Manetho, king for king and dynasty for
dynasty, as Mr. Laing would have us believe ? On
the contrary, nothing would throw more suspicion
on the interpretation of these monuments than the
assertion of such an improbable coincidence.
What, then, is the force of this argument from
Egyptology ? If the records from which Manetho
compiled were historically accurate; if he was
perfectly competent to understand them ; if he was
scrupulously honest and critical ; if from the
tampered-with fragments in the Christian Fathers
we can arrive at a reliable and accurate knowledge
of his results ; and if the Bible in the original text
—whatever that may be— undoubtedly asserts that
man was not created till 4000 B.C., then according
to certain Egyptologists (Boeck), Menes reigned
fifteen hundred years previously, and according to
others (Wilkinson), one thousand years subse-

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 191
quently. Similarly as to the argument from
coincidence : if, as before, we possess Manetho's
genuine list intact, and if we have the clear
testimony of the monuments giving a precisely
similar record, this coincidence, apart from all
independent value to be given to Manetho or to
the monuments, is an effect demanding a cause, for
which the most probable is the objective truth from
which both these veracious records have been
copied. But the monuments are not written in
plain English, and need a key; and we must be
first assured that Manetho's list has not been used
for this purpose. We are told, for example,1
that the name " Snefui a," deciphered on a tablet
found at the copper-mines of Wady Magerah, is the
name of a King of the third dynasty, who reigned
about 4000 B.C. Now if there were no doubt about
the reading of this name on the tablet, and if his
date and dynasty were -as plainly there recorded,
and if all this tallies exactly with equally precise
particulars in Manetho's list, it would indeed be
a remarkable coincidence and would imply some
common source, whether record or fact. But if
having credited Manetho with the record of such
a name and date, one tortures a hieroglyph into a
faintly similar name, and concludes at once that
1 H.O. 17. ,

192 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
the same name must be the same person, and
that therefore this is the oldest record in the
world, the confirmation is not so striking. That
it is so in this instance we do not affirm ; but we
should need the assertion of a man of more
intellectual sobriety than Mr. Laing to make it
worth the trouble of investigating.
Passing over the confirmation which he draws
from the "known rate of the deposit of Nile mud
of about three inches a century," which would give
a mild antiquity of twenty-six thousand years to
pottery fished up from borings in the mud, since
he admits that " borings are not very conclusive,"
we may notice how he deals with evidence from
Chaldea on much the same principles. Here,
again, the source had been till lately only
"fragments quoted by later writers from the lost
work of Berosus. Berosus was a learned priest of
Babylon, who . . . wrote in Greek a history of the
country from the most ancient times, compiled
from the annals preserved in the temples and from
the oldest traditions."1 Still this "learned priest,"
though antecedently as competent a critic as
Manetho, is so portentously mythical in his
accounts, that "no historical value can be attached
to them," which must be regretted, since he
1 H.O. 42.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 193
pushes history back a quarter of a million years
prior to the Deluge, and the Deluge itself to about
half a million years ago. Here, therefore, we are
thrown solely upon the independent value of the
monumental evidence, and must drop the argument
from coincidence. This evidence, we are told, " is
not so conclusive as in the case of Egypt, where
the lists of Manetho, &c. . . . The date of
Sargon I.1 (3800 B.C.) rests mainly on the authority
of Nabonidus, who lived more than three thousand
years later, and may have been mistaken." "The
probability of such a remote date is enhanced by
the certainty that a high civilization existed in
Egypt as long ago as 5000 B.C." If the evidence
for the antiquity of Chaldee civilization is "less
conclusive " than that for Egyptian, and rests on it
for an argument a pari, it cannot be said in any
way to strengthen Mr. Laing's position.
These strictures are directed chiefly to showing
Mr. Laing's incapacity for anything like coherent
reasoning in historical matters. Subsequently he
uses these most lame and impotent conclusions as
demonstrated, certainties, without the faintest quali-

1 "There can be no doubt, moreover, that this Sargon I. is a
perfectly historical personage. A statue of him has been found at
Agade." (H.O. 55-)
N II.

394 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
fication, and builds up on them his refutation of
dogmatic Christianity.
However, it is only in his more recent work on
Human ¦ Origins that he thus comes forward as an
historian, in preparation for which he seems to have
devoted himself to the study of cuneiform and
hieroglyphs and mastered the subject thoroughly
and exhaustively, before bursting forth from behind
the clouds to flood the world with new-born light.
It is deep down in the bowels of the earth, at
the bottom of a geological well, that he has found
not only truth but, also man — among the monsters,
and Dragons of the prime
Who tare each other in their slime,
and has hauled him up for our inspection. Mr. Laing
is before all else an evolutionist, with an unshaken
belief in spontaneous generation. He is quite
confident that force and atoms will explain every
thing. He seems to mean force, pure and simple,
without any intelligent direction; atoms, ultimate,
homogeneous, undifferentiated. No doubt, if the
subsequent evolution depends on the hind and
direction of force, or on the nature of the atoms;
then there is a remoter question for physics to
determine ; but if, as he implies, force and atoms
are simple and ultimate, then evolution is as

AN ' APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 195
fortuitous as a sand-storm, or more so. All prior
to force and atoms is "behind the veil." "The
material universe is composed of ether, matter, and
¦energy."1 Ether is a billion times more elastic than
air, "almost infinitely rare,"2 its oscillations must
he at least seven hundred billions per second," " it
¦exerts no gravitating or retarding force ; " in short,
Mr. Laing. has to confess some uncertainty about his
original dogma as. to the triple constituents of the
mniverse, and say "that it may be almost doubted
whether such an ether has any real material exist
ence, and is anything more than a sort of mathe
matical [why 'mathematical'?] entity."3 "It is
olear that matter really does consist of minute
particles which do not touch," and even these we
must conceive of as " corks as it were floating
in an ocean of ether, causing waves in it by
their own proper movement,"4 — an explanation
which loses some of its helpfulness when we
nemember that the ethereal ocean is only a mathe
matical entity. "A cubic centimetre contains
121,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules," "the
mimber of impacts received by each molecule of air
during one second will be 4,700 millions. The
distance traversed between each impact averages
txinnfW °f a millimetre," and so on with lines of
1 M.S. 50. 2 Ibid. 3 P.F. 28. * M.S. 61.

196 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.

ciphers to overawe the gaping millions with
Mr. Laing's minute certainty as to the ultimate
constitution of matter.1
As to how atoms came into existence, he can
only reply, "Behind the veil, behind the veil;" for
it is at this point at last that he becomes agnostic*
The notion of creation is rejected (after Spencer) as
inconceivable, because unimaginable, as though the
origination of every change in the phenomenal
world were not just as unimaginable ; we see
movement in process, and we see its results, but its
inception is unimaginable, and its efficient cause
still more so.
The evolution of man is practically taken for
granted, the only question being the when.
We have the old argument from embryonic
iransformism brought forward without any hint
that later investigation tends to show differentiation.
further and further back, prior to segmentation and,
1 " Matter is made of molecules ; molecules are made of atoms -
atoms are little magnets which link themselves together and form.
all the complex creations of an ordered cosmos [an ordered order]
by virtue of the attractive and repulsive forces which are the result
of polarity." (P.F. 223.)
2 We suppose he has a right to call himself agnostic as being a.
disciple of Professor Huxley, who, we believe, started or revived
the term in our own times. Of course he is also a dogmatic
materialist, and by no means an " agnostic " in the wider sense of
general scepticism.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 197
according to some, in the very protoplasm itself.
Nothing could be more inaccurate than to say
"" every human being passes through the stage of
fish and reptile before arriving at that of a mammal
and finally of man."1 All that can be truly said is
that the embryonic man is at certain stages not
superficially distinguishable from the embryonic fish
— quite a different thing, and no more significant
than that the adult man possesses organs and
functions in common with other species of the
animal genus.
Mr. Laing's own conclusions from skulls and
human remains which he takes to be those of
tertiary man, show man to be as obstinately unlike
the " dryopithecus " as ever, in fact, the reputedly
oldest skulls2 are a decided improvement on the
Carnstadt and Neanderthal type. Even then man
seems to have been the same flint-chipping, tool-
making, speaking animal as now. So convinced
1 M.S. 171.
2 " Not only have no missing links been discovered, but' the
oldest known human skulls and skeletons, which date from the
glacial period and are probably at least one hundred thousand years
old, show no very decided approximation towards any such pre
human type. On the contrary," &c. (M.S. 181.) He replies
(H.O. 373) that "five hundred thousand years prior to these men
of Spy and Neanderthal, the human race has existed in higher
physical perfection, nearer to the existing type of modern man."
<Cf. P.F. 158.)

198 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
is he of this essential and ineradicable difference
in his heart, that seeing traces of design in palaeo
lithic flint flakes, and so forth, he has " not the
remotest doubt as to their being the work of humans
hands," — "as impossible to doubt as it would be if
we had found clasp-knives and, carpenters adzes." *
Perhaps Professor Boyd-Dawkins, who credits the
" dryopithecus " with these productions, is a more
consistent evolutionist ; but at present Mr. Laing
is defending a thesis as to man's antiquity. Yet he
has just said that these flint instruments are " only-
one step in advance of the rude, natural stone which
an intelligent orang or chimpanzee might pick "up to
crack a cocoa-nut with." Truly a very significant-
step, though it be only one. How hard this is tc
reconcile with what Mr. Laing ascribes to dogs and
ants elsewhere, or with what he says on page 173,
"These higher apes remain creatures of very
considerable intelligence. . . . There is a chimpanzee
now in the Zoological Gardens . . . which can da
all but speak " [either it speaks, or it does not. It
is precisely a case of the " only one step " quoted
above. Here if anywhere a " miss is as good as a
mile"], "which understands almost every word the
keeper says to it, and when told to sing will purse
out its lips and try to utter connected notes." [How
1 M.S. 112, 114.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. igg
on earth do we know what it is trying to do ?] " In
their native state they (apes) form societies and obey
a chief." [The old fallacy of metaphors adverted
to in relation to ants and dogs.] Yet " no animal
has ever learned to speak," "no chimpanzee or
gorilla has ever been known to fashion any imple
ment." 1 Their nearest approach to invention is in
the building of huts or nests, in which they " are
very inferior to most species of birds, to say nothing
of insects." On the other hand, " as regards tool-
making, no human race is known which has not
shown some faculty in this direction."2 "The
difference is a very fundamental one," and " may be
summed up in the words ' arrested development.' "
Words, indeed! but what do they mean? They
mean that these animals have not developed the
faculties of speech and tool-making, which would
have been most useful to them in the struggle for
existence, the reason being that they did not; and
this reason is exalted into a cause or law of
"arrested development." Who or what arrested
it ? The advantage of the term is that it implies
that they were on the point of developing, that they
could "all but speak," were " trying to utter con
nected notes," were " but one step" behind flint
1 P.F. 154. " P.F. 154.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.

axes, when some cosmic power said, " Hitherto shalt
thou come and no further."
If the dog had organs of speech or an instru
ment like the hand by which to place himself in
closer relation to the outer world, he would doubtless
be on a footing of mental equality with man,
according to Mr. Laing.1 The elephant's trunk
accounts for his superior sagacity, and the horse
suffers by his hoof-enclosed forefoot.2 " Given a
1 M.S. 175.
2 The horse "may be taken as the typical instance of descent by
progressive specialization. What is a horse ? It is essentially an
animal specialized for . . . the rapid progression of a bulky body
over plains or deserts" [a definition which applies equally to the
camel, &c.]. It commenced existence as a " pentadactyle planti
grade bunodont." For some indefined reason " the first step was to
walking on the toes instead of on the flat of the foot, . . . which
became general in most lines of their descendants. For galloping
on hard ground it is evident that one strong and long toe, protected
by a solid hoof, was more serviceable than four short and weak
toes." [But why should it gallop more than other animals ; or why
on the hard ground in the deserts and plains ; or would not four
strong and long toes have been better than one?] "The coalescence
of the toes is the fundamental fact in the progress ... by which '
the primitive bunodont was converted into the modern horse."
But we thought evolution was a change from the homogeneous,
incoherent to the heterogeneous and coherent ; surely the change
from five toes to one must have been a misfortune on the whole, if
the flexibility of the human hand accounts for man's intellect. The
advantages of a convenient gallop over occasional oases of hard
ground in the desert would hardly balance that of being able to
climb trees. (P.F. 143.)

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.

being with man's brain, man's hand, and erect
stature, it is easy to see how intelligence must have
been gradually evolved." x Now honestly it seems
to us that many animals are as well provided as
man is with a variety of flexible organs of com
munication with the outward world (for example,
the antennse of insects, the prehensile tails of some
monkeys, whose hands are as lithe as man's and
articulated, bone for bone and joint for joint). But
letting this pass, we thought evolutionists allowed
that structure is determined by function, rather than
the converse; and so the confession that "it is not
so easy to see how this difference of the structure
arose,"2 surprises us, coming from Mr. Laing;
though why this difference should exist at all, on
evolution principles, is a far greater difficulty. Yet
he confesses that "the difference in structure
between the lowest existing race of man and the
highest existing ape,3 is too great to admit of one
being possibly the, direct descendant- of the other."
The ape, then, is not a man whose development is
arrested. "The negro in some respects makes
a slight approximation, . . .still he is essentially
a man, and separated by a wide gulf from the
1 Cf. P.F. 151. 2 M.S. 180.
3 " A wide gap which has never been bridged over." (Huxley,
P.F. 150.)

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.

chimpanzee or gorilla. Even, the idiot is ... an
arrested man and, not an ape." x
" Nearly all these (higher intellectual and moral)
faculties appear in a rudimentary state in
animals. . . . Still there is this wide distinction
that even in the highest animals these faculties
remain rudimentary and seem incapable of progress,
while even in the lowest races of man they have
reached a much higher level2 and seem capable of
almost unlimited development.3 Why does he not
seek out the reason of this, or is he satisfied with
the words " arrested' development " ? If I find a
child who can repeat a poem of Tennyson's, am I to
be puzzled because it cannot originate one as good,
or go on even to something better ? Am I to
ascribe to it a rudimentary but arrested poetic
faculty ? Surely the same poem proceeding from
the lips of the poet and of the child he has taught,
are essentially different effects, though outwardly

1 But cf. M.S. 181. "Attempt after attempt has been made to
find some fundamental characters in the human brain, on which to
base a generic distinction between man and the brute creation."
(P.F. 149.)
2 Cf. " It is probable, therefore, that this (drill-friction) was the
original mode of obtaining fire, but if so it must have required a
good deal of intelligence and observation, for the discovery is by no
means an obvious one." (M.S. 204.)
3 P.F. 153.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 203
the same. If there were a true living germ, it would
most certainly develope. If the savage developes
through contact with the civilized man after
centuries of degradation, why have not domesticated
dogs, who are, according to Laing, their intellectual
and moral equals, developed long ago ?
However, as "evolution has become the axiom.
of science and is admitted by every one who has the
slightest pretensions to be considered a competent
authority,"1 it is preposterous to suppose man an
exception, whatever be the difficulties.2 And so
Mr. Laing, assuming axiomatically that man and
the ape have a common ancestor, is interested to
make the differences between them deeply marked,
and that, as far back as he can, for thereby
" Human Origins " are pushed back by hundreds of
thousands of years. If miocene man is as distinct
from the ape as recent man, the inference is that we
are then as far from the source as ever. Hence it is

1 P.F. 135.
2 "The inference, therefore, to be drawn alike from the
physical development of the individual man and from the origin
and growth" [as though he had explained their origin] "of all
the faculties which specially distinguish him from the brute
creation, ... all point to the conclusion that he is the product
of evolution." (M.S. 210.) "Man . . . whose higher faculties of
intelligence and morality are 50 clearly ... the products of
evolution and education," (M.S. 182.)

204 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
to geology he looks for the strongest basis of his
position. One thought till lately that geology was
a tentative science, hardly credited with the name
of science, but Mr. Laing wisely and boldly classes
it among the " exact sciences," whose subject-matter
is " flint instruments, incised bones, and a few rare
specimens of human skulls and skeletons, the
meaning of which has to be deciphered by skilled
experts."1 "The conclusions of geology," up to
the Silurian period, " are approximate facts, not
theories."2 If he means that the only legitimate data of
geologists are facts of observation, classified and
recorded, well and good ; but to deny that they deal
largely in hypotheses, and use them constantly as
the premisses for inferences which are equally
hypothetical, is palpably absurd- First of all we
are to " assume the principle of uniformity " which
Lyell is said to have established on an unassailable
basis and to have made the fundamental axiom of
geological science. He "has shown conclusively
that while causes identical with . . . existing causes
will, if given sufficient time, account for all the facts
hitherto observed, there is not a single fact which
proves the occurrence of a totally different order of
This, however, is (i) limited to the
1 H.O. 260. 2 M.S. 48. 3 P.F. 17.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 205

period of geology which gives record of organic life,
and not to the earlier astronomical period ; nor
(2) does it exclude changes in temperature, climate,
distribution of seas and lands; nor (3) does it
" affirm positively that there may not have been in
past ages explosions more violent than that of
Krakatoa; lava-streams more extensive than that
of Skaptar-Jokul, and earthquakes more powerful
than that which uplifted five or six hundred miles of
the Pacific coast of South America six or seven
feet."1 Now, seeing that all these cataclysms have
occurred within the brief limits of most recent time,
compared with which the period of pretended
uniformity is almost an eternity, what sort of
presumption or probability is there that such
occurrences should have been confined to historical
times ; and is not the presumption all the other
way ? Again, it is largely on the supposition of
this antecedently unlikely uniformity, that Mr. Laing
argues to the antiquity of life on earth; whereas
Lyell's conclusion warrants nothing of the kind,
1 P.F. 17, 18. " The conclusion is therefore certain that the
land at this particular spot must have sunk twenty feet, and
again risen as much so as to bring the floor of the temple to its
present position, &c. Similar proofs may be multiplied to any
extent . . . In fact the more we study geology, the more we are
impressed with the fact that the normal . states of the earth is an4
always has been one of incessant changes." (M.S. 35 — 9.)

206 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
being simply : that present causes, "given sufficient
time," would produce the observed effects.1
Our tests of geologic time are denudation and
deposition. We are told "the present rate of
denudation of a continent is known with considerable
accuracy from careful measurements of the quantity
of solid matter carried down by rivers."2 Now it
is a considerable tax on our faith in science to
believe that the debris of the Mississippi can be so
accurately gauged as to give anything like approxi
mate value to the result of one foot of continental
denudation in 6,000 years. We cannot of course
suppose this to be the result of 6,000 years registered
observations, but an inference from the observations
of some comparatively insignificant period ; and
we have also to suppose that the very few rivers
which have been observed form a sufficient basis
for a conclusion as to all rivers. In fact, a more
feebly supported generalization from more insuffi
cient data it is hard to conceive. To speak of it
as "an approximation based on our knowledge of
the time in which similar results on a smaller scale
have been produced by existing natural laws within
1 i.e., Lyell says : Present causes could give these effects, given
the time. Laing says : Therefore, since they have given these effects,
¦we must suppose the time.
2 P.F. 18.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 207
the historical period,"1 is a very inadequate quali
fication, especially when we have just been told
that "here, at any rate, we are on comparatively
Certain ground, . . . these are measurable facts
which have been ascertained by competent
observers."2 Assuming this rate of denudation as certain, and
also the estimate of the known sedimentary strata
as 177,000 feet in depth, we are to conclude that
the formation took 56,000,000 years. A mountain
mass which ought to answer to a certain fault 15,000
high, and therefore is presumed to have vanished
hy denudation, points to a term of 90,000,000
years as required for the process.3
" Reasoning from these facts, assuming the rate
of change in the forms of life to have been the
same formerly, Lyell concludes that geological
phenomena postulate 200,000,000 years at least,"*
¦"to account for the undoubted facts of geology
since life began."5 On the other hand, mathe
matical astronomy,6 on theories which Mr. Laing
oomplains of as wanting the solidity of geological
calculations (yet which do not involve more, but
fewer assumptions), cannot allow the sun a past
oxistence of more than 15,000,000 years.7 " It is
1 P.F. 74. 2 Ibid. * P.F. 20.
* M.S. 34, 41. 6 P.F. 6. 6 P.F. 23. ** M.S. 46.

208 AN APOSTLE 0F_ NATURALISM.
evident , that there must be some fundamental
error on one side or the other,"1 "for the laws of.
nature are uniform, and there cannot be. one code
for astronomers, and one for geologists." But
while modestly relegating this slight divergency
among the " bell-wethers of science " (bell-wethers,
I presume, because the crowd follow them like
sheep)', to the "problems of the future," Mr. Laing
is quite confident that we should " distrust these
mathematical calculations," and rely on conclusions
based on ascertained facts and undoubted deductions
from them, rather than on abstract and doubtful
theories," " which would so reduce geological time
as to negative the idea of uniformity of law and
evolution, and introduce once more the chaos of
catastrophes and supernatural interferences,"2 As
regards the ice-age, Mr. Laing is professedly
interested in putting it as far back as possible,
since " a short date for that period shortens that
for which we have positive proof of the existence
of man, and „ . . a very short date . . . brings us
back to the old theories of repeated and recent
acts of supernatural interference."3 Strange, that
in the same page he should refer to Sir J. Dawson
as an " extreme instance " of one who approaches
the question with " theological prepossessions ; "
1 P.F. 24. 2 P.F. 32. 3 P.F. 66.

AN APOSTLE OF NATtfRALISM-. 209
and of course in complete ignorance of Mr. Laing's
indubitable conclusions about the antiquity of
Egyptian civilization. Unfortunately, even the
best scientists have not that perfect freedom from
bias, which gives Mr. Laing such a towering
advantage over them all. " An authority like'
Prestwich," who " cannot be accused of theological
bias," influenced, however, by a servile astro
nomical bias, " reduces to 20,000 years a period
to which Lyell and modern geologists assign a
duration of more than 200,000 years ; 'n which
"shows in what a state of uncertainty we are as
to this vitally important problem ; " for this time
assigned by Prestwich " would be clearly insuffi
cient to allow for the development of Egyptian
civilization, as it existed 5,000 years ago, from
savage and semi-animal ancestors ; as is proved to
be the case with the horse, stag, elephant, ape,"
and so on.2 Now Prestwich, we are told elsewhere,
is "the first living authority on the tertiary- and
quaternary strata."3 If, then, astronomical pre
possession can reduce 200,000 to 20,000 years, the
1 " Thus giving to palaeolithic man no greater antiquity than
perhaps about 20,000 to 30,000 years, while, should he be restricted
to the so-called post-glacial period, the antiquity need not go
back further than from 10,000 to 15,000 years bsfore.ithe time of
neolithic man." (57.) ' -.-¦ '' '-'
2 P.F. 67. 3 M.S. 109.
0 II.

Sio AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.

Bin of theology, which reduces 20,000 to 7,000 is
comparatively venial. Prestwich's two objections
are (1) the data of astronomy, and (2) " the difficulty
of conceiving that man could have existed for
80,000 or 100,000 years without change and
without progress." The former is " only one
degree less mischievous than the theological pre
possession." However, Prestwich has some "facts"
as well as prepossessions, such as "the rapid
advance of the glaciers of Greenland,"1 which does
not accord with the generalization from the Swiss
glaciers ; 2 and the quicker erosion of river valleys,
due to a greater rainfall; facts which, however, are
met by "a. minute description of the successive
changes by which in post-glacial time the Mersey
valley and estuary were brought into their present
condition, with an estimate of the time they may
have required;" which is "in round numbers
60,000 years," as opposed to Prestwich's 10,000 or
£,ooo.3 The 200,000 years for the ice-age depends
chiefly on Croll's theory of secular variation of the
1 Prestwich evinces the same recalcitrance according to the
Nineteenth Century, December 4, 1894, p. 961, being one of the
geologists of high standing " who have lately come to believe in
some sudden and extensive submergence of continental dimensions
in very recent times."
2 74. » P.F. 84.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.

earth's orbitular eccentricity; but we are told it
is open to the " objection that it requires us to
assume a periodical succession of glacial epochs "
of which two or three "must have occurred during
each of the great geological epochs.1 This is
opposed to geological evidence." " ' Not proven '
is the verdict which most geologists would return."
"The confidence with which Croll's theory was
first received has been a good deal shaken." " We
have to fall back, therefore, on the geological
evidence of deposition and denudation ... in any
attempt to decide between the 200,000 years of
Lyell and the 20,000 years of Prestwich."2
As to his arguments based on ancient human
remains, their value depends first on the accuracy
of his geological conclusions, and then on pre
clusion of all possibility of the conveyance of the
remains from upper strata to lower; on the
certainty, moreover, of traces of design in many
of the would-be miocene or tertiary flint instru
ments (which Prestwich is doubtful about).3 He
takes care not to tell us that the Carstadt skull
which gives name to a race, is a very doubtfully
genuine relic of one hundred and thirty years old,
whose history is most dubious. His evidence for
the absence of the slightest approximation to the
* P.F. 69, 70. 2 P.F. 70, 3 11.0. 364.

2:2 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.
simian type even in the oldest relics is cheering
to the theologian, though it loses its value when
we know it is in the interests of his foregone
conclusions as to the unspeakable antiquity of man.
The Nampe image, the oldest relic yet discovered,
" revolutionizes our conception of this • early
palaeolithic age," being a "more artistic and better
representation of the human form than the little
idols of many comparatively modern and civilized
people," very like those in Mexico, " believed to be
not much older than the date of the Spanish
conquest" — "and in. truth, I believe, contempor
aneous."1 As to his treatment of the Bible, it evinces
everywhere the crudest anthropomorphic method
of interpretation such as we should expect to find
in a child or very ignorant person. In truth-,
Mr. Laing is in a perfectly childish state of mind
both as regards the Christian religion and as
regards philosophy, sciences, and all the subjects
he dabbles with.
For our own part we have at most a general
idea as to what exactly the Church does teach or
may teach with regard to the interpretation of the
Scripture. That she has so far acquiesced in the
larger interpretation of Genesiacal cosmogony, that
1 H O. 388.

AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM. 213
now the literal six-day theory would be very unsafe,
forbids us to judge any present interpretation of
other parts by the number, noise, or notoriety of
its adherents. The universality of the Deluge is
by no means the only tolerable interpretation now;
though the doctrine of a partial deluge would have
been most unsafe a century ago. All this does
not mean giving up the inspiration of the record,
but determining gradually what is meant by
inspiration and the record. What could be less
important to Christian dogma than the date of the
Deluge or of Adam's creation?" If it were proved
that the original text in this point had been hope
lessly corrupted, as the discrepancies between the
LXX. numbers and the Hebrew hint to be true to
some extent, it would not touch the guaranteed
integrity of Christian dogma. If Christ is the
"son" of David, and Zachasus is "son" of
Abraham, what period may not an apparent single
generation stand for, especially in regard to the
earlier Patriarchs ? As far as the prophetic import
of the Deluge is concerned, a very small local affair
might be mystically large with foreshadowings, as
we see with regard to the enacted prophecies of
the later prophets. For the rest, we are quite
weary of Mr. Laing, and are content to have shown
that everywhere, he is the same biassed, incoa-

*i4 AN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.

sequent, untrustworthy writer. His only power
is a certain superficial clearness of diction and
brilliancy of style, and this is brought to bear
on a mass of information drawn confessedly from
the labours of others, and selected in the interest
of a foregone conclusion, without a single attempt
at a fair presentment of the other side.
Here, then, we have a very fair specimen of the
pseudo-philosophy which is so admirably adapted
to captivate the half-informed, wholly unformed
minds of the undiscriminating multitudes who
have been taught little or nothing well' except to
believe in their right, duty, and ability to judge for
themselves in matters for which a life-time of
specialization were barely sufficient. A congeries
of dogmatic assertions and negations raked
together from the chief writers of a decadent
school, discredited twenty years ago by all men
of thought, Christian or otherwise; a show of
logical order and reasoning which evades our
grasp the instant we try to lay critical hands
on it; a profuse expression of disinterested devotion
to abstract truth, an occasional bow to conventional
morality, a racy, irreverent style, an elaborate
display of miscellaneous information ; good paper,
large type, cheap wood-cuts, and the work is done.
Oct. Nov 1895.

