She writes: "I was so accustomed to their caresses, that I called the
king _petit papa_, and the queen _petit mama_, really believing her to
be so, because I had never seen my own mother." After enumerating the
various little girls of quality who came to play with her, she adds:
"I was never so occupied with any game as to be inattentive if a
reconciliation with Monsieur was mentioned. Cardinal Richelieu, who
was prime minister and master of affairs, was determined to control
this matter; and with proposals so degrading to Monsieur that I could
not listen to them without despair. He said that to make Monsieur's
peace with the king, his engagement to Princess Marguerite de Lorraine
must be broken, that he might marry Mademoiselle de Combalet, the
cardinal's niece, now Madame d'Aiguillon. I could not help crying when
it was mentioned to me, and in my anger sang, in revenge, all the
songs I knew against the cardinal and his niece. It even redoubled my
friendship for Princess Marguerite, and made me talk of her
incessantly."
Gaston d'Orleans returned to France October 8th, 1634, and his
daughter went to Limours to receive him. Wishing to test her filial
memory, for he had left her at the age of four or five years, he
appeared before her without the _cordon bleu_ which distinguished him
from the members of his suite. "Which of these gentlemen is Monsieur?"
she was asked, and without hesitation sprung to her father's arms; a
proof of fidelity which touched him deeply, that being of all
qualities the one most likely to excite his surprise. Nothing was
spared for her amusement, even to the gratification of her desire to
dance in a _ballet_. A band of little girls of high rank was composed,
with a selection of lords of corresponding stature. The magnificent
dresses and appointments satisfied even Mademoiselle's ambition. In
one figure birds were introduced in cages, and set free in the dancing
room. One unlucky songster became entangled in the dress trimmings of
Mademoiselle de Brézé, Cardinal Richelieu's niece, who began to cry
and scream so vehemently as to introduce a new element of amusement
among the assembly. The accident recalls a similar one which occurred
at the time of this lady's marriage with the Duc d'Enghien, afterward
the great Condé. There was a ball afterward, where Mademoiselle de
Brézé, who was very small, fell down while dancing a _courante_,
because, in order to make her look tall, they had put such high-heeled
shoes upon her feet that she could not walk. Clearly her sphere of
success was not destined to be the ball-room. Poor little soul! she
played doll for more than two years after her marriage, and was sent
to a Carmelite convent to learn to read and write during her husband's
absence in Roussillon with the king.
Mademoiselle gives a graphic account of a journey which she took in
1637. The events recalled, with the {362} emotions they excited in her
at the time, show an acuteness of perception far beyond that of most
children of ten years old. Her sentiments are too virtuous not to
demand a brief notice. "Arrived at Champigny, I went first to the Holy
Chapel, as a place to which the memory of my predecessors, who had
built and founded it, seemed to summon me, that I might pray to God
for the repose of their souls." A little later we hear of her at the
Convent of Fontevrault. The abbess was a natural daughter of Henri
IV., and the nuns lavished every attention upon their guest,
delighting to honor her with the title of "Madame's niece." Their
devotion bored our princess greatly, and would have made her ill but
for a grain of amusement to be derived from the simplicity of the poor
ladies. But fortune, Mademoiselle's unfailing friend, soon relieved
her from this monotony. Two ladies-in-waiting, Beaumont and
Saint-Louis, instead of going into the church, explored the convent
court-yards. Terrible cries attracted their notice, and were found to
proceed from a poor maniac, confined in a dungeon, according to the
ill-judged practice of those days. After amusing themselves with her
extravagances, they went to find their little mistress, that she might
share the enjoyment. "I broke off a conversation with the abbess and
betook myself in all haste to the dungeon, which I did not leave until
supper-time. The table was wretched, and for fear of suffering the
same treatment the next day, I begged my aunt to let my officers
prepare my meals elsewhere. She made use of them after that day, so
that we fared better during the rest of our visit. Madame de
Fontevrault treated me the next day to a second maniac. As there was
not a third, ennui seized upon me, and I went away in spite of my
aunt's entreaties." And this was the child who, at five years old,
wept over the degradation of two of her father's followers. Through
life, her best impulses seem to have had root rather in a sense of her
own dignity than in compassion for others.
More easily understood is her enjoyment of the royal hunts, during the
days of Louis XIII.'s attachment to the virtuous Madame de Hautefort.
"We were all dressed in colors, mounted upon hackneys richly
comparisoned, and each lady protected from the sun's rays by a hat
covered with plumes. The chase led past several handsome houses, where
grand collations were prepared for us, and on our return the king sat
in my coach between Madame de Hautefort and me. When in a good humor,
he entertained us very pleasantly with many topics. At such times he
allowed us to speak freely of Cardinal Richelieu, and proved himself
not displeased by joining in the conversation."
His eminence was destined to fall more deeply than ever into disgrace
with Mademoiselle in 1638. The dauphin was born at the château of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, September 5th of that year; and his cousin,
who, like any other little girl, enjoyed being in the royal nursery,
used to call him "her little husband." This amused the king
exceedingly, but Cardinal Richelieu viewed the matter more seriously.
Mademoiselle was sent home to Paris. On the way, she was taken to Ruel
to see the minister, and there received a grave reprimand for the
indiscretion of her language. "He said I was too old to use such
terms; that it was unbecoming in me to speak thus. He said so
seriously to me things that might have been addressed to a reasonable
person, that, without answering a word, I began to cry; to comfort me,
he gave me a collation. None the less did I go away very angry at his
words."
If this rebuke had made a deeper impression upon Louise de Bourbon,
her biographer's task would be a more grateful one. The naïveté with
which she reveals all her matrimonial castles in the air would be
incomprehensible if these schemes had not been purely ambitious; as
free {363} from sentiment as a military stratagem or a commercial
speculation.
At fifteen Mademoiselle met with a great loss in the death of her
excellent _gouvernante_, the Marchioness of Saint-Georges. She speaks
of this trial with more tenderness and less egotism than one might
have anticipated. "I learned, on awaking in the morning, how ill she
was, and rose in haste that I might go to her and show by various
attentions my gratitude for her noble performance of her duties toward
me ever since I came into the world. I arrived while they were
applying every possible remedy to revive her, in which they succeeded
after repeated efforts. The viaticum and extreme unction were brought,
and she received them with every evidence of a truly Christian soul.
She responded with admirable devotion to each prayer: no subject of
surprise to those who knew bow piously she had lived. This over, she
called her children to her, that she might bless them, and asked
permission to give me, also, her benediction, saying that the honor
she had enjoyed of being with me from my birth made her venture to
take the liberty. I felt a tenderness for her corresponding to all
that she had shown toward me in the care of my education. I knelt
beside her bed, with eyes bathed in tears; I received her sad farewell
and kissed her. I was so touched by the thought of losing her, and by
the infinite number of good things she had said to me, that I did not
wish to leave the room until her death. She begged that I might be
taken away, and her children too; she was too much agitated by our
cries and tears, _and testified that I alone was the subject of any
regrets the was capable of feeling_. I had hardly returned to my own
room when the agony began, and she died in fifteen minutes."
Mademoiselle retired to the Carmelite convent of Saint Denis, until
Monsieur should select another governess. She requested that the place
might be given either to Mademoiselle de Fieique or Mademoiselle de
Tillières (both "persons of quality, merit, and virtue, and relations
of her own"), hoping earnestly that the choice might fall upon
Mademoiselle de Tillières. Her wishes were thwarted, and the Countess
de Fiesque entered upon the task with Spartan firmness. An illness of
six months' duration vanished miraculously when the news of her
appointment was announced, we are told with sarcastic emphasis.
Whether governess or pupil suffered most in this connection, it would
be hard to say. Mademoiselle de Fiesque had an aggravating system of
petty supervision, and Mademoiselle a fixed determination to elude it.
On one occasion when our princess had been shut up in her room by the
tyrant's orders, she managed to escape, stole the key of Mademoiselle
de Fiesque's private apartment, and locked her in. "She was hours in
uneasiness before a locksmith could be found; and her discomfort was
all the greater because I had shut up her grandson in another room,
and he screamed as if I had maltreated him."
But we should soon tire of these reminiscences, did they not bring
upon the stage personages more important than Mademoiselle
herself--hard as it would have been for her to think so.
In 1643 we find the _dramatis personae_ much changed and extended.
Louis XIII. has passed away, making so good an end, that we wonder at
the grace of God to see how noble a death may close an insignificant
career. Richelieu has been succeeded in Mademoiselle's ill graces by
Cardinal Mazarin. Louis XIV. is a precocious, ignorant child of nine
years old. The cabal of the _Importantes_ has arisen and declined, and
two seditions in Paris, founded upon slight provocation, have proved
the populace ripe for the Fronde. Henrietta Maria and her children are
refugees at the French court, and Mademoiselle, with her enormous
possessions, is considered an eligible match for the Prince of Wales.
As Charles Stuart in the character of an unsuccessful suitor is a
novel topic, no {364} apology is needed for introducing at some length
the history of his courtship.
The court was at Fontainebleau when his royal highness arrived in
France; and their majesties went to meet him in the forest. His mother
presented him first to the king and then to the queen, who kissed him,
after which he bowed to the Princess of Condé, and to his cousin. "He
was only sixteen or seventeen years old; quite tall for his age, with
a fine head, black hair, brown complexion, and quite a good figure."
One unpardonable sin he had in Mademoiselle's eyes; that, not speaking
French in the least, he could not shine in society. Clever talk she
enjoyed keenly even in childhood, Monsieur's brilliant conversation
had fascinated her.
The Prince of Wales worked diligently to produce an impression upon
his cousin's flinty heart, which (shall we confess it?) was wasting
itself away in an unrequited attachment for the imperial throne. Many
a suitable match did Mademoiselle reject, because the untimely death
of two empresses kept her in a fever of hope and expectation. In vain
was it represented that the emperor was old enough to be her father;
that she would be happier in England or Savoy. She replied
disinterestedly that "she wished the emperor, . . . that he was not a
young and gallant man; which proved that in good truth she thought
more of the establishment than of the person." In vain did Charles
Stuart follow her about bareheaded, ministering mutely to her love of
importance. In vain did he hold the flambeau this side and that, while
the Queen of England dressed her for Mademoiselle de Choisy's ball.
His _petite oré_, as they called the dainty appointments of a
gentleman's dress in those days, were red, black, and white, because
Mademoiselle's plume and the ribbons fastening her jewels were red,
black, and white. He made himself torchbearer again while she arranged
her dress before entering the ball-room; followed her every step,
lingered about her hotel until the door closed behind her: all in
vain, because at nineteen our heroine had the discretion to prefer a
middle-aged emperor, firmly seated on his throne, to an exiled prince
of seventeen.
His gallantry was so openly exhibited as to excite much remark. It
lasted all winter, appearing in full force at a celebrated
entertainment given at the Palais Royal toward the close of the
season. Anne of Austria herself arrayed her niece upon this location,
and three whole days were devoted to preparing her costume. The dress
was covered with diamonds, and red, black, and white tufts; and she
wore all the crown jewels of France, with the few that still belonged
to the Queen of England. "Nothing could have been more magnificent
than my dress that day," she assures us; "and there were not wanting
those who asserted that my fine presence, fair complexion, and
dazzling blonde hair adorned me more than all the jewels that
glittered on my person."' Mademoiselle does not exaggerate her charms.
