to its character, in as far as carefully shunning all objects of a
higher nature, it has for the most part made it a principle to limit
its views entirely to man, without attempting to dive and penetrate
into the profound mysteries of the Deity, or into the internal secrets
of nature. To this a high philosophy will object, man is no isolated
being; but as he was originally placed by his Creator in nature, it is
only in that connexion with God and Nature, that the mysteries of his
inward being, and the history of his outward progress can be fully
understood and explained. In historical researches and narrations,
when these are confined to special subjects and particular eras, and
do not attempt the more comprehensive plan of the Philosophy of
History, that confined spirit of philosophic investigation which
limits its views exclusively to man, is not prejudicial; for on the
other hand, the flexible powers of poetical genius (unless their
activity be cramped by the sceptical influence of a Protestant
philosophy), keep the mind alive to all high and generous qualities,
characteristic peculiarities, and original greatness in men and
events. Hence that department of British literature which embraces
historic research and narrative, is peculiarly fertile, and has met
with a general and European success.
The Protestantism of state, which was brought to maturity by the
English Constitution, was during the eighteenth century, when England
held generally the foremost rank among the nations, extended and
applied in the system of the balance of power, to the whole Continent
of Europe. But the Protestantism of science which originated there,
formed together with the system of religious peace, the first
foundation of Illuminism; and denotes the whole period of its history
from the commencement of the eighteenth century down to the French
Revolution.
[11] The author here alludes to the history of the
Thirty years' war by Schiller.--_Trans._
[12] The author alludes to the Systema Theologicum of
Leibnitz, first published in Paris in the year 1819,
from the manuscript sent by the court of Prussia to
that of France. It was published by the Abbe Emery, who
accompanied the Latin original with a French
translation.--_Trans._
END OF LECTURE XVI.
LECTURE XVII.
Parallel between the religious peace of Germany and that of the
other countries of Europe.--The political system of the Balance
of Power, and the principle of false Illuminism prevalent in
the eighteenth century.
The great benefits of the religious peace of Germany, which founded
upon, and springing out of a great historical necessity, has struck
such deep roots in the public mind, and at last become a second nature
to the Germans, may be best appreciated by a comparison with the state
of religious liberty such as it now exists, or did recently exist
among other nations--and those in truth which are in every other
respect the most civilized of modern Europe. In Germany, indeed, the
strict and vigilant maintenance of that religious peace, on which her
whole political existence depends, and without which she would fall
into an anarchic struggle of parties; has received in recent times a
new confirmation; and this religious peace, which has been revived,
not indeed in its old forms, but in its general spirit and essential
import, has become only the more necessary, as by the recent
partitions of territories, a great intermixture of religions has been
introduced into states where formerly one religion only prevailed.
Thus in that state,[13] which was originally the greatest of all the
Protestant states of Germany, and is now even still more powerful than
formerly, a full half of the population is Catholic. Nearly to the
same extent, the same observation will apply, though inversely, to
that Catholic state[14] in Germany, which next to the Imperial state
itself, is the greatest. So strongly has this Magna Charta[15] of the
religious liberty of Germany, (which scarcely needs any external
securities, now that most of those securities no longer exist, or at
least have been very materially altered in the forms under which they
formerly existed in the Confederation and in the Imperial courts of
Judicature), so strongly, I say, has this Magna Charta taken root both
in the public mind and state-policy of Germany, that the principle of
religious freedom no longer depends on the degree of population, or
the relation of numbers. Thus, for example, in the German Catholic
provinces of the Austrian Empire, the Protestants, though compared
with the rest of the population they form so very small a minority,
have been long in possession of the most unlimited religious freedom;
and in the country[16] which was the very cradle of Protestantism, the
fact that the royal dynasty and a very small minority of the nation
profess the Catholic religion, has been no obstacle to the most
cordial, deep, and solid attachment on the part of the people to their
old hereditary rulers--an attachment which has been evinced in the
most unequivocal and affecting manner by all classes of the nation at
every period of misfortune. If now we look to the other great states
and civilized countries of Europe, which like Germany were involved
for a century and more in the turmoil of religious wars, and consider
what issue these wars have had, what results they have produced, we
shall find that in England civil war indeed no longer rages. But how
the relations between the Anglican church on the one hand, which force
alone maintains in its political privileges and ascendancy, and the
Protestant dissenters (who have a different character from those in
Germany, or elsewhere, and are distinguished by a very violent
sectarian spirit) and the Catholic population of Ireland, on the
other; how these relations, I say, can be said to exhibit a state of
