Canto III.:--

Produced by Charles Keller

THE UNSEEN WORLD AND OTHER ESSAYS

By John Fiske

Transcriber's Note: This reviews Draper's Science and Religion and

contrasts two Dante translations.

TO

JAMES SIME.

MY DEAR SIME:

Life has now and then some supreme moments of pure happiness,

which in reminiscence give to single days the value of months

or years. Two or three such moments it has been my good fortune

to enjoy with you, in talking over the mysteries which forever

fascinate while they forever baffle us. It was our midnight talks

in Great Russell Street and the Addison Road, and our bright May

holiday on the Thames, that led me to write this scanty essay on

the "Unseen World," and to whom could I so heartily dedicate it

as to you? I only wish it were more worthy of its origin. As for

the dozen papers which I have appended to it, by way of clearing

out my workshop, I hope you will read them indulgently, and

believe

me

Ever faithfully yours,

JOHN

FISKE.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY, February 3, 1876.

CONTENTS.

I. THE UNSEEN WORLD

II. "THE TO-MORROW OF DEATH"

III. THE JESUS OF HISTORY

IV. THE CHRIST OF DOGMA

V. A WORD ABOUT MIRACLES

VI. DRAPER ON SCIENCE AND RELIGION

VII. NATHAN THE WISE

VIII. HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES

IX. THE FAMINE OF 1770 IN BENGAL

X. SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS

XI. LONGFELLOW'S DANTE

XII. PAINE'S "ST. PETER"

XIII. A PHILOSOPHY OF ART

XIV. ATHENIAN AND AMERICAN LIFE

ESSAYS.

I. THE UNSEEN WORLD.

PART FIRST.

"What are you, where did you come from, and whither are you bound?"--the

question which from Homer's days has been put to the wayfarer in strange

lands--is likewise the all-absorbing question which man is ever asking

of the universe of which he is himself so tiny yet so wondrous a part.

From the earliest times the ultimate purpose of all scientific research

has been to elicit fragmentary or partial responses to this question,

and philosophy has ever busied itself in piecing together these several

bits of information according to the best methods at its disposal, in

order to make up something like a satisfactory answer. In old times the

best methods which philosophy had at its disposal for this purpose

were such as now seem very crude, and accordingly ancient philosophers

bungled considerably in their task, though now and then they came

surprisingly near what would to-day be called the truth. It was natural

that their methods should be crude, for scientific inquiry had as yet

supplied but scanty materials for them to work with, and it was only

after a very long course of speculation and criticism that men could

find out what ways of going to work are likely to prove successful and

what are not. The earliest thinkers, indeed, were further hindered from

accomplishing much by the imperfections of the language by the aid of

which their thinking was done; for science and philosophy have had to

make a serviceable terminology by dint of long and arduous trial

and practice, and linguistic processes fit for expressing general or

abstract notions accurately grew up only through numberless failures and

at the expense of much inaccurate thinking and loose talking. As in most

of nature's processes, there was a great waste of energy before a good

result could be secured. Accordingly primitive men were very wide of the

mark in their views of nature. To them the world was a sort of enchanted

ground, peopled with sprites and goblins; the quaint notions with which

we now amuse our children in fairy tales represent a style of thinking

which once was current among grown men and women, and which is still

current wherever men remain in a savage condition. The theories of the

world wrought out by early priest-philosophers were in great part made

up of such grotesque notions; and having become variously implicated

with ethical opinions as to the nature and consequences of right and

wrong behaviour, they acquired a kind of sanctity, so that any thinker

who in the light of a wider experience ventured to alter or amend the

primitive theory was likely to be vituperated as an irreligious man or

atheist. This sort of inference has not yet been wholly abandoned,

even in civilized communities. Even to-day books are written about "the

conflict between religion and science," and other books are written

with intent to reconcile the two presumed antagonists. But when we look

beneath the surface of things, we see that in reality there has

never been any conflict between religion and science, nor is any

reconciliation called for where harmony has always existed. The real

historical conflict, which has been thus curiously misnamed, has been

the conflict between the more-crude opinions belonging to the science of

an earlier age and the less-crude opinions belonging to the science of

a later age. In the course of this contest the more-crude opinions

have usually been defended in the name of religion, and the less-crude

opinions have invariably won the victory; but religion itself, which is

not concerned with opinion, but with the aspiration which leads us to

strive after a purer and holier life, has seldom or never been attacked.

On the contrary, the scientific men who have conducted the battle on

behalf of the less-crude opinions have generally been influenced by

this religious aspiration quite as strongly as the apologists of the

more-crude opinions, and so far from religious feeling having been

weakened by their perennial series of victories, it has apparently been

growing deeper and stronger all the time. The religious sense is as yet

too feebly developed in most of us; but certainly in no preceding age

have men taken up the work of life with more earnestness or with more

real faith in the unseen than at the present day, when so much of what

was once deemed all-important knowledge has been consigned to the limbo

of mythology.

The more-crude theories of early times are to be chiefly distinguished

from the less-crude theories of to-day as being largely the products

of random guesswork. Hypothesis, or guesswork, indeed, lies at the

foundation of all scientific knowledge. The riddle of the universe, like

less important riddles, is unravelled only by approximative trials, and

the most brilliant discoverers have usually been the bravest guessers.

Kepler's laws were the result of indefatigable guessing, and so, in

a somewhat different sense, was the wave-theory of light. But the

guesswork of scientific inquirers is very different now from what it was

in older times. In the first place, we have slowly learned that a guess

must be verified before it can be accepted as a sound theory; and,

secondly, so many truths have been established beyond contravention,

that the latitude for hypothesis is much less than it once was.

Nine tenths of the guesses which might have occurred to a mediaeval

philosopher would now be ruled out as inadmissible, because they would

not harmonize with the knowledge which has been acquired since the

Middle Ages. There is one direction especially in which this continuous

limitation of guesswork by ever-accumulating experience has manifested

itself. From first to last, all our speculative successes and failures

have agreed in teaching us that the most general principles of action

which prevail to-day, and in our own corner of the universe, have always

prevailed throughout as much of the universe as is accessible to our

research. They have taught us that for the deciphering of the past and

the predicting of the future, no hypotheses are admissible which are not

based upon the actual behaviour of things in the present. Once there was

unlimited facility for guessing as to how the solar system might have

come into existence; now the origin of the sun and planets is adequately

explained when we have unfolded all that is implied in the processes

which are still going on in the solar system. Formerly appeals were made

to all manner of violent agencies to account for the changes which the

earth's surface has undergone since our planet began its independent

career; now it is seen that the same slow working of rain and tide, of

wind and wave and frost, of secular contraction and of earthquake pulse,

which is visible to-day, will account for the whole. It is not long

since it was supposed that a species of animals or plants could be swept

away only by some unusual catastrophe, while for the origination of new

species something called an act of "special creation" was necessary; and

as to the nature of such extraordinary events there was endless room for

guesswork; but the discovery of natural selection was the discovery of a

process, going on perpetually under our very eyes, which must inevitably

of itself extinguish some species and bring new ones into being. In

these and countless other ways we have learned that all the rich variety

of nature is pervaded by unity of action, such as we might expect to

find if nature is the manifestation of an infinite God who is without

variableness or shadow of turning, but quite incompatible with the

fitful behaviour of the anthropomorphic deities of the old mythologies.

By thus abstaining from all appeal to agencies that are extra-cosmic,

or not involved in the orderly system of events that we see occurring

around us, we have at last succeeded in eliminating from philosophic

speculation the character of random guesswork which at first of

necessity belonged to it. Modern scientific hypothesis is so far from

being a haphazard mental proceeding that it is perhaps hardly fair to

classify it with guesses. It is lifted out of the plane of guesswork,

in so far as it has acquired the character of inevitable inference from

that which now is to that which has been or will be. Instead of the

innumerable particular assumptions which were once admitted into cosmic

philosophy, we are now reduced to the one universal assumption which

has been variously described as the "principle of continuity," the

"uniformity of nature," the "persistence of force," or the "law of

causation," and which has been variously explained as a necessary datum

for scientific thinking or as a net result of all induction. I am not

unwilling, however, to adopt the language of a book which has furnished

the occasion for the present discussion, and to say that this grand

assumption is a supreme act of faith, the definite expression of a

trust that the infinite Sustainer of the universe "will not put us to

permanent intellectual confusion." For in this mode of statement the

harmony between the scientific and the religious points of view is

well brought out. It is as affording the only outlet from permanent

intellectual confusion that inquirers have been driven to appeal to

the principle of continuity; and it is by unswerving reliance upon this

principle that we have obtained such insight into the past, present, and

future of the world as we now possess.

The work just mentioned [1] is especially interesting as an attempt to

bring the probable destiny of the human soul into connection with the

modern theories which explain the past and future career of the physical

universe in accordance with the principle of continuity. Its authorship

is as yet unknown, but it is believed to be the joint production of

two of the most eminent physicists in Great Britain, and certainly the

accurate knowledge and the ingenuity and subtlety of thought displayed

in it are such as to lend great probability to this conjecture. Some

account of the argument it contains may well precede the suggestions

presently to be set forth concerning the Unseen World; and we shall find

it most convenient to begin, like our authors, with a brief statement of

what the principle of continuity teaches as to the proximate beginning

and end of the visible universe. I shall in the main set down only

results, having elsewhere [2] given a simple exposition of the arguments

upon which these results are founded.

[1] The Unseen Universe; or, Physical Speculations on a Future

State. [Attributed to Professors TAIT and BALFOUR STEWART.] New York:

Macmillan & Co. 1875. 8vo. pp. 212.

[2] Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, based on the Doctrine of

Evolution. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 1875. 2 vols. 8vo.

The first great cosmological speculation which has been raised quite

above the plane of guesswork by making no other assumption than that of

the uniformity of nature, is the well-known Nebular Hypothesis. Every

astronomer knows that the earth, like all other cosmical bodies

which are flattened at the poles, was formerly a mass of fluid, and

consequently filled a much larger space than at present. It is further

agreed, on all hands, that the sun is a contracting body, since there

is no other possible way of accounting for the enormous quantity of heat

which he generates. The so-called primeval nebula follows as a necessary

inference from these facts. There was once a time when the earth was

distended on all sides away out to the moon and beyond it, so that the

matter now contained in the moon was then a part of our equatorial

zone. And at a still remoter date in the past, the mass of the sun was

diffused in every direction beyond the orbit of Neptune, and no planet

had an individual existence, for all were indistinguishable parts of the

solar mass. When the great mass of the sun, increased by the relatively

small mass of all the planets put together, was spread out in this way,

it was a rare vapour or gas. At the period where the question is taken

up in Laplace's treatment of the nebular theory, the shape of this mass

is regarded as spheroidal; but at an earlier period its shape may well

have been as irregular as that of any of the nebulae which we now see

in distant parts of the heavens, for, whatever its primitive shape, the

equalization of its rotation would in time make it spheroidal. That the

QUANTITY of rotation was the same then as now is unquestionable; for no

system of particles, great or small, can acquire or lose rotation by any

action going on within itself, any more than a man could pick himself

up by his waistband and lift himself over a stone wale So that

the primitive rotating spheroidal solar nebula is not a matter of

assumption, but is just what must once have existed, provided there has

been no breach of continuity in nature's operations. Now proceeding to

reason back from the past to the present, it has been shown that the

abandonment of successive equatorial belts by the contracting solar

mass must have ensued in accordance with known mechanical laws; and in

similar wise, under ordinary circumstances each belt must have parted

into fragments, and the fragments chasing each other around the same

orbit, must have at last coalesced into a spheroidal planet. Not only

this, but it has also been shown that as the result of such a process

the relative sizes of the planets would be likely to take the order

which they now follow; that the ring immediately succeeding that of

Jupiter would be likely to abort and produce a great number of tiny

planets instead of one good-sized one; that the outer planets would be

likely to have many moons, and that Saturn, besides having the greatest

number of moons, would be likely to retain some of his inner rings

unbroken; that the earth would be likely to have a long day and Jupiter

a short one; that the extreme outer planets would be not unlikely to

rotate in a retrograde direction; and so on, through a long list of

interesting and striking details. Not only, therefore, are we driven to

the inference that our solar system was once a vaporous nebula, but we

find that the mere contraction of such a nebula, under the influence of

the enormous mutual gravitation of its particles, carries with it the

explanation of both the more general and the more particular features of

the present system. So that we may fairly regard this stupendous process

as veritable matter of history, while we proceed to study it under some

further aspects and to consider what consequences are likely to follow.

Our attention should first be directed to the enormous waste of energy

which has accompanied this contraction of the solar nebula. The first

result of such a contraction is the generation of a great quantity of

heat, and when the heat thus generated has been lost by radiation into

surrounding space it becomes possible for the contraction to continue.

Thus, as concentration goes on, heat is incessantly generated and

incessantly dissipated. How long this process is to endure depends

chiefly on the size of the contracting mass, as small bodies radiate

heat much faster than large ones. The moon seems to be already

thoroughly refrigerated, while Jupiter and Saturn are very much hotter

than the earth, as is shown by the tremendous atmospheric phenomena

which occur on their surfaces. The sun, again, generates heat so

rapidly, owing to his great energy of contraction, and loses it so

slowly, owing to his great size, that his surface is always kept in a

state of incandescence. His surface-temperature is estimated at some

three million degrees of Fahrenheit, and a diminution of his diameter

far too small to be detected by the finest existing instruments would

suffice to maintain the present supply of heat for more than fifty

centuries. These facts point to a very long future during which the sun

will continue to warm the earth and its companion planets, but at the

same time they carry on their face the story of inevitable ultimate

doom. If things continue to go on as they have all along gone on, the

sun must by and by grow black and cold, and all life whatever throughout

the solar system must come to an end. Long before this consummation,

however, life will probably have become extinct through the

refrigeration of each of the planets into a state like the present state

of the moon, in which the atmosphere and oceans have disappeared from

the surface. No doubt the sun will continue to give out heat a long time

after heat has ceased to be needed for the support of living organisms.

For the final refrigeration of the sun will long be postponed by the

fate of the planets themselves. The separation of the planets from their

parent solar mass seems to be after all but a temporary separation. So

nicely balanced are they now in their orbits that they may well seem

capable of rolling on in their present courses forever. But this is not

the case. Two sets of circumstances are all the while striving, the one

to drive the planets farther away from the sun, the other to draw them

all into it. On the one hand, every body in our system which contains

fluid matter has tides raised upon its surface by the attraction of

neighbouring bodies. All the planets raise tides upon the surface of the

sun and the periodicity of sun-spots (or solar cyclones) depends upon

this fact. These tidal waves act as a drag or brake upon the rotation

of the sun, somewhat diminishing its rapidity. But, in conformity with a

principle of mechanics well known to astronomers, though not familiar to

the general reader, all the motion of rotation thus lost by the sun is

added to the planets in the shape of annual motion of revolution, and

thus their orbits all tend to enlarge,--they all tend to recede somewhat

from the sun. But this state of things, though long-enduring enough, is

after all only temporary, and will at any rate come to an end when

the sun and planets have become solid. Meanwhile another set of

circumstances is all the time tending to bring the planets nearer to the

sun, and in the long run must gain the mastery. The space through which

the planets move is filled with a kind of matter which serves as a

medium for the transmission of heat and light, and this kind of matter,

though different in some respects from ordinary ponderable matter, is

yet like it in exerting friction. This friction is almost infinitely

little, yet it has a wellnigh infinite length of time to work in, and

during all this wellnigh infinite length of time it is slowly eating up

the momentum of the planets and diminishing their ability to maintain

their distances from the sun. Hence in course of time the planets will

all fall into the sun, one after another, so that the solar system will

end, as it began, by consisting of a single mass of matter.

But this is by no means the end of the story. When two bodies rush

together, each parts with some of its energy of motion, and this lost

energy of motion reappears as heat. In the concussion of two cosmical

bodies, like the sun and the earth, an enormous quantity of motion is

thus converted into heat. Now heat, when not allowed to radiate, or when

generated faster than it can be radiated, is transformed into motion of

expansion. Hence the shock of sun and planet would at once result in the

vaporization of both bodies; and there can be no doubt that by the time

the sun has absorbed the outermost of his attendant planets, he will

have resumed something like his original nebulous condition. He will

have been dilated into a huge mass of vapour, and will have become

fit for a new process of contraction and for a new production of

life-bearing planets.

We are now, however, confronted by an interesting but difficult

question. Throughout all this grand past and future career of the solar

system which we have just briefly traced, we have been witnessing a

most prodigal dissipation of energy in the shape of radiant heat. At

the outset we had an enormous quantity of what is called "energy of

position," that is, the outer parts of our primitive nebula had a very

long distance through which to travel towards one another in the slow

process of concentration; and this distance was the measure of the

quantity of work possible to our system. As the particles of our nebula

drew nearer and nearer together, the energy of position continually lost

reappeared continually as heat, of which the greater part was radiated

off, but of which a certain amount was retained. All the gigantic

amount of work achieved in the geologic development of our earth and

its companion planets, and in the development of life wherever life may

exist in our system, has been the product of this retained heat. At the

present day the same wasteful process is going on. Each moment the sun's

particles are losing energy of position as they draw closer and closer

together, and the heat into which this lost energy is metamorphosed is

poured out most prodigally in every direction. Let us consider for a

moment how little of it gets used in our system. The earth's orbit is

a nearly circular figure more than five hundred million miles in

circumference, while only eight thousand miles of this path are at any

one time occupied by the earth's mass. Through these eight thousand

miles the sun's radiated energy is doing work, but through the remainder

of the five hundred million it is idle and wasted. But the case is far

more striking when we reflect that it is not in the plane of the earth's

orbit only that the sun's radiance is being poured out. It is not an

affair of a circle, but of a sphere. In order to utilize all the solar

rays, we should need to have an immense number of earths arranged so as

to touch each other, forming a hollow sphere around the sun, with the

present radius of the earth's orbit. We may well believe Professor

Tyndall, therefore, when he tells us that all the solar radiance we

receive is less than a two-billionth part of what is sent flying through

the desert regions of space. Some of the immense residue of course hits

other planets stationed in the way of it, and is utilized upon their

surfaces; but the planets, all put together, stop so little of the total

quantity that our startling illustration is not materially altered by

taking them into the account. Now this two-billionth part of the solar

radiance poured out from moment to moment suffices to blow every wind,

to raise every cloud, to drive every engine, to build up the tissue of

every plant, to sustain the activity of every animal, including man,

upon the surface of our vast and stately globe. Considering the wondrous

richness and variety of the terrestrial life wrought out by the few

sunbeams which we catch in our career through space, we may well

pause overwhelmed and stupefied at the thought of the incalculable

possibilities of existence which are thrown away with the potent

actinism that darts unceasingly into the unfathomed abysms of immensity.

Where it goes to or what becomes of it, no one of us can surmise.

Now when, in the remote future, our sun is reduced to vapour by the

impact of the several planets upon his surface, the resulting nebulous

mass must be a very insignificant affair compared with the nebulous mass

with which we started. In order to make a second nebula equal in size

and potential energy to the first one, all the energy of position at

first existing should have been retained in some form or other. But

nearly all of it has been lost, and only an insignificant fraction

remains with which to endow a new system. In order to reproduce, in

future ages, anything like that cosmical development which is now

going on in the solar system, aid must be sought from without. We must

endeavour to frame some valid hypothesis as to the relation of our solar

system to other systems.

Thus far our view has been confined to the career of a single star,--our

sun,--with the tiny, easily-cooling balls which it has cast off in the

course of its development. Thus far, too, our inferences have been

very secure, for we have been dealing with a circumscribed group of

phenomena, the beginning and end of which have been brought pretty well

within the compass of our imagination. It is quite another thing to deal

with the actual or probable career of the stars in general, inasmuch

as we do not even know how many stars there are, which form parts of

a common system, or what are their precise dynamic relations to one

another. Nevertheless we have knowledge of a few facts which may support

some cautious inferences. All the stars which we can see are undoubtedly

bound together by relations of gravitation. No doubt our sun attracts

all the other stars within our ken, and is reciprocally attracted by

them. The stars, too, lie mostly in or around one great plane, as is the

case with the members of the solar system. Moreover, the stars are shown

by the spectroscope to consist of chemical elements identical with

those which are found in the solar system. Such facts as these make it

probable that the career of other stars, when adequately inquired

into, would be found to be like that of our own sun. Observation daily

enhances this probability, for our study of the sidereal universe is

continually showing us stars in all stages of development. We find

irregular nebulae, for example; we find spiral and spheroidal nebulae;

we find stars which have got beyond the nebulous stage, but are still at

a whiter heat than our sun; and we also find many stars which yield the

same sort of spectrum as our sun. The inference seems forced upon us

that the same process of concentration which has gone on in the case

of our solar nebula has been going on in the case of other nebulae. The

history of the sun is but a type of the history of stars in general. And

when we consider that all other visible stars and nebulae are cooling

and contracting bodies, like our sun, to what other conclusion could we

very well come? When we look at Sirius, for instance, we do not see

him surrounded by planets, for at such a distance no planet could be

visible, even Sirius himself, though fourteen times larger than our sun,

appearing only as a "twinkling little star." But a comparative survey

of the heavens assures us that Sirius can hardly have arrived at his

present stage of concentration without detaching, planet-forming rings,

for there is no reason for supposing that mechanical laws out there are

at all different from what they are in our own system. And the same kind

of inference must apply to all the matured stars which we see in the

heavens.

When we duly take all these things into the account, the case of our

solar system will appear as only one of a thousand cases of evolution

and dissolution with which the heavens furnish us. Other stars, like our

sun, have undoubtedly started as vaporous masses, and have thrown off

planets in contracting. The inference may seem a bold one, but it after

all involves no other assumption than that of the continuity of natural

phenomena. It is not likely, therefore, that the solar system will

forever be left to itself. Stars which strongly gravitate toward each

other, while moving through a perennially resisting medium, must in

time be drawn together. The collision of our extinct sun with one of the

Pleiades, after this manner, would very likely suffice to generate even

a grander nebula than the one with which we started. Possibly the entire

galactic system may, in an inconceivably remote future, remodel itself

in this way; and possibly the nebula from which our own group of planets

has been formed may have owed its origin to the disintegration of

systems which had accomplished their career in the depths of the bygone

eternity.

When the problem is extended to these huge dimensions, the prospect of

an ultimate cessation of cosmical work is indefinitely postponed, but

at the same time it becomes impossible for us to deal very securely

with the questions we have raised. The magnitudes and periods we have

introduced are so nearly infinite as to baffle speculation itself: One

point, however, we seem dimly to discern. Supposing the stellar universe

not to be absolutely infinite in extent, we may hold that the day of

doom, so often postponed, must come at last. The concentration of matter

and dissipation of energy, so often checked, must in the end prevail,

so that, as the final outcome of things, the entire universe will be

reduced to a single enormous ball, dead and frozen, solid and black,

its potential energy of motion having been all transformed into heat

and radiated away. Such a conclusion has been suggested by Sir William

Thomson, and it is quite forcibly stated by the authors of "The Unseen

Universe." They remind us that "if there be any one form of energy

less readily or less completely transformable than the others, and if

transformations constantly go on, more and more of the whole energy

of the universe will inevitably sink into this lower grade as time

advances." Now radiant heat, as we have seen, is such a lower grade

of energy. "At each transformation of heat-energy into work, a large

portion is degraded, while only a small portion is transformed into

work. So that while it is very easy to change all of our mechanical or

useful energy into heat, it is only possible to transform a portion of

this heat-energy back again into work. After each change, too, the

heat becomes more and more dissipated or degraded, and less and less

available for any future transformation. In other words," our authors

continue, "the tendency of heat is towards equalization; heat is

par excellence the communist of our universe, and it will no doubt

ultimately bring the system to an end..... It is absolutely certain that

life, so far as it is physical, depends essentially upon transformations

of energy; it is also absolutely certain that age after age the

possibility of such transformations is becoming less and less; and, so

far as we yet know, the final state of the present universe must be an

aggregation (into one mass) of all the matter it contains, i. e. the

potential energy gone, and a practically useless state of kinetic

energy, i. e. uniform temperature throughout that mass." Thus our

authors conclude that the visible universe began in time and will in

time come to an end; and they add that under the physical conditions of

such a universe "immortality is impossible."

Concerning the latter inference we shall by and by have something to

say. Meanwhile this whole speculation as to the final cessation of

cosmical work seems to me--as it does to my friend, Professor Clifford

[3]--by no means trustworthy. The conditions of the problem so

far transcend our grasp that any such speculation must remain an

unverifiable guess. I do not go with Professor Clifford in doubting

whether the laws of mechanics are absolutely the same throughout

eternity; I cannot quite reconcile such a doubt with faith in the

principle of continuity. But it does seem to me needful, before we

conclude that radiated energy is absolutely and forever wasted, that we

should find out what becomes of it. What we call radiant heat is simply

transverse wave-motion, propagated with enormous velocity through an

ocean of subtle ethereal matter which bathes the atoms of all visible

or palpable bodies and fills the whole of space, extending beyond the

remotest star which the telescope can reach. Whether there are any

bounds at all to this ethereal ocean, or whether it is as infinite

as space itself, we cannot surmise. If it be limited, the possible

dispersion of radiant energy is limited by its extent. Heat and light

cannot travel through emptiness. If the ether is bounded by surrounding

emptiness, then a ray of heat, on arriving at this limiting emptiness,

would be reflected back as surely as a ball is sent back when thrown

against a solid wall. If this be the case, it will not affect our

conclusions concerning such a tiny region of space as is occupied by

the solar system, but it will seriously modify Sir William Thomson's

suggestion as to the fate of the universe as a whole. The radiance

thrown away by the sun is indeed lost so far as the future of our system

is concerned, but not a single unit of it is lost from the universe.

Sooner or later, reflected back in all directions, it must do work in

one quarter or another, so that ultimate stagnation be comes impossible.

It is true that no such return of radiant energy has been detected in

our corner of the world; but we have not yet so far disentangled all the

force-relations of the universe that we are entitled to regard such a

return as impossible. This is one way of escape from the consummation

of things depicted by our authors. Another way of escape is equally

available, if we suppose that while the ether is without bounds

the stellar universe also extends to infinity. For in this case the

reproduction of nebulous masses fit for generating new systems of worlds

must go on through space that is endless, and consequently the process

can never come to an end and can never have had a beginning. We have,

therefore, three alternatives: either the visible universe is finite,

while the ether is infinite; or both are finite; or both are infinite.

Only on the first supposition, I think, do we get a universe which began

in time and must end in time. Between such stupendous alternatives we

have no grounds for choosing. But it would seem that the third, whether

strictly true or not, best represents the state of the case relatively

to our feeble capacity of comprehension. Whether absolutely infinite

or not, the dimensions of the universe must be taken as practically

infinite, so far as human thought is concerned. They immeasurably

transcend the capabilities of any gauge we can bring to bear on them.

Accordingly all that we are really entitled to hold, as the outcome of

sound speculation, is the conception of innumerable systems of worlds

concentrating out of nebulous masses, and then rushing together and

dissolving into similar masses, as bubbles unite and break up--now

here, now there--in their play on the surface of a pool, and to this

tremendous series of events we can assign neither a beginning nor an

end.

[3] Fortnightly Review, April, 1875.

We must now make some more explicit mention of the ether which carries

through space the rays of heat and light. In closest connection with

the visible stellar universe, the vicissitudes of which we have briefly

traced, the all-pervading ether constitutes a sort of unseen world

remarkable enough from any point of view, but to which the theory of our

authors ascribes capacities hitherto unsuspected by science. The very

existence of an ocean of ether enveloping the molecules of material

bodies has been doubted or denied by many eminent physicists, though of

course none have called in question the necessity for some interstellar

medium for the transmission of thermal and luminous vibrations.

This scepticism has been, I think, partially justified by the many

difficulties encompassing the conception, into which, however, we need

not here enter. That light and heat cannot be conveyed by any of the

ordinary sensible forms of matter is unquestionable. None of the forms

of sensible matter can be imagined sufficiently elastic to propagate

wave-motion at the rate of one hundred and eighty-eight thousand miles

per second. Yet a ray of light is a series of waves, and implies some

substance in which the waves occur. The substance required is one which

seems to possess strangely contradictory properties. It is commonly

regarded as an "ether" or infinitely rare substance; but, as Professor

Jevons observes, we might as well regard it as an infinitely solid

"adamant." "Sir John Herschel has calculated the amount of force which

may be supposed, according to the undulatory theory of light, to be

exerted at each point in space, and finds it to be 1,148,000,000,000

times the elastic force of ordinary air at the earth's surface, so that

the pressure of the ether upon a square inch of surface must be about

17,000,000,000,000, or seventeen billions of pounds." [4] Yet at the

same time the resistance offered by the ether to the planetary motions

is too minute to be appreciable. "All our ordinary notions," says

Professor Jevons, "must be laid aside in contemplating such an

hypothesis; yet [it is] no more than the observed phenomena of light and

heat force us to accept. We cannot deny even the strange suggestion of

Dr. Young, that there may be independent worlds, some possibly existing

in different parts of space, but others perhaps pervading each other,

unseen and unknown, in the same space. For if we are bound to admit the

conception of this adamantine firmament, it is equally easy to admit a

plurality of such."

[4] Jevons's Principles of Science, Vol. II. p. 145. The figures,

which in the English system of numeration read as seventeen billions,

would in the American system read as seventeen trillions.

The ether, therefore, is unlike any of the forms of matter which we

can weigh and measure. In some respects it resembles a fluid, in some

respects a solid. It is both hard and elastic to an almost inconceivable

degree. It fills all material bodies like a sea in which the atoms of

the material bodies are as islands, and it occupies the whole of what we

call empty space. It is so sensitive that a disturbance in any part of

it causes a "tremour which is felt on the surface of countless worlds."

Our old experiences of matter give us no account of any substance like

this; yet the undulatory theory of light obliges us to admit such a

substance, and that theory is as well established as the theory of

gravitation. Obviously we have here an enlargement of our experience

of matter. The analysis of the phenomena of light and radiant heat has

brought us into mental relations with matter in a different state from

any in which we previously knew it. For the supposition that the ether

may be something essentially different from matter is contradicted by

all the terms we have used in describing it. Strange and contradictory

as its properties may seem, are they any more strange than the

properties of a gas would seem if we were for the first time to discover

a gas after heretofore knowing nothing but solids and liquids? I think

not; and the conclusion implied by our authors seems to me eminently

probable, that in the so-called ether we have simply a state of matter

more primitive than what we know as the gaseous state. Indeed, the

conceptions of matter now current, and inherited from barbarous ages,

are likely enough to be crude in the extreme. It is not strange that

the study of such subtle agencies as heat and light should oblige us

to modify them; and it will not be strange if the study of electricity

should entail still further revision of our ideas.

We are now brought to one of the profoundest speculations of modern

times, the vortex-atom theory of Helmholtz and Thomson, in which the

evolution of ordinary matter from ether is plainly indicated. The

reader first needs to know what vortex-motion is; and this has been

so beautifully explained by Professor Clifford, that I quote his

description entire: "Imagine a ring of india-rubber, made by joining

together the ends of a cylindrical piece (like a lead-pencil before

it is cut), to be put upon a round stick which it will just fit with a

little stretching. Let the stick be now pulled through the ring while

the latter is kept in its place by being pulled the other way on the

outside. The india-rubber has then what is called vortex-motion. Before

the ends were joined together, while it was straight, it might have been

made to turn around without changing position, by rolling it between the

hands. Just the same motion of rotation it has on the stick, only that

the ends are now joined together. All the inside surface of the ring is

going one way, namely, the way the stick is pulled; and all the outside

is going the other way. Such a vortex-ring is made by the smoker who

purses his lips into a round hole and sends out a puff of smoke. The

outside of the ring is kept back by the friction of his lips while

the inside is going forwards; thus a rotation is set up all round the

smoke-ring as it travels out into the air." In these cases, and in

others as we commonly find it, vortex-motion owes its origin to friction

and is after a while brought to an end by friction. But in 1858 the

equations of motion of an incompressible frictionless fluid were first

successfully solved by Helmholtz, and among other things he proved

that, though vortex-motion could not be originated in such a fluid, yet

supposing it once to exist, it would exist to all eternity and could

not be diminished by any mechanical action whatever. A vortex-ring, for

example, in such a fluid, would forever preserve its own rotation, and

would thus forever retain its peculiar individuality, being, as it were,

marked off from its neighbour vortex-rings. Upon this mechanical truth

Sir William Thomson based his wonderfully suggestive theory of the

constitution of matter. That which is permanent or indestructible in

matter is the ultimate homogeneous atom; and this is probably all that

is permanent, since chemists now almost unanimously hold that so-called

elementary molecules are not really simple, but owe their sensible

differences to the various groupings of an ultimate atom which is alike

for all. Relatively to our powers of comprehension the atom endures

eternally; that is, it retains forever unalterable its definite mass

and its definite rate of vibration. Now this is just what a vortex-ring

would do in an incompressible frictionless fluid. Thus the startling

question is suggested, Why may not the ultimate atoms of matter be

vortex-rings forever existing in such a frictionless fluid filling the

whole of space? Such a hypothesis is not less brilliant than Huyghens's

conjectural identification of light with undulatory motion; and it is

moreover a legitimate hypothesis, since it can be brought to the test

of verification. Sir William Thomson has shown that it explains a great

many of the physical properties of matter: it remains to be seen whether

it can explain them all.

Of course the ether which conveys thermal and luminous undulations is

not the frictionless fluid postulated by Sir William Thomson. The most

conspicuous property of the ether is its enormous elasticity, a property

which we should not find in a frictionless fluid. "To account for such

elasticity," says Professor Clifford (whose exposition of the subject is

still more lucid than that of our authors), "it has to be supposed that

even where there are no material molecules the universal fluid is full

of vortex-motion, but that the vortices are smaller and more closely

packed than those of [ordinary] matter, forming altogether a more finely

grained structure. So that the difference between matter and ether

is reduced to a mere difference in the size and arrangement of the

component vortex-rings. Now, whatever may turn out to be the ultimate

nature of the ether and of molecules, we know that to some extent

at least they obey the same dynamic laws, and that they act upon

one another in accordance with these laws. Until, therefore, it is

absolutely disproved, it must remain the simplest and most probable

assumption that they are finally made of the same stuff, that the

material molecule is some kind of knot or coagulation of ether." [5]

[5] Fortnightly Review, June, 1875, p. 784.

Another interesting consequence of Sir William Thomson's pregnant

hypothesis is that the absolute hardness which has been attributed to

material atoms from the time of Lucretius downward may be dispensed

with. Somewhat in the same way that a loosely suspended chain

becomes rigid with rapid rotation, the hardness and elasticity of the

vortex-atom are explained as due to the swift rotary motion of a soft

and yielding fluid. So that the vortex-atom is really indivisible,

not by reason of its hardness or solidity, but by reason of the

indestructibleness of its motion.

Supposing, now, that we adopt provisionally the vortex theory,--the

great power of which is well shown by the consideration just

mentioned,--we must not forget that it is absolutely essential to the

indestructibleness of the material atom that the universal fluid in

which it has an existence as a vortex-ring should be entirely destitute

of friction. Once admit even the most infinitesimal amount of friction,

while retaining the conception of vortex-motion in a universal fluid,

and the whole case is so far altered that the material atom can

no longer be regarded as absolutely indestructible, but only as

indefinitely enduring. It may have been generated, in bygone eternity,

by a natural process of evolution, and in future eternity may come to an

end. Relatively to our powers of comprehension the practical difference

is perhaps not great. Scientifically speaking, Helmholtz and Thomson

are as well entitled to reason upon the assumption of a perfectly

frictionless fluid as geometers in general are entitled to assume

perfect lines without breadth and perfect surfaces without thickness.

Perfect lines and surfaces do not exist within the region of our

experience; yet the conclusions of geometry are none the less true

ideally, though in any particular concrete instance they are only

approximately realized. Just so with the conception of a frictionless

fluid. So far as experience goes, such a thing has no more real

existence than a line without breadth; and hence an atomic theory based

upon such an assumption may be as true ideally as any of the theorems

of Euclid, but it can give only an approximatively true account of

the actual universe. These considerations do not at all affect the

scientific value of the theory; but they will modify the tenour of

such transcendental inferences as may be drawn from it regarding, the

probable origin and destiny of the universe.

The conclusions reached in the first part of this paper, while we were

dealing only with gross visible matter, may have seemed bold enough; but

they are far surpassed by the inference which our authors draw from the

vortex theory as they interpret it. Our authors exhibit various reasons,

more or less sound, for attributing to the primordial fluid some slight

amount of friction; and in support of this view they adduce Le Sage's

explanation of gravitation as a differential result of pressure,

and Struve's theory of the partial absorption of light-rays by the

ether,--questions with which our present purpose does not require us

to meddle. Apart from such questions it is every way probable that the

primary assumption of Helmholtz and Thomson is only an approximation

to the truth. But if we accredit the primordial fluid with even an

infinitesimal amount of friction, then we are required to conceive of

the visible universe as developed from the invisible and as destined to

return into the invisible. The vortex-atom, produced by infinitesimal

friction operating through wellnigh infinite time, is to be ultimately

abolished by the agency which produced it. In the words of our authors,

"If the visible universe be developed from an invisible which is not

a perfect fluid, then the argument deduced by Sir William Thomson

in favour of the eternity of ordinary matter disappears, since this

eternity depends upon the perfect fluidity of the invisible. In fine,

if we suppose the material universe to be composed of a series of

vortex-rings developed from an invisible universe which is not a perfect

fluid, it will be ephemeral, just as the smoke-ring which we develop

from air, or that which we develop from water, is ephemeral, the only

difference being in duration, these lasting only for a few seconds,

and the others it may be for billions of years." Thus, as our authors

suppose that "the available energy of the visible universe will

ultimately be appropriated by the invisible," they go on to imagine,

"at least as a possibility, that the separate existence of the visible

universe will share the same fate, so that we shall have no huge,

useless, inert mass existing in after ages to remind the passer-by of

a form of energy and a species of matter that is long since out of date

and functionally effete. Why should not the universe bury its dead out

of sight?"

In one respect perhaps no more stupendous subject of contemplation than

this has ever been offered to the mind of man. In comparison with the

length of time thus required to efface the tiny individual atom, the

entire cosmical career of our solar system, or even that of the whole

starry galaxy, shrinks into utter nothingness. Whether we shall adopt

the conclusion suggested must depend on the extent of our speculative

audacity. We have seen wherein its probability consists, but in

reasoning upon such a scale we may fitly be cautious and modest in

accepting inferences, and our authors, we may be sure, would be the

first to recommend such modesty and caution. Even at the dimensions to

which our theorizing has here grown, we may for instance discern the

possible alternative of a simultaneous or rhythmically successive

generation and destruction of vortex-atoms which would go far to modify

the conclusion just suggested. But here we must pause for a moment,

reserving for a second paper the weightier thoughts as to futurity

which our authors have sought to enwrap in these sublime physical

speculations.

PART SECOND.

UP to this point, however remote from ordinary every-day thoughts may be

the region of speculation which we have been called upon to traverse, we

have still kept within the limits of legitimate scientific hypothesis.

Though we have ventured for a goodly distance into the unknown, we have

not yet been required to abandon our base of operations in the known. Of

the views presented in the preceding paper, some are wellnigh certainly

established, some are probable, some have a sort of plausibility,

others--to which we have refrained from giving assent--may possibly be

true; but none are irretrievably beyond the jurisdiction of scientific

tests. No suggestion has so far been broached which a very little

further increase of our scientific knowledge may not show to be either

eminently probable or eminently improbable. We have kept pretty clear of

mere subjective guesses, such as men may wrangle about forever without

coming to any conclusion. The theory of the nebular origin of our

planetary system has come to command the assent of all persons qualified

to appreciate the evidence on which it is based; and the more immediate

conclusions which we have drawn from that theory are only such as

are commonly drawn by astronomers and physicists. The doctrine of

an intermolecular and interstellar ether is wrapped up in the

well-established undulatory theory of light. Such is by no means the

case with Sir William Thomson's vortex-atom theory, which to-day is in

somewhat the same condition as the undulatory theory of Huyghens two

centuries ago. This, however, is none the less a hypothesis truly

scientific in conception, and in the speculations to which it leads us

we are still sure of dealing with views that admit at least of definite

expression and treatment. In other words, though our study of the

visible universe has led us to the recognition of a kind of unseen world

underlying the world of things that are seen, yet concerning the economy

of this unseen world we have not been led to entertain any hypothesis

that has not its possible justification in our experiences of visible

phenomena.

We are now called upon, following in the wake of our esteemed authors,

to venture on a different sort of exploration, in which we must cut

loose altogether from our moorings in the world of which we have

definite experience. We are invited to entertain suggestions concerning

the peculiar economy of the invisible portion of the universe which we

have no means of subjecting to any sort of test of probability, either

experimental or deductive. These suggestions are, therefore, not to be

regarded as properly scientific; but, with this word of caution, we may

proceed to show what they are.

Compared with the life and death of cosmical systems which we have

heretofore contemplated, the life and death of individuals of the human

race may perhaps seem a small matter; yet because we are ourselves the

men who live and die, the small event is of vastly greater interest to

us than the grand series of events of which it is part and parcel. It

is natural that we should be more interested in the ultimate fate of

humanity than in the fate of a world which is of no account to us save

as our present dwelling-place. Whether the human soul is to come to an

end or not is to us a more important question than whether the visible

universe, with its matter and energy, is to be absorbed in an invisible

ether. It is indeed only because we are interested in the former

question that we are so curious about the latter. If we could dissociate

ourselves from the material universe, our habitat, we should probably

speculate much less about its past and future. We care very little what

becomes of the black ball of the earth, after all life has vanished

from its surface; or, if we care at all about it, it is only because our

thoughts about the career of the earth are necessarily mixed up with our

thoughts about life. Hence in considering the probable ultimate destiny

of the physical universe, our innermost purpose must be to know what

is to become of all this rich and wonderful life of which the physical

universe is the theatre. Has it all been developed, apparently at almost

infinite waste of effort, only to be abolished again before it

has attained to completeness, or does it contain or shelter some

indestructible element which having drawn sustenance for a while from

the senseless turmoil of physical phenomena shall still survive their

final decay? This question is closely connected with the time-honoured

question of the meaning, purpose, or tendency of the world. In the

career of the world is life an end, or a means toward an end, or only an

incidental phenomenon in which we can discover no meaning? Contemporary

theologians seem generally to believe that one necessary result of

modern scientific inquiry must be the destruction of the belief in

immortal life, since against every thoroughgoing expounder of scientific

knowledge they seek to hurl the charge of "materialism." Their doubts,

however, are not shared by our authors, thorough men of science as they

are, though their mode of dealing with the question may not be such as

we can well adopt. While upholding the doctrine of evolution, and all

the so-called "materialistic" views of modern science, they not only

regard the hypothesis of a future life as admissible, but they even go

so far as to propound a physical theory as to the nature of existence

after death. Let us see what this physical theory is.

