supernatural, not the _differentia_ of either. And here let me remark
that the expression, "Laws of Nature," is a modern technical expression
which the Catholic philosopher would require, probably, to have defined
before employing it. "Natura," in St. Thomas Aquinas, is declared to be
"Principium operationis cujusque rei," the Essence of a thing in
relation to its activity, or the Essence as manifested _agendo_. Hence
"Natura rerum," or "Universitas rerum" (which is the Latin for Nature in
the phrase "Laws of Nature") means the Essences of all things created
(finite) as manifested and related to each other by their proper
inherent activities, which of course are stable or fixed. But since it
is not a logical contradiction that these activities should be
suspended, arrested, or annihilated (granting an Infinite Creator), it
will not be contrary to _Reason_ should a miraculous intervention so
deal with them, though their suspension or annihilation may be
described, loosely and inaccurately, as against the Laws of Nature. By
_Reason_ is here meant the declarations of necessary Thought as to
possibility and impossibility, or the canons of contradiction, the only
proper significance of the word in discussions about miracles. Hence, to
say that miracles have their laws, is not to deny that they are by the
Free Will of God. For creation is by the Fiat of Divine Power and
Freedom, and yet proceeds upon law--that is to say, upon a settled plan
and inherent sequence of cause and effect. But it is common with Mr.
Mill and his school to think of law as _necessary inviolable_ sequence;
whereas it is but a fixed mode of action whether _necessarily or freely_
determined; and it is a part of law that some activities should be
liable to suspension or arrestment by others, and especially by the
First Cause.
[52] "Vie de Jésus," p. 247.
[53] When Mr. Mill says ("Three Essays on Religion," p. 224), "The
argument that a miracle may be the fulfilment of a law in the same sense
in which the ordinary events of Nature are fulfilments of laws, seems to
indicate an imperfect conception of what is meant by a law and what
constitutes a miracle," all he really means is that this argument
involves a conception of law and of miracle different from his own,
which is undoubtedly true. Upon this subject I remark as follows: There
is a necessary will (_spontaneum non liberum_) and a free will(_liberum
non spontaneum_); and these are in God on the scale of infinite
perfection, as they are in man finitely. With Mr. Mill, as I have
observed in a previous note, Law is taken to signify "invariable,
necessary sequence;" and its test is, that given the same circumstances,
the same thing will occur. But it is essential to Free Will (whether in
God or man) that given the same circumstances, the same thing need not,
may not, and perhaps will not, occur. However, an act may be free _in
causa_ which _hic et nunc must_ happen; the Free Will having done that
by choice which brings as a necessary consequence something else. For
there are many things which would involve contradiction and so be
impossible, did not certain consequences follow them. This premised, it
is clear that the antithesis of Mr. Mill's "Law" is Free Will. Law and
antecedent necessity to Mr. Mill are one and the same. But Law in
Catholic terminology means the Will of God decreeing freely or not
freely, according to the subject-matter; and is not opposed to
Free-Will. It guides, it need not coerce or necessitate, though it may.
Neither in one sense, is Law synonymous with Reason, for that is
according to Reason, simply, which does not involve a contradiction,
whether it be done freely or of necessity; and many things are possible,
or non-contradictives, that Law does not prescribe. Nor again does
Free-Will mean lawless in the sense of irrational; or causeless, in the
sense of having no motive: "contra legem," "præter legem" is not "contra
rationem," "prater rationem." The Divine Will, then, may be free, yet
act according to Law, namely, its own freely-determined Law. And it may
act "not according to Law," and yet act according to Reason. In this
sense, then, theologians identify the Divine Will with the Divine
Reason--I mean, they insist that God's Will is always according to
Reason--in this sense, but, as I think, not in any other. For the Divine
Will is antecedently free as regards all things which are not God; but
the Divine Intellect is not free in the same way. St. Augustine always
tends to view things in the concrete, not distinguishing their "rationes
formales," or distinguishing them vaguely. And Ratio with him does not
mean Reason merely, but living Reason or the Reasoning Being, the Soul.
When St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of Lex Æterna he means the Necessary Law
of Morality, concerning which God is not free, because in decreeing it,
He is but decreeing that there is no Righteousness except by imitation
of Him.
