Produced by Andrew Sly
APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA
By John Henry (Cardinal) Newman
London: Published
by J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
And in New York
by E.P. Dutton & Co.
Introduction
_"No autobiography in the English language has been more read; to
the nineteenth century it bears a relation not less characteristic
than Boswell's 'Johnson' to the eighteenth."_
Rev. Wm. Barry, D.D.
Newman was already a recognised spiritual leader of over thirty
year's standing, but not yet a Cardinal, when in 1864 he wrote the
_Apologia_. He was London born, and he had, as many Londoners have
had, a foreign strain in him. His father came of Dutch stock; his
mother was a Fourdrinier, daughter of an old French Huguenot family
settled in this country. The date of his birth, 21st of February
1801, relates him to many famous contemporaries, from Heine to Renan,
from Carlyle to Pusey. Sent to school at Ealing--an imaginative
seven-year-old schoolboy, he was described even then as being fond of
books and seriously minded. It is certain he was deeply read in the
English Bible, thanks to his mother's care, before he began Latin and
Greek. Another lifelong influence--as we may be prepared to find by a
signal reference in the following autobiography, was Sir Walter
Scott; and in a later page he speaks of reading in bed _Waverley_ and
_Guy Mannering_ when they first came out--"in the early summer
mornings," and of his delight in hearing _The Lay of the Last
Minstrel_ read aloud. Like Ruskin, another nineteenth-century master
of English prose, he was finely affected by these two powerful
inductors. They worked alike upon his piety and his imagination which
was its true servant, and they helped to foster his seemingly
instinctive style and his feeling for the English tongue.
In 1816 he went to Oxford--to Trinity College--and two years later
gained a scholarship there. His father's idea was that he should read
for the bar, and he kept a few terms at Lincoln's Inn; but in the end
Oxford, which had, about the year of his birth, experienced a rebirth
of ideas, thanks to the widening impulse of the French Revolution,
held him, and Oriel College--the centre of the "Noetics," as old
Oxford called the Liberal set in contempt--made him a fellow. His
association there with Pusey and Keble is a matter of history; and
the Oxford Movement, in which the three worked together, was the
direct result, according to Dean Church, of their "searchings of
heart and communing" for seven years, from 1826 to 1833. A word might
be said of Whately too, whose _Logic_ Newman helped to beat into
final form in these Oxford experiences. Not since the days of Colet
and Erasmus had the University experienced such a shaking of the
branches. However, there is no need to do more than allude to these
intimately dealt with in the _Apologia_ itself.
There, indeed, the stages of Newman's pilgrimage are related with a
grace and sincerity of style that have hardly been equalled in
English or in any northern tongue. It ranges from the simplest facts
to the most complicated polemical issues and is always easily in
accord with its changing theme. So much so, that the critics
themselves have not known whether to admire more the spiritual logic
or the literary art of the writer and self-confessor. We may take, as
two instances of Newman's power, the delightful account in Part III.
of his childhood and the first growth of his religious belief; and
the remarkable opening to Part IV., where he uses the figure of the
death-bed with that finer reality which is born of the creative
communion of thought and word in a poet's brain. Something of this
power was felt, it is clear, in his sermons at Oxford. Dr. Barry
describes the effect that Newman made at the time of his parting with
the Anglican Church: "Every sermon was an experience;" made memorable
by that "still figure, and clear, low, penetrating voice, and the
mental hush that fell upon his audience while he meditated, alone
with the Alone, in words of awful austerity. His discourses were
poems, but transcripts too from the soul, reasonings in a heavenly
dialectic...."
About his controversy with Charles Kingsley, the immediate cause of
his _Apologia_, what new thing need be said? It is clear that
Kingsley, who was the type of a class of mind then common enough in
his Church, impulsive, prejudiced, not logical, gave himself away
both by the mode and by the burden of his unfortunate attack. But we
need not complain of it to-day, since it called out one of the
noblest pieces of spiritual history the world possesses: one indeed
which has the unique merit of making only the truth that is intrinsic
and devout seem in the end to matter.