As far as the visible universe is concerned, we do not find in it any

evidence of immortality or of permanence of any sort, unless it be in

the sum of potential and kinetic energies on the persistency of which

depends our principle of continuity. In ordinary language "the stars in

their courses" serve as symbols of permanence, yet we have found reason

to regard them as but temporary phenomena. So, in the language of our

authors, "if we take the individual man, we find that he lives his short

tale of years, and that then the visible machinery which connects him

with the past, as well as that which enables him to act in the present,

falls into ruin and is brought to an end. If any germ or potentiality

remains, it is certainly not connected with the visible order of

things." In like manner our race is pretty sure to come to an end

long before the destruction of the planet from which it now gets its

sustenance. And in our authors opinion even the universe will by and

by become "old and effete, no less truly than the individual: it is a

glorious garment this visible universe, but not an immortal one; we

must look elsewhere if we are to be clothed with immortality as with a

garment."

It is at this point that our authors call attention to "the apparently

wasteful character of the arrangements of the visible universe." The

fact is one which we have already sufficiently described, but we shall

do well to quote the words in which our authors recur to it: "All but a

very small portion of the sun's heat goes day by day into what we call

empty space, and it is only this very small remainder that is made use

of by the various planets for purposes of their own. Can anything be

more perplexing than this seemingly frightful expenditure of the very

life and essence of the system? That this vast store of high-class

energy should be doing nothing but travelling outwards in space at the

rate of 188,000 miles per second is hardly conceivable, especially when

the result of it is the inevitable destruction of the visible universe."

Pursuing this teleological argument, it is suggested that perhaps this

apparent waste of energy is "only an arrangement in virtue of which our

universe keeps up a memory of the past at the expense of the present,

inasmuch as all memory consists in an investiture of present resources

in order to keep a hold upon the past." Recourse is had to the ingenious

argument in which Mr. Babbage showed that "if we had power to follow

and detect the minutest effects of any disturbance, each particle of

existing matter must be a register of all that has happened. The track

of every canoe, of every vessel that has yet disturbed the surface of

the ocean, whether impelled by manual force or elemental power, remains

forever registered in the future movement of all succeeding particles

which may occupy its place. The furrow which is left is, indeed,

instantly filled up by the closing waters; but they draw after them

other and larger portions of the surrounding element, and these again,

once moved, communicate motion to others in endless succession." In like

manner, "the air itself is one vast library, on whose pages are forever

written all that man has ever said or even whispered. There in their

mutable but unerring characters, mixed with the earliest as well as

the latest sighs of mortality, stand forever recorded vows unredeemed,

promises unfulfilled, perpetuating in the united movements of each

particle the testimony of man's changeful will." [6] In some such way as

this, records of every movement that takes place in the world are each

moment transmitted, with the speed of light, through the invisible

ocean of ether with which the world is surrounded. Even the molecular

displacements which occur in our brains when we feel and think are thus

propagated in their effects into the unseen world. The world of ether is

thus regarded by our authors as in some sort the obverse or complement

of the world of sensible matter, so that whatever energy is dissipated

in the one is by the same act accumulated in the other. It is like the

negative plate in photography, where light answers to shadow and shadow

to light. Or, still better, it is like the case of an equation in which

whatever quantity you take from one side is added to the other with a

contrary sign, while the relation of equality remains undisturbed. Thus,

it will be noticed, from the ingenious and subtle, but quite defensible

suggestion of Mr. Babbage, a leap is made to an assumption which cannot

be defended scientifically, but only teleologically. It is one thing

to say that every movement in the visible world transmits a record of

itself to the surrounding ether, in such a way that from the undulation

of the ether a sufficiently powerful intelligence might infer the

character of the generating movement in the visible world. It is quite

another thing to say that the ether is organized in such a complex and

delicate way as to be like a negative image or counterpart of the world

of sensible matter. The latter view is no doubt ingenious, but it is

gratuitous. It is sustained not by scientific analogy, but by the desire

to find some assignable use for the energy which is constantly escaping

from visible matter into invisible ether. The moment we ask how do we

know that this energy is not really wasted, or that it is not put to

some use wholly undiscoverable by human intelligence, this assumption of

an organized ether is at once seen to be groundless. It belongs not to

the region of science, but to that of pure mythology.

[6] Babbage, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, p. 115; Jevons,

Principles of Science, Vol. II. p. 455.

In justice to our authors, however, it should be remembered that this

assumption is put forth not as something scientifically probable, but as

something which for aught we know to the contrary may possibly be true.

This, to be sure, we need not deny; nor if we once allow this prodigious

leap of inference, shall we find much difficulty in reaching the famous

conclusion that "thought conceived to affect the matter of another

universe simultaneously with this may explain a future state." This

proposition, quaintly couched in an anagram, like the discoveries of old

astronomers, was published last year in "Nature," as containing the gist

of the forthcoming book. On the negative-image hypothesis it is not hard

to see how thought is conceived to affect the seen and the unseen worlds

simultaneously. Every act of consciousness is accompanied by molecular

displacements in the brain, and these are of course responded to by

movements in the ethereal world. Thus as a series of conscious states

build up a continuous memory in strict accordance with physical laws of

motion, [7] so a correlative memory is simultaneously built up in

the ethereal world out of the ethereal correlatives of the molecular

displacements which go on in our brains. And as there is a continual

transfer of energy from the visible world to the ether, the extinction

of vital energy which we call death must coincide in some way with

the awakening of vital energy in the correlative world; so that the

darkening of consciousness here is coincident with its dawning there.

In this way death is for the individual but a transfer from one physical

state of existence to another; and so, on the largest scale, the

death or final loss of energy by the whole visible universe has its

counterpart in the acquirement of a maximum of life by the correlative

unseen world.

There seems to be a certain sort of rigorous logical consistency in this

daring speculation; but really the propositions of which it consists are

so far from answering to anything within the domain of human experience

that we are unable to tell whether any one of them logically follows

from its predecessor or not. It is evident that we are quite out of the

region of scientific tests, and to whatever view our authors may urge we

can only languidly assent that it is out of our power to disprove it.

[7] See my Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II. pp. 142-148.

The essential weakness of such a theory as this lies in the fact that it

is thoroughly materialistic in character. It is currently assumed that

the doctrine of a life after death cannot be defended on materialistic

grounds, but this is altogether too hasty an assumption. Our authors,

indeed, are not philosophical materialists, like Dr. Priestley,--who

nevertheless believed in a future life,--but one of the primary

doctrines of materialism lies at the bottom of their argument.

Materialism holds for one thing that consciousness is a product of

a peculiar organization of matter, and for another thing that

consciousness cannot survive the disorganization of the material body

with which it is associated. As held by philosophical materialists, like

Buchner and Moleschott, these two opinions are strictly consistent with

each other; nay, the latter seems to be the inevitable inference from

the former, though Priestley did not so regard it. Now our authors very

properly refuse to commit themselves to the opinion that mind is the

product of matter, but their argument nevertheless implies that some

sort of material vehicle is necessary for the continuance of mind in a

future state of existence. This material vehicle they seek to supply in

the theory which connects by invisible bonds of transmitted energy the

perishable material body with its counterpart in the world of ether. The

materialism of the argument is indeed partly veiled by the terminology

in which this counterpart is called a "spiritual body," but in this

novel use or abuse of scriptural language there seems to me to be a

strange confusion of ideas. Bear in mind that the "invisible universe"

into which energy is constantly passing is simply the luminiferous

ether, which our authors, to suit the requirements of their hypothesis,

have gratuitously endowed with a complexity and variety of structure

analogous to that of the visible world of matter. Their language is not

always quite so precise as one could desire, for while they sometimes

speak of the ether itself as the "unseen universe," they sometimes

allude to a primordial medium yet subtler in constitution and presumably

more immaterial. Herein lies the confusion. Why should the luminiferous

ether, or any primordial medium in which it may have been generated, be

regarded as in any way "spiritual"? Great physicists, like less trained

thinkers, are sometimes liable to be unconsciously influenced by old

associations of ideas which, ostensibly repudiated, still lurk under

cover of the words we use. I fear that the old associations which led

the ancients to describe the soul as a breath or a shadow, and which

account for the etymologies of such words as "ghost" and "spirit,"

have had something to do with this spiritualization of the interstellar

ether. Some share may also have been contributed by the Platonic notion

of the "grossness" or "bruteness" of tangible matter,--a notion which

has survived in Christian theology, and which educated men of the

present day have by no means universally outgrown. Save for some such

old associations as these, why should it be supposed that matter becomes

"spriritualized" as it diminishes in apparent substantiality? Why should

matter be pronounced respectable in the inverse ratio of its density

or ponderability? Why is a diamond any more chargeable with "grossness"

than a cubic centimetre of hydrogen? Obviously such fancies are purely

of mythologic parentage. Now the luminiferous ether, upon which our

authors make such extensive demands, may be physically "ethereal"

enough, in spite of the enormous elasticity which leads Professor Jevons

to characterize it as "adamantine"; but most assuredly we have not the

slightest reason for speaking of it as "immaterial" or "spiritual."

Though we are unable to weigh it in the balance, we at least know it as

a transmitter of undulatory movements, the size and shape of which we

can accurately measure. Its force-relations with ponderable matter are

not only universally and incessantly maintained, but they have that

precisely quantitative character which implies an essential identity

between the innermost natures of the two substances. We have seen

reason for thinking it probable that ether and ordinary matter are alike

composed of vortex-rings in a quasi-frictionless fluid; but whatever be

the fate of this subtle hypothesis, we may be sure that no theory

will ever be entertained in which the analysis of ether shall require

different symbols from that of ordinary matter. In our authors' theory,

therefore, the putting on of immortality is in no wise the passage from

a material to a spiritual state. It is the passage from one kind

of materially conditioned state to another. The theory thus appeals

directly to our experiences of the behaviour of matter; and in deriving

so little support as it does from these experiences, it remains an

essentially weak speculation, whatever we may think of its ingenuity.

For so long as we are asked to accept conclusions drawn from our

experiences of the material world, we are justified in demanding

something more than mere unconditioned possibility. We require some

positive evidence, be it ever so little in amount; and no theory which

cannot furnish such positive evidence is likely to carry to our minds

much practical conviction.

This is what I meant by saying that the great weakness of the hypothesis

here criticized lies in its materialistic character. In contrast with

this we shall presently see that the assertion of a future life which is

not materially conditioned, though unsupported by any item of experience

whatever, may nevertheless be an impregnable assertion. But first I

would conclude the foregoing criticism by ruling out altogether the

sense in which our authors use the expression "Unseen Universe."

Scientific inference, however remote, is connected by such insensible

gradations with ordinary perception, that one may well question the

propriety of applying the term "unseen" to that which is presented to

"the mind's eye" as inevitable matter of inference. It is true that we

cannot see the ocean of ether in which visible matter floats; but there

are many other invisible things which yet we do not regard as part of

the "unseen world." I do not see the air which I am now breathing within

the four walls of my study, yet its existence is sufficiently a matter

of sense-perception as it fills my lungs and fans my cheek. The atoms

which compose a drop of water are not only invisible, but cannot in any

way be made the objects of sense-perception; yet by proper inferences

from their behaviour we can single them out for measurement, so that Sir

William Thomson can tell us that if the drop of water were magnified to

the size of the earth, the constituent atoms would be larger than peas,

but not so large as billiard-balls. If we do not see such atoms with our

eyes, we have one adequate reason in their tiny dimensions, though

there are further reasons than this. It would be hard to say why the

luminiferous ether should be relegated to the "unseen world" any more

than the material atom. Whatever we know as possessing resistance

and extension, whatever we can subject to mathematical processes of

measurement, we also conceive as existing in such shape that, with

appropriate eyes and under proper visual conditions, we MIGHT see it,

and we are not entitled to draw any line of demarcation between such

an object of inference and others which may be made objects of

sense-perception. To set apart the ether as constituting an "unseen

universe" is therefore illegitimate and confusing. It introduces

a distinction where there is none, and obscures the fact that both

invisible ether and visible matter form but one grand universe in which

the sum of energy remains constant, though the order of its distribution

endlessly varies.

Very different would be the logical position of a theory which should

assume the existence of an "Unseen World" entirely spiritual in

constitution, and in which material conditions like those of the visible

world should have neither place nor meaning. Such a world would not

consist of ethers or gases or ghosts, but of purely psychical relations

akin to such as constitute thoughts and feelings when our minds are

least solicited by sense-perceptions. In thus marking off the "Unseen

World" from the objective universe of which we have knowledge, our

line of demarcation would at least be drawn in the right place. The

distinction between psychical and material phenomena is a distinction of

a different order from all other distinctions known to philosophy, and

it immeasurably transcends all others. The progress of modern discovery

has in no respect weakened the force of Descartes's remark, that between

that of which the differential attribute is Thought and that of which

the differential attribute is Extension, there can be no similarity, no

community of nature whatever. By no scientific cunning of experiment or

deduction can Thought be weighed or measured or in any way assimilated

to such things as may be made the actual or possible objects of

sense-perception. Modern discovery, so far from bridging over the chasm

between Mind and Matter, tends rather to exhibit the distinction between

them as absolute. It has, indeed, been rendered highly probable that

every act of consciousness is accompanied by a molecular motion in the

cells and fibres of the brain; and materialists have found great comfort

in this fact, while theologians and persons of little faith have been

very much frightened by it. But since no one ever pretended that thought

can go on, under the conditions of the present life, without a

brain, one finds it rather hard to sympathize either with the

self-congratulations of Dr. Buchner's disciples [8] or with the terrors

of their opponents. But what has been less commonly remarked is the

fact that when the thought and the molecular movement thus occur

simultaneously, in no scientific sense is the thought the product of the

molecular movement. The sun-derived energy of motion latent in the food

we eat is variously transformed within the organism, until some of

it appears as the motion of the molecules of a little globule of

nerve-matter in the brain. In a rough way we might thus say that the

chemical energy of the food indirectly produces the motion of these

little nerve-molecules. But does this motion of nerve-molecules now

produce a thought or state of consciousness? By no means. It simply

produces some other motion of nerve-molecules, and this in turn

produces motion of contraction or expansion in some muscle, or becomes

transformed into the chemical energy of some secreting gland. At no

point in the whole circuit does a unit of motion disappear as motion to

reappear as a unit of consciousness. The physical process is complete in

itself, and the thought does not enter into it. All that we can say is,

that the occurrence of the thought is simultaneous with that part of the

physical process which consists of a molecular movement in the brain.

[9] To be sure, the thought is always there when summoned, but it

stands outside the dynamic circuit, as something utterly alien from and

incomparable with the events which summon it. No doubt, as Professor

Tyndall observes, if we knew exhaustively the physical state of the

brain, "the corresponding thought or feeling might be inferred; or,

given the thought or feeling, the corresponding state of the brain

might be inferred. But how inferred? It would be at bottom not a case

of logical inference at all, but of empirical association. You may

reply that many of the inferences of science are of this character; the

inference, for example, that an electric current of a given direction

will deflect a magnetic needle in a definite way; but the cases differ

in this, that the passage from the current to the needle, if not

demonstrable, is thinkable, and that we entertain no doubt as to the

final mechanical solution of the problem. But the passage from the

physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is

unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a definite molecular

action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the

intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which

would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from the one to the

other. They appear together, but we do not know why." [10]

[8] The Nation once wittily described these people as "people who

believe that they are going to die like the beasts, and who congratulate

themselves that they are going to die like the beasts."

[9] For a fuller exposition of this point, see my Outlines of

Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II. pp. 436-445.

[10] Fragments of Science, p. 119.

An unseen world consisting of purely psychical or spiritual phenomena

would accordingly be demarcated by an absolute gulf from what we call

the material universe, but would not necessarily be discontinuous with

the psychical phenomena which we find manifested in connection with the

world of matter. The transfer of matter, or physical energy, or anything

else that is quantitatively measurable, into such an unseen world, may

be set down as impossible, by reason of the very definition of such a

world. Any hypothesis which should assume such a transfer would involve

a contradiction in terms. But the hypothesis of a survival of present

psychical phenomena in such a world, after being denuded of material

conditions, is not in itself absurd or self-contradictory, though it may

be impossible to support it by any arguments drawn from the domain of

human experience. Such is the shape which it seems to me that, in

the present state of philosophy, the hypothesis of a future life must

assume. We have nothing to say to gross materialistic notions of ghosts

and bogies, and spirits that upset tables and whisper to ignorant vulgar

women the wonderful information that you once had an aunt Susan. The

unseen world imagined in our hypothesis is not connected with the

present material universe by any such "invisible bonds" as would allow

Bacon and Addison to come to Boston and write the silliest twaddle in

the most ungrammatical English before a roomful of people who have never

learned how to test what they are pleased to call the "evidence of

their senses." Our hypothesis is expressly framed so as to exclude all

intercourse whatever between the unseen world of spirit unconditioned

by matter and the present world of spirit conditioned by matter in which

all our experiences have been gathered. The hypothesis being framed in

such a way, the question is, What has philosophy to say to it? Can

we, by searching our experiences, find any reason for adopting such an

hypothesis? Or, on the other hand, supposing we can find no such reason,

would the total failure of experimental evidence justify us in rejecting

it?

The question is so important that I will restate it. I have imagined a

world made up of psychical phenomena, freed from the material conditions

under which alone we know such phenomena. Can we adduce any proof of the

possibility of such a world? Or if we cannot, does our failure raise the

slightest presumption that such a world is impossible?

The reply to the first clause of the question is sufficiently obvious.

We have no experience whatever of psychical phenomena save as manifested

in connection with material phenomena. We know of Mind only as a group

of activities which are never exhibited to us except through the medium

of motions of matter. In all our experience we have never encountered

such activities save in connection with certain very complicated

groupings of highly mobile material particles into aggregates which we

call living organisms. And we have never found them manifested to a

very conspicuous extent save in connection with some of those specially

organized aggregates which have vertebrate skeletons and mammary glands.

Nay, more, when we survey the net results of our experience up to the

present time, we find indisputable evidence that in the past history

of the visible universe psychical phenomena have only begun to be

manifested in connection with certain complex aggregates of material

phenomena. As these material aggregates have age by age become more

complex in structure, more complex psychical phenomena have been

exhibited. The development of Mind has from the outset been associated

with the development of Matter. And to-day, though none of us has any

knowledge of the end of psychical phenomena in his own case, yet

from all the marks by which we recognize such phenomena in our

fellow-creatures, whether brute or human, we are taught that when

certain material processes have been gradually or suddenly brought to an

end, psychical phenomena are no longer manifested. From first to last,

therefore, our appeal to experience gets but one response. We have not

the faintest shadow of evidence wherewith to make it seem probable that

Mind can exist except in connection with a material body. Viewed from

this standpoint of terrestrial experience, there is no more reason for

supposing that consciousness survives the dissolution of the brain

than for supposing that the pungent flavour of table-salt survives its

decomposition into metallic sodium and gaseous chlorine.

Our answer from this side is thus unequivocal enough. Indeed, so uniform

has been the teaching of experience in this respect that even in their

attempts to depict a life after death, men have always found themselves

obliged to have recourse to materialistic symbols. To the mind of a

savage the future world is a mere reproduction of the present, with its

everlasting huntings and fightings. The early Christians looked forward

to a renovation of the earth and the bodily resurrection from Sheol of

the righteous. The pictures of hell and purgatory, and even of paradise,

in Dante's great poem, are so intensely materialistic as to seem

grotesque in this more spiritual age. But even to-day the popular

conceptions of heaven are by no means freed from the notion of matter;

and persons of high culture, who realize the inadequacy of these popular

conceptions, are wont to avoid the difficulty by refraining from putting

their hopes and beliefs into any definite or describable form. Not

unfrequently one sees a smile raised at the assumption of knowledge or

insight by preachers who describe in eloquent terms the joys of a future

state; yet the smile does not necessarily imply any scepticism as to the

abstract probability of the soul's survival. The scepticism is aimed at

the character of the description rather than at the reality of the thing

described. It implies a tacit agreement, among cultivated people, that

the unseen world must be purely spiritual in constitution. The agreement

is not habitually expressed in definite formulas, for the reason that no

mental image of a purely spiritual world can be formed. Much stress

is commonly laid upon the recognition of friends in a future life; and

however deep a meaning may be given to the phrase "the love of God,"

one does not easily realize that a heavenly existence could be worth the

longing that is felt for it, if it were to afford no further scope for

the pure and tender household affections which give to the present life

its powerful though indefinable charm. Yet the recognition of friends

in a purely spiritual world is something of which we can frame no

conception whatever. We may look with unspeakable reverence on the

features of wife or child, less because of their physical beauty than

because of the beauty of soul to which they give expression, but to

imagine the perception of soul by soul apart from the material structure

and activities in which soul is manifested, is something utterly beyond

our power. Nay, even when we try to represent to ourselves the psychical

activity of any single soul by itself as continuing without the aid

of the physical machinery of sensation, we get into unmanageable

difficulties. A great part of the contents of our minds consists of

sensuous (chiefly visual) images, and though we may imagine reflection

to go on without further images supplied by vision or hearing, touch or

taste or smell, yet we cannot well see how fresh experiences could be

gained in such a state. The reader, if he require further illustrations,

can easily follow out this line of thought. Enough has no doubt been

said to convince him that our hypothesis of the survival of conscious

activity apart from material conditions is not only utterly unsupported

by any evidence that can be gathered from the world of which we have

experience, but is utterly and hopelessly inconceivable.

It is inconceivable BECAUSE it is entirely without foundation in

experience. Our powers of conception are closely determined by the

limits of our experience. When a proposition, or combination of ideas,

is suggested, for which there has never been any precedent in human

experience, we find it to be UNTHINKABLE,--the ideas will not combine.

The proposition remains one which we may utter and defend, and perhaps

vituperate our neighbours for not accepting, but it remains none the

less an unthinkable proposition. It takes terms which severally have

meanings and puts them together into a phrase which has no meaning.

[11] Now when we try to combine the idea of the continuance of conscious

activity with the idea of the entire cessation of material conditions,

and thereby to assert the existence of a purely spiritual world, we

find that we have made an unthinkable proposition. We may defend our

hypothesis as passionately as we like, but when we strive coolly to

realize it in thought we find ourselves baulked at every step.

[11] See my Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. I. pp. 64-67.

But now we have to ask, How much does this inconceivability signify?

In most cases, when we say that a statement is inconceivable, we

practically declare it to be untrue; when we say that a statement is

without warrant in experience, we plainly indicate that we consider it

unworthy of our acceptance. This is legitimate in the majority of cases

with which we have to deal in the course of life, because experience,

and the capacities of thought called out and limited by experience, are

our only guides in the conduct of life. But every one will admit that

our experience is not infinite, and that our capacity of conception

is not coextensive with the possibilities of existence. It is not only

possible, but in the very highest degree probable, that there are

many things in heaven, if not on earth, which are undreamed of in our

philosophy. Since our ability to conceive anything is limited by the

extent of our experience, and since human experience is very far from

being infinite, it follows that there may be, and in all probability is,

an immense region of existence in every way as real as the region which

we know, yet concerning which we cannot form the faintest rudiment of a

conception. Any hypothesis relating to such a region of existence is not

only not disproved by the total failure of evidence in its favour, but

the total failure of evidence does not raise even the slightest prima

facie presumption against its validity.

These considerations apply with great force to the hypothesis of an

unseen world in which psychical phenomena persist in the absence of

material conditions. It is true, on the one hand, that we can bring

up no scientific evidence in support of such an hypothesis. But on the

other hand it is equally true that in the very nature of things no

such evidence could be expected to be forthcoming: even were there such

evidence in abundance, it could not be accessible to us. The existence

of a single soul, or congeries of psychical phenomena, unaccompanied

by a material body, would be evidence sufficient to demonstrate the

hypothesis. But in the nature of things, even were there a million such

souls round about us, we could not become aware of the existence of

one of them, for we have no organ or faculty for the perception of soul

apart from the material structure and activities in which it has been

manifested throughout the whole course of our experience. Even our own

self-consciousness involves the consciousness of ourselves as partly

material bodies. These considerations show that our hypothesis is very

different from the ordinary hypotheses with which science deals. The

entire absence of testimony does not raise a negative presumption except

in cases where testimony is accessible. In the hypotheses with which

scientific men are occupied, testimony is always accessible; and if we

do not find any, the presumption is raised that there is none. When Dr.

Bastian tells us that he has found living organisms to be generated in

sealed flasks from which all living germs had been excluded, we demand

the evidence for his assertion. The testimony of facts is in this case

hard to elicit, and only skilful reasoners can properly estimate its

worth. But still it is all accessible. With more or less labour it can

be got at; and if we find that Dr. Bastian has produced no evidence save

such as may equally well receive a different interpretation from that

which he has given it, we rightly feel that a strong presumption

has been raised against his hypothesis. It is a case in which we are

entitled to expect to find the favouring facts if there are any, and

so long as we do not find such, we are justified in doubting their

existence. So when our authors propound the hypothesis of an unseen

universe consisting of phenomena which occur in the interstellar ether,

or even in some primordial fluid with which the ether has physical

relations, we are entitled to demand their proofs. It is not enough to

tell us that we cannot disprove such a theory. The burden of proof lies

with them. The interstellar ether is something concerning the physical

properties of which we have some knowledge; and surely, if all the

things are going on which they suppose in a medium so closely related

to ordinary matter, there ought to be some traceable indications of

the fact. At least, until the contrary can be shown, we must refuse

to believe that all the testimony in a case like this is utterly

inaccessible; and accordingly, so long as none is found, especially

so long as none is even alleged, we feel that a presumption is raised

against their theory.

These illustrations will show, by sheer contrast, how different it is

with the hypothesis of an unseen world that is purely spiritual. The

testimony in such a case must, under the conditions of the present life,

be forever inaccessible. It lies wholly outside the range of experience.

However abundant it may be, we cannot expect to meet with it. And

accordingly our failure to produce it does not raise even the slightest

presumption against our theory. When conceived in this way, the belief

in a future life is without scientific support; but at the same time it

is placed beyond the need of scientific support and beyond the range of

scientific criticism. It is a belief which no imaginable future advance

in physical discovery can in any way impugn. It is a belief which is in

no sense irrational, and which may be logically entertained without

in the least affecting our scientific habit of mind or influencing our

scientific conclusions.

To take a brief illustration: we have alluded to the fact that in the

history of our present world the development of mental phenomena has

gone on hand in hand with the development of organic life, while at the

same time we have found it impossible to explain mental phenomena as in

any sense the product of material phenomena. Now there is another side

to all this. The great lesson which Berkeley taught mankind was that

what we call material phenomena are really the products of consciousness

co-operating with some Unknown Power (not material) existing beyond

consciousness. We do very well to speak of "matter" in common parlance,

but all that the word really means is a group of qualities which have no

existence apart from our minds. Modern philosophers have quite generally

accepted this conclusion, and every attempt to overturn Berkeley's

reasoning has hitherto resulted in complete and disastrous failure. In

admitting this, we do not admit the conclusion of Absolute Idealism,

that nothing exists outside of consciousness. What we admit as existing

independently of our own consciousness is the Power that causes in

us those conscious states which we call the perception of material

qualities. We have no reason for regarding this Power as in itself

material: indeed, we cannot do so, since by the theory material

qualities have no existence apart from our minds. I have elsewhere

sought to show that less difficulty is involved in regarding this Power

outside of us as quasi-psychical, or in some measure similar to the

mental part of ourselves; and I have gone on to conclude that this Power

may be identical with what men have, in all times and by the aid of

various imperfect symbols, endeavoured to apprehend as Deity. [12] We

are thus led to a view of things not very unlike the views entertained

by Spinoza and Berkeley. We are led to the inference that what we call

the material universe is but the manifestation of infinite Deity to our

finite minds. Obviously, on this view, Matter--the only thing to

which materialists concede real existence--is simply an orderly

phantasmagoria; and God and the Soul--which materialists regard as mere

fictions of the imagination--are the only conceptions that answer to

real existences.

[12] See my Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Part I. Chap. IV.;

Part III. Chaps. III., IV.

In the foregoing paragraph I have been setting down opinions with which

I am prepared to agree, and which are not in conflict with anything that

our study of the development of the objective world has taught us. In

so far as that study may be supposed to bear on the question of a future

life, two conclusions are open to us. First we may say that since

the phenomena of mind appear and run their course along with certain

specialized groups of material phenomena, so, too, they must disappear

when these specialized groups are broken up. Or, in other words, we may

say that every living person is an organized whole; consciousness is

something which pertains to this organized whole, as music belongs to

the harp that is entire; but when the harp is broken it is silent, and

when the organized whole of personality falls to pieces consciousness

ceases forever. To many well-disciplined minds this conclusion seems

irresistible; and doubtless it would be a sound one--a good Baconian

conclusion--if we were to admit, with the materialists, that the

possibilities of existence are limited by our tiny and ephemeral

experience.

But now, supposing some Platonic speculator were to come along and

insist upon our leaving room for an alternative conclusion; suppose he

were to urge upon us that all this process of material development, with

the discovery of which our patient study has been rewarded, may be

but the temporary manifestation of relations otherwise unknown between

ourselves and the infinite Deity; suppose he were to argue that

psychical qualities may be inherent in a spiritual substance which

under certain conditions becomes incarnated in matter, to wear it as a

perishable garment for a brief season, but presently to cast it off and

enter upon the freedom of a larger existence;--what reply should we be

bound to make, bearing in mind that the possibilities of existence are

in no wise limited by our experience? Obviously we should be bound to

admit that in sound philosophy this conclusion is just as likely to be

true as the other. We should, indeed, warn him not to call on us to help

him to establish it by scientific arguments; and we should remind him

that he must not make illicit use of his extra-experiential hypotheses

by bringing them into the treatment of scientific questions that lie

within the range of experience. In science, for example, we make no

use of the conception of a "spiritual substance" (or of a "material

substance" either), because we can get along sufficiently well by

dealing solely with qualities. But with this general understanding we

should feel bound to concede the impregnableness of his main position.

I have supposed this theory only as an illustration, not as a theory

which I am prepared to adopt. My present purpose is not to treat as an

advocate the question of a future life, but to endeavour to point

out what conditions should be observed in treating the question

philosophically. It seems to me that a great deal is gained when we have

distinctly set before us what are the peculiar conditions of proof in

the case of such transcendental questions. We have gained a great deal

when we have learned how thoroughly impotent, how truly irrelevant, is

physical investigation in the presence of such a question. If we get not

much positive satisfaction for our unquiet yearnings, we occupy at any

rate a sounder philosophic position when we recognize the limits within

which our conclusions, whether positive or negative, are valid.

It seems not improbable that Mr. Mill may have had in mind something

like the foregoing considerations when he suggested that there is no

reason why one should not entertain the belief in a future life if the

belief be necessary to one's spiritual comfort. Perhaps no suggestion

in Mr. Mill's richly suggestive posthumous work has been more generally

condemned as unphilosophical, on the ground that in matters of belief we

must be guided, not by our likes and dislikes, but by the evidence

that is accessible. The objection is certainly a sound one so far as

it relates to scientific questions where evidence is accessible.

To hesitate to adopt a well-supported theory because of some vague

preference for a different view is in scientific matters the one

unpardonable sin,--a sin which has been only too often committed. Even

in matters which lie beyond the range of experience, where evidence

is inaccessible, desire is not to be regarded as by itself an adequate

basis for belief. But it seems to me that Mr. Mill showed a deeper

knowledge of the limitations of scientific method than his critics, when

he thus hinted at the possibility of entertaining a belief not amenable

to scientific tests. The hypothesis of a purely spiritual unseen

world, as above described, is entirely removed from the jurisdiction of

physical inquiry, and can only be judged on general considerations of

what has been called "moral probability"; and considerations of this

sort are likely, in the future as in the past, to possess different

values for different minds. He who, on such considerations, entertains

a belief in a future life may not demand that his sceptical neighbour

shall be convinced by the same considerations; but his neighbour is at

the same time estopped from stigmatizing his belief as unphilosophical.

The consideration which must influence most minds in their attitude

toward this question, is the craving, almost universally felt, for some

teleological solution to the problem of existence. Why we are here now

is a question of even profounder interest than whether we are to live

hereafter. Unfortunately its solution carries us no less completely

beyond the range of experience! The belief that all things are working

together for some good end is the most essential expression of religious

faith: of all intellectual propositions it is the one most closely

related to that emotional yearning for a higher and better life which

is the sum and substance of religion. Yet all the treatises on

natural theology that have ever been written have barely succeeded in

establishing a low degree of scientific probability for this belief.

In spite of the eight Bridgewater Treatises, and the "Ninth" beside,

dysteleology still holds full half the field as against teleology. Most

of this difficulty, however, results from the crude anthropomorphic

views which theologians have held concerning God. Once admitting that

the Divine attributes may be (as they must be) incommensurably greater

than human attributes, our faith that all things are working together

for good may remain unimpugned.

To many minds such a faith will seem incompatible with belief in the

ultimate destruction of sentiency amid the general doom of the material

universe. A good end can have no meaning to us save in relation to

consciousness that distinguishes and knows the good from the evil. There

could be no better illustration of how we are hemmed in than the very

inadequacy of the words with which we try to discuss this subject. Such

words have all gained their meanings from human experience, and hence of

necessity carry anthropomorphic implications. But we cannot help this.

We must think with the symbols with which experience has furnished

us; and when we so think, there does seem to be little that is even

intellectually satisfying in the awful picture which science shows us,

of giant worlds concentrating out of nebulous vapour, developing with

prodigious waste of energy into theatres of all that is grand and

sacred in spiritual endeavour, clashing and exploding again into dead

vapour-balls, only to renew the same toilful process without end,--a

senseless bubble-play of Titan forces, with life, love, and aspiration

brought forth only to be extinguished. The human mind, however

"scientific" its training, must often recoil from the conclusion that

this is all; and there are moments when one passionately feels that this

cannot be all. On warm June mornings in green country lanes, with sweet

pine-odours wafted in the breeze which sighs through the branches, and

cloud-shadows flitting over far-off blue mountains, while little birds

sing their love-songs, and golden-haired children weave garlands of wild

roses; or when in the solemn twilight we listen to wondrous harmonies

of Beethoven and Chopin that stir the heart like voices from an unseen

world; at such times one feels that the profoundest answer which science

can give to our questionings is but a superficial answer after all. At

these moments, when the world seems fullest of beauty, one feels most

strongly that it is but the harbinger of something else,--that the

ceaseless play of phenomena is no mere sport of Titans, but an orderly

scene, with its reason for existing, its

"One divine far-off event

To which the whole creation moves."

Difficult as it is to disentangle the elements of reasoning that enter

into these complex groups of feeling, one may still see, I think, that

it is speculative interest in the world, rather than anxious interest in

self, that predominates. The desire for immortality in its lowest phase

is merely the outcome of the repugnance we feel toward thinking of the

final cessation of vigorous vital activity. Such a feeling is naturally

strong with healthy people. But in the mood which I have above tried to

depict, this feeling, or any other which is merely self-regarding, is

lost sight of in the feeling which associates a future life with some

solution of the burdensome problem of existence. Had we but faith enough

to lighten the burden of this problem, the inferior question would

perhaps be less absorbing. Could we but know that our present lives

are working together toward some good end, even an end in no wise

anthropomorphic, it would be of less consequence whether we were

individually to endure. To the dog under the knife of the experimenter,

the world is a world of pure evil; yet could the poor beast but

understand the alleviation of human suffering to which he is

contributing, he would be forced to own that this is not quite true;

and if he were also a heroic or Christian dog, the thought would perhaps

take away from death its sting. The analogy may be a crude one; but

the reasonableness of the universe is at least as far above our

comprehension as the purposes of man surpass the understanding of the

dog. Believing, however, though as a simple act of trust, that the end

will crown the work, we may rise superior to the question which has here

concerned us, and exclaim, in the supreme language of faith, "Though He

slay me, yet will I trust in Him!"

July, 1875.

II. "THE TO-MORROW OF DEATH."

Few of those who find pleasure in frequenting bookstores can have failed

to come across one or more of the profusely illustrated volumes in which

M. Louis Figuier has sought to render dry science entertaining to the

multitude. And of those who may have casually turned over their pages,

there are probably none, competent to form an opinion, who have not

speedily perceived that these pretentious books belong to the class of

pests and unmitigated nuisances in literature. Antiquated views,

utter lack of comprehension of the subjects treated, and shameless

unscrupulousness as to accuracy of statement, are faults but ill atoned

for by sensational pictures of the "dragons of the prime that tare each

other in their slime," or of the Newton-like brow and silken curls of

that primitive man in contrast with whom the said dragons have been

likened to "mellow music."

Nevertheless, the sort of scientific reputation which these

discreditable performances have gained for M. Figuier among an

uncritical public is such as to justify us in devoting a few paragraphs

to a book [13] which, on its own merits, is unworthy of any notice

whatever. "The To-morrow of Death"--if one were to put his trust in the

translator's prefatory note--discusses a grave question upon "purely

scientific methods." We are glad to see this remark, because it shows

what notions may be entertained by persons of average intelligence with

reference to "scientific methods." Those--and they are many--who vaguely

think that science is something different from common-sense, and that

any book is scientific which talks about perihelia and asymptotes and

cetacea, will find their vague notions here well corroborated. Quite

different will be the impression made upon those--and they are yet too

few--who have learned that the method of science is the common-sense

method of cautiously weighing evidence and withholding judgment where

evidence is not forthcoming. If talking about remote and difficult

subjects suffice to make one scientific, then is M. Figuier scientific

to a quite terrible degree. He writes about the starry heavens as if he

had been present at the hour of creation, or had at least accompanied

the Arabian prophet on his famous night-journey. Nor is his knowledge of

physiology and other abstruse sciences at all less remarkable. But these

things will cease to surprise us when we learn the sources, hitherto

suspected only in mythology, from which favoured mortals can obtain a

knowledge of what is going on outside of our planet.

[13] The To-morrow of Death; or, The Future Life according to

Science. By Louis Figuier. Translated from the French by S. R. Crocker.

Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1872.

The four inner planets being nearly alike in size (?) and in length of

day, M. Figuier infers, by strictly scientific methods, that whatever is

true of one of them, as our earth, will be true of the others (p. 34).

Hence, they are all inhabited by human beings. It is true that human

beings must find Venus rather warm, and are not unlikely to be seriously

incommoded by the tropical climate of Mercury. But we must remember

that "the men of Venus and Mercury are made by nature to resist heat,

as those of Jupiter and Saturn are made to endure cold, and those of the

Earth and Mars to live in a mean temperature: OTHERWISE THEY COULD NOT

EXIST" (p. 72). In view of this charming specimen of a truly scientific

inference, it is almost too bad to call attention to the fact that M.

Figuier is quite behind the age in his statement of facts. So far from

Jupiter and Saturn being cold, observation plainly indicates that they

are prodigiously hot, if not even incandescent and partly self-luminous;

the explanation being that, by reason of their huge bulk, they still

retain much of the primitive heat which smaller planets have more

quickly radiated away. As for M. Figuier's statement, that polar snows

have been witnessed on these planets, it is simply untrue; no such thing

has ever been seen there. Mars, on the other hand, has been observed

to resemble in many important respects its near neighbour, the Earth;

whence our author declares that if an aeronaut were to shoot clear of

terrestrial gravitation and land upon Mars, he would unquestionably

suppose himself to be still upon the earth. For aerolites, it seems, are

somehow fired down upon our planet both from Mars and from Venus; and

aerolites sometimes contain vegetable matter (?). Therefore, Mars has

a vegetation, and very likely its red colour is caused by its luxuriant

autumnal foliage! (p. 47.) To return to Jupiter: this planet, indeed,

has inconveniently short days. "In his 'Picture of the Heavens,'

the German astronomer, Littrow (these Germans think of nothing but

gormandizing), asks how the people of Jupiter order their meals in the

short interval of five hours." Nevertheless, says our author, the

great planet is compensated for this inconvenience by its equable and

delicious climate.

In view, however, of our author's more striking and original

disclosures, one would suppose that all this discussion of the physical

conditions of existence on the various planets might have been passed

over without detriment to the argument. After these efforts at proving

(for M. Figuier presumably regards this rigmarole as proof) that all the

members of our solar system are habitable, the interplanetary ether is

forthwith peopled thickly with "souls," without any resort to argument.

This, we suppose, is one of those scientific truths which as M. Figuier

tells us, precede and underlie demonstration. Upon this impregnable

basis is reared the scientific theory of a future life. When we die our

soul passes into some other terrestrial body, unless we have been very

good, in which case we at once soar aloft and join the noble fraternity

of the ether-folk. Bad men and young children, on dying, must undergo

renewed probation here below, but ultimately all pass away into the

interplanetary ether. The dweller in ether is chiefly distinguished

from the mundane mortal by his acute senses and his ability to subsist

without food. He can see as if through a telescope and microscope

combined. His intelligence is so great that in comparison an Aristotle

would seem idiotic. It should not be forgotten, too, that he possesses

eighty-five per cent of soul to fifteen per cent of body, whereas in

terrestrial man the two elements are mixed in equal proportions. There

is no sex among the ether-folk, their numbers being kept up by the

influx of souls from the various planets. "Alimentation, that necessity

which tyrannizes over men and animals, is not imposed upon the

inhabitants of ether. Their bodies must be repaired and sustained by the

simple respiration of the fluid in which they are immersed, that is, of

ether." Most likely, continues our scientific author, the physiological

functions of the ether-folk are confined to respiration, and that it is

possible to breathe "without numerous organs is proved by the fact that

in all of a whole class of animals--the batrachians--the mere bare skin

constitutes the whole machinery of respiration" (p. 95). Allowing for

the unfortunate slip of the pen by which "batrachians" are substituted

for "fresh-water polyps," how can we fail to admire the severity of the

scientific method employed in reaching these interesting conclusions?

But the King of Serendib must die, nor will the relentless scythe of

Time spare our Etherians, with all their exalted attributes. They will

die repeatedly; and after having through sundry periods of probation

attained spiritual perfection, they will all pour into the sun. Since

it is the sun which originates life and feeling and thought upon the

surface of our earth, "why may we not declare that the rays transmitted

by the sun to the earth and the other planets are nothing more nor less

than the emanations of these souls?" And now we may begin to form an

adequate conception, of the rigorously scientific character of our

author's method. There have been many hypotheses by which to account for

the supply of solar radiance. One of the most ingenious and probable

of these hypotheses is that of Helmholtz, according to which the

solar radiance is due to the arrested motion of the sun's constituent

particles toward their common centre of gravity. But this is too

fanciful to satisfy M. Figuier. The speculations of Helmholtz "have

the disadvantage of resting on the idea of the sun's nebulosity,--an

hypothesis which would need to be more closely examined before serving

as a basis for so important a deduction." Accordingly, M. Figuier

propounds an explanation which possesses the signal advantage that there

is nothing hypothetical in it. "In our opinion, the solar radiation is

sustained by the continual influx of souls into the sun." This, as the

reader will perceive, is the well-known theory of Mayer, that the solar

heat is due to a perennial bombardment of the sun by meteors, save that,

in place of gross materialistic meteors, M. Figuier puts ethereal souls.

The ether-folk are daily raining into the solar orb in untold millions,

and to the unceasing concussion is due the radiation which maintains

life in the planets, and thus the circle is complete.

