to avoid scandal, or shocking the popular mind, or unsettling the weak;
the association between truth and error being so strong in particular
minds that it is impossible to weed them of the error without rooting up
the wheat with it. If, then, there is the chance of any current religious
opinion being in any way compromised in the course of a scientific
investigation, this would be a reason for conducting it, not in light
ephemeral publications, which come into the hands of the careless or
ignorant, but in works of a grave and business-like character, answering
to the medieval schools of philosophical disputation, which, removed as
they were from the region of popular thought and feeling, have, by their
vigorous restlessness of inquiry, in spite of their extravagances, done so
much for theological precision.
7.
I am not, then, supposing the scientific investigator (1) to be _coming
into collision with dogma_; nor (2) venturing, by means of his
investigations, upon any interpretation of _Scripture_, or upon other
conclusion _in the matter of religion_; nor (3) of his _teaching_, even in
his own science, religious parodoxes, when he should be investigating and
proposing; nor (4) of his recklessly _scandalizing the weak_; but, these
explanations being made, I still say that a scientific speculator or
inquirer is not bound, in conducting his researches, to be every moment
adjusting his course by the maxims of the schools or by popular
traditions, or by those of any other science distinct from his own, or to
be ever narrowly watching what those external sciences have to say to him,
or to be determined to be edifying, or to be ever answering heretics and
unbelievers; being confident, from the impulse of a generous faith, that,
however his line of investigation may swerve now and then, and vary to and
fro in its course, or threaten momentary collision or embarrassment with
any other department of knowledge, theological or not, yet, if he lets it
alone, it will be sure to come home, because truth never can really be
contrary to truth, and because often what at first sight is an “exceptio,”
in the event most emphatically “probat regulam.”
This is a point of serious importance to him. Unless he is at liberty to
investigate on the basis, and according to the peculiarities, of his
science, he cannot investigate at all. It is the very law of the human
mind in its inquiry after and acquisition of truth to make its advances by
a process which consists of many stages, and is circuitous. There are no
short cuts to knowledge; nor does the road to it always lie in the
direction in which it terminates, nor are we able to see the end on
starting. It may often seem to be diverging from a goal into which it will
soon run without effort, if we are but patient and resolute in following
it out; and, as we are told in Ethics to gain the mean merely by receding
from both extremes, so in scientific researches error may be said, without
a paradox, to be in some instances the way to truth, and the only way.
Moreover, it is not often the fortune of any one man to live through an
investigation; the process is one of not only many stages, but of many
minds. What one begins another finishes; and a true conclusion is at
length worked out by the co-operation of independent schools and the
perseverance of successive generations. This being the case, we are
obliged, under circumstances, to bear for a while with what we feel to be
error, in consideration of the truth in which it is eventually to issue.
The analogy of locomotion is most pertinent here. No one can go straight
up a mountain; no sailing vessel makes for its port without tacking. And
so, applying the illustration, we can indeed, if we will, refuse to allow
of investigation or research altogether; but, if we invite reason to take
its place in our schools, we must let reason have fair and full play. If
we reason, we must submit to the conditions of reason. We cannot use it by
halves; we must use it as proceeding from Him who has also given us
Revelation; and to be ever interrupting its processes, and diverting its
attention by objections brought from a higher knowledge, is parallel to a
landsman’s dismay at the changes in the course of a vessel on which he has
deliberately embarked, and argues surely some distrust either in the
powers of Reason on the one hand, or the certainty of Revealed Truth on
the other. The passenger should not have embarked at all, if he did not
reckon on the chance of a rough sea, of currents, of wind and tide, of
rocks and shoals; and we should act more wisely in discountenancing
altogether the exercise of Reason than in being alarmed and impatient
under the suspense, delay, and anxiety which, from the nature of the case,
may be found to attach to it. Let us eschew secular history, and science,
and philosophy for good and all, if we are not allowed to be sure that
Revelation is so true that the altercations and perplexities of human
opinion cannot really or eventually injure its authority. That is no
intellectual triumph of any truth of Religion, which has not been preceded
by a full statement of what can be said against it; it is but the ego
vapulando, ille verberando, of the Comedy.
Great minds need elbow-room, not indeed in the domain of faith, but of
thought. And so indeed do lesser minds, and all minds. There are many
persons in the world who are called, and with a great deal of truth,
geniuses. They had been gifted by nature with some particular faculty or
capacity; and, while vehemently excited and imperiously ruled by it, they
are blind to everything else. They are enthusiasts in their own line, and
are simply dead to the beauty of any line _except_ their own. Accordingly,
they think their own line the only line in the whole world worth pursuing,
and they feel a sort of contempt for such studies as move upon any other
line. Now, these men may be, and often are, very good Catholics, and have
not a dream of any thing but affection and deference towards Catholicity,
nay, perhaps are zealous in its interests. Yet, if you insist that in
their speculations, researches, or conclusions in their particular
science, it is not enough that they should submit to the Church generally,
and acknowledge its dogmas, but that they must get up all that divines
have said or the multitude believed upon religious matters, you simply
crush and stamp out the flame within them, and they can do nothing at all.
