sake, even though it promised no ulterior advantage. But, when I had got
as far as this, I went farther, and observed that, from the nature of the
case, what was so good in itself could not but have a number of external
uses, though it did not promise them, simply because it _was_ good; and
that it was necessarily the source of benefits to society, great and
diversified in proportion to its own intrinsic excellence. Just as in
morals, honesty is the best policy, as being profitable in a secular
aspect, though such profit is not the measure of its worth, so too as
regards what may be called the virtues of the Intellect, their very
possession indeed is a substantial good, and is enough, yet still that
substance has a shadow, inseparable from it, viz., its social and
political usefulness. And this was the subject to which I devoted the
preceding Discourse.
One portion of the subject remains:—this intellectual culture, which is so
exalted in itself, not only has a bearing upon social and active duties,
but upon Religion also. The educated mind may be said to be in a certain
sense religious; that is, it has what may be considered a religion of its
own, independent of Catholicism, partly co-operating with it, partly
thwarting it; at once a defence yet a disturbance to the Church in
Catholic countries,—and in countries beyond her pale, at one time in open
warfare with her, at another in defensive alliance. The history of Schools
and Academies, and of Literature and Science generally, will, I think,
justify me in thus speaking. Since, then, my aim in these Discourses is to
ascertain the function and the action of a University, viewed in itself,
and its relations to the various instruments of teaching and training
which are round about it, my survey of it would not be complete unless I
attempted, as I now propose to do, to exhibit its general bearings upon
Religion.
2.
Right Reason, that is, Reason rightly exercised, leads the mind to the
Catholic Faith, and plants it there, and teaches it in all its religious
speculations to act under its guidance. But Reason, considered as a real
agent in the world, and as an operative principle in man’s nature, with an
historical course and with definite results, is far from taking so
straight and satisfactory a direction. It considers itself from first to
last independent and supreme; it requires no external authority; it makes
a religion for itself. Even though it accepts Catholicism, it does not go
to sleep; it has an action and development of its own, as the passions
have, or the moral sentiments, or the principle of self-interest. Divine
grace, to use the language of Theology, does not by its presence supersede
nature; nor is nature at once brought into simple concurrence and
coalition with grace. Nature pursues its course, now coincident with that
of grace, now parallel to it, now across, now divergent, now counter, in
proportion to its own imperfection and to the attraction and influence
which grace exerts over it. And what takes place as regards other
principles of our nature and their developments is found also as regards
the Reason. There is, we know, a Religion of enthusiasm, of superstitious
ignorance of statecraft; and each has that in it which resembles
Catholicism, and that again which contradicts Catholicism. There is the
Religion of a warlike people, and of a pastoral people; there is a
Religion of rude times, and in like manner there is a Religion of
civilized times, of the cultivated intellect, of the philosopher, scholar,
and gentleman. This is that Religion of Reason, of which I speak. Viewed
in itself, however near it comes to Catholicism, it is of course simply
distinct from it; for Catholicism is one whole, and admits of no
compromise or modification. Yet this is to view it in the abstract; in
matter of fact, and in reference to individuals, we can have no difficulty
in conceiving this philosophical Religion present in a Catholic country,
as a spirit influencing men to a certain extent, for good or for bad or
for both,—a spirit of the age, which again may be found, as among
Catholics, so with still greater sway and success in a country not
Catholic, yet specifically the same in such a country as it exists in a
Catholic community. The problem then before us to-day, is to set down some
portions of the outline, if we can ascertain them, of the Religion of
Civilization, and to determine how they lie relatively to those
principles, doctrines, and rules, which Heaven has given us in the
Catholic Church.
And here again, when I speak of Revealed Truth, it is scarcely necessary
to say that I am not referring to the main articles and prominent points
of faith, as contained in the Creed. Had I undertaken to delineate a
philosophy, which directly interfered with the Creed, I could not have
spoken of it as compatible with the profession of Catholicism. The
philosophy I speak of, whether it be viewed within or outside the Church,
does not necessarily take cognizance of the Creed. Where the country is
Catholic, the educated mind takes its articles for granted, by a sort of
implicit faith; where it is not, it simply ignores them and the whole
subject-matter to which they relate, as not affecting social and political
interests. Truths about God’s Nature, about His dealings towards the human
race, about the Economy of Redemption,—in the one case it humbly accepts
them, and passes on; in the other it passes them over, as matters of
simple opinion, which never can be decided, and which can have no power
over us to make us morally better or worse. I am not speaking then of
belief in the great objects of faith, when I speak of Catholicism, but I
am contemplating Catholicism chiefly as a system of pastoral instruction
and moral duty; and I have to do with its doctrines mainly as they are
subservient to its direction of the conscience and the conduct. I speak of
it, for instance, as teaching the ruined state of man; his utter inability
to gain Heaven by any thing he can do himself; the moral certainty of his
losing his soul if left to himself; the simple absence of all rights and
claims on the part of the creature in the presence of the Creator; the
illimitable claims of the Creator on the service of the creature; the
imperative and obligatory force of the voice of conscience; and the
inconceivable evil of sensuality. I speak of it as teaching, that no one
gains Heaven except by the free grace of God, or without a regeneration of
nature; that no one can please Him without faith; that the heart is the
seat both of sin and of obedience; that charity is the fulfilling of the
Law; and that incorporation into the Catholic Church is the ordinary
instrument of salvation. These are the lessons which distinguish
Catholicism as a popular religion, and these are the subjects to which the
cultivated intellect will practically be turned;—I have to compare and
contrast, not the doctrinal, but the moral and social teaching of
Philosophy on the one hand, and Catholicism on the other.