The root of all these difficulties and of all the confusion in speech
which they have brought forth is this: the mystery of Free-Will in God,
the Unchangeable and Eternal, The great truth taught in the words of the
Vatican Council, "Deus, _liberrimo consilio_ condidit universa," must
ever be borne in mind. Undoubtedly, there are no afterthoughts in God.
But neither is there a past in which He decreed once for all what was to
be and what was not to be. He is the Eternal Now. But still all events
are the fulfilment of His Will, and contribute to the working out of the
scheme which He has traced for creation. Feeble is human speech to deal
with such high matters, serving, at the best, but dimly to adumbrate
ineffable truths. As Goethe somewhere says, "Words are good, but not the
best: the best cannot be expressed in words. My point, however, is that
there is, on the one hand, a connection of events with events all
through creation and an intelligible sequence, while, on the other, the
Free-Will of man is a determining force as regards his own spiritual
actions, as is the Free-Will of God in respect of the whole creation,
and that miracles are neither afterthoughts, nor irregularities, nor
contradictions, but at once free and according to law. Miracles are not
abnormal, unless Free-Will is a reduction of Kosmos to Chaos, and the
negation of Reason altogether."
[54] I say "the doctrine of the Divine goodness," because that is, as I
think, what the author of "Natural Religion" means. As to the "simple,
absolute benevolence"--"benevolence," indeed, is a milk-and-water
expression; "God is love"--which "some men seem to think the only
character of the Author of Nature," it is enough to refer to Bishop
Butler's striking chapter on "The Moral Government of God," (Analogy,
Part I. c. iii). I will here merely observe that although, doubtless,
God's attribute is Love of the creation, He is not only Love, but
Sanctity, Justice, Creative Power, Force, Providence; and whereas,
considered as a Unit He is infinite, He is not infinite--I speak under
correction--viewed in those aspects, abstractions, or attributes which,
separately taken, are necessary for our subjective view of Him. I allow
that God's power and His "benevolence" may in some cases work out
different ends, as if separate entities, but still maintain--what the
author of "Natural Religion" ignores--that God in His very essence is
not only "Benevolence," but Sanctity, &c. also; _all as One in His
Oneness_.
[55] "Three Essays on Religion," p. 38.
SYRIAN COLONIZATION.
During the past few years many proposals have been made, and schemes
formed, for repeopling the wastes of Syria and Palestine with the
surplus population of Europe. These schemes, sometimes philanthropic,
sometimes commercial, are always advocated on the assumption that the
current of European emigration and capital might be turned to Syria and
Palestine in accordance with sound economic and financial
considerations. In this paper I propose--
_First._ To take a survey of the agricultural resources of the country.
_Second._ To draw attention to the difficulties which immigrants would
experience in obtaining secure titles to landed property.
_Third._ To give a summary of the different kinds of land tenure, and
the burdens on agriculture.
_Fourth._ To point out some of the dangers and inconveniences to which
immigrants would be exposed.
* * * * *
I. In the first place we may say broadly that the natural resources of
Syria and Palestine are agricultural. On the eastern slopes of Mount
Hermon there are a few bitumen pits from which a small quantity of ore
of excellent quality is yearly exported to England. Small deposits of
coal and iron exist in several localities, and there are chemical
deposits about the shores of the Dead Sea. Gypsum and coloured marble
are found in Syria, and along the coast opposite the Lebanon range
sponges are fished annually to the value of £20,000. Hot sulphur springs
exist at Palmyra and the Sea of Galilee, and there are ruined baths on
the way between Damascus and Palmyra and in the Yarmûk Valley; but none
of these natural products are of sufficient importance to attract
European labour or capital.
Forests can scarcely be said to exist in Syria or Palestine. A few
groves of cedars of Lebanon, which escaped the axes of Hiram, are fast
disappearing. On the limestone ridges and in some of the valleys there
are clumps of pine, and throughout a great part of the country there is
a considerable quantity of scrub oak which the peasants reduce to
charcoal, and carry into the cities. In Galilee one comes on places
where the trees give a pleasing character to the landscape. On Mount
Carmel there are jungles and thickets of oak, and on the slopes towards
Nazareth there are considerable groves, but the nearest approach to a
forest is where the oaks of Bashan, which recall the beauties of an
English park, assert their ancient supremacy.
