laying down the law in cases where they should be subservient. The
illustration is analogous rather than strictly proper to my subject, yet I
think it is to the point. If then the most loyal and dutiful children of
the Church must deny themselves, and do deny themselves, when they would
sanctify to a heavenly purpose sciences as sublime and as divine as any
which are cultivated by fallen man, it is not wonderful, when we turn to
sciences of a different character, of which the object is tangible and
material, and the principles belong to the Reason, not to the Imagination,
that we should find their disciples, if disinclined to the Catholic Faith,
acting the part of opponents to it, and that, as may often happen, even
against their will and intention. Many men there are, who, devoted to one
particular subject of thought, and making its principles the measure of
all things, become enemies to Revealed Religion before they know it, and,
only as time proceeds, are aware of their own state of mind. These, if
they are writers or lecturers, while in this state of unconscious or
semi-conscious unbelief, scatter infidel principles under the garb and
colour of Christianity; and this, simply because they have made their own
science, whatever it is, Political Economy, or Geology, or Astronomy, to
the neglect of Theology, the centre of all truth, and view every part or
the chief parts of knowledge as if developed from it, and to be tested and
determined by its principles. Others, though conscious to themselves of
their anti-christian opinions, have too much good feeling and good taste
to obtrude them upon the world. They neither wish to shock people, nor to
earn for themselves a confessorship which brings with it no gain. They
know the strength of prejudice, and the penalty of innovation; they wish
to go through life quietly; they scorn polemics; they shrink, as from a
real humiliation, from being mixed up in religious controversy; they are
ashamed of the very name. However, they have had occasion at some time to
publish on some literary or scientific subject; they have wished to give
no offence; but after all, to their great annoyance, they find when they
least expect it, or when they have taken considerable pains to avoid it,
that they have roused by their publication what they would style the
bigoted and bitter hostility of a party. This misfortune is easily
conceivable, and has befallen many a man. Before he knows where he is, a
cry is raised on all sides of him; and so little does he know what we may
call the _lie_ of the land, that his attempts at apology perhaps only make
matters worse. In other words, an exclusive line of study has led him,
whether he will or no, to run counter to the principles of Religion; which
principles he has never made his landmarks, and which, whatever might be
their effect upon himself, at least would have warned him against
practising upon the faith of others, had they been authoritatively held up
before him.
9.
Instances of this kind are far from uncommon. Men who are old enough, will
remember the trouble which came upon a person, eminent as a professional
man in London even at that distant day, and still more eminent since, in
consequence of his publishing a book in which he so treated the subject of
Comparative Anatomy as to seem to deny the immateriality of the soul. I
speak here neither as excusing nor reprobating sentiments about which I
have not the means of forming a judgment; all indeed I have heard of him
makes me mention him with interest and respect; anyhow of this I am sure,
that if there be a calling which feels its position and its dignity to lie
in abstaining from controversy and in cultivating kindly feelings with men
of all opinions, it is the medical profession, and I cannot believe that
the person in question would purposely have raised the indignation and
incurred the censure of the religious public. What then must have been his
fault or mistake, but that he unsuspiciously threw himself upon his own
particular science, which is of a material character, and allowed it to
carry him forward into a subject-matter, where it had no right to give the
law, viz., that of spiritual beings, which directly belongs to the science
of Theology?
Another instance occurred at a later date. A living dignitary of the
Established Church wrote a History of the Jews; in which, with what I
consider at least bad judgment, he took an external view of it, and hence
was led to assimilate it as nearly as possible to secular history. A great
sensation was the consequence among the members of his own communion, from
which he still suffers. Arguing from the dislike and contempt of polemical
demonstrations which that accomplished writer has ever shown, I must
conclude that he was simply betrayed into a false step by the treacherous
fascination of what is called the Philosophy of History, which is good in
its place, but can scarcely be applied in cases where the Almighty has
superseded the natural laws of society and history. From this he would
have been saved, had he been a Catholic; but in the Establishment he knew
of no teaching, to which he was bound to defer, which might rule that to
be false which attracted him by its speciousness.
10.
