never abandon without treason to their own convictions, and infidelity
to the objects they have publicly avowed. That foundation is a humble
faith in the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church, a devotion to
her cause which controls every other interest, and an attachment to her
authority which no other influence can supplant. If in anything
published by us a passage can be found which is contrary to that
doctrine, incompatible with that devotion, or disrespectful to that
authority, we sincerely retract and lament it. No such passage was ever
consciously admitted into the pages either of the late _Rambler_ or of
this Review. But undoubtedly we may have committed errors in judgment,
and admitted errors of fact; such mistakes are unavoidable in secular
matters, and no one is exempt from them in spiritual things except by
the constant assistance of Divine grace. Our wish and purpose are not to
deny faults, but to repair them; to instruct, not to disturb our
readers; to take down the barriers which shut out our Protestant
countrymen from the Church, not to raise up divisions within her pale;
and to confirm and deepen, not to weaken, alter, or circumscribe the
faith of Catholics.
The most exalted methods of serving religion do not lie in the path of a
periodical which addresses a general audience. The appliances of the
spiritual life belong to a more retired sphere--that of the priesthood,
of the sacraments, of religious offices; that of prayer, meditation, and
self-examination. They are profaned by exposure, and choked by the
distractions of public affairs. The world cannot be taken into the
confidence of our inner life, nor can the discussion of ascetic morality
be complicated with the secular questions of the day. To make the
attempt would be to usurp and degrade a holier office. The function of
the journalist is on another level. He may toil in the same service, but
not in the same rank, as the master-workman. His tools are coarser, his
method less refined, and if his range is more extended, his influence is
less intense. Literature, like government, assists religion, but it does
so indirectly, and from without. The ends for which it works are
distinct from those of the Church, and yet subsidiary to them; and the
more independently each force achieves its own end, the more complete
will the ultimate agreement be found, and the more will religion profit.
The course of a periodical publication in its relation to the Church is
defined by this distinction of ends; its sphere is limited by the
difference and inferiority of the means which it employs, while the need
for its existence and its independence is vindicated by the necessity
there is for the service it performs.
It is the peculiar mission of the Church to be the channel of grace to
each soul by her spiritual and pastoral action--she alone has this
mission; but it is not her only work. She has also to govern and
educate, so far as government and education are needful subsidiaries to
her great work of the salvation of souls. By her discipline, her
morality, her law, she strives to realise the divine order upon earth;
while by her intellectual labour she seeks an even fuller knowledge of
the works, the ideas, and the nature of God. But the ethical and
intellectual offices of the Church, as distinct from her spiritual
office, are not hers exclusively or peculiarly. They were discharged,
however imperfectly, before she was founded; and they are discharged
still, independently of her, by two other authorities,--science and
society; the Church cannot perform all these functions by herself, nor,
consequently, can she absorb their direction. The political and
intellectual orders remain permanently distinct from the spiritual. They
follow their own ends, they obey their own laws, and in doing so they
support the cause of religion by the discovery of truth and the
upholding of right. They render this service by fulfilling their own
ends independently and unrestrictedly, not by surrendering them for the
sake of spiritual interests. Whatever diverts government and science
from their own spheres, or leads religion to usurp their domains,
confounds distinct authorities, and imperils not only political right
and scientific truths, but also the cause of faith and morals. A
government that, for the interests of religion, disregards political
right, and a science that, for the sake of protecting faith, wavers and
dissembles in the pursuit of knowledge, are instruments at least as well
adapted to serve the cause of falsehood as to combat it, and never can
be used in furtherance of the truth without that treachery to principle
which is a sacrifice too costly to be made for the service of any
interest whatever.
Again, the principles of religion, government, and science are in
harmony, always and absolutely; but their interests are not. And though
all other interests must yield to those of religion, no principle can
succumb to any interest. A political law or a scientific truth may be
perilous to the morals or the faith of individuals, but it cannot on
this ground be resisted by the Church. It may at times be a duty of the
State to protect freedom of conscience, yet this freedom may be a
temptation to apostasy. A discovery may be made in science which will
shake the faith of thousands, yet religion cannot refute it or object to
it. The difference in this respect between a true and a false religion
is, that one judges all things by the standard of their truth, the other
by the touchstone of its own interests. A false religion fears the
progress of all truth; a true religion seeks and recognises truth
wherever it can be found, and claims the power of regulating and
controlling, not the progress, but the dispensation of knowledge. The
Church both accepts the truth and prepares the individual to receive it.
The religious world has been long divided upon this great question: Do
we find principles in politics and in science? Are their methods so
rigorous that we may not bend them, their conclusions so certain that we
may not dissemble them, in presence of the more rigorous necessity of
the salvation of souls and the more certain truth of the dogmas of
faith? This question divides Protestants into rationalists and pietists.