Rows of poplars mark the courses of rivers and streams throughout the
land, and supply beams for flat-roofed houses; but when churches or
other important buildings have to be roofed, or timber is required for
domestic purposes, it has to be imported from America, and carried into
the interior on the backs of animals. There remain trees enough in some
places to lend beauty to the landscape, and to show what the country may
once have been, as well as to suggest what it may again become; but
there are no forests to attract labour or capital.
The few manufactories of wool and cotton and soap and leather are
chiefly limited to local want. Besides these there are the silk-spinning
factories in the Lebanon, managed by Frenchmen and natives, and a
manufactory of cotton thread on one of the rivers of Damascus.
The popular accounts of the agricultural resources of Syria and
Palestine are very different. As instances of extremes:--Mark Twain
tells us he saw the goats eating stones in Syria, and he assures us that
he could not have been mistaken, for they had nothing else to eat; while
Mr. Laurence Oliphant saw even in the Dead Sea "a vast source of wealth"
for his English Company. We read in his "Land of Gilead" these words:
"There can be little doubt, in fact, that the Dead Sea is a mine of
unexplored wealth which only needs the application of capital and
enterprise to make it a most lucrative property."[56]
The tourists who traverse the country in spring, immediately after the
latter rains, when there is some vegetation in the barest places, and
when their horses are up to the fetlocks in flowers, never forget the
beauty of the landscape. Others, who have been picturing to themselves a
land flowing with milk and honey, hills waving with golden grain, and
green meadows dappled with browsing flocks, and who pass through the
land in autumn, find themselves bitterly disappointed. As they trudge
along the white glaring pathways, and through the roadless and flinty
wilderness, breasting the hot beating waves of a Syrian noonday, with
only an ashy chocolate-coloured landscape around them, scorched as if by
the breath of a furnace, they get an impression of dreary and blasted
desolation which time can never efface. They looked for the garden of
the Lord, and they find only the "burning marl." It was my fate, during
a long residence in Syria, to hear autumn tourists criticize books
written by spring tourists, and spring tourists criticize books written
by autumn tourists, and generally in a manner by no means complimentary
to the authors' veracity;--the fact being that the writers had given
their impression of what they saw, with perhaps a little of American
wit, which consists in exaggerating "the leading feature."
I think, however, that to most English travellers, who have no hobbies
to ride, the barren appearance of Syria and Palestine is a
disenchantment. Accustomed to their own moist climate and green fields,
they are not prepared for the dry and parched, and abandoned appearance
of the greater part of the country. With us an abundance of water spoils
the crops; in Syria and Palestine the case is reversed, for unless water
can be poured over the land the crops are stunted and uncertain. For six
or seven months in the year scarcely any rain falls, and scarcely a
cloud darkens the sky. In October the early rain commences, with much
thunder and lightning; and in April the latter rain becomes light and
uncertain, and generally ceases altogether. Then the sky becomes
intensely blue, and the sun comes out in all his glory, or rather in all
her glory, for with the Arabs the sun is feminine. Suddenly grass and
vegetation wither up and become dry for the oven. The level country,
except where there are rivers, becomes parched. The stones stick up out
of the red soil like the white bones of a skeleton. Limestone, flint,
and basalt, and thorny shrubs, cover the face of the wilderness country.
Here and there you may see a dwarf oak, or an olive tree, or a wild fig
tree, and among the mountains you may notice little patches scratched
and cultivated by the _fellahîn_; but, unless on the great plains of
Bashan and Esdraelon and Hamath, and on the uplands of Gilead, or where
there is water for irrigation, you may ride for hours along the zigzag
paths, over mountain and high-land, and before and behind extend the
limestone and flinty rocks, white and blinding, and broken into
fragments or burnt into powder. It thus happens that few tourists who
pass along the beaten tracks of Syria and Palestine have any just
conception of the vast agricultural resources of the land.