This is the case of men of genius: now one word on the contrary in behalf
of master minds, gifted with a broad philosophical view of things, and a
creative power, and a versatility capable of accommodating itself to
various provinces of thought. These persons perhaps, like those I have
already spoken of, take up some idea and are intent upon it;—some deep,
prolific, eventful idea, which grows upon them, till they develop it into
a great system. Now, if any such thinker starts from radically unsound
principles, or aims at directly false conclusions, if he be a Hobbes, or a
Shaftesbury, or a Hume, or a Bentham, then, of course, there is an end of
the whole matter. He is an opponent of Revealed Truth, and he means to be
so;—nothing more need be said. But perhaps it is not so; perhaps his
errors are those which are inseparable accidents of his system or of his
mind, and are spontaneously evolved, not pertinaciously defended. Every
human system, every human writer, is open to just criticism. Make him shut
up his portfolio; good! and then perhaps you lose what, on the whole and
in spite of incidental mistakes, would have been one of the ablest
defences of Revealed Truth (directly or indirectly, according to his
subject) ever given to the world.
This is how I should account for a circumstance, which has sometimes
caused surprise, that so many great Catholic thinkers have in some points
or other incurred the criticism or animadversion of theologians or of
ecclesiastical authority. It must be so in the nature of things; there is
indeed an animadversion which implies a condemnation of the author; but
there is another which means not much more than the "piè legendum" written
against passages in the Fathers. The author may not be to blame; yet the
ecclesiastical authority would be to blame, if it did not give notice of
his imperfections. I do not know what Catholic would not hold the name of
Malebranche in veneration;(48) but he may have accidentally come into
collision with theologians, or made temerarious assertions,
notwithstanding.
The practical question is, whether he had not much better have written as
he has written, than not have written at all. And so fully is the Holy See
accustomed to enter into this view of the matter, that it has allowed of
its application, not only to philosophical, but even to theological and
ecclesiastical authors, who do not come within the range of these remarks.
I believe I am right in saying that, in the case of three great names, in
various departments of learning, Cardinal Noris, Bossuet, and
Muratori,(49) while not concealing its sense of their having propounded
each what might have been said better, nevertheless it has considered,
that their services to Religion were on the whole far too important to
allow of their being molested by critical observation in detail.
8.
And now, Gentlemen, I bring these remarks to a conclusion. What I would
urge upon every one, whatever may be his particular line of research,—what
I would urge upon men of Science in their thoughts of Theology,—what I
would venture to recommend to theologians, when their attention is drawn
to the subject of scientific investigations,—is a great and firm belief in
the sovereignty of Truth. Error may flourish for a time, but Truth will
prevail in the end. The only effect of error ultimately is to promote
Truth. Theories, speculations, hypotheses, are started; perhaps they are
to die, still not before they have suggested ideas better than themselves.
These better ideas are taken up in turn by other men, and, if they do not
yet lead to truth, nevertheless they lead to what is still nearer to truth
than themselves; and thus knowledge on the whole makes progress. The
errors of some minds in scientific investigation are more fruitful than
the truths of others. A Science seems making no progress, but to abound in
failures, yet imperceptibly all the time it is advancing, and it is of
course a gain to truth even to have learned what is not true, if nothing
more.
On the other hand, it must be of course remembered, Gentlemen, that I am
supposing all along good faith, honest intentions, a loyal Catholic
spirit, and a deep sense of responsibility. I am supposing, in the
scientific inquirer, a due fear of giving scandal, of seeming to
countenance views which he does not really countenance, and of siding with
parties from whom he heartily differs. I am supposing that he is fully
alive to the existence and the power of the infidelity of the age; that he
keeps in mind the moral weakness and the intellectual confusion of the
majority of men; and that he has no wish at all that any one soul should
get harm from certain speculations to-day, though he may have the
satisfaction of being sure that those speculations will, as far as they
are erroneous or misunderstood, be corrected in the course of the next
half-century.
Lecture IX.
Discipline Of Mind. An Address To The Evening Classes.
1.
When I found that it was in my power to be present here at the
commencement of the new Session, one of the first thoughts, Gentlemen,
which thereupon occurred to me, was this, that I should in consequence
have the great satisfaction of meeting you, of whom I had thought and
heard so much, and the opportunity of addressing you, as Rector of the
University. I can truly say that I thought of you before you thought of
the University; perhaps I may say, long before;—for it was previously to
our commencing that great work, which is now so fully before the public,
it was when I first came over here to make preparations for it, that I had
to encounter the serious objection of wise and good men, who said to me,
“There is no class of persons in Ireland who _need_ a University;” and
again, “Whom will you get to belong to it? who will fill its
lecture-rooms?” This was said to me, and then, without denying their
knowledge of the state of Ireland, or their sagacity, I made answer, “We
will give lectures in the evening, we will fill our classes with the young
men of Dublin.”