religious peace, I am at a loss to understand; for at no very remote
period the latter country was the theatre of a bloody civil war. We
must at least allow that a solid and permanent internal peace, a
perfect conciliation of minds, and an equitable adjustment of the
respective rights and claims of both parties, have apparently not yet
been brought to a quiet and satisfactory issue. Nay, to judge from
those great parliamentary discussions in England, wherein not
unfrequently and from passages the most obscure, and the least
observed by the superficial eye, the most secret motives, the deepest
springs of policy, and the most hidden thoughts and disquietudes of
the statesman come to light in that wonderful stage of public life; it
would appear that great self-apprehension reigned in the minds of
English politicians;--a fear which is the more likely to arise on
every serious retrospect that people take of the old abyss of their
civil contests; for more than any other nation, they are conversant
with their own annals, and have them ever before their eyes, and live
in the past with all the intense feelings of the present. Hence every
individual among them knows full well that the fearful and fermenting
elements of their great old civil commotion have never been perfectly
appeased, and finally allayed, but have been merely repressed from
time to time, and prevented from breaking out anew by means of a
Constitution, which on that account is reputed _glorious_. And
must not every Englishman ask himself the peremptory question, how a
country can be, or be termed free, when its Catholic inhabitants,
amounting to a third part of its entire population, are doomed to
undergo indescribable tyranny, and are in fact treated like a
conquered nation?[17]
In France there prevails on matters of religion an indifference of
feeling, rather than any party contentions, or violent animosities, at
least among the greater part of the nation; and so long as the matter
is not mixed up with political considerations, this feeling of
indifference will bend to one opinion or to the other. Even in former
times the religious wars, though violent enough, were not of so long
and uninterrupted a duration and so widely destructive a nature, as in
Germany, and comparatively speaking at least, were not attended with
such frightful circumstances, as in England. But on the other hand,
they did not lead to those mighty, definite and permanent results,
such as in Germany, a religious pacification--and in England, the
establishment of a free Constitution. And in the revocation of the
edict of Nantes, accomplished in defiance of all antecedent promises,
stipulations and rights, the victory of the Catholic majority of the
nation, unjust in itself, was merely apparent and illusive, for all
the great problems of moral life remained unsolved, and the hostile
and fermenting elements of Protestantism or a species of
semi-protestantism retained their full force; till a hundred years
after this arbitrary proceeding, an immense and formidable reaction
occurred in the breaking out of the great Revolution. That grand
conflict of the European nations which sprang out of this Revolution,
and attended its whole course, must be looked upon in no other light
than as a religious war; for a formal separation not only from the
church, but from all Christianity--a total abolition of the Christian
religion was an object of this Revolution which lasted nine years,
before a sort of religious peace was established, by which it seemed
to be acknowledged, that religion, for a time at least, was not an
absolutely superfluous want of the people; for the attempt of
theophilanthropy, or the public and legal establishment of a pure
rationalist religion had no success. But as respected persons, this
peace was not of long duration, as was but too soon apparent in the
ill-treatment and imprisonment of the head of the church. The drama of
the old Ghibelline times was renewed, and Ghibelline principles and
maxims of policy were openly avowed. If the military success of the
French had been of longer continuance, these principles would have
made incomparably greater progress, and would have been more clearly
unfolded, as there was a secret inclination to a certain Mahometan
junction of civil and ecclesiastical power in the hands of the same
person. It could not, however, have escaped the keen perception of
Buonaparte, how much the feelings and opinions of Europe, (whatever
indifference it may manifest about religion, and however easily it
may give its sanction to encroachments on spiritual power, from want
of knowledge or of interest in those matters,) are ever adverse to a
complete and anti-christian fusion of secular and ecclesiastical
authority. That fanatic and destructive character which distinguished
the Revolutionary struggle in its origin, remained the same, though
somewhat modified in its form during the time of the Imperial
conquests; and the general resistance of the nations of Europe, down
to the final triumph of the Allies, retained to the last the character
of a religious war, carried on in defence of all that was most sacred
to humanity. Thus that great struggle must be considered as a
five-and-twenty years' religious war, or rather perhaps in its origin,
a war of irreligion, though it is not worth while to dispute about a
word. For this reason, in the country where this mighty Revolution had
its birth, the restoration of monarchy is inseparably connected with
that of religion; and it is by a religious regeneration, that the
statesmen of that kingdom, who are well-wishers to their country, and
have in view its permanent well-being, and not the idle and transient
splendour of military glory, should endeavour to secure the future
destinies of France.