Though not strictly handsome, her noble bearing and charming coloring
produced all the effect of beauty.
The dancing took place in a large theatre, illuminated with flambeaux,
and at one end stood a thrown upon a daïs, which was the scene of
Mademoiselle's triumphs. "The king and the Prince of Wales did care to
occupy the throne; I remained there alone; and saw at my feet these
two princes and all the princesses of the court circle. I was not in
the least ill at ease in this position, and those who had flattered me
on entering the ballroom found matter the next day for fresh
adulation. Every one I had never appeared less constrained than when
seated on that throne;" and the imperial hopes being at their height,
she adds: "While I stood there with the prince at my feet, my heart as
well as my eyes regarded him _du haut en bas_. . . The thought of the
empire occupied my mind so exclusively, that {365} I looked upon the
Prince of Wales only as an object of pity."
The conclusion of this romance belongs really to the interval between
the first and second Fronde, but we insert it here for the sake of
convenience, pleading guilty of the anachronism. In 1649 we find
Mademoiselle again persecuted to marry her cousin, then Charles II.
"L'Abbé de la Rivière said that I was right, but that it must be
remembered that there was no other match for me in Europe; that the
emperor and King of Spain were married; the King of Hungary was
betrothed to the Infanta of Spain; the archduke would never be
sovereign of the Low Countries; that I would not hear of any German or
Italian sovereign; that In France the king and Monsieur (d'Anjou) were
too young to marry; and that M. la Prince (Condé) had been married ten
years and _his wife was in good health_."
A courier was sent to their majesties to announce the King of
England's arrival at Péronne, and the count went forward to meet him
at Compiègne. Mademoiselle had her hair curled for the occasion, and
was bantered by the regent gently upon the pains she had taken to
please her suitor. "Those who have had admirers themselves understand
such things," replied her royal highness tartly, referring to the
foibles of her majesty's youth.
The royal personages met within a league of Compiègne and alighted
from the carriages. Charles saluted their majesties, and then
Mademoiselle. "I thought him much improved in appearance since he left
France. If his wit had seemed to correspond to his person, he might
perhaps have pleased me; but when the king questioned him in the
carriage concerning the dogs and horses of the Prince of Orange and
the hunting in that country he replied in French. The queen spoke to
him of his own affairs, and he made no reply; and being questioned
several times about grave matters which greatly concerned himself, he
declined answering on the plea of not being able to speak our
language.
"I confess that from that moment I resolved not to consent to this
marriage, having conceived a very poor opinion of a king who at his
age could be so ignorant of his affairs. Not that I could not
recognize my own blood by the sign, for the Bourbons are beings
greatly devoted to trifles and not much to solid matters; perhaps
myself as well as the rest, being Bourbon on both sides of the
house. Soon after we arrived, dinner was served. He eat no ortolans,
and threw himself upon a huge piece of beef and a shoulder of
mutton, as if there had been nothing else on the table. His taste
did not seem to me very delicate, and I felt ashamed that he should
show so much less in this, than he had displayed in thinking of me.
After dinner the queen aroused herself and left me with him: he sat
there a quarter of an hour without uttering a syllable: I should
like to believe that his silence proceeded from respect rather than
from absence of passion. I confess frankly that in this interview I
wished he would show less (respect). Feeling rather bored, I called
M. de Comminges to be third party and make him speak; in which he
fortunately succeeded. M. de la Rivière said to me: 'He looked at
you all dinner time, and is still looking at you incessantly.' I
answered, 'He will look a long time without attracting me if he does
not speak.' He replied, 'Ah! you are concealing the charming things
he has said to you.' 'Not at all,' said I. 'Come near me when he is
devoting himself, and you will see how he sets about it.' The queen
arose; I approached him, and, to make him speak, I asked after
several persons of his suite whom I had seen; all which he answered,
but _point de douceurs_. The time came for him to go; we all went in
a carriage to escort him to the middle of the forest, where we
alighted, as we had done on his arrival. He took leave of the king
and came to me {366} with Germin (Lord Jermyn), saying: 'I believe
that M. Germin, who speaks better than I do, has explained to you my
wishes and intentions; I am your very obedient servant.' I replied
that I was his very obedient servant, Germin made me a great many
compliments, and then the king bowed and left me."
After the battle of Worcester, Charles II. reappeared in Paris and
made a third trial for his cousin's hand. "I thought him very well
made and decidedly more pleasing than before his departure, though his
hair was short and his beard long, two things that change people very
much. He spoke French very well." All went smoothly for some time:
Mademoiselle received from her royal suitor all the douceurs for which
she had formerly listened in vain; and frequent assemblies at her
rooms made them very intimate. But her will was too vacillating to
allow of her coming to any definite decision, and Charles was at
length wearied into giving marked evidence of his displeasure. "The
first time I saw the queen after my interview with Germin, she
showered reproaches upon me. When her son entered (he had always been
accustomed to take a seat in my presence), they brought forward a
great chair in which he seated himself. I suppose he thought to make
me very angry, but I did not care in the least." Indeed, it would have
been an ingenious tormentor who had found a vulnerable spot in
Mademoiselles vanity.
As Queen of England, Louise de Bourbon would have found room for the
legitimate exercise of her best faculties. As an unmarried princess of
immense wealth, she became the tool of men who did not scruple to use
her courage, magnanimity, and energy for their own ends, and requite
her generosity with neglect. Let us follow her adventures in the days
of the second Fronde, and see to what exertions a love of bustle and
notoriety could urge a princess accustomed to seek her own ease in all
things.
The first Fronde took place in 1648, and was directed by the coadjutor
archbishop of Paris, Monsieur M. de Retz, who acted under the
influence of two motives: a desire to supplant Mazarin, and rule
France himself; and an enthusiasm for constitutional liberty. Our
space being limited, we will not pause to reconcile these two
aspirations. The court left Paris by night for St. Germain.
Mademoiselle accompanied the queen, and made herself useful as a
medium of communication with the populace of Paris, who loved her for
being a native of their city. She describe the royal destitution with
graphic frivolity, and is exceedingly merry over this siege, in which
the besiegers starved for want of the luxuries they had left behind
them in the beleaguered city.
In the second Fronde, which broke out about two years later
(1650-1652), the position of affairs is altered. M. de Retz appears in
the character of mediator, and Mademoiselle casts her lot with the
rebels. The princes of the house of Condé seize the opportunity to
avenge insults offered to them by Mazarin, and Gaston d'Orleans joins
the Frondeurs--perhaps in order to avoid the trouble of leaving Paris.
Skilful writers have left accounts so voluminous of those troubled
times, that they rise before us rather in a series of living pictures
than as historical records. That midnight conference in the oratory,
between fair, queenly Anne of Austria and the little dark, misshapen
coadjutor; Mazarin threatening Condé; and he, with curled lip and
reverential mockery, leaving the ministerial presence with the words,
"Farewell, Mars!"--the quelled populace, streaming hour after hour
through the king's bedchamber, while his mother's beautiful hand holds
back the velvet hangings, that each one may look upon the sleeping boy
and know that he has not fled from Paris--all is before us as if it
{367} happened yesterday. The chief actors with their talents and
foibles are better known to us than to their contemporaries; and the
French nation is today as it was then--ready to be won over by any
clever bit of scenic effects.
Mademoiselle and Condé, who had hitherto been sworn foes, came to a
formal reconciliation in 1651, and being bound together by their
detestation of Mazarin, welcomed the outbreak of the second Fronde.
Anne of Austria declined the company of her niece on leaving Paris,
and she was thus left to the flattery of those who well understood the
right use of her folly and her strength.
The golden moment of her career arrived. Orleans must be secured to
the Frondeurs, or Condé, coming from Guyenne, would find the line of
the Loire cut and the enemy master of the position. Monsieur was firm
upon two points: that he would not leave Paris himself, and that his
private troops should occupy the position best fitted to protect him
if the royal army should attack Paris. His daughter, who had been
longing for an opportunity to distinguish herself, offered to go to
Orleans in place of the duke, and on Monday, March 25th, 1652, left
Paris amid the benedictions of the people. A contemporary MS. journal
says: "About noon Mademoiselle's carriages assembled in the court of
the Orleans palace, ready for the campaign; she wore a gray habit
covered with gold, to go to Orleans. She left at three o'clock,
accompanied by the Duke de Rohan, Madame de Bréanté, Countess de
Fiesque, and Madame de Frontenac." Monsieur sneered at the project,
and said her chivalry would not be worth much without the common sense
of Mesdames de Fiesque and Frontenac--her _maréchales de camp_, as
they were called between jest and earnest.
Upon the plains of Beauce the young amazon appeared before the troops
on horseback, and was received with enthusiasm. "From that time," she
says, "I began to give my orders;" and a little later at Toury, where
she was joyfully welcomed by a crowd of officers: "they declared that
a council of war must be held in my presence. . . . That I must
accustom myself to listening to matters of business and war; for
henceforth nothing would be done except by my orders."
Arrived before Orleans, Mademoiselle found closed gates and small
disposition to grant admittance. The unfortunate city government,
pressed on one side by Frondeurs and on the other by royalists, asked
only leave to remain neutral. The rebel army had been left at some
distance from Orleans for fear of alarming its inhabitants, and _M. le
gouverneur_, learning that the attacking party was a lady, sent out a
tribute of confectionery, "which seemed to me amusing," remarks
Mademoiselle.
At last, tired of waiting upon the governors indecision, her royal
highness went out with her ladies for a walk, much against the
judgment of her advisers--or ministers, as she called them. The
rampart was edged with people, who cried, on seeing her, "Long live
the king and princes, and down with Mazarin!" And she answered, "Go to
the Hotel de Ville and make them open the gates;" with other
exhortations of the same kind, occasionally mingled with threats, "to
see if menaces would move them more than friendship."
Now it so happened that before her departure from Paris, M. le Marquis
do Vilaine, a noted astrologer, had drawn the princess into Madame's
private room, and imparted to her the following prophecy: "All that
you shall undertake between Wednesday noon, March 27th, and Friday
will succeed; and you shall even at that time accomplish extraordinary
things." This prediction was in her pocket, and anxiously as she
disclaims all faith in it, we may believe that it encouraged her to
make efforts which gave no apparent promise of success. When, toward
evening, she stood outside the {368} Porte Brulée, did not M. de
Vilaine's horoscope rise in her estimation? The river was crossed and
the bank ascended by the aid of some chivalrous boatmen, an improvised
bridge of boats, and a little more scrambling than would seem
consistent with royal dignity. "I climbed like a cat, grasping at
brambles and thorns, and springing over hedges without hurting myself
in the least. * * Madame de Bréanté, who is the most cowardly creature
in the world, began to cry out at me, and at every one who followed my
steps; making great sport for me." Outside the gate, a group of
bargemen worked under Mademoiselle's inspiriting direction; inside
were citizens, urged on by the Count de Gramont, to tear down the
planks; while the guards looked on in armed neutrality. When the two
middle planks were torn off from the transverse iron bars, Gramont
signed to the princess to come forward. "As there was a great deal of
rubbish, a footman took me up and passed me through the hole, where no
sooner did my head appear than they began to beat the drums. I gave my
hand to the captain and said: 'You will be glad to be able to boast
that you let me in.' Cries of 'Long live the king and princess, and
down with Mazarin!' were redoubled. Two men took me and placed me in a
wooden chair. I don't know whether I sat in the chair or on the arms,
the rapture of my delight set me so completely beside myself. Every
one kissed my hands, and I was ready to die with laughter to find
myself in such a position." And so the city was taken, and
Mademoiselle earned the title of Maid of Orleans, all in an
afternoon's frolic. If she thought to retain command of Paris in a
fashion so amusing, the battle of Porte Saint Antoine must have
undeceived her.
