people is adopted by the State, whilst in the other the State imposes a
religion on the people. For the political justification of Catholic
establishments, no more is required than the theory that it is just that
the religion of a country should be represented in, and protected by,
its government. This is evidently and universally true; for the moral
basis which human laws require can only be derived from an influence
which was originally religious as well as moral. The unity of moral
consciousness must be founded on a precedent unity of spiritual belief.
According to this theory, the character of the nation determines the
forms of the State. Consequently it is a theory consistent with freedom.
But Protestant establishments, according to our author's definition,
which applies to them, and to them alone, rest on the opposite theory,
that the will of the State is independent of the condition of the
community; and that it may, or indeed must, impose on the nation a faith
which may be that of a minority, and which in some cases has been that
of the sovereign alone. According to the Catholic view, government may
preserve in its laws, and by its authority, the religion of the
community; according to the Protestant view it may be bound to change
it. A government which has power to change the faith of its subjects
must be absolute in other things; so that one theory is as favourable to
tyranny as the other is opposed to it. The safeguard of the Catholic
system of Church and State, as contrasted with the Protestant, was that
very authority which the Holy See used to prevent the sovereign from
changing the religion of the people, by deposing him if he departed from
it himself. In most Catholic countries the Church preceded the State;
some she assisted to form; all she contributed to sustain. Throughout
Western Europe Catholicism was the religion of the inhabitants before
the new monarchies were founded. The invaders, who became the dominant
race and the architects of a new system of States, were sooner or later
compelled, in order to preserve their dominion, to abandon their pagan
or their Arian religion, and to adopt the common faith of the immense
majority of the people. The connection between Church and State was
therefore a natural, not an arbitrary, institution; the result of the
submission of the Government to popular influence, and the means by
which that influence was perpetuated. No Catholic Government ever
imposed a Catholic establishment on a Protestant community, or destroyed
a Protestant establishment. Even the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
the greatest wrong ever inflicted on the Protestant subjects of a
Catholic State, will bear no comparison with the establishment of the
religion of a minority. It is a far greater wrong than the most severe
persecution, because persecution may be necessary for the preservation
of an existing society, as in the case of the early Christians and of
the Albigenses; but a State Church can only be justified by the
acquiescence of the nation. In every other case it is a great social
danger, and is inseparable from political oppression.
Mr. Goldwin Smith's vision is bounded by the Protestant horizon. The
Irish establishment has one great mark in common with the other
Protestant establishments,--that it is the creature of the State, and an
instrument of political influence. They were all imposed on the nation
by the State power, sometimes against the will of the people, sometimes
against that of the Crown. By the help of military power and of penal
laws, the State strove to provide that the Established Church should not
be the religion of the minority. But in Ireland the establishment was
introduced too late--when Protestantism had spent its expansive force,
and the attraction of its doctrine no longer aided the efforts of the
civil power. Its position was false from the beginning, and obliged it
to resort to persecution and official proselytism in order to put an end
to the anomaly. Whilst, therefore, in all cases, Protestantism became
the Established Church by an exercise of authority tyrannical in itself,
and possible only from the absolutism of the ruling power, in Ireland
the tyranny of its institution was perpetuated in the system by which it
was upheld, and in the violence with which it was introduced; and this
tyranny continues through all its existence. It is the religion of the
minority, the church of an alien State, the cause of suffering and of
disturbance, an instrument, a creature, and a monument of conquest and
of tyranny. It has nothing in common with Catholic establishments, and
none of those qualities which, in the Anglican Church, redeem in part
the guilt of its origin. This is not, however, the only point on which
our author has mistaken the peculiar and enormous character of the evils
of Ireland.
With the injustice which generally attends his historical parallels, he
compares the policy of the Orange faction to that of the Jacobins in
France.
The ferocity of the Jacobins was in a slight degree redeemed by their
fanaticism. Their objects were not entirely selfish. They murdered
aristocrats, not only because they hated and feared them, but because
they wildly imagined them to stand in the way of the social and
political millennium, which, according to Rousseau, awaited the
acceptance of mankind (p. 175).
No comparison can be more unfair than one which places the pitiless
fanaticism of an idea in the same line with the cruelty inspired by a
selfish interest. The Reign of Terror is one of the most portentous
events in history, because it was the consistent result of the simplest
and most acceptable principle of the Revolution; it saved France from
the coalition, and it was the greatest attempt ever made to mould the
form of a society by force into harmony with a speculative form of
Government. An explanation which treats self-interest as its primary
motive, and judges other elements as merely qualifying it, is
ludicrously inadequate.
