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diff --git a/31278.txt b/31278.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d664101 --- /dev/null +++ b/31278.txt @@ -0,0 +1,26820 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of Freedom, by +John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The History of Freedom + +Author: John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton + +Release Date: February 15, 2010 [EBook #31278] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM *** + + + + +Produced by Steven Giacomelli, Graeme Mackreth and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + + + +THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM AND OTHER ESSAYS + + +MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited + +LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA +MELBOURNE + +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO +ATLANTA . SAN FRANSISCO + +THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA LTD. + +TORONTO + + +[Illustration: Acton] + + + + +THE + +HISTORY OF FREEDOM + +AND OTHER ESSAYS + +BY + +JOHN EMERICH EDWARD DALBERG-ACTON + +FIRST BARON ACTON + +D.C.L., L.L.D., ETC. ETC. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE +UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE + +EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOHN NEVILLE FIGGIS, Litt.D. + +SOMETIME LECTURER IN ST. CATHARINE'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE + +AND + +REGINALD VERE LAURENCE, M.A. + +FELLOW AND LECTURER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE + + +MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + +ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON + +1909 + +_First Edition 1907_ + +_Reprinted 1909_ + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +The Editors desire to thank the members of the Acton family for their +help and advice during the preparation of this volume and of the volume +of _Historical Essays and Studies_. They have had the advantage of +access to many of Acton's letters, especially those to Doellinger and +Lady Blennerhasset. They have thus been provided with valuable material +for the Introduction. At the same time they wish to take the entire +responsibility for the opinions expressed therein. They are again +indebted to Professor Henry Jackson for valuable suggestions. + +This volume consists of articles reprinted from the following journals: +_The Quarterly Review_, _The English Historical Review_, _The Nineteenth +Century_, _The Rambler_, _The Home and Foreign Review_, _The North +British Review_, _The Bridgnorth Journal_. The Editors have to thank Mr. +John Murray, Messrs. Longmans, Kegan Paul, Williams and Norgate, and the +proprietors of _The Bridgnorth Journal_ for their kind permission to +republish these articles, and also the Delegacy of the Clarendon Press +for allowing the reprint of the Introduction to Mr. Burd's edition of +_Il Principe_. They desire to point out that in _Lord Acton and his +Circle_ the article on "The Protestant Theory of Persecution" is +attributed to Simpson: this is an error. + +J.N.F. +R.V.L. + +_August 24, 1907._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE +PORTRAIT OF LORD ACTON _Frontispiece_ + +CHRONICLE viii + +INTRODUCTION ix + + I. THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM IN ANTIQUITY 1 + + II. THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM IN CHRISTIANITY 30 + + III. SIR ERSKINE MAY'S DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE 61 + + IV. THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW 101 + + V. THE PROTESTANT THEORY OF PERSECUTION 150 + + VI. POLITICAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHURCH 188 + + VII. INTRODUCTION TO L.A. BURD'S EDITION OF + IL PRINCIPE BY MACHIAVELLI 212 + +VIII. MR. GOLDWIN SMITH'S IRISH HISTORY 232 + + IX. NATIONALITY 270 + + X. DOeLLINGER ON THE TEMPORAL POWER 301 + + XI. DOeLLINGER'S HISTORICAL WORK 375 + + XII. CARDINAL WISEMAN AND THE HOME AND + FOREIGN REVIEW 436 + +XIII. CONFLICTS WITH ROME 461 + + XIV. THE VATICAN COUNCIL 492 + + XV. A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF THE MIDDLE + AGES. BY HENRY CHARLES LEA 551 + + XVI. THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH. BY JAMES + BRYCE 575 + +XVII. HISTORICAL PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE AND FRENCH + BELGIUM AND SWITZERLAND. BY ROBERT FLINT 588 + +APPENDIX 597 + +INDEX 599 + + + + +CHRONICLE + + +JOHN EMERICH EDWARD DALBERG-ACTON, born at Naples, + 10th January 1834, son of Sir Ferdinand Richard Edward + Dalberg-Acton and Marie de Dalberg, afterwards Countess + Granville. + French school near Paris. +1843-1848. Student at Oscott + " " Edinburgh. +1848-1854. " " Munich University, living with Doellinger. + 1855. Visits America in company with Lord Ellesmere. +1858-1862. Becomes editor of _The Rambler_. +1859-1865. M.P. for Carlow. +1862-1864. Founds, edits, and concludes _The Home and Foreign + Review_. + 1864. Pius IX. issued _Quanta Cura_, with appended _Syllabus + Errorum_. +1865-1866. M.P. for Bridgnorth + 1865. Marries Countess Marie Arco-Valley. +1867-1868. Writes for _The Chronicle_. + 1869. Created Baron Acton. +1869-1871. Writes for _North British Review_. +1869-1870. Vatican Council. Acton at Rome. Writes "Letters + of Quirinus" in _alleging Zeitung_. + 1872. Honorary degree at Munich. + 1874. Letters to _The Times_ on "The Vatican Decrees." + 1888. Honorary degree at Cambridge. + 1889. " " Oxford. + 1890. Honorary Fellow of All Souls'. +1892-1895. Lord-in-Waiting. +1895-1902. Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge + Honorary Fellow of Trinity College. +19th June 1902. Died at Tegernsee. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The two volumes here published contain but a small selection from the +numerous writings of Acton on a variety of topics, which are to be found +scattered through many periodicals of the last half-century. The result +here displayed is therefore not complete. A further selection of nearly +equal quantity might be made, and still much that is valuable in Acton's +work would remain buried. Here, for instance, we have extracted nothing +from the _Chronicle_; and Acton's gifts as a leader-writer remain +without illustration. Yet they were remarkable. Rarely did he show to +better advantage than in the articles and reviews he wrote in that +short-lived rival of the _Saturday Review_. From the two bound volumes +of that single weekly, there might be made a selection which would be of +high interest to all who cared to learn what was passing in the minds of +the most acute and enlightened members of the Roman Communion at one of +the most critical epochs in the history of the papacy. But what could +never be reproduced is the general impression of Acton's many +contributions to the _Rambler_, the _Home and Foreign_, and the _North +British Review_. Perhaps none of his longer and more ceremonious +writings can give to the reader so vivid a sense at once of the range of +Acton's erudition and the strength of his critical faculty as does the +perusal of these short notices. Any one who wished to understand the +personality of Acton could not do better than take the published +Bibliography and read a few of the articles on "contemporary literature" +furnished by him to the three Reviews. In no other way could the reader +so clearly realise the complexity of his mind or the vast number of +subjects which he could touch with the hand of a master. In a single +number there are twenty-eight such notices. His writing before he was +thirty years of age shows an intimate and detailed knowledge of +documents and authorities which with most students is the "hard won and +hardly won" achievement of a lifetime of labour. He always writes as the +student, never as the _litterateur_. Even the memorable phrases which +give point to his briefest articles are judicial, not journalistic. Yet +he treats of matters which range from the dawn of history through the +ancient empires down to subjects so essentially modern as the vast +literature of revolutionary France or the leaders of the romantic +movement which replaced it. In all these writings of Acton those +qualities manifest themselves, which only grew stronger with time, and +gave him a distinct and unique place among his contemporaries. Here is +the same austere love of truth, the same resolve to dig to the bed-rock +of fact, and to exhaust all sources of possible illumination, the same +breadth of view and intensity of inquiring ardour, which stimulated his +studies and limited his productive power. Above all, there is the same +unwavering faith in principles, as affording the only criterion of +judgment amid the ever-fluctuating welter of human passions, political +manoeuvring, and ecclesiastical intrigue. But this is not all. We note +the same value for great books as the source of wisdom, combined with +the same enthusiasm for immediate justice which made Acton the despair +of the mere academic student, an enigma among men of the world, and a +stumbling-block to the politician of the clubs. Beyond this, we find +that certainty and decision of judgment, that crisp concentration of +phrase, that grave and deliberate irony and that mastery of subtlety, +allusion, and wit, which make his interpretation an adventure and his +judgment a sword. + +A few instances may be given. In criticising a professor of history +famous in every way rather than as a student, Acton says, "his Lectures +are indeed not entirely unhistorical, for he has borrowed quite +discriminatingly from Tocqueville." Of another writer he says that +"ideas, if they occur to him, he rejects like temptations to sin." Of +Ranke, thinking perhaps also of himself, he declares that "his intimate +knowledge of all the contemporary history of Europe is a merit not +suited to his insular readers." Of a partisan French writer under Louis +Napoleon he says that "he will have a fair grievance if he fails to +obtain from a discriminating government some acknowledgment of the +services which mere historical science will find it hard to appreciate." +Of Laurent he says, that "sometimes it even happens that his information +is not second-hand, and there are some original authorities with which +he is evidently familiar. The ardour of his opinions, so different from +those which have usually distorted history, gives an interest even to +his grossest errors. Mr. Buckle, if he had been able to distinguish a +good book from a bad one, would have been a tolerable imitation of M. +Laurent." Perhaps, however, the most characteristic of these forgotten +judgments is the description of Lord Liverpool and the class which +supported him. Not even Disraeli painting the leader of that party which +he was destined so strangely to "educate" could equal the austere and +accurate irony with which Acton, writing as a student, not as a +novelist, sums up the characteristics of the class of his birth. + + Lord Liverpool governed England in the greatest crisis of the war, + and for twelve troubled years of peace, chosen not by the nation, but + by the owners of the land. The English gentry were well content with + an order of things by which for a century and a quarter they had + enjoyed so much prosperity and power. Desiring no change they wished + for no ideas. They sympathised with the complacent respectability of + Lord Liverpool's character, and knew how to value the safe sterility + of his mind. He distanced statesmen like Grenville, Wellesley, and + Canning, not in spite of his inferiority, but by reason of it. His + mediocrity was his merit. The secret of his policy was that he had + none. For six years his administration outdid the Holy Alliance. For + five years it led the liberal movement throughout the world. The + Prime Minister hardly knew the difference. He it was who forced + Canning on the King. In the same spirit he wished his government to + include men who were in favour of the Catholic claims and men who + were opposed to them. His career exemplifies, not the accidental + combination but the natural affinity, between the love of + conservatism and the fear of ideas. + +The longer essays republished in these volumes exhibit in most of its +characteristics a personality which even those who disagreed with his +views must allow to have been one of the most remarkable products of +European culture in the nineteenth century. They will show in some +degree how Acton's mind developed in the three chief periods of his +activity, something of the influences which moulded it, a great deal of +its preferences and its antipathies, and nearly all its directing +ideals. During the first period--roughly to be dated from 1855 to +1863--he was hopefully striving, under the influence of Doellinger (his +teacher from the age of seventeen), to educate his co-religionists in +breadth and sympathy, and to place before his countrymen ideals of right +in politics, which were to him bound up with the Catholic faith. The +combination of scientific inquiry with true rules of political justice +he claimed, in a letter to Doellinger, as the aim of the _Home and +Foreign Review_. The result is to be seen in a quarterly, forgotten, +like all such quarterlies to-day, but far surpassing, alike in +knowledge, range, and certainty, any of the other quarterlies, +political, or ecclesiastical, or specialist, which the nineteenth +century produced. There is indeed no general periodical which comes near +to it for thoroughness of erudition and strength of thought, if not for +brilliance and ease; while it touches on topics contemporary and +political in a way impossible to any specialist journal. A comparison +with the _British Critic_ in the religious sphere, with the _Edinburgh_ +in the political, will show how in all the weightier matters of learning +and thought, the _Home and Foreign_ (indeed the _Rambler_) was their +superior, while it displayed a cosmopolitan interest foreign to most +English journals. + +We need not recapitulate the story so admirably told already by Doctor +Gasquet of the beginning and end of the various journalistic enterprises +with which Acton was connected. So far as he was concerned, however, the +time may be regarded as that of youth and hope. + +Next came what must be termed the "fighting period," when he stood forth +as the leader among laymen of the party opposed to that "insolent and +aggressive faction" which achieved its imagined triumph at the Vatican +Council. This period, which may perhaps be dated from the issue of the +Syllabus by Pius IX. in 1864, may be considered to close with the reply +to Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet on "The Vatican Decrees," and with the +attempt of the famous Cardinal, in whose mind history was identified +with heresy, to drive from the Roman communion its most illustrious +English layman. Part of this story tells itself in the letters published +by the Abbot Gasquet; and more will be known when those to Doellinger are +given to the world. + +We may date the third period of Acton's life from the failure of +Manning's attempt, or indeed a little earlier. He had now given up all +attempt to contend against the dominant influence of the Court of Rome, +though feeling that loyalty to the Church of his Baptism, as a living +body, was independent of the disastrous policy of its hierarchy. During +this time he was occupied with the great unrealised project of the +history of liberty or in movements of English politics and in the usual +avocations of a student. In the earlier part of this period are to be +placed some of the best things that Acton ever wrote, such as the +lectures on Liberty, here republished. It is characterised by his +discovery in the "eighties" that Doellinger and he were divided on the +question of the severity of condemnation to be passed on persecutors and +their approvers. Acton found to his dismay that Doellinger (like +Creighton) was willing to accept pleas in arrest of judgment or at least +mitigation of sentence, which the layman's sterner code repudiated. +Finding that he had misunderstood his master, Acton was for a time +profoundly discouraged, declared himself isolated, and surrendered the +outlook of literary work as vain. He found, in fact, that in +ecclesiastical as in general politics he was alone, however much he +might sympathise with others up to a certain point. On the other hand, +these years witnessed a gradual mellowing of his judgment in regard to +the prospects of the Church, and its capacity to absorb and interpret in +a harmless sense the dogma against whose promulgation he had fought so +eagerly. It might also be correct to say that the English element in +Acton came out most strongly in this period, closing as it did with the +Cambridge Professorship, and including the development of the friendship +between himself and Mr. Gladstone. + +We have spoken both of the English element in Acton and of his European +importance. This is the only way in which it is possible to present or +understand him. There were in him strains of many races. On his +father's side he was an English country squire, but foreign residence +and the Neapolitan Court had largely affected the family, in addition to +that flavour of cosmopolitan culture which belongs to the more highly +placed Englishmen of the Roman Communion. On his mother's side he was a +member of one of the oldest and greatest families in Germany, which was +only not princely. The Dalbergs, moreover, had intermarried with an +Italian family, the Brignoli. Trained first at Oscott under Wiseman, and +afterwards at Munich under Doellinger, in whose house he lived, Acton by +education as well as birth was a cosmopolitan, while his marriage with +the family of Arco-Valley introduced a further strain of Bavarian +influence into his life. His mother's second marriage with Lord +Granville brought him into connection with the dominant influences of +the great Whig Houses. For a brief period, like many another county +magnate, he was a member of the House of Commons, but he never became +accustomed to its atmosphere. For a longer time he lived at his house in +Shropshire, and was a stately and sympathetic host, though without much +taste for the avocations of country life. His English birth and Whig +surroundings were largely responsible for that intense constitutionalism, +which was to him a religion, and in regard both to ecclesiastical and civil +politics formed his guiding criterion. This explains his detestation of all +forms of absolutism on the one hand, and what he always called +"the revolution" on the other. + +It was not, however, the English strain that was most obvious in Acton, +but the German. It was natural that he should become fired under +Doellinger's influence with the ideals of continental scholarship and +exact and minute investigation. He had a good deal of the massive +solidity of the German intellect. He liked, as in the "Letter to a +German Bishop," to make his judgment appear as the culmination of so +much weighty evidence, that it seemed to speak for itself. He had, too, +a little of the German habit of breaking a butterfly upon a wheel, and +at times he makes reading difficult by a more than Teutonic +allusiveness. It was not easy for Acton to bear in mind that the public +is often ignorant of even the names of distinguished scholars, and that +"a European reputation" is sometimes confined to the readers of +specialist publications. + +The Italian strain in Acton is apparent in another quality, which is +perhaps his one point of kinship with Machiavelli, the absence of +hesitation from his thought, and of mystery from his writing. Subtle and +ironic as his style is, charged with allusion and weighted with passion, +it is yet entirely devoid both of German sentiment and English +vagueness. There was no haze in his mind. He judges, but does not paint +pictures. It may have been this absence of half-tones in his vein of +thought, and of _chiaroscuro_ in his imagination that made Manning, an +intelligent however hostile critic, speak of "the ruthless talk of +undergraduates." + +But however much or little be allowed to the diverse strains of +hereditary influence or outward circumstances, the interest of Acton to +the student lies in his intense individuality. That austerity of moral +judgment, that sense of the greatness of human affairs, and of the vast +issues that lie in action and in thought, was no product of outside +influences, and went beyond what he had learnt from his master +Doellinger. To treat politics as a game, to play with truth or make it +subservient to any cause other than itself, to take trivial views, was +to Acton as deep a crime as to waste in pleasure or futility the hours +so brief given for salvation of the soul would have seemed to Baxter or +Bunyan; indeed, there was an element of Puritan severity in his attitude +towards statesmen both ecclesiastical and civil. He was no "light +half-believer of a casual creed," but had a sense of reality more like +Dante than many moderns. + +This, perhaps, it was that drew him ever closer to Mr. Gladstone, while +it made the House of Commons and the daily doings of politicians +uncongenial. There is no doubt that he had learned too well "the secret +of intellectual detachment." Early in his life his shrewd and kindly +stepfather had pointed out to him the danger of losing influence by a +too unrestrained desire to escape worshipping the idols of the +marketplace. There are, it is true, not wanting signs that his view of +the true relations of States and Churches may become one day more +dominant, for it appears as though once more the earlier Middle Ages +will be justified, and religious bodies become the guardians of freedom, +even in the political sphere. Still, a successful career in public life +could hardly be predicted for one who felt at the beginning that "I +agree with nobody, and nobody agrees with me," and towards the close +admitted that he "never had any contemporaries." On the other hand, it +may be questioned whether, in the chief of his self-imposed tasks, he +failed so greatly as at first appeared. If he did not prevent +"infallibility" being decreed, the action of the party of Strossmayer +and Hefele assuredly prevented the form of the decree being so dangerous +as they at first feared. We can only hazard a guess that the mild and +minimising terms of the dogma, especially as they have since been +interpreted, were in reality no triumph to Veuillot and the Jesuits. In +later life Acton seems to have felt that they need not have the +dangerous consequences, both in regard to historical judgments or +political principles, which he had feared from the registered victory of +ultramontane reaction. However this may be, Acton's whole career is +evidence of his detachment of mind, and entire independence even of his +closest associates. It was a matter to him not of taste but of +principle. What mainly marked him out among men was the intense reality +of his faith. This gave to all his studies their practical tone. He had +none of the pedant's contempt for ordinary life, none of the aesthete's +contempt for action as a "little vulgar," and no desire to make of +intellectual pursuits an end in themselves. His scholarship was to him +as practical as his politics, and his politics as ethical as his faith. +Thus his whole life was a unity. All his various interests were inspired +by one unconquered resolve, the aim of securing universally, alike in +Church and in State, the recognition of the paramountcy of principles +over interests, of liberty over tyranny, of truth over all forms of +evasion or equivocation. His ideal in the political world was, as he +said, that of securing _suum cuique_ to every individual or association +of human life, and to prevent any institution, however holy its aims, +acquiring more. + +To understand the ardour of his efforts it is necessary to bear in mind +the world into which he was born, and the crises intellectual, +religious, and political which he lived to witness and sometimes to +influence. Born in the early days of the July monarchy, when reform in +England was a novelty, and Catholic freedom a late-won boon, Acton as he +grew to manhood in Munich and in England had presented to his regard a +series of scenes well calculated to arouse a thoughtful mind to +consideration of the deepest problems, both of politics and religion. +What must have been the "long, long thoughts" of a youth, naturally +reflective and acutely observant, as he witnessed the break-up of the +old order in '48 and the years that followed. In the most impressionable +age of life he was driven to contemplate a Europe in solution; the crash +of the kingdoms; the Pope a Liberal, an exile, and a reactionary; the +principle of nationality claiming to supersede all vested rights, and +to absorb and complete the work of '89; even socialism for once striving +to reduce theory to practice, till there came the "saviour of society" +with the _coup d'etat_ and a new era of authority and despotism. This +was the outward aspect. In the world of thought he looked upon a period +of moral and intellectual anarchy. Philosopher had succeeded +philosopher, critic had followed critic, Strauss and Baur were names to +conjure with, and Hegel was still unforgotten in the land of his birth. +Materialistic science was in the very heyday of its parvenu and tawdry +intolerance, and historical knowledge in the splendid dawn of that new +world of knowledge, of which Ranke was the Columbus. Everywhere faith +was shaken, and except for a few resolute and unconquered spirits, it +seemed as though its defence were left to a class of men who thought the +only refuge of religion was in obscurity, the sole bulwark of order was +tyranny, and the one support of eternal truth plausible and convenient +fiction. What wonder then that the pupil of Doellinger should exhaust the +intellectual and moral energies of a lifetime, in preaching to those who +direct the affairs of men the paramount supremacy of principle. The +course of the plebiscitary Empire, and that gradual campaign in the +United States by which the will of the majority became identified with +that necessity which knows no law, contributed further to educate his +sense of right in politics, and to augment the distrust of power natural +to a pupil of the great Whigs, of Burke, of Montesquieu, of Madame de +Stael. On the other hand, as a pupil of Doellinger, his religious faith +was deeper than could be touched by the recognition of facts, of which +too many were notorious to make it even good policy to deny the rest; +and he demanded with passion that history should set the follies and the +crimes of ecclesiastical authority in no better light than those of +civil. + +We cannot understand Acton aright, if we do not remember that he was an +English Roman Catholic, to whom the penal laws and the exploitation of +Ireland were a burning injustice. They were in his view as foul a blot +on the Protestant establishment and the Whig aristocracy as was the St. +Bartholomew's medal on the memory of Gregory XIII., or the murder of the +duc d'Enghien on the genius of Napoleon, or the burning of Servetus on +the sanctity of Calvin, or the permission of bigamy on the character of +Luther, or the September Massacres on Danton. + +Two other tendencies dominant in Germany--tendencies which had and have +a great power in the minds of scholars, yet to Acton, both as a +Christian and a man, seemed corrupting--compelled him to a search for +principles which might deliver him from slavery alike to traditions and +to fashion, from the historian's vice of condoning whatever has got +itself allowed to exist, and from the politician's habit of mere +opportunist acquiescence in popular standards. + +First of these is the famous maxim of Schiller, _Die Welt-Geschichte ist +das Welt-Gericht_, which, as commonly interpreted, definitely identifies +success with right, and is based, consciously or unconsciously, on a +pantheistic philosophy. This tendency, especially when envisaged by an +age passing through revolutionary nationalism back to Machiavelli's +ideals and _Realpolitik_, is clearly subversive of any system of public +law or morality, and indeed is generally recognised as such nowadays +even by its adherents. + +The second tendency against which Acton's moral sense revolted, had +arisen out of the laudable determination of historians to be sympathetic +towards men of distant ages and of alien modes of thought. With the +romantic movement the early nineteenth century placed a check upon the +habit of despising mediaeval ideals, which had been increasing from the +days of the Renaissance and had culminated in Voltaire. Instead of this, +there arose a sentiment of admiration for the past, while the general +growth of historical methods of thinking supplied a sense of the +relativity of moral principles, and led to a desire to condone if not to +commend the crimes of other ages. It became almost a trick of style to +talk of judging men by the standard of their day and to allege the +spirit of the age in excuse for the Albigensian Crusade or the burning +of Hus. Acton felt that this was to destroy the very bases of moral +judgment and to open the way to a boundless scepticism. Anxious as he +was to uphold the doctrine of growth in theology, he allowed nothing for +it in the realm of morals, at any rate in the Christian era, since the +thirteenth century. He demanded a code of moral judgment independent of +place and time, and not merely relative to a particular civilisation. He +also demanded that it should be independent of religion. His reverence +for scholars knew no limits of creed or church, and he desired some body +of rules which all might recognise, independently of such historical +phenomena as religious institutions. At a time when such varied and +contradictory opinions, both within and without the limits of Christian +belief, were supported by some of the most powerful minds and +distinguished investigators, it seemed idle to look for any basis of +agreement beyond some simple moral principles. But he thought that all +men might agree in admitting the sanctity of human life and judging +accordingly every man or system which needlessly sacrificed it. It is +this preaching in season and out of season against the reality of +wickedness, and against every interference with the conscience, that is +the real inspiration both of Acton's life and of his writings. + +It is related of Frederick Robertson of Brighton, that during one of +his periods of intellectual perplexity he found that the only rope to +hold fast by was the conviction, "it must be right to do right." The +whole of Lord Acton's career might be summed up in a counterphrase, "it +must be wrong to do wrong." It was this conviction, universally and +unwaveringly applied, and combined with an unalterable faith in Christ, +which gave unity to all his efforts, sustained him in his struggle with +ecclesiastical authority, accounted for all his sympathies, and +accentuated his antipathies, while it at once expanded and limited his +interests. It is this that made his personality so much greater a gift +to the world than any book which he might have written--had he cared +less for the end and more for the process of historical knowledge. + +He was interested in knowledge--that it might diminish prejudice and +break down barriers. To a world in which the very bases of civilisation +seemed to be dissolving he preached the need of directing ideals. + +Artistic interests were not strong in him, and the decadent pursuit of +culture as a mere luxury had no stronger enemy. Intellectual activity, +apart from moral purpose, was anathema to Acton. He has been censured +for bidding the student of his hundred best books to steel his mind +against the charm of literary beauty and style. Yet he was right. His +list of books was expressly framed to be a guide, not a pleasure; it was +intended to supply the place of University direction to those who could +not afford a college life, and it throws light upon the various strands +that mingled in Acton and the historical, scientific, and political +influences which formed his mind. He felt the danger that lurks in the +charm of literary beauty and style, for he had both as a writer and a +reader a strong taste for rhetoric, and he knew how young minds are apt +to be enchained rather by the persuasive spell of the manner than the +living thought beneath it. Above all, he detested the modern +journalistic craze for novelty, and despised the shallowness which rates +cleverness above wisdom. + +In the same way his eulogy of George Eliot has been censured far more +than it has been understood. It was not as an artist superior to all +others that he praised the author of _Daniel Deronda_ and the translator +of Strauss. It was because she supplied in her own person the solution +of the problem nearest to his heart, and redeemed (so far as teaching +went) infidelity in religion from immorality in ethics. It was, above +all, as a constructive teacher of morals that he admired George Eliot, +who might, in his view, save a daily increasing scepticism from its +worst dangers, and preserve morals which a future age of faith might +once more inspire with religious ideals. Here was a writer at the summit +of modern culture, saturated with materialistic science, a convinced and +unchanging atheist, who, in spite of this, proclaimed in all her work +that moral law is binding, and upheld a code of ethics, Christian in +content, though not in foundation. + +In the same way his admiration for Mr. Gladstone is to be explained. It +was not his successes so much as his failures that attracted Acton, and +above all, his refusal to admit that nations, in their dealings with one +another, are subject to no law but that of greed. Doubtless one who gave +himself no credit for practical aptitude in public affairs, admired a +man who had gifts that were not his own. But what Acton most admired was +what many condemned. It was because he was not like Lord Palmerston, +because Bismarck disliked him, because he gave back the Transvaal to the +Boers, and tried to restore Ireland to its people, because his love of +liberty never weaned him from loyalty to the Crown, and his politics +were part of his religion, that Acton used of Gladstone language rarely +used, and still more rarely applicable, to any statesman. For this very +reason--his belief that political differences do, while religious +differences do not, imply a different morality--he censured so severely +the generous eulogy of Disraeli, just as in Doellinger's case he blamed +the praise of Dupanloup. For Acton was intolerant of all leniency +towards methods and individuals whom he thought immoral. He could give +quarter to the infidel more easily than to the Jesuit. + +We may, of course, deny that Acton was right. But few intelligent +observers can dispute the accuracy of his diagnosis, or deny that more +than anything else the disease of Western civilisation is a general lack +of directing ideals other than those which are included in the gospel of +commercialism. It may surely be further admitted that even intellectual +activity has too much of triviality about it to-day; that if people +despise the schoolmen, it is rather owing to their virtues than their +defects, because impressionism has taken the place of thought, and +brilliancy that of labour. On the other hand, Acton's dream of ethical +agreement, apart from religion, seems further off from realisation than +ever. + +Acton, however, wrote for a world which breathed in the atmosphere +created by Kant. His position was something as follows: After the +discovery of facts, a matter of honesty and industry independent of any +opinions, history needs a criterion of judgment by which it may appraise +men's actions. This criterion cannot be afforded by religion, for +religion is one part of the historic process of which we are tracing the +flow. The principles on which all can combine are the inviolable +sanctity of human life, and the unalterable principle of even justice +and toleration. Wherever these are violated our course is clear. Neither +custom nor convenience, neither distance of time nor difference of +culture may excuse or even limit our condemnation. Murder is always +murder, whether it be committed by populace or patricians, by councils +or kings or popes. Had they had their dues, Paolo Sarpi would have been +in Newgate and George I. would have died at Tyburn. + +The unbending severity of his judgment, which is sometimes carried to an +excess almost ludicrous, is further explained by another element in his +experience. In his letters to Doellinger and others he more than once +relates how in early life he had sought guidance in the difficult +historical and ethical questions which beset the history of the papacy +from many of the most eminent ultramontanes. Later on he was able to +test their answers in the light of his constant study of original +authorities and his careful investigation of archives. He found that the +answers given him had been at the best but plausible evasions. The +letters make it clear that the harshness with which Acton always +regarded ultramontanes was due to that bitter feeling which arises in +any reflecting mind on the discovery that it has been put off with +explanations that did not explain, or left in ignorance of material +facts. + +Liberalism, we must remember, was a religion to Acton--_i.e._ liberalism +as he understood it, by no means always what goes by the name. His +conviction that ultramontane theories lead to immoral politics prompted +his ecclesiastical antipathies. His anger was aroused, not by any +feeling that Papal infallibility was a theological error, but by the +belief that it enshrined in the Church monarchical autocracy, which +could never maintain itself apart from crime committed or condoned. It +was not intellectual error but moral obliquity that was to him here, as +everywhere, the enemy. He could tolerate unbelief, he could not tolerate +sin. Machiavelli represented to him the worst of political principles, +because in the name of the public weal he destroyed the individual's +conscience. Yet he left a loophole in private life for religion, and a +sinning statesman might one day become converted. But when the same +principles are applied, as they have been applied by the Jesuit +organisers of ultramontane reaction (also on occasion by Protestants), +_ad majorem dei gloriam_, it is clear that the soul is corrupted at its +highest point, and the very means of serving God are made the occasion +of denying him. Because for Acton there was no comparison between +goodness and knowledge, and because life was to him more than thought, +because the passion of his life was to secure for all souls the freedom +to live as God would have them live, he hated in the Church the politics +of ultramontanism, and in the State the principles of Machiavelli. In +the same way he denied the legitimacy of every form of government, every +economic wrong, every party creed, which sacrificed to the pleasures or +the safety of the few the righteousness and salvation of the many. His +one belief was the right of every man not to have, but to be, his best. + +This fact gives the key to what seems to many an unsolved contradiction, +that the man who said what he did say and fought as he had fought should +yet declare in private that it had never occurred to him to doubt any +single dogma of his Church, and assert in public that communion with it +was "dearer than life itself" Yet all the evidence both of his writings +and his most intimate associates confirms this view. His opposition to +the doctrine of infallibility was ethical and political rather than +theological. As he wrote to Doellinger, the evil lay deeper, and +Vaticanism was but the last triumph of a policy that was centuries old. +Unless he were turned out of her he would see no more reason to leave +the Church of his baptism on account of the Vatican Decrees than on +account of those of the Lateran Council. To the dogma of the Immaculate +Conception he had no hostility. And could not understand Doellinger's +condemnation of it, or reconcile it with his previous utterances. He had +great sympathy with the position of Liberal High Anglicans; but there is +not the slightest reason to suppose that he ever desired to join the +English Church. Even with the old Catholic movement he had no sympathy, +and dissuaded his friends from joining it.[1] All forms of Gallicanism +were distasteful to Acton, and he looked to the future for the victory +of his ideas. His position in the Roman Church symbolises in an acute +form what may be called the soul's tragedy of the whole nineteenth +century, but Acton had not the smallest inclination to follow either +Gavazzi or Lamennais. It was, in truth, the unwavering loyalty of his +churchmanship and his far-reaching historical sense that enabled him to +attack with such vehemence evils which he believed to be accidental and +temporary, even though they might have endured for a millennium. Long +searching of the vista of history preserved Acton from the common danger +of confusing the eternal with what is merely lengthy. To such a mind as +his, it no more occurred to leave the Church because he disapproved some +of its official procedure, than it would to an Englishman to surrender +his nationality when his political opponents came into office. He +distinguished, as he said Froschammer ought to have done, between the +authorities and the authority of the Church. He had a strong belief in +the doctrine of development, and felt that it would prove impossible in +the long run to bind the Christian community to any explanation of the +faith which should have a non-Christian or immoral tendency. He left it +to time and the common conscience to clear the dogma from association +with dangerous political tendencies, for his loyalty to the institution +was too deep to be affected by his dislike of the _Camarilla_ in power. +He not only did not desire to leave the Church, but took pains to make +his confession and receive absolution immediately after his letters +appeared in the _Times_. It must also be stated that so far from +approving Mr. Gladstone's attack on Vaticanism, he did his utmost to +prevent its publication, which he regarded as neither fair nor wise. + +It is true that Acton's whole tendency was individualistic, and his +inner respect for mere authority apart from knowledge and judgment was +doubtless small. But here we must remember what he said once of the +political sphere--that neither liberty nor authority is conceivable +except in an ordered society, and that they are both relative to +conditions remote alike from anarchy and tyranny. Doubtless he leaned +away from those in power, and probably felt of Manning as strongly as +the latter wrote of him. Yet his individualism was always active within +the religious society, and never contemplated itself as outside. He +showed no sympathy for any form of Protestantism, except the purely +political side of the Independents and other sects which have promoted +liberty of conscience. + +Acton's position as a churchman is made clearer by a view of his +politics. At once an admirer and an adviser of Mr. Gladstone, he +probably helped more than any other single friend to make his leader a +Home Ruler. Yet he was anything but a modern Radical: for liberty was +his goddess, not equality, and he dreaded any single power in a State, +whether it was the King, or Parliament, or People. Neither popes nor +princes, not even Protestant persecutors, did Acton condemn more deeply +than the crimes of majorities and the fury of uncontrolled democracy. It +was not the rule of one or many that was his ideal, but a balance of +powers that might preserve freedom and keep every kind of authority +subject to law. For, as he said, "liberty is not a means to a higher +end, it is itself the highest political end." His preference was, +therefore, not for any sovereign one or number, such as formed the ideal +of Rousseau or the absolutists; but for a monarchy of the English type, +with due representation to the aristocratic and propertied classes, as +well as adequate power to the people. He did not believe in the doctrine +of numbers, and had no sympathy with the cry _Vox populi Vox Dei_; on +the other hand, he felt strongly that the stake in the country argument +really applied with fullest force to the poor, for while political error +means mere discomfort to the rich, it means to the poor the loss of all +that makes life noble and even of life itself. As he said in one of his +already published letters:-- + + The men who pay wages ought not to be the political masters of those + who earn them, for laws should be adapted to those who have the + heaviest stake in the country, for whom misgovernment means not + mortified pride or stinted luxury, but want and pain and degradation, + and risk to their own lives and to their children's souls. + +While he felt the dangers of Rousseau's doctrine of equality, declaring +that in the end it would be destructive alike of liberty and religion, +he was yet strongly imbued with the need of reconciling some of the +socialists' ideals with the regard due to the principles which he +respected. He was anxious to promote the study of Roscher and the +historical economists, and he seems to have thought that by their means +some solution of the great economic evils of the modern world might be +found, which should avoid injustice either to the capitalist or the +wage-earner. He had a burning hatred of injustice and tyranny, which +made him anxious to see the horrors of the modern proletariat system +mitigated and destroyed; but combined with this there was a very deep +sense of the need of acting on principles universally valid, and a +distrust of any merely emotional enthusiasm which might, in the future, +create more evils than it cured. Acton was, in truth, the incarnation of +the "spirit of Whiggism," although in a very different sense of the +phrase from that in which it became the target for the arrows of +Disraeli's scorn and his mockery of the Venetian constitution. He was +not the Conservative Whig of the "glorious revolution," for to him the +memory of William of Orange might be immortal but was certainly not +pious: yet it was "revolution principles" of which he said that they +were the great gift of England to the world. By this he meant the real +principles by which the events of 1688 could be philosophically +justified, when purged of all their vulgar and interested associations, +raised above their connection with a territorial oligarchy, and based on +reasoned and universal ideals. Acton's liberalism was above all things +historical, and rested on a consciousness of the past. He knew very well +that the roots of modern constitutionalism were mediaeval, and declared +that it was the stolid conservatism of the English character, which had +alone enabled it to preserve what other nations had lost in the passion +for autocracy that characterised the men of the Renaissance and the +Reformation. Constitutional government was for him the sole eternal +truth in politics, the rare but the only guardian of freedom. He loved +to trace the growth of the principle of power limiting itself and law +triumphant alike over king, aristocracies, and majorities; and to show +how it arose out of the cruel conflicts of the religious wars and rested +upon the achievements of Constance and the efforts of Basle, and how it +was influenced in expression by the thinkers of the ancient world and +the theologians of the modern, by the politics of Aristotle, by the +maxims of Ulpian and of Gaius, by the theology of St. Thomas and +Ockham, and even by Suarez and Molina. + +What Acton feared and hated was the claim of absolutism to crush the +individuality and destroy the conscience of men. It was indifferent to +him whether this claim was exercised by Church or State, by Pope or +Council, or King or Parliament. He felt, however, that it was more +dangerous because more absorbing when exercised in religious matters, +and thus condemned the Protestant theory more deeply than the Catholic +permission of persecution. He also felt that monarchy was more easily +checked than pure democracy, and that the risk of tyranny was greater in +the latter. + +Provided that freedom was left to men to do their duty, Acton was not +greatly careful of mere rights. He had no belief in the natural equality +of men, and no dislike of the subordination of classes on the score of +birth. His ideal of freedom as of the Church was in some respects that +of the earlier Middle Ages. He did not object to serfdom, provided that +it safeguarded the elementary rights of the serf to serve God as well as +man. In the great struggle in America, he had no sympathy with the +North, which seemed to him to make majority rule the only measure of +right: and he wrote, if not in favour, at least in palliation, of +slavery. It may be doubted how far he would have used the same language +in later life, but his reasons were in accord with all his general +views. Slavery might be rendered harmless by the State, and some form of +compulsion might be the only way of dealing with child-races, indeed, it +might be merely a form of education no more morally blameworthy than the +legal disabilities of minors. But the absolute state recognising no +limits but its own will, and bound by no rule either of human or Divine +law, appeared to him definitely immoral. + +Acton's political conscience was also very broad on the side technically +called moral. No one had higher ideals of purity. Yet he had little +desire to pry into the private morality of kings or politicians. It was +by the presence or absence of _political_ principles that he judged +them. He would have condemned Pope Paul the Fourth more than Rodrigo +Borgia, and the inventor of the "dragonnades" more than his +great-grandson. He did not view personal morality as relevant to +political judgment. + +In this, if in nothing else, he agreed with Creighton. His +correspondence with the latter throws his principles into the strongest +light, and forms the best material for a judgment. For it must, we +think, be admitted that he applied these doctrines with a rigidity which +human affairs will not admit, and assumed a knowledge beyond our +capacity. To declare that no one could be in a state of grace who +praised S. Carlo Borromeo, because the latter followed the evil +principle of his day in the matter of persecution, is not merely to make +the historian a hanging judge, but to ignore the great truth that if +crime is always crime, degrees of temptation are widely variable. The +fact is, Acton's desire to maintain the view that "morality is not +ambulatory," led him at times to ignore the complementary doctrine that +it certainly develops, and that the difficulties of statesmen or +ecclesiastics, if they do not excuse, at least at times explain their +less admirable courses. At the very close of his life Acton came to this +view himself. In a pathetic conversation with his son, he lamented the +harshness of some of his judgments, and hoped the example would not be +followed. + +Still, Acton, if he erred here, erred on the nobler side. The doctrine +of moral relativity had been overdone by historians, and the principles +of Machiavelli had become so common a cry of politicians, that severe +protest was necessary. The ethics of Nietzsche are the logical +expansion of Machiavelli, and his influence is proof that, in the +long-run, men cannot separate their international code from their +private one. We must remember that Acton lived in a time when, as he +said, the course of history had been "twenty-five times diverted by +actual or attempted crime," and when the old ideals of liberty seemed +swallowed up by the pursuit of gain. To all those who reflect on history +or politics, it was a gain of the highest order that at the very summit +of historical scholarship and profound political knowledge there should +be placed a leader who erred on the unfashionable side, who denied the +statesmen's claim to subject justice to expediency, and opposed the +partisan's attempt to palter with facts in the interest of his creed. + +It is these principles which both explain Acton's work as a student, and +make it so difficult to understand. He believed, that as an investigator +of facts the historian must know no passion, save that of a desire to +sift evidence; and his notion of this sifting was of the remorseless +scientific school of Germany, which sometimes, perhaps, expects more in +the way of testimony than human life affords. At any rate, Acton +demanded that the historian must never misconceive the case of the +adversaries of his views, or leave in shade the faults of his own side. +But on the other hand, when he comes to interpret facts or to trace +their relation, his views and even his temperament will affect the +result. It is only the barest outline that can be quite objective. In +Acton's view the historian as investigator is one thing, the historian +as judge another. In an early essay on Doellinger he makes a distinction +of this kind. The reader must bear it in mind in considering Acton's own +writing. Some of the essays here printed, and still more the lectures, +are anything but colourless; they show very distinctly the predilections +of the writer, and it is hardly conceivable that they should have been +written by a defender of absolutism, or even by an old-fashioned Tory. +What Acton really demanded was not the academic aloofness of the pedant +who stands apart from the strife of principles, but the honesty of +purpose which "throws itself into the mind of one's opponents, and +accounts for their mistakes," giving their case the best possible +colouring. For, to be sure of one's ground, one must meet one's +adversaries' strongest arguments, and not be content with merely picking +holes in his armour. Otherwise one's own belief may be at the mercy of +the next clever opponent. The reader may doubt how far Acton succeeded +in his own aim, for there was a touch of intolerance in his hatred of +absolutism, and he believed himself to be divided from his +ecclesiastical and political foes by no mere intellectual difference but +by a moral cleavage. Further, his writing is never half-hearted. His +convictions were certitudes based on continual reading and reflection, +and admitting in his mind of no qualification. He was eminently a +Victorian in his confidence that he was right. He had none of the +invertebrate tendency of mind which thinks it is impartial, merely +because it is undecided, and regards the judicial attitude as that which +refrains from judging. Acton's was not a doubting mind. If he now and +then suspended his judgment, it was as an act of deliberate choice, +because he had made up his mind that the matter could not be decided, +not because he could not decide to make up his mind. Whether he was +right or wrong, he always knew what he thought, and his language was as +exact an expression of his meaning as he could make it. It was true that +his subtle and far-sighted intelligence makes his style now and then +like a boomerang, as when he says of Ranke's method "it is a discipline +we shall all do well to adopt, and also do well to relinquish." Indeed, +it is hardly possible to read a single essay without observing this +marked characteristic. He has been called a "Meredith turned historian," +and that there is truth in this judgment, any one who sees at once the +difficulty and the suggestiveness of his reviews can bear witness. He +could hardly write the briefest note without stamping his personality +upon it and exhibiting the marks of a very complex culture. But the main +characteristic of his style is that it represents the ideals of a man to +whom every word was sacred. Its analogies are rather in sculpture than +painting. Each paragraph, almost every sentence is a perfectly chiselled +whole, impressive by no brilliance or outside polish, so much as by the +inward intensity of which it is the symbol. Thus his writing is never +fluent or easy, but it has a moral dignity rare and unfashionable. + +Acton, indeed, was by no means without a gift of rhetoric, and in the +"Lecture on Mexico," here republished, there is ample evidence of a +power of handling words which should impress a popular audience. It is +in gravity of judgment and in the light he can draw from small details +that his power is most plainly shown. On the other hand, he had a little +of the scholar's love of clinging to the bank, and, as the notes to his +"Inaugural" show, he seems at times too much disposed to use the +crutches of quotation to prop up positions which need no such support. +It was of course the same habit--the desire not to speak before he had +read everything that was relevant, whether in print or manuscript--that +hindered so severely his output. His projected _History of Liberty_ was, +from the first, impossible of achievement. It would have required the +intellects of Napoleon and Julius Caesar combined, and the lifetime of +the patriarchs, to have executed that project as Acton appears to have +planned it. A _History of Liberty_, beginning with the ancient world and +carried down to our own day, to be based entirely upon original +sources, treating both of the institutions which secured it, the persons +who fought for it, and the ideas which expressed it, and taking note of +all that scholars had written about every several portion of the +subject, was and is beyond the reach of a single man. Probably towards +the close of his life Acton had felt this. The _Cambridge Modern +History_, which required the co-operation of so many specialists, was to +him really but a fragment of this great project. + +Two other causes limited Acton's output. Towards the close of the +seventies he began to suspect, and eventually discovered, that he and +Doellinger were not so close together as he had believed. That is to say, +he found that in regard to the crimes of the past, Doellinger's position +was more like that of Creighton than his own--that, while he was willing +to say persecution was always wrong, he was not willing to go so far as +Acton in rejecting every kind of mitigating plea and with mediaeval +certainty consigning the persecutors to perdition. Acton, who had as he +thought, learnt all this from Doellinger, was distressed at what seemed +to him the weakness and the sacerdotal prejudice of his master, felt +that he was now indeed alone, and for the time surrendered, as he said, +all views of literary work. This was the time when he had been gathering +materials for a _History of the Council of Trent_. That this cleavage, +coming when it did, had a paralysing effect on Acton's productive energy +is most probable, for it made him feel that he was no longer one of a +school, and was without sympathy and support in the things that lay +nearest his heart. + +Another cause retarded production--his determination to know all about +the work of others. Acton desired to be in touch with university life +all over Europe, to be aware, if possible through personal knowledge, of +the trend of investigation and thought of scholars working in all the +cognate branches of his subject. To keep up thoroughly with other +people's work, and do much original writing of one's own, is rarely +possible. At any rate we may say that the same man could not have +produced the essay on German schools of history, and written a _magnum +opus_ of his own. + +His life marks what, in an age of minute specialism, must always be at +once the crown and the catastrophe of those who take all knowledge for +their province. His achievement is something different from any book. +Acton's life-work was, in fact, himself. Those who lament what he might +have written as a historian would do well to reflect on the unique +position which he held in the world of letters, and to ask themselves +how far he could have wielded the influence that was his, or held the +standard so high, had his own achievement been greater. Men such as +Acton and Hort give to the world, by their example and disposition, more +than any written volume could convey. In both cases a great part of +their published writings has had, at least in book form, to be +posthumous. But their influence on other workers is incalculable, and +has not yet determined. + +To an age doubting on all things, and with the moral basis of its action +largely undermined, Acton gave the spectacle of a career which was as +moving as it was rare. He stood for a spirit of unwavering and even +childlike faith united to a passion for scientific inquiry, and a scorn +of consequences, which at times made him almost an iconoclast. His whole +life was dedicated to one high end, the aim of preaching the need of +principles based on the widest induction and the most penetrating +thought, as the only refuge amid the storm and welter of sophistical +philosophies and ecclesiastical intrigues. The union of faith with +knowledge, and the eternal supremacy of righteousness, this was the +message of Acton to mankind. It may be thought that he sometimes +exaggerated his thesis, that he preached it out of season, that he laid +himself open to the charge of being doctrinaire, and that in fighting +for it he failed to utter the resources of his vast learning. Enough, +however, is left to enable the world to judge what he was. No books ever +do more than that for any man. Those who are nice in comparisons may +weigh against the book lost the man gained. Those who loved him will +know no doubt. + + * * * * * + +The following document was found among Lord Acton's Papers. It records +in an imaginative form the ideals which he set before him. Perhaps it +forms the most fitting conclusion to this Introduction. + + This day's post informed me of the death of Adrian, who was the best + of all men I have known. He loved retirement, and avoided company, + but you might sometimes meet him coming from scenes of sorrow, silent + and appalled, as if he had seen a ghost, or in the darkest corner of + churches, his dim eyes radiant with light from another world. In + youth he had gone through much anxiety and contention; but he lived + to be trusted and honoured. At last he dropped out of notice and the + memory of men, and that part of his life was the happiest. + + Years ago, when I saw much of him, most people had not found him out. + There was something in his best qualities themselves that baffled + observation, and fell short of decided excellence. He looked absent + and preoccupied, as if thinking of things he cared not to speak of, + and seemed but little interested in the cares and events of the day. + Often it was hard to decide whether he had an opinion, and when he + showed it, he would defend it with more eagerness and obstinacy than + we liked. He did not mingle readily with others or co-operate in any + common undertaking, so that one could not rely on him socially, or + for practical objects. As he never spoke harshly of persons, so he + seldom praised them warmly, and there was some apparent indifference + and want of feeling. Ill success did not depress, but happy prospects + did not elate him, and though never impatient, he was not actively + hopeful. Facetious friends called him the weather-cock, or Mr. + Facingbothways, because there was no heartiness in his judgments, and + he satisfied nobody, and said things that were at first sight + grossly inconsistent, without attempting to reconcile them. He was + reserved about himself, and gave no explanations, so that he was + constantly misunderstood, and there was a sense of failure, of + disappointment, of perplexity about him. + + These things struck me, as well as others, and at first repelled me. + I could see indeed, at the same time, that his conduct was remarkably + methodical, and was guided at every step by an inexhaustible + provision of maxims. He had meditated on every contingency in life, + and was prepared with rules and precepts, which he never disobeyed. + But I doubted whether all this was not artificial,--a contrivance to + satisfy the pride of intellect and establish a cold superiority. In + time I discovered that it was the perfection of a developed + character. He had disciplined his soul with such wisdom and energy as + to make it the obedient and spontaneous instrument of God's will, and + he moved in an orbit of thoughts beyond our reach. + + It was part of his religion to live much in the past, to realise + every phase of thought, every crisis of controversy, every stage of + progress the Church has gone through. So that the events and ideas of + his own day lost much of their importance in comparison, were old + friends with new faces, and impressed him less than the multitude of + those that went before. This caused him to seem absent and + indifferent, rarely given to admire, or to expect. He respected other + men's opinions, fearing to give pain, or to tempt with anger by + contradiction, and when forced to defend his own he felt bound to + assume that every one would look sincerely for the truth, and would + gladly recognise it. But he could not easily enter into their motives + when they were mixed, and finding them generally mixed, he avoided + contention by holding much aloof. Being quite sincere, he was quite + impartial, and pleaded with equal zeal for what seemed true, whether + it was on one side or on the other. He would have felt dishonest if + he had unduly favoured people of his own country, his own religion, + or his own party, or if he had entertained the shadow of a prejudice + against those who were against them, and when he was asked why he did + not try to clear himself from misrepresentation, he said that he was + silent both from humility and pride. + + At last I understood that what we had disliked in him was his virtue + itself. + +J.N.F. +R.V.L. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: There is no foundation for the statement of Canon Meyrick +in his _Reminiscences_, that Acton, had he lived on the Continent, would +have undoubtedly become an Old Catholic. He did very largely live on the +Continent. Nor did even Doellinger, of whom Dr. Meyrick also asserts it, +ever become an adherent of that movement.] + + + + +I + +THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM IN ANTIQUITY[2] + + +Liberty, next to religion, has been the motive of good deeds and the +common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, two +thousand four hundred and sixty years ago, until the ripened harvest was +gathered by men of our race. It is the delicate fruit of a mature +civilisation; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew +the meaning of the term, resolved to be free. In every age its progress +has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by +lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for +power, and the poor man's craving for food. During long intervals it has +been utterly arrested, when nations were being rescued from barbarism +and from the grasp of strangers, and when the perpetual struggle for +existence, depriving men of all interest and understanding in politics, +has made them eager to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, and +ignorant of the treasure they resigned. At all times sincere friends of +freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, +that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose +objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is +always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents +just grounds of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in +the hour of success. No obstacle has been so constant, or so difficult +to overcome, as uncertainty and confusion touching the nature of true +liberty. If hostile interests have wrought much injury, false ideas have +wrought still more; and its advance is recorded in the increase of +knowledge, as much as in the improvement of laws. The history of +institutions is often a history of deception and illusions; for their +virtue depends on the ideas that produce and on the spirit that +preserves them, and the form may remain unaltered when the substance has +passed away. + +A few familiar examples from modern politics will explain why it is that +the burden of my argument will lie outside the domain of legislation. It +is often said that our Constitution attained its formal perfection in +1679, when the Habeas Corpus Act was passed. Yet Charles II. succeeded, +only two years later, in making himself independent of Parliament. In +1789, while the States-General assembled at Versailles, the Spanish +Cortes, older than Magna Charta and more venerable than our House of +Commons, were summoned after an interval of generations, but they +immediately prayed the King to abstain from consulting them, and to make +his reforms of his own wisdom and authority. According to the common +opinion, indirect elections are a safeguard of conservatism. But all the +Assemblies of the French Revolution issued from indirect elections. A +restricted suffrage is another reputed security for monarchy. But the +Parliament of Charles X., which was returned by 90,000 electors, +resisted and overthrew the throne; while the Parliament of Louis +Philippe, chosen by a Constitution of 250,000, obsequiously promoted the +reactionary policy of his Ministers, and in the fatal division which, by +rejecting reform, laid the monarchy in the dust, Guizot's majority was +obtained by the votes of 129 public functionaries. An unpaid legislature +is, for obvious reasons, more independent than most of the Continental +legislatures which receive pay. But it would be unreasonable in America +to send a member as far as from here to Constantinople to live for +twelve months at his own expense in the dearest of capital cities. +Legally and to outward seeming the American President is the successor +of Washington, and still enjoys powers devised and limited by the +Convention of Philadelphia. In reality the new President differs from +the Magistrate imagined by the Fathers of the Republic as widely as +Monarchy from Democracy, for he is expected to make 70,000 changes in +the public service; fifty years ago John Quincy Adams dismissed only two +men. The purchase of judicial appointments is manifestly indefensible; +yet in the old French monarchy that monstrous practice created the only +corporation able to resist the king. Official corruption, which would +ruin a commonwealth, serves in Russia as a salutary relief from the +pressure of absolutism. There are conditions in which it is scarcely a +hyperbole to say that slavery itself is a stage on the road to freedom. +Therefore we are not so much concerned this evening with the dead letter +of edicts and of statutes as with the living thoughts of men. A century +ago it was perfectly well known that whoever had one audience of a +Master in Chancery was made to pay for three, but no man heeded the +enormity until it suggested to a young lawyer that it might be well to +question and examine with rigorous suspicion every part of a system in +which such things were done. The day on which that gleam lighted up the +clear hard mind of Jeremy Bentham is memorable in the political calendar +beyond the entire administration of many statesmen. It would be easy to +point out a paragraph in St. Augustine, or a sentence of Grotius that +outweighs in influence the Acts of fifty Parliaments, and our cause owes +more to Cicero and Seneca, to Vinet and Tocqueville, than to the laws of +Lycurgus or the Five Codes of France. + +By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in +doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and +majorities, custom and opinion. The State is competent to assign duties +and draw the line between good and evil only in its immediate sphere. +Beyond the limits of things necessary for its well-being, it can only +give indirect help to fight the battle of life by promoting the +influences which prevail against temptation,--religion, education, and +the distribution of wealth. In ancient times the State absorbed +authorities not its own, and intruded on the domain of personal freedom. +In the Middle Ages it possessed too little authority, and suffered +others to intrude. Modern States fall habitually into both excesses. The +most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is +the amount of security enjoyed by minorities. Liberty, by this +definition, is the essential condition and guardian of religion; and it +is in the history of the Chosen People, accordingly, that the first +illustrations of my subject are obtained. The government of the +Israelites was a Federation, held together by no political authority, +but by the unity of race and faith, and founded, not on physical force, +but on a voluntary covenant. The principle of self-government was +carried out not only in each tribe, but in every group of at least 120 +families; and there was neither privilege of rank nor inequality before +the law. Monarchy was so alien to the primitive spirit of the community +that it was resisted by Samuel in that momentous protestation and +warning which all the kingdoms of Asia and many of the kingdoms of +Europe have unceasingly confirmed. The throne was erected on a compact; +and the king was deprived of the right of legislation among a people +that recognised no lawgiver but God, whose highest aim in politics was +to restore the original purity of the constitution, and to make its +government conform to the ideal type that was hallowed by the sanctions +of heaven. The inspired men who rose in unfailing succession to prophesy +against the usurper and the tyrant, constantly proclaimed that the laws, +which were divine, were paramount over sinful rulers, and appealed from +the established authorities, from the king, the priests, and the princes +of the people, to the healing forces that slept in the uncorrupted +consciences of the masses. Thus the example of the Hebrew nation laid +down the parallel lines on which all freedom has been won--the doctrine +of national tradition and the doctrine of the higher law; the principle +that a constitution grows from a root, by process of development, and +not of essential change; and the principle that all political +authorities must be tested and reformed according to a code which was +not made by man. The operation of these principles, in unison, or in +antagonism, occupies the whole of the space we are going over together. + +The conflict between liberty under divine authority and the absolutism +of human authorities ended disastrously. In the year 622 a supreme +effort was made at Jerusalem to reform and preserve the State. The High +Priest produced from the temple of Jehovah the book of the deserted and +forgotten Law, and both king and people bound themselves by solemn oaths +to observe it. But that early example of limited monarchy and of the +supremacy of law neither lasted nor spread; and the forces by which +freedom has conquered must be sought elsewhere. In the very year 586, in +which the flood of Asiatic despotism closed over the city which had +been, and was destined again to be, the sanctuary of freedom in the +East, a new home was prepared for it in the West, where, guarded by the +sea and the mountains, and by valiant hearts, that stately plant was +reared under whose shade we dwell, and which is extending its invincible +arms so slowly and yet so surely over the civilised world. + +According to a famous saying of the most famous authoress of the +Continent, liberty is ancient, and it is despotism that is new. It has +been the pride of recent historians to vindicate the truth of that +maxim. The heroic age of Greece confirms it, and it is still more +conspicuously true of Teutonic Europe. Wherever we can trace the earlier +life of the Aryan nations we discover germs which favouring +circumstances and assiduous culture might have developed into free +societies. They exhibit some sense of common interest in common +concerns, little reverence for external authority, and an imperfect +sense of the function and supremacy of the State. Where the division of +property and labour is incomplete there is little division of classes +and of power. Until societies are tried by the complex problems of +civilisation they may escape despotism, as societies that are +undisturbed by religious diversity avoid persecution. In general, the +forms of the patriarchal age failed to resist the growth of absolute +States when the difficulties and temptations of advancing life began to +tell; and with one sovereign exception, which is not within my scope +to-day, it is scarcely possible to trace their survival in the +institutions of later times. Six hundred years before the birth of +Christ absolutism held unbounded sway. Throughout the East it was +propped by the unchanging influence of priests and armies. In the West, +where there were no sacred books requiring trained interpreters, the +priesthood acquired no preponderance, and when the kings were overthrown +their powers passed to aristocracies of birth. What followed, during +many generations, was the cruel domination of class over class, the +oppression of the poor by the rich, and of the ignorant by the wise. The +spirit of that domination found passionate utterance in the verses of +the aristocratic poet Theognis, a man of genius and refinement, who +avows that he longed to drink the blood of his political adversaries. +From these oppressors the people of many cities sought deliverance in +the less intolerable tyranny of revolutionary usurpers. The remedy gave +new shape and energy to the evil. The tyrants were often men of +surprising capacity and merit, like some of those who, in the fourteenth +century, made themselves lords of Italian cities; but rights secured by +equal laws and by sharing power existed nowhere. + +From this universal degradation the world was rescued by the most gifted +of the nations. Athens, which like other cities was distracted and +oppressed by a privileged class, avoided violence and appointed Solon to +revise its laws. It was the happiest choice that history records. Solon +was not only the wisest man to be found in Athens, but the most profound +political genius of antiquity; and the easy, bloodless, and pacific +revolution by which he accomplished the deliverance of his country was +the first step in a career which our age glories in pursuing, and +instituted a power which has done more than anything, except revealed +religion, for the regeneration of society. The upper class had possessed +the right of making and administering the laws, and he left them in +possession, only transferring to wealth what had been the privilege of +birth. To the rich, who alone had the means of sustaining the burden of +public service in taxation and war, Solon gave a share of power +proportioned to the demands made on their resources. The poorest classes +were exempt from direct taxes, but were excluded from office. Solon gave +them a voice in electing magistrates from the classes above them, and +the right of calling them to account. This concession, apparently so +slender, was the beginning of a mighty change. It introduced the idea +that a man ought to have a voice in selecting those to whose rectitude +and wisdom he is compelled to trust his fortune, his family, and his +life. And this idea completely inverted the notion of human authority, +for it inaugurated the reign of moral influence where all political +power had depended on moral force. Government by consent superseded +government by compulsion, and the pyramid which had stood on a point was +made to stand upon its base. By making every citizen the guardian of his +own interest Solon admitted the element of Democracy into the State. The +greatest glory of a ruler, he said, is to create a popular government. +Believing that no man can be entirely trusted, he subjected all who +exercised power to the vigilant control of those for whom they acted. + +The only resource against political disorders that had been known till +then was the concentration of power. Solon undertook to effect the same +object by the distribution of power. He gave to the common people as +much influence as he thought them able to employ, that the State might +be exempt from arbitrary government. It is the essence of Democracy, he +said, to obey no master but the law. Solon recognised the principle that +political forms are not final or inviolable, and must adapt themselves +to facts; and he provided so well for the revision of his constitution, +without breach of continuity or loss of stability, that for centuries +after his death the Attic orators attributed to him, and quoted by his +name, the whole structure of Athenian law. The direction of its growth +was determined by the fundamental doctrine of Solon, that political +power ought to be commensurate with public service. In the Persian war +the services of the Democracy eclipsed those of the Patrician orders, +for the fleet that swept the Asiatics from the Egean Sea was manned by +the poorer Athenians. That class, whose valour had saved the State and +had preserved European civilisation, had gained a title to increase of +influence and privilege. The offices of State, which had been a monopoly +of the rich, were thrown open to the poor, and in order to make sure +that they should obtain their share, all but the highest commands were +distributed by lot. + +Whilst the ancient authorities were decaying, there was no accepted +standard of moral and political right to make the framework of society +fast in the midst of change. The instability that had seized on the +forms threatened the very principles of government. The national beliefs +were yielding to doubt, and doubt was not yet making way for knowledge. +There had been a time when the obligations of public as well as private +life were identified with the will of the gods. But that time had +passed. Pallas, the ethereal goddess of the Athenians, and the Sun god +whose oracles, delivered from the temple between the twin summits of +Parnassus, did so much for the Greek nationality, aided in keeping up a +lofty ideal of religion; but when the enlightened men of Greece learnt +to apply their keen faculty of reasoning to the system of their +inherited belief, they became quickly conscious that the conceptions of +the gods corrupted the life and degraded the minds of the public. +Popular morality could not be sustained by the popular religion. The +moral instruction which was no longer supplied by the gods could not yet +be found in books. There was no venerable code expounded by experts, no +doctrine proclaimed by men of reputed sanctity like those teachers of +the far East whose words still rule the fate of nearly half mankind. The +effort to account for things by close observation and exact reasoning +began by destroying. There came a time when the philosophers of the +Porch and the Academy wrought the dictates of wisdom and virtue into a +system so consistent and profound that it has vastly shortened the task +of the Christian divines. But that time had not yet come. + +The epoch of doubt and transition during which the Greeks passed from +the dim fancies of mythology to the fierce light of science was the age +of Pericles, and the endeavour to substitute certain truth for the +prescriptions of impaired authorities, which was then beginning to +absorb the energies of the Greek intellect, is the grandest movement in +the profane annals of mankind, for to it we owe, even after the +immeasurable progress accomplished by Christianity, much of our +philosophy and far the better part of the political knowledge we +possess. Pericles, who was at the head of the Athenian Government, was +the first statesman who encountered the problem which the rapid +weakening of traditions forced on the political world. No authority in +morals or in politics remained unshaken by the motion that was in the +air. No guide could be confidently trusted; there was no available +criterion to appeal to, for the means of controlling or denying +convictions that prevailed among the people. The popular sentiment as to +what was right might be mistaken, but it was subject to no test. The +people were, for practical purposes, the seat of the knowledge of good +and evil. The people, therefore, were the seat of power. + +The political philosophy of Pericles consisted of this conclusion. He +resolutely struck away all the props that still sustained the artificial +preponderance of wealth. For the ancient doctrine that power goes with +land, he introduced the idea that power ought to be so equitably +diffused as to afford equal security to all. That one part of the +community should govern the whole, or that one class should make laws +for another, he declared to be tyrannical. The abolition of privilege +would have served only to transfer the supremacy from the rich to the +poor, if Pericles had not redressed the balance by restricting the right +of citizenship to Athenians of pure descent. By this measure the class +which formed what we should call the third estate was brought down to +14,000 citizens, and became about equal in numbers with the higher +ranks. Pericles held that every Athenian who neglected to take his part +in the public business inflicted an injury on the commonwealth. That +none might be excluded by poverty, he caused the poor to be paid for +their attendance out of the funds of the State; for his administration +of the federal tribute had brought together a treasure of more than two +million sterling. The instrument of his sway was the art of speaking. He +governed by persuasion. Everything was decided by argument in open +deliberation, and every influence bowed before the ascendency of mind. +The idea that the object of constitutions is not to confirm the +predominance of any interest, but to prevent it; to preserve with equal +care the independence of labour and the security of property; to make +the rich safe against envy, and the poor against oppression, marks the +highest level attained by the statesmanship of Greece. It hardly +survived the great patriot who conceived it; and all history has been +occupied with the endeavour to upset the balance of power by giving the +advantage to money, land, or numbers. A generation followed that has +never been equalled in talent--a generation of men whose works, in +poetry and eloquence, are still the envy of the world, and in history, +philosophy, and politics remain unsurpassed. But it produced no +successor to Pericles, and no man was able to wield the sceptre that +fell from his hand. + +It was a momentous step in the progress of nations when the principle +that every interest should have the right and the means of asserting +itself was adopted by the Athenian Constitution. But for those who were +beaten in the vote there was no redress. The law did not check the +triumph of majorities or rescue the minority from the dire penalty of +having been outnumbered. When the overwhelming influence of Pericles was +removed, the conflict between classes raged without restraint, and the +slaughter that befell the higher ranks in the Peloponnesian war gave an +irresistible preponderance to the lower. The restless and inquiring +spirit of the Athenians was prompt to unfold the reason of every +institution and the consequences of every principle, and their +Constitution ran its course from infancy to decrepitude with unexampled +speed. + +Two men's lives span the interval from the first admission of popular +influence, under Solon, to the downfall of the State. Their history +furnishes the classic example of the peril of Democracy under conditions +singularly favourable. For the Athenians were not only brave and +patriotic and capable of generous sacrifice, but they were the most +religious of the Greeks. They venerated the Constitution which had given +them prosperity, and equality, and freedom, and never questioned the +fundamental laws which regulated the enormous power of the Assembly. +They tolerated considerable variety of opinion and great licence of +speech; and their humanity towards their slaves roused the indignation +even of the most intelligent partisan of aristocracy. Thus they became +the only people of antiquity that grew great by democratic institutions. +But the possession of unlimited power, which corrodes the conscience, +hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding of monarchs, +exercised its demoralising influence on the illustrious democracy of +Athens. It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be +oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the +masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. +But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no +redemption, no refuge but treason. The humblest and most numerous class +of the Athenians united the legislative, the judicial, and, in part, the +executive power. The philosophy that was then in the ascendant taught +them that there is no law superior to that of the State--the lawgiver is +above the law. + +It followed that the sovereign people had a right to do whatever was +within its power, and was bound by no rule of right or wrong but its own +judgment of expediency. On a memorable occasion the assembled Athenians +declared it monstrous that they should be prevented from doing whatever +they chose. No force that existed could restrain them; and they resolved +that no duty should restrain them, and that they would be bound by no +laws that were not of their own making. In this way the emancipated +people of Athens became a tyrant; and their Government, the pioneer of +European freedom, stands condemned with a terrible unanimity by all the +wisest of the ancients. They ruined their city by attempting to conduct +war by debate in the marketplace. Like the French Republic, they put +their unsuccessful commanders to death. They treated their dependencies +with such injustice that they lost their maritime Empire. They plundered +the rich until the rich conspired with the public enemy, and they +crowned their guilt by the martyrdom of Socrates. + +When the absolute sway of numbers had endured for near a quarter of a +century, nothing but bare existence was left for the State to lose; and +the Athenians, wearied and despondent, confessed the true cause of their +ruin. They understood that for liberty, justice, and equal laws, it is +as necessary that Democracy should restrain itself as it had been that +it should restrain the Oligarchy. They resolved to take their stand once +more upon the ancient ways, and to restore the order of things which had +subsisted when the monopoly of power had been taken from the rich and +had not been acquired by the poor. After a first restoration had failed, +which is only memorable because Thucydides, whose judgment in politics +is never at fault, pronounced it the best Government Athens had enjoyed, +the attempt was renewed with more experience and greater singleness of +purpose. The hostile parties were reconciled, and proclaimed an +amnesty, the first in history. They resolved to govern by concurrence. +The laws, which had the sanction of tradition, were reduced to a code; +and no act of the sovereign assembly was valid with which they might be +found to disagree. Between the sacred lines of the Constitution which +were to remain inviolate, and the decrees which met from time to time +the needs and notions of the day, a broad distinction was drawn; and the +fabric of a law which had been the work of generations was made +independent of momentary variations in the popular will. The repentance +of the Athenians came too late to save the Republic. But the lesson of +their experience endures for all times, for it teaches that government +by the whole people, being the government of the most numerous and most +powerful class, is an evil of the same nature as unmixed monarchy, and +requires, for nearly the same reasons, institutions that shall protect +it against itself, and shall uphold the permanent reign of law against +arbitrary revolutions of opinion. + + * * * * * + +Parallel with the rise and fall of Athenian freedom, Rome was employed +in working out the same problems, with greater constructive sense, and +greater temporary success, but ending at last in a far more terrible +catastrophe. That which among the ingenious Athenians had been a +development carried forward by the spell of plausible argument, was in +Rome a conflict between rival forces. Speculative politics had no +attraction for the grim and practical genius of the Romans. They did not +consider what would be the cleverest way of getting over a difficulty, +but what way was indicated by analogous cases; and they assigned less +influence to the impulse and spirit of the moment, than to precedent and +example. Their peculiar character prompted them to ascribe the origin of +their laws to early times, and in their desire to justify the continuity +of their institutions, and to get rid of the reproach of innovation, +they imagined the legendary history of the kings of Rome. The energy of +their adherence to traditions made their progress slow, they advanced +only under compulsion of almost unavoidable necessity, and the same +questions recurred often, before they were settled. The constitutional +history of the Republic turns on the endeavours of the aristocracy, who +claimed to be the only true Romans, to retain in their hands the power +they had wrested from the kings, and of the plebeians to get an equal +share in it. And this controversy, which the eager and restless +Athenians went through in one generation, lasted for more than two +centuries, from a time when the _plebs_ were excluded from the +government of the city, and were taxed, and made to serve without pay, +until, in the year 286, they were admitted to political equality. Then +followed one hundred and fifty years of unexampled prosperity and glory; +and then, out of the original conflict which had been compromised, if +not theoretically settled, a new struggle arose which was without an +issue. + +The mass of poorer families, impoverished by incessant service in war, +were reduced to dependence on an aristocracy of about two thousand +wealthy men, who divided among themselves the immense domain of the +State. When the need became intense the Gracchi tried to relieve it by +inducing the richer classes to allot some share in the public lands to +the common people. The old and famous aristocracy of birth and rank had +made a stubborn resistance, but it knew the art of yielding. The later +and more selfish aristocracy was unable to learn it. The character of +the people was changed by the sterner motives of dispute. The fight for +political power had been carried on with the moderation which is so +honourable a quality of party contests in England. But the struggle for +the objects of material existence grew to be as ferocious as civil +controversies in France. Repulsed by the rich, after a struggle of +twenty-two years, the people, three hundred and twenty thousand of whom +depended on public rations for food, were ready to follow any man who +promised to obtain for them by revolution what they could not obtain by +law. + +For a time the Senate, representing the ancient and threatened order of +things, was strong enough to overcome every popular leader that arose, +until Julius Caesar, supported by an army which he had led in an +unparalleled career of conquest, and by the famished masses which he won +by his lavish liberality, and skilled beyond all other men in the art of +governing, converted the Republic into a Monarchy by a series of +measures that were neither violent nor injurious. + +The Empire preserved the Republican forms until the reign of Diocletian; +but the will of the Emperors was as uncontrolled as that of the people +had been after the victory of the Tribunes. Their power was arbitrary +even when it was most wisely employed, and yet the Roman Empire rendered +greater services to the cause of liberty than the Roman Republic. I do +not mean by reason of the temporary accident that there were emperors +who made good use of their immense opportunities, such as Nerva, of whom +Tacitus says that he combined monarchy and liberty, things otherwise +incompatible; or that the Empire was what its panegyrists declared it, +the perfection of Democracy. In truth it was at best an ill-disguised +and odious despotism. But Frederic the Great was a despot; yet he was a +friend to toleration and free discussion. The Bonapartes were despotic; +yet no liberal ruler was ever more acceptable to the masses of the +people than the First Napoleon, after he had destroyed the Republic, in +1805, and the Third Napoleon at the height of his power in 1859. In the +same way, the Roman Empire possessed merits which, at a distance, and +especially at a great distance of time, concern men more deeply than the +tragic tyranny which was felt in the neighbourhood of the Palace. The +poor had what they had demanded in vain of the Republic. The rich fared +better than during the Triumvirate. The rights of Roman citizens were +extended to the people of the provinces. To the imperial epoch belong +the better part of Roman literature and nearly the entire Civil Law; and +it was the Empire that mitigated slavery, instituted religious +toleration, made a beginning of the law of nations, and created a +perfect system of the law of property. The Republic which Caesar +overthrew had been anything but a free State. It provided admirable +securities for the rights of citizens; it treated with savage disregard +the rights of men; and allowed the free Roman to inflict atrocious +wrongs on his children, on debtors and dependants, on prisoners and +slaves. Those deeper ideas of right and duty, which are not found on the +tables of municipal law, but with which the generous minds of Greece +were conversant, were held of little account, and the philosophy which +dealt with such speculations was repeatedly proscribed, as a teacher of +sedition and impiety. + +At length, in the year 155, the Athenian philosopher Carneades appeared +at Rome, on a political mission. During an interval of official business +he delivered two public orations, to give the unlettered conquerors of +his country a taste of the disputations that flourished in the Attic +schools. On the first day he discoursed of natural justice. On the next +he denied its existence, arguing that all our notions of good and evil +are derived from positive enactment. From the time of that memorable +display, the genius of the vanquished held its conquerors in thrall. The +most eminent of the public men of Rome, such as Scipio and Cicero, +formed their minds on Grecian models, and her jurists underwent the +rigorous discipline of Zeno and Chrysippus. + +If, drawing the limit in the second century, when the influence of +Christianity becomes perceptible, we should form our judgment of the +politics of antiquity by its actual legislation, our estimate would be +low. The prevailing notions of freedom were imperfect, and the +endeavours to realise them were wide of the mark. The ancients +understood the regulation of power better than the regulation of +liberty. They concentrated so many prerogatives in the State as to leave +no footing from which a man could deny its jurisdiction or assign bounds +to its activity. If I may employ an expressive anachronism, the vice of +the classic State was that it was both Church and State in one. Morality +was undistinguished from religion and politics from morals; and in +religion, morality, and politics there was only one legislator and one +authority. The State, while it did deplorably little for education, for +practical science, for the indigent and helpless, or for the spiritual +needs of man, nevertheless claimed the use of all his faculties and the +determination of all his duties. Individuals and families, associations +and dependencies were so much material that the sovereign power consumed +for its own purposes. What the slave was in the hands of his master, the +citizen was in the hands of the community. The most sacred obligations +vanished before the public advantage. The passengers existed for the +sake of the ship. By their disregard for private interests, and for the +moral welfare and improvement of the people, both Greece and Rome +destroyed the vital elements on which the prosperity of nations rests, +and perished by the decay of families and the depopulation of the +country. They survive not in their institutions, but in their ideas, and +by their ideas, especially on the art of government, they are-- + +The dead, but sceptred sovereigns who still rule +Our spirits from their urns. + +To them, indeed, may be tracked nearly all the errors that are +undermining political society--Communism, Utilitarianism, the confusion +between tyranny and authority, and between lawlessness and freedom. + +The notion that men lived originally in a state of nature, by violence +and without laws, is due to Critias. Communism in its grossest form was +recommended by Diogenes of Sinope. According to the Sophists, there is +no duty above expediency and no virtue apart from pleasure. Laws are an +invention of weak men to rob their betters of the reasonable enjoyment +of their superiority. It is better to inflict than to suffer wrong; and +as there is no greater good than to do evil without fear of retribution, +so there is no worse evil than to suffer without the consolation of +revenge. Justice is the mask of a craven spirit; injustice is worldly +wisdom; and duty, obedience, self-denial are the impostures of +hypocrisy. Government is absolute, and may ordain what it pleases, and +no subject can complain that it does him wrong, but as long as he can +escape compulsion and punishment, he is always free to disobey. +Happiness consists in obtaining power and in eluding the necessity of +obedience; and he that gains a throne by perfidy and murder, deserves to +be truly envied. + +Epicurus differed but little from the propounders of the code of +revolutionary despotism. All societies, he said, are founded on contract +for mutual protection. Good and evil are conventional terms, for the +thunderbolts of heaven fall alike on the just and the unjust. The +objection to wrongdoing is not the act, but in its consequences to the +wrongdoer. Wise men contrive laws, not to bind, but to protect +themselves; and when they prove to be unprofitable they cease to be +valid. The illiberal sentiments of even the most illustrious +metaphysicians are disclosed in the saying of Aristotle, that the mark +of the worst governments is that they leave men free to live as they +please. + +If you will bear in mind that Socrates, the best of the pagans, knew of +no higher criterion for men, of no better guide of conduct, than the +laws of each country; that Plato, whose sublime doctrine was so near an +anticipation of Christianity that celebrated theologians wished his +works to be forbidden, lest men should be content with them, and +indifferent to any higher dogma--to whom was granted that prophetic +vision of the Just Man, accused, condemned and scourged, and dying on a +Cross--nevertheless employed the most splendid intellect ever bestowed +on man to advocate the abolition of the family and the exposure of +infants; that Aristotle, the ablest moralist of antiquity, saw no harm +in making raids upon a neighbouring people, for the sake of reducing +them to slavery--still more, if you will consider that, among the +moderns, men of genius equal to these have held political doctrines not +less criminal or absurd--it will be apparent to you how stubborn a +phalanx of error blocks the paths of truth; that pure reason is as +powerless as custom to solve the problem of free government; that it +can only be the fruit of long, manifold, and painful experience; and +that the tracing of the methods by which divine wisdom has educated the +nations to appreciate and to assume the duties of freedom, is not the +least part of that true philosophy that studies to + + Assert eternal Providence, + And justify the ways of God to men. + +But, having sounded the depth of their errors, I should give you a very +inadequate idea of the wisdom of the ancients if I allowed it to appear +that their precepts were no better than their practice. While statesmen +and senates and popular assemblies supplied examples of every +description of blunder, a noble literature arose, in which a priceless +treasure of political knowledge was stored, and in which the defects of +the existing institutions were exposed with unsparing sagacity. The +point on which the ancients were most nearly unanimous is the right of +the people to govern, and their inability to govern alone. To meet this +difficulty, to give to the popular element a full share without a +monopoly of power, they adopted very generally the theory of a mixed +Constitution. They differed from our notion of the same thing, because +modern Constitutions have been a device for limiting monarchy; with them +they were invented to curb democracy. The idea arose in the time of +Plato--though he repelled it--when the early monarchies and oligarchies +had vanished, and it continued to be cherished long after all +democracies had been absorbed in the Roman Empire. But whereas a +sovereign prince who surrenders part of his authority yields to the +argument of superior force, a sovereign people relinquishing its own +prerogative succumbs to the influence of reason. And it has in all times +proved more easy to create limitations by the use of force than by +persuasion. + +The ancient writers saw very clearly that each principle of government +standing alone is carried to excess and provokes a reaction. Monarchy +hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy +expands into the supremacy of numbers. They therefore imagined that to +restrain each element by combining it with the others would avert the +natural process of self-destruction, and endow the State with perpetual +youth. But this harmony of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy blended +together, which was the ideal of many writers, and which they supposed +to be exhibited by Sparta, by Carthage, and by Rome, was a chimera of +philosophers never realised by antiquity. At last Tacitus, wiser than +the rest, confessed that the mixed Constitution, however admirable in +theory, was difficult to establish and impossible to maintain. His +disheartening avowal is not disowned by later experience. + +The experiment has been tried more often than I can tell, with a +combination of resources that were unknown to the ancients--with +Christianity, parliamentary government, and a free press. Yet there is +no example of such a balanced Constitution having lasted a century. If +it has succeeded anywhere it has been in our favoured country and in our +time; and we know not yet how long the wisdom of the nation will +preserve the equipoise. The Federal check was as familiar to the +ancients as the Constitutional. For the type of all their Republics was +the government of a city by its own inhabitants meeting in the public +place. An administration embracing many cities was known to them only in +the form of the oppression which Sparta exercised over the Messenians, +Athens over her Confederates, and Rome over Italy. The resources which, +in modern times, enabled a great people to govern itself through a +single centre did not exist. Equality could be preserved only by +Federalism; and it occurs more often amongst them than in the modern +world. If the distribution of power among the several parts of the State +is the most efficient restraint on monarchy, the distribution of power +among several States is the best check on democracy. By multiplying +centres of government and discussion it promotes the diffusion of +political knowledge and the maintenance of healthy and independent +opinion. It is the protectorate of minorities, and the consecration of +self-government. But although it must be enumerated among the better +achievements of practical genius in antiquity, it arose from necessity, +and its properties were imperfectly investigated in theory. + +When the Greeks began to reflect on the problems of society, they first +of all accepted things as they were, and did their best to explain and +defend them. Inquiry, which with us is stimulated by doubt, began with +them in wonder. The most illustrious of the early philosophers, +Pythagoras, promulgated a theory for the preservation of political power +in the educated class, and ennobled a form of government which was +generally founded on popular ignorance and on strong class interests. He +preached authority and subordination, and dwelt more on duties than on +rights, on religion than on policy; and his system perished in the +revolution by which oligarchies were swept away. The revolution +afterwards developed its own philosophy, whose excesses I have +described. + +But between the two eras, between the rigid didactics of the early +Pythagoreans and the dissolving theories of Protagoras, a philosopher +arose who stood aloof from both extremes, and whose difficult sayings +were never really understood or valued until our time. Heraclitus, of +Ephesus, deposited his book in the temple of Diana. The book has +perished, like the temple and the worship, but its fragments have been +collected and interpreted with incredible ardour, by the scholars, the +divines, the philosophers, and politicians who have been engaged the +most intensely in the toil and stress of this century. The most renowned +logician of the last century adopted every one of his propositions; and +the most brilliant agitator among Continental Socialists composed a work +of eight hundred and forty pages to celebrate his memory. + +Heraclitus complained that the masses were deaf to truth, and knew not +that one good man counts for more than thousands; but he held the +existing order in no superstitious reverence. Strife, he says, is the +source and the master of all things. Life is perpetual motion, and +repose is death. No man can plunge twice into the same current, for it +is always flowing and passing, and is never the same. The only thing +fixed and certain in the midst of change is the universal and sovereign +reason, which all men may not perceive, but which is common to all. Laws +are sustained by no human authority, but by virtue of their derivation +from the one law that is divine. These sayings, which recall the grand +outlines of political truth which we have found in the Sacred Books, and +carry us forward to the latest teaching of our most enlightened +contemporaries, would bear a good deal of elucidation and comment. +Heraclitus is, unfortunately, so obscure that Socrates could not +understand him, and I won't pretend to have succeeded better. + +If the topic of my address was the history of political science, the +highest and the largest place would belong to Plato and Aristotle. The +_Laws_ of the one, the _Politics_ of the other, are, if I may trust my +own experience, the books from which we may learn the most about the +principles of politics. The penetration with which those great masters +of thought analysed the institutions of Greece, and exposed their vices, +is not surpassed by anything in later literature; by Burke or Hamilton, +the best political writers of the last century; by Tocqueville or +Roscher, the most eminent of our own. But Plato and Aristotle were +philosophers, studious not of unguided freedom, but of intelligent +government. They saw the disastrous effects of ill-directed striving for +liberty; and they resolved that it was better not to strive for it, but +to be content with a strong administration, prudently adapted to make +men prosperous and happy. + +Now liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are +excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to +a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. It is +not for the sake of a good public administration that it is required, +but for security in the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society, +and of private life. Increase of freedom in the State may sometimes +promote mediocrity, and give vitality to prejudice; it may even retard +useful legislation, diminish the capacity for war, and restrict the +boundaries of Empire. It might be plausibly argued that, if many things +would be worse in England or Ireland under an intelligent despotism, +some things would be managed better; that the Roman Government was more +enlightened under Augustus and Antoninus than under the Senate, in the +days of Marius or of Pompey. A generous spirit prefers that his country +should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than +powerful, prosperous, and enslaved. It is better to be the citizen of a +humble commonwealth in the Alps, without a prospect of influence beyond +the narrow frontier, than a subject of the superb autocracy that +overshadows half of Asia and of Europe. But it may be urged, on the +other side, that liberty is not the sum or the substitute of all the +things men ought to live for; that to be real it must be circumscribed, +and that the limits of circumscription vary; that advancing civilisation +invests the State with increased rights and duties, and imposes +increased burdens and constraint on the subject; that a highly +instructed and intelligent community may perceive the benefit of +compulsory obligations which, at a lower stage, would be thought +unbearable; that liberal progress is not vague or indefinite, but aims +at a point where the public is subject to no restrictions but those of +which it feels the advantage; that a free country may be less capable of +doing much for the advancement of religion, the prevention of vice, or +the relief of suffering, than one that does not shrink from confronting +great emergencies by some sacrifice of individual rights, and some +concentration of power; and that the supreme political object ought to +be sometimes postponed to still higher moral objects. My argument +involves no collision with these qualifying reflections. We are dealing, +not with the effects of freedom, but with its causes. We are seeking out +the influences which brought arbitrary government under control, either +by the diffusion of power, or by the appeal to an authority which +transcends all government, and among those influences the greatest +philosophers of Greece have no claim to be reckoned. + +It is the Stoics who emancipated mankind from its subjugation to +despotic rule, and whose enlightened and elevated views of life bridged +the chasm that separates the ancient from the Christian state, and led +the way to freedom. Seeing how little security there is that the laws of +any land shall be wise or just, and that the unanimous will of a people +and the assent of nations are liable to err, the Stoics looked beyond +those narrow barriers, and above those inferior sanctions, for the +principles that ought to regulate the lives of men and the existence of +society. They made it known that there is a will superior to the +collective will of man, and a law that overrules those of Solon and +Lycurgus. Their test of good government is its conformity to principles +that can be traced to a higher legislator. That which we must obey, that +to which we are bound to reduce all civil authorities, and to sacrifice +every earthly interest, is that immutable law which is perfect and +eternal as God Himself, which proceeds from His nature, and reigns over +heaven and earth and over all the nations. + +The great question is to discover, not what governments prescribe, but +what they ought to prescribe; for no prescription is valid against the +conscience of mankind. Before God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, +neither rich nor poor, and the slave is as good as his master, for by +birth all men are free; they are citizens of that universal commonwealth +which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of +God. The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the +voice of God, who comes down to dwell in our souls, who knows all our +thoughts, to whom are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we +do; for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the +heavenly spirit within. + +What the teaching of that divine voice is, the philosophers who had +imbibed the sublime ethics of the Porch went on to expound: It is not +enough to act up to the written law, or to give all men their due; we +ought to give them more than their due, to be generous and beneficent, +to devote ourselves for the good of others, seeking our reward in +self-denial and sacrifice, acting from the motive of sympathy and not of +personal advantage. Therefore we must treat others as we wish to be +treated by them, and must persist until death in doing good to our +enemies, regardless of unworthiness and ingratitude. For we must be at +war with evil, but at peace with men, and it is better to suffer than to +commit injustice. True freedom, says the most eloquent of the Stoics, +consists in obeying God. A State governed by such principles as these +would have been free far beyond the measure of Greek or Roman freedom; +for they open a door to religious toleration, and close it against +slavery. Neither conquest nor purchase, said Zeno, can make one man the +property of another. + +These doctrines were adopted and applied by the great jurists of the +Empire. The law of nature, they said, is superior to the written law, +and slavery contradicts the law of nature. Men have no right to do what +they please with their own, or to make profit out of another's loss. +Such is the political wisdom of the ancients, touching the foundations +of liberty, as we find it in its highest development, in Cicero, and +Seneca, and Philo, a Jew of Alexandria. Their writings impress upon us +the greatness of the work of preparation for the Gospel which had been +accomplished among men on the eve of the mission of the Apostles. St. +Augustine, after quoting Seneca, exclaims: "What more could a Christian +say than this Pagan has said?" The enlightened pagans had reached nearly +the last point attainable without a new dispensation, when the fulness +of time was come. We have seen the breadth and the splendour of the +domain of Hellenic thought, and it has brought us to the threshold of a +greater kingdom. The best of the later classics speak almost the +language of Christianity, and they border on its spirit. + +But in all that I have been able to cite from classical literature, +three things are wanting,--representative government, the emancipation +of the slaves, and liberty of conscience. There were, it is true, +deliberative assemblies, chosen by the people; and confederate cities, +of which, both in Asia and Africa, there were so many leagues, sent +their delegates to sit in Federal Councils. But government by an elected +Parliament was even in theory a thing unknown. It is congruous with the +nature of Polytheism to admit some measure of toleration. And Socrates, +when he avowed that he must obey God rather than the Athenians, and the +Stoics, when they set the wise man above the law, were very near giving +utterance to the principle. But it was first proclaimed and established +by enactment, not in polytheistic and philosophical Greece, but in +India, by Asoka, the earliest of the Buddhist kings, two hundred and +fifty years before the birth of Christ. + +Slavery has been, far more than intolerance, the perpetual curse and +reproach of ancient civilisation, and although its rightfulness was +disputed as early as the days of Aristotle, and was implicitly, if not +definitely, denied by several Stoics, the moral philosophy of the Greeks +and Romans, as well as their practice, pronounced decidedly in its +favour. But there was one extraordinary people who, in this as in other +things, anticipated the purer precept that was to come. Philo of +Alexandria is one of the writers whose views on society were most +advanced. He applauds not only liberty but equality in the enjoyment of +wealth. He believes that a limited democracy, purged of its grosser +elements, is the most perfect government, and will extend itself +gradually over all the world. By freedom he understood the following of +God. Philo, though he required that the condition of the slave should be +made compatible with the wants and claims of his higher nature, did not +absolutely condemn slavery. But he has put on record the customs of the +Essenes of Palestine, a people who, uniting the wisdom of the Gentiles +with the faith of the Jews, led lives which were uncontaminated by the +surrounding civilisation, and were the first to reject slavery both in +principle and practice. They formed a religious community rather than a +State, and their numbers did not exceed 4000. But their example +testifies to how great a height religious men were able to raise their +conception of society even without the succour of the New Testament, and +affords the strongest condemnation of their contemporaries. + +This, then, is the conclusion to which our survey brings us: There is +hardly a truth in politics or in the system of the rights of man that +was not grasped by the wisest of the Gentiles and the Jews, or that they +did not declare with a refinement of thought and a nobleness of +expression that later writers could never surpass. I might go on for +hours, reciting to you passages on the law of nature and the duties of +man, so solemn and religious that though they come from the profane +theatre on the Acropolis, and from the Roman Forum, you would deem that +you were listening to the hymns of Christian Churches and the discourse +of ordained divines. But although the maxims of the great classic +teachers, of Sophocles, and Plato, and Seneca, and the glorious examples +of public virtue were in the mouths of all men, there was no power in +them to avert the doom of that civilisation for which the blood of so +many patriots and the genius of such incomparable writers had been +wasted in vain. The liberties of the ancient nations were crushed +beneath a hopeless and inevitable despotism, and their vitality was +spent, when the new power came forth from Galilee, giving what was +wanting to the efficacy of human knowledge to redeem societies as well +as men. + +It would be presumptuous if I attempted to indicate the numberless +channels by which Christian influence gradually penetrated the State. +The first striking phenomenon is the slowness with which an action +destined to be so prodigious became manifest. Going forth to all +nations, in many stages of civilisation and under almost every form of +government, Christianity had none of the character of a political +apostolate, and in its absorbing mission to individuals did not +challenge public authority. The early Christians avoided contact with +the State, abstained from the responsibilities of office, and were even +reluctant to serve in the army. Cherishing their citizenship of a +kingdom not of this world, they despaired of an empire which seemed too +powerful to be resisted and too corrupt to be converted, whose +institutions, the work and the pride of untold centuries of paganism, +drew their sanctions from the gods whom the Christians accounted devils, +which plunged its hands from age to age in the blood of martyrs, and was +beyond the hope of regeneration and foredoomed to perish. They were so +much overawed as to imagine that the fall of the State would be the end +of the Church and of the world, and no man dreamed of the boundless +future of spiritual and social influence that awaited their religion +among the race of destroyers that were bringing the empire of Augustus +and of Constantine to humiliation and ruin. The duties of government +were less in their thoughts than the private virtues and duties of +subjects; and it was long before they became aware of the burden of +power in their faith. Down almost to the time of Chrysostom, they shrank +from contemplating the obligation to emancipate the slaves. + +Although the doctrine of self-reliance and self-denial, which is the +foundation of political economy, was written as legibly in the New +Testament as in the _Wealth of Nations_, it was not recognised until our +age. Tertullian boasts of the passive obedience of the Christians. +Melito writes to a pagan Emperor as if he were incapable of giving an +unjust command; and in Christian times Optatus thought that whoever +presumed to find fault with his sovereign exalted himself almost to the +level of a god. But this political quietism was not universal. Origen, +the ablest writer of early times, spoke with approval of conspiring for +the destruction of tyranny. + +After the fourth century the declarations against slavery are earnest +and continual. And in a theological but yet pregnant sense, divines of +the second century insist on liberty, and divines of the fourth century +on equality. There was one essential and inevitable transformation in +politics. Popular governments had existed, and also mixed and federal +governments, but there had been no limited government, no State the +circumference of whose authority had been defined by a force external to +its own. That was the great problem which philosophy had raised, and +which no statesmanship had been able to solve. Those who proclaimed the +assistance of a higher authority had indeed drawn a metaphysical barrier +before the governments, but they had not known how to make it real. All +that Socrates could effect by way of protest against the tyranny of the +reformed democracy was to die for his convictions. The Stoics could only +advise the wise man to hold aloof from politics, keeping the unwritten +law in his heart. But when Christ said: "Render unto Caesar the things +that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's," those words, +spoken on His last visit to the Temple, three days before His death, +gave to the civil power, under the protection of conscience, a +sacredness it had never enjoyed, and bounds it had never acknowledged; +and they were the repudiation of absolutism and the inauguration of +freedom. For our Lord not only delivered the precept, but created the +force to execute it. To maintain the necessary immunity in one supreme +sphere, to reduce all political authority within defined limits, ceased +to be an aspiration of patient reasoners, and was made the perpetual +charge and care of the most energetic institution and the most universal +association in the world. The new law, the new spirit, the new +authority, gave to liberty a meaning and a value it had not possessed in +the philosophy or in the constitution of Greece or Rome before the +knowledge of the truth that makes us free. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 2: An address delivered to the members of the Bridgnorth +Institution at the Agricultural Hall, 26th February 1877.] + + + + +II + +THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM IN CHRISTIANITY[3] + + +When Constantine the Great carried the seat of empire from Rome to +Constantinople he set up in the marketplace of the new capital a +porphyry pillar which had come from Egypt, and of which a strange tale +is told. In a vault beneath he secretly buried the seven sacred emblems +of the Roman State, which were guarded by the virgins in the temple of +Vesta, with the fire that might never be quenched. On the summit he +raised a statue of Apollo, representing himself, and enclosing a +fragment of the Cross; and he crowned it with a diadem of rays +consisting of the nails employed at the Crucifixion, which his mother +was believed to have found at Jerusalem. + +The pillar still stands, the most significant monument that exists of +the converted empire; for the notion that the nails which had pierced +the body of Christ became a fit ornament for a heathen idol as soon as +it was called by the name of a living emperor indicates the position +designed for Christianity in the imperial structure of Constantine. +Diocletian's attempt to transform the Roman Government into a despotism +of the Eastern type had brought on the last and most serious persecution +of the Christians; and Constantine, in adopting their faith, intended +neither to abandon his predecessor's scheme of policy nor to renounce +the fascinations of arbitrary authority, but to strengthen his throne +with the support of a religion which had astonished the world by its +power of resistance, and to obtain that support absolutely and without a +drawback he fixed the seat of his government in the East, with a +patriarch of his own creation. + +Nobody warned him that by promoting the Christian religion he was tying +one of his hands, and surrendering the prerogative of the Caesars. As the +acknowledged author of the liberty and superiority of the Church, he was +appealed to as the guardian of her unity. He admitted the obligation; he +accepted the trust; and the divisions that prevailed among the +Christians supplied his successors with many opportunities of extending +that protectorate, and preventing any reduction of the claims or of the +resources of imperialism. + +Constantine declared his own will equivalent to a canon of the Church. +According to Justinian, the Roman people had formally transferred to the +emperors the entire plenitude of its authority, and, therefore, the +Emperor's pleasure, expressed by edict or by letter, had force of law. +Even in the fervent age of its conversion the Empire employed its +refined civilisation, the accumulated wisdom of ancient sages, the +reasonableness and subtlety of Roman law, and the entire inheritance of +the Jewish, the Pagan, and the Christian world, to make the Church serve +as a gilded crutch of absolutism. Neither an enlightened philosophy, nor +all the political wisdom of Rome, nor even the faith and virtue of the +Christians availed against the incorrigible tradition of antiquity. +Something was wanted beyond all the gifts of reflection and +experience--a faculty of self-government and self-control, developed +like its language in the fibre of a nation, and growing with its growth. +This vital element, which many centuries of warfare, of anarchy, of +oppression had extinguished in the countries that were still draped in +the pomp of ancient civilisation, was deposited on the soil of +Christendom by the fertilising stream of migration that overthrew the +empire of the West. + +In the height of their power the Romans became aware of a race of men +that had not abdicated freedom in the hands of a monarch; and the ablest +writer of the empire pointed to them with a vague and bitter feeling +that, to the institutions of these barbarians, not yet crushed by +despotism, the future of the world belonged. Their kings, when they had +kings, did not preside at their councils; they were sometimes elective; +they were sometimes deposed; and they were bound by oath to act in +obedience with the general wish. They enjoyed real authority only in +war. This primitive Republicanism, which admits monarchy as an +occasional incident, but holds fast to the collective supremacy of all +free men, of the constituent authority over all constituted authorities, +is the remote germ of Parliamentary government. The action of the State +was confined to narrow limits; but, besides his position as head of the +State, the king was surrounded by a body of followers attached to him by +personal or political ties. In these, his immediate dependants, +disobedience or resistance to orders was no more tolerated than in a +wife, a child, or a soldier; and a man was expected to murder his own +father if his chieftain required it. Thus these Teutonic communities +admitted an independence of government that threatened to dissolve +society; and a dependence on persons that was dangerous to freedom. It +was a system very favourable to corporations, but offering no security +to individuals. The State was not likely to oppress its subjects; and +was not able to protect them. + +The first effect of the great Teutonic migration into the regions +civilised by Rome was to throw back Europe many centuries to a condition +scarcely more advanced than that from which the institutions of Solon +had rescued Athens. Whilst the Greeks preserved the literature, the +arts, and the science of antiquity and all the sacred monuments of early +Christianity with a completeness of which the rended fragments that have +come down to us give no commensurate idea, and even the peasants of +Bulgaria knew the New Testament by heart, Western Europe lay under the +grasp of masters the ablest of whom could not write their names. The +faculty of exact reasoning, of accurate observation, became extinct for +five hundred years, and even the sciences most needful to society, +medicine and geometry, fell into decay, until the teachers of the West +went to school at the feet of Arabian masters. To bring order out of +chaotic ruin, to rear a new civilisation and blend hostile and unequal +races into a nation, the thing wanted was not liberty but force. And for +centuries all progress is attached to the action of men like Clovis, +Charlemagne, and William the Norman, who were resolute and peremptory, +and prompt to be obeyed. + +The spirit of immemorial paganism which had saturated ancient society +could not be exorcised except by the combined influence of Church and +State; and the universal sense that their union was necessary created +the Byzantine despotism. The divines of the Empire who could not fancy +Christianity flourishing beyond its borders, insisted that the State is +not in the Church, but the Church in the State. This doctrine had +scarcely been uttered when the rapid collapse of the Western Empire +opened a wider horizon; and Salvianus, a priest at Marseilles, +proclaimed that the social virtues, which were decaying amid the +civilised Romans, existed in greater purity and promise among the Pagan +invaders. They were converted with ease and rapidity; and their +conversion was generally brought about by their kings. + +Christianity, which in earlier times had addressed itself to the masses, +and relied on the principle of liberty, now made its appeal to the +rulers, and threw its mighty influence into the scale of authority. The +barbarians, who possessed no books, no secular knowledge, no education, +except in the schools of the clergy, and who had scarcely acquired the +rudiments of religious instruction, turned with childlike attachment to +men whose minds were stored with the knowledge of Scripture, of Cicero, +of St. Augustine; and in the scanty world of their ideas, the Church was +felt to be something infinitely vaster, stronger, holier than their +newly founded States. The clergy supplied the means of conducting the +new governments, and were made exempt from taxation, from the +jurisdiction of the civil magistrate, and of the political +administrator. They taught that power ought to be conferred by election; +and the Councils of Toledo furnished the framework of the Parliamentary +system of Spain, which is, by a long interval, the oldest in the world. +But the monarchy of the Goths in Spain, as well as that of the Saxons in +England, in both of which the nobles and the prelates surrounded the +throne with the semblance of free institutions, passed away; and the +people that prospered and overshadowed the rest were the Franks, who had +no native nobility, whose law of succession to the Crown became for one +thousand years the fixed object of an unchanging superstition, and under +whom the feudal system was developed to excess. + +Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things. Having no +other source of wealth than the produce of the soil, men depended on the +landlord for the means of escaping starvation; and thus his power became +paramount over the liberty of the subject and the authority of the +State. Every baron, said the French maxim, is sovereign in his own +domain. The nations of the West lay between the competing tyrannies of +local magnates and of absolute monarchs, when a force was brought upon +the scene which proved for a time superior alike to the vassal and his +lord. + +In the days of the Conquest, when the Normans destroyed the liberties of +England, the rude institutions which had come with the Saxons, the +Goths, and the Franks from the forests of Germany were suffering decay, +and the new element of popular government afterwards supplied by the +rise of towns and the formation of a middle class was not yet active. +The only influence capable of resisting the feudal hierarchy was the +ecclesiastical hierarchy; and they came into collision, when the process +of feudalism threatened the independence of the Church by subjecting the +prelates severally to that form of personal dependence on the kings +which was peculiar to the Teutonic state. + +To that conflict of four hundred years we owe the rise of civil liberty. +If the Church had continued to buttress the thrones of the kings whom it +anointed, or if the struggle had terminated speedily in an undivided +victory, all Europe would have sunk down under a Byzantine or Muscovite +despotism. For the aim of both contending parties was absolute +authority. But although liberty was not the end for which they strove, +it was the means by which the temporal and the spiritual power called +the nations to their aid. The towns of Italy and Germany won their +franchises, France got her States-General, and England her Parliament +out of the alternate phases of the contest; and as long as it lasted it +prevented the rise of divine right. A disposition existed to regard the +crown as an estate descending under the law of real property in the +family that possessed it. But the authority of religion, and especially +of the papacy, was thrown on the side that denied the indefeasible title +of kings. In France what was afterwards called the Gallican theory +maintained that the reigning house was above the law, and that the +sceptre was not to pass away from it as long as there should be princes +of the royal blood of St. Louis. But in other countries the oath of +fidelity itself attested that it was conditional, and should be kept +only during good behaviour; and it was in conformity with the public law +to which all monarchs were held subject, that King John was declared a +rebel against the barons, and that the men who raised Edward III. to the +throne from which they had deposed his father invoked the maxim _Vox +populi Vox Dei_. + +And this doctrine of the divine right of the people to raise up and pull +down princes, after obtaining the sanctions of religion, was made to +stand on broader grounds, and was strong enough to resist both Church +and king. In the struggle between the House of Bruce and the House of +Plantagenet for the possession of Scotland and Ireland, the English +claim was backed by the censures of Rome. But the Irish and the Scots +refused it, and the address in which the Scottish Parliament informed +the Pope of their resolution shows how firmly the popular doctrine had +taken root. Speaking of Robert Bruce, they say: "Divine Providence, the +laws and customs of the country, which we will defend till death, and +the choice of the people, have made him our king. If he should ever +betray his principles, and consent that we should be subjects of the +English king, then we shall treat him as an enemy, as the subverter of +our rights and his own, and shall elect another in his place. We care +not for glory or for wealth, but for that liberty which no true man will +give up but with his life." This estimate of royalty was natural among +men accustomed to see those whom they most respected in constant strife +with their rulers. Gregory VII. had begun the disparagement of civil +authorities by saying that they are the work of the devil; and already +in his time both parties were driven to acknowledge the sovereignty of +the people, and appealed to it as the immediate source of power. + +Two centuries later this political theory had gained both in +definiteness and in force among the Guelphs, who were the Church party, +and among the Ghibellines, or Imperialists. Here are the sentiments of +the most celebrated of all the Guelphic writers: "A king who is +unfaithful to his duty forfeits his claim to obedience. It is not +rebellion to depose him, for he is himself a rebel whom the nation has a +right to put down. But it is better to abridge his power, that he may be +unable to abuse it. For this purpose, the whole nation ought to have a +share in governing itself; the Constitution ought to combine a limited +and elective monarchy, with an aristocracy of merit, and such an +admixture of democracy as shall admit all classes to office, by popular +election. No government has a right to levy taxes beyond the limit +determined by the people. All political authority is derived from +popular suffrage, and all laws must be made by the people or their +representatives. There is no security for us as long as we depend on the +will of another man." This language, which contains the earliest +exposition of the Whig theory of the revolution, is taken from the works +of St. Thomas Aquinas, of whom Lord Bacon says that he had the largest +heart of the school divines. And it is worth while to observe that he +wrote at the very moment when Simon de Montfort summoned the Commons; +and that the politics of the Neapolitan friar are centuries in advance +of the English statesman's. + +The ablest writer of the Ghibelline party was Marsilius of Padua. +"Laws," he said, "derive their authority from the nation, and are +invalid without its assent. As the whole is greater than any part, it is +wrong that any part should legislate for the whole; and as men are +equal, it is wrong that one should be bound by laws made by another. But +in obeying laws to which all men have agreed, all men, in reality, +govern themselves. The monarch, who is instituted by the legislature to +execute its will, ought to be armed with a force sufficient to coerce +individuals, but not sufficient to control the majority of the people. +He is responsible to the nation, and subject to the law; and the nation +that appoints him, and assigns him his duties, has to see that he obeys +the Constitution, and has to dismiss him if he breaks it. The rights of +citizens are independent of the faith they profess; and no man may be +punished for his religion." This writer, who saw in some respects +farther than Locke or Montesquieu, who, in regard to the sovereignty of +the nation, representative government, the superiority of the +legislature over the executive, and the liberty of conscience, had so +firm a grasp of the principles that were to sway the modern world, lived +in the reign of Edward II., five hundred and fifty years ago. + +It is significant that these two writers should agree on so many of the +fundamental points which have been, ever since, the topic of +controversy; for they belonged to hostile schools, and one of them would +have thought the other worthy of death. St. Thomas would have made the +papacy control all Christian governments. Marsilius would have had the +clergy submit to the law of the land; and would have put them under +restrictions both as to property and numbers. As the great debate went +on, many things gradually made themselves clear, and grew into settled +convictions. For these were not only the thoughts of prophetic minds +that surpassed the level of contemporaries; there was some prospect that +they would master the practical world. The ancient reign of the barons +was seriously threatened. The opening of the East by the Crusades had +imparted a great stimulus to industry. A stream set in from the country +to the towns, and there was no room for the government of towns in the +feudal machinery. When men found a way of earning a livelihood without +depending for it on the good will of the class that owned the land, the +landowner lost much of his importance, and it began to pass to the +possessors of moveable wealth. The townspeople not only made themselves +free from the control of prelates and barons, but endeavoured to obtain +for their own class and interest the command of the State. + +The fourteenth century was filled with the tumult of this struggle +between democracy and chivalry. The Italian towns, foremost in +intelligence and civilisation, led the way with democratic constitutions +of an ideal and generally an impracticable type. The Swiss cast off the +yoke of Austria. Two long chains of free cities arose, along the valley +of the Rhine, and across the heart of Germany. The citizens of Paris got +possession of the king, reformed the State, and began their tremendous +career of experiments to govern France. But the most healthy and +vigorous growth of municipal liberties was in Belgium, of all countries +on the Continent, that which has been from immemorial ages the most +stubborn in its fidelity to the principle of self-government. So vast +were the resources concentrated in the Flemish towns, so widespread was +the movement of democracy, that it was long doubtful whether the new +interest would not prevail, and whether the ascendency of the military +aristocracy would not pass over to the wealth and intelligence of the +men that lived by trade. But Rienzi, Marcel, Artevelde, and the other +champions of the unripe democracy of those days, lived and died in vain. +The upheaval of the middle class had disclosed the need, the passions, +the aspirations of the suffering poor below; ferocious insurrections in +France and England caused a reaction that retarded for centuries the +readjustment of power, and the red spectre of social revolution arose in +the track of democracy. The armed citizens of Ghent were crushed by the +French chivalry; and monarchy alone reaped the fruit of the change that +was going on in the position of classes, and stirred the minds of men. + +Looking back over the space of a thousand years, which we call the +Middle Ages, to get an estimate of the work they had done, if not +towards perfection in their institutions, at least towards attaining the +knowledge of political truth, this is what we find: Representative +government, which was unknown to the ancients, was almost universal. The +methods of election were crude; but the principle that no tax was lawful +that was not granted by the class that paid it--that is, that taxation +was inseparable from representation--was recognised, not as the +privilege of certain countries, but as the right of all. Not a prince in +the world, said Philip de Commines, can levy a penny without the consent +of the people. Slavery was almost everywhere extinct; and absolute power +was deemed more intolerable and more criminal than slavery. The right of +insurrection was not only admitted but defined, as a duty sanctioned by +religion. Even the principles of the Habeas Corpus Act, and the method +of the Income Tax, were already known. The issue of ancient politics was +an absolute state planted on slavery. The political produce of the +Middle Ages was a system of states in which authority was restricted by +the representation of powerful classes, by privileged associations, and +by the acknowledgment of duties superior to those which are imposed by +man. + +As regards the realisation in practice of what was seen to be good, +there was almost everything to do. But the great problems of principle +had been solved, and we come to the question, How did the sixteenth +century husband the treasure which the Middle Ages had stored up? The +most visible sign of the times was the decline of the religious +influence that had reigned so long. Sixty years passed after the +invention of printing, and thirty thousand books had issued from +European presses, before anybody undertook to print the Greek Testament. +In the days when every State made the unity of faith its first care, it +came to be thought that the rights of men, and the duties of neighbours +and of rulers towards them, varied according to their religion; and +society did not acknowledge the same obligations to a Turk or a Jew, a +pagan or a heretic, or a devil worshipper, as to an orthodox Christian. +As the ascendency of religion grew weaker, this privilege of treating +its enemies on exceptional principles was claimed by the State for its +own benefit; and the idea that the ends of government justify the means +employed was worked into system by Machiavelli. He was an acute +politician, sincerely anxious that the obstacles to the intelligent +government of Italy should be swept away. It appeared to him that the +most vexatious obstacle to intellect is conscience, and that the +vigorous use of statecraft necessary for the success of difficult +schemes would never be made if governments allowed themselves to be +hampered by the precepts of the copy-book. + +His audacious doctrine was avowed in the succeeding age by men whose +personal character stood high. They saw that in critical times good men +have seldom strength for their goodness, and yield to those who have +grasped the meaning of the maxim that you cannot make an omelette if you +are afraid to break the eggs. They saw that public morality differs from +private, because no Government can turn the other cheek, or can admit +that mercy is better than justice. And they could not define the +difference or draw the limits of exception; or tell what other standard +for a nation's acts there is than the judgment which Heaven pronounces +in this world by success. + +Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary +government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of +good faith. But it gave an immense impulse to absolutism by silencing +the consciences of very religious kings, and made the good and the bad +very much alike. Charles V. offered 5000 crowns for the murder of an +enemy. Ferdinand I. and Ferdinand II., Henry III. and Louis XIII., each +caused his most powerful subject to be treacherously despatched. +Elizabeth and Mary Stuart tried to do the same to each other. The way +was paved for absolute monarchy to triumph over the spirit and +institutions of a better age, not by isolated acts of wickedness, but by +a studied philosophy of crime and so thorough a perversion of the moral +sense that the like of it had not been since the Stoics reformed the +morality of paganism. + +The clergy, who had in so many ways served the cause of freedom during +the prolonged strife against feudalism and slavery, were associated now +with the interest of royalty. Attempts had been made to reform the +Church on the Constitutional model; they had failed, but they had united +the hierarchy and the crown against the system of divided power as +against a common enemy. Strong kings were able to bring the spirituality +under subjection in France and Spain, in Sicily and in England. The +absolute monarchy of France was built up in the two following centuries +by twelve political cardinals. The kings of Spain obtained the same +effect almost at a single stroke by reviving and appropriating to their +own use the tribunal of the Inquisition, which had been growing +obsolete, but now served to arm them with terrors which effectually made +them despotic. One generation beheld the change all over Europe, from +the anarchy of the days of the Roses to the passionate submission, the +gratified acquiescence in tyranny that marks the reign of Henry VIII. +and the kings of his time. + +The tide was running fast when the Reformation began at Wittenberg, and +it was to be expected that Luther's influence would stem the flood of +absolutism. For he was confronted everywhere by the compact alliance of +the Church with the State; and great part of his country was governed by +hostile potentates who were prelates of the Court of Rome. He had, +indeed, more to fear from temporal than from spiritual foes. The leading +German bishops wished that the Protestant demands should be conceded; +and the Pope himself vainly urged on the Emperor a conciliatory policy. +But Charles V. had outlawed Luther, and attempted to waylay him; and the +Dukes of Bavaria were active in beheading and burning his disciples, +whilst the democracy of the towns generally took his side. But the dread +of revolution was the deepest of his political sentiments; and the gloss +by which the Guelphic divines had got over the passive obedience of the +apostolic age was characteristic of that mediaeval method of +interpretation which he rejected. He swerved for a moment in his later +years; but the substance of his political teaching was eminently +conservative, the Lutheran States became the stronghold of rigid +immobility, and Lutheran writers constantly condemned the democratic +literature that arose in the second age of the Reformation. For the +Swiss reformers were bolder than the Germans in mixing up their cause +with politics. Zurich and Geneva were Republics, and the spirit of their +governments influenced both Zwingli and Calvin. + +Zwingli indeed did not shrink from the mediaeval doctrine that evil +magistrates must be cashiered; but he was killed too early to act either +deeply or permanently on the political character of Protestantism. +Calvin, although a Republican, judged that the people are unfit to +govern themselves, and declared the popular assembly an abuse that ought +to be abolished. He desired an aristocracy of the elect, armed with the +means of punishing not only crime but vice and error. For he thought +that the severity of the mediaeval laws was insufficient for the need of +the times; and he favoured the most irresistible weapon which the +inquisitorial procedure put into the hand of the Government, the right +of subjecting prisoners to intolerable torture, not because they were +guilty, but because their guilt could not be proved. His teaching, +though not calculated to promote popular institutions, was so adverse to +the authority of the surrounding monarchs, that he softened down the +expression of his political views in the French edition of his +_Institutes_. + +The direct political influence of the Reformation effected less than has +been supposed. Most States were strong enough to control it. Some, by +intense exertion, shut out the pouring flood. Others, with consummate +skill, diverted it to their own uses. The Polish Government alone at +that time left it to its course. Scotland was the only kingdom in which +the Reformation triumphed over the resistance of the State; and Ireland +was the only instance where it failed, in spite of Government support. +But in almost every other case, both the princes that spread their +canvas to the gale and those that faced it, employed the zeal, the +alarm, the passions it aroused as instruments for the increase of power. +Nations eagerly invested their rulers with every prerogative needed to +preserve their faith, and all the care to keep Church and State asunder, +and to prevent the confusion of their powers, which had been the work of +ages, was renounced in the intensity of the crisis. Atrocious deeds were +done, in which religious passion was often the instrument, but policy +was the motive. + +Fanaticism displays itself in the masses, but the masses were rarely +fanaticised, and the crimes ascribed to it were commonly due to the +calculations of dispassionate politicians. When the King of France +undertook to kill all the Protestants, he was obliged to do it by his +own agents. It was nowhere the spontaneous act of the population, and in +many towns and in entire provinces the magistrates refused to obey. The +motive of the Court was so far from mere fanaticism that the Queen +immediately challenged Elizabeth to do the like to the English +Catholics. Francis I. and Henry II. sent nearly a hundred Huguenots to +the stake, but they were cordial and assiduous promoters of the +Protestant religion in Germany. Sir Nicholas Bacon was one of the +ministers who suppressed the mass in England. Yet when the Huguenot +refugees came over he liked them so little that he reminded Parliament +of the summary way in which Henry V. at Agincourt dealt with the +Frenchmen who fell into his hands. John Knox thought that every Catholic +in Scotland ought to be put to death, and no man ever had disciples of a +sterner or more relentless temper. But his counsel was not followed. + +All through the religious conflict policy kept the upper hand. When the +last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the +nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin +preached and Bellarmine lectured, but Machiavelli reigned. Before the +close of the century three events occurred which mark the beginning of a +momentous change. The massacre of St. Bartholomew convinced the bulk of +Calvinists of the lawfulness of rebellion against tyrants, and they +became advocates of that doctrine in which the Bishop of Winchester had +led the way,[4] and which Knox and Buchanan had received, through their +master at Paris, straight from the mediaeval schools. Adopted out of +aversion to the King of France, it was soon put in practice against the +King of Spain. The revolted Netherlands, by a solemn Act, deposed Philip +II., and made themselves independent under the Prince of Orange, who had +been, and continued to be, styled his Lieutenant. Their example was +important, not only because subjects of one religion deposed a monarch +of another, for that had been seen in Scotland, but because, moreover, +it put a republic in the place of a monarchy, and forced the public law +of Europe to recognise the accomplished revolution. At the same time, +the French Catholics, rising against Henry III., who was the most +contemptible of tyrants, and against his heir, Henry of Navarre, who, as +a Protestant, repelled the majority of the nation, fought for the same +principles with sword and pen. + +Many shelves might be filled with the books which came out in their +defence during half a century, and they include the most comprehensive +treatises on laws ever written. Nearly all are vitiated by the defect +which disfigured political literature in the Middle Ages. That +literature, as I have tried to show, is extremely remarkable, and its +services in aiding human progress are very great. But from the death of +St. Bernard until the appearance of Sir Thomas More's _Utopia_, there +was hardly a writer who did not make his politics subservient to the +interest of either Pope or King. And those who came after the +Reformation were always thinking of laws as they might affect Catholics +or Protestants. Knox thundered against what he called _the Monstrous +Regiment of Women_, because the Queen went to mass, and Mariana praised +the assassin of Henry III. because the King was in league with +Huguenots. For the belief that it is right to murder tyrants, first +taught among Christians, I believe, by John of Salisbury, the most +distinguished English writer of the twelfth century, and confirmed by +Roger Bacon, the most celebrated Englishman of the thirteenth, had +acquired about this time a fatal significance. Nobody sincerely thought +of politics as a law for the just and the unjust, or tried to find out a +set of principles that should hold good alike under all changes of +religion. Hooker's _Ecclesiastical Polity_ stands almost alone among the +works I am speaking of, and is still read with admiration by every +thoughtful man as the earliest and one of the finest prose classics in +our language. But though few of the others have survived, they +contributed to hand down masculine notions of limited authority and +conditional obedience from the epoch of theory to generations of free +men. Even the coarse violence of Buchanan and Boucher was a link in the +chain of tradition that connects the Hildebrandine controversy with the +Long Parliament, and St. Thomas with Edmund Burke. + +That men should understand that governments do not exist by divine +right, and that arbitrary government is the violation of divine right, +was no doubt the medicine suited to the malady under which Europe +languished. But although the knowledge of this truth might become an +element of salutary destruction, it could give little aid to progress +and reform. Resistance to tyranny implied no faculty of constructing a +legal government in its place. Tyburn tree may be a useful thing, but it +is better still that the offender should live for repentance and +reformation. The principles which discriminate in politics between good +and evil, and make States worthy to last, were not yet found. + +The French philosopher Charron was one of the men least demoralised by +party spirit, and least blinded by zeal for a cause. In a passage almost +literally taken from St. Thomas, he describes our subordination under a +law of nature, to which all legislation must conform; and he ascertains +it not by the light of revealed religion, but by the voice of universal +reason, through which God enlightens the consciences of men. Upon this +foundation Grotius drew the lines of real political science. In +gathering the materials of international law, he had to go beyond +national treaties and denominational interests for a principle embracing +all mankind. The principles of law must stand, he said, even if we +suppose that there is no God. By these inaccurate terms he meant that +they must be found independently of revelation. From that time it became +possible to make politics a matter of principle and of conscience, so +that men and nations differing in all other things could live in peace +together, under the sanctions of a common law. Grotius himself used his +discovery to little purpose, as he deprived it of immediate effect by +admitting that the right to reign may be enjoyed as a freehold, subject +to no conditions. + +When Cumberland and Pufendorf unfolded the true significance of his +doctrine, every settled authority, every triumphant interest recoiled +aghast. None were willing to surrender advantages won by force or skill, +because they might be in contradiction, not with the Ten Commandments, +but with an unknown code, which Grotius himself had not attempted to +draw up, and touching which no two philosophers agreed. It was manifest +that all persons who had learned that political science is an affair of +conscience rather than of might or expediency, must regard their +adversaries as men without principle, that the controversy between them +would perpetually involve morality, and could not be governed by the +plea of good intentions, which softens down the asperities of religious +strife. Nearly all the greatest men of the seventeenth century +repudiated the innovation. In the eighteenth, the two ideas of Grotius, +that there are certain political truths by which every State and every +interest must stand or fall, and that society is knit together by a +series of real and hypothetical contracts, became, in other hands, the +lever that displaced the world. When, by what seemed the operation of an +irresistible and constant law, royalty had prevailed over all enemies +and all competitors, it became a religion. Its ancient rivals, the baron +and the prelate, figured as supporters by its side. Year after year, the +assemblies that represented the self-government of provinces and of +privileged classes, all over the Continent, met for the last time and +passed away, to the satisfaction of the people, who had learned to +venerate the throne as the constructor of their unity, the promoter of +prosperity and power, the defender of orthodoxy, and the employer of +talent. + +The Bourbons, who had snatched the crown from a rebellious democracy, +the Stuarts, who had come in as usurpers, set up the doctrine that +States are formed by the valour, the policy, and the appropriate +marriages of the royal family; that the king is consequently anterior to +the people, that he is its maker rather than its handiwork, and reigns +independently of consent. Theology followed up divine right with passive +obedience. In the golden age of religious science, Archbishop Ussher, +the most learned of Anglican prelates, and Bossuet, the ablest of the +French, declared that resistance to kings is a crime, and that they may +lawfully employ compulsion against the faith of their subjects. The +philosophers heartily supported the divines. Bacon fixed his hope of all +human progress on the strong hand of kings. Descartes advised them to +crush all those who might be able to resist their power. Hobbes taught +that authority is always in the right. Pascal considered it absurd to +reform laws, or to set up an ideal justice against actual force. Even +Spinoza, who was a Republican and a Jew, assigned to the State the +absolute control of religion. + +Monarchy exerted a charm over the imagination, so unlike the +unceremonious spirit of the Middle Ages, that, on learning the execution +of Charles I., men died of the shock; and the same thing occurred at the +death of Louis XVI. and of the Duke of Enghien. The classic land of +absolute monarchy was France. Richelieu held that it would be impossible +to keep the people down if they were suffered to be well off. The +Chancellor affirmed that France could not be governed without the right +of arbitrary arrest and exile; and that in case of danger to the State +it may be well that a hundred innocent men should perish. The Minister +of Finance called it sedition to demand that the Crown should keep +faith. One who lived on intimate terms with Louis XIV. says that even +the slightest disobedience to the royal will is a crime to be punished +with death. Louis employed these precepts to their fullest extent. He +candidly avows that kings are no more bound by the terms of a treaty +than by the words of a compliment; and that there is nothing in the +possession of their subjects which they may not lawfully take from them. +In obedience to this principle, when Marshal Vauban, appalled by the +misery of the people, proposed that all existing imposts should be +repealed for a single tax that would be less onerous, the King took his +advice, but retained all the old taxes whilst he imposed the new. With +half the present population, he maintained an army of 450,000 men; +nearly twice as large as that which the late Emperor Napoleon assembled +to attack Germany. Meanwhile the people starved on grass. France, said +Fenelon, is one enormous hospital. French historians believe that in a +single generation six millions of people died of want. It would be easy +to find tyrants more violent, more malignant, more odious than Louis +XIV., but there was not one who ever used his power to inflict greater +suffering or greater wrong; and the admiration with which he inspired +the most illustrious men of his time denotes the lowest depth to which +the turpitude of absolutism has ever degraded the conscience of Europe. + +The Republics of that day were, for the most part, so governed as to +reconcile men with the less opprobrious vices of monarchy. Poland was a +State made up of centrifugal forces. What the nobles called liberty was +the right of each of them to veto the acts of the Diet, and to persecute +the peasants on his estates--rights which they refused to surrender up +to the time of the partition, and thus verified the warning of a +preacher spoken long ago: "You will perish, not by invasion or war, but +by your infernal liberties." Venice suffered from the opposite evil of +excessive concentration. It was the most sagacious of Governments, and +would rarely have made mistakes if it had not imputed to others motives +as wise as its own, and had taken account of passions and follies of +which it had little cognisance. But the supreme power of the nobility +had passed to a committee, from the committee to a Council of Ten, from +the Ten to three Inquisitors of State; and in this intensely centralised +form it became, about the year 1600, a frightful despotism. I have shown +you how Machiavelli supplied the immoral theory needful for the +consummation of royal absolutism; the absolute oligarchy of Venice +required the same assurance against the revolt of conscience. It was +provided by a writer as able as Machiavelli, who analysed the wants and +resources of aristocracy, and made known that its best security is +poison. As late as a century ago, Venetian senators of honourable and +even religious lives employed assassins for the public good with no more +compunction than Philip II. or Charles IX. + +The Swiss Cantons, especially Geneva, profoundly influenced opinion in +the days preceding the French Revolution, but they had had no part in +the earlier movement to inaugurate the reign of law. That honour belongs +to the Netherlands alone among the Commonwealths. They earned it, not by +their form of government, which was defective and precarious, for the +Orange party perpetually plotted against it, and slew the two most +eminent of the Republican statesmen, and William III. himself intrigued +for English aid to set the crown upon his head; but by the freedom of +the press, which made Holland the vantage-ground from which, in the +darkest hour of oppression, the victims of the oppressors obtained the +ear of Europe. + +The ordinance of Louis XIV., that every French Protestant should +immediately renounce his religion, went out in the year in which James +II. became king. The Protestant refugees did what their ancestors had +done a century before. They asserted the deposing power of subjects over +rulers who had broken the original contract between them, and all the +Powers, excepting France, countenanced their argument, and sent forth +William of Orange on that expedition which was the faint dawn of a +brighter day. + +It is to this unexampled combination of things on the Continent, more +than to her own energy, that England owes her deliverance. The efforts +made by the Scots, by the Irish, and at last by the Long Parliament to +get rid of the misrule of the Stuarts had been foiled, not by the +resistance of Monarchy, but by the helplessness of the Republic. State +and Church were swept away; new institutions were raised up under the +ablest ruler that had ever sprung from a revolution; and England, +seething with the toil of political thought, had produced at least two +writers who in many directions saw as far and as clearly as we do now. +But Cromwell's Constitution was rolled up like a scroll; Harrington and +Lilburne were laughed at for a time and forgotten, the country confessed +the failure of its striving, disavowed its aims, and flung itself with +enthusiasm, and without any effective stipulations, at the feet of a +worthless king. + +If the people of England had accomplished no more than this to relieve +mankind from the pervading pressure of unlimited monarchy, they would +have done more harm than good. By the fanatical treachery with which, +violating the Parliament and the law, they contrived the death of King +Charles, by the ribaldry of the Latin pamphlet with which Milton +justified the act before the world, by persuading the world that the +Republicans were hostile alike to liberty and to authority, and did not +believe in themselves, they gave strength and reason to the current of +Royalism, which, at the Restoration, overwhelmed their work. If there +had been nothing to make up for this defect of certainty and of +constancy in politics England would have gone the way of other nations. + +At that time there was some truth in the old joke which describes the +English dislike of speculation by saying that all our philosophy +consists of a short catechism in two questions: "What is mind? No +matter. What is matter? Never mind." The only accepted appeal was to +tradition. Patriots were in the habit of saying that they took their +stand upon the ancient ways, and would not have the laws of England +changed. To enforce their argument they invented a story that the +constitution had come from Troy, and that the Romans had allowed it to +subsist untouched. Such fables did not avail against Strafford; and the +oracle of precedent sometimes gave responses adverse to the popular +cause. In the sovereign question of religion, this was decisive, for the +practice of the sixteenth century, as well as of the fifteenth, +testified in favour of intolerance. By royal command, the nation had +passed four times in one generation from one faith to another, with a +facility that made a fatal impression on Laud. In a country that had +proscribed every religion in turn, and had submitted to such a variety +of penal measures against Lollard and Arian, against Augsburg and Rome, +it seemed there could be no danger in cropping the ears of a Puritan. + +But an age of stronger conviction had arrived; and men resolved to +abandon the ancient ways that led to the scaffold and the rack, and to +make the wisdom of their ancestors and the statutes of the land bow +before an unwritten law. Religious liberty had been the dream of great +Christian writers in the age of Constantine and Valentinian, a dream +never wholly realised in the Empire, and rudely dispelled when the +barbarians found that it exceeded the resources of their art to govern +civilised populations of another religion, and unity of worship was +imposed by laws of blood and by theories more cruel than the laws. But +from St. Athanasius and St. Ambrose down to Erasmus and More, each age +heard the protest of earnest men in behalf of the liberty of conscience, +and the peaceful days before the Reformation were full of promise that +it would prevail. + +In the commotion that followed, men were glad to get tolerated +themselves by way of privilege and compromise, and willingly renounced +the wider application of the principle. Socinus was the first who, on +the ground that Church and State ought to be separated, required +universal toleration. But Socinus disarmed his own theory, for he was a +strict advocate of passive obedience. + +The idea that religious liberty is the generating principle of civil, +and that civil liberty is the necessary condition of religious, was a +discovery reserved for the seventeenth century. Many years before the +names of Milton and Taylor, of Baxter and Locke were made illustrious by +their partial condemnation of intolerance, there were men among the +Independent congregations who grasped with vigour and sincerity the +principle that it is only by abridging the authority of States that the +liberty of Churches can be assured. That great political idea, +sanctifying freedom and consecrating it to God, teaching men to treasure +the liberties of others as their own, and to defend them for the love of +justice and charity more than as a claim of right, has been the soul of +what is great and good in the progress of the last two hundred years. +The cause of religion, even under the unregenerate influence of worldly +passion, had as much to do as any clear notions of policy in making +this country the foremost of the free. It had been the deepest current +in the movement of 1641, and it remained the strongest motive that +survived the reaction of 1660. + +The greatest writers of the Whig party, Burke and Macaulay, constantly +represented the statesmen of the Revolution as the legitimate ancestors +of modern liberty. It is humiliating to trace a political lineage to +Algernon Sidney, who was the paid agent of the French king; to Lord +Russell, who opposed religious toleration at least as much as absolute +monarchy; to Shaftesbury, who dipped his hands in the innocent blood +shed by the perjury of Titus Oates; to Halifax, who insisted that the +plot must be supported even if untrue; to Marlborough, who sent his +comrades to perish on an expedition which he had betrayed to the French; +to Locke, whose notion of liberty involves nothing more spiritual than +the security of property, and is consistent with slavery and +persecution; or even to Addison, who conceived that the right of voting +taxes belonged to no country but his own. Defoe affirms that from the +time of Charles II. to that of George I. he never knew a politician who +truly held the faith of either party; and the perversity of the +statesmen who led the assault against the later Stuarts threw back the +cause of progress for a century. + +When the purport of the secret treaty became suspected by which Louis +XIV. pledged himself to support Charles II. with an army for the +destruction of Parliament, if Charles would overthrow the Anglican +Church, it was found necessary to make concession to the popular alarm. +It was proposed that whenever James should succeed, great part of the +royal prerogative and patronage should be transferred to Parliament. At +the same time, the disabilities of Nonconformists and Catholics would +have been removed. If the Limitation Bill, which Halifax supported with +signal ability, had passed, the monarchical constitution would have +advanced, in the seventeenth century, farther than it was destined to do +until the second quarter of the nineteenth. But the enemies of James, +guided by the Prince of Orange, preferred a Protestant king who should +be nearly absolute, to a constitutional king who should be a Catholic. +The scheme failed. James succeeded to a power which, in more cautious +hands, would have been practically uncontrolled, and the storm that cast +him down gathered beyond the sea. + +By arresting the preponderance of France, the Revolution of 1688 struck +the first real blow at Continental despotism. At home it relieved +Dissent, purified justice, developed the national energies and +resources, and ultimately, by the Act of Settlement, placed the crown in +the gift of the people. But it neither introduced nor determined any +important principle, and, that both parties might be able to work +together, it left untouched the fundamental question between Whig and +Tory. For the divine right of kings it established, in the words of +Defoe, the divine right of freeholders; and their domination extended +for seventy years, under the authority of John Locke, the philosopher of +government by the gentry. Even Hume did not enlarge the bounds of his +ideas; and his narrow materialistic belief in the connection between +liberty and property captivated even the bolder mind of Fox. + +By his idea that the powers of government ought to be divided according +to their nature, and not according to the division of classes, which +Montesquieu took up and developed with consummate talent, Locke is the +originator of the long reign of English institutions in foreign lands. +And his doctrine of resistance, or, as he finally termed it, the appeal +to Heaven, ruled the judgment of Chatham at a moment of solemn +transition in the history of the world. Our Parliamentary system, +managed by the great revolution families, was a contrivance by which +electors were compelled, and legislators were induced to vote against +their convictions; and the intimidation of the constituencies was +rewarded by the corruption of their representatives. About the year 1770 +things had been brought back, by indirect ways, nearly to the condition +which the Revolution had been designed to remedy for ever. Europe seemed +incapable of becoming the home of free States. It was from America that +the plain ideas that men ought to mind their own business, and that the +nation is responsible to Heaven for the acts of the State,--ideas long +locked in the breast of solitary thinkers, and hidden among Latin +folios,--burst forth like a conqueror upon the world they were destined +to transform, under the title of the Rights of Man. Whether the British +legislature had a constitutional right to tax a subject colony was hard +to say, by the letter of the law. The general presumption was immense on +the side of authority; and the world believed that the will of the +constituted ruler ought to be supreme, and not the will of the subject +people. Very few bold writers went so far as to say that lawful power +may be resisted in cases of extreme necessity. But the colonisers of +America, who had gone forth not in search of gain, but to escape from +laws under which other Englishmen were content to live, were so +sensitive even to appearances that the Blue Laws of Connecticut forbade +men to walk to church within ten feet of their wives. And the proposed +tax, of only L12,000 a year, might have been easily borne. But the +reasons why Edward I. and his Council were not allowed to tax England +were reasons why George III. and his Parliament should not tax America. +The dispute involved a principle, namely, the right of controlling +government. Furthermore, it involved the conclusion that the Parliament +brought together by a derisive election had no just right over the +unrepresented nation, and it called on the people of England to take +back its power. Our best statesmen saw that whatever might be the law, +the rights of the nation were at stake. Chatham, in speeches better +remembered than any that have been delivered in Parliament, exhorted +America to be firm. Lord Camden, the late Chancellor, said: "Taxation +and representation are inseparably united. God hath joined them. No +British Parliament can separate them." + +From the elements of that crisis Burke built up the noblest political +philosophy in the world. "I do not know the method," said he, "of +drawing up an indictment against a whole people. The natural rights of +mankind are indeed sacred things, and if any public measure is proved +mischievously to affect them, the objection ought to be fatal to that +measure, even if no charter at all could be set up against it. Only a +sovereign reason, paramount to all forms of legislation and +administration, should dictate." In this way, just a hundred years ago, +the opportune reticence, the politic hesitancy of European +statesmanship, was at last broken down; and the principle gained ground, +that a nation can never abandon its fate to an authority it cannot +control. The Americans placed it at the foundation of their new +government. They did more; for having subjected all civil authorities to +the popular will, they surrounded the popular will with restrictions +that the British legislature would not endure. + +During the revolution in France the example of England, which had been +held up so long, could not for a moment compete with the influence of a +country whose institutions were so wisely framed to protect freedom even +against the perils of democracy. When Louis Philippe became king, he +assured the old Republican, Lafayette, that what he had seen in the +United States had convinced him that no government can be so good as a +Republic. There was a time in the Presidency of Monroe, about fifty-five +years ago, which men still speak of as "the era of good feeling," when +most of the incongruities that had come down from the Stuarts had been +reformed, and the motives of later divisions were yet inactive. The +causes of old-world trouble,--popular ignorance, pauperism, the glaring +contrast between rich and poor, religious strife, public debts, standing +armies and war,--were almost unknown. No other age or country had solved +so successfully the problems that attend the growth of free societies, +and time was to bring no further progress. + +But I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the +beginning of my task. In the ages of which I have spoken, the history of +freedom was the history of the thing that was not. But since the +Declaration of Independence, or, to speak more justly, since the +Spaniards, deprived of their king, made a new government for themselves, +the only known forms of liberty, Republics and Constitutional Monarchy, +have made their way over the world. It would have been interesting to +trace the reaction of America on the Monarchies that achieved its +independence; to see how the sudden rise of political economy suggested +the idea of applying the methods of science to the art of government; +how Louis XVI., after confessing that despotism was useless, even to +make men happy by compulsion, appealed to the nation to do what was +beyond his skill, and thereby resigned his sceptre to the middle class, +and the intelligent men of France, shuddering at the awful recollections +of their own experience, struggled to shut out the past, that they might +deliver their children from the prince of the world and rescue the +living from the clutch of the dead, until the finest opportunity ever +given to the world was thrown away, because the passion for equality +made vain the hope of freedom. + +And I should have wished to show you that the same deliberate rejection +of the moral code which smoothed the paths of absolute monarchy and of +oligarchy, signalised the advent of the democratic claim to unlimited +power,--that one of its leading champions avowed the design of +corrupting the moral sense of men, in order to destroy the influence of +religion, and a famous apostle of enlightenment and toleration wished +that the last king might be strangled with the entrails of the last +priest. I would have tried to explain the connection between the +doctrine of Adam Smith, that labour is the original source of all +wealth, and the conclusion that the producers of wealth virtually +compose the nation, by which Sieyes subverted historic France; and to +show that Rousseau's definition of the social compact as a voluntary +association of equal partners conducted Marat, by short and unavoidable +stages, to declare that the poorer classes were absolved, by the law of +self-preservation, from the conditions of a contract which awarded to +them misery and death; that they were at war with society, and had a +right to all they could get by exterminating the rich, and that their +inflexible theory of equality, the chief legacy of the Revolution, +together with the avowed inadequacy of economic science to grapple with +problems of the poor, revived the idea of renovating society on the +principle of self-sacrifice, which had been the generous aspiration of +the Essenes and the early Christians, of Fathers and Canonists and +Friars, of Erasmus, the most celebrated precursor of the Reformation, of +Sir Thomas More, its most illustrious victim, and of Fenelon, the most +popular of bishops, but which, during the forty years of its revival, +has been associated with envy and hatred and bloodshed, and is now the +most dangerous enemy lurking in our path. + +Last, and most of all, having told so much of the unwisdom of our +ancestors, having exposed the sterility of the convulsion that burned +what they adored, and made the sins of the Republic mount up as high as +those of the monarchy, having shown that Legitimacy, which repudiated +the Revolution, and Imperialism, which crowned it, were but disguises of +the same element of violence and wrong, I should have wished, in order +that my address might not break off without a meaning or a moral, to +relate by whom, and in what connection, the true law of the formation of +free States was recognised, and how that discovery, closely akin to +those which, under the names of development, evolution, and continuity, +have given a new and deeper method to other sciences, solved the ancient +problem between stability and change, and determined the authority of +tradition on the progress of thought; how that theory, which Sir James +Mackintosh expressed by saying that Constitutions are not made, but +grow; the theory that custom and the national qualities of the governed, +and not the will of the government, are the makers of the law; and +therefore that the nation, which is the source of its own organic +institutions, should be charged with the perpetual custody of their +integrity, and with the duty of bringing the form into harmony with the +spirit, was made, by the singular co-operation of the purest +Conservative intellect with red-handed revolution, of Niebuhr with +Mazzini, to yield the idea of nationality, which, far more than the idea +of liberty, has governed the movement of the present age. + +I do not like to conclude without inviting attention to the impressive +fact that so much of the hard fighting, the thinking, the enduring that +has contributed to the deliverance of man from the power of man, has +been the work of our countrymen, and of their descendants in other +lands. We have had to contend, as much as any people, against monarchs +of strong will and of resources secured by their foreign possession, +against men of rare capacity, against whole dynasties of born tyrants. +And yet that proud prerogative stands out on the background of our +history. Within a generation of the Conquest, the Normans were compelled +to recognise, in some grudging measure, the claims of the English +people. When the struggle between Church and State extended to England, +our Churchmen learned to associate themselves with the popular cause; +and, with few exceptions, neither the hierarchical spirit of the foreign +divines, nor the monarchical bias peculiar to the French, characterised +the writers of the English school. The Civil Law, transmitted from the +degenerate Empire to be the common prop of absolute power, was excluded +from England. The Canon Law was restrained, and this country never +admitted the Inquisition, nor fully accepted the use of torture which +invested Continental royalty with so many terrors. At the end of the +Middle Ages foreign writers acknowledged our superiority, and pointed to +these causes. After that, our gentry maintained the means of local +self-government such as no other country possessed. Divisions in +religion forced toleration. The confusion of the common law taught the +people that their best safeguard was the independence and the integrity +of the judges. + +All these explanations lie on the surface, and are as visible as the +protecting ocean; but they can only be successive effects of a constant +cause which must lie in the same native qualities of perseverance, +moderation, individuality, and the manly sense of duty, which give to +the English race its supremacy in the stern art of labour, which has +enabled it to thrive as no other can on inhospitable shores, and which +(although no great people has less of the bloodthirsty craving for glory +and an army of 50,000 English soldiers has never been seen in battle) +caused Napoleon to exclaim, as he rode away from Waterloo, "It has +always been the same since Crecy." + +Therefore, if there is reason for pride in the past, there is more for +hope in the time to come. Our advantages increase, while other nations +fear their neighbours or covet their neighbours' goods. Anomalies and +defects there are, fewer and less intolerable, if not less flagrant than +of old. + +But I have fixed my eyes on the spaces that Heaven's light illuminates, +that I may not lay too heavy a strain on the indulgence with which you +have accompanied me over the dreary and heart-breaking course by which +men have passed to freedom; and because the light that has guided us is +still unquenched, and the causes that have carried us so far in the van +of free nations have not spent their power; because the story of the +future is written in the past, and that which hath been is the same +thing that shall be. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 3: An address delivered to the members of the Bridgnorth +Institution at the Agricultural Hall, 28th May 1877.] + +[Footnote 4: [Poynet, in his _Treatise on Political Power_.]] + + + + +III + +SIR ERSKINE MAY'S DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE[5] + + +Scarcely thirty years separate the Europe of Guizot and Metternich from +these days of universal suffrage both in France and in United Germany; +when a condemned insurgent of 1848 is the constitutional Minister of +Austria; when Italy, from the Alps to the Adriatic, is governed by +friends of Mazzini; and statesmen who recoiled from the temerities of +Peel have doubled the electoral constituency of England. If the +philosopher who proclaimed the law that democratic progress is constant +and irrepressible had lived to see old age, he would have been startled +by the fulfilment of his prophecy. Throughout these years of +revolutionary change Sir Thomas Erskine May has been more closely and +constantly connected with the centre of public affairs than any other +Englishman, and his place, during most of the time, has been at the +table of the House of Commons, where he has sat, like Canute, and +watched the rising tide. Few could be better prepared to be the +historian of European Democracy than one who, having so long studied the +mechanism of popular government in the most illustrious of assemblies at +the height of its power, has written its history, and taught its methods +to the world. + +It is not strange that so delicate and laborious a task should have +remained unattempted. Democracy is a gigantic current that has been fed +by many springs. Physical and spiritual causes have contributed to +swell it. Much has been done by economic theories, and more by economic +laws. The propelling force lay sometimes in doctrine and sometimes in +fact, and error has been as powerful as truth. Popular progress has been +determined at one time by legislation, at others by a book, an +invention, or a crime; and we may trace it to the influence of Greek +metaphysicians and Roman jurists, of barbarian custom and ecclesiastical +law, of the reformers who discarded the canonists, the sectaries who +discarded the reformers, and the philosophers who discarded the sects. +The scene has changed, as nation succeeded nation, and during the most +stagnant epoch of European life the new world stored up the forces that +have transformed the old. + +A history that should pursue all the subtle threads from end to end +might be eminently valuable, but not as a tribute to peace and +conciliation. Few discoveries are more irritating than those which +expose the pedigree of ideas. Sharp definitions and unsparing analysis +would displace the veil beneath which society dissembles its divisions, +would make political disputes too violent for compromise and political +alliances too precarious for use, and would embitter politics with all +the passion of social and religious strife. Sir Erskine May writes for +all who take their stand within the broad lines of our constitution. His +judgment is averse from extremes. He turns from the discussion of +theories, and examines his subject by the daylight of institutions, +believing that laws depend much on the condition of society, and little +on notions and disputations unsupported by reality. He avows his +disbelief even in the influence of Locke, and cares little to inquire +how much self-government owes to Independency, or equality to the +Quakers; and how democracy was affected by the doctrine that society is +founded on contract, that happiness is the end of all government, or +labour the only source of wealth; and for this reason, because he always +touches ground, and brings to bear, on a vast array of sifted fact, the +light of sound sense and tried experience rather than dogmatic precept, +all men will read his book with profit, and almost all without offence. + +Although he does not insist on inculcating a moral, he has stated in his +introductory pages the ideas that guide him; and, indeed, the reader who +fails to recognise the lesson of the book in every chapter will read in +vain. Sir Erskine May is persuaded that it is the tendency of modern +progress to elevate the masses of the people, to increase their part in +the work and the fruit of civilisation, in comfort and education, in +self-respect and independence, in political knowledge and power. Taken +for a universal law of history, this would be as visionary as certain +generalisations of Montesquieu and Tocqueville; but with the necessary +restrictions of time and place, it cannot fairly be disputed. Another +conclusion, supported by a far wider induction, is that democracy, like +monarchy, is salutary within limits and fatal in excess; that it is the +truest friend of freedom or its most unrelenting foe, according as it is +mixed or pure; and this ancient and elementary truth of constitutional +government is enforced with every variety of impressive and suggestive +illustration from the time of the Patriarchs down to the revolution +which, in 1874, converted federal Switzerland into an unqualified +democracy governed by the direct voice of the entire people. + +The effective distinction between liberty and democracy, which has +occupied much of the author's thoughts, cannot be too strongly drawn. +Slavery has been so often associated with democracy, that a very able +writer pronounced it long ago essential to a democratic state; and the +philosophers of the Southern Confederation have urged the theory with +extreme fervour. For slavery operates like a restricted franchise, +attaches power to property, and hinders Socialism, the infirmity that +attends mature democracies. The most intelligent of Greek tyrants, +Periander, discouraged the employment of slaves; and Pericles designates +the freedom from manual labour as the distinguishing prerogative of +Athens. At Rome a tax on manumissions immediately followed the +establishment of political equality by Licinius. An impeachment of +England for having imposed slavery on America was carefully expunged +from the Declaration of Independence; and the French Assembly, having +proclaimed the Rights of Man, declared that they did not extend to the +colonies. The abolition controversy has made everybody familiar with +Burke's saying, that men learn the price of freedom by being masters of +slaves. + +From the best days of Athens, the days of Anaxagoras, Protagoras, and +Socrates, a strange affinity has subsisted between democracy and +religious persecution. The bloodiest deed committed between the wars of +religion and the revolution was due to the fanaticism of men living +under the primitive republic in the Rhaetian Alps; and of six democratic +cantons only one tolerated Protestants, and that after a struggle which +lasted the better part of two centuries. In 1578 the fifteen Catholic +provinces would have joined the revolted Netherlands but for the furious +bigotry of Ghent; and the democracy of Friesland was the most intolerant +of the States. The aristocratic colonies in America defended toleration +against their democratic neighbours, and its triumph in Rhode Island and +Pennsylvania was the work not of policy but of religion. The French +Republic came to ruin because it found the lesson of religious liberty +too hard to learn. Down to the eighteenth century, indeed, it was +understood in monarchies more often than in free commonwealths. +Richelieu acknowledged the principle whilst he was constructing the +despotism of the Bourbons; so did the electors of Brandenburg, at the +time when they made themselves absolute; and after the fall of +Clarendon, the notion of Indulgence was inseparable from the design of +Charles II. to subvert the constitution. + +A government strong enough to act in defiance of public feeling may +disregard the plausible heresy that prevention is better than +punishment, for it is able to punish. But a government entirely +dependent on opinion looks for some security what that opinion shall be, +strives for the control of the forces that shape it, and is fearful of +suffering the people to be educated in sentiments hostile to its +institutions. When General Grant attempted to grapple with polygamy in +Utah, it was found necessary to pack the juries with Gentiles; and the +Supreme Court decided that the proceedings were illegal, and that the +prisoners must be set free. Even the murderer Lee was absolved, in 1875, +by a jury of Mormons. + +Modern democracy presents many problems too various and obscure to be +solved without a larger range of materials than Tocqueville obtained +from his American authorities or his own observation. To understand why +the hopes and the fears that it excites have been always inseparable, to +determine under what conditions it advances or retards the progress of +the people and the welfare of free states, there is no better course +than to follow Sir Erskine May upon the road which he has been the first +to open. + +In the midst of an invincible despotism, among paternal, military, and +sacerdotal monarchies, the dawn rises with the deliverance of Israel out +of bondage, and with the covenant which began their political life. The +tribes broke up into smaller communities, administering their own +affairs under the law they had sworn to observe, but which there was no +civil power to enforce. They governed themselves without a central +authority, a legislature, or a dominant priesthood; and this polity, +which, under the forms of primitive society, realised some aspirations +of developed democracy, resisted for above three hundred years the +constant peril of anarchy and subjugation. The monarchy itself was +limited by the same absence of a legislative power, by the submission of +the king to the law that bound his subjects, by the perpetual appeal of +prophets to the conscience of the people as its appointed guardian, and +by the ready resource of deposition. Later still, in the decay of the +religious and national constitution, the same ideas appeared with +intense energy, in an extraordinary association of men who lived