The heroine was received with rapture on her return to Paris. She was
assured by Condé that the wish of his heart was to see her queen of
France, and that no treaty should be concluded without especial
consideration for her. No one can be more uninteresting than her royal
highness when elated by success, we must confess; but an hour of trial
was approaching that should develop for the first and last time in her
life, truly grand and heroic qualities. Until the 2d of July, 1652,
Mademoiselle had given no signs of feminine feeling except by
exhibiting those foibles which are popularly supposed to be especially
characteristic of women. But on that day, as she hurried through the
streets of Paris, carrying hope to every one she met--consoling poor
Guitant, shot through the lungs, pausing to speak a word of comfort to
the wretched Rochefoucauld, and putting new heart into the great Condé
himself, we recognize sympathies worthy of a better development than
they ever received. During a pause in the battle M. le Prince came to
her in a pitiable condition, covered with dust and blood, his hair
tangled and his cuirass dented with blows. Giving is naked sword to an
equerry, he flung himself down upon a seat and burst into tears
"Forgive my emotion," he exclaimed; "you see a desperate man before
you. I have lost all my friends; Nemours, La Rochefoucauld and
Clinchamp are mortally wounded."
Mademoiselle was able to assure him that these reports were greatly
exaggerated, and Condé, restored to himself, sprang upon a fresh horse
and galloped off to his post. The battle was at its height. Paris had
simultaneously attacked at the Porte Saint-Denis and the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine. Inquiring the whereabouts of Turenne, M. le Prince
rushed to the faubourg, knowing that where the marshal commanded there
must Paris be most in peril. Soon came the tidings that the barricade
of Piepus had been forced. At the head of a hundred musketeers he
threw himself upon the barricade, and drove the enemy back in its own
dust. Never had the conqueror been greater than on that useless,
terrible 2d of July.
{369}
The next meeting between Mademoiselle and Condé was full of triumph.
They parted, she to betake herself to the towers of the Bastile, he to
the belfry of Saint-Antoine. Toward Bagnolet in the valley the
princess saw the king's troops gathering for a fresh attack. Having
communicated with Condé through a page, she left the Bastile, giving
stringent orders that, in case of necessity, its cannon should be
turned upon the royal army; and returned to her post near the gate to
invigorate the soldiers with wine and brave words.
There was indeed need for encouragement. Frondeurs were falling back
in dire extremity--royalists pressing forward, hopeful, and
strengthened with reinforcements. The hours of the Fronde seemed
numbered--when heights of the Bastile blazed forth a flash of light;
the cannon thundered out in quick succession--the royal army paused,
reeled, and retreated in amazement. Mademoiselle had saved the day,
and "killed her royal husband," as Mazarin expressed it. Henceforth
she was to be more than ever an object of distrust to the queen and
minister. But though this victory lent a dignity to the last days of
the Fronde, there was no principle of stability in the party. Weak
policy, quarrels, treachery on their side--opposed to them, Mazarin,
whose keen perception told him that temporary withdrawal from the
ministry would insured unlimited power in the future; and Turenne,
with double the forces of Condé,--nothing was fairly matched except
the courage of the two parties.
The Fronde came to an abrupt end, and every one was left to make his
own terms. Mademoiselle had shown disinterestedness, courage, and
humanity worthy of a better cause. The fruits which she reaped were a
notice to leave Tuileries, and the refusal on her cowardly father's
part to protect one whom the king had condemned. There appear to have
been about eight years and a half enforced banishment from court,
which she spent on her numerous estates, amusing herself with writing
romances, portraits (then in vogue) and her Mémoires, which she
continued until within a few years of her death. M. Sainte-Beuve tells
us that the style of her imagination belongs rather to the close of
Louis XIII.'s reign, and to the Hôtel Rambouillet, than to the poorer
literary period of Louis XIV.
And now, having given a faint delineation of Mademoiselle during her
prosperous and fêted youth, and during the days of the Fronde, which
we are inclined to regard as the period at which she gave most
evidence of kinship with her grandfather, the great Henry; we pass on
to a time when fortune ceased to favor her, and the world began to
hustle her about, as roughly as it does common mortals. La Grande
Mademoiselle, who had hitherto looked upon human griefs and passions
as upon a brilliant theatrical spectacle, was destined at last to
leave the royal box, and figure on the stage herself for the diversion
of her fellow creatures. An amusing afterpiece this exhibition seemed
to her contemporaries; but to us, who have not suffered from her airs
of superiority, there is a certain pathos in this genuine devotion
lavished upon the wrong object at an age when such blindness is simply
absurd. That heart of adamant which had looked above kings and princes
to covet the imperial crown, fell prostrate in the dust before a
colonel of dragoons, a member of the royal household. Alas for pride
of race!
Mademoiselle was forty-three years old when the conviction seized her
that it would be well to marry, that M. Lauzun was the most attractive
person in existence, and that for once it would be pleasant to receive
the love of some one worth loving. That M. Lauzun admired her seemed
evident, but how to give an opportunity for expression to one whose
sense of reverential duty always kept him at a distance?
One day they had an interview in the embrasure of a window, the first
of many similar ones, in which she consulted him about her proposed
alliance {370} with Prince Charles of Lorraine. The tactics of our
modest suitor are worthy of all praise. "By his proud bearing he
seemed to me like the emperor of the world," writes Mademoiselle,
whose circumstantial account must be pressed into few words. "Why
should she marry," he reasoned, "since she had already everything that
could embellish life? The position of queen or empress was little more
exalted than her own, and would be encumbered with burthensome duties.
True, in France she could raise some one to her own rank, and unite
with him in untiring devotion to the king, who must ever be her first
object in life. It was easy to build a castle in the air, but how to
find a companion worthy to share it with her, when no such being
existed? A woman of forty-three had three resources: a convent, a life
of strict retirement apart from court and city, and finally marriage.
Marriage would insure liberty to enjoy the world at any age, but it
might be at the cost of her happiness." Hints only plunged him into
reverential silence. At last the secret was revealed by writing; then
comes incredulity met by protestations, and finally amazed conviction.
"What! would you marry your cousin's servant? for nothing in the world
would make me leave my post. I love the king too well, I am too much
attached to my position by inclination, to leave it even for the honor
you would confer upon me." And when she assured him that his devotion
to the king only endeared him the more to her (for loyalty appears to
have been the mainspring of their attachment), he answered: "I am not
a prince; a nobleman I am assuredly, but that will not suffice for
you;" and she replies, "I am content; you are all that would become
the greatest lord in the kingdom, and wealth and dignities are mine to
bestow upon you," etc., etc, etc.
The story is well known. Louis XIV., after much hesitation, gave his
consent to the marriage. Mademoiselle was to confer great wealth upon
Lauzun, together with the sovereignty of Dombes, the duchy of
Montpensier, and the county d'Eu; always with the agreement that he
should not resign his post at court, but unite with her in exclusive
devotion to the king.
The night before the wedding day Mademoiselle was summoned to his
majesty's presence, with directions to pass directly to his room
through the in _garde-robe_. '"This precaution not a good omen. Madame
de Nogent remained in the carriage. While I was in the _garde-robe_
Rochefort entered and said, 'Wait a moment.' I saw saw that some one
was introduced into the king's room whom I was not intended to see.
Then he said 'Enter,' and the door was closed behind me. The king was
alone, and looked unhappy and agitated. He said, 'I am in despair at
what I have to tell you. I am told that the world says I have
sacrificed you in order to make Monsieur de Lauzun's fortune. This
will injure me in the eyes of foreign powers, and I ought not to allow
the affair to proceed. You have good reason to complain of me; beat me
if you like, for there is no degree of anger I will not submit to, or
do not deserve.' 'Ah!' I exclaimed, 'who do you mean, sire? it is too
cruel! but whatever you do to me, I will not fail in the respect due
to you. It is to strongly implanted in my heart, and has been too well
nourished by Monsieur de Lauzun, who would have given me these
feelings if I had not already been actuated by them, for no one can
love him without acquiring them,' I threw myself at his feet, saying:
'Sire, it would be kinder to kill me outright than to place me in this
position. When I told your majesty of the affair, if you had bade me
forgot it. I would have done so, but think how I shall appear in
breaking it off now that I have gone so far! What will become of me?
Where is Monsieur de Lauzun?' 'Do not be uneasy; nothing will happen
to him.' 'Ah! sire, I must fear everything {371} for him and for
myself, now that our enemies have prevailed over the kindness you felt
toward him.'
"He threw himself on his knees when I knelt, and embraced me. We
remained thus three-quarters of an hour, his cheek pressed to mine; he
wept as bitterly as I did: 'Oh why did you give time for these
reflections? Why did you not hasten matters?' 'Alas! sire, who would
have doubted your majesty's word? You never failed any one before, and
you begin now with me and Monsieur de Lauzun. I shall die, and I shall
be glad to die. I never loved anything before in all my life, and I
love, and love passionately, the best and noblest man in your kingdom.
The joy and delight of my life was in elevating him. I had thought to
pass the rest of my days so happily with him, honoring and loving you
as much as I do him. You gave him to me, and now you take him away,
and it is like tearing out my heart. This shall not make me love you
less, but it makes my grief the more cruel that it comes to me from
him whom I love best in the world."
Mademoiselle's suffering in this scene was heightened by the fact that
a suppressed cough outside the door revealed to her the presence of an
unseen witness. She rightly suspected it to be the Prince de Condé,
and reproached the king with just indignation for subjecting her to
such a humiliation.
His majesty bore her reproaches very patiently, and dismissed her with
the assurance that further discussion would not alter his decision.
"He embraced me and led me to the door, where I found I don't know
whom. I went home as quickly as possible, and there _je criai des
hauts cris_."
Lauzun, sure of his hold upon her royal highness, and fearing to lose
ground with the king, yielded with admirable resignation to the royal
decree. His favor at court seemed for awhile greater than ever; but
suddenly, for reasons never made public, he was disgraced and sent to
the Castle of Pignerol. Mademoiselle spent the ten years of his
imprisonment in faithful efforts to procure his release, and purchased
it finally by an immense donation to the Duke du Maine, a son of
Madame de Montespan. It was a success bitterly to be deplored. Any one
more odious than Lauzun after his release, it would be difficult to
imagine. Peevish, grasping, slovenly, and ungrateful, he hung about
Mademoiselle's establishment; using the power which a private marriage
had undoubtedly given him with an insolence that turned her love to
disgust.