3.
Now, on opening the subject, we see at once a momentous benefit which the
philosopher is likely to confer on the pastors of the Church. It is
obvious that the first step which they have to effect in the conversion of
man and the renovation of his nature, is his rescue from that fearful
subjection to sense which is his ordinary state. To be able to break
through the meshes of that thraldom, and to disentangle and to disengage
its ten thousand holds upon the heart, is to bring it, I might almost say,
half way to Heaven. Here, even divine grace, to speak of things according
to their appearances, is ordinarily baffled, and retires, without
expedient or resource, before this giant fascination. Religion seems too
high and unearthly to be able to exert a continued influence upon us: its
effort to rouse the soul, and the soul’s effort to co-operate, are too
violent to last. It is like holding out the arm at full length, or
supporting some great weight, which we manage to do for a time, but soon
are exhausted and succumb. Nothing can act beyond its own nature; when
then we are called to what is supernatural, though those extraordinary
aids from Heaven are given us, with which obedience becomes possible, yet
even with them it is of transcendent difficulty. We are drawn down to
earth every moment with the ease and certainty of a natural gravitation,
and it is only by sudden impulses and, as it were, forcible plunges that
we attempt to mount upwards. Religion indeed enlightens, terrifies,
subdues; it gives faith, it inflicts remorse, it inspires resolutions, it
draws tears, it inflames devotion, but only for the occasion. I repeat, it
imparts an inward power which ought to effect more than this; I am not
forgetting either the real sufficiency of its aids, nor the responsibility
of those in whom they fail. I am not discussing theological questions at
all, I am looking at phenomena as they lie before me, and I say that, in
matter of fact, the sinful spirit repents, and protests it will never sin
again, and for a while is protected by disgust and abhorrence from the
malice of its foe. But that foe knows too well that such seasons of
repentance are wont to have their end: he patiently waits, till nature
faints with the effort of resistance, and lies passive and hopeless under
the next access of temptation. What we need then is some expedient or
instrument, which at least will obstruct and stave off the approach of our
spiritual enemy, and which is sufficiently congenial and level with our
nature to maintain as firm a hold upon us as the inducements of sensual
gratification. It will be our wisdom to employ nature against itself. Thus
sorrow, sickness, and care are providential antagonists to our inward
disorders; they come upon us as years pass on, and generally produce their
natural effects on us, in proportion as we are subjected to their
influence. These, however, are God’s instruments, not ours; we need a
similar remedy, which we can make our own, the object of some legitimate
faculty, or the aim of some natural affection, which is capable of resting
on the mind, and taking up its familiar lodging with it, and engrossing
it, and which thus becomes a match for the besetting power of sensuality,
and a sort of homœopathic medicine for the disease. Here then I think is
the important aid which intellectual cultivation furnishes to us in
rescuing the victims of passion and self-will. It does not supply
religious motives; it is not the cause or proper antecedent of any thing
supernatural; it is not meritorious of heavenly aid or reward; but it does
a work, at least _materially_ good (as theologians speak), whatever be its
real and formal character. It expels the excitements of sense by the
introduction of those of the intellect.
This then is the _primâ facie_ advantage of the pursuit of Knowledge; it
is the drawing the mind off from things which will harm it to subjects
which are worthy a rational being; and, though it does not raise it above
nature, nor has any tendency to make us pleasing to our Maker, yet is it
nothing to substitute what is in itself harmless for what is, to say the
least, inexpressibly dangerous? is it a little thing to exchange a circle
of ideas which are certainly sinful, for others which are certainly not
so? You will say, perhaps, in the words of the Apostle, “Knowledge puffeth
up:” and doubtless this mental cultivation, even when it is successful for
the purpose for which I am applying it, may be from the first nothing more
than the substitution of pride for sensuality. I grant it, I think I shall
have something to say on this point presently; but this is not a necessary
result, it is but an incidental evil, a danger which may be realized or
may be averted, whereas we may in most cases predicate guilt, and guilt of
a heinous kind, where the mind is suffered to run wild and indulge its
thoughts without training or law of any kind; and surely to turn away a
soul from mortal sin is a good and a gain so far, whatever comes of it.