The Church solves it in practice, by admitting the truths and the
principles in the gross, and by dispensing them in detail as men can
bear them. She admits the certainty of the mathematical method, and she
uses the historical and critical method in establishing the documents of
her own revelation and tradition. Deny this method, and her recognised
arguments are destroyed. But the Church cannot and will not deny the
validity of the methods upon which she is obliged to depend, not indeed
for her existence, but for her demonstration. There is no opening for
Catholics to deny, in the gross, that political science may have
absolute principles of right, or intellectual science of truth.
During the last hundred years Catholic literature has passed through
three phases in relation to this question. At one time, when absolutism
and infidelity were in the ascendant, and the Church was oppressed by
governments and reviled by the people, Catholic writers imitated, and
even caricatured the early Christian apologists in endeavouring to
represent their system in the light most acceptable to one side or the
other, to disguise antagonism, to modify old claims, and to display only
that side of their religion which was likely to attract toleration and
good will. Nothing which could give offence was allowed to appear.
Something of the fulness, if not of the truth, of religion was
sacrificed for the sake of conciliation. The great Catholic revival of
the present century gave birth to an opposite school. The attitude of
timidity and concession was succeeded by one of confidence and triumph.
Conciliation passed into defiance. The unscrupulous falsehoods of the
eighteenth century had thrown suspicion on all that had ever been
advanced by the adversaries of religion; and the belief that nothing
could be said for the Church gradually died away into the conviction
that nothing which was said against her could be true. A school of
writers arose strongly imbued with a horror of the calumnies of infidel
philosophers and hostile controversialists, and animated by a sovereign
desire to revive and fortify the spirit of Catholics. They became
literary advocates. Their only object was to accomplish the great work
before them; and they were often careless in statement, rhetorical and
illogical in argument, too positive to be critical, and too confident to
be precise. In this school the present generation of Catholics was
educated; to it they owe the ardour of their zeal, the steadfastness of
their faith, and their Catholic views of history, politics, and
literature. The services of these writers have been very great. They
restored the balance, which was leaning terribly against religion, both
in politics and letters. They created a Catholic opinion and a great
Catholic literature, and they conquered for the Church a very powerful
influence in European thought. The word "ultramontane" was revived to
designate this school, and that restricted term was made to embrace men
as different as De Maistre and Bonald, Lamennais and Montalembert,
Balmez and Donoso Cortes, Stolberg and Schlegel, Phillips and
Tapparelli.
There are two peculiarities by which we may test this whole group of
eminent writers: their identification of Catholicism with some secular
cause, such as the interests of a particular political or philosophical
system, and the use they make of Protestant authorities. The views which
they endeavoured to identify with the cause of the Church, however
various, agreed in giving them the air of partisans. Like advocates,
they were wont to defend their cause with the ingenuity of those who
know that all points are not equally strong, and that nothing can be
conceded except what they can defend. They did much for the cause of
learning, though they took little interest in what did not immediately
serve their turn. In their use of Protestant writers they displayed the
same partiality. They estimated a religious adversary, not by his
knowledge, but by his concessions; and they took advantage of the
progress of historical criticism, not to revise their opinions, but to
obtain testimony to their truth. It was characteristic of the school to
be eager in citing the favourable passages from Protestant authors, and
to be careless of those which were less serviceable for discussion. In
the principal writers this tendency was counteracted by character and
learning; but in the hands of men less competent or less suspicious of
themselves, sore pressed by the necessities of controversy, and too
obscure to challenge critical correction, the method became a snare for
both the writer and his readers. Thus the very qualities which we
condemn in our opponents, as the natural defences of error and the
significant emblems of a bad cause, came to taint both our literature
and our policy.
Learning has passed on beyond the range of these men's vision. Their
greatest strength was in the weakness of their adversaries, and their
own faults were eclipsed by the monstrous errors against which they
fought. But scientific methods have now been so perfected, and have come
to be applied in so cautious and so fair a spirit, that the apologists
of the last generation have collapsed before them. Investigations have
become so impersonal, so colourless, so free from the prepossessions
which distort truth, from predetermined aims and foregone conclusions,
that their results can only be met by investigations in which the same
methods are yet more completely and conscientiously applied. The sounder
scholar is invincible by the brilliant rhetorician, and the eloquence
and ingenuity of De Maistre and Schlegel would be of no avail against
researches pursued with perfect mastery of science and singleness of
purpose. The apologist's armour would be vulnerable at the point where
his religion and his science were forced into artificial union. Again,
as science widens and deepens, it escapes from the grasp of
dilettantism. Such knowledge as existed formerly could be borrowed, or
superficially acquired, by men whose lives were not devoted to its
pursuit, and subjects as far apart as the controversies of Scripture,
history, and physical science might be respectably discussed by a single
writer. No such shallow versatility is possible now. The new accuracy
and certainty of criticism have made science unattainable except by
those who devote themselves systematically to its study. The training of
a skilled labourer has become indispensable for the scholar, and science
yields its results to none but those who have mastered its methods.