I will now take an instance from another science, and will use more words
about it. Political Economy is the science, I suppose, of wealth,—a
science simply lawful and useful, for it is no sin to make money, any more
than it is a sin to seek honour; a science at the same time dangerous and
leading to occasions of sin, as is the pursuit of honour too; and in
consequence, if studied by itself, and apart from the control of Revealed
Truth, sure to conduct a speculator to unchristian conclusions. Holy
Scripture tells us distinctly, that “covetousness,” or more literally the
love of money, “is the root of all evils;” and that “they that would
become rich fall into temptation;” and that “hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God;” and after drawing the picture of a
wealthy and flourishing people, it adds, “They have called the people
happy that hath these things; but happy is that people whose God is the
Lord:”—while on the other hand it says with equal distinctness, “If any
will not work, neither let him eat;” and, “If any man have not care of his
own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith, and
is worse than an infidel.” These opposite injunctions are summed up in the
wise man’s prayer, who says, “Give me neither beggary nor riches, give me
only the necessaries of life.” With this most precise view of a
Christian’s duty, viz., to labour indeed, but to labour for a competency
for himself and his, and to be jealous of wealth, whether personal or
national, the holy Fathers are, as might be expected, in simple
accordance. “Judas,” says St. Chrysostom, “was with Him who knew not where
to lay His head, yet could not restrain himself; and how canst thou hope
to escape the contagion without anxious effort?” “It is ridiculous,” says
St. Jerome, “to call it idolatry to offer to the creature the grains of
incense that are due to God, and not to call it so, to offer the whole
service of one’s life to the creature.” “There is not a trace of justice
in that heart,” says St. Leo, “in which the love of gain has made itself a
dwelling.” The same thing is emphatically taught us by the counsels of
perfection, and by every holy monk and nun anywhere, who has ever embraced
them; but it is needless to collect testimonies, when Scripture is so
clear.
Now, observe, Gentlemen, my drift in setting Scripture and the Fathers
over against Political Economy. Of course if there is a science of wealth,
it must give rules for gaining wealth and disposing of wealth, and can do
nothing more; it cannot itself declare that it is a subordinate science,
that its end is not the ultimate end of all things, and that its
conclusions are only hypothetical, depending on its premisses, and liable
to be overruled by a higher teaching. I do not then blame the Political
Economist for anything which follows from the very idea of his science,
from the very moment that it is recognized as a science. He must of course
direct his inquiries towards his end; but then at the same time it must be
recollected, that so far he is not practical, but only pursues an abstract
study, and is busy himself in establishing logical conclusions from
indisputable premisses. Given that wealth is to be sought, this and that
is the method of gaining it. This is the extent to which a Political
Economist has a right to go; he has no right to determine that wealth is
at any rate to be sought, or that it is the way to be virtuous and the
price of happiness; I say, this is to pass the bounds of his science,
independent of the question whether he be right or wrong in so
determining, for he is only concerned with an hypothesis.
To take a parallel case:—a physician may tell you, that if you are to
preserve your health, you must give up your employment and retire to the
country. He distinctly says “if;” that is all in which he is concerned, he
is no judge whether there are objects dearer to you, more urgent upon you,
than the preservation of your health; he does not enter into your
circumstances, your duties, your liabilities, the persons dependent on
you; he knows nothing about what is advisable or what is not; he only
says, “I speak _as_ a physician; if you would be well, give up your
profession, your trade, your office, whatever it is.” However he may wish
it, it would be impertinent in him to say more, unless indeed he spoke,
not as a physician but as a friend; and it would be extravagant, if he
asserted that bodily health was the _summum bonum_, and that no one could
be virtuous whose animal system was not in good order.
11.
But now let us turn to the teaching of the actual Political Economist, in
his present fashionable shape. I will take a very favourable instance of
him: he shall be represented by a gentleman of high character, whose
religious views are sufficiently guaranteed to us by his being the special
choice, in this department of science, of a University removed more than
any other Protestant body of the day from sordid or unchristian principles
on the subject of money-making. I say, if there be a place where Political
Economy would be kept in order, and would not be suffered to leave the
high road and ride across the pastures and the gardens dedicated to other
studies, it is the University of Oxford. And if a man could anywhere be
found who would have too much good taste to offend the religious feeling
of the place, or to say any thing which he would himself allow to be
inconsistent with Revelation, I conceive it is the person whose temperate
and well-considered composition, as it would be generally accounted, I am
going to offer to your notice. Nor did it occasion any excitement whatever
on the part of the academical or the religious public, as did the
instances which I have hitherto been adducing. I am representing then the
science of Political Economy, in its independent or unbridled action, to
great advantage, when I select, as its specimen, the Inaugural Lecture
upon it, delivered in the University in question, by its first Professor.
Yet with all these circumstances in its favour, you will soon see,
Gentlemen, into what extravagance, for so I must call it, a grave lawyer
is led in praise of his chosen science, merely from the circumstance that
he has fixed his mind upon it, till he has forgotten there are subjects of
thought higher and more heavenly than it. You will find beyond mistake,
that it is his object to recommend the science of wealth, by claiming for
it an _ethical_ quality, viz., by extolling it as the road to virtue and
happiness, whatever Scripture and holy men may say to the contrary.