Midway in the forties, as the _Apologia_ tells us, twenty years that
is before it was written, Newman left Oxford and the Anglican Church
for the Church in which he died. Later portraits make us realise him
best in his robes as a Cardinal, as he may be seen in the National
Portrait Gallery, or in the striking picture by Millais (now in
the Duke of Norfolk's collection). There is one delightful earlier
portrait too, which shows him with a peculiarly radiant face, full of
charm and serene expectancy; and with it we may associate these lines
of his--sincere expression of one who was in all his earthly and
heavenly pilgrimage a truth-seeker, heart and soul:
"When I would search the truths that in me burn,
And mould them into rule and argument,
A hundred reasoners cried,--'Hast thou to learn
Those dreams are scatter'd now, those fires are spent?'
And, did I mount to simpler thoughts, and try
Some theme of peace, 'twas still the same reply.
Perplex'd, I hoped my heart was pure of guile,
But judged me weak in wit, to disagree;
But now, I see that men are mad awhile,
'Tis the old history--Truth without a home,
Despised and slain, then rising from the tomb."
The following is a list of the chief works of Cardinal Newman:--
The Arians of the Fourth Century, 1833; 29 Tracts to Tracts for the
Times, 1834-1841; Lyra Apostolica, 1834; Elucidations of Dr.
Hampden's Theological Statements, 1836; Parochial Sermons, 6 vols.,
1837-1842; A Letter to the Rev. G. Faussett on Certain Points of
Faith and Practice, 1838; Lectures on Justification, 1838; Sermons on
Subjects of the Day, 1842; Plain Sermons, 1843; Sermons before the
University of Oxford, 1843; The Cistercian Saints of England, 1844;
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 1845; Loss and
Gain, 1848; Discourse addressed to Mixed Congregations, 1849;
Lectures on Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic
Teaching, 1850; Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in
England, 1851; The Idea of a University, 1852; Callista, 1856; Mr.
Kingsley and Dr. Newman, 1864; Apologia pro Vita Sua, 1864; The Dream
of Gerontius, 1865; Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey on his Eirenicon,
1866; Verses on Various Occasions, 1868; An Essay in Aid of a Grammar
of Assent, 1870; Letter addressed to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk on
Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation, 1875; Meditations and
Devotions, 1893.
Biographies.--By W. Meynell, 1890; by Dr. Wm Barry, 1890; by R. H.
Hutton, 1891; Letters and Correspondence of J. H. Newman, during his
life in the English Church (with a brief autobiography), edited by
Miss Anne Mozley, 1891; Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman, by Rd. E.
A. Abbott, 1892; as a Musician, by E. Bellasis, 1892; by A. R. Waller
and G. H. S. Burrow, 1901; an Appreciation, by Dr. A. Whyte, 1901;
Addresses to Cardinal Newman, with his Replies, edited by Rev. W. P.
Neville, 1905; by W. Ward (in Ten Personal Studies), 1908; Newman's
Theology, by Charles Sarolea, 1908; The Authoritative Biography, by
Wilfrid P. Ward (based on Cardinal Newman's private journals and
correspondence), 1912.
CONTENTS
PART PAGE
I. Mr. Kingsley's Method of Disputation 1
II. True Mode of Meeting Mr. Kingsley 15
III. History of My Religious Opinions up to 1833 29
IV. History of My Religious Opinions from 1833 to 1839 57
V. History of My Religious Opinions from 1839 to 1841 101
VI. History of My Religious Opinions from 1841 to 1845 147
VII. General Answer to Mr. Kingsley 215
APPENDIX: Answer in Detail to Mr. Kingsley's Accusations 253
APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA
Part I
Mr. Kingsley's Method of Disputation
I cannot be sorry to have forced Mr. Kingsley to bring out in
fulness his charges against me. It is far better that he should
discharge his thoughts upon me in my lifetime, than after I am dead.
Under the circumstances I am happy in having the opportunity of
reading the worst that can be said of me by a writer who has taken
pains with his work and is well satisfied with it. I account it a
gain to be surveyed from without by one who hates the principles
which are nearest to my heart, has no personal knowledge of me to set
right his misconceptions of my doctrine, and who has some motive or
other to be as severe with me as he can possibly be.
And first of all, I beg to compliment him on the motto in his
title-page; it is felicitous. A motto should contain, as in a
nutshell, the contents, or the character, or the drift, or the
_animus_ of the writing to which it is prefixed. The words which he
has taken from me are so apposite as to be almost prophetical. There
cannot be a better illustration than he thereby affords of the
aphorism which I intended them to convey. I said that it is not more
than an hyperbolical expression to say that in certain cases a
lie is the nearest approach to truth. Mr. Kingsley's pamphlet
is emphatically one of such cases as are contemplated in that
proposition. I really believe, that his view of me is about as near
an approach to the truth about my writings and doings, as he is
capable of taking. He has done his worst towards me; but he has also
done his best. So far well; but, while I impute to him no malice, I
unfeignedly think, on the other hand, that, in his invective against
me, he as faithfully fulfils the other half of the proposition also.