The Terrorism of Robespierre was produced by the theory of equality,
which was not a mere passion, but a political doctrine, and at the same
time a national necessity. Political philosophers who, since the time of
Hobbes, derive the State from a social compact, necessarily assume that
the contracting parties were equal among themselves. By nature,
therefore, all men possess equal rights, and a right to equality. The
introduction of the civil power and of private property brought
inequality into the world. This is opposed to the condition and to the
rights of the natural state. The writers of the eighteenth century
attributed to this circumstance the evils and sufferings of society. In
France, the ruin of the public finances and the misery of the lower
orders were both laid at the door of the classes whose property was
exempt from taxation. The endeavours of successive ministers--of Turgot,
Necker, and Calonne--to break down the privileges of the aristocracy and
of the clergy were defeated by the resistance of the old society. The
Government attempted to save itself by obtaining concessions from the
Notables, but without success, and then the great reform which the State
was impotent to carry into execution was effected by the people. The
destruction of the aristocratic society, which the absolute monarchy had
failed to reform, was the object and the triumph of the Revolution; and
the Constitution of 1791 declared all men equal, and withdrew the
sanction of the law from every privilege.
This system gave only an equality in civil rights, a political equality
such as already subsisted in America; but it did not provide against the
existence or the growth of those social inequalities by which the
distribution of political power might be affected. But the theory of the
natural equality of mankind understands equal rights as rights to equal
things in the State, and requires not only an abstract equality of
rights, but a positive equality of power. The varieties of condition
caused by civilisation were so objectionable in the eyes of this school,
that Rousseau wrote earnest vindications of natural society, and
condemned the whole social fabric of Europe as artificial, unnatural,
and monstrous. His followers laboured to destroy the work of history and
the influence of the past, and to institute a natural, reasonable order
of things which should dispose all men on an equal level, which no
disparity of wealth or education should be permitted to disturb. There
were, therefore, two opinions in the revolutionary party. Those who
overthrew the monarchy, established the republic, and commenced the war,
were content with having secured political and legal equality, and
wished to leave the nation in the enjoyment of those advantages which
fortune distributes unequally. But the consistent partisans of equality
required that nothing should be allowed to raise one man above another.
The Girondists wished to preserve liberty, education, and property; but
the Jacobins, who held that an absolute equality should be maintained by
the despotism of the government over the people, interpreted more justly
the democratic principles which were common to both parties; and,
fortunately for their country, they triumphed over their illogical and
irresolute adversaries. "When the revolutionary movement was once
established," says De Maistre, "nothing but Jacobinism could save
France."
Three weeks after the fall of the Gironde, the Constitution of 1793, by
which a purely ideal democracy was instituted, was presented to the
French people. Its adoption exactly coincides with the supremacy of
Robespierre in the Committee of Public Safety, and with the inauguration
of the Reign of Terror. The danger of invasion made the new tyranny
possible, but the political doctrine of the Jacobins made it necessary.
Robespierre explains the system in his report on the principles of
political morality, presented to the Convention at the moment of his
greatest power:--
If the principle of a popular government in time of peace is virtue,
its principle during revolution is virtue and terror combined:
virtue, without which terror is pernicious; terror, without which
virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing but rapid, severe, inflexible
justice; therefore a product of virtue. It is not so much a principle
in itself, as a consequence of the universal principle of democracy
in its application to the urgent necessities of the country.
This is perfectly true. Envy, revenge, fear, were motives by which
individuals were induced or enabled to take part in the administration
of such a system; but its introduction was not the work of passion, but
the inevitable result of a doctrine. The democratic Constitution
required to be upheld by violence, not only against foreign arms, but
against the state of society and the nature of things. The army could
not be made its instrument, because the rulers were civilians, and
feared, beyond all things, the influence of military officers in the
State. Officers were frequently arrested and condemned as traitors,
compelled to seek safety in treason, watched and controlled by members
of the Convention. In the absence of a military despotism, the
revolutionary tribunal was the only resource.
The same theory of an original state of nature, from which the principle
of equality was deduced, also taught men where they might find the
standard of equality; as civilisation, by means of civil power,
education, and wealth, was the source of corruption, the purity of
virtue was to be found in the classes which had been least exposed to
those disturbing causes. Those who were least tainted by the temptations
of civilised society remained in the natural state. This was the
definition of the new notion of the people, which became the measure of
virtue and of equality. The democratic theory required that the whole
nation should be reduced to the level of the lower orders in all those
things in which society creates disparity, in order to be raised to the
level of that republican virtue which resides among those who have
retained a primitive simplicity by escaping the influence of
civilisation.
The form of government and the condition of society must always
correspond. Social equality is therefore a postulate of pure democracy.
It was necessary that it should exist if the Constitution was to stand,
and if the great ideal of popular enthusiasm was ever to be realised.
The Revolution had begun by altering the social condition of the
country; the correction of society by the State had already commenced.
It did not, therefore, seem impossible to continue it until the nation
should be completely remodelled in conformity with the new principles.