And therefore, if a friend in need is twice a friend, I conceive that
intellectual employments, though they do no more than occupy the mind with
objects naturally noble or innocent, have a special claim upon our
consideration and gratitude.
4.
Nor is this all: Knowledge, the discipline by which it is gained, and the
tastes which it forms, have a natural tendency to refine the mind, and to
give it an indisposition, simply natural, yet real, nay, more than this, a
disgust and abhorrence, towards excesses and enormities of evil, which are
often or ordinarily reached at length by those who are not careful from
the first to set themselves against what is vicious and criminal. It
generates within the mind a fastidiousness, analogous to the delicacy or
daintiness which good nurture or a sickly habit induces in respect of
food; and this fastidiousness, though arguing no high principle, though no
protection in the case of violent temptation, nor sure in its operation,
yet will often or generally be lively enough to create an absolute
loathing of certain offences, or a detestation and scorn of them as
ungentlemanlike, to which ruder natures, nay, such as have far more of
real religion in them, are tempted, or even betrayed. Scarcely can we
exaggerate the value, in its place, of a safeguard such as this, as
regards those multitudes who are thrown upon the open field of the world,
or are withdrawn from its eye and from the restraint of public opinion. In
many cases, where it exists, sins, familiar to those who are otherwise
circumstanced, will not even occur to the mind: in others, the sense of
shame and the quickened apprehension of detection will act as a sufficient
obstacle to them, when they do present themselves before it. Then, again,
the fastidiousness I am speaking of will create a simple hatred of that
miserable tone of conversation which, obtaining as it does in the world,
is a constant fuel of evil, heaped up round about the soul: moreover, it
will create an irresolution and indecision in doing wrong, which will act
as a _remora_ till the danger is past away. And though it has no tendency,
I repeat, to mend the heart, or to secure it from the dominion in other
shapes of those very evils which it repels in the particular modes of
approach by which they prevail over others, yet cases may occur when it
gives birth, after sins have been committed, to so keen a remorse and so
intense a self-hatred, as are even sufficient to cure the particular moral
disorder, and to prevent its accesses ever afterwards;—as the spendthrift
in the story, who, after gazing on his lost acres from the summit of an
eminence, came down a miser, and remained a miser to the end of his days.
And all this holds good in a special way, in an age such as ours, when,
although pain of body and mind may be rife as heretofore, yet other
counteractions of evil, of a penal character, which are present at other
times, are away. In rude and semi-barbarous periods, at least in a climate
such as our own, it is the daily, nay, the principal business of the
senses, to convey feelings of discomfort to the mind, as far as they
convey feelings at all. Exposure to the elements, social disorder and
lawlessness, the tyranny of the powerful, and the inroads of enemies, are
a stern discipline, allowing brief intervals, or awarding a sharp penance,
to sloth and sensuality. The rude food, the scanty clothing, the violent
exercise, the vagrant life, the military constraint, the imperfect
pharmacy, which now are the trials of only particular classes of the
community, were once the lot more or less of all. In the deep woods or the
wild solitudes of the medieval era, feelings of religion or superstition
were naturally present to the population, which in various ways
co-operated with the missionary or pastor, in retaining it in a noble
simplicity of manners. But, when in the advancement of society men
congregate in towns, and multiply in contracted spaces, and law gives them
security, and art gives them comforts, and good government robs them of
courage and manliness, and monotony of life throws them back upon
themselves, who does not see that diversion or protection from evil they
have none, that vice is the mere reaction of unhealthy toil, and sensual
excess the holyday of resourceless ignorance? This is so well understood
by the practical benevolence of the day, that it has especially busied
itself in plans for supplying the masses of our town population with
intellectual and honourable recreations. Cheap literature, libraries of
useful and entertaining knowledge, scientific lectureships, museums,
zoological collections, buildings and gardens to please the eye and to
give repose to the feelings, external objects of whatever kind, which may
take the mind off itself, and expand and elevate it in liberal
contemplations, these are the human means, wisely suggested, and good as
far as they go, for at least parrying the assaults of moral evil, and
keeping at bay the enemies, not only of the individual soul, but of
society at large.