In spite of their exalted position, the ether-folk do not disdain to

mingle with the affairs of terrestrial mortals. They give us counsel

in dreams, and it is from this source, we presume, that our author has

derived his rigid notions as to scientific method. In evidence of this

dream-theory we have the usual array of cases, "a celebrated journalist,

M. R----," "M. L----, a lawyer," etc., etc., as in most books of this

kind.

M. Figuier is not a Darwinian: the derivation of our bodies from the

bodies of apes is a conception too grossly materialistic for him. Our

souls, however, he is quite willing to derive from the souls of lower

animals. Obviously we have pre-existed; how are we to account for

Mozart's precocity save by supposing his pre-existence? He brought with

him the musical skill acquired in a previous life. In general, the souls

of musical children come from nightingales, while the souls of great

architects have passed into them from beavers (p. 247). We do not

remember these past existences, it is true; but when we become

ether-folk, we shall be able to look back in recollection over the whole

series.

Amid these sublime inquiries, M. Figuier is sometimes notably oblivious

of humbler truths, as might indeed be expected. Thus he repeatedly

alludes to Locke as the author of the doctrine of innate ideas (!!),

[14] and he informs us that Kepler never quitted Protestant England (p.

336), though we believe that the nearest Kepler ever came to living in

England was the refusing of Sir Henry Wotton's request that he should

move thither.

[14] Pages 251, 252, 287. So in the twenty-first century some

avatar of M. Figuier will perhaps describe the late professor Agassiz as

the author of the Darwinian theory.

And lastly, we are treated to a real dialogue, with quite a dramatic

mise en scene. The author's imaginary friend, Theophilus, enters, "seats

himself in a comfortable chair, places an ottoman under his feet, a

book under his elbow to support it, and a cigarette of Turkish tobacco

between his lips, and sets himself to the task of listening with a

grave air of collectedness, relieved by a certain touch of suspicious

severity, as becomes the arbiter in a literary and philosophic matter."

"And so," begins our author, "you wish to know, my dear Theophilus,

WHERE I LOCATE GOD? I locate him in the centre of the universe, or, in

better phrase, at the central focus, which must exist somewhere, of all

the stars that make the universe, and which, borne onward in a common

movement, gravitate together around this focus."

Much more, of an equally scientific character, follows; but in fairness

to the reader, who is already blaming us for wasting the precious

moments over such sorry trash, we may as well conclude our sketch of

this new line of speculation.

May, 1872.

III. THE JESUS OF HISTORY. [15]

[15] The Jesus of History. Anonymous. 8vo. pp. 426. London:

Williams & Norgate, 1869.

Vie de Jesus, par Ernest Renan. Paris, 1867. (Thirteenth edition,

revised and partly rewritten.)

In republishing this and the following article on "The Christ of Dogma,"

I am aware that they do but scanty justice to their very interesting

subjects. So much ground is covered that it would be impossible to treat

it satisfactorily in a pair of review-articles; and in particular the

views adopted with regard to the New Testament literature are rather

indicated than justified. These defects I hope to remedy in a future

work on "Jesus of Nazareth, and the Founding of Christianity," for

which the present articles must be regarded as furnishing only a few

introductory hints. This work has been for several years on my mind,

but as it may still be long before I can find the leisure needful for

writing it out, it seemed best to republish these preliminary sketches

which have been some time out of print. The projected work, however,

while covering all the points here treated, will have a much wider

scope, dealing on the one hand with the natural genesis of the complex

aggregate of beliefs and aspirations known as Christianity, and on

the other hand with the metamorphoses which are being wrought in this

aggregate by modern knowledge and modern theories of the world.

The views adopted in the present essay as to the date of the Synoptic

Gospels may seem over-conservative to those who accept the ably-argued

conclusions of "Supernatural Religion." Quite possibly in a more

detailed discussion these briefly-indicated data may require revision;

but for the present it seems best to let the article stand as it was

written. The author of "Supernatural Religion" would no doubt admit

that, even if the synoptic gospels had not assumed their present form

before the end of the second century, nevertheless the body of tradition

contained in them had been committed to writing very early in that

century. So much appears to be proved by the very variations of text

upon which his argument relies. And if this be granted, the value of the

synoptics as HISTORICAL evidence is not materially altered. With their

value as testimony to so-called SUPERNATURAL events, the present essay

is in no way concerned.

Of all the great founders of religions, Jesus is at once the best known

and the least known to the modern scholar. From the dogmatic point of

view he is the best known, from the historic point of view he is the

least known. The Christ of dogma is in every lineament familiar to us

from early childhood; but concerning the Jesus of history we possess

but few facts resting upon trustworthy evidence, and in order to form

a picture of him at once consistent, probable, and distinct in

its outlines, it is necessary to enter upon a long and difficult

investigation, in the course of which some of the most delicate

apparatus of modern criticism is required. This circumstance is

sufficiently singular to require especial explanation. The case of

Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, which may perhaps be cited as

parallel, is in reality wholly different. Not only did Sakyamuni live

five centuries earlier than Jesus, among a people that have at no time

possessed the art of insuring authenticity in their records of events,

and at an era which is at best but dimly discerned through the mists of

fable and legend, but the work which he achieved lies wholly out of

the course of European history, and it is only in recent times that his

career has presented itself to us as a problem needing to be solved.

Jesus, on the other hand, appeared in an age which is familiarly and in

many respects minutely known to us, and among a people whose fortunes we

can trace with historic certainty for at least seven centuries previous

to his birth; while his life and achievements have probably had a

larger share in directing the entire subsequent intellectual and moral

development of Europe than those of any other man who has ever lived.

Nevertheless, the details of his personal career are shrouded in an

obscurity almost as dense as that which envelops the life of the remote

founder of Buddhism.

This phenomenon, however, appears less strange and paradoxical when we

come to examine it more closely. A little reflection will disclose to

us several good reasons why the historical records of the life of Jesus

should be so scanty as they are. In the first place, the activity of

Jesus was private rather than public. Confined within exceedingly narrow

limits, both of space and of duration, it made no impression whatever

upon the politics or the literature of the time. His name does not

occur in the pages of any contemporary writer, Roman, Greek, or Jewish.

Doubtless the case would have been wholly different, had he, like

Mohammed, lived to a ripe age, and had the exigencies of his peculiar

position as the Messiah of the Jewish people brought him into relations

with the Empire; though whether, in such case, the success of his grand

undertaking would have been as complete as it has actually been, may

well be doubted.

Secondly, Jesus did not, like Mohammed and Paul, leave behind him

authentic writings which might serve to throw light upon his mental

development as well as upon the external facts of his career. Without

the Koran and the four genuine Epistles of Paul, we should be nearly as

much in the dark concerning these great men as we now are concerning the

historical Jesus. We should be compelled to rely, in the one case, upon

the untrustworthy gossip of Mussulman chroniclers, and in the other

case upon the garbled statements of the "Acts of the Apostles," a book

written with a distinct dogmatic purpose, sixty or seventy years after

the occurrence of the events which it professes to record.

It is true, many of the words of Jesus, preserved by hearsay tradition

through the generation immediately succeeding his death, have come

down to us, probably with little alteration, in the pages of the three

earlier evangelists. These are priceless data, since, as we shall see,

they are almost the only materials at our command for forming even a

partial conception of the character of Jesus' work. Nevertheless, even

here the cautious inquirer has only too often to pause in face of the

difficulty of distinguishing the authentic utterances of the great

teacher from the later interpolations suggested by the dogmatic

necessities of the narrators. Bitterly must the historian regret

that Jesus had no philosophic disciple, like Xenophon, to record his

Memorabilia. Of the various writings included in the New Testament, the

Apocalypse alone (and possibly the Epistle of Jude) is from the pen of

a personal acquaintance of Jesus; and besides this, the four epistles of

Paul, to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans, make up the sum of the

writings from which we may expect contemporary testimony. Yet from these

we obtain absolutely nothing of that for which we are seeking. The brief

writings of Paul are occupied exclusively with the internal significance

of Jesus' work. The epistle of Jude--if it be really written by Jesus'

brother of that name, which is doubtful--is solely a polemic directed

against the innovations of Paul. And the Apocalypse, the work of

the fiery and imaginative disciple John, is confined to a prophetic

description of the Messiah's anticipated return, and tells us nothing

concerning the deeds of that Messiah while on the earth.

Here we touch upon our third consideration,--the consideration which

best enables us to see why the historic notices of Jesus are so meagre.

Rightly considered, the statement with which we opened this article

is its own explanation. The Jesus of history is so little known just

because the Christ of dogma is so well known. [16] Other teachers--Paul,

Mohammed, Sakyamuni--have come merely as preachers of righteousness,

speaking in the name of general principles with which their own

personalities were not directly implicated. But Jesus, as we shall see,

before the close of his life, proclaimed himself to be something more

than a preacher of righteousness. He announced himself--and justly, from

his own point of view--as the long-expected Messiah sent by Jehovah to

liberate the Jewish race. Thus the success of his religious teachings

became at once implicated with the question of his personal nature and

character. After the sudden and violent termination of his career, it

immediately became all-important with his followers to prove that he

was really the Messiah, and to insist upon the certainty of his speedy

return to the earth. Thus the first generation of disciples dogmatized

about him, instead of narrating his life,--a task which to them would

have seemed of little profit. For them the all-absorbing object of

contemplation was the immediate future rather than the immediate past.

As all the earlier Christian literature informs us, for nearly a century

after the death of Jesus, his followers lived in daily anticipation of

his triumphant return to the earth. The end of all things being so near

at hand, no attempt was made to insure accurate and complete memoirs

for the use of a posterity which was destined, in Christian imagination,

never to arrive. The first Christians wrote but little; even Papias,

at the end of a century, preferring second-hand or third-hand oral

tradition to the written gospels which were then beginning to come into

circulation. [17] Memoirs of the life and teachings of Jesus were called

forth by the necessity of having a written standard of doctrine to which

to appeal amid the growing differences of opinion which disturbed the

Church. Thus the earlier gospels exhibit, though in different degrees,

the indications of a modifying, sometimes of an overruling dogmatic

purpose. There is, indeed, no conscious violation of historic truth, but

from the varied mass of material supplied by tradition, such incidents

are selected as are fit to support the views of the writers concerning

the personality of Jesus. Accordingly, while the early gospels throw a

strong light upon the state of Christian opinion at the dates when they

were successively composed, the information which they give concerning

Jesus himself is, for that very reason, often vague, uncritical, and

contradictory. Still more is this true of the fourth gospel, written

late in the second century, in which historic tradition is moulded in

the interests of dogma until it becomes no longer recognizable, and

in the place of the human Messiah of the earlier accounts, we have a

semi-divine Logos or Aeon, detached from God, and incarnate for a brief

season in the likeness of man.

[16] "Wer einmal vergottert worden ist, der hat seine Mensetheit

unwiederbringlich eingebusst."--Strauss, Der alte und der neue Glaube,

p. 76.

[17] "Roger was the attendant of Thomas [Becket] during his

sojourn at Pontigny. We might have expected him to be very full on that

part of his history; but, writing doubtless mainly for the monks of

Pontigny, he says that HE WILL NOT ENLARGE UPON WHAT EVERY ONE KNOWS,

and cuts that part very short."--Freeman, Historical Essays, 1st series,

p. 90.

Not only was history subordinated to dogma by the writers of the

gospel-narratives, but in the minds of the Fathers of the Church who

assisted in determining what writings should be considered canonical,

dogmatic prepossession went very much further than critical acumen.

Nor is this strange when we reflect that critical discrimination in

questions of literary authenticity is one of the latest acquisitions of

the cultivated human mind. In the early ages of the Church the evidence

of the genuineness of any literary production was never weighed

critically; writings containing doctrines acceptable to the majority of

Christians were quoted as authoritative while writings which supplied

no dogmatic want were overlooked, or perhaps condemned as apocryphal.

A striking instance of this is furnished by the fortunes of the

Apocalypse. Although perhaps the best authenticated work in the New

Testament collection, its millenarian doctrines caused it to become

unpopular as the Church gradually ceased to look for the speedy return

of the Messiah, and, accordingly, as the canon assumed a definite shape,

it was placed among the "Antilegomena," or doubtful books, and continued

to hold a precarious position until after the time of the Protestant

Reformation. On the other hand, the fourth gospel, which was quite

unknown and probably did not exist at the time of the Quartodeciman

controversy (A. D. 168), was accepted with little hesitation, and at the

beginning of the third century is mentioned by Irenaeus, Clement, and

Tertullian, as the work of the Apostle John. To this uncritical spirit,

leading to the neglect of such books as failed to answer the dogmatic

requirements of the Church, may probably be attributed the loss of so

many of the earlier gospels. It is doubtless for this reason that we

do not possess the Aramaean original of the "Logia" of Matthew, or

the "Memorabilia" of Mark, the companion of Peter,--two works to which

Papias (A. D. 120) alludes as containing authentic reports of the

utterances of Jesus.

These considerations will, we believe, sufficiently explain the curious

circumstance that, while we know the Christ of dogma so intimately,

we know the Jesus of history so slightly. The literature of early

Christianity enables us to trace with tolerable completeness the

progress of opinion concerning the nature of Jesus, from the time of

Paul's early missions to the time of the Nicene Council; but upon the

actual words and deeds of Jesus it throws a very unsteady light. The

dogmatic purpose everywhere obscures the historic basis.

This same dogmatic prepossession which has rendered the data for

a biography of Jesus so scanty and untrustworthy, has also until

comparatively recent times prevented any unbiassed critical examination

of such data as we actually possess. Previous to the eighteenth century

any attempt to deal with the life of Jesus upon purely historical

methods would have been not only contemned as irrational, but

stigmatized as impious. And even in the eighteenth century, those

writers who had become wholly emancipated from ecclesiastic tradition

were so destitute of all historic sympathy and so unskilled in

scientific methods of criticism, that they utterly failed to comprehend

the requirements of the problem. Their aims were in the main polemic,

not historical. They thought more of overthrowing current dogmas than of

impartially examining the earliest Christian literature with a view of

eliciting its historic contents; and, accordingly, they accomplished but

little. Two brilliant exceptions must, however, be noticed. Spinoza, in

the seventeenth century, and Lessing, in the eighteenth, were men far

in advance of their age. They are the fathers of modern historical

criticism; and to Lessing in particular, with his enormous erudition and

incomparable sagacity, belongs the honour of initiating that method of

inquiry which, in the hands of the so-called Tubingen School, has led to

such striking and valuable conclusions concerning, the age and character

of all the New Testament literature. But it was long before any one

could be found fit to bend the bow which Lessing and Spinoza had

wielded. A succession of able scholars--Semler, Eichhorn, Paulus,

Schleiermacher Bretschneider, and De Wette--were required to examine,

with German patience and accuracy, the details of the subject, and

to propound various untenable hypotheses, before such a work could be

performed as that of Strauss. The "Life of Jesus," published by Strauss

when only twenty-six years of age, is one of the monumental works of the

nineteenth century, worthy to rank, as a historical effort, along with

such books as Niebuhr's "History of Rome," Wolf's "Prolegomena," or

Bentley's "Dissertations on Phalaris." It instantly superseded and

rendered antiquated everything which had preceded it; nor has any work

on early Christianity been written in Germany for the past thirty years

which has not been dominated by the recollection of that marvellous

book. Nevertheless, the labours of another generation of scholars have

carried our knowledge of the New Testament literature far beyond the

point which it had reached when Strauss first wrote. At that time the

dates of but few of the New Testament writings had been fixed with any

approach to certainty; the age and character of the fourth gospel, the

genuineness of the Pauline epistles, even the mutual relations of the

three synoptics, were still undetermined; and, as a natural result of

this uncertainty, the progress of dogma during the first century was ill

understood. At the present day it is impossible to read the early work

of Strauss without being impressed with the necessity of obtaining

positive data as to the origin and dogmatic character of the New

Testament writings, before attempting to reach any conclusions as to the

probable career of Jesus. These positive data we owe to the genius

and diligence of the Tubingen School, and, above all, to its founder,

Ferdinand Christian Baur. Beginning with the epistles of Paul, of which

he distinguished four as genuine, Baur gradually worked his way through

the entire New Testament collection, detecting--with that inspired

insight which only unflinching diligence can impart to original

genius--the age at which each book was written, and the circumstances

which called it forth. To give any account of Baur's detailed

conclusions, or of the method by which he reached them, would require

a volume. They are very scantily presented in Mr. Mackay's work on the

"Tubingen School and its Antecedents," to which we may refer the reader

desirous of further information. We can here merely say that twenty

years of energetic controversy have only served to establish most of

Baur's leading conclusions more firmly than ever. The priority of the

so-called gospel of Matthew, the Pauline purpose of "Luke," the second

in date of our gospels, the derivative and second-hand character of

"Mark," and the unapostolic origin of the fourth gospel, are points

which may for the future be regarded as wellnigh established by

circumstantial evidence. So with respect to the pseudo-Pauline epistles,

Baur's work was done so thoroughly that the only question still left

open for much discussion is that concerning the date and authorship

of the first and second "Thessalonians,"--a point of quite inferior

importance, so far as our present subject is concerned. Seldom have such

vast results been achieved by the labour of a single scholar. Seldom has

any historical critic possessed such a combination of analytic and

of co-ordinating powers as Baur. His keen criticism and his wonderful

flashes of insight exercise upon the reader a truly poetic effect like

that which is felt in contemplating the marvels of physical discovery.

The comprehensive labours of Baur were followed up by Zeller's able work

on the "Acts of the Apostles," in which that book was shown to have been

partly founded upon documents written by Luke, or some other companion

of Paul, and expanded and modified by a much later writer with the

purpose of covering up the traces of the early schism between the

Pauline and the Petrine sections of the Church. Along with this,

Schwegler's work on the "Post-Apostolic Times" deserves mention as

clearing up many obscure points relating to the early development

of dogma. Finally, the "New Life of Jesus," by Strauss, adopting and

utilizing the principal discoveries of Baur and his followers, and

combining all into one grand historical picture, worthily completes the

task which the earlier work of the same author had inaugurated.

The reader will have noticed that, with the exception of Spinoza, every

one of the names above cited in connection with the literary analysis

and criticism of the New Testament is the name of a German. Until

within the last decade, Germany has indeed possessed almost an absolute

monopoly of the science of Biblical criticism; other countries having

remained not only unfamiliar with its methods, but even grossly ignorant

of its conspicuous results, save when some German treatise of more than

ordinary popularity has now and then been translated. But during

the past ten years France has entered the lists; and the writings of

Reville, Reuss, Nicolas, D'Eichthal, Scherer, and Colani testify to the

rapidity with which the German seed has fructified upon her soil. [18]

[18] But now, in annexing Alsace, Germany has "annexed" pretty

much the whole of this department of French scholarship,--a curious

incidental consequence of the late war.

None of these books, however, has achieved such wide-spread celebrity,

or done so much toward interesting the general public in this class

of historical inquiries, as the "Life of Jesus," by Renan. This

pre-eminence of fame is partly, but not wholly, deserved. From a purely

literary point of view, Renan's work doubtless merits all the celebrity

it has gained. Its author writes a style such as is perhaps surpassed by

that of no other living Frenchman. It is by far the most readable book

which has ever been written concerning the life of Jesus. And no doubt

some of its popularity is due to its very faults, which, from a critical

point of view, are neither few nor small. For Renan is certainly very

faulty, as a historical critic, when he practically ignores the extreme

meagreness of our positive knowledge of the career of Jesus, and

describes scene after scene in his life as minutely and with as much

confidence as if he had himself been present to witness it all. Again

and again the critical reader feels prompted to ask, How do you know all

this? or why, out of two or three conflicting accounts, do you

quietly adopt some particular one, as if its superior authority were

self-evident? But in the eye of the uncritical reader, these defects are

excellences; for it is unpleasant to be kept in ignorance when we are

seeking after definite knowledge, and it is disheartening to read page

after page of an elaborate discussion which ends in convincing us that

definite knowledge cannot be gained.

In the thirteenth edition of the "Vie de Jesus," Renan has corrected

some of the most striking errors of the original work, and in particular

has, with praiseworthy candour, abandoned his untenable position with

regard to the age and character of the fourth gospel. As is well known,

Renan, in his earlier editions, ascribed to this gospel a historical

value superior to that of the synoptics, believing it to have been

written by an eyewitness of the events which it relates; and from this

source, accordingly, he drew the larger share of his materials. Now,

if there is any one conclusion concerning the New Testament literature

which must be regarded as incontrovertibly established by the labours of

a whole generation of scholars, it is this, that the fourth gospel was

utterly unknown until about A. D. 170, that it was written by some

one who possessed very little direct knowledge of Palestine, that its

purpose was rather to expound a dogma than to give an accurate record of

events, and that as a guide to the comprehension of the career of

Jesus it is of far less value than the three synoptic gospels. It

is impossible, in a brief review like the present, to epitomize the

evidence upon which this conclusion rests, which may more profitably

be sought in the Rev. J. J. Tayler's work on "The Fourth Gospel," or

in Davidson's "Introduction to the New Testament." It must suffice to

mention that this gospel is not cited by Papias; that Justin, Marcion,

and Valentinus make no allusion to it, though, since it furnishes so

much that is germane to their views, they would gladly have appealed

to it, had it been in existence, when those views were as yet under

discussion; and that, finally, in the great Quartodeciman controversy,

A. D. 168, the gospel is not only not mentioned, but the authority of

John is cited by Polycarp in flat contradiction of the view afterwards

taken by this evangelist. Still more, the assumption of Renan led at

once into complicated difficulties with reference to the Apocalypse. The

fourth gospel, if it does not unmistakably announce itself as the work

of John, at least professes to be Johannine; and it cannot for a moment

be supposed that such a book, making such claims, could have gained

currency during John's lifetime without calling forth his indignant

protest. For, in reality, no book in the New Testament collection would

so completely have shocked the prejudices of the Johannine party. John's

own views are well known to us from the Apocalypse. John was the most

enthusiastic of millenarians and the most narrow and rigid of Judaizers.

In his antagonism to the Pauline innovations he went farther than Peter

himself. Intense hatred of Paul and his followers appears in several

passages of the Apocalypse, where they are stigmatized as "Nicolaitans,"

"deceivers of the people," "those who say they are apostles and are

not," "eaters of meat offered to idols," "fornicators," "pretended

Jews," "liars," "synagogue of Satan," etc. (Chap. II.). On the other

hand, the fourth gospel contains nothing millenarian or Judaical; it

carries Pauline universalism to a far greater extent than Paul himself

ventured to carry it, even condemning the Jews as children of darkness,

and by implication contrasting them unfavourably with the Gentiles;

and it contains a theory of the nature of Jesus which the Ebionitish

Christians, to whom John belonged, rejected to the last.

In his present edition Renan admits the insuperable force of these

objections, and abandons his theory of the apostolic origin of the

fourth gospel. And as this has necessitated the omission or alteration

of all such passages as rested upon the authority of that gospel, the

book is to a considerable extent rewritten, and the changes are such as

greatly to increase its value as a history of Jesus. Nevertheless, the

author has so long been in the habit of shaping his conceptions of the

career of Jesus by the aid of the fourth gospel, that it has become

very difficult for him to pass freely to another point of view. He still

clings to the hypothesis that there is an element of historic tradition

contained in the book, drawn from memorial writings which had perhaps

been handed down from John, and which were inaccessible to the

synoptists. In a very interesting appendix, he collects the evidence

in favour of this hypothesis, which indeed is not without plausibility,

since there is every reason for supposing that the gospel was written at

Ephesus, which a century before had been John's place of residence. But

even granting most of Renan's assumptions, it must still follow that the

authority of this gospel is far inferior to that of the synoptics, and

can in no case be very confidently appealed to. The question is one

of the first importance to the historian of early Christianity. In

inquiring into the life of Jesus, the very first thing to do is to

establish firmly in the mind the true relations of the fourth gospel to

the first three. Until this has been done, no one is competent to write

on the subject; and it is because he has done this so imperfectly,

that Renan's work is, from a critical point of view, so imperfectly

successful.

The anonymous work entitled "The Jesus of History," which we have placed

at the head of this article, is in every respect noteworthy as the first

systematic attempt made in England to follow in the footsteps of German

criticism in writing a life of Jesus. We know of no good reason why

the book should be published anonymously; for as a historical essay it

possesses extraordinary merit, and does great credit not only to its

author, but to English scholarship and acumen. [19] It is not, indeed,

a book calculated to captivate the imagination of the reading public.

Though written in a clear, forcible, and often elegant style, it

possesses no such wonderful rhetorical charm as the work of Renan;

and it will probably never find half a dozen readers where the "Vie de

Jesus" has found a hundred. But the success of a book of this sort is

not to be measured by its rhetorical excellence, or by its adaptation to

the literary tastes of an uncritical and uninstructed public, but rather

by the amount of critical sagacity which it brings to bear upon the

elucidation of the many difficult and disputed points in the subject of

which it treats. Measured by this standard, "The Jesus of History" must

rank very high indeed. To say that it throws more light upon the career

of Jesus than any work which has ever before been written in English

would be very inadequate praise, since the English language has been

singularly deficient in this branch of historical literature. We shall

convey a more just idea of its merits if we say that it will bear

comparison with anything which even Germany has produced, save only the

works of Strauss, Baur, and Zeller.

[19] "The Jesus of History" is now known to have been written by

Sir Richard Hanson, Chief Justice of South Australia.

The fitness of our author for the task which he has undertaken is shown

at the outset by his choice of materials. In basing his conclusions

almost exclusively upon the statements contained in the first gospel, he

is upheld by every sound principle of criticism. The times and places

at which our three synoptic gospels were written have been, through the

labours of the Tubingen critics, determined almost to a certainty. Of

the three, "Mark" is unquestionably the latest; with the exception of

about twenty verses, it is entirely made up from "Matthew" and "Luke,"

the diverse Petrine and Pauline tendencies of which it strives to

neutralize in conformity to the conciliatory disposition of the Church

at Rome, at the epoch at which this gospel was written, about A. D. 130.

The third gospel was also written at Rome, some fifteen years earlier.

In the preface, its author describes it as a compilation from previously

existing written materials. Among these materials was certainly the

first gospel, several passages of which are adopted word for word by the

author of "Luke." Yet the narrative varies materially from that of the

first gospel in many essential points. The arrangement of events is

less natural, and, as in the "Acts of the Apostles," by the same author,

there is apparent throughout the design of suppressing the old

discord between Paul and the Judaizing disciples, and of representing

Christianity as essentially Pauline from the outset. How far Paul was

correct in his interpretation of the teachings of Jesus, it is difficult

to decide. It is, no doubt, possible that the first gospel may have lent

to the words of Jesus an Ebionite colouring in some instances, and that

now and then the third gospel may present us with a truer account.

To this supremely important point we shall by and by return. For the

present it must suffice to observe that the evidences of an overruling

dogmatic purpose are generally much more conspicuous in the third

synoptist than in the first; and that the very loose manner in which

this writer has handled his materials in the "Acts" is not calculated to

inspire us with confidence in the historical accuracy of his gospel.

The writer who, in spite of the direct testimony of Paul himself could

represent the apostle to the Gentiles as acting under the direction of

the disciples at Jerusalem, and who puts Pauline sentiments into the

mouth of Peter, would certainly have been capable of unwarrantably

giving a Pauline turn to the teachings of Jesus himself. We are

therefore, as a last resort, brought back to the first gospel, which we

find to possess, as a historical narrative, far stronger claims upon our

attention than the second and third. In all probability it had assumed

nearly its present shape before A. D. 100, its origin is unmistakably

Palestinian; it betrays comparatively few indications of dogmatic

purpose; and there are strong reasons for believing that the speeches of

Jesus recorded in it are in substance taken from the genuine "Logia" of

Matthew mentioned by Papias, which must have been written as early as A.

D. 60-70, before the destruction of Jerusalem. Indeed, we are inclined

to agree with our author that the gospel, even in its present shape

(save only a few interpolated passages), may have existed as early as

A. D. 80, since it places the time of Jesus' second coming immediately

after the destruction of Jerusalem; whereas the third evangelist, who

wrote forty-five years after that event, is careful to tell us, "The

end is NOT immediately." Moreover, it must have been written while the

Paulo-Petrine controversy was still raging, as is shown by the parable

of the "enemy who sowed the tares," which manifestly refers to Paul, and

also by the allusions to "false prophets" (vii. 15), to those who say

"Lord, Lord," and who "cast out demons in the name of the Lord" (vii.

21-23), teaching men to break the commandments (v. 17-20). There is,

therefore, good reason for believing that we have here a narrative

written not much more than fifty years after the death of Jesus,

based partly upon the written memorials of an apostle, and in the main

trustworthy, save where it relates occurrences of a marvellous and

legendary character. Such is our author's conclusion, and in describing

the career of the Jesus of history, he relies almost exclusively upon

the statements contained in the first gospel. Let us now after this long

but inadequate introduction, give a brief sketch of the life of Jesus,

as it is to be found in our author.

Concerning the time and place of the birth of Jesus, we know next to

nothing. According to uniform tradition, based upon a statement of the

third gospel, he was about thirty years of age at the time when he began

teaching. The same gospel states, with elaborate precision, that

the public career of John the Baptist began in the fifteenth year of

Tiberius, or A. D. 28. In the winter of A. D. 35-36, Pontius Pilate was

recalled from Judaea, so that the crucifixion could not have taken place

later than in the spring of 35. Thus we have a period of about six years

during which the ministry of Jesus must have begun and ended; and if the

tradition with respect to his age be trustworthy, we shall not be far

out of the way in supposing him to have been born somewhere between B.

C. 5 and A. D. 5. He is everywhere alluded to in the gospels as Jesus

of Nazareth in Galilee, where lived also his father, mother brothers and

sisters, and where very likely he was born. His parents' names are

said to have been Joseph and Mary. His own name is a Hellenized form of

Joshua, a name very common among the Jews. According to the first gospel

(xiii. 55), he had four brothers,--Joseph and Simon; James, who was

afterwards one of the heads of the church at Jerusalem, and the most

formidable enemy of Paul; and Judas or Jude, who is perhaps the author

of the anti-Pauline epistle commonly ascribed to him.

Of the early youth of Jesus, and of the circumstances which guided his

intellectual development, we know absolutely nothing, nor have we the

data requisite for forming any plausible hypothesis. He first appears

in history about A. D. 29 or 30, in connection with a very remarkable

person whom the third evangelist describes as his cousin, and who

seems, from his mode of life, to have been in some way connected with or

influenced by the Hellenizing sect of Essenes. Here we obtain our first

clew to guide us in forming a consecutive theory of the development of

Jesus' opinions. The sect of Essenes took its rise in the time of the

Maccabees, about B. C. 170. Upon the fundamental doctrines of Judaism it

had engrafted many Pythagorean notions, and was doubtless in the time of

Jesus instrumental in spreading Greek ideas among the people of Galilee,

where Judaism was far from being so narrow and rigid as at Jerusalem.

The Essenes attached but little importance to the Messianic expectations

of the Pharisees, and mingled scarcely at all in national politics.

They lived for the most part a strictly ascetic life, being indeed the

legitimate predecessors of the early Christian hermits and monks. But

while pre-eminent for sanctity of life, they heaped ridicule upon the

entire sacrificial service of the Temple, despised the Pharisees as

hypocrites, and insisted upon charity toward all men instead of the old

Jewish exclusiveness.

It was once a favourite theory that both John the Baptist and Jesus were

members of the Essenian brotherhood; but that theory is now generally

abandoned. Whatever may have been the case with John, who is said to

have lived like an anchorite in the desert, there seems to have been but

little practical Essenism in Jesus, who is almost uniformly represented

as cheerful and social in demeanour, and against whom it was expressly

urged that he came eating and drinking, making no presence of

puritanical holiness. He was neither a puritan, like the Essenes, nor a

ritualist, like the Pharisees. Besides which, both John and Jesus seem

to have begun their careers by preaching the un-Essene doctrine of the

speedy advent of the "kingdom of heaven," by which is meant the reign of

the Messiah upon the earth. Nevertheless, though we cannot regard Jesus

as actually a member of the Essenian community or sect, we can hardly

avoid the conclusion that he, as well as John the Baptist, had been at

some time strongly influenced by Essenian doctrines. The spiritualized

conception of the "kingdom of heaven" proclaimed by him was just what

would naturally and logically arise from a remodelling of the Messianic

theories of the Pharisees in conformity to advanced Essenian notions. It

seems highly probable that some such refined conception of the functions

of the Messiah was reached by John, who, stigmatizing the Pharisees and

Sadducees as a "generation of vipers," called aloud to the people to

repent of their sins, in view of the speedy advent of the Messiah, and

to testify to their repentance by submitting to the Essenian rite of

baptism. There is no positive evidence that Jesus was ever a disciple

of John; yet the account of the baptism, in spite of the legendary

character of its details, seems to rest upon a historical basis; and

perhaps the most plausible hypothesis which can be framed is, that Jesus

received baptism at John's hands, became for a while his disciple, and

acquired from him a knowledge of Essenian doctrines.

The career of John seems to have been very brief. His stern puritanism

brought him soon into disgrace with the government of Galilee. He was

seized by Herod, thrown into prison, and beheaded. After the brief hints

given as to the intercourse between Jesus and John, we next hear of

Jesus alone in the desert, where, like Sakyamuni and Mohammed, he may

have brooded in solitude over his great project. Yet we do not find that

he had as yet formed any distinct conception of his own Messiahship.

The total neglect of chronology by our authorities [20] renders it

impossible to trace the development of his thoughts step by step; but

for some time after John's catastrophe we find him calling upon the

people to repent, in view of the speedy approach of the Messiah,

speaking with great and commanding personal authority, but using no

language which would indicate that he was striving to do more than

worthily fill the place and add to the good work of his late master. The

Sermon on the Mount, which the first gospel inserts in this place, was

perhaps never spoken as a continuous discourse; but it no doubt for the

most part contains the very words of Jesus, and represents the general

spirit of his teaching during this earlier portion of his career. In

this is contained nearly all that has made Christianity so powerful in

the domain of ethics. If all the rest of the gospel were taken away,

or destroyed in the night of some future barbarian invasion, we should

still here possess the secret of the wonderful impression which Jesus

made upon those who heard him speak. Added to the Essenian scorn of

Pharisaic formalism, and the spiritualized conception of the Messianic

kingdom, which Jesus may probably have shared with John the Baptist, we

have here for the first time the distinctively Christian conception

of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men, which ultimately

insured the success of the new religion. The special point of

originality in Jesus was his conception of Deity. As Strauss well says,

"He conceived of God, in a moral point of view, as being identical in

character with himself in the most exalted moments of his religious

life, and strengthened in turn his own religious life by this ideal. But

the most exalted religious tendency in his own consciousness was exactly

that comprehensive love, overpowering the evil only by the good, which

he therefore transferred to God as the fundamental tendency of His

nature." From this conception of God, observes Zeller, flowed naturally

all the moral teaching of Jesus, the insistence upon spiritual

righteousness instead of the mere mechanical observance of Mosaic

precepts, the call to be perfect even as the Father is perfect, the

principle of the spiritual equality of men before God, and the equal

duties of all men toward each other.

[20] "The biographers [of Becket] are commonly rather careless as

to the order of time. Each.... recorded what struck him most or what

he best knew, one set down one event and another; and none of them paid

much regard to the order of details."--Freeman, Historical Essays, 1st

series, p. 94.

How far, in addition to these vitally important lessons, Jesus may have

taught doctrines of an ephemeral or visionary character, it is very

difficult to decide. We are inclined to regard the third gospel as

of some importance in settling this point. The author of that gospel

represents Jesus as decidedly hostile to the rich. Where Matthew has

"Blessed are the poor in spirit," Luke has "Blessed are ye poor." In

the first gospel we read, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after

righteousness, for they will be filled"; but in the third gospel we

find, "Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye will be filled"; and this

assurance is immediately followed by the denunciation, "Woe to you that

are rich, for ye have received your consolation! Woe to you that

are full now, for ye will hunger." The parable of Dives and Lazarus

illustrates concretely this view of the case, which is still further

corroborated by the account, given in both the first and the third

gospels, of the young man who came to seek everlasting life. Jesus here

maintains that righteousness is insufficient unless voluntary poverty be

superadded. Though the young man has strictly fulfilled the greatest of

the commandments,--to love his neighbour as himself,--he is required, as

a needful proof of his sincerity, to distribute all his vast possessions

among the poor. And when he naturally manifests a reluctance to perform

so superfluous a sacrifice, Jesus observes that it will be easier for a

camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to share

in the glories of the anticipated Messianic kingdom. It is difficult to

escape the conclusion that we have here a very primitive and probably

authentic tradition; and when we remember the importance which,

according to the "Acts," the earliest disciples attached to the

principle of communism, as illustrated in the legend of Ananias and

Sapphira, we must admit strong reasons for believing that Jesus himself

held views which tended toward the abolition of private property.

On this point, the testimony of the third evangelist singly is of

considerable weight; since at the time when he wrote, the communistic

theories of the first generation of Christians had been generally

abandoned, and in the absence of any dogmatic motives, he could only

have inserted these particular traditions because he believed them to

possess historical value. But we are not dependent on the third gospel

alone. The story just cited is attested by both our authorities, and is

in perfect keeping with the general views of Jesus as reported by the

first evangelist. Thus his disciples are enjoined to leave all, and

follow him; to take no thought for the morrow; to think no more of

laying up treasures on the earth, for in the Messianic kingdom they

shall have treasures in abundance, which can neither be wasted nor

stolen. On making their journeys, they are to provide neither money,

nor clothes, nor food, but are to live at the expense of those whom

they visit; and if any town refuse to harbour them, the Messiah, on his

arrival, will deal with that town more severely than Jehovah dealt with

the cities of the plain. Indeed, since the end of the world was to come

before the end of the generation then living (Matt. xxiv. 34; 1 Cor. xv.

51-56, vii. 29), there could be no need for acquiring property or making

arrangements for the future; even marriage became unnecessary. These

teachings of Jesus have a marked Essenian character, as well as his

declaration that in the Messianic kingdom there was to be no more

marriage, perhaps no distinction of sex (Matt. xxii. 30). The sect

of Ebionites, who represented the earliest doctrine and practice of

Christianity before it had been modified by Paul, differed from the

Essenes in no essential respect save in the acknowledgment of Jesus as

the Messiah, and the expectation of his speedy return to the earth.

How long, or with what success, Jesus continued to preach the coming

of the Messiah in Galilee, it is impossible to conjecture. His

fellow-townsmen of Nazareth appear to have ridiculed him in his

prophetical capacity; or, if we may trust the third evangelist, to have

arisen against him with indignation, and made an attempt upon his life.

To them he was but a carpenter, the son of a carpenter (Matt. xiii. 55;

Mark vi. 3), who told them disagreeable truths. Our author represents

his teaching in Galilee to have produced but little result, but the

gospel narratives afford no definite data for deciding this point. We

believe the most probable conclusion to be that Jesus did attract many

followers, and became famous throughout Galilee; for Herod is said to

have regarded him as John the Baptist risen from the grave. To escape

the malice of Herod, Jesus then retired to Syro-Phoenicia, and during

this eventful journey the consciousness of his own Messiahship seems for

the first time to have distinctly dawned upon him (Matt. xiv. 1, 13; xv.

21; xvi. 13-20). Already, it appears, speculations were rife as to

the character of this wonderful preacher. Some thought he was John the

Baptist, or perhaps one of the prophets of the Assyrian period returned

to the earth. Some, in accordance with a generally-received tradition,

supposed him to be Elijah, who had never seen death, and had now at last

returned from the regions above the firmament to announce the coming of

the Messiah in the clouds. It was generally admitted, among enthusiastic

hearers, that he who spake as never man spake before must have some

divine commission to execute. These speculations, coming to the ears of

Jesus during his preaching in Galilee, could not fail to excite in him

a train of self-conscious reflections. To him also must have been

presented the query as to his own proper character and functions;

and, as our author acutely demonstrates, his only choice lay between a

profitless life of exile in Syro-Phoenicia, and a bold return to

Jewish territory in some pronounced character. The problem being thus

propounded, there could hardly be a doubt as to what that character

should be. Jesus knew well that he was not John the Baptist; nor,

however completely he may have been dominated by his sublime enthusiasm,

was it likely that he could mistake himself for an ancient prophet

arisen from the lower world of shades, or for Elijah descended from

the sky. But the Messiah himself he might well be. Such indeed was the

almost inevitable corollary from his own conception of Messiahship.

We have seen that he had, probably from the very outset, discarded the

traditional notion of a political Messiah, and recognized the truth that

the happiness of a people lies not so much in political autonomy as in

the love of God and the sincere practice of righteousness. The people

were to be freed from the bondage of sin, of meaningless formalism, of

consecrated hypocrisy,--a bondage more degrading than the payment of

tribute to the emperor. The true business of the Messiah, then, was to

deliver his people from the former bondage; it might be left to Jehovah,

in his own good time, to deliver them from the latter. Holding these

views, it was hardly possible that it should not sooner or later occur

to Jesus that he himself was the person destined to discharge this

glorious function, to liberate his countrymen from the thraldom of

Pharisaic ritualism, and to inaugurate the real Messianic kingdom of

spiritual righteousness. Had he not already preached the advent of this

spiritual kingdom, and been instrumental in raising many to loftier

conceptions of duty, and to a higher and purer life? And might he

not now, by a grand attack upon Pharisaism in its central stronghold,

destroy its prestige in the eyes of the people, and cause Israel to

adopt a nobler religious and ethical doctrine? The temerity of such a

purpose detracts nothing from its sublimity. And if that purpose should

be accomplished, Jesus would really have performed the legitimate work

of the Messiah. Thus, from his own point of view, Jesus was thoroughly

consistent and rational in announcing himself as the expected Deliverer;

and in the eyes of the impartial historian his course is fully

justified.

"From that time," says the first evangelist, "Jesus began to show to his

disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from

the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be put to death, and rise

again on the third day." Here we have, obviously, the knowledge of the

writer, after the event, reflected back and attributed to Jesus. It

is of course impossible that Jesus should have predicted with such

definiteness his approaching death; nor is it very likely that he

entertained any hope of being raised from the grave "on the third day."

To a man in that age and country, the conception of a return from the

lower world of shades was not a difficult one to frame; and it may well

be that Jesus' sense of his own exalted position was sufficiently great

to inspire him with the confidence that, even in case of temporary

failure, Jehovah would rescue him from the grave and send him back

with larger powers to carry out the purpose of his mission. But

the difficulty of distinguishing between his own words and the

interpretation put upon them by his disciples becomes here insuperable;

and there will always be room for the hypothesis that Jesus had in

view no posthumous career of his own, but only expressed his unshaken

confidence in the success of his enterprise, even after and in spite of

his death.

At all events, the possibility of his death must now have been often in

his mind. He was undertaking a wellnigh desperate task,--to overthrow

the Pharisees in Jerusalem itself. No other alternative was left him.

And here we believe Mr. F. W. Newman to be singularly at fault in

pronouncing this attempt of Jesus upon Jerusalem a foolhardy attempt.

According to Mr. Newman, no man has any business to rush upon certain

death, and it is only a crazy fanatic who will do so. [21] But such

"glittering generalizations" will here help us but little. The historic

data show that to go to Jerusalem, even at the risk of death, was

absolutely necessary to the realization of Jesus' Messianic project.