XXI.
"THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
Some twelve years since we read Mr. Tylor's
well-known and able work on Primitive Culture,
and were much impressed with the evident fair-
mindedness and courageous impartiality which
distinguished the author so notably from the
Clodds, the Aliens, the Laings, and other
popularizers of the uncertain results of evolution-
philosophy. For this very reason we made a
careful analysis of the whole work, and more
particularly of his "animistic" hypothesis, and
laid it aside, waiting, according to our wont, for
further light bearing upon a difficulty wherewith
we felt ourselves then incompetent to deal. This
further light has been to some extent supplied
to us by Mr. Andrew Lang's Making of Religion,
which deals mainly with that theory of animism
which is propounded by Mr. Tylor, and unhesi
tatingly accepted, dogmatically preached, and
universally assumed, by the crowd of sciolists
who follow like jackals in the lion's wake.

216 "THE MAKING OP RELIGION }'
Without denying the value of our conceptions
of God and of the human soul, Mr. Tylor believes
that these conceptions, however true in themselves,
originated on the part of primitive man in fallacious
reasoning from the data of dreams and of like states
of illusory vision. He assumes, perhaps with some
truth,' that the distinction between dream and
reality is more faintly marked in the less developed
mind; in the child than in the adult, in the
savage than in the civilized man. Hence a belief
arises in a filmy phantasmal self that wanders
abroad in sleep and leaves the body untenanted,
and meets and converses with other phantasmal
selves. Nor is it hard to see how death, being
viewed as a permanent sleep, should be ascribed
to the final abandonment of the body by its
"dream-stuff" occupant. Whether as dreaded
Or loved or both, this ever-gathering crowd of
disembodied spirits wins for itself a certain
cultus of praise and propitiation, and reverence,
and is humoured with food-offerings and similar
sacrifices. Nor is it long before the form of
an earthly polity is transferred to that unearthly
city of the dead, till for one reason or another
some jealous ghost gains a monarchic supremacy
over his brethren, and thus polytheism gives place
fo monotheism. It need not be that this supreme

' "THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 217
deity is always conceived as a defunct ancestor,
once embodied, but no longer in the body. Rather
it would seem that the primitive savage, having
once arrived at the conception, of a ghost, passes
by generalization to that of incorporeal beings
unborn and undying, of spirits whose presence
and power is revealed in stocks and stones, or
in idols shaped humanwise — spirits who preside
over trees, rivers, and elements, over species and
classes and departments of Nature, over tribes and
peoples and nations ; until, as before, the struggle
for existence or some other cause gives supremacy
to some one god fittest to survive either through
being more conceivable, or more powerful, or in
some other way more popular than the rest of the
pantheon. Again, it is assumed that- the gods of primitive
man are non-ethical, that -they do not " make for
righteousness;" that they are at most jealous powers
to be feared and propitiated. When the savage
speaks of a god as good, he. only means "favourable
to me," "on my side;" he does not mean "good
to me if I am good." God is conceived first as
power and force ; then as non-moral wisdom, or
cunning, and only in the very latest developments
as holy and just and loving.
Starting with the assumptions of evolutionists,

213 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
the theory is plausible enough. Nor is it incon
ceivable that God, without using error and evil
directly as a means to truth and good, should
passively permit error for the sake of the truth
that He foresees will come out of it. Astrology
was not incipient astronomy; nor was alchemy
primitive chemistry ; the end and aim in each case
was wholly different. Yet the pseudo-science gave
birth to the true ; as false premisses often lead by
bad logic to sound conclusions. Totemism, "a
perfectly crazy and degrading belief," says Mr.
Lang, "rendered possible — nay, inevitable— the
union of hostile groups into large and relatively
peaceful tribal societies. . . . We should never
have educated the world thus ; and we do not see
why it should have been thus done. But we are
:ve'ry anthropomorphic, and totally ignorant of the
conditions of the problem." In like manner it
might have been, that God willed to let men wander
through the slums and backways of animism into
the open road of theism.
But our concern is not with what might have
been, but with what was.
Mr. Lang contends, first, that belief in spirits
and in a circumambient spiritual world, more
probably originated in certain real or imaginary
experiences of supernormal phenomena, than in

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." i:Q
a fallacious explanation of dreams; then, that
belief in a supreme god is most probably not
derived from or dependent upon belief in ghosts.
Consistently with the whole trend of his thought
in his recent work connected with psychical
research, in Myth, Ritual, and Religion, in Cock-
Lane and Common-Sense, Mr. Lang begins by
entering a protest against the attitude observed
towards the subject by contemporary science,
especially by anthropology, which, as having been
so lately "in the same condemnation," might be
expected to show itself superior to that injustice
which it had itself so much reason to complain
of. Yet anthropology, abandoning the first prin
ciples of modern science, still refuses to listen to
the facts alleged by psychical research, and justifies
its refusal on Hume's oft-exploded fallacy, namely,
on an a priori conviction of their impossibility and
therefore of their non-occurrence.
However wide the range of experience upon
which physical generalizations are based, it can
never be so wide as on this score alone to prove
the inherent possibility of exceptions ; more espe
cially when we consider the confinement of the
human race to what is relatively a momentary
existence on a whirling particle of dust in a sand
storm. There may indeed be abundant evidence

•THE MAKING OF RELIGION:

of a certain impetus or tendency enduring from
a comparatively distant and indefinite past and
making for an equally indefinite future ; but there
is not, cannot be evidence against the possibility
of interference from other laws whose paths, at
points unknown and incalculable, intersect those
followed by the (to us) ordinary course of events.
And in this wholesome agnosticism we are
confirmed when we see that while some animals
are deprived of certain senses which we possess,
and all of them of the gift of reason, others are
apparently endowed with senses unknown to us,
and are taught by seeming instincts which surpass
what reason could effect; whence we may infer
that the likelihood of our being en rapport with the
greater part of the possible phenomena amidst which
we live, or of our possessing all possible senses
or the best of those possible, is infinitely small.
What a magician a man with eyes would be among
a race of sightless men ; or a man with ears among
a deaf population ! How studiously would the
scientists explain the effects of sight as produced
by subtilty of hearing; and those of hearing as due
to abnormal sensitiveness in some other respect !
But though there be no a priori impossibility
in deviations from the beaten track, yet there, is
a certain a. priori improbability which may seem

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION."

to justify those who refuse to go into alleged
instances of the supernormal. There is a story
against Thomas Aquinas, that on being invited
by a. frisky brother-monk to. come and see a cow
flying, or some such marvel, he gravely came and
saw not, but expressed himself far more astounded
at the" miracle that a religious man should - say
"the thing which was . not." This is certainly a
glorious antithesis to Hume's position. Whether
we take it to illustrate the Saint's extreme lack
of humour, or a subtler depth of humour veiled-
under stolidity, or his rigorous veracity, or his-
guileless confidence in the veracity of others, we
certainly cannot approve it as an example of
the attitude we ought to observe with regard
to every newly recounted marvel. Truly there
might be more liberality,, more enlightenment,
more imagination in such a ready credulity, than
in the wall-eyed, ear-stopping scepticism of popular
science; but the mere inner possibility of a
recounted marvel does not oblige us to search into
the matter unless the evidence offered bear some
reasonable proportion to the burden it has to:
support. That this is the case as regards crystal- '¦
gazing, telepathy, possession, and kindred mani
festation, is what Mr. Lang contends; nor would
he have any quarrel with the anthropologists were

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION."

they not fully impressed with the importance of
similar or even weaker cumulative evidence for
conclusions which happen to be in harmony with
their preconceived hypotheses. Where such
evidence exists it must be faced, and at least
its existence must be explained.
True criticism should either account for the
seeming breach of uniformity, by reducing it to
law ; or else should show how the assertion if false
ever gained credence ; but in no case is it scientific
to put aside, on an a priori assumption, evidence
that is offered from all sides in great abundance.
Psychic research is daily applying to that tangled
mass of world-wide evidence ancient and modern
for the existence of an X-region of experience,
those same critical and historical principles which
created modern science. Men who, as often as not,
have no religion or no superstition themselves, see
that both religion and superstition are universal
phenomena, and cannot be neglected by those
who would study humanity historically and scien
tifically. Even if there be nothing in hallucina
tions., apparitions, scrying, second-sight, poltergeists,
and the rest, there is a great deal in the fact
that belief in these things is as wide and as
old as the world; it is a fact to be explained.
"Each man," says Meister, "commonly defends

*,.

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 223
himself as long as possible from casting out the
idols which he worships in . his soul ; from acknow
ledging, a master-error, and admitting any truth
that brings him to despair ; " and indeed a system
as complete and compact as that of Mr. Spencer
or Mr. Tylor is apt to become an intellectual idol :
forbidding under pain of infidelity all inquiries that
might cause it to totter on its throne, or which
might unravel in an instant what has been woven
by years of hard and honest thought. Few of us
are in a position to cast stones on this score ; still,
recognizing the weakness more clearly in others
than in ourselves, we are justified in reckoning
with it, and in discounting for the unwillingness
of men of science to listen to facts inconsistent
with long-cherished theories, and for their tendency
to accumulate and magnify evidence on the other
side. " If the facts not fitting their theories are
little observed by authorities so popular as Mr.
Huxley and Mr. Spencer ; if instantix contradictories
are ignored by them, or left vague; if these things
are done in' the green tree, we may easily imagine
what shall be done in the dry. But we need
not war with hasty vulgarisateurs- and headlong
theorists."1 We cannot for a moment question the sincerity
* P. 47.

224 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION.'-
of purpose and honesty of intention of many of the
leaders of modern scientific enlightenment, what
ever we may think of the said crowd of vulgari-'
sateurs — those camp-followers who bring disgrace
on every respectable cause. But beside wilful bias
and unfairness, there is unconscious bias from which
none of us are free, but from which we need to be
delivered by mutual criticism; for, however much-
a man can see of himself, he can never get behind
his own back. Of such unwitting dishonesty men
'of thought are abundantly guilty, when deeming
. themselves to be governed only by reason, they are
in fact slaves to some intellectual fashion of the
day. Not one of them in a thousand would dare
to appear in public with the clothes of last century,
or to face the laughter of a crowd of his compeers.
Hence a certain indocility and rigidness of mind
which they only escape who live out of the fashion
or have strength to lead it or to live above it.
Simple, whether from greatness or littleness, they
escape the narrowing influence inseparable from
being identified, even in their own mind, with
a school or coterie; and can afford to say things
as they see them.
Contemporary fashion says at present that there
are to be no miracles, nothing supernormal ; what
ever cannot be reduced in any way to known laws

'THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 2*3

and causes can be flatly denied, for the supposition
of unknown causes and laws is rank heresy. Until
more recent years, it was not permitted to listen
to or show any disposition to investigate the
narratives of phenomena which have since been
"explained" and reduced to such legalized causes
as hysteria or hypnotism, and even (of late) to
thought-transference. But since this happy recon
ciliation has been effected, such stories are allowed
to be believed on ordinary evidence, although the
accounts of other "unclassed" supernormal marvels
coming from the same lips with the same
attestation are still- brushed aside as traveller's
tales, or as the puerilities of hagiography — not
worth a thought. One would think that some
kind of apology or reparation were due to eccle
siastical tradition, which was credited with whole
sale lying so long as its recorded wonders were
classed among impossibilities by the intellectual
fashion-mongers, but it seems we have only partly
escaped the reproach of knavery to incur that of
wholesale folly for not having seen that these apparent
miracles were but forms of hysteria or hypnotism. ,
Yet what is hysteria and what does it really
explain ? x Surely the etymology throws no light
1 "A hysterical fit indicates a lamentable instability of the
nervous system. But it is by no means certain a priori that
P II.

226 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."

on the subject ! Is it then merely a name for the
unknown cause of phenomena every whit as strange
; as. those which were held incredible till their like
: had been actually witnessed and forced upon the
unwilling eyes of science beyond all possibility
of denial ? Is it that science blindly refused even
to weigh the evidence for abnormal facts till the
same or similar had become matters of personal
observation ? Is it that every reported breach
of her assumed uniformities is incredible, because
impossible, until the possibility has been proved
by some fact which is then named, erected into
a class, a cause, a law, and used to explain away
similar facts formerly denied, and is thus taken
into that bundle of generalizations called the ." laws
of nature " ? The ancients assumed all heavenly
motion to be circular of necessity,, and where
facts gave against them, they patched the matter
;up with an epicycle, or two. Are not . hysteria;,

every symptom' of that instability, without exception, will be
of a degenerative kind. The nerve-storm, with its- unwonted
agitations, may possibly lay bare some deep-lying capacity in us
which could scarcely otherwise have come to light. Recent
¦experiments on both sensation and memory in certain abnormal
states have added plausibility to this view, and justify us in
"holding that in spite of its frequent association with hysteria,
ecstasy is not necessarily in itself a morbid symptom." (F. W; H.
Myers, Tennyson as a Prophet.)

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION.!' ill
hypnotism, and 'thought-transference of the -nature
.of epicycles ? It is how confessed that the mind
^can so affect and dominate the body as to produce
-blisters and wounds' by mere" force of suggestion
-and " expectancy"; that a 'like "faith", can cure)
hot only such ailments as are clearly connected
with", the. nerves, but others where sUchi connection
is not yet traceable. And this is supposed to tell
in- -some -way against like marvels' reported- by
hagiology, as though they were explained' by being
"observed and named. Yet what did that supposed
marvellbusness consist in, except in a seeming
revelation of the power and superiority of mind
overmatter, and of things unseen over things seen
and palpable ; and in' proving that there were more
wonders in heaven and earth than were dreamt
pf by a crude and self-satisfied materialism"? ' They
were taken as evidence of a circumambient
X-region where the laws of mechanics were set
at defiance ' and where the fetters of .time and
place' were loosened or cast aside. ". Such an;
X-region being supposed by every . supernatural
religion and denied by most of those whoi deny
religion, and on; the "same -grotfnds, its- establish-*
m"ent by' any'kindrbf experiment is", rightly &ori-;
siderpd in-some sort to-make for:religion: rJhdeed,'
it is just on this .account that. 'thej. evidence fpr"

228 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
it is so opposed by those who are pre-occupied
by the anti-religious bias of contemporary science.
But unless hysterical effects can be shown to be
ultimately due, not to mind, but to matter acting
on matter, according to methods approved by
materialism, hysteria remains a word-cause and
no more, like the meat-cooking quality of the
roasting-jack. Hypnotism is a kindred cause in every way.
It means sleep-ism ; yet manifestly it deals with
characteristics which are utterly unlike those of
sleep ; and it is precisely these that need to be
explained away in conformity with received laws,
unless we are to find in these phenomena evidence
of such modes of being and operation as every
kind of religion postulates. " Possession " is of
course a fable; the superabundant world-wide,
world-old evidence for the phenomenon was thrust
aside without a glance, till hypnotic experiments
brought to light what is called " alternating
personality." As though this name had explained
everything in accordance with materialism, forth
with it was permitted to believe the aforesaid
evidence, provided one laughed loudly enough at
the theory of "possession." It is allowed that the
hypnotic patient may in some sense be said to be'
"possessed" by the hypnotiser for the time being;

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 229*
nay, even a certain chronic possession of this kind
is observable. But an invisible hypnotiser and
possession by a disembodied spirit is still out of
fashion, notwithstanding all Mrs. Piper's efforts and
Dr. Hodgson's audacious declaration of his not
very willing belief that those who speak through
her " are veritably the personalities they claim to
be, and that they have survived the change we call
death." Thought-transference, however, promises to be
a potent and popular solvent of psychic problems.
Thought-transference was a supremely ludicrous
supposition till comparatively recently; nor could
there be any credible testimony for what was known
antecedently to be quite impossible. But some
way or other, facts which demanded a name were
forced upon the direct observation of science, and
so Mr. F. Podmore has written a book in which,
assuming thought-transference to be a scientifically
recognized possibility, he proceeds to reduce many
of the marvels collected by the S.P.R. to that
simple and obvious cause, and to reject the residue
on the sound old principle that what is known to
be impossible cannot be true, Hallucinations,
solitary and collective, and other perplexing
instances are tortured into cases of thought-transfer
.with an ingenuity which we should smile at in a

;jo ''•The Making Of Religion:'
mediaeval scholastic explaining the universe by the
four elements, and the fouif- temperaments. But is
not thought-transference itself lamentably unscien
tific ? No ; because we see that unconnected
magnets affect one another sympathetically; and
the brain being a sort of magnet may. well affect
distant brains Thought is a kind of electricity,
and electricity, -if -not exactly a-fluid, -yet may some
day be liquefied and bottled. At all events, 'science
has seen something very, remotely analogous to
thought-transference and every whit as unintel
ligible and antecedently incredible till observed ;
and therefore it is permissible to listen to the
evidence for it, and forced thereto, to accept the
fact. But have we really disposed of ghosts if we
prove the appearance to be caused by a subjective
modification of the perceiver's sensorium - and. not
by a modification of the external medium — the air
or the ether? Since it is a question of a spiritual
substance independent- of spatial -dimensions^ and
relations, said to be present only so far. and where
its effects and manifestations . are present, what
does it matter whether it reports itself by an effect
outside or inside the percipient — whether it be a
" vision sensible to feeling, as to sight," or but
" a false creation proceeding from a heat- oppressed

'•THE MAKINd OF RELIGION. ." 23!
brain " ? Is not this very distinction of outside and
inside in the naatter of perceptions open to no
slight ambiguity? The savage, familiar with the
electric sparks caused by the friction of deer-skins,
ascribes the aurora borealis to the friction of a
jostling herd of celestial deer. " Nonsense," says
science, after centuries of false hypotheses, "it is
nothing more nor less than electricity." This is
very much the way she is dealing with the
supernormal at present ; brushing aside as wholly
nonsensical, beliefs that envelope a core of useful
fact in a wrapping of crude explanation, and then
receiving the same facts as new discoveries, because
she has fitted them into ah involucre more to her
own . likirfg, though perhaps but little less crude.-
".Not deer^skin," says science, "but amber; not
miracle, hut faith-cure; not prophetic insight, but
thought-transference ; not apparition,; but hallucina-'
tion." . And so with the rest.
Considering then. the., bias of the dominant
scientific ^school j which makes.it refuse even to
examine the- carefully, gathered evidence of the
S.P.R. ; ' we need not wonder if the reports- of
travellers concerning the existence of likepheno*'
mena among savages an'd. barbarians, all. over the
world are dismissed with a certain,^ priori super
ciliousness. Yet surely,. on evolutionist principles,

£32 ¦•THE MAKING OF RELIGION:''
the only possible clue to the mode in which belief
in spirits and in God may have originated with
."primitive man," is the mode in which those beliefs
are actually now sustained, and, so to say, "proved"
by the most primitive specimens of existing
humanity; by, for example, those bushmen of
Australia whose facial angle and cerebral capacity
is supposed to leave no room for much differ
ence between their mind and that of the higher
anthropoids. Doubtless it is hard to get anything
like scientific evidence out of people so uncultivated,
whose language and modes of conception are so
alien to our own. Individual travellers, moreover,
have been the victims of their own credulity,
stupidity, self-conceit, and prejudice. "But the
best testimony of the truth of the reports as to'
the actual belief in the facts, is the undesigned
coincidence of the evidence from all quarters.
When the stories brought by travellers, ancient
and modern, learned and unlearned, pious or
sceptical, agree in the main, we have all the
certainty that anthropology can offer."1
From this ever-growing mass of evidence, it
would appear that the universal belief among
savages in a spirit-world is mainly strengthened
and sustained, not by the phenomena of dreaming
1 P. 8,

''THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 233
but by what Mr. Spencer would call "alleged"
supernormal manifestations, such as those of clair
voyance, crystal-gazing, apparitions, miracles, pro
phecies, possession, and the like, For belief in
such marvels exists beyond doubt, and furnishes
a very obvious and logical basis for the further
belief in the invisible causes of these visible effects ;
nor should we have recourse to an hypothetical
and more indirect explanation of belief in a spirit-
world when an actual and direct explanation is
at hand. If we see the branch growing out of the
tree, we need not inquire what trunk it sprang
from, unless we have strong evidence that it is
only a graft. All investigation tends to show that
savages believe in spirits and in the spirit-world
because they witness, or firmly believe they witness,
supernormal phenomena.
Besides this, it must be allowed that together
with the normal phenomena of dreaming, there are
abnormal dreams which even to cultivated minds
seem at times as supernormal as second-sight or
prophecy. But it is not on supernormal, but on
normal dreams that animists base their explanation.
We need not deny that, dreams and delirium may
have given palpable shape to the conception of a
ghost, and may also have helped forward the notion
pf a spirit 'by furnishing" something -intermediary

,234 -"THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
¦ between • the grossness of our waking sense-
. experiences, and the altogether elusive and difficult
thought of unembodied will and intelligence
independent of space and- time.
In the main then it seems more plausible to
maintain that the idea of unembodied or disem
bodied spirits was shaped by that instinctive law
of our mind which makes us argue from the nature
of effects to the nature of the agency. The first
impulse would be to ascribe every intelligent effect
to some human agency, but other circumstances
would subsequently incline the savage reluctantly to
divest the agent of one or more of the limitations
of humanity, and to clothe him with preter-human
attributes. Nearly all the supernormal phenomena
believed in by primitive man — so far as we can
judge of him from contemporary savagery — would
suggest, the agency of .an invisible man ; clair
voyance, and other manifestations of preternatural
knowledge, would suggest independence of the
senses in the acquisition of knowledge ; every kind
pf " miracle " would bespeak an extension of power
over physical nature beyond human wont; while
all these together would point to that freedom from
the trammels of space and time, which is of the
very essence of immaterial or spiritual subsistence'.
Thus,. by- a .gradual, process of dehumanization, the

"THE MAKlNd OF RELI&ION}'- 23 5
mind would be instinctively led from the notion of.
a man magnified in all excellences and refined from.
all limitations, to the conception of spirit. But
coexistently with this progress of the reason, the.
imagination would ever strain to clothe the thought
in bodily form as far as possible, and would cling
to the notions suggested by dreams and waking
hallucinations, while language, after its wont, would
speak of the spirit as the umbra, the imago, the
shadow, the breath, the attenuated replica of the
body. Thus we find among all men, savage and
civilized, a certain unsteadiness in their notion of
spirit, whether created or divine — a continual
tendency to corruption and anthropomorphism,
due- to the conflict between reason and imagL-
nation, resulting so often in the domination of the
latter. For this view of the subject it is not necessary
that we should admit the preternatural- character
of the phenomena which form the subject-matter
of psychical' research, but only that- we . should
acknowledge the hardly disputable -fact that belief
in such maryels is universal and. persistent among
savages,— a fact which science is bound by. its ..own
principles to explain, and not to ignore. Whether,
as Mr. Lang - seems inclined -to think,, among much
illusion, chicanery, and ignorance, there may not

236 "THE MAKING OP RELIGION."
be truth enough to make the inference of an X- world
legitimate, whether the said universality, persist
ence, and recrudescence of this seeming credulity
can be accounted for in any ether satisfactory way,
is a further consideration. If in some dim fashion
the Northern Indians anticipated modern science
in their explanation of the aurora borealis, connecting
it with familiar electric manifestations, may it not
be, asks Mr. Lang, that in their inference from
supernormal facts which experimental science refuses
to hear of or to examine, they have again been
.sagaciously beforehand ? Doubtless their explana
tion is crude and inadequate in both cases ; but
is it much more so than that offered by supposing
electricity to be a fluid subject to currents ; or by
assigning many inexplicable psychic phenomena to
" hysteria " — a mere word-cause ?
The supposition is somewhat ¦ favoured if we
give ear to that crowd of witnesses whose combined
evidence, duly discounted and tested, makes it clear
that even among those who ought to have been
civilized out of all belief in aught behind the veil,
the very same superstitions break out, or creep in,
time after time, with new names perhaps, new
clothes, new faces, but in substance identical with
.¦those held by what we esteem the most benighted
races.