This is not a mere sharp retort upon Mr. Kingsley, as will be seen,
when I come to consider directly the subject to which the words of
his motto relate. I have enlarged on that subject in various passages
of my publications; I have said that minds in different states and
circumstances cannot understand one another, and that in all cases
they must be instructed according to their capacity, and, if not
taught step by step, they learn only so much the less; that children
do not apprehend the thoughts of grown people, nor savages the
instincts of civilization, nor blind men the perceptions of sight,
nor pagans the doctrines of Christianity, nor men the experiences of
Angels. In the same way, there are people of matter-of-fact, prosaic
minds, who cannot take in the fancies of poets; and others of
shallow, inaccurate minds, who cannot take in the ideas of
philosophical inquirers. In a lecture of mine I have illustrated
this phenomenon by the supposed instance of a foreigner, who, after
reading a commentary on the principles of English Law, does not
get nearer to a real apprehension of them than to be led to accuse
Englishmen of considering that the queen is impeccable and
infallible, and that the Parliament is omnipotent. Mr. Kingsley
has read me from beginning to end in the fashion in which the
hypothetical Russian read Blackstone; not, I repeat, from malice, but
because of his intellectual build. He appears to be so constituted as
to have no notion of what goes on in minds very different from his
own, and moreover to be stone-blind to his ignorance. A modest man or
a philosopher would have scrupled to treat with scorn and scoffing,
as Mr. Kingsley does in my own instance, principles and convictions,
even if he did not acquiesce in them himself, which had been held so
widely and for so long--the beliefs and devotions and customs which
have been the religious life of millions upon millions of Christians
for nearly twenty centuries--for this in fact is the task on which he
is spending his pains. Had he been a man of large or cautious mind,
he would not have taken it for granted that cultivation must lead
every one to see things precisely as he sees them himself. But the
narrow-minded are the more prejudiced by very reason of their
narrowness. The apostle bids us "in malice be children, but in
understanding be men." I am glad to recognise in Mr. Kingsley an
illustration of the first half of this precept; but I should not be
honest, if I ascribed to him any sort of fulfilment of the second.
I wish I could speak as favourably either of his drift or of his
method of arguing, as I can of his convictions. As to his drift, I
think its ultimate point is an attack upon the Catholic Religion. It
is I indeed, whom he is immediately insulting--still, he views me
only as a representative, and on the whole a fair one, of a class or
caste of men, to whom, conscious as I am of my own integrity, I
ascribe an excellence superior to mine. He desires to impress upon
the public mind the conviction that I am a crafty, scheming man,
simply untrustworthy; that, in becoming a Catholic, I have just found
my right place; that I do but justify and am properly interpreted by
the common English notion of Roman casuists and confessors; that I
was secretly a Catholic when I was openly professing to be a
clergyman of the Established Church; that so far from bringing, by
means of my conversion, when at length it openly took place, any
strength to the Catholic cause, I am really a burden to it--an
additional evidence of the fact, that to be a pure, german, genuine
Catholic, a man must be either a knave or a fool.
These last words bring me to Mr. Kingsley's method of disputation,
which I must criticise with much severity;--in his drift he does but
follow the ordinary beat of controversy, but in his mode of arguing
he is actually dishonest.
He says that I am either a knave or a fool, and (as we shall see by
and by) he is not quite sure which, probably both. He tells his
readers that on one occasion he said that he had fears I should "end
in one or other of two misfortunes." "He would either," he continues,
"destroy his own sense of honesty, _i.e._ conscious truthfulness--and
become a dishonest person; or he would destroy his common sense,
_i.e._ unconscious truthfulness, and become the slave and puppet
seemingly of his own logic, really of his own fancy.... I thought for
years past that he had become the former; I now see that he has
become the latter." (p. 20). Again, "When I read these outrages upon
common sense, what wonder if I said to myself, 'This man cannot
believe what he is saying?'" (p. 26). Such has been Mr. Kingsley's
state of mind till lately, but now he considers that I am possessed
with a spirit of "almost boundless silliness," of "simple
credulity, the child of scepticism," of "absurdity" (p. 41), of a
"self-deception which has become a sort of frantic honesty" (p. 26).