Mr. Newman certainly would not have had him drag out an inglorious and

baffled existence in Syro-Phoenicia. If the Messianic kingdom was to be

fairly inaugurated, there was work to be done in Jerusalem, and Jesus

must go there as one in authority, cost what it might. We believe him to

have gone there in a spirit of grand and careless bravery, yet seriously

and soberly, and under the influence of no fanatical delusion. He

knew the risks, but deliberately chose to incur them, that the will of

Jehovah might be accomplished.

We next hear of Jesus travelling down to Jerusalem by way of Jericho,

and entering the sacred city in his character of Messiah, attended by a

great multitude. It was near the time of the Passover, when people from

all parts of Galilee and Judaea were sure to be at Jerusalem, and the

nature of his reception seems to indicate that he had already secured a

considerable number of followers upon whose assistance he might hope

to rely, though it nowhere appears that he intended to use other than

purely moral weapons to insure a favourable reception. We must remember

that for half a century many of the Jewish people had been constantly

looking for the arrival of the Messiah, and there can be little doubt

that the entry of Jesus riding upon an ass in literal fulfilment of

prophecy must have wrought powerfully upon the imagination of the

multitude. That the believers in him were very numerous must be

inferred from the cautious, not to say timid, behaviour of the rulers

at Jerusalem, who are represented as desiring to arrest him, but as

deterred from taking active steps through fear of the people. We are

led to the same conclusion by his driving the money-changers out of the

Temple; an act upon which he could hardly have ventured, had not the

popular enthusiasm in his favour been for the moment overwhelming. But

the enthusiasm of a mob is short-lived, and needs to be fed upon the

excitement of brilliant and dramatically arranged events. The calm

preacher of righteousness, or even the fiery denouncer of the scribes

and Pharisees, could not hope to retain undiminished authority save by

the display of extraordinary powers to which, so far as we know, Jesus

(like Mohammed) made no presence (Matt. xvi. 1-4). The ignorant and

materialistic populace could not understand the exalted conception of

Messiahship which had been formed by Jesus, and as day after day elapsed

without the appearance of any marvellous sign from Jehovah, their

enthusiasm must naturally have cooled down. Then the Pharisees appear

cautiously endeavouring to entrap him into admissions which might

render him obnoxious to the Roman governor. He saw through their design,

however, and foiled them by the magnificent repartee, "Render unto

Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that

are God's." Nothing could more forcibly illustrate the completely

non-political character of his Messianic doctrines. Nevertheless, we

are told that, failing in this attempt, the chief priests suborned false

witnesses to testify against him: this Sabbath-breaker, this derider of

Mosaic formalism, who with his Messianic pretensions excited the people

against their hereditary teachers, must at all events be put out of the

way. Jesus must suffer the fate which society has too often had in store

for the reformer; the fate which Sokrates and Savonarola, Vanini

and Bruno, have suffered for being wiser than their own generation.

Messianic adventurers had already given much trouble to the Roman

authorities, who were not likely to scrutinize critically the peculiar

claims of Jesus. And when the chief priests accused him before Pilate

of professing to be "King of the Jews," this claim could in Roman

apprehension bear but one interpretation. The offence was treason,

punishable, save in the case of Roman citizens, by crucifixion.

[21] Phases of Faith, pp. 158-164.

Such in its main outlines is the historic career of Jesus, as

constructed by our author from data furnished chiefly by the first

gospel. Connected with the narrative there are many interesting topics

of discussion, of which our rapidly diminishing space will allow us to

select only one for comment. That one is perhaps the most important of

all, namely, the question as to how far Jesus anticipated the views of

Paul in admitting Gentiles to share in the privileges of the Messianic

kingdom. Our author argues, with much force, that the designs of Jesus

were entirely confined to the Jewish people, and that it was Paul who

first, by admitting Gentiles to the Christian fold without requiring

them to live like Jews, gave to Christianity the character of a

universal religion. Our author reminds us that the third gospel is not

to be depended upon in determining this point, since it manifestly puts

Pauline sentiments into the mouth of Jesus, and in particular attributes

to Jesus an acquaintance with heretical Samaria which the first gospel

disclaims. He argues that the apostles were in every respect Jews, save

in their belief that Jesus was the Messiah; and he pertinently asks, if

James, who was the brother of Jesus, and Peter and John, who were his

nearest friends, unanimously opposed Paul and stigmatized him as a

liar and heretic, is it at all likely that Jesus had ever distinctly

sanctioned such views as Paul maintained?

In the course of many years' reflection upon this point, we have several

times been inclined to accept the narrow interpretation of Jesus'

teaching here indicated; yet, on the whole, we do not believe it

can ever be conclusively established. In the first place it must be

remembered that if the third gospel throws a Pauline colouring over

the events which it describes, the first gospel also shows a decidedly

anti-Pauline bias, and the one party was as likely as the other to

attribute its own views to Jesus himself. One striking instance of this

tendency has been pointed out by Strauss, who has shown that the verses

Matt. v. 17-20 are an interpolation. The person who teaches men to break

the commandments is undoubtedly Paul, and in order to furnish a text

against Paul's followers, the "Nicolaitans," Jesus is made to declare

that he came not to destroy one tittle of the law, but to fulfil

the whole in every particular. Such an utterance is in manifest

contradiction to the spirit of Jesus' teaching, as shown in the very

same chapter, and throughout a great part of the same gospel. He who

taught in his own name and not as the scribes, who proclaimed himself

Lord over the Sabbath, and who manifested from first to last a more than

Essenian contempt for rites and ceremonies, did not come to fulfil the

law of Mosaism, but to supersede it. Nor can any inference adverse to

this conclusion be drawn from the injunction to the disciples (Matt.

x. 5-7) not to preach to Gentiles and Samaritans, but only "to the lost

sheep of the house of Israel"; for this remark is placed before the

beginning of Jesus' Messianic career, and the reason assigned for the

restriction is merely that the disciples will not have time even to

preach to all the Jews before the coming of the Messiah, whose approach

Jesus was announcing (Matt. x. 23)

These examples show that we must use caution in weighing the testimony

even of the first gospel, and must not too hastily cite it as proof that

Jesus supposed his mission to be restricted to the Jews. When we come to

consider what happened a few years after the death of Jesus, we shall

be still less ready to insist upon the view defended by our anonymous

author. Paul, according to his own confession, persecuted the Christians

unto death. Now what, in the theories or in the practice of the Jewish

disciples of Jesus, could have moved Paul to such fanatic behaviour?

Certainly not their spiritual interpretation of Mosaism, for Paul

himself belonged to the liberal school of Gamaliel, to the views of

which the teachings and practices of Peter, James, and John might easily

be accommodated. Probably not their belief in Jesus as the Messiah,

for at the riot in which Stephen was murdered and all the Hellenist

disciples driven from Jerusalem, the Jewish disciples were allowed

to remain in the city unmolested. (See Acts viii. 1, 14.) This marked

difference of treatment indicates that Paul regarded Stephen and his

friends as decidedly more heretical and obnoxious than Peter, James, and

John, whom, indeed, Paul's own master Gamaliel had recently (Acts v. 34)

defended before the council. And this inference is fully confirmed by

the account of Stephen's death, where his murderers charge him with

maintaining that Jesus had founded a new religion which was destined

entirely to supersede and replace Judaism (Acts vi. 14). The Petrine

disciples never held this view of the mission of Jesus; and to this

difference it is undoubtedly owing that Paul and his companions forbore

to disturb them. It would thus appear that even previous to Paul's

conversion, within five or six years after the death of Jesus, there was

a prominent party among the disciples which held that the new religion

was not a modification but an abrogation of Judaism; and their name

"Hellenists" sufficiently shows either that there were Gentiles among

them or that they held fellowship with Gentiles. It was this which

aroused Paul to persecution, and upon his sudden conversion it was with

these Hellenistic doctrines that he fraternized, taking little heed of

the Petrine disciples (Galatians i. 17), who were hardly more than a

Jewish sect.

Now the existence of these Hellenists at Jerusalem so soon after

the death of Jesus is clear proof that he had never distinctly and

irrevocably pronounced against the admission of Gentiles to the

Messianic kingdom, and it makes it very probable that the downfall of

Mosaism as a result of his preaching was by no means unpremeditated.

While, on the other hand, the obstinacy of the Petrine party in adhering

to Jewish customs shows equally that Jesus could not have unequivocally

committed himself in favour of a new gospel for the Gentiles. Probably

Jesus was seldom brought into direct contact with others than Jews, so

that the questions concerning the admission of Gentile converts did

not come up during his lifetime; and thus the way was left open for the

controversy which soon broke out between the Petrine party and Paul.

Nevertheless, though Jesus may never have definitely pronounced upon

this point, it will hardly be denied that his teaching, even as reported

in the first gospel, is in its utter condemnation of formalism far more

closely allied to the Pauline than to the Petrine doctrines. In his

hands Mosaism became spiritualized until it really lost its identity,

and was transformed into a code fit for the whole Roman world. And we do

not doubt that if any one had asked Jesus whether circumcision were an

essential prerequisite for admission to the Messianic kingdom, he would

have given the same answer which Paul afterwards gave. We agree with

Zeller and Strauss that, "as Luther was a more liberal spirit than

the Lutheran divines of the succeeding generation, and Sokrates a more

profound thinker than Xenophon or Antisthenes, so also Jesus must

be credited with having raised himself far higher above the narrow

prejudices of his nation than those of his disciples who could scarcely

understand the spread of Christianity among the heathen when it had

become an accomplished fact."

January, 1870.

IV. THE CHRIST OF DOGMA. [22]

[22] Saint-Paul, par Ernest Renan. Paris, 1869.

Histoire du Dogme de la Divinite de Jesus-Christ, par Albert Reville.

Paris, 1869.

The End of the World and the Day of Judgment. Two Discourses by the Rev.

W. R. Alger. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1870.

The meagreness of our information concerning the historic career of

Jesus stands in striking contrast with the mass of information which

lies within our reach concerning the primitive character of Christologic

speculation. First we have the four epistles of Paul, written from

twenty to thirty years after the crucifixion, which, although they tell

us next to nothing about what Jesus did, nevertheless give us very

plain information as to the impression which he made. Then we have the

Apocalypse, written by John, A. D. 68, which exhibits the Messianic

theory entertained by the earliest disciples. Next we have the epistles

to the Hebrews, Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians, besides the four

gospels, constituting altogether a connected chain of testimony to the

progress of Christian doctrine from the destruction of Jerusalem to the

time of the Quartodeciman controversy (A. D. 70-170). Finally, there is

the vast collection of apocryphal, heretical, and patristic literature,

from the writings of Justin Martyr, the pseudo-Clement, and the

pseudo-Ignatius, down to the time of the Council of Nikaia, when the

official theories of Christ's person assumed very nearly the shape which

they have retained, within the orthodox churches of Christendom, down

to the present day. As we pointed out in the foregoing essay, while all

this voluminous literature throws but an uncertain light upon the life

and teachings of the founder of Christianity, it nevertheless furnishes

nearly all the data which we could desire for knowing what the early

Christians thought of the master of their faith. Having given a brief

account of the historic career of Jesus, so far as it can now be

determined, we propose here to sketch the rise and progress of

Christologic doctrine, in its most striking features, during the first

three centuries. Beginning with the apostolic view of the human Messiah

sent to deliver Judaism from its spiritual torpor, and prepare it

for the millennial kingdom, we shall briefly trace the progressive

metamorphosis of this conception until it completely loses its identity

in the Athanasian theory, according to which Jesus was God himself, the

Creator of the universe, incarnate in human flesh.

The earliest dogma held by the apostles concerning Jesus was that of his

resurrection from the grave after death. It was not only the earliest,

but the most essential to the success of the new religion. Christianity

might have overspread the Roman Empire, and maintained its hold upon

men's faith until to-day, without the dogmas of the incarnation and the

Trinity; but without the dogma of the resurrection it would probably

have failed at the very outset. Its lofty morality would not alone have

sufficed to insure its success. For what men needed then, as indeed they

still need, and will always need, was not merely a rule of life and a

mirror to the heart, but also a comprehensive and satisfactory theory

of things, a philosophy or theosophy. The times demanded intellectual as

well as moral consolation; and the disintegration of ancient theologies

needed to be repaired, that the new ethical impulse imparted by

Christianity might rest upon a plausible speculative basis. The doctrine

of the resurrection was but the beginning of a series of speculative

innovations which prepared the way for the new religion to emancipate

itself from Judaism, and achieve the conquest of the Empire. Even the

faith of the apostles in the speedy return of their master the Messiah

must have somewhat lost ground, had it not been supported by their

belief in his resurrection from the grave and his consequent transfer

from Sheol, the gloomy land of shadows, to the regions above the sky.

The origin of the dogma of the resurrection cannot be determined with

certainty. The question has, during the past century, been the subject

of much discussion, upon which it is not necessary for us here to

comment. Such apparent evidence as there is in favour of the old theory

of Jesus' natural recovery from the effects of the crucifixion may be

found in Salvador's "Jesus-Christ et sa Doctrine"; but, as Zeller has

shown, the theory is utterly unsatisfactory. The natural return of

Jesus to his disciples never could have given rise to the notion of his

resurrection, since the natural explanation would have been the more

obvious one; besides which, if we were to adopt this hypothesis, we

should be obliged to account for the fact that the historic career of

Jesus ends with the crucifixion. The most probable explanation, on the

whole, is the one suggested by the accounts in the gospels, that the

dogma of the resurrection is due originally to the excited imagination

of Mary of Magdala. [23] The testimony of Paul may also be cited in

favour of this view, since he always alludes to earlier Christophanies

in just the same language which he uses in describing his own vision on

the road to Damascus.

[23] See Taine, De l'Intelligence, II. 192.

But the question as to how the belief in the resurrection of Jesus

originated is of less importance than the question as to how it should

have produced the effect that it did. The dogma of the resurrection has,

until recent times, been so rarely treated from the historical point

of view, that the student of history at first finds some difficulty

in thoroughly realizing its import to the minds of those who first

proclaimed it. We cannot hope to understand it without bearing in mind

the theories of the Jews and early Christians concerning the structure

of the world and the cosmic location of departed souls. Since the time

of Copernicus modern Christians no longer attempt to locate heaven and

hell; they are conceived merely as mysterious places remote from the

earth. The theological universe no longer corresponds to that which

physical science presents for our contemplation. It was quite different

with the Jew. His conception of the abode of Jehovah and the angels, and

of departed souls, was exceedingly simple and definite. In the Jewish

theory the universe is like a sort of three-story house. The flat earth

rests upon the waters, and under the earth's surface is the land of

graves, called Sheol, where after death the souls of all men go, the

righteous as well as the wicked, for the Jew had not arrived at the

doctrine of heaven and hell. The Hebrew Sheol corresponds strictly to

the Greek Hades, before the notions of Elysium and Tartarus were added

to it,--a land peopled with flitting shadows, suffering no torment, but

experiencing no pleasure, like those whom Dante met in one of the upper

circles of his Inferno. Sheol is the first story of the cosmic house;

the earth is the second. Above the earth is the firmament or sky, which,

according to the book of Genesis (chap. i. v. 6, Hebrew text), is a vast

plate hammered out by the gods, and supports a great ocean like that

upon which the earth rests. Rain is caused by the opening of little

windows or trap-doors in the firmament, through which pours the water

of this upper ocean. Upon this water rests the land of heaven, where

Jehovah reigns, surrounded by hosts of angels. To this blessed land two

only of the human race had ever been admitted,--Enoch and Elijah, the

latter of whom had ascended in a chariot of fire, and was destined to

return to earth as the herald and forerunner of the Messiah. Heaven

forms the third story of the cosmic house. Between the firmament and the

earth is the air, which is the habitation of evil demons ruled by Satan,

the "prince of the powers of the air."

Such was the cosmology of the ancient Jew; and his theology was equally

simple. Sheol was the destined abode of all men after death, and no

theory of moral retribution was attached to the conception. The rewards

and punishments known to the authors of the Pentateuch and the early

Psalms are all earthly rewards and punishments. But in course of

time the prosperity of the wicked and the misfortunes of the good man

furnished a troublesome problem for the Jewish thinker; and after the

Babylonish Captivity, we find the doctrine of a resurrection from Sheol

devised in order to meet this case. According to this doctrine--which

was borrowed from the Zarathustrian theology of Persia--the Messiah

on his arrival was to free from Sheol all the souls of the righteous,

causing them to ascend reinvested in their bodies to a renewed and

beautiful earth, while on the other hand the wicked were to be punished

with tortures like those of the valley of Hinnom, or were to be immersed

in liquid brimstone, like that which had rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

Here we get the first announcement of a future state of retribution. The

doctrine was peculiarly Pharisaic, and the Sadducees, who were strict

adherents to the letter of Mosaism, rejected it to the last. By

degrees this doctrine became coupled with the Messianic theories of

the Pharisees. The loss of Jewish independence under the dominion of

Persians, Macedonians, and Romans, caused the people to look ever more

earnestly toward the expected time when the Messiah should appear in

Jerusalem to deliver them from their oppressors. The moral doctrines

of the Psalms and earlier prophets assumed an increasingly political

aspect. The Jews were the righteous "under a cloud," whose sufferings

were symbolically depicted by the younger Isaiah as the afflictions of

the "servant of Jehovah"; while on the other hand, the "wicked" were the

Gentile oppressors of the holy people. Accordingly the Messiah, on his

arrival, was to sit in judgment in the valley of Jehoshaphat, rectifying

the wrongs of his chosen ones, condemning the Gentile tyrants to the

torments of Gehenna, and raising from Sheol all those Jews who had lived

and died during the evil times before his coming. These were to find

in the Messianic kingdom the compensation for the ills which they had

suffered in their first earthly existence. Such are the main outlines of

the theory found in the Book of Enoch, written about B. C. 100, and it

is adopted in the Johannine Apocalypse, with little variation, save in

the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, and in the transferrence to

his second coming of all these wonderful proceedings. The manner of the

Messiah's coming had been variously imagined. According to an earlier

view, he was to enter Jerusalem as a King of the house of David, and

therefore of human lineage. According to a later view, presented in the

Book of Daniel, he was to descend from the sky, and appear among the

clouds. Both these views were adopted by the disciples of Jesus, who

harmonized them by referring the one to his first and the other to his

second appearance.

Now to the imaginations of these earliest disciples the belief in the

resurrection of Jesus presented itself as a needful guarantee of his

Messiahship. Their faith, which must have been shaken by his execution

and descent into Sheol, received welcome confirmation by the springing

up of the belief that he had been again seen upon the face of the earth.

Applying the imagery of Daniel, it became a logical conclusion that he

must have ascended into the sky, whence he might shortly be expected to

make his appearance, to enact the scenes foretold in prophecy. That

such was the actual process of inference is shown by the legend of the

Ascension in the first chapter of the "Acts," and especially by the

words, "This Jesus who hath been taken up from you into heaven, will

come in the same manner in which ye beheld him going into heaven." In

the Apocalypse, written A. D. 68, just after the death of Nero, this

second coming is described as something immediately to happen, and

the colours in which it is depicted show how closely allied were the

Johannine notions to those of the Pharisees. The glories of the New

Jerusalem are to be reserved for Jews, while for the Roman tyrants

of Judaea is reserved a fearful retribution. They are to be trodden

underfoot by the Messiah, like grapes in a wine-press, until the gushing

blood shall rise to the height of the horse's bridle.

In the writings of Paul the dogma of the resurrection assumes a very

different aspect. Though Paul, like the older apostles, held that Jesus,

as the Messiah, was to return to the earth within a few years, yet to

his catholic mind this anticipated event had become divested of its

narrow Jewish significance. In the eyes of Paul, the religion preached

by Jesus was an abrogation of Mosaism, and the truths contained in

it were a free gift to the Gentile as well as to the Jewish world.

According to Paul, death came into the world as a punishment for the

sin of Adam. By this he meant that, had it not been for the original

transgression, all men escaping death would either have remained

upon earth or have been conveyed to heaven, like Enoch and Elijah, in

incorruptible bodies. But in reality as a penance for disobedience, all

men, with these two exceptions, had suffered death, and been exiled to

the gloomy caverns of Sheol. The Mosaic ritual was powerless to free men

from this repulsive doom, but it had nevertheless served a good purpose

in keeping men's minds directed toward holiness, preparing them, as a

schoolmaster would prepare his pupils, to receive the vitalizing truths

of Christ. Now, at last, the Messiah or Christ had come as a second

Adam, and being without sin had been raised by Jehovah out of Sheol

and taken up into heaven, as testimony to men that the power of sin and

death was at last defeated. The way henceforth to avoid death and escape

the exile to Sheol was to live spiritually like Jesus, and with him to

be dead to sensual requirements. Faith, in Paul's apprehension, was not

an intellectual assent to definitely prescribed dogmas, but, as

Matthew Arnold has well pointed out, it was an emotional striving after

righteousness, a developing consciousness of God in the soul, such as

Jesus had possessed, or, in Paul's phraseology, a subjugation of the

flesh by the spirit. All those who should thus seek spiritual perfection

should escape the original curse. The Messiah was destined to return to

the earth to establish the reign of spiritual holiness, probably during

Paul's own lifetime (1 Cor. xv. 51). Then the true followers of Jesus

should be clothed in ethereal bodies, free from the imperfections of

"the flesh," and should ascend to heaven without suffering death, while

the righteous dead should at the same time be released from Sheol, even

as Jesus himself had been released.

To the doctrine of the resurrection, in which ethical and speculative

elements are thus happily blended by Paul, the new religion doubtless

owed in great part its rapid success. Into an account of the causes

which favoured the spreading of Christianity, it is not our purpose

to enter at present. But we may note that the local religions of

the ancient pagan world had partly destroyed each other by mutual

intermingling, and had lost their hold upon people from the circumstance

that their ethical teaching no longer corresponded to the advanced

ethical feeling of the age. Polytheism, in short, was outgrown. It was

outgrown both intellectually and morally. People were ceasing to believe

in its doctrines, and were ceasing to respect its precepts. The learned

were taking refuge in philosophy, the ignorant in mystical superstitions

imported from Asia. The commanding ethical motive of ancient republican

times had been patriotism,--devotion to the interests of the community.

But Roman dominion had destroyed patriotism as a guiding principle of

life, and thus in every way the minds of men were left in a sceptical,

unsatisfied state,--craving after a new theory of life, and craving

after a new stimulus to right action. Obviously the only theology which

could now be satisfactory to philosophy or to common-sense was some form

of monotheism;--some system of doctrines which should represent all men

as spiritually subjected to the will of a single God, just as they were

subjected to the temporal authority of the Emperor. And similarly the

only system of ethics which could have a chance of prevailing must be

some system which should clearly prescribe the mutual duties of all men

without distinction of race or locality. Thus the spiritual morality of

Jesus, and his conception of God as a father and of all men as brothers,

appeared at once to meet the ethical and speculative demands of the

time.

Yet whatever effect these teachings might have produced, if unaided

by further doctrinal elaboration, was enhanced myriadfold by the

elaboration which they received at the hands of Paul. Philosophic Stoics

and Epicureans had arrived at the conception of the brotherhood of men,

and the Greek hymn of Kleanthes had exhibited a deep spiritual sense of

the fatherhood of God. The originality of Christianity lay not so

much in its enunciation of new ethical precepts as in the fact that it

furnished a new ethical sanction,--a commanding incentive to holiness

of living. That it might accomplish this result, it was absolutely

necessary that it should begin by discarding both the ritualism and the

narrow theories of Judaism. The mere desire for a monotheistic creed

had led many pagans, in Paul's time, to embrace Judaism, in spite of

its requirements, which to Romans and Greeks were meaningless, and often

disgusting; but such conversions could never have been numerous. Judaism

could never have conquered the Roman world; nor is it likely that the

Judaical Christianity of Peter, James, and John would have been any more

successful. The doctrine of the resurrection, in particular, was not

likely to prove attractive when accompanied by the picture of the

Messiah treading the Gentiles in the wine-press of his righteous

indignation. But here Paul showed his profound originality The

condemnation of Jewish formalism which Jesus had pronounced, Paul

turned against the older apostles, who insisted upon circumcision. With

marvellous flexibility of mind, Paul placed circumcision and the Mosaic

injunctions about meats upon a level with the ritual observances of

pagan nations, allowing each feeble brother to perform such works as

might tickle his fancy, but bidding all take heed that salvation was not

to be obtained after any such mechanical method, but only by devoting

the whole soul to righteousness, after the example of Jesus.

This was the negative part of Paul's work. This was the knocking down of

the barriers which had kept men, and would always have kept them, from

entering into the kingdom of heaven. But the positive part of Paul's

work is contained in his theory of the salvation of men from death

through the second Adam, whom Jehovah rescued from Sheol for his

sinlessness. The resurrection of Jesus was the visible token of the

escape from death which might be achieved by all men who, with God's

aid, should succeed in freeing themselves from the burden of sin which

had encumbered all the children of Adam. The end of the world was at

hand, and they who would live with Christ must figuratively die with

Christ, must become dead to sin. Thus to the pure and spiritual ethics

contained in the teachings of Jesus, Paul added an incalculably powerful

incentive to right action, and a theory of life calculated to satisfy

the speculative necessities of the pagan or Gentile world. To the

educated and sceptical Athenian, as to the critical scholar of modern

times, the physical resurrection of Jesus from the grave, and his ascent

through the vaulted floor of heaven, might seem foolishness or naivete.

But to the average Greek or Roman the conception presented no serious

difficulty. The cosmical theories upon which the conception was founded

were essentially the same among Jews and Gentiles, and indeed were but

little modified until the establishment of the Copernican astronomy.

The doctrine of the Messiah's second coming was also received without

opposition, and for about a century men lived in continual anticipation

of that event, until hope long deferred produced its usual results;

the writings in which that event was predicted were gradually explained

away, ignored, or stigmatized as uncanonical; and the Church ended by

condemning as a heresy the very doctrine which Paul and the Judaizing

apostles, who agreed in little else, had alike made the basis of

their speculative teachings. Nevertheless, by the dint of allegorical

interpretation, the belief has maintained an obscure existence even down

to the present time; the Antiochus of the Book of Daniel and the Nero of

the Apocalypse having given place to the Roman Pontiff or to the Emperor

of the French.

But as the millenarism of the primitive Church gradually died out during

the second century, the essential principles involved in it lost none of

their hold on men's minds. As the generation contemporary with Paul died

away and was gathered into Sheol, it became apparent that the original

theory must be somewhat modified, and to this question the author of

the second epistle to the Thessalonians addresses himself. Instead of

literal preservation from death, the doctrine of a resurrection from the

grave was gradually extended to the case of the new believers, who were

to share in the same glorious revival with the righteous of ancient

times. And thus by slow degrees the victory over death, of which the

resurrection of Jesus was a symbol and a witness, became metamorphosed

into the comparatively modern doctrine of the rest of the saints in

heaven, while the banishment of the unrighteous to Sheol was made

still more dreadful by coupling with the vague conception of a gloomy

subterranean cavern the horrible imagery of the lake of fire and

brimstone borrowed from the apocalyptic descriptions of Gehenna. But

in this modification of the original theory, the fundamental idea of

a future state of retribution was only the more distinctly emphasized;

although, in course of time, the original incentive to righteousness

supplied by Paul was more and more subordinated to the comparatively

degrading incentive involved in the fear of damnation. There can hardly

be a doubt that the definiteness and vividness of the Pauline theory

of a future life contributed very largely to the rapid spread of the

Christian religion; nor can it be doubted that to the desire to be holy

like Jesus, in order to escape death and live with Jesus, is due

the elevating ethical influence which, even in the worst times of

ecclesiastic degeneracy, Christianity has never failed to exert.

Doubtless, as Lessing long, ago observed, the notion of future reward

and punishment needs to be eliminated in order that the incentive to

holiness may be a perfectly pure one. The highest virtue is that which

takes no thought of reward or punishment; but for a conception of this

sort the mind of antiquity was not ready, nor is the average mind

of to-day yet ready; and the sudden or premature dissolution of the

Christian theory--which is fortunately impossible--might perhaps entail

a moral retrogradation.

The above is by no means intended as a complete outline of the religious

philosophy of Paul. We have aimed only at a clear definition of the

character and scope of the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus, at the

time when it was first elaborated. We have now to notice the influence

of that doctrine upon the development of Christologic speculation.

In neither or the four genuine epistles of Paul is Jesus described

as superhuman, or as differing in nature from other men, save in his

freedom from sin. As Baur has shown, "the proper nature of the Pauline

Christ is human. He is a man, but a spiritual man, one in whom spirit

or pneuma was the essential principle, so that he was spirit as well

as man. The principle of an ideal humanity existed before Christ in

the bright form of a typical man, but was manifested to mankind in the

person of Christ." Such, according to Baur, is Paul's interpretation

of the Messianic idea. Paul knows nothing of the miracles, of the

supernatural conception, of the incarnation, or of the Logos. The Christ

whom he preaches is the man Jesus, the founder of a new and spiritual

order of humanity, as Adam was the father of humanity after the flesh.

The resurrection is uniformly described by him as a manifestation of the

power of Jehovah, not of Jesus himself. The later conception of Christ

bursting the barred gates of Sheol, and arising by his own might to

heaven, finds no warrant in the expressions of Paul. Indeed, it was

essential to Paul's theory of the Messiah as a new Adam, that he should

be human and not divine; for the escape of a divine being from Sheol

could afford no precedent and furnish no assurance of the future escape

of human beings. It was expressly because the man Jesus had been rescued

from the grave because of his spirituality, that other men might hope,

by becoming spiritual like him, to be rescued also. Accordingly Paul is

careful to state that "since through man came death, through man came

also the resurrection of the dead" (1 Cor. xv. 21); a passage which

would look like an express denial of Christ's superhuman character,

were it probable that any of Paul's contemporaries had ever conceived of

Jesus as other than essentially human.

But though Paul's Christology remained in this primitive stage, it

contained the germs of a more advanced theory. For even Paul conceived

of Jesus as a man wholly exceptional in spiritual character; or, in the

phraseology of the time, as consisting to a larger extent of pneuma than

any man who had lived before him. The question was sure to arise,

Whence came this pneuma or spiritual quality? Whether the question

ever distinctly presented itself to Paul's mind cannot be determined.

Probably it did not. In those writings of his which have come down to

us, he shows himself careless of metaphysical considerations. He is

mainly concerned with exhibiting the unsatisfactory character of Jewish

Christianity, and with inculcating a spiritual morality, to which the

doctrine of Christ's resurrection is made to supply a surpassingly

powerful sanction. But attempts to solve the problem were not long

in coming. According to a very early tradition, of which the obscured

traces remain in the synoptic gospels, Jesus received the pneuma at the

time of his baptism, when the Holy Spirit, or visible manifestation of

the essence of Jehovah, descended upon him and became incarnate in him.

This theory, however, was exposed to the objection that it implied

a sudden and entire transformation of an ordinary man into a person

inspired or possessed by the Deity. Though long maintained by the

Ebionites or primitive Christians, it was very soon rejected by the

great body of the Church, which asserted instead that Jesus had been

inspired by the Holy Spirit from the moment of his conception. From this

it was but a step to the theory that Jesus was actually begotten by or

of the Holy Spirit; a notion which the Hellenic mind, accustomed to

the myths of Leda, Anchises, and others, found no difficulty in

entertaining. According to the Gospel of the Hebrews, as cited by

Origen, the Holy Spirit was the mother of Jesus, and Joseph was his

father. But according to the prevailing opinion, as represented in the

first and third synoptists, the relationship was just the other way.

With greater apparent plausibility, the divine aeon was substituted

for the human father, and a myth sprang up, of which the materialistic

details furnished to the opponents of the new religion an opportunity

for making the most gross and exasperating insinuations. The dominance

of this theory marks the era at which our first and third synoptic

gospels were composed,--from sixty to ninety years after the death of

Jesus. In the luxuriant mythologic growth there exhibited, we may yet

trace the various successive phases of Christologic speculation but

imperfectly blended. In "Matthew" and "Luke" we find the original

Messianic theory exemplified in the genealogies of Jesus, in which,

contrary to historic probability (cf. Matt. xxii. 41-46), but in

accordance with a time-honoured tradition, his pedigree is traced back

to David; "Matthew" referring him to the royal line of Judah, while

"Luke" more cautiously has recourse to an assumed younger branch.

Superposed upon this primitive mythologic stratum, we find, in the same

narratives, the account of the descent of the pneuma at the time of

the baptism; and crowning the whole, there are the two accounts of the

nativity which, though conflicting in nearly all their details, agree

in representing the divine pneuma as the father of Jesus. Of these three

stages of Christology, the last becomes entirely irreconcilable with the

first; and nothing can better illustrate the uncritical character of the

synoptists than the fact that the assumed descent of Jesus from David

through his father Joseph is allowed to stand side by side with the

account of the miraculous conception which completely negatives it.

Of this difficulty "Matthew" is quite unconscious, and "Luke," while

vaguely noticing it (iii. 23), proposes no solution, and appears

undisturbed by the contradiction.

Thus far the Christology with which we have been dealing is

predominantly Jewish, though to some extent influenced by Hellenic

conceptions. None of the successive doctrines presented in Paul,

"Matthew," and "Luke" assert or imply the pre-existence of Jesus.

At this early period he was regarded as a human being raised to

participation in certain attributes of divinity; and this was as far as

the dogma could be carried by the Jewish metaphysics. But soon after the

date of our third gospel, a Hellenic system of Christology arose into

prominence, in which the problem was reversed, and Jesus was regarded

as a semi-divine being temporarily lowered to participation in certain

attributes of humanity. For such a doctrine Jewish mythology supplied no

precedents; but the Indo-European mind was familiar with the conception

of deity incarnate in human form, as in the avatars of Vishnu, or

even suffering III the interests of humanity, as in the noble myth of

Prometheus. The elements of Christology pre-existing in the religious

conceptions of Greece, India, and Persia, are too rich and numerous to

be discussed here. A very full account of them is given in Mr. R. W.

Mackay's acute and learned treatise on the "Religious Development of the

Greeks and Hebrews{.}"

It was in Alexandria, where Jewish theology first came into contact with

Hellenic and Oriental ideas, that the way was prepared for the dogma

of Christ's pre-existence. The attempt to rationalize the conception of

deity as embodied in the Jehovah of the Old Testament gave rise to the

class of opinions described as Gnosis, or Gnosticism. The signification

of Gnosis is simply "rationalism,"--the endeavour to harmonize the

materialistic statements of an old mythology with the more advanced

spiritualistic philosophy of the time. The Gnostics rejected the

conception of an anthropomorphic deity who had appeared visibly and

audibly to the patriarchs; and they were the authors of the doctrine,

very widely spread during the second and third centuries, that God could

not in person have been the creator of the world. According to them,

God, as pure spirit, could not act directly upon vile and gross matter.

The difficulty which troubled them was curiously analogous to that

which disturbed the Cartesians and the followers of Leibnitz in the

seventeenth century; how was spirit to act upon matter, without

ceasing, pro tanto, to be spirit? To evade this difficulty, the Gnostics

postulated a series of emanations from God, becoming successively less

and less spiritual and more and more material, until at the lowest end

of the scale was reached the Demiurgus or Jehovah of the Old Testament,

who created the world and appeared, clothed in material form, to the

patriarchs. According to some of the Gnostics this lowest aeon or

emanation was identical with the Jewish Satan, or the Ahriman of the

Persians, who is called "the prince of this world," and the creation of

the world was an essentially evil act. But all did not share in these

extreme opinions. In the prevailing, theory, this last of the divine

emanations was identified with the "Sophia," or personified "Wisdom," of

the Book of Proverbs (viii. 22-30), who is described as present with

God before the foundation of the world. The totality of these aeons

constituted the pleroma, or "fulness of God" (Coloss. i. 20; Eph. i.

23), and in a corollary which bears unmistakable marks of Buddhist

influence, it was argued that, in the final consummation of things,

matter should be eliminated and all spirit reunited with God, from whom

it had primarily flowed.

It was impossible that such views as these should not soon be taken up

and applied to the fluctuating Christology of the time. According to the

"Shepherd of Hermas," an apocalyptic writing nearly contemporary with

the gospel of "Mark," the aeon or son of God who existed previous to

the creation was not the Christ, or the Sophia, but the Pneuma or Holy

Spirit, represented in the Old Testament as the "angel of Jehovah."

Jesus, in reward for his perfect goodness, was admitted to a share in

the privileges of this Pneuma (Reville, p. 39). Here, as M. Reville

observes, though a Gnostic idea is adopted, Jesus is nevertheless viewed

as ascending humanity, and not as descending divinity. The author of the

"Clementine Homilies" advances a step farther, and clearly assumes the

pre-existence of Jesus, who, in his opinion, was the pure, primitive

man, successively incarnate in Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,

Moses, and finally in the Messiah or Christ. The author protests,

in vehement language, against those Hellenists who, misled by their

polytheistic associations, would elevate Jesus into a god. Nevertheless,

his own hypothesis of pre-existence supplied at once the requisite

fulcrum for those Gnostics who wished to reconcile a strict monotheism

with the ascription of divine attributes to Jesus. Combining with this

notion of pre-existence the pneumatic or spiritual quality attributed

to Jesus in the writings of Paul, the Gnosticizing Christians maintained

that Christ was an aeon or emanation from God, redeeming men from the

consequences entailed by their imprisonment in matter. At this stage

of Christologic speculation appeared the anonymous epistle to the

"Hebrews," and the pseudo-Pauline epistles to the "Colossians,"

"Ephesians," and "Philippians" (A. D. 130). In these epistles, which

originated among the Pauline Christians, the Gnostic theosophy is

skilfully applied to the Pauline conception of the scope and purposes of

Christianity. Jesus is described as the creator of the world (Coloss. i.

16), the visible image of the invisible God, the chief and ruler of the

"throues, dominions, principalities, and powers," into which, in Gnostic

phraseology, the emanations of God were classified. Or, according to

"Colossians" and "Philippians," all the aeons are summed up in him, in

whom dwells the pleroma, or "fulness of God." Thus Jesus is elevated

quite above ordinary humanity, and a close approach is made to ditheism,

although he is still emphatically subordinated to God by being made

the creator of the world,--an office then regarded as incompatible with

absolute divine perfection. In the celebrated passage, "Philippians"

ii. 6-11, the aeon Jesus is described as being the form or visible

manifestation of God, yet as humbling himself by taking on the form or

semblance of humanity, and suffering death, in return for which he is

to be exalted even above the archangels. A similar view is taken in

"Hebrews"; and it is probable that to the growing favour with which

these doctrines were received, we owe the omission of the miraculous

conception from the gospel of "Mark,"--a circumstance which has misled

some critics into assigning to that gospel an earlier date than

to "Matthew" and "Luke." Yet the fact that in this gospel Jesus is

implicitly ranked above the angels (Mark xiii. 32), reveals a later

stage of Christologic doctrine than that reached by the first and third

synoptists; and it is altogether probable that, in accordance with the

noticeable conciliatory disposition of this evangelist, the supernatural

conception is omitted out of deference to the Gnosticizing theories of

"Colossians" and "Philippians," in which this materialistic doctrine

seems to have had no assignable place. In "Philippians" especially, many

expressions seem to verge upon Docetism, the extreme form of Gnosticism,

according to which the human body of Jesus was only a phantom.

Valentinus, who was contemporary with the Pauline writers of the second

century, maintained that Jesus was not born of Mary by any process

of conception, but merely passed through her, as light traverses a

translucent substance. And finally Marcion (A. D. 140) carried the

theory to its extreme limits by declaring that Jesus was the pure Pneuma

or Spirit, who contained nothing in common with carnal humanity.

The pseudo-Pauline writers steered clear of this extravagant doctrine,

which erred by breaking entirely with historic tradition, and was

consequently soon condemned as heretical. Their language, though

unmistakably Gnostic, was sufficiently neutral and indefinite to allow

of their combination with earlier and later expositions of dogma, and

they were therefore eventually received into the canon, where they

exhibit a stage of opinion midway between that of Paul and that of the

fourth gospel.

For the construction of a durable system of Christology, still further

elaboration was necessary. The pre-existence of Jesus, as an emanation

from God, in whom were summed up the attributes of the pleroma or full

scale of Gnostic aeons, was now generally conceded. But the relation of

this pleroqma to the Godhead of which it was the visible manifestation,

needed to be more accurately defined. And here recourse was had to

the conception of the "Logos,"--a notion which Philo had borrowed

from Plato, lending to it a theosophic significance. In the Platonic

metaphysics objective existence was attributed to general terms, the

signs of general notions. Besides each particular man, horse, or tree,

and besides all men, horses, and trees, in the aggregate, there was

supposed to exist an ideal Man, Horse, and Tree. Each particular man,

horse, or tree consisted of abstract existence plus a portion of

the ideal man, horse, or tree. Sokrates, for instance, consisted of

Existence, plus Animality, plus Humanity, plus Sokraticity. The visible

world of particulars thus existed only by virtue of its participation in

the attributes of the ideal world of universals. God created the world

by encumbering each idea with an envelopment or clothing of visible

matter; and since matter is vile or imperfect, all things are more or

less perfect as they partake more or less fully of the idea. The pure

unencumbered idea, the "Idea of ideas," is the Logos, or divine Reason,

which represents the sum-total of the activities which sustain the

world, and serves as a mediator between the absolutely ideal God and

the absolutely non-ideal matter. Here we arrive at a Gnostic conception,

which the Philonists of Alexandria were not slow to appropriate. The

Logos, or divine Reason, was identified with the Sophia, or divine

Wisdom of the Jewish Gnostics, which had dwelt with God before the

creation of the world. By a subtle play upon the double meaning of the

Greek term (logos = "reason" or "word"), a distinction was drawn between

the divine Reason and the divine Word. The former was the archctypal

idea or thought of God, existing from all eternity; the latter was the

external manifestation or realization of that idea which occurred at the

moment of creation, when, according to Genesis, God SPOKE, and the world

was.

In the middle of the second century, this Philonian theory was the one

thing needful to add metaphysical precision to the Gnostic and Pauline

speculations concerning the nature of Jesus. In the writings of Justin

Martyr (A. D. 150-166), Jesus is for the first time identified with the

Philonian Logos or "Word of God." According to Justin, an impassable

abyss exists between the Infinite Deity and the Finite World; the one

cannot act upon the other; pure spirit cannot contaminate itself by

contact with impure matter. To meet this difficulty, God evolves from

himself a secondary God, the Logos,--yet without diminishing himself any

more than a flame is diminished when it gives birth to a second flame.

Thus generated, like light begotten of light (lumen de lumine), the

Logos creates the world, inspires the ancient prophets with their divine

revelations, and finally reveals himself to mankind in the person of

Christ. Yet Justin sedulously guards himself against ditheism, insisting

frequently and emphatically upon the immeasurable inferiority of the

Logos as compared with the actual God (gr o ontws qeos).