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 237
Further, it is evident that savages pay attention
— over-attention, no doubt — to these supernormal
phenomena, being free from hostile philosophic bias
in the matter, and bent the other way ; and that
in consequence they have everywhere observed,
classified, and systematized them in their own rude,
simple way, and have thus forestalled what the
S.P.R., in the teeth of science, is now endeavouring
to do scientifically. With us, moreover, it is mere
chance that reveals a " medium," or hypnotic
subject here and there : but with savages they are
sought out diligently, and all who have any latent
aptitude that way are detected and utilized ; and
thus the field of their experience is considerably
widened. But besides all this, it seems more than plausible
to suppose that among primitive and undeveloped
races such preternatural phenomena either occur,
or seem to occur, much more frequently and exten
sively ; and that apparently supernormal faculties
are more often developed. ;
Nor can this be explained solely on the score of
their readier credulity and their lack of criticism %
for there is good evidence to show that the develop
ment of the rational and self-directive faculties is
at the sacrifice of those instinctive and intuitional
modes of operation which do duty for them while

233 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION:"

man is yet in a state of pupilage. Memory, for
example, is fresher and more assimilative in child
hood, but deteriorates very often as the higher
faculties come into use ; and indeed we cannot
fail to see how the introduction of printing, writing,
.and mnemonic arts and artifices of all kinds, has
'lowered the average power of civilized memory, and
•made the ordinary feats of more primitive ' times
seem to us magical and incredible. We also notice
the high development of hearing, sight, and- other
forms' of perception among savages who live by
their five senses rather than by their wits. When
we descend to the animal-world we are confronted
by cognitive faculties whose, effects we see, but of
whose precise nature we can form no conjecture
whatever. That which guides the migratory birds
in their wanderings, and simulates polity in the
bee-hive and ant-hill, is not reason, but is some
thing for practical purposes far better than reason.
Putting a number of these and of similar consider
ations together seems to suggest that development
"in the direction of self-instruction (which is reason)
and self-management and independence, is loss as
well- as gain.
What we gain is no doubt our own in' a truer
sense than that we had when we hung upon
Nature's breast, and, were guided passively by

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 239
instincts and intuitions to purposes that reason can
never reach to.
By far the most wonderful and. seemingly intelli
gent work of the soul is, that by which "it builds up,
nourishes; repairs, developes, and finally reproduces
the body it dwells iii. Yet in all this it is almost
as passive and unconscious as a vegetable. The,
effect is' (as far as -our comprehension of it goes)
altogether preternatural and inexplicable ; yet it
is far less' our effect than what we do by reason
and by faking thought. What we pay for in dignity
we lose in efficiency. While Nature carries us in
her arms' we move swiftly enough, but when she
sets us on- our feet to learn independence and self-
rule, we cut a sorry figure. In our helplessness she
does all for us as though w^ were yet part of her ;
but in the measure that we are weaned and begin
to fend for ourselves as responsible agents, we are
deprived of the aids and easements befitting the
childhood of. our face. ' :
-" If this be true, if man in his primitive state
possessed, intuitive powers which have sunk into
abeyance, either through' the diversion of psychic
energy to the development of other powers, or
through desuetude, or as the instincts of the new
born babe are lost when their brief purpose is
fulfilled; if the occasional recrudescence of these

240' "THE MAKING OF RELIGION"
powers among civilized peoples is really a survival
of an earlier state ; then indeed we can understand-
that the evidence, or apparent evidence, for the
existence of an X-region, or spirit-world, may
have been immeasurably more abundant in the
infancy of the human race, than it is now even
among contemporary savages.
Put it how we will, it cannot be denied that
belief in divination, in diabolic possession, and in
magic, has largely contributed to belief in spirits ;
and that to ignore this contribution by throwing
the whole burden on ordinary dreams is unscientific.
During sleep Mr. Tylor himself is as much a prey
to delusion as the most primitive savage ; but the
criteria by which on waking we condemn most of
our dreams as illusions, seem really as accessible
and obvious to the child or savage as to the
philosopher; though the former through care
lessness or poverty of language will perhaps say :
" I saw," instead of: " I dreamt I saw." Children
will speak as it were historically of even their day
dreams and imaginings, not from any untruthful
ness or wish to deceive, but from that romancing
tendency rightly reprehended in their elders, who
should be alive to the conventional value of
language. But the first and most natural use
of speech is simply to express and embody the

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION.' 241
thought that is in us, not to assert, or affirm, or
to instruct others. The child's romancing is not
intended as assertion, although so taken by prosaic
adults. It is from the same instinct which lies
at the back of his eternal monologue, of the " Let's
pretend " by which he is for the moment trans
formed into a soldier, or a steam-engine, or a
horse. Eye-reading without articulation is impos
sible for the beginner, and thought that is not
talked and acted is impossible for the child. Yet
deeply as the child is wrapped up in his dreams,
there is nothing more certain than that he is as
clear, as any adult as to the difference between
romance and fact ; and so it is no doubt with the
savage, who can hardly be denied to have at least
as much reason as an average child.
Closer study of the savage points to the con
clusion that the civilized man falls into the same
error in his regard as many adults do with respect
to children, whom they fail hopelessly to interpret
through lack of imagination, and to whom they
are but tedious and ridiculous when they would
fain be instructive and amusing; forgetting that
the difference between the two stages of life is
rather in the size of the toys played with, than
in the way they are regarded. So too we are apt
to look on foreign, and still more on savage
Q «•

242 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."

language, symbolism, ways, and customs, as
indicative of a far more radical difference and
greater inferiority of mental constitution and
ethical instincts than really exists. Mr. Kidd,
in his book on Social Evolution, has contended
with some plausibility that the brain-power of
the Bushman and of the Cockney is much on a
par at starting, and that the subsequent divergence
is due chiefly to education and moral training;
and certainly much of the evidence brought forward
in Mr. Lang's volume seems to look that way. If
the aboriginal Australian has a faith in the immor
tality of the soul and in a supreme God, the
rewarder of righteousness, if he summarizes the
laws of God under the precept of unselfishness;
if in all this he is but a type of the universal savage,
surely it were well if some of the missionary zeal
which is devoted to supplying the heathen with
Bibles which they cannot understand, were turned
to the work of bringing our own godless millions
up to their religious level.
But this takes us to the second and still more
interesting part of The Making of Religion, which
we shall have to discuss in the next section. At
present we only wish to insist that it is a mistake
to assume that because savages and children are,
when compared with ourselves, so little, therefore

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 243
their thoughts and ideas can be understood with
little difficulty. Contrariwise, as the apparent
difference in life and language is greater, the deeper
and more patient investigation will it need to
detect that radical sameness of mental and moral
constitution which binds men together far more
than diversity of education and environment can
ever separate them. It is, therefore, exceedingly
unlikely that either the child or the savage should,
hy failing to distinguish between dream and reality,
introduce into his whole life that incoherence which
is just the distinguishing characteristic of dreaming
and lunacy. And, as a fact, do we really find the
savage as depressed, on waking, by a dreamt-of
•calamity as by a real one; or as elated after a
-visionary scalping of foes as after a real victory ?
Does he on waking look for the said scalps among
his collection of trophies, and is he perplexed and
incensed at not finding them ? Even if, like our
selves, he has occasionally a very vivid and coherent
dream reconcilable with his waking circumstances,
-will he not judge of it by the vast majority of his
dreams which are palpable illusions, and not by
the few exceptional cases ? If at times we our
selves doubt whether we witnessed something or
dreamt it, yet we do so not because the seeming
fact is one which • makes for the existence of

244 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
another world of a different order to this, but for
the very contrary reason. If the savage only
dreamt of the dead, he might find in this an
evidence of their survival, but he dreams far more
often of the living, and that, with circumstances
which make the illusion manifest on waking.
Seeing the awe and terror which all men have of
the supernatural region, we ought, on the animistic
hypothesis, to find among savages a great reluct
ance to go to bed — "to sleep! Perchance to
dream — aye, there's the rub ! " But we do not.
Finally, just as the Chinese, who are supposed to
mistake epilepsy for possession, have, unfortunately
for the supposition, got two distinct words for the
two phenomena, so it will doubtless be found that
there is no savage who has not some word to
express illusion ; or whose language does not prove
that he knows dreams are but dreams. We may
well doubt if even animals on waking are affected
by their dreams as by realities, or if a dog ever bit
a man for a kick received in a dream. In short
the dream-theory of souls is plausible only in the
gross, but melts away under closer examination.
bit by bit.
Whether the S.P.R. will ever succeed in bottling-
a ghost, and in submitting it to the tests necessary
to convince science, matters little. The real fruit

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 245
of its labours will be to " convince men of sin," to
convict science of being unscientific, and criticism
of being uncritical — of being biassed by fashion to
the extent of refusing to examine evidence which
must be either admitted or explained away.
Scepticism and credulity alike are hostile both to
science and religion, and it is the common interest
of these latter to secure a full recognition, on the
one side of the principle of faith, that, with God
all things are possible; and on the other, of the
principle of science which is : to prove all things,
and hold fast that which is good. Credulity tends
to make the actual co-extensive with the possible ;
while scepticism would limit the possible to the
known actual. The true mind would be one in
which faith and criticism were so tempered as to
secure width without slovenliness, and exactitude
without narrowness. 11,
How, apart from the imperfect lingering tradition
of some primitive revelation, the belief in a surviving
soul originates with contemporary savages, or might
have originated among still ruder past races, is a
question of some interest, not only for its own
sake, but for the sake of whatever little light it
may throw upon the more vital question as to the

246 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
value of that belief Had the doctrine of souls
no other origin than a false inference from the
ordinary phenomena of sleeping and dreaming;
were it in no sense an instinctive belief, suggested
perhaps and confirmed by supernormal facts, it
would still have interest for the anthropologist as
one Of those almost necessary and universal errors
through which the human mind struggles to the
truth, such as the errors of astrology or alchemy ;
but it would in no way contribute to the argument
for immortality ex consensu hominum — an argument
of much avail when it is a case of man's instinctive
judgments and primary intuitions, which are God-
given, but of ever less value in proportion as there
is a question of deductions, inferences, and self-
formed judgments. Even if we discard the dream-
theory altogether, we get no support from the
consensus of savages as to the soul's survival,
unless we have reason to think that the facts on
which their inference rests are truly, and. not only
apparently, supernormal, and are, moreover, such
as leave no other inference possible.
We know only too well that there are universal
fallacies as well as universal truths of the human
mind. For the practical necessities of life the
imagination stands to man in good stead, but as
the inadequate instrument of speculative thought

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 247
its fertile deceitfulness is betrayed in his very
earliest attempts at philosophy ; nor are .his subse
quent efforts directed to anything else than the
endeavour to correct and allow for its refractions
and distortions, to transcend its- narrow limitations,
to force it to express, meanly and clumsily, truths
which otherwise it would entirely obscure and
deny. There might well be facts, nay, there are
undoubtedly facts, which to the untutored mind
necessarily and always seem altogether supernormal,
but which science rightly explains to be, however
unusual, yet natural, and in no way outside the
ordinary laws. So far as the marvels of sorcerers
and medicine-men are the work of chicanery, they
will lack that persistence and ubiquity which
justifies the investigation of other marvels for
whose universality some basis must be sought
in the uniform nature of things. Cheats will
not always and everywhere hit on the same plan,
nor will the independent testimony of false wit
nesses be found agreeing.
But if besides facts and appearances that science
can really explain away, there be a residue which
takes us into a region wherein science as yet has
set no foot, then we may indeed be on our way to
a confirmation of the usually accepted arguments
for immortality by which the positivist may be met

<248 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
upon his own ground. In truth, metaphysical,
moral, and religious arguments, however much
they may avail with individuals who are subjectively
disposed to receive them, cannot in these days
influence the crowd of men who need some sort
of violence offered to their intellect if they are
to accept truths against which they are biassed.
The temper of the majority is positivist ; it will
believe what it can see, touch, and handle, and
no more. If then the natural truth of the indepen
dent existence of spirits can be made experimentally
evident — and a priori, why should it not.? — men
may not like it, but they will have either to accept
it, or to deny all that they accept on like evidence.
Such unwilling concession would of itself make
little for personal religion in the individual; but
its widespread acceptance could not fail to counter
act the ethics of materialism, and so prepare the
way for perhaps a fuller return to religion on the
part of the many.
It is the belief, and perhaps the hope, of not
a few men of light and learning that a comparison
of the results of the S.P.R. investigations with
those of anthropology touching the beliefs and
superstitions of savages and ruder races, may
point to an order of facts which, with reference
to the admissions of existing science, are rightly

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 249
called supernormal, and yet which are in another
sense strictly normal, namely, with reference to
that science of experimental psychology which, amid
the usual storm of ridicule and jealousy, is slowly
struggling into existence — ridicule from all devout
slaves of the intellectual fashion of the times;
jealousy from the neighbour sciences of mental
physiology and neurology, which it declares bank
rupt in the face of newly-discovered liabilities
So far this gathered evidence seems, in the eyes
of some of its interpreters, to point to a close
connection, if not of being, at least of influence,
between soul and soul, such as binds each atom
of matter to every other; a connection which
increases as we descend from the above-ground
level of full consciousness, through ever lower strata
of subconsciousness, to those hidden depths of
unconscious operation from which the most unintel
ligibly intelligent effects of the soul proceed — as
though, in the darkness, it were taught by God,
and guided blindfold by the hand of its Maker.
In other words, the individuation of souls is
conceived to be somewhat like that of the separate
branches of the same tree which, traced down
wards, run into a commdn root, from whence they
are differenced by every hour of their growth, yet
not disconnected, as though each several conscious-

250 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
ness sprang from some unconscibus psychic basis
common to all, wherein, like forgotten memories,
the experiences of all are buried, at a depth far
beyond the -reach of all normal powers of reminis
cence, yet through which terminus of converging
souls thoughts can, in our intenser moments, pass
from mind to mind, — reverberated as it were from
the base, and thence caught by the one conscious
ness altogether resonant to that particular vibration.
How far such an interpretation may favour pan
theism, or imperil personality, or involve a doctrine
of " pre-existence," or of innate ideas, is not for us
here to discuss. If we are to judge it fairly, it
must be simply as a provisional working-hypothesis
explanatory of certain observations, and apart from
all other psychological theories with which it may
seem in conflict. Truth will in the end adjust
itself with truth, but nothing is to be hoped from
forced and premature adjustments.
Mr. Lang's second and principal contention is
that even if we allow the animistic account of the
belief in spirits, in no sense can we admit that
process by which belief in God is supposed to be
a later development of the belief in spirits, as
though inequality among spirits had given rise to
aristocracy, and aristocracy to monarchy.
By God here we understand : " a primal eternal

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 251
Being, author of all things, the father and the
friend of man, the invisible omniscient guardian of
morality,"1 a definition which, while it fixes the
high-water mark of monotheism, yet only states
with formidable distinctness what, according to
Mr. Lang, is found confusedly in the apprehension
of the rudest savages. There are two senses in
which we can understand an evolution of this idea
of God ; first, as Mr. Tylor understands it, in the
sense of a development by accretion from a simple
germ, from the idea of a phantasm nowise a god,
to that of a spirit still lacking divinity, thence to
that of a Supreme Spirit in whom first the
essential definition of God is somewhat fulfilled.
Secondly, it can be understood strictly as a mere
unfolding of the contents of a confused apprehen
sion ; so that there is an advance only in point of
coherence and distinctness. Thus understood, the
entire religious history of the race, as also of the
individual, viewed from its mental side, consists in
an evolution of the idea of God and culminates in
a face-to-face seeing of God.
From the evidence amassed, or perhaps rather,
sampled, by Mr. Lang it would seem that, what we
account the lowest races are in- possession of a
confused idea of God, whencesoever derived, which
1 P- 173-

252 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
is in substantial agreement with the reflex con
ception contained in the above definition ; and that
there is no existing series of intellectual stages
whereby this can be seen, as it were, in the act
of growing out of previous simpler ideas. Evolu
tion in the direction of greater clearness- and
distinctness is to be observed, as well as a downward
process of obscuration and confusion : but for a
substantial development of the idea of God from
an idea of "not God "there is no proof forthcoming
so far. On the animistic hypothesis we should be
prepared to find the notion of God, as above stated,
to be of very late development and accepted only
by races fairly advanced in culture. We shouldj
a priori, deem it impossible to discover more among
the lower savages than a rude religion of ghost-
worship, without any consciousness of a moral
Supreme Being, the father and friend of man.
Whatever might seem to suggest the contrary,
would be explainable by some infiltration of more
civilized beliefs.
Armed with this hypothesis the eye is quick
"to see that it brings with it the power of
seeing," and to impose its own forms and schemata
on the phenomena offered to its observation.
The " animist " ill-acquainted with the savage's

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 253
language and modes of thought; excluded from
those inner "mysteries" which figure in nearly
every savage religion ; confounding the symbolism,
the popular mythology, and also the corruptions,
distortions, and abuses which are the parasites
of all religion, with the religion itself, can easily
come away with the impression that there is
nothing but ghost-worship, priestcraft, and super
stition, no conception whatever of a personal
" Power that makes for Righteousness." If Pro
testants have almost as crude an idea of the religion
of their Catholic fellow- Christians with whom they
live side by side, and converse in the same language,
if they are so absolutely dominated by their own
form of religious thought, as to be as helpless as
idiots in the presence of any other, can we expect
that the ordinary British traveller, "brandishing
his Bible and his bath," strong in the smug con
viction of his mental, moral, and religious pre
eminence, will be a very sympathetic, conscientious,
and reliable interpreter of the religion of the Zulu
or the Andamanese ?
The fact is that without a preliminary hypothesis
he would see nothing at all except dire confusion.
But an assumption such as that of "animism,"
has the selective power of a magnet, drawing to
itself all congruous facts and little filings of pro-,

254 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
bability, until it so bristles over with evidence that
a hedge-hog is easier to handle.
But before discussing the relation of this
assumption to existing facts and so bringing it
to an a posteriori test, let us examine its a priori
supports. First of all, as Mr. Lang points out, it takes
for granted that the savage can have no idea of the
Creator until he conceive Him as a spirit. " God
is a spirit," has been dinned into our ears from
childhood ; and hence we conclude that he who
has no notion of a spirit can have no notion of
God ; and that the idea of God is of later growth
than that of a ghost. In truth, he who ascribes
to God a body does not know all about Him ;
but which of us knows all about God ? The point
is, not whether the savage can know the meta
physics of divinity, but whether he can conceive
a primal eternal moral being, author of all things,
man's father and judge — a conception which
abstracts entirely from the question of matter
and spirit. We ourselves, like the savage,
necessarily speak of God and imagine Him
humanwise, — although our instructed reason, at
times, corrects the error of our fancy, — and perhaps
only " at times," — only when we leave the ground
of spontaneous thought, to walk on metaphysical

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 255
stilts — nor while that childish image remains
uncorrected and we neither affirm nor deny to Him
a body, can our notion be called false, however
obscure it be and inadequate. If the- savage has
no notion of spirit, yet he may have, and often
seems to have a very true, though of course
infinitely imperfect, notion of God; nay, perhaps
a truer notion than those who affirm, without any
sense of using analogy, that God is a spirit. For
if His spirituality is insisted on, it is rather to
exclude from Him the grossness and limitation
of matter, and to ascribe to Him a transcendental
degree of whatever perfection our notion of spirit
may involve, than to classify Him, or to predicate
of Him that finite nature which we call a spirit.
God is neither a spirit nor a body ; but rather like
Ndengei of the Fijians : "an impersonation of the
abstract idea of eternal existence ; " x one who is to
be "regarded as a deathless Being, no question
of ' spirit ' being raised ; " 2 so that the first
intuition of the unsophisticated mind is found to
be in more substantial agreement with the last
results of reflex philosophical thought, than those
early philosophizings which halt between the
affirmation and denial of bodily attributes, unable
to prescind from the difficulty and unable to solve
1 P. 218. * P. 182.

256 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
it. The history of the Jews, nay, the history of our
own mind proves to demonstration that the thought
of God is a far easier thought and a far earlier, than
that of a spirit. Our mind, our heart, our conscience,
affirm the former instinctively, while the latter does
continual violence to our imagination, except so
far as spirit is misconceived to be an attenuated
phantasmal body. Not only, therefore, does the
savage imagine God and speak of Him humanwise,
as we all do ; but if he does not actually believe
Him to be material, he at least will be slow in
mastering the thought of His spirituality.
Another assumption underlying the animistic
hypothesis, and also borrowed from Christian
teaching, is that the savage regards the soul
or ghost as the liberated and consummated man,
and that therefore he will place God rather in the
category of disembodied than of embodied men.
Yet not only the Greek and Roman, but even the
Jew, looked on the shade of the departed as a mere
fraction of humanity, as a miserable residue of man,
helpless and hopeless, and withal disposed to be
mischievous and exacting, and therefore needing
to be humoured in various ways. -Nay, even
Christianity with its dogma of the bodily resur
rection, denies that Platonic doctrine which views
the body as the prison rather than as the com-

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 257
plcment and consort of the soul ; although it holds
the soul to be of an altogether higher, because
spiritual, order. But to the primitive savage, who
everywhere regards death as non-natural, as
accidental and violent, the surviving spirit, how
ever uncertain-tempered and incalculable in its
movements, however much to be feared and pro
pitiated, does not command reverence as a being
of & superior order. At best it is: "Alas! poor
ghost ! " Better a live dog than a dead lion ; better
the meanest slave that draws breath, than the
monarch of Orcus. Surely it is not in the region
of shadows that the savage will look for the great
" all-father ; " but in the world of solid, tangible
realities. Again, it is assumed that progress in one point
is progress in all ; that because we surpass all
other races and generations in physical science
and useful arts, we surpass them in every other
way; and that they must be far behind us in
ethical and religious conceptions, as they are in
inventions and the production of comforts. To
find our own theism and morality among savages
is therefore impossible ; for as the crooked stick
is unto the steam-plough, so is the god of the
savage unto the God of Great Britain. Yet when
we consider how closely religious and ethical
R II.

258 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
principles are intertwined, and how glaringly untrue
it is to say that industrial civilization makes for
morality, — for purity or self-denial, or justice, or
truth, or honour : how manifestly it is accompanied
with a deterioration of the higher perceptions and
tastes, we must, surely pause before taking it for
granted that the course of true religion has been
running smoothly parallel to that of commerce.
In a thoughtful essay, entitled The Disenchant
ment of France, Mr. F. W. Myers points out the
goal towards which " progress " is leading us,
through the destruction of those four "illusions"
which formerly gave life all its value and dignity,
-^namely, belief in religion; devotion to the State
— whether to the prince or to the people;* belief
in the eternity and spirituality of human love;
belief in man's freedom and imperishable personal
unity. " I cannot avoid the conclusion," he says,
"that we are bound to be prepared for the worst.
Yet by the worst I do not mean any catastrophe
of despair, any cosmic suicide, any world-wide
unchaining of the brute that lies pent in man. I
mean merely the peaceful, progressive, orderly
triumph of I'homme sensuel moyen; the gradual
adaptation of hopes and occupations to a purely
terrestrial standard ; the calculated pleasures of
the cynic who is resolved to be a dupe no more."

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 259
In other words, if we accept this very temperate
and reluctant conclusion, we must confess that
the one-sided progress, with whose all-sufficiency
we are so thoroughly satisfied, is making straight
for the extermination, not only of religion, but of
morality in any received sense of the term.
But when Mr. Lang, who has no hypothesis
of his own as to the origin of belief in God, brings
the animistic theory to an a posteriori test, he finds
it encumbered with still greater difficulties; for
. nothing is as, a priori, it ought to be.
While Mr. Tylor asserts " that no savage tribe
of monotheists has ever been known," but that
all ascribe the attributes of deity to other beings
than the Almighty Creator, it appears in fact that
many of the rudest savages "are as monotheistic
as some Christians. They have a Supreme Being,
and the 'distinctive attributes of deity' are not
by them assigned to other beings further than as
Christianity assigns them to angels, saints, the
devil," &c. Catholics at least will readily under
stand how hastily and unjustly the charge of
polytheism is made by the protestantized mind
against any religion which believes in a Heavenly
Court as well as in a Heavenly Monarch. "Of
the existence of a belief in a Supreme Being "
amongst the lowest savages, "there is as good

260 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
evidence as we possess for any fact in the
ethnographic region. It is certain that savages,
when first approached by curious travellers and
missionaries, have again and again recognized
our God in theirs."
If, therefore, belief in God grew out of belief
in ghosts, it must have been in some stage of
culture lower than any of which we have experi
ence so far ; and at some period which belongs to
the region of hypothesis and conjecture. There
are no known tribes where ghosts are worshipped
and God is not known, or where the supposed
process of development can be watched in action.
Nor is it only that links are missing, but one of
-the very terms to be connected, namely, a godless
race, is conjectural. Still more unfortunate is it
for the animists that evidence points to the fact
that advance in civilization often means the decay
of monotheism, and that the ruder races are the
purer in their religious and ethical" conceptions.
Once more, all facts are against the theory that
tribes transfer their earthly polity to the heavenly
city; for monotheism is found where monarchy
is unknown. " God cannot be a reflection from
human kings where there are no kings ; nor a ,
president elected out of a polytheistic society of
gods, where there is as yet no polytheism ; nor

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 261
an ideal first ancestor where men do not worship
their ancestors."1
To the substantiating of these facts Mr. Lang
then applies himself, and shows us how among
the Australians, Red Indians, Figians, Andamanese,
Dinkas, Yao, Zulus, and all known savages there
lives the conception of a Supreme Being (not
necessarily spirit) who is variously styled Father,
Master, Our Father, The Ancient One in the sky-
land, The Great Father. He, shows us, moreover,
that this deity is the God of conscience, a power
making for goodness, a guardian and enforcer of
the interests of justice and truth and purity; good
to the good, and fro ward with the froward.
But surely, it will be said, all this is too para
doxical, too violently in conflict with what is noto
rious concerning the religion and morality of savages.
The reason of this seeming contradiction is,
however, not altogether difficult. It is to be found
partly in the fact that religion, like morality, being
counter to those laws which govern the physical
world and the animal man, — to the law of egoism
and competition and struggle for existence ; to the
law that " might is right," — tends from the very
nature of the case towards decay and disintegration.
The movement of material progress is in some sense
1 P. 186..

-262 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
a downhill movement. No doubt it evokes much
seeming virtue, such as is necessary to secure the
end ; but the motive force is one with regard to
which man is passive rather than active, a slave
rather than a master, as a miser is in respect to
that passion which stimulates him to struggle for
gain. Religion and morality are uphill work, needing
continual strain and attention if the motive force
is to be maintained at all. Huxley, in one of
his later utterances, allowed this with regard to
morality; and it is not less but more true with
regard to faith in the value of unseen realities.
Even if belief in a moral God be as natural to man
as are the promptings of conscience, it ought not
to surprise us that it should be as universally stifled,
neglected, seemingly denied, as conscience is. It
is not usually in old age and after years of conflict
with the world that conscience is most sensitive
and faithful to light, but rather in early childhood.
And similarly the sense of God and of His will
is apparently more strong and lively in the childhood
of races than after it has been stifled by the struggle
for wealth and pre-eminence —
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first love :
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.1
1 The Rctyjat. By Henry Vaughan.