And as to his fundamental reason for this change, he tells us, he
really does not know what it is (p. 44). However, let the reason be
what it will, its upshot is intelligible enough. He is enabled at
once, by this professed change of judgment about me, to put forward
one of these alternatives, yet to keep the other in reserve;--and
this he actually does. He need not commit himself to a definite
accusation against me, such as requires definite proof and admits of
definite refutation; for he has two strings to his bow;--when he is
thrown off his balance on the one leg, he can recover himself by the
use of the other. If I demonstrate that I am not a knave, he may
exclaim, "Oh, but you are a fool!" and when I demonstrate that I am
not a fool, he may turn round and retort, "Well, then, you are a
knave." I have no objection to reply to his arguments in behalf of
either alternative, but I should have been better pleased to have
been allowed to take them one at a time.
But I have not yet done full justice to the method of disputation,
which Mr. Kingsley thinks it right to adopt. Observe this first:--He
means by a man who is "silly" not a man who is to be pitied, but a
man who is to be _abhorred_. He means a man who is not simply weak
and incapable, but a moral leper; a man who, if not a knave, has
everything bad about him except knavery; nay, rather, has together
with every other worst vice, a spice of knavery to boot. _His_
simpleton is one who has become such, in judgment for his having once
been a knave. _His_ simpleton is not a born fool, but a self-made
idiot, one who has drugged and abused himself into a shameless
depravity; one, who, without any misgiving or remorse, is guilty of
drivelling superstition, of reckless violation of sacred things, of
fanatical excesses, of passionate inanities, of unmanly audacious
tyranny over the weak, meriting the wrath of fathers and brothers.
This is that milder judgment, which he seems to pride himself upon as
so much charity; and, as he expresses it, he "does not know" why.
This is what he really meant in his letter to me of January 14, when
he withdrew his charge of my being dishonest. He said, "The _tone_ of
your letters, even more than their language, makes me feel, _to my
very deep pleasure_,"--what? that you have gambled away your reason,
that you are an intellectual sot, that you are a fool in a frenzy.
And in his pamphlet, he gives us this explanation why he did not say
this to my face, viz. that he had been told that I was "in weak
health," and was "averse to controversy," (pp. 6 and 8). He "felt
some regret for having disturbed me."
But I pass on from these multiform imputations, and confine myself to
this one consideration, viz. that he has made any fresh imputation
upon me at all. He gave up the charge of knavery; well and good: but
where was the logical necessity of his bringing another? I am sitting
at home without a thought of Mr. Kingsley; he wantonly breaks in upon
me with the charge that I had "_informed_" the world "that Truth for
its own sake _need not_ and on the whole _ought not to be_ a virtue
with the Roman clergy." When challenged on the point he cannot bring
a fragment of evidence in proof of his assertion, and he is convicted
of false witness by the voice of the world. Well, I should have
thought that he had now nothing whatever more to do. "Vain man!" he
seems to make answer, "what simplicity in you to think so! If you
have not broken one commandment, let us see whether we cannot convict
you of the breach of another. If you are not a swindler or forger,
you are guilty of arson or burglary. By hook or by crook you shall
not escape. Are _you_ to suffer or _I_? What does it matter to you
who are going off the stage, to receive a slight additional daub
upon a character so deeply stained already? But think of me, the
immaculate lover of Truth, so observant (as I have told you p. 8) of
'_hault courage_ and strict honour,'--and (_aside_)--'and not as this
publican'--do you think I can let you go scot free instead of myself?
No; _noblesse oblige_. Go to the shades, old man, and boast that
Achilles sent you thither."
But I have not even yet done with Mr. Kingsley's method of
disputation. Observe secondly:--when a man is said to be a knave or a
fool, it is commonly meant that he is _either_ the one _or_ the
other; and that,--either in the sense that the hypothesis of his
being a fool is too absurd to be entertained; or, again, as a sort of
contemptuous acquittal of one, who after all has not wit enough to be
wicked. But this is not at all what Mr. Kingsley proposes to himself
in the antithesis which he suggests to his readers. Though he speaks
of me as an utter dotard and fanatic, yet all along, from the
beginning of his pamphlet to the end, he insinuates, he proves from
my writings, and at length in his last pages he openly pronounces,
that after all he was right at first, in thinking me a conscious liar
and deceiver.