The spirit of a courtier alone remained to recall the Lauzun of former
days. When the princess announced to him the death of Marie Thérèse,
he cried: "'People deserve to be imprisoned who spread such
falsehoods; how dare they say such things of the queen?' . . . At last
they showed him the letters, and he had to agree that queens are
mortal like other people."
In 1684 Mademoiselle and Lauzun parted in mutual displeasure. She
rejected his efforts at conciliation, and the last entry in her
Mémoires is the following: "M. de Lauzun was living as usual in
obscurity, but exciting notice, and often concerning matters which
annoyed me. When I returned from Eu in 1688, my people were dressed in
new liveries. One day, when I was walking in the park of----"
"Mademoiselle knew life late," says M. Sainte-Beuve; "but in the end
she know it well, and passed through every stage of experience. She
felt the slow suffering which wears out love in a heart, the contempt
and indignation that crush it, and reached at last that indifference
which finds no remedy or consolation except in God. It is a sad day
when we find that the being whom we have loved to adorn with every
perfection and load with every gift is _so poor a thing_. She had
years to meditate upon this bitter discovery. She died in March, 1693,
aged sixty-six years."
{372}
Lauzan, with characteristic insolence, appeared at the general in the
mourning of a widowed husband. The king sent the Duke of Saint-Aignan
to bid him withdraw. "At such a moment I cannot listen to the voice of
pride," was the reply; "I am absorbed by my grief, and could wish to
see the king more occupied with his own." He remained to the close of
the ceremony.
The magnificent obsequies were interrupted by a more serious
disturbance. An urn, in which part of the remains were carelessly
embalmed, exploded with a tremendous noise, frightening all the
assistants. It was said that not even death could come to Mademoiselle
without some ludicrous circumstance.
This princess began life with advantages such as fall to the lot of
few human beings. What did she leave behind her in the world? A
hospital and seminary under the charge of Sisters of Charity; a very
fair literary reputation, founded chiefly upon her Mémoires, which,
though not elegant in style, are truthful, graphic, and clear; and a
character without spot or blemish, in an age when such characters were
rare. Her written confessions afford ample material for cutting
criticism, but it would be an unkindly task to turn her own artillery
upon herself.
------
PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN REVELATION.
BY REV. JAMES A. STOTHERT.
II.
The advance of science has thrown some light on a subject of extreme
difficulty and abstruseness: the relation of the qualities or
accidents of matter to its substance. It is a subject of extreme
difficulty, into which it seems not permitted to man to penetrate
beyond the surface; but in regard to which much ignorance and
misapprehension have been dispelled by the observations and deductions
of modern philosophers. There are certain external marks or notes by
which we recognize certain material things, as their form, their
color, their hardness or softness, etc. One thing we call wood,
another iron, a third wax, and so on. These external notes or marks by
which we distinguish bodies are called their qualities, accidents, or
properties. Underneath them there is the substance of the material
thing, of which we have no means whatever of knowing anything. What it
is that constitutes the difference between wood and iron, in their
substance, must remain for ever a secret to our senses. We can
perceive that one is harder, heavier, colder, then the other; but
these observations go no further than the external qualities of the
two bodies; regarding their absolute substance, or internal
constitution, we have no possible means of forming a judgment. For all
that we know, it may be the same in all bodies, or it may be as
various as the simple elements of matter, now limited by chemists to
about sixty, or it may be much more various. It is one of the
mysteries of matter which will probably never be disclosed to the eye
of man in this life.
Not only is the nature of material substance thus unknown to us,
except through the external qualities, or accidents, which represent
it; but we are informed by science that most of these qualities are
the result of circumstances wholly distinct from their subject. A
complete revolution in popular ideas has in part been achieved, in
regard {373} to the permanence and immutability of these qualities of
matter. Nothing seems more natural than to say that a red rose must be
always red, a violet always blue, or that the size, shape, etc., of
material bodies are inseparable from their existence. Yet Proteus
himself was not more various in his shapes, than are the violet and
the rose in the varieties of color of which they are so susceptible.
Color, in fact, has no existence at all in the material object which
we look at; it is a condition of the ray of light which enters our eye
after reflection from the object, or after passing through it. Some
objects absorb one or more parts of the three-fold visible ray of
white light, and transmit or reflect to our eye only what remains of
its constituent parts; some objects send the whole ray, undecomposed
to the eye, and we call them white; others absorb it altogether, and
they are said to be black. But all bodies, whatever their original
color, that is, whatever part of the white ray they send to the eye,
after absorbing the rest, may be made to appear of any color, by
viewing them under the influence of variously colored light; which
proves that their color exists not in themselves, but in the light
which falls upon them, and on which their substance acts in some
unknown way.
Sir John Herschel's testimony on this subject is very explicit.
"Nothing at first can seem a more rational, obvious, and
incontrovertible conclusion, then that the color of an object is an
inherent quality, like its weight, hardness, etc.; and to see the
object, and to see it of its own color, when nothing intervenes
between our eyes and it, are one and the same thing. Yet this is only
a prejudice; and that it is so is shown by bringing forward the same
sense of vision which led to its adoption, as evidence on the other
side; for when the differently colored prismatic rays are thrown, in a
dark room, in succession upon any object, whatever be the color we are
in the habit of calling its own, it will appear of the particular hue
of the light which falls upon it: a yellow paper, for instance, will
appear scarlet when illuminated by red rays; yellow, when by yellow;
green, by green; and blue, by blue rays; its own (so called) proper
color not in the least mixing with what it so exhibits." [Footnote
115] In like manner, other qualities of matter have no absolute
existence, independent of circumstances. Twenty solid inches of sea
water, if subjected to a pressure equal to that at a distance of
twenty miles below the surface, would be reduced in volume to nineteen
inches. [Footnote 116] A globe, an inch in diameter, consisting of
air of the ordinary density at the earth's surface, if it could be
removed into space one radius of the earth, say 4,000 miles, would
expand into a sphere exceeding in radius the orbit of Saturn, as Sir
Isaac Newton has calculated. Hence the tail of a great comet, such as
that observed in 1843, and which extended from its nucleus 200
millions of miles, [Footnote 117] may, for aught we know, consist
only of a very few pounds or even ounces of matter, expanded to a
degree of tenuity to our minds almost inconceivable. [Footnote 118]
The same agent, heat, modifies the extension and form of matter in
totally opposite ways; making clay contract and lose in volume, while
expanding water, and still more largely air. Extension, or form,
therefore, is subject to great modification by change of
circumstances; nor is weight less so. A pound weight of matter at the
earth's equator weighs heavier at the poles; or, which is the same
thing, a pendulum oscillates faster at the poles than at the equator.
If removed to the planet Mars or Mercury, a pound of matter would lose
half its weight; if to the surface of Jupiter, it would weigh nearly
three times heavier.
[Footnote 115: Discourse, etc. §71.]
[Footnote 116: Somerville's Physical Geography, I., chap. xvi. p.
318.]
[Footnote 117: Hind's Comets, p. 22.]
[Footnote 118: Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xi. §559, note.]
{374}
If there is one quality more than another characteristic of solid
rock, it is the immobility of its parts; as mobility is a distinctive
feature of water and vapor. Yet experiments in crystallization have
demonstrated the existence of mobility even in solid bodies, in an
unimaginable degree. Mrs. Somerville remarks, that "we are led, from
the mobility of fluids, to expect great changes in the relative
position of their molecules, which must be in perpetual motion, even
in the stillest water and the calmest air; but we are not prepared to
find motion to such an extent in the interior of solids. That their
particles are brought nearer by cold and pressure, or removed further
from one another by heat, might be expected; but it could not have
been anticipated that their relative positions could be so entirely
changed as to alter their mode of aggregation. It follows from the low
temperature at which these changes are effected, that there is
probably no position of inorganic matter that is not in a state of
relative motion." [Footnote 119] And elsewhere, in her Physical
Geography, the same high authority assures us that "nothing can be
more certain than that the minute particles of matter are constantly
in motion, from the action of heat, mutual attraction, and
electricity. Prismatic crystals of salts of zinc are changed in a few
seconds into crystals of a totally different form by the heat of the
sun; casts of shells are found in rocks, from which the animal matter
has been removed and its place supplied by mineral; and the
excavations made in rocks diminish sensibly in size in a short time if
the rock the soft, and in a longer time when it is hard; circumstances
which show an intestine motion of the particles, not only in their
relative positions, but in space, which there is every reason to
believe is owing to electricity; a power which, if not the sole agent,
must, at least, have cooperated essentially in the formation and
filling of mineral veins." [Footnote 120]
[Footnote 119: Connection of Phys. Sciences, § 14, p. 125.]
[Footnote 120: Phys. Geog. I, ch. xv. pp. 288, 289.]
In the language of the older treatise on science, glass is said to be
transparent: gold, coal, etc., opaque, that is, incapable of
transmitting light. But there is no substance known to modern
discovery which, if sufficiently attenuated, is not capable of being
seen through. Opacity, therefore, has no real existence as a quality
of matter; it depends only on condition and circumstances. Hardness or
softness in like manner, are easily separable from the substance of
matter. Clay in its natural state is soft, apply heat to it and it
becomes hard; wax is naturally hard, but becomes soft and ductile when
warmed. Thus our knowledge of the internal constitution of material
substance, through the medium of its external qualities, is in the
highest degree uncertain, variable, and often erroneous. For there is
not one of those external notes or Marx, which we call qualities,
which cannot be changed or modified in such a way as seriously to
derange the accuracy of our observations. Enough of accuracy has been
secured for the purposes of our daily life; but, like the senses, our
knowledge of the relation of quality to substance was never intended
to carry us through the boneless field of knowledge, or enable us to
pronounce with certainty regarding the nature, the difference, or the
identity of substance, merely from the indications given us by its
apparent qualities. These are truly accidents; things which do not
affect the essence of matter; but connected with it in an evanescent
way, liable to sudden change, and totally baffling our attempts to
establish any certain criterion of substance by means of our
observations on its qualities.
Recent observations in chemistry have still further demonstrated the
impossibility of arriving at any knowledge of the internal structure
of matter from its appearances. The delicate tests invented by
chemists, in order to detect the difference between substances which
appear to every human sense the same, though they effect their purpose
with marvelous ingenuity, yet fail in indicating the ultimate reason
for their efficiency.
{375}
Thus syrup extracted from the sugar-cane, or from plants yielding
similar sugar, looks in every respect the same as that extracted from
the juice of the grape. The refinements of modern chemistry, however,
have pointed out several tests to distinguish one from the other.
[Footnote 121] And in a beam of polarized light there is provided a
test as subtle as any contributed by the aid of chemistry. In the
instance of cane sugar, the plane of polarization revolves to the
right; in grape sugar, it revolves to the left. Of this subtle agent,
Mrs. Somerville remarks, when stating this interesting fact, that '"it
surpasses the power even of chemical analysis in giving certain and
direct evidence of the similarity or difference existing in the
molecular constitution of bodies, as well as of the permanency of that
constitution, or of the fluctuations to which it may be liable."