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION.'' 263
Degradation may almost be considered a law
of religion and morality which needs some kind of
violent counteraction, some continual intervention
and providence, if it is to be- kept in check. After
all, this is only a dressing-up of the old platitude
that a holy life means continual warfare and
straining of the spirit against the flesh, of the!
moral order against the physical order, of altruism
or the true egoism against selfishness or the false
egoism. Of course an ideal civilization would
help and not hinder religion ; but the chances
against civilization being ideal are so large as to
make it historically true that, advance in civilization
does not always mean advance in religion and
morality, and often means decay.
Far from animism being the root of theism,
more often it is rather the ivy that grows up about
it, hides it and chokes it. Just because the
demands of religion and morality are so burden
some to men, they will ever seek short-cuts to
salvation ; and the intercession of presumably
corruptible courtiers will be secured to win the
favour, or avert the displeasure, of the rigorously
incorruptible and inexorable King, who is "no
respecter of persons." Except among Jews and
Christians, the Supreme Being is nowhere wor
shipped with sacrifice?— that service of food-offering

254 "THE MAKING OP RELIGION."
being reserved for subordinate deities susceptible
to gentle bribery. The great God of conscience
is naturally the least popular object of cultus ;
though, were the animists right, He should be the
most popular, seeing He would be the latest develop
ment demanded and created by the popular mind.
But contrariwise, He tends to recede more and
more into the background, behind the ever-multiply
ing crowd of patron-spirits, guardians, family-gods ;
till, as in Greece and Rome,. He is almost entirely
obscured, "an unknown God ignorantly worshipped "
— the End, as usual, being forgotten and buried
in the means. All this process of degradation will
be hastened by the corruption of priests whose
avarice or ambition, as Mr. Lang says, will tempt
them to exploit the lucrative elements in religion at
the expense of the ethical ; to whittle-away the
decrees of God and conscience to suit the wealthy
and easy-going ; to substitute purchasable sacrifice,
for obedience; and the fat of rams, for charity.
We need only look to the history of Israel and of
the Christian Church to see all these tendencies
continually at work, and only held in check by
innumerable interventions of Divine Providence,
and of that Spirit which is always striving with
man. Scant, however, as may be the amount of direct

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 265
worship accorded to the Supreme God, compared
with that received by subordinate spiritual powers,
yet it is sui generis, and of an infinitely higher
order. The familiar distinction of latria and dulia
seems to obtain everywhere ; as also that between
Elohim and Javeh, that is, between supernal beings
in general, and the Supreme Being who is also
supernal. Yet so excessive in quantity is the
secondary cultus compared with the primary, that
an outsider may well be pardoned for thinking that
there is nothing beyond what meets the eye on
every side. As has been said, the Supreme Being
alone is usually considered above the weakness
of caring for sacrifice, or for external worship
in "temples made with hands." His name is
commonly tabooed, only to be whispered in those
mysteries of initiation which are met with so
universally. Outside these mysteries He may only
be spoken of in parables and myths, grotesque,
irreverent, designed to conceal rather than to reveal.
But rarely is there an image or an altar to this
unknown God.
It is easy for those who recognize no other
religion among savages behind the popular obser
vances and cults which are so much to the front,
to believe that early religion is non-ethical. For
indeed, for the most part, all this secondary Cu'.tus

m "The making op religion."

lsdirected to the mitigation of the moral code and
the substitution of exterior for interior sacrifice.
It is the result of an endeavour to compound with
conscience ; and to hide away sins from the all-
seeing eye. Again it is chiefly in the secrecy of
the mysteries that the higher ethical doctrine is
propounded — a doctrine usually covering all the
substantials of the decalogue ; and in some cases,
approaching the Christian summary of the same
under the one heading of love and unselfishness.
As for the corrupt lives of savages, if it proves their
religion to be non-ethical, what should we have
to think of Christianity ? We cry out in horror
against cannibalism as the ne plus ultra of wicked
ness, but except so far as it involves murder, it
is hard to find in it more than a violation of our
own convention, while a mystical mind might find
more to say for it than for cremation. Certainly
it is not so bad as slander and backbiting. Human
sacrifice offered to the Lord of life and death at
His own behest, is something that did not seem
wicked and inconceivable to Abraham. Head
hunting is not a pretty game ; nor is scalping and '
mutilation the most generous treatment of a fallen
foe ; yet war has seen worse things done by those
who professed an ethical religion.
But, chief among the causes why savage religion

"THE MAKING OP RELIGION." 25?
has been so misrepresented, is the almost universal
co-existence of a popularized form of religion
addressed to the imagination, with that which
speaks to the understanding alone. As has already
been said, man's imagination is at war with his
intelligence when supersensible realities, such as
God and the soul, are in question. Without figures
we cannot think; yet the timeless and spaceless
world can ill be figured after the likeness of things
limited by time and space. This mental law is the
secret of the invariable association of mythology
with religion. Setting aside the problem as to how
the truths of natural religion {sc. that there is a
God the rewarder of them that seek Him) are first
brought home to man, it is certain that if he does
not receive them embedded in history or parable,
in spoken or enacted symbolism, he will soon fix
and record them in some such language for himself.
Christ recognized the necessity of speaking to the«
multitude in parables, not attempting to precise
or define the indefinable; but contenting Himself
with : " The Kingdom of Heaven is like," &c.
" I am content," .says Sir Thomas Browne, " to
understand a mystery without a rigid definition,
in an easie and Platonick description," and it is
only through such easie and Platonick descriptions
that spiritual truth can slowly be filtered into the

268 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
popular mind. Still when we consider how prone
all metaphors are to be pressed inexactly, either
too far, or else not far enough, how abundant a
source they are of misapprehension, owing to the
curiosity that will not be content to have the gold
in the ore, but must needs vainly strive to refine it
out, we can well understand how mythology tends
to corrupt and debase religion if it be not con
tinually watched and weeded ; and how, being,
from the nature of the case, ever to the front, ever
on men's lips and mingling with their lives, it
should seem to the outsider to be not the imperfect
garment of religion, but a substitute for it. Yet in
some sense these mythologies are a safeguard of
reverence in that they provide a theme for humour
and profanity and rough handling, which is thus
expended, not on the sacred realities themselves,
but on their shadows and images. Among certain
savages God's personal name is too holy to be
breathed but in mysteries ; yet His mythological
substitute is represented to be as grotesque, freakish,
and immoral as the Zeus of the populace. We can
hardly enter into such a frame of mind, though
possibly the irreverences and buffooneries of some
of the miracle-plays of the middle ages are similarly
to be explained as the rebound from the strain
incident to a continual sense of the nearness of the

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 269
supernatural ; and perhaps the Messer Domeniddio
of the Florentines stood rather for a mental effigy
that might be played with, than for the reasoned
conception of the dread Deity. If we possessed a
minutely elaborated history of the Good Shepherd
and His adventures, or of the Prodigal's father,
or of the Good Samaritan, interspersed with all
manner of ludicrous and profane incidents, and
losing sight of the original purport of the figure,
we should have something like a mythology. Were
it not stereotyped as part of an inspired record, the
mere romancing tendency of the imagination would
easily have added continually to the original parable,
wholly forgetful of its spiritual significance. .
It is part of the very economy of the Incarna
tion to meet this weakness, to provide for this want
of the human mind ; to satisfy the imagination as
well as the intelligence. Here Divine truth has
received a Divine embodiment, has been set forth
in the language of deeds, in a real and not in
a fictitious history. Sacrifice and sacrament, and
every kind of natural religious symbolism, has been
appropriated and consecrated to the service of truth
and to the fullest utterance of God that such
weak accents will stretch to. Here the channel of
communication between Heaven and earth is not
of man's creation but of God's ; or at least is of

270 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
God's composition. This is the great difference
between the ethnic religions and a religion that
professes to be revealed — that is, spoken by God
and put into language by Him. The latter is, so
to say, cased in an incorruptible body, its very
expression being chosen and sealed for ever with
Divine approval, and rescued from the fluent and
unstable condition of religions whose clothes are
the works of men's hands. Here it is that Catholic
Christianity stands out as altogether catholic and
human, adapted as it is to the world-wide cravings
of the religious instinct ; satisfying the imagination
and the emotions, no less than the intellect and the
will; and yet saving us from the perils of the
myth-making tendency of our mind.
The same thought is pressed upon us when we
view the collective evidence as to the universal
demand for a mediatorial system — for intercessors,
and patrons, for a heavenly court surrounding the
Heavenly Monarch ; a demand often created by and
tending to a degradation of purer religion, yet
most surely embodying and expressing a spiritual
instinct which is only fully explained and satisfied
by the Catholic doctrine of the communion of
saints and souls in one great society, labouring for
a conjoint salvation and beatitude. We Catholics
know well enough that the degraded and super-

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 271
stitious will pervert saint-worship' as they pervert
other good things to their Own hurt and to God's
dishonour, but we also know that of itself the
doctrine of the Heavenly Court is altogether in the
interests of the very highest and purest religion.
In all this matter, needless to say, Mr. Lang is not
with us; but the affinities of Catholicism with
universal religion, which he marks to our prejudice,
are really in some sort proof of our contention that
the Church is the divinely conceived fulfilment of
all man's natural religious instincts, providing
harmless and healthy outlets for humours otherwise
dangerous and morbid; never forgetful of- man's
double nature and its claims, neither wearying him
with an impossible intellectualism — a religion of
pure philosophy — not suffering him to be the prey
of mere imagination and sentiment, but tempering
the divine and human, the thought and the word,
so as to bring all his faculties under the yoke of
Christ. Mr. Lang's concern is with the universality of
belief in God the Rewarder, not with its origin nor
even its value; though he seems at times to imply
that the solution may be found in a primitive
revelation of some sort. For ourselves, accordant
as such a notion would be with popular Christian
tradition, we do not think that the adduced

272 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
evidence needs that hypothesis ; but is explained
sufficiently by " the hypothesis of St. Paul," which,
as Mr. Lang admits, " seem not the most unsatis
factory." The mere verbal tradition of a primi
tive "deposit" not committed to any authorized
guardians would, to say the least, be a hazardous
and conjectural way of accounting for the facts ;
nor is there any evidence offered to show that such
religious beliefs are held, as the Catholic religion
is, on the authority of antiquity, interpreted by a
living voice. The substance of this elementary
religion — the existence of God the Rewarder of
them that seek Him — is naturally suggested to the
simple-minded by the data of unspoilt conscience,
confirmed and supplemented by the spectacle of
Nature. That the truth would be borne-in on a
solitary and isolated soul we need not maintain ;
for in solitude and isolation man is not man, and
neither reason nor language can develop aright.
Further we may allow that as Nature or God
provides for society, and therefore for individuals,
by an equal distribution of gifts and talents,
giving some to be politicians, others poets, others
philosophers, others inventors, so He gives to some
what might be called natural religious genius or
talent or spiritual insight, for the benefit of the
community. Thus whatever be true of the indi-

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 273
vidual savage, we cannot well suppose that any
tribe or people, taken collectively, should fail to
draw the fundamental truths of religion from the
data of conscience and nature. In this sense no
doubt they would become traditional — the common
property of all — so that the innate facility of each
individual mind in regard to them would be
stimulated and supplemented by suggestion from
without. How far God can be said actually to "speak"
to the soul through conscience or through Nature
so as to make faith, in the strict sense of reliance
on the word of another, possible, is for theologians
to discuss. If besides expressing these truths in
creation or in conscience, He also expresses in
some way His intention to reveal them to the
particular soul, we have all that is requisite. In
what way, or innumerable ways He makes His
voice heard in every human heart day by day, and
causes general truths to be brought near and
recognized and received as a particular message,
each can answer best for himself.
But undoubtedly the_ results of comparative
religion are, so far, almost entirely favourable to
the doctrine of God's all-saving will ; and in many
other points confirmatory of received beliefs. Even
where, for example, in the question of the origin
S II.

274 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
and meaning of sacrifice, they seem to necessitate
a modification of the somewhat elaborate a priori
definition, popular in some modern schools (though
not in them all), yet that modification is alto
gether favourable to the sounder conception of the
Eucharistic Sacrifice as a food-offering comple
mentary to the Sacrifice of the Cross. Above all
it is in bringing out the unity of type between
natural ethnic religions, and that revealed Catholic
religion which is their correction and fulfilment,
that the studies of Mr. Lang and Mr. Jevons are
of such service. The militant Protestant delights
to dwell on the analogies between Romanism and
Paganism ; we too may dwell on them with delight,
as evidence of that substantial unity of the human
mind which underlies all surface diversities of mode-
and language, and binds together, as children of
one family, all who believe in God the Rewarder
of them that seek Him, who is no respecter of
persons. What man in his darkness and sinfulness
has feebly been trying to utter in every nation from
the beginning, that God has formulated and written
down for him in the great Catholic religion of the
Word made Flesh —
Which he may read that, binds the sheaf
Or builds the house, or digs the grave,
And those wild eyes that watch the wave
In roarings round the poral .reef.

"THE MAKING OF RELIGION." 275
True, even could it be established beyond all
doubt that belief in the one God were universal
among rude and uncultivated races, this would not
add any new proof to the truth of religion, unless
it could be shown that it was really an instinctive,
inwritten judgment, and not one of those many
natural fallacies into which all men fall until they
are educated out of them. Still, for those who
do not need conviction on this point, it is no
slight consolation to be assured that simplicity
and savagery do not shut men out from the truths
best worth knowing ; that even where the earthen
vessel is most corrupted, the heavenly treasure is
not altogether lost; that it is only those who
deliberately go in search of obscurities who need
stumble. It was not the crowds of pagandom that
St. Paul censured, but the philosophers. God made
man's feet for the earth, and not for the tight-rope.
Whatever be the truth about Idealism, man is by
nature a Realist; and similarly he is by nature
a theist, until he has studiously learnt to balance
himself in the non-natural pose.
Will a man be excused for deliberately dashing
his foot against a stone because forsooth he has
persuaded himself with Zeno, that there is no such
thing as motion ; or with Berkeley, that the exter
nality of the world is a delusion; or will he be

276 "THE MAKING OF RELIGION."
pardoned in his unbelief because he could not justify
by philosophy the truth which conscience and
nature are dinning into his ears : that there is
a God the Rewarder of them that seek Him ?
Sejt. Oct. 1898.

XXII.
ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF
RELIGION.
Much as we may think of the abstract and objective
value of the treatise De vera religione, which forms .
the usual introduction to those cursus theologici
whose multiplication of late has been so remarkable,
it can hardly be denied that its cogency is much;
diminished for the large number of those thinkers
who repudiate the philosophical presuppositions.
upon which that treatise rests. As long as negation
halted before that. minimum of religious truth which
is in some way accessible to reason, — before belief
in God and in immortality; as long as the principles
and methods of proof by which "natural theology",
reached its conclusion were admitted even by those .
who denied those conclusions, an apologetic such ;
as we are speaking of had an undoubted practical .
value — not indeed as sufficing to bring conviction
to the unwilling or ill-disposed, not as a cause of ,
faith, but as removing an obstacle which existed

27S ADAPTABILITY AS A rROOF OF RELIGION.
,. >. l
in the supposed incompatibility of revealed truth
with these same rational principles and processes.
Apart from this preparation of the intellect, to
which perhaps the name " apologetic " should be
more strictly reserved, a prior and more important
need was the disposing of the will and affections
to the acceptance of the truth. For, in a very real
sense, love is the root of faith ; and the wish that
a thing should be true, not only stimulates the mind
to inquire and investigate, but also creates a fear
of self-deception and a spirit of incredulity which
is the fruitful parent of intellectual difficulties.
Such an appeal to the affections is really outside
the province of theological science and belongs
rather to the rhetorician, the poet, or the prophet.
Yet it was a work at all times needful for the exten
sion and maintenance of the faith, in even a greater
degree than the more dispensable preparation of
the intellect. For the great multitude of men who
are innocent of any really independent thought,
who professedly or unconsciously take all their
beliefs from some individual or society, there is
really no need of scientific apologetic — the sole
need being to win or maintain their confidence, their
loyalty, their reverence, in regard to some teacher
or leader, to Christ or the Church.
It was only towards the close of last century

AbAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OP RELIGION.1 279
when scepticism was beginning to reach the very
root from which the Christian apologetic sprang,
and the former philosophic methods had themselves
fallen in disrepute, that the necessity of accom
modating the remedy to the disease began to be
recognized here and there, and of framing an
argument that would appeal to the perverse and
erratic mind of the day, rather than to an abstract
and perfectly normal mind, which, if it existed,
would "need no repentance." That a given medicine
is the best, avails nothing if it be not also one
which the patient is willing to take. If a man has
closed his teeth against everything that savours of
scholasticism, we must either abandon him or else
see if there be any among the methods he will
submit to, which may in any wise serve our purpose.
And, indeed, among the jangle of philosophies there
is surely in all something that, is a common heritage
of the human mind, a unity which a little skill can
detect lurking under that diversity of form which
unfortunately it is the delight . of most men to
emphasize. To suppose that Christianity is pledged
to more than this common substratum which none
deny, except through verbal confusion, that there
is no road to faith but through what is peculiar
to scholasticism, or that my first step in converting
a man to Christ must be to convert him to Aristotle,

2§o ADAPTABILITY AS A TROOP OF RELIGION.
is about as intelligent as to suppose that because
the Church has adopted Latin as her official
language she means to discredit every other.
It was then with a view of meeting the exigencies
of the world as it is, not as it might or ought
to have been, that such a work as the Genie du
Christianisme strove to find an apologetic in what
previously had been regarded as outside the domain
of theology and more properly the concern of the
preacher. The beauty, the solace, the adaptation to
our higher needs of Christian teaching had been
one thing; its truth, quite another. By dilating
eloquently on the first, men might be won to the
love of such an ideal, to wish that it might be true ;
and then disposed to profit by the distinct and
independent labours of the apologist whose theme
was, not the utility or beauty of the Catholic religion,
but solely its truth.
But now that the "scholastic"1 apologetic was
1 This will perhaps be the most convenient term. In the
Summa of Aquinas, the elaborate treatise De vera religione, called '
into existence by more recent exigencies, had no place. Still, in so
far as it is constructed roughly on the same scheme and presupposes
the same philosophy, and (were if not a deepening of the roots
rather than an extension of the branches) might almost be regarded
as a development of scholasticism, it may rightly be called " scho
lastic" to distinguish it, say, from such a work as the Grammar of
Assent.

ADAPTABILITY As A PROOF OF RELIGION. 2S1
in disgrace with all but those who stood least in
need of it, some more acceptable method had to be
sought out, and amongst many others there was
that of Chateaubriand, which strove to find an
argument for the intellect in the very appeal which
Christianity made to the will and affections. Because
a religion is fair and much to be desired, because, if
true, it would give unity and meaning to man's
higher cravings, and turn human life from a sense
less chaos into an intelligible whole, therefore, and
for this reason, it is true.
It is hardly wonderful that such a method
should incur the charge of sentimentalism. " It
would be so nice to believe it, therefore it
must be true," sounds like a shameless abandon
ment of reasonableness. The fact that a belief
is "consoling," quite independently of its truth or
falsehood, creates a bias towards its acceptance.
That it is pleasant to believe oneself very clever and
competent will incline one to that belief until
something important depends, not on our thinking
ourselves so, but on our being so. Before an
examination, the wish to succeed will make me
sceptical about my prospects, much as I should
like to think them the brightest ; afterwards, when
self-deception can only console and can do iftfharm,
I shall be^ credulous of any flattery that is offered

2S2 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
me. In one case, my interest depends upon the
facts, and therefore the wish to believe makes me
critical and even sceptical ; in the other, on my
belief concerning the facts, and the wish to believe,
makes me uncritical and credulous.
It was seemingly a bold and hazardous venture
to justify this same credulity, and to affirm that an
argument could be drawn from the wish to believe
in just those cases where its influence would seem
most suspicious ; yet this was practically what the
new apologetic amounted to. It was an argument
from the utility of beliefs to their truth ; from the
fact that certain subjective convictions produced
good results, to the correspondence of such
convictions with objective reality. The advantages
to the individual and to society of a firm belief in
God the righteous Judge, in the sanction of eternal
reward and penalty, in the eventual adjustment
of all inequalities, in the reversible character of
sin through repentance, in the divine authority of
conscience, of Christianity, of the Catholic Church,
are to a great extent independent of the truth of
those, beliefs. No amount of hypnotic suggestion
will enable a man to subsist upon cinders, under
the belief that they are a very nutritious diet ; for
the effect depends upon their actual nature, and
not wholly upon his belief concerning their nature ;

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 283
but the salutary fear of Hell or hope of Heaven,
depends not on the existence of either state, but
on our belief in its existence. The fact that the
denial of these and many similar beliefs would
bring chaos into our spiritual and moral life, that
it would extinguish hopes which often alone make
life bearable, that it would issue for society at
large in such a grey, meaningless, uninspired
existence as Mr. F. W. Myers prognosticates in his
admirable essay on " The Disillusionment of
France,"1 all this and much more makes it our
interest, if not our duty, to cling to such con
victions at all costs. " If these things are not
true, it might be said, then life is chaos ; and if
life be chaos, what does truth matter ? Why may
not such useful illusions and self-deceptions be
fostered ? If we are dreaming, let our dreams be
the pleasantest possible ! "
Nor can it be urged that though some part of
our interest thus depends on the beliefs, rather
than on their being true, yet the consequences, of
self-deception are so momentous, as to create a
spirit of criticism to balance or over-balance the
said bias of credulity. For though the conse
quences of denial are disastrous if the beliefs are
true, yet if they are false, the ill-consequences of
1 Science and a Future Life. By F. W. Myers.

2§4 adaptability as a proof op religion.
belief are almost insignificant. It is sometimes
said too hastily that if religion be an illusion, then
religious people lose both this life and the next ;
and it is assumed that an unrestrained devotion to
pleasure would secure a happiness which faith
requires us to forego. But unless we take a gross,
and really unthinkable view of the homogeneity of
all happiness, and reduce its differences to degree
and quantity, the shallowness of the preceding
objection will be apparent. It is only through
restraint that the higher kinds of temporal happi
ness are reached, and as confusions are cleared
away in process of discussion, it becomes patent
that such restraint finds its motive directly or
indirectly in religion. When the religious influence
with which irreligious society is saturated, has
exhausted itself, and idealism is no more, the
unrestrained egoistic pursuit of enjoyment must
tend to its steady diminution in quantity, and its
depreciation in kind. The sorrow and pain entailed
by fidelity to the Christian ideal is, on the whole,
immeasurably less in the vast majority of cases than
that attendant on the struggles of unqualified
selfishness, while the capacities for the higher
happiness are steadily raised and largely satisfied
by hope and even by some degree of present
fruition. Even vice would be in many ways

adaptability as a PROOF OF RELIGION. 285
siuceless and insipid in the absence of faith. Who
does not remember the old cynic's testimony (in
the " New Republic ") to the piquancy lent by
Christianity to many a sin, otherwise pointless. If
the moralist distinguishes between actions that are
evil because they are forbidden, and those that are
forbidden because they are evil, the libertine has
a counter-distinction between those that are for
bidden because they are pleasant, and those that
are pleasant because they are forbidden. St. Paul
himself is explicit enough as to this effect of the
law. Look at it how we will, even were religion
unfounded our life would on the whole gain in
fulness far more than it would lose, by our believing
in religion". Hence some of our more thoughtful
agnostics,- however unable themselves to find
support in what they deem an illusion, are quite
willing to acknowledge the part religion has played
in the past in the evolution of rational life, and to^
look upon it as a necessary factor in the earlier
stages of that process whose place is to be taken
hereafter by some as yet undefined substitute. If
indeed Nature thus works by illusions and justifies
the lying means by the benevolent end, it is hard
to believe 'in' a moral government of the universe,
or to hope that an " absolute morality "—righteous-

2S6 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
ness for its own sake — will be the outcome, pf such
disreputable methods. But till the illusion of
" absolute morality " is strong enough to take care
of itself, and has passed from the professors to the
populace, it is plainly for the interest and happiness
of individuals and of society to hold fast to religion.
Undoubtedly then the advantages resulting from
a belief in religion, whether valid or illusory, are
such as to incline not only the higher and more
unselfish minds, but even those which are more
prudential and self-regarding, to wish to hold that
belief — to be unwilling to hear arguments against
it. But among the former class will be found many
intellectually conscientious and even scrupulous
persons, whom the recognition of this inevitable
bias will drive to an extreme of caution. Not so
much because the facts believed-in are of such
intense moment, but rather because the belief itself,
whether true or false, is so consoling and helpful,
that there seems to them a danger of self-deception
just proportioned to their wish to believe.
It were then no small rest and relief to such,
could it be shown that what they deem a reason
for doubt, is really a reason for belief; that the
welcome which all that is best in them gives to a
belief, affords some sort of philosophical justifica
tion thereof

ADAPTABILITY AS A I'liOOf OF RELIGION. 2S7
This- particular argument had undoubtedly a
more favourable hearing in the age of Chateau
briand, when unbelief stopped short at the threshold
of what was called " Natural Religion," and the
apologist's task was confined to the establishment
of revelation. " It is now pretty generally admitted,"
says the author of Contemporary Evolution, "with
regard to Christianity and theism that the argu
ments really telling against the first, are in their
logical consequences fatal also to the second, and
that a Deus Unus, Remunerator once admitted, an
antecedent probability for a revelation must be
conceded." Given an intelligent and benevolent author of
the universe, it is not perhaps very difficult to
show that any further religious belief approximates
to the truth in the measure that it satisfies the
more highly developed rational needs of mankind.
It is not seriously denied any longer that religion
is an. instinct with man, however it may be lacking
in some individuals or dormant in others. We
have savages at both ends of the scale of civiliza
tion, but man is none the less a political creature ;
nor does the existence of idiots and deaf mutes and
criminals at all affect the fact that he is a reasoning
and speaking and ethical animal. As soon as he
wakes t9 consciousness, he feejs that he is part

2S3 ADAPTABILITY <4S A PROOF OF RELIGION.
of a whole, one of a multitude ; and that as he is
related to his fellow-parts — equals or inferiors— so
also is he related to the Whole which is above him
and greater than all put together. Religion, taken
subjectively, in its loosest sense, is a man's mental
and moral attitude in regard to real or imaginary
Superhuman beings — a definition which includes
pantheism, polytheism, monotheism ; moral, non-
moral, and immoral religions;, which prescinds
from materialist or spiritualist conceptions of the
universe. And by a religion in the objective sense,
so far as true or false can be predicated of it,
we mean a body of beliefs intended to regulate and
correct man's subjective religion. It is to such
systems and their parts that we think the above
test of " adaptability " may be applied as we have
stated it.
We must of course assume that our distinction
of higher from lower states of rational development
is valid; that we can really attach some absolute
meaning to the terms "progress" and " decline ; "
that there is some vaguely conceived standard of
human excellence which such terms refer to. Else
we are flung into the very whirlpool of scepticism.
Measured back from infinity it may be infinitesimal,
but measured forward from zero, the difference of
mental and, partly, of moral culture between

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF Op RELIGION. 289
ourselves and the aborigines of Australia is con
siderable, and is really to our advantage. Now if a
given religion or religious belief suggests itself more
readily, or when suggested commends itself more
cordially in the measure that men's spiritual needs
are more highly developed ; if, furthermore, it tends
to make men still better and to raise their desires
still higher so as to prepare the way for a yet fuller
conception of religious truth, it may be said to be
adapted to human needs; and it is from such
adaptability that we argue its approach to the truth.
We say "its approach," for all our ideas of the
Whole, of the superhuman, of those beings with
which religion deals, are necessarily analogous and
imperfect. What is admitted by all with regard to
the strict mysteries of the Christian faith is in a
great measure to be extended to the central or
fundamental ideas of all religion. They are at best
woefully inadequate, and if the unity between the
parts of an idea be organic and not merely
mechanical, they must be regarded as containing
false mingled with true.1 Still some analogies are
less imperfect, less mingled with fallacy than others,
1 i.e., If an object be adequately and exhaustively conceived
under the predicates A.B. CD., it is inadequately conceived as
A.B.x.x. But if each of these properties be permeated and modified
by the rest, then A in this object is not as A in any other combina-'
X II.

=2go ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
and there is room for indefinite approximation
towards an unattainable exactitude. For example,
assuming theism, as we do in the argument under
consideration, it is evident that man conceives the
superhuman object of his fear and worship more
truly as personal than as impersonal; as spiritual
than as embodied; as one or few than as many;
as infinite than as finite; as creator than as maker;
as moral than as non-moral or immoral; as both
transcendent and immanent than as either alone.
If then it appears that as man's intelligence and
morality develop in due proportion, : he' advances
from a material polytheistic immoral conception of
the All, to a spiritual and moral monotheism, it
may be claimed that the latter is a less inadequate
conception. And similarly with regard to other
dependent religious beliefs which usually radiate
from the central notion. It will be seen that we
do not argue from the self-determined wishes or
desires of any individual or class of individuals to
their possible fulfilment,— to the existence in Nature
of some supply answering to that demand ; we do
not argue that because many men or all men desire
tion, but is A as related to and modified by B.CD. ; and similarly,
the other properties are each unique. Hence any part is somewhat
falsely apprehended till the whole be apprehended, when we are
dealing with organic as opposed to mechanical totalities.