Such are the instruments by which an age of advanced civilization combats
those moral disorders, which Reason as well as Revelation denounces; and I
have not been backward to express my sense of their serviceableness to
Religion. Moreover, they are but the foremost of a series of influences,
which intellectual culture exerts upon our moral nature, and all upon the
type of Christianity, manifesting themselves in veracity, probity, equity,
fairness, gentleness, benevolence, and amiableness; so much so, that a
character more noble to look at, more beautiful, more winning, in the
various relations of life and in personal duties, is hardly conceivable,
than may, or might be, its result, when that culture is bestowed upon a
soil naturally adapted to virtue. If you would obtain a picture for
contemplation which may seem to fulfil the ideal, which the Apostle has
delineated under the name of charity, in its sweetness and harmony, its
generosity, its courtesy to others, and its depreciation of self, you
could not have recourse to a better furnished _studio_ than to that of
Philosophy, with the specimens of it, which with greater or less exactness
are scattered through society in a civilized age. It is enough to refer
you, Gentlemen, to the various Biographies and Remains of contemporaries
and others, which from time to time issue from the press, to see how
striking is the action of our intellectual upon our moral nature, where
the moral material is rich, and the intellectual cast is perfect.
Individuals will occur to all of us, who deservedly attract our love and
admiration, and whom the world almost worships as the work of its own
hands. Religious principle, indeed,—that is, faith,—is, to all appearance,
simply away; the work is as certainly not supernatural as it is certainly
noble and beautiful. This must be insisted on, that the Intellect may have
its due; but it also must be insisted on for the sake of conclusions to
which I wish to conduct our investigation. The radical difference indeed
of this mental refinement from genuine religion, in spite of its seeming
relationship, is the very cardinal point on which my present discussion
turns; yet, on the other hand, such refinement may readily be assigned to
a Christian origin by hasty or distant observers, or by those who view it
in a particular light. And as this is the case, I think it advisable,
before proceeding with the delineation of its characteristic features, to
point out to you distinctly the elementary principles on which its
morality is based.
5.
You will bear in mind then, Gentlemen, that I spoke just now of the scorn
and hatred which a cultivated mind feels for some kinds of vice, and the
utter disgust and profound humiliation which may come over it, if it
should happen in any degree to be betrayed into them. Now this feeling may
have its root in faith and love, but it may not; there is nothing really
religious in it, considered by itself. Conscience indeed is implanted in
the breast by nature, but it inflicts upon us fear as well as shame; when
the mind is simply angry with itself and nothing more, surely the true
import of the voice of nature and the depth of its intimations have been
forgotten, and a false philosophy has misinterpreted emotions which ought
to lead to God. Fear implies the transgression of a law, and a law implies
a lawgiver and judge; but the tendency of intellectual culture is to
swallow up the fear in the self-reproach, and self-reproach is directed
and limited to our mere sense of what is fitting and becoming. Fear
carries us out of ourselves, whereas shame may act upon us only within the
round of our own thoughts. Such, I say, is the danger which awaits a
civilized age; such is its besetting sin (not inevitable, God forbid! or
we must abandon the use of God’s own gifts), but still the ordinary sin of
the Intellect; conscience tends to become what is called a moral sense;
the command of duty is a sort of taste; sin is not an offence against God,
but against human nature.
The less amiable specimens of this spurious religion are those which we
meet not unfrequently in my own country. I can use with all my heart the
poet’s words,
“England, with all thy faults, I love thee still;”
but to those faults no Catholic can be blind. We find there men possessed
of many virtues, but proud, bashful, fastidious, and reserved. Why is
this? it is because they think and act as if there were really nothing
objective in their religion; it is because conscience to them is not the
word of a lawgiver, as it ought to be, but the dictate of their own minds
and nothing more; it is because they do not look out of themselves,
because they do not look through and beyond their own minds to their
Maker, but are engrossed in notions of what is due to themselves, to their
own dignity and their own consistency. Their conscience has become a mere
self-respect. Instead of doing one thing and then another, as each is
called for, in faith and obedience, careless of what may be called the
_keeping_ of deed with deed, and leaving Him who gives the command to
blend the portions of their conduct into a whole, their one object,
however unconscious to themselves, is to paint a smooth and perfect
surface, and to be able to say to themselves that they have done their
duty. When they do wrong, they feel, not contrition, of which God is the
object, but remorse, and a sense of degradation. They call themselves
fools, not sinners; they are angry and impatient, not humble. They shut
themselves up in themselves; it is misery to them to think or to speak of
their own feelings; it is misery to suppose that others see them, and
their shyness and sensitiveness often become morbid. As to confession,
which is so natural to the Catholic, to them it is impossible; unless
indeed, in cases where they have been guilty, an apology is due to their
own character, is expected of them, and will be satisfactory to look back
upon. They are victims of an intense self-contemplation.