Now I wish to dwell on this point. It cannot be doubted, I say, that,
in spite of his professing to consider me as a dotard and driveller,
on the ground of his having given up the notion of my being a knave,
yet it is the very staple of his pamphlet that a knave after all I
must be. By insinuation, or by implication, or by question, or by
irony, or by sneer, or by parable, he enforces again and again a
conclusion which he does not categorically enunciate.
For instance (1) P. 14. "I know that men _used to suspect Dr.
Newman_, I have been inclined to do so myself, of writing a whole
sermon ... for the sake of one single passing hint, one phrase, one
epithet, one little barbed arrow which ... he delivered unheeded, as
with his finger tip, to the very heart of an initiated hearer, _never
to be withdrawn again_."
(2) P. 15. "How _was_ I to know that the preacher, who had the
reputation of being the most _acute_ man of his generation, and of
having a specially intimate acquaintance with the weaknesses of the
human heart, was utterly blind to the broad meaning and the plain
practical result of a sermon like this, delivered before fanatic and
hot-headed young men, who hung upon his every word? That he did not
_foresee_ that they would think that they obeyed him, _by becoming
affected, artificial, sly, shifty, ready for concealments and
equivocations_?"
(3) P. 17. "No one _would have_ suspected him to be a dishonest man,
if he had not perversely chosen _to assume a style_ which (as he
himself confesses) the world always associates with dishonesty."
(4) Pp. 29, 30. "_If_ he will indulge in subtle paradoxes, in
rhetorical exaggerations; if, _whenever he touches on the question of
truth and honesty_, he will take a perverse pleasure in saying
something shocking to plain English notions, he _must take the
consequences of his own eccentricities_."
(5) P. 34. "At which most of my readers will be inclined to cry: 'Let
Dr. Newman alone, after that.... He had a human reason once, no
doubt: but he has gambled it away.' ... True: so true, etc."
(6) P. 34. He continues: "I should never have written these pages,
save because it was my duty to show the world, if not Dr. Newman, how
the mistake (!) of his _not caring_ for truth _arose_."
(7) P. 37. "And this is the man, who when accused of countenancing
falsehood, puts on first a tone of _plaintive_ (!) and startled
innocence, and then one of smug self-satisfaction--as who should ask,
'What have I said? What have I done? Why am I on my trial?'"
(8) P. 40. "What Dr. Newman teaches is clear at last, and _I see now
how deeply I have wronged him_. So far from thinking truth for its
own sake to be no virtue, _he considers it a virtue so lofty as to be
unattainable by man_."
(9) P. 43. "There is no use in wasting words on this 'economical'
statement of Dr. Newman's. I shall only say that there are people in
the world whom it is very difficult to _help_. As soon as they are
got out of one scrape, they walk straight into another."
(10) P. 43. "Dr. Newman has shown 'wisdom' enough of that
_serpentine_ type which is his professed ideal.... Yes, Dr. Newman is
a very economical person."
(11) P. 44. "Dr. Newman _tries_, by _cunning sleight-of-hand logic_,
to prove that I did not believe the accusation when I made it."
(12) P. 45. "These are hard words. If Dr. Newman shall complain of
them, I can only remind him of the fate which befel the stork caught
among the cranes, _even though_ the stork had _not_ done all he could
to make himself like a crane, _as Dr. Newman has_, by 'economising'
on the very title-page of his pamphlet."
These last words bring us to another and far worse instance of these
slanderous assaults upon me, but its place is in a subsequent page.
Now it may be asked of me, "Well, why should not Mr. Kingsley take a
course such as this? It was his original assertion that Dr. Newman
was a professed liar, and a patron of lies; he spoke somewhat at
random, granted; but now he has got up his references and he is
proving, not perhaps the very thing which he said at first, but
something very like it, and to say the least quite as bad. He is now
only aiming to justify morally his original assertion; why is he not
at liberty to do so?"
_Why_ should he _not_ now insinuate that I am a liar and a knave! he
had of course a perfect right to make such a charge, if he chose; he
might have said, "I was virtually right, and here is the proof of
it," but this he has not done, but on the contrary has professed that
he no longer draws from my works, as he did before, the inference of
my dishonesty. He says distinctly, p. 26, "When I read these outrages
upon common sense, what wonder if I said to myself, 'This man cannot
believe what he is saying?' _I believe I was wrong_." And in p. 31,
"I said, This man has no real care for truth. Truth for its own sake
is no virtue in his eyes, and he teaches that it need not be. _I do
not say that now_." And in p. 41, "I do not call this conscious
dishonesty; the man who wrote that sermon _was already past the
possibility_ of such a sin."