The system before which the ancient monarchy had fallen, which was so
fruitful of marvels, which was victorious over a more formidable
coalition than that which had humbled Lewis XIV., was deemed equal to
the task of completing the social changes which had been so extensively
begun, and of moulding France according to the new and simple pattern.
The equality which was essential to the existence of the new form of
government did not in fact exist. Privilege was abolished, but influence
remained. All the inequality founded on wealth, education, ability,
reputation, even on the virtues of a code different from that of
republican morality, presented obstacles to the establishment of the new
_regime_, and those who were thus distinguished were necessarily enemies
of the State. With perfect reason, all that rose above the common level,
or did not conform to the universal rule, was deemed treasonable. The
difference between the actual society and the ideal equality was so
great that it could be removed only by violence. The great mass of those
who perished were really, either by attachment or by their condition, in
antagonism with the State. They were condemned, not for particular
acts, but for their position, or for acts which denoted, not so much a
hostile design, as an incompatible habit. By the _loi des suspects_,
which was provoked by this conflict between the form of government and
the real state of the country, whole classes, rather than ill-disposed
individuals, were declared objects of alarm. Hence the proscription was
wholesale. Criminals were judged and executed in categories; and the
merits of individual cases were, therefore, of little account. For this
reason, leading men of ability, bitterly hostile to the new system, were
saved by Danton; for it was often indifferent who were the victims,
provided the group to which they belonged was struck down. The question
was not, what crimes has the prisoner committed? but, does he belong to
one of those classes whose existence the Republic cannot tolerate? From
this point of view, there were not so many unjust judgments pronounced,
at least in Paris, as is generally believed. It was necessary to be
prodigal of blood, or to abandon the theory of liberty and equality,
which had commanded, for a whole generation, the enthusiastic devotion
of educated men, and for the truth of which thousands of its believers
were ready to die. The truth of that doctrine was tested by a terrible
alternative; but the fault lay with those who believed it, not
exclusively with those who practised it. There were few who could
administer such a system without any other motive but devotion to the
idea, or who could retain the coolness and indifference of which St.
Just is an extraordinary example. Most of the Terrorists were swayed by
fear for themselves, or by the frenzy which is produced by familiarity
with slaughter. But this is of small account. The significance of that
sanguinary drama lies in the fact, that a political abstraction was
powerful enough to make men think themselves right in destroying masses
of their countrymen in the attempt to impose it on their country. The
horror of that system and its failure have given vitality to the
communistic theory. It was unreasonable to attack the effect instead of
the cause, and cruel to destroy the proprietor, while the danger lay in
the property. For private property necessarily produces that inequality
which the Jacobin theory condemned; and the Constitution of 1793 could
not be maintained by Terrorism without Communism, by proscribing the
rich while riches were tolerated. The Jacobins were guilty of
inconsistency in omitting to attack inequality in its source. Yet no man
who admits their theory has a right to complain of their acts. The one
proceeded from the other with the inflexible logic of history. The Reign
of Terror was nothing else than the reign of those who conceive that
liberty and equality can coexist.
One more quotation will sufficiently justify what we have said of the
sincerity and ignorance which Mr. Goldwin Smith shows in his remarks on
Catholic subjects. After calling the Bull of Adrian IV. "the
stumbling-block and the despair of Catholic historians," he proceeded to
say:--
Are Catholics filled with perplexity at the sight of infallibility
sanctioning rapine? They can scarcely be less perplexed by the title
which infallibility puts forward to the dominion of Ireland.... But
this perplexity arises entirely from the assumption, which may be an
article of faith, but is not an article of history, that the
infallible morality of the Pope has never changed (pp. 46, 47).
It is hard to understand how a man of honour and ability can entertain
such notions of the character of the Papacy as these words imply, or
where he can have found authorities for so monstrous a caricature. We
will only say that infallibility is no attribute of the political system
of the Popes, and that the Bulls of Adrian and Alexander are not
instances of infallible morality.
Great as the errors which we have pointed out undoubtedly are, the book
itself is of real value, and encourages us to form sanguine hopes of the
future services of its author to historical science, and ultimately to
religion. We are hardly just in complaining of Protestant writers who
fail to do justice to the Church. There are not very many amongst
ourselves who take the trouble to ascertain her real character as a
visible institution, or to know how her nature has been shown in her
history. We know the doctrine which she teaches; we are familiar with
the outlines of her discipline. We know that sanctity is one of her
marks, and that beneficence has characterised her influence. In a
general way we are confident that historical accusations are as false as
dogmatic attacks, and most of us have some notion of the way in which
the current imputations are to be met. But as to her principles of
action in many important things, how they have varied in course of time,
what changes have been effected by circumstances, and what rules have
never been broken,--few are at the pains to inquire. As adversaries
imagine that in exposing a Catholic they strike Catholicism, and that
the defects of the men are imperfections in the institution and a proof
that it is not divine, so we grow accustomed to confound in our defence
that which is defective and that which is indefectible, and to discover
in the Church merits as self-contradictory as are the accusations of her
different foes. At one moment we are told that Catholicism teaches
contempt, and therefore neglect of wealth; at another, that it is false
to say that the Church does not promote temporal prosperity. If a great
point is made against persecution, it will be denied that she is
intolerant, whilst at another time it will be argued that heresy and
unbelief deserve to be punished.