He begins by predicting of Political Economy, that in the course of a very
few years, “it will rank in public estimation among the first of _moral_
sciences in interest and in utility.” Then he explains most lucidly its
objects and duties, considered as “the science which teaches in what
wealth consists, by what agents it is produced, and according to what laws
it is distributed, and what are the institutions and customs by which
production may be facilitated and distribution regulated, so as to give
the largest possible amount of wealth to each individual.” And he dwells
upon the interest which attaches to the inquiry, “whether England has run
her full career of wealth and improvement, but stands safe where she is,
or whether to remain stationary is impossible.” After this he notices a
certain objection, which I shall set before you in his own words, as they
will furnish me with the illustration I propose.
This objection, he says, is, that, “as the pursuit of wealth is one of the
humblest of human occupations, far inferior to the pursuit of virtue, or
of knowledge, or even of reputation, and as the possession of wealth is
not necessarily joined,—perhaps it will be said, is not conducive,—to
happiness, a science, of which the only subject is wealth, cannot claim to
rank as the first, or nearly the first, of moral sciences.”(9) Certainly,
to an enthusiast in behalf of any science whatever, the temptation is
great to meet an objection urged against its dignity and worth; however,
from the very form of it, such an objection cannot receive a satisfactory
answer by means of the science itself. It is an objection external to the
science, and reminds us of the truth of Lord Bacon’s remark, “No perfect
discovery can be made upon a flat or a level; neither is it possible to
discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand
upon the level of the science, and ascend not to a higher science.”(10)
The objection that Political Economy is inferior to the science of virtue,
or does not conduce to happiness, is an ethical or theological objection;
the question of its “rank” belongs to that Architectonic Science or
Philosophy, whatever it be, which is itself the arbiter of all truth, and
which disposes of the claims and arranges the places of all the
departments of knowledge which man is able to master. I say, when an
opponent of a particular science asserts that it does not conduce to
happiness, and much more when its champion contends in reply that it
certainly does conduce to virtue, as this author proceeds to contend, the
obvious question which occurs to one to ask is, what does Religion, what
does Revelation, say on the point? Political Economy must not be allowed
to give judgment in its own favour, but must come before a higher
tribunal. The objection is an appeal to the Theologian; however, the
Professor does not so view the matter; he does not consider it a question
for Philosophy; nor indeed on the other hand a question for Political
Economy; not a question for Science at all; but for Private Judgment,—so
he answers it himself, and as follows:
12.
“My answer,” he says, “is, first, that the pursuit of wealth, that is, the
endeavour to accumulate the means of future subsistence and enjoyment, is,
to the mass of mankind, the great source of _moral_ improvement.” Now
observe, Gentlemen, how exactly this bears out what I have been saying. It
is just so far true, as to be able to instil what is false, far as the
author was from any such design. I grant, then, that, ordinarily, beggary
is not the means of moral improvement; and that the orderly habits which
attend upon the hot pursuit of gain, not only may effect an external
decency, but may at least shelter the soul from the temptations of vice.
Moreover, these habits of good order guarantee regularity in a family or
household, and thus are accidentally the means of good; moreover, they
lead to the education of its younger branches, and they thus accidentally
provide the rising generation with a virtue or a truth which the present
has not: but without going into these considerations, further than to
allow them generally, and under circumstances, let us rather contemplate
what the author’s direct assertion is. He says, “the endeavour to
_accumulate_,” the words should be weighed, and for what? “for
_enjoyment_;”—“to accumulate the means of future subsistence and
enjoyment, is, to the mass of mankind, _the great_ source,” not merely _a_
source, but _the great_ source, and of what? of social and political
progress?—such an answer would have been more within the limits of his
art,—no, but of something individual and personal, “of _moral
improvement_.” The soul, in the case of “the mass of mankind,” improves in
moral excellence from this more than any thing else, viz., from heaping up
the means of enjoying this world in time to come! I really should on every
account be sorry, Gentlemen, to exaggerate, but indeed one is taken by
surprise, one is startled, on meeting with so very categorical a
contradiction of our Lord, St. Paul, St. Chrysostom, St. Leo, and all
Saints.
“No institution,” he continues, “could be more beneficial to the morals of
the lower orders, that is, to at least nine-tenths of the whole body of
any people, than one which should increase their power and their wish to
accumulate; none more mischievous than one which should diminish their
motives and means to save.” No institution more beneficial than one which
should increase the _wish to accumulate_! then Christianity is not one of
such beneficial institutions, for it expressly says, “_Lay not up to_
yourselves _treasures_ on earth … for where thy treasure is, there is thy
heart also;”—no institution more mischievous than one which should
diminish the _motives to save_! then Christianity is one of such
mischiefs, for the inspired text proceeds, “Lay up to yourselves treasures
_in heaven, where_ neither the rust nor the moth doth consume, and where
thieves do not dig through, nor steal.”