We have here reached very nearly the ultimate phase of New Testament

speculation concerning Jesus. The doctrines enunciated by Justin became

eventually, with slight modification, the official doctrines of the

Church; yet before they could thus be received, some further elaboration

was needed. The pre-existing Logos-Christ of Justin was no longer the

human Messiah of the first and third gospels, born of a woman, inspired

by the divine Pneuma, and tempted by the Devil. There was danger

that Christologic speculation might break quite loose from historic

tradition, and pass into the metaphysical extreme of Docetism. Had

this come to pass, there might perhaps have been a fatal schism in the

Church. Tradition still remained Ebionitish; dogma had become decidedly

Gnostic; how were the two to be moulded into harmony with each other?

Such was the problem which presented itself to the author of the fourth

gospel (A. D. 170-180). As M. Reville observes, "if the doctrine of the

Logos were really to be applied to the person of Jesus, it was necessary

to remodel the evangelical history." Tradition must be moulded so as

to fit the dogma, but the dogma must be restrained by tradition from

running into Docetic extravagance. It must be shown historically how

"the Word became flesh" and dwelt on earth (John i. 14), how the deeds

of Jesus of Nazareth were the deeds of the incarnate Logos, in whom was

exhibited the pleroma or fulness of the divine attributes. The author of

the fourth gospel is, like Justin, a Philonian Gnostic; but he differs

from Justin in his bold and skilful treatment of the traditional

materials supplied by the earlier gospels. The process of development in

the theories and purposes of Jesus, which can be traced throughout the

Messianic descriptions of the first gospel, is entirely obliterated

in the fourth. Here Jesus appears at the outset as the creator of the

world, descended from his glory, but destined soon to be reinstated.

The title "Son of Man" has lost its original significance, and become

synonymous with "Son of God." The temptation, the transfiguration, the

scene in Gethsemane, are omitted, and for the latter is substituted a

Philonian prayer. Nevertheless, the author carefully avoids the extremes

of Docetism or ditheism. Not only does he represent the human life

of Jesus as real, and his death as a truly physical death, but he

distinctly asserts the inferiority of the Son to the Father (John xiv.

28). Indeed, as M. Reville well observes, it is part of the very notion

of the Logos that it should be imperfect relatively to the absolute God;

since it is only its relative imperfection which allows it to sustain

relations to the world and to men which are incompatible with absolute

perfection, from the Philonian point of view. The Athanasian doctrine of

the Trinity finds no support in the fourth gospel, any more than in the

earlier books collected in the New Testament.

The fourth gospel completes the speculative revolution by which the

conception of a divine being lowered to humanity was substituted for

that of a human being raised to divinity. We have here travelled a long

distance from the risen Messiah of the genuine Pauline epistles, or

the preacher of righteousness in the first gospel. Yet it does not seem

probable that the Church of the third century was thoroughly aware of

the discrepancy. The authors of the later Christology did not regard

themselves as adding new truths to Christianity, but merely as giving a

fuller and more consistent interpretation to what must have been known

from the outset. They were so completely destitute of the historic

sense, and so strictly confined to the dogmatic point of view, that

they projected their own theories back into the past, and vituperated as

heretics those who adhered to tradition in its earlier and simpler form.

Examples from more recent times are not wanting, which show that we are

dealing here with an inveterate tendency of the human mind. New facts

and new theories are at first condemned as heretical or ridiculous; but

when once firmly established, it is immediately maintained that every

one knew them before. After the Copernican astronomy had won the day,

it was tacitly assumed that the ancient Hebrew astronomy was Copernican,

and the Biblical conception of the universe as a kind of three-story

house was ignored, and has been, except by scholars, quite forgotten.

When the geologic evidence of the earth's immense antiquity could no

longer be gainsaid, it was suddenly ascertained that the Bible had from

the outset asserted that antiquity; and in our own day we have seen

an elegant popular writer perverting the testimony of the rocks and

distorting the Elohistic cosmogony of the Pentateuch, until the twain

have been made to furnish what Bacon long ago described as "a heretical

religion and a false philosophy." Now just as in the popular thought of

the present day the ancient Elohist is accredited with a knowledge of

modern geology and astronomy, so in the opinion of the fourth evangelist

and his contemporaries the doctrine of the Logos-Christ was implicitly

contained in the Old Testament and in the early traditions concerning

Jesus, and needed only to be brought into prominence by a fresh

interpretation. Hence arose the fourth gospel, which was no more a

conscious violation of historic data than Hugh Miller's imaginative

description of the "Mosaic Vision of Creation." Its metaphysical

discourses were readily accepted as equally authentic with the Sermon

on the Mount. Its Philonian doctrines were imputed to Paul and the

apostles, the pseudo-Pauline epistles furnishing the needful texts. The

Ebionites--who were simply Judaizing Christians, holding in nearly its

original form the doctrine of Peter, James, and John--were ejected from

the Church as the most pernicious of heretics; and so completely was

their historic position misunderstood and forgotten, that, in order to

account for their existence, it became necessary to invent an eponymous

heresiarch, Ebion, who was supposed to have led them astray from the

true faith!

The Christology of the fourth gospel is substantially the same as that

which was held in the next two centuries by Tertullian, Clement of

Alexandria, Origen, and Arius. When the doctrine of the Trinity was

first announced by Sabellius (A. D. 250-260), it was formally condemned

as heretical, the Church being not yet quite prepared to receive it.

In 269 the Council of Antioch solemnly declared that the Son was NOT

consubstantial with the Father,--a declaration which, within sixty

years, the Council of Nikaia was destined as solemnly to contradict.

The Trinitarian Christology struggled long for acceptance, and did not

finally win the victory until the end of the fourth century. Yet from

the outset its ultimate victory was hardly doubtful. The peculiar

doctrines of the fourth gospel could retain their integrity only so long

as Gnostic ideas were prevalent. When Gnosticism declined in importance,

and its theories faded out of recollection, its peculiar phraseology

received of necessity a new interpretation. The doctrine that God could

not act directly upon the world sank gradually into oblivion as the

Church grew more and more hostile to the Neo-Platonic philosophy. And

when this theory was once forgotten, it was inevitable that the Logos,

as the creator of the world, should be raised to an equality or identity

with God himself. In the view of the fourth evangelist, the Creator

was necessarily inferior to God; in the view of later ages, the Creator

could be none other than God. And so the very phrases which had most

emphatically asserted the subordination of the Son were afterward

interpreted as asserting his absolute divinity. To the Gnostic formula,

lumen de lumine, was added the Athanasian scholium, Deum verum de Deo

vero; and the Trinitarian dogma of the union of persons in a single

Godhead became thus the only available logical device for preserving the

purity of monotheism.

February, 1870.

V. A WORD ABOUT MIRACLES. [24]

[24] These comments on Mr. Henry Rogers's review of M. Renan's

Les Apotres, contained in a letter to Mr. Lewes, were shortly afterwards

published by him in the Fortnightly Review, September 15, 1866.

It is the lot of every book which attempts to treat the origin and

progress of Christianity in a sober and scientific spirit, to meet

with unsparing attacks. Critics in plenty are always to be found, who,

possessed with the idea that the entire significance and value of the

Christian religion are demolished unless we regard it as a sort of

historical monstrosity, are only too eager to subject the offending

work to a scathing scrutiny, displaying withal a modicum of righteous

indignation at the unblushing heresy of the author, not unmixed with

a little scornful pity at his inability to believe very preposterous

stories upon very meagre evidence. "Conservative" polemics of this sort

have doubtless their function. They serve to purge scientific literature

of the awkward and careless statements too often made by writers not

sufficiently instructed or cautious, which in the absence of hostile

criticism might get accepted by the unthinking reader along with the

truths which they accompany. Most scientific and philosophical works

have their defects; and it is fortunate that there is such a thing as

dogmatic ardour in the world, ever sharpening its wits to the utmost,

that it may spy each lurking inaccuracy and ruthlessly drag it to light.

But this useful spirit is wont to lead those who are inspired by it to

shoot beyond the mark, and after pointing out the errors of others,

to commit fresh mistakes of their own. In the skilful criticism of M.

Renan's work on the Apostles, in No. 29 of the "Fortnightly Review"

there is now and then a vulnerable spot through which a controversial

shaft may perhaps be made to pierce.

It may be true that Lord Lyttelton's tract on the Conversion of St.

Paul, as Dr. Johnson and Dr. Rogers have said, has never yet been

refuted; but if I may judge from my own recollection of the work, I

should say that this must be because no competent writer ever thought

it worth his pains to criticize it. Its argument contains about as much

solid consistency as a distended balloon, and collapses as readily at

the first puncture. It attempts to prove, first, that the conversion of

St. Paul cannot be made intelligible except on the assumption that there

was a miracle in the case; and secondly, that if Paul was converted by a

miracle, the truth of Christianity is impregnable. Now, if the first of

these points be established, the demonstration is not yet complete, for

the second point must be proved independently. But if the first point be

overthrown, the second loses its prop, and falls likewise.

Great efforts are therefore made to show that no natural influences

could have intervened to bring about a change in the feelings of

Paul. He was violent, "thorough," unaffected by pity or remorse; and

accordingly he could not have been so completely altered as he was, had

he not actually beheld the risen Christ: such is the argument which Mr.

Rogers deems so conclusive. I do not know that from any of Paul's own

assertions we are entitled to affirm that no shade of remorse had ever

crossed his mind previous to the vision near Damascus. But waiving this

point, I do maintain that, granting Paul's feelings to have been as Mr.

Rogers thinks they were, his conversion is inexplicable, even on the

hypothesis of a miracle. He that is determined not to believe, will not

believe, though one should rise from the dead. To make Paul a believer,

it was not enough that he should meet his Lord face to face he must have

been already prepared to believe. Otherwise he would have easily found

means of explaining the miracle from his own point of view. He would

certainly have attributed it to the wiles of the demon, even as the

Pharisees are said to have done with regard to the miraculous cures

performed by Jesus. A "miraculous" occurrence in those days did not

astonish as it would at present. "Miracles" were rather the order of the

day, and in fact were lavished with such extreme bounty on all hands,

that their convincing power was very slight. Neither side ever thought

of disputing the reality of the miracles supposed to be performed on the

other; but each side considered the miracles of its antagonist to be the

work of diabolic agencies. Such being the case, it is useless to suppose

that Paul could have distinguished between a true and a false miracle,

or that a real miracle could of itself have had any effect in inducing

him to depart from his habitual course of belief and action. As far

as Paul's mental operations were concerned, it could have made no

difference whether he met with his future Master in person, or merely

encountered him in a vision. The sole point to be considered is whether

or not he BELIEVED in the Divine character and authority of the event

which had happened. What the event might have really been was of no

practical consequence to him or to any one else. What he believed it

to be was of the first importance. And since he did believe that he had

been divinely summoned to cease persecuting, and commence preaching the

new faith, it follows that his state of mind must have been more or less

affected by circumstances other than the mere vision. Had he not been

ripe for change, neither shadow nor substance could have changed him.

This view of the case is by no means so extravagant as Mr. Rogers would

have us suppose. There is no reason for believing that Paul's character

was essentially different afterwards from what it had been before.

The very fervour which caused him, as a Pharisee, to exclude all

but orthodox Jews from the hope of salvation, would lead him, as a

Christian, to carry the Christian idea to its extreme development, and

admit all persons whatever to the privileges of the Church. The same

zeal for the truth which had urged him to persecute the Christians unto

the death afterwards led him to spare no toil and shun no danger which

might bring about the triumph of their cause. It must not be forgotten

that the persecutor and the martyr are but one and the same man under

different circumstances. He who is ready to die for his own faith will

sometimes think it fair to make other men die for theirs. Men of

a vehement and fiery temperament, moreover,--such as Paul always

was,--never change their opinions slowly, never rest in philosophic

doubt, never take a middle course. If they leave one extreme for an

instant, they are drawn irresistibly to the other; and usually very

little is needed to work the change. The conversion of Omar is a

striking instance in point, and has been cited by M. Renan himself. The

character of Omar bears a strong likeness to that of Paul. Previous

to his conversion, he was a conscientious and virulent persecutor

of Mohammedanism. [25] After his conversion, he was Mohammed's

most efficient disciple, and it may be safely asserted that for

disinterestedness and self-abnegation he was not inferior to the Apostle

of the Gentiles. The change in his case was, moreover, quite as sudden

and unexpected as it was with Paul; it was neither more nor less

incomprehensible; and if Paul's conversion needs a miracle to explain

it, Omar's must need one likewise. But in truth, there is no difficulty

in the case, save that which stupid dogmatism has created. The

conversions of Paul and Omar are paralleled by innumerable events which

occur in every period of religious or political excitement. Far from

being extraordinary, or inexplicable on natural grounds, such phenomena

are just what might occasionally be looked for.

[25] Saint-Hilaire: Mahomet et le Coran, p. 109.

But, says Mr. Rogers, "is it possible for a moment to imagine the

doting and dreaming victim of hallucinations (which M. Renan's theory

represents Paul) to be the man whose masculine sense, strong logic,

practical prudence, and high administrative talent appear in the

achievements of his life, and in the Epistles he has left behind him?"

M. Renan's theory does not, however, represent Paul as the "victim of

hallucinations" to a greater degree than Mohammed. The latter, as

every one knows, laboured during much of his life under almost constant

"hallucination"; yet "masculine sense, strong logic," etc., were

qualities quite as conspicuous in him as in St. Paul.

Here, as throughout his essay, Mr. Rogers shows himself totally unable

to comprehend the mental condition of men in past ages. If an Apostle

has a dream or sees a vision, and interprets it according to the ideas

of his time and country, instead of according to the ideas of scientific

England in the nineteenth century Mr. Rogers thinks he must needs be

mad: and when according to the well-known law that mental excitement

is contagious, [26] several persons are said to have concurred in

interpreting some phenomenon supernaturally, Mr. Rogers cannot see why

so many people should all go mad at once! "To go mad," in fact is his

favourite designation for a mental act, which nearly all the human race

have habitually performed in all ages; the act of mistaking subjective

impressions for outward realities. The disposition to regard all strange

phenomena as manifestations of supernatural power was universally

prevalent in the first century of Christianity, and long after. Neither

greatness of intellect nor thoroughness of scepticism gave exemption.

Even Julius Caesar, the greatest practical genius that ever lived,

was somewhat superstitious, despite his atheism and his Vigorous

common-sense. It is too often argued that the prevalence of scepticism

in the Roman Empire must have made men scrupulous about accepting

miracles. By no means. Nothing but physical science ever drives out

miracles: mere doctrinal scepticism is powerless to do it. In the age

of the Apostles, little if any radical distinction was drawn between a

miracle and an ordinary occurrence. No one supposed a miracle to be an

infraction of the laws of nature, for no one had a clear idea that

there were such things as laws of nature. A miracle was simply an

extraordinary act, exhibiting the power of the person who performed it.

Blank, indeed, would the evangelists have looked, had any one told them

what an enormous theory of systematic meddling with nature was destined

to grow out of their beautiful and artless narratives.

[26] Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages, pp. 87-152.

The incapacity to appreciate this frame of mind renders the current

arguments in behalf of miracles utterly worthless. From the fact that

Celsus and others never denied the reality of the Christian miracles,

it is commonly inferred that those miracles must have actually happened.

The same argument would, however, equally apply to the miracles of

Apollonius and Simon Magus, for the Christians never denied the reality

of these. What these facts really prove is that the state of human

intelligence was as I have just described it: and the inference to be

drawn from them is that no miraculous account emanating from an author

of such a period is worthy of serious attention. When Mr. Rogers

supposes that if the miracles had not really happened they would have

been challenged, he is assuming that a state of mind existed in which

it was possible for miracles to be challenged; and thus commits an

anachronism as monstrous as if he had attributed the knowledge of some

modern invention, such as steamboats, to those early ages.

Mr. Rogers seems to complain of M. Renan for "quietly assuming" that

miracles are invariably to be rejected. Certainly a historian of the

present day who should not make such an assumption would betray his lack

of the proper qualifications for his profession. It is not considered

necessary for every writer to begin his work by setting out to prove the

first principles of historical criticism. They are taken for granted.

And, as M. Renan justly says, a miracle is one of those things which

must be disbelieved until it is proved. The onus probandi lies on

the assertor of a fact which conflicts with universal experience.

Nevertheless, the great number of intelligent persons who, even now,

from dogmatic reasons, accept the New Testament miracles, forbids that

they should be passed over in silence like similar phenomena elsewhere

narrated. But, in the present state of historical science, the arguing

against miracles is, as Colet remarked of his friend Erasmus's warfare

against the Thomists and Scotists of Cambridge, "a contest more

necessary than glorious or difficult." To be satisfactorily established,

a miracle needs at least to be recorded by an eyewitness; and the mental

attainments of the witness need to be thoroughly known besides. Unless

he has a clear conception of the difference between the natural and the

unnatural order of events, his testimony, however unimpeachable on the

score of honesty, is still worthless. To say that this condition was

fulfilled by those who described the New Testament miracles, would be

absurd. And in the face of what German criticism has done for the early

Christian documents, it would be an excess of temerity to assert

that any one of the supernatural accounts contained in them rests on

contemporary authority. Of all history, the miraculous part should be

attested by the strongest testimony, whereas it is invariably

attested by the weakest. And the paucity of miracles wherever we have

contemporary records, as in the case of primitive Islamism, is a most

significant fact.

In attempting to defend his principle of never accepting a miracle,

M. Renan has indeed got into a sorry plight, and Mr. Rogers, in

controverting him, has not greatly helped the matter. By stirring M.

Renan's bemuddled pool, Mr. Rogers has only bemuddled it the more.

Neither of these excellent writers seems to suspect that transmutation

of species, the geologic development of the earth, and other like

phenomena do not present features conflicting with ordinary experience.

Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Darwin would be greatly astonished to be told

that their theories of inorganic and organic evolution involved any

agencies not known to exist in the present course of nature. The great

achievement of these writers has been to show that all past changes of

the earth and its inhabitants are to be explained as resulting from

the continuous action of causes like those now in operation, and that

throughout there has been nothing even faintly resembling a miracle.

M. Renan may feel perfectly safe in extending his principle back to the

beginning of things; and Mr. Rogers's argument, even if valid against M.

Renan, does not help his own case in the least.

On some points, indeed, M. Renan has laid himself open to severe

criticism, and on other points he has furnished good handles for his

orthodox opponents. His views in regard to the authorship of the Fourth

Gospel and the Acts are not likely to be endorsed by many scholars; and

his revival of the rationalistic absurdities of Paulus merits in most

instances all that Mr. Rogers has said about it. As was said at the

outset, orthodox criticisms upon heterodox books are always welcome.

They do excellent service. And with the feeling which impels their

authors to defend their favourite dogmas with every available weapon of

controversy I for one can heartily sympathize. Their zeal in upholding

what they consider the truth is greatly to be respected and admired. But

so much cannot always be said for the mode of argumentation they

adopt, which too often justifies M. Renan's description, when he says,

"Raisonnements triomphants sur des choses que l'adversaire n'a pas

dites, cris de victoire sur des erreurs qu'il n'a pas commises, rien ne

parait deloyal a celui qui croft tenir en main les interets de la verite

absolue."

August, 1866.

VI. DRAPER ON SCIENCE AND RELIGION. [27]

[27] History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, by

John William Draper, M. D., LL. D. Fourth edition. New York: D. Appleton

& Co. 1875. 12mo, pp. xxii., 373. (International Scientific Series,

XII.)

Some twelve years ago, Dr. Draper published a bulky volume entitled

"A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe," in which his

professed purpose was to show that nations or races pass through certain

definable epochs of development, analogous to the periods of infancy,

childhood, youth, manhood, and old age in individuals. But while

announced with due formality, the carrying out of the argument was left

for the most part to the headings and running-titles of the several

chapters, while in the text the author peacefully meandered along down

the stream of time, giving us a succession of pleasant though somewhat

threadbare anecdotes, as well as a superabundance of detached and

fragmentary opinions on divers historical events, having apparently

quite forgotten that he had started with a thesis to prove. In the

arrangement of his "running heads," some points were sufficiently

curious to require a word of explanation, as, for example, when the

early ages of Christianity were at one time labelled as an epoch

of progress and at another time as an epoch of decrepitude. But the

argument and the contents never got so far en rapport with each other as

to clear up such points as this. On the contrary, each kept on the even

tenour of its way without much regard to the other. From the titles of

the chapters one was led to expect some comprehensive theory of European

civilization continuously expounded. But the text merely showed a

great quantity of superficial and second-hand information, serving

to illustrate the mental idiosyncrasies of the author. Among these

idiosyncrasies might be noted a very inadequate understanding of the

part played by Rome in the work of civilization, a singular lack of

appreciation of the political and philosophical achievements of Greece

under Athenian leadership, a strong hostility to the Catholic Church,

a curious disposition to overrate semi-barbarous, or abortive

civilizations, such as those of the old Asiatic and native

American communities, at the expense of Europe, and, above all, an

undiscriminating admiration for everything, great or small, that has

ever worn the garb of Islam or been associated with the career of the

Saracens. The discovery that in some respects the Mussulmans of

the Middle Ages were more highly cultivated than their Christian

contemporaries, has made such an impression on Dr. Draper's mind that it

seems to be as hard for him to get rid of it as it was for Mr. Dick to

keep the execution of Charles I. out of his "Memorial." Even in an

essay on the "Civil Policy of America," the turbaned sage figures quite

prominently; and it is needless to add that he reappears, as large as

life, when the subject of discussion is the attitude of science toward

religion.

Speaking briefly with regard to this matter, we may freely admit that

the work done by the Arabs, in scientific inquiry as well as in the

making of events, was very considerable. It was a work, too, the value

of which is not commonly appreciated in the accounts of European history

written for the general reader, and we have no disposition to find fault

with Dr. Draper for describing it with enthusiasm. The philosophers of

Bagdad and Cordova did excellent service in keeping alive the traditions

of Greek physical inquiry at a time when Christian thinkers were too

exclusively occupied with transcendental speculations in theology and

logic. In some departments, as in chemistry and astronomy, they made

original discoveries of considerable value; and if we turn from abstract

knowledge to the arts of life, it cannot be denied that the mediaeval

Mussulmans had reached a higher plane of material comfort than their

Christian contemporaries. In short, the work of all kinds done by these

people would furnish the judicious advocate of the claims of the Semitic

race with materials for a pleasing and instructive picture. Dr. Draper,

however, errs, though no doubt unintentionally, by so presenting the

case as to leave upon the reader's mind the impression that all this

scientific and practical achievement was the work of Islamism, and that

the Mohammedan civilization was of a higher type than the Christian. It

is with an apparent feeling of regret that he looks upon the ousting

of the Moors from dominion in Spain; but this is a mistaken view. As

regards the first point, it is a patent fact that scientific inquiry was

conducted at the cost of as much theological obloquy in the Mohammedan

as in the Christian world. It is true there was more actual tolerance of

heresy on the part of Moslem governments than was customary in Europe in

those days; but this is a superficial fact, which does not indicate any

superiority in Moslem popular sentiment. The caliphate or emirate was

a truly absolute despotism, such as the Papacy has never been, and the

conduct of a sceptical emir in encouraging scientific inquiry goes

but little way toward proving anything like a general prevalence

of tolerance or of free-thinking. And this brings us to the second

point,--that Mohammedan civilization was, on the whole, rather a

skin-deep affair. It was superficial because of that extreme severance

between government and people which has never existed in European

nations within historic times, but which has always existed among the

principal races that have professed Moslemism. Nowhere in the Mohammedan

world has there ever been what we call a national life, and nowhere

do we find in its records any trace of such an intellectual impulse,

thrilling through every fibre of the people and begetting prodigious

achievements in art, poetry, and philosophy, as was awakened in Europe

in the thirteenth century and again in the fifteenth. Under the peculiar

form of unlimited material and spiritual despotism exemplified in the

caliphate, a few men may discover gases or comment on Aristotle, but no

general movement toward political progress or philosophical inquiry

is possible. Such a society is rigid and inorganic at bottom, whatever

scanty signs of flexibility and life it may show at the surface. There

is no better illustration of this, when well considered, than the fact

that Moorish civilization remained, politically and intellectually, a

mere excrescence in Spain, after having been fastened down over half the

country for nearly eight centuries.

But we are in danger of forgetting our main theme, as Dr. Draper seems

to do, while we linger with him over these interesting wayside topics.

We may perhaps be excused, however, if we have not yet made any very

explicit allusion to the "Conflict between Religion and Science,"

because this work seems to be in the main a repetition en petit of the

"Intellectual Development of Europe," and what we have said will apply

as well to one as to the other. In the little book, as in the big one,

we hear a great deal about the Arabs, and something about Columbus and

Galileo, who made men accept sundry truths in the teeth of clerical

opposition; and, as before, we float gently down the current of history

without being over well-informed as to the precise didactic purpose of

our voyage. Here, indeed, even our headings and running-titles do not

materially help us, for though we are supposed to be witnessing,

or mayhap assisting in, a perennial conflict between "science" and

"religion," we are nowhere enlightened as to what the cause or character

of this conflict is, nor are we enabled to get a good look at either of

the parties to the strife. With regard to it "religion" especially are

we left in the dark. What this dreadful thing is towards which "science"

is always playing the part of Herakles towards the Lernaean Hydra, we

are left to gather from the course of the narrative. Yet, in a book with

any valid claim to clearsightedness, one would think such a point as

this ought to receive very explicit preliminary treatment.

The course of the narrative, however, leaves us in little doubt as to

what Dr. Draper means by a conflict between science and religion. When

he enlarges on the trite story of Galileo, and alludes to the more

modern quarrel between the Church and the geologists, and does this

in the belief that he is thereby illustrating an antagonism between

religion and science, it is obvious that he identifies the cause of

the anti-geologists and the persecutors of Galileo with the cause

of religion. The word "religion" is to him a symbol which stands for

unenlightened bigotry or narrow-minded unwillingness to look facts in

the face. Such a conception of religion is common enough, and unhappily

a great deal has been done to strengthen it by the very persons to whom

the interests of religion are presumed to be a professional care. It

is nevertheless a very superficial conception, and no book which is

vitiated by it can have much philosophic value. It is simply the crude

impression which, in minds unaccustomed to analysis, is left by the fact

that theologians and other persons interested in religion are usually

alarmed at new scientific truths, and resist them with emotions so

highly wrought that they are not only incapable of estimating evidence,

but often also have their moral sense impaired, and fight with foul

means when fair ones fail. If we reflect carefully on this class of

phenomena, we shall see that something besides mere pride of opinion is

involved in the struggle. At the bottom of changing theological beliefs

there lies something which men perennially value, and for the sake of

which they cling to the beliefs as long as possible. That which they

value is not itself a matter of belief, but it is a matter of conduct;

it is the searching after goodness,--after a higher life than the mere

satisfaction of individual desires. All animals seek for fulness

of life; but in civilized man this craving has acquired a moral

significance, and has become a spiritual aspiration; and this emotional

tendency, more or less strong in the human race, we call religious

feeling or religion. Viewed in this light, religion is not only

something that mankind is never likely to get rid of, but it is

incomparably the most noble as well as the most useful attribute of

humanity.

Now, this emotional prompting toward completeness of life requires, of

course, that conduct should be guided, as far as possible, in accordance

with a true theory of the relations of man to the world in which he

lives. Hence, at any given era the religious feeling will always be

found enlisted in behalf of some theory of the universe. At any time,

whatever may be their shortcomings in practice, religious men will aim

at doing right according to their conceptions of the order of the

world. If men's conceptions of the order of nature remained constant, no

apparent conflict between their religious feelings and their knowledge

need ever arise. But with the first advance in our knowledge of nature

the case is altered. New and strange theories are naturally regarded

with fear and dislike by persons who have always been accustomed to

find the sanction and justification of their emotional prompting toward

righteousness in old familiar theories which the new ones are seeking to

supplant. Such persons oppose the new doctrine because their engrained

mental habits compel them to believe that its establishment will in some

way lower men's standard of life, and make them less careful of their

spiritual welfare. This is the case, at all events, when theologians

oppose scientific conclusions on religious grounds, and not simply from

mental dulness or rigidity. And, in so far as it is religious feeling

which thus prompts resistance to scientific innovation, it may be said,

with some appearance of truth, that there is a conflict between religion

and science.

But there must always be two parties to a quarrel, and our statement

has to be modified as soon as we consider what the scientific innovator

impugns. It is not the emotional prompting toward righteousness, it

is not the yearning to live im Guten, Ganzen, Wahren, that he seeks to

weaken; quite likely he has all this as much at heart as the theologian

who vituperates him. Nor is it true that his discoveries, in spite of

him, tend to destroy this all-important mental attitude. It would be

ridiculous to say that the fate of religious feeling is really involved

in the fate of grotesque cosmogonies and theosophies framed in the

infancy of men's knowledge of nature; for history shows us quite the

contrary. Religious feeling has survived the heliocentric theory and

the discoveries of geologists; and it will be none the worse for the

establishment of Darwinism. It is the merest truism to say that religion

strikes its roots deeper down into human nature than speculative

opinion, and is accordingly independent of any particular set of

beliefs. Since, then, the scientific innovator does not, either

voluntarily or involuntarily, attack religion, it follows that there

can be no such "conflict" as that of which Dr. Draper has undertaken to

write the history. The real contest is between one phase of science

and another; between the more-crude knowledge of yesterday and the

less-crude knowledge of to-day. The contest, indeed, as presented in

history, is simply the measure of the difficulty which men find in

exchanging old views for new ones. All along, the practical question has

been, whether we should passively acquiesce in the crude generalizations

of our ancestors or venture actively to revise them. But as for the

religious sentiment, the perennial struggle in which it has been engaged

has not been with scientific inquiry, but with the selfish propensities

whose tendency is to make men lead the lives of brutes.

The time is at hand when the interests of religion can no longer be

supposed to be subserved by obstinate adherence to crude speculations

bequeathed to us from pre-scientific antiquity. One good result of the

doctrine of evolution, which is now gaining sway in all departments of

thought, is the lesson that all our opinions must be held subject

to continual revision, and that with none of them can our religious

interests be regarded as irretrievably implicated. To any one who

has once learned this lesson, a book like Dr. Draper's can be neither

interesting nor useful. He who has not learned it can derive little

benefit from a work which in its very title keeps open an old and

baneful source of error and confusion.

November. 1875.

VII. NATHAN THE WISE. [28]

[28] Nathan the Wise: A Dramatic Poem, by Gotthold Ephraim

Lessing. Translated by Ellen Frothingham. Preceded by a brief account

of the poet and his works, and followed by an essay on the poem by Kuno

Fischer. Second edition. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1868.

Le Christianisme Moderne, etude sur Lessing. Par Ernest Fontanes. Paris:

Bailliere. 1867.

The fame of Lessing is steadily growing. Year by year he is valued more

highly, and valued by a greater number of people. And he is destined,

like his master and forerunner Spinoza, to receive a yet larger share of

men's reverence and gratitude when the philosophic spirit which he lived

to illustrate shall have become in some measure the general possession

of the civilized part of mankind. In his own day, Lessing, though widely

known and greatly admired, was little understood or appreciated. He was

known to be a learned antiquarian, a terrible controversialist, and an

incomparable writer. He was regarded as a brilliant ornament to Germany;

and a paltry Duke of Brunswick thought a few hundred thalers well spent

in securing the glory of having such a man to reside at his provincial

court. But the majority of Lessing's contemporaries understood him as

little perhaps as did the Duke of Brunswick. If anything were needed to

prove this, it would be the uproar which was made over the publication

of the "Wolfenbuttel Fragments," and the curious exegesis which was

applied to the poem of "Nathan" on its first appearance. In order to

understand the true character of this great poem, and of Lessing's

religious opinions as embodied in it, it will be necessary first to

consider the memorable theological controversy which preceded it.

During Lessing's residence at Hamburg, he had come into possession of

a most important manuscript, written by Hermann Samuel Reimarus, a

professor of Oriental languages, and bearing the title of an "Apology

for the Rational Worshippers of God." Struck with the rigorous logic

displayed in its arguments, and with the quiet dignity of its style,

while yet unable to accept its most general conclusions, Lessing

resolved to publish the manuscript, accompanying it with his own

comments and strictures. Accordingly in 1774, availing himself of the

freedom from censorship enjoyed by publications drawn from manuscripts

deposited in the Ducal Library at Wolfenbuttel, of which he was

librarian, Lessing published the first portion of this work, under the

title of "Fragments drawn from the Papers of an Anonymous Writer."

This first Fragment, on the "Toleration of Deists," awakened but little

opposition; for the eighteenth century, though intolerant enough, did

not parade its bigotry, but rather saw fit to disclaim it. A hundred

years before, Rutherford, in his "Free Disputation," had declared

"toleration of alle religions to bee not farre removed from blasphemie."

Intolerance was then a thing to be proud of, but in Lessing's time some

progress had been achieved, and men began to think it a good thing to

seem tolerant. The succeeding Fragments were to test this liberality

and reveal the flimsiness of the stuff of which it was made. When the

unknown disputant began to declare "the impossibility of a revelation

upon which all men can rest a solid faith," and when he began to

criticize the evidences of Christ's resurrection, such a storm burst out

in the theological world of Germany as had not been witnessed since

the time of Luther. The recent Colenso controversy in England was but

a gentle breeze compared to it. Press and pulpit swarmed with

"refutations," in which weakness of argument and scantiness of erudition

were compensated by strength of acrimony and unscrupulousness of

slander. Pamphlets and sermons, says M. Fontanes, "were multiplied, to

denounce the impious blasphemer, who, destitute alike of shame and of

courage, had sheltered himself behind a paltry fiction, in order to let

loose upon society an evil spirit of unbelief." But Lessing's artifice

had been intended to screen the memory of Reimarus, rather than his

own reputation. He was not the man to quail before any amount of human

opposition; and it was when the tempest of invective was just at its

height that he published the last and boldest Fragment of all,--on "the

Designs of Jesus and his Disciples."

The publication of these Fragments led to a mighty controversy. The most

eminent, both for uncompromising zeal and for worldly position, of those

who had attacked Lessing, was Melchior Goetze, "pastor primarius" at the

Hamburg Cathedral. Though his name is now remembered only because of

his connection with Lessing, Goetze was not destitute of learning and

ability. He was a collector of rare books, an amateur in numismatics,

and an antiquarian of the narrow-minded sort. Lessing had known him

while at Hamburg, and had visited him so constantly as to draw forth

from his friends malicious insinuations as to the excellence of

the pastor's white wine. Doubtless Lessing, as a wise man, was not

insensible to the attractions of good Moselle; but that which he chiefly

liked in this theologian was his logical and rigorously consistent turn

of mind. "He always," says M. Fontanes, "cherished a holy horror of

loose, inconsequent thinkers; and the man of the past, the inexorable

guardian of tradition, appeared to him far more worthy of respect than

the heterodox innovator who stops in mid-course, and is faithful neither

to reason nor to faith."

But when Lessing published these unhallowed Fragments, the hour of

conflict had sounded, and Goetze cast himself into the arena with a

boldness and impetuosity which Lessing, in his artistic capacity, could

not fail to admire. He spared no possible means of reducing his enemy to

submission. He aroused against him all the constituted authorities,

the consistories, and even the Aulic Council of the Empire, and he

even succeeded in drawing along with him the chief of contemporary

rationalists, Semler, who so far forgot himself as to declare that

Lessing, for what he had done, deserved to be sent to the madhouse. But

with all Goetze's orthodox valour, he was no match for the antagonist

whom he had excited to activity. The great critic replied with pamphlet

after pamphlet, invincible in logic and erudition, sparkling with wit,

and irritating in their utter coolness. Such pamphlets had not been seen

since Pascal published the "Provincial Letters." Goetze found that

he had taken up arms against a master in the arts of controversy, and

before long he became well aware that he was worsted. Having brought

the case before the Aulic Council, which consisted in great part of

Catholics, the stout pastor, forgetting that judgment had not yet been

rendered, allowed himself to proclaim that all who do not recognize

the Bible as the only source of Christianity are not fit to be called

Christians at all. Lessing was not slow to profit by this unlucky

declaration. Questioned, with all manner of ferocious vituperation, by

Goetze, as to what sort of Christianity might have existed prior to

and independently of the New Testament canon, Lessing imperturbably

answered: "By the Christian religion I mean all the confessions of faith

contained in the collection of creeds of the first four centuries of the

Christian Church, including, if you wish it, the so-called creed of

the apostles, as well as the creed of Athanasius. The content of these

confessions is called by the earlier Fathers the regula fidei, or rule

of faith. This rule of faith is not drawn from the writings of the New

Testament. It existed before any of the books in the New Testament were

written. It sufficed not only for the first Christians of the age of the

apostles, but for their descendants during four centuries. And it is,

therefore, the veritable foundation upon which the Church of Christ is

built; a foundation not based upon Scripture." Thus, by a master-stroke,

Lessing secured the adherence of the Catholics constituting a majority

of the Aulic Council of the Empire. Like Paul before him, he divided the

Sanhedrim. So that Goetze, foiled in his attempts at using violence, and

disconcerted by the patristic learning of one whom he had taken to be a

mere connoisseur in art and writer of plays for the theatre, concluded

that discretion was the surest kind of valour, and desisted from further

attacks.

Lessing's triumph came opportunely; for already the ministry of

Brunswick had not only confiscated the Fragments, but had prohibited

him from publishing anything more on the subject without first obtaining

express authority to do so. His last replies to Goetze were published

at Hamburg; and as he held himself in readiness to depart from

Wolfenbuttel, he wrote to several friends that he had conceived the

design of a drama, with which he would tear the theologians in pieces

more than with a dozen Fragments. "I will try and see," said he, "if

they will let me preach in peace from my old pulpit, the theatre." In

this way originated "Nathan the Wise." But it in no way answered to the

expectations either of Lessing's friends or of his enemies. Both the one

and the other expected to see the controversy with Goetze carried on,

developed, and generalized in the poem. They looked for a satirical

comedy, in which orthodoxy should be held up for scathing ridicule, or

at least for a direful tragedy, the moral of which, like that of the

great poem of Lucretius, should be

"Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum."

Had Lessing produced such a poem, he would doubtless have gratified

his free-thinking friends and wreaked due literary vengeance upon

his theological persecutors. He would, perhaps, have given articulate

expression to the radicalism of his own time, and, like Voltaire, might

have constituted himself the leader of the age, the incarnation of its

most conspicuous tendencies. But Lessing did nothing of the kind; and

the expectations formed of him by friends and enemies alike show how

little he was understood by either. "Nathan the Wise" was, as we shall

see, in the eighteenth century an entirely new phenomenon; and its

author was the pioneer of a quite new religious philosophy.

Reimarus, the able author of the Fragments, in his attack upon the

evidences of revealed religion, had taken the same ground as Voltaire

and the old English deists. And when we have said this, we have

sufficiently defined his position, for the tenets of the deists are at

the present day pretty well known, and are, moreover, of very little

vital importance, having long since been supplanted by a more just

and comprehensive philosophy. Reimarus accepted neither miracles nor

revelation; but in accordance with the rudimentary state of criticism in

his time, he admitted the historical character of the earliest Christian

records, and was thus driven to the conclusion that those writings must

have been fraudulently composed. How such a set of impostors as the

apostles must on this hypothesis have been, should have succeeded in

inspiring large numbers of their contemporaries with higher and grander

religious notions than had ever before been conceived; how they should

have laid the foundations of a theological system destined to hold

together the most enlightened and progressive portion of human society

for seventeen or eighteen centuries,--does not seem to have entered his

mind. Against such attacks as this, orthodoxy was comparatively safe;

for whatever doubt might be thrown upon some of its leading dogmas,

the system as a whole was more consistent and rational than any of

the theories which were endeavouring to supplant it. And the fact that

nearly all the great thinkers of the eighteenth century adopted this

deistic hypothesis, shows, more than anything else, the crudeness of

their psychological knowledge, and their utter lack of what is called

"the historical sense."

Lessing at once saw the weak point in Reimarus's argument, but his

method of disposing of it differed signally from that adopted by his

orthodox contemporaries. The more advanced German theologians of that

day, while accepting the New Testament records as literally historical,

were disposed to rationalize the accounts of miracles contained in them,

in such a way as to get rid of any presumed infractions of the laws of

nature. This method of exegesis, which reached its perfection in Paulus,

is too well known to need describing. Its unsatisfactory character was

clearly shown, thirty years ago, by Strauss, and it is now generally

abandoned, though some traces of it may still be seen in the recent

works of Renan. Lessing steadily avoided this method of interpretation.

He had studied Spinoza to some purpose, and the outlines of Biblical

criticism laid down by that remarkable thinker Lessing developed into

a system wonderfully like that now adopted by the Tubingen school. The

cardinal results which Baur has reached within the past generation were

nearly all hinted at by Lessing, in his commentaries on the Fragments.

The distinction between the first three, or synoptic gospels, and the

fourth, the later age of the fourth, and the method of composition of

the first three, from earlier documents and from oral tradition, are

all clearly laid down by him. The distinct points of view from which

the four accounts were composed, are also indicated,--the Judaizing

disposition of "Matthew," the Pauline sympathies of "Luke," the

compromising or Petrine tendencies of "Mark," and the advanced Hellenic

character of "John." Those best acquainted with the results of modern

criticism in Germany will perhaps be most surprised at finding such

speculations in a book written many years before either Strauss or Baur

were born.

But such results, as might have been expected, did not satisfy the

pastor Goetze or the public which sympathized with him. The valiant

pastor unhesitatingly declared that he read the objections which

Lessing opposed to the Fragmentist with more horror and disgust than

the Fragments themselves; and in the teeth of the printed comments

he declared that the editor was craftily upholding his author in his

deistical assault upon Christian theology. The accusation was unjust,

because untrue. There could be no genuine cooperation between a mere

iconoclast like Reimarus, and a constructive critic like Lessing. But

the confusion was not an unnatural one on Goetze's part, and I cannot

agree with M. Fontanes in taking it as convincing proof of the pastor's

wrong-headed perversity. It appears to me that Goetze interpreted

Lessing's position quite as accurately as M. Fontanes. The latter

writer thinks that Lessing was a Christian of the liberal school since

represented by Theodore Parker in this country and by M. Reville in

France; that his real object was to defend and strengthen the Christian

religion by relieving it of those peculiar doctrines which to the

freethinkers of his time were a stumbling-block and an offence. And, in

spite of Lessing's own declarations, he endeavours to show that he was

an ordinary theist,--a follower of Leibnitz rather than of Spinoza. But

I do not think he has made out his case. Lessing's own confession to

Jacobi is unequivocal enough, and cannot well be argued away. In that

remarkable conversation, held toward the close of his life, he indicates

clearly enough that his faith was neither that of the ordinary theist,

the atheist, nor the pantheist, but that his religious theory of the

universe was identical with that suggested by Spinoza, adopted by

Goethe, and recently elaborated in the first part of the "First

Principles" of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Moreover, while Lessing cannot be

considered an antagonist of Christianity, neither did he assume the

attitude of a defender. He remained outside the theological arena;

looking at theological questions from the point of view of a layman, or

rather, as M. Cherbuliez has happily expressed it, of a Pagan. His mind

was of decidedly antique structure. He had the virtues of paganism:

its sanity, its calmness, and its probity; but of the tenderness of

Christianity, and its quenchless aspirations after an indefinable ideal,

of that feeling which has incarnated itself in Gothic cathedrals, masses

and oratorios, he exhibited but scanty traces. His intellect was above

all things self-consistent and incorruptible. He had that imperial

good-sense which might have formed the ideal alike of Horace and of

Epictetus. No clandestine preference for certain conclusions could make

his reason swerve from the straight paths of logic. And he examined and

rejected the conclusions of Reimarus in the same imperturbable spirit

with which he examined and rejected the current theories of the French

classic drama.