_Why_ should he _not_! because it is on the ground of my not being a
knave that he calls me a fool; adding to the words just quoted, "[My
readers] have fallen perhaps into the prevailing superstition that
cleverness is synonymous with wisdom. They cannot believe that (as is
too certain) great literary and even barristerial ability may
co-exist with almost boundless silliness."
_Why_ should he _not_! because he has taken credit to himself for
that high feeling of honour which refuses to withdraw a concession
which once has been made; though (wonderful to say!), at the very
time that he is recording this magnanimous resolution, he lets it out
of the bag that his relinquishment of it is only a profession and a
pretence; for he says, p. 8: "I have accepted Dr. Newman's denial
that [the Sermon] means what I thought it did; and _heaven forbid_"
(oh!) "that I should withdraw my word once given, _at whatever
disadvantage to myself_." Disadvantage! but nothing can be
advantageous to him which is _untrue_; therefore in proclaiming that
the concession of my honesty is a disadvantage to him, he thereby
implies unequivocally that there is some probability still, that I am
_dis_honest. He goes on, "I am informed by those from whose judgment
on such points there is no appeal, that '_en hault courage_,' and
strict honour, I am also _precluded_, by the _terms_ of my
explanation, from using any other of Dr. Newman's past writings to
prove my assertion." And then, "I have declared Dr. Newman to have
been an honest man up to the 1st of February, 1864; it was, as I
shall show, only Dr. Newman's fault that I ever thought him to be
anything else. It depends entirely on Dr. Newman whether he shall
_sustain_ the reputation which he has so recently acquired," (by
diploma of course from Mr. Kingsley.) "If I give him thereby a fresh
advantage in this argument, he is _most welcome_ to it. He needs, it
seems to me, _as many advantages as possible_."
What a princely mind! How loyal to his rash promise, how delicate
towards the subject of it, how conscientious in his interpretation of
it! I have no thought of irreverence towards a Scripture Saint, who
was actuated by a very different spirit from Mr. Kingsley's, but
somehow since I read his pamphlet words have been running in my head,
which I find in the Douay version thus; "Thou hast also with thee
Semei the son of Gera, who cursed me with a grievous curse when I
went to the camp, but I swore to him, saying, I will not kill thee
with the sword. Do not thou hold him guiltless. But thou art a wise
man and knowest what to do with him, and thou shalt bring down his
grey hairs with blood to hell."
Now I ask, Why could not Mr. Kingsley be open? If he intended still
to arraign me on the charge of lying, why could he not say so as a
man? Why must he insinuate, question, imply, and use sneering and
irony, as if longing to touch a forbidden fruit, which still he was
afraid would burn his fingers, if he did so? Why must he "palter in a
double sense," and blow hot and cold in one breath? He first said he
considered me a patron of lying; well, he changed his opinion; and as
to the logical ground of this change, he said that, if any one asked
him what it was, he could only answer that _he really did not know_.
Why could not he change back again, and say he did not know why? He
had quite a right to do so; and then his conduct would have been so
far straightforward and unexceptionable. But no;--in the very act of
professing to believe in my sincerity, he takes care to show the
world that it is a profession and nothing more. That very proceeding
which at p. 15 he lays to my charge (whereas I detest it), of avowing
one thing and thinking another, that proceeding he here exemplifies
himself; and yet, while indulging in practices as offensive as this,
he ventures to speak of his sensitive admiration of "hault courage
and strict honour!" "I forgive you, Sir Knight," says the heroine in
the Romance, "I forgive you as a Christian." "That means," said
Wamba, "that she does not forgive him at all." Mr. Kingsley's word of
honour is about as valuable as in the jester's opinion was the
Christian charity of Rowena. But here we are brought to a further
specimen of Mr. Kingsley's method of disputation, and having duly
exhibited it, I shall have done with him.
It is his last, and he has intentionally reserved it for his last.