This universal and convulsive crisis of the world in latter times, now
that it has happily and entirely passed by, has created a mighty
chasm, and thrown up a wall of separation between the present age and
the eighteenth century. Now that the conflict is over, and all the
illusions incident to that state of struggle have passed away, the
eighteenth century, which bore that great Revolution in its womb, and
at last brought it into life, can be judged with greater impartiality
and historic freedom, and better understood, and more duly appreciated
in all its comprehensive bearings. For during the existence of any
struggle, it is apparently given to few mortals to form respecting
passing events a judgment which can be truly termed historical; as in
general, a certain distance of time is requisite to the formation of
just and accurate opinions. In this last section of universal history,
it would be idle and superfluous to enter into a minute detail of
facts so generally known. It is on that account the more important for
the due illustration and philosophic investigation of a period so near
to us, briefly to point out amid the multitude of well-known facts,
the leading and determining causes of all the events which occurred.
The leading and stirring principles of all occurrences and enterprises
in the eighteenth century, as the history of that age abundantly
proves, may be traced on the one hand, to the system of the Balance of
Power in the internal government and outward relations of states; and
on the other, to the principle of illuminism in the department of
morals, though this principle was not confined to the sphere of mind,
but exerted a great practical influence on real life, and finally
brought about a total revolution in the state. Both these
principles--the system of the balance of power, which was the
protestantism of state--and the principle of illuminism, which from
its negative character, agreed in the main with the Protestantism of
philosophy, and was only a natural consequence of that philosophy,--had
their origin chiefly in England, and there first, or more than
elsewhere, reached their development. For from the commencement of the
eighteenth century down to the mighty Revolution which closed it,
England was the state that took the lead in every occurrence and
transaction, gave the tone to the age, and formed the strong central
lever to the system of the Balance of Power. The plan of such a system
had indeed been openly avowed several centuries before, and had been
acted upon as a principle in many political enterprises and
negotiations; but the then existing circumstances of the world, which
required and admitted of a far higher law of adjudication, confined
the operation of this principle within very narrow limits. Thus it was
a far higher principle of Christian equity, which constituted the
basis of the holy Roman Empire of Germany in the middle age; and it
was only when that empire had been weakened and undermined by various
shocks, external and internal, that the system of the Balance of Power
began towards the latter part of the fifteenth century, to exert a
commanding influence. Italy was in general the theatre and arena for
the workings of that policy; Spain, France, and Austria, next Venice,
the Pope, and Switzerland, the active agents in that changeful
struggle; and Naples and Lombardy the subject of dispute, and the
prize of contention. But when the progress and success of the Turkish
arms from without, and the formidable, growing and fermenting elements
of religious strife from within, had threatened Europe with total
ruin, or at least with the most formidable danger, the new, inferior
principle of policy was compelled to yield to the urgent necessities
of the times, and to old opinions not yet totally extinct. Men felt
the absolute want of an Emperor and general Protector of Christendom,
invested as in ancient times, with power really adequate to his
dignity; and this was the motive which led to the election of the
Emperor Charles V. The extent of his empire, however, made his power
appear greater than it was in reality. If a decided and formidable
preponderance of power existed any where, we must look for it on the
side of the Turks, whose triumphant arms brought them ever nearer
towards Europe, and whose progress Charles was little able to arrest.
France, situated as she was in the centre of Europe, had nothing to
apprehend from the Turks, while she was sufficiently strong and
powerful to disregard danger from any quarter. Her rivalry with Spain,
and her perpetual wars with the Emperor, were exceedingly injurious to
Europe, as they cramped and impeded all the operations of the emperor
in behalf of Christendom, and all his exertions for providing for its
external and internal security. But to no country were those wars more
hurtful than to France herself, which had need of all her energies for
the maintenance of internal tranquillity, in order by her undivided
activity, to be able to allay and settle the various elements of
religious strife, which afterwards broke out with such fearful
violence. At that period, and even during the seventeenth century, the
wars of Turkey were generally considered as religious wars, partly
from the dreadful consequences which ensued to the Christian religion
in the conquered countries, where if it were not entirely extirpated,
it was at least doomed to the severest oppression; and partly from the
fanatic and sanguinary character of those wars themselves. The
alliances which France during the religious wars of the seventeenth
century, and contrary to the interests of her own creed, entered into
with Sweden and Turkey, under pretence of maintaining the Balance of
Power, were more than anything else prejudicial to the Catholic cause,
inflicted a deep wound on Christian principles, and contributed much
to mislead the opinion of the age. The final result of this policy was
the establishment of a decided preponderance on the part of France,
towards the end of the seventeenth century--a preponderance which then
at least must be ascribed to Lewis XIV. only.