[15] There is no exaggeration in this brief and summary view
of the Catholic cosmos. But it would be unfair to leave it
to be supposed that the Reformation made any essential
alteration, except perhaps for the worse, in that cosmology
which called itself "Christian." The protagonist of the
Reformation, from whom the whole of the Evangelical sects
are lineally descended, states the case with that plainness
of speech, not to say brutality, which characterised him.
Luther says that man is a beast of burden who only moves as
his rider orders; sometimes God rides him, and sometimes
Satan. "Sic voluntas humana in medio posita est, ceu
jumentum; si insederit Deus, vult et vadit, quo vult
Deus.... Si insederit Satan, vult et vadit, quo vult Satan;
nec est in ejus arbitrio ad utrum sessorem currere, aut eum
quærere, sed ipsi sessores certant ob ipsum obtinendum et
possidendum" (_De Servo Arbitrio_, M. Lutheri Opera, ed.
1546, t. ii. p. 468). One may hear substantially the same
doctrine preached in the parks and at street-corners by
zealous volunteer missionaries of Evangelicism, any Sunday,
in modern London. Why these doctrines, which are conspicuous
by their absence in the four Gospels, should arrogate to
themselves the title of Evangelical, in contradistinction to
Catholic, Christianity, may well perplex the impartial
inquirer, who, if he were obliged to choose between the two,
might naturally prefer that which leaves the poor beast of
burden a little freedom of choice.
[16] I say "so-called" not by way of offence, but as a
protest against the monstrous assumption that Catholic
Christianity is explicitly or implicitly contained in any
trustworthy record of the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.
[17] It may be desirable to observe that, in modern times,
the term "Realism" has acquired a signification wholly
different from that which attached to it in the middle ages.
We commonly use it as the contrary of Idealism. The Idealist
holds that the phenomenal world has only a subjective
existence, the Realist that it has an objective existence. I
am not aware that any mediæval philosopher was an Idealist
in the sense in which we apply the term to Berkeley. In
fact, the cardinal defect of their speculations lies in
their oversight of the considerations which lead to
Idealism. If many of them regarded the material world as a
negation, it was an active negation; not zero, but a minus
quantity.
[18] At any rate a catastrophe greater than the flood,
which, as I observe with interest, is as calmly assumed by
the preacher to be an historical event as if science had
never had a word to say on that subject!
[19] "Les formes des anciens ou Entéléchies ne sont autre
chose que les forces" (Leibnitz, _Lettre au Père Bouvet_,
1697).