in +austerity and self-denial, rejected slavery, maintained equality, and +held their property in common, and who constituted in miniature an +almost perfect Republic. But the Essenes perished with the city and the +Temple, and for many ages the example of the Hebrews was more +serviceable to authority than to freedom. After the Reformation, the +sects that broke resolutely with the traditions of Church and State as +they came down from Catholic times, and sought for their new +institutions a higher authority than custom, reverted to the memory of a +commonwealth founded on a voluntary contract, on self-government, +federalism, equality, in which election was preferred to inheritance, +and monarchy was an emblem of the heathen; and they conceived that there +was no better model for themselves than a nation constituted by +religion, owning no lawgiver but Moses, and obeying no king but God. +Political thought had until then been guided by pagan experience. + +Among the Greeks, Athens, the boldest pioneer of republican discovery, +was the only democracy that prospered. It underwent the changes that +were the common lot of Greek society, but it met them in a way that +displayed a singular genius for politics. The struggle of competing +classes for supremacy, almost everywhere a cause of oppression and +bloodshed, became with them a genuine struggle for freedom; and the +Athenian constitution grew, with little pressure from below, under the +intelligent action of statesmen who were swayed by political reasoning +more than by public opinion. They avoided violent and convulsive change, +because the rate of their reforms kept ahead of the popular demand. +Solon, whose laws began the reign of mind over force, instituted +democracy by making the people, not indeed the administrators, but the +source of power. He committed the Government not to rank or birth, but +to land; and he regulated the political influence of the landowners by +their share in the burdens of the public service. To the lower class, +who neither bore arms nor paid taxes, and were excluded from the +Government, he granted the privilege of choosing and of calling to +account the men by whom they were governed, of confirming or rejecting +the acts of the legislature and the judgments of the courts. Although he +charged the Areopagus with the preservation of his laws, he provided +that they might be revised according to need; and the ideal before his +mind was government by all free citizens. His concessions to the popular +element were narrow, and were carefully guarded. He yielded no more than +was necessary to guarantee the attachment of the whole people to the +State. But he admitted principles that went further than the claims +which he conceded. He took only one step towards democracy, but it was +the first of a series. + +When the Persian wars, which converted aristocratic Athens into a +maritime state, had developed new sources of wealth and a new +description of interests, the class which had supplied many of the ships +and most of the men that had saved the national independence and founded +an empire, could not be excluded from power. Solon's principle, that +political influence should be commensurate with political service, broke +through the forms in which he had confined it, and the spirit of his +constitution was too strong for the letter. The fourth estate was +admitted to office, and in order that its candidates might obtain their +share, and no more than their share, and that neither interest nor +numbers might prevail, many public functionaries were appointed by lot. +The Athenian idea of a Republic was to substitute the impersonal +supremacy of law for the government of men. Mediocrity was a safeguard +against the pretensions of superior capacity, for the established order +was in danger, not from the average citizens, but from men, like +Miltiades, of exceptional renown. The people of Athens venerated their +constitution as a gift of the gods, the source and title of their power, +a thing too sacred for wanton change. They had demanded a code, that the +unwritten law might no longer be interpreted at will by Archons and +Areopagites; and a well-defined and authoritative legislation was a +triumph of the democracy. + +So well was this conservative spirit understood, that the revolution +which abolished the privileges of the aristocracy was promoted by +Aristides and completed by Pericles, men free from the reproach of +flattering the multitude. They associated all the free Athenians with +the interest of the State, and called them, without distinction of +class, to administer the powers that belonged to them. Solon had +threatened with the loss of citizenship all who showed themselves +indifferent in party conflicts, and Pericles declared that every man who +neglected his share of public duty was a useless member of the +community. That wealth might confer no unfair advantage, that the poor +might not take bribes from the rich, he took them into the pay of the +State during their attendance as jurors. That their numbers might give +them no unjust superiority, he restricted the right of citizenship to +those who came from Athenian parents on both sides; and thus he expelled +more than 4000 men of mixed descent from the Assembly. This bold +measure, which was made acceptable by a distribution of grain from Egypt +among those who proved their full Athenian parentage, reduced the fourth +class to an equality with the owners of real property. For Pericles, or +Ephialtes--for it would appear that all their reforms had been carried +in the year 460, when Ephialtes died--is the first democratic statesman +who grasped the notion of political equality. The measures which made +all citizens equal might have created a new inequality between classes, +and the artificial privilege of land might have been succeeded by the +more crushing preponderance of numbers. But Pericles held it to be +intolerable that one portion of the people should be required to obey +laws which others have the exclusive right of making; and he was able, +during thirty years, to preserve the equipoise, governing by the general +consent of the community, formed by free debate. He made the undivided +people sovereign; but he subjected the popular initiative to a court of +revision, and assigned a penalty to the proposer of any measure which +should be found to be unconstitutional. Athens, under Pericles, was the +most successful Republic that existed before the system of +representation; but its splendour ended with his life. + +The danger to liberty from the predominance either of privilege or +majorities was so manifest, that an idea arose that equality of fortune +would be the only way to prevent the conflict of class interests. The +philosophers, Phaleas, Plato, Aristotle, suggested various expedients to +level the difference between rich and poor. Solon had endeavoured to +check the increase of estates; and Pericles had not only strengthened +the public resources by bringing the rich under the control of an +assembly in which they were not supreme, but he had employed those +resources in improving the condition and the capacity of the masses. The +grievance of those who were taxed for the benefit of others was easily +borne so long as the tribute of the confederates filled the treasury. +But the Peloponnesian war increased the strain on the revenue and +deprived Athens of its dependencies. The balance was upset; and the +policy of making one class give, that another might receive, was +recommended not only by the interest of the poor, but by a growing +theory, that wealth and poverty make bad citizens, that the middle class +is the one most easily led by reason, and that the way to make it +predominate is to depress whatever rises above the common level, and to +raise whatever falls below it. This theory, which became inseparable +from democracy, and contained a force which alone seems able to destroy +it, was fatal to Athens, for it drove the minority to treason. The glory +of the Athenian democrats is, not that they escaped the worst +consequences of their principle, but that, having twice cast out the +usurping oligarchy, they set bounds to their own power. They forgave +their vanquished enemies; they abolished pay for attendance in the +assembly; they established the supremacy of law by making the code +superior to the people; they distinguished things that were +constitutional from things that were legal, and resolved that no +legislative act should pass until it had been pronounced consistent with +the constitution. + +The causes which ruined the Republic of Athens illustrate the connection +of ethics with politics rather than the vices inherent to democracy. A +State which has only 30,000 full citizens in a population of 500,000, +and is governed, practically, by about 3000 people at a public meeting, +is scarcely democratic. The short triumph of Athenian liberty, and its +quick decline, belong to an age which possessed no fixed standard of +right and wrong. An unparalleled activity of intellect was shaking the +credit of the gods, and the gods were the givers of the law. It was a +very short step from the suspicion of Protagoras, that there were no +gods, to the assertion of Critias that there is no sanction for laws. If +nothing was certain in theology, there was no certainty in ethics and no +moral obligation. The will of man, not the will of God, was the rule of +life, and every man and body of men had the right to do what they had +the means of doing. Tyranny was no wrong, and it was hypocrisy to deny +oneself the enjoyment it affords. The doctrine of the Sophists gave no +limits to power and no security to freedom; it inspired that cry of the +Athenians, that they must not be hindered from doing what they pleased, +and the speeches of men like Athenagoras and Euphemus, that the +democracy may punish men who have done no wrong, and that nothing that +is profitable is amiss. And Socrates perished by the reaction which they +provoked. + +The disciples of Socrates obtained the ear of posterity. Their testimony +against the government that put the best of citizens to death is +enshrined in writings that compete with Christianity itself for +influence on the opinions of men. Greece has governed the world by her +philosophy, and the loudest note in Greek philosophy is the protest +against Athenian democracy. But although Socrates derided the practice +of leaving the choice of magistrates to chance, and Plato admired the +bloodstained tyrant Critias, and Aristotle deemed Theramenes a greater +statesman than Pericles, yet these are the men who laid the first stones +of a purer system, and became the lawgivers of future commonwealths. + +The main point in the method of Socrates was essentially democratic. He +urged men to bring all things to the test of incessant inquiry, and not +to content themselves with the verdict of authorities, majorities, or +custom; to judge of right and wrong, not by the will or sentiment of +others, but by the light which God has set in each man's reason and +conscience. He proclaimed that authority is often wrong, and has no +warrant to silence or to impose conviction. But he gave no warrant to +resistance. He emancipated men for thought, but not for action. The +sublime history of his death shows that the superstition of the State +was undisturbed by his contempt for its rulers. + +Plato had not his master's patriotism, nor his reverence for the civil +power. He believed that no State can command obedience if it does not +deserve respect; and he encouraged citizens to despise their government +if they were not governed by wise men. To the aristocracy of +philosophers he assigned a boundless prerogative; but as no government +satisfied that test, his plea for despotism was hypothetical. When the +lapse of years roused him from the fantastic dream of his Republic, his +belief in divine government moderated his intolerance of human freedom. +Plato would not suffer a democratic polity; but he challenged all +existing authorities to justify themselves before a superior tribunal; +he desired that all constitutions should be thoroughly remodelled, and +he supplied the greatest need of Greek democracy, the conviction that +the will of the people is subject to the will of God, and that all civil +authority, except that of an imaginary state, is limited and +conditional. The prodigious vitality of his writings has kept the +glaring perils of popular government constantly before mankind; but it +has also preserved the belief in ideal politics and the notion of +judging the powers of this world by a standard from heaven. There has +been no fiercer enemy of democracy; but there has been no stronger +advocate of revolution. + +In the _Ethics_ Aristotle condemns democracy, even with a property +qualification, as the worst of governments. But near the end of his +life, when he composed his _Politics_, he was brought, grudgingly, to +make a memorable concession. To preserve the sovereignty of law, which +is the reason and the custom of generations, and to restrict the realm +of choice and change, he conceived it best that no class of society +should preponderate, that one man should not be subject to another, that +all should command and all obey. He advised that power should be +distributed to high and low; to the first according to their property, +to the others according to numbers; and that it should centre in the +middle class. If aristocracy and democracy were fairly combined and +balanced against each other, he thought that none would be interested to +disturb the serene majesty of impersonal government. To reconcile the +two principles, he would admit even the poorer citizens to office and +pay them for the discharge of public duties; but he would compel the +rich to take their share, and would appoint magistrates by election and +not by lot. In his indignation at the extravagance of Plato, and his +sense of the significance of facts, he became, against his will, the +prophetic exponent of a limited and regenerated democracy. But the +_Politics_, which, to the world of living men, is the most valuable of +his works, acquired no influence on antiquity, and is never quoted +before the time of Cicero. Again it disappeared for many centuries; it +was unknown to the Arabian commentators, and in Western Europe it was +first brought to light by St. Thomas Aquinas, at the very time when an +infusion of popular elements was modifying feudalism, and it helped to +emancipate political philosophy from despotic theories and to confirm it +in the ways of freedom. + +The three generations of the Socratic school did more for the future +reign of the people than all the institutions of the States of Greece. +They vindicated conscience against authority, and subjected both to a +higher law; and they proclaimed that doctrine of a mixed constitution, +which has prevailed at last over absolute monarchy, and still has to +contend against extreme Republicans and Socialists, and against the +masters of a hundred legions. But their views of liberty were based on +expediency, not on justice. They legislated for the favoured citizens of +Greece, and were conscious of no principle that extended the same rights +to the stranger and the slave. That discovery, without which all +political science was merely conventional, belongs to the followers of +Zeno. + +The dimness and poverty of their theological speculation caused the +Stoics to attribute the government of the universe less to the uncertain +design of gods than to a definite law of nature. By that law, which is +superior to religious traditions and national authorities, and which +every man can learn from a guardian angel who neither sleeps nor errs, +all are governed alike, all are equal, all are bound in charity to each +other, as members of one community and children of the same God. The +unity of mankind implied the existence of rights and duties common to +all men, which legislation neither gives nor takes away. The Stoics held +in no esteem the institutions that vary with time and place, and their +ideal society resembled a universal Church more than an actual State. In +every collision between authority and conscience they preferred the +inner to the outer guide; and, in the words of Epictetus, regarded the +laws of the gods, not the wretched laws of the dead. Their doctrine of +equality, of fraternity, of humanity; their defence of individualism +against public authority; their repudiation of slavery, redeemed +democracy from the narrowness, the want of principle and of sympathy, +which are its reproach among the Greeks. In practical life they +preferred a mixed constitution to a purely popular government. +Chrysippus thought it impossible to please both gods and men; and Seneca +declared that the people is corrupt and incapable, and that nothing was +wanting, under Nero, to the fulness of liberty, except the possibility +of destroying it. But their lofty conception of freedom, as no +exceptional privilege but the birthright of mankind, survived in the law +of nations and purified the equity of Rome. + +Whilst Dorian oligarchs and Macedonian kings crushed the liberties of +Greece, the Roman Republic was ruined, not by its enemies, for there was +no enemy it did not conquer, but by its own vices. It was free from many +causes of instability and dissolution that were active in Greece--the +eager quickness, the philosophic thought, the independent belief, the +pursuit of unsubstantial grace and beauty. It was protected by many +subtle contrivances against the sovereignty of numbers and against +legislation by surprise. Constitutional battles had to be fought over +and over again; and progress was so slow, that reforms were often voted +many years before they could be carried into effect. The authority +allowed to fathers, to masters, to creditors, was as incompatible with +the spirit of freedom as the practice of the servile East. The Roman +citizen revelled in the luxury of power; and his jealous dread of every +change that might impair its enjoyment portended a gloomy oligarchy. The +cause which transformed the domination of rigid and exclusive patricians +into the model Republic, and which out of the decomposed Republic built +up the archetype of all despotism, was the fact that the Roman +Commonwealth consisted of two States in one. The constitution was made +up of compromises between independent bodies, and the obligation of +observing contracts was the standing security for freedom. The plebs +obtained self-government and an equal sovereignty, by the aid of the +tribunes of the people, the peculiar, salient, and decisive invention of +Roman statecraft. The powers conferred on the tribunes, that they might +be the guardians of the weak, were ill defined, but practically were +irresistible. They could not govern, but they could arrest all +government. The first and the last step of plebeian progress was gained +neither by violence nor persuasion, but by seceding; and, in like +manner, the tribunes overcame all the authorities of the State by the +weapon of obstruction. It was by stopping public business for five years +that Licinius established democratic equality. The safeguard against +abuse was the right of each tribune to veto the acts of his colleagues. +As they were independent of their electors, and as there could hardly +fail to be one wise and honest man among the ten, this was the most +effective instrument for the defence of minorities ever devised by man. +After the Hortensian law, which in the year 286 gave to the plebeian +assembly co-ordinate legislative authority, the tribunes ceased to +represent the cause of a minority, and their work was done. + +A scheme less plausible or less hopeful than one which created two +sovereign legislatures side by side in the same community would be hard +to find. Yet it effectually closed the conflict of centuries, and gave +to Rome an epoch of constant prosperity and greatness. No real division +subsisted in the people, corresponding to the artificial division in the +State. Fifty years passed away before the popular assembly made use of +its prerogative, and passed a law in opposition to the senate. Polybius +could not detect a flaw in the structure as it stood. The harmony seemed +to be complete, and he judged that a more perfect example of composite +government could not exist. But during those happy years the cause which +wrought the ruin of Roman freedom was in full activity; for it was the +condition of perpetual war that brought about the three great changes +which were the beginning of the end--the reforms of the Gracchi, the +arming of the paupers, and the gift of the Roman suffrage to the people +of Italy. + +Before the Romans began their career of foreign conquest they possessed +an army of 770,000 men; and from that time the consumption of citizens +in war was incessant. Regions once crowded with the small freeholds of +four or five acres, which were the ideal unit of Roman society and the +sinew of the army and the State, were covered with herds of cattle and +herds of slaves, and the substance of the governing democracy was +drained. The policy of the agrarian reform was to reconstitute this +peasant class out of the public domains, that is, out of lands which the +ruling families had possessed for generations, which they had bought and +sold, inherited, divided, cultivated, and improved. The conflict of +interests that had so long slumbered revived with a fury unknown in the +controversy between the patricians and the plebs. For it was now a +question not Of equal rights but of subjugation. The social restoration +of democratic elements could not be accomplished without demolishing the +senate; and this crisis at last exposed the defect of the machinery and +the peril of divided powers that were not to be controlled or +reconciled. The popular assembly, led by Gracchus, had the power of +making laws; and the only constitutional check was, that one of the +tribunes should be induced to bar the proceedings. Accordingly, the +tribune Octavius interposed his veto. The tribunician power, the most +sacred of powers, which could not be questioned because it was founded +on a covenant between the two parts of the community and formed the +keystone of their union, was employed, in opposition to the will of the +people, to prevent a reform on which the preservation of the democracy +depended. Gracchus caused Octavius to be deposed. Though not illegal, +this was a thing unheard of, and it seemed to the Romans a sacrilegious +act that shook the pillars of the State, for it was the first +significant revelation of democratic sovereignty. A tribune might burn +the arsenal and betray the city, yet he could not be called to account +until his year of office had expired. But when he employed against the +people the authority with which they had invested him, the spell was +dissolved. The tribunes had been instituted as the champions of the +oppressed, when the plebs feared oppression. It was resolved that they +should not interfere on the weaker side when the democracy were the +strongest. They were chosen by the people as their defence against the +aristocracy. It was not to be borne that they should become the agents +of the aristocracy to make them once more supreme. Against a popular +tribune, whom no colleague was suffered to oppose, the wealthy classes +were defenceless. It is true that he held office, and was inviolable, +only for a year. But the younger Gracchus was re-elected. The nobles +accused him of aiming at the crown. A tribune who should be practically +irremovable, as well as legally irresistible, was little less than an +emperor. The senate carried on the conflict as men do who fight, not for +public interests but for their own existence. They rescinded the +agrarian laws. They murdered the popular leaders. They abandoned the +constitution to save themselves, and invested Sylla with a power beyond +all monarchs, to exterminate their foes. The ghastly conception of a +magistrate legally proclaimed superior to all the laws was familiar to +the stern spirit of the Romans. The decemvirs had enjoyed that arbitrary +authority; but practically they were restrained by the two provisions +which alone were deemed efficacious in Rome, the short duration of +office, and its distribution among several colleagues. But the +appointment of Sylla was neither limited nor divided. It was to last as +long as he chose. Whatever he might do was right; and he was empowered +to put whomsoever he pleased to death, without trial or accusation. All +the victims who were butchered by his satellites suffered with the full +sanction of the law. + +When at last the democracy conquered, the Augustan monarchy, by which +they perpetuated their triumph, was moderate in comparison with the +licensed tyranny of the aristocratic chief. The Emperor was the +constitutional head of the Republic, armed with all the powers requisite +to master the senate. The instrument which had served to cast down the +patricians was efficient against the new aristocracy of wealth and +office. The tribunician power, conferred in perpetuity, made it +unnecessary to create a king or a dictator. Thrice the senate proposed +to Augustus the supreme power of making laws. He declared that the power +of the tribunes already supplied him with all that he required. It +enabled him to preserve the forms of a simulated republic. The most +popular of all the magistracies of Rome furnished the marrow of +Imperialism. For the Empire was created, not by usurpation, but by the +legal act of a jubilant people, eager to close the era of bloodshed and +to secure the largess of grain and coin, which amounted, at last, to +900,000 pounds a year. The people transferred to the Emperor the +plenitude of their own sovereignty. To limit his delegated power was to +challenge their omnipotence, to renew the issue between the many and the +few which had been decided at Pharsalus and Philippi. The Romans upheld +the absolutism of the Empire because it was their own. The elementary +antagonism between liberty and democracy, between the welfare of +minorities and the supremacy of masses, became manifest. The friend of +the one was a traitor to the other. The dogma, that absolute power may, +by the hypothesis of a popular origin, be as legitimate as +constitutional freedom, began, by the combined support of the people and +the throne, to darken the air. + +Legitimate, in the technical sense of modern politics, the Empire was +not meant to be. It had no right or claim to subsist apart from the will +of the people. To limit the Emperor's authority was to renounce their +own; but to take it away was to assert their own. They gave the Empire +as they chose. They took it away as they chose. The Revolution was as +lawful and as irresponsible as the Empire. Democratic institutions +continued to develop. The provinces were no longer subject to an +assembly meeting in a distant capital. They obtained the privileges of +Roman citizens. Long after Tiberius had stripped the inhabitants of Rome +of their electoral function, the provincials continued in undisturbed +enjoyment of the right of choosing their own magistrates. They governed +themselves like a vast confederation of municipal republics; and, even +after Diocletian had brought in the forms as well as the reality of +despotism, provincial assemblies, the obscure germ of representative +institutions, exercised some control over the Imperial officers. + +But the Empire owed the intensity of its force to the popular fiction. +The principle, that the Emperor is not subject to laws from which he can +dispense others, _princeps legibus solutus_, was interpreted to imply +that he was above all legal restraint. There was no appeal from his +sentence. He was the living law. The Roman jurists, whilst they adorned +their writings with the exalted philosophy of the Stoics, consecrated +every excess of Imperial prerogative with those famous maxims which have +been balm to so many consciences and have sanctioned so much wrong; and +the code of Justinian became the greatest obstacle, next to feudalism, +with which liberty had to contend. + +Ancient democracy, as it was in Athens in the best days of Pericles, or +in Rome when Polybius described it, or even as it is idealised by +Aristotle in the Sixth Book of his _Politics_, and by Cicero in the +beginning of the Republic, was never more than a partial and insincere +solution of the problem of popular government. The ancient politicians +aimed no higher than to diffuse power among a numerous class. Their +liberty was bound up with slavery. They never attempted to found a free +State on the thrift and energy of free labour. They never divined the +harder but more grateful task that constitutes the political life of +Christian nations. + +By humbling the supremacy of rank and wealth; by forbidding the State to +encroach on the domain which belongs to God; by teaching man to love his +neighbour as himself; by promoting the sense of equality; by condemning +the pride of race, which was a stimulus of conquest, and the doctrine of +separate descent, which formed the philosopher's defence of slavery; and +by addressing not the rulers but the masses of mankind, and making +opinion superior to authority, the Church that preached the Gospel to +the poor had visible points of contact with democracy. And yet +Christianity did not directly influence political progress. The ancient +watchword of the Republic was translated by Papinian into the language +of the Church: "Summa est ratio quae pro religione fiat:" and for eleven +hundred years, from the first to the last of the Constantines, the +Christian Empire was as despotic as the pagan. + +Meanwhile Western Europe was overrun by men who in their early home had +been Republicans. The primitive constitution of the German communities +was based on association rather than on subordination. They were +accustomed to govern their affairs by common deliberation, and to obey +authorities that were temporary and defined. It is one of the desperate +enterprises of historical science to trace the free institutions of +Europe and America, and Australia, to the life that was led in the +forests of Germany. But the new States were founded on conquest, and in +war the Germans were commanded by kings. The doctrine of +self-government, applied to Gaul and Spain, would have made Frank and +Goth disappear in the mass of the conquered people. It needed all the +resources of a vigorous monarchy, of a military aristocracy, and of a +territorial clergy, to construct States that were able to last. The +result was the feudal system, the most absolute contradiction of +democracy that has coexisted with civilisation. + +The revival of democracy was due neither to the Christian Church nor to +the Teutonic State, but to the quarrel between them. The effect followed +the cause instantaneously. As soon as Gregory VII. made the Papacy +independent of the Empire, the great conflict began; and the same +pontificate gave birth to the theory of the sovereignty of the people. +The Gregorian party argued that the Emperor derived his crown from the +nation, and that the nation could take away what it had bestowed. The +Imperialists replied that nobody could take away what the nation had +given. It is idle to look for the spark either in flint or steel. The +object of both parties was unqualified supremacy. Fitznigel has no more +idea of ecclesiastical liberty than John of Salisbury of political. +Innocent IV. is as perfect an absolutist as Peter de Vineis. But each +party encouraged democracy in turn, by seeking the aid of the towns; +each party in turn appealed to the people, and gave strength to the +constitutional theory. In the fourteenth century English Parliaments +judged and deposed their kings, as a matter of right; the Estates +governed France without king or noble; and the wealth and liberties of +the towns, which had worked out their independence from the centre of +Italy to the North Sea, promised for a moment to transform European +society. Even in the capitals of great princes, in Rome, in Paris, and, +for two terrible days, in London, the commons obtained sway. But the +curse of instability was on the municipal republics. Strasburg, +according to Erasmus and Bodin, the best governed of all, suffered from +perpetual commotions. An ingenious historian has reckoned seven thousand +revolutions in the Italian cities. The democracies succeeded no better +than feudalism in regulating the balance between rich and poor. The +atrocities of the Jacquerie, and of Wat Tyler's rebellion, hardened the +hearts of men against the common people. Church and State combined to +put them down. And the last memorable struggles of mediaeval liberty--the +insurrection of the Comuneros in Castile, the Peasants' War in Germany, +the Republic of Florence, and the Revolt of Ghent--were suppressed by +Charles V. in the early years of the Reformation. + +The middle ages had forged a complete arsenal of constitutional maxims: +trial by jury, taxation by representation, local self-government, +ecclesiastical independence, responsible authority. But they were not +secured by institutions, and the Reformation began by making the dry +bones more dry. Luther claimed to be the first divine who did justice to +the civil power. He made the Lutheran Church the bulwark of political +stability, and bequeathed to his disciples the doctrine of divine right +and passive obedience. Zwingli, who was a staunch republican, desired +that all magistrates should be elected, and should be liable to be +dismissed by their electors; but he died too soon for his influence, and +the permanent action of the Reformation on democracy was exercised +through the Presbyterian constitution of Calvin. + +It was long before the democratic element in Presbyterianism began to +tell. The Netherlands resisted Philip II. for fifteen years before they +took courage to depose him, and the scheme of the ultra-Calvinist +Deventer, to subvert the ascendency of the leading States by the +sovereign action of the whole people, was foiled by Leicester's +incapacity, and by the consummate policy of Barnevelt. The Huguenots, +having lost their leaders in 1572, reconstituted themselves on a +democratic footing, and learned to think that a king who murders his +subjects forfeits his divine right to be obeyed. But Junius Brutus and +Buchanan damaged their credit by advocating regicide; and Hotoman, whose +_Franco-Gallia_ is the most serious work of the group, deserted his +liberal opinions when the chief of his own party became king. The most +violent explosion of democracy in that age proceeded from the opposite +quarter. When Henry of Navarre became the next heir to the throne of +France, the theory of the deposing power, which had proved ineffectual +for more than a century, awoke with a new and more vigorous life. +One-half of the nation accepted the view, that they were not bound to +submit to a king they would not have chosen. A Committee of Sixteen made +itself master of Paris, and, with the aid of Spain, succeeded for years +in excluding Henry from his capital. The impulse thus given endured in +literature for a whole generation, and produced a library of treatises +on the right of Catholics to choose, to control, and to cashier their +magistrates. They were on the losing side. Most of them were +bloodthirsty, and were soon forgotten. But the greater part of the +political ideas of Milton, Locke, and Rousseau, may be found in the +ponderous Latin of Jesuits who were subjects of the Spanish Crown, of +Lessius, Molina, Mariana, and Suarez. + +The ideas were there, and were taken up when it suited them by extreme +adherents of Rome and of Geneva; but they produced no lasting fruit +until, a century after the Reformation, they became incorporated in new +religious systems. Five years of civil war could not exhaust the +royalism of the Presbyterians, and it required the expulsion of the +majority to make the Long Parliament abandon monarchy. It had defended +the constitution against the crown with legal arts, defending precedent +against innovation, and setting up an ideal in the past which, with all +the learning of Selden and of Prynne, was less certain than the Puritan +statesmen supposed. The Independents brought in a new principle. +Tradition had no authority for them, and the past no virtue. Liberty of +conscience, a thing not to be found in the constitution, was more prized +by many of them than all the statutes of the Plantagenets. Their idea +that each congregation should govern itself abolished the force which is +needed to preserve unity, and deprived monarchy of the weapon which made +it injurious to freedom. An immense revolutionary energy resided in +their doctrine, and it took root in America, and deeply coloured +political thought in later times. But in England the sectarian democracy +was strong only to destroy. Cromwell refused to be bound by it; and John +Lilburne, the boldest thinker among English democrats, declared that it +would be better for liberty to bring back Charles Stuart than to live +under the sword of the Protector. + +Lilburne was among the first to understand the real conditions of +democracy, and the obstacle to its success in England. Equality of power +could not be preserved, except by violence, together with an extreme +inequality of possessions. There would always be danger, if power was +not made to wait on property, that property would go to those who had +the power. This idea of the necessary balance of property, developed by +Harrington, and adopted by Milton in his later pamphlets, appeared to +Toland, and even to John Adams, as important as the invention of +printing, or the discovery of the circulation of the blood. At least it +indicates the true explanation of the strange completeness with which +the Republican party had vanished, a dozen years after the solemn trial +and execution of the King. No extremity of misgovernment was able to +revive it. When the treason of Charles II. against the constitution was +divulged, and the Whigs plotted to expel the incorrigible dynasty, their +aspirations went no farther than a Venetian oligarchy, with Monmouth for +Doge. The Revolution of 1688 confined power to the aristocracy of +freeholders. The conservatism of the age was unconquerable. +Republicanism was distorted even in Switzerland, and became in the +eighteenth century as oppressive and as intolerant as its neighbours. + +In 1769, when Paoli fled from Corsica, it seemed that, in Europe at +least, democracy was dead. It had, indeed, lately been defended in books +by a man of bad reputation, whom the leaders of public opinion treated +with contumely, and whose declamations excited so little alarm that +George III. offered him a pension. What gave to Rousseau a power far +exceeding that which any political writer had ever attained was the +progress of events in America. The Stuarts had been willing that the +colonies should serve as a refuge from their system of Church and State, +and of all their colonies the one most favoured was the territory +granted to William Penn. By the principles of the Society to which he +belonged, it was necessary that the new State should be founded on +liberty and equality. But Penn was further noted among Quakers as a +follower of the new doctrine of Toleration. Thus it came to pass that +Pennsylvania enjoyed the most democratic constitution in the world, and +held up to the admiration of the eighteenth century an almost solitary +example of freedom. It was principally through Franklin and the Quaker +State that America influenced political opinion in Europe, and that the +fanaticism of one revolutionary epoch was converted into the rationalism +of another. American independence was the beginning of a new era, not +merely as a revival of Revolution, but because no other Revolution ever +proceeded from so slight a cause, or was ever conducted with so much +moderation. The European monarchies supported it. The greatest statesmen +in England averred that it was just. It established a pure democracy; +but it was democracy in its highest perfection, armed and vigilant, less +against aristocracy and monarchy than against its own weakness and +excess. Whilst England was admired for the safeguards with which, in the +course of many centuries, it had fortified liberty against the power of +the crown, America appeared still more worthy of admiration for the +safeguards which, in the deliberations of a single memorable year, it +had set up against the power of its own sovereign people. It resembled +no other known democracy, for it respected freedom, authority, and law. +It resembled no other constitution, for it was contained in half a dozen +intelligible articles. Ancient Europe opened its mind to two new +ideas--that Revolution with very little provocation may be just; and +that democracy in very large dimensions may be safe. + +Whilst America was making itself independent, the spirit of reform had +been abroad in Europe. Intelligent ministers, like Campomanes and +Struensee, and well-meaning monarchs, of whom the most liberal was +Leopold of Tuscany, were trying what could be done to make men happy by +command. Centuries of absolute and intolerant rule had bequeathed abuses +which nothing but the most vigorous use of power could remove. The age +preferred the reign of intellect to the reign of liberty. Turgot, the +ablest and most far-seeing reformer then living, attempted to do for +France what less gifted men were doing with success in Lombardy, and +Tuscany, and Parma. He attempted to employ the royal power for the good +of the people, at the expense of the higher classes. The higher classes +proved too strong for the crown alone; and Louis XVI. abandoned internal +reforms in despair, and turned for compensation to a war with England +for the deliverance of her American Colonies. When the increasing debt +obliged him to seek heroic remedies, and he was again repulsed by the +privileged orders, he appealed at last to the nation. When the +States-General met, the power had already passed to the middle class, +for it was by them alone that the country could be saved. They were +strong enough to triumph by waiting. Neither the Court, nor the nobles, +nor the army, could do anything against them. During the six months from +January 1789 to the fall of the Bastille in July, France travelled as +far as England in the six hundred years between the Earl of Leicester +and Lord Beaconsfield. Ten years after the American alliance, the Rights +of Man, which had been proclaimed at Philadelphia, were repeated at +Versailles. The alliance had borne fruit on both sides of the Atlantic, +and for France, the fruit was the triumph of American ideas over +English. They were more popular, more simple, more effective against +privilege, and, strange to say, more acceptable to the King. The new +French constitution allowed no privileged orders, no parliamentary +ministry, no power of dissolution, and only a suspensive veto. But the +characteristic safeguards of the American Government were rejected: +Federalism, separation of Church and State, the Second Chamber, the +political arbitration of the supreme judicial body. That which weakened +the Executive was taken: that which restrained the Legislature was left. +Checks on the crown abounded; but should the crown be vacant, the powers +that remained would be without a check. The precautions were all in one +direction. Nobody would contemplate the contingency that there might be +no king. The constitution was inspired by a profound disbelief in Louis +XVI. and a pertinacious belief in monarchy. The assembly voted without +debate, by acclamation, a Civil List three times as large as that of +Queen Victoria. When Louis fled, and the throne was actually vacant, +they brought him back to it, preferring the phantom of a king who was a +prisoner to the reality of no king at all. + +Next to this misapplication of American examples, which was the fault of +nearly all the leading statesmen, excepting Mounier, Mirabeau, and +Sieyes, the cause of the Revolution was injured by its religious policy. +The most novel and impressive lesson taught by the fathers of the +American Republic was that the people, and not the administration, +should govern. Men in office were salaried agents, by whom the nation +wrought its will. Authority submitted to public opinion, and left to it +not only the control, but the initiative of government. Patience in +waiting for a wind, alacrity in catching it, the dread of exerting +unnecessary influence, characterise the early presidents. Some of the +French politicians shared this view, though with less exaggeration than +Washington. They wished to decentralise the government, and to obtain, +for good or evil, the genuine expression of popular sentiment. Necker +himself, and Buzot, the most thoughtful of the Girondins, dreamed of +federalising France. In the United States there was no current of +opinion, and no combination of forces, to be seriously feared. The +government needed no security against being propelled in a wrong +direction. But the French Revolution was accomplished at the expense of +powerful classes. Besides the nobles, the Assembly, which had been made +supreme by the accession of the clergy, and had been led at first by +popular ecclesiastics, by Sieyes, Talleyrand, Cice, La Luzerne, made an +enemy of the clergy. The prerogative could not be destroyed without +touching the Church. Ecclesiastical patronage had helped to make the +crown absolute. To leave it in the hands of Louis and his ministers was +to renounce the entire policy of the constitution. To disestablish, was +to make it over to the Pope. It was consistent with the democratic +principle to introduce election into the Church. It involved a breach +with Rome; but so, indeed, did the laws of Joseph II., Charles III., and +Leopold. The Pope was not likely to cast away the friendship of France, +if he could help it; and the French clergy were not likely to give +trouble by their attachment to Rome. Therefore, amid the indifference of +many, and against the urgent, and probably sincere, remonstrances of +Robespierre and Marat, the Jansenists, who had a century of persecution +to avenge, carried the Civil Constitution. The coercive measures which +enforced it led to the breach with the King, and the fall of the +monarchy; to the revolt of the provinces, and the fall of liberty. The +Jacobins determined that public opinion should not reign, that the State +should not remain at the mercy of powerful combinations. They held the +representatives of the people under control, by the people itself. They +attributed higher authority to the direct than to the indirect voice of +the democratic oracle. They armed themselves with power to crush every +adverse, every independent force, and especially to put down the +Church, in whose cause the provinces had risen against the capital. They +met the centrifugal federalism of the friends of the Gironde by the most +resolute centralisation. France was governed by Paris; and Paris by its +municipality and its mob. Obeying Rousseau's maxim, that the people +cannot delegate its power, they raised the elementary constituency above +its representatives. As the greatest constituent body, the most numerous +accumulation of primary electors, the largest portion of sovereignty, +was in the people of Paris, they designed that the people of Paris +should rule over France, as the people of Rome, the mob as well as the +senate, had ruled, not ingloriously, over Italy, and over half the +nations that surround the Mediterranean. Although the Jacobins were +scarcely more irreligious than the Abbe Sieyes or Madame Roland, +although Robespierre wanted to force men to believe in God, although +Danton went to confession and Barere was a professing Christian, they +imparted to modern democracy that implacable hatred of religion which +contrasts so strangely with the example of its Puritan prototype. + +The deepest cause which made the French Revolution so disastrous to +liberty was its theory of equality. Liberty was the watchword of the +middle class, equality of the lower. It was the lower class that won the +battles of the third estate; that took the Bastille, and made France a +constitutional monarchy; that took the Tuileries, and made France a +Republic. They claimed their reward. The middle class, having cast down +the upper orders with the aid of the lower, instituted a new inequality +and a privilege for itself. By means of a taxpaying qualification it +deprived its confederates of their vote. To those, therefore, who had +accomplished the Revolution, its promise was not fulfilled. Equality did +nothing for them. The opinion, at that time, was almost universal, that +society is founded on an agreement which is voluntary and conditional, +and that the links which bind men to it are terminable, for sufficient +reason, like those which subject them to authority. From these popular +premises the logic of Marat drew his sanguinary conclusions. He told +the famished people that the conditions on which they had consented to +bear their evil lot, and had refrained from violence, had not been kept +to them. It was suicide, it was murder, to submit to starve and to see +one's children starving, by the fault of the rich. The bonds of society +were dissolved by the wrong it inflicted. The state of nature had come +back, in which every man had a right to what he could take. The time had +come for the rich to make way for the poor. With this theory of +equality, liberty was quenched in blood, and Frenchmen became ready to +sacrifice all other things to save life and fortune. + +Twenty years after the splendid opportunity that opened in 1789, the +reaction had triumphed everywhere in Europe; ancient constitutions had +perished as well as new; and even England afforded them neither +protection nor sympathy. The liberal, at least the democratic revival, +came from Spain. The Spaniards fought against the French for a king, who +was a prisoner in France. They gave themselves a constitution, and +placed his name at the head of it. They had a monarchy, without a king. +It required to be so contrived that it would work in the absence, +possibly the permanent absence, of the monarch. It became, therefore, a +monarchy only in name, composed, in fact, of democratic forces. The +constitution of 1812 was the attempt of inexperienced men to accomplish +the most difficult task in politics. It was smitten with sterility. For +many years it was the standard of abortive revolutions among the +so-called Latin nations. It promulgated the notion of a king who should +flourish only in name, and should not even discharge the humble function +which Hegel assigns to royalty, of dotting i's for the people. + +The overthrow of the Cadiz constitution, in 1823, was the supreme +triumph of the restored monarchy of France. Five years later, under a +wise and liberal minister, the Restoration was advancing fairly on the +constitutional paths, when the incurable distrust of the Liberal party +defeated Martignac, and brought in the ministry of extreme royalists +that ruined the monarchy. In labouring to transfer power from the class +which the Revolution had enfranchised to those which it had overthrown, +Polignac and La Bourdonnaie would gladly have made terms with the +working men. To break the influence of intellect and capital by means of +universal suffrage, was an idea long and zealously advocated by some of +their supporters. They had not foresight or ability to divide their +adversaries, and they were vanquished in 1830 by the united democracy. + +The promise of the Revolution of July was to reconcile royalists and +democrats. The King assured Lafayette that he was a republican at heart; +and Lafayette assured France that Louis Philippe was the best of +republics. The shock of the great event was felt in Poland, and Belgium, +and even in England. It gave a direct impulse to democratic movements in +Switzerland. + +Swiss democracy had been in abeyance since 1815. The national will had +no organ. The cantons were supreme; and governed as inefficiently as +other governments under the protecting shade of the Holy Alliance. There +was no dispute that Switzerland called for extensive reforms, and no +doubt of the direction they would take. The number of the cantons was +the great obstacle to all improvement. It was useless to have +twenty-five governments in a country equal to one American State, and +inferior in population to one great city. It was impossible that they +should be good governments. A central power was the manifest need of the +country. In the absence of an efficient federal power, seven cantons +formed a separate league for the protection of their own interests. +Whilst democratic ideas were making way in Switzerland, the Papacy was +travelling in the opposite direction, and showing an inflexible +hostility for ideas which are the breath of democratic life. The growing +democracy and the growing Ultramontanism came into collision. The +Sonderbund could aver with truth that there was no safety for its rights +under the Federal Constitution. The others could reply, with equal +truth, that there was no safety for the constitution with the +Sonderbund. In 1847, it came to a war between national sovereignty and +cantonal sovereignty. The Sonderbund was dissolved, and a new Federal +Constitution was adopted, avowedly and ostensibly charged with the duty +of carrying out democracy, and repressing the adverse influence of Rome. +It was a delusive imitation of the American system. The President was +powerless. The Senate was powerless. The Supreme Court was powerless. +The sovereignty of the cantons was undermined, and their power centred +in the House of Representatives. The Constitution of 1848 was a first +step towards the destruction of Federalism. Another and almost a final +step in the direction of centralisation was taken in 1874. The railways, +and the vast interests they created, made the position of the cantonal +governments untenable. The conflict with the Ultramontanes increased the +demand for vigorous action; and the destruction of State Rights in the +American war strengthened the hands of the Centralists. The Constitution +of 1874 is one of the most significant works of modern democracy. It is +the triumph of democratic force over democratic freedom. It overrules +not only the Federal principle, but the representative principle. It +carries important measures away from the Federal Legislature to submit +them to the votes of the entire people, separating decision from +deliberation. The operation is so cumbrous as to be generally +ineffective. But it constitutes a power such as exists, we believe, +under the laws of no other country. A Swiss jurist has frankly expressed +the spirit of the reigning system by saying, that the State is the +appointed conscience of the nation. + +The moving force in Switzerland has been democracy relieved of all +constraint, the principle of putting in action the greatest force of the +greatest number. The prosperity of the country has prevented +complications such as arose in France. The ministers of Louis Philippe, +able and enlightened men, believed that they would make the people +prosper if they could have their own way, and could shut out public +opinion. They acted as if the intelligent middle class was destined by +heaven to govern. The upper class had proved its unfitness before 1789; +the lower class, since 1789. Government by professional men, by +manufacturers and scholars, was sure to be safe, and almost sure to be +reasonable and practical. Money became the object of a political +superstition, such as had formerly attached to land, and afterwards +attached to labour. The masses of the people, who had fought against +Marmont, became aware that they had not fought for their own benefit. +They were still governed by their employers. + +When the King parted with Lafayette, and it was found that he would not +only reign but govern, the indignation of the republicans found a vent +in street fighting. In 1836, when the horrors of the infernal machine +had armed the crown with ampler powers, and had silenced the republican +party, the term Socialism made its appearance in literature. +Tocqueville, who was writing the philosophic chapters that conclude his +work, failed to discover the power which the new system was destined to +exercise on democracy. Until then, democrats and communists had stood +apart. Although the socialist doctrines were defended by the best +intellects of France, by Thierry, Comte, Chevalier, and Georges Sand, +they excited more attention as a literary curiosity than as the cause of +future revolutions. Towards 1840, in the recesses of secret societies, +republicans and socialists coalesced. Whilst the Liberal leaders, +Lamartine and Barrot, discoursed on the surface concerning reform, Ledru +Rollin and Louis Blanc were quietly digging a grave for the monarchy, +the Liberal party, and the reign of wealth. They worked so well, and the +vanquished republicans recovered so thoroughly, by this coalition, the +influence they had lost by a long series of crimes and follies, that, in +1848, they were able to conquer without fighting. The fruit of their +victory was universal suffrage. + +From that time the promises of socialism have supplied the best energy +of democracy. Their coalition has been the ruling fact in French +politics. It created the "saviour of society," and the Commune; and it +still entangles the footsteps of the Republic. It is the only shape in +which democracy has found an entrance into Germany. Liberty has lost its +spell; and democracy maintains itself by the promise of substantial +gifts to the masses of the people. + +Since the Revolution of July and the Presidency of Jackson gave the +impulse which has made democracy preponderate, the ablest political +writers, Tocqueville, Calhoun, Mill, and Laboulaye, have drawn, in the +name of freedom, a formidable indictment against it. They have shown +democracy without respect for the past or care for the future, +regardless of public faith and of national honour, extravagant and +inconstant, jealous of talent and of knowledge, indifferent to justice +but servile towards opinion, incapable of organisation, impatient of +authority, averse from obedience, hostile to religion and to established +law. Evidence indeed abounds, even if the true cause be not proved. But +it is not to these symptoms that we must impute the permanent danger and +the irrepressible conflict. As much might be made good against monarchy, +and an unsympathising reasoner might in the same way argue that religion +is intolerant, that conscience makes cowards, that piety rejoices in +fraud. Recent experience has added little to the observations of those +who witnessed the decline after Pericles, of Thucydides, Aristophanes, +Plato, and of the writer whose brilliant tract against the Athenian +Republic is printed among the works of Xenophon. The manifest, the +avowed difficulty is that democracy, no less than monarchy or +aristocracy, sacrifices everything to maintain itself, and strives, with +an energy and a plausibility that kings and nobles cannot attain, to +override representation, to annul all the forces of resistance and +deviation, and to secure, by Plebiscite, Referendum, or Caucus, free +play for the will of the majority. The true democratic principle, that +none shall have power over the people, is taken to mean that none shall +be able to restrain or to elude its power. The true democratic +principle, that the people shall not be made to do what it does not +like, is taken to mean that it shall never be required to tolerate what +it does not like. The true democratic principle, that every man's free +will shall be as unfettered as possible, is taken to mean that the free +will of the collective people shall be fettered in nothing. Religious +toleration, judicial independence, dread of centralisation, jealousy of +State interference, become obstacles to freedom instead of safeguards, +when the centralised force of the State is wielded by the hands of the +people. Democracy claims to be not only supreme, without authority +above, but absolute, without independence below; to be its own master, +not a trustee. The old sovereigns of the world are exchanged for a new +one, who may be flattered and deceived, but whom it is impossible to +corrupt or to resist, and to whom must be rendered the things that are +Caesar's and also the things that are God's. The enemy to be overcome is +no longer the absolutism of the State, but the liberty of the subject. +Nothing is more significant than the relish with which Ferrari, the most +powerful democratic writer since Rousseau, enumerates the merits of +tyrants, and prefers devils to saints in the interest of the community. + +For the old notions of civil liberty and of social order did not benefit +the masses of the people. Wealth increased, without relieving their +wants. The progress of knowledge left them in abject ignorance. Religion +flourished, but failed to reach them. Society, whose laws were made by +the upper class alone, announced that the best thing for the poor is not +to be born, and the next best, to die in childhood, and suffered them to +live in misery and crime and pain. As surely as the long reign of the +rich has been employed in promoting the accumulation of wealth, the +advent of the poor to power will be followed by schemes for diffusing +it. Seeing how little was done by the wisdom of former times for +education and public health, for insurance, association, and savings, +for the protection of labour against the law of self-interest, and how +much has been accomplished in this generation, there is reason in the +fixed belief that a great change was needed, and that democracy has not +striven in vain. Liberty, for the mass, is not happiness; and +institutions are not an end but a means. The thing they seek is a force +sufficient to sweep away scruples and the obstacle of rival interests, +and, in some degree, to better their condition. They mean that the +strong hand that heretofore has formed great States, protected +religions, and defended the independence of nations, shall help them by +preserving life, and endowing it for them with some, at least, of the +things men live for. That is the notorious danger of modern democracy. +That is also its purpose and its strength. And against this threatening +power the weapons that struck down other despots do not avail. The +greatest happiness principle positively confirms it. The principle of +equality, besides being as easily applied to property as to power, +opposes the existence of persons or groups of persons exempt from the +common law, and independent of the common will; and the principle, that +authority is a matter of contract, may hold good against kings, but not +against the sovereign people, because a contract implies two parties. + +If we have not done more than the ancients to develop and to examine the +disease, we have far surpassed them in studying the remedy. Besides the +French Constitution of the year III., and that of the American +Confederates,--the most remarkable attempts that have been made since +the archonship of Euclides to meet democratic evils with the antidotes +which democracy itself supplies,--our age has been prolific in this +branch of experimental politics. + +Many expedients have been tried, that have been evaded or defeated. A +divided executive, which was an important phase in the transformation of +ancient monarchies into republics, and which, through the advocacy of +Condorcet, took root in France, has proved to be weakness itself. + +The constitution of 1795, the work of a learned priest, confined the +franchise to those who should know how to read and write; and in 1849 +this provision was rejected by men who intended that the ignorant voter +should help them to overturn the Republic. In our time no democracy +could long subsist without educating the masses; and the scheme of +Daunou is simply an indirect encouragement to elementary instruction. + +In 1799 Sieyes suggested to Bonaparte the idea of a great Council, whose +function it should be to keep the acts of the Legislature in harmony +with the constitution--a function which the _Nomophylakes_ discharged at +Athens, and the Supreme Court in the United States, and which produced +the Senat Conservateur, one of the favourite implements of Imperialism. +Sieyes meant that his Council should also serve the purpose of a gilded +ostracism, having power to absorb any obnoxious politician, and to +silence him with a thousand a year. + +Napoleon the Third's plan of depriving unmarried men of their votes +would have disfranchised the two greatest Conservative classes in +France, the priest and the soldier. + +In the American constitution it was intended that the chief of the +executive should be chosen by a body of carefully selected electors. But +since, in 1825, the popular candidate succumbed to one who had only a +minority of votes, it has become the practice to elect the President by +the pledged delegates of universal suffrage. + +The exclusion of ministers from Congress has been one of the severest +strains on the American system; and the law which required a majority of +three to one enabled Louis Napoleon to make himself Emperor. Large +constituencies make independent deputies; but experience proves that +small assemblies, the consequence of large constituencies, can be +managed by Government. + +The composite vote and the cumulative vote have been almost universally +rejected as schemes for baffling the majority. But the principle of +dividing the representatives equally between population and property has +never had fair play. It was introduced by Thouret into the constitution +of 1791. The Revolution made it inoperative; and it was so manipulated +from 1817 to 1848 by the fatal dexterity of Guizot as to make opinion +ripe for universal suffrage. + +Constitutions which forbid the payment of deputies and the system of +imperative instructions, which deny the power of dissolution, and make +the Legislature last for a fixed term, or renew it by partial +re-elections, and which require an interval between the several debates +on the same measure, evidently strengthen the independence of the +representative assembly. The Swiss veto has the same effect, as it +suspends legislation only when opposed by a majority of the whole +electoral body, not by a majority of those who actually vote upon it. + +Indirect elections are scarcely anywhere in use out of Germany, but they +have been a favourite corrective of democracy with many thoughtful +politicians. Where the extent of the electoral district obliges +constituents to vote for candidates who are unknown to them, the +election is not free. It is managed by wire-pullers, and by party +machinery, beyond the control of the electors. Indirect election puts +the choice of the managers into their hands. The objection is that the +intermediate