The most striking features in the Syrian landscape are two parallel
mountain ranges, which appear on the map like two centipedes, running
north and south. These are the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges. Lebanon
proper lies along the shore of the Mediterranean. The narrow strip of
land between the mountain and the sea was the home of the Ph[oe]nicians,
who steered their white-winged ships to every land, and dipped their
oars in every sea, before the Britons were heard of. The gardens of
Sidon, luxuriant with bananas, oranges, figs, lemons, pomegranates,
peaches, apricots, &c., extend across the plain for two miles to the
mountain, and show what Ph[oe]nicia may once have been. The palm trees
that adorn the fertile gardens of Beyrout are doubtless survivors of the
groves from which the strip of land once took its name.[57]
By the exertions of Lord Dufferin in 1860, a Christian governor was
placed over the Lebanon in a semi-independent position. Since then the
terraced mountain has been marvellously developed, and every foothold
has been planted with vines and figs and mulberries. The industrious
peasantry, comparatively safe from Turkish rapacity, have cultivated the
ledges among its crags and peaks, and enjoy the fruits of their
industry, sitting under their vines and fig trees. The bloodthirsty and
turbulent Druzes, restrained by law, and unable to hold their own in a
field of fair competition, are being rapidly civilized off the mountain,
and betake themselves to remote regions in Bashan where no law is
acknowledged but that of the strong arm.
Between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon stretches for seventy miles
C[oe]lo-Syria or Buka'a, a well-watered and fertile plain, containing
about 500 square miles and 137 agricultural villages, and marked by such
ruins as those of Chalcis and Baalbek.
The Anti-Lebanon consists of a series of mountain ranges, some of which
run parallel with Lebanon, and flatten into the plain at "the gathering
in of Hamath," while some bend off in a more easterly direction, and
shoot out boldly into the desert. The westward end of this mountainous
range rises into Mount Hermon. The eastward end sinks into Palmyra.
North of the Anti-Lebanon, the narrow plain of C[oe]lo-Syria expands
into the great rolling country of high-land, river, lake, and plain,
where for more than a thousand years the Hittite kings rolled back the
tide of Egyptian and Assyrian invasion, and where, in later years, the
Selucidæ kings pastured their elephants and steeds of war.
Among the ranges and spurs of the Anti-Lebanon are many green spots of
great picturesque beauty. Wherever there are fountains the habitations
of men are clustered together at the water, seemingly jostling and
struggling like thirsty flocks to get to its margin. The cottages cling
to the edges of fountains and rivers in the most perilous positions.
Sometimes they are stuck to the rocks like swallows' nests, and
sometimes they are placed on beetling cliffs like the home of the eagle
above the chasm. No solitary houses are met throughout the country. The
people build together for safety, and near the water for life, and by
the village fountains and wells cluster the fairest scenes of Eastern
poetry, as well Arab and Persian as Hebrew, and around them have taken
place some of the fiercest of Oriental battles.
At the villages a little water is drawn off from the rivers, and
carefully apportioned among the different families and factions. By
means of this water, carefully conducted to the various gardens, apples
and plums, grapes and pomegranates, melons and cucumbers, corn and
onions, olives and egg plants are cultivated; and such is the bounty of
Nature, that with the least effort existence is possible wherever there
is water. A little rancid oil and a few vegetables are sufficient to
sustain life, and these can be had by a few hours labour in the cool of
the day. The rest of the time may be spent squatting cross-legged by the
water, or smoking and dozing in the shade. This is existence, but not
life; yet why should the _fellah_ labour for anything beyond what is
absolutely necessary, when the slightest sign of wealth would create
anxious solicitude on the part of the Turk?
A ride of seventy-two miles across Ph[oe]nicia, Lebanon, C[oe]lo-Syria,
and Anti-Lebanon, brings us, by French diligence, to Damascus. Abana and
Pharpar break through a sublime gorge, about 100 yards wide, down the
middle of which the French road winds its serpentine course, the rivers
on either side being fringed with silver poplar and scented walnut. As
we look eastward from the brow of the hill, the great plain of Damascus,
encircled by a framework of desert, lies before us. The river, escaped
from the rocky gorge, spreads out like a fan, and, after a run of three
miles, enters Damascus, where it flows through 15,000 houses, sparkles
in 60,000 marble fountains, and hurries on to scatter wealth and
fertility far and wide over the plain. Those who have gazed on this
scene are never likely to forget its supreme loveliness. Its beauty is
doubtless much enhanced by contrast. The eye has been wandering over a
chocolate-coloured and heated landscape throughout a weary day;
suddenly, on turning a corner, it rests on Eden.