Herein consists the distinction between the apologists we have described
and that school of writers and thinkers which is now growing up in
foreign countries, and on the triumph of which the position of the
Church in modern society depends. While she was surrounded with men
whose learning was sold to the service of untruth, her defenders
naturally adopted the artifices of the advocate, and wrote as if they
were pleading for a human cause. It was their concern only to promote
those precise kinds and portions of knowledge which would confound an
adversary, or support a claim. But learning ceased to be hostile to
Christianity when it ceased to be pursued merely as an instrument of
controversy--when facts came to be acknowledged, no longer because they
were useful, but simply because they were true. Religion had no occasion
to rectify the results of learning when irreligion had ceased to pervert
them, and the old weapons of controversy became repulsive as soon as
they had ceased to be useful.
By this means the authority of political right and of scientific truth
has been re-established, and they have become, not tools to be used by
religion for her own interests, but conditions which she must observe in
her actions and arguments. Within their respective spheres, politics can
determine what rights are just, science what truths are certain. There
are few political or scientific problems which affect the doctrines of
religion, and none of them are hostile to it in their solution. But this
is not the difficulty which is usually felt. A political principle or a
scientific discovery is more commonly judged, not by its relation to
religious truth, but by its bearings on some manifest or probable
religious interests. A fact may be true, or a law may be just, and yet
it may, under certain conditions, involve some spiritual loss.
And here is the touchstone and the watershed of principles. Some men
argue that the object of government is to contribute to the salvation of
souls; that certain measures may imperil this end, and that therefore
they must be condemned. These men only look to interests; they cannot
conceive the duty of sacrificing them to independent political principle
or idea. Or, again, they will say, "Here is a scientific discovery
calculated to overthrow many traditionary ideas, to undo a prevailing
system of theology, to disprove a current interpretation, to cast
discredit on eminent authorities, to compel men to revise their most
settled opinions, to disturb the foundation on which the faith of others
stands." These are sufficient reasons for care in the dispensation of
truth; but the men we are describing will go on to say, "This is enough
to throw suspicion on the discovery itself; even if it is true, its
danger is greater than its value. Let it, therefore, be carefully
buried, and let all traces of it be swept away."
A policy like this appears to us both wrong in itself and derogatory to
the cause it is employed to serve. It argues either a timid faith which
fears the light, or a false morality which would do evil that good might
come. How often have Catholics involved themselves in hopeless
contradiction, sacrificed principle to opportunity, adapted their
theories to their interests, and staggered the world's reliance on their
sincerity by subterfuges which entangle the Church in the shifting sands
of party warfare, instead of establishing her cause on the solid rock of
principles! How often have they clung to some plausible chimera which
seemed to serve their cause, and nursed an artificial ignorance where
they feared the discoveries of an impertinent curiosity! As ingenious in
detraction as in silence and dissimulation, have they not too often
answered imputations which they could not disprove with accusations
which they could not prove, till the slanders they had invented rivalled
in number and intensity the slanders which had been invented against
them? For such men principles have had only temporary value and local
currency. Whatever force was the strongest in any place and at any time,
with that they have sought to ally the cause of religion. They have,
with equal zeal, identified her with freedom in one country and with
absolutism in another; with conservatism where she had privileges to
keep, and with reform where she had oppression to withstand. And for all
this, what have they gained? They have betrayed duties more sacred than
the privileges for which they fought; they have lied before God and man;
they have been divided into fractions by the supposed interests of the
Church, when they ought to have been united by her principles and her
doctrines; and against themselves they have justified those grave
accusations of falsehood, insincerity, indifference to civil rights and
contempt for civil authorities which are uttered with such profound
injustice against the Church.
The present difficulties of the Church--her internal dissensions and
apparent weakness, the alienation of so much intellect, the strong
prejudice which keeps many away from her altogether, and makes many who
had approached her shrink back,--all draw nourishment from this rank
soil. The antagonism of hostile doctrines and the enmity of governments
count for little in comparison. It is in vain to point to her apostolic
tradition, the unbroken unity of her doctrine, her missionary energy, or
her triumphs in the region of spiritual life, if we fail to remove the
accumulated prejudice which generations of her advocates have thrown up
around her. The world can never know and recognise her divine perfection
while the pleas of her defenders are scarcely nearer to the truth than
the crimes which her enemies impute to her. How can the stranger
understand where the children of the kingdom are deceived?