We cannot be surprised that Protestants do not know the Church better
than we do ourselves, or that, while we allow no evil to be spoken of
her human elements, those who deem her altogether human should discover
in her the defects of human institutions. It is intensely difficult to
enter into the spirit of a system not our own. Particular principles and
doctrines are easily mastered; but a system answering all the spiritual
cravings, all the intellectual capabilities of man, demands more than a
mere mental effort,--a submission of the intellect, an act of faith, a
temporary suspension of the critical faculty. This applies not merely
to the Christian religion, with its unfathomable mysteries and its
inexhaustible fund of truth, but to the fruits of human speculation.
Nobody has ever succeeded in writing a history of philosophy without
incurring either the reproach that he is a mere historian, incapable of
entering into the genius of any system, or a mere metaphysician, who can
discern in all other philosophies only the relation they bear to his
own. In religion the difficulty is greater still, and greatest of all
with Catholicism. For the Church is to be seen, not in books, but in
life. No divine can put together the whole body of her doctrine; no
canonist the whole fabric of her law; no historian the infinite
vicissitudes of her career. The Protestant who wishes to be informed on
all these things can be advised to rely on no one manual, on no
encyclopaedia of her deeds and of her ideas; if he seeks to know what
these have been, he must be told to look around. And to one who surveys
her teaching and her fortunes through all ages and all lands, ignorant
or careless of that which is essential, changeless, and immortal in her,
it will not be easy to discern through so much outward change a regular
development, amid such variety of forms the unchanging substance, in so
many modifications fidelity to constant laws; or to recognise, in a
career so chequered with failure, disaster, and suffering, with the
apostasy of heroes, the weakness of rulers, and the errors of doctors,
the unfailing hand of a heavenly Guide.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 322: _The Rambler_, March 1862.]
[Footnote 323: _Works_, ii. 47. This is one of the passages which,
seventy years ago, were declared to be treasonable. We trust we run no
risk in confessing that we entirely agree with it.]
[Footnote 324: Tocqueville, _L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution_, Preface,
p. xvi.]
[Footnote 325: "From what I have observed, it is pride, arrogance, and a
spirit of domination, and not a bigoted spirit of religion, that has
caused and kept up those oppressive statutes. I am sure I have known
those who have oppressed Papists in their civil rights exceedingly
indulgent to them in their religious ceremonies, and who really wished
them to continue Catholics, in order to furnish pretences for
oppression. These persons never saw a man (by converting) escape out of
their power but with grudging and regret" (Burke. "On the Penal Laws
against Irish Catholics," _Works_, iv. 505).
"I vow to God, I would sooner bring myself to put a man to immediate
death for opinions I disliked, and so to get rid of the man and his
opinions at once, than to fret him into a feverish being tainted with
the jail-distemper of a contagious servitude, to keep him above ground,
an animated mass of putrefaction, corrupted himself, and corrupting all
about him" (Speech at Bristol, _ibid._ iii. 427).]
IX
NATIONALITY[326]
Whenever great intellectual cultivation has been combined with that
suffering which is inseparable from extensive changes in the condition
of the people, men of speculative or imaginative genius have sought in
the contemplation of an ideal society a remedy, or at least a
consolation, for evils which they were practically unable to remove.
Poetry has always preserved the idea, that at some distant time or
place, in the Western islands or the Arcadian region, an innocent and
contented people, free from the corruption and restraint of civilised
life, have realised the legends of the golden age. The office of the
poets is always nearly the same, and there is little variation in the
features of their ideal world; but when philosophers attempt to admonish
or reform mankind by devising an imaginary state, their motive is more
definite and immediate, and their commonwealth is a satire as well as a
model. Plato and Plotinus, More and Campanella, constructed their
fanciful societies with those materials which were omitted from the
fabric of the actual communities, by the defects of which they were
inspired. The Republic, the Utopia, and the City of the Sun were
protests against a state of things which the experience of their authors
taught them to condemn, and from the faults of which they took refuge in
the opposite extremes. They remained without influence, and have never
passed from literary into political history, because something more than
discontent and speculative ingenuity is needed in order to invest a
political idea with power over the masses of mankind. The scheme of a
philosopher can command the practical allegiance of fanatics only, not
of nations; and though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated
outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a
settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of
happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.