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 291
to fly, flying must for that reason alone be possible.
We speak of the needs of man's nature, not of this
individual's nature ; of needs consequent on what
man is made, and not on what he has made himself;
of those wants and exigencies which if unsatisfied
or insatiable must leave his nature not merely
negatively imperfect and finite, but positively
defective and as inexplicable as a lock without a
key — not necessarily, of needs felt at all times by
•every man, but of those which manifest themselves
naturally and regularly at certain stages of moral
and social development; just as the bodily appetites
assert themselves under certain conditions not
always given.
Now there is one form in which this argument
from adaptability is somewhat too hastily applied
and which it is well to guard against. Were we to
iind a key accommodated to the wards of a most
•complicated lock, we should be justified in con
cluding, with a certainty proportioned to the com
plexity of the lock, that both originated wjth one
and the same mind ; and so, it is urged, if a religion,
5ay Christianity, answers to the needs of human
nature, we may conclude that it is from the Author
of human nature with a certainty increasing as it is
seen to answer to the higher and more complex
developments of the soul.

292 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
Now if, like the key in our illustration, the
religion in question were something given in rerum
natura independent of human origination in any
form, this argument would be practically irresistible.
That besides those beliefs which lead man on to
an ever fuller understanding of his . better self, and
stimulate and direct his moral progress, Christianity
imposes others more principal, of which man as yet
has no exigency, and which hint at some future
order of existence that new faculties will disclose —
all this, in no wise makes the argument inapplicable.
The whole system of beliefs is accepted for the sake,
and on the credit, of .that part which so admirably
unlocks the soul to her own gaze. " Now are we
the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we
shall be ; " if besides satisfying our present ideal of
religion, Christianity hints at and prepares us for
such a transition as that from merely organic to
sensitive life, or from this, to rational life, it rather
adds to than detracts from the force of the argument-
Yet all this supposes that Christianity is some
thing found by man outside himself, with whose
origination he had nothing to do; but, if this be
established, its supernatural origin, and therefore,
supposing theism, its truth, is already proved, and
can only receive confirmation from the argument
of adaptability. If the Book of Mormon really

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 293
came down from Heaven, my conviction that
polygamy is not for the best, would seem a feeble
objection against its claims. That the Judseo-
Christian religion is supernatural and is from
without, not only with respect to the individual
but to the race ; that- it is an external, God-given
rule, awakening, explaining, developing man's
natural religious instinct, correcting his own clumsy
interpretations thereof, is just what gives it its
claim to pre-eminence over all, even the most
highly conceived, man-made interpretations of the
same instinct.
Yet though claiming to be a God-made interpre
tation, it is confessedly through human agency,
through the human mind and lips of the prophets
and of Christ that this revelation has come to us.
Moreover, it involves, though it transcends, all those
religious beliefs of which human nature seems
exigent and which are, absolutely, speaking,
attainable by what might be called the " natural
inspiration" of religious genius. Viewing the
whole revelation in itself, its adaptability is evident
only in respect to that part which might have
originated with those minds through which it was
delivered to us. If the beliefs proposed seem to
have anticipated moral and intellectual needs not
felt in the prophet's own age or society, this might

894 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
be paralleled from the inspiration of genius in other-
departments, and could not of itself be regarded)
as establishing the ab extra character of the revela
tion. -'. .
Plainly, then, so far as a religion claims to bef
from outside, its adaptability to our religious and
moral instincts may. confirm but cannot establish
its Divine origin, which, given theism, is equivalent
to its' truth. For to show that it is from outside,
is to show that it is from God.
It is only therefore with regard to man-
made interpretations of our spiritual instincts, to
the natural inspirations of religious genius, to the
intuitions and even the reasoned inferences of the
conscientious and clean-hearted, that the argument
from adaptability can have any independent value.
It is now no longer as one who argues from a
comparison of lock and key to their common
authorship; but rather we have a self-conscious
lock, pining to be opened, and from a more or less
imperfect self-knowledge - dreaming of some sort
of key and arguing that in the measure that its'
dream is based on true self-knowledge, there must
be a reality corresponding to it — a valid argument
enough, supposing the locksmith to act on the usual
lines and not to be indulging in a freak.
Such, in substance, is the argument from1

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 295
adaptability founded oh the assumption of theism
and applied to the criticism or establishment of
further religious behefs. It is indeed somewhat
stronger when we remember that the self-conscious
ness, with which we fictitiously endowed the lock,
plays chief part in fhe very design and structure
of man ; that his self-knowledge, his moral and
religious instincts, his desire and power of inter
preting them, are all from the Author of his nature.
Of this difference Tennyson takes note in
applying the argument from adaptability to the
immortality of the soul :
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust ;
Thou madest man, he knows not why ;
He thinks he was not made to die,
And Thou hast made him, Thou art just.
But so far as the argument presupposes theism-
it cannot be made to support or even confirm
theism. If, then, we want to make the argument
absolutely universal with regard to religious. beliefs
— theism included and not presupposed — and so to
make it available for apologetic purposes in regard
to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, we must
inquire whether any basis can be found for it in
non-theistic philosophy ; whether, prescinding from
Divine governance and from an intelligent purpose
running through nature, the adaptability of a belief

296 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
to the higher needs of mankind can be considered
in any way to prove its truth. So far we have only
shown that such a conclusion results from a clearer
insight into the theistic conception. Can we show
that it springs, co-ordinately with theism, from
some conception prior to both ?
n. *
If what is usually understood by " theism " be
once granted as a foundation, it is easy to raise
thereon a superstructure of further religious beliefs
by means of the argument drawn from their
adaptability to the higher needs of mankind.
However individuals may fail, yet it must be
allowed that on the whole the human mind pro
gresses, or tends to progress, from a less to a more
perfect self-knowledge, to a fuller understanding of
its own origin, its end and destiny, and of the kind
of life by which that end is to be reached, — that is,
if once we admit that man is a self-interpreting
creature, and the work of an intelligent Creator.
So far however as the Christian creed exceeds
man's natural exigencies and aspirations, it plainly
cannot be subjected to this criterion ; and so far
as it includes (while it transcends) the highest form
of " natural religion," the argument from adapta
bility holds of it only if we suppose Christianity

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 297
to be a natural product of the human mind, thus
destroying its claim to be from without and from
above. But if from other reasons we know
Christianity to be a God-made and not a man-made
religion, then, though its divinity and truth is already
proved, yet it is in some sort confirmed and verified
by its adaptability to the demands of our higher
nature. In a word, this particular argument holds
strictly only for man's own guesses at religious
truth, — for "natural" religions; but for Christi
anity, only so far as we deny it to be supernatural
as to its content and mode of origination.
But so far as this argument presupposes theism,
it cannot be made to support or even confirm
theism ; if then we wish to make it available for
apologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt
is more deep-seated, we must now inquire whether,
prescinding from divine governance and from
finality in nature, the adaptability of a belief (say,
in God, or in future retribution) to the needs of
mankind, can be considered in any way as a proof
of its truth ; whether that argument can find any
deeper mental basis than theism ; whether it can
be rested on anything which in the order of our
thought is prior to theism so as to . support or at
least to confirm theism itself.
Our present endeavour is to show that though

298 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
this argument rests more easily and securely on
theism, yet it need not rest upon it ; but springs,
co-ordinately with theism, from any conception of
the world that saves us from mental and moral
chaos. Hence it confirms theism and is confirmed
by theism ; but each is strictly independent of the
other and rests on a conception prior to both; they
diverge from one and the same root and then
intertwine and support one another.
By prescinding from theism I do not mean to
exclude or deny it; for it is, as I have just said,:
bound up with the same conception from which-
the "argument from adaptability" is drawn. I
only mean that I do not need to build upon it as
on a prior conception; that I can put it aside.
Indeed, of these two off-shoots, theism is less near
to the common root, as will appear later.
Our limited mind cannot take in at once all
the consequences or presuppositions of a thought ;
for this would be to know everything ; but as with
our outward eye we take in the circle of the
horizon bit by bit, so with our mind when we turn
to one aspect of an idea we lose sight of another.
Hence in studying some complex organism or
mechanism I may be clear about the bearing of any
part on its immediately neighbouring parts, and
yet may have no present notion of the whole ; or

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 299
may prescind entirely from the question of its
origin or its purpose., Thus our thoughts are
always unfinished and frayed round the edges, and
we do not know how much they involve and drag
along with them., We can think of the mechanism,
and the organism,. and the design, without thinking
of the mechanist, or the organizer, or the designer ;
and so in all cases where two ideas are connected
without being actually correlative. What is
commonly called a philosophical proof consists
simply in showing us the implications of some
part of the general conception of things that we
already hold. It is to force us either to loosen
our hold on that part or else to admit all that it.
entails by way of consequences or presuppositions ;
and so to bring our thoughts into consistency
one way or the other. But until something sets
our mind in motion it . can rest very comfortably
in partial conceptions, without following them out
to their results.
Now as we can understand a mechanism to the
extent of seeing the bearing of part upon part,.
and even of all the parts upon the work it does,.
without going on to think about the designer or
his design ; and without explicitly considering it as
designed; so we can and do think of the, world
and recognize order, in it, and see the bearing of

300 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
part upon part without going back to God or
forward to God's purposes. Indeed, so far as we
use the argument from design to prove the
existence of God, it means that we first apprehend
this order and regular sequence of events, and then,
as a second and distinct step, put it down to
design. For although God is the prior cause of
design and of all creation, yet design and creation
is the prior cause of our knowing God. The con
ception of a rational and moral world leads us
to the conception of a rational and moral origin,
i.e., to theism. Further.it is plain that this same
order and regularity is recognized by many who
refuse to see design in it, and who invent other
hypotheses to account for it ; and of one of these
hypotheses we shall presently speak at length.
Now, if I take any single organism and study
it carefully^ simply as a biologist or physiologist, I
shall recognize in it certain regularities of structure
and function and development, upon which I can
found various arguments and predictions. I can
argue from its general characteristics, to the nature
of its environment and habits and modes of life;
or from its earlier stages, to what it will be when
more fully developed; and these arguments will
be quite unaffected by any theory I may hold as to
the origin of these changes, and as to the causes

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 301
of these adaptations. The order and regularity
on which my predictions are based is an admitted
fact. Theism or materialism are only theories by
which that fact is explained. Now, for mind in
the abstract, theism is really as much a prer
supposition of that fact, as the predicted truth is
a consequence of it. Both are logically connected
with it, and yet neither is derived from it through
the other.
If, however, we cannot thus observe and calcu
late on certain regularities and tendencies „ in the
world as we know it, then, not only is the appear
ance of design and finality an illusion, not only is
that particular argument, for theism cut away, but
with it goes all scientific certainty, all that stands
between us and the most hopeless mental and moral
scepticism. It is not our immediate concern to prove the
value of the " argument from adaptability," but
simply to show that it is logically (though not really)
unaffected by the question of theism and finality
and design. As long as we admit those same effects
and consequences of which design is one explana
tion, but of which others are prima facie conceivable ;
as long as we hold that the world works on the
whole as though it were designed; that the. present
anticipates • and prepares for the future ; that the

302 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
future and absent can be predicted from the present,
so long do we hold all upon which the " argument
of adaptability " is strictly based. And indeed, as
has been said, if once it be admitted that the general
progressive tendency on the part of living things is
towards a greater harmony and correspondence with
surrounding reality, then that .argument is a more
immediate inference from the existence of an orderly
world, than is theism.
Though both are strictly independent deductions
from the same principle {i.e., from an orderly world),
yet theism and the argument from adaptability when
once deduced, confirm one another. For it is not
hard to show that theism is better adapted to
man's higher needs, than atheism or polytheism or
pantheism ; while if theism be once granted, then,
as we said in the last section, the argument from
adaptability is much more easily established.
There have been at various times several
philosophies or attempted explanations of the
world, which have either denied or prescinded
from theism and finality. These two conceptions
may be considered as one ; for by finality we mean
the intelligent direction of means towards a pre
conceived end ; and therefore to admit a pervading
finality, is to imply a theistic origin and government
of the universe.

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 303
Perhaps, the best .and most finished attempt
-to explain the world independently of finality is
the philosophy of Evolution, so widely popularized
in our own' day; and since it is in the region of
organic existence, that finalism looks for its chief
basis, it is especially by Darwinistic Evolution that
its force is supposed to be destroyed.
Any form of " monism " gets rid of finality
more easily than does any form of dualism ; and
again, any form, of materialism, more easily than
idealism ; and therefore as monistic and material
istic (at least in some sense of the term), popular
Evolutionism is the best plea for non-finalist
philosophy. We propose therefore briefly to
examine this philosophy, so far as it claims to
he such, and to see whether it in any way touches
the validity of the argument from adaptability.
Evolution may be considered both as an empi
rical fact arid as an setiological theory or philosophy.
Considered as a fact, it is the statement of observed
processes, and belongs to positive science like the
observed courses of the planets, or any other
observed regularities and uniformities. Science
professes to have found everywhere as far as its
experience has extended — in astronomy, geology,
physiology, biology, psychology, ethics, sociology
— a uniform process of change from the simple

304 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
to the complex, from the indefinite and unstable
to the stable and definite ; and with this state
ment, so far as it can be verified, the positivist
should rest content, seeking no theory, and drawing
no generalization. But, the mind cannot hold
together such collected facts without some binding
theory, nor even observe a single fact without some
preconception to give meaning to its suggested
outlines : for what we really get from our senses bears
but a slight ratio to what we fill in with our mind.
Hence, answering to this supposed, but far from
proven, universality of Evolution as a fact,1 we have
a certain philosophy of Evolution which takes us
out of the sphere of facts into that of hypotheses
and generalizations, and tries to give meaning and
unity to the positive information that physical
science has collected and classified ; to finish, as it
were, the suggested curves ; to fill up the lacunas of
observation ; to extend to the whole world what is
known of the part ; and perhaps to erect into a
cause what is only an orderly statement of facts.
Undoubtedly it is this last fallacy that makes it
more easy for evolutionists to dispense with or
1 Not that the transmutation of one species into another has
yet been detected in any instance, or perhaps, even were it a fact
could be detected ; but that such a serial graduation has been
observed as might be commodiously explained by that supposition,
— and also by fifty others.

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. ' 305
ignore finality. Law in its first sense -is "an expres-
- sion of effectual human will. . Call Evolution a law
and the popular mind will soon vaguely conceive it
as a rule or uniformity resulting from some kind of
unconscious will-power at the back of everything ;
and this Will:Power stops the gap created in our
thought by the exclusion of theism and finality.
This confusion is furthered still more by . not dis
tinguishing . between the cause of. a fact and the
cause of our knowledge of the fact. If I act in
willing conformity with the1 civil law, I also act in
obedience to. it, in some way coerced by its authPrity
and its sanctions. The law is really a cause of my
action ; because it represents the fixed will and
effectual power of the ruler. But when this con
ception and name is transferred, by analogy to
physical uniformities of action, an event which
conforms to the observed law or regularity of
sequence, is not really caused by the law unless we
suppose that law to be representative of something
equivalent to a fixed will from which it originates.
Yet we say loosely, such an event happens in conse
quence of "the law of attraction; meaning only, in
conformity with the law, so as to verify the law, to
follow from it logically. Thus again the law comes
to be mistaken for an effectual power of some kind;
whereas It is merely a sort of regularity that
u ii-

306 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
might result either from an intelligent will or from
something equivalent. , But in thus adroitly slipping-
in the conception of a governing force or tendency,
or even in openly asserting it, with Schopenhauer
or Hartmann, and in explaining the graduated
resemblances of species by the origin of one from
the other, and in extending this mode of Evolution
in all directions from the known to the unknown
-so as to make it pervade the universe, we at once
cease to be faithful positivists and, becoming
philosophers, must submit to philosophic criticism,
since these problems cannot be settled merely by
an appeal to facts. Thus when Professor Mivart
speaks of Evolution as "the continuous progress
of the material universe by the unfolding of latent
potentialities in harmony with a preordained end,"
the latent potentialities, the preordained end, the
procession of one species from another, the extension
of this law to every difference of time and place-
all are matters of hypothesis or intuition ; but by
no means of exterior observation.
The most that observation gives us is the very
imperfect suggestion of the track that such a move
ment would have left behind it, not unlike the scraps
that boys litter along the road in a paper-chase.
Similarly, if in the case of organic Evolution we
deny all latent potentialities and preordained ends

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 307
and throw the whole burden on accidental variations
and natural selection ; if we regard the whole
process as no more intelligent or designed than
that by which water seeks and finds its own level ;
yet as in the case of water we must perforce intro
duce "a gravitating tendency," so in the case of
living -organisms a "persisting" or "struggling
tendency," as an hypothesis to give unity to our
facts or to account for their uniformity. But these
tendencies are as little matter of observation as the
aforesaid latent potentialities or preordained ends.
In fine, Evolution, whatever form it take, gets rid of
theism and finality only by slipping into their place
some tendency or indefinable power which it con
siders adequate to account for the facts to be
explained. Let us now see if there be room in this philo
sophy for our argument from adaptability, and
whether it will allow us to infer that because belief
in theism and in future retribution are beliefs
postulated by our higher moral aspirations, therefore
they answer to reality more or less approximately ;
whether, in short, under certain conditions (specified
in our last essay) the wish to believe may be a
valid reason for believing.
Now Evolution as a philosophy or explanatory
hypothesis owes its popularity to its apparent

30S ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
simplicity. Wrapped in its wordy envelope, the
notion as formulated by Spencer needs no subtilty
of apprehension, but only a dictionary. Nor is the
Darwinian theory of Natural Selection more difficult.
Other things equal, the simpler hypothesis is to
be preferred to the less simple where no proof cam
be had of either. But none the less, the simpler-
may be false and the other true. Cheapness is no-
proof of goodness. We are naturally impatient of
troublesome and complex theories; but what we
gain in the simplicity of an hypothesis, we commonly
lose in the difficulty of getting the facts to square
with it. It is a simple theory that circular motion
is the most perfect, and that the planets being the
most perfect bodies must- move with the most perfect
motion ; but so many epicycles must be introduced
to explain apparent exceptions that the modern
astronomical hypothesis, however more complex in
statement, is on the whole welcomed as a simplifica
tion. So we are disposed to think it is with regard
to the popular form of Evolutionism. Its simplicity
in statement is more than cancelled by its difficulty
in application ; and at last we are driven to conceive
it in a form which at once deprives it of its title to
popularity. So far as it is simple it is fallacious and
proves incoherent on closer inspection, when we try
to translate its terms into clear and distinct ideas j

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 309
hut when we get it into intelligible form it is no
simpler than the theistic hypothesis which it wants
to displace, except inasmuch as it prescinds from
the question of origin and last end. But in this, its
only intelligible form, it leaves the argument from
adaptability intact, and even requires theism as its
rational complement.
This is what we must now endeavour to show.
We cannot illustrate our contention better than
from the popular simplification of Ethics introduced
hy Bentham. Taking pleasure as a simple and
-ultimate notion he affirms that our conduct is always
determined by a balance of pleasure on one side or
the other. The problem of practical ethics is to
construct a calculus of pleasures, a sort of ready-
reckoner whereby men may be able to invest in the
most profitable course of action. " When we have
a hedonistic calculus with its senior wranglers, "says
Mr. Bain, "we shall begin to know whether society
admits of being properly reconstructed."1 It is
assumed that pleasures differ only in quantity, i.e.,
in intensity, extent, and' duration, just as warmth
does, which may be of high or low temperature ;
diffused over a greater or less extent of body; and
that, for a shorter or a longer time. On this
assumption pleasure is every bit as mathematically
1 Mind, 1876, p. 185.

310 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
measurable as is warmth, the whole difficulty being
due to its subjective and therefore inaccessible
nature. Simple in statement, this theory proves
in application infinitely complex, and indeed on
closer inspection breaks up into a mere verbal
fallacy — as Dr. Martineau, amongst others, has
shown in his Types of Ethical Theory. For "pleasure,"
though one simple word, has an endless variety of
meanings, not indeed wholly disconnected, but
bound together only by a certain kind of analogy.
The eye, the ear, the palate, the mind, the heart,
have each their proper pleasure ; which is nothing
else than the resultant of their perfect operation
in response to the stimulus of some all-satisfying
object — a fact which may be expressed differently
by different philosophies, but with substantial
identity of meaning. But not till . we find some
common measure for sound and colour and flavour
and thought and affection, will it be possible to
compare in any hedonistic scales the pleasures they
produce. Yet colour is to the eye what music is to
the ear ; and therefore the one word pleasure is used
not unreasonably of both.
Quite similar seems to us the fallacy to which
Evolution owes its seeming simplicity and its
popularity. The word " existence " or " life "
(which is the existence of organic beings, about

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 311
which we are chiefly concerned), is taken as
having one homogeneous meaning, like " heat " or
" warmth ; " the only difference being quantitative — •
a difference of intensity, of breadth, of duration;
not a difference of kind such as would destroy all
common measure. Life is something which we
predicate of the most diversely organized beings,
and therefore would seem to be something the same
in all, which they secure in a diversity of ways.
Thus Darwin defines the general good or welfare
which should be the aim of our conduct as "the
rearing of the greatest number of individuals in full
health and vigour with all their faculties perfect ; "
upon which Mr. Sidgwick remarks1 with justice:
" Such a reduction of the notion of ' well-being ' to*
'being' (actual and potential) would be a most
important contribution from the doctrine of Evolu
tion to ethical science. But it at least conflicts in
a very startling manner with those ordinary notions
of progress and development" in which "it is
always implied that certain forms of life are quali
tatively superior to others, independently of the
number of individuals, present or future, in which
each form is realized. . . . And if we confine
ourselves to human beings, to whom alone the
practical side of the doctrine applies, is it not too
1 Mind, 1876, p. 9.

312 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
paradoxical to. assert that ' rising in the scale of
exist.ence ' means no more than ' developing the
capacity to exist ' ?' A greater degree of fertility
would thus become an excellence outweighing the
finest moral and intellectual endowments ; and some
semi-barbarous races must be held to have attained
the :end of human existence more than some of the
pioneers and; patterns of civilization." Nor is it
only in the region of ethics but in every region that
this false simplification is fertile in paradoxes ; and
yet if it be disowned, the charm to which Evolution
owes its popularity is gone. :
: It would be indeed a short cut to knowledge if
we might . believe life to be, as this, theory imagines
it, a. simple,, self-diffusing force with an irrepressible
tendency to spread itself in all directions, like fire
in a prairie. True we should not have altogether got
rid of innate tendencies, but we should have reduced
them to one, namely, to the struggling, or persisting,
or self-asserting tendency ; a simplification like that
offered by the rnatter-and-force theory of Buchner.
"This flame pf life once kindled (we are told)
endeavours to subdue all things to itself, and all
that we find in the way of Variety of organic
structure and function has been shaped and deter
mined by .its. struggle — much as a river channels a
way for its waters in virtue of its own onward

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 313
force, checked and determined by the nature of the
obstacles it has to encounter. Every organism is
related to life as the candlestick to the candle; it
is simply a device for supporting and spreading as
much life as is possible with the surrounding condi
tions. Often, when conditions are favourable, the
simplest contrivance will be more effectual, more
life-producing than the most complex in less favour
able conditions. Where food is not present the
animal that can move about in search of it will
survive, and the stationary animal perish ; and
likewise those that can escape their foes will live
dOwn those rooted in one spot. And if to motion
we add perception and intelligence, and associative
instincts and the rest, we increase the appliances
for dealing with difficulties ; and therewith the
means of survival" when such difficulties exist. StiU,
in the hypothesis we are dealing with, all these
contrivances — movement, consciousness, intelligence,
will, society — are distinct from life and ministerial
to it; they are instruments by which-it is preserved,
increased, and multiplied— like those contrivances
by which heat or electricity is generated, sustained,
and transmitted ; with this difference, that no one
has. designedthese life-machines, but they are simply
the result of life's innate tendency to struggle and
spread. A great deal of the form and movement

314 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
of the inorganic world is due simply to the stress of
gravitation and not to design, and so we are asked
to believe that the human and every other organism
has been shaped and quickened by the action of as
blind a power; that it is in some sense a casual
result. Now if seeing and hearing and thinking do
not constitute life, but are only chance discoveries
helpful to life ; if we do not live in order to eat and
to see and to think, but only think, see, and eat in
order to live, we ask ourselves, what then is this
life which is none of these things and to which they
are all subordinate? And when once we begin
subtracting those functions which minister to life
and which life has selected for its own service, we
find there is absolutely nothing left to serve. Taking
the very earliest forms, if we subtract movement,
nutrition, growth, generation, we find there is
nothing over called " life " distinct from these. This
is the first and fundamental incoherence of the
theory ; life has simply no meaning apart from those
functions which we speak of as ministering to life ;
unless we mean by life the mere cohering together
of the bodily organism — an end more effectually
secured without any such complex apparatus,
by a stone or by an elementary atom.
If existence in that sense, be the force orprin-

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 315
ciple whose persistence and self-assertion is the
cause of all evolution, it is impossible to conceive
how primordial atoms, which are assumed to be
indestructible and constant in quantity, should
trouble themselves to struggle at all ; since the
amount of that kind of existence can neither be
lessened nor increased. And as motion is also
assumed to be a constant quantity, it is plain that
what struggles to be and to multiply, must be some
special collocation and grouping of atoms with
some correspondingly particular determination of
motion, called "life;" but what "life" is, apart
from the means it is supposed to have selected for
itself, does not appear.
Another difficulty attendant on this false simpli
fication is the complete subversion of that scale of
dignity or excellence upon which we range the
various kinds of living creatures, putting ourselves
at the top — not merely in obedience to a pardonable
vanity, but, as has hitherto been supposed, in
obedience to a trustworthy intuition which, without
attempting to apply a common measure to things
incommensurable, judges life to be higher than
death; consciousness than unconsciousness; mind
than mere sensation ; and in general, what includes
and surpasses, than what is included and surpassed.
We see that the organic world presupposes the

316 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
ministry of the inorganic ; and the animal world,
that of the plant world; and that the human
world depends on the ministry of all three; and
our whole conception of this world as " cosmos "
is simply the filling in of this hierarchic frame
work. Yet this old structure falls to pieces under
the new simplification. If. "life" (as vaguely con
ceived) be the first beginning and the last end (or
rather result) of the whole process of evolution,
if it be the summum bonum, then the "highest"
creature means, the most life-producing.
Now if we put "money" instead of "life," and
begin to classify men by this standard, we see how
it inverts the old-world ideas of social hierarchy.
True it is," the man of letters or of high artistic
gifts can produce a certain amount of money, but
has little chance against the inventor of a new
soap or a patent pill. Honesty at once becomes
the worst policy, and a thousand other maxims
have to be reformed. Yet this is a trifling boule-
vsrsement compared with that which would have to
be introduced into our scientific classification were
"life-productivity" (in the vague) taken as the
criterion of excellence.
For we cannot any longer determine the rank
of an animal by its organic complexity, since,
ceteris paribus, this is a defect rather than otherwise.