electors are generally too few to span the interval between +voters and candidates, and that they choose representatives not of +better quality, but of different politics. If the intermediate body +consisted of one in ten of the whole constituency, the contact would be +preserved, the people would be really represented, and the ticket system +would be broken down. + +The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or +rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force +or fraud, in carrying elections. To break off that point is to avert the +danger. The common system of representation perpetuates the danger. +Unequal electorates afford no security to majorities. Equal electorates +give none to minorities. Thirty-five years ago it was pointed out that +the remedy is proportional representation. It is profoundly democratic, +for it increases the influence of thousands who would otherwise have no +voice in the government; and it brings men more near an equality by so +contriving that no vote shall be wasted, and that every voter shall +contribute to bring into Parliament a member of his own opinions. The +origin of the idea is variously claimed for Lord Grey and for +Considerant. The successful example of Denmark and the earnest advocacy +of Mill gave it prominence in the world of politics. It has gained +popularity with the growth of democracy, and we are informed by M. +Naville that in Switzerland Conservatives and Radicals combined to +promote it. + +Of all checks on democracy, federalism has been the most efficacious and +the most congenial; but, becoming associated with the Red Republic, with +feudalism, with the Jesuits, and with slavery, it has fallen into +disrepute, and is giving way to centralism. The federal system limits +and restrains the sovereign power by dividing it, and by assigning to +Government only certain defined rights. It is the only method of curbing +not only the majority but the power of the whole people, and it affords +the strongest basis for a second chamber, which has been found the +essential security for freedom in every genuine democracy. + +The fall of Guizot discredited the famous maxim of the Doctrinaires, +that Reason is sovereign, and not king or people; and it was further +exposed to the scoffer by the promise of Comte that Positivist +philosophers shall manufacture political ideas, which no man shall be +permitted to dispute. But putting aside international and criminal law, +in which there is some approach to uniformity, the domain of political +economy seems destined to admit the rigorous certainty of science. +Whenever that shall be attained, when the battle between Economists and +Socialists is ended, the evil force which Socialism imparts to democracy +will be spent. The battle is raging more violently than ever, but it has +entered into a new phase, by the rise of a middle party. Whether that +remarkable movement, which is promoted by some of the first economists +in Europe, is destined to shake the authority of their science, or to +conquer socialism, by robbing it of that which is the secret of its +strength, it must be recorded here as the latest and the most serious +effort that has been made to disprove the weighty sentence of Rousseau, +that democracy is a government for gods, but unfit for man. + +We have been able to touch on only a few of the topics that crowd Sir +Erskine May's volumes. Although he has perceived more clearly than +Tocqueville the contact of democracy with socialism, his judgment is +untinged with Tocqueville's despondency, and he contemplates the +direction of progress with a confidence that approaches optimism. The +notion of an inflexible logic in history does not depress him, for he +concerns himself with facts and with men more than with doctrines, and +his book is a history of several democracies, not of democracy. There +are links in the argument, there are phases of development which he +leaves unnoticed, because his object has not been to trace out the +properties and the connection of ideas, but to explain the results of +experience. We should consult his pages, probably, without effect, if we +wished to follow the origin and sequence of the democratic dogmas, that +all men are equal; that speech and thought are free; that each +generation is a law to itself only; that there shall be no endowments, +no entails, no primogeniture; that the people are sovereign; that the +people can do no wrong. The great mass of those who, of necessity, are +interested in practical politics have no such antiquarian curiosity. +They want to know what can be learned from the countries where the +democratic experiments have been tried; but they do not care to be told +how M. Waddington has emended the _Monumentum Ancyranum_, what +connection there was between Mariana and Milton, or between Penn and +Rousseau, or who invented the proverb _Vox Populi Vox Dei_. Sir Erskine +May's reluctance to deal with matters speculative and doctrinal, and to +devote his space to the mere literary history of politics, has made his +touch somewhat uncertain in treating of the political action of +Christianity, perhaps the most complex and comprehensive question that +can embarrass a historian. He disparages the influence of the mediaeval +Church on nations just emerging from a barbarous paganism, and he exalts +it when it had become associated with despotism and persecution. He +insists on the liberating action of the Reformation in the sixteenth +century, when it gave a stimulus to absolutism; and he is slow to +recognise, in the enthusiasm and violence of the sects in the +seventeenth, the most potent agency ever brought to bear on democratic +history. The omission of America creates a void between 1660 and 1789, +and leaves much unexplained in the revolutionary movement of the last +hundred years, which is the central problem of the book. But if some +things are missed from the design, if the execution is not equal in +every part, the praise remains to Sir Erskine May, that he is the only +writer who has ever brought together the materials for a comparative +study of democracy, that he has avoided the temper of party, that he has +shown a hearty sympathy for the progress and improvement of mankind, and +a steadfast faith in the wisdom and the power that guide it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 5: _The Quarterly Review_, January 1878.] + + + + +IV + +THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW[6] + + +The way in which Coligny and his adherents met their death has been +handed down by a crowd of trustworthy witnesses, and few things in +history are known in more exact detail. But the origin and motives of +the tragedy, and the manner of its reception by the opinion of Christian +Europe, are still subject to controversy. Some of the evidence has been +difficult of access, part is lost, and much has been deliberately +destroyed. No letters written from Paris at the time have been found in +the Austrian archives. In the correspondence of thirteen agents of the +House of Este at the Court of Rome, every paper relating to the event +has disappeared. All the documents of 1572, both from Rome and Paris, +are wanting in the archives of Venice. In the Registers of many French +towns the leaves which contained the records of August and September in +that year have been torn out. The first reports sent to England by +Walsingham and by the French Government have not been recovered. Three +accounts printed at Rome, when the facts were new, speedily became so +rare that they have been forgotten. The Bull of Gregory XIII. was not +admitted into the official collections; and the reply to Muretus has +escaped notice until now. The letters of Charles IX. to Rome, with the +important exception of that which he wrote on the 24th _of_ August, have +been dispersed and lost The letters of Gregory XIII. to France have +never been seen by persons willing to make them public. In the absence +of these documents the most authentic information is that which is +supplied by the French Ambassador and by the Nuncio. The despatches of +Ferralz, describing the attitude of the Roman court, are extant, but +have not been used. Those of Salviati have long been known. +Chateaubriand took a copy when the papal archives were at Paris, and +projected a work on the events with which they are concerned. Some +extracts were published, with his consent, by the continuator of +Mackintosh; and a larger selection, from the originals in the Vatican, +appeared in Theiner's _Annals of Gregory XIII_. The letters written +under Pius V. are beyond the limits of that work; and Theiner, moreover, +has omitted whatever seemed irrelevant to his purpose. The criterion of +relevancy is uncertain; and we shall avail ourselves largely of the +unpublished portions of Salviati's correspondence, which were +transcribed by Chateaubriand. These manuscripts, with others of equal +importance not previously consulted, determine several doubtful +questions of policy and design. + +The Protestants never occupied a more triumphant position, and their +prospects were never brighter, than in the summer of 1572. For many +years the progress of their religion had been incessant. The most +valuable of the conquests it has retained were already made; and the +period of its reverses had not begun. The great division which aided +Catholicism afterwards to recover so much lost ground was not openly +confessed; and the effectual unity of the Reformed Churches was not yet +dissolved. In controversial theology the defence was weaker than the +attack. The works to which the Reformation owed its popularity and +system were in the hands of thousands, while the best authors of the +Catholic restoration had not begun to write. The press continued to +serve the new opinions better than the old; and in literature +Protestantism was supreme. Persecuted in the South, and established by +violence in the North, it had overcome the resistance of princes in +Central Europe, and had won toleration without ceasing to be intolerant. +In France and Poland, in the dominions of the Emperor and under the +German prelates, the attempt to arrest its advance by physical force had +been abandoned. In Germany it covered twice the area that remained to it +in the next generation, and, except in Bavaria, Catholicism was fast +dying out. The Polish Government had not strength to persecute, and +Poland became the refuge of the sects. When the bishops found that they +could not prevent toleration, they resolved that they would not restrict +it. Trusting to the maxim, "Bellum Haereticorum pax est Ecclesiae," they +insisted that liberty should extend to those whom the Reformers would +have exterminated.[7] The Polish Protestants, in spite of their +dissensions, formed themselves into one great party. When the death of +the last of the Jagellons, on the 7th of July 1572, made the monarchy +elective, they were strong enough to enforce their conditions on the +candidates; and it was thought that they would be able to decide the +election, and obtain a king of their own choosing. Alva's reign of +Terror had failed to pacify the Low Countries, and he was about to +resign the hopeless task to an incapable successor. The taking of the +Brill in April was the first of those maritime victories which led to +the independence of the Dutch. Mons fell in May; and in July the +important province of Holland declared for the Prince of Orange. The +Catholics believed that all was lost if Alva remained in command.[8] + +The decisive struggle was in France. During the minority of Charles IX. +persecution had given way to civil war, and the Regent, his mother, had +vainly striven, by submitting to neither party, to uphold the authority +of the Crown. She checked the victorious Catholics, by granting to the +Huguenots terms which constituted them, in spite of continual disaster +in the field, a vast and organised power in the State. To escape their +influence it would have been necessary to invoke the help of Philip +II., and to accept protection which would have made France subordinate +to Spain. Philip laboured to establish such an alliance; and it was to +promote this scheme that he sent his queen, Elizabeth of Valois, to meet +her mother at Bayonne. In 1568 Elizabeth died; and a rumour came to +Catherine touching the manner of her death which made it hard to listen +to friendly overtures from her husband. Antonio Perez, at that time an +unscrupulous instrument of his master's will, afterwards accused him of +having poisoned his wife. "On parle fort sinistrement de sa mort, pour +avoir ete advancee," says Brantome. After the massacre of the +Protestants, the ambassador at Venice, a man distinguished as a jurist +and a statesman, reproached Catherine with having thrown France into the +hands of him in whom the world recognised her daughter's murderer. +Catherine did not deny the truth of the report. She replied that she was +"bound to think of her sons in preference to her daughters, that the +foul-play was not fully proved, and that if it were it could not be +avenged so long as France was weakened by religious discord."[9] She +wrote as she could not have written if she had been convinced that the +suspicion was unjust. + +When Charles IX. began to be his own master he seemed resolved to follow +his father and grandfather in their hostility to the Spanish Power. He +wrote to a trusted servant that all his thoughts were bent on thwarting +Philip.[10] While the Christian navies were fighting at Lepanto, the +King of France was treating with the Turks. His menacing attitude in the +following year kept Don Juan in Sicilian waters, and made his victory +barren for Christendom. Encouraged by French protection, Venice withdrew +from the League. Even in Corsica there was a movement which men +interpreted as a prelude to the storm that France was raising against +the empire of Spain. Rome trembled in expectation of a Huguenot invasion +of Italy; for Charles was active in conciliating the Protestants both +abroad and at home. He married a daughter of the tolerant Emperor +Maximilian II.; and he carried on negotiations for the marriage of his +brother with Queen Elizabeth, not with any hope of success, but in order +to impress public opinion.[11] He made treaties of alliance, in quick +succession, with England, with the German Protestants, and with the +Prince of Orange. He determined that his brother Anjou, the champion of +the Catholics, of whom it was said that he had vowed to root out the +Protestants to a man,[12] should be banished to the throne of Poland. +Disregarding the threats and entreaties of the Pope, he gave his sister +in marriage to Navarre. By the peace of St. Germains the Huguenots had +secured, within certain limits, freedom from persecution and the liberty +of persecuting; so that Pius V. declared that France had been made the +slave of heretics. Coligny was now the most powerful man in the kingdom. +His scheme for closing the civil wars by an expedition for the conquest +of the Netherlands began to be put in motion. French auxiliaries +followed Lewis of Nassau into Mons; an army of Huguenots had already +gone to his assistance; another was being collected near the frontier, +and Coligny was preparing to take the command in a war which might +become a Protestant crusade, and which left the Catholics no hope of +victory. Meanwhile many hundreds of his officers followed him to Paris, +to attend the wedding which was to reconcile the factions, and cement +the peace of religion. + +In the midst of those lofty designs and hopes, Coligny was struck down. +On the morning of the 22nd of August he was shot at and badly wounded. +Two days later he was killed; and a general attack was made on the +Huguenots of Paris. It lasted some weeks, and was imitated in about +twenty places. The chief provincial towns of France were among them. + +Judged by its immediate result, the massacre of St. Bartholomew was a +measure weakly planned and irresolutely executed, which deprived +Protestantism of its political leaders, and left it for a time to the +control of zealots. There is no evidence to make it probable that more +than seven thousand victims perished. Judged by later events, it was the +beginning of a vast change in the conflict of the churches. At first it +was believed that a hundred thousand Huguenots had fallen. It was said +that the survivors were abjuring by thousands,[13] that the children of +the slain were made Catholics, that those whom the priest had admitted +to absolution and communion were nevertheless put to death.[14] Men who +were far beyond the reach of the French Government lost their faith in a +religion which Providence had visited with so tremendous a judgment;[15] +and foreign princes took heart to employ severities which could excite +no horror after the scenes in France. + +Contemporaries were persuaded that the Huguenots had been flattered and +their policy adopted only for their destruction, and that the murder of +Coligny and his followers was a long premeditated crime. Catholics and +Protestants vied with each other in detecting proofs of that which they +variously esteemed a sign of supernatural inspiration or of diabolical +depravity. In the last forty years a different opinion has prevailed. It +has been deemed more probable, more consistent with testimony and with +the position of affairs at the time, that Coligny succeeded in acquiring +extraordinary influence over the mind of Charles, that his advice really +predominated, and that the sanguinary resolution was suddenly embraced +by his adversaries as the last means of regaining power. This opinion is +made plausible by many facts. It is supported by several writers who +were then living, and by the document known as the Confession of Anjou. +The best authorities of the present day are nearly unanimous in +rejecting premeditation. + +The evidence on the opposite side is stronger than they suppose. The +doom which awaited the Huguenots had been long expected and often +foretold. People at a distance, Monluc in Languedoc, and the Protestant +Mylius in Italy, drew the same inference from the news that came from +the court. Strangers meeting on the road discussed the infatuation of +the Admiral.[16] Letters brought from Rome to the Emperor the +significant intimation that the birds were all caged, and now was the +time to lay hands on them.[17] Duplessis-Mornay, the future chief of the +Huguenots, was so much oppressed with a sense of coming evil, that he +hardly ventured into the streets on the wedding-day. He warned the +Admiral of the general belief among their friends that the marriage +concealed a plot for their ruin, and that the festivities would end in +some horrible surprise.[18] Coligny was proof against suspicion. Several +of his followers left Paris, but he remained unmoved. At one moment the +excessive readiness to grant all his requests shook the confidence of +his son-in-law Teligny; but the doubt vanished so completely that +Teligny himself prevented the flight of his partisans after the attempt +on the Admiral's life. On the morning of the fatal day, Montgomery sent +word to Walsingham that Coligny was safe under protection of the King's +Guards, and that no further stir was to be apprehended.[19] + +For many years foreign advisers had urged Catherine to make away with +these men. At first it was computed that half a dozen victims would be +enough.[20] That was the original estimate of Alva, at Bayonne.[21] When +the Duke of Ferrara was in France, in 1564, he proposed a larger +measure, and he repeated this advice by the mouth of every agent whom he +sent to France.[22] After the event, both Alva and Alfonso reminded +Catherine that she had done no more than follow their advice.[23] Alva's +letter explicitly confirms the popular notion which connects the +massacre with the conference of Bayonne; and it can no longer now be +doubted that La Roche-sur-Yon, on his deathbed, informed Coligny that +murderous resolutions had been taken on that occasion.[24] But the +Nuncio, Santa Croce, who was present, wrote to Cardinal Borromeo that +the Queen had indeed promised to punish the infraction of the Edict of +Pacification, but that this was a very different thing from undertaking +to extirpate heresy. Catherine affirmed that in this way the law could +reach all the Huguenot ministers; and Alva professed to believe her.[25] +Whatever studied ambiguity of language she may have used, the action of +1572 was uninfluenced by deliberations which were seven years old. + +During the spring and summer the Tuscan agents diligently prepared their +master for what was to come. Petrucci wrote on the 19th of March that, +for a reason which he could not trust to paper, the marriage would +certainly take place, though not until the Huguenots had delivered up +their strongholds. Four weeks later Alamanni announced that the Queen's +pious design for restoring unity of faith would, by the grace of God, be +speedily accomplished. On the 9th of August Petrucci was able to report +that the plan arranged at Bayonne was near execution.[26] Yet he was not +fully initiated. The Queen afterwards assured him that she had confided +the secret to no foreign resident except the Nuncio,[27] and Petrucci +resentfully complains that she had also consulted the Ambassador of +Savoy. Venice, like Florence and Savoy, was not taken by surprise. In +February the ambassador Contarini explained to the Senate the specious +tranquillity in France, by saying that the Government reckoned on the +death of the Admiral or the Queen of Navarre to work a momentous +change.[28] Cavalli, his successor, judged that a business so grossly +mismanaged showed no signs of deliberation.[29] There was another +Venetian at Paris who was better informed. The Republic was seeking to +withdraw from the league against the Turks; and her most illustrious +statesman, Giovanni Michiel, was sent to solicit the help of France in +negotiating peace.[30] The account which he gave of his mission has been +pronounced by a consummate judge of Venetian State-Papers the most +valuable report of the sixteenth century.[31] He was admitted almost +daily to secret conference with Anjou, Nevers, and the group of Italians +on whom the chief odium rests; and there was no counsellor to whom +Catherine more willingly gave ear.[32] Michiel affirms that the +intention had been long entertained, and that the Nuncio had been +directed to reveal it privately to Pius V.[33] + +Salviati was related to Catherine, and had gained her good opinion as +Nuncio in the year 1570. The Pope had sent him back because nobody +seemed more capable of diverting her and her son from the policy which +caused so much uneasiness at Rome.[34] He died many years later, with +the reputation of having been one of the most eminent Cardinals at a +time when the Sacred College was unusually rich in talent. Personally, +he had always favoured stern measures of repression. When the Countess +of Entremont was married to Coligny, Salviati declared that she had made +herself liable to severe penalties by entertaining proposals of marriage +with so notorious a heretic, and demanded that the Duke of Savoy should, +by all the means in his power, cause that wicked bride to be put out of +the way.[35] When the peace of St. Germains was concluded, he assured +Charles and Catherine that their lives were in danger, as the Huguenots +were seeking to pull down the throne as well as the altar. He believed +that all intercourse with them was sinful, and that the sole remedy was +utter extermination by the sword. "I am convinced," he wrote, "that it +will come to this." "If they do the tenth part of what I have advised, +it will be well for them."[36] After an audience of two hours, at which +he had presented a letter from Pius V., prophesying the wrath of Heaven, +Salviati perceived that his exhortations made some impression. The King +and Queen whispered to him that they hoped to make the peace yield such +fruit that the end would more than countervail the badness of the +beginning; and the King added, in strict confidence, that his plan was +one which, once told, could never be executed.[37] This might have been +said to delude the Nuncio; but he was inclined on the whole to believe +that it was sincerely meant. The impression was confirmed by the +Archbishop of Sens, Cardinal Pelleve, who informed him that the Huguenot +leaders were caressed at Court in order to detach them from their party, +and that after the loss of their leaders it would not take more than +three days to deal with the rest.[38] Salviati on his return to France +was made aware that his long-deferred hopes were about to be fulfilled. +He shadowed it forth obscurely in his despatches. He reported that the +Queen allowed the Huguenots to pass into Flanders, believing that the +admiral would become more and more presumptuous until he gave her an +opportunity of retribution; for she excelled in that kind of intrigue. +Some days later he knew more, and wrote that he hoped soon to have good +news for his Holiness.[39] At the last moment his heart misgave him. On +the morning of the 21st of August the Duke of Montpensier and the +Cardinal of Bourbon spoke with so much unconcern, in his presence, of +what was then so near, that he thought it hardly possible the secret +could be kept.[40] + +The foremost of the French prelates was the Cardinal of Lorraine. He had +held a prominent position at the council of Trent; and for many years he +had wielded the influence of the House of Guise over the Catholics of +France. In May 1572 he went to Rome; and he was still there when the +news came from Paris in September. He at once made it known that the +resolution had been taken before he left France, and that it was due to +himself and his nephew, the Duke of Guise.[41] As the spokesman of the +Gallican Church in the following year he delivered a harangue to Charles +IX., in which he declared that Charles had eclipsed the glory of +preceding kings by slaying the false prophets, and especially by the +holy deceit and pious dissimulation with which he had laid his +plans.[42] + +There was one man who did not get his knowledge from rumour, and who +could not be deceived by lies. The King's confessor, Sorbin, afterwards +Bishop of Nevers, published in 1574 a narrative of the life and death of +Charles IX. He bears unequivocal testimony that that clement and +magnanimous act, for so he terms it, was resolved upon beforehand, and +he praises the secrecy as well as the justice of his hero.[43] + +Early in the year a mission of extraordinary solemnity had appeared in +France. Pius V., who was seriously alarmed at the conduct of Charles, +had sent the Cardinal of Alessandria as Legate to the Kings of Spain and +Portugal, and directed him, in returning, to visit the Court at Blois. +The Legate was nephew to the Pope, and the man whom he most entirely +trusted.[44] His character stood so high that the reproach of nepotism +was never raised by his promotion. Several prelates destined to future +eminence attended him. His chief adviser was Hippolyto Aldobrandini, +who, twenty years later, ascended the papal chair as Clement VIII. The +companion whose presence conferred the greatest lustre on the mission +was the general of the Jesuits, Francis Borgia, the holiest of the +successors of Ignatius, and the most venerated of men then living. +Austerities had brought him to the last stage of weakness; and he was +sinking under the malady of which he was soon to die. But it was +believed that the words of such a man, pleading for the Church, would +sway the mind of the King. The ostensible purpose of the Legate's +journey was to break off the match with Navarre, and to bring France +into the Holy League. He gained neither object. When he was summoned +back to Rome it was understood in France that he had reaped nothing but +refusals, and that he went away disappointed.[45] The jeers of the +Protestants pursued him.[46] But it was sufficiently certain beforehand +that France could not plunge into a Turkish war.[47] The real business +of the Legate, besides proposing a Catholic husband for the Princess, +was to ascertain the object of the expedition which was fitting out in +the Western ports. On both points he had something favourable to report. +In his last despatch, dated Lyons, the 6th of March, he wrote that he +had failed to prevent the engagement with Navarre, but that he had +something for the Pope's private ear, which made his journey not +altogether unprofitable.[48] The secret was soon divulged in Italy. The +King had met the earnest remonstrances of the Legate by assuring him +that the marriage afforded the only prospect of wreaking vengeance on +the Huguenots: the event would show; he could say no more, but desired +his promise to be carried to the Pope. It was added that he had +presented a ring to the Legate, as a pledge of sincerity, which the +Legate refused. The first to publish this story was Capilupi, writing +only seven months later. It was repeated by Folieta,[49] and is given +with all details by the historians of Pius V.--Catena and Gabuzzi. +Catena was secretary to the Cardinal of Alessandria as early as July +1572, and submitted his work to him before publication.[50] Gabuzzi +wrote at the instance of the same Cardinal, who supplied him with +materials; and his book was examined and approved by Borghese, +afterwards Paul V. Both the Cardinal of Alessandria and Paul V., +therefore, were instrumental in causing it to be proclaimed that the +Legate was acquainted in February 1572 with the intention which the King +carried out in August. + +The testimony of Aldobrandini was given still more distinctly, and with +greater definiteness and authority. When he was required, as Pope, to +pronounce upon the dissolution of the ill-omened marriage, he related to +Borghese and other Cardinals what had passed in that interview between +the Legate and the King, adding that, when the report of the massacre +reached Rome, the Cardinal exclaimed: "God be praised! the King of +France has kept his word." Clement referred D'Ossat to a narrative of +the journey which he had written himself, and in which those things +would be found.[51] The clue thus given has been unaccountably +neglected, although the Report was known to exist. One copy is mentioned +by Giorgi; and Mazzuchelli knew of another. Neither of them had read it; +for they both ascribe it to Michele Bonelli, the Cardinal of +Alessandria. The first page would have satisfied them that it was not +his work. Clement VIII. describes the result of the mission to Blois in +these words: "Quae rationes eo impulerunt regem ut semel apprehensa manu +Cardinalis in hanc vocem proruperit: Significate Pontifici illumque +certum reddite me totum hoc quod circa id matrimonium feci et facturus +sum, nulla alia de causa facere, quam ulciscendi inimicos Dei et hujus +regni, et puniendi tam infidos rebelles, ut eventus ipse docebit, nec +aliud vobis amplius significare possum. Quo non obstante semper +Cardinalis eas subtexuit difficultates quas potuit, objiciens regi +possetne contrahi matrimonium a fidele cum infidele, sitve dispensatio +necessaria; quod si est nunquam Pontificem inductum iri ut illam +concedat. Re ipsa ita in suspenso relicta discedendum esse putavit, cum +jam rescivisset qua de causa naves parabantur, qui apparatus contra +Rocellam tendebant." + +The opinion that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was a sudden and +unpremeditated act cannot be maintained; but it does not follow that the +only alternative is to believe that it was the aim of every measure of +the Government for two years before. Catherine had long contemplated it +as her last expedient in extremity; but she had decided that she could +not resort to it while her son was virtually a minor.[52] She suggested +the idea to him in 1570. In that year he gave orders that the Huguenots +should be slaughtered at Bourges. The letter is preserved in which La +Chastre spurned the command: "If the people of Bourges learn that your +Majesty takes pleasure in such tragedies, they will repeat them often. +If these men must die, let them first be tried; but do not reward my +services and sully my reputation by such a stain."[53] + +In the autumn of 1571 Coligny came to Blois. Walsingham suspected, and +was afterwards convinced that the intention to kill him already existed. +The Pope was much displeased by his presence at Court; but he received +assurances from the ambassador which satisfied him. It was said at the +time that he at first believed that Coligny was to be murdered, but that +he soon found that there was no such praiseworthy design.[54] + +In December the King knew that, when the moment came, the burghers of +Paris would not fail him. Marcel, the Prevot des Marchands, told him +that the wealth was driven out of the country by the Huguenots: "The +Catholics will bear it no longer.... Let your Majesty look to it. Your +crown is at stake, Paris alone can save it."[55] By the month of +February 1572 the plan had assumed a practical shape. The political idea +before the mind of Charles was the same by which Richelieu afterwards +made France the first Power in the world; to repress the Protestants at +home, and to encourage them abroad. No means of effectual repression was +left but murder. But the idea of raising up enemies to Spain by means of +Protestantism was thoroughly understood. The Huguenots were allowed to +make an expedition to aid William of Orange. Had they gained some +substantial success, the Government would have followed it up, and the +scheme of Coligny would have become for the moment the policy of France. +But the Huguenot commander Genlis was defeated and taken. Coligny had +had his chance. He had played and lost. It was useless now to propose +his great venture against the King of Spain.[56] + +Philip II. perfectly understood that this event was decisive. When the +news came from Hainaut, he sent to the Nuncio Castagna to say that the +King of France would gain more than himself by the loss of so many brave +Protestants, and that the time was come for him, with the aid of the +people of Paris, to get rid of Coligny and the rest of his enemies.[57] +It appears from the letters of Salviati that he also regarded the +resolution as having been finally taken after the defeat of Genlis. + +The Court had determined to enforce unity of faith in France. An edict +of toleration was issued for the purpose of lulling the Huguenots; but +it was well known that it was only a pretence.[58] Strict injunctions +were sent into the provinces that it should not be obeyed;[59] and +Catherine said openly to the English envoy, "My son will have exercise +but of one Religion in his Realm." On the 26th the King explained his +plan to Mondoucet, his agent at Brussels: "Since it has pleased God to +bring matters to the point they have now reached, I mean to use the +opportunity to secure a perpetual repose in my kingdom, and to do +something for the good of all Christendom. It is probable that the +conflagration will spread to every town in France, and that they will +follow the example of Paris, and lay hands on all the Protestants.... I +have written to the governors to assemble forces in order to cut to +pieces those who may resist."[60] The great object was to accomplish the +extirpation of Protestantism in such a way as might leave intact the +friendship with Protestant States. Every step was governed by this +consideration; and the difficulty of the task caused the inconsistencies +and the vacillation that ensued. By assassinating Coligny alone it was +expected that such an agitation would be provoked among his partisans +as would make it appear that they were killed by the Catholics in +self-defence. Reports were circulated at once with that object. A letter +written on the 23rd states that, after the Admiral was wounded on the +day before, the Huguenots assembled at the gate of the Louvre, to avenge +him on the Guises as they came out.[61] And the first explanation sent +forth by the Government on the 24th was to the effect that the old feud +between the Houses of Guise and of Chatillon had broken out with a fury +which it was impossible to quell. This fable lasted only for a single +day. On the 25th Charles writes that he has begun to discover traces of +a Huguenot conspiracy;[62] and on the following day this was publicly +substituted for the original story. Neither the vendetta of the Guises +nor the conspiracy at Paris could be made to explain the massacre in the +provinces. It required to be so managed that the King could disown it; +Salviati describes the plan of operations. It was intended that the +Huguenots should be slaughtered successively by a series of spontaneous +outbreaks in different parts of the country. While Rochelle held out, it +was dangerous to proceed with a more sweeping method.[63] Accordingly, +no written instructions from the King are in existence; and the +governors were expressly informed that they were to expect none.[64] +Messengers went into the provinces with letters requiring that the +verbal orders which they brought should be obeyed.[65] Many governors +refused to act upon directions so vague and so hard to verify. Burgundy +was preserved in this way. Two gentlemen arrived with letters of +recommendation from the King, and declared his commands. They were +asked to put them on paper; but they refused to give in writing what +they had received by word of mouth. Mandelot, the Governor of Lyons, the +most ignoble of the instruments in this foul deed, complained that the +intimation of the royal wishes sent to him was obscure and +insufficient.[66] He did not do his work thoroughly, and incurred the +displeasure of the King. The orders were complicated as well as obscure. +The public authorities were required to collect the Huguenots in some +prison or other safe place, where they could be got at by hired bands of +volunteer assassins. To screen the King it was desirable that his +officers should not superintend the work themselves. Mandelot, having +locked the gates of Lyons, and shut up the Huguenots together, took +himself out of the way while they were being butchered. Carouge, at +Rouen, received a commission to visit the other towns in his province. +The magistrates implored him to remain, as nobody, in his absence, could +restrain the people. When the King had twice repeated his commands, +Carouge obeyed; and five hundred Huguenots perished.[67] + +It was thought unsafe even for the King's brother to give distinct +orders under his own hand. He wrote to his lieutenant in Anjou that he +had commissioned Puygaillard to communicate with him on a matter which +concerned the King's service and his own, and desired that his orders +should be received as if they came directly from himself. They were, +that every Huguenot in Angers, Saumur, and the adjoining country should +be put to death without delay and without exception.[68] The Duke of +Montpensier himself sent the same order to Brittany; but it was +indignantly rejected by the municipality of Nantes. + +When reports came in of the manner in which the event had been received +in foreign countries, the Government began to waver, and the sanguinary +orders were recalled. Schomberg wrote from Germany that the Protestant +allies were lost unless they could be satisfied that the King had not +decreed the extermination of their brethren.[69] He was instructed to +explain the tumult in the provinces by the animosity bequeathed by the +wars of religion.[70] The Bishop of Valence was intriguing in Poland on +behalf of Anjou. He wrote that his success had been made very doubtful, +and that, if further cruelties were perpetrated, ten millions of gold +pieces would not bribe the venal Poles. He advised that a counterfeit +edict, at least, should be published.[71] Charles perceived that he +would be compelled to abandon his enterprise, and set about appeasing +the resentment of the Protestant Powers. He promised that an inquiry +should be instituted, and the proofs of the conspiracy communicated to +foreign Governments. To give a judicial aspect to the proceedings, two +prominent Huguenots were ceremoniously hanged. When the new ambassador +from Spain praised the long concealment of the plan, Charles became +indignant.[72] It was repeated everywhere that the thing had been +arranged with Rome and Spain; and he was especially studious that there +should be no symptoms of a private understanding with either power.[73] +He was able to flatter himself that he had at least partially succeeded. +If he had not exterminated his Protestant subjects, he had preserved his +Protestant allies. William the Silent continued to solicit his aid; +Elizabeth consented to stand godmother to the daughter who was born to +him in October; he was allowed to raise mercenaries in Switzerland; and +the Polish Protestants agreed to the election of his brother. The +promised evidence of the Huguenot conspiracy was forgotten; and the King +suppressed the materials which were to have served for an official +history of the event.[74] + +Zeal for religion was not the motive which inspired the chief authors of +this extraordinary crime. They were trained to look on the safety of the +monarchy as the sovereign law, and on the throne as an idol that +justified sins committed in its worship. At all times there have been +men, resolute and relentless in the pursuit of their aims, whose ardour +was too strong to be restricted by moral barriers or the instinct of +humanity. In the sixteenth century, beside the fanaticism of freedom, +there was an abject idolatry of power; and laws both human and divine +were made to yield to the intoxication of authority and the reign of +will. It was laid down that kings have the right of disposing of the +lives of their subjects, and may dispense with the forms of justice. The +Church herself, whose supreme pontiff was now an absolute monarch, was +infected with this superstition. Catholic writers found an opportune +argument for their religion in the assertion that it makes the prince +master of the consciences as well as the bodies of the people, and +enjoins submission even to the vilest tyranny.[75] Men whose lives were +precious to the Catholic cause could be murdered by royal command, +without protest from Rome. When the Duke of Guise, with the Cardinal his +brother, was slain by Henry III., he was the most powerful and devoted +upholder of Catholicism in France. Sixtus V. thundered against the +sacrilegious tyrant who was stained with the blood of a prince of the +Church; but he let it be known very distinctly that the death of the +Duke caused him little concern.[76] + +Catherine was the daughter of that Medici to whom Machiavelli had +dedicated his _Prince_. So little did religion actuate her conduct that +she challenged Elizabeth to do to the Catholics of England what she +herself had done to the Protestants of France, promising that if they +were destroyed there would be no loss of her good will.[77] The levity +of her religious feelings appears from her reply when asked by Gomicourt +what message he should take to the Duke of Alva: "I must give you the +answer of Christ to the disciples of St. John, 'Ite et nuntiate quae +vidistis et audivistis; caeci vident, claudi ambulant, leprosi +mundantur.'" And she added, "Beatus qui non fuerit in me +scandalizatus."[78] + +If mere fanaticism had been their motive, the men who were most active +in the massacre would not have spared so many lives. While Guise was +galloping after Ferrieres and Montgomery, who had taken horse betimes, +and made for the coast, his house at Paris was crowded with families +belonging to the proscribed faith, and strangers to him. A young girl +who was amongst them has described his return, when he sent for the +children, spoke to them kindly, and gave orders that they should be well +treated as long as his roof sheltered them.[79] Protestants even spoke +of him as a humane and chivalrous enemy.[80] Nevers was considered to +have disgraced himself by the number of those whom he enabled to +escape.[81] The Nuncio was shocked at their ill-timed generosity. He +reported to Rome that the only one who had acted in the spirit of a +Christian, and had refrained from mercy, was the King; while the other +princes, who pretended to be good Catholics, and to deserve the favour +of the Pope, had striven, one and all, to save as many Huguenots as they +could.[82] + +The worst criminals were not the men who did the deed. The crime of mobs +and courtiers, infuriated by the lust of vengeance and of power, is not +so strange a portent as the exultation of peaceful men, influenced by no +present injury or momentary rage, but by the permanent and incurable +perversion of moral sense wrought by a distorted piety. + +Philip II., who had long suspected the court of France, was at once +relieved from the dread which had oppressed him, and betrayed an excess +of joy foreign to his phlegmatic nature.[83] He immediately sent six +thousand crowns to the murderer of Coligny.[84] He persuaded himself +that the breach between France and her allies was irreparable, that +Charles would now be driven to seek his friendship, and that the +Netherlands were out of danger.[85] He listened readily to the French +ambassador, who assured him that his court had never swerved from the +line of Catholic policy, but had intended all along to effect this great +change.[86] Ayamonte carried his congratulations to Paris, and pretended +that his master had been in the secret. It suited Philip that this +should be believed by Protestant princes, in order to estrange them +still more from France; but he wrote on the margin of Ayamonte's +instructions, that it was uncertain how long previously the purpose had +subsisted.[87] Juan and Diego de Zuniga, his ambassadors at Rome and at +Paris, were convinced that the long display of enmity to Spain was +genuine, that the death of Coligny had been decided at the last moment, +and that the rest was not the effect of design.[88] This opinion found +friends at first in Spain. The General of the Franciscans undertook to +explode it. He assured Philip that he had seen the King and the +Queen-mother two years before, and had found them already so intent on +the massacre that he wondered how anybody could have the courage to +detract from their merit by denying it.[89] This view generally +prevailed in Spain. Mendoca knows not which to admire more, the loyal +and Catholic inhabitants of Paris, or Charles, who justified his title +of the most Christian King by helping with his own hands to slaughter +his subjects.[90] Mariana witnessed the carnage, and imagined that it +must gladden every Catholic heart. Other Spaniards were gratified to +think that it had been contrived with Alva at Bayonne. + +Alva himself did not judge the event by the same light as Philip. He +also had distrusted the French Government; but he had not feared it +during the ascendency of the Huguenots. Their fall appeared to him to +strengthen France. In public he rejoiced with the rest. He complimented +Charles on his valour and his religion, and claimed his own share of +merit. But he warned Philip that things had not changed favourably for +Spain, and that the King of France was now a formidable neighbour.[91] +For himself, he said, he never would have committed so base a deed. + +The seven Catholic Cantons had their own reason for congratulation. +Their countrymen had been busy actors on the scene; and three soldiers +of the Swiss guard of Anjou were named as the slayers of the +Admiral.[92] On the 2nd of October they agreed to raise 6000 men for the +King's service. At the following Diet they demanded the expulsion of +the fugitive Huguenots who had taken refuge in the Protestant parts of +the Confederation. They made overtures to the Pope for a secret alliance +against their Confederates.[93] + +In Italy, where the life of a heretic was cheap, their wholesale +destruction was confessed a highly politic and ingenious act. Even the +sage Venetians were constrained to celebrate it with a procession. The +Grand Duke Cosmo had pointed out two years before that an insidious +peace would afford excellent opportunities of extinguishing +Protestantism; and he derived inexpressible consolation from the heroic +enterprise.[94] The Viceroy of Naples, Cardinal Granvelle, received the +tidings coldly. He was surprised that the event had been so long +postponed, and he reproved the Cardinal of Lorraine for the +unstatesmanlike delay.[95] The Italians generally were excited to warmer +feelings. They saw nothing to regret but the death of certain Catholics +who had been sacrificed to private revenge. Profane men approved the +skill with which the trap was laid; and pious men acknowledged the +presence of a genuine religious spirit in the French court.[96] The +nobles and the Parisian populace were admired for their valour in +obeying the sanctified commands of the good King. One fervent enthusiast +praises God for the heavenly news, and also St. Bartholomew for having +lent his extremely penetrating knife for the salutary sacrifice.[97] A +month after the event the renowned preacher Panigarola delivered from +the pulpit a panegyric on the monarch who had achieved what none had +ever heard or read before, by banishing heresy in a single day, and by a +single word, from the Christian land of France.[98] + +The French churches had often resounded with furious declamations; and +they afterwards rang with canticles of unholy joy. But the French clergy +does not figure prominently in the inception or the execution of the +sanguinary decree. Conti, a contemporary indeed, but too distant for +accurate knowledge, relates that the parish priest went round, marking +with a white cross the dwellings of the people who were doomed.[99] He +is contradicted by the municipal Registers of Paris.[100] Morvilliers, +Bishop of Orleans, though he had resigned the seals which he received +from L'Hopital, still occupied the first place at the royal council. He +was consulted at the last moment, and it is said that he nearly fainted +with horror. He recovered, and gave his opinion with the rest. He is the +only French prelate, except the cardinals, whose complicity appears to +be ascertained. But at Orleans, where the bloodshed was more dreadful in +proportion than at Paris, the signal is said to have been given, not by +the bishop, but by the King's preacher, Sorbin. + +Sorbin is the only priest of the capital who is distinctly associated +with the act of the Government. It was his opinion that God has ordained +that no mercy shall be shown to heretics, that Charles was bound in +conscience to do what he did, and that leniency would have been as +censurable in his case as precipitation was in that of Theodosius. What +the Calvinists called perfidy and cruelty seemed to him nothing but +generosity and kindness.[101] These were the sentiments of the man from +whose hands Charles IX. received the last consolations of his religion. +It has been related that he was tortured in his last moments with +remorse for the blood he had shed. His spiritual adviser was fitted to +dispel such scruples. He tells us that he heard the last confession of +the dying King, and that his most grievous sorrow was that he left the +work unfinished.[102] In all that bloodstained history there is nothing +more tragic than the scene in which the last words preparing the soul +for judgment were spoken by such a confessor as Sorbin to such a +penitent as Charles. + +Edmond Auger, one of the most able and eloquent of the Jesuits, was at +that time attracting multitudes by his sermons at Bordeaux. He denounced +with so much violence the heretics and the people in authority who +protected them, that the magistrates, fearing a cry for blood, proposed +to silence or to moderate the preacher. Montpezat, Lieutenant of +Guienne, arrived in time to prevent it. On the 30th of September he +wrote to the King that he had done this, and that there were a score of +the inhabitants who might be despatched with advantage. Three days +later, when he was gone, more than two hundred Huguenots were +murdered.[103] + +Apart from these two instances it is not known that the clergy +interfered in any part of France to encourage the assassins. + +The belief was common at the time, and is not yet extinct, that the +massacre had been promoted and sanctioned by the Court of Rome. No +evidence of this complicity, prior to the event, has ever been produced; +but it seemed consistent with what was supposed to have occurred in the +affair of the dispensation. The marriage of Margaret of Valois with the +King of Navarre was invalid and illicit in the eyes of the Church; and +it was known that Pius V. had sworn that he would never permit it. When +it had been celebrated by a Cardinal, in the presence of a splendid +court, and no more was heard of resistance on the part of Rome, the +world concluded that the dispensation had been obtained. De Thou says, +in a manuscript note, that it had been sent, and was afterwards +suppressed by Salviati; and the French bishop, Spondanus, assigns the +reasons which induced Gregory XIII. to give way.[104] Others affirmed +that he had yielded when he learned that the marriage was a snare, so +that the massacre was the price of the dispensation.[105] The Cardinal +of Lorraine gave currency to the story. As he caused it to be understood +that he had been in the secret, it seemed probable that he had told the +Pope; for they had been old friends.[106] In the commemorative +inscription which he put up in the Church of St. Lewis he spoke of the +King's gratitude to the Holy See for its assistance and for its advice +in the matter--"consiliorum ad eam rem datorum." It is probable that he +inspired the narrative which has contributed most to sustain the +imputation. + +Among the Italians of the French faction who made it their duty to +glorify the act of Charles IX., the Capilupi family was conspicuous. +They came from Mantua, and appear to have been connected with the French +interest through Lewis Gonzaga, who had become by marriage Duke of +Nevers, and one of the foremost personages in France. Hippolyto +Capilupi, Bishop of Fano, and formerly Nuncio at Venice, resided at +Rome, busy with French politics and Latin poetry. When Charles refused +to join the League, the Bishop of Fano vindicated his neutrality in a +letter to the Duke of Urbino.[107] When he slew the Huguenots, the +Bishop addressed him in verse,-- + + Fortunate puer, paret cui Gallica tellus, + Quique vafros ludis pervigil arte viros, + Ille tibi debet, toti qui praesidet Orbi, + Cui nihil est cordi religione prius.... + + Qui tibi saepe dolos struxit, qui vincla paravit, + Tu puer in laqueos induis arte senem.... + + Nunc florent, tolluntque caput tua lilia, et astris + Clarius hostili tincta cruore micant.[108] + +Camillo Capilupi, a nephew of the Mantuan bard, held office about the +person of the Pope, and was employed on missions of consequence.[109] As +soon as the news from Paris reached Rome he drew up the account which +became so famous under the title of _Lo Stratagemma di Carlo IX_. The +dedication is dated the 18th of September 1572.[110] This tract was +suppressed, and was soon so rare that its existence was unknown in 1574 +to the French translator of the second edition. Capilupi republished his +book with alterations, and a preface dated the 22nd of October. The +substance and purpose of the two editions is the same. Capilupi is not +the official organ of the Roman court: he was not allowed to see the +letters of the Nuncio. He wrote to proclaim the praises of the King of +France and the Duke of Nevers. At that moment the French party in Rome +was divided by the quarrel between the ambassador Ferralz and the +Cardinal of Lorraine, who had contrived to get the management of French +affairs into his own hands.[111] Capilupi was on the side of the +Cardinal, and received information from those who were about him. The +chief anxiety of these men was that the official version which +attributed the massacre to a Huguenot conspiracy should obtain no +credence at Rome. If the Cardinal's enemies were overthrown without his +participation, it would confirm the report that he had become a cipher +in the State. He desired to vindicate for himself and his family the +authorship of the catastrophe. Catherine could not tolerate their claim +to a merit which she had made her own; and there was competition between +them for the first and largest share in the gratitude of the Holy See. +Lorraine prevailed with the Pope, who not only loaded him with honours, +but rewarded him with benefices worth 4000 crowns a year for his nephew, +and a gift of 20,000 crowns for his son. But he found that he had fallen +into disgrace at Paris, and feared for his position at Rome.[112] In +these circumstances Capilupi's book appeared, and enumerated a series of +facts proving that the Cardinal was cognisant of the royal design. It +adds little to the evidence of premeditation. Capilupi relates that +Santa Croce, returning from France, had assured Pius V., in the name of +Catherine, that she intended one day to entrap Coligny, and to make a +signal butchery of him and his adherents, and that letters in which the +Queen renewed this promise to the Pope had been read by credible +witnesses. Santa Croce was living, and did not contradict the statement. +The _Stratagemma_ had originally stated that Lorraine had informed +Sermoneta of the project soon after he arrived at Rome. In the reprint +this passage was omitted. The book had, therefore, undergone a censorial +revision, which enhances the authenticity of the final narrative. + +Two other pieces are extant, which were printed at the Stamperia +Camerale, and show what was believed at Rome. One is in the shape of a +letter written at Lyons in the midst of scenes of death, and describing +what the author had witnessed on the spot, and what he heard from +Paris.[113] He reports that the King had positively commanded that not +one Huguenot should escape, and was overjoyed at the accomplishment of +his orders. He believes the thing to have been premeditated, and +inspired by Divine justice. The other tract is remarkable because it +strives to reconcile the pretended conspiracy with the hypothesis of +premeditation.[114] There were two plots which went parallel for months. +The King knew that Coligny was compassing his death, and deceived him by +feigning to enter into his plan for the invasion of the Low Countries; +and Coligny, allowing himself to be overreached, summoned his friends to +Paris, for the purpose of killing Charles, on the 23rd of August. The +writer expects that there will soon be no Huguenots in France. Capilupi +at first borrowed several of his facts, which he afterwards corrected. + +The real particulars relative to the marriage are set forth minutely in +the correspondence of Ferralz; and they absolutely contradict the +supposition of the complicity of Rome.[115] It was celebrated in +flagrant defiance of the Pope, who persisted in refusing the +dispensation, and therefore acted in a way which could only serve to +mar the plot. The accusation has been kept alive by his conduct after +the event. The Jesuit who wrote his life by desire of his son, says that +Gregory thanked God in private, but that in public he gave signs of a +tempered joy.[116] But the illuminations and processions, the singing of +Te Deum and the firing of the castle guns, the jubilee, the medal, and +the paintings whose faded colours still vividly preserve to our age the +passions of that day, nearly exhaust the modes by which a Pope could +manifest delight. + +Charles IX. and Salviati both wrote to Rome on St. Bartholomew's Day; +and the ambassador's nephew, Beauville, set off with the tidings. They +were known before he arrived. On the 27th, Mandelot's secretary +despatched a secret messenger from Lyons with orders to inform the Pope +that the Huguenot leaders were slain, and that their adherents were to +be secured all over France. The messenger reached Rome on the 2nd of +September, and was immediately carried to the Pope by the Cardinal of +Lorraine. Gregory rewarded him for the welcome intelligence with a +present of a hundred crowns, and desired that Rome should be at once +illuminated. This was prevented by Ferralz, who tried the patience of +the Romans by declining their congratulations as long as he was not +officially informed.[117] Beauville and the courier of the Nuncio +arrived on the 5th. The King's letter, like all that he wrote on the +first day, ascribed the outbreak to the old hatred between the rival +Houses, and to the late attempt on the Admiral's life. He expressed a +hope that the dispensation would not now be withheld, but left all +particulars to Beauville, whose own eyes had beheld the scene.[118] +Beauville told his story, and repeated the King's request; but Gregory, +though much gratified with what he heard, remained inflexible.[119] + +Salviati had written on the afternoon of the 24th. He desired to fling +himself at the Pope's feet to wish him joy. His fondest hopes had been +surpassed. Although he had known what was in store for Coligny, he had +not expected that there would be energy and prudence to seize the +occasion for the destruction of the rest. A new era had commenced; a new +compass was required for French affairs. It was a fair sight to see the +Catholics in the streets wearing white crosses, and cutting down +heretics; and it was thought that, as fast as the news spread, the same +thing would be done in all the towns of France.[120] This letter was +read before the assembled Cardinals at the Venetian palace, and they +thereupon attended the Pope to a Te Deum in the nearest church.[121] +The guns of St. Angelo were fired in the evening, and the city was +illuminated for three nights. To disregard the Pope's will in this +respect would have savoured of heresy. Gregory XIII. exclaimed that the +massacre was more agreeable to him than fifty victories of Lepanto. For +some weeks the news from the French provinces sustained the rapture and +excitement of the Court.[122] It was hoped that other countries would +follow the example of France; the Emperor was informed that something of +the same kind was expected of him.[123] On the 8th of September the Pope +went in procession to the French Church of St. Lewis, where +three-and-thirty Cardinals attended at a mass of thanksgiving. On the +11th he proclaimed a jubilee. In the Bull he said that forasmuch as God +had armed the King of France to inflict vengeance on the heretics for +the injuries done to religion, and to punish the leaders of the +rebellion which had devastated his kingdom, Catholics should pray that +he might have grace to pursue his auspicious enterprise to the end, and +so complete what he had begun so well.[124] Before a month had passed +Vasari was summoned from Florence to decorate the hall of kings with +paintings of the massacre.[125] The work was pronounced his masterpiece; +and the shameful scene may still be traced upon the wall, where, for +three centuries, it has insulted every pontiff that entered the Sixtine +Chapel. + +The story that the Huguenots had perished because they were detected +plotting the King's death was known at Rome on the 6th of September. +While the sham edict and the imaginary trial served to confirm it in the +eyes of Europe, Catherine and her son took care that it should not +deceive the Pope. They assured him that they meant to disregard the +edict. To excuse his sister's marriage, the King pleaded that it had +been concluded for no object but vengeance; and he promised that there +would soon be not a heretic in the country.[126] This was corroborated +by Salviati. As to the proclaimed toleration, he knew that it was a +device to disarm foreign enmity, and prevent a popular commotion. He +testified that the Queen spoke truly when she said that she had confided +to him, long before, the real purpose of her daughter's +engagement.[127] He exposed the hollow pretence of the plot. He +announced that its existence would be established by formalities of law, +but added that it was so notoriously false that none but an idiot could +believe in it.[128] Gregory gave no countenance to the official +falsehood. At the reception of the French ambassador, Rambouillet, on +the 23rd of December, Muretus made his famous speech. He said that there +could not have been a happier beginning for a new pontificate, and +alluded to the fabulous plot in the tone exacted of French officials. +The Secretary, Boccapaduli, replying in behalf of the Pope, thanked the +King for destroying the enemies of Christ; but strictly avoided the +conventional fable.[129] + +Cardinal Orsini went as Legate to France. He had been appointed in +August, and he was to try to turn the King's course into that line of +policy from which he had strayed under Protestant guidance. He had not +left Rome when the events occurred which altered the whole situation. +Orsini was now charged with felicitations, and was to urge Charles not +to stop half-way.[130] An ancient and obsolete ceremonial was suddenly +revived; and the Cardinals accompanied him to the Flaminian gate.[131] +This journey of Orsini, and the pomp with which it was surrounded, were +exceedingly unwelcome at Paris. It was likely to be taken as proof of +that secret understanding with Rome which threatened to rend the +delicate web in which Charles was striving to hold the confidence of +the Protestant world.[132] He requested that the Legate might be +recalled; and the Pope was willing that there should be some delay. +While Orsini tarried on his way, Gregory's reply to the announcement of +the massacre arrived at Paris. It was a great consolation to himself, he +said, and an extraordinary grace vouchsafed to Christendom. But he +desired, for the glory of God and the good of France, that the Huguenots +should be extirpated utterly; and with that view he demanded the +revocation of the edict. When Catherine knew that the Pope was not yet +satisfied, and sought to direct the actions of the King, she could +hardly restrain her rage. Salviati had never seen her so furious. The +words had hardly passed his lips when she exclaimed that she wondered at +such designs, and was resolved to tolerate no interference in the +government of the kingdom. She and her son were Catholics from +conviction, and not through fear or influence. Let the Pope content +himself with that.[133] The Nuncio had at once foreseen that the court, +after crushing the Huguenots, would not become more amenable to the +counsels of Rome. He wrote, on the very day of St. Bartholomew, that the +King would be very jealous of his authority, and would exact obedience +from both sides alike. + +At this untoward juncture Orsini appeared at Court. To Charles, who had +done so much, it seemed unreasonable that he should be asked for more. +He represented to Orsini that it was impossible to eradicate all the +remnants of a faction which had been so strong. He had put seventy +thousand Huguenots to the sword; and, if he had shown compassion to the +rest, it was in order that they might become good Catholics.