Theology and Physics, I suppose we must first take into account Lord
Bacon’s own explanation of it. It is common in judicial inquiries to
caution the parties on whom the verdict depends to put out of their minds
whatever they have heard out of court on the subject to which their
attention is to be directed. They are to judge by the evidence; and this
is a rule which holds in other investigations as far as this, that nothing
of an adventitious nature ought to be introduced into the process. In like
manner, from religious investigations, as such, physics must be excluded,
and from physical, as such, religion; and if we mix them, we shall spoil
both. The theologian, speaking of Divine Omnipotence, for the time simply
ignores the laws of nature as existing restraints upon its exercise; and
the physical philosopher, on the other hand, in his experiments upon
natural phenomena, is simply ascertaining those laws, putting aside the
question of that Omnipotence. If the theologian, in tracing the ways of
Providence, were stopped with objections grounded on the impossibility of
physical miracles, he would justly protest against the interruption; and
were the philosopher, who was determining the motion of the heavenly
bodies, to be questioned about their Final or their First Cause, he too
would suffer an illogical interruption. The latter asks the cause of
volcanoes, and is impatient at being told it is “the divine vengeance;”
the former asks the cause of the overthrow of the guilty cities, and is
preposterously referred to the volcanic action still visible in their
neighbourhood. The inquiry into final causes for the moment passes over
the existence of established laws; the inquiry into physical, passes over
for the moment the existence of God. In other words, physical science is
in a certain sense atheistic, for the very reason it is not theology.
This is Lord Bacon’s justification, and an intelligible one, for
considering that the fall of atheistic philosophy in ancient times was a
blight upon the hopes of physical science. “Aristotle,” he says, “Galen,
and others frequently introduce such causes as these:—the hairs of the
eyelids are for a fence to the sight; the bones for pillars whence to
build the bodies of animals; the leaves of trees are to defend the fruit
from the sun and wind; the clouds are designed for watering the earth. All
which are properly alleged in metaphysics; but in physics, are
impertinent, and as _remoras_ to the ship, that hinder the sciences from
holding on their course of improvement, and as introducing a neglect of
searching after physical causes.”(27) Here then is one reason for the
prejudice of physical philosophers against Theology:—on the one hand,
their deep satisfaction in the laws of nature indisposes them towards the
thought of a Moral Governor, and makes them sceptical of His
interposition; on the other hand, the occasional interference of religious
criticism in a province not religious, has made them sore, suspicious, and
resentful.
4.
Another reason of a kindred nature is to be found in the difference of
method by which truths are gained in theology and in physical science.
Induction is the instrument of Physics, and deduction only is the
instrument of Theology. There the simple question is, What is revealed?
all doctrinal knowledge flows from one fountain head. If we are able to
enlarge our view and multiply our propositions, it must be merely by the
comparison and adjustment of the original truths; if we would solve new
questions, it must be by consulting old answers. The notion of doctrinal
knowledge absolutely novel, and of simple addition from without, is
intolerable to Catholic ears, and never was entertained by any one who was
even approaching to an understanding of our creed. Revelation is all in
all in doctrine; the Apostles its sole depository, the inferential method
its sole instrument, and ecclesiastical authority its sole sanction. The
Divine Voice has spoken once for all, and the only question is about its
meaning. Now this process, as far as it was reasoning, was the very mode
of reasoning which, as regards physical knowledge, the school of Bacon has
superseded by the inductive method:—no wonder, then, that that school
should be irritated and indignant to find that a subject-matter remains
still, in which their favourite instrument has no office; no wonder that
they rise up against this memorial of an antiquated system, as an eyesore
and an insult; and no wonder that the very force and dazzling success of
their own method in its own departments should sway or bias unduly the
religious sentiments of any persons who come under its influence. They
assert that no new truth can be gained by deduction; Catholics assent, but
add that, as regards religious truth, they have not to seek at all, for
they have it already. Christian Truth is purely of revelation; that
revelation we can but explain, we cannot increase, except relatively to
our own apprehensions; without it we should have known nothing of its
contents, with it we know just as much as its contents, and nothing more.
And, as it was given by a divine act independent of man, so will it remain
in spite of man. Niebuhr may revolutionize history, Lavoisier chemistry,
Newton astronomy; but God Himself is the author as well as the subject of
theology. When Truth can change, its Revelation can change; when human
reason can outreason the Omniscient, then may it supersede His work.