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 317
To secure life more simply is better than to secure
the same amount by means of complex apparatus.
Of course when the favouring conditions are
alte"red, then any apparatus that makes life still
possible is an advantage ; but till that crisis arises
it is only an encumbrance. When life can be
secured only at . the cost of greater labour and
exertion and cunning, it is well to be capable
of these things, but surely those animals are more
to be envied that have no need of these things.
It is only on the hypothesis of an unkindly
environment that complexity of organization is an
excellence. Furthermore,.although these accidental variations
allow certain creatures to survive in crises of
difficulty, yet they also make the conditions of
their survival more complicated and hard to secure.
All that differentiates man from an amoeba has
enabled him to get safe through certain straits
where the lower forms of. life were left behind to
perish ; but it has also made it impossible for him
to live in the simpler conditions he has escaped
from ; like a parvenu whose luxurious habits have
gradually created a number of new necessities for.
him, which make a. return to his original poverty
and hardships quite impracticable. If the develop
ment of lungs has. allowed animals to come out of.

318 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
the water into the air, it has also prevented their
going back again. Furthermore, a considerable
amount of vital energy is consumed in the produc
tion, support, and repair of all this supplementary,
life-preserving apparatus; just as, much of the
national wealth for whose protection they exist is
absorbed by a standing army and other military
preparations. And in fact of two countries other
wise equal in wealth, that is surely the better off
which has no need of being thus armed up to the
teeth. Thus man's superior organization may be
compared to the overcoat and umbrella with which
one sets out on a threatening morning; very
desirable should it rain, but a great nuisance should
it clear up.
It seems, then, that the highest organism is
that which produces or secures the greatest
quantity of life in the simplest manner, and at
the cost of the least complexity of structure and
function ; while the lowest is that which yields the
least quantity at the greatest cost; and between
these two extremes organisms will be ranked by the
ratio of their complexity to their life-productivity —
life being measured mathematically (as something
homogeneous) by its vigour, by its duration, and by
the amount of matter animated, whether in the
individual or in its progeny. It is obvious how,

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 319
at this rate, our zoological hierarchy is turned
topsy-turvy; and how difficult it will be to show
that man is a better life-machine than, say, a mud-
turtle with its centuries of vital existence.
It would be a monstrous allegation to say that
any evolutionist would defend these conclusions in
all their crudity ; but is only by thus pushing implied
principles to their results, that their incoherence
can be made plain. Once more, if this simple
uniform thing called life be the sole cause, deter
mining organic Evolution and selecting accidental
variations, just in so far as they favour its own
maintenance and multiplication, then every organ,
appliance, and faculty by which man differs from
the simplest bioplast, is merely a life-preserving
contrivance. To speak human-wise, Nature in that
case has but one end — animal life ; and chooses
every means solely with a view to that end. She
does not care about pain or pleasure, or conscious
ness, or knowledge, or truth, or morality, or society,
or science, or religion, for their own sakes ; she
cares for life only, and for these so far as— like horns
and teeth and claws — they are conducive to life.
Evolution therefore is governed by a blind non-
moral principle — as blind and ruthless as gravita
tion. This being so, the mind is for the sake of the
body, and not conversely. Evolution is not making

320 ADAPTABILITY. AS A PROOF. OF RELIGION.
for truth and righteousness as for greater or even as
¦for co-ordinate ends; but simply for life, to which
.sometimes truth and righteousness, but just as often
illusion and selfishness, are means. There is nothing
therefore in this process of Nature to make us trust
that our mind really makes for truth as such, or that
it has any essential tendency to greater. Correspond
ence with reality, beyond what subserves to fuller
animal existence. The fact that a. certain belief
makes animal life possible is no proof of its truth,
but only of its expediency. The. extent to which
many pleasures depend on illusion is proverbial ; and
pleasure is almost the note of vital vigour, accord
ing to this philosophy.
Plainly, our argument from the adaptability of a
belief to man's higher moral, needs', vanishes- into
thin air as soon as the key to the order of nature is
thus sought in a blind . nbn.-mpral tendency, and
when that which is lowest is put at the top, and
everything above it made to minister to it. '. ¦ ¦¦
But then it is not only this particular argument
that perishes, but all possibility of arguing at all,
all faith in our mental faculties, except so far as they
minister to the finding of fpod and the propagation
of life. Thus the very attempt to prove . such a
system of Evolution is a contradiction, since it cuts
away all. basis of proof. On this I need not dwell

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.- 321
longer; since it has been worked out so fully and
clearly by others. We get rid of the argument from
adaptability, by a conception of the order of Nature
that reduces us to mental and moral chaos.
In its semblance of simplicity this form of
Evolution-philosophy shows itself kin to those other
old-world attempts to dispense with a governing
mind, and to educe the existing cosmos from the
blind strife of primordial atoms. It has indeed a
more plausible basis, seeing how many things, too
quickly attributed to design in a theological age, can
really be explained by the struggle for existence.
But in trying to make an occasional and partial
cause universal and ultimate, it has undertaken the
impossible task of bringing the greater out of the
less; which really means bringing their difference
out of nothing — and this is creation with the First
Cause left out; that is, spontaneous creation. It
is from first to last an " aggregation " theory, and
has to face the insupportable burdens which such a
theory brings with it. Haunted by a false analogy
drawn from the political organism whose members
are intelligent and self- directive, and who put them
selves under an intelligent government to be
marshalled and directed to one common end —
haunted by this anthropomorphic conception, it
tries to explain how independent and indestructible
V II,

322 -ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
units,- void of all intelligence, come together into
polities with no assignable government ; and how
these groups or polities, which are nothing separate
from the sum of their components, are aggregated to
one another in like manner ; until at last we come
to the highest organism, which again is only the
sum of its ultimate atoms, and its activity the sum
of their activities — the whole distinction between
highest and lowest -organism being such as exists
between a society of two and a highly complex
civilized state. And all this political life is the
spontaneous work of unintelligent units ; that is to
say, we have results exceeding the highest ever
attained by human intelligence, long before intelli
gence or sentience has yet been evolved.
Nobody will care to support "Pangenesis" as. a
theory of generation. To suppose that there is a
mysterious power which breaks a little fraction off
each of the bioplasts of which we. are asserted to be
the sum ; that having collected these fractions it
arranges them all in the right order within the
compass of a single germ, and from, that germ
reproduces the parent organism, is an hypothesis
compared with which the creation of the world in its
entirety six thousand years ago, including the fossils
/and, remains of aeonian civilizations, is lucid and
jntelljgible. This is no hyperbole. For if once we

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 323
allow creation at all, the creation of the world at any
stage of Evolution is just as conceivable as the
creation of primordial atoms. If any living thing
were now created {e.g., a grain of corn or a full ear)
it would bear in itself the apparent evidence of having
' grown to its present state ab ovo ; or the ovum itself
would seem to ground a similar false inference of
having come from a parent. Strange as such an
idea may be, it is easy and pellucid compared with
the hypothesis of Pangenesis — still more when we
remember that this complex germ, which is a
lion or a horse in small — itself the elaboration of
seons of Evolution — can replicate itself with ease
and rapidity, reproducing in adjacent pabulum a
"cosmos" which differs, in degree, not in kind,
from that described in the story of the Six Days.
Yet the more we look into it, the more clear is
it that Pangenesis (and not Polarigenesis or
Perigenesis) is the inevitable outcome of the
aggregation-theory of life.
And therefore to return to our former assertion,
whatever we seem to gain in simplicity of statement
by this form pf the Evolution theory, we pay for
dearly when we come to its application ; nay more, as
soon as we attempt to translate the words into clear
and distinct ideas, we are left with nothing coherent
that the mind can get hold of; and it is only at

324 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.

I

this price that we can cut away the basis of the
" argument from adaptability," and with it the basis
of all reason and morality. We must therefore go
on to examine if there be any alternative form of
the same philosophy more bearable.
I have forborne all criticism of the supposed
facts on which Evolution is based ; as others have
dealt frequently with their various weaknesses. Nor
do I think it necessary to deal with the extravagant
subordinate hypotheses by aid of which facts are
forced under the main hypothesis, e.g., those which
explain how the horse grew out of the hipparion.
The crudest finalists have been everywhere out
stripped by Evolutionists in dextrous application of
the argument a posse ad esse. in.
Assuming still that the facts collected and
arranged by experimental science in favour of the
hypothesis are such as to demand some kind
of Evolution-philosophy; assuming that the very
imperfect serial classification of living things ac
cording to j their degree of organic definiteness,
coherence, and heterogeneity not merely represents
a variety which has always coexisted since life was
possible on this earth, but rather traces out or hints
at the genetic process by which this variety has '

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 325
been produced, let us see if there be any other-
governing principle directing the process, more
intelligible than the persistence of that mere
organic life which cannot even be thought of as
distinct from those appliances and functions which
it is supposed to have evolved for its own service
by "natural selection."
Let us admit, what is really evident, that life is
nothing distinct from the sum of those functions
which minister to the preservation of life ; and that
therefore it is not the same thing in a man and
in a mud-turtle. Man's superior faculties are not
merely a more complicated machinery for producing
an identical effect which the mud-turtle produces
'more simply and abundantly, but rather by their
very play constitute an entirely different and higher
kind of life. When Hume, in his Treatise on Human
Nature, says : " Reason is and ought to be the slave
of the passions and can never pretend to any other
office than to serve and obey them," he implies that
the exercise of reason is no constituent factor of
human life, but something outside it, subordinate
to it, whereas that life itself consists in passion,
or pleasurable sensation, of which man, in virtue
of his reason and other advantages, secures -more
than do his fellow-animals. This is just the con
ception of life which we have seen to be incoherent

326 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
on close inspection; and if it be so, then the
evolutionary process is a struggle not for bare life
or existence, but for the prevalence of the higher
kinds of life and existence; and intelligence and
morality are not only co-operative as instruments
in maintaining and extending human life, but are
themselves the principal elements of that complex
life. True, the mind does minister to the body
and preserve it ; but still more does the body
minister to the mind ; or rather, each ministers
to that whole in which . the play of the mind is the
principal function and the play of the body
subordinate. If, then, we hold to the verdict of
our common sense, and regard our mental life not
as subordinate to our sensitive and vegetal life, but
as co-ordinate and even superior, we must (so to
speak) view it as no less "for its own sake," as no
less an "end in itself" than they are, but rather
much more ; we must regard evolution as making
for the life of truth and the life of righteousness
even more principally than for bare existence or
animal vitality. It is now no longer mere life that
tries to assert itself, and in the struggle shapes
things to what they are ; but it is the very highest
kind of life, that is trying to come to the birth.
Nature inherently tends to the higher through
the lower forms of life, and these minister to the

Adaptability as- a proof of reLigion". m
higher and receive in return- from them the means
of a yet more efficacious ministry.
In this conception, every function of the
organism has two aspects, under one of which
it is its own end and exists for its own sake as an
element of the life of the whole; under' the . other
it is ministerial, serving other functions above and
below it, as it in return' is served by them. Cor
respondence with the environment is, similarly, not
merely a condition of life, but also that wherein
vitality principally consists. "Living" is spon
taneous self-adaptation to surrounding reality;
taken in the very widest sense. The more diverse
and multiform this adaptability, the fuller and
higher is the life; and thus our ordinary commons
sense classifications are justified. Each new mani
festation of life means some new correspondence-
with surrounding reality as we pass from mere
vegetation, and then add local movement, and one
sense after another, till we come finally to intelli
gence and the life of reason and right-doing, which
again, consists in self-conformation to things as they
really are. In all this we are- in agreement with
common sense and common language, which
identify the fullest life with the fullest activity;.;
all activity being of the nature of . response to
stimulus, that is, correspondence to reality. As-

328 ADAPtABlLlTt AS A PROOF OF RELtGlON.
soon as consciousness supervenes on the lower
forms of life it is evident that the pleasures of
sight, hearing, taste, mind, and affection all depend
on, and consist in, the consciousness of this suc
cessful accommodation of the subject to the object ;
and that all pain and disease is simply the felt
failure of such adaptation. What was anciently
and very wisely called the " natural appetite " of
living creatures is in this view nothing else but their
response to the modifying attraction exerted upon
them by the objective Reality which presses upon
them on every side, and tends to draw them into
conformity with itself so far as they have latent
capacity for such a correspondence. It is the light
that makes (or rather elicits) sight ; and it is sound
that develops the sense of hearing : and it is the
ideas embodied in Nature that call our intellect into
play. Hence it follows that, desire for truth and
justice, for society and for religion, which assert
themselves as invariably in the soul of man at
certain stages of progress, as the desire for mere
life asserts itself from the first, is simply the felt
result of the as yet unsuccessful endeavour of
Nature to draw man into a fuller kind of corres
pondence with herself.
Thus conceived, the course of evolution is com
parable, not as before, to the gradual unveiling of a

ADAPTABILITY AS A PrOoP OP RELlGlOk. 329
blank canvas, revealing simply a greater extent of
the same appearance, but to the gradual unveiling
of a picture whose full unity of meaning is held in
suspense till the disclosure is completed. We do
not now interpret the higher by the lower, but the
lower by the higher; the beginning by the end.
This .may seem perilously near to finalism, yet it
is no more necessarily so, than the process of
photography ; we only need a self-adaptive teudency
in life-matter responsive to the stimulating-tendency
of the environment. Not, of course, that this
bundle of words really explains anything, but that
like other formula; of the kind, it prescinds from
the question of ends and origins, by making a
statement of what happens serve as a cause of what
happens, and calling it a Law or a Tendency, or
a Latent Potentiality — thus filling the gap which
mere agnosticism creates in our thought.
With this conception of Evolution our ordinary
estimates of "higher" and "lower" are saved;
also the value of our mental processes upon which
rests whatever proof the theory may admit of;
while the " argument from adaptability " is provided'
with a firm basis independent of finality. All" our
" natural," as opposed to our personal and self-
determined appetites or cravings,— those which are,
so to say, constitutional and inseparable from our

330 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OP RELIGION:
nature in certain conditions, are evidence of the
influence of some reality outside us seeking to draw
us into more perfect correspondence with itself, and
whose nature can be more or less dimly conjectured
from the nature of those cravings. What are called
" natural religions " represent man's self-devised
attempts to explain the reality answering to his
religious and moral cravings. Revelation is but a
divine interpretation of the same ; as though one
with dim vision were to supplement his defect by
the testimony of another more clear-sighted.
It may be practically admitted that no philo
sophy allows of strict demonstration, since, being a
conception of the totality of things, it modifies our
understanding of every principle by which one
might attempt to prove or disprove it. Eventually
it is its harmony with the totality of things as we
perceive them that determines us to accept it, and
no two of us perceive just the same totality, however
substantial an agreement there may be in our expe-1
rience ; yet I think it can hardly be denied that this
conception of evolution is far more in agreement
with the world as most of us know it, and commonly
think and speak of it, than the former; that it not
merely satisfies our intellect, but offers some satis
faction to our whole spiritual nature. " Is it certain,"
asks Mr. Bradley, in a fairly similar connection,

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 331
" that the mere intellect can be self-satisfied if the
other elements of our nature remain uncontented ? "
And, again: "A result, if it fails to satisfy our
whole nature, comes short of perfection : and I
could not rest tranquilly in a truth if I were com
pelled to regard it as hateful. ... I should insist
that the inquiry was not yet closed and that the
result was but partial. And if metaphysics" [for
which we may substitute : any philosophy, such as
that of Evolution] "is to stand, it must, I think,
take account of all sides of our being. I do not
mean that every one of our desires must be met by
a promise of particular satisfaction ; for that would
be absurd and utterly impossible. But if the main
tendencies of our nature do not reach consummation
in the Absolute, we cannot believe that we have
attained to perfection and truth."1 From this point
of view there can be no doubt as to which of these
conceptions of Evolution is the more rational and
satisfactory ; that which would explain it by a simple
tendency in living matter to persist and spread, and
would see in all organic variety only the selected
means to that somewhat colourless end ; or that
conception which would explain it by a tendency in
living matter to come into ever fuller correspond
ence with its. environment, seeing in such sponta-
1 Appearance and Reality.

332 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
neous correspondence the very essence of life, and
not merely a condition of life.
We need only add a few criticisms on this second
conception. i. It is true that every creature struggles more
intensely and vigorously for the lower kind of life,
or for " mere life," as we might say, than for any
of those things which alone would seem to make
life worth the having. But this only means that
to live at all is the most fundamental condition
of living well and fully and enjoyably. The higher
life cannot stand without the lower, which it
includes, but the lower is not therefore the better,
nor is it the end for whose sake the higher is
desirable; but conversely. Not until men have
got bread enough to eat will they have leisure or
energy to spare for the animal grades of vitality.
When the means of bodily subsistence grow scarce,
then the faculties that were previously set free to
seek the bread of a higher and fuller life are
diverted to the struggle for bare animal existence,
and progress is thrown back; but when there is
abundance for all, secured by the labour of a few
from whom the remainder can buy, then fuller
life becomes once more possible for that remainder.
The struggle for bodily food gives an advantage
to, and " selects " naturally, those mental and other

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 333
powers which facilitate its attainment ; but just as
man does not only eat and labour in order to
live, but also (however it may shock conventional
ethics) lives in order to eat and labour; so the
new energies called forth by competition do not
merely secure that grade of life in whose interests
they are evoked and perfected, but extend the
sphere of vitality, in so much as their own play
adds a new element to life and gives it a new form.
The part played by struggle and competition
in this process of Evolution is naturally exaggerated
by those who deny any latent tendency other than
that of mere persistence in being; who repudiate
an internal -expansiveness towards fuller kinds of
existence, drawn out or checked by the environ
ment. Competition plays a prominent part when there
is question of the lower grades of life, in so far as
these depend on a pabulum that is limited in
quantity. In such cases competition, within certain
limits, will secure the bringing-out of latent powers
by which the lower level of life is maintained and a
higher level entered upon ; the lower being secured
by the superimposition of the higher.
But how does it do so ? Not by creating any
thing, but by giving the victory to those individuals
who already were ahead of their fellows in virtue

334 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
of a fuller development of their nature from within ;
in clearing the ground for them and letting them
increase and multiply.
2. Again, we should notice that development
in one direction may be at the cost of development
in another. The struggle for any lower form of
existence than that already attained, is inevitably
at the cost of the higher. The degrading effects
of destitution are proverbial. Craft, cruelty,
selfishness, and all the vices needed for success
in a gladiatorial contest are often the fruits of
such competition. Also, commercial progress seems
on the whole to be at the expense of progress in
art and the higher tastes, sacrificing everything
to the production of the greatest possible quantity
of material comforts. If it sharpens the wits and
sensibilities in some directions, it blunts them in
others. Now, the first sense suggested to us in these
days by the word " progress," is material progress
— all that came in with steam ; and this narrow
conception vitiates much of our reasoning. It
is in this realm undoubtedly that competition is
such a factor of rapid advance; but' we forget
that the food of what the best men have ever
considered the best life, is not limited or divisible ;
but like the light and air is undiminished how

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 335
many soever share it. Whatever advance there
has been in the life of the mind and of the higher '
tastes and sensibilities, cannot directly be explained
by competition, but simply by the quiet upward
working of Nature's inherent forces. We look
with scorn at the unprogressive East, satisfied
that there can be no progress, no life worth living,
where there is no rush for dollars. But I think
we have yet to learn the meaning of ex Oriente lux.
Much of our immorality and our social evil
comes from the fact that those who have developed
the faculties of a higher grade of life, seek the lower
as an end in itself, and not simply so far as it is
a condition of the higher and no further. The
Gospel precept, as usual, enunciates only the law
of reason and nature, when it bids us to " Seek first
the Kingdom of God and its justice,'-' that is, to
put our best life in the front, and to make it the
measure and limit of any other quest. The neglect
of this principle gives us high living and plain
thinking, instead of "high thinking and plain
living ; " and takes the bread out of the mouths
of the poor. The cpmpetition for pleasures and
luxuries and amusements, may indeed develop
certain industries and cause progress in certain
narrow lines, but it is at the cost of the only
progress worth the name.

336 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
The conflict between this " struggle-theory " and
ethics has been freely acknowledged by Professor
Huxley and others; every attempt to educe unself
ishness from selfishness has failed. The moral
man even in our day has rather a bad time of it ;
what chance would he have had of surviving to
propagate his species in the supposed pre-moral
states of human society ? Who can possibly con
ceive mere rottenness being cured by progress in
rottenness ; or a man drinking himself into tem
perance? On the other hand, it is at least
conceivable that in the wildest savage there is
some little seed of a moral sense — weak, compared
with the lowest springs of action, just because it
is the highest and therefore only struggling into
being ; and that in the slow lapse of. time events
may here and there prove that honesty is the best
policy ; and that honest}' once tasted may be found
not only useful for other things, but agreeable for
itself, and may be cherished and strengthened by
social and religious sanctions.
There is, however, a reaction on foot which
tends to reconcile the breach between ethics and
evolution, by reducing the part played by compe
tition within reasonable bounds, and making it
subservient to the survival, not -of the most selfish,
but of the most social individuals. Definite varia-

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 337
tions from within, modified between narrow limits
by accidental variation from without, is cpming to
be acknowledged as the chief factor of progress.
But we should not forget that to allow an internal
principle of orderly development is, not merely to
modify the popular evolution theory by a slight
concession to its adversaries ; it is rather to make
it no longer the supreme explanation of develop?
ment, but at most a slight modification of the
more mysterious theory which it was its boast and
merit to have supplanted. According to Geddes
and Foster and others of their school, it is the
species-subserving qualities that Nature selects;
and these, in the higher grades of life, are
equivalent to the altruistic, social, and ethical
qualities. It is in virtue of the parental and
maternal instincts of self-sacrifice, self-diffusion,
self-forgetfulness in the interests of the offspring,
that species are preserved and prevail. Selfish
egoism leads eventually (as we see in some modern
countries where laizzez-faire liberalism prevails) to
social disruption, decadence, and chaos; and this
is the universal law of life in every grade. At
first indeed the unit struggles to live, for life is the
condition of propagation ; but the root of this
instinct is altruistic; it is the whole asserting
itself in the part ; and all " self-regarding " Instincts,
W H

338 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.

are to be likewise explained as subordinate to the
"-other-regarding" instincts. As soon as this
sub-ordination is ignored in practice, regress takes
the place of progress.- The transit, we are told,
from the unicellular to the multicellular organism
cannot be explained by individualism, but implies
a diminution of the competitive, an increase of the
social and subordinative tendency. The argument
from economics to biology and back again, is said
to be rearing exposure; the "progress of the
species through the internecine struggle of its
individuals at the margin of subsistence," is the
outgoing idea. Yes, and with it goes out all that
made Evolution a simple and therefore popular'
explanation of the world • and there comes in that
"organic " conception of the process which
clamours for theism and finalism as its only
coherent complement.
.5'3> But- though Evolution so conceived makes
the " argument from adaptability," as well as the
arguments for theism, stronger rather than weaker ;
we must not shut our eyes- to the difficulty created
by the fact (too little insisted upon by Evolutionists)
that there is no solid reason for thinking that
progress is all-pervading. We have already said
that progress in commerce may be regress in art
or in religion sr in morality. Also, progress in-

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 339
benevolence may co-exist with regress in fortitude
and purity ; progress in one point of morality with
regress in another; progress in ethical judgment
with regress in ethical practice. And in every
realm, growth and decay, life and death, seem so
to intertwine and oscillate that it is very gratuitous
to designate the total process as being one or the
other.- Spencer confesses that the entire universe
oscillates between extremes of integration and,
disintegration. Why we should consider the
universe at present to be rising rather than falling,;
waxing rather than waning, one cannot say. The
easier presumption is that it is equally one and
the other, and always has been. Even were we
rash enough to pronounce progress to be on the
whole prevalent within the narrow field of our own
experience, surely it were nothing but the inevitable
"provincialism" of the human mind to pass per:
saltum from that, to a generalization for all possible
experience. Our optimism, our faith that right,
truth, and order will eventually prevail, can find
only a delusive basis in actual experience, and;
must draw its life from some deeper source.
Why then should we so presume that our moral
and religious ideas are really progressive and not
regressive, as to regard their interpretation as
approximating to the truth ? The answer is simply

340 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
that our argument from adaptability does not require
the assumption in question, but only that we should
be able to distinguish higher from lower tendencies,
progressive from regressive movements, without
holding the optimistic view that on the whole the
forward tendency is at present prevailing. It is not
because we live in the nineteenth century that we
consider our moral perceptions truer than those of
the ancient Hebrews, but because we at once
comprehend and transcend their ideas (in some
respects), as the greater does the less. In many
points surely the relation is inverted and we feel
ourselves transcended (or may at least suspect it),
by those who lived or live in ruder conditions than
our own. David has perhaps taught us more than
we could have taught him ; and there are other
vices than those proper to semi-barbarism. It is
not by reference to date or country, or grade of
material progress, that we assess the value of moral
judgments, but by that subjective standard with ¦
which our own moral attainments supply us in
regard to all that is equal or less, similar or dis
similar. To deny this discernment is to throw the
doors open to unqualified scepticism ; to admit it,
is all that we need for the validity of our inference.
4. If Evolution is really of this oscillatory
character ; if at all times much the same processes

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 341
have been going on in different parts of this universe
as now — one system decaying as another is coming
into being ; is it not more reasonable to imagine
(for it is only a question of imagining) that the pri
mordial datum was not uniform nebula, but matter
in all stages of elaboration from the highest to the
lowest — the same sort of result as we should get
from a cross-section at any subsequent moment
in the process ? What reason is there for assuming
primordial homogeneity, since every backward step
would show us, together with the unravelling of
what is now in process of weaving, a counter
balancing weaving of what is now in process of
disintegration ? Were this earth all, we might .
dream of universal advance by shutting our eyes
to a great many incompatible facts; but when our
telescopes show us the co-existence of integration
and disintegration everywhere, what can we con
clude but that in the past as in the future, no
alteration is to be looked for beyond the shifting
of the waves' crest from side to side of the sea
of matter — the total ratio of depressions to eleva
tions remaining exactly constant.
Were the other view of an original universal
homogeneity correct, how comes it that we have
still co-existent every stage of advance from the
lowest to the highest, and that there is not a

342 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.
greater equality ? — a difficulty which does not exist
if we suppose things to have been on the whole,
as they are now, from the very first. But whichever
view we take ; whether we suppose all things col
lectively to oscillate between recurring extremes
of " sameness " and " otherness ; " or every stage
of the wave of progress from crest to trough, to
be simultaneously manifested in the universe at all
times, the old difficulty of "the beginning" will
force itself upon us. A process ab ceterno is at least
as unimaginable as the process of creation ex nihilo ;
-if it be not altogether inconceivable to boot. And
the alternative is, either a primordial state of
homogeneous matter which contains the present
xosmos in germ, and from which it is evolved
without the aid of any environment — such a germ
claiming a designer as much as any ready-made
perfect world ; or else, a primordial state of things
like that which we should get at any cross-section
of the secular process, in which every stage of life
and death, growth and decay, evolution and invo
lution, is represented as now. This would include
fossils and remains of past civilizations which (in
the hypothesis) would never have existed; and
would be in all respects as difficult as the crudest
conception of the creation-hypothesis. And if this
absurdity drives us back to primordial homogeneity,

Adaptability as a proof of religion. 343
as before, we must remember that, here, too,
though not so evidently, we should have all the
signs of an antecedent process that was non
existent. Life and death, corruption and integra
tion, are parts of one undulatory process. Cut
the wave where you will its curve claims to be
finished in both directions and suggests a before
as well as an after. If, in the very nature of
things, the pendulum sways between confusion
and order, chaos and cosmos, each extreme
intrinsically demands the other, not only as its
consequent, but as its antecedent ; and the first
chaos, no less than any succeeding one, will seem
the ruin of a previous cosmos. Therefore we are
driven back upon a process ab ceterno with every
stage of evolution always simultaneously represented
in one part or other of the whole. Whatever'
mitigation such a conception may offer, surely we
may be excused for still adhering to that simpler
explanation which involves a mystery indeed, but
nothing so positively unthinkable as a process
without a beginning.
5. This same conception of a process without
beginning, favours the notion that since life was
¦possible on our globe all species may well have
co-existed. in varying proportions. From the sudden
spread of population through almost accidental

344 AbApf AbiLity As a proof oP RELiGidit.
conditions, we can imagine how certain species
might have been so scarce as to leave no trace in
geological strata, whereas those which enormously
preponderated at the same time would have done
so. A change of conditions might easily cause the
former to preponderate, and their sudden appearance
in the strata would look as though they had then
first come into being. In a word, we can have good
evidence for the extinction of species, but scarcely
any for their origination.
This supposition is not adverse to the derivation
of species from a common stock, but rather favours
the notion that as in the case of the individual the
period of plasticity is short compared with that
of morphological stability, so if there was such an
arboreal branching out of species from a common
root, it took place rapidly in conditions as different
from ours as those of uterine from extra-uterine
life; and that the stage of inflexibility may have been
reached before any time of which we have record.
But in truth when we see in the world of
chemical substances an altogether similar seriation
of species where there can be no question of
common descent as its cause, we may well suspend
our judgment till the established facts have excluded
the many hypotheses other than Evolution by which
they may be explained.