[134] + +The hidden thoughts which the Court of Rome betrayed by its conduct on +this memorable occasion have brought upon the Pope himself an amount of +hatred greater than he deserved. Gregory XIII. appears as a pale figure +between the two strongest of the modern Popes, without the intense zeal +of the one and the ruthless volition of the other. He was not prone to +large conceptions or violent resolutions. He had been converted late in +life to the spirit of the Tridentine Reformation; and when he showed +rigour it was thought to be not in his character, but in the counsels of +those who influenced him.[135] He did not instigate the crime, nor the +atrocious sentiments that hailed it. In the religious struggle a frenzy +had been kindled which made weakness violent, and turned good men into +prodigies of ferocity; and at Rome, where every loss inflicted on +Catholicism and every wound was felt, the belief that, in dealing with +heretics, murder is better than toleration prevailed for half a century. +The predecessor of Gregory had been Inquisitor-General. In his eyes +Protestants were worse than Pagans, and Lutherans more dangerous than +other Protestants.[136] The Capuchin preacher, Pistoja, bore witness +that men were hanged and quartered almost daily at Rome;[137] and Pius +declared that he would release a culprit guilty of a hundred murders +rather than one obstinate heretic.[138] He seriously contemplated razing +the town of Faenza because it was infested with religious error, and he +recommended a similar expedient to the King of France.[139] He adjured +him to hold no intercourse with the Huguenots, to make no terms with +them, and not to observe the terms he had made. He required that they +should be pursued to the death, that not one should be spared under any +pretence, that all prisoners should suffer death.[140] He threatened +Charles with the punishment of Saul when he forebore to exterminate the +Amalekites.[141] He told him that it was his mission to avenge the +injuries of the Lord, and that nothing is more cruel than mercy to the +impious.[142] When he sanctioned the murder of Elizabeth he proposed +that it should be done in execution of his sentence against her.[143] It +became usual with those who meditated assassination or regicide on the +plea of religion to look upon the representatives of Rome as their +natural advisers. On the 21st of January 1591, a young Capuchin came, by +permission of his superiors, to Sega, Bishop of Piacenza, then Nuncio at +Paris. He said that he was inflamed with the desire of a martyr's death; +and having been assured by divines that it would be meritorious to kill +that heretic and tyrant, Henry of Navarre, he asked to be dispensed from +the rule of his Order while he prepared his measures and watched his +opportunity. The Nuncio would not do this without authority from Rome; +but the prudence, courage, and humility which he discerned in the friar +made him believe that the design was really inspired from above. To make +this certain, and to remove all scruples, he submitted the matter to the +Pope, and asked his blessing upon it, promising that whatever he decided +should be executed with all discretion.[144] + +The same ideas pervaded the Sacred College under Gregory. There are +letters of profuse congratulation by the Cardinals of Lorraine, Este, +and Pelleve. Bourbon was an accomplice before the fact. Granvelle +condemned not the act but the delay. Delfino and Santorio approved. The +Cardinal of Alessandria had refused the King's gift at Blois, and had +opposed his wishes at the conclave. Circumstances were now so much +altered that the ring was offered to him again, and this time it was +accepted.[145] The one dissentient from the chorus of applause is said +to have been Montalto. His conduct when he became Pope makes it very +improbable; and there is no good authority for the story. But Leti has +it, who is so far from a panegyrist that it deserves mention. + +The theory which was framed to justify these practices has done more +than plots and massacres to cast discredit on the Catholics. This theory +was as follows: Confirmed heretics must be rigorously punished whenever +it can be done without the probability of greater evil to religion. +Where that is feared, the penalty may be suspended or delayed for a +season, provided it be inflicted whenever the danger is past.[146] +Treaties made with heretics, and promises given to them must not be +kept, because sinful promises do not bind, and no agreement is lawful +which may injure religion or ecclesiastical authority. No civil power +may enter into engagements which impede the free scope of the Church's +law.[147] It is part of the punishment of heretics that faith shall not +be kept with them.[148] It is even mercy to kill them that they may sin +no more.[149] + +Such were the precepts and the examples by which the French Catholics +learned to confound piety and ferocity, and were made ready to immolate +their countrymen. During the civil war an association was formed in the +South for the purpose of making war upon the Huguenots; and it was +fortified by Pius V. with blessings and indulgences. "We doubt not," it +proclaimed, "that we shall be victorious over these enemies of God and +of all humankind; and if we fall, our blood will be as a second baptism, +by which, without impediment, we shall join the other martyrs +straightway in heaven."[150] Monluc, who told Alva at Bayonne that he +had never spared an enemy, was shot through the face at the siege of +Rabasteins. Whilst he believed that he was dying, they came to tell him +that the place was taken. "Thank God!" he said, "that I have lived long +enough to behold our victory; and now I care not for death. Go back, I +beseech you, and give me a last proof of friendship, by seeing that not +one man of the garrison escapes alive."[151] When Alva had defeated and +captured Genlis, and expected to make many more Huguenot prisoners in +the garrison of Mons, Charles IX. wrote to Mondoucet "that it would be +for the service of God, and of the King of Spain, that they should die. +If the Duke of Alva answers that this is a tacit request to have all the +prisoners cut to pieces, you will tell him that that is what he must do, +and that he will injure both himself and all Christendom if he fails to +do it."[152] This request also reached Alva through Spain. Philip wrote +on the margin of the despatch that, if he had not yet put them out of +the world, he must do so immediately, as there could be no reason for +delay.[153] The same thought occurred to others. On the 22nd of July +Salviati writes that it would be a serious blow to the faction if Alva +would kill his prisoners; and Granvelle wrote that, as they were all +Huguenots, it would be well to throw them all into the river.[154] + +Where these sentiments prevailed, Gregory XIII. was not alone in +deploring that the work had been but half done. After the first +explosion of gratified surprise men perceived that the thing was a +failure, and began to call for more. The clergy of Rouen Cathedral +instituted a procession of thanksgiving, and prayed that the King might +continue what he had so virtuously begun, until all France should +profess one faith.[155] There are signs that Charles was tempted at one +moment, during the month of October, to follow up the blow.[156] But he +died without pursuing the design; and the hopes were turned to his +successor. When Henry III. passed through Italy on his way to assume the +crown, there were some who hoped that the Pope would induce him to set +resolutely about the extinction of the Huguenots. A petition was +addressed to Gregory for this purpose, in which the writer says that +hitherto the French court has erred on the side of mercy, but that the +new king might make good the error if rejecting that pernicious maxim +that noble blood spilt weakens a kingdom, he would appoint an execution +which would be cruel only in appearance, but in reality glorious and +holy, and destroy the heretics totally, sparing neither life nor +property.[157] Similar exhortations were addressed from Rome to Henry +himself by Muzio, a layman who had gained repute, among other things, by +controversial writings, of which Pius V. said that they had preserved +the faith in whole districts, and who had been charged with the task of +refuting the Centuriators. On the 17th of July 1574, Muzio wrote to the +King that all Italy waited in reliance on his justice and valour, and +besought him to spare neither old nor young, and to regard neither rank +nor ties of blood.[158] These hopes also were doomed to disappointment; +and a Frenchman, writing in the year of Henry's death, laments over the +cruel clemency and inhuman mercy that reigned on St. Bartholomew's +Day.[159] + +This was not the general opinion of the Catholic world. In Spain and +Italy, where hearts were hardened and consciences corrupted by the +Inquisition; in Switzerland, where the Catholics lived in suspicion and +dread of their Protestant neighbours; among ecclesiastical princes in +Germany, whose authority waned as fast as their subjects abjured their +faith, the massacre was welcomed as an act of Christian fortitude. But +in France itself the great mass of the people was struck with +consternation.[160] "Which maner of proceedings," writes Walsingham on +the 13th of September, "is by the Catholiques themselves utterly +condemned, who desire to depart hence out of this country, to quit +themselves of this strange kind of government, for that they see here +none can assure themselves of either goods or life." Even in places +still steeped in mourning for the atrocities suffered at the hands of +Huguenots during the civil war, at Nimes, for instance, the King's +orders produced no act of vengeance. At Carcassonne, the ancient seat of +the Inquisition, the Catholics concealed the Protestants in their +houses.[161] In Provence, the news from Lyons and the corpses that came +down in the poisoned waters of the Rhone awakened nothing but horror and +compassion.[162] Sir Thomas Smith wrote to Walsingham that in England +"the minds of the most number are much alienated from that nation, even +of the very Papists."[163] At Rome itself Zuniga pronounced the +treachery of which the French were boasting unjustifiable, even in the +case of heretics and rebels;[164] and it was felt as an outrage to +public opinion when the murderer of Coligny was presented to the +Pope.[165] The Emperor was filled with grief and indignation. He said +that the King and Queen-mother would live to learn that nothing could +have been more iniquitously contrived or executed: his uncle Charles V., +and his father Ferdinand, had made war on the Protestants, but they had +never been guilty of so cruel an act.[166] At that moment Maximilian was +seeking the crown of Poland for his son; and the events in France were a +weapon in his hands against his rival, Anjou. Even the Czar of Muscovy, +Ivan the Terrible, replying to his letters, protested that all Christian +princes must lament the barbarous and needless shedding of so much +innocent blood. It was not the rivalry of the moment that animated +Maximilian. His whole life proves him to have been an enemy of violence +and cruelty; and his celebrated letter to Schwendi, written long after, +shows that his judgment remained unchanged. It was the Catholic Emperor +who roused the Lutheran Elector of Saxony to something like resentment +of the butchery in France.[167] + +For the Lutherans were not disposed to recognise the victims of Charles +IX. as martyrs for the Protestant cause. During the wars of religion +Lutheran auxiliaries were led by a Saxon prince, a margrave of Baden, +and other German magnates, to aid the Catholic forces in putting down +the heresy of Calvin. These feelings were so well known that the French +Government demanded of the Duke of Wirtemberg the surrender of the +Huguenots who had fled into his dominions.[168] Lutheran divines +flattered themselves at first with the belief that it was the +Calvinistic error, not the Protestant truth, that had invited and +received the blow.[169] The most influential of them, Andreae, declared +that the Huguenots were not martyrs but rebels, who had died not for +religion but sedition; and he bade the princes beware of the contagion +of their spirit, which had deluged other lands with blood. When +Elizabeth proposed a league for the defence of Protestantism, the North +German divines protested against an alliance with men whose crime was +not only religious error but blasphemous obstinacy, the root of many +dreadful heresies. The very proposal, they said, argued a disposition to +prefer human succour rather than the word of God.[170] When another +invitation came from Henry of Navarre, the famous divine Chemnitz +declared union with the disciples of Calvin a useless abomination.[171] + +The very men whose own brethren had perished in France were not hearty +or unanimous in execrating the deed.[172] There were Huguenots who +thought that their party had brought ruin on itself, by provoking its +enemies, and following the rash counsels of ambitious men.[173] This +was the opinion of their chief, Theodore Beza, himself. Six weeks +before, he wrote that they were gaining in numbers but losing in +quality, and he feared lest, after destroying superstition, they should +destroy religion: "Valde metuo ne superstitioni successerit +impietas."[174] And afterwards he declared that nobody who had known the +state of the French Protestants could deny that it was a most just +judgment upon them.[175] + +Beza held very stringent doctrines touching the duty of the civil +magistrate to repress religious error. He thought that heresy is worse +than murder, and that the good of society requires no crime to be more +severely punished.[176] He declared toleration contrary to revealed +religion and the constant tradition of the Church, and taught that +lawful authority must be obeyed, even by those whom it persecutes. He +expressly recognised this function in Catholic States, and urged +Sigismund not to rest until he had got rid of the Socinians in +Poland;[177] but he could not prevail against the vehement resistance of +Cardinal Hosius. It was embarrassing to limit these principles when they +were applied against his own Church. For a moment Beza doubted whether +it had not received its death-blow in France. But he did not qualify the +propositions which were open to be interpreted so fatally,[178] or deny +that his people, by their vices, if not by their errors, had deserved +what they had suffered. + +The applause which greeted their fate came not from the Catholics +generally, nor from the Catholics alone. While the Protestants were +ready to palliate or excuse it, the majority of the Catholics who were +not under the direct influence of Madrid or Rome recognised the +inexpiable horror of the crime. But the desire to defend what the Pope +approved survived sporadically, when the old fierceness of dogmatic +hatred was extinct. A generation passed without any perceptible change +in the judgment of Rome. It was a common charge against De Thou that he +had condemned the blameless act of Charles IX. The blasphemies of the +Huguenots, said one of his critics, were more abominable than their +retribution.[179] His History was put on the Index; and Cardinal +Barberini let him know that he was condemned because he not only +favoured Protestants to the detriment of Catholics, but had even +disapproved the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.[180] Eudaemon-Johannes, the +friend of Bellarmine, pronounces it a pious and charitable act, which +immortalised its author.[181] Another Jesuit, Bompiani, says that it was +grateful to Gregory, because it was likely to relieve the Church.[182] +The well-known apology for Charles IX. by Naude is based rather on +political than religious grounds; but his contemporary Guyon, whose +History of Orleans is pronounced by the censors full of sound doctrine +and pious sentiment, deems it unworthy of Catholics to speak of the +murder of heretics as if it were a crime, because, when done under +lawful authority, it is a blessed thing.[183] When Innocent XI. refused +to approve the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Frenchmen wondered +that he should so far depart from the example which was kept before him +by one of the most conspicuous ornaments of his palace.[184] The old +spirit was decaying fast in France, and the superb indignation of +Bossuet fairly expresses the general opinion of his time. Two works were +published on the medals of the Popes, by a French and an Italian writer. +The Frenchman awkwardly palliates the conduct of Gregory XIII.; the +Italian heartily defends it.[185] In Italy it was still dangerous +ground. Muratori shrinks from pronouncing on the question,[186] while +Cienfuegos, a Jesuit whom his Order esteemed one of the most +distinguished Cardinals of the day, judges that Charles IX. died too +soon for his fame.[187] Tempesti, who lived under the enlightened rule +of Benedict XIV., accuses Catherine of having arrested the slaughter, in +order that some cause should remain to create a demand for her +counsels.[188] The German Jesuit Biner and the Papal historian Piatti, +just a century ago, are among the last downright apologists.[189] + +Then there was a change. A time came when the Catholics, having long +relied on force, were compelled to appeal to opinion. That which had +been defiantly acknowledged and defended required to be ingeniously +explained away. The same motive which had justified the murder now +prompted the lie. Men shrank from the conviction that the rulers and +restorers of their Church had been murderers and abetters of murder, and +that so much infamy had been coupled with so much zeal. They feared to +say that the most monstrous of crimes had been solemnly approved at +Rome, lest they should devote the Papacy to the execration of mankind. A +swarm of facts were invented to meet the difficulty: The victims were +insignificant in number; they were slain for no reason connected with +religion; the Pope believed in the existence of the plot; the plot was a +reality; the medal is fictitious; the massacre was a feint concerted +with the Protestants themselves; the Pope rejoiced only when he heard +that it was over.[190] These things were repeated so often that they +have been sometimes believed; and men have fallen into this way of +speaking whose sincerity was unimpeachable, and who were not shaken in +their religion by the errors or the vices of Popes. Moehler was +pre-eminently such a man. In his lectures on the history of the Church, +which were published only last year,[191] he said that the Catholics, as +such, took no part in the massacre; that no cardinal, bishop, or priest +shared in the councils that prepared it; that Charles informed the Pope +that a conspiracy had been discovered; and that Gregory made his +thanksgiving only because the King's life was saved.[192] Such things +will cease to be written when men perceive that truth is the only merit +that gives dignity and worth to history. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 6: _North British Review_, Oct. 1869.] + +[Footnote 7: Satius fore ducebam, si minus profligari possent omnes, ut +ferrentur omnes, quo mordentes et comedentes invicem, consumerentur ab +invicem (Hosius to Karnkowsky, Feb. 26, 1568).] + +[Footnote 8: The Secretary of Medina Celi to Cayas, June 24, 1572 +(_Correspondance de Philippe II._, ii. 264).] + +[Footnote 9: Quant a ce qui me touche a moy en particulier, encores que +j'ayme unicquement tous mes enffans, je veulx preferer, comme il est +bien raysonnable, les filz aux filles; et pour le regard de ce que me +mandez de celluy qui a faict mourir ma fille, c'est chose que l'on ne +tient point pour certaine, et ou elle le seroit, le roy monsieur mondit +filz n'en pouvoit faire la vengence en l'estat que son royaulme estoit +lors; mais a present qu'il est tout uni, il aura assez de moien et de +forces pour sen ressentir quant l'occasion s'en presentera (Catherine to +Du Ferrier, Oct. 1, 1572; Bib. Imp. F. Fr. 15,555). The despatches of +Fourquevaulx from Madrid, published by the Marquis Du Prat in the +_Histoire d' Elisabeth de Valois_, do not confirm the rumour.] + +[Footnote 10: Toutes mes fantaisies sont bandees pour m'opposer a la +grandeur des Espagnols, et delibere m'y conduire le plus dextrement +qu'il me sera possible (Charles IX. to Noailles, May 2, 1572; Noailles, +_Henri de Valois_, i. 8).] + +[Footnote 11: Il fault, et je vous prie ne faillir, quand bien il seroit +du tout rompu, et que verries qu'il n'y auroit nulle esperance, de +trouver moyen d'en entrettenir toujours doucement le propos, d'ici a +quelque temps; car cella ne peut que bien servir a establir mes affaires +et aussy pour ma reputation (Charles IX. to La Mothe, Aug. 9, 1572; +_Corr. de La Mothe_, vii. 311).] + +[Footnote 12: This is stated both by his mother and by the Cardinal of +Lorraine (Michelet, _La Ligue_, p. 26).] + +[Footnote 13: In reliqua Gallia fuit et est incredibilis defectio, quae +tamen usque adeo non pacavit immanes illas feras, ut etiam eos qui +defecerunt (qui pene sunt innumerabiles) semel ad internecionem una cum +integris familiis trucidare prorsus decreverint (Beza, Dec. 3, 1572; +_Ill. vir. Epp. Sel._, p. 621, 1617).] + +[Footnote 14: Languet to the Duke of Saxony, Nov. 30, 1572 (_Arcana_, +sec. xvi. 183).] + +[Footnote 15: Vidi et cum dolore intellexi lanienam illam Gallicam +perfidissimam et atrocissimam plurimos per Germaniam ita offendisse, ut +jam etiam de veritate nostrae Religionis et doctrinae dubitare +incoeperint (Bullinger to Wittgenstein, Feb. 23, 1573; Friedlaender, +_Beitraege zur rel. Gesch._, p. 254).] + +[Footnote 16: De Thou, _Memoires_, p. 9.] + +[Footnote 17: Il me dist qu'on luy avoist escript de Rome, n'avoit que +trois semaines ou environ, sur le propos des noces du roy de Navarre en +ces propres termes; Que a ceste heure que tous les oiseaux estoient en +cage, on les pouvoit prendre tous ensemble (Vulcob to Charles IX., Sept. +26, 1572; Noailles, iii. 214).] + +[Footnote 18: _Memoires de Duplessis-Mornay_, i. 38; Ambert, +_Duplessis-Mornay_, p. 38.] + +[Footnote 19: Digges, _Compleat Ambassador_, pp. 276, 255.] + +[Footnote 20: Correr, _Relazione_; Tommaseo, ii. 116.] + +[Footnote 21: He said to Catherine: Que quando quisiesen usar de otro y +averlo, con no mas personas que con cinc o seys que son el cabo de todo +esto, los tomasen a su mano y les cortasen las cabecas (Alva to Philip +II., June 21, 1565; _Papiers de Granvelle_, ix. 298).] + +[Footnote 22: Ci rallegriamo con la maesta sua con tutto l' affetto +dell' animo, ch' ella habbia presa quella risolutione cosi +opportunamente sopra la quale noi stesso l' ultima volta che fummo in +Francia parlammo con la Regina Madre.... Dipoi per diversi gentilhuomini +che in varie occorrenze habbiamo mandato in corte siamo instati nel +suddetto ricordo (Alfonso II. to Fogliani, Sept. 13, 1572; Modena +Archives).] + +[Footnote 23: Muchas vezes me ha accordado de aver dicho a Su Mag. esto +mismo en Bayona, y de lo que mi offrecio, y veo que ha muy bien +desempenado su palabra (Alva to Zuniga, Sept. 9, 1572; Coquerel, _La St. +Barthelemy_, p. 12).] + +[Footnote 24: Kluckhohn, _Zur Geschichte des angeblichen Buendnisses von +Bayonne_, p. 36, 1868.] + +[Footnote 25: Il signor duca di Alva ... mi disse, che come in questo +abboccamento negotio alcuno non havevano trattato, ne volevano trattare, +altro che della religione, cosi la lor differenza era nata per questo, +perche non vedeva che la regina ci pigliasse risolutione a modo suo ne +de altro, che di buone parole ben generali.... E stato risoluto che alla +tornata in Parigi si fara una ricerca di quelli che hanno contravenuto +all' editto, e si castigaranno; nel che dice S.M. che gli Ugonotti ci +sono talmente compresi, che spera con questo mezzo solo cacciare i +Ministri di Francia.... Il Signor Duca di Alva si satisfa piu di questa +deliberatione di me, perche io non trovo che serva all' estirpation +dell' heresia il castigar quelli che hanno contravenuto all' editto +(Santa Croce to Borromeo, Bayonne, July 1, 1565, MS.).] + +[Footnote 26: Desjardins, _Negociations avec la Toscane_, iii. 756, 765, +802.] + +[Footnote 27: Io non no fatto intendere cosa alcuna a nessuno principe; +ho ben parlato al nunzio solo (Desp. Aug. 31; Desjardins, iii. 828).] + +[Footnote 28: Alberi, _Relazioni Venete_, xii. 250.] + +[Footnote 29: Alberi, xii. 328.] + +[Footnote 30: Son principal but et dessein estoit de sentir quelle +esperance ilz pourroient avoir de parvenir a la paix avec le G.S. dont +il s'est ouvert et a demande ce qu'il en pouvoit esperer et attendre +(Charles IX. to Du Ferrier, Sept. 28, 1572; Charriere, _Negociations +dans le Levant_, iii. 310).] + +[Footnote 31: Ranke, _Franzoesische Geschichte_, v. 76.] + +[Footnote 32: Digges, p. 258; Cosmi, _Memorie di Morosini_, p. 26.] + +[Footnote 33: Alberi, xii. 294.] + +[Footnote 34: Mittit eo Antonium Mariam Salviatum, reginae affinem eique +pergratum, qui eam in officio contineat (Cardinal of Vercelli, _Comment. +de Rebus Gregorii_ XIII.; Ranke, _Paepste_, App. 85).] + +[Footnote 35: Desp. Aug. 30, 1570.] + +[Footnote 36: Oct. 14, 1570.] + +[Footnote 37: Sept. 24, 1570.] + +[Footnote 38: Nov. 28, 1570.] + +[Footnote 39: Quando scrissi ai giorni passati alla S.V. Illma in +cifra, che l'ammiraglio s' avanzava troppo et che gli darebbero su l' +unge, gia mi ero accorto, che non lo volevano piu tollerare, et molto +piu mi confermai nell' opinione, quando con caratteri ordinarii glie +scrivevo che speravo di dover haver occasione di dar qualche buona nova +a Sua Beatitudine, benche mai havrei creduto la x. parte di quello, che +al presente veggo con gli occhi (Desp. Aug. 24; Theiner, _Annales_, i. +329).] + +[Footnote 40: Che molti siano stati consapevoli del fatto e necessario, +potendogli dizer che a 21 la mattina, essendo col Cardinal di Borbone et +M. de Montpensier, viddi che ragionavano si domesticamente di quello che +doveva seguire, che in me medesimo restando confuso, conobbi che la +prattica andava gagliarda, e piutosto disperai di buon fine che +altrimente (same Desp.; Mackintosh, _History of England_, ii. 355).] + +[Footnote 41: Attribuisce a se, et al nipote, et a casa sua, la morte +del' ammiraglio, gloriandosene assai (Desp. Oct. 1; Theiner, p. 331). +The Emperor told the French ambassador "que, depuis les choses avenues, +on lui avoit mande de Rome que Mr. le Cardinal de Lorraine avoit dit que +tout le fait avoit este delibere avant qu'il partist de France" (Vulcob +to Charles IX., Nov. 8; Groen van Prinsterer, _Archives de Nassau_, iv. +App. 22).] + +[Footnote 42: Marlot, _Histoire de Reims_, iv. 426. This language +excited the surprise of Dale, Walsingham's successor (Mackintosh, iii. +226).] + +[Footnote 43: _Archives Curieuses_, viii. 305.] + +[Footnote 44: Egli solo tra tutti gli altri e solito particolarmente di +sostenere le nostre fatiche.... Essendo partecipe di tutti i nostri +consigli, et consapevole de segreti dell' intimo animo nostro (Pius V. +to Philip II., June 20, 1571; Zucchi, _Idea del Segretario_, i. 544).] + +[Footnote 45: Serranus, _Commentarii_, iv. 14; Davila, ii. 104.] + +[Footnote 46: Digges, p. 193.] + +[Footnote 47: Finis hujus legationis erat non tam suadere Regi ut foedus +cum aliis Christianis principibus iniret (id nempe notum erat +impossibile illi regno esse); sed ut rex ille praetermissus non +videretur, et revera ut sciretur quo tenderent Gallorum cogitationes. +Non longe nempe a Rocella naves quasdam praegrandes instruere et armare +coeperat Philippus Strozza praetexens velle ad Indias a Gallis inventas +navigare (_Relatio gestorum in Legatione Card. Alexandrini MS._).] + +[Footnote 48: Con alcuni particulari che io porto, de' quali +ragguagliero N. Signore a bocca, posso dire di non partirmi affatto mal +espedito (Ranke, _Zeitschrift_, iii. 598). Le temps et les effectz luy +temoigneront encores d'advantage (_Memoire baille au legat Alexandrin_, +Feb. 1572; Bib. Imp. F. Dupuy, 523).] + +[Footnote 49: _De Sacro Foedere, Graevius Thesaurus_, i. 1038.] + +[Footnote 50: Catena, _Vita di Pio V._, p. 197; Gabutius, _Vita Pii V._, +p. 150, and the Dedication.] + +[Footnote 51: D'Ossat to Villeroy, Sept. 22, 1599; _Lettres_, iii. 503. +An account of the Legate's journey was found by Mendham among Lord +Guildford's manuscripts, and is described in the Supplement to his life +of Pius V., p. 13. It is written by the Master of Ceremonies, and +possesses no interest. The _Relatio_ already quoted, which corresponds +to the description given by Clement VIII. of his own work, is among the +manuscripts of the Marquis Capponi, No. 164.] + +[Footnote 52: Vuol andar con ogni quiete et dissimulatione, fin che il +Re suo figliolo sia in eta (Santa Croce, Desp. June 27, 1563; _Lettres +du Card. Santa Croce_, p. 243).] + +[Footnote 53: La Chastre to Charles IX., Jan. 21, 1570; Raynal, +_Histoire du Berry_, iv. 105; Lavallee, _Histoire des Francais_, ii. +478. Both Raynal and Lavallee had access to the original.] + +[Footnote 54: Il Papa credeva che la pace fatta, e l'aver consentito il +Re che l'Ammiraglio venisse in corte, fusse con disegno di ammazzarlo; +ma accortosi come passa il fatto, non ha creduto che nel Re Nostro sia +quella brava resoluzione (Letter of Nov. 28, 1571; Desjardins, iii. +732). Pour le regard de M. l'Admiral, je n'ay failly de luy faire +entendre ce que je devois, suyvant ce qu'il a pleu a V.M. me commander, +dont il est demeure fort satisfaict (Ferralz to Charles IX., Dec. 25, +1571; Bib. Imp. F. Fr. 16,039; Walsingham to Herbert, Oct. 10, 1571; to +Smith, Nov. 26, 1572; Digges, p. 290).] + +[Footnote 55: Marcel to Charles IX., December 20, 1571; _Cabinet +Historique_, ii. 253.] + +[Footnote 56: Le Roy estoit d'intelligence, ayant permis a ceux de la +Religion de l'assister, et, cas advenant que leurs entreprises +succedassent, qu'il les favoriserait ouvertement ... Genlis, menant un +secours dans Mons, fut defait par le duc d'Alve, qui avoit comme investi +la ville. La journee de Saint-Barthelemi se resolut (Bouillon, +_Memoires_, p. 9).] + +[Footnote 57: Si potria distruggere il resto, maxime che l'ammiraglio si +trova in Parigi, populo Catholico et devoto del suo Re, dove potria se +volesse facilmente levarselo dinnanzi per sempre (Castagna, Desp. Aug. +5, 1572; Theiner, i. 327).] + +[Footnote 58: _Memoires de Claude Haton_, 687.] + +[Footnote 59: En quelque sorte que ce soit ledict Seigneur est resollu +faire vivre ses subjectz en sa religion, et ne permettre jamais ny +tollerer, quelque chose qui puisse advenir, qu'il n'y ait aultre forme +ny exercice de religion en son royaulme que de la catholique +(Instruction for the Governors of Normandy, Nov. 3, 1572; La Mothe, vii. +390).] + +[Footnote 60: Charles IX. to Mondoucet, Aug. 26, 1572; _Compte Rendu de +la Commission Royale d' Histoire_, 2e Serie, iv. 327.] + +[Footnote 61: Li Ugonotti si ridussero alla porta del Louvre, per +aspettare che Mons. di Guisa e Mons. d'Aumale uscissero per ammazzarli +(Borso Trotti, Desp. Aug. 23; Modena Archives).] + +[Footnote 62: L'on a commence a descouvrir la conspiration que ceux de +la religion pretendue reformee avoient faicte contre moy mesmes, ma mere +et mes freres (Charles IX. to La Mothe, Aug. 25; La Mothe, vii. 325).] + +[Footnote 63: Desp. Sept. 19, 1572.] + +[Footnote 64: Il ne fault pas attendre d'en avoir d'autre commandement +du Roy ne de Monseigneur, car ils ne vous en feront point (Puygaillard +to Montsoreau, Aug. 26, 1572; Mourin, _La Reforme en Anjou_, p. 106).] + +[Footnote 65: Vous croirez le present porteur de ce que je luy ay donne +charge de vous dire (Charles IX. to Mandelot, Aug. 24, 1572; _Corr. de +Charles IX. avec Mandelot_, p. 42).] + +[Footnote 66: Je n'en ay aucune coulpe, n'ayant sceu quelle estoit la +volunte que par umbre, encores bien tard et a demy (Mandelot to Charles +IX., Sept. 17, p. 73).] + +[Footnote 67: Floquet, _Histoire du Parlement de Normandie_, iii. 121.] + +[Footnote 68: Anjou to Montsoreau, Aug. 26; Mourin, p. 107; Falloux, +_Vie de Pie V._, i. 358; Port, _Archives de la Mairie d'Angers_, pp. 41, +42.] + +[Footnote 69: Schomberg to Brulart, Oct. 10, 1572; Capefigue, _La +Reforme_, iii. 264.] + +[Footnote 70: Instructions for Schomberg, Feb. 15, 1573; Noailles, iii. +305.] + +[Footnote 71: Monluc to Brulart, Nov. 20, 1572; Jan. 20, 1573: to +Charles IX., Jan. 22, 1573; Noailles, iii. 218, 223, 220.] + +[Footnote 72: Charles IX. to St. Goard, Jan. 20, 1573; Groen, iv. App. +29.] + +[Footnote 73: Letter from Paris in Strype's _Life of Parker_, iii. 110; +"Tocsain contre les Massacreurs," _Archives Curieuses_, vii. 7.] + +[Footnote 74: Afin que ce que vous avez dresse des choses passees a la +Saint-Barthelemy ne puisse etre publie parmi le peuple, et memement +entre les etrangers, comme il y en a plusieurs qui se melent d'ecrire et +qui pourraient prendre occasion d'y repondre, je vous prie qu'il n'en +soit rien imprime ni en francais ni en Latin, mais si vous en avez +retenu quelque chose, le garder vers vous (Charles IX. to the President +de Cely, March 24, 1573; _Revue Retrospective_, 2 Serie. iii. 195).] + +[Footnote 75: Botero, _Della Ragion di Stato_, 92. A contemporary says +that the Protestants were cut to pieces out of economy, "pour afin +d'eviter le coust des executions qu'il eust convenu payer pour les faire +pendre"; and that this was done "par permission divine" (_Relation des +troubles de Rouen par un temoin oculaire_, ed. Pottier, 36, 46).] + +[Footnote 76: Del resto poco importerebbe a Roma (Card. Montalto to +Card. Morosini; Tempesti, _Vita di Sisto V._, ii. 116).] + +[Footnote 77: Quand ce seroit contre touts les Catholiques, que nous ne +nous en empescherions, ny altererions aucunement l'amitie d'entre elle +et nous (Catherine to La Mothe, Sept. 13, 1572; La Mothe, vii. 349).] + +[Footnote 78: Alva's Report; _Bulletins de l'Academie de Bruxelles_, ix. +564.] + +[Footnote 79: Jean Diodati, _door Schotel_, 88.] + +[Footnote 80: _OEuvres de Brantome_, ed. Lalanne, iv. 38.] + +[Footnote 81: Otros que salvo el Duque de Nevers con harto vituperio +suyo (Cabrera de Cordova, _Felipe Segundo_, p. 722).] + +[Footnote 82: Il Re Christianissimo in tutti questi accidenti, in luogo +di giudicio e di valore ha mostrato animo christiano, con tutto habbia +salvato alcuno. Ma li altri principi che fanno gran professione di +Cattolici et di meritar favori e gratie del papa hanno poi con estrema +diligenza cercato a salvare quelli piu di Ugonotti che hanno potuto, e +se non gli nomino particolarmente, non si maravigli, per che +indiferentemente tutti hanno fatto a un modo (Salviati, Desp. Sept. 2, +1572).] + +[Footnote 83: Estque dictu mirum, quantopere Regem exhilaravit nova +Gallica (Hopperus to Viglius, Madrid, Sept. 7, 1572; _Hopperi Epp._ +360).] + +[Footnote 84: Ha avuto, con questa occasione, dal Re di Spagna, sei mila +scudi a conto della dote di sua moglie e a richiesta di casa di Guise +(Petrucci, Desp. Sept. 16, 1572; Desjardins, iii. 838). On the 27th of +December 1574, the Cardinal of Guise asks Philip for more money for the +same man (Bouille, _Histoire des Ducs de Guise_, ii. 505).] + +[Footnote 85: Siendo cosa clara que, de hoy mas, ni los protestantes de +Alemania, ni la reyna de Inglaterra se fiaran del (Philip to Alva, Sept. +18, 1572; _Bulletins de Bruxelles_, xvi. 255).] + +[Footnote 86: St. Goard to Charles IX., Sept. 12, 1572; Groen, iv. App. +12; Raumer, _Briefe aus Paris_, i. 191.] + +[Footnote 87: _Archives de l'Empire_, K. 1530, B. 34, 299.] + +[Footnote 88: Zuniga to Alva, Aug. 31, 1572: No fue caso pensado sino +repentino (_Archives de l'Empire_, K. 1530, B. 34, 66).] + +[Footnote 89: St. Goard to Catherine, Jan. 6, 1573; Groen, iv. App. 28.] + +[Footnote 90: _Comment. de B. de Mendoca_, i. 344.] + +[Footnote 91: Alva to Philip, Oct. 13, 1572; _Corr. de Philippe II._, +ii. 287. On the 23rd of August Zuniga wrote to Philip that he hoped that +Coligny would recover from his wound, because, if he should die, Charles +would be able to obtain obedience from all men (_Archives de l'Empire_, +K. 1530, B. 34, 65).] + +[Footnote 92: _Bulletins de la Societe pour l'Histoire du Protestantisme +Francais_, viii. 292.] + +[Footnote 93: _Eidgenoessische Abschiede_, iv. 2, 501, 503, 506, 510.] + +[Footnote 94: Cosmo to Camaiani, Oct. 6, 1570 (Cantu, _Gli Eretici +d'Italia_, iii. 15); Cosmo to Charles IX., Sept. 4, 1572 (Gachard, +_Rapport sur les Archives de Lille_, 199).] + +[Footnote 95: Grappin, _Memoire Historique sur le Card. de Granvelle_, +73.] + +[Footnote 96: Bardi, _Eta del Mondo_, 1581, iv. 2011; Campana, _Historie +del Mondo_, 1599, i. 145; B.D. da Fano, _Aggiunte all' Historie di +Mambrino Roseo_, 1583, v. 252; Pellini, _Storia di Perugia_, vol. iii. +MS.] + +[Footnote 97: Si e degnato di prestare alli suoi divoti il suo +taglientissimo coltello in cosi salutifero sacrificio (Letter of Aug. +26; Alberi, _Vita di Caterina de' Medici_, 401).] + +[Footnote 98: Labitte, _Democratie chez les Predicateurs de la Ligue_, +10.] + +[Footnote 99: Natalis Comes, _Historiae sui temporis_, 512.] + +[Footnote 100: Capefigue, iii. 150.] + +[Footnote 101: Pourront-ils arguer de trahison le feu roy, qu'ils +blasphement luy donnant le nom de tyran, veu qu'il n'a rien entrepris et +execute que ce qu'il pouvoit faire par l'expresse parole de Dieu ... +Dieu commande qu'on ne pardonne en facon que ce soit aux inventeurs ou +sectateurs de nouvelles opinions ou heresies.... Ce que vous estimez +cruaute estre plutot vraye magnanimite et doulceur (Sorbin, _Le Vray +resveille-matin des Calvinistes_, 1576, pp. 72, 74, 78).] + +[Footnote 102: Il commanda a chacun de se retirer au cabinet et a moy de +m'asseoir au chevet de son lict, tant pour ouyr sa confession, et luy +donner ministerialement absolution de ses pechez, que aussi pour le +consoler durant et apres la messe (Sorbin, _Vie de Charles IX.; Archives +Curieuses_, viii. 287). Est tres certain que le plus grand regret qu'il +avoit a l'heure de sa mort estoit de ce qu'il voyoit l'idole Calvinesque +n'estre encores du tout chassee (_Vray resveille-matin_, 88).] + +[Footnote 103: The charge against the clergy of Bordeaux is brought by +D'Aubigne (_Histoire Universelle_, ii. 27) and by De Thou. De Thou was +very hostile to the Jesuits, and his language is not positive. D'Aubigne +was a furious bigot. The truth of the charge would not be proved, +without the letters of the President L'Agebaston and of the Lieutenant +Montpezat: "Quelques prescheurs se sont par leurs sermons (ainsi que +dernierement j'ai escript plus amplement a votre majeste) estudie de +tout leur pouvoir de troubler ciel et terre, et conciter le peuple a +sedition, et en ce faisant a passer par le fil de l'espee tous ceulx de +la pretendue religion reformee.... Apres avoir des le premier et +deuxieme de ceste mois fait courrir un bruit sourd que vous, Sire, aviez +envoye nom par nom un rolle signe de votre propre main au Sieur de +Montferaud, pour par voie de fait et sans aultre forme de justice, +mettre a mort quarante des principaulx de cette ville...." (L'Agebaston +to Charles IX., Oct. 7, 1572; Mackintosh, iii. 352). "J'ai trouve que +messieurs de la cour de parlement avoyent arreste que Monsieur Edmond, +prescheur, seroit appelle en ladicte court pour luy faire des +remonstrances sur quelque langaige qu'il tenoit en ses sermons, tendant +a sedition, a ce qu'ils disoyent. Ce que j'ay bien voullu empescher, +craignant que s'il y eust este appelle cella eust anime plusieurs des +habitants et estre cause de quelque emotion, ce que j'eusse voluntiers +souffert quant j'eusse panse qu'il n'y en eust qu'une vingtaine de +despeches" (Montpezat to Charles IX., Sept. 30., 1572; _Archives de la +Gironde_, viii. 337).] + +[Footnote 104: _Annal. Baronii Contin._ ii. 734; Bossuet says: "La +dispense vint telle qu'on la pouvoit desirer" (_Histoire de France_, p. +820).] + +[Footnote 105: Ormegregny, _Reflexions sur la Politique de France_, p. +121.] + +[Footnote 106: De Thou, iv. 537.] + +[Footnote 107: Charriere, iii. 154.] + +[Footnote 108: _Carmina Ill. Poetarum Italorum_, iii. 212, 216.] + +[Footnote 109: Tiepolo, Desp. Aug. 6, 1575; Mutinelli, _Storia Arcana_, +i. 111.] + +[Footnote 110: Parendomi, che sia cosa, la quale possa apportar piacere, +e utile al mondo, si per la qualita del soggetto istesso, come anco per +l'eleganza, e bello ordine con che viene cosi leggiadramente descritto +questo nobile, e glorioso fatto ... a fine che una cosi egregia attione +non resti defraudata dell' honor, che merita (The editor, Gianfrancesco +Ferrari, to the reader).] + +[Footnote 111: Huc accedit, Oratorem Sermi Regis Galliae, et impulsu +inimicorum saepedicti Domini Cardinalis, et quia summopere illi +displicuit, quod superioribus mensibus Illma Sua Dominatio operam +dedisset, hoc sibi mandari, ut omnia Regis negotia secum communicaret, +nullam praetermisisse occasionem ubi ei potuit adversari (Cardinal +Delfino to the Emperor, Rome, Nov. 29, 1572; Vienna Archives).] + +[Footnote 112: Fa ogni favor et gratia gli addimanda il Cardinale di +Lorena, il consiglio del quale usa in tutte le piu importanti +negotiationi l' occorre di haver a trattar (Cusano to the Emperor, Rome, +Sept. 27, 1572).--Conscia igitur Sua Dominatio Illma quorundam +arcanorum Regni Galliae, creato Pontifice sibi in Concilio Tridentino +cognito et amico, statuit huc se recipere, ut privatis suis rebus +consuleret, et quia tunc foederati contra Thurcam, propter suspicionem +Regi Catholico injectam de Orangio, et Gallis, non admodum videbantur +concordes, et non multo post advenit nuncius mortis Domini de Colligni, +et illius asseclarum; Pontifex justa de causa existimavit dictum Illmum +Cardinalem favore et gratia sua merito esse complectendum. Evenit +postmodum, ut ad Serenissimam Reginam Galliarum deferretur, bonum hunc +Dominum jactasse se, quod particeps fuerit consiliorum contra dictum +Colligni; id quod illa Serenissima Domina iniquo animo tulit, quae +neminem gloriae socium vult habere; sibi enim totam vendicat, quod sola +talis facinoris auctor, et Dux extiterit. Idcirco commorationem ipsius +Lotharingiae in hac aula improbare, ac reprehendere aggressa est. Haec +cum ille Illustrissimus Cardinalis perceperit, oblata sibi occasione +utens, exoravit a Sua Sanctitate gratuitam expeditionem quatuor millia +scutorum reditus pro suo Nepote, et 20 millia pro filio praeter +sollicitationem, quam prae se fert, ut dictus Nepos in Cardinalium +numerum cooptetur.... Cum itaque his de causis authoritas hujus Domini +in Gallia imminuta videatur, ipseque praevideat, quanto in Gallia +minoris aestimabitur, tanto minori etiam loco hic se habitum id, statuit +optimo judicio, ac pro eo quod suae existimacioni magis conducit, in +Galliam reverti (Delfino, _ut supra_, both in the Vienna Archives).] + +[Footnote 113: _Intiera Relatione della Morte dell' Ammiraglio._] + +[Footnote 114: _Ragguaglio degli ordini et modi tenuti dalla Majesta +Christianissima nella distruttione della setta degli Ugonotti Con la +morte dell' Ammiraglio_, etc.] + +[Footnote 115: Bib. Imp. F. Fr. 16, 139.] + +[Footnote 116: Maffei, _Annali di Gregorio XIII._, i. 34.] + +[Footnote 117: La nouvelle qui arriva le deuxieme jour du present par +ung courrier qui estoit depesche secretememt de Lyon par ung nomme +Danes, secretaire de M. de Mandelot ... a ung commandeur de Sainct +Anthoine, nomme Mr. de Gou, il luy manda qu'il allast advertir le Pape, +pour en avoir quelque presant ou bienfaict, de la mort de tous les chefs +de ceulx de la religion pretendue refformee, et de tous les Huguenotz de +France, et que V.M. avoit mande et commande a tous les gouverneurs de se +saisir de tous iceulx huguenotz en leurs gouvernemens; ceste nouvelle, +Sire, apporta si grand contentement a S.S., que sans ce que je luy +remonstray lors me trouvant sur le lieu, en presence de Monseigneur le +C1 de Lorraine, qu'elle devoit attendre ce que V.M. m'en manderoit et +ce que son nonce luy en escriroit, elle en vouloit incontinent faire des +feux de joye.... Et pour ce que je ne voulois faire ledict feu de joye +la premiere nuict que ledit courrier envoye par ledict Danes feust +arrive, ny en recevoir les congratulations que l'on m'en envoyoit faire, +que premierement je n'eusse eu nouvelles de V.M. pour scavoir et sa +voulante et comme je m'avoys a conduire, aucuns commencoient desja de +m'en regarder de maulvais oeills (Ferralz to Charles IX., Rome, Sept. +11, 1572; Bib. Imp. F. Fr. 16,040). Al corriero che porto tal nuova +Nostro Signore diede 100 Scudi oltre li 200 che hebbe dall' +Illustrissimo Lorena, che con grandissima allegrezza se n'ando subito a +dar tal nuova per allegrarsene con Sua Santita (Letter from Rome to the +Emperor, Sept. 6, 1572; Vienna Archives).] + +[Footnote 118: Charles IX. to Ferralz, Aug. 24, 1572; Mackintosh, iii. +348.] + +[Footnote 119: Elle fust merveilheusement ayse d'entendre le discours +que mondit neueu de Beauville luy en feist. Lequel, apres luy avoir +conte le susdit affayre, supplia sadicte Sainctete, suyvant la charge +expresse qu'il avoit de V.M. de vouloir conceder, pour le fruict de +ceste allegresse, la dispense du mariage du roy et royne de Navarre, +datee de quelques jours avant que les nopces en feussent faictes, +ensemble l'absolution pour Messeigneurs les Cardinaux de Bourbon et de +Ramboilhet, et pour tous les aultres evesques et prelatz qui y avoient +assiste.... Il nous feit pour fin response qu'il y adviseroit (Ferralz, +_ut supra_).] + +[Footnote 120: Pensasi che per tutte le citta di Francia debba seguire +il simile, subitoche arrivi la nuova dell' esecutione di Parigi.... A +N.S. mi faccia gratia di basciar i piedi in nome mio, col quale mi +rallegro con le viscere del cuore che sia piaciuto alla Dio. Mta. d' +incaminar nel principio del suo pontificato si felicemente e +honoratamente le cose di questo regno, havendo talmente havuto in +protettione il Re e Regina Madre che hanno saputo e potuto sbarrare +queste pestifere radici con tanta prudenza, in tempo tanto opportuno, +che tutti lor ribelli erano sotto chiave in gabbia (Salviati, Desp. Aug. +24; Theiner, i. 329; Mackintosh, iii. 355).] + +[Footnote 121: Sexta Septembris, mane, in Senatu Pontificis et +Cardinalium lectae sunt literae a legato Pontificio e Gallia scriptae, +admiralium et Huguenotos, destinata Regis voluntate atque consensu, +trucidatos esse. Ea re in eodem Senatu decretum esse, ut inde recta +Pontifex cum Cardinalibus in aedem D. Marci concederet, Deoque Opt. Max. +pro tanto beneficio Sedi Romanae orbique Christiano collato gratias +solemni more ageret (_Scriptum Roma missum_ in Capilupi, 1574, p. 84). +Quia Die 2a praedicti mensis Septembris Smus D.N. certior factus +fuerat Colignium Franciae Ammiralium a populo Parisien occisum fuisse et +cum eo multos ex Ducibus et primoribus Ugonotarum haereticorum eius +sequacibus Rege ipso Franciae approbante, ex quo spes erat +tranquillitatem in dicto Regno redituram expulsis haereticis, idcirco +Stas Sua expleto concistorio descendit ad ecclesiam Sancti Marci, +praecedente cruce et sequentibus Cardinalibus et genuflexus ante altare +maius, ubi positum fuerat sanctissimum Sacramentum, oravit gratias Deo +agens, et inchoavit cantando hymnum Te Deum (_Fr. Mucantii Diaria_, B.M. +Add. MSS. 26,811).] + +[Footnote 122: Apres quelques autres discours qu'il me feist sur le +contentement que luy et le college des Cardinaux avoient receu de +ladicte execution faicte et des nouvelles qui journellement arrivoient +en ceste court de semblables executions que l'on a faicte et font encore +en plusieurs villes de vostre royaume, qui, a dire la verite, sont les +nouvelles les plus agreables que je pense qu'on eust sceu apporter en +ceste ville, sadicte Sainctete pour fin me commanda de vous escrire que +cest evenement luy a este cent fois plus agreable que cinquante +victoires semblables a celle que ceulx de la ligue obtindrent l'annee +passee contre le Turcq, ne voulant oublier vous dire, Sire, les +commandemens estroictz qu'il nous feist a tous, mesmement aux francois +d'en faire feu de joye, et qui ne l'eust faict eust mal senty de la foy +(Ferralz, _ut supra_).] + +[Footnote 123: Tutta Roma sta in allegria di tal fatto et fra i piu +grandi si dice, che 'l Re di Francia ha insegnato alli Principi +christiani ch' hanno de simili vassalli ne stati loro a liberarsene, et +dicono che vostra Maesta Cesara dovrebbe castigare il conte Palatino +tanto nemico della Serenissima casa d' Austria, et della Religione +cattolica, come l'anni passati fece contra il Duca di Sassonia tiene +tuttavia prigione, che a un tempo vendicarebbe le tante ingiurie ha +fatto detto Palatino alla Chiesa di Dio, et poveri Christiani, et alla +Maesta Vostra et sua Casa Serenissima sprezzando li suoi editti et +commandamenti, et privarlo dell' elettione dell'Imperio et darlo al Duca +di Baviera (Cusano to the Emperor, Rome, Sept. 6, 1572; Vienna +Archives).] + +[Footnote 124: The Bull, as published in Paris, is printed by Strype +(_Life of Parker_, iii. 197). La prima occasione che a cio lo mosse fu +per lo stratagemma fatto da Carlo Nono Christianissimo Re di Francia +contra Coligno Ammiraglio, capo d' Ugonotti, et suoi seguaci, tagliati a +pezzi in Parigi (Ciappi, _Vita di Gregorio XIII._, 1596, p. 63).] + +[Footnote 125: Vasari to Borghini, Oct. 5, 1572; March 5, 1573; to +Francesco Medici, Nov. 17, 1572; Gaye, _Carteggio d' Artisti_, iii. 328, +366, 341.] + +[Footnote 126: Indubitatamente non si osservara interamente, havendomi +in questo modo, punto che torno dall' audienza promesso il Re, +imponendomi di darne conto in suo nome a Nostro Signore, di volere in +breve tempo liberare il Regno dalli Ugonotti.... Mi ha parlato della +dispensa, escusandosi non haver fatto il Parentado per ultro, che per +liberarsi da suoi inimici (Salviati, Desp. Sept. 3, Sept. 2, Oct. 11, +1572).] + +[Footnote 127: Si vede che l' editto non essendo osservato ne da popoli, +ne dal principe, non e per pigliar piede (Salviati, Desp. Sept. 4). Qual +Regina in progresso di tempo intende pur non solo di revocare tal +editto, ma per mezzo della giustitia di restituir la fede cattolica +nell' antica osservanza, parendogli che nessuno ne debba dubitare +adesso, che hanno fatto morire l' ammiraglio con tanti altri huomini di +valore, conforme ai raggionamenti altre volte havuti con esso meco +essendo a Bles, et trattando del parentado di Navarra, et dell' altre +cose che correvano in quei tempi, il che essendo vero, ne posso rendere +testimonianza, e a Nostro Signore e a tutto il mondo (Aug. 27; Theiner, +i. 329, 330).] + +[Footnote 128: Desp. Sept. 2, 1572.] + +[Footnote 129: The reply of Boccapaduli is printed in French, with the +translation of the oration of Muretus, Paris, 1573.] + +[Footnote 130: Trovera le cose cosi ben disposte, che durara poca +fattica in ottener quel tanto si desidera per Sua Beatitudine, anzi +havera piu presto da ringratiar quella Maesta Christianissima di cosi +buona et sant' opera, ha fatto far, che da durare molta fatica in +persuaderli l' unione con la Santa Chiesa Romana (Cusano to the Emperor, +Rome, Sept. 6). Sereno (_Comment. della guerra di Cipro_, p. 329) +understands the mission in the same light.] + +[Footnote 131: Omnes mulas ascendentes cappis et galeris pontificalibus +induti associarunt Rmum D. Cardinalem Ursinum Legatum usque ad portam +Flaminiam et extra eam ubi factis multis reverentiis eum ibi +reliquerunt, juxta ritum antiquum in ceremoniali libro descriptum qui +longo tempore intermissus fuerat, ita Pontifice iubente in Concistorio +hodierno (_Mucantii Diaria_). Ista associatio fuit determinata in +Concistorio vocatis X. Cardinalibus et ex improviso exequuti fuimus (_C. +Firmani Diaria_, B.M. Add. MSS. 8448).] + +[Footnote 132: Mette in consideratione alla Santita Sua che havendo +deputato un Legato apostolico su la morte dell' ammiraglio, et altri +capi Ugonotti, ha fatti ammazzare a Parigi, saria per metterla in molto +sospetto et diffidenza delli Principi Protestanti, et della Regina d' +Inghilterra, ch' ella fosse d' accordo con la sede Apostolica, et +Principi Cattolici per farli guerra, i quali cerca d' acquettar con +accertarli tutti, che non ha fatto ammazzar l' ammiraglio et suoi +seguaci per conto della Religione (Cusano to the Emperor, Sept. 27).] + +[Footnote 133: Salviati, Desp. Sept. 22, 1572.] + +[Footnote 134: Charles IX. to S. Goard, Oct. 5, 1572; Charriere, iii. +330. Ne poteva esser bastante segno l' haver egli doppo la morte dell' +Ammiraglio fatto un editto, che in tutti i luoghi del suo regno fossero +posti a fil di spada quanti heretici vi si trovassero, onde in pochi +giorni n' erano stati ammazzati settanta milla e d' avantaggio +(Cicarelli, _Vita di Gregori XIII._; Platina, _Vite de' Pontefici_, +1715, 592).] + +[Footnote 135: Il tengono quasiche in filo et il necessitano a far cose +contra la sua natura e la sua volonta perche S. Sta e sempre stato di +natura piacevole e dolce (_Relatione di Gregorio XIII._; Ranke, +_Paepste_, App. 80). Faict Cardinal par le pape Pie IV., le 12e de Mars +1559, lequel en le creant, dit qu'il n'avoit cree un cardinal ains un +pape (Ferralz to Charles IX., May 14, 1572).] + +[Footnote 136: Smus Dominus Noster dixit nullam concordiam vel pacem +debere nec posse esse inter nos et hereticos, et cum eis nullum foedus +ineundum et habendum ... verissimum est deteriores esse haereticos +gentilibus, eo quod sunt adeo perversi et obstinati, ut propemodum +infideles sint (_Acta Concistoralia_, June 18, 1571; Bib. Imp. F. Lat. +12, 561).] + +[Footnote 137: Ogni giorno faceva impiccare e squartare ora uno, ora un +altro (Cantu, ii. 410).] + +[Footnote 138: _Legazioni di Serristori_, 436, 443.] + +[Footnote 139: Elle desire infiniment que vostre Majeste face quelque +ressentement plus qu'elle n'a faict jusques a ceste heure contre ceux +qui lui font la guerre, comme de raser quelques-unes de leurs +principales maisons pour une perpetuelle memoyre (Rambouillet to Charles +IX., Rome, Jan. 17, 1569; Bib. Imp. F. Fr. 17,989).] + +[Footnote 140: Pius V. to Catherine, April 13, 1569.] + +[Footnote 141: Pius V. to Charles IX., March 28, 1569.] + +[Footnote 142: Sa Sainctete m'a dict que j'escrive a vostre majeste que +icelle se souvienne qu'elle combat pour la querelle de Dieu, et que +ceste a elle de faire ses vengeances (Rambouillet to Charles IX., Rome, +March 14, 1569; Bib. Imp. F. Fr. 16,039). Nihil est enim ea pietate +misericordiaque crudelius, quae in impios et ultima supplicia meritos +confertur (Pius V. to Charles IX., Oct. 20, 1569).] + +[Footnote 143: _Correspondance de Philippe II._, ii. 185.] + +[Footnote 144: Inspirato piu d' un anno fa di esporre la vita al +martirio col procurare la liberatione della religione, et delle patria +per mezzo della morte del tiranno, et assicurato da Theologi che il +fatto saria stato meritorio, non ne haveva con tutto cio mai potuto +ottenere da superiori suoi la licenza o dispensa.... Io quantunque mi +sia parso di trovarlo pieno di tale humilta, prudenza, spirito et core +che arguiscono che questa sia inspiratione veramente piuttosto che +temerita o legerezza, non cognoscendo tuttavia di potergliela concedere +l' ho persuaso a tornarsene nel suo covento raccommandarsi a Dio et +attendere all' obbedienza delli suoi superiori finche io attendessi +dallo assenso o ripulsa del Papa che haverei interpellato per la sua +santa beneditione, se questo spirito sia veramente da Dio donde si potra +conjetturare che sia venendo approvato da Sua Sta, e percio sara piu +sicuro da essere eseguito.... Resta hora che V.S. Illma mi favorisca di +communicare a S.B. il caso, et scrivermene come la supplico quanto prima +per duplicate et triplicate lettere la sua santa determinatione +assicurandosi che per quanto sara in me il negotio sara trattato con la +debita circumspetione (Sega, Desp. Paris, Jan. 23, 1591; deciphered in +Rome, March 26).] + +[Footnote 145: Ferralz to Charles IX., Nov. 18, Dec. 23, 1572.] + +[Footnote 146: De Castro, _De Justa Haeret. Punitione_, 1547, p. 119. +Iure Divino obligantur eos extirpare, si absque maiori incommodo possint +(Lancelottus, _Haereticum quare per Catholicum quia_, 1615, p. 579). Ubi +quid indulgendum sit, ratio semper exacta habeatur, an Religioni +Ecclesiae, et Reipublicae quid vice mutua accedat quod majoris sit +momenti, et plus prodesse possit (Pamelius, _De Relig. diversis non +admittendis_, 1589, p. 159). Contagium istud sic grassatum est, ut +corrupta massa non ferat antiquissimas leges, severitasque tantisper +remittenda sit (Possevinus, _Animadv. in Thuanum_; Zachariae, _Iter +Litterarium_, p. 321).] + +[Footnote 147: Principi saeculari nulla ratione permissum est, +haereticis licentiam tribuere haereses suas docendi, atque adeo +contractus ille iniustus.... Si quid Princeps saecularis attentet in +praeiudicium Ecclesiasticae potestatis, aut contra eam aliquid statuat +et paciscatur, pactum illud nullum futurum (R. Sweertii, _De Fide +Haereticis servanda_, 1611, p. 36).] + +[Footnote 148: Ad poenam quoque pertinet et odium haereticorum quod +fides illis data servanda non sit (Simancha, _Inst. Cath._ pp. 46, 52).] + +[Footnote 149: Si nolint converti, expedit eos citius tollere e medio, +ne gravius postea damnentur, unde non militat contra mansuetudinem +christianam, occidere Haereticos, quin potius est opus maximae +misericordiae (Lancelottus, p. 579).] + +[Footnote 150: De Rozoy, _Annales de Toulouse_, iii. 65.] + +[Footnote 151: Alva to Philip, June 5, 1565; _Pap. de Granvelle_, ix. +288; _Comment. de Monluc_, iii. 425.] + +[Footnote 152: Charles IX. to Mondoucet, Aug. 31, 1572; _Compte Rendu_, +iv, 349.] + +[Footnote 153: _Bulletins de Bruxelles_, xvi. 256.] + +[Footnote 154: Granvelle to Morillon, Sept. 11, 1572; Michelet, p. 475.] + +[Footnote 155: Floquet, iii. 137.] + +[Footnote 156: Walsingham to Smith, Nov. 1, 1572; Digges, p. 279. Ita +enim statutum ab illis fuit die 27 Octobris (Beza, Dec. 3, 1572; _Ill. +vir. Epp. Sel._ 621). La Mothe, v. 164; Faustino Tasso, _Historie de +nostri tempi_, 1583, p. 343.] + +[Footnote 157: _Discorso di Monsignor Terracina a Gregorio XIII.; +Thesauri Politici Contin._ 1618, pp. 73-76.] + +[Footnote 158: Infin che ne vivera grande, o picciolo di loro, mai non +le mancheranno insidie (_Lettere del Muzio_, 1590, p. 232).] + +[Footnote 159: Coupez, tronquez, cisaillez, ne pardonnez a parens ny +amis, princes et subiets, ny a quelque personne de quelque condition +qu'ils soient (D'Orleans, _Premier advertissement des Catholiques +Anglois aux Francois Catholiques_, 1590, p. 13). The notion that Charles +had displayed an extreme benignity recurs in many books: "Nostre Prince +a surpasse tout mesure de clemence" (Le Frere de Laval _Histoire des +Troubles_, 1576, p. 527).] + +[Footnote 160: Serranus, _Comment._ iv. 51.] + +[Footnote 161: Bouges, _Histoire de Carcassonne_, p. 343.] + +[Footnote 162: _Sommaire de la Felonie commise a Lyon._ A contemporary +tract reprinted by Gonon, 1848, p. 221.] + +[Footnote 163: On this point Smith may be trusted rather than Parker +(_Correspondence_, p. 399).] + +[Footnote 164: _Bulletins de Bruxelles_, xvi. 249.] + +[Footnote 165: Qui e venuto quello che dette l' archibusata all' +ammiraglio di Francia, et e stato condotto dal Cardinal di Lorena et +dall' Ambasciator di Francia, al papa. A molti non e piaciuto che costui +sia venuto in Roma (Prospero Count Arco to the Emperor, Rome, Nov. 15, +1572; Vienna Archives).] + +[Footnote 166: Zuniga to Philip, March 4, 1573; _Arch. de l'Empire_, K. +1531, B. 35, 70. Zuniga heard it from Lorraine.] + +[Footnote 167: Et est toute la dispute encores sur les derniers +evenemens de la France, contre lesquels l'Electeur est beaucoup plus +aigre qu'il n'estoyt a mon aultre voyage, depuys qu'il a este en +l'escole a Vienne (Schomberg to Brulart, May 12, 1573; Groen, iv. App. +76).] + +[Footnote 168: Sattler, _Geschichte von Wuertemberg_, v. 23.] + +[Footnote 169: Audio quosdam etiam nostralium theologorum cruentam istam +nuptiarum feralium celebrationem pertinaciae Gallorum in semel recepta +de sacramentalibus mysteriis sententia acceptam referre et praeter illos +pati neminem somniare (Steinberger to Crato, Nov. 23, 1572; Gillet, +_Craio von Crafftheim_, ii. 519).] + +[Footnote 170: Heppe, _Geschichte des deutschen Protestantismus_, iv. +37, 47, 49.] + +[Footnote 171: Hachfeld, _Martin Chemnitz_, p. 137.] + +[Footnote 172: Sunt tamen qui hoc factum et excusare et defendere +tentant (Bullinger to Hotoman, Oct. 11, 1572; Hotoman, _Epis._ 35).] + +[Footnote 173: Nec dubium est melius cum ipsis actum fuisse, si +quemadmodum a principio instituerant, cum disciplinam ecclesiasticam +inroduxere, viros modestos et piae veraeque reformationis cupidos tantum +in suos coetus admisissent, reiectis petulantibus et fervidis ingeniis, +quae eos in diros tumultus, et inextricabilia mala coniecerunt +(Dinothus, _De Bello Civili_, 1582, p. 243).] + +[Footnote 174: Beza to Tilius, July 5, 1572; _Ill. vir. Epp. Sel._ 607.] + +[Footnote 175: Quoties autem ego haec ipse praedixi! quoties praemonui! +Sed sic Deo visum est, iustissimis de causis irato, et tamen servatori +(Beza to Tilius, Sept. 10, 1572, 614). Nihil istorum non iustissimo +iudicio accidere necesse est fateri, qui Galliarum statum norunt (Beza +to Crato, Aug. 26. 1573; Gillet, ii. 521).] + +[Footnote 176: Ut mihi quidem magis absurde facere videantur quam si +sacrilegas parricidas puniendos negarent, quum sint istis omnibus +haeretici infinitis partibus deteriores.... In nullos unquam homines +severius quam in haereticos, blasphemos et impios debet animadvertere +(_De Haereticis puniendis_, Tract. Theol. i. 143, 152).] + +[Footnote 177: _Epist. Theolog._ 1575, p. 338.] + +[Footnote 178: Beza to Wittgenstein, Pentecost, 1583; Friedlaender, 143.] + +[Footnote 179: Lobo de Silveis to De Thou, July 7, 1616; _Histoire_, xv. +371; J.B. Gallus, _Ibid._ p. 435.] + +[Footnote 180: Le Cardinal Barberini, que je tiens pour Serviteur du +Roy, a parle franchement sur ceste affaire, et m'a dit qu'il croyoit +presqu'impossible qu'il se trouve jamais remede, si vous ne la voulez +recommencer; disant que depuis le commencement jusqu'a la fin vous vous +estes monstre du tout passionne contre ce qui est de l'honneur et de la +grandeur de l'Eglise, qu'il se trouvera dans vostre histoire que vous ne +parlez jamais des Catholiques qu'avec du mepris et de la louange de ceux +de la religion; que mesme vous avez blasme ce que feu Monsieur le +president de Thou vostre pere avoit approuve, qui est la S. Barthelemy +(De Breves to De Thou, Rome, Feb. 18, 1610; Bib. Imp. F. Dupuy, 812).] + +[Footnote 181: Crudelitatisne tu esse ac non clementiae potius, +pietatisque putas? (_Resp. ad Ep. Casauboni_, 1612, p. 118).] + +[Footnote 182: Quae res uti Catholicae Religioni sublevandae opportuna, +ita maxime jucunda Gregorio accidit (_Hist. Pontif. Gregori XIII._, p. +30).] + +[Footnote 183: _Histoire d'Orleans_, pp. 421, 424.] + +[Footnote 184: Germain to Bretagne, Rome, Dec. 24, 1685; Valery, +_Corresp. de Mabillon_, i. 192.] + +[Footnote 185: Du Molinet, _Hist. S. Pont. per Numismata_, 1679, 93; +Buorranni, _Numismata Pontificum_, i. 336.] + +[Footnote 186: _Annali d'Italia_ ad ann. 1572.] + +[Footnote 187: Si huviera respirado mas tiempo, huviera dado a entender +al mundo, que avia Rey en la Francia, y Dios en Israel (_Vida de S. +Francisco De Borja_, 446).] + +[Footnote 188: _Vita di Sisto V._, i. 119.] + +[Footnote 189: Quo demum res evaderent, si Regibus non esset integrum, +in rebelles, subditos, quietisque publicae turbatores animadvertere? +(_Apparatus Eruditionis_, vii. 503; Piatti, _Storia de' Pontefici XI._, +p. 271).] + +[Footnote 190: Per le notizie che ricevette della cessata strage +(Moroni, _Dizionario di Erudizione Ecclesiastica_, xxxii. 