Such a man can have had but little in common with a preacher like

Theodore Parker, or with a writer like M. Fontanes, whose whole book is

a noble specimen of lofty Christian eloquence. His attribute was light,

not warmth. He scrutinized, but did not attack or defend. He recognized

the transcendent merits of the Christian faith, but made no attempt to

reinstate it where it had seemed to suffer shock. It was therefore with

the surest of instincts, with that same instinct of self-preservation

which had once led the Church to anathematize Galileo, that Goetze.

proclaimed Lessing a more dangerous foe to orthodoxy than the deists

who had preceded him. Controversy, he doubtless thought, may be kept

up indefinitely, and blows given and returned forever; but before the

steady gaze of that scrutinizing eye which one of us shall find himself

able to stand erect? It has become fashionable to heap blame and

ridicule upon those who violently defend an antiquated order of things;

and Goetze has received at the hands of posterity his full share of

abuse. His wrath contrasted unfavourably with Lessing's calmness; and it

was his misfortune to have taken up arms against an opponent who always

knew how to keep the laugh upon his own side. For my own part I am

constrained to admire the militant pastor, as Lessing himself admired

him. From an artistic point of view he is not an uninteresting figure

to contemplate. And although his attempts to awaken persecution were

reprehensible, yet his ardour in defending what he believed to be vital

truth is none the less to be respected. He had the acuteness to see that

Lessing's refutation of deism did not make him a Christian, while the

new views proposed as a substitute for those of Reimarus were such as

Goetze and his age could in no wise comprehend.

Lessing's own views of dogmatic religion are to be found in his work

entitled, "The Education of the Human Race." These views have since so

far become the veriest commonplaces of criticism, that one can hardly

realize that, only ninety years ago, they should have been regarded as

dangerous paradoxes. They may be summed up in the statement that all

great religions are good in their time and place; that, "as there is

a soul of goodness in things evil, so also there is a soul of truth

in things erroneous." According to Lessing, the successive phases of

religious belief constitute epochs in the mental evolution of the human

race. So that the crudest forms of theology, even fetishism, now to

all appearance so utterly revolting, and polytheism, so completely

inadequate, have once been the best, the natural and inevitable results

of man's reasoning powers and appliances for attaining truth. The

mere fact that a system of religious thought has received the willing

allegiance of large masses of men shows that it must have supplied some

consciously felt want, some moral or intellectual craving. And the

mere fact that knowledge and morality are progressive implies that each

successive system may in due course of time be essentially modified or

finally supplanted. The absence of any reference to a future state of

retribution, in the Pentateuch and generally in the sacred writings

of the Jews, and the continual appeal to hopes and fears of a worldly

character, have been pronounced by deists an irremediable defect in

the Jewish religion. It is precisely this, however, says Lessing, which

constitutes one of its signal excellences. "That thy days may be long

in the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee," was an appeal which the

uncivilized Jew could understand, and which could arouse him to action;

while the need of a future world, to rectify the injustices of this, not

yet being felt, the doctrine would have been of but little service.

But in later Hebrew literature, many magnificent passages revealed the

despair felt by prophet and thinker over the insoluble problem presented

by the evil fate of the good and the triumphant success of the wicked;

and a solution was sought in the doctrine of a Messianic kingdom, until

Christianity with its proclamation of a future life set the

question entirely aside. By its appeal to what has been aptly termed

"other-worldliness," Christianity immeasurably intensified human

responsibility, besides rendering clearer its nature and limits. But

according to Lessing, yet another step remains to be taken; and here we

come upon the gulf which separates him from men of the stamp of

Theodore Parker. For, says Lessing, the appeal to unearthly rewards

and punishments is after all an appeal to our lower feelings;

other-worldliness is but a refined selfishness; and we are to cherish

virtue for its own sake not because it will lead us to heaven. Here is

the grand principle of Stoicism. Lessing believed, with Mr. Mill, that

the less we think about getting rewarded either on earth or in heaven

the better. He was cast in the same heroic mould as Muhamad Efendi, who

when led to the stake exclaimed: "Though I have no hope of recompense

hereafter, yet the love of truth constraineth me to die in its defence!"

With the truth or completeness of these views of Lessing we are not here

concerned; our business being not to expound our own opinions, but

to indicate as clearly as possible Lessing's position. Those who are

familiar with the general philosophical spirit of the present age,

as represented by writers otherwise so different as Littre and

Sainte-Beuve, will best appreciate the power and originality of these

speculations. Coming in the last century, amid the crudities of deism,

they made a well-defined epoch. They inaugurated the historical method

of criticism, and they robbed the spirit of intolerance of its only

philosophical excuse for existing. Hitherto the orthodox had been

intolerant toward the philosophers because they considered them

heretics; and the philosophers had been intolerant toward the orthodox

because they considered them fools. To Voltaire it naturally seemed

that a man who could believe in the reality of miracles must be what in

French is expressively termed a sot. But henceforth, to the disciple of

Lessing, men of all shade of opinion were but the representatives

and exponents of different phases in the general evolution of human

intelligence, not necessarily to be disliked or despised if they did not

happen to represent the maturest phase.

Religion, therefore, from this point of view, becomes clearly demarcated

from theology. It consists no longer in the mental assent to certain

prescribed formulas, but in the moral obedience to the great rule of

life; the great commandment laid down and illustrated by the Founder

of the Christian religion, and concerning which the profoundest modern

philosophy informs us that the extent to which a society has learned

to conform to it is the test and gauge of the progress in civilization

which that society has achieved. The command "to love one another," to

check the barbarous impulses inherited from the pre-social state, while

giving free play to the beneficent impulses needful for the ultimate

attainment of social equilibrium,--or as Tennyson phrases it, to "move

upward, working out the beast, and letting the ape and tiger die,"--was,

in Lessing's view, the task set before us by religion. The true

religious feeling was thus, in his opinion, what the author of "Ecce

Homo" has finely termed "the enthusiasm of humanity." And we shall find

no better language than that of the writer just mentioned, in which to

describe Lessing's conception of faith:--

"He who, when goodness is impressively put before him, exhibits an

instinctive loyalty to it, starts forward to take its side, trusts

himself to it, such a man has faith, and the root of the matter is

in such a man. He may have habits of vice, but the loyal and faithful

instinct in him will place him above many that practice virtue. He may

be rude in thought and character, but he will unconsciously gravitate

toward what is right. Other virtues can scarcely thrive without a fine

natural organization and a happy training. But the most neglected and

ungifted of men may make a beginning with faith. Other virtues want

civilization, a certain amount of knowledge, a few books; but in

half-brutal countenances faith will light up a glimmer of nobleness.

The savage, who can do little else, can wonder and worship and

enthusiastically obey. He who cannot know what is right can know that

some one else knows; he who has no law may still have a master; he who

is incapable of justice may be capable of fidelity; he who understands

little may have his sins forgiven because he loves much."

Such was Lessing's religion, so far as it can be ascertained from the

fragmentary writings which he has left on the subject. Undoubtedly it

lacked completeness. The opinions which we have here set down, though

constituting something more than a mere theory of morality, certainly

do not constitute a complete theory of religion. Our valiant knight has

examined but one side of the shield,--the bright side, turned toward us,

whose marvellous inscriptions the human reason can by dint of unwearied

effort decipher. But the dark side, looking out upon infinity, and

covered with hieroglyphics the meaning of which we can never know,

he has quite forgotten to consider. Yet it is this side which genuine

religious feeling ever seeks to contemplate. It is the consciousness

that there is about us an omnipresent Power, in which we live and move

and have our being, eternally manifesting itself throughout the whole

range of natural phenomena, which has ever disposed men to be religious,

and lured them on in the vain effort to construct adequate theological

systems. We may, getting rid of the last traces of fetishism, eliminate

arbitrary volition as much as we will or can. But there still remains

the consciousness of a divine Life in the universe, of a Power which is

beyond and above our comprehension, whose goings out and comings in no

man can follow. The more we know, the more we reach out for that which

we cannot know. And who can realize this so vividly as the scientific

philosopher? For our knowledge being, according to the familiar

comparison, like a brilliant sphere, the more we increase it the greater

becomes the number of peripheral points at which we are confronted

by the impenetrable darkness beyond. I believe that this restless

yearning,--vague enough in the description, yet recognizable by all who,

communing with themselves or with nature, have felt it,--this constant

seeking for what cannot be found, this persistent knocking at gates

which, when opened, but reveal others yet to be passed, constitutes an

element which no adequate theory of religion can overlook. But of this

we find nothing in Lessing. With him all is sunny, serene, and pagan.

Not the dim aisle of a vast cathedral, but the symmetrical portico of an

antique temple, is the worshipping-place into which he would lead us.

But if Lessing's theology must be considered imperfect, it is none the

less admirable as far as it goes. With its peculiar doctrines of love

and faith, it teaches a morality far higher than any that Puritanism

ever dreamed of. And with its theory of development it cuts away every

possible logical basis for intolerance. It is this theology to which

Lessing has given concrete expression in his immortal poem of "Nathan."

The central idea of "Nathan" was suggested to Lessing by Boccaccio's

story of "The Three Rings," which is supposed to have had a Jewish

origin. Saladin, pretending to be inspired by a sudden, imperious whim,

such as is "not unbecoming in a Sultan," demands that Nathan shall

answer him on the spur of the moment which of the three great religions

then known--Judaism, Mohammedanism, Christianity--is adjudged by reason

to be the true one. For a moment the philosopher is in a quandary. If he

does not pronounce in favour of his own religion, Judaism, he stultifies

himself; but if he does not award the precedence to Mohammedanism, he

will apparently insult his sovereign. With true Oriental tact he escapes

from the dilemma by means of a parable. There was once a man, says

Nathan, who possessed a ring of inestimable value. Not only was the

stone which it contained incomparably fine, but it possessed the

marvellous property of rendering its owner agreeable both to God and to

men. The old man bequeathed this ring to that one of his sons whom he

loved the most; and the son, in turn, made a similar disposition of

it. So that, passing from hand to hand, the ring finally came into the

possession of a father who loved his three sons equally well. Unto which

one should he leave it? To get rid of the perplexity, he had two other

rings made by a jeweller, exactly like the original, and to each of his

three sons he bequeathed one. Each then thinking that he had obtained

the true talisman, they began violently to quarrel, and after long

contention agreed to carry their dispute before the judge. But the judge

said: "Quarrelsome fellows! You are all three of you cheated cheats.

Your three rings are alike counterfeit. For the genuine ring is lost,

and to conceal the loss, your father had made these three substitutes."

At this unexpected denouement the Sultan breaks out in exclamations of

delight; and it is interesting to learn that when the play was brought

upon the stage at Constantinople a few years ago, the Turkish audience

was similarly affected. There is in the story that quiet, stealthy

humour which is characteristic of many mediaeval apologues, and in which

Lessing himself loved to deal. It is humour of the kind which hits

the mark, and reveals the truth. In a note upon this passage, Lessing

himself said: "The opinion of Nathan upon all positive religions has for

a long time been my own." Let him who has the genuine ring show it by

making himself loved of God and man. This is the central idea of the

poem. It is wholly unlike the iconoclasm of the deists, and, coming in

the eighteenth century, it was like a veritable evangel.

"Nathan" was not brought out until three years after Lessing's death,

and it kept possession of the stage for but a short time. In a dramatic

point of view, it has hardly any merits. Whatever plot there is in it is

weak and improbable. The decisive incidents seem to be brought in like

the deus ex machina of the later Greek drama. There is no movement,

no action, no development. The characters are poetically but not

dramatically conceived. Considered as a tragedy, "Nathan" would be weak;

considered as a comedy, it would be heavy. With full knowledge of these

circumstances, Lessing called it not a drama, but a dramatic poem; and

he might have called it still more accurately a didactic poem, for

the only feature which it has in common with the drama is that the

personages use the oratio directa.

"Nathan" is a didactic poem: it is not a mere philosophic treatise

written in verse, like the fragments of Xenophanes. Its lessons are

conveyed concretely and not abstractly; and its characters are not mere

lay figures, but living poetical conceptions. Considered as a poem among

classic German poems, it must rank next to, though immeasurably below,

Goethe's "Faust."

There are two contrasted kinds of genius, the poetical and the

philosophical; or, to speak yet more generally, the artistic and the

critical. The former is distinguished by a concrete, the latter by an

abstract, imagination. The former sees things synthetically, in

all their natural complexity; the latter pulls things to pieces

analytically, and scrutinizes their relations. The former sees a tree

in all its glory, where the latter sees an exogen with a pair of

cotyledons. The former sees wholes, where the latter sees aggregates.

Corresponding with these two kinds of genius there are two classes of

artistic productions. When the critical genius writes a poem or a

novel, he constructs his plot and his characters in conformity to

some prearranged theory, or with a view to illustrate some favourite

doctrine. When he paints a picture, he first thinks how certain

persons would look under certain given circumstances, and paints them

accordingly. When he writes a piece of music, he first decides that

this phrase expresses joy, and that phrase disappointment, and the other

phrase disgust, and he composes accordingly. We therefore say ordinarily

that he does not create, but only constructs and combines. It is far

different with the artistic genius, who, without stopping to think,

sees the picture and hears the symphony with the eyes and ears of

imagination, and paints and plays merely what he has seen and heard.

When Dante, in imagination, arrived at the lowest circle of hell, where

traitors like Judas and Brutus are punished, he came upon a terrible

frozen lake, which, he says,--

"Ever makes me shudder at the sight of frozen pools."

I have always considered this line a marvellous instance of the

intensity of Dante's imagination. It shows, too, how Dante composed

his poem. He did not take counsel of himself and say: "Go to, let us

describe the traitors frozen up to their necks in a dismal lake, for

that will be most terrible." But the picture of the lake, in all its

iciness, with the haggard faces staring out from its glassy crust, came

unbidden before his mind with such intense reality that, for the rest

of his life, he could not look at a frozen pool without a shudder of

horror. He described it exactly as he saw it; and his description makes

us shudder who read it after all the centuries that have intervened.

So Michael Angelo, a kindred genius, did not keep cutting and chipping

away, thinking how Moses ought to look, and what sort of a nose he

ought to have, and in what position his head might best rest upon his

shoulders. But, he looked at the rectangular block of Carrara marble,

and beholding Moses grand and lifelike within it, knocked away the

environing stone, that others also might see the mighty figure. And so

Beethoven, an artist of the same colossal order, wrote out for us those

mysterious harmonies which his ear had for the first time heard; and

which, in his mournful old age, it heard none the less plainly because

of its complete physical deafness. And in this way Shakespeare wrote

his "Othello"; spinning out no abstract thoughts about jealousy and its

fearful effects upon a proud and ardent nature, but revealing to us

the living concrete man, as his imperial imagination had spontaneously

fashioned him.

Modern psychology has demonstrated that this is the way in which the

creative artistic imagination proceeds. It has proved that a vast

portion of all our thinking goes on unconsciously; and that the results

may arise into consciousness piecemeal and gradually, checking each

other as they come; or that they may come all at once, with all the

completeness and definiteness of perceptions presented from without. The

former is the case with the critical, and the latter with the artistic

intellect. And this we recognize imperfectly when we talk of a genius

being "inspired." All of us probably have these two kinds of imagination

to a certain extent. It is only given to a few supremely endowed persons

like Goethe to possess them both to an eminent degree. Perhaps of no

other man can it be said that he was a poet of the first order, and as

great a critic as poet.

It is therefore apt to be a barren criticism which studies the works of

creative geniuses in order to ascertain what theory lies beneath them.

How many systems of philosophy, how many subtle speculations, have we

not seen fathered upon Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Goethe! Yet

their works are, in a certain sense, greater than any systems. They

partake of the infinite complexity and variety of nature, and no more

than nature itself can they be narrowed down to the limits of a precise

formula.

Lessing was wont to disclaim the title of poet; but, as Goethe said,

his immortal works refute him. He had not only poetical, but dramatic

genius; and his "Emilia Galotti" has kept the stage until to-day.

Nevertheless, he knew well what he meant when he said that he was more

of a critic than a poet. His genius was mainly of the critical order;

and his great work, "Nathan the Wise," was certainly constructed rather

than created. It was intended to convey a doctrine, and was carefully

shaped for the purpose. And when we have pronounced it the greatest of

all poems that have been written for a set purpose, and admit of being

expressed in a definite formula, we have classified it with sufficient

accuracy.

For an analysis of the characters in the poem, nothing can be better

than the essay by Kuno Fischer, appended to the present volume. The

work of translation has been admirably done; and thanks are due to Miss

Frothingham for her reproduction of this beautiful poem.

June, 1868.

VIII. HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES. [29]

[29] Historical Difficulties and Contested Events. By Octave

Delepierre, LL. D., F. S. A., Secretary of Legation to the King of the

Belgians. 8vo. London: Murray. 1868.

History, says Sainte-Beuve, is in great part a set of fables which

people agree to believe in. And, on reading books like the present,

one certainly needs a good deal of that discipline acquired by long

familiarity with vexed historical questions, in order to check the

disposition to accept the great critic's ironical remark in sober

earnest. Much of what is currently accredited as authentic history is in

fact a mixture of flattery and calumny, myth and fable. Yet in this set

of fables, whatever may have been the case in past times, people will

no longer agree to believe. During the present century the criticism

of recorded events has gone far toward assuming the developed and

systematized aspect of a science, and canons of belief have been

established, which it is not safe to disregard. Great occurrences,

such as the Trojan War and the Siege of Thebes, not long ago faithfully

described by all historians of Greece, have been found to be part of

the common mythical heritage of the Aryan nations. Achilleus and Helena,

Oidipous and Iokasta, Oinone and Paris, have been discovered in India

and again in Scandinavia, and so on, until their nonentity has become

the legitimate inference from their very ubiquity. Legislators

like Romulus and Numa, inventors like Kadmos, have evaporated

into etymologies. Whole legions of heroes, dynasties of kings, and

adulteresses as many as Dante saw borne on the whirlwind, have vanished

from the face of history, and terrible has been the havoc in the opening

pages of our chronological tables. Nor is it primitive history alone

which has been thus metamorphosed. Characters unduly exalted or defamed

by party spirit are daily being set before us in their true, or at least

in a truer, light. What Mr. Froude has done for Henry VIII. we know; and

he might have done more if he had not tried to do so much. Humpbacked

Richard turns out to have been one of the handsomest kings that ever sat

on the throne of England. Edward I., in his dealings with Scotland, is

seen to have been scrupulously just; while the dignity of the patriot

hero Wallace has been somewhat impaired. Elizabeth is proved to have

befriended the false Mary Stuart much longer than was consistent with

her personal safety. Eloquent Cicero has been held up as an object of

contempt; and even weighty Tacitus has been said to owe much of his

reputation to his ability to give false testimony with a grave face.

It has lately been suspected that gloomy Tiberius, apart from his

gloominess, may have been rather a good fellow; not so licentious

as puritanical, not cruel so much as exceptionally merciful,--a rare

general, a sagacious statesman, and popular to boot with all his

subjects save the malignant oligarchy which he consistently snubbed, and

which took revenge on him by writing his life. And, to crown all, even

Catiline, abuser of our patience, seducer of vestal nuns, and drinker

of children's blood,--whose very name suggests murder, incest, and

robbery,--even Catiline has found an able defender in Professor Beesly.

It is claimed that Catiline was a man of great abilities and average

good character, a well-calumniated leader of the Marian party which

Caesar afterwards led to victory, and that his famous plot for burning

Rome never existed save in the unscrupulous Ciceronian fancy. And those

who think it easy to refute these conclusions of Professor Beesly

had better set to work and try it. Such are a few of the surprising

questions opened by recent historical research; and in the face of them

the public is quite excusable if it declares itself at a loss what to

believe.

These, however, are cases in which criticism has at least made some

show of ascertaining the truth and detecting the causes of the prevalent

misconception. That men like Catiline and Tiberius should have had their

characters blackened is quite easily explicable. President Johnson

would have little better chance of obtaining justice at the hands of

posterity, if the most widely read history of his administration should

happen to be written by a radical member of the Rump Congress. But the

cases which Mr. Delepierre invites us to contemplate are of a different

character. They come neither under the head of myths nor under that of

misrepresentations. Some of them are truly vexed questions which it

may perhaps always be impossible satisfactorily to solve. Others may

be dealt with more easily, but afford no clew to the origin of

the popularly received error. Let us briefly examine a few of Mr.

Delepierre's "difficulties." And first, because simplest, we will take

the case of the Alexandrian Library.

Every one has heard how Amrou, after his conquest of Egypt, sent to

Caliph Omar to know what should be done with the Alexandrian Library.

"If the books agree with the Koran," said the Caliph, "they are

superfluous; if they contradict it, they are damnable; in either case,

destroy them." So the books were taken and used to light the fires which

heated water for the baths; and so vast was the number that, used in

this way, they lasted six months! All this happened because John the

Grammarian was over-anxious enough to request that the books might be

preserved, and thus drew Amrou's attention to them. Great has been the

obloquy poured upon Omar for this piece of vandalism, and loud has

been the mourning over the treasures of ancient science and literature

supposed to have been irrecoverably lost in this ignominious

conflagration Theologians, Catholic and Protestant, have been fond of

quoting it as an instance of the hostility of Mahometanism to knowledge,

and we have even heard an edifying sermon preached about it. On seeing

the story put to such uses, one feels sometimes like using the ad

hominem argument, and quoting the wholesale destruction of pagan

libraries under Valens, the burning of books by the Latin stormers of

Constantinople, the alleged annihilation of 100,000 volumes by Genoese

crusaders at Tripoli, the book-burning exploits of Torquemada, the

bonfire of 80,000 valuable Arabic manuscripts, lighted up in the square

of Granada by order of Cardinal Ximenes, and the irreparable cremation

of Aztec writings by the first Christian bishops of Mexico. These

examples, with perhaps others which do not now occur to us, might be

applied in just though ungentle retort by Mahometan doctors. Yet the

most direct rejoinder would probably not occur to them: the Alexandrian

Library was NOT destroyed by the orders of Omar, and the whole story is

a figment!

The very pithiness of it, so characteristic of the excellent but bigoted

Omar, is enough to cast suspicion upon it. De Quincey tells us that "if

a saying has a proverbial fame, the probability is that it was never

said." How many amusing stories stand a chance of going down

to posterity as the inventions of President Lincoln, of which,

nevertheless, he is doubtless wholly innocent! How characteristic was

Caesar's reply to the frightened pilot! Yet in all probability Caesar

never made it.

Now for the evidence. Alexandria was captured by Armrou in 640. The

story of the burning of the library occurs for the first time in the

works of Abulpharagius, who flourished in 1264. Six hundred years had

elapsed. It is as if a story about the crusades of Louis IX. were to be

found for the first time in the writings of Mr. Bancroft. The Byzantine

historians were furiously angry with the Saracens; why did they, one

and all, neglect to mention such an outrageous piece of vandalism? Their

silence must be considered quite conclusive. Moreover we know "that the

caliphs had forbidden under severe penalties the destruction" of Jewish

and Christian books, a circumstance wholly inconsistent with this famous

story. And finally, what a mediaeval recklessness of dates is shown

in lugging into the story John the Grammarian, who was dead and in his

grave when Alexandria was taken by Amrou!

But the chief item of proof remains to be mentioned. The Saracens did

not burn the library, because there was no library there for them to

burn! It had been destroyed just two hundred and fifty years before by a

rabble of monks, incited by the patriarch Theophilus, who saw in such

a vast collection of pagan literature a perpetual insult and menace

to religion. In the year 390 this turbulent bigot sacked the temple of

Serapis, where the books were kept, and drove out the philosophers who

lodged there. Of this violent deed we have contemporary evidence, for

Orosius tells us that less than fifteen years afterwards, while passing

through Alexandria, he saw the empty shelves. This fact disposes of the

story.

Passing from Egypt to France, and from the seventh century to the

fifteenth, we meet with a much more difficult problem. That Jeanne d'Arc

was burnt at the stake, at Rouen, on the 30th of May, 1431, and her

bones and ashes thrown into the Seine, is generally supposed to be as

indisputable as any event in modern history. Such is, however, hardly

the case. Plausible evidence has been brought to prove that Jeanne d'Arc

was never burnt at the stake, but lived to a ripe age, and was even

happily married to a nobleman of high rank and reputation. We shall

abridge Mr. Delepierre's statement of this curious case.

In the archives of Metz, Father Vignier discovered the following

remarkable entry: "In the year 1436, Messire Phlin Marcou was Sheriff

of Metz, and on the 20th day of May of the aforesaid year came the maid

Jeanne, who had been in France, to La Grange of Ormes, near St. Prive,

and was taken there to confer with any one of the sieurs of Metz, and

she called herself Claude; and on the same day there came to see her

there her two brothers, one of whom was a knight, and was called Messire

Pierre, and the other 'petit Jehan,' a squire, and they thought that she

had been burnt, but as soon as they saw her they recognized her and she

them. And on Monday, the 21st day of the said month, they took their

sister with them to Boquelon, and the sieur Nicole, being a knight,

gave her a stout stallion of the value of thirty francs, and a pair of

saddle-cloths; the sieur Aubert Boulle, a riding-hood, the sieur Nicole

Groguet, a sword; and the said maiden mounted the said horse nimbly, and

said several things to the sieur Nicole by which he well understood that

it was she who had been in France; and she was recognized by many tokens

to be the maid Jeanne of France who escorted King Charles to Rheims,

and several declared that she had been burnt in Normandy, and she spoke

mostly in parables. She afterwards returned to the town of Marnelle for

the feast of Pentecost, and remained there about three weeks, and then

set off to go to Notre Dame d'Alliance. And when she wished to leave,

several of Metz went to see her at the said Marnelle and gave her

several jewels, and they knew well that she was the maid Jeanne of

France; and she then went to Erlon, in the Duchy of Luxembourg, where

she was thronged,.... and there was solemnized the marriage of Monsieur

de Hermoise, knight, and the said maid Jeanne, and afterwards the said

sieur Hermoise, with his wife, the Maid, came to live at Metz, in the

house the said sieur had, opposite St. Seglenne, and remained there

until it pleased them to depart."

This is surprising enough; but more remains behind. Dining shortly

afterwards with M. des Armoises, member of one of the oldest families in

Lorraine, Father Vignier was invited to look over the family archives,

that he might satisfy his curiosity regarding certain ancestors of his

host. And on looking over the family register, what was his astonishment

at finding a contract of marriage between Robert des Armoises, Knight,

and Jeanne d'Arcy, the so-called Maid of Orleans!

In 1740, some time after these occurrences, there was found, in the town

hall of Orleans, a bill of one Jacques l'Argentier, of the year 1436, in

which mention is made of a small sum paid for refreshments furnished

to a messenger who had brought letters from the Maid of Orleans, and of

twelve livres given to Jean du Lis, brother of Jeanne d'Arc, to help

him pay the expenses of his journey back to his sister. Then come two

charges which we shall translate literally. "To the sieur de Lis, 18th

October, 1436, for a journey which he made through the said city while

on his way to the Maid, who was then at Erlon in Luxembourg, and for

carrying letters from Jeanne the Maid to the King at Loicher, where he

was then staying, six livres." And again: "To Renard Brune, 25th July,

1435, at evening, for paying the hire of a messenger who was carrying

letters from Jeanne the Maid, and was on his way to William Beliers,

bailiff of Troyes, two livres."

As no doubt has been thrown upon the genuineness of these documents, it

must be considered established that in 1436, five years after the public

execution at Rouen, a young woman, believed to be the real Jeanne d'Arc,

was alive in Lorraine and was married to a M. Hermoises or Armoises. She

may, of course, have been an impostor; but in this case it is difficult

to believe that her brothers, Jean and Pierre, and the people of

Lorraine, where she was well known, would not have detected the

imposture at once. And that Jean du Lis, during a familiar intercourse

of at least several months, as indicated in the above extracts, should

have continued to mistake a stranger for his own sister, with whom he

had lived from childhood, seems a very absurd supposition. Nor is it

likely that an impostor would have exposed herself to such a formidable

test. If it had been a bold charlatan who, taking advantage of the

quite general belief, to which we have ample testimony, that there was

something more in the execution at Rouen than was allowed to come to the

surface, had resolved to usurp for herself the honours due to the woman

who had saved France, she would hardly have gone at the outset to a part

of the country where the real Maid had spent nearly all her life. Her

instant detection and exposure, perhaps a disgraceful punishment, would

have been inevitable. But if this person were the real Jeanne, escaped

from prison or returning from an exile dictated by prudence, what should

she have done but go straightway to the haunts of her childhood, where

she might meet once more her own friends and family?

But the account does not end here. M. Wallon, in his elaborate history

of Jeanne d'Arc, states that in 1436 the supposed Maid visited France,

and appears to have met some of the men-at-arms with whom she had

fought. In 1439 she came to Orleans, for in the accounts of the town we

read, "July 28, for ten pints of wine presented to Jeanne des Armoises,

14 sous." And on the day of her departure, the citizens of Orleans, by a

special decree of the town-council, presented her with 210 livres, "for

the services which she had rendered to the said city during the siege."

At the same time the annual ceremonies for the repose of her soul were,

quite naturally, suppressed. Now we may ask if it is at all probable

that the people of Orleans, who, ten years before, during the siege,

must have seen the Maid day after day, and to whom her whole appearance

must have been perfectly familiar, would have been likely to show such

attentions as these to an impostor? "In 1440," says Mr. Delepierre, "the

people so firmly believed that Jeanne d'Arc was still alive, and that

another had been sacrificed in her place, that an adventuress who

endeavoured to pass herself off as the Maid of Orleans was ordered by

the government to be exposed before the public on the marble stone of

the palace hall, in order to prove that she was an impostor. Why

were not such measures taken against the real Maid of Orleans, who is

mentioned in so many public documents, and who took no pains to hide

herself?"

There is yet another document bearing on this case, drawn from the

accounts of the auditor of the Orleans estate, in the year 1444, which

we will here translate. "An island on the River Loire is restored to

Pierre du Lis, knight, 'on account of the supplication of the said

Pierre, alleging that for the acquittal of his debt of loyalty toward

our Lord the King and M. the Duke of Orleans, he left his country to

come to the service of the King and M. the Duke, accompanied by his

sister, Jeanne the Maid, with whom, down to the time of her departure,

and since, unto the present time, he has exposed his body and goods in

the said service, and in the King's wars, both in resisting the former

enemies of the kingdom who were besieging the town of Orleans, and since

then in divers enterprises,' &c., &c." Upon this Mr. Delepierre justly

remarks that the brother might have presented his claims in a much

stronger light, "if in 1444, instead of saying 'up to the time of

her departure,' he had brought forward the martyrdom of his sister, as

having been the means of saving France from the yoke of England." The

expression here cited and italicized in the above translation, may

indeed be held to refer delicately to her death, but the particular

French phrase employed, "jusques a son absentement," apparently excludes

such an interpretation. The expression, on the other hand, might well

refer to Jeanne's departure for Lorraine, and her marriage, after which

there is no evidence that she returned to France, except for brief

visits. Thus a notable amount of evidence goes to show that Jeanne was

not put to death in 1431, as usually supposed, but was alive, married,

and flourishing in 1444. Upon this supposition, certain alleged

difficulties in the traditional account are easily disposed of. Mr.

Delepierre urges upon the testimony of Perceval de Cagny, that at the

execution in Rouen "the victim's face was covered when walking to the

stake, while at the same time a spot had been chosen for the execution

that permitted the populace to have a good view. Why this contradiction?

A place is chosen to enable the people to see everything, but the victim

is carefully hidden from their sight." Whether otherwise explicable or

not, this fact is certainly consistent with the hypothesis that

some other victim was secretly substituted for Jeanne by the English

authorities.

We have thus far contented ourselves with presenting and re-enforcing

Mr. Delepierre's statement of the case. It is now time to interpose a

little criticism. We must examine our data somewhat more closely, for

vagueness of conception allows a latitude to belief which accuracy of

conception considerably restricts.

On the hypothesis of her survival, where was Jeanne, and what was she

doing all the time from her capture before Compiegne, May 24, 1430,

until her appearance at Metz, May 20, 1436? Mr. Delepierre reminds us

that the Duke of Bedford, regent of France for the English king, died

in 1435, and "that most probably Jeanne d'Arc was released from prison

after this event." Now this supposition lands us in a fatally absurd

conclusion. We are, in fact, asked to believe that the English, while

holding Jeanne fast in their clutches, gratuitously went through the

horrid farce of burning some one else in her stead; and that, after

having thus inexplicably behaved, they further stultified themselves by

letting her go scot-free, that their foolishness might be duly exposed

and confuted. Such a theory is childish. If Jeanne d'Arc ever survived

the 30th May, 1431, it was because she escaped from prison and succeeded

in hiding herself until safer times. When could she have done this? In a

sortie from Compiegne, May 24, 1430, she was thrown from her horse by a

Picard archer and taken prisoner by the Bastard of Vendome, who sold her

to John of Luxembourg. John kept her in close custody at Beaulieu until

August. While there, she made two attempts to escape; first, apparently,

by running out through a door, when she was at once caught by the

guards; secondly, by jumping from a high window, when the shock of

the fall was so great that she lay insensible on the ground until

discovered. She was then removed to Beaurevoir, where she remained until

the beginning of November. By this time, Philip "the Good," Duke of

Burgundy, had made up his mind to sell her to the English for 10,000

francs; and Jeanne was accordingly taken to Arras, and thence to Cotoy,

where she was delivered to the English by Philip's officers. So far,

all is clear; but here it may be asked, WAS she really delivered to the

English, or did Philip, pocketing his 10,000 francs, cheat and defraud

his allies with a counterfeit Jeanne? Such crooked dealing would have

been in perfect keeping with his character. Though a far more agreeable

and gentlemanly person, he was almost as consummate and artistic a

rascal as his great-great-great-grandson and namesake, Philip II. of

Spain. His duplicity was so unfathomable and his policy so obscure,

that it would be hardly safe to affirm a priori that he might not, for

reasons best known to himself, have played a double game with his friend

the Duke of Bedford. On this hypothesis, he would of course keep

Jeanne in close custody so long as there was any reason for keeping his

treachery secret. But in 1436, after the death of Bedford and the final

expulsion of the English from France, no harm could come from setting

her at liberty.

But as soon as we cease to reason a priori, this is seen to be, after

all, a lame hypothesis. No one can read the trial of Jeanne at Rouen,

the questions that were put to her and the answers which she made,

without being convinced that we are here dealing with the genuine Maid

and not with a substitute. The first step of a counterfeit Jeanne would

have naturally been to save herself from the flames by revealing her

true character. Moreover, among the multitudes who saw her during her

cruel trial, it is not likely that none were acquainted with the true

Jeanne's voice and features. We must therefore conclude that Jeanne

d'Arc was really consigned to the tender mercies of the English. About

the 21st of November she was taken on horseback, strongly guarded, from

Cotoy to Rouen, where the trial began January 9, 1431. On the 21st of

February she appeared before the court; on the 13th of March she was

examined in the prison by an inquisitor; and on May 24, the Thursday

after Pentecost, upon a scaffold conspicuously placed in the Cemetery of

St. Ouen, she publicly recanted, abjuring her "heresies" and asking the

Church's pardon for her "witchcraft." We may be sure that the Church

dignitaries would not knowingly have made such public display of a

counterfeit Jeanne; nor could they well have been deceived themselves

under such circumstances. It may indeed be said, to exhaust all possible

suppositions, that a young girl wonderfully similar in feature and voice

to Jeanne d'Arc was palmed off upon the English by Duke Philip, and

afterwards, on her trial, comported herself like the Maid, trusting

in this recantation to effect her release. But we consider such an

hypothesis extremely far-fetched, nor does it accord with the events

which immediately followed. It seems hardly questionable that it was the

real Jeanne who publicly recanted on the 24th of May. This was only six

days before the execution. Four days after, on Monday the 28th, it was

reported that Jeanne had relapsed, that she had, in defiance of the

Church's prohibition, clothed herself in male attire, which had been

left in a convenient place by the authorities, expressly to test her

sincerity. On the next day but one, the woman purporting to be the Maid

of Orleans was led out, with her face carefully covered, and burnt at

the stake.

Here is the first combination of circumstances which bears a suspicious

look. It disposes of our Burgundy hypothesis, for a false Jeanne, after

recanting to secure her safety, would never have stultified herself by

such a barefaced relapse. But the true Jeanne, after recanting, might

certainly have escaped. Some compassionate guard, who before would have

scrupled to assist her while under the ban of the Church, might have

deemed himself excusable for lending her his aid after she had been

absolved. Postulating, then, that Jeanne escaped from Rouen between

the 24th and the 28th, how shall we explain what happened immediately

afterward?

The English feared Jeanne d'Arc as much as they hated her. She had, by

her mere presence at the head of the French army, turned their apparent

triumph into ignominious defeat. In those days the true psychological

explanation of such an event was by no means obvious. While the French

attributed the result to celestial interposition in their behalf, the

English, equally ready to admit its supernatural character, considered

the powers of hell rather than those of heaven to have been the prime

instigators. In their eyes Jeanne was a witch, and it was at least their

cue to exhibit her as such. They might have put her to death when she

first reached Rouen. Some persons, indeed, went so far as to advise that

she should be sewed up in a sack and thrown at once into the Seine; but

this was not what the authorities wanted. The whole elaborate trial, and

the extorted recantation, were devised for the purpose of demonstrating

her to be a witch, and thus destroying her credit with the common

people. That they intended afterwards to burn her cannot for an instant

be doubted; that was the only fit consummation for their evil work.

Now when, at the end of the week after Pentecost, the bishops and

inquisitors at Rouen learned, to their dismay, that their victim had

escaped, what were they to do? Confess that they had been foiled, and

create a panic in the army by the news that their dreaded enemy was at

liberty? Or boldly carry out their purposes by a fictitious execution,

trusting in the authority which official statements always carry, and

shrewdly foreseeing that, after her recantation, the disgraced Maid

would no more venture to claim for herself the leadership of the French

forces? Clearly, the latter would have been the wiser course. We may

assume, then, that, by the afternoon of the 28th, the story of the

relapse was promulgated, as a suitable preparation for what was to come;

and that on the 30th the poor creature who had been hastily chosen to

figure as the condemned Maid was led out, with face closely veiled, to

perish by a slow fire in the old market-place. Meanwhile the true Jeanne

would have made her way, doubtless, in what to her was the effectual

disguise of a woman's apparel, to some obscure place of safety, outside

of doubtful France and treacherous Burgundy, perhaps in Alsace or the

Vosges. Here she would remain, until the final expulsion of the English

and the conclusion of a treaty of peace in 1436 made it safe for her to

show herself; when she would naturally return to Lorraine to seek her

family.

The comparative obscurity in which she must have remained for the rest

of her life, otherwise quite inexplicable on any hypothesis of

her survival, is in harmony with the above-given explanation. The

ingratitude of King Charles towards the heroine who had won him his

crown is the subject of common historical remark. M. Wallon insists upon

the circumstance that, after her capture at Compiegne, no attempts were

made by the French Court to ransom her or to liberate her by a bold coup

de main. And when, at Rouen, she appealed in the name of the Church to

the Pope to grant her a fair trial, not a single letter was written by

the Archbishop of Rheims, High Chancellor of France, to his suffragan,

the Bishop of Beauvais, demanding cognizance of the proceedings. Nor did

the King make any appeal to the Pope, to prevent the consummation of the

judicial murder. The Maid was deliberately left to her fate. It is upon

her enemies at court, La Tremouille and Regnault de Chartres, that we

must lay part of the blame for this wicked negligence. But it is also

probable that the King, and especially his clerical advisers, were at

times almost disposed to acquiesce in the theory of Jeanne's witchcraft.

Admire her as they might, they could not help feeling that in her whole

behaviour there was something uncanny; and, after having reaped the

benefits of her assistance, they were content to let her shift for

herself. This affords the clew to the King's inconsistencies. It may

be thought sufficient to explain the fact that Jeanne is said to have

received public testimonials at Orleans, while we have no reason to

suppose that she visited Paris. It may help to dispose of the objection

that she virtually disappears from history after the date of the tragedy

at Rouen.

Nevertheless, this last objection is a weighty one, and cannot easily

be got rid of. It appears to me utterly incredible that, if Jeanne d'Arc

had really survived, we should find no further mention of her than

such as haply occurs in one or two town-records and dilapidated

account-books. If she was alive in 1436, and corresponding with the

King, some of her friends at court must have got an inkling of the

true state of things. Why did they not parade their knowledge, to the

manifest discomfiture of La Tremouille and his company? Or why did not

Pierre du Lis cause it to be proclaimed that the English were liars, his

sister being safely housed in Metz?

In the mere interests of historical criticism, we have said all that we

could in behalf of Mr. Delepierre's hypothesis. But as to the facts upon

which it rests, we may remark, in the first place, that the surname Arc

or "Bow" was not uncommon in those days, while the Christian name Jeanne

was and now is the very commonest of French names. There might have been

a hundred Jeanne d'Arcs, all definable as pucelle or maid, just as we

say "spinster": we even read of one in the time of the Revolution. We

have, therefore, no doubt that Robert des Hermoises married a Jeanne

d'Arc, who may also have been a maid of Orleans; but this does not prove

her to have been the historic Jeanne. Secondly, as to the covering of

the face, we may mention the fact, hitherto withheld, that it was by no

means an uncommon circumstance: the victims of the Spanish Inquisition

were usually led to the stake with veiled faces. Thirdly, the phrase

"jusques a son absentement" is hopelessly ambiguous, and may as well

refer to Pierre du Lis himself as to his sister.

These brief considerations seem to knock away all the main props of Mr.

Delepierre's hypothesis, save that furnished by the apparent testimony

of Jeanne's brothers, given at second hand in the Metz archives. And

those who are familiar with the phenomena of mediaeval delusions will

be unwilling to draw too hasty an inference from this alone. From

the Emperor Nero to Don Sebastian of Portugal, there have been many

instances of the supposed reappearance of persons generally believed to

be dead. For my own part, therefore, I am by no means inclined to adopt

the hypothesis of Jeanne's survival, although I have endeavoured to give

it tangible shape and plausible consistency. But the fact that so much

can be said in behalf of a theory running counter not only to universal

tradition, but also to such a vast body of contemporaneous testimony,

should teach us to be circumspect in holding our opinions, and

charitable in our treatment of those who dissent from them. For those

who can discover in the historian Renan and the critic Strauss nothing

but the malevolence of incredulity, the case of Jeanne d'Arc, duly

contemplated, may serve as a wholesome lesson.

We have devoted so much space to this problem, by far the most

considerable of those treated in Mr. Delepierre's book, that we have

hardly room for any of the others. But a false legend concerning Solomon

de Caus, the supposed original inventor of the steam-engine, is so

instructive that we must give a brief account of it.