[Footnote 122] The same delicate test of polarization enables us to
distinguish reflected light, such as the moon's, from the light which
issues from a self-luminous body, like Sirius. But in all these
instances, the ultimate rationale of its indications still remains
veiled in impenetrable darkness; and with it, any knowledge of the
internal substance of matter.
[Footnote 121: Brande's Lectures on Organic Chemistry, p. 153.]was it
[Footnote 122: Connexion of Physical Sciences, § xxii, p. 214.]
It is, however, in the mysterious facts to which chemists have given
the names of Isomorphism, Isomerism, and Allotropism, that we perceive
the most direct and remarkable contribution of modern scientific
research to the defence of Catholic revelation. Chemistry enables us
to penetrate further than any other science into the secret operations
of Nature; and strange insight has been thus obtained into the
identity of substance under two or more external appearances; and of
the existence of two or more substances of distinct character under
identical appearances. A few words will not be idly devoted to a
description of these terms, and of the results associated with them.
Isomorphism expresses the phenomenon in crystallization established by
Gay Lussac and Mitscherlich, of different compounds assuming the same
crystalline form. The generally received law of this process had
hitherto been, that the same substances invariably crystallize in
forms belonging to one system, different substances, in forms
belonging to another. Cases had indeed been observed, before the
discovery of Isomorphism, in which the same element had been seen to
crystallize in two forms, belonging to different systems, not
geometrically connected. Sulphur, for instance, crystallizing from its
solution in the bisulphuret of carbon, assumes a geometrically
different crystalline form from sulphur when melted by heat, and
allowed to consolidate as it cools. But these and a few other similar
cases had been explained as depending on a different arrangement of
the particles, due most probably to a difference in the temperature
during the operation. They were not thought to interfere with the
general law of the same substance always assuming the same crystalline
form. The two eminent philosophers just mentioned ascertained beyond a
doubt that, in many instances, compound substances, in the process of
crystallizing, assume the same or a cognate form, though their
elements are totally different. Thus chloride of sodium (sea salt),
sulphate of alumina and potash (alum), and many other compound
substances equally dissimilar, crystallize in the form of the cube and
its congeners. Other crystalline forms also are found to be common to
many differently constituted compounds. "To these groups of analogous
elements," says Professor Gregory, from whose work, On Inorganic
Chemistry, we have abridged this account, "the name of Isomorphous
groups has been given, as there is every reason to believe that as
elements they possess the same form; and the phenomena of identical
form in compounds of different but analogous composition, have
received the name of Isomorphism. Two elements {376} are said to be
isomorphous, which either crystallize in the same form, or may be
substituted for each other in their compounds, equivalent for
equivalent (the other elements remaining unchanged), without affecting
the form of the compound. We can hardly doubt that not only the salt,
but the acids are really isomorphous, and would be found so if we
could obtain them all in crystals; and we have the same reason to
conclude that the elements of these acids are also isomorphous; that
arsenic and phosphorus, sulphur and selenium, for example, crystallize
in the same form." [Footnote 123]
[Footnote 123: Inorganic Chemistry, Ed. 1853; pp. 38 _et seq_. ]
The converse of this phenomenon is also included among the discoveries
of modern science; the same substance is sometimes observed to
crystallize in two different forms not geometrically allied; and the
occurrence of this new exception to the received law of
crystallization is called Dimorphism.
Isomerism is the term employed to represent another exceptional class
of facts, observed by later chemists to interfere with the general
rule, that analogy or similarity of composition implies analogy in
form and external properties. Two or more compounds, formed of the
same element, in the same relative proportions, and having, therefore,
the same composition in 100 parts, are often found entirely distinct
and unlike in all their properties. Such bodies are called Isomeric.
"The discovery of Isomerism," says the same eminent chemist, "however
unexpected, is entirely consistent with the atomic theory, of which it
is merely a special case. Isomerism is of very frequent occurrence
among organic compounds, owing, no doubt, to their unusually large
atomic weights, since the numerous atoms of the elements afford much
scope for isomeric modifications; and, doubtless, this principle plays
an important part in the processes of organic life and growth, as well
as in decay." [Footnote 124]
[Footnote 124: Ib. p. 43, 44.]
More remarkable than all of these exceptions to hitherto established
laws is the discovery of the existence of simple elements under
totally dissimilar forms. Thus sulphur exists under three distinct and
incompatible forms, or modifications, called Allotropic. Carbon
likewise in three; the diamond, which is crystallized in octohedrons,
and is limpid and transparent; graphite, which is black, opaque, and
crystallized in prisms; and common charcoal, lamp-black, etc., which
is black and quite amorphous. Phosphorus has two allotropic forms: one
crystallized, white and transparent, and easily set on fire; the
other, deep reddish-brown, amorphous, and inflamed with much less
ease. Each of these elementary bodies thus assumes appearances as
dissimilar as if they were totally different bodies, possessed of a
physical character quite unlike each other. Well may Professor
Gregory, after this summary of the subject, add: "the occurrence of
such marked differences in the properties of elementary bodies is very
remarkable, and of great interest in reference to the molecular
constitution of matter; but the subject has not yet been fully
investigated." [Footnote 125]
[Footnote 125: Inorg. Chemistry, pp. 44, 45.]
The speculations of another very distinguished chemist, Professor
Faraday, in this field of recent observation, are worthy of place in
this collective testimony of modern science, to the imperfect
acquaintance with the ultimate constitution of material substance
attainable by any amount of study of its external properties or
appearances. "There was a time," says this eminent philosopher, "and
that not long ago, when it was held among the fundamental doctrines of
chemistry, that the same body always manifested the same chemical
qualities; excepting only such variations as might be due to the three
conditions of solid, liquid, and gas. This was held to be a canon of
chemical philosophy, as distinguished from alchemy; and a belief in
the possibility of transmutation was held to be impossible, because at
variance {377} with this fundamental tenet. But we are now conversant
with many examples to the contrary; and, strange to say, no less than
four of the non-metallic elements, namely, oxygen, sulphur,
phosphoros, and carbon, are subject to this modification. The train of
speculation which this contemplation awakens within us is
extraordinary. If the condition of allotropism were alone confined to
compound bodies, that is to say, to bodies made up of two or more
elements, we might easily frame a plausible hypothesis to account for
it; we might assume that some variation had taken place in the
arrangements of their particles. But when a simple body, such as
oxygen, is concerned, this kind of hypothesis is no longer open to us;
we have only one kind of particle to deal with; and the theory of
altered position is no longer applicable. In short, it does not seem
possible to imagine a rational hypothesis to explain the condition of
allotropism as regards simple bodies. We can only accept it as a fact,
not to be doubted, and add the discovery to that long list of truths
which start up in the field of every science, in opposition to our
most cherished theories and long received convictions." [Footnote
126]
[Footnote 126: Lectures on Non-Metallic Elements, pp. 115, 116.]
Those persons who have resisted the evidence of Catholic revelation on
the _primâ facie_ ground that sound philosophy and a knowledge of the
physical phenomena of nature are directly opposed to some of its
doctrines, must begin, we should think, to feel their position a
little less impregnable than it seemed before such sentiments as these
were warranted by the actually established facts of modern science.
With such evidence of its recent fruits, we may be well satisfied to
watch with interest and congratulation the progress of philosophical
inquiry conducted in such a spirit; not so much for our own sakes, to
whom, indeed, no analogies afforded by any human science could add
anything in the way of confirmation to what we have been taught by
divine testimony, transmitted through the church of Christ to our
remote age; but for the sake of the erring and the doubting among the
intellectual minds of our fellow-countrymen; with the hope that their
attention might be arrested and turned in the direction plainly enough
indicated by such analogies. With one more extract, we must take leave
of Professor Faraday's highly interesting volume; only begging as many
of our readers as are interested in such pursuits to purchase it, and
study it for themselves. After pointing out the difference between
common and allotropic phosphorus, he continues: "We can scarcely
imagine to ourselves a more complete opposition of qualities than is
here presented in these two conditions of phosphorus; an opposition
not limited by merely physical manifestations of density or
crystallographic form, but recognizable through all the phases of
solution, thermal demeanor, and physiological effect The metamorphosis
has, in fact, been so complete, that we can only demonstrate the
allotropical substance _to be_ phosphorus, by reducing it to its
original state, and subjecting it to ordinary tests. If the forces
determining its constitution had been so balanced that the power of
reduction were denied to us, then the substance we now call
_allotropic phosphorus_ must necessarily, according to the strictest
propriety of logic, have been admitted to be not phosphorus, but some
other body. It is impossible, rationally, to deny that such permanent
incontrovertibility may not lie within the power of natural laws to
effect. That we are not aware of such an example, cannot be accepted
as a proof of its non-existence; and analogy, the guidance to which we
refer when direct testimony fails, is in favor of the affirmative."
[Footnote 127] From the great powers of analysis at the command of
this distinguished physicist, directed as much by the courage as by
the wisdom and the candid spirit of true philosophy, it is impossible
to say {378} what further insight into the constitution of matter may
not hereafter be obtained. Such an instance is surely of itself a full
justification of our sanguine hopes for the future of science in its
relation to what has been revealed by eternal and unchanging truth.
[Footnote 127: Lectures, etc., pp.42, 43.]
Rather by way of indication than of summary of the reflections
suggested by these inquiries, we would ask, how is it that the almost
illimitable extension of gross material elements should be accepted
without hesitation, while the possibility of the spiritual and
glorified body of the Lord existing, without division or
multiplication of itself, in every Catholic tabernacle, and also in
heaven, is regarded as so wildly impossible, and even monstrous a
conception, as to be scouted at the bare mention of it? When
philosophy expects us to believe that black, crumbling charcoal, and
the hard, shining diamond, are one and the same simple substance, why
should it be thought in the nature of things so incredible as at once
to preclude all further examination of the evidence on which it rests,
that the substance of the Child of Bethlehem, of the risen and
ascended Lord, and of the most holy eucharist, are one and the same.
We are far from saying that the mode of existence is the same in all
these instances; we only claim for revelation what is conceded to
science; that appearances should not be held, _in limine,_ conclusive
of the question, nor be allowed to outweigh or prejudice other
evidence; for in every province of the universe of knowledge things
are not what they seem. If what exists, or may exist, is to be limited
by what human organs of sense can perceive, the boundaries of
knowledge shrink into the narrowest compass: the eye and ear of an
infant are enthroned as the judges of the constitution of nature;
discovery and the progress of science are no more, or would never have
been; mankind would yet be sunk in the imbecility of its primitive
ignorance.
III.