298).] + +[Footnote 191: [1868.]] + +[Footnote 192: _Kirchengeschichte_, iii. 211.] + + + + +V + +THE PROTESTANT THEORY OF PERSECUTION[193] + + +The manner in which Religion influences State policy is more easily +ascertained in the case of Protestantism than in that of the Catholic +Church: for whilst the expression of Catholic doctrines is authoritative +and unvarying, the great social problems did not all arise at once, and +have at various times received different solutions. The reformers failed +to construct a complete and harmonious code of doctrine; but they were +compelled to supplement the new theology by a body of new rules for the +guidance of their followers in those innumerable questions with regard +to which the practice of the Church had grown out of the experience of +ages. And although the dogmatic system of Protestantism was not +completed in their time, yet the Protestant spirit animated them in +greater purity and force than it did any later generation. Now, when a +religion is applied to the social and political sphere, its general +spirit must be considered, rather than its particular precepts. So that +in studying the points of this application in the case of Protestantism, +we may consult the writings of the reformers with greater confidence +than we could do for an exposition of Protestant theology; and accept +them as a greater authority, because they agree more entirely among +themselves. We can be more sure that we have the true Protestant opinion +in a political or social question on which all the reformers are agreed, +than in a theological question on which they differ; for the concurrent +opinion must be founded on an element common to all, and therefore +essential. If it should further appear that this opinion was injurious +to their actual interests, and maintained at a sacrifice to themselves, +we should then have an additional security for its necessary connection +with their fundamental views. + +The most important example of this law is the Protestant theory of +toleration. The views of the reformers on religious liberty are not +fragmentary, accidental opinions, unconnected with their doctrines, or +suggested by the circumstances amidst which they lived; but the product +of their theological system, and of their ideas of political and +ecclesiastical government. Civil and religious liberty are so commonly +associated in people's mouths, and are so rare in fact, that their +definition is evidently as little understood as the principle of their +connection. The point at which they unite, the common root from which +they derive their sustenance, is the right of self-government. The +modern theory, which has swept away every authority except that of the +State, and has made the sovereign power irresistible by multiplying +those who share it, is the enemy of that common freedom in which +religious freedom is included. It condemns, as a State within the State, +every inner group and community, class or corporation, administering its +own affairs; and, by proclaiming the abolition of privileges, it +emancipates the subjects of every such authority in order to transfer +them exclusively to its own. It recognises liberty only in the +individual, because it is only in the individual that liberty can be +separated from authority, and the right of conditional obedience +deprived of the security of a limited command. Under its sway, +therefore, every man may profess his own religion more or less freely; +but his religion is not free to administer its own laws. In other words, +religious profession is free, but Church government is controlled. And +where ecclesiastical authority is restricted, religious liberty is +virtually denied. + +For religious liberty is not the negative right of being without any +particular religion, just as self-government is not anarchy. It is the +right of religious communities to the practice of their own duties, the +enjoyment of their own constitution, and the protection of the law, +which equally secures to all the possession of their own independence. +Far from implying a general toleration, it is best secured by a limited +one. In an indifferent State, that is, in a State without any definite +religious character (if such a thing is conceivable), no ecclesiastical +authority could exist. A hierarchical organisation would not be +tolerated by the sects that have none, or by the enemies of all definite +religion; for it would be in contradiction to the prevailing theory of +atomic freedom. Nor can a religion be free when it is alone, unless it +makes the State subject to it. For governments restrict the liberty of +the favoured Church, by way of remunerating themselves for their service +in preserving her unity. The most violent and prolonged conflicts for +religious freedom occurred in the Middle Ages between a Church which was +not threatened by rivals and States which were most attentive to +preserve her exclusive predominance. Frederic II., the most tyrannical +oppressor of the Church among the German emperors, was the author of +those sanguinary laws against heresy which prevailed so long in many +parts of Europe. The Inquisition, which upheld the religious unity of +the Spanish nation, imposed the severest restrictions on the Spanish +Church; and in England conformity has been most rigorously exacted by +those sovereigns who have most completely tyrannised over the +Established Church. Religious liberty, therefore, is possible only where +the co-existence of different religions is admitted, with an equal right +to govern themselves according to their own several principles. +Tolerance of error is requisite for freedom; but freedom will be most +complete where there is no actual diversity to be resisted, and no +theoretical unity to be maintained, but where unity exists as the +triumph of truth, not of force, through the victory of the Church, not +through the enactment of the State. + +This freedom is attainable only in communities where rights are sacred, +and where law is supreme. If the first duty is held to be obedience to +authority and the preservation of order, as in the case of aristocracies +and monarchies of the patriarchal type, there is no safety for the +liberties either of individuals or of religion. Where the highest +consideration is the public good and the popular will, as in +democracies, and in constitutional monarchies after the French pattern, +majority takes the place of authority; an irresistible power is +substituted for an idolatrous principle, and all private rights are +equally insecure. The true theory of freedom excludes all absolute power +and arbitrary action, and requires that a tyrannical or revolutionary +government shall be coerced by the people; but it teaches that +insurrection is criminal, except as a corrective of revolution and +tyranny. In order to understand the views of the Protestant reformers on +toleration, they must be considered with reference to these points. + +While the Reformation was an act of individual resistance and not a +system, and when the secular Powers were engaged in supporting the +authority of the Church, the authors of the movement were compelled to +claim impunity for their opinions, and they held language regarding the +right of governments to interfere with religious belief which resembles +that of friends of toleration. Every religious party, however exclusive +or servile its theory may be, if it is in contradiction with a system +generally accepted and protected by law, must necessarily, at its first +appearance, assume the protection of the idea that the conscience is +free.[194] Before a new authority can be set up in the place of one that +exists, there is an interval when the right of dissent must be +proclaimed. At the beginning of Luther's contest with the Holy See +there was no rival authority for him to appeal to. No ecclesiastical +organism existed, the civil power was not on his side, and not even a +definite system had yet been evolved by controversy out of his original +doctrine of justification. His first efforts were acts of hostility, his +exhortations were entirely aggressive, and his appeal was to the masses. +When the prohibition of his New Testament confirmed him in the belief +that no favour was to be expected from the princes, he published his +book on the Civil Power, which he judged superior to everything that had +been written on government since the days of the Apostles, and in which +he asserts that authority is given to the State only against the wicked, +and that it cannot coerce the godly. "Princes," he says, "are not to be +obeyed when they command submission to superstitious errors, but their +aid is not to be invoked in support of the Word of God."[195] Heretics +must be converted by the Scriptures, and not by fire, otherwise the +hangman would be the greatest doctor.[196] At the time when this was +written Luther was expecting the bull of excommunication and the ban of +the empire, and for several years it appeared doubtful whether he would +escape the treatment he condemned. He lived in constant fear of +assassination, and his friends amused themselves with his terrors. At +one time he believed that a Jew had been hired by the Polish bishops to +despatch him; that an invisible physician was on his way to Wittenberg +to murder him; that the pulpit from which he preached was impregnated +with a subtle poison.[197] These alarms dictated his language during +those early years. It was not the true expression of his views, which he +was not yet strong enough openly to put forth.[198] + +The Zwinglian schism, the rise of the Anabaptists, and the Peasants' War +altered the aspect of affairs. Luther recognised in them the fruits of +his theory of the right of private judgment and of dissent,[199] and the +moment had arrived to secure his Church against the application of the +same dissolving principles which had served him to break off from his +allegiance to Rome.[200] The excesses of the social war threatened to +deprive the movement of the sympathy of the higher classes, especially +of the governments; and with the defeat of the peasants the popular +phase of the Reformation came to an end on the Continent. "The devil," +Luther said, "having failed to put him down by the help of the Pope, was +seeking his destruction through the preachers of treason and +blood."[201] He instantly turned from the people to the princes;[202] +impressed on his party that character of political dependence, and that +habit of passive obedience to the State, which it has ever since +retained, and gave it a stability it could never otherwise have +acquired. In thus taking refuge in the arms of the civil power, +purchasing the safety of his doctrine by the sacrifice of its freedom, +and conferring on the State, together with the right of control, the +duty of imposing it at the point of the sword, Luther in reality +reverted to his original teaching.[203] The notion of liberty, whether +civil or religious, was hateful to his despotic nature, and contrary to +his interpretation of Scripture. As early as 1519 he had said that even +the Turk was to be reverenced as an authority.[204] The demoralising +servitude and lawless oppression which the peasants endured, gave them, +in his eyes, no right to relief; and when they rushed to arms, invoking +his name as their deliverer, he exhorted the nobles to take a merciless +revenge.[205] Their crime was, that they were animated by the sectarian +spirit, which it was the most important interest of Luther to suppress. + +The Protestant authorities throughout Southern Germany were perplexed by +their victory over the Anabaptists. It was not easy to show that their +political tenets were revolutionary, and the only subversive portion of +their doctrine was that they held, with the Catholics, that the State is +not responsible for religion.[206] They were punished, therefore, +because they taught that no man ought to suffer for his faith. At +Nuremberg the magistrates did not know how to proceed against them. They +seemed no worse than the Catholics, whom there was no question at that +time of exterminating. The celebrated Osiander deemed these scruples +inconsistent. The Papists, he said, ought also to be suppressed; and so +long as this was not done, it was impossible to proceed to extremities +against the Anabaptists, who were no worse than they. Luther also was +consulted, and he decided that they ought not to be punished unless they +refused to conform at the command of the Government.[207] The Margrave +of Brandenburg was also advised by the divines that a heretic who could +not be converted out of Scripture might be condemned; but that in his +sentence nothing should be said about heresy, but only about sedition +and murderous intent, though he should be guiltless of these.[208] With +the aid of this artifice great numbers were put to death. + +Luther's proud and ardent spirit despised such pretences. He had cast +off all reserve, and spoke his mind openly on the rights and duties of +the State towards the Church and the people. His first step was to +proclaim it the office of the civil power to prevent abominations.[209] +He provided no security that, in discharging this duty, the sovereign +should be guided by the advice of orthodox divines;[210] but he held the +duty itself to be imperative. In obedience to the fundamental principle, +that the Bible is the sole guide in all things, he defined the office +and justified it by scriptural precedents. The Mosaic code, he argued, +awarded to false prophets the punishment of death, and the majesty of +God is not to be less deeply reverenced or less rigorously vindicated +under the New Testament than under the Old; in a more perfect revelation +the obligation is stronger. Those who will not hear the Church must be +excluded from the communion; but the civil power is to intervene when +the ecclesiastical excommunication has been pronounced, and men must be +compelled to come in. For, according to the more accurate definition of +the Church which is given in the Confession of Schmalkald, and in the +Apology of the Confession of Augsburg, excommunication involves +damnation. There is no salvation to be hoped for out of the Church, and +the test of orthodoxy against the Pope, the devil, and all the world, is +the dogma of justification by faith.[211] + +The defence of religion became, on this theory, not only the duty of the +civil power, but the object of its institution. Its business was solely +the coercion of those who were out of the Church. The faithful could not +be the objects of its action; they did of their own accord more than any +laws required. "A good tree," says Luther, "brings forth good fruit by +nature, without compulsion; is it not madness to prescribe laws to an +apple-tree that it shall bear apples and not thorns?"[212] This view +naturally proceeded from the axiom of the certainty of the salvation of +all who believe in the Confession of Augsburg.[213] It is the most +important element in Luther's political system, because, while it made +all Protestant governments despotic, it led to the rejection of the +authority of Catholic governments. This is the point where Protestant +and Catholic intolerance meet. If the State were instituted to promote +the faith, no obedience could be due to a State of a different faith. +Protestants could not conscientiously be faithful subjects of Catholic +Powers, and they could not therefore be tolerated. Misbelievers would +have no rights under an orthodox State, and a misbelieving prince would +have no authority over orthodox subjects. The more, therefore, Luther +expounded the guilt of resistance and the Divine sanction of authority, +the more subversive his influence became in Catholic countries. His +system was alike revolutionary, whether he defied the Catholic powers or +promoted a Protestant tyranny. He had no notion of political right. He +found no authority for such a claim in the New Testament, and he held +that righteousness does not need to exhibit itself in works. + +It was the same helpless dependence on the letter of Scripture which led +the reformers to consequences more subversive of Christian morality than +their views on questions of polity. When Carlstadt cited the Mosaic law +in defence of polygamy, Luther was indignant. If the Mosaic law is to +govern everything, he said, we should be compelled to adopt +circumcision.[214] Nevertheless, as there is no prohibition of polygamy +in the New Testament, the reformers were unable to condemn it. They did +not forbid it as a matter of Divine law, and referred it entirely to the +decision of the civil legislator.[215] This, accordingly was the view +which guided Luther and Melanchthon in treating the problem, the +ultimate solution of which was the separation of England from the +Church.[216] When the Landgrave Philip afterwards appealed to this +opinion, and to the earlier commentaries of Luther, the reformers were +compelled to approve his having two wives. Melanchthon was a witness at +the wedding of the second, and the only reservation was a request that +the matter should not be allowed to get abroad.[217] It was the same +portion of Luther's theology, and the same opposition to the spirit of +the Church in the treatment of Scripture, that induced him to believe in +astrology and to ridicule the Copernican system.[218] + +His view of the authority of Scripture and his theory of justification +both precluded him from appreciating freedom. "Christian freedom," he +said, "consists in the belief that we require no works to attain piety +and salvation."[219] Thus he became the inventor of the theory of +passive obedience, according to which no motives or provocation can +justify a revolt; and the party against whom the revolt is directed, +whatever its guilt may be, is to be preferred to the party revolting, +however just its cause.[220] In 1530 he therefore declared that the +German princes had no right to resist the Emperor in defence of their +religion. "It was the duty of a Christian," he said, "to suffer wrong, +and no breach of oath or of duty could deprive the Emperor of his right +to the unconditional obedience of his subjects."[221] Even the empire +seemed to him a despotism, from his scriptural belief that it was a +continuation of the last of the four monarchies.[222] He preferred +submission, in the hope of seeing a future Protestant Emperor, to a +resistance which might have dismembered the empire if it had succeeded, +and in which failure would have been fatal to the Protestants; and he +was always afraid to draw the logical consequences of his theory of the +duty of Protestants towards Catholic sovereigns. In consequence of this +fact, Ranke affirms that the great reformer was also one of the greatest +conservatives that ever lived; and his biographer, Juergens, makes the +more discriminating remark that history knows of no man who was at once +so great an insurgent and so great an upholder of order as he.[223] +Neither of these writers understood that the same principle lies at the +root both of revolution and of passive obedience, and that the +difference is only in the temper of the person who applies it, and in +the outward circumstances. + +Luther's theory is apparently in opposition to Protestant interests, for +it entitles Catholicism to the protection of Catholic Powers. He +disguised from himself this inconsistency, and reconciled theory with +expediency by the calculation that the immense advantages which his +system offered to the princes would induce them all to adopt it. For, +besides the consolatory doctrine of justification,--"a doctrine +original, specious, persuasive, powerful against Rome, and wonderfully +adapted, as if prophetically, to the genius of the times which were to +follow,"[224]--he bribed the princes with the wealth of the Church, +independence of ecclesiastical authority, facilities for polygamy, and +absolute power. He told the peasants not to take arms against the Church +unless they could persuade the Government to give the order; but +thinking it probable, in 1522, that the Catholic clergy would, in spite +of his advice, be exterminated by the fury of the people, he urged the +Government to suppress them, because what was done by the constituted +authority could not be wrong.[225] Persuaded that the sovereign power +would be on his side, he allowed no limits to its extent. It is absurd, +he says, to imagine that, even with the best intentions, kings can avoid +committing occasional injustice; they stand, therefore, particularly in +need--not of safeguards against the abuse of power, but--of the +forgiveness of sins.[226] The power thus concentrated in the hands of +the rulers for the guardianship of the faith, he wished to be used with +the utmost severity against unregenerate men, in whom there was neither +moral virtue nor civil rights, and from whom no good could come until +they were converted. He therefore required that all crimes should be +most cruelly punished and that the secular arm should be employed to +convert where it did not destroy. The idea of mercy tempering justice he +denounced as a Popish superstition.[227] + +The chief object of the severity thus recommended was, of course, +efficaciously to promote the end for which Government itself was held to +be instituted. The clergy had authority over the conscience, but it was +thought necessary that they should be supported by the State with the +absolute penalties of outlawry, in order that error might be +exterminated, although it was impossible to banish sin.[228] No +Government, it was maintained, could tolerate heresy without being +responsible for the souls that were seduced by it;[229] and as Ezechiel +destroyed the brazen serpent to prevent idolatry, the mass must be +suppressed, for the mass was the worst kind of idolatry.[230] In 1530, +when it was proposed to leave the matters in dispute to the decision of +the future Council, Luther declared that the mass and monastic life +could not be tolerated in the meantime, because it was unlawful to +connive at error.[231] "It will lie heavy on your conscience," he writes +to the Duke of Saxony, "if you tolerate the Catholic worship; for no +secular prince can permit his subjects to be divided by the preaching +of opposite doctrines. The Catholics have no right to complain, for they +do not prove the truth of their doctrine from Scripture, and therefore +do not conscientiously believe it."[232] He would tolerate them only if +they acknowledged themselves, like the Jews, enemies of Christ and of +the Emperor, and consented to exist as outcasts of society.[233] +"Heretics," he said, "are not to be disputed with, but to be condemned +unheard, and whilst they perish by fire, the faithful ought to pursue +the evil to its source, and bathe their hands in the blood of the +Catholic bishops, and of the Pope, who is a devil in disguise."[234] + +The persecuting principles which were involved in Luther's system, but +which he cared neither to develop, to apply, nor to defend, were formed +into a definite theory by the colder genius of Melanchthon. Destitute of +Luther's confidence in his own strength, and in the infallible success +of his doctrine, he clung more eagerly to the hope of achieving victory +by the use of physical force. Like his master he too hesitated at first, +and opposed the use of severe measures against the Zwickau prophets; but +when he saw the development of that early germ of dissent, and the +gradual dissolution of Lutheran unity, he repented of his ill-timed +clemency.[235] He was not deterred from asserting the duty of +persecution by the risk of putting arms into the hands of the enemies of +the Reformation. He acknowledged the danger, but he denied the right. +Catholic powers, he deemed, might justly persecute, but they could only +persecute error. They must apply the same criterion which the Lutherans +applied, and then they were justified in persecuting those whom the +Lutherans also proscribed. For the civil power had no right to proscribe +a religion in order to save itself from the dangers of a distracted and +divided population. The judge of the fact and of the danger must be, not +the magistrate, but the clergy.[236] The crime lay, not in dissent, but +in error. Here, therefore, Melanchthon repudiated the theory and +practice of the Catholics, whose aid he invoked; for all the intolerance +in the Catholic times was founded on the combination of two ideas--the +criminality of apostasy, and the inability of the State to maintain its +authority where the moral sense of a part of the community was in +opposition to it. The reformers, therefore, approved the Catholic +practice of intolerance, and even encouraged it, although their own +principles of persecution were destitute not only of connection, but +even of analogy, with it. By simply accepting the inheritance of the +mediaeval theory of the religious unity of the empire, they would have +been its victims. By asserting that persecution was justifiable only +against error, that is, only when purely religious, they set up a shield +for themselves, and a sword against those sects for whose destruction +they were more eager than the Catholics. Whether we refer the origin of +Protestant intolerance to the doctrines or to the interests of the +Reformation, it appears totally unconnected with the tradition of +Catholic ages, or the atmosphere of Catholicism. All severities +exercised by Catholics before that time had a practical motive; but +Protestant persecution was based on a purely speculative foundation, and +was due partly to the influence of Scripture examples, partly to the +supposed interests of the Protestant party. It never admitted the +exclusion of dissent to be a political right of the State, but +maintained the suppression of error to be its political duty. To say, +therefore, that the Protestants learnt persecution from the Catholics, +is as false as to say that they used it by way of revenge. For they +founded it on very different and contradictory grounds, and they +admitted the right of the Catholics to persecute even the Protestant +sects. + +Melanchthon taught that the sects ought to be put down by the sword, and +that any individual who started new opinions ought to be punished with +death.[237] He carefully laid down that these severities were requisite, +not in consideration of the danger to the State, nor of immoral +teaching, nor even of such differences as would weaken the authority or +arrest the action of the ecclesiastical organisation, but simply on +account of a difference, however slight, in the theologumena of +Protestantism.[238] Thamer, who held the possibility of salvation among +the heathen; Schwenkfeld, who taught that not the written Word, but the +internal illumination of grace in the soul was the channel of God's +influence on man; the Zwinglians, with their error on the Eucharist, all +these met with no more favour than the fanatical Anabaptists.[239] The +State was held bound to vindicate the first table of the law with the +same severity as those commandments on which civil society depends for +its existence. The government of the Church being administered by the +civil magistrates, it was their office also to enforce the ordinances of +religion; and the same power whose voice proclaimed religious orthodoxy +and law held in its hand the sword by which they were enforced. No +religious authority existed except through the civil power.[240] The +Church was merged in the State; but the laws of the State, in return, +were identified with the commandments of religion.[241] + +In accordance with these principles, the condemnation of Servetus by a +civil tribunal, which had no authority over him, and no jurisdiction +over his crime--the most aggressive and revolutionary act, therefore, +that is conceivable in the casuistry of persecution--was highly approved +by Melanchthon. He declared it a most useful example for all future +ages, and could not understand that there should be any who did not +regard it in the same favourable light.[242] It is true that Servetus, +by denying the divinity of Christ, was open to the charge of blasphemy +in a stricter sense than that in which the reformers generally applied +it. But this was not the case with the Catholics. They did not +represent, like the sects, an element of dissolution in Protestantism, +and the bulk of their doctrine was admitted by the reformers. They were +not in revolt against existing authority; they required no special +innovations for their protection; they demanded only that the change of +religion should not be compulsory. Yet Melanchthon held that they too +were to be proscribed, because their worship was idolatrous.[243] In +doing this he adopted the principle of aggressive intolerance, which was +at that time new to the Christian world; and which the Popes and +Councils of the Catholic Church had condemned when the zeal of laymen +had gone beyond the lawful measure. In the Middle Ages there had been +persecution far more sanguinary than any that has been inflicted by +Protestants. Various motives had occasioned it and various arguments had +been used in its defence. But the principle on which the Protestants +oppressed the Catholics was new. The Catholics had never admitted the +theory of absolute toleration, as it was defined at first by Luther, and +afterwards by some of the sects. In principle, their tolerance differed +from that of the Protestants as widely as their intolerance. They had +exterminated sects which, like the Albigenses, threatened to overturn +the fabric of Christian society. They had proscribed different +religions where the State was founded on religious unity, and where this +unity formed an integral part of its laws and administration. They had +gone one step further, and punished those whom the Church condemned as +apostates; thereby vindicating, not, as in the first case, the moral +basis of society, nor, as in the second, the religious foundation of the +State, but the authority of the Church and the purity of her doctrine, +on which they relied as the pillar and bulwark of the social and +political order. Where a portion of the inhabitants of any country +preferred a different creed, Jew, Mohammedan, heathen, or schismatic, +they had been generally tolerated, with enjoyment of property and +personal freedom, but not with that of political power or autonomy. But +political freedom had been denied them because they did not admit the +common ideas of duty which were its basis. This position, however, was +not tenable, and was the source of great disorders. The Protestants, in +like manner, could give reasons for several kinds of persecution. They +could bring the Socinians under the category of blasphemers; and +blasphemy, like the ridicule of sacred things, destroys reverence and +awe, and tends to the destruction of society. The Anabaptists, they +might argue, were revolutionary fanatics, whose doctrines were +subversive of the civil order; and the dogmatic sects threatened the +ruin of ecclesiastical unity within the Protestant community itself. But +by placing the necessity of intolerance on the simple ground of +religious error, and in directing it against the Church which they +themselves had abandoned, they introduced a purely subjective test, and +a purely revolutionary system. It is on this account that the _tu +quoque_, or retaliatory argument, is inadmissible between Catholics and +Protestants. Catholic intolerance is handed down from an age when unity +subsisted, and when its preservation, being essential for that of +society, became a necessity of State as well as a result of +circumstances. Protestant intolerance, on the contrary was the peculiar +fruit of a dogmatic system in contradiction with the facts and +principles on which the intolerance actually existing among Catholics +was founded. Spanish intolerance has been infinitely more sanguinary +than Swedish; but in Spain, independently of the interests of religion, +there were strong political and social reasons to justify persecution +without seeking any theory to prop it up; whilst in Sweden all those +practical considerations have either been wanting, or have been opposed +to persecution, which has consequently had no justification except the +theory of the Reformation. The only instance in which the Protestant +theory has been adopted by Catholics is the revocation of the Edict of +Nantes. + +Towards the end of his life, Melanchthon, having ceased to be a strict +Lutheran, receded somewhat from his former uncompromising position, and +was adverse to a strict scrutiny into minor theological differences. He +drew a distinction between errors that required punishment and +variations that were not of practical importance.[244] The English +Calvinists who took refuge in Germany in the reign of Mary Tudor were +ungraciously received by those who were stricter Lutherans than +Melanchthon. He was consulted concerning the course to be adopted +towards the refugees, and he recommended toleration. But both at Wesel +and at Frankfort his advice was, to his great disgust, overruled.[245] + +The severities of the Protestants were chiefly provoked by the +Anabaptists, who denied the lawfulness of civil government, and strove +to realise the kingdom of God on earth by absorbing the State in the +Church.[246] None protested more loudly than they against the Lutheran +intolerance, or suffered from it more severely. But while denying the +spiritual authority of the State, they claimed for their religious +community a still more absolute right of punishing error by death. +Though they sacrificed government to religion, the effect was the same +as that of absorbing the Church in the State. In 1524 Muenzer published a +sermon, in which he besought the Lutheran princes to extirpate +Catholicism. "Have no remorse," he says; "for He to whom all power is +given in heaven and on earth means to govern alone."[247] He demanded +the punishment of all heretics, the destruction of all who were not of +his faith, and the institution of religious unity. "Do not pretend," he +says, "that the power of God will accomplish it without the use of your +sword, or it will grow rusty in the scabbard. The tree that bringeth not +forth good fruit must be cut down and cast into the fire." And +elsewhere, "the ungodly have no right to live, except so far as the +elect choose to grant it them."[248] When the Anabaptists were supreme +at Muenster, they exhibited the same intolerance. At seven in the morning +of Friday, 27th February 1534, they ran through the streets crying, +"Away with the ungodly!" Breaking into the houses of those who refused +their baptism, they drove the men out of the town, and forcibly +rebaptized the women who remained behind.[249] Whilst, therefore, the +Anabaptists were punished for questioning the authority of the +Lutherans in religious matters, they practically justified their +persecution by their own intolerant doctrines. In fact, they carried the +Protestant principles of persecution to an extreme. For whereas the +Lutherans regarded the defence of truth and punishment of error as +being, in part, the object of the institution of civil government, they +recognised it as an advantage by which the State was rewarded for its +pains; but the Anabaptists repudiated the political element altogether, +and held that error should be exterminated solely for the sake of truth, +and at the expense of all existing States. + +Bucer, whose position in the history of the Reformation is so peculiar, +and who differed in important points from the Saxon leaders, agreed with +them on the necessity of persecuting. He was so anxious for the success +of Protestantism, that he was ready to sacrifice and renounce important +doctrines, in order to save the appearance of unity;[250] but those +opinions in which he took so little dogmatic interest, he was resolved +to defend by force. He was very much dissatisfied with the reluctance of +the Senate of Strasburg to adopt severe measures against the Catholics. +His colleague Capito was singularly tolerant; for the feeling of the +inhabitants was not decidedly in favour of the change.[251] But Bucer, +his biographer tells us, was, in spite of his inclination to mediate, +not friendly to this temporising system; partly because he had an +organising intellect, which relied greatly on practical discipline to +preserve what had been conquered, and on restriction of liberty to be +the most certain security for its preservation; partly because he had a +deep insight into the nature of various religious tendencies, and was +justly alarmed at their consequences for Church and State.[252] This +point in the character of Bucer provoked a powerful resistance to his +system of ecclesiastical discipline, for it was feared that he would +give to the clergy a tyrannical power.[253] It is true that the +demoralisation which ensued on the destruction of the old ecclesiastical +authority rendered a strict attention on the part of the State to the +affairs of religion highly necessary.[254] The private and confidential +communications of the German reformers give a more hideous picture of +the moral condition of the generation which followed the Reformation +than they draw in their published writings of that which preceded it. It +is on this account that Bucer so strongly insisted on the necessity of +the interference of the civil power in support of the discipline of the +Church. + +The Swiss reformers, between whom and the Saxons Bucer forms a +connecting link, differ from them in one respect, which greatly +influenced their notions of government. Luther lived under a monarchy +which was almost absolute, and in which the common people, who were of +Slavonic origin, were in the position of the most abject servitude; but +the divines of Zuerich and Bern were republicans. They did not therefore +entertain his exalted views as to the irresistible might of the State; +and instead of requiring as absolute a theory of the indefectibility of +the civil power as he did, they were satisfied with obtaining a +preponderating influence for themselves. Where the power was in hands +less favourable to their cause, they had less inducement to exaggerate +its rights. + +Zwingli abolishes both the distinction between Church and State and the +notion of ecclesiastical authority. In his system the civil rulers +possess the spiritual functions; and, as their foremost duty is the +preservation and promotion of the true religion, it is their business to +preach. As magistrates are too much occupied with other things, they +must delegate the ministry of the word to preachers, for whose orthodoxy +they have to provide. They are bound to establish uniformity of +doctrine, and to defend it against Papists and heretics. This is not +only their right, but their duty; and not only their duty, but the +condition on which they retain office.[255] Rulers who do not act in +accordance with it are to be dismissed. Thus Zwingli combined +persecution and revolution in the same doctrine. But he was not a +fanatical persecutor, and his severity was directed less against the +Catholics than against the Anabaptists,[256] whose prohibition of all +civil offices was more subversive of order in a republic than in a +monarchy. Even, however, in the case of the Anabaptists the special +provocation was--not the peril to the State, nor the scandal of their +errors, but--the schism which weakened the Church.[257] The punishment +of heresy for the glory of God was almost inconsistent with the theory +that there is no ecclesiastical power. It was not so much provoked in +Zuerich as elsewhere, because in a small republican community, where the +governing body was supreme over both civil and religious affairs, +religious unity was a matter of course. The practical necessity of +maintaining unity put out of sight the speculative question of the guilt +and penalty of error. + +Soon after Zwingli's death, Leo Judae called for severer measures against +the Catholics, expressly stating, however, that they did not deserve +death. "Excommunication," he said, "was too light a punishment to be +inflicted by the State which wields the sword, and the faults in +question were not great enough to involve the danger of death."[258] +Afterwards he fell into doubts as to the propriety of severe measures +against dissenters, but his friends Bullinger and Capito succeeded in +removing his scruples, and in obtaining his acquiescence in that +intolerance, which was, says his biographer, a question of life and +death for the Protestant Church.[259] Bullinger took, like Zwingli, a +more practical view of the question than was common in Germany. He +thought it safer strictly to exclude religious differences than to put +them down with fire and sword; "for in this case," he says, "the victims +compare themselves to the early martyrs, and make their punishment a +weapon of defence."[260] He did not, however, forbid capital punishment +in cases of heresy. In the year 1535 he drew up an opinion on the +treatment of religious error, which is written in a tone of great +moderation. In this document he says "that all sects which introduce +division into the Church must be put down, and not only such as, like +the Anabaptists, threaten to subvert society, for the destruction of +order and unity often begins in an apparently harmless or imperceptible +way. The culprit should be examined with gentleness. If his disposition +is good he will not refuse instruction; if not, still patience must be +shown until there is no hope of converting him. Then he must be treated +like other malefactors, and handed over to the torturer and the +executioner."[261] After this time there were no executions for religion +in Zuerich, and the number, even in the lifetime of Zwingli, was less +considerable than in many other places. But it was still understood that +confirmed heretics would be put to death. In 1546, in answer to the +Pope's invitation to the Council of Trent, Bullinger indignantly +repudiates the insinuation that the Protestant cantons were heretical, +"for, by the grace of God, we have always punished the vices of heresy +and sodomy with fire, and have looked upon them, and still look upon +them, with horror."[262] This accusation of heresy inflamed the zeal of +the reformers against heretics, in order to prove to the Catholics that +they had no sympathy with them. On these grounds Bullinger recommended +the execution of Servetus. "If the high Council inflicts on him the fate +due to a worthless blasphemer, all the world will see that the people of +Geneva hate blasphemers, and that they punish with the sword of justice +heretics who are obstinate in their heresy.... Strict fidelity and +vigilance are needed, because our churches are in ill repute abroad, as +if we were heretics and friends of heresy. Now God's holy providence has +furnished an opportunity of clearing ourselves of this evil +suspicion."[263] After the event he advised Calvin to justify it, as +there were some who were taken aback. "Everywhere," he says, "there are +excellent men who are convinced that godless and blaspheming men ought +not only to be rebuked and imprisoned, but also to be put to death.... +How Servetus could have been spared I cannot see."[264] + +The position of OEcolampadius in reference to these questions was +altogether singular and exceptional. He dreaded the absorption of the +ecclesiastical functions by the State, and sought to avoid it by the +introduction of a council of twelve elders, partly magistrates, partly +clergy, to direct ecclesiastical affairs. "Many things," he said, "are +punished by the secular power less severely than the dignity of the +Church demands. On the other hand, it punishes the repentant, to whom +the Church shows mercy. Either it blunts the edge of its sword by not +punishing the guilty, or it brings some hatred on the Gospel by +severity."[265] But the people of Basel were deaf to the arguments of +the reformer, and here, as elsewhere, the civil power usurped the office +of the Church. In harmony with this jealousy of political interference, +OEcolampadius was very merciful to the Anabaptists. "Severe penalties," +he said, "were likely to aggravate the evil; forgiveness would hasten +the cure."[266] A few months later, however, he regretted this leniency. +"We perceive," he writes to a friend, "that we have sometimes shown too +much indulgence; but this is better than to proceed tyrannically, or to +surrender the keys of the Church."[267] Whilst, on the other hand, he +rejoiced at the expulsion of the Catholics, he ingeniously justified the +practice of the Catholic persecutors. "In the early ages of the Church, +when the divinity of Christ manifested itself to the world by miracles, +God incited the Apostles to treat the ungodly with severity. When the +miracles ceased, and the faith was universally adopted, He gained the +hearts of princes and rulers, so that they undertook to protect with the +sword the gentleness and patience of the Church. They rigorously +resisted, in fulfilment of the duties of their office, the contemners of +the Church."[268] "The clergy," he goes on to say, "became tyrannical +because they usurped to themselves a power which they ought to have +shared with others; and as the people dread the return of this tyranny +of ecclesiastical authority, it is wiser for the Protestant clergy to +make no use of the similar power of excommunication which is intrusted +to them." + +Calvin, as the subject of an absolute monarch, and the ruling spirit in +a republic, differed both from the German and the Swiss reformers in his +idea of the State both in its object and in its duty towards the Church. +An exile from his own country, he had lost the associations and habits +of monarchy, and his views of discipline as well as doctrine were +matured before he took up his abode in Switzerland.[269] His system was +not founded on existing facts; it had no roots in history, but was +purely ideal, speculative, and therefore more consistent and inflexible +than any other. Luther's political ideas were bounded by the horizon of +the monarchical absolutism under which he lived. Zwingli's were +influenced by the democratic forms of his native country, which gave to +the whole community the right of appointing the governing body. Calvin, +independent of all such considerations, studied only how his doctrine +could best be realised, whether through the instrumentality of existing +authorities, or at their expense. In his eyes its interests were +paramount, their promotion the supreme duty, opposition to them an +unpardonable crime. There was nothing in the institutions of men, no +authority, no right, no liberty, that he cared to preserve, or towards +which he entertained any feelings of reverence or obligation. + +His theory made the support of religious truth the end and office of the +State,[270] which was bound therefore to protect, and consequently to +obey, the Church, and had no control over it. In religion the first and +highest thing was the dogma: the preservation of morals was one +important office of government; but the maintenance of the purity of +doctrine was the highest. The result of this theory is the institution +of a pure theocracy. If the elect were alone upon the earth, Calvin +taught, there would be no need of the political order, and the +Anabaptists would be right in rejecting it;[271] but the elect are in a +minority; and there is the mass of reprobates who must be coerced by the +sword, in order that all the world may be made subject to the truth, by +the conquerors imposing their faith upon the vanquished.[272] He wished +to extend religion by the sword, but to reserve death as the punishment +of apostasy; and as this law would include the Catholics, who were in +Calvin's eyes apostates from the truth, he narrowed it further to those +who were apostates from the community. In this way, he said, there was +no pretext given to the Catholics to retaliate.[273] They, as well as +the Jews and Mohammedans, must be allowed to live: death was only the +penalty of Protestants who relapsed into error; but to them it applied +equally whether they were converted to the Church or joined the sects +and fell into unbelief. Only in cases where there was no danger of his +words being used against the Protestants, and in letters not intended +for publication, he required that Catholics should suffer the same +penalties as those who were guilty of sedition, on the ground that the +majesty of God must be as strictly avenged as the throne of the +king.[274] + +If the defence of the truth was the purpose for which power was +intrusted to princes, it was natural that it should be also the +condition on which they held it. Long before the revolution of 1688, +Calvin had decided that princes who deny the true faith, "abdicate" +their crowns, and are no longer to be obeyed;[275] and that no oaths are +binding which are in contradiction to the interests of Protestantism.[276] +He painted the princes of his age in the blackest colours,[277] and +prayed to God for their destruction;[278] though at the same time he +condemned all rebellion on the part of his friends, so long as there were +great doubts of their success.[279] His principles, however, were often +stronger than his exhortations, and he had difficulty in preventing murders +and seditious movements in France,[280] When he was dead, nobody prevented +them, and it became clear that his system, by subjecting the civil power +to the service of religion, was more dangerous to toleration than Luther's +plan of giving to the State supremacy over the Church. + +Calvin was as positive as Luther in asserting the duty of obedience to +rulers irrespective of their mode of government[281] He constantly +declared that tyranny was not to be resisted on political grounds; that +no civil rights could outweigh the divine sanction of government; except +in cases where a special office was appointed for the purpose. Where +there was no such office--where, for instance, the estates of the realm +had lost their independence--there was no protection. This is one of the +most important and essential characteristics of the politics of the +reformers. By making the protection of their religion the principal +business of government, they put out of sight its more immediate and +universal duties, and made the political objects of the State disappear +behind its religious end. A government was to be judged, in their eyes, +only by its fidelity to the Protestant Church. If it fulfilled those +requirements, no other complaints against it could be entertained. A +tyrannical prince could not be resisted if he was orthodox; a just +prince could be dethroned if he failed in the more essential condition +of faith. In this way Protestantism became favourable at once to +despotism and to revolution, and was ever ready to sacrifice good +government to its own interests. It subverted monarchies, and, at the +same time, denounced those who, for political causes, sought their +subversion; but though the monarchies it subverted were sometimes +tyrannical, and the seditions it prevented sometimes revolutionary, the +order it defended or sought to establish was never legitimate and free, +for it was always invested with the function of religious +proselytism,[282] and with the obligation of removing every traditional, +social, or political right or power which could oppose the discharge of +that essential duty. + +The part Calvin had taken in the death of Servetus obliged him to +develop more fully his views on the punishment of heresy. He wrote a +short account of the trial,[283] and argued that governments are bound +to suppress heresy, and that those who deny the justice of the +punishment, themselves deserve it.[284] The book was signed by all the +clergy of Geneva, as Calvin's compurgators. It was generally considered +a failure; and a refutation appeared, which was so skilful as to produce +a great sensation in the Protestant world.[285] This famous tract, now +of extreme rarity, did not, as has been said, "contain the pith of those +arguments which have ultimately triumphed in almost every part of +Europe;" nor did it preach an unconditional toleration.[286] But it +struck hard at Calvin by quoting a passage from the first edition of his +_Institutes_, afterwards omitted, in which he spoke for toleration. +"Some of those," says the author, "whom we quote have subsequently +written in a different spirit. Nevertheless, we have cited the earlier +opinion as the true one, as it was expressed under the pressure of +persecution,"[287] The first edition, we are informed by Calvin himself, +was written for the purpose of vindicating the Protestants who were put +to death, and of putting a stop to the persecution. It was anonymous, +and naturally dwelt on the principles of toleration. + +Although this book did not denounce all intolerance, and although it was +extremely moderate, Calvin and his friends were filled with horror. +"What remains of Christianity," exclaimed Beza, "if we silently admit +what this man has expectorated in his preface?... Since the beginning of +Christianity no such blasphemy was ever heard."[288] Beza undertook to +defend Calvin in an elaborate work,[289] in which it was easy for him to +cite the authority of all the leading reformers in favour of the +practice of putting heretics to death, and in which he reproduced all +the arguments of those who had written on the subject before him. More +systematic than Calvin, he first of all excludes those who are not +Christians--the Jews, Turks, and heathen--whom his inquiry does not +touch; "among Christians," he proceeds to say, "some are schismatics, +who sin against the peace of the Church, or disbelievers, who reject her +doctrine. Among these, some err in all simplicity; and if their error is +not very grave, and if they do not seduce others, they need not be +punished."[290] "But obstinate heretics are far worse than parricides, +and deserve death, even if they repent."[291] "It is the duty of the +State to punish them, for the whole ecclesiastical order is upheld by +the political."[292] In early ages this power was exercised by the +temporal sovereigns; they convoked councils, punished heretics, +promulgated dogmas. The Papacy afterwards arose, in evil times, and was +a great calamity; but it was preferable a hundred times to the anarchy +which was defended under the name of merciful toleration. + +The circumstances of the condemnation of Servetus make it the most +perfect and characteristic example of the abstract intolerance of the +reformers. Servetus was guilty of no political crime; he was not an +inhabitant of Geneva, and was on the point of leaving it, and nothing +immoral could be attributed to him. He was not even an advocate of +absolute toleration.[293] The occasion of his apprehension was a dispute +between a Catholic and a Protestant, as to which party was most zealous +in suppressing egregious errors. Calvin, who had long before declared +that if Servetus came to Geneva he should never leave it alive,[294] did +all he could to obtain his condemnation by the Inquisition at Vienne. At +Geneva he was anxious that the sentence should be death,[295] and in +this he was encouraged by the Swiss churches, but especially by Beza, +Farel, Bullinger, and Peter Martyr.[296] All the Protestant authorities, +therefore, agreed in the justice of putting a writer to death in whose +case all the secondary motives of intolerance were wanting. Servetus was +not a party leader. He had no followers who threatened to upset the +peace and unity of the Church. His doctrine was speculative, without +power or attraction for the masses, like Lutheranism; and without +consequences subversive of morality, or affecting in any direct way the +existence of society, like Anabaptism.[297] He had nothing to do with +Geneva, and his persecutors would have rejoiced if he had been put to +death elsewhere. "Bayle," says Hallam,[298] "has an excellent remark on +this controversy." Bayle's remark is as follows: "Whenever Protestants +complain, they are answered by the right which Calvin and Beza +recognised in magistrates; and to this day there has been nobody who has +not failed pitiably against this _argumentum ad hominem_." + +No question of the merits of the Reformation or of persecution is +involved in an inquiry as to the source and connection of the opinions +on toleration held by the Protestant reformers. No man's sentiments on +the rightfulness of religious persecution will be affected by the +theories we have described, and they have no bearing whatever on +doctrinal controversy. Those who--in agreement with the principle of the +early Church, that men are free in matters of conscience--condemn all +intolerance, will censure Catholics and Protestants alike. Those who +pursue the same principle one step farther and practically invert it, by +insisting on the right and duty not only of professing but of extending +the truth, must, as it seems to us, approve the conduct both of +Protestants and Catholics, unless they make the justice of the +persecution depend on the truth of the doctrine defended, in which case +they will divide on both sides. Such persons, again, as are more +strongly impressed with the cruelty of actual executions than with the +danger of false theories, may concentrate their indignation on the +Catholics of Languedoc and Spain; while those who judge principles, not +by the accidental details attending their practical realisation, but by +the reasoning on which they are founded, will arrive at a verdict +adverse to the Protestants. These comparative inquiries, however, have +little serious interest. If we give our admiration to tolerance, we must +remember that the Spanish Moors and the Turks in Europe have been more +tolerant than the Christians; and if we admit the principle of +intolerance, and judge its application by particular conditions, we are +bound to acknowledge that the Romans had better reason for persecution +than any modern State, since their empire was involved in the decline of +the old religion, with which it was bound up, whereas no Christian +polity has been subverted by the mere presence of religious dissent. The +comparison is, moreover, entirely unreasonable, for there is nothing in +common between Catholic and Protestant intolerance. The Church began +with the principle of liberty, both as her claim and as her rule; and +external circumstances forced intolerance upon her, after her spirit of +unity had triumphed, in spite both of the freedom she proclaimed and of +the persecutions she suffered. Protestantism set up intolerance as an +imperative precept and as a part of its doctrine, and it was forced to +admit toleration by the necessities of its position, after the rigorous +penalties it imposed had failed to arrest the process of internal +dissolution.[299] + +At the time when this involuntary change occurred the sects that caused +it were the bitterest enemies of the toleration they demanded. In the +same age the Puritans and the Catholics sought a refuge beyond the +Atlantic from the persecution which they suffered together under the +Stuarts. Flying for the same reason, and from the same oppression, they +were enabled respectively to carry out their own views in the colonies +which they founded in Massachusetts and Maryland, and the history of +those two States exhibits faithfully the contrast between the two +Churches. The Catholic emigrants established, for the first time in +modern history, a government in which religion was free, and with it the +germ of that religious liberty which now prevails in America. The +Puritans, on the other hand, revived with greater severity the penal +laws of the mother country. In process of time the liberty of conscience +in the Catholic colony was forcibly abolished by the neighbouring +Protestants of Virginia; while on the borders of Massachusetts the new +State of Rhode Island was formed by a party of fugitives from the +intolerance of their fellow-colonists. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 193: _The Rambler_, March 1862.] + +[Footnote 194: "Le vrai principe de Luther est celui-ci: La volonte est +esclave par nature.... Le libre examen a ete pour Luther un moyen et non +un principe. Il s'en est servi, et etait contraint de s'en servir pour +etablir son vrai principe, qui etait la toute-puissance de la foi et de +la grace.... C'est ainsi que le libre examen s'imposa au Protestantisme. +L'accessoire devint le principal, et la forme devora plus ou moins le +fond" (Janet, _Histoire de la Philosophie Morale_, ii. 38. 