The city is spread out before you, embowered in orchards, in the midst
of a plain of 300 square miles. Around the pearl-coloured, city--first
in the world in point of time, first in Syria and Western Asia in point
of importance--surge, like an emerald sea, forests of apricots and
olives and apples and citrons, and "every tree that is pleasant to the
sight and good for food," with all their variety of colour and tint,
according to their season, sometimes all aglow with blossoms, sometimes
golden and ruddy with fruit, and sometimes russet with the mellowing
tints of autumn. Beyond the city the water conveys its wealth by seven
rivers to shady gardens and thirsty fields; and, as far as cultivation
extends, two or three splendid crops during the same year reward the
industry of the husbandman. But even in the plain of Damascus the land
is cultivated for only a few miles beyond the gates of the city. The
water that would fertilize the whole plain flows uselessly into
pestiferous marshes, and the wide plain within sight of the Damascus
garrison is abandoned to the Bedawîn of the Desert and the wild boars of
the jungle.[58]
In Palestine there is the great plain of Esdraelon, now, to a large
extent, in the hands of a Greek firm at Beyrout, and partially
cultivated, but capable of producing wheat and maize and cotton and
barley, throughout its whole extent. On the southern side of Carmel
spreads out the extensive plain of Sharon, a vast expanse of
pasture-land, ablaze with flowers in early spring, and rank with
thistles in the time of harvest; and further south extends the still
more fertile regions of Philistia.
Looking south, from the southern slopes of Mount Hermon, the green plain
of the Huleh, with Lake Merom glassed in its centre, forms a beautiful
picture. Mr. Oliphant here first saw an enchanting location for his
colony. "I felt," he says, "a longing to imitate the example of the men
of Dan; for there can be no question that if, instead of advancing upon
it with six hundred men, and taking it by force, after the manner of the
Danites, one approached it in the modern style of a joint-stock company
(limited), and recompensed the present owners, keeping them as
labourers, a most profitable speculation might be made out of the 'Ard
el Huleh.'" The lake "might, with the marshy plain above it, be easily
drained; and a magnificent tract of country, nearly twenty miles long by
from five to six miles in width, abundantly watered by the upper
affluents of the Jordan, might then be brought into cultivation. It is
only now occupied by some wandering Bedawîn and the peasants of a few
scattered villages on its margin."[59]
East of the Jordan are the corn-growing table-land of Bashan and the
beautiful and fertile high-lands of Gilead. In the former I have ridden
for hours, with an unbroken sea of waving wheat as far as I could see
around me, and as regards the "land of Gilead," I can confirm Mr.
Oliphant's most enthusiastic descriptions of its beauty, fertility, and
desolation.
Nor are the agricultural resources of Syria and Palestine limited to the
great irrigated plains and broad trans-Jordanic table-lands. Throughout
the country there are numerous villages shut in among bare hills, with
apparently no resource; but on closer inspection it turns out that there
are a few cultivated terraces, where tobacco and grape-vines and
vegetables are cultivated, and on a still closer inspection it is
evident that the bare mountains all around were once terraced, and
doubtless clothed with the vine.
I was once crossing a series of undulating ranges abutting on Mount
Hermon with an English tourist who was making merry at the utterly
barren appearance of "the promised land." It turned out, however, that
his attempted wit served to sharpen our observation, and we found that
all the hill-sides had once been terraced by human hands. A few miles
further on we came to Rasheiya, where the vineyards still flourish on
such terraces, and we had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that
the bare terraces, from which lapse of time had worn away the soil, were
once trellised with the vine, the highest emblem of prosperity and joy.
Similar terraces were noticed by Drake and Palmer in the Desert of
Judea, far from any modern cultivation.
It is rash to infer that because a place is desolate now, it must always
have been so, or must always remain so. The Arab historian tells us that
Salah-ed-Dîn, before the battle of Hattin, set fire to the forests, and
thus encircled the Crusaders with a sea of flame. Now there is scarcely
a shrub in the neighbourhood.