Avowals such as these fall strange upon the ear of men whose first
principle is the search after truth, and whose starting-points of search
are things material and sensible. They scorn any process of inquiry not
founded on experiment; the Mathematics indeed they endure, because that
science deals with ideas, not with facts, and leads to conclusions
hypothetical rather than real; “Metaphysics” they even use as a by-word of
reproach; and Ethics they admit only on condition that it gives up
conscience as its scientific ground, and bases itself on tangible utility:
but as to Theology, they cannot deal with it, they cannot master it, and
so they simply outlaw it and ignore it. Catholicism, forsooth, “confines
the intellect,” because it holds that God’s intellect is greater than
theirs, and that what He has done, man cannot improve. And what in some
sort justifies them to themselves in this extravagance is the circumstance
that there is a religion close at their doors which, discarding so severe
a tone, has actually adopted their own principle of inquiry. Protestantism
treats Scripture just as they deal with Nature; it takes the sacred text
as a large collection of phenomena, from which, by an inductive process,
each individual Christian may arrive at just those religious conclusions
which approve themselves to his own judgment. It considers faith a mere
modification of reason, as being an acquiescence in certain probable
conclusions till better are found. Sympathy, then, if no other reason,
throws experimental philosophers into alliance with the enemies of
Catholicism.
5.
I have another consideration to add, not less important than any I have
hitherto adduced. The physical sciences, Astronomy, Chemistry, and the
rest, are doubtless engaged upon divine works, and cannot issue in untrue
religious conclusions. But at the same time it must be recollected that
Revelation has reference to circumstances which did not arise till after
the heavens and the earth were made. They were made before the
introduction of moral evil into the world: whereas the Catholic Church is
the instrument of a remedial dispensation to meet that introduction. No
wonder then that her teaching is simply distinct, though not divergent,
from the theology which Physical Science suggests to its followers. She
sets before us a number of attributes and acts on the part of the Divine
Being, for which the material and animal creation gives no scope; power,
wisdom, goodness are the burden of the physical world, but it does not and
could not speak of mercy, long-suffering, and the economy of human
redemption, and but partially of the moral law and moral goodness. “Sacred
Theology,” says Lord Bacon, “must be drawn from the words and the oracles
of God: not from the light of nature or the dictates of reason. It is
written, that ‘the Heavens declare the glory of God;’ but we nowhere find
it that the Heavens declare the will of God; which is pronounced a law and
a testimony, that men should do according to it. Nor does this hold only
in the great mysteries of the Godhead, of the creation, of the
redemption.… We cannot doubt that a large part of the moral law is too
sublime to be attained by the light of nature; though it is still certain
that men, even with the light and law of nature, have some notions of
virtue, vice, justice, wrong, good, and evil.”(28) That the new and
further manifestations of the Almighty, made by Revelation, are in perfect
harmony with the teaching of the natural world, forms indeed one subject
of the profound work of the Anglican Bishop Butler; but they cannot in any
sense be gathered from nature, and the silence of nature concerning them
may easily seduce the imagination, though it has no force to persuade the
reason, to revolt from doctrines which have not been authenticated by
facts, but are enforced by authority. In a scientific age, then, there
will naturally be a parade of what is called Natural Theology, a
wide-spread profession of the Unitarian creed, an impatience of mystery,
and a scepticism about miracles.
And to all this must be added the ample opportunity which physical science
gives to the indulgence of those sentiments of beauty, order, and
congruity, of which I have said so much as the ensigns and colours (as
they may be called) of a civilized age in its warfare against Catholicism.
It being considered, then, that Catholicism differs from physical science,
in drift, in method of proof, and in subject-matter, how can it fail to
meet with unfair usage from the philosophers of any Institution in which
there is no one to take its part? That Physical Science itself will be
ultimately the loser by such ill treatment of Theology, I have insisted on
at great length in some preceding Discourses; for to depress unduly, to
encroach upon any science, and much more on an important one, is to do an
injury to all. However, this is not the concern of the Church; the Church
has no call to watch over and protect Science: but towards Theology she
has a distinct duty: it is one of the special trusts committed to her
keeping. Where Theology is, there she must be; and if a University cannot
fulfil its name and office without the recognition of Revealed Truth, she
must be there to see that it is a _bonâ fide_ recognition, sincerely made
and consistently acted on.
6.
II. And if the interposition of the Church is necessary in the Schools of
Science, still more imperatively is it demanded in the other main
constituent portion of the subject-matter of Liberal
Education,—Literature. Literature stands related to Man as Science stands
to Nature; it is his history. Man is composed of body and soul; he thinks
and he acts; he has appetites, passions, affections, motives, designs; he
has within him the lifelong struggle of duty with inclination; he has an
intellect fertile and capacious; he is formed for society, and society
multiplies and diversifies in endless combinations his personal
characteristics, moral and intellectual. All this constitutes his life; of
all this Literature is the expression; so that Literature is to man in
some sort what autobiography is to the individual; it is his Life and
Remains. Moreover, he is this sentient, intelligent, creative, and
operative being, quite independent of any extraordinary aid from Heaven,
or any definite religious belief; and _as such_, as he is in himself, does
Literature represent him; it is the Life and Remains of the _natural_ man,
innocent or guilty. I do not mean to say that it is impossible in its very
notion that Literature should be tinctured by a religious spirit; Hebrew
Literature, as far as it can be called Literature, certainly is simply
theological, and has a character imprinted on it which is above nature;
but I am speaking of what is to be expected without any extraordinary
dispensation; and I say that, in matter of fact, as Science is the
reflection of Nature, so is Literature also—the one, of Nature physical,
the other, of Nature moral and social. Circumstances, such as locality,
period, language, seem to make little or no difference in the character of
Literature, as such; on the whole, all Literatures are one; they are the
voices of the natural man.