Next to the fallacious testimony of the human senses, and the hidden
nature of material substance, the subtle influences at work in the
physical world seem very remarkably to indicate some curious analogies
between the constitution of matter in its finer forms, and the nature
of spiritual agencies. Recent analysis of the solar beam, for
instance, has revealed rays hitherto unknown, because invisible to the
acutest vision unaided by the appliances of science, and for long
concealed even from its piercing scrutiny, but yielding at last to the
refinements of modern investigation. These invisible rays have been
proved to exercise most important functions in nature; in the
germination and vegetation of plants, and other widely multiplied
physical processes. There are few who have not heard much of the
magnetic and electric currents which permeate every portion of the
surface of the globe and its surrounding atmosphere; but we imagine
that not so many are aware of the powerful influence which they
possess in the economy of our planet. "There is strong presumptive
evidence," says Mrs. Somerville, "of the influence of the electric and
magnetic currents on the formation and direction of the mountain
masses and mineral veins; but their slow persevering action on the
ultimate atoms of matter has been placed beyond a doubt by the
formation of rubies, and other gems, as well as various other mineral
substances by voltaic electricity." [Footnote 128] And, in another
place, in the same instructive work, she remarks, that "it would be
difficult to follow the rapid course of discovery through the
complicated mazes of magnetism and electricity; the action of the
electric current on the polarized sunbeam, one of the most beautiful
of modern discoveries, leading to relations hitherto unsuspected
between that power and the complex assemblage of visible and invisible
influences on solar light, by {379} one of which nature has recently
been made to paint her own likeness." [Footnote 129] These
influences, for all their subtlety, have a real, appreciable
existence, and fulfil a definite and beneficent end. A curious example
of the subserviency of the invisible magnetic current to the wants of
men is mentioned by Humboldt as having occurred to himself, in one of
his voyages off the west coast of South-America. Bad weather had
prevailed for several days, so as to shut out all view of land, or of
the sun and stars. The crew were in expectation of making a particular
port on that coast: on consulting his dip-needle, the scientific
passenger discovered that the ship had passed the latitude of its
destined port; the ship's course was altered, and much delay and,
probable, danger avoided. [Footnote 130] Nor are the agencies
destructive to human life less subtile or recondite. Various miasmata
of a pestilential character defy every refinement of chemical analysis
to detect the cause of their mischievous operation, or the difference
of their elementary constitution from that of pure and wholesome air.
The most universal, and, as far as our knowledge serves, the most
important of all physical influences, that of gravitation, is also the
subtlest and most occult; traversing the vast regions of space with
instantaneous speed, and pervading the remotest fields of the great
universe of matter; penetrating without sensible interval of time to
distances far beyond the utmost reach of human thought, with a force
which maintains the stars of heaven in their courses, and gives
stability to every known material system.
[Footnote 128: Physical Geography, II., chap. xxii. pp. 92.]
[Footnote 129: Physical Geography, II., xxxiii. pp. 400, 401.]
[Footnote 130: Cosmos, I. 171; III. 139.]
If these occult agencies in the material world are recognized as
fulfilling their mission, for all their secrecy and subtlety, or
rather, by means of these very characteristics, why is the possibility
of a hidden yet efficient agency in the spiritual world denounced as a
heresy against common sense and sound philosophy? The physical system
of things has its great laboratory of decomposition and reconstruction
kept in operation by these unseen influences; it is indebted to them
for the maintenance of its existence. Science rejoices to measure them
by their admirable results, to detect their operations in their
sensible effects. Why must the sacramental system revealed in the
spiritual world be with equal justice refused its claim to an agency
hardly more subtle? Philosophers admit the truth of observations in
these occult natural agencies, and have no doubt of their real
existence; why do they so contemptuously regard the result of our
observations in those which are secret and spiritual, when our
observations are as numerous, and their evidence as good?
IV.
The whole question of the relation of space and time becomes one of
vast interest and importance, in connection with a common objection
made to the possibility of our holding communication with the saints
and angels in heaven, as Catholics are taught to believe they may.
Across a space of such unknown vastness, it is alleged that the idea
of transmitting a wish or a prayer is contrary to every principle of
philosophy. Now, assuming, what indeed has never been proved, that the
heaven of the blessed is as remote from our daily path as some
maintain it to be, and without entering here into the abstract
question as to whether the idea of space or of time is the older and
simpler, some considerations are suggested by the study of modern
scientific principles, which may throw light on the objection just
staled, and may help us to ascertain its real worth.
It is evident that time and space may be made a measure of each other.
The distance from one point in space to another may be expressed in so
many units of time, say a minute, an hour, or a day, required to
traverse the intervening distance at a given velocity. Hence, if
velocity of motion {380} from point to point be represented by the
simple formula of (Space/Time) we obtain two other formulas
representing; time and space, respectively, in terms of each other.
Thus, if Velocity = Space/Time
Then, Time = Space/Velocity
and Space = Time X Velocity. [Footnote 131]
[Footnote 131: For example, call Velocity 40 miles and hour, and
Time 10 hours; then Space = 40 X 10 = 400 miles; or call Space 400
miles, Velocity being the same, then Time = 400/40 = 10 hours.]
There is a little instrument much valued by philosophical observers,
but of no great intricacy in itself, which is at once an unerring
measure of space and time; we mean a common pendulum oscillating
seconds in a given level, say of London, at a given level, say of the
sea, other conditions, as of the thermometer, etc., being the same.
This instrument, beating seconds, is an invariable measure of length;
in the latitude of London, for example, at the level of the sea, with
thermometer at 62° Fahr., it is invariably 39.1393 inches long. And,
conversely, provide such an instrument of the length just mentioned,
and set it a-going; its oscillations will exactly measure out one
second of time. Further, as a measure of length, it enables us to
ascertain the weight of a cubic inch of water, in parts of a pound
troy, whence the imperial standards of weight and capacity are
derived. Hence a pendulum is a constant representative of space, in
its length; and of time, in its oscillation. At any point on the
surface of the globe, a rod of a certain given length will invariably,
in similar circumstances, beat seconds; and a rod, beating seconds as
it swings, will invariably measure a certain fixed length, according
to the latitude. Why it does so, does not enter into our arguments
now; it is enough that the fact is ascertained, and is one of the very
commonest application to practise. Every good house-clock is evidence
of it In the same town, for instance, the seconds' pendulums of all
regularly-going clocks are of equal length to the minute fraction of
an inch; and all pendulums, of the same length exactly, keep the same
time exactly. In other words, space is made a measure of time, and
time is a measure of space.
We said, just now, that space may be represented in terms of time, and
time in those of space, the rate of Velocity being given. London is
said to be ten hours from Edinburgh, when the transit is made at the
rate of forty miles an hour. "As long as it would take to go to
London," may be given as an expression equivalent to ten hours, at the
same rate of motion. But vary that rate, and the terms used instantly
represent very variable quantities. Ten hours from London, at the rate
of a pedestrian travelling his four miles an hour, represent an
insignificant distance of only forty miles; "as long as it would take
to go to London" now expresses a period of a hundred hours, or more
than four days. But take the wings of light, and instantly the
distance supposed, if expressed in terms of time, dwindles to a minute
portion of a second; even this is long, if you measure the space by
the flash transmitted along the electric wire. Leaving the
comparatively insignificant spaces on the surface of the globe for
those vaster distances which divide planet from planet and from the
sun, the time of 8 minutes 3.3 seconds, which the solar light takes to
travel from its source to our globe may be taken as an expression of
its distance from that luminary. Nay, there is a rate of velocity
surpassing all these, bridging over the vast span of Neptune's orbit,
for example, or the vaster diameter of a comet's path, in a unit of
time too minute for the subtlest human instruments or calculations to
appreciate. We mean the force or influence of gravitation, which,
ever since the first moment when the sun and the planets were created,
has been passing instantaneously from the centre of the solar system
to every part, {381} even the most distant, of his wide empire, and
back again from its furthest point to his centre.
Now, it is evident that if you undertake to express the distance of
sun from planet in terms of the time, at this rate of velocity, it is
reduced to nothing. The sun is as effectually present, for instance,
in his all-important gravitating influence, at every instant of time,
in the planet Neptune, nearly three thousand millions of miles away,
as the hand of the schoolboy is present at the end of his sling, while
he whirls it round his head, and retains the stone in its place by the
string. Cut the string, and the stone flies off; suspend for an
instant the influence, or force, or attraction, or whatever you please
to call it, which binds Neptune to the sun, and he flies off in a path
more eccentric than any comet's.
There are two ways of spanning distance: one by actual, bodily
transit; another by the transmission of an impulse or wave, propagated
and repeated along the space intervening, in some medium more or less
mobile or subtle. The planetary motions are good examples of the
actual translation of bodies through space: this earth of ours
sweeping along, in its orbit round the sun, at a rate of something
like nineteen miles in a second, or 68,000 miles in an hour, besides
its rotatory motion on its axis of 24,000 miles every day. The planet
Venus exceeds this velocity, travelling at the rate of 80,000 miles an
hour; while Mercury, in the same time, accomplishes 109,360 miles.
Even this inconceivable velocity is far surpassed by the comet of
1843, which, with a tail two millions of miles long, and a nucleus
apparently larger than our globe, swept round the sun, at its
perihelion, at the rate of 366 miles, or nearly the distance from
Edinburgh to London, in one second. [Footnote 132]
[Footnote 132: Outline of Astronomy, §590, 593.]
Velocities of impulse exceed those of bodily translation; that is,
supposing we may class among examples of wave motion the transmission
of sound, light, electricity, and perhaps gravitation. Dr. Lardner
mentions his having, on one occasion, in company with Leverrier,
written a message by electric telegraph, at a distance of more than a
thousand miles, and at the rate of 19,500 words in an hour, or of 5.5
words in a second. [Footnote 133] At a similar distance, and indeed
at a much greater, a steel bar may be made to vibrate fourteen
thousand miles in a second. [Footnote 134] Such a velocity evidently
far surpasses the power of human comprehension. Even in regard to the
less rapid transmission of light, the eminent astronomer Bessel
candidly confesses that "the distance which light traverses in a year
is not more appreciable to us, than the distance which it traverses in
ten years. Therefore, every endeavor must fail to convey to the mind
any idea of a magnitude exceeding what is accessible on the earth."
[Footnote 135]
[Footnote 133: Museum of Science and Art, part viii. p. 116.]
[Footnote 134: Ib., Part ix. p. 201.]
[Footnote 135: Quoted, Cosmos, iii. 85.]
Now, even supposing that we are acquainted with all the methods which
exist in nature for spanning vast distances, and if, as we have shown,
distance may be expressed in terms of the time taken to travel over
it, or transmit a communication across it, the thought forcibly
occurs. What is distance, if viewed apart from the means at disposal
for overpassing it? A friend in the next room is not nearer us than
another in the next continent, if in the same interval of time we can
communicate with either. To be sure, one of them we might see sooner
than the other, but sight is no necessary means of communicating; the
blind are forever debarred from it. Man can communicate with man, even
materially, without either sight or hearing; and far beyond the range
of either.
But who shall be bold enough to say that other and subtler methods of
communication may not exist in the material universe? or that the
world of spirit has none more vivid than those subtle currents which
permeate the world of matter? To a generation or two ago, the means of
transmitting intelligence, which are now quite familiar to us, would
have seemed fabulous; a little further back in the history of Europe,
their discovery might have involved the penalty due to witchcraft. If
the passage of a material impulse across the wide orbit of Neptune
unites him intimately at every moment with the sun, is there any
distance that can be said absolutely to present an impassable gulf to
the intercourse of spirit with spirit? Or, can it be said that some
such means of communication do not, and cannot exist, because human
senses do not perceive them, nor human intelligence comprehend them?