In 1834 "there appeared in the Musee des Familles a letter from the

celebrated Marion Delorme, supposed to have been written on the 3d

February, 1641, to her lover Cinq-Mars." In this letter it is stated

that De Caus came four years ago [1637] from Normandy, to inform the

King concerning a marvellous invention which he had made, being nothing

less than the application of steam to the propulsion of carriages. "The

Cardinal [Richelieu] dismissed this fool without giving him a hearing."

But De Caus, nowise discouraged, followed close upon the autocrat's

heels wherever he went, and so teased him, that the Cardinal, out of

patience, sent him off to a madhouse, where he passed the remainder

of his days behind a grated window, proclaiming his invention to the

passengers in the street, and calling upon them to release him. Marion

gives a graphic account of her visit, accompanied by the famous Lord

Worcester, to the asylum at Bicetre, where they saw De Caus at his

window; and Worcester, in whose mind the conception of the steam-engine

was already taking shape, informed her that the raving prisoner was

not a madman, but a genius. A great stir was made by this letter. The

anecdote was copied into standard works, and represented in engravings.

Yet it was a complete hoax. De Caus was not only never confined in a

madhouse, but he was architect to Louis XIII. up to the time of his

death, in 1630, just eleven years BEFORE Marion Delorme was said to have

seen him at his grated window!

"On tracing this hoax to its source," says Mr. Delepierre, "we find

that M. Henri Berthoud, a literary man of some repute, and a constant

contributor to the Musee des Familles, confesses that the letter

attributed to Marion was in fact written by himself. The editor of this

journal had requested Gavarni to furnish him with a drawing for a tale

in which a madman was introduced looking through the bars of his cell.

The drawing was executed and engraved, but arrived too late; and the

tale, which could not wait, appeared without the illustration. However,

as the wood-engraving was effective, and, moreover, was paid for, the

editor was unwilling that it should be useless. Berthoud was, therefore,

commissioned to look for a subject and to invent a story to which the

engraving might be applied. Strangely enough, the world refused to

believe in M. Berthoud's confession, so great a hold had the anecdote

taken on the public mind; and a Paris newspaper went so far even as to

declare that the original autograph of this letter was to be seen in a

library in Normandy! M. Berthoud wrote again, denying its existence, and

offered a million francs to any one who would produce the said letter."

From this we may learn two lessons, the first being that utterly

baseless but plausible stories may arise in queer ways. In the above

case, the most far-fetched hypothesis to account for the origin of the

legend could hardly have been as apparently improbable as the reality.

Secondly, we may learn that if a myth once gets into the popular

mind, it is next to impossible to get it out again. In the Castle of

Heidelberg there is a portrait of De Caus, and a folio volume of his

works, accompanied by a note, in which this letter of Marion Delorme is

unsuspectingly cited as genuine. And only three years ago, at a public

banquet at Limoges, a well-known French Senator and man of letters

made a speech, in which he retailed the story of the madhouse for the

edification of his hearers. Truly a popular error has as many lives as

a cat; it comes walking in long after you have imagined it effectually

strangled.

In conclusion, we may remark that Mr. Delepierre does very scant justice

to many of the interesting questions which he discusses. It is to be

regretted that he has not thought it worth while to argue his points

more thoroughly, and that he has not been more careful in making

statements of fact. He sometimes makes strange blunders, the worst of

which, perhaps, is contained in his article on Petrarch and Laura. He

thinks Laura was merely a poetical allegory, and such was the case, he

goes on to say, "with Dante himself, whose Beatrice was a child who died

at nine years of age." Dante's Beatrice died on the 9th of June, 1290,

at the age of twenty-four, having been the wife of Simone dei Bardi

rather more than three years.

October, 1868.

IX. THE FAMINE OF 1770 IN BENGAL. [30]

[30] The Annals of Rural Bengal. By W. W. Hunter. Vol. I. The

Ethnical Frontier of Lower Bengal, with the Ancient Principalities of

Beerbhoom and Bishenpore. Second Edition. New York: Leypoldt and Holt.

1868. 8vo., pp. xvi., 475.

No intelligent reader can advance fifty pages in this volume without

becoming aware that he has got hold of a very remarkable book. Mr.

Hunter's style, to begin with, is such as is written only by men of

large calibre and high culture. No words are wasted. The narrative flows

calmly and powerfully along, like a geometrical demonstration, omitting

nothing which is significant, admitting nothing which is irrelevant,

glowing with all the warmth of rich imagination and sympathetic genius,

yet never allowing any overt manifestation of feeling, ever concealing

the author's personality beneath the unswerving exposition of the

subject-matter. That highest art, which conceals art, Mr. Hunter appears

to have learned well. With him, the curtain is the picture.

Such a style as this would suffice to make any book interesting, in

spite of the remoteness of the subject. But the "Annals of Rural

Bengal" do not concern us so remotely as one might at first imagine.

The phenomena of the moral and industrial growth or stagnation of a

highly-endowed people must ever possess the interest of fascination for

those who take heed of the maxim that "history is philosophy teaching

by example." National prosperity depends upon circumstances sufficiently

general to make the experience of one country of great value to another,

though ignorant Bourbon dynasties and Rump Congresses refuse to learn

the lesson. It is of the intimate every-day life of rural Bengal that

Mr. Hunter treats. He does not, like old historians, try our patience

with a bead-roll of names that have earned no just title to remembrance,

or dazzle us with a bountiful display of "barbaric pearls and gold," or

lead us in the gondolas of Buddhist kings down sacred rivers, amid

"a summer fanned with spice"; but he describes the labours and the

sufferings, the mishaps and the good fortune, of thirty millions of

people, who, however dusky may be their hue, tanned by the tropical suns

of fifty centuries, are nevertheless members of the imperial Aryan race,

descended from the cool highlands eastward of the Caspian, where, long

before the beginning of recorded history, their ancestors and those of

the Anglo-American were indistinguishably united in the same primitive

community.

The narrative portion of the present volume is concerned mainly with

the social and economical disorganization wrought by the great famine

of 1770, and with the attempts of the English government to remedy the

same. The remainder of the book is occupied with inquiries into the

ethnic character of the population of Bengal, and particularly with an

exposition of the peculiarities of the language, religion, customs, and

institutions of the Santals, or hill-tribes of Beerbhoom. A few remarks

on the first of these topics may not be uninteresting.

Throughout the entire course of recorded European history, from the

remote times of which the Homeric poems preserve the dim tradition down

to the present moment, there has occurred no calamity at once so sudden

and of such appalling magnitude as the famine which in the spring and

summer of 1770 nearly exterminated the ancient civilization of Bengal.

It presents that aspect of preternatural vastness which characterizes

the continent of Asia and all that concerns it. The Black Death of the

fourteenth century was, perhaps, the most fearful visitation which has

ever afflicted the Western world. But in the concentrated misery which

it occasioned the Bengal famine surpassed it, even as the Himalayas

dwarf by comparison the highest peaks of Switzerland. It is, moreover,

the key to the history of Bengal during the next forty years; and as

such, merits, from an economical point of view, closer attention than it

has hitherto received.

Lower Bengal gathers in three harvests each year; in the spring, in the

early autumn, and in December, the last being the great rice-crop, the

harvest on which the sustenance of the people depends. Through the year

1769 there was great scarcity, owing to the partial failure of the crops

of 1768, but the spring rains appeared to promise relief, and in spite

of the warning appeals of provincial officers, the government was slow

to take alarm, and continued rigorously to enforce the land-tax. But in

September the rains suddenly ceased. Throughout the autumn there ruled a

parching drought; and the rice-fields, according to the description of

a native superintendent of Bishenpore, "became like fields of dried

straw." Nevertheless, the government at Calcutta made--with one

lamentable exception, hereafter to be noticed--no legislative attempt

to meet the consequences of this dangerous condition of things. The

administration of local affairs was still, at that date, intrusted to

native officials. The whole internal regulation was in the hands of the

famous Muhamad Reza Ehan. Hindu or Mussulman assessors pried into every

barn and shrewdly estimated the probable dimensions of the crops on

every field; and the courts, as well as the police, were still in

native hands. "These men," says our author, "knew the country, its

capabilities, its average yield, and its average requirements, with an

accuracy that the most painstaking English official can seldom hope to

attain to. They had a strong interest in representing things to be worse

than they were; for the more intense the scarcity, the greater the merit

in collecting the land-tax. Every consultation is filled with their

apprehensions and highly-coloured accounts of the public distress; but

it does not appear that the conviction entered the minds of the Council

during the previous winter months, that the question was not so much one

of revenue as of depopulation." In fact, the local officers had cried

"Wolf!" too often. Government was slow to believe them, and announced

that nothing better could be expected than the adoption of a generous

policy toward those landholders whom the loss of harvest had rendered

unable to pay their land-tax. But very few indulgences were granted,

and the tax was not diminished, but on the contrary was, in the month

of April, 1770, increased by ten per cent for the following year. The

character of the Bengali people must also be taken into the account in

explaining this strange action on the part of the government.

"From the first appearance of Lower Bengal in history, its inhabitants

have been reticent, self-contained, distrustful of foreign observation,

in a degree without parallel among other equally civilized nations. The

cause of this taciturnity will afterwards be clearly explained; but no

one who is acquainted either with the past experiences or the present

condition of the people can be ignorant of its results. Local officials

may write alarming reports, but their apprehensions seem to be

contradicted by the apparent quiet that prevails. Outward, palpable

proofs of suffering are often wholly wanting; and even when, as in 1770,

such proofs abound, there is generally no lack of evidence on the other

side. The Bengali bears existence with a composure that neither accident

nor chance can ruffle. He becomes silently rich or uncomplainingly poor.

The emotional part of his nature is in strict subjection, his resentment

enduring but unspoken, his gratitude of the sort that silently descends

from generation to generation. The passion for privacy reaches its

climax in the domestic relations. An outer apartment, in even the

humblest households, is set apart for strangers and the transaction

of business, but everything behind it is a mystery. The most intimate

friend does not venture to make those commonplace kindly inquiries about

a neighbour's wife or daughter which European courtesy demands from mere

acquaintances. This family privacy is maintained at any price. During

the famine of 1866 it was found impossible to render public charity

available to the female members of the respectable classes, and many a

rural household starved slowly to death without uttering a complaint or

making a sign.

"All through the stifling summer of 1770 the people went on dying. The

husbandmen sold their cattle; they sold their implements of agriculture;

they devoured their seed-grain; they sold their sons and daughters, till

at length no buyer of children could be found; they ate the leaves of

trees and the grass of the field; and in June, 1770, the Resident at the

Durbar affirmed that the living were feeding on the dead. Day and night

a torrent of famished and disease-stricken wretches poured into the

great cities. At an early period of the year pestilence had broken out.

In March we find small-pox at Moorshedabad, where it glided through

the vice-regal mutes, and cut off the Prince Syfut in his palace. The

streets were blocked up with promiscuous heaps of the dying and dead.

Interment could not do its work quick enough; even the dogs and jackals,

the public scavengers of the East, became unable to accomplish their

revolting work, and the multitude of mangled and festering corpses at

length threatened the existence of the citizens..... In 1770, the rainy

season brought relief, and before the end of September the province

reaped an abundant harvest. But the relief came too late to avert

depopulation. Starving and shelterless crowds crawled despairingly

from one deserted village to another in a vain search for food, or a

resting-place in which to hide themselves from the rain. The epidemics

incident to the season were thus spread over the whole country; and,

until the close of the year, disease continued so prevalent as to form

a subject of communication from the government in Bengal to the Court

of Directors. Millions of famished wretches died in the struggle to live

through the few intervening weeks that separated them from the harvest,

their last gaze being probably fixed on the densely-covered fields that

would ripen only a little too late for them..... Three months later,

another bountiful harvest, the great rice-crop of the year, was gathered

in. Abundance returned to Bengal as suddenly as famine had swooped down

upon it, and in reading some of the manuscript records of December it

is difficult to realize that the scenes of the preceding ten months have

not been hideous phantasmagoria or a long, troubled dream. On Christmas

eve, the Council in Calcutta wrote home to the Court of Directors that

the scarcity had entirely ceased, and, incredible as it may seem, that

unusual plenty had returned..... So generous had been the harvest that

the government proposed at once to lay in its military stores for the

ensuing year, and expected to obtain them at a very cheap rate."

Such sudden transitions from the depths of misery to the most exuberant

plenty are by no means rare in the history of Asia, where the various

centres of civilization are, in an economical sense, so isolated

from each other that the welfare of the population is nearly always

absolutely dependent on the irregular: and apparently capricious bounty

of nature. For the three years following the dreadful misery above

described, harvests of unprecedented abundance were gathered in. Yet how

inadequate they were to repair the fearful damage wrought by six months

of starvation, the history of the next quarter of a century too plainly

reveals. "Plenty had indeed returned," says our annalist, "but it

had returned to a silent and deserted province." The extent of the

depopulation is to our Western imaginations almost incredible. During

those six months of horror, more than TEN MILLIONS of people had

perished! It was as if the entire population of our three or four

largest States--man, woman, and child--were to be utterly swept away

between now and next August, leaving the region between the Hudson and

Lake Michigan as quiet and deathlike as the buried streets of Pompeii.

Yet the estimate is based upon most accurate and trustworthy official

returns; and Mr. Hunter may well say that "it represents an aggregate

of individual suffering which no European nation has been called upon to

contemplate within historic times."

This unparalleled calamity struck down impartially the rich and the

poor. The old, aristocratic families of Lower Bengal were irretrievably

ruined. The Rajah of Burdwan, whose possessions were so vast that,

travel as far as he would, he always slept under a roof of his own and

within his own jurisdiction, died in such indigence that his son had to

melt down the family plate and beg a loan from the government in order

to discharge his father's funeral expenses. And our author gives other

similar instances. The wealthy natives who were appointed to assess and

collect the internal revenue, being unable to raise the sums required

by the government, were in many cases imprisoned, or their estates were

confiscated and re-let in order to discharge the debt.

For fifteen years the depopulation went on increasing. The children in

a community, requiring most nourishment to sustain their activity, are

those who soonest succumb to famine. "Until 1785," says our author,

"the old died off without there being any rising generation to step into

their places." From lack of cultivators, one third of the surface of

Bengal fell out of tillage and became waste land. The landed proprietors

began each "to entice away the tenants of his neighbour, by offering

protection against judicial proceedings, and farms at very low rents."

The disputes and deadly feuds which arose from this practice were,

perhaps, the least fatal of the evil results which flowed from it. For

the competition went on until, the tenants obtaining their holdings at

half-rates, the resident cultivators--who had once been the wealthiest

farmers in the country--were no longer able to complete on such terms.

They began to sell, lease, or desert their property, migrating to less

afflicted regions, or flying to the hills on the frontier to adopt a

savage life. But, in a climate like that of Northeastern India, it takes

but little time to transform a tract of untilled land into formidable

wilderness. When the functions of society are impeded, nature is swift

to assert its claims. And accordingly, in 1789, "Lord Cornwallis after

three years' vigilant inquiry, pronounced one third of the company's

territories in Bengal to be a jungle, inhabited only by wild beasts."

On the Western frontier of Beerbhoom the state of affairs was, perhaps,

most calamitous. In 1776, four acres out of every seven remained

untilled. Though in earlier times this district had been a favourite

highway for armies, by the year 1780 it had become an almost impassable

jungle. A small company of Sepoys, which in that year by heroic

exertions forced its way through, was obliged to traverse 120 miles of

trackless forest, swarming with tigers and black shaggy bears. In 1789

this jungle "continued so dense as to shut off all communication between

the two most important towns, and to cause the mails to be carried by a

circuit of fifty miles through another district."

Such a state of things it is difficult for us to realize; but the

monotonous tale of disaster and suffering is not yet complete. Beerbhoom

was, to all intents and purposes, given over to tigers. "A belt

of jungle, filled with wild beasts, formed round each village." At

nightfall the hungry animals made their dreaded incursions carrying away

cattle, and even women and children, and devouring them. "The official

records frequently speak of the mail-bag being carried off by wild

beasts." So great was the damage done by these depredations, that "the

company offered a reward for each tiger's head, sufficient to maintain a

peasant's family in comfort for three months; an item of expenditure it

deemed so necessary, that, when under extraordinary pressure it had to

suspend all payments, the tiger-money and diet allowance for prisoners

were the sole exceptions to the rule." Still more formidable foes were

found in the herds of wild elephants, which came trooping along in the

rear of the devastation caused by the famine. In the course of a few

years fifty-six villages were reported as destroyed by elephants, and as

having lapsed into jungle in consequence; "and an official return states

that forty market-towns throughout the district had been deserted from

the same cause. In many parts of the country the peasantry did not dare

to sleep in their houses, lest they should be buried beneath them during

the night." These terrible beasts continued to infest the province as

late as 1810.

But society during these dark days had even worse enemies than tigers

and elephants. The barbarous highlanders, of a lower type of mankind,

nourishing for forty centuries a hatred of their Hindu supplanters, like

that which the Apache bears against the white frontiersman, seized the

occasion to renew their inroads upon the lowland country. Year by year

they descended from their mountain fastnesses, plundering and burning.

Many noble Hindu families, ousted by the tax-collectors from their

estates, began to seek subsistence from robbery. Others, consulting

their selfish interests amid the general distress, "found it more

profitable to shelter banditti on their estates, levying blackmail from

the surrounding villages as the price of immunity from depredation, and

sharing in the plunder of such as would not come to terms. Their country

houses were robber strongholds, and the early English administrators of

Bengal have left it on record that a gang-robbery never occurred without

a landed proprietor being at the bottom of it." The peasants were not

slow to follow suit, and those who were robbed of their winter's store

had no alternative left but to become robbers themselves. The thieveries

of the Fakeers, or religious mendicants, and the bold, though stealthy

attacks of Thugs and Dacoits--members of Masonic brotherhoods, which at

all times have lived by robbery and assassination--added to the general

turmoil. In the cold weather of 1772 the province was ravaged far and

wide by bands of armed freebooters, fifty thousand strong; and to such

a pass did things arrive that the regular forces sent by Warren Hastings

to preserve order were twice disastrously routed; while, in Mr. Hunter's

graphic language, "villages high up the Ganges lived by housebreaking in

Calcutta." In English mansions "it was the invariable practice for the

porter to shut the outer door at the commencement of each meal, and not

to open it till the butler brought him word that the plate was safely

locked up." And for a long time nearly all traffic ceased upon the

imperial roads.

This state of things, which amounted to chronic civil war, induced

Lord Cornwallis in 1788 to place the province under the direct military

control of an English officer. The administration of Mr. Keating--the

first hardy gentleman to whom this arduous office was assigned--is

minutely described by our author. For our present purpose it is enough

to note that two years of severe campaigning, attended and followed by

relentless punishment of all transgressors, was required to put an end

to the disorders.

Such was the appalling misery, throughout a community of thirty million

persons, occasioned by the failure of the winter rice-crop in 1769.

In abridging Mr. Hunter's account we have adhered as closely to our

original as possible, but he who would obtain adequate knowledge of

this tale of woe must seek it in the ever memorable description of the

historian himself. The first question which naturally occurs to the

reader--though, as Mr. Hunter observes, it would have been one of

the last to occur to the Oriental mind--is, Who was to blame? To

what culpable negligence was it due that such a dire calamity was not

foreseen, and at least partially warded off? We shall find reason to

believe that it could not have been adequately foreseen, and that

no legislative measures could in that state of society have entirely

prevented it. Yet it will appear that the government, with the best of

intentions, did all in its power to make matters worse; and that to its

blundering ignorance the distress which followed is largely due.

The first duty incumbent upon the government in a case like that of

the failure of the winter rice-crop of 1769, was to do away with all

hindrance to the importation of food into the province. One chief cause

of the far-reaching distress wrought by great Asiatic famines has been

the almost complete commercial isolation of Asiatic communities. In the

Middle Ages the European communities were also, though to a far less

extent, isolated from each other, and in those days periods of famine

were comparatively frequent and severe. And one of the chief causes

which now render the occurrence of a famine on a great scale almost

impossible in any part of the civilized world is the increased

commercial solidarity of civilized nations. Increased facility of

distribution has operated no less effectively than improved methods of

production.

Now, in 1770 the province of Lower Bengal was in a state of almost

complete commercial isolation from other communities. Importation of

food on an adequate scale was hardly possible. "A single fact speaks

volumes as to the isolation of each district. An abundant harvest, we

are repeatedly told, was as disastrous to the revenues as a bad one;

for, when a large quantity of grain had to be carried to market, the

cost of carriage swallowed up the price obtained. Indeed, even if the

means of intercommunication and transport had rendered importation

practicable, the province had at that time no money to give in exchange

for food. Not only had its various divisions a separate currency which

would pass nowhere else except at a ruinous exchange, but in that

unfortunate year Bengal seems to have been utterly drained of its

specie..... The absence of the means of importation was the more to

be deplored, as the neighbouring districts could easily have supplied

grain. In the southeast a fair harvest had been reaped, except, in

circumscribed spots; and we are assured that, during the famine, this

part of Bengal was enabled to export without having to complain of any

deficiency in consequence..... INDEED, NO MATTER HOW LOCAL A FAMINE

MIGHT BE IN THE LAST CENTURY, THE EFFECTS WERE EQUALLY DISASTROUS.

Sylhet, a district in the northeast of Bengal, had reaped unusually

plentiful harvests in 1780 and 1781, but the next crop was destroyed by

a local inundation, and, notwithstanding the facilities for importation

afforded by water-carriage, one third of the people died."

Here we have a vivid representation of the economic condition of a

society which, however highly civilized in many important respects,

still retained, at the epoch treated of, its aboriginal type of

organization. Here we see each community brought face to face with the

impossible task of supplying, unaided, the deficiencies of nature. We

see one petty district a prey to the most frightful destitution, even

while profuse plenty reigns in the districts round about it. We find an

almost complete absence of the commercial machinery which, by enabling

the starving region to be fed out of the surplus of more favoured

localities, has in the most advanced countries rendered a great famine

practically impossible.

Now this state of things the government of 1770 was indeed powerless to

remedy. Legislative power and wisdom could not anticipate the invention

of railroads; nor could it introduce throughout the length and breadth

of Bengal a system of coaches, canals, and caravans; nor could it all at

once do away with the time-honoured brigandage, which increased the cost

of transport by decreasing the security of it; nor could it in a

trice remove the curse of a heterogeneous coinage. None, save those

uninstructed agitators who believe that governments can make water run

up-hill, would be disposed to find fault with the authorities in Bengal

for failing to cope with these difficulties. But what we are to

blame them for--though it was an error of the judgment and not of the

intentions--is their mischievous interference with the natural course of

trade, by which, instead of helping matters, they but added another

to the many powerful causes which were conspiring to bring about the

economic ruin of Bengal. We refer to the act which in 1770 prohibited

under penalties all speculation in rice.

This disastrous piece of legislation was due to the universal prevalence

of a prejudice from which so-called enlightened communities are not yet

wholly free. It is even now customary to heap abuse upon those persons

who in a season of scarcity, when prices are rapidly rising, buy up the

"necessaries of life," thereby still increasing for a time the cost of

living. Such persons are commonly assailed with specious generalities to

the effect that they are enemies of society. People whose only ideas

are "moral ideas" regard them as heartless sharpers who fatten upon the

misery of their fellow-creatures. And it is sometimes hinted that such

"practices" ought to be stopped by legislation.

Now, so far is this prejudice, which is a very old one, from being

justified by facts, that, instead of being an evil, speculation in

breadstuffs and other necessaries is one of the chief agencies by which

in modern times and civilized countries a real famine is rendered almost

impossible. This natural monopoly operates in two ways. In the first

place, by raising prices, it checks consumption, putting every one

on shorter allowance until the season of scarcity is over, and thus

prevents the scarcity from growing into famine. In the second place, by

raising prices, it stimulates importation from those localities where

abundance reigns and prices are low. It thus in the long run does much

to equalize the pressure of a time of dearth and diminish those extreme

oscillations of prices which interfere with the even, healthy course of

trade. A government which, in a season of high prices, does anything to

check such speculation, acts about as sagely as the skipper of a wrecked

vessel who should refuse to put his crew upon half rations.

The turning-point of the great Dutch Revolution, so far as it concerned

the provinces which now constitute Belgium, was the famous siege and

capture of Antwerp by Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma. The siege was a

long one, and the resistance obstinate, and the city would probably

not have been captured if famine had not come to the assistance of the

besiegers. It is interesting, therefore, to inquire what steps the civic

authorities had taken to prevent such a calamity. They knew that the

struggle before them was likely to be the life-and-death struggle of

the Southern Netherlands; they knew that there was risk of their being

surrounded so that relief from without would be impossible; they knew

that their assailant was one of the most astute and unconquerable of

men, by far the greatest general of the sixteenth century. Therefore

they proceeded to do just what our Republican Congress, under such

circumstances, would probably have done, and just what the New York

Tribune, if it had existed in those days, would have advised them to

do. Finding that sundry speculators were accumulating and hoarding up

provisions in anticipation of a season of high prices, they hastily

decided, first of all to put a stop to such "selfish iniquity." In their

eyes the great thing to be done was to make things cheap. They therefore

affixed a very low maximum price to everything which could be eaten, and

prescribed severe penalties for all who should attempt to take more than

the sum by law decreed. If a baker refused to sell his bread for a price

which would have been adequate only in a time of great plenty, his shop

was to be broken open, and his loaves distributed among the populace.

The consequences of this idiotic policy were twofold.

In the first place, the enforced lowness of prices prevented any

breadstuffs or other provisions from being brought into the city. It was

a long time before Farnese succeeded in so blockading the Scheldt as

to prevent ships laden with eatables from coming in below. Corn and

preserved meats might have been hurried by thousands of tons into the

beleaguered city. Friendly Dutch vessels, freighted with abundance, were

waiting at the mouth of the river. But all to no purpose. No merchant

would expose his valuable ship, with its cargo, to the risk of being

sunk by Farnese's batteries, merely for the sake of finding a market no

better than a hundred others which could be entered without incurring

danger. No doubt if the merchants of Holland had followed out the maxim

Vivre pour autrui, they would have braved ruin and destruction rather

than behold their neighbours of Antwerp enslaved. No doubt if they could

have risen to a broad philosophic view of the future interests of the

Netherlands, they would have seen that Antwerp must be saved, no matter

if some of them were to lose money by it. But men do not yet sacrifice

themselves for their fellows, nor do they as a rule look far beyond the

present moment and its emergencies. And the business of government is to

legislate for men as they are, not as it is supposed they ought to be.

If provisions had brought a high price in Antwerp, they would have been

carried thither. As it was, the city, by its own stupidity, blockaded

itself far more effectually than Farnese could have done it.

In the second place, the enforced lowness of prices prevented any

general retrenchment on the part of the citizens. Nobody felt it

necessary to economize. Every one bought as much bread, and ate it as

freely, as if the government by insuring its cheapness had insured its

abundance. So the city lived in high spirits and in gleeful defiance of

its besiegers, until all at once provisions gave out, and the government

had to step in again to palliate the distress which it had wrought. It

constituted itself quartermaster-general to the community, and doled

out stinted rations alike to rich and poor, with that stern democratic

impartiality peculiar to times of mortal peril. But this served only,

like most artificial palliatives, to lengthen out the misery. At the

time of the surrender, not a loaf of bread could be obtained for love or

money.

In this way a bungling act of legislation helped to decide for the worse

a campaign which involved the territorial integrity and future welfare

of what might have become a great nation performing a valuable function

in the system of European communities.

The striking character of this instructive example must be our excuse

for presenting it at such length. At the beginning of the famine in

Bengal the authorities legislated in very much the same spirit as the

burghers who had to defend Antwerp against Parma.

"By interdicting what it was pleased to term the monopoly of grain,

it prevented prices from rising at once to their natural rates. The

Province had a certain amount of food in it, and this food had to last

about nine months. Private enterprise if left to itself would have

stored up the general supply at the harvest, with a view to realizing

a larger profit at a later period in the scarcity. Prices would in

consequence have immediately risen, compelling the population to reduce

their consumption from the very beginning of the dearth. The general

stock would thus have been husbanded, and the pressure equally spread

over the whole nine months, instead of being concentrated upon the last

six. The price of grain, in place of promptly rising to three half-pence

a pound as in 1865-66, continued at three farthings during the earlier

months of the famine. During the latter ones it advanced to twopence,

and in certain localities reached fourpence."

The course taken by the great famine of 1866 well illustrates the

above views. This famine, also, was caused by the total failure of the

December rice-crop, and it was brought to a close by an abundant harvest

in the succeeding year.

"Even as regards the maximum price reached, the analogy holds good,

in each case rice having risen in general to nearly twopence, and in

particular places to fourpence, a pound; and in each the quoted rates

being for a brief period in several isolated localities merely nominal,

no food existing in the market, and money altogether losing its

interchangeable value. In both the people endured silently to the end,

with a fortitude that casual observers of a different temperament and

widely dissimilar race may easily mistake for apathy, but which those

who lived among the sufferers are unable to distinguish from qualities

that generally pass under a more honourable name. During 1866, when the

famine was severest, I superintended public instruction throughout the

southwestern division of Lower Bengal, including Orissa. The subordinate

native officers, about eight hundred in number, behaved with a

steadiness, and when called upon, with a self-abnegation, beyond praise.

Many of them ruined their health. The touching scenes of self-sacrifice

and humble heroism which I witnessed among the poor villagers on my

tours of inspection will remain in my memory till my latest day."

But to meet the famine of 1866 Bengal was equipped with railroads and

canals, and better than all, with an intelligent government. Far from

trying to check speculation, as in 1770, the government did all in its

power to stimulate it. In the earlier famine one could hardly engage

in the grain trade without becoming amenable to the law. "In 1866

respectable men in vast numbers went into the trade; for government, by

publishing weekly returns of the rates in every district, rendered the

traffic both easy and safe. Every one knew where to buy grain cheapest,

and where to sell it dearest, and food was accordingly brought from

the districts that could best spare it, and carried to those which most

urgently needed it. Not only were prices equalized so far as possible

throughout the stricken parts, but the publicity given to the high rates

in Lower Bengal induced large shipments from the upper provinces, and

the chief seat of the trade became unable to afford accommodation for

landing the vast stores of grain brought down the river. Rice poured

into the affected districts from all parts,--railways, canals, and roads

vigorously doing their duty."

The result of this wise policy was that scarcity was heightened into

famine only in one remote corner of Bengal. Orissa was commercially

isolated in 1866, as the whole country had been in 1770. "As far back as

the records extend, Orissa has produced more grain than it can use. It

is an exporting, not an importing province, sending away its surplus

grain by sea, and neither requiring nor seeking any communication with

Lower Bengal by land." Long after the rest of the province had begun to

prepare for a year of famine, Orissa kept on exporting. In March, when

the alarm was first raised, the southwest monsoon had set in, rendering

the harbours inaccessible. Thus the district was isolated. It was

no longer possible to apply the wholesome policy which was operating

throughout the rest of the country. The doomed population of Orissa,

like passengers in a ship without provisions, were called upon to suffer

the extremities of famine; and in the course of the spring and summer of

1866, some seven hundred thousand people perished.

January, 1869.

X. SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS. [31]

[31] History of the United Netherlands: from the Death of William

the Silent to the Twelve Years' Truce, 1609. By John Lothrop Motley, D.

C. L. In four volumes. Vols. III. and IV. New York. 1868.

Tandem fit surculus arbor: the twig which Mr. Motley in his earlier

volumes has described as slowly putting forth its leaves and rootless,

while painfully struggling for existence in a hostile soil, has at last

grown into a mighty tree of liberty, drawing sustenance from all

lands, and protecting all civilized peoples with its pleasant shade.

We congratulate Mr. Motley upon the successful completion of the second

portion of his great work; and we think that the Netherlanders of our

time have reason to be grateful to the writer who has so faithfully and

eloquently told the story of their country's fearful struggle against

civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, and its manifold contributions to the

advancement of European civilization.

Mr. Motley has been fortunate in his selection of a subject upon which

to write. Probably no century of modern times lends itself to the

purposes of the descriptive historian so well as the sixteenth. While on

the one hand the problems which it presents are sufficiently near for

us to understand them without too great an effort of the imagination, on

the other hand they are sufficiently remote for us to study them without

passionate and warping prejudice. The contest between Catholicism and

the reformed religion--between ecclesiastical autocracy and the right of

private investigation--has become a thing of the past, and constitutes

a closed chapter in human history. The epoch which begins where Mr.

Motley's history is designed to close--at the peace of Westphalia--is

far more complicated. Since the middle of the seventeenth century a

double movement has been going on in religion and philosophy, society

and politics,--a movement of destruction typified by Voltaire and

Rousseau, and a constructive movement represented by Diderot and

Lessing. We are still living in the midst of this great epoch: the

questions which it presents are liable to disturb our prejudices as well

as to stimulate our reason; the results to which it must sooner or

later attain can now be only partially foreseen; and even its present

tendencies are generally misunderstood, and in many quarters wholly

ignored. With the sixteenth century, as we have said, the case is far

different. The historical problem is far less complex. The issues at

stake are comparatively simple, and the historian has before him a

straightforward story.

From the dramatic, or rather from the epic, point of view, the sixteenth

century is pre-eminent. The essentially transitional character of modern

history since the breaking up of the papal and feudal systems is at no

period more distinctly marked. In traversing the sixteenth century we

realize that we have fairly got out of one state of things and into

another. At the outset, events like the challenge of Barletta may make

us doubt whether we have yet quite left behind the Middle Ages. The

belief in the central position of the earth is still universal, and the

belief in its rotundity not yet, until the voyage of Magellan, generally

accepted. We find England--owing partly to the introduction of gunpowder

and the consequent disuse of archery, partly to the results of the

recent integration of France under Louis XI.--fallen back from the

high relative position which it had occupied under the rule of

the Plantagenets; and its policy still directed in accordance with

reminiscences of Agincourt, and garnet, and Burgundian alliances. We

find France just beginning her ill-fated career of intervention in the

affairs of Italy; and Spain, with her Moors finally vanquished and a new

world beyond the ocean just added to her domain, rapidly developing

into the greatest empire which had been seen since the days of the first

Caesars. But at the close of the century we find feudal life in castles

changed into modern life in towns; chivalric defiances exchanged for

over-subtle diplomacy; Maurices instead of Bayards; a Henry IV. instead

of a Gaston de Foix. We find the old theory of man's central position in

the universe--the foundation of the doctrine of final causes and of the

whole theological method of interpreting nature--finally overthrown

by Copernicus. Instead of the circumnavigability of the earth, the

discovery of a Northwest passage--as instanced by the heroic voyage of

Barendz, so nobly described by Mr. Motley--is now the chief geographical

problem. East India Companies, in place of petty guilds of weavers and

bakers, bear witness to the vast commercial progress. We find England,

fresh from her stupendous victory over the whole power of Spain, again

in the front rank of nations; France, under the most astute of modern

sovereigns, taking her place for a time as the political leader of the

civilized world; Spain, with her evil schemes baffled in every quarter,

sinking into that terrible death-like lethargy, from which she has

hardly yet awakened, and which must needs call forth our pity, though it

is but the deserved retribution for her past behaviour. While the little

realm of the Netherlands, filched and cozened from the unfortunate

Jacqueline by the "good" Duke of Burgundy, carried over to Austria as

the marriage-portion of Lady Mary, sent down to Spain as the personal

inheritance of the "prudent" Philip, and by him intolerably tormented

with an Inquisition, a Blood-Council, and a Duke of Alva, has after a

forty years' war of independence taken its position for a time as the

greatest of commercial nations, with the most formidable navy and one of

the best disciplined armies yet seen upon the earth.

But the central phenomenon of the sixteenth century is the culmination

of the Protestant movement in its decisive proclamation by Luther. For

nearly three hundred years already the power of the Church had been

declining, and its function as a civilizing agency had been growing

more and more obsolete. The first great blow at its supremacy had been

directed with partial success in the thirteenth century by the Emperor

Frederick II. Coincident with this attack from without, we find a

reformation begun within, as exemplified in the Dominican and Franciscan

movements. The second great blow was aimed by Philip IV. of France, and

this time it struck with terrible force. The removal of the Papacy to

Avignon, in 1305, was the virtual though unrecognized abdication of its

beneficent supremacy. Bereft of its dignity and independence, from

that time forth it ceased to be the defender of national unity against

baronial anarchy, of popular rights against monarchical usurpation, and

became a formidable instrument of despotism and oppression. Through

the vicissitudes of the great schism in the fourteenth century, and the

refractory councils in the fifteenth, its position became rapidly more

and more retrograde and demoralized. And when, in 1530, it joined

its forces with those of Charles V., in crushing the liberties of the

worthiest of mediaeval republics, it became evident that the cause of

freedom and progress must henceforth be intrusted to some more faithful

champion. The revolt of Northern Europe, led by Luther and Henry VIII.

was but the articulate announcement of this altered state of affairs.

So long as the Roman Church had been felt to be the enemy of tyrannical

monarchs and the steadfast friend of the people, its encroachments, as

represented by men like Dunstan and Becket, were regarded with popular

favour. The strength of the Church lay ever in its democratic instincts;

and when these were found to have abandoned it, the indignant protest of

Luther sufficed to tear away half of Europe from its allegiance.

By the end of the sixteenth century, we find the territorial struggle

between the Church and the reformed religion substantially decided.

Protestantism and Catholicism occupied then the same respective areas

which they now occupy. Since 1600 there has been no instance of a nation

passing from one form of worship to the other; and in all probability

there never will be. Since the wholesale dissolution of religious

beliefs wrought in the last century, the whole issue between Romanism

and Protestantism, regarded as dogmatic systems, is practically dead. M.

Renan is giving expression to an almost self-evident truth, when he says

that religious development is no longer to proceed by way of sectarian

proselytism, but by way of harmonious internal development. The contest

is no longer between one theology and another, but it is between

the theological and the scientific methods of interpreting natural

phenomena. The sixteenth century has to us therefore the interest

belonging to a rounded and completed tale. It contains within itself

substantially the entire history of the final stage of the theological

reformation.

This great period falls naturally into two divisions, the first

corresponding very nearly with the reigns of Charles V. and Henry VIII.,

and the second with the age of Philip II. and Elizabeth. The first of

these periods was filled with the skirmishes which were to open the

great battle of the Reformation. At first the strength and extent of the

new revolution were not altogether apparent. While the Inquisition was

vigorously crushing out the first symptoms of disaffection in Spain, it

at one time seemed as if the Reformers were about to gain the whole of

the Empire, besides acquiring an excellent foothold in France. Again,

while England was wavering between the old and the new faith, the last

hopes of the Reform in Germany seemed likely to be destroyed by the

military genius of Charles. But in Maurice, the red-bearded hero of

Saxony, Charles found more than his match. The picture of the rapid

and desperate march of Maurice upon Innspruck, and of the great Emperor

flying for his life at the very hour of his imagined triumph, has still

for us an intenser interest than almost any other scene of that age; for

it was the event which proved that Protestantism was not a mere local

insurrection which a monarch like Charles could easily put down, but a

gigantic revolution against which all the powers in the world might well

strive in vain.

With the abdication of Charles in 1556 the new period may be said

to begin, and it is here that Mr. Motley's history commences. Events

crowded thick and fast. In 1556 Philip II., a prince bred and educated

for the distinct purpose of suppressing heresy, succeeded to the rule

of the most powerful empire which had been seen since the days of the

Antonines. In the previous year a new era had begun at the court of

Rome. The old race of pagan pontiffs, the Borgias, the Farneses, and the

Medicis, had come to an end, and the papal throne was occupied by the

puritanical Caraffa, as violent a fanatic as Robespierre, and a foe of

freedom as uncompromising as Philip II. himself. Under his auspices

took place the great reform in the Church signalized by the rise of the

Jesuits, as the reform in the thirteenth century had been attended

by the rise of the Cordeliers and Dominicans. His name should not be

forgotten, for it is mainly owing to the policy inaugurated by him that

Catholicism was enabled to hold its ground as well as it did. In 1557

the next year, the strength of France was broken at St. Quentin, and

Spain was left with her hands free to deal with the Protestant powers.

In 1558, by the accession of Elizabeth, England became committed to the

cause of Reform. In 1559 the stormy administration of Margaret began in

the Netherlands. In 1560 the Scotch nobles achieved the destruction of

Catholicism in North Britain. By this time every nation except France,

had taken sides in the conflict which was to last, with hardly any

cessation, during two generations.

Mr. Motley, therefore, in describing the rise and progress of the united

republic of the Netherlands, is writing not Dutch but European history.

On his pages France, Spain, and England make almost as large a figure as

Holland itself. He is writing the history of the Reformation during its

concluding epoch, and he chooses the Netherlands as his main subject,

because during that period the Netherlands were the centre of the

movement. They constituted the great bulwark of freedom, and upon the

success or failure of their cause the future prospect of Europe and of

mankind depended. Spain and the Netherlands, Philip II. and William the

Silent, were the two leading antagonists and were felt to be such by

the other nations and rulers that came to mingle in the strife. It is

therefore a stupid criticism which we have seen made upon Mr. Motley,

that, having brought his narrative down to the truce of 1609, he ought,

instead of describing the Thirty Years' War, to keep on with Dutch

history, and pourtray the wars against Cromwell and Charles II., and the

struggle of the second William of Orange against Louis XIV. By so doing

he would only violate the unity of his narrative. The wars of the Dutch

against England and France belong to an entirely different epoch in

European history,--a modern epoch, in which political and commercial

interests were of prime importance, and theological interests distinctly

subsidiary. The natural terminus of Mr. Motley's work is the Peace

of Westphalia. After bringing down his history to the time when the

independence of the Netherlands was virtually acknowledged, after

describing the principal stages of the struggle against Catholicism and

universal monarchy, as carried on in the first generation by Elizabeth

and William, and in the second by Maurice and Henry, he will naturally

go on to treat of the epilogue as conducted by Richelieu and Gustavus,

ending in the final cessation of religious wars throughout Europe.

The conflict in the Netherlands was indeed far more than a mere

religious struggle. In its course was distinctly brought into prominence

the fact which we have above signalized, that since the Roman Church had

abandoned the liberties of the people they had found a new defender in

the reformed religion. The Dutch rebellion is peculiarly interesting,

because it was a revolt not merely against the Inquisition, but also

against the temporal sovereignty of Philip. Besides changing their

religion, the sturdy Netherlanders saw fit to throw off the sway of

their legitimate ruler, and to proclaim the thrice heretical doctrine

of the sovereignty of the people. In this one respect their views were

decidedly more modern than those of Elizabeth and Henry IV. These great

monarchs apparently neither understood nor relished the republican

theories of the Hollanders; though it is hardly necessary for Mr. Motley

to sneer at them quite so often because they were not to an impossible

degree in advance of their age. The proclamation of a republic in the

Netherlands marked of itself the beginning of a new era,--an era when

flourishing communities of men were no longer to be bought and sold,

transferred and bequeathed like real estate and chattels, but were to

have and maintain the right of choosing with whom and under whom they

should transact their affairs. The interminable negotiations for a

truce, which fill nearly one third of Mr. Motley's concluding volume,

exhibit with striking distinctness the difference between the old and

new points of view. Here again we think Mr. Motley errs slightly, in

calling too much attention to the prevaricating diplomacy of the Spanish

court, and too little to its manifest inability to comprehend the

demands of the Netherlanders. How should statesmen brought up under

Philip II. and kept under the eye of the Inquisition be expected to

understand a claim for liberty originating in the rights of the common

people and not in the gracious benevolence or intelligent policy of the

King? The very idea must have been practically inconceivable by them.