I wish this were all that had to be said to the disadvantage of
Literature; but while Nature physical remains fixed in its laws, Nature
moral and social has a will of its own, is self-governed, and never
remains any long while in that state from which it started into action.
Man will never continue in a mere state of innocence; he is sure to sin,
and his literature will be the expression of his sin, and this whether he
be heathen or Christian. Christianity has thrown gleams of light on him
and his literature; but as it has not converted him, but only certain
choice specimens of him, so it has not changed the characters of his mind
or of his history; his literature is either what it was, or worse than
what it was, in proportion as there has been an abuse of knowledge granted
and a rejection of truth. On the whole, then, I think it will be found,
and ever found, as a matter of course, that Literature, as such, no matter
of what nation, is the science or history, partly and at best of the
natural man, partly of man in rebellion.
7.
Here then, I say, you are involved in a difficulty greater than that which
besets the cultivation of Science; for, if Physical Science be dangerous,
as I have said, it is dangerous, because it necessarily ignores the idea
of moral evil; but Literature is open to the more grievous imputation of
recognizing and understanding it too well. Some one will say to me
perhaps: “Our youth shall not be corrupted. We will dispense with all
general or national Literature whatever, if it be so exceptionable; we
will have a Christian Literature of our own, as pure, as true, as the
Jewish.” You cannot have it:—I do not say you cannot form a select
literature for the young, nay, even for the middle or lower classes; this
is another matter altogether: I am speaking of University Education, which
implies an extended range of reading, which has to deal with standard
works of genius, or what are called the _classics_ of a language: and I
say, from the nature of the case, if Literature is to be made a study of
human nature, you cannot have a Christian Literature. It is a
contradiction in terms to attempt a sinless Literature of sinful man. You
may gather together something very great and high, something higher than
any Literature ever was; and when you have done so, you will find that it
is not Literature at all. You will have simply left the delineation of
man, as such, and have substituted for it, as far as you have had any
thing to substitute, that of man, as he is or might be, under certain
special advantages. Give up the study of man, as such, if so it must be;
but say you do so. Do not say you are studying him, his history, his mind
and his heart, when you are studying something else. Man is a being of
genius, passion, intellect, conscience, power. He exercises these various
gifts in various ways, in great deeds, in great thoughts, in heroic acts,
in hateful crimes. He founds states, he fights battles, he builds cities,
he ploughs the forest, he subdues the elements, he rules his kind. He
creates vast ideas, and influences many generations. He takes a thousand
shapes, and undergoes a thousand fortunes. Literature records them all to
the life,
Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus.
He pours out his fervid soul in poetry; he sways to and fro, he soars, he
dives, in his restless speculations; his lips drop eloquence; he touches
the canvas, and it glows with beauty; he sweeps the strings, and they
thrill with an ecstatic meaning. He looks back into himself, and he reads
his own thoughts, and notes them down; he looks out into the universe, and
tells over and celebrates the elements and principles of which it is the
product.
Such is man: put him aside, keep him before you; but, whatever you do, do
not take him for what he is not, for something more divine and sacred, for
man regenerate. Nay, beware of showing God’s grace and its work at such
disadvantage as to make the few whom it has thoroughly influenced compete
in intellect with the vast multitude who either have it not, or use it
ill. The elect are few to choose out of, and the world is inexhaustible.
From the first, Jabel and Tubalcain, Nimrod “the stout hunter,” the
learning of the Pharaohs, and the wisdom of the East country, are of the
world. Every now and then they are rivalled by a Solomon or a Beseleel,
but the _habitat_ of natural gifts is the natural man. The Church may use
them, she cannot at her will originate them. Not till the whole human race
is made new will its literature be pure and true. Possible of course it is
in idea, for nature, inspired by heavenly grace, to exhibit itself on a
large scale, in an originality of thought or action, even far beyond what
the world’s literature has recorded or exemplified; but, if you would in
fact have a literature of saints, first of all have a nation of them.