Transmission by impulse surpasses in velocity every known instance of
actual, bodily translation: why must what we yet know of the former be
fixed as the limit of what is possible? Why may there not be some
means of communication surpassing in swiftness the flash of the
lightning, or the influence of gravitation, as far as it exceeds the
sweep of the comet or the slow progress of the pedestrian? Why must it
be pronounced an idle dream, that we may hold one end of a chain of
impulses vibrating from earth to heaven, lying along the future track
of our emancipated and purified spirits?
And pursuing analogy one step further, it is no severe demand on the
imagination to conceive that the universal presence of God, which
embraces and interpenetrates the immensity of space, may be, to the
subtle and vivid impulses from spirit to spirit, what, in another
order of things, the elastic ether of the planetary and sidereal
spaces is to vibrations of material creation; that it may fulfil for
those similar functions of propagation and transmission. In him who is
everywhere, at every instant, and forever, intelligence may easily be
conceived to pass between the remotest points of space, with a speed
not slower than coexistence itself; for any him there is no passage or
motion either in time or space; he is the one indivisible Eternal,
here and now.
V.
We are forcibly struck, while referring to the discoveries of modern
science, with the very slender ground on which the mass even of
educated persons accept their most astonishing and improbable results.
How many persons of all those who talk, with much fluency and show of
knowledge on subjects of physical science, have tested, by their own
observation, the truth of one of the phenomena which they converse
about? How many persons, for instance, who tell us that light and heat
in the same ray have been separated, have actually proved it by
personal experiment, or even seen it proved by another? How many
persons are there at this moment in England and Scotland who have
verified by their own observation and calculation the size and figure
of the earth, or its distance from the sun and moon; not to mention
other more intricate problems in physics, of which they have no
personal knowledge whatever? The mass of mankind are content to
receive these things on sufficient testimony of men competent, or whom
they deem competent, to inform them on such subjects. Here, at least,
in the domain of science, there is no exaltation of private judgment,
no rebellion against scientific authority; and it is a wise and a just
arrangement that it should be so. There are not many men, in any age,
furnished with the intellectual outfit necessary for such
verifications; a lifetime would not be sufficient to enable one man to
accomplish them all. Sir John Herschel has the following admirable
remarks, which are very much to our present purpose. "What mere
assertion will make any one believe, that in one second of time, in
one beat of a pendulum of a clock, a ray of light travels over 192,000
Miles, and would therefore perform the tour {383} of the world in
about the same time that it requires to wink with our eyelids, and in
much less than a Swift runner occupies in taking a single stride? What
mortal can be made to believe, without demonstration, that the sun is
almost a million times larger than the earth? and that, although so
remote from us that a cannon ball shot directly toward it would be
twenty years in reaching it, yet it affects the earth by its
attraction in an appreciable instant of time? But what are these to
the astonishing truths which modern optical inquiries have disclosed,
which teach us that every point of a medium through which a ray of
light passes is affected with a succession of periodical movements,
regularly occurring at equal intervals, no less than five hunted
millions of millions of times in a single second? That it is by such
movements, communicated to the nerves of our eyes, that we see; nay,
more, that it is the frequency of their recurrence which affects us
with the sense of the diversity of color. That, for instance, in
acquiring the sensation of redness, our eyes are affected four hundred
and eighty-two millions of millions of times; of yellowness, five
hundred and forty-two millions of millions of times; and of violet,
seven hundred and seven millions of millions of times in a second.
These are nevertheless, conclusions to which any one may most
certainly arrive, who will only be at the trouble of examining the
chain of reasoning by which they have been obtained."
If Theology, or the science of God and his revealed will, is, as might
have been expected, not less, but more recondite than any other, as
its objects are vaster, more remote from human understanding, than
those of any other science; surely, on philosophical principles, it is
not unreasonable that authority should have its weight here, also, and
equal measure at least to be dealt to all. Yet the modern world is
agreed in ridiculing and denouncing the principle of authority in
religious matters, as the bane of human society; and in exalting
private judgment and opinion, as the Christian's only ultimate appeal
in the matter. Apply this principle of independence to any other
science, to any subject of human knowledge, or to any object of
intelligent inquiry; and a race of sciolists, pedants, and sceptics
would inevitably result. The authority of great names in science would
lose all its just honor; there would be no system, no progress in
observations; thousands of persons, incompetent to do more than deny
the conclusions of the learned and the able, would refuse their assent
to these, till the impossible time should arrive, when, by actual and
personal investigation, they should be pleased to pronounce judgment
on the accuracy of these conclusions; life would be consumed in
negation; mutual trust and deference to superior knowledge and
capacity would be annihilated. Whether in this incompatibility of
private judgment with its best interests, and even with its stability,
Revelation is very different from Science, we leave to the study of
our readers, and to their observation of the fine gradations of
independent judgment which conduct from Luther to Strauss; the former
of whom began by denying the pope, and the latter ended by impugning
the divinity of Jesus Christ.
VI.
The principle of authority and its correlative, subordination and
dependence, is represented, in a remarkable manner, in the
constitution of physical nature, especially in the province of
astronomy. It is a remark of Dr. Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise,
[Footnote 136] "that the relations among the planets is uniformly, not
co-ordinate, but subordinate. Satellites are subject to the influence
of their primaries; primaries to that of the central sun; the central
sun itself to a higher and more distant centre; in a sublimer material
hierarchy, ascending in gradations of {384} immense numerical
magnitude; and thus while insuring the stability of the whole
planetary and stellar systems, ultimately, as every analogy teaches
us, making one grand centre of revolution and subordination, at a
point of space whose distance we cannot even imagine."
[Footnote 136: Bohn's Edition, p. 175.]
In his remarks on the Third Law of Kepler, namely, that the squares of
the times of planetary revolution round the sun are proportional to
the cubes of their mean distances from that central luminary, Sir J.
Herschel has the following pertinent observations, "Of all the laws to
which induction from pure observation has ever conducted man, this
third law, as it is called, of Kepler, may justly be regarded as the
most remarkable, and the most pregnant with important consequences.
When we contemplate the constituents of the planetary system, from the
point of view which this relation affords us, it is no longer mere
analogy which strikes us--no longer a general resemblance among them,
as individuals independent of each other, and circulating about the
sun, each according to its own peculiar nature, and connected with it
by its own peculiar tie. The resemblance is now perceived to be a true
_family_ likeness; they are bound up in one chain--interwoven in one
web of mutual relation and harmonious agreement--subjected to one
pervading influence, which extends from the centre to the furthest
limits of that great system; of which all of them, the earth included,
must henceforth be regarded as members." [Footnote 137 ]
[Footnote 137: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix §489.]
The remarks of the same great philosopher on the systems of double
stars, in a later part of his work on astronomy, bear still more
directly on the view we are proposing. "It is not with the revolutions
of bodies of a planetary or cometary nature round a solar centre, that
we are now concerned; it is with that of sun round sun--each, perhaps,
at least in some binary systems, where the individuals are very
remote, and their period of revolution very long, accompanied with its
train of planets and their satellites, closely shrouded from our view
by it the splendor of their respective suns, and crowded into a space
bearing hardly a greater proportion to the in enormous interval which
separates them, than the distance of the satellites of our planets
from their primaries bear to their distances from the sun itself. A
less distinctly characterized subordination would be incompatible with
the stability of their systems, and with the planetary nature of their
orbits. Unless closely nestled under the wing of their immediate
superior, the sweep of another sun in its perihelion passage round
their own might carry them off, or whirl them into orbits utterly
incompatible with the conditions necessary for the existence of their
inhabitants. It must be confessed that we have a strangely wide and
novel field for speculative excursions, and one which it is not easy
to avoid luxuriating in." [Footnote 138]
[Footnote 138: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xvi. § 847.]
VII.
The phenomena of nature or suggest an interesting view all of law in
general, which we shall in a few words faintly outline. It is
constantly urged as an objection to the doctrine of revelation
regarding the Blessed Eucharist, for example, that it is contrary
philosophy, inasmuch as it assumes and implies the suspension of a
universal law, which connects certain definite accidents or qualities
of matter invariably with their corresponding substance; for in the
Holy Eucharist the properties, qualities, or accidents of one
substance are attached to another.
By a "_Law_" in physics no more can be understood than a deduction
from a sufficiently large series of observed facts, establishing, from
long and tearful and extensive observation, a uniformity of result in
the same given circumstances. Some laws are said to be "empirical,"
which though derived from careful noting of invariably {385} recurring
phenomena, enunciate no principle, or rationale, but merely the
numerical result of observation. Thus Kepler's three laws of planetary
motion, and Bode's law of planetary distances from the sun, are
instances of law simply and confessedly empirical. Newton's law of
gravitation is said to furnish the principle which is involved in
Kepler's formula of details; because once Newton's law is admitted as
governing planetary motion, what Kepler observed of the movements of
the planets, can be deduced by calculation. It would be perhaps more
philosophical, in the present state of our knowledge, to regard even
the most apparently elementary and fundamental law as only empirical,
and the ultimate principle as lying deeper than any known law. In this
view, a law like that of Newton's demonstrating, would be said to lie
only one step nearer the ultimate principle than the earlier and more
empirical. Probably there is no ultimate principle nearer than the
divine volition.
In fact, the law of gravitation is now regarded by philosophers as
something short of the ultimate solution of material attraction and
repulsion; they are groping their way, at this moment, to something
more universal than that law, as may be gathered from the following
observations of Sir J. Herschel: "No matter from what ultimate cause
the power which is called gravitation originates--be it a virtue
lodged in the sun, as its receptacle, or be it pressure from without,
or the resultant of many pressures or solicitations of unknown fluids,
magnetic or electric ethers, or impulses--still, when finally brought
under our contemplation, and summed up into a single resultant energy,
its direction is _from_ many points on all sides _toward_ the sun's
centre." [Footnote 139]
[Footnote 139: Outlines of Astronomy, chap. ix. §490.]
Whence is this uncertainty about the probable nature of this force?
Because, universal as it has been thought, it fails in certain
circumstances, as in some electrical conditions, and within very small
distances; when the relation of material particles to one another is
one of repulsion, and not of attraction. Take another law, as it is
called, that fluids will always rise as high as their source, and no
higher. The phenomena of capillary attraction prove that this law does
not hold in all cases. The chemical law of atomic combination is
sometimes found signally to fail. Physical laws, therefore, like
these, are good only as far as they go; there are limits to their
application.
Why may not this be true in regard to the law which is said to
militate against the doctrine of the blessed Eucharist? It may hold
good for a thousand instances, and may fail in the next, like other
physical laws; and that instance may be the very one of this revealed
doctrine. _Exceptio probat regulam_ is a sound rule in a certain
sense; it tells the other way, however, when the absolute
impossibility even of an exception is maintained in regard to any
physical law.