Let it be recollected that he professed to absolve me from his
original charge of dishonesty up to February 1. And further, he
implies that, _at the time when he was writing_, I had not _yet_
involved myself in any fresh acts suggestive of that sin. He says
that I have had a great _escape_ of conviction, that he hopes I shall
take warning, and act more cautiously. "It depends entirely," he
says, "on _Dr. Newman, whether_ he shall _sustain_ the reputation
which he has so recently acquired" (p. 8). Thus, in Mr. Kingsley's
judgment, I was _then_, when he wrote these words, _still_ innocent
of dishonesty, for a man cannot sustain what he actually has not got;
_only he could not be sure of my future_. Could not be sure! Why at
this very time he had already noted down valid proofs, as he thought
them, that I _had_ already forfeited the character which he
contemptuously accorded to me. He had cautiously said "_up to_
February 1st," _in order_ to reserve the title-page and last three
pages of my pamphlet, which were not published till February 12th,
and out of these four pages, which he had _not_ whitewashed, he had
_already_ forged charges against me of dishonesty at the very time
that he implied that as yet there was nothing against me. When he
gave me that plenary condonation, as it seemed to be, he had already
done his best that I should never enjoy it. He knew well at p. 8,
what he meant to say at pp. 44 and 45. At best indeed I was only out
upon ticket of leave; but that ticket was a pretence; he had made
it forfeit when he gave it. But he did not say so at once, first,
because between p. 8 and p. 44 he meant to talk a great deal about my
idiotcy and my frenzy, which would have been simply out of place, had
he proved me too soon to be a knave again; and next, because he meant
to exhaust all those insinuations about my knavery in the past, which
"strict honour" did not permit him to countenance, in order thereby
to give colour and force to his direct charges of knavery in the
present, which "strict honour" _did_ permit him to handsel. So in the
fifth act he gave a start, and found to his horror that, in my
miserable four pages, I had committed the "enormity" of an "economy,"
which in matter of fact he had got by heart before he began the play.
Nay, he suddenly found two, three, and (for what he knew) as many as
four profligate economies in that title-page and those Reflections,
and he uses the language of distress and perplexity at this appalling
discovery.
Now why this _coup de theatre_? The reason soon breaks on us. Up to
February 1, he could not categorically arraign me for lying, and
therefore could not involve me (as was so necessary for his case), in
the popular abhorrence which is felt for the casuists of Rome: but,
as soon as ever he could openly and directly pronounce (saving his
"hault courage and strict honour") that I am guilty of three or four
new economies, then at once I am made to bear, not only my own sins,
but the sins of other people also, and, though I have been condoned
the knavery of my antecedents, I am guilty of the knavery of a whole
priesthood instead. So the hour of doom for Semei is come, and the
wise man knows what to do with him;--he is down upon me with the
odious names of "St. Alfonso da Liguori," and "Scavini" and
"Neyraguet," and "the Romish moralists," and their "compeers and
pupils," and I am at once merged and whirled away in the gulph of
notorious quibblers, and hypocrites, and rogues.
But we have not even yet got at the real object of the stroke, thus
reserved for his _finale_. I really feel sad for what I am obliged
now to say. I am in warfare with him, but I wish him no ill;--it is
very difficult to get up resentment towards persons whom one has
never seen. It is easy enough to be irritated with friends or foes,
_vis-a-vis_; but, though I am writing with all my heart against what
he has said of me, I am not conscious of personal unkindness towards
himself. I think it necessary to write as I am writing, for my own
sake, and for the sake of the Catholic priesthood; but I wish to
impute nothing worse to Kingsley than that he has been furiously
carried away by his feelings. But what shall I say of the upshot of
all this talk of my economies and equivocations and the like? What is
the precise _work_ which it is directed to effect? I am at war with
him; but there is such a thing as legitimate warfare: war has its
laws; there are things which may fairly be done, and things which may
not be done. I say it with shame and with stern sorrow;--he has
attempted a great transgression; he has attempted (as I may call it)
to _poison the wells_. I will quote him and explain what I mean.
"Dr. Newman tries, by cunning sleight-of-hand logic, to prove that I
did not believe the accusation when I made it. Therein he is
mistaken. I did believe it, and I believed also his indignant denial.
But when he goes on to ask with sneers, why I should believe his
denial, if I did not consider him trustworthy in the first instance?