ADAPTABILITY As A PRooP Of ReLIgioN, 345
As long as Evolution claims to be no more
than a working scientific hypothesis, like ether or
electric fluid — a sort of frame or subjective category
into which observed facts are more conveniently
fitted, it cannot justly be pressed for a solution of
ultimate problems ; but when it' claims to be a
complete philosophy and as such to extrude other
philosophies previously in possession, it must show
that it can rest the mind where they leave it
restless ; or that it has proved their proffered
solutions spurious. This, so far, it has absolutely
failed to do. At -most it may determine more
accurately the way in which God works out His
Idea in Creation. It can stand as long as it is
content to prescind from the question of ends
and origins ; but then it is no longer a complete
philosophy. As soon as it attempts to solve those
problems it becomes incoherent and unthinkable.
Its true complement is theism and finality, which
flow from it as naturally, if not quite so imme
diately as the " argument from adaptability." Deus
creavit is so far the Only moderately intelligible, or
at least not demonstrably unintelligible, answer
given to the problem of In principio.
We have then in this second and soberer form
of the philosophy of Evolution, an attempt to
explain the order of the. universe without explicit

3,45 ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OP RELIGION.
recourse to the hypothesis of an intelligent author
ship and government of the world; that is to say,
independently of theism and finality; and so far
as this explanation admits all the effects and
consequences of an intelligent government, without
ascribing them to that cause, it admits among their
number the value of the " argument from adapta
bility," and allows us to infer that the postulates
of man's higher moral needs correspond approxi
mately to reality, of which they are in some sense
the product ; and that the " wish to believe " is
less likely to be a source of delusion in proportion
as the belief in question is higher in the moral
scale. But it is also clear how unsuccessful this
attempted philosophy is in many ways; and with
what difficulties and mysteries it is burdened. At
best it can prescind from finalism by a confession
of incompleteness and philosophical bankruptcy; by
resolutely refusing to face the problem of the whole
— of the ultimate whence and whither. If it would
positively exclude theism or finalism it must ascribe
all seeming order and adaptation to the persistence
of some blind force, subduing all things to itself,
to "existence," or to " life " striving to. assert and
extend itself. It is this conception that seems best
to bring the mystery of the universe within the-

ADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION. 347
comprehension of the popular mind, and is more
in keeping with those " aggregation theories " of our
day which regard dust as the one eternal reality
whose combination and disguises delude us into
believing in soul and intelligence and divinity. But
on closer examination the words"" life" and
" existence " answer to no simple reality or force
which can be regarded as governing nature, and
from this radical fallacy of language a whole
brood of further absurdities spring up which make
the popular form of Evolution-philosophy utterly
incoherent. June. Aug. Sett. 1899.

XXIII.
IDEALISM IN STRAITS.
" Can any good come out of Trinity ? " is a question
that has been asked and answered in various senses
during the recent Catholic University controversies
in Ireland ; but for whatever other good Catholics
might look to that staunchly Elizabethan institution,
they would scarcely turn thither for theological
guidance. Yet all definition is negative as well as
positive ; exclusive as well as inclusive ; and we
always know our position more deeply and accu
rately in the measure that we comprehend those
other positions to which it is opposed. The
educative value of comparing notes, quite apart
from all prospect of coming to an agreement, or
even of flaying our adversaries alive, is simply
inestimable; we do not rightly know where we
stand, except in so far as we know where others
stand — for place is relative.
The Donnellan Lecturer for 1897-8 ' took for his
subject the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity in relation
1 Idealism and Theology. By Charles D'Arcy, B.D. Hodder and
Stoughton, 1900.

IDEALISM IN STRAITS. 34 g
to contemporary idealistic philosophy. The scope
of these lectures is, not to prove the doctrine of the
Trinity philosophically, but to show that the difficulty
besetting the conception of a multiplicity of persons
united by a sup^rpersonal bond, is just the same
difficulty that brings idealistic philosophy to a dead
lock when it endeavours (1) to escape from solipsism,
(2) to vindicate free-will, (3) to solve the problem
of evil. He naturally speaks of Idealism as " the
only philosophy which can now be truly called
living," in the sense in which a language is said to
live; that is, which is growing and changing, and
endeavouring to bring new tracts of - experience
under its synthesis ; which is current in universities
of the day. Of the Realism, which survives .in the
seminaries of the ecclesiastical world he naturally
knows nothing; addressing himself to a wholly
different public, he speaks to it on its own assump
tions, in its own mental language ; and indeed he
knows no other. But having weighed, idealism in
the .balance of criticism, he finds it far short of its
pret ensions to be an adequate accounting for the
data of experience ; he finds that it leads the mind
in all directions to impassable chasms which only
faith can overleap. It does not demand or suggest
the mystery of the Trinity, but reveals a void which
as a fact that doctrine alone does fill.

350 IDEALISM IN STRAITS.
The convinced Realist will not be very interested
about the problem of solipsism which for him is
non-existent, but the proposed relief from the
difficulties of free-will and of the existence of evil
may be grateful to all indifferently ; or at least may
suggest principles adaptable to other systems. In
his Trinitarian theology Mr. D'Arcy is in many
points at variance with the later conclusions of
the schools; and in some instances his argument
depends vitally on this variance; but not in the
main. For his main point is that as our own
personality — the highest unity of which we have
experience — takes under itself unities of a lower
grade ; so the doctrine of the Trinity implies what
the hiatuses of philosophy require, namely, that
personal unity is not the highest ; that, beyond any
power of our present conception, the personally
many can be really (not only morally or socially)
one thing. " A wonderfully unspeakable thing it is,"
says Augustine,1 " and unspeakably wonderful that
whereas this image of the Trinity" (sc, the human
soul), " is one person, and the sovereign Trinity
itself, three persons, yet that Trinity of three
persons is more inseparable than this trinity"
(memory, understanding, and will) " of one person."
This " superpevsonal " unity is of course a matter of-
1 Quoted on p. 232.

IDEALISM IN STRAITS. 351

faith and not of philosophy, yet it is a faith without
which subjective philosophy must come to a stand
still ; it is as much a postulate of the speculative
reason as God and immortality are of the practical
reason. "If man is to retain the full endowment of his
moral nature, we must make up our minds to accept
for ourselves an incomplete theory of things."1 A
philosophy which should unify the sum-total of
human experience, including the supernatural facts
of Christianity, is impossible ; but even excluding
these facts there is always need of some kind pf
nc*:-rational assent, which, however reasonable and
prudent in the very interests of thought, is not
necessitated by the laws of thought— is not, in the
strictest sense philosophical. Idealism, like other
philosophies, "is not satisfied with an imperfect
kro.vledgeof the greatest things. It must rise to
the Divine standpoint and comprehend the concrete
universal,"-2 and so, of course, it breaks down.
" But it would surely be a hasty inference," says
Mr. D'Arcy, " that philosophy must needs be
exhausted because idealism has done its work and
delivered its message to mankind,"3 that is, has
explored another blind alley, and has arrived at the
ad de sac. In fact, if idealism is a living philosophy,
* l\ 107. * P. 85. s P. g5.

352 IDEALISM IN STRAITS.
it is nevertheless showing signs of age and decay.
Ptolemaic astronomy, as an explanation of planetary
movements, proved its exhaustion by a liberal
recourse to epicycles as the answer to all awkward
objections; and philosophies show themselves
moribund in an analogous way, by a monotonous
pressing of some one hackneyed principle to a
degree that makes common-sense revolt and fling
the whole theory to the winds — chaff and grain indis
criminately. But philosophy must be distinguished
from philosophies, as religion from religions. The
imperfection of the various concrete attempts to
satisfy either spiritual need, may make the
desperate-minded wish to cut themselves free from
all connection with any particular system ; but the
desire and effort to have a knowledge, of the whole
{i.e., a philosophy) is as natural and ineradicable as
the desire to live and breathe. In this general sense,
philosophy " takes human experience, sets it out in
all its main elements, and then endeavours to form
a plan of systematic thought which will account for
the whole. It has one fundamental postulate, that
there is a meaning, or, in other words, that there is
an all-pervading unity."1 This "faith" in the
ultimate coherence and unity of everything is the
presupposition and motive of the very attempt to
1 P. 84.

IDEALISM IN STRAITS. 353
philosophize or to determine the nature of that
unity. It. is not, therefore, itself a product of
philosophy; it is an innate conviction that can be
denied only from the teeth outwards, but can neither
be proved nor disproved by the finite mind.
To " explain "is in one way or another to liken
the less known to what is better known ; and thus
every philosophy is an attempt to express — by
means of sundry extensions and limitations — the
universe of our experience in the terms of some
totality with which we are more familiar ; plainly,
it is also an endeavour to express the greater in
terms of the less, and must therefore be almost'
infinitely inadequate even at the best, At one time
the Whole has been conceived as the unity of a
mere aggregate — of a heap of stones ; at another,
as a mere sand-storm of fortuitous atoms ; there
has been the egg-theory, and the tortoise-theory,
and many others, no . less grotesque to our seeming.
But, leaving fanciful, and poetical philosophies
aside, and considering only those which pretend to
be strictly rational, we find the objective philosophy
and the subjective confronting one another; the
former likening the universe to the works of men's
hands; the latter likening it to man himself; the
former taking its metaphors from the artificer
shaping his material according to a preconceived
X 11.

354 IDEALISM IN STRAITS.
plan for a definite purpose ; the latter, from the
thinking and willing self considered as the creator
of its own personal experience.
There is enough uniformity of plan throughout
the animal body to make any one part of the
organism a likeness of the whole — the eye, the
heart, or the hand. And so, presumably, there is
hardly any unity we can think of in our own little
corner of experience that does not offer some
similitude of the universal unity. But to take this
as an adequate explanation ; to force the metaphor
to its logical consequences, to the exclusion of
every other reasonable though non-rational assent,
is the commonest but most fatal form of intel
lectual provincialism and narrowness. Our mind
is essentially limited not merely in that it cannot
know everything, but in that its riiode of know
ledge is imperfect and analogical in regard to all
that is greater than itself. It is broad only when
conscious of its narrowness.
The first difficulty into which idealism gets
itself is that of solipsism. According to its rigidly
argued principles, " mind is separated from mind
by a barrier which is, not figuratively, but literally
impassable. It is impossible for any ego to leap
this barrier and enter into the experience of any
other ego." It is not an abstract selfin-general,

IDEALISM IN STRAITS. 355
hut my one solitary concrete self for which all
experience exists. There is no room for any other
person. But this philosophy does not account for
our common-sense belief in Nature as existing
independently of self and of other selfs ; or in
those other selfs with their several and distinct
spheres of experience.
The unification it effects when treated rigorously
as a complete philosophy leaves out of account the
best part of what it was bound to account for. In
spite of idealism, the idealist goes on believing in
¦other persons or spheres of experience, and in
Nature as the experience of a Divine Person. But
since, on his principles, persons are mutually
¦exclusive, and none can enter the sphere of
another's experience, to see with his eyes, or to
feel with his nerves, since
Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe
Our hermit spirits dwell and range apart,
we are thrown back on a disconnected plurality of
"beings, and God Himself, viewed as personal (in
-this sense) is but one among many. Albeit im
measurably the greatest, He cannot be regarded as
the ground of the possibility and existence of all the
jest — the home and bond of union of all other spirits
-which in Him live and move and have their being.

356 IDEALISM IN STRAITS.
The belief in the personality of God is all-
essential for the satisfaction of our religious
cravings, as a presupposition of trust, love, prayer,
obedience, and such relationships; as bringing out
the transcendence in contrast with the all-pervading
immanence of the deity ; as checking the pantheistic
perversion of this latter truth by which, in turn, its-
own deistic perversion is checked. God is not only
in and through all things; but also outside and.
above all things ; just as Christ is not only the soul
of the Church, but also its Head and Ruler-
Between these two compensating statements the
exact truth is hidden from our eyes.
But it is not to the conception of the Divine
personality and separateness that we are to look for
the missing bond by which the head and members-
are to be knit together, and the essential dis
connection of these " spheres of experience " over
come. The ultimate unity is a mystery ; in a wordr
philosophy, as a quest of that unity, breaks down.
The solution is suggested only by the revelation of
a superpersonal unity in some sense prior to the
multiplicity of Divine Persons, a unity in which
they being many are one, and in which we too are,.
not merged, but unified without prejudice to our
personal distinctness.
Hence, the writer concludes : " Materialism,.

¦IDEALISM IN STRAITS. 357
when its defect is discovered and understood, points
on to idealism. Idealism, when its defect is dis
closed, points ' to Christian theism." 1 For those
who have not come to Christian theism by this
thorny and circuitous path, the mode in which the
idealist extricates himself from his self-wrought
entanglement may seem of little interest; but
inasmuch as they take for granted the existence
of that same multitude of mutually impenetrable
personalities which he, by a revolt of his common-
sense against his philosophy is forced to confess, the
problem of the ultimate unity .exists for them also.
If in its endeavour to vindicate the spirituality
of man against the materialist, idealism tumbles into
the slough of solipsism and needs to be fetched out
by the doctrine of the Trinity, it fares much the
same way- in its attempted defence of free-will
against necessity. That freedom from determina
tion by the "not-self" which idealism vindicates,
can belong only to the all-inclusive Spirit, outside
whose self nothing exists ; it belongs to me only on
the supposition that I am the all-inclusive ; and this,
as before, is the point at which common-sense
revolts. " Free-will is based on man's conscious
ness of his moral nature. It represents not any
speculative theory* but one of the great facts which
1 P. 93-

358 IDEALISM IN STRAITS.
every theory of things must explain or perish."1 If
we ascribe freedom to the Absolute and to other
spirits (whose existence is forced on us in spite of
Idealism), it is because we first find it in ourselves
as the very essence of our spiritual nature. But if
we accept our freedom as a fact which it is the
business of philosophy to explain and not to deny;
on just the same testimony we must accept the fact
of the manifold limitations of our liberty of which
we are continually conscious. Now here it is that
the Idealist defence of liberty against materialism
fails by a deplorable nimis probat. It can only save
our liberty by denying our limitations ; or at least it
leaves us facing a problem which can be solved only
by an assumption for which Idealism offers no
philosophical warrant. Hence we are brought back
to the world-old dilemma " between a freedom of
God which annihilates man, and a freedom of man
which annihilates God."2 Idealism has really con
tributed nothing to the solution of the difficulty
which is persistent as long as God is known only
as a Sovereign and Infinite Personality among a
multitude of finite personalities, and until revelation
hints at the possibility of a higher "unity which
transcends personality, by which He is to be the
reconciling principle and home of the multitude of
1 P. 107. * P. 103.

IDEALISM IN STRAITS. 359.
self-determining agents."1 " Final reconciliation of
the Divine and human personality is in fact beyond
us."2 Similarly, in dealing with problems of moral
evil, Idealism leads to an impasse. As long as we
keep to the notion of one all-inclusive Spirit, the
Subject of universal experience, it is easy to show
that sin is but relatively evil, that it is, when viewed
absolutely, as much a factor of the universal life as
is righteousness ; yet surely this is not to account
for so large and obstinate a part of our experience,
but to deny it. Nor can the ethical corollaries of
such a view be tolerated for a moment. That sin
is an absolute, eternal, in some sense, irreparable
evil is a conception altogether fundamental to that
morality with which Christianity, and modern civili
zation have identified themselves. It is but another
aspect of the doctrine of freedom and responsibility.
Of physical and necessary evil it is possible to assert
the merely negative or relative character; we can
view it as the good in process of making; or as
the good imperfectly comprehended ; but if this
optimism be extended to sin it can only be because
sin is regarded as necessitated, i.e., as no longer
sin. Hence the view in question does not account
for, but implicitly denies the existence of sin.
1 P. 105. *• P. 171.

360 IDEALISM IN STRAITS.
Furthermore, the whole tendency of more recent
idealism is to explain moral evil as an offence
against man's social nature by which he is a
member of an organism or community. It is the
undue self-assertion of the part against the interests
of the whole. Of course the idealist explains this
organic conception with a respect for personality
which is absent from socialistic and evolutionary
doctrines of society. But the notion of sin as a
rebellion of one member against all, is common to
both. The latter consider the external life and
activity of the unit as an element in the collective
external life of the community — as part of a
common work; the former considers the unity as
a free spiritual agency, an end for itself — whose
liberty is curtailed only by the claims of other
like agencies, equal or greater. But by what
process, apart from faith and practical postulates
and regulative ideas, can subjectivism pass to
belief in other free agencies outside the thinking
and all-creating self? The result of Mr. D'Arcy's
criticism of the matter is that " it is because the
man exists as a member of a spiritual universe,
and must therefore so exert his power of self-
determination as to be in harmony or discord with
God above him, and with other men around him,
that the distinction between the good self and the

IDEALISM IN STRAITS. 361
bad self arises. But in this very conception of a
universe of spirits we have passed beyond the bounds
of a purely rational philosophy. Such a universe is
not explicable by reference to the vivifying principle
of the self;"1 and accordingly we are driven back
as before upon the alternative of philosophical
chaos, or else of faith in such a superpersonal
unity as is suggested by the doctrine of the
Trinity. We have but hinted at the barest outlines of
Mr. D'Arcy's argument which, as against Idealism,
is close-reasoned and subtle ; and now we have
left but little space to deal with the more really
interesting chapter on the " Ultimate Unity." It
is not pretended that we can form any conception
of the precise nature of that unity, but merely that
some such unknown kind of unity is needed to
deliver us from the antinomies of thought. As we
could never rise tp the intrinsic conception of
personal unity from the consideration of some
lower unity, material or mechanical ; so neither
can we pass from the notion of personal to that
of superpersonal unity or being.
This is only a modern and Hegelian setting
of the truth that " being " and " unity " are said
analogously and not univocally of God and
1 P. 182.

362 IDEALISM IN STRAITS.
creatures. That there are grades of reality ; that
" substance is more real than quality and subject
is more real than substance," that " the most real
of all is the concrete totality, the all-inclusive
universal" — the Ens deter minatissimum, is not a
modern discovery, but a re-discovery. That our
own personality is the highest unity of which we
have any proper non-analogous notion ; that it
is the measure by which we spontaneously try to
explain to ourselves other unities, higher or lower,
by means of extensions or limitations; that our
first impulse, prior to correction, is to conceive
everything self-wise, be it super-human or infra-
human, is of course profoundly true ; but for this
reason to make "self" the all-explaining and only
category, to deny any higher order of reality
because we can have no definite conception of its
precise nature, is the narrowness which has brought
Idealism into such difficulties. It is probably in
his notion of Divine personality that Mr. D'Arcy
comes most in conflict with the technicalities of
later schools. If, as he says, modern' theology-
oscillates between the poles of Sabellianism and
Tritheism, he himself inclines to the latter pole.
Father de Regnon, S.J., in his work on the Trinity,
shows that the Greek Fathers and the Latin
viewed the problem from opposite ends. " How

IDEALISM IN STRAITS. 363
three can be one," was the problem with the
former ; " How one can be three," with the latter.
These inclined to an emptier, those to a fuller
notion of personality. Mr. D'Arcy's Trinitarianism
is decidedly more Greek than Latin. The more
"content" he gives to Divine personality, the more
he is in danger of denying identity of nature and
operation ; as appears later.
Plainly, the word "person," hPwever analogously
applied to God, must contain something of what
we mean when we call ourselves " persons," else
" we are landed in the unmeaning." When Christ
spoke of Himself as " I," the selfness implied by
the pronoun must have had some kind of resem
blance to our own ; just as when He called God
His Father He intended to convey something of
what fatherhood meant for His then hearers. That
He intended to convey what it might come to mean
in other conditions and ages seems very doubtful ;
and so if the word " person " has acquired a fuller
and different meaning in modern philosophy, we are
not at once justified in applying this fuller con
ception to the Divine persons, unless we can show
that it is a legitimate development of the older
sense. He argues that if the Trinity be the ultimate
truth, the Unitarian suppositions and conclusions

364 IDEALISM IN STRAITS.
of the " natural theologian " are bound to lead to
antinomies and confusions; and he sees in those
harmonious interferences and variations of universal
import (which are no less an essential factor in the
evolution of the world than the groundwork of
uniformity and law), evidence of a multi-personal
Divine government, of a division of labour between
co- operant agencies. This, of course, goes beyond
the doctrine of " appropriation ; " and amounts to
a denial of the singleness of the Divine operation
ad extra. It seems, in short, to imply a diversity
of nature in each of the persons, over and above
the principle of personal distinctness. Indeed,
while it offers a plausible solution of some minor
perplexities, it rather weakens the value of the
general argument. For the notion of a super-
personal unity is needed chiefly as suggesting a
mode in which many mutually exclusive personalities
or " spheres of experience " or lives, may be welded
together into a coherent whole. Even could I
reproduce most exactly in myself the thoughts and
feelings of another, it were but a reproduction or
similarity. I can know and feel the like;^ but I
cannot know his knowing and feel his feeling ; for
this were to be that other and not myself.
That God's knowledge of our thoughts and
feelings should be of this external, inferential kind

IDEALISM IN STRAITS. 365
is as intolerable to our mental needs of unification
as it is to our religious sense, our hope, our con
fidence, our love. In Him we live and move and
think and feel ; and He in us. That we can say
this of no other personality is what constitutes the
burden of our separateness and loneliness. Our
experience exists for no other; but at least it is
in some mysterious way shared by That which lies
behind all otherness, not destroying, but fulfilling.
" We know not why it is," says St. Catherine of
Genoa, " we feel an internal necessity of using the
plural pronoun instead of the singular." Perhaps
it was that she saw in a purer and clearer light
what we only half feel in the obscurity of our
grosser hearts.
But if God knows our knowing, and feels our
feeling, not merely by a similitude but in itself, it
is not because He is transcendent and " personal,""
as we understand the word, because He is immanent
and "superpersonal," whatever that may mean.
But it is just because revelation tells us that in
God there are three selves or Egos, for each of
whom the experience {i.e., the thought, love, and
action) of the other two . exists, hot merely similar,
but one and the same— the same thinking, loving,
and doing, no less than the same thought, love, and
deed — that we can believe in the possibility of ouir

366 IDEALISM IN STRAITS.
personal separateness being at once preserved and
overcome in that mysterious unity.
That God is love; and that love,' which as an
affection, produces an affective unity between
separate persons, can as the subsistent and primal
unity produce a substantial and ineffable union
of which the other is a shadow, is a view towards
which revelation points. That the mere affection
of love, the moral union of wills, is an insufficient
unification of personalities is implied by the fact
that love always tends to some sort of real union
and communication ; and still more, that it springs
from a sense of inexplicable identity.
It is almost a crime in criticism to deal with
such a multitude of deep problems in so brief and.
hasty an essay. But if we have roughly indicated
the main outlines of the author's position, we shall
have done as much as can be reasonably expected
of us ; though it is with great reluctance that we
pass over many points, and even whole chapters,
bristling with interest.
Perhaps the most important feature of the book
is the prominence it gives to the difficulties and
insufficiencies of idealism. With those of realism
we are all familiar enough, but so far, idealism has
been looked at one-sidedly as evading, if not solving,
some of the antinomies of the earlier philosophy,

IDEALISM IN STRAITS. 367
while its own embarrassments have been condoned
in hopes of future solution. The solution has not
come, and now the hopes are dead or dying. What
we need is a higher synthesis, if such be possible for
the hpman mind, or else a frank admission that
faith, in some sense or other, is a necessary com
plement of every philosophy. One thing is clear,
that reconciliation can be effected, if at all, only by
a fair-minded admission of difficulties inseparable
from either system, and by a conscientious criticism
of presuppositions. No one can deal effectually
with the idealist position to whom it is simply
"" absurd " or " ridiculous ; " who has not been to
some degree intellectually entangled in it; whose
realism is not more or less of an effort. Else he is
dealing with some man of straw of his own fancy,
and will be found, as so often happens, assuming
the truth of realism in every argument he brings
forward. Plainly the best minds of modern times
have not Been victimized by a fallacy within the
competence of a school-boy. And a like intellectual
self-denial is needed on the part of the idealist, who
is apt to dismiss all realism as crude, uncritical, or
barbaric. We have all our antinomies, our blind
alleys, our crudities; and we have all to fill up
awkward interstices with assumptions and postu
lates.

368 IDEALISM IN STRAITS.
However much we may dissent from Mr. D'Arcy's
theology in certain details ; however little we per
sonally may labour under the difficulties of idealism,
we cannot too strongly commend the endeavour to
meet the modern mind on its own platform ; to
speak to the cultivated in their own language.
Belief is caused by the wish to believe ; but it is
conditioned by the removal of intellectual obstacles,
different for different grades of intelligence and
education. To create the " wish to believe " is
largely a matter of example, of letting Christianity
appear attractive and desirable, and correspondent
to the deeper needs of the soul. It is also to
some extent a work of exposition. But when this
all-important wish has been created, the intellect
can hinder its effect. It is much to know and feel
that Christianity is good and useful and beautiful ;
" But some time or other the question must . be
asked : 7s it true ? " 1 And to liberate the will by
satisfying the intellect is work of what alone is
properly called apologetic. Unless we fall back
into quietism which would tell us to read a Kempis
and say our prayers and wait, we must address
ourselves first of all to making Christianity attrac
tive; and then to making it intelligible. And if
we dp not find it against Gospel simplicity to
1 P. 46.