And some persons here may recollect that the very first thing I did, when
we opened the School of Philosophy and Letters, this time four years, was
to institute a system of Evening Lectures, which were suspended after a
while, only because the singularly inclement season which ensued, and the
want of publicity and interest incident to a new undertaking, made them
premature. And it is a satisfaction to me to reflect that the Statute,
under which you will be able to pass examinations and take degrees, is one
to which I specially obtained the consent of the Academical Senate, nearly
two years ago, in addition to our original Regulations, and that you will
be the first persons to avail yourselves of it.
Having thus prepared, as it were, the University for you, it was with
great pleasure that I received from a number of you, Gentlemen, last May
year, a spontaneous request which showed that my original anticipations
were not visionary. You suggested then what we have since acted
upon,—acted upon, not so quickly as both you might hope and we might wish,
because all important commencements have to be maturely considered—still
acted on at length according to those anticipations of mine, to which I
have referred; and, while I recur to them as an introduction to what I
have to say, I might also dwell upon them as a sure presage that other and
broader anticipations, too bold as they may seem now, will, if we are but
patient, have their fulfilment in their season.
2.
For I should not be honest, Gentlemen, if I did not confess that, much as
I desire that this University should be of service to the young men of
Dublin, I do not desire this benefit to you, simply for your own sakes.
For your own sakes certainly I wish it, but not on your account only. Man
is not born for himself alone, as the classical moralist tells us. _You_
are born for Ireland; and, in your advancement, Ireland is advanced;—in
your advancement in what is good and what is true, in knowledge, in
learning, in cultivation of mind, in enlightened attachment to your
religion, in good name and respectability and social influence, I am
contemplating the honour and renown, the literary and scientific
aggrandisement, the increase of political power, of the Island of the
Saints.
I go further still. If I do homage to the many virtues and gifts of the
Irish people, and am zealous for their full development, it is not simply
for the sake of themselves, but because the name of Ireland ever has been,
and, I believe, ever will be, associated with the Catholic Faith, and
because, in doing any service, however poor it may be, to Ireland, a man
is ministering, in his own place and measure, to the cause of the Holy
Roman Apostolic Church.
Gentlemen, I should consider it an impertinence in me thus to be speaking
to you of myself, were it not that, in recounting to you the feelings with
which I have witnessed the establishment of these Evening Classes, I am in
fact addressing to you at the same time words of encouragement and advice,
such words as it becomes a Rector to use in speaking to those who are
submitted to his care.
I say, then, that, had I been younger than I was when the high office
which I at present hold was first offered to me, had I not had prior
duties upon me of affection and devotion to the Oratory of St. Philip, and
to my own dear country, no position whatever, in the whole range of
administrations which are open to the ambition of those who wish to serve
God in their generation, and to do some great work before they die, would
have had more attractions for me than that of being at the head of a
University like this. When I became a Catholic, one of my first questions
was, “Why have not our Catholics a University?” and Ireland, and the
metropolis of Ireland, was obviously the proper seat of such an
institution.
Ireland is the proper seat of a Catholic University, on account of its
ancient hereditary Catholicity, and again of the future which is in store
for it. It is impossible, Gentlemen, to doubt that a future is in store
for Ireland, for more reasons than can here be enumerated. First, there is
the circumstance, so highly suggestive, even if there was nothing else to
be said, viz., that the Irish have been so miserably ill-treated and
misused hitherto; for, in the times now opening upon us, nationalities are
waking into life, and the remotest people can make themselves heard into
all the quarters of the earth. The lately invented methods of travel and
of intelligence have destroyed geographical obstacles; and the wrongs of
the oppressed, in spite of oceans or of mountains, are brought under the
public opinion of Europe,—not before kings and governments alone, but
before the tribunal of the European populations, who are becoming ever
more powerful in the determination of political questions. And thus
retribution is demanded and exacted for past crimes in proportion to their
heinousness and their duration.
And in the next place, it is plain that, according as intercommunion grows
between Europe and America, it is Ireland that must grow with it in social
and political importance. For Ireland is the high road by which that
intercourse is carried on; and the traffic between hemispheres must be to
her a source of material as well as social benefit,—as of old time, though
on the minute geographical scale of Greece, Corinth, as being the
thoroughfare of commerce by sea and land, became and was called “the
rich.”
And then, again, we must consider the material resources of Ireland, so
insufficiently explored, so poorly developed,—of which it belongs to them
rather to speak, who by profession and attainments are masters of the
subject.