Against this policy a firm and unyielding stand is of supreme necessity.
The evil is curable and the loss recoverable by a conscientious
adherence to higher principles, and a patient pursuit of truth and
right. Political science can place the liberty of the Church on
principles so certain and unfailing, that intelligent and disinterested
Protestants will accept them; and in every branch of learning with which
religion is in any way connected, the progressive discovery of truth
will strengthen faith by promoting knowledge and correcting opinion,
while it destroys prejudices and superstitions by dissipating the errors
on which they are founded. This is a course which conscience must
approve in the whole, though against each particular step of it
conscience may itself be tempted to revolt. It does not always conduce
to immediate advantage; it may lead across dangerous and scandalous
ground. A rightful sovereign may exclude the Church from his dominions,
or persecute her members. Is she therefore to say that his right is no
right, or that all intolerance is necessarily wrong? A newly discovered
truth may be a stumbling-block to perplex or to alienate the minds of
men. Is she therefore to deny or smother it? By no means. She must in
every case do right. She must prefer the law of her own general spirit
to the exigencies of immediate external occasion, and leave the issue in
the hands of God.
Such is the substance of those principles which shut out _The Home and
Foreign Review_ from the sympathies of a large portion of the body to
which we belong. In common with no small or insignificant section of our
fellow-Catholics, we hold that the time has gone by when defects in
political or scientific education could be alleged as an excuse for
depending upon expediency or mistrusting knowledge; and that the moment
has come when the best service that can be done to religion is to be
faithful to principle, to uphold the right in politics though it should
require an apparent sacrifice, and to seek truth in science though it
should involve a possible risk. Modern society has developed no security
for freedom, no instrument of progress, no means of arriving at truth,
which we look upon with indifference or suspicion. We see no necessary
gulf to separate our political or scientific convictions from those of
the wisest and most intelligent men who may differ from us in religion.
In pursuing those studies in which they can sympathise, starting from
principles which they can accept, and using methods which are theirs as
well as ours, we shall best attain the objects which alone can be aimed
at in a Review,--our own instruction, and the conciliation of opponents.
There are two main considerations by which it is necessary that we
should be guided in our pursuit of these objects. First, we have to
remember that the scientific method is most clearly exhibited and
recognised in connection with subjects about which there are no
prepossessions to wound, no fears to excite, no interests to threaten.
Hence, not only do we exclude from our range all that concerns the
ascetic life and the more intimate relations of religion, but we most
willingly devote ourselves to the treatment of subjects quite remote
from all religious bearing. Secondly, we have to remember that the
internal government of the Church belongs to a sphere exclusively
ecclesiastical, from the discussion of which we are shut out, not only
by motives of propriety and reverence, but also by the necessary absence
of any means for forming a judgment. So much ground is fenced off by
these two considerations, that a secular sphere alone remains. The
character of a scientific Review is determined for it. It cannot enter
on the domains of ecclesiastical government or of faith, and neither of
them can possibly be affected by its conclusions or its mode of
discussion.
In asserting thus absolutely that all truth must render service to
religion, we are saying what few perhaps will deny in the abstract, but
what many are not prepared to admit in detail. It will be vaguely felt,
that views which take so little account of present inconvenience and
manifest danger are perilous and novel, though they may seem to spring
from a more unquestioning faith, a more absolute confidence in truth,
and a more perfect submission to the general laws of morality. There is
no articulate theory, and no distinct view, but there is long habit, and
there are strong inducements of another kind which support this
sentiment.
To understand the certainty of scientific truth, a man must have deeply
studied scientific method; to understand the obligation of political
principle requires a similar mental discipline. A man who is suddenly
introduced from without into a society where this certainty and
obligation are currently acknowledged is naturally bewildered. He cannot
distinguish between the dubious impressions of his second-hand knowledge
and the certainty of that primary direct information which those who
possess it have no power to deny. To accept a criterion which may
condemn some cherished opinion has hitherto seemed to him a mean
surrender and a sacrifice of position. He feels it simple loss to give
up an idea; and even if he is prepared to surrender it when compelled by
controversy, still he thinks it quite unnecessary and gratuitous to
engage voluntarily in researches which may lead to such an issue. To
enter thus upon the discussion of questions which have been mixed up
with religion, and made to contribute their support to piety, seems to
the idle spectator, or to the person who is absorbed in defending
religion, a mere useless and troublesome meddling, dictated by the pride
of intellectual triumph, or by the moral cowardice which seeks
unworthily to propitiate enemies.