IDEALISM IN STRAITS. 369
address ourselves, as we continually do, to the
intelligence of the semi-educated, we cannot allege
that scruple as a reason why we should not address
ourselves to the fully educated, — to those who
eventually form and guide the opinions of the
many. Feb. 1901.

II.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

NOVA ET VETERA:
INFORMAL MEDITATIONS.
NEW EDITION, REVISED.
FOURTH IMPRESSION.
Crown 8vo. 5s. net.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
"These meditations are particularly graceful in form, while they are
solid in matter. Suggestiveness is their most striking quality. . . . They
will also be excellent for snatches of spiritual reading at odd moments ; and
they will put a good thought into the mind which will fructify for the rest
of the day. . . . We feel certain that this book will meet with the success
it deserves." — Dublin Review.
" The condescension of such a book as Nova et Vetera to our day of
business and bustle is something for which we are very grateful." — Tablet.
"Reflections upon many topics of great interest to men and women who
value their lives. There is nothing tiresome about the book to any
moderately serious mind." — American Ecclesiastical Review.
"It is a book which one can open anywhere, with the certainty "of
finding something that will afford him consolation and instruction." —
American Catholic Quarterly.
''This book excels most volumes of meditations in literary style and
originality of thought-stimulus, and will be profitable both to clergymen,
te religious, and to secular lay persons possessing a certain degree of
education. It will be particularly valuable to preachers, who will be sure
to find on every page many suggestions for fresh and powerful sermons. " —
Church Progress.
" We may turn to its pages and light at random upon some meditation
that precisely suits our present state of mind ; and its suitability to our
present condition is the very reason Why it is spiritually useful to us. " —
Book Notices.
"The work is solid and helpful in every page. The scriptural quotations
are especially well chosen in reference to the subject under consideration —
a fact which adds much to the practical worth of the book as an aid in the
spiritual life, making one realize the nearness of Christ to the prayerful
soul" — Ave Maria.
" Father Tyrrell has a very attractive style, and his flow of ideas is
always stimulating. We can guarantee that Nova et Vetera is a book
calculated to afford pleasure and profit to every educated Catholic." —
Irish Catholic.
"One of the freshest and most original additions to our ascetic
literature." — Irish Monthly, Aug. 1898.

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

HARD SAYINGS
A SELECTION OF MEDITATIONS AND STUDIES
FOURTH IMPRESSION.
Crown 8vo. 5s. net.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
" Father Tyrrell has already made himself the reputation of being one of
the most thoughtful and suggestive of our modern spiritual writers. Those
who have been at once charmed and consoled by his admirable Meditation,
Nova, et Vetera, will eagerly turn to this volume, and will not be dis
appointed."— Tablet, Feb. 4, 1899.
"It is truly a memorable work, and it will live in the interest of all
thoughtful men." — Catholic Book Notes.
" When we actually meet with such a writer, we may greet him with no
stinted welcome. Those who already know Father Tyrrell's Nova et Vetera
will need no better introduction to his new book of Hard Sayings." —
Weekly Register.
"It is a splendid devotional treatise, the subject being handled with
deep ascetical knowledge and at the same time with great philosophical
ability." — Catholic Times, Nov. 18, 1898.
' "The essays on conscience and sin, and the sermon preached in honour
of St, Teresa and entitled 'the gospel of pain,' are good examples of
Father Tyrrell's method and character of thought. One cannot read them
without being impressed by the sincerity of his religious devotion, and the
delicacy and truth of insight and observation which they often show." —
Guardian, Feb. i, 1899.
" There is little of distinctive or aggressive Romanism in this book, and
there is very much indeed that might be helpful both to Anglo-Catholics
and Nonconformists. The book is not one to be hastily read— on the
contrary, it requires close attention, and if that is given it will well repay
perusal." — Church Review, Nov. 24, 1898.

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

A SELECT LIST
OF
THEOLOGICAL BOOKS
(MAINLY ROMAN CATHOLIC)
PUBLISHED BY
LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY.

MESSRS. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.
Issue the undermentioned Catalogues and Lists of their Publications, any of which
may be had post free on application: —

i. Monthly List of New Books
and New Editions.
a. Quarterly List of Announce
ments and New Books.
3. Notes on Books: being an Ana
lysis of the Works published
by Messrs. Longmans, Green, &
Co. during each Quarter.
4. Scientific and Technical Books:
5. A Select List of Books Suitable
for Use in Science and Tech
nical Schools.
6. Medical and Surgical Books.
7. Educational and School Books.

8, Educational Books recently
Published.
9. Books for Elementary Schools
and Pupil Teachers.
10. Theological Books (Mainly
Church of England),
ii. Theological Books (Mainly
Roman Catholic).
12. Books in General Literature.
13. A Classified Catalogue (144 pp.)
(General Literature, Science,
Theology, Education).

CARDINAL NEWMAN'S WORKS.
Letters and Correspondence of John Henry Newman during his
Life In the English Church. With a brief Autobiography. Edited, at
Cardinal Newman's request, by Anne Mozley. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo. 7s.
Parochial and Plain Sermons. Edited by Rev. W. J. Copeland, B.D.,
late Rector of Farnham, Essex. 8 vols. Sold separately. Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d. each.
Contents of Vol. I. : — Holiness necessary for Future Blessedness — The Immortality
of the Soul— Knowledge of God's Will without Obedience— Secret Faults— Self-Denial the
Test of Religious Earnestness — The Spiritual Mind — Sins of Ignorance and Weakness —
God's Commandments not Grievous — The Religious Use of Excited Feelings — Profession
without Practice — Profession without Hypocrisy — Profession without Ostentation —
Promising without Doing— Religious Emotion — Religious Faith Rational— The Christian
Mysteries — The Self-Wise Inquirer — Obedience the Remedy for Religious Perplexity— Times
of Private Prayer — Forms of Private Prayer— The Resurrection of the Body— Witnesses of
the Resurrection— Christian Reverence — The Religion of the Day— Scripture a Record of
Human Sorrow — Christian Manhood.
Contents of Vol. II. : — The World's Benefactors — Faith without Sight — The Incar
nation— Martyrdom— Love of Relations and Friends— The Mind of Little Children-
Ceremonies of the Church — The Glory of the Christian Church— St. Paul's Conversion
viewed in Reference to his Office — Secrecy and Suddenness of Divine Visitations — Divine
Decrees— The Reverence Due to the Blessed Virgin Mary— Christ, a Quickening Spirit-
Saving Knowledge— Self-Contemplation— Religious Cowardice— The Gospel Witnesses-
Mysteries in Religion— The Indwelling Spirit— The Kingdom of the Saints— The Gospel,
a Trust Committed to us— Tolerance of Religious Error— Rebuking Sin— The Christian
Ministry— Human Responsibility— Guilelessness— The Danger of Riches— The Powers of
Nature— The Danger of Accomplishments— Christian Zeal— Use of Saints' Days.

A SELECT LIST OF WORKS

CARDINAL NEWMAN'S WORKS.
Parochial and Plain Sermons.— Continued.
Contents of Vol. III. :— Abraham and Lot— Wilfulness of Israel in Rejecting Samuel
—Saul— Early Years of David— Jeroboam— Faith and Obedience— Christian Repentance-
Contracted Views in Religion— A Particular Providence as revealed in the Gospel — Tears
of Christ at the Grave of Lazarus— Bodily Suffering — The Humiliation of the Eternal Son
—Jewish Zeal a Pattern to Christians — Submission to Church Authority — Contest between
Truth and Falsehood in the Church— The Church Visible and Invisible— The Visible
Church an Encouragement to Faith— The Gift of the Spirit— Regenerating Baptism— Infant
Baptism— The Daily Service— The Good Part of Mary— Religious Worship a Remedy for
Excitements— Intercession— The Intermediate State.
Contents of Vol IV. :— The Strictness of the Law of Christ— Obedience without Love,
as instanced in the Character of Balaam — Moral Consequences of Single Sins— Acceptance
of Religious Privileges Compulsory — Reliance on Religious Observances — The Individuality
of the Soul — Chastisement amid Mercy — Peace and Joy amid Chastisement — The State of
Grace— The Visible Church for the Sake of the Elect— The Communion of Saints— The
Church a Home for the Lonely — The Invisible World — The Greatness and Littleness of
Human Life — Moral Effects of Communion with God — Christ Hidden from the World —
Christ Manifested in Remembrance — The Gainsaying of Korah — The Mysteriousness of
our Present Being— The Ventures of Faith— Faith and Love— Watching— Keeping Fast
and Festival.
Contents of Vol. V.:— Worship, a Preparation for Christ's Coming— Reverence, a
Belief in God's Presence — Unreal Wprds — Shrinking from Christ's Coming — Equanimity —
Remembrance of Past Mercies — The Mystery of Godliness — The State of Innocence —
Christian Sympathy — Righteousness not of us, but in us — The Law of the Spirit — The New
Works of the Gospel — The State of Salvation — Transgressions and Infirmities — Sins of
Infirmity— Sincerity and Hypocrisy— The Testimony of Conscience— Many called, Few
chosen — Present Blessings — Endurance, the Christian's Portion — Affliction, a School of
Comfort— The Thought of God, the Stay of the Soul— Love, the One Thing Needful— The
Power of the Will.
Contents of Vol. VI. : — Fasting, a Source of Trial — Life, the Season of Repentance-
Apostolic Abstinence, a Pattern for Christians— Christ's Privations, a Meditation for Chris
tians — Christ the Son of God made Man — The Incarnate Son, a Sufferer and Sacrifice —
The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World — Difficulty of realising Sacred Privileges —
The Gospel Sign Addressed to Faith— The Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Church —
The Eucharistic Presence — Faith the Title for Justification— Judaism of the Present Day
—The Fellowship of the Apostles— Rising with Christ— Warfare the Condition of Victory
— Waiting for Christ — Subjection of the Reason and Feelings to the Revealed Word —
The Gospel Palaces — The Visible Temple— Offerings for the Sanctuary— The Weapons
of Saints— Faith Without Demonstration— The Mystery of the Holy Trinity— Peace in
Believing. Contents of Vol. VII. : — The Lapse of Time — Religion, a Weariness to the Natural
Man — The World our Enemy — The Praise of Men — Temporal Advantages — The Season of
Epiphany— The Duty of Self-Denial— The Yoke of Christ— Moses the Type of Christ— The
Crucifixion — Attendance on Holy Communion — The Gospel Feast — Love of Religion, a new
Nature — Religion Pleasant to the Religious — Mental Prayer — Infant Baptism — The Unity
of the Church— Steadfastness in the Old Paths.
Contents of Vol. VIII. : — Reverence in Worship— Divine Calls — The Trial of Saul—
The Call of David — Curiosity, a Temptation to Sin — Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief—
Josiah, a Pattern for the Ignorant — Inward Witness to the Truth of the Gospel — Jeremiah,
a Lesson for the Disappointed — Endurance of the World's Censure — Doing Glory to God
in Pursuits of the World — Vanity of Human Glory — Truth Hidden when not Sought after
—Obedience to God the Way to Faith in Christ— Sudden Conversions— The Shepherd of
our Souls — Religious Joy — Ignorance of Evil.
Sermons Preached on Various Occasions. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Contents :— Intellect the Instrument of Religious Training— The Religion of the
Pharisee and the Religion of Mankind — Waiting for Christ— The Secret Power of Divine
Grace— Dispositions for Faith — Omnipotence in Bonds — St. Paul's Characteristic Gift —
St, Paul's Gift of Sympathy— Christ upon the Waters— The Second Spring— Order, the
Witness and Instrument pf Unity— The Mission of St. Philip Neri— The Tree beside the
Waters — In the World bur hot of the World — The Pope and the Revolution.

PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.

CARDINAL NEWMAN'S WORKS.
Selection, Adapted to the Seasons of the Ecclesiastical Year,
from the ' Parochial and Plain Sermons '. Edited by the Rev. W.
J. Copeland, B.D. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Contents: — Advent: Self-Denial the Test of Religious Earnestness — Divine Calls—
The Ventures of Faith— Watching. Christmas Day : Religious Toy. New Year's Sunday :
The Lapse of Time. Epiphany: Remembrance of Past Mercies — Equanimity — The
Immortality of the Soul — Christian Manhood — Sincerity and Hypocrisy — Christian
Sympathy. Septuagesima : Present Blessings. Sexagesima: Endurance, the Christian's
Portion. Quinquagesima : Love, the One Thing Needful. Lent: The Individuality of the
Soul — Life, the Season of Repentance — Bodily Suffering — Tears of Christ at the Grave of
Lazarus — Christ's Privations, a Meditation for Christians — The Cross of Christ the Measure
of the World. Good Friday : The Crucifixion. Easter Day : Keeping Fast and Festval.
Easter Tide : Witnesses of the Resurrection — A .Particular Providence as revealed in the
Gospel — Christ Manifested in Remembrance — The Invisible World — Waiting for Christ.
Ascension: Warfare the Condition of Victory. Sunday after Ascension: Rising with
Christ. Whitsun Day : The Weapons of Saints. Trinity Sunday : The Mysteriousness
of our Present Being. Sundays after Trinity : Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness
— The Religious Use of Excited Feelings — The Self-Wise Inquirer — Scripture a Record of
Human Sorrow — The' Danger of Riches — Obedience without Love, as instanced in the
Character of Balaam — Moral Consequences of Single Sins — The Greatness and Littleness
of Human Life — Moral Effects of Communion with God — The Thought of God the Stay of
the Soul — The Power of the Will — The Gospel Palaces — Religion a Weariness to the
Natural Man — The World our Enemy — The Praise of Men — Religion Pleasant ,to the
Religious — Mental Prayer — Curiosity a Temptation to Sin — Miracles no Remedy for Un
belief—Jeremiah, a Lesson for the Disappointed — The Shepherd of our Souls — Doing Glory
to God in Pursuits of the World.
Sermons Bearing upon Subjects of the Day. Edited by the Rev.
W. J. Copeland, B.D., late Rector of Farnham, Essex. Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d.
Contents : — The Work of the Christian — Saintliness not Forfeited by the Penitent —
Our Lord's Last Supper and His First — Dangers to the Penitent — The Three Offices of
Christ — Faith and Experience — Faith unto the World — The Church and the World— In
dulgence in Religious Privileges— Connection between Personal and Public Improvement
—Christian Nobleness— Joshua a Type of Christ and His Followers — Elisha a Type of
Christ and His -Followers — The Christian Church a Continuation of the Jewish— The
Principles of Continuity between the Jewish and Christian Churches — The Christian
Church an Imperial Power — Sanctity the Token of the Christian Empire— Condition of the
Members of the Christian Empire — The Apostolic Christian— Wisdom and Innocence-
Invisible Presence of Christ — Outward and Inward Notes of the Church— Grounds for
Steadfastness in our Religious Profession— Elijah the Prophet of the Latter Days— Feast
ing in Captivity— The Parting'of Friends.
Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford,
between a.d. 1826 and 1843. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Contents :— The Philosophical Temper, first enjoined by the Gospel— The Influence of
Natural and Revealed Religion respectively— Evangelical Sanctity the Perfection of
Natural Virtue— The Usurpations of Reason— Personal Influence, the Means of Propagating
the Truth— On Justice as a Principle of Divine Governance— Contest between Faith
and Sight— Human Responsibility, as independent of Circumstances— Wilfulness, the Sin
of Saul— Faith arid Reason, contrasted as HabitB of Mind— The Nature of Faith in Relation
to Reason— Love, the Safeguard of Faith against Superstition— Implicit and Explicit
Reason— Wisdom, as contrasted with Faith and with Btgotry— The Theory of Develop
ments in Religious Doctrine.

A SELECT LIST OP WORKS

CARDINAL NEWMAN'S WORKS.
Apologia pro Vita Sua. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Verses on Various Occasions. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congregations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Contents :— The Salvation of the Hearer the Motive of the Preacher— Neglect of Divine
Calls and Warnings— Men not Angels— The Priests of the Gospel — Purity and Love—
Saintliness the Standard of Christian Principle— God's Will the End of Life— Perseverance
in Grace— Nature and Grace— Illuminating Grace— Faith and Private Judgment— Faith
and Doubt — Prospects of the Catholic Missioner — Mysteries of Nature and of Grace — The
Mystery of Divine Condescension— The Infinitude of Divine Attributes— Mental Sufferings
of our Lord in His Passion— The Glories of Mary for the Sake of Her Son— On the Fitness
of the Glories of Mary.
Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Contents :— Faith considered as the Instrumental Cause of Justification— Love con
sidered as the Formal Cause of Justification — Primary Sense of the term ' Justification ' —
Secondary Senses of the term ' Justification '—Misuse of the term ' Just ' or ' Righteous '—
The Gift of Righteousness — The Characteristics of the Gift of Righteousness — Righteous
ness viewed as a Gift and as a Quality — Righteousness the Fruit of our Lord's Resurrection
— The Office of Justifying Faith — The Nature of Justifying Faith — Faith viewed relatively
to Rites and Works — On Preaching the Gospel — Appendix.
On the Development of Christian Doctrine. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
On the Idea of a University. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Two Essays on Miracles. 1. Of Scripture, 2. Of Ecclesiastical
History. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Discussions and Arguments. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
r. How to accomplish it. 2. The Antichrist of the Fathers. 3. Scrip
ture and the Creed. 4. Tamworth Reading-room. 5. Who's to Blame ?
6. An Argument for Christianity.
Essays, Critical and Historical. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 7s.
1. Poetry. 2. Rationalism. 3. Apostolic Tradition. 4. De la Men-
nais. 5. Palmer on Faith and Unity. 6. St. Ignatius. 7. Prospects of
the Anglican Church. 8. The Anglo-American Church, g. Countess of
Huntingdon. 10. Catholicity of the Anglican Church. 11. The Anti
christ of Protestants. 12. Milman's Christianity. 13. Reformation of
the XI. Century. 14. Private Judgment. 15. Davison. 16. Keble.
Historical Sketches. 3 v°'s. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
1. The Turks. 2. Cicero. 3. Apollonius. 4. Primitive Christianity.
5. Church of the Fathers. 6. St. Chrysostom. 7. Theodoret. 8. St.
Benedict. 9. Benedictine Schools. 10. Universities, n. Northmen and
Normans. 12. Mediaeval Oxford. 13. Convocation of Canterbury.

PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS, GREEN, &¦ CO. 5
CARDINAL NEWMAN'S WORKS.
The Arians of the Fourth Century. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Select Treatises of St. Athanasius in Controversy with the
Arians. Freely translated. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 7s.
Theological Tracts. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
j.. Dissertatiunculas. 2. On the Text of the Seven Epistles of St.
Ignatius. 3. Doctrinal Causes of Arianism. 4. Apollinarianism. 5. St.
Cyril's Formula. 6. Ordo de Tempore. 7. Douay Version of Scriptures.
The Via Media of the Anglican Church. 2 Vols. Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d. each.
Vol. I. Prophetical Office of the Church.
Vol. II. Occasional Letters and Tracts.
Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching Con
sidered. 2 vols.
Vol. I. Twelve Lectures. Crown 8yo. 3s. 6d.
Vol. II. Letters to Dr. Pusey concerning the Blessed Virgin, and to
the Duke of Norfolk in defence of the Pope and Council.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Present Position of Catholics in England. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Loss and Gain. The Story of a Convert. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Callista. A Tale of the Third Century. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
The Dream of Gerontius. i6mo, sewed, 6d. ; cloth, is. net.
Meditations and Devotions. Part I. Meditations for the Month of
May. Novena of St. Philip. Part II. The Stations of the. Cross.
Meditations and Intercessions for Good Friday. Litanies, etc.
Part III. Meditations on Christian Doctrine. Conclusion. Oblong
Crown 8vo. 5 s. net.

BATIFFOL.— History of the Roman Breviary. By Pierre Batif
fol, Litt.D. Translated by Atwell M. Y. Baylay* M.A., Vicar
of Thurgarton, Notts. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
BOSSUET.— Devotion to the Blessed Virgin : being the Substance
of all the Sermons for Mary's Feasts throughout the Year. By
Jacques-BSnigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux. Condensed, Arranged
and Translated by F. M. Capes. With an Introduction by the Rev.
William T. Gordon, Priest of the London Oratory. Cr. 8vo. 3s. net.
The Sermon on the Mount. By Jacques-Benigne Bossuet,
Bishop of Meaux. Translated, with a short Introduction, by F. M.
Capes, from the " Meditations on the Gospels "- Fcp. 8vo. as. 6d. net.

4 SELECT LIST OF WORKS

Breviarium Bothanum sive Portiforium secundum Usum Ecclesiae
eujusdam in Scotia. Printed from a MS. of the Fifteenth Century
in the Possession of John Marquess of Bute, K.T. 4to. 42s,, net.
BROWN— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts. By Abbie
Farwell Brown. Illustrated by Fanny Y. Cory. Crown 8vo.
4s. 6d. net.
Catholic Church (The) from Within. With a Preface by His Eminence
Cardinal Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster. Crown 8vo.
6s. (si: net.
DOBREE.— Stories on the Rosary. By Louisa Emily Dqbree. Parts
I. and II. Crown 8vo. Each is. 6d.
DRANE— A Memoir of Mother Francis Raphael O.S.D. (Augusta
Theodosia Drane), some time Prioress Provincial of the Congregation
of Dominican Sisters of S. Catherine of Siena, Stone. With some of
her Spiritual Notes and Letters. Edited by Rev. Father Bertrand
Wilberforce, O.P. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d.
The History of St. Dominic, Founder pf the Friar Preachers.
By Augusta Theodosia Drane. With 32 Illustrations. 8vo. 15s.
The History of St. Catherine of Siena and her Companions.
With a Translation of her Treatise on Consummate Perfection. By
Augusta Theodosia Drane. With 10 Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo. 15s.
"THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH."
FOUARD.— The Christ, The Son of God. A Life of Our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ. 3y the Abb:& Constant Fouard,
Honorary Cathedral Canon, Professor of the Faculty :pf Theology
at Rouen, etc., etc. Translated from the Fifth Edition with the
Author's sanction. 'By George F. X. Griffith. With an
Introduction by Cardinal Maeijing. Third Edition. With
3 Maps. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 14s.
Saint Peter and the First Years of Christianity. By the
Abbe Constant Fouard. Translated by George F. X. Griffith.
Crown 8vo. gs.
St. Paul and His Missions. By the Abbs Constant Fouard.
Translated, with the Author's sanction and co-operation, by George
F. X. Griffith. With 2 Maps. Crown 8vo. gs.
The Last Years of St. Paul. By the Abbe Constant Fouard.
Translated, with the Author's sanction and co-operation, by George
F. X. Griffith. With 5 Maps and Plans. Cr. 8vo. gs.
Horse Beatse Marise Virginis ; or, Primers of Sarum and York Uses.
With Kindred Books and Primers of the Reformed Roman Use.
With an Introduction by Edgar Hoskins, M.A., Rector of St.
Martin at Ludgate, in the City pf,London. 8vo. 21s. net. Large
Paper Copies. 30s. net. "

PUBLISHED BY LONGMANS, GREEN, &¦ CO. j
MAXWELL-SCOTT.— Henry Schomberg Kerr, Sailor and Jesuit.
By the Hon. Mrs. Maxwell-Scott, of Abbotsford. With 2 Portraits
and a Map of the Jesuit Mission on the Zambesi. Cr. 8vo. 6s. 6d. net .
Ordinale Conventus Vallis Caulium : the Rule of the Monastic Order
af Val-des-Choux, in Burgundy. From the Original MSS. preserved
in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris ; the Archives of Moulins-sur-
Allier, etc. With an Introduction b^ W. De Gray Birch, LL.D.,
F.S.A. With 4 Photographic Facsimiles. 8vo. 20s. net.
ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.— History of St. Vincent de Paul,
Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians), and of the
Sisters of Charity. By Monseigneur Bougaud, Bishop of Laval.
Translated from the Second French- Edition by the Rev. Joseph
Brady, CM. With an Introduction by His Eminence Cardinal
Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster. With 2 Portraits. 2 vols.
8vo. 16s. net.

Roads to Rome : being Personal Records of some' of the more recent
Converts to the Catholic Faith. . With an Introduction by His
Eminence Cardinal Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster. Com
piled and Edited by the Author of " Ten Years in Anglican Orders ".
Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.
*«* Among the Contributors are Lord Brampton (.Sir Henry Hawkins); Sir Henry
Belling ham, Bart. ; Dr. Edward Berdoe ; Monsignor Croke Robinson ; The Bishop of Clifton ;
The Rev. Bede Camm, O.S.B.; Miss Adeline Sergeant; The Bishop of Emmaus; C. Kcgan
Paul, Esq. ; The Rev. W. O. Sutcliffe ; and the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle.
SANDERS.— F6neIon : His Friends and His Enemies, 1651-1713. By
E. K. Sanders. With Portrait. 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
SHEEHAN-— Luke Delmege. A Novel. By P. A. Sheehan, Parish
Priest, Doneraile, Co. Cork, Author of " My New Curate ". Crown
8vo. 6s.
TYRRELL.— Works by George Tyrrell, S.J. :
The Faith of the Millions : Essays. First and Second Series.
Crown 8vo. 5s. net each.
First Series: Introduction— 1. A more Excellent Way— 2. Wiseman: his Aims and
Methods— 3. The Prospects of Reunion— 4. "Liberal" Catholicism's. "Rationalism in
Religion"— S. Sabatier on the Vitality of Dogmas— 7. Authority and Evolution, the Life
of Catholic Dogma— 8. " The Mind of the Church "— g. The Use of Scholasticism— 10. The
Relation of Theology to Devotion— n. What is Mysticism ?—ia. The True and the False
Mysticism. Second Series: 13. Juliana of Norwich— 14. Poet and Mystic— 15. Two Estimates of
Catholic Life— 16. A Life of De Lamennais— 17. Lippo, the Man and the Artist— 18. Through
Art to Faith— ig. Tracts for the Million— 20. An Apostle of Naturalism— 21. " The Making
of Religion "—23. Adaptibility as a Proof of Religion— 23. Idealism in Straits.

A SELECT LIST OF WORKS.

TYRRELL.— Works by George Tyrrell, S.J. {continued).
Nova et Vetera :. Informal Meditations. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.
Hard Sayings r a Selection of Meditations and Studies. Cr. 8vo. 5s. net.
WARD.— William George Ward and the Catholic Revival By
Wilfrid Ward, Author of " William George Ward and the Oxford
Movement ". With Portrait. Reissue. 8vo.

WARD. — One Poor Scruple : a Novel. By Mrs. Wilfrid Ward.
Crown 8vo. 6s.

WISEMAN.— The Life and Times, of Cardinal Wiseman. By
Wilfrid Ward. With 3 Portraits. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 10s. net.

STONYHURST PHILOSOPHICAL SERIES. , j
Edited by RICHARD F. CLARKE, S.J.
Psychology : Empirical and Rational. By Michael Maher, S.J.
Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d.
Logic. By Richard F. Clarke, S.J., D.D. Crown 8vo. 5s.
First' Principles of Knowledge. By John Rickaby, S.J. Third
Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s.
Moral Philosophy (Ethics and Natural Law). By Joseph
Rickaby, S.J. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s.
General Metaphysics. By John Rickaby, S.J. Crown 8vo. 5s, "
Natural Theology. By Bernard Boedder, S.J. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d.
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