That this momentous future, thus foreshadowed, will be as glorious for
Catholicity as for Ireland we cannot doubt from the experience of the
past; but, as Providence works by means of human agencies, that natural
anticipation has no tendency to diminish the anxiety and earnestness of
all zealous Catholics to do their part in securing its fulfilment. And the
wise and diligent cultivation of the intellect is one principal means,
under the Divine blessing, of the desired result.
3.
Gentlemen, the seat of this intellectual progress must necessarily be the
great towns of Ireland; and those great towns have a remarkable and happy
characteristic, as contrasted with the cities of Catholic Europe. Abroad,
even in Catholic countries, if there be in any part of their territory
scepticism and insubordination in religion, cities are the seat of the
mischief. Even Rome itself has its insubordinate population, and its
concealed free-thinkers; even Belgium, that nobly Catholic country, cannot
boast of the religious loyalty of its great towns. Such a calamity is
unknown to the Catholicism of Dublin, Cork, Belfast, and the other cities
of Ireland; for, to say nothing of higher and more religious causes of the
difference, the very presence of a rival religion is a perpetual incentive
to faith and devotion in men who, from the circumstances of the case,
would be in danger of becoming worse than lax Catholics, unless they
resolved on being zealous ones.
Here, then, is one remarkable ground of promise in the future of Ireland,
that that large and important class, members of which I am now
addressing,—that the middle classes in its cities, which will be the
depositaries of its increasing political power, and which elsewhere are
opposed in their hearts to the Catholicism which they profess,—are here so
sound in faith, and so exemplary in devotional exercises, and in works of
piety.
And next I would observe, that, while thus distinguished for religious
earnestness, the Catholic population is in no respect degenerate from the
ancient fame of Ireland as regards its intellectual endowments. It too
often happens that the religiously disposed are in the same degree
intellectually deficient; but the Irish ever have been, as their worst
enemies must grant, not only a Catholic people, but a people of great
natural abilities, keen-witted, original, and subtle. This has been the
characteristic of the nation from the very early times, and was especially
prominent in the middle ages. As Rome was the centre of authority, so, I
may say, Ireland was the native home of speculation. In this respect they
were as remarkably contrasted to the English as they are now, though, in
those ages, England was as devoted to the Holy See as it is now hostile.
The Englishman was hard-working, plodding, bold, determined, persevering,
practical, obedient to law and precedent, and, if he cultivated his mind,
he was literary and classical rather than scientific, for Literature
involves in it the idea of authority and prescription. On the other hand,
in Ireland, the intellect seems rather to have taken the line of Science,
and we have various instances to show how fully this was recognized in
those times, and with what success it was carried out. “Philosopher,” is
in those times almost the name for an Irish monk. Both in Paris and
Oxford, the two great schools of medieval thought, we find the boldest and
most subtle of their disputants an Irishman,—the monk John Scotus Erigena,
at Paris, and Duns Scotus, the Franciscan friar, at Oxford.
Now, it is my belief, Gentlemen, that this character of mind remains in
you still. I think I rightly recognize in the Irishman now, as formerly,
the curious, inquisitive observer, the acute reasoner, the subtle
speculator. I recognize in you talents which are fearfully mischievous,
when used on the side of error, but which, when wielded by Catholic
devotion, such as I am sure will ever be the characteristic of the Irish
disputant, are of the highest importance to Catholic interests, and
especially at this day, when a subtle logic is used against the Church,
and demands a logic still more subtle on the part of her defenders to
expose it.
Gentlemen, I do not expect those who, like you, are employed in your
secular callings, who are not monks or friars, not priests, not
theologians, not philosophers, to come forward as champions of the faith;
but I think that incalculable benefit may ensue to the Catholic cause,
greater almost than that which even singularly gifted theologians or
controversialists could effect, if a body of men in your station of life
shall be found in the great towns of Ireland, not disputatious,
contentious, loquacious, presumptuous (of course I am not advocating
inquiry for mere argument’s sake), but gravely and solidly educated in
Catholic knowledge, intelligent, acute, versed in their religion,
sensitive of its beauty and majesty, alive to the arguments in its behalf,
and aware both of its difficulties and of the mode of treating them. And
the first step in attaining this desirable end is that you should submit
yourselves to a curriculum of studies, such as that which brings you with
such praiseworthy diligence within these walls evening after evening; and,
though you may not be giving attention to them with this view, but from
the laudable love of knowledge, or for the advantages which will accrue to
you personally from its pursuit, yet my own reason for rejoicing in the
establishment of your classes is the same as that which led me to take
part in the establishment of the University itself, viz., the wish, by
increasing the intellectual force of Ireland, to strengthen the defences,
in a day of great danger, of the Christian religion.
4.