But it is not enough that morals and happiness are made to depend on gain
and accumulation; the practice of Religion is ascribed to these causes
also, and in the following way. Wealth depends upon the pursuit of wealth;
education depends upon wealth; knowledge depends on education; and
Religion depends on knowledge; therefore Religion depends on the pursuit
of wealth. He says, after speaking of a poor and savage people, “Such a
population must be grossly ignorant. The desire of knowledge is one of the
last results of refinement; it requires in general to have been implanted
in the mind during childhood; and it is absurd to suppose that persons
thus situated would have the power or the will to devote much to the
education of their children. A further consequence is the _absence of all
real religion_; for the religion of the grossly ignorant, if they have
any, scarcely ever amounts to more than a debasing superstition.”(11) The
pursuit of gain then is the basis of virtue, religion, happiness; though
it is all the while, as a Christian knows, the “root of all evils,” and
the “poor on the contrary are blessed, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”
As to the argument contained in the logical _Sorites_ which I have been
drawing out, I anticipated just now what I should say to it in reply. I
repeat, doubtless “beggary,” as the wise man says, is not desirable;
doubtless, if men will not work, they should not eat; there is doubtless a
sense in which it may be said that mere social or political virtue tends
to moral and religious excellence; but the sense needs to be defined and
the statement to be kept within bounds. This is the very point on which I
am all along insisting. I am not denying, I am granting, I am assuming,
that there is reason and truth in the “leading ideas,” as they are called,
and “large views” of scientific men; I only say that, though they speak
truth, they do not speak the whole truth; that they speak a narrow truth,
and think it a broad truth; that their deductions must be compared with
other truths, which are acknowledged to be truths, in order to verify,
complete, and correct them. They say what is true, _exceptis excipiendis_;
what is true, but requires guarding; true, but must not be ridden too
hard, or made what is called a _hobby_; true, but not the measure of all
things; true, but if thus inordinately, extravagantly, ruinously carried
out, in spite of other sciences, in spite of Theology, sure to become but
a great bubble, and to burst.
13.
I am getting to the end of this Discourse, before I have noticed one tenth
part of the instances with which I might illustrate the subject of it.
Else I should have wished especially to have dwelt upon the not unfrequent
perversion which occurs of antiquarian and historical research, to the
prejudice of Theology. It is undeniable that the records of former ages
are of primary importance in determining Catholic doctrine; it is
undeniable also that there is a silence or a contrariety abstractedly
conceivable in those records, as to an alleged portion of that doctrine,
which would be sufficient to invalidate its claims on our acceptance; but
it is quite as undeniable that the existing documentary testimony to
Catholicism and Christianity may be so unduly valued as to be made the
absolute measure of Revelation, as if no part of theological teaching were
true which cannot bring its express text, as it is called, from Scripture,
and authorities from the Fathers or profane writers,—whereas there are
numberless facts in past times which we cannot deny, for they are
indisputable, though history is silent about them. I suppose, on this
score, we ought to deny that the round towers of this country had any
origin, because history does not disclose it; or that any individual came
from Adam who cannot produce the table of his ancestry. Yet Gibbon argues
against the darkness at the Passion, from the accident that it is not
mentioned by Pagan historians:—as well might he argue against the
existence of Christianity itself in the first century, because Seneca,
Pliny, Plutarch, the Jewish Mishna, and other authorities are silent about
it. Protestants argue in a parallel way against Transubstantiation, and
Arians against our Lord’s Divinity, viz., on the ground that extant
writings of certain Fathers do not witness those doctrines to their
satisfaction:—as well might they say that Christianity was not spread by
the Twelve Apostles, because we know so little of their labours. The
evidence of History, I say, is invaluable in its place; but, if it assumes
to be the sole means of gaining Religious Truth, it goes beyond its place.
We are putting it to a larger office than it can undertake, if we
countenance the usurpation; and we are turning a true guide and blessing
into a source of inexplicable difficulty and interminable doubt.
And so of other sciences: just as Comparative Anatomy, Political Economy,
the Philosophy of History, and the Science of Antiquities may be and are
turned against Religion, by being taken by themselves, as I have been
showing, so a like mistake may befall any other. Grammar, for instance, at
first sight does not appear to admit of a perversion; yet Horne Tooke made
it the vehicle of his peculiar scepticism. Law would seem to have enough
to do with its own clients, and their affairs; and yet Mr. Bentham made a
treatise on Judicial Proofs a covert attack upon the miracles of
Revelation. And in like manner Physiology may deny moral evil and human
responsibility; Geology may deny Moses; and Logic may deny the Holy
Trinity;(12) and other sciences, now rising into notice, are or will be
victims of a similar abuse.
14.