I can only answer, I really do not know. There is a _great deal_ to
be said for _that_ view, _now that_ Dr. Newman has become (one must
needs suppose) _suddenly_ and _since_ the 1st of February, 1864, a
convert to the _economic_ views of St. Alfonso da Liguori and his
compeers. I am _henceforth_ in doubt and _fear_, as much as any
honest man can be, _concerning every word_ Dr. Newman may write. _How
can I tell that I shall not be the dupe of some cunning
equivocation_, of one of the three kinds laid down as permissible by
the blessed Alfonso da Liguori and his pupils, even when confirmed by
an oath, because 'then we do not deceive our neighbour, but allow him
to deceive himself?' ... It is admissible, therefore, to use words
and sentences which have a double signification, and leave the
hapless hearer to take which of them he may choose. _What proof have
I, then, that by 'mean it? I never said it!' Dr. Newman does not
signify_, I did not say it, but I did mean it?"--Pp. 44, 45.
Now these insinuations and questions shall be answered in their
proper places; here I will but say that I scorn and detest lying, and
quibbling, and double-tongued practice, and slyness, and cunning, and
smoothness, and cant, and pretence, quite as much as any Protestants
hate them; and I pray to be kept from the snare of them. But all this
is just now by the bye; my present subject is Mr. Kingsley; what I
insist upon here, now that I am bringing this portion of my
discussion to a close, is this unmanly attempt of his, in his
concluding pages, to cut the ground from under my feet;--to poison by
anticipation the public mind against me, John Henry Newman, and to
infuse into the imaginations of my readers, suspicion and mistrust of
everything that I may say in reply to him. This I call _poisoning the
wells_.
"I am henceforth in _doubt and fear_," he says, "as much as any
_honest_ man can be, _concerning every word_ Dr. Newman may write.
_How can I tell that I shall not be the dupe of some cunning
equivocation?_ ... What proof have I, that by 'mean it? I never said
it!' Dr. Newman does not signify, 'I did not say it, but I did mean
it'?"
Well, I can only say, that, if his taunt is to take effect, I am but
wasting my time in saying a word in answer to his foul calumnies; and
this is precisely what he knows and intends to be its fruit. I can
hardly get myself to protest against a method of controversy so base
and cruel, lest in doing so, I should be violating my self-respect
and self-possession; but most base and most cruel it is. We all know
how our imagination runs away with us, how suddenly and at what a
pace;--the saying, "Caesar's wife should not be suspected," is an
instance of what I mean. The habitual prejudice, the humour of the
moment, is the turning-point which leads us to read a defence in a
good sense or a bad. We interpret it by our antecedent impressions.
The very same sentiments, according as our jealousy is or is not
awake, or our aversion stimulated, are tokens of truth or of
dissimulation and pretence. There is a story of a sane person being
by mistake shut up in the wards of a lunatic asylum, and that, when
he pleaded his cause to some strangers visiting the establishment,
the only remark he elicited in answer was, "How naturally he talks!
you would think he was in his senses." Controversies should be
decided by the reason; is it legitimate warfare to appeal to the
misgivings of the public mind and to its dislikings? Anyhow, if
Mr. Kingsley is able thus to practise upon my readers, the more I
succeed, the less will be my success. If I am natural, he will tell
them, "Ars est celare artem;" if I am convincing, he will suggest
that I am an able logician; if I show warmth, I am acting the
indignant innocent; if I am calm, I am thereby detected as a smooth
hypocrite; if I clear up difficulties, I am too plausible and perfect
to be true. The more triumphant are my statements, the more certain
will be my defeat.
So will it be if Mr. Kingsley succeeds in his manoeuvre; but I do
not for an instant believe that he will. Whatever judgment my readers
may eventually form of me from these pages, I am confident that they
will believe me in what I shall say in the course of them. I have no
misgiving it all, that they will be ungenerous or harsh with a man
who has been so long before the eyes of the world; who has so many to
speak of him from personal knowledge; whose natural impulse it has
ever been to speak out; who has ever spoken too much rather than too
little; who would have saved himself many a scrape, if he had been
wise enough to hold his tongue; who has ever been fair to the
doctrines and arguments of his opponents; who has never slurred over
facts and reasonings which told against himself; who has never given
his name or authority to proofs which he thought unsound, or to
testimony which he did not think at least plausible; who has never
shrunk from confessing a fault when he felt that he had committed
one; who has ever consulted for others more than for himself; who has
given up much that he loved and prized and could have retained, but
that he loved honesty better than name, and truth better than dear
friends.
And now I am in a train of thought higher and more serene than any
which slanders can disturb. Away with you, Mr. Kingsley, and fly into
space. Your name shall occur again as little as I can help, in the
course of these pages. I shall henceforth occupy myself not with you,
but with your charges.