Accordingly, they strove by every available device of chicanery to

wheedle the Netherlanders into accepting their independence as a gift

from the King of Spain. But to such a piece of self-stultification the

clear-sighted Dutchmen could by no persuasion be brought to consent.

Their independence, they argued, was not the King's to give. They had

won it from him and his father, in a war of forty years, during which

they had suffered atrocious miseries, and all that the King of Spain

could do was to acknowledge it as their right, and cease to molest them

in future. Over this point, so simple to us but knotty enough in those

days, the commissioners wrangled for nearly two years. And when the

Spanish government, unable to carry on the war any longer without risk

of utter bankruptcy, and daily crippled in its resources by the attacks

of the Dutch navy, grudgingly a reed to a truce upon the Netherlanders'

terms, it virtually acknowledged its own defeat and the downfall of the

principles for which it had so obstinately fought. By the truce of

1609 the republican principle was admitted by the most despotic of

governments.

Here was the first great triumph of republicanism over monarchy; and it

was not long in bearing fruits. For the Dutch revolution, the settlement

of America by English Puritans, the great rebellion of the Commons, the

Revolution of 1688, the revolt of the American Colonies, and the general

overthrow of feudalism in 1789, are but successive acts in the same

drama William the Silent was the worthy forerunner of Cromwell and

Washington; and but for the victory which he won, during his life and

after his untimely death, the subsequent triumphs of civil liberty might

have been long, postponed.

Over the sublime figure of William--saevis tranquillus in undis--we

should be glad to dwell, but we are not reviewing the "Rise of the Dutch

Republic," and in Mr. Motley's present volumes the hero of toleration

appears no longer. His antagonist, however,--the Philip whom God for

some inscrutable purpose permitted to afflict Europe during a reign of

forty-two years,--accompanies us nearly to the end of the present work,

dying just in time for the historian to sum up the case against him,

and pronounce final judgment. For the memory of Philip II. Mr. Motley

cherishes no weak pity. He rarely alludes to him without commenting upon

his total depravity, and he dismisses him with the remark that "if

there are vices--as possibly there are--from which he was exempt, it

is because it is not permitted to human nature to attain perfection in

evil." The verdict is none the less just because of its conciseness. If

there ever was a strife between Hercules and Cacus, between Ormuzd and

Ahriman, between the Power of Light and the Power of Darkness, it

was certainly the strife between the Prince of Orange and the Spanish

Monarch. They are contrasted like the light and shade in one of Dore's

pictures. And yet it is perhaps unnecessary for Mr. Motley to say that

if Philip had been alive when Spinola won for him the great victory of

Ostend, "he would have felt it his duty to make immediate arrangements

for poisoning him." Doubtless the imputation is sufficiently justified

by what we know of Philip; but it is uncalled for. We do not care to

hear about what the despot might have done. We know what he did do, and

the record is sufficiently damning. There is no harm in our giving the

Devil his due, or as Llorente wittily says, "Il ne faut pas calomnier

meme l'Inquisition."

Philip inherited all his father's bad qualities, without any of his good

ones; and so it is much easier to judge him than his father. Charles,

indeed, is one of those characters whom one hardly knows whether to love

or hate, to admire or despise. He had much bad blood in him. Charles the

Bold and Ferdinand of Aragon were not grandparents to be proud of. Yet

with all this he inherited from his grandmother Isabella much that one

can like, and his face, as preserved by Titian, in spite of its frowning

brow and thick Burgundian lip, is rather prepossessing, while the face

of Philip is simply odious. In intellect he must probably be called

great, though his policy often betrayed the pettiness of selfishness.

If, in comparison with the mediaeval emperor whose fame he envied, he

may justly be called Charles the Little, he may still, when compared to

a more modern emulator of Charlemagne,--the first of the Bonapartes,--be

considered great and enlightened. If he could lie and cheat more

consummately than any contemporary monarch, not excepting his rival,

Francis, he could still be grandly magnanimous, while the generosity of

Francis flowed only from the shallow surface of a maudlin good-nature.

He spoke many languages and had the tastes of a scholar, while his son

had only the inclinations of an unfeeling pedagogue. He had an inkling

of urbanity, and could in a measure become all things to all men, while

Philip could never show himself except as a gloomy, impracticable bigot.

It is for some such reasons as these, I suppose, that Mr. Buckle--no

friend to despots--speaks well of Charles, and that Mr. Froude is moved

to tell the following anecdote: While standing by the grave of Luther,

and musing over the strange career of the giant monk whose teachings had

gone so far to wreck his most cherished schemes and render his life a

failure, some fanatical bystander advised the Emperor to have the body

taken up and burned in the market-place. "There was nothing," says Mr.

Froude, "unusual in the proposal; it was the common practice of the

Catholic Church with the remains of heretics, who were held unworthy

to be left in repose in hallowed ground. There was scarcely, perhaps

another Catholic prince who would have hesitated to comply. But Charles

was one of nature's gentlemen. He answered, 'I war not with the dead.'"

Mr. Motley takes a less charitable view of the great Emperor. His

generous indignation against all persecutors makes him severe; and in

one of his earlier volumes, while speaking of the famous edicts for the

suppression of heresy in the Netherlands, he somewhere uses the word

"murder." Without attempting to palliate the crime of persecution, I

doubt if it is quite fair to Charles to call him a murderer. We must not

forget that persecution, now rightly deemed an atrocious crime, was once

really considered by some people a sacred duty; that it was none other

than the compassionate Isabella who established the Spanish Inquisition;

and that the "bloody" Mary Tudor was a woman who would not wilfully have

done wrong. With the progress of civilization the time will doubtless

come when warfare, having ceased to be necessary, will be thought highly

criminal; yet it will not then be fair to hold Marlborough or Wellington

accountable for the lives lost in their great battles. We still live in

an age when war is, to the imagination of some persons, surrounded with

false glories; and the greatest of modern generals [32] has still many

undiscriminating admirers. Yet the day is no less certainly at hand

when the edicts of Charles V. will be deemed a more pardonable offence

against humanity than the wanton march to Moscow.

[32] This was written before the deeds of Moltke had eclipsed

those of Napoleon.

Philip II. was different from his father in capacity as a drudging

clerk, like Boutwell, is different from a brilliant financier like

Gladstone. In organization he differed from him as a boor differs from a

gentleman. He seemed made of a coarser clay. The difference between

them is well indicated by their tastes at the table. Both were terrible

gluttons, a fact which puritanic criticism might set down as equally

to the discredit of each of them. But even in intemperance there are

degrees of refinement, and the impartial critic of life and manners will

no doubt say that if one must get drunk, let it be on Chateau Margaux

rather than on commissary whiskey. Pickled partridges, plump capons,

syrups of fruits, delicate pastry, and rare fish went to make up the

diet of Charles in his last days at Yuste. But the beastly Philip would

make himself sick with a surfeit of underdone pork.

Whatever may be said of the father, we can hardly go far wrong in

ascribing the instincts of a murderer to the son. He not only

burned heretics, but he burned them with an air of enjoyment and

self-complacency. His nuptials with Elizabeth of France were celebrated

by a vast auto-da-fe. He studied murder as a fine art, and was as

skilful in private assassinations as Cellini was in engraving on gems.

The secret execution of Montigny, never brought to light until the

present century, was a veritable chef d'oeuvre of this sort. The

cases of Escobedo and Antonio Perez may also be cited in point. Dark

suspicions hung around the premature death of Don John of Austria, his

too brilliant and popular half-brother. He planned the murder of William

the Silent, and rewarded the assassin with an annuity furnished by

the revenues of the victim's confiscated estates. He kept a staff of

ruffians constantly in service for the purpose of taking off Elizabeth,

Henry IV., Prince Maurice, Olden-Barneveldt, and St. Aldegonde. He

instructed Alva to execute sentence of death upon the whole population

of the Netherlands. He is partly responsible for the martyrdoms of

Ridley and Latimer, and the judicial murder of Cranmer. He first

conceived the idea of the wholesale massacre of St. Bartholomew,

many years before Catharine de' Medici carried it into operation. His

ingratitude was as dangerous as his revengeful fanaticism. Those who

had best served his interests were the least likely to escape the

consequences of his jealousy. He destroyed Egmont, who had won for him

the splendid victories of St. Quentin and Gravelines; and "with minute

and artistic treachery" he plotted "the disgrace and ruin" of Farnese,

"the man who was his near blood-relation, and who had served him most

faithfully from earliest youth." Contemporary opinion even held him

accountable for the obscure deaths of his wife Elizabeth and his son

Carlos; but M. Gachard has shown that this suspicion is unfounded.

Philip appears perhaps to better advantage in his domestic than in his

political relations. Yet he was addicted to vulgar and miscellaneous

incontinence; toward the close of his life he seriously contemplated

marrying his own daughter Isabella; and he ended by taking for his

fourth wife his niece, Anne of Austria, who became the mother of his

half-idiotic son and successor. We know of no royal family, unless it

may be the Claudians of Rome, in which the transmission of moral and

intellectual qualities is more thoroughly illustrated than in this

Burgundian race which for two centuries held the sceptre of Spain. The

son Philip and the grandmother Isabella are both needful in order to

comprehend the strange mixture of good and evil in Charles. But the

descendants of Philip--two generations of idiocy, and a third of

utter impotence--are a sufficient commentary upon the organization and

character of their progenitor.

Such was the man who for two generations had been considered the bulwark

of the Catholic Church; who, having been at the bottom of nearly all the

villany that had been wrought in Europe for half a century, was yet

able to declare upon his death-bed that "in all his life he had never

consciously done wrong to any one." At a ripe old age he died of a

fearful disease. Under the influence of a typhus fever, supervening upon

gout, he had begun to decompose while yet alive. "His sufferings," says

Mr. Motley, "were horrible, but no saint could have manifested in

them more gentle resignation or angelic patience. He moralized on the

condition to which the greatest princes might thus be brought at last by

the hand of God, and bade the Prince observe well his father's present

condition, in order that when he too should be laid thus low, he might

likewise be sustained by a conscience void of offence." What more is

needed to complete the disgusting picture? Philip was fanatical up to

the point where fanaticism borders upon hypocrisy. He was possessed with

a "great moral idea," the idea of making Catholicism the ruler of the

world, that he might be the ruler of Catholicism. Why, it may be said,

shall the charge of fanaticism be allowed to absolve Isabella and

extenuate the guilt of Charles, while it only strengthens the case

against Philip? Because Isabella persecuted heretics in order to save

their souls from a worse fate, while Philip burnt them in order to

get them out of his way. Isabella would perhaps have gone to the stake

herself, if thereby she might have put an end to heresy. Philip would

have seen every soul in Europe consigned to eternal perdition before he

would have yielded up an iota of his claims to universal dominion.

He could send Alva to browbeat the Pope, as well as to oppress the

Netherlanders. He could compass the destruction of the orthodox Egmont

and Farnese, as well as of the heretical William. His unctuous piety

only adds to the abhorrence with which we regard him; and his humility

in face of death is neither better nor worse than the assumed humility

which had become second nature to Uriah Heep. In short, take him for

all in all, he was probably the most loathsome character in all European

history. He has frequently been called, by Protestant historians,

an incarnate devil; but we do not think that Mephistopheles would

acknowledge him. He should rather be classed among those creatures

described by Dante as "a Dio spiacenti ed ai nemici sui."

The abdication of Charles V. left Philip ruler over wider dominions than

had ever before been brought together under the sway of one man. In his

own right Philip was master not only of Spain, but of the Netherlands,

Franche Comte, Lombardy, Naples, and Sicily, with the whole of North and

South America; besides which he was married to the Queen of England. In

the course of his reign he became possessed of Portugal, with all its

vast domains in the East Indies. His revenues were greater than those of

any other contemporary monarch; his navy was considered invincible, and

his army was the best disciplined in Europe. All these great advantages

he was destined to throw to the winds. In the strife for universal

monarchy, in the mad endeavour to subject England, Scotland, and

France to his own dominion and the tyranny of the Inquisition, besides

re-conquering the Netherlands, all his vast resources were wasted. The

Dutch war alone, like a bottomless pit, absorbed all that he could pour

into it. Long before the war was over, or showed signs of drawing to an

end, his revenues were wasted, and his troops in Flanders were mutinous

for want of pay. He had to rely upon energetic viceroys like Farnese and

the Spinolas to furnish funds out of their own pockets. Finally, he was

obliged to repudiate all his debts; and when he died the Spanish empire

was in such a beggarly condition that it quaked at every approach of a

hostile Dutch fleet. Such a result is not evidence of a statesmanlike

ability; but Philip's fanatical selfishness was incompatible with

statesmanship. He never could be made to believe that his projects had

suffered defeat. No sooner had the Invincible Armada been sent to the

bottom by the guns of the English fleet and the gales of the German

Ocean, than he sent orders to Farnese to invade England at once with the

land force under his command! He thought to obtain Scotland, when, after

the death of Mary, it had passed under the undisputed control of the

Protestant noblemen. He dreamed of securing for his family the crown of

France, even after Henry, with free consent of the Pope, had made his

triumphal entry into Paris. He asserted complete and entire sovereignty

over the Netherlands, even after Prince Maurice had won back from him

the last square foot of Dutch territory. Such obstinacy as this can

only be called fatuity. If Philip had lived in Pagan times, he would

doubtless, like Caligula, have demanded recognition of his own divinity.

The miserable condition of the Spanish people under this terrible reign,

and the causes of their subsequent degeneracy, have been well treated by

Mr. Motley. The causes of the failure of Spanish civilization are partly

social and partly economical; and they had been operating for eight

hundred years when Philip succeeded to the throne. The Moorish conquest

in 711 had practically isolated Spain from the rest of Europe. In the

Crusades she took no part, and reaped none of the signal advantages

resulting from that great movement. Her whole energies were directed

toward throwing off the yoke of her civilized but "unbelieving"

oppressors. For a longer time than has now elapsed since the Norman

Conquest of England, the entire Gothic population of Spain was engaged

in unceasing religious and patriotic warfare. The unlimited power thus

acquired by an unscrupulous clergy, and the spirit of uncompromising

bigotry thus imparted to the whole nation, are in this way readily

accounted for. But in spite of this, the affairs of Spain at the

accession of Charles V. were not in an unpromising condition. The

Spanish Visigoths had been the least barbarous of the Teutonic

settlers within the limits of the Empire; their civil institutions were

excellent; their cities had obtained municipal liberties at an earlier

date than those of England; and their Parliaments indulged in a liberty

of speech which would have seemed extravagant even to De Montfort. So

late as the time of Ferdinand, the Spaniards were still justly proud of

their freedom; and the chivalrous ambition which inspired the marvellous

expedition of Cortes to Mexico, and covered the soil of Italy with

Spanish armies, was probably in the main a healthy one. But the forces

of Spanish freedom were united at too late an epoch; in 1492, the power

of despotism was already in the ascendant. In England the case was

different. The barons were enabled to combine and wrest permanent

privileges from the crown, at a time when feudalism was strong. But the

Spanish communes waited for combined action until feudalism had become

weak, and modern despotism, with its standing armies and its control of

the spiritual power, was arrayed in the ranks against them. The War of

the Communes, early in the reign of Charles V., irrevocably decided the

case in favour of despotism, and from that date the internal decline of

Spain may be said to have begun.

But the triumphant consolidation of the spiritual and temporal powers of

despotism, and the abnormal development of loyalty and bigotry, were not

the only evil results of the chronic struggle in which Spain had been

engaged. For many centuries, while Christian Spain had been but a fringe

of debatable border-land on the skirts of the Moorish kingdom,

perpetual guerilla warfare had rendered consecutive labour difficult or

impracticable; and the physical configuration of the country contributed

in bringing about this result. To plunder the Moors across the border

was easier than to till the ground at home. Then as the Spaniards,

exemplifying the military superiority of the feudal over the sultanic

form of social organization, proceeded steadily to recover dominion over

the land, the industrious Moors, instead of migrating backward before

the advance of their conquerors, remained at home and submitted to them.

Thus Spanish society became compounded of two distinct castes,--the

Moorish Spaniards, who were skilled labourers, and the Gothic Spaniards,

by whom all labour, crude or skilful, was deemed the stigma of a

conquered race, and unworthy the attention of respectable people. As Mr.

Motley concisely says:--

"The highest industrial and scientific civilization that had been

exhibited upon Spanish territory was that of Moors and Jews. When in

the course of time those races had been subjugated, massacred, or driven

into exile, not only was Spain deprived of its highest intellectual

culture and its most productive labour, but intelligence, science, and

industry were accounted degrading, because the mark of inferior and

detested peoples."

This is the key to the whole subsequent history of Spain. Bigotry,

loyalty, and consecrated idleness are the three factors which have

made that great country what it is to-day,--the most backward region in

Europe. In view of the circumstances just narrated, it is not surprising

to learn that in Philip II.'s time a vast portion of the real estate of

the country was held by the Church in mortmain; that forty-nine noble

families owned all the rest; that all great estates were held in tail;

and that the property of the aristocracy and the clergy was completely

exempt from taxation. Thus the accumulation and the diffusion of capital

were alike prevented; and the few possessors of property wasted it

in unproductive expenditure. Hence the fundamental error of Spanish

political economy, that wealth is represented solely by the precious

metals; an error which well enough explains the total failure, in spite

of her magnificent opportunities, of Spain's attempts to colonize the

New World. Such was the frightful condition of Spanish society under

Philip II.; and as if this state of things were not bad enough, the next

king, Philip III., at the instigation of the clergy, decided to drive

into banishment the only class of productive labourers yet remaining in

the country. In 1610, this stupendous crime and blunder--unparalleled

even in Spanish history--was perpetrated. The entire Moorish population

were expelled from their homes and driven into the deserts of Africa.

For the awful consequences of this mad action no remedy was possible. No

system of native industry could be created on demand, to take the place

of that which had been thus wantonly crushed forever. From this epoch

dates the social ruin of Spain. In less than a century her people were

riotous with famine; and every sequestered glen and mountain pathway

throughout the country had become a lurking-place for robbers. Whoever

would duly realize to what a lamentable condition this beautiful

peninsula had in the seventeenth century been reduced, let him study

the immortal pages of Lesage. He will learn afresh the lesson, not yet

sufficiently regarded in the discussion of social problems, that the

laws of nature cannot be violated without entailing a penalty fearful

in proportion to the extent of the violation. But let him carefully

remember also that the Spaniards are not and never have been a

despicable people. If Spain has produced one of the lowest characters

in history, she has also produced one of the highest. That man was every

inch a Spaniard who, maimed, diseased, and poor, broken down by long

captivity, and harassed by malignant persecution, lived nevertheless

a life of grandeur and beauty fit to be a pattern for coming

generations,--the author of a book which has had a wider fame than any

other in the whole range of secular literature, and which for delicate

humour, exquisite pathos, and deep ethical sentiment, remains to-day

without a peer or a rival. If Philip II. was a Spaniard, so, too, was

Cervantes.

Spain could not be free, for she violated every condition by which

freedom is secured to a people. "Acuteness of intellect, wealth of

imagination, heroic qualities of heart and hand and brain, rarely

surpassed in any race and manifested on a thousand battle-fields, and in

the triumphs of a magnificent and most original literature, had not been

able to save a whole nation from the disasters and the degradation which

the mere words Philip II. and the Holy Inquisition suggest to every

educated mind." Nor could Spain possibly become rich, for, as Mr. Motley

continues, "nearly every law, according to which the prosperity of a

country becomes progressive, was habitually violated." On turning to

the Netherlands we find the most complete contrast, both in historical

conditions and in social results; and the success of the Netherlands in

their long struggle becomes easily intelligible. The Dutch and Flemish

provinces had formed a part of the renovated Roman Empire of Charles

the Great and the Othos. Taking advantage of the perennial contest for

supremacy between the popes and the Roman emperors, the constituent

baronies and municipalities of the Empire succeeded in acquiring and

maintaining a practical though unrecognized independence; and this is

the original reason why Italy and Germany, unlike the three western

European communities, have remained fragmentary until our own time.

By reason of the practical freedom of action thus secured, the Italian

civic republics, the Hanse towns, and the cities of Holland and

Flanders, were enabled gradually to develop a vast commerce. The

outlying position of the Netherlands, remote from the imperial

authorities, and on the direct line of commerce between Italy and

England, was another and a peculiar advantage. Throughout the Middle

Ages the Flemish and Dutch cities were of considerable political

importance, and in the fifteenth century the Netherland provinces were

the most highly civilized portion of Europe north of the Alps. For

several generations they had enjoyed, and had known how to maintain,

civic liberties, and when Charles and Philip attempted to fasten upon

them their "peculiar institution," the Spanish Inquisition, they were

ripe for political as well as theological revolt. Natural laws were

found to operate on the Rhine as well as on the Tagus, and at the end of

the great war of independence, Holland was not only better equipped than

Spain for a European conflict, but was rapidly ousting her from the East

Indian countries which she had in vain attempted to colonize.

But if we were to take up all the interesting and instructive themes

suggested by Mr. Motley's work, we should never come to an end. We

must pass over the exciting events narrated in these last volumes;

the victory of Nieuport, the siege of Ostend, the marvellous career of

Maurice, the surprising exploits of Spinola. We have attempted not so

much to describe Mr. Motley's book as to indulge in sundry reflections

suggested by the perusal of it. But we cannot close without some remarks

upon a great man, whose character Mr. Motley seems to have somewhat

misconceived.

If Mr. Motley exhibits any serious fault, it is perhaps the natural

tendency to TAKE SIDES in the events which he is describing, which

sometimes operates as a drawback to complete and thoroughgoing

criticism. With every intention to do justice to the Catholics, Mr.

Motley still writes as a Protestant, viewing all questions from the

Protestant side. He praises and condemns like a very fair-minded

Huguenot, but still like a Huguenot. It is for this reason that he

fails to interpret correctly the very complex character of Henry IV.,

regarding him as a sort of selfish renegade whom he cannot quite forgive

for accepting the crown of France at the hands of the Pope. Now this

very action of Henry, in the eye of an impartial criticism, must seem to

be one of his chief claims to the admiration and gratitude of posterity.

Henry was more than a mere Huguenot: he was a far-seeing statesman. He

saw clearly what no ruler before him, save William the Silent, had

even dimly discerned, that not Catholicism and not Protestantism,

but absolute spiritual freedom was the true end to be aimed at by a

righteous leader of opinion. It was as a Catholic sovereign that he

could be most useful even to his Huguenot subjects; and he shaped

his course accordingly. It was as an orthodox sovereign, holding his

position by the general consent of Europe, that he could best subserve

the interests of universal toleration. This principle he embodied in his

admirable edict of Nantes. What a Huguenot prince might have done, may

be seen from the shameful way in which the French Calvinists abused

the favour which Henry--and Richelieu afterwards--accorded to them.

Remembering how Calvin himself "dragooned" Geneva, let us be thankful

for the fortune which, in one of the most critical periods of history,

raised to the highest position in Christendom a man who was something

more than a sectarian.

With this brief criticism, we must regretfully take leave of Mr.

Motley's work. Much more remains to be said about a historical treatise

which is, on the whole, the most valuable and important one yet produced

by an American; but we have already exceeded our limits. We trust that

our author will be as successful in the future as he has been in the

past; and that we shall soon have an opportunity of welcoming the first

instalment of his "History of the Thirty Years' War."

March, 1868.

XI. LONGFELLOW'S DANTE. [33]

[33] The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Henry

Wadsworth Longfellow. 3 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867.

THE task of a translator is a thankless one at best. Be he never so

skilful and accurate, be he never so amply endowed with the divine

qualifications of the poet, it is still questionable if he can ever

succeed in saying satisfactorily with new words that which has once been

inimitably said--said for all time--with the old words. "Psychologically,

there is perhaps nothing more complex than an elaborate poem. The

sources of its effect upon our minds may be likened to a system of

forces which is in the highest degree unstable; and the slightest

displacement of phrases, by disturbing the delicate rhythmical

equilibrium of the whole, must inevitably awaken a jarring sensation."

Matthew Arnold has given us an excellent series of lectures upon

translating Homer, in which he doubtless succeeds in showing that some

methods of translation are preferable to others, but in which he proves

nothing so forcibly as that the simplicity and grace, the rapidity,

dignity, and fire, of Homer are quite incommunicable, save by the very

words in which they first found expression. And what is thus said of

Homer will apply to Dante with perhaps even greater force. With nearly

all of Homer's grandeur and rapidity, though not with nearly all

his simplicity, the poem of Dante manifests a peculiar intensity of

subjective feeling which was foreign to the age of Homer, as indeed to

all pre-Christian antiquity. But concerning this we need not dilate,

as it has often been duly remarked upon, and notably by Carlyle, in

his "Lectures on Hero-Worship." Who that has once heard the wail of

unutterable despair sounding in the line

"Ahi, dura terra, perche non t' apristi?"

can rest satisfied with the interpretation

"Ah, obdurate earth, wherefore didst thou not open?"

yet this rendering is literally exact.

A second obstacle, hardly less formidable, hardly less fatal to a

satisfactory translation, is presented by the highly complicated system

of triple rhyme upon which Dante's poem is constructed. This, which must

ever be a stumbling-block to the translator, seems rarely to interfere

with the free and graceful movement of the original work. The mighty

thought of the master felt no impediment from the elaborate artistic

panoply which must needs obstruct and harass the interpretation of the

disciple. Dante's terza rima is a bow of Odysseus which weaker mortals

cannot bend with any amount of tugging, and which Mr. Longfellow has

judiciously refrained from trying to bend. Yet no one can fail to remark

the prodigious loss entailed by this necessary sacrifice of one of the

most striking characteristics of the original poem. Let any one who has

duly reflected upon the strange and subtle effect produced on him by

the peculiar rhyme of Tennyson's "In Memoriam," endeavour to realize the

very different effect which would be produced if the verses were to

be alternated or coupled in successive pairs, or if rhyme were to be

abandoned for blank verse. The exquisite melody of the poem would be

silenced. The rhyme-system of the "Divine Comedy" refuses equally to be

tampered with or ignored. Its effect upon the ear and the mind is quite

as remarkable as that of the rhyme-system of "In Memoriam"; and the

impossibility of reproducing it is one good reason why Dante must always

suffer even more from translation than most poets.

Something, too, must be said of the difficulties inevitably arising from

the diverse structure and genius of the Italian and English languages.

None will deny that many of them are insurmountable. Take the third line

of the first canto,--

"Che la diritta via era smarrita,"

which Mr. Longfellow translates

"For the straightforward pathway had been lost."

Perhaps there is no better word than "lost" by which to translate

smarrita in this place; yet the two words are far from equivalent

in force. About the word smarrita there is thrown a wide penumbra of

meaning which does not belong to the word lost. [35] By its diffuse

connotations the word smarrita calls up in our minds an adequate picture

of the bewilderment and perplexity of one who is lost in a trackless

forest. The high-road with out, beaten hard by incessant overpassing

of men and beasts and wheeled vehicles, gradually becomes metamorphosed

into the shady lane, where grass sprouts up rankly between the ruts,

where bushes encroach upon the roadside, where fallen trunks now and

then intercept the traveller; and this in turn is lost in crooked

by-ways, amid brambles and underbrush and tangled vines, growing

fantastically athwart the path, shooting up on all sides of the

bewildered wanderer, and rendering advance and retreat alike hopeless.

No one who in childhood has wandered alone in the woods can help feeling

all this suggested by the word smarrita in this passage. How bald

in comparison is the word lost, which might equally be applied to a

pathway, a reputation, and a pocket-book! [36] The English is no doubt

the most copious and variously expressive of all living languages, yet

I doubt if it can furnish any word capable by itself of calling up the

complex images here suggested by smarrita. [37] And this is but one

example, out of many that might be cited, in which the lack of exact

parallelism between the two languages employed causes every translation

to suffer.

[35] See Diez, Romance Dictionary, s. v. "Marrir."

[36] On literally retranslating lost into Italian, we should get

the quite different word perduta.

[37] The more flexible method of Dr. Parsons leads to a more

satisfactory but still inadequate result:--

"Half-way on our life's Journey, in a wood,

From the right path I found myself astray."

All these, however, are difficulties which lie in the nature of

things,--difficulties for which the translator is not responsible; of

which he must try to make the best that can be made, but which he can

never expect wholly to surmount. We have now to inquire whether there

are not other difficulties, avoidable by one method of translation,

though not by another; and in criticizing Mr. Longfellow, we

have chiefly to ask whether he has chosen the best method of

translation,--that which most surely and readily awakens in the reader's

mind the ideas and feelings awakened by the original.

The translator of a poem may proceed upon either of two distinct

principles. In the first case, he may render the text of his original

into English, line for line and word for word, preserving as far as

possible its exact verbal sequences, and translating each individual

word into an English word as nearly as possible equivalent in its

etymological force. In the second case, disregarding mere syntactic and

etymologic equivalence, his aim will be to reproduce the inner meaning

and power of the original, so far as the constitutional difference of

the two languages will permit him.

It is the first of these methods that Mr. Longfellow has followed in his

translation of Dante. Fidelity to the text of the original has been his

guiding principle; and every one must admit that, in carrying out that

principle, he has achieved a degree of success alike delightful and

surprising. The method of literal translation is not likely to receive

any more splendid illustration. It is indeed put to the test in such

a way that the shortcomings now to be noticed bear not upon Mr.

Longfellow's own style of work so much as upon the method itself with

which they are necessarily implicated. These defects are, first, the

too frequent use of syntactic inversion, and secondly, the too manifest

preference extended to words of Romanic over words of Saxon origin.

To illustrate the first point, let me give a few examples. In Canto I.

we have:--

"So bitter is it, death is little more;

But of the good to treat which there I found,

Speak will I of the other things I saw there";

which is thus rendered by Mr. Cary,--

"Which to remember only, my dismay

Renews, in bitterness not far from death.

Yet to discourse of what there good befell,

All else will I relate discovered there";

and by Dr. Parsons,--

"Its very thought is almost death to me;

Yet, having found some good there, I will tell

Of other things which there I chanced to see." [38]

[38] "Tanto e amara, che poco e piu morte:

Ma per trattar del teen ch' i' vi trovai,

Diro dell' altre Bose, ch' io v' ho scorte."

Inferno, I. 7-10.

Again in Canto X. we find:--

"Their cemetery have upon this side

With Epicurus all his followers,

Who with the body mortal make the soul";--

an inversion which is perhaps not more unidiomatic than Mr. Cary's,--

"The cemetery on this part obtain

With Epicurus all his followers,

Who with the body make the spirit die";

but which is advantageously avoided by Mr. Wright,--

"Here Epicurus hath his fiery tomb,

And with him all his followers, who maintain

That soul and body share one common doom";

and is still better rendered by Dr. Parsons,--

"Here in their cemetery on this side,

With his whole sect, is Epicurus pent,

Who thought the spirit with its body died." [39]

[39] "Suo cimitero da questa parte hanno

Con Epieuro tutti i suoi seguaci,

Che l'anima col corpo morta fanno."

Inferno, X. 13-15.

And here my eyes, reverting to the end of Canto IX.,

fall upon a similar contrast between Mr. Longfellow's lines,--

"For flames between the sepulchres were scattered,

By which they so intensely heated were,

That iron more so asks not any art,"--

and those of Dr. Parsons,--

"For here mid sepulchres were sprinkled fires,

Wherewith the enkindled tombs all-burning gleamed;

Metal more fiercely hot no art requires." [40]

[40] "Che tra gli avelli flamme erano sparte,

Per le quali eran si del tutto accesi,

Che ferro piu non chiede verun' arte."

Inferno, IX. 118-120.

Does it not seem that in all these cases Mr. Longfellow, and to a

slightly less extent Mr. Cary, by their strict adherence to the letter,

transgress the ordinary rules of English construction; and that Dr.

Parsons, by his comparative freedom of movement, produces better

poetry as well as better English? In the last example especially, Mr.

Longfellow's inversions are so violent that to a reader ignorant of the

original Italian, his sentence might be hardly intelligible. In Italian

such inversions are permissible; in English they are not; and Mr.

Longfellow, by transplanting them into English, sacrifices the spirit

to the letter, and creates an obscurity in the translation where all is

lucidity in the original. Does not this show that the theory of absolute

literality, in the case of two languages so widely different as English

and Italian, is not the true one?

Secondly, Mr. Longfellow's theory of translation leads him in most

cases to choose words of Romanic origin in preference to those of Saxon

descent, and in many cases to choose an unfamiliar instead of a familiar

Romanic word, because the former happens to be etymologically identical

with the word in the original. Let me cite as an example the opening of

Canto III.:--

"Per me si va nella eitti dolente,

Per me si va nell' eterno dolore,

Per me si va tra la perduta gente."

Here are three lines which, in their matchless simplicity and grandeur,

might well excite despair in the breast of any translator. Let us

contrast Mr. Longfellow's version.--

"Through me the way is to the city dolent;

Through me the way is to eternal dole;

Through me the way among the people lost,"--

with that of Dr. Parsons,--,

"Through me you reach the city of despair;

Through me eternal wretchedness ye find;

Through me among perdition's race ye fare."

I do not think any one will deny that Dr. Parsons's version, while far

more remote than Mr. Longfellow's from the diction of the original, is

somewhat nearer its spirit. It remains to seek the explanation of this

phenomenon. It remains to be seen why words the exact counterpart of

Dante's are unfit to call up in our minds the feelings which Dante's own

words call up in the mind of an Italian. And this inquiry leads to

some general considerations respecting the relation of English to other

European languages.

Every one is aware that French poetry, as compared with German poetry,

seems to the English reader very tame and insipid; but the cause of this

fact is by no means so apparent as the fact itself. That the poetry of

Germany is actually and intrinsically superior to that of France, may

readily be admitted; but this is not enough to account for all the

circumstances of the case. It does not explain why some of the very

passages in Corneille and Racine, which to us appear dull and prosaic,

are to the Frenchman's apprehension instinct with poetic fervour. It

does not explain the undoubted fact that we, who speak English, are

prone to underrate French poetry, while we are equally disposed to

render to German poetry even more than its due share of merit. The

reason is to be sought in the verbal associations established in

our minds by the peculiar composition of the English language. Our

vocabulary is chiefly made up on the one hand of indigenous Saxon words,

and on the other hand of words derived from Latin or French. It is

mostly words of the first class that we learn in childhood, and that are

associated with our homeliest and deepest emotions; while words of the

second class--usually acquired somewhat later in life and employed in

sedate abstract discourse--have an intellectual rather than an emotional

function to fulfil. Their original significations, the physical

metaphors involved in them, which are perhaps still somewhat apparent to

the Frenchman, are to us wholly non-existent. Nothing but the derivative

or metaphysical signification remains. No physical image of a man

stepping over a boundary is presented to our minds by the word

transgress, nor in using the word comprehension do we picture to

ourselves any manual act of grasping. It is to this double structure

of the English language that it owes its superiority over every other

tongue, ancient or modern, for philosophical and scientific purposes.

Albeit there are numerous exceptions, it may still be safely said, in

a general way, that we possess and habitually use two kinds of

language,--one that is physical, for our ordinary purposes, and one that

is metaphysical, for purposes of abstract reasoning and discussion. We

do not say like the Germans, that we "begripe" (begreifen) an idea, but

we say that we "conceive" it. We use a word which once had the very same

material meaning as begreifen, but which has in our language utterly

lost it. We are accordingly able to carry on philosophical inquiries

by means of words which are nearly or quite free from those shadows

of original concrete meaning which, in German, too often obscure the

acquired abstract signification. Whoever has dealt in English and German

metaphysics will not fail to recognize the prodigious superiority of

English in force and perspicuity, arising mainly from the causes here

stated. But while this homogeneity of structure in German injures it for

philosophical purposes, it is the very thing which makes it so excellent

as an organ for poetical expression, in the opinion of those who speak

English. German being nearly allied to Anglo-Saxon, not only do its

simple words strike us with all the force of our own homely Saxon terms,

but its compounds also, preserving their physical significations

almost unimpaired, call up in our minds concrete images of the greatest

definiteness and liveliness. It is thus that German seems to us

pre-eminently a poetical language, and it is thus that we are naturally

inclined to overrate rather than to depreciate the poetry that is

written in it.

With regard to French, the case is just the reverse. The Frenchman has

no Saxon words, but he has, on the other hand, an indigenous stock of

Latin words, which he learns in early childhood, which give outlet

to his most intimate feelings, and which retain to some extent their

primitive concrete picturesqueness. They are to him just as good as our

Saxon words are to us. Though cold and merely intellectual to us, they

are to him warm with emotion; and this is one reason why we cannot do

justice to his poetry, or appreciate it as he appreciates it. To make

this perfectly clear, let us take two or three lines from Shakespeare:--

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind!

Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude,

Thy tooth is not so keen," etc., etc.;

which I have somewhere seen thus rendered into French:

"Souffle, souffle, vent d'hiver!

Tu n'es pas si cruel

Que l'ingratitude de l'homme.

Ta dent n'est pas si penetrante," etc., etc.

Why are we inclined to laugh as we read this? Because it excites in us

an undercurrent of consciousness which, if put into words, might run

something like this:--

"Insufflate, insufflate, wind hibernal!

Thou art not so cruel

As human ingratitude.

Thy dentition is not so penetrating," etc., etc.

No such effect would be produced upon a Frenchman. The translation would

strike him as excellent, which it really is. The last line in particular

would seem poetical to us, did we not happen to have in our language

words closely akin to dent and penetrante, and familiarly employed in

senses that are not poetical.

Applying these considerations to Mr. Longfellow's choice of words in his

translation of Dante, we see at once the unsoundness of the principle

that Italian words should be rendered by their Romanic equivalents

in English. Words that are etymologically identical with those in the

original are often, for that very reason, the worst words that could be

used. They are harsh and foreign to the English ear, however homelike

and musical they may be to the ear of an Italian. Their connotations are

unlike in the two languages; and the translation which is made literally

exact by using them is at the same time made actually inaccurate, or at

least inadequate. Dole and dolent are doubtless the exact counterparts

of dolore and dolente, so far as mere etymology can go. But when we

consider the effect that is to be produced upon the mind of the reader,

wretchedness and despairing are fat better equivalents. The former may

compel our intellectual assent, but the latter awaken our emotional

sympathy.

Doubtless by long familiarity with the Romanic languages, the scholar

becomes to a great degree emancipated from the conditions imposed upon

him by the peculiar composition of his native English. The concrete

significance of the Romanic words becomes apparent to him, and they

acquire energy and vitality. The expression dolent may thus satisfy the

student familiar with Italian, because it calls up in his mind, through

the medium of its equivalent dolente, the same associations which the

latter calls up in the mind of the Italian himself. [41] But this power

of appreciating thoroughly the beauties of a foreign tongue is in the

last degree an acquired taste,--as much so as the taste for olives and

kirschenwasser to the carnal palate. It is only by long and profound

study that we can thus temporarily vest ourselves, so to speak, with

a French or Italian consciousness in exchange for our English one. The

literary epicure may keenly relish such epithets as dolent; but the

common English reader, who loves plain fare, can hardly fail to be

startled by it. To him it savours of the grotesque; and if there is any

one thing especially to be avoided in the interpretation of Dante, it is

grotesqueness.

[41] A consummate Italian scholar, the delicacy of whose taste is

questioned by no one, and whose knowledge of Dante's diction is probably

not inferior to Mr. Longfellow's, has told me that he regards the

expression as a noble and effective one, full of dignity and solemnity.

Those who have read over Dante without reading into him, and those who

have derived their impressions of his poem from M. Dore's memorable

illustrations, will here probably demur. What! Dante not grotesque! That

tunnel-shaped structure of the infernal pit; Minos passing sentence on

the damned by coiling his tail; Charon beating the lagging shades with

his oar; Antaios picking up the poets with his fingers and lowering them

in the hollow of his hand into the Ninth Circle; Satan crunching in his

monstrous jaws the arch-traitors, Judas, Brutus and Cassius; Ugolino

appeasing his famine upon the tough nape of Ruggieri; Bertrand de Born

looking (if I may be allowed the expression) at his own dissevered head;

the robbers exchanging form with serpents; the whole demoniac troop of

Malebolge,--are not all these things grotesque beyond everything else

in poetry? To us, nurtured in this scientific nineteenth century, they

doubtless seem so; and by Leigh Hunt, who had the eighteenth-century way

of appreciating other ages than his own, they were uniformly treated

as such. To us they are at first sight grotesque, because they are no

longer real to us. We have ceased to believe in such things, and they no

longer awaken any feeling akin to terror. But in the thirteenth century,

in the minds of Dante and his readers, they were living, terrible

realities. That Dante believed literally in all this unearthly world,

and described it with such wonderful minuteness because he believed

in it, admits of little doubt. As he walked the streets of Verona the

people whispered, "See, there is the man who has been in hell!" Truly,

he had been in hell, and described it as he had seen it, with the keen

eyes of imagination and faith. With all its weird unearthliness, there

is hardly another book in the whole range of human literature which is

marked with such unswerving veracity as the "Divine Comedy." Nothing

is there set down arbitrarily, out of wanton caprice or for the sake of

poetic effect, but because to Dante's imagination it had so imposingly

shown itself that he could not but describe it as he saw it. In reading

his cantos we forget the poet, and have before us only the veracious

traveller in strange realms, from whom the shrewdest cross-examination

can elicit but one consistent account. To his mind, and to the

mediaeval mind generally, this outer kingdom, with its wards of Despair,

Expiation, and Beatitude, was as real as the Holy Roman Empire itself.

Its extraordinary phenomena were not to be looked on with critical eyes

and called grotesque, but were to be seen with eyes of faith, and to be

worshipped, loved, or shuddered at. Rightly viewed, therefore, the poem

of Dante is not grotesque, but unspeakably awful and solemn; and the

statement is justified that all grotesqueness and bizarrerie in its

interpretation is to be sedulously avoided.

Therefore, while acknowledging the accuracy with which Mr. Longfellow

has kept pace with his original through line after line, following the

"footing of its feet," according to the motto quoted on his title-page,

I cannot but think that his accuracy would have been of a somewhat

higher kind if he had now and then allowed himself a little more liberty

of choice between English and Romanic words and idioms.

A few examples will perhaps serve to strengthen as well as to elucidate

still further this position.

"Inferno," Canto III., line 22, according to Longfellow:--

"There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud

Resounded through the air without a star,

Whence I at the beginning wept thereat."

According to Cary:--

"Here sighs, with lamentations and loud moans

Resounded through the air pierced by no star,

That e'en I wept at entering."

According to Parsons:--

"Mid sighs, laments, and hollow howls of woe,

Which, loud resounding through the starless air,

Forced tears of pity from mine eyes at first." [42]

[42] "Quivi sospiri, pianti ed alti guai

Risonavan per l' ner senza stelle,

Perch' io al cominciar ne lagrimai."