But, in fact, we see that this law of relation between quality, or
accident, and substance, is very uncertain in its application to many
conditions of matter. Modern discovery has much diminished the number
of the properties, or qualities, of matter; and has proved that even
these are by no means constant in the same substance, nor always
variable in different substances; so that one substance often looks to
every sense, like another, wholly different; and "behaves," like it,
in a variety of ways; while the same substance has sometimes more than
one mode of appearance. There is, in fact, no law of uniformity
between material substance and its properties; if there is any law on
the subject, it is the other way; and the result of discovery seems
clearly to demonstrate that we know absolutely nothing of the nature
of substance.
VIII.
Closely connected with this view of law is the interesting subject is
{386} throughout nature, but especially in the motions and temporary
disturbances in the heavenly spaces, and which afford, in fact, the
best evidence of the stability of the vast system of creation. A
variation is observed in the ellipticity of the earth's orbit, for
instance, of which one evident proof is the acceleration of the moon's
motion round her primary; it might seem as if, at some vastly remote
period in future time, the total derangement of our planetary system
must ensue; but calculation has assured us that there is a point, far
short of that, at which there will occur a change; and in the lapse of
ages things will return to their original condition. Thus beyond an
exception to law there is still Law existing supreme, regulating the
conditions and the term of such exceptional existence. In a similar
manner, the law of storms, as it is called, establishes the dominion
of definite order even in the confusion and mad fury of the tropical
hurricane; so definite, and so completely under the control of
observed rule, that navigators are provided with certain instructions
for evading the overwhelming force of those terrible visitations. We
think of these cycles of apparent exception and departure from
established order, in the physical world, when we hear objections made
against this or that apparent anomaly in the spiritual and moral
government of God; till the principles and laws of one government are
proved wholly unlike those of the other, we imagine a secular
variation not impossible in the one as it actually exists in the
other; and we can endure even a temporary eclipse of the outward glory
of his church, the prevalence of her enemies against her, for a longer
or a shorter time; the exile of her chief pastor; the triumph of
iniquity in her glorious capital; convinced that erratic trains of
events like these are subject to law in the permission of him who
governs as he made the universe of matter and of mind, by an act of
his sovereign and omnipotent will.
IX.
From what has preceded, one or two general reflections occurred to an
intelligent mind, somewhat to this effect. It seems that the horizon
of science has never been long stationary, and is now opening wider
then at any former period. Every science has passed through many
strange phases of empiricism, before reaching the philosophical basis
on which it now rests. All of them are disclosing facts and analogies
undreamed of by our grandfathers. A very few years make a book on
chemistry or physiology old and out of date. We are posting on to
further knowledge; strange and unimagined relations between matter and
matter, and still stranger between matter and mind, are no doubt
awaiting the detection of future discoverers; our children, or their
children, will know more than we. A single sentence of Professor
Faraday's reflections on the subject of Allotropism, is sufficient to
open a wide view of the possible career of science. "The philosopher
ends," he says, "by asking himself the questions, In what does
chemical identity consists? In what will these wonderful developments
of allotropism end? Whether the so-called chemical elements may not
be, after all, mere allotropic conditions of purer universal essences?
Whether, to renew the speculations of the alchemists, the metals may
the only so many mutations of each other, by the power of science
naturally convertible? There was a time when this fundamental doctrine
of the alchemists was opposed to known analogies; _it is now no longer
opposed to them, but only some stages beyond their present
development._" [Footnote 140]
[Footnote 140: Faraday's Lectures, pp. 105, 106.]
Is it safe to trust to what are considered to be indications of
physical truth in a contest with moral evidence when the limits of
physical knowledge are so floating and ill defined? Is it safe to
erect barriers of supposed physical laws against the entrance of
conviction regarding the truths of {387} revelation, when recent
discovery has established so much that tells on the side of faith;
when it has overturned so many old philosophical objections to it;
when future discovery may, and seems likely to push the advantage of
revelation still further into the domain of matter; when its
indications have so many analogies to the doctrines of revealed truth?
We are sure, at least, that future discovery can take from us no
advantage which we at present derive from our knowledge of physical
laws; it cannot fail widely to extend that advantage, by enlarging our
acquaintance with the laws of nature.
X.
The natural termination of our reflections is the consideration of how
short a way we yet see into the constitution of Nature; how far we are
still from reaching the secrets of her vast operations. "After all,
what do we see?" asks Admiral Smyth, in his _Cycle of Celestial
Objects_. "Both that wonderful (stellar and nebular) universe, our
own, and all which optical assistance has revealed to us, may be only
the outlines of a cluster immensely more numerous. The millions of
suns we perceive cannot comprise the Creator's universe. There are no
bounds to infinitude; and the boldest views of the elder Herschel only
placed us as commanding a ken whose radius is some 35,000 times longer
than the distance of Sirius from us. Well might the dying Laplace
exclaim, 'That which we know, is little; that which we know not, is
immense.'" [Footnote 141] If, on the one hand, the discoveries of man
in every department of material knowledge prove him to be in genius
and intelligence only "a little lower than the angels," the boundless
expanse of undiscovered worlds of investigation in his own and distant
systems may well abate his enthusiasm, and make the greatest
philosopher acknowledge that we as yet know only in part.
[Footnote 141: Vol. ii. Bedford Catalogue, p. 303.]
If so, partial knowledge of the laws of divine government can never be
a safe or a philosophical guide to direct us in accepting or rejecting
whatever comes to us claiming to be from the author and sustainer of
that government, as revelation does. It can never be safe even as a
preliminary guide; as an ultimate rule to test the value of
revelation, it is totally disqualified. Till we know all, we can say
nothing of what is possible or impossible, probable or the reverse. We
can understand a person to whom the claims of revelation on his assent
were new and strange, hesitating to accept it at all, till its
credentials had been examined, and their evidence ascertained; but
once that process is concluded, and a revelation established, we
cannot understand a philosophical mind, in the elementary state of
human knowledge, proceeding to select from the sum of revealed truth
what seems to it intelligible, and accepting that, while rejecting
whatever it considers to be the reverse; and maintaining that, because
it cannot comprehend the mysterious things of revelation, therefore
they cannot be from God. The only course, at once safe and
philosophical, is to accept the whole of what is presented to us,
without questioning its coincidence, or otherwise, with our previous
views of what is likely or befitting; with our present notions of what
is intelligible. To our limited knowledge it may seem in its doctrines
unintelligible, imperfect, perhaps even contradictory: clouds of
doubts may seem to hover over it; storms of conflicting principles and
laws and assumptions, subversive, as we think, of the course of
nature, may now rage about its path. But ascend the mountain-top, and
the clouds are left far beneath; the roaring of the storm cannot be
heard so high. Descend a little way into the deep, and the agitation
of its surface ceases; silence and order and everlasting rest are
established there. So the deeper we penetrate into the knowledge of
God, as manifested in his material government, or the higher we ascend
in contemplating his modes {388} of action in nature, the nearer we
shall approach to the vision of that perfect harmony and nice
adjustment of every part of his vast creation, the full disclosure of
which will recreate our intelligence in the light of his eternal
beauty. It cannot be matter for wonder, then, that we rejoice at every
new step in science, at every discovery of the secret powers of
nature. We welcome the advance of physical science as a pioneer of the
ultimately victorious progress of revealed truth, which shall
demonstrate its intimate harmony with all that is known of the divine
operations in the constitution of nature.
Meanwhile, we can afford to wait "till the day breaks and the shadows
flee away." The veil will one day be withdrawn, and we shall see, eye
to eye. Influences and agencies which it has not yet been given to man
even to imagine, will then be disclosed, around us and within us; as
when the eyes of the prophet's servant were opened, and he beheld his
master surrounded with chariots of fire and horses of fire. Things
will then be seen as they are, in the day of the manifestation of the
sons of God. We can afford to wait for that day. We feel within us,
already, much that we cannot account for, on natural principles;
strong presentiments, and instincts of the supernatural and eternal
order of things, are ever and ever crossing our path, stirring us with
strange and sudden and mysterious power; disposing us for the
revelations of the final day. A day of wonder; a day of benediction;
but not for those who have refused to believe because they could not
see, but for Christ's simple little ones, who were content to believe
before, or without seeing; for whom it was enough that the great
Creator had spoken to them by his Son, and since by his church; more
than enough, that, even here, they could recognize the subservience of
philosophy to faith; that they could perceive "in outward and visible
things the type and evidence of those within the veil."
------
THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE HYMN.
Copied from a print of the Blessed Virgin in a Catholic Village in
Germany. Translated into English by E. T. Coleridge.
Dormi, Jesu! mater ridet
Quae tam dulcem somnam videt,
Dormi, Jesu! blandule!
Si non dormis, mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat,
Blande, veni, somnule.
Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:
Mother sits beside thee smiling;
Sleep, my darling, tenderly!
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth;
Come, soft slumber, balmily!
--------
{389}
Original.
CELTIC ANTHOLOGY AND POETIC REMAINS.
There is no people, the annals of which may not be separated into
three distinct periods, namely: the period of heroes and epico-poetic
narration; the period of myth, fable, and apotheosis; and the period
of realistic and definitive history. Or, to range the whole in the
order of historical sequence, the three distinctive phases of
race-annals may be formulated as follows:
1. The period of myth and apotheosis--which, among the European
races especially, constitutes the beginning of history.
2. The period of heroes and poetic annals--which forms a kind of
transition period.
3. The period of realistic definitive history, untinted with
imaginative glories--the beginning of which indicates the point in
race-history at which literary civilization commences.
To the analysis of the first we apply the term _mythology_; but for
the second it happens that there is no term--unless we may be
permitted so to deepen the sense of the word _anthology_ as to include
within its sweep of definition, not only poetic extracts, but poetic
material and the logical analysis of that material. For the purposes
of this paper, therefore, the word will be used in the sense
suggested, as including the poetic material of a people, and the
discussion of any anthological idiosyncrasies therein manifested.
The use of the word being permitted--it happens that, however
intricate and various in details, the _essential_ data of anthology
are everywhere the same in classification, and everywhere susceptible
of the same logical analysis. Without here pausing to specify reasons,
which may be more conveniently specified hereafter--this division
into classes of _data_, needful because as yet no logicalization has
been here attempted, may be effected with tolerable precision by
recurring to the usual analysis of a people's poetic material. The
analysis of these _data_--anthological because imaginative and
poetic--may, therefore, be exhibited thus:
1. Mythology and semi-historical or moralistic fable.
2. Poetic annals and ancient waifs of ballad and song.
3. Household legends, fairy stories, and superstitions.
In the region of mythology the data have been collected and collated
with considerable thoroughness, especially by German _savans_; in the
region of poetic annals, only the general details have been subjected
to analytic scrutiny; and in that of household lore and legend, saving
the collection of the Brothers Grimm, little has been effected in
comparison with the importance of the subject. Enough has been done,
however, to demonstrate, not only the applicability of the fore-made
classification, but also the singular analogical resemblance in minute
details which exists between the household legends of any one people
as compared with those of any other, and which, in analogy at least,
points to the original historical unity of the human race.