What is a clearer proof of the truth of all this than the structure of the
Inspired Word itself? It is undeniably _not_ the reflection or picture of
the many, but of the few; it is no picture of life, but an anticipation of
death and judgment. Human literature is about all things, grave or gay,
painful or pleasant; but the Inspired Word views them only in one aspect,
and as they tend to one scope. It gives us little insight into the fertile
developments of mind; it has no terms in its vocabulary to express with
exactness the intellect and its separate faculties: it knows nothing of
genius, fancy, wit, invention, presence of mind, resource. It does not
discourse of empire, commerce, enterprise, learning, philosophy, or the
fine arts. Slightly too does it touch on the more simple and innocent
courses of nature and their reward. Little does it say(29) of those
temporal blessings which rest upon our worldly occupations, and make them
easy, of the blessings which we derive from the sunshine day and the
serene night, from the succession of the seasons, and the produce of the
earth. Little about our recreations and our daily domestic comforts;
little about the ordinary occasions of festivity and mirth, which sweeten
human life; and nothing at all about various pursuits or amusements, which
it would be going too much into detail to mention. We read indeed of the
feast when Isaac was weaned, and of Jacob’s courtship, and of the
religious merry-makings of holy Job; but exceptions, such as these, do but
remind us what might be in Scripture, and is not. If then by Literature is
meant the manifestation of human nature in human language, you will seek
for it in vain except in the world. Put up with it, as it is, or do not
pretend to cultivate it; take things as they are, not as you could wish
them.
8.
Nay, I am obliged to go further still; even if we could, still we should
be shrinking from our plain duty, Gentlemen, did we leave out Literature
from Education. For why do we educate, except to prepare for the world?
Why do we cultivate the intellect of the many beyond the first elements of
knowledge, except for this world? Will it be much matter in the world to
come whether our bodily health or whether our intellectual strength was
more or less, except of course as this world is in all its circumstances a
trial for the next? If then a University is a direct preparation for this
world, let it be what it professes. It is not a Convent, it is not a
Seminary; it is a place to fit men of the world for the world. We cannot
possibly keep them from plunging into the world, with all its ways and
principles and maxims, when their time comes; but we can prepare them
against what is inevitable; and it is not the way to learn to swim in
troubled waters, never to have gone into them. Proscribe (I do not merely
say particular authors, particular works, particular passages) but Secular
Literature as such; cut out from your class books all broad manifestations
of the natural man; and those manifestations are waiting for your pupil’s
benefit at the very doors of your lecture room in living and breathing
substance. They will meet him there in all the charm of novelty, and all
the fascination of genius or of amiableness. To-day a pupil, to-morrow a
member of the great world: to-day confined to the Lives of the Saints,
to-morrow thrown upon Babel;—thrown on Babel, without the honest
indulgence of wit and humour and imagination having ever been permitted to
him, without any fastidiousness of taste wrought into him, without any
rule given him for discriminating “the precious from the vile,” beauty
from sin, the truth from the sophistry of nature, what is innocent from
what is poison. You have refused him the masters of human thought, who
would in some sense have educated him, because of their incidental
corruption: you have shut up from him those whose thoughts strike home to
our hearts, whose words are proverbs, whose names are indigenous to all
the world, who are the standard of their mother tongue, and the pride and
boast of their countrymen, Homer, Ariosto, Cervantes, Shakespeare, because
the old Adam smelt rank in them; and for what have you reserved him? You
have given him “a liberty unto” the multitudinous blasphemy of his day;
you have made him free of its newspapers, its reviews, its magazines, its
novels, its controversial pamphlets, of its Parliamentary debates, its law
proceedings, its platform speeches, its songs, its drama, its theatre, of
its enveloping, stifling atmosphere of death. You have succeeded but in
this,—in making the world his University.
Difficult then as the question may be, and much as it may try the
judgments and even divide the opinions of zealous and religious Catholics,
I cannot feel any doubt myself, Gentlemen, that the Church’s true policy
is not to aim at the exclusion of Literature from Secular Schools, but at
her own admission into them. Let her do for Literature in one way what she
does for Science in another; each has its imperfection, and she has her
remedy for each. She fears no knowledge, but she purifies all; she
represses no element of our nature, but cultivates the whole. Science is
grave, methodical, logical; with Science then she argues, and opposes
reason to reason. Literature does not argue, but declaims and insinuates;
it is multiform and versatile: it persuades instead of convincing, it
seduces, it carries captive; it appeals to the sense of honour, or to the
imagination, or to the stimulus of curiosity; it makes its way by means of
gaiety, satire, romance, the beautiful, the pleasurable. Is it wonderful
that with an agent like this the Church should claim to deal with a vigour
corresponding to its restlessness, to interfere in its proceedings with a
higher hand, and to wield an authority in the choice of its studies and of
its books which would be tyrannical, if reason and fact were the only
instruments of its conclusions? But, any how, her principle is one and the
same throughout: not to prohibit truth of any kind, but to see that no
doctrines pass under the name of Truth but those which claim it
rightfully.
9.