39).] + +[Footnote 195: "If they prohibit true doctrine, and punish their +subjects for receiving the entire sacrament, as Christ ordained it, +compel the people to idolatrous practices, with masses for the dead, +indulgences, invocation of saints, and the like, in these things they +exceed their office, and seek to deprive God of the obedience due to +Him. For God requires from us this above all, that we hear His Word, and +follow it; but where the Government desires to prevent this, the +subjects must know that they are not bound to obey it" (Luther's +_Werke_, xiii. 2244). "Non est, mi Spalatine, principum et istius +saeculi Pontificum tueri verbum Dei, nec ea gratia ullorum peto +praesidium" (Luther's _Briefe_, ed. De Wette, i. 521, Nov. 4, 1520). "I +will compel and urge by force no man; for the faith must be voluntary +and not compulsory, and must be adopted without violence" ("Sermonen an +Carlstadt," _Werke_, xx. 24, 1522).] + +[Footnote 196: "Schrift an den christlichen Adel" (_Werke_, x. 574, June +1520). His proposition, _Haereticos comburi esse contra voluntatem +spiritus_, was one of those condemned by Leo X. as pestilent, +scandalous, and contrary to Christian charity.] + +[Footnote 197: "Nihil non tentabunt Romanenses, nec potest satis +Huttenus me monere, adeo mihi de veneno timet" (De Wette, i. 487). +"Etiam inimici mei quidam miserti per amicos ex Halberstadio fecerunt +moneri me: esse quemdam doctorem medicinae, qui arte magica factus pro +libito invisibilis, quemdam occidit, mandatum habentem et occidendi +Lutheri, venturumque ad futuram Dominicam ostensionis reliquiarum: valde +hoc constanter narratur" (De Wette, i. 441). "Est hic apud nos Judaeus +Polonus, missus sub pretio 2000 aureorum, ut me veneno perdat, ab amicis +per literas mihi proditus. Doctor est medicinae, et nihil non audere et +facere paratus incredibili astutia et agilitate" (De Wette, ii. 616). +See also Jarcke, _Studien zur Geschichte der Reformation_, p. 176.] + +[Footnote 198: "Multa ego premo et causa principis et universitatis +nostrae cohibeo, quae (si alibi essem) evomerem in vastatricem +Scripturae et Ecclesiae Romanae.... Timeo miser, ne forte non sim dignus +pati et occidi pro tali causa: erit ista felicitas meliorum hominum, non +tam foedi peccatoris. Dixi tibi semper me paratum esse cedere loco, si +qua ego principi ill. viderer periculo hic vivere. Aliquando certe +moriendum est, quanquam jam edita vernacula quadam apologia satis aduler +Romanae Ecclesiae et Pontifici, si quid forte id prosit" (De Wette, i. +260, 261). "Ubi periculum est, ne iis protectoribus tutus saevius in +Romanenses sim grassaturus, quam si sub principis imperio publicis +militarem officiis docendi.... Ego vicissim, nisi ignem habere nequeam +damnabo, publiceque concremabo jus pontificium totum, id est, lernam +illam haeresium; et finem habebit humilitatis exhibitae hactenusque +frustratae observantia qua nolo amplius inflari hostes Evangelii" +(_Ibid._ pp. 465, 466, July 10, 1520).] + +[Footnote 199: "Out of the Gospel and divine truth come devilish lies; +... from the blood in our body comes corruption; out of Luther come +Muentzer, and rebels, Anabaptists, Sacramentarians, and false brethren" +(_Werke_, i. 75).] + +[Footnote 200: "Habemus," wrote Erasmus, "fructum tui spiritus.... Non +agnoscis hosce seditiosos, opinor, sed illi te agnoscunt ... nec tamen +efficis quominus credant homines per tuos libellos ... pro libertare +evangelica, contra tyrannidem humanam, hisce tumultibus fuisse datam +occasionem." "And who will deny," adds a Protestant classic, "that the +fault was partly owing to them?" (Planck, _Geschichte der +protestantischen Kirche_, ii, 183).] + +[Footnote 201: "Ich sehe das wohl, dass der Teufel, so er mich bisher +nicht hat moegen umbringen durch den Pabst, sucht er mich durch die +blutduerstigen Mordpropheten und Rottengeisten, so unter euch sind, zu +vertilgen und auffressen" (_Werke_, xvi. 77).] + +[Footnote 202: Schenkel. _Wesen des Protestantismus_, iii. 348, 351; +Hagen, _Geist der Reformation_, ii. 146, 151; Menzel, _Neuere Geschichte +der Deutschen_, i. 115.] + +[Footnote 203: See the best of his biographies, Juergens, _Luther's +Leben_, iii. 601.] + +[Footnote 204: "Quid hoc ad me? qui sciam etiam Turcam honorandum et +ferendum potestatis gratia. Quia certus sum non nisi volente Deo ullam +potestatem consistere" (De Wette, i. 236).] + +[Footnote 205: "I beg first of all that you will not help to mollify +Count Albert in these matters, but let him go on as he has begun.... +Encourage him to go on briskly, to leave things in the hands of God, and +obey His divine command to wield the sword as long as he can." "Do not +allow yourselves to be much disturbed, for it will redound to the +advantage of many souls that will be terrified by it, and preserved." +"If there are innocent persons amongst them, God will surely save and +preserve them, as He did with Lot and Jeremiah. If He does not, then +they are certainly not innocent.... We must pray for them that they +obey, otherwise this is no time for compassion; just let the guns deal +with them." "Sentio melius esse omnes rusticos caedi quam principes et +magistratus, eo quod rustici sine autoritate Dei gladium accipiunt. Quam +nequitiam Satanae sequi non potest nisi mera Satanica vastitas regni +Dei, et mundi principes etsi excedunt, tamen gladium autoritate Dei +gerunt. Ibi utrumque regnum consistere potest, quare nulla misericordia, +nulla patientia rusticis debetur, sed ira et indignatio Dei et hominum" +(De Wette, ii. 653, 655, 666, 669, 671).] + +[Footnote 206: "Wir lehren die christlich Obrigkeit moege nicht nur, +sondern solle auch sich der Religion und Glaubenssachen mit Ernst +annehmen; davon halten die Wiedertaeufer steif das Widerspiel, welches +sie auch zum Theil gemein haben mit den Praelaten der roemischen Kirche" +(Declaration of the Protestants, quoted in Joerg, _Deutschland von 1522 +bis 1526_, p. 709).] + +[Footnote 207: "As to your question, how they are to be punished, I do +not consider them blasphemers, but regard them in the light of the +Turks, or deluded Christians, whom the civil power has not to punish, at +least bodily. But if they refuse to acknowledge and to obey the civil +authority, then they forfeit all they have and are, for then sedition +and murder are certainly in their hearts" (De Wette, ii. 622; Osiander's +opinion in Joerg, p. 706).] + +[Footnote 208: "Dass in dem Urtheil und desselben oeffentlicher +Verkuendigung keines Irrthums oder Ketzereien ... sondern allein der +Aufruhr und fuergenommenen Morderei, die ihm doch laut seiner Urgicht nie +lieb gewesen, gedacht werde" (Joerg, p. 708).] + +[Footnote 209: "Principes nostri non cogunt ad fidem et Evangelion, sed +cohibent externas abominationes" (De Wette, iii. 50). "Wenn die +weltliche Obrigkeit die Verbrechen wider die zweite Gesetzestafel +bestrafen, und aus der menschlichen Gesellschaft tilgen solle, wie +vielmehr denn die Verbrechen wider die erste?" (Luther, _apud_ Bucholtz, +_Geschichte Ferdinands I._, iii. 571).] + +[Footnote 210: Planck, iv. 61, explains why this was not thought of.] + +[Footnote 211: Linde, _Staatskirche_, p. 23. "Der Papst sammt seinem +Haufen glaubt nicht; darum bekennen wir, er werde nicht selig, das ist +verdammt werden" (_Table-Talk_, ii. 350).] + +[Footnote 212: Kaltenborn, _Vorlaeufer des Grotius_, 208.] + +[Footnote 213: Moehler, _Symbolik_, 428.] + +[Footnote 214: "Quodsi unam legem Mosi cogimur servare, eadem ratione et +circumcidemur, et totam legem servare oportebit.... Nunc vero non sumus +amplius sub lege Mosi, sed subjecti legibus civilibus in talibus rebus" +(Luther to Barnes, Sept. 5, 1531; De Wette, iv. 296).] + +[Footnote 215: "All things that we find done by the patriarchs in the +Old Testament ought to be free and not forbidden. Circumcision is +abolished, but not so that it would be a sin to perform it, but +optional, neither sinful nor acceptable.... In like manner it is not +forbidden that a man should have more than one wife. Even at the present +day I could not prohibit it; but I would not recommend it" (Commentary +on Genesis, 1528; see Jarcke, _Studien_, p. 108). "Ego sane fateor, me +non posse prohibere, siquis plures velit uxores ducere, nec repugnat +sacris literis: verum tamen apud Christianos id exempli nollem primo +introduci, apud quos decet etiam ea intermittere, quae licita sunt, pro +vitando scandalo, et pro honestate vitae" (De Wette, ii. 459, Jan. 13, +1524). "From these instances of bigamy (Lamech, Jacob) no rule can be +drawn for our times; and such examples have no power with us Christians, +for we live under our authorities, and are subject to our civil laws" +(_Table-Talk_, v. 64).] + +[Footnote 216: "Antequam tale repudium, probarem potius regi permitterem +alteram reginam quoque ducere, et exemplo patrum et regum duas simul +uxores seu reginas habere.... Si peccavit ducendo uxorem fratris mortui, +peccavit in legem humanam seu civilem; si autem repudiaverit, peccabit +in legem mere divinam" (De Wette, iv. 296). "Haud dubio rex Angliae +uxorem fratris mortui ductam retinere potest ... docendus quod has res +politicas commiserit Deus magistratibus, neque nos alligaverit ad +Moisen.... Si vult rex successioni prospicere, quanto satius est, id +facere sine infamia prioris conjugii. Ac potest id fieri sine ullo +periculo conscientiae cujuscunque aut famae per polygamiam. Etsi enim +non velim concedere polygamiam vulgo, dixi enim supra, nos non ferre +leges, tamen in hoc casu propter magnam utilitatem regni, fortassis +etiam propter conscientiam regis, ita pronuncio: tutissimum esse regi, +si ducat secundam uxorem, priore non abjecta, quia certum est polygamiam +non esse prohibitam jure divino, nec res est omnino inusitata" +(_Melanthonis Opera_, ed. Bretschneider, ii. 524, 526). "Nolumus esse +auctores divortii, cum conjugium cum jure divino non pugnet. Hi, qui +diversum pronunciant, terribiliter exaggerant et exasperant jus divinum. +Nos contra exaggeramus in rebus politicis auctoritatem magistratus, quae +profecto non est levis, multaque justa sunt propter magistratus +auctoritatem, quae alioqui in dubium vocantur" (Melanchthon to Bucer, +Bretschneider, ii. 552).] + +[Footnote 217: "Suadere non possumus ut introducatur publice et velut +lege sanciatur permissio, plures quam unam uxores ducendi.... Primum +ante omnia cavendum, ne haec res inducatur in orbem ad modum legis, quam +sequendi libera omnibus sit potestas. Deinde considerare dignetur vestra +celsitudo scandalum, nimirum quod Evangelio hostes exclamaturi sint, nos +similes esse Anabaptistis, qui plures simul duxerunt uxores" (De Wette, +v. 236. Signed by Luther, Melanchthon, and Bucer).] + +[Footnote 218: "He that would appear wise will not be satisfied with +anything that others do; he must do something for himself, and that must +be better than anything. This fool (Copernicus) wants to overturn the +whole science of astronomy. But, as the holy Scriptures tell us, Joshua +told the sun to stand still, and not the earth" (_Table-Talk_, iv. +575).] + +[Footnote 219: "Das ist die christliche Freiheit, der einige Glaube, der +da macht, nicht dass wir muessig gehen oder uebel thun moegen, sondern dass +wir keines Werks beduerfen, die Froemmigkeit und Seligkeit zu erlangen" +(_Sermon von der Freiheit_). A Protestant historian, who quotes this +passage, goes on to say: "On the other hand, the body must be brought +under discipline by every means, in order that it may obey and not +burden the inner man. Outward servitude, therefore, assists the progress +towards internal freedom" (Bensen, _Geschichte des Bauernkriegs_, 269.)] + +[Footnote 220: _Werke_, x. 413.] + +[Footnote 221: "According to Scripture, it is by no means proper that +one who would be a Christian should set himself against his superiors, +whether by God's permission they act justly or unjustly. But a Christian +must suffer violence and wrong, especially from his superiors.... As the +emperor continues emperor, and princes, though they transgress all God's +commandments, yea, even if they be heathen, so they do even when they do +not observe their oath and duty.... Sin does not suspend authority and +allegiance" (De Wette, iii. 560).] + +[Footnote 222: Ranke, _Reformation_, iii. 183.] + +[Footnote 223: Ranke, iv. 7; Juergens, iii. 601.] + +[Footnote 224: Newman, _Lectures on Justification_, p. 386.] + +[Footnote 225: "Was durch ordentliche Gewalt geschieht, ist nicht fuer +Aufruhr zu halten" (Bensen, p. 269; Jarcke, _Studien_, p. 312; Janet, +ii. 40).] + +[Footnote 226: "Princes, and all rulers and governments, however pious +and God-fearing they may be, cannot be without sin in their office and +temporal administration.... They cannot always be so exactly just and +successful as some wiseacres suppose; therefore they are above all in +need of the forgiveness of sins" (see Kaltenborn, p. 209).] + +[Footnote 227: "Of old, under the Papacy, princes and lords, and all +judges, were very timid in shedding blood, and punishing robbers, +murderers, thieves, and all manner of evil-doers; for they knew not how +to distinguish a private individual who is not in office from one in +office, charged with the duty of punishing.... The executioner had +always to do penance, and to apologise beforehand to the convicted +criminal for what he was going to do to him, just as if it was sinful +and wrong." "Thus they were persuaded by monks to be gracious, +indulgent, and peaceable. But authorities, princes and lords ought not +to be merciful" (_Table-Talk_, iv. 159, 160).] + +[Footnote 228: "Den weltlichen Bann sollten Koenige und Kaiser wieder +aufrichten, denn wir koennen ihn jetzt nicht anrichten.... Aber so wir +nicht koennen die Suende des Lebens bannen und strafen, so bannen wir doch +die Suende der Lehre" (Bruns, _Luther's Predigten_, 63).] + +[Footnote 229: "Wo sie solche Rottengeister wuerden zulassen und leiden, +so sie es doch wehren und vorkommen koennen, wuerden sie ihre Gewissen +graeulich beschweren, und vielleicht nimmermehr widder stillen koennen, +nicht allein der Seelen halben, die dadurch verfuehrt und verdammt werden +... sondern auch der gauzen heiligen Kirchen halben" (De Wette, iv. +355).] + +[Footnote 230: "Nu ist alle Abgoetterey gegen die Messe ein geringes" (De +Wette, v. 191; sec. iv. 307)] + +[Footnote 231: Bucholtz, iii. 570.] + +[Footnote 232: "Sie aber verachten die Schrift muthwilliglich, darum +waeren sie billig aus der einigen Ursach zu stillen, oder nicht zu +leiden" (De Wette, iii. 90).] + +[Footnote 233: "Wollen sie aber wie die Juden seyn, nicht Christen +heissen, noch Kaisers Glieder, sondern sich lassen Christus und Kaisers +Feinde nennen, wie die Juden; wohlan, so wollen wir's auch leiden, dass +sie in ihren Synagogen, wie die Juden, verschlossen laestern, so lang sie +wollen" (De Wette, iv. 94).] + +[Footnote 234: Riffel, _Kirchengeschichte_, ii. 9; _Table-Talk_, iii. +175.] + +[Footnote 235: "Ego ab initio, cum primum caepi nosse Ciconiam et +Ciconiae factionem, unde hoc totum genus Anabaptistarum exortum est, fui +stulte clemens. Sentiebant enim et alii haereticos non esse ferro +opprimendos. Et tunc dux Fridericus vehementer iratus erat Ciconiae: ac +nisi a nobis tectus esset, fuisset de homine furioso et perdite malo +sumtum supplicium. Nunc me ejus clementiae non parum poenitet.... +Brentius nimis clemens est" (Bretschneider, ii. 17, Feb. 1530).] + +[Footnote 236: "Sed objiciunt exemplum nobis periculosum: si haec +pertinent ad magistratus, quoties igitur magistratus judicabit aliquos +errare, saeviet in eos. Caesar igitur debet nos opprimere, quoniam ita +judicat nos errare. Respondeo: certe debet errores et prohibere et +punire.... Non est enim solius Caesaris cognitio, sicut in urbibus haec +cognitio non est tantum magistratus prophani, sed est doctorum. Viderit +igitur magistratus ut recte judicet" (Bretschneider, ii. 712). +"Deliberent igitur principes, non cum tyrannis, non cum pontificibus, +non cum hypocritis, monachis aut aliis, sed cum ipsa Evangelii voce, cum +probatis scriptoribus" (Bretschneider, iii. 254).] + +[Footnote 237: "Quare ita sentias, magistratum debere uti summa +severitate in coercendis hujusmodi spiritibus.... Sines igitur novis +exemplis timorem incuti multitudini ... ad haec notae tibi sint causae +seditionum, quas gladio prohiberi oportet.... Propterea sentio de his +qui etiamsi non defendunt seditiosos articulos, habent manifeste +blasphemos, quod interfici a magistratu debeant" (ii. 17, 18). "De +Anabaptistis tulimus hic in genere sententiam: quia constat sectam +diabolicam esse, non esse tolerandam: dissipari enim ecclesias per eos, +cum ipsi nullam habeant certam doctrinam.... Ideo in capita factionum in +singulis locis ultima supplicia constituenda esse judicavimus" (ii. +549). "It is clear that it is the duty of secular government to punish +blasphemy, false doctrine, and heresy, on the bodies of those who are +guilty of them.... Since it is evident that there are gross errors in +the articles of the Anabaptist sect, we conclude that in this case the +obstinate ought to be punished with death" (iii. 199). "Propter hanc +causam Deus ordinavit politias ut Evangelium propagari possit ... nec +revocamus politiam Moysi, sed lex moralis perpetua est omnium aetatum +... quandocumque constat doctrinam esse impiam, nihil dubium est quin +sanior pars Ecclesiae debeat malos pastores removere et abolere impios +cultus. Et hanc emendationem praecipue adjuvare debent magistratus, +tanquam potiora membra Ecclesiae" (iii. 242, 244). "Thammerus, qui +Mahometicas seu Ethnicas opiniones spargit, vagatur in dioecesi +Mindensi, quem publicis suppliciis adficere debebant.... Evomuit +blasphemias, quae refutandae sunt non tantum disputatione aut scriptis, +sed etiam justo officio pii magistratus" (ix. 125, 131).] + +[Footnote 238: "Voco autem blasphemos qui articulos habent, qui proprie +non pertinent ad civilem statum, sed continent [Greek: theorias] ut de +divinitate Christi et similes. Etsi enim gradus quidam sunt, tamen huc +etiam refero baptismum infantum.... Quia magistratui commissa est tutela +totius legis, quod attinet ad externam disciplinam et externa facta. +Quare delicta externa contra primam tabulam prohibere ac punire +debet.... Quare non solum concessum est, sed etiam mandatum est +magistratui, impias doctrinas abolere, et tueri pias in suis ditionibus" +(ii. 711). "Ecclesiastica potestas tantum judicat et excommunicat +haereticos, non occidit. Sed potestas civilis debet constituere poenas +et supplicia in haereticos, sicut in blasphemos constituit supplicia.... +Non enim plectitur fides, sed haeresis" (xii. 697).] + +[Footnote 239: "Notum est etiam, quosdam tetra et [Greek: dysphema] +dixisse de sanguine Christi, quos puniri oportuit, et propter gloriam +Christi, et exempli causa" (viii. 553). "Argumentatur ille praestigiator +(Schwenkfeld), verbum externum non esse medium, quo Deus est efficax. +Talis sophistica principum severitate compescenda erat" (ix. 579).] + +[Footnote 240: "The office of preacher is distinct from that of +governor, yet both have to contribute to the praise of God. Princes are +not only to protect the goods and bodily life of their subjects, but the +principal function is to promote the honour of God, and to prevent +idolatry and blasphemy" (iii. 199). "Errant igitur magistratus, qui +divellunt gubernationem a fine, et se tantum pacis ac ventris custodes +esse existimant.... At si tantum venter curandus esset, quid differrent +principes ab armentariis? Nam longe aliter sentiendum est. Politias +divinitus admirabili sapientia et bonitate constitutas esse, non tantum +ad quaerenda et fruenda ventris bona, sed multo magis, ut Deus in +societate innotescat, ut aeterna bona quaerantur" (iii. 246).] + +[Footnote 241: "Neque illa barbarica excusatio audienda est, leges illas +pertinere ad politiam Mosaicam, non ad nostram. Ut Decalogus ipse ad +omnes pertinet, ita judex ubique omnia Decalogi officia in externa +disciplina tueatur" (viii. 520).] + +[Footnote 242: "Legi scriptum tuum, in quo refutasti luculenter +horrendas Serveti blasphemias, ac filio Dei gratias ago, qui fuit +[Greek: brabeutes] hujus tui agonis. Tibi quoque Ecclesia et nunc et ad +posteros gratitudinem debet et debebit. Tuo judicio prorsus adsentior. +Affirmo etiam, vestros magistratus juste fecisse, quod hominem +blasphemum, re ordine judicata, interfecerunt" (Melanchthon to Calvin, +Bretschneider, viii. 362). "Judico etiam Senatum Genevensem recte +fecisse, quod hominem pertinacem et non omissurum blasphemias sustulit. +Ac miratus sum, esse, qui severitatem illam improbent" (viii. 523). +"Dedit vero et Genevensis reip. magistratus ante annos quatuor punitae +insanabilis blasphemiae adversus filium Dei, sublato Serveto Arragone +pium et memorabile ad omnem posteritatem exemplum" (ix. 133).] + +[Footnote 243: "Abusus missae per magistratus debet tolli. Non aliter, +atque sustulit aeneum serpentem Ezechias, aut excelsa demolitus est +Josias" (i. 480). "Politicis magistratibus severissime mandatum est, ut +suo quisque loco manibus et armis tollant statuas, ad quas fiunt hominum +concursus et invocationes, et puniant suppliciis corporum insanabiles, +qui idolorum cultum pertinaciter retinent, aut blasphemias serunt" (ix. +77).] + +[Footnote 244: "If the French and English community at Frankfort shared +the errors of Servetus or Thamer, or other enemies of the Symbols, or +the errors of the Anabaptists on infant baptism, against the authority +of the State, etc., I should faithfully advise and strongly recommend +that they should be soon driven away; for the civil power is bound to +prevent and to punish proved blasphemy and sedition. But I find that +this community is orthodox in the symbolical articles on the Son of God, +and in other articles of the Symbol.... If the faith of the citizens in +every town were inquired into, what trouble and confusion would not +arise in many countries and towns!" (ix. 179).] + +[Footnote 245: Schmidt, _Philipp Melanchthon_, p. 640. His exhortations +to the Landgrave to put down the Zwinglians are characteristic: "The +Zwinglians, without waiting for the Council, persecute the Papists and +the Anabaptists; why must it be wrong for others to prohibit their +indefensible doctrine independent of the Council?" Philip replied: +"Forcibly, to prohibit a doctrine which neither contradicts the articles +of faith nor encourages sedition, I do not think right.... When Luther +began to write and to preach, he admonished and instructed the +Government that it had no right to forbid books or to prevent preaching, +and that its office did not extend so far, but that it had only to +govern the body and goods.... I had not heard before that the Zwinglians +persecute the Papists; but if they abolish abuses, it is not unjust, for +the Papists wish to deserve heaven by their works, and so blaspheme the +Son of God. That they should persecute the Anabaptists is also not +wrong, for their doctrine is in part seditious." The divines answered: +"If by God's grace our true and necessary doctrine is tolerated as it +has hitherto been by the emperor, though reluctantly, we think that we +ought not to prevent it by undertaking the defence of the Zwinglian +doctrine, if that should not be tolerated. ... As to the argument that +we ought to spare the people while persecuting the leaders, our answer +is, that it is not a question of persons, but only of doctrine, whether +it be true or false" (Correspondence of Brenz and Melanchthon with +Landgrave Philip of Hesse, Bretschneider, ii. 95, 98, 101).] + +[Footnote 246: Hardwicke, _Reformation_, p. 274.] + +[Footnote 247: Seidemann, _Thomas Muenzer_, p. 35.] + +[Footnote 248: Schenkel, iii. 381.] + +[Footnote 249: Heinrich Grosbeck's _Bericht_, ed. Cornelius, 19.] + +[Footnote 250: Herzog, _Encyclopaedie fuer protestantische Theologie_, ii. +418.] + +[Footnote 251: Bussierre, _Establissement du Protestantisme en Alsace_, +p. 429.] + +[Footnote 252: Baum, _Capito und Butzer_, p. 489.] + +[Footnote 253: Baum, p. 492; Erbkam, _Protestantische Sekten_, p. 581.] + +[Footnote 254: Ursinus writes to Bullinger: "Liberavit nos Deus ab +idolatria: succedit licentia infinita et horribilis divini nominis, +ecclesiae doctrinae purioris et sacramentorum prophanatio et sub pedibus +porcorum et canum, conniventibus atque utinam non defendentibus iis qui +prohibere suo loco debebant, conculcatio" (Sudhoff, _Olevianus und +Ursinus_, p. 340).] + +[Footnote 255: "Adserere audemus, neminem magistratum recte gerere ne +posse quidem, nisi Christianus sit" (Zuingli, _Opera_, iii. 296). "If +they shall proceed in an unbrotherly way, and against the ordinance of +Christ, then let them be deposed, in God's name" (Schenkel, iii. 362).] + +[Footnote 256: Christoffel, _Huldreich Zwingli_, p. 251.] + +[Footnote 257: Zwingli's advice to the Protestants of St. Gall, in +Pressel, _Joachim Vadian_, p. 45.] + +[Footnote 258: Pestalozzi, _Heinrich Bullinger_, p. 95.] + +[Footnote 259: _Ibid._, _Leo Judae_, p. 50.] + +[Footnote 260: Pestalozzi, _Heinrich Bullinger_, p. 146.] + +[Footnote 261: _Ibid._ p. 149.] + +[Footnote 262: _Ibid._ p. 270.] + +[Footnote 263: Pestalozzi, _Heinrich Bullinger_, p. 426.] + +[Footnote 264: In the year 1555 he writes to Socinus: "I too am of +opinion that heretical men must be cut off with the spiritual sword.... +The Lutherans at first did not understand that sectaries must be +restrained and punished, but after the fall of Muenster, when thousands +of poor misguided men, many of them orthodox, had perished, they were +compelled to admit that it is wiser and better for the Government not +only to restrain wrong-headed men, but also, by putting to death a few +that deserve it, to protect thousands of inhabitants" (_Ibid._ p. 428).] + +[Footnote 265: Herzog, _Leben Oekolampads_, ii 197.] + +[Footnote 266: _Ibid._ p. 189.] + +[Footnote 267: _Ibid._ p. 206.] + +[Footnote 268: Herzog, _Leben Oekolampads_, ii. 195. Herzog finds an +excuse for the harsh treatment of the Lutherans at Basel in the still +greater severity of the Lutheran Churches against the followers of the +Swiss reformation (_Ibid._ 213).] + +[Footnote 269: Hundeshagen, _Conflikte des Zwinglianismus und +Calvinismus_, 41.] + +[Footnote 270: "Huc spectat (politia) ... ne idololatria, ne in Dei +nomen sacrilegia, ne adversus ejus veritatem blasphemiae aliaeque +religionis offensiones publice emergant ac in populum spargantur.... +Politicam ordinationem probo, quae in hoc incumbit, ne vera religio, +quae Dei lege continetur, palam, publicisque sacrilegiis impune +violetur" (_Institutio Christianae Religionis_, ed. Tholuck, ii. 477). +"Hoc ergo summopere requiritur a regibus, ut gladio quo praediti sunt +utuntur ad cultum Dei asserendum" (_Praelectiones in Prophetas, Opera_, +v. 233, ed. 1667).] + +[Footnote 271: "Huic etiam colligere promptum est, quam stulta fuerit +imaginatio eorum qui volebant usum gladii tollere e mundo, Evangelii +praetextu. Scimus Anabaptistas fuisse tumultuatos, quasi totus ordo +politicus repugnaret Christi regno, quia regnum Christi continetur sola +doctrina; deinde nulla futura sit vis. Hoc quidem verum esset, si +essemus in hoc mundo angeli: sed quemadmodum jam dixi, exiguus est +piorum numerus: ideo necesse est reliquam turbam cohiberi violento +freno: quia permixti sunt filii Dei vel saevis belluis, vel vulpibus et +fraudulentis hominibus" (_Pr. in Michaeam_, v. 310). "In quo non suam +modo inscitiam, sed diabolicum fastum produnt, dum perfectionem sibi +arrogant; cujus ne centesima quidem pars in illis conspicitur" +(_Institutio_, ii. 478).] + +[Footnote 272: "Tota igitur excellentia, tota dignitas, tota potentia +Ecclesiae debet huc referri, ut omnia subjaceant Deo, et quicquid erit +in gentibus hoc totum sit sacrum, ut scilicet cultus Dei tam apud +victores quam apud victos vigeat" (_Pr. in Michaeam_, v. 317).] + +[Footnote 273: "Ita tollitur offensio, quae multos imperitos fallit, dum +metuunt ne hoc praetextu ad saeviendum armentur Papae carnifices." +Calvin was warned by experience of the imprudence of Luther's language. +"In Gallis proceres in excusanda saevitia immani allegant autoritatem +Lutheri" (Melanchthon. _Opera_, v. 176).] + +[Footnote 274: "Vous avez deux especes de mutins qui se sont eslevez +entre le roy et l'estat du royaume: Les uns sont gens fantastiques, qui +soubs couleur de l'evangile vouldroient mettre tout en confusion. Les +aultres sont gens obstines aux superstitions de l'Antechrist de Rome. +Tous ensemble meritent bien d'estre reprimes par le glayve qui vous est +commis, veu qu'ils s'attaschent non seulement au roy, mais a Dieu qui +l'a assis au siege royal" (Calvin to Somerset, Oct. 22, 1540: _Lettres +de Calvin_, ed. Bonnet, i. 267. See also Henry, _Leben Calvins_, ii. +Append. 30).] + +[Footnote 275: "Abdicant enim se potestate terreni principes dum +insurgunt contra Deum: imo indigni sunt qui censeantur in hominum +numero. Potius ergo conspuere oportet in ipsorum capita, quam illis +parere, ubi ita proterviunt ut velint etiam spoliare Deum jure suo, et +quasi occupare solium ejus, acsi possent eum a coelo detrahere" (_Pr. in +Danielem_, v. 91).] + +[Footnote 276: "Quant au serment qu'on vous a contraincte de faire, +comme vous avez failli et offense Dieu en le faisant, aussi n'estes-vous +tenue de le garder" (Calvin to the Duchess of Ferrara, _Bonnet_, ii. +338). She had taken an oath, at her husband's death, that she would not +correspond with Calvin.] + +[Footnote 277: "In aulis regum videmus primas teneri a bestiis. Nam +hodie, ne repetamus veteres historias, ut reges fere omnes fatui sunt ac +bruti, ita etiam sunt quasi equi et asini brutorum animalium.... Reges +sunt hodie fere mancipia" (_Pr. in Danielem_, v. 82). "Videmus enim ut +hodie quoque pro sua libidine commoveant totum orbem principes; quia +produnt alii aliis innoxios populus, et exercent foedam nundinationem, +dum quisque commodum suum venatur, et sine ullo pudore, tantum ut augeat +suam potentiam, alios tradit in manum inimici" (_Pr. in Nahum_, v. 363). +"Hodie pudet reges aliquid prae se ferre humanum, sed omnes gestus +accommodant ad tyrannidem" (_Pr. in Jeremiam_, v. 257).] + +[Footnote 278: "Sur ce que je vous avais allegue, quo David nous +instruict par son exemple de hair les ennemis de Dieu, vous respondez +que c'estoit pour ce temps-la duquel sous la loi de rigueur il estoit +permis de hair les ennemis. Or, madame, ceste glose seroit pour +renverser toute l'Escriture, et partant il la fault fuir comme une peste +mortelle.... Combien que j'aye tousjours prie Dieu de luy faire mercy, +si est-ce que j'ay souvent desire que Dieu mist la main sur luy (Guise) +pour en deslivrer son Eglise, s'il ne le vouloit convertir" (Calvin to +the Duchess of Ferrara, _Bonnet_, ii. 551). Luther was in this respect +equally unscrupulous: "This year we must pray Duke Maurice to death, we +must kill him with our prayers; for he will be an evil man" (MS. quoted +in Doellinger, _Reformation_, iii, 266).] + +[Footnote 279: "Quod de praepostero nostrorum fervore scribis, +verissimum est, neque tamen ulla occurrit moderandi ratio, quia sanis +consiliis non obtemperant. Passim denuntio, si judex essem me non minus +severe in rabioso, istos impetus vindicaturum, quam rex suis edictis +mandat. Pergendum nihilominus, quando nos Deus voluit stultis esse +debitores" (Calvin to Beza; Henry, _Leben Calvins_, iii. Append. 164).] + +[Footnote 280: "Il n'a tenu qu'a moi que, devant la guerre, gens de +faict et d'execution ne se soyent efforcez de l'exterminer du monde +(Guise) lesquels ont este retenus par ma seule exhortation."--_Bonnet_, +ii. 553.] + +[Footnote 281: "Hoc nobis si assidue ob animos et oculos obversetur, +eodem decreto constitui etiam nequissimos reges, quo regum auctoritas +statuitur; nunquam in animum nobis seditiosae illae cogitationes +venient, tractandum esse pro meritis regem nec aequum esse, ut subditos +ei nos praestemus, qui vicissim regem nobis se non praestet.... De +privatis hominibus semper loquor. Nam si qui nunc sint populares +magistratus ad moderandam regum libidinem constituti (quales olim erant +... ephori ... tribuni ... demarchi: et qua etiam forte potestate, ut +nunc res habent, funguntur in singulis regnis tres ordines, quum +primarios conventus peragunt) ... illos ferocienti regum licentiae pro +officio intercedere non veto" (_Institutio_, ii. 493, 495).] + +[Footnote 282: "Quum ergo ita licentiose omnia sibi permittent +(Donatistae), volebant tamen impune manere sua scelera: et in primis +tenebant hoc principium: non esse poenas sumendas, si quis ab aliis +dissideret in religionis doctrina: quemadmodum hodie videmus quosdam de +hac re nimis cupide contendere. Certum est quid cupiant. Nam si quis +ipsos respiciat, sunt impii Dei contemptores: saltem vellent nihil +certum esse in religione; ideo labefactare, et quantum in se est etiam +convellere nituntur omnia pietatis principia. Ut ergo liceat ipsis +evomere virus suum, ideo tantopere litigant pro impunitate, et negant +poenas de haereticis et blasphemis sumendas esse" (_Pr. in Danielem_, v. +51).] + +[Footnote 283: "Defensio Orthodoxae Fidei ... ubi ostenditur Haereticos +jure gladii coercendos esse," 1554.] + +[Footnote 284: "Non modo liberum esse magistratibus poenas sumere de +coelestis doctrinae corruptoribus, sed divinitus esse mandatum, ut +pestiferis erroribus impunitatem dare nequeant, quin desciscant ab +officii sui fide.... Nunc vero quisquis haereticis et blasphemis injuste +paenam infligi contenderet, sciens et volens se obstringet blasphemiae +reatu.... Ubi a suis fundamentis convellitur religio, detestandae in +Deum blasphemiae proferuntur, impiis et pestiferis dogmatibus in exitium +rapiuntur animae; denique ubi palam defectio ab unico Deo puraque +doctrina tentatur, ad extremum illud remedium descendere necesse" (see +Schenkel, iii. 389; Dyer, _Life of Calvin_, p. 354; Henry, iii. 234).] + +[Footnote 285: _De Haereticis an sint persequendi_, Magdeburgi, 1554. +Chataillon, to whom it is generally attributed, was not the author (see +Heppe, _Theodor Beza_, p. 37).] + +[Footnote 286: Hallam, _Literature of Europe_, ii. 81; Schlosser, _Leben +des Beza_, p. 55. This is proved by the following passage from the +dedication: "This I say not to favour the heretics, whom I abhor, but +because there are here two dangerous rocks to be avoided. In the first +place, that no man should be deemed a heretic when he is not ... and +that the real rebel be distinguished from the Christian who, by +following the teaching and example of his Master, necessarily causes +separation from the wicked and unbelieving. The other danger is, lest +the real heretics be not more severely punished than the discipline of +the Church requires" (Baum, _Theodor Beza_, i. 215).] + +[Footnote 287: "Multis piis hominibus in Gallia exustis grave passim +apud Germanos odium ignes illi excitaverant, sparsi sunt, ejus +restinguendi causa, improbi ac mendaces libelli, non alios tam +crudeliter tractari, quam Anabaptistas ac turbulentos homines, qui +perversis deliriis non religionem modo sed totum ordinem politicum +convellerent.... Haec mihi edendae Institutionis causa fuit, primum ut +ab injusta contumelia vindicarem fratres meos, quorum mors pretiosa erat +in conspectu Domini; deinde quum multis miseris eadem visitarent +supplicia, pro illis dolor saltem aliquis et sollicitudo exteras gentes +tangeret" (_Praefatio in Psalmos._ See "Historia Litteraria de Calvini +Institutione." in _Scrinium Antiquarium_, ii. 452).] + +[Footnote 288: Baum, i. 206. "Telles gens," says Calvin, "seroient +contents qu'il n'y eust ne loy, ne bride au monde. Voila pourquoy ils +ont basti ce beau libvre _De non comburendis Haereticis_, ou ils out +falsifie les noms tant des villes que des personnes, non pour aultre +cause sinon pource que le dit livre est farcy de blasphemes +insupportables" (Bonnet, ii. 18).] + +[Footnote 289: _De Haereticis a civili Magistratu puniendis_, 1554.] + +[Footnote 290: "Absit autem a nobis, ut in eos, qui vel simplicitate +peccant, sine aliorum pernicie et insigni blasphemia, vel in explicando +quopiam Scripturae loco dissident a recepta opinione, magistratum +armemus" (_Tractatus Theologici_, i. 95).] + +[Footnote 291: This was sometimes the practice in Catholic countries, +where heresy was equivalent to treason. Duke William of Bavaria ordered +obstinate Anabaptists to be burnt; those who recanted to be beheaded. +"Welcher revocir, den soll man koepfen; welcher nicht revocir, den soll +man brennen" (Joerg, p. 717).] + +[Footnote 292: "Ex quibus omnibus una conjunctio efficitur, istos quibus +haeretici videntur non esse puniendi, opinionem in Ecclesiam Dei conari +longe omnium pestilentissimam invehere et ex diametro repugnantem +doctrinae primum a Deo Patre proditae, deinde a Christo instauratae, ab +universa denique Ecclesia orthodoxa perpetuo consensu usurpatae, ut mihi +quidem magis absurde facere videantur quam si sacrilegas aut parricidas +puniendos negarent, quum sint istis omnibus haeretici infinitis partibus +deteriores" (_Tract. Theol._ i. 143).] + +[Footnote 293: "Verum est quod correctione non exspectata Ananiam et +Sapphiram occidit Petrus. Quia Spiritus Sanctus tunc maxime vigens, quem +spreverant, docebat esse incorrigibiles, in malitia obstinatos. Hoc +crimen est morte simpliciter dignum et apud Deum et apud homines. In +aliis autem criminibus, ubi Spiritus Sanctus speciale quid non docet, +ubi non est inveterata malitia, aut obstinatio certa non apparet aut +atrocitas magna, correctionem per alias castigationes sperare potius +debemus" (Servetus, _Restitutio Christianismi_, 656; Henry, iii. 235).] + +[Footnote 294: "Nam si venerit, modo valeat mea authoritas, vivum exire +nunquam patiar" (Calvin to Farel, in Henry, iii. Append. 65; Audin, _Vie +de Calvin_, ii. 314; Dyer, 544).] + +[Footnote 295: "Spero capitale saltem fore judicium; poenae vero +atrocitatem remitti cupio" (Calvin to Farel, Henry, iii. 189). Dr. Henry +makes no attempt to clear Calvin of the imputation of having caused the +death of Servetus. Nevertheless he proposed, some years later, that the +three-hundredth anniversary of the execution should be celebrated in the +Church of Geneva by a demonstration. "It ought to declare itself in a +body, in a manner worthy of our principles, admitting that in past times +the authorities of Geneva were mistaken, loudly proclaiming toleration, +which is truly the crown of our Church, and paying due honour to Calvin, +because he had no hand in the business (parcequ'il n'a pas trempe dans +cette affaire), of which he has unjustly borne the whole burden." The +impudence of this declaration is surpassed by the editor of the French +periodical from which we extract it. He appends to the words in our +parenthesis the following note: "We underline in order to call attention +to this opinion of Dr. Henry, who is so thoroughly acquainted with the +whole question" (_Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire du Protestantisme +Francais_, ii. 114).] + +[Footnote 296: "Qui scripserunt de non plectendis haereticis, semper +mihi visi sunt non parum errare" (Farel to Blaarer, Henry, iii. 202). +During the trial he wrote to Calvin: "If you desire to diminish the +horrible punishment, you will act as a friend towards your most +dangerous enemy. If I were to seduce anybody from the true faith, I +should consider myself worthy of death; I cannot judge differently of +another than of myself" (Schmidt, _Farel und Viret_, p. 33). + +Before sentence was pronounced Bullinger wrote to Beza: "Quid vero +amplissimus Senatus Genevensis ageret cum blasphemo illo nebulone +Serveto. Si sapit et officium suum facit, caedit, ut totus orbis videat +Genevam Christi gloriam cupere servatam" (Baum, i. 204). With reference +to Socinus he wrote: "Sentio ego spirituali gladio abscindendos esse +homines haereticos" (Henry, iii. 225). + +Peter Martyr Vermili also gave in his adhesion to Calvin's policy: "De +Serveto Hispano, quid aliud dicam non habeo, nisi eum fuisse genuinum +Diaboli filium, cujus pestifera et detestanda doctrina undique +profliganda est, neque magistratus, qui de illo supplicium extremum +sumpsit, accusandus est, cum emendationis nulla indicia in eo possent +deprehendi, illiusque blasphemiae omnino intolerabiles essent" (_Loci +Communes_, 1114. See Schlosser, _Leben des Beza und des Peter Martyr +Vermili_, 512). + +Zanchi, who at the instigation of Bullinger also published a treatise, +_De Haereticis Coercendis_, says of Beza's work: "Non poterit non +probari summopere piis omnibus. Satis superque respondit quidem ille +novis istis academicis, ita ut supervacanea et inutilis omnino videatur +mea tractatio" (Baum, i. 232).] + +[Footnote 297: "The trial of Servetus," says a very ardent Calvinist, +"is illegal only in one point--the crime, if crime there be, had not +been committed at Geneva; but long before the Councils had usurped the +unjust privilege of judging strangers stopping at Geneva, although the +crimes they were accused of had not been committed there" (Haag, _La +France Protestante_, iii. 129).] + +[Footnote 298: _Literature of Europe_, ii. 82.] + +[Footnote 299: This is the ground taken by two Dutch divines in answer +to the consultation of John of Nassau in 1579: "Neque in imperio, neque +in Galliis, neque in Belgio speranda esset unquam libertas in externo +religionis exercitio nostris ... si non diversarum religionum exercitia +in una eademque provincia toleranda.... Sic igitur gladio adversus nos +armabimus Pontificios, si hanc hypothesin tuebimur, quod exercitium +religionis alteri parti nullum prorsus relinqui debeat" (_Scrinium +Antiquarium_, i. 335).] + + + + +VI + +POLITICAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHURCH[300] + + +There is, perhaps, no stronger contrast between the revolutionary times +in which we live and the Catholic ages, or even the period of the +Reformation, than in this: that the influence which religious motives +formerly possessed is now in a great measure exercised by political +opinions. As the theory of the balance of power was adopted in Europe as +a substitute for the influence of religious ideas, incorporated in the +power of the Popes, so now political zeal occupies the place made vacant +by the decline of religious fervour, and commands to an almost equal +extent the enthusiasm of men. It has risen to power at the expense of +religion, and by reason of its decline, and naturally regards the +dethroned authority with the jealousy of a usurper. This revolution in +the relative position of religious and political ideas was the +inevitable consequence of the usurpation by the Protestant State of the +functions of the Church, and of the supremacy which, in the modern +system of government, it has assumed over her. It follows also that the +false principles by which religious truth was assailed have been +transferred to the political order, and that here, too, Catholics must +be prepared to meet them; whilst the objections made to the Church on +doctrinal grounds have lost much of their attractiveness and effect, the +enmity she provokes on political grounds is more intense. It is the same +old enemy with a new face. No reproach is more common, no argument +better suited to the temper of these times, than those which are +founded on the supposed inferiority or incapacity of the Church in +political matters. As her dogma, for instance, is assailed from opposite +sides,--as she has had to defend the divine nature of Christ against the +Ebionites, and His humanity against Docetism, and was attacked both on +the plea of excessive rigorism and excessive laxity (Clement Alex., +_Stromata_, iii. 5),--so in politics she is arraigned on behalf of the +political system of every phase of heresy. She was accused of favouring +revolutionary principles in the time of Elizabeth and James I., and of +absolutist tendencies under James II. and his successors. Since +Protestant England has been divided into two great political parties, +each of these reproaches has found a permanent voice in one of them. +Whilst Tory writers affirm that the Catholic religion is the enemy of +all conservatism and stability, the Liberals consider it radically +opposed to all true freedom. + + "What are we to think," says the _Edinburgh Review_ (vol. ciii. p. + 586), "of the penetration or the sincerity of a man who professes to + study and admire the liberties of England and the character of her + people, but who does not see that English freedom has been nurtured + from the earliest times by resistance to Papal authority, and + established by the blessing of a reformed religion? That is, under + Heaven, the basis of all the rights we possess; and the weight we + might otherwise be disposed to concede to M. de Montalembert's + opinions on England is materially lessened by the discovery that, + after all, he would, if he had the power, place this free country + under that spiritual bondage which broods over the empires of Austria + or of Spain." + +On the other hand, let us hearken to the Protestant eloquence of the +_Quarterly Review_ (vol. xcii. p. 41):-- + + Tyranny, fraud, base adulation, total insensibility, not only to the + worth of human freedom, but to the majesty of law and the sacredness + of public and private right; these are the malignant and deadly + features which we see stamped upon the conduct of the Roman + hierarchy. + +Besides which, we have the valuable opinion of Lord Derby, which no +Catholic, we should suppose, east of the Shannon has forgotten, that +Catholicism is "religiously corrupt, and politically dangerous." Lord +Macaulay tells us that it exclusively promoted the power of the Crown; +Ranke, that it favours revolution and regicide. Whilst the Belgian and +Sardinian Liberals accuse the Church of being the enemy of +constitutional freedom, the celebrated Protestant statesman, Stahl, +taunts her with the reproach of being the sole support and pillar of the +Belgian constitution. Thus every error pronounces judgment on itself +when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth. + +Among Catholics the state of opinion on these questions, whether it be +considered the result of unavoidable circumstances, or a sign of +ingenious accommodation, or a thing to be deplored, affords at least a +glaring refutation of the idea that we are united, for good or for evil, +in one common political system. The Church is vindicated by her +defenders, according to their individual inclinations, from the opposite +faults imputed to her; she is lauded, according to circumstances, for +the most contradictory merits, and her authority is invoked in exclusive +support of very various systems. O'Connell, Count de Montalembert, +Father Ventura, proclaim her liberal, constitutional, not to say +democratic, character; whilst such writers as Bonald and Father +Taparelli associate her with the cause of absolute government. Others +there are, too, who deny that the Church has a political tendency or +preference of any kind; who assert that she is altogether independent +of, and indifferent to, particular political institutions, and, while +insensible to their influence, seeks to exercise no sort of influence +over them. Each view may be plausibly defended, and the inexhaustible +arsenal of history seems to provide impartially instances in +corroboration of each. The last opinion can appeal to the example of the +Apostles and the early Christians, for whom, in the heathen empire, the +only part was unconditional obedience. This is dwelt upon by the early +apologists: "Oramus etiam pro imperatoribus, pro ministris eorum et +potestatibus, pro statu saeculi, pro rerum quiete, pro mora finis."[301] +It has the authority, too, of those who thought with St. Augustine that +the State had a sinful origin and character: "Primus fuit terrenae +civitatis conditor fratricida."[302] The Liberals, at the same time, are +strong in the authority of many scholastic writers, and of many of the +older Jesuit divines, of St. Thomas and Suarez, Bellarmine, and Mariana. +The absolutists, too, countenanced by Bossuet and the Gallican Church, +and quoting amply from the Old Testament, can point triumphantly to the +majority of Catholic countries in modern times. All these arguments are +at the same time serviceable to our adversaries; and those by which one +objection is answered help to fortify another. + +The frequent recurrence of this sort of argument which appears to us as +treacherous for defence as it is popular as a weapon of attack, shows +that no very definite ideas prevail on the subject, and makes it +doubtful whether history, which passes sentence on so many theories, is +altogether consistent with any of these. Nevertheless it is obviously an +inquiry of the greatest importance, and one on which controversy can +never entirely be set at rest; for the relation of the spiritual and the +secular power is, like that of speculation and revelation, of religion +and nature, one of those problems which remain perpetually open, to +receive light from the meditations and experience of all ages, and the +complete solution of which is among the objects, and would be the end, +of all history. + +At a time when the whole system of ecclesiastical government was under +discussion, and when the temporal power was beginning to predominate +over the Church in France, the greatest theologian of the age made an +attempt to apply the principles of secular polity to the Church. +According to Gerson (_Opera_, ii. 254), the fundamental forms into which +Aristotle divides all government recur in the ecclesiastical system. The +royal power is represented in the Papacy, the aristocracy by the +college of cardinals, whilst the councils form an ecclesiastical +democracy (_timocratia_). Analogous to this is the idea that the +constitution of the Church served as the model of the Christian States, +and that the notion of representation, for instance, was borrowed from +it. But it is not by the analogy of her own forms that the Church has +influenced those of the State; for in reality there is none subsisting +between them, and Gerson's adoption of a theory of Grecian origin proves +that he scarcely understood the spirit of that mediaeval polity which, in +his own country especially, was already in its decay. For not only is +the whole system of government, whether we consider its origin, its end, +or its means absolutely and essentially different, but the temporal +notion of power is altogether unknown in the Church. "Ecclesia subjectos +non habet ut servos, sed ut filios."[303] Our Lord Himself drew the +distinction: "Reges gentium dominantur eorum; et qui potestatem habent +super eos, benefici vocantur. Vos autem non sic: sed qui major est in +vobis, fiat sicut minor; et qui praedecessor, sicut minor" (Luc. xxii. +25, 26). The supreme authority is not the will of the rulers, but the +law of the Church, which binds those who are its administrators as +strictly as those who have only to obey it. No human laws were ever +devised which could so thoroughly succeed in making the arbitrary +exercise of power impossible, as that prodigious system of canon law +which is the ripe fruit of the experience and the inspiration of +eighteen hundred years. Nothing can be more remote from the political +notions of monarchy than the authority of the Pope. With even less +justice can it be said that there is in the Church an element of +aristocracy, the essence of which is the possession of hereditary +personal privileges. An aristocracy of merit and of office cannot, in a +political sense, legitimately bear the name. By baptism all men are +equal before the Church. Yet least of all can anything be detected +corresponding to the democratic principle, by which all authority +resides in the mass of individuals, and which gives to each one equal +rights. All authority in the Church is delegated, and recognises no such +thing as natural rights. + +This confusion of the ideas belonging to different orders has been +productive of serious and dangerous errors. Whilst heretics have raised +the episcopate to a level with the papacy, the priesthood with the +episcopate, the laity with the clergy, impugning successively the +primacy, the episcopal authority, and the sacramental character of +orders, the application of ideas derived from politics to the system of +the Church led to the exaggeration of the papal power in the period +immediately preceding the Reformation, to the claim of a permanent +aristocratic government by the Council of Basel, and to the democratic +extravagance of the Observants in the fourteenth century. + +If in the stress of conflicting opinions we seek repose and shelter in +the view that the kingdom of God is not of this world; that the Church, +belonging to a different order, has no interest in political forms, +tolerates them all, and is dangerous to none; if we try to rescue her +from the dangers of political controversy by this method of retreat and +evasion, we are compelled to admit her inferiority, in point of temporal +influence, to every other religious system. Every other religion +impresses its image on the society that professes it, and the government +always follows the changes of religion. Pantheism and Polytheism, +Judaism and Islamism, Protestantism, and even the various Protestant as +well as Mahometan sects, call forth corresponding social and political +forms. All power is from God, and is exercised by men in His stead. As +men's notions are, therefore, in respect to their position towards God, +such must their notion of temporal power and obedience also be. The +relation of man to man corresponds with his relations to God--most of +all his relations towards the direct representative of God. + +The view we are discussing is one founded on timidity and a desire of +peace. But peace is not a good great enough to be purchased by such +sacrifices. We must be prepared to do battle for our religious system in +every other sphere as well as in that of doctrine. Theological error +affects men's ideas on all other subjects, and we cannot accept in +politics the consequences of a system which is hateful to us in its +religious aspect. These questions cannot be decided by mere reasoning, +but we may obtain some light by inquiring of the experience of history; +our only sure guide is the example of the Church herself. +"Insolentissima est insania, non modo disputare, contra id quod videmus +universam ecclesiam credere sed etiam contra id quod videmus eam facere. +Fides enim ecclesiae non modo regula est fidei nostrae, sed etiam +actiones ipsius actionum nostrarum, consuetudo ipsius consuetudinis quam +observare debemus."[304] + +The Church which our Lord came to establish had a twofold mission to +fulfil. Her system of doctrine, on the one hand, had to be defined and +perpetually maintained. But it was also necessary that it should prove +itself more than a mere matter of theory,--that it should pass into +practice, and command the will as well as the intellect of men. It was +necessary not only to restore the image of God in man, but to establish +the divine order in the world. Religion had to transform the public as +well as the private life of nations, to effect a system of public right +corresponding with private morality and without which it is imperfect +and insecure. It was to exhibit and confirm its victory and to +perpetuate its influence by calling into existence, not only works of +private virtue, but institutions which are the product of the whole life +of nations, and bear an unceasing testimony to their religious +sentiments. The world, instead of being external to the Church, was to +be adopted by her and imbued with her ideas. The first, the doctrinal or +intellectual part of the work, was chiefly performed in the Roman +empire, in the midst of the civilisation of antiquity and of that +unparalleled intellectual excitement which followed the presence of +Christ on earth. There the faith was prepared for the world whilst the +world was not yet ready to receive it. The empire in which was +concentrated all the learning and speculation of ancient times was by +its intellectual splendour, and in spite, we might even say by reason, +of its moral depravity, the fit scene of the intellectual establishment +of Christianity. For its moral degradation ensured the most violent +antipathy and hostility to the new faith; while the mental cultivation +of the age ensured a very thorough and ingenious opposition, and +supplied those striking contrasts which were needed for the full +discussion and vigorous development of the Christian system. Nowhere +else, and at no other period, could such advantages have been found. + +But for the other, equally essential part of her work the Church met +with an insurmountable obstacle, which even the official conversion of +the empire and all the efforts of the Christian emperors could not +remove. This obstacle resided not so much in the resistance of paganism +as a religion, as in the pagan character of the State. It was from a +certain political sagacity chiefly that the Romans, who tolerated all +religions,[305] consistently opposed that religion which threatened +inevitably to revolutionise a state founded on a heathen basis. It +appeared from the first a pernicious superstition ("exitiabilem +superstitionem," Tacit. _Annal._ xv. 44), that taught its followers to +be bad subjects ("exuere patriam," Tacitus, _Hist._ v. 5), and to be +constantly dissatisfied ("quibus praesentia semper tempora cum enormi +libertate displicent," Vopiscus, _Vit. Saturn._ 7). This hostility +continued in spite of the protestations of every apologist, and of the +submissiveness and sincere patriotism of the early Christians. They were +so far from recognising what their enemies so vaguely felt, that the +empire could not stand in the presence of the new faith, that it was the +common belief amongst them, founded perhaps on the words of St. Paul, 2 +Thess. ii. 7,[306] that the Roman empire would last to the end of the +world.[307] + +The persecution of Julian was caused by the feeling of the danger which +menaced the pagan empire from the Christian religion. His hostility was +not founded on his attachment to the old religion of Rome, which he did +not attempt to save. He endeavoured to replace it by a new system which +was to furnish the State with new vigour to withstand the decay of the +old paganism and the invasion of Christianity. He felt that the old +religious ideas in which the Roman State had grown up had lost their +power, and that Rome could only be saved by opposing at all hazards the +new ideas. He was inspired rather with a political hatred of +Christianity than with a religious love of paganism. Consequently +Christianity was the only religion he could not tolerate. This was the +beginning of the persecution of the Church on principles of liberalism +and religious toleration, on the plea of political necessity, by men who +felt that the existing forms of the State were incompatible with her +progress. It is with the same feeling of patriotic aversion for the +Church that Symmachus says (_Epist._ x. 61): "We demand the restoration +of that religion which has so long been beneficial to the State ... of +that worship which has subdued the universe to our laws, of those +sacrifices which repulsed Hannibal from our walls and the Gauls from the +Capitol." + +Very soon after the time of Constantine it began to appear that the +outward conversion of the empire was a boon of doubtful value to +religion. "Et postquam ad Christianos principes venerint, potentia +quidem et divitiis major sed virtutibus minor facta est," says St. +Jerome (in _Vita Malchi_). The zeal with which the emperors applied the +secular arm for the promotion of Christianity was felt to be +incompatible with its spirit and with its interest as well. "Religion," +says Lactantius (_Inst. Div._ v. 19), "is to be defended by exhorting, +not by slaying, not by severity, but by patience; not by crime, but by +faith: _... nihil enim est tam voluntarium quam religio_."[308] "Deus," +says St. Hilary of Poitiers ("ad Constantium," _Opp._ i. p. 1221 C), +"obsequio non eget necessario, non requirit coactam confessionem."[309] +St. Athanasius and St. John Chrysostom protest in like manner against +the intemperate proselytism of the day.[310] For the result which +followed the general adoption of Christianity threw an unfavourable +light on the motives which had caused it. It became evident that the +heathen world was incapable of being regenerated, that the weeds were +choking the good seed. The corruption increased in the Church to such a +degree that the Christians, unable to divest themselves of the Roman +notion of the _orbis terrarum_, deemed the end of the world at hand. St. +Augustine (_sermo_ cv.) rebukes this superstitious fear: "Si non manet +civitas quae nos carnaliter genuit, manet quae nos spiritualiter genuit. +Numquid (Dominus) dormitando aedificium suum perdidit, aut non +custodiendo hostes admisit?... Quid expavescis quia pereunt regna +terrena? Ideo tibi coeleste promissum est, ne cum terrenis perires.... +Transient quae fecit ipse Deus; quanto citius quod condidit Romulus.... +Non ergo deficiamus, fratres: finis erit terrenis omnibus regnis."[311] +But even some of the fathers themselves were filled with despair at the +spectacle of the universal demoralisation: "Totius mundi una vox +Christus est ... Horret animus temporum nostrorum ruinas persequi.... +Romanus orbis ruit, et tamen cervix nostra erecta non flectitur.... +Nostris peccatis barbari fortes sunt. Nostris vitiis Romanus superatur +exercitus.... Nec amputamus causas morbi, ut morbus pariter +auferatur.... Orbis terrarum ruit, in nobis peccata non ruunt."[312] St. +Ambrose announces the end still more confidently: "Verborum coelestium +nulli magis quam nos testes sumus, quos mundi finis invenit.... Quia in +occasu saeculi sumus, praecedunt quaedam aegritudines mundi."[313] Two +generations later Salvianus exclaims: "Quid est aliud paene omnis coetus +Christianorum quam sentina vitiorum?"[314] And St. Leo declares, "Quod +temporibus nostris auctore diabolo sic vitiata sunt omnia, ut paene +nihil sit quod absque idolatria transigatur."[315] + +When, early in the fifth century, the dismemberment of the Western +empire commenced, it was clear that Christianity had not succeeded in +reforming the society and the polity of the ancient world. It had +arrested for a time the decline of the empire, but after the Arian +separation it could not prevent its fall. The Catholics could not +dissociate the interests of the Church and those of the Roman State, and +looked with patriotic as well as religious horror at the barbarians by +whom the work of destruction was done. They could not see that they had +come to build up as well as to destroy, and that they supplied a field +for the exercise of all that influence which had failed among the +Romans. It was very late before they understood that the world had run +but half its course; that a new skin had been prepared to contain the +new wine; and that the barbarous tribes were to justify their claim to +the double inheritance of the faith and of the power of Rome. There were +two principal things which fitted them for their vocation. The Romans +had been unable to be the instruments of the social action of +Christianity on account of their moral depravity. It was precisely for +those virtues in which they were most deficient that their barbarous +enemies were distinguished. Salvianus expresses this in the following +words (_De Gubern. Dei_, vii. 6): "Miramur si terrae ... nostrorum +omnium a Deo barbaris datae sunt, cum eas quae Romani polluerant +fornicatione, nunc mundent barbari castitate?"[316] Whilst thus their +habits met half-way the morality of the Christian system, their +mythology, which was the very crown and summit of all pagan religions, +predisposed them in like manner for its adoption, by predicting its own +end, and announcing the advent of a system which was to displace its +gods. "It was more than a mere worldly impulse," says a famous northern +divine, "that urged the northern nations to wander forth, and to seek, +like birds of passage, a milder clime." We cannot, however, say more on +the predisposition for Christianity of that race to whose hands its +progress seems for ever committed, or on the wonderful facility with +which the Teutonic invaders accepted it, whether presented to them in +the form of Catholicism or of Arianism.[317] The great marvel in their +history, and their chief claim to the dominion of the world, was, that +they had preserved so long, in the bleak regions in which the growth of +civilisation was in every way retarded, the virtues together with the +ignorance of the barbarous State. + +At a time when Arianism was extinct in the empire, it assumed among the +Teutonic tribes the character of a national religion, and added a +theological incitement to their animosity against the Romans. The Arian +tribes, to whom the work of destruction was committed, did it +thoroughly. But they soon found that their own preservation depended on +their submission to the Church. Those that persisted in their heresy +were extirpated. The Lombards and Visigoths saved themselves by a tardy +conversion from the fate with which they were threatened so long, as +their religion estranged them from the Roman population, and cut them +off from the civilisation of which the Church was already the only +guardian. For centuries the pre-eminence in the West belonged to that +race which alone became Catholic at once, and never swerved from its +orthodoxy. It is a sense of the importance of this fidelity which +dictated the well-known preamble of the Salic law: "Gens Francorum +inclita, Deo auctore condita, ad Catholicam fidem conversa et immunis ab +haeresi," etc.[318] + +Then followed the ages which are not unjustly called the Dark Ages, in +which were laid the foundations of all the happiness that has been since +enjoyed, and of all the greatness that has been achieved, by men. The +good seed, from which a new Christian civilisation sprang, was striking +root in the ground. Catholicism appeared as the religion of masses. In +those times of simple faith there was no opportunity to call forth an +Augustine or an Athanasius. It was not an age of conspicuous saints, but +sanctity was at no time so general. The holy men of the first centuries +shine with an intense brilliancy from the midst of the surrounding +corruption. Legions of saints--individually for the most part obscure, +because of the atmosphere of light around them--throng the five +illiterate centuries, from the close of the great dogmatic controversies +to the rise of a new theology and the commencement of new contests with +Hildebrand, Anselm, and Bernard. All the manifestations of the Catholic +spirit in those days bear a character of vastness and popularity. A +single idea--the words of one man--electrified hundreds of thousands. In +such a state of the world, the Christian ideas were able to become +incarnate, so to speak, in durable forms, and succeeded in animating +the political institutions as well as the social life of the nations. + +The facility with which the Teutonic ideas of Government shaped +themselves to the mould of the new religion, was the second point in +which that race was so peculiarly adapted for the position it has ever +since occupied towards Christianity. They ceased to be barbarians only +in becoming Christians. Their political system was in its infancy, and +was capable of being developed variously, according to the influences it +might undergo. There was no hostile civilisation to break down, no +traditions to oppose which were bound up with the recollections of the +national greatness. The State is so closely linked with religion, that +no nation that has changed its religion has ever survived in its old +political form. In Rome it had proved to be impossible to alter the +system, which for a thousand years had animated every portion of the +State; it was incurably pagan. The conversion of the people and the +outward alliance with the Church could not make up for this +inconsistency. + +But the Teutonic race received the Catholic ideas wholly and without +reserve. There was no region into which they failed to penetrate. The +nation was collectively Catholic, as well as individually. The union of +the Church with the political system of the Germans was so complete, +that when Hungary adopted the religion of Rome, it adopted at the same +time, as a natural consequence, the institutions of the empire. The +ideas of Government which the barbarians carried with them into every +land which they conquered were always in substance the same. The +_Respublica Christiana_ of the Middle Ages, consisting of those States +in which the Teutonic element combined with the Catholic system, was +governed by nearly the same laws. The mediaeval institutions had this +also in common, that they grew up everywhere under the protection and +guidance of the Church; and whilst they subsisted in their integrity, +her influence in every nation, and that of the Pope over all the +nations, attained their utmost height. In proportion as they have since +degenerated or disappeared, the political influence of religion has +declined. As we have seen that the Church was baffled in the full +performance of her mission before Europe was flooded by the great +migration, so it may be said that she has never permanently enjoyed her +proper position and authority in any country where it did not penetrate. +No other political system has yet been devised, which was consistent +with the full development and action of Catholic principles, but that +which was constructed by the northern barbarians who destroyed the +Western empire. + +From this it does not seem too much to conclude, that the Catholic +religion tends to inspire and transform the public as well as the +private life of men; that it is not really master of one without some +authority over the other. Consequently, where the State is too powerful +by long tradition and custom, or too far gone in corruption, to admit of +the influence of religion, it can only prevail by ultimately destroying +the political system. This helps us to understand the almost +imperceptible progress of Christianity against Mahometanism, and the +slowness of its increase in China, where its growth must eventually +undermine the whole fabric of government. On the other hand, we know +with what ease comparatively savage tribes--as the natives of California +and Paraguay--were converted to a religion which first initiated them in +civilisation and government. There are countries in which the natural +conditions are yet wanting for the kingdom of grace. There is a fulness +of time for every nation--a time at which it first becomes capable of +receiving the faith.[319] It is not harder to believe that certain +political conditions are required to make a nation fit for conversion +than that a certain degree of intellectual development is indispensable; +that the language, for instance, must have reached a point which that of +some nations has not attained before it is capable of conveying the +truths of Christianity. + +We cannot, therefore, admit that political principles are a matter of +utter indifference to the Church. To what sort of principles it is that +she inclines may be indicated by a single example. The Christian notion +of conscience imperatively demands a corresponding measure of personal +liberty. The feeling of duty and responsibility to God is the only +arbiter of a Christian's actions. With this no human authority can be +permitted to interfere. We are bound to extend to the utmost, and to +guard from every encroachment, the sphere in which we can act in +obedience to the sole voice of conscience, regardless of any other +consideration. The Church cannot tolerate any species of government in +which this right is not recognised. She is the irreconcilable enemy of +the despotism of the State, whatever its name or its forms may be, and +through whatever instruments it may be exercised. Where the State allows +the largest amount of this autonomy, the subject enjoys the largest +measure of freedom, and the Church the greatest legitimate influence. +The republics of antiquity were as incapable as the Oriental despotisms +of satisfying the Christian notion of freedom, or even of subsisting +with it. The Church has succeeded in producing the kind of liberty she +exacts for her children only in those States which she has herself +created or transformed. Real freedom has been known in no State that did +not pass through her mediaeval action. The history of the Middle Ages is +the history of the gradual emancipation of man from every species of +servitude, in proportion as the influence of religion became more +penetrating and more universal. The Church could never abandon that +principle of liberty by which she conquered pagan Rome. The history of +the last three centuries exhibits the gradual revival of declining +slavery, which appears under new forms of oppression as the authority of +religion has decreased. The efforts of deliverance have been violent and +reactionary, the progress of dependence sure and inevitable. The +political benefits of the mediaeval system have been enjoyed by no nation +which is destitute of Teutonic elements. The Slavonic races of the +north-east, the Celtic tribes of the north-west, were deprived of them. +In the centre of mediaeval civilisation, the republic of Venice, proud of +its unmixed descent from the Romans, was untouched by the new blood, and +that Christian people failed to obtain a Christian government. Where the +influence of the ideas which prevailed in those times has not been felt, +the consequence has been the utmost development of extreme principles, +such as have doomed Asia for so many ages to perpetual stagnation, and +America to endless heedless change. It is a plain fact, that that kind +of liberty which the Church everywhere and at all times requires has +been attained hitherto only in States of Teutonic origin. We need hardly +glance at the importance of this observation in considering the +missionary vocation of the English race in the distant regions it has +peopled and among the nations it has conquered; for, in spite of its +religious apostasy, no other country has preserved so pure that idea of +liberty which gave to religion of old its power in Europe, and is still +the foundation of the greatness of England. Other nations that have +preserved more faithfully their allegiance to the Church have more +decidedly broken with those political traditions, without which the +action of the Church is fettered. + +It is equally clear that, in insisting upon one definite principle in +all government, the Church has at no time understood that it could be +obtained only by particular political forms. She attends to the +substance, not to the form, in politics. At various times she has +successively promoted monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; and at +various times she has been betrayed by each. The three fundamental forms +of all government are founded on the nature of things. Sovereignty must +reside with an individual, or with a minority, or with the majority. But +there are seasons and circumstances where one or the other is +impossible, where one or the other is necessary; and in a growing nation +they cannot always remain in the same relative proportions. Christianity +could neither produce nor abolish them. They are all compatible with +liberty and religion, and are all liable to diverge into tyranny by the +exclusive exaggeration of their principle. It is this exaggeration that +has ever been the great danger to religion and to liberty, and the +object of constant resistance, the source of constant suffering for the +Church. + +Christianity introduced no new forms of government, but a new spirit, +which totally transformed the old ones. The difference between a +Christian and a pagan monarchy, or between a Christian and a rationalist +democracy, is as great, politically, as that between a monarchy and a +republic. The Government of Athens more nearly resembled that of Persia +than that of any Christian republic, however democratic. If political +theorists had attended more to the experience of the Christian Ages, the +Church and the State would have been spared many calamities. +Unfortunately, it has long been the common practice to recur to the +authority of the Greeks and the Jews. The example of both was equally +dangerous; for in the Jewish as in the Gentile world, political and +religious obligations were made to coincide; in both, therefore,--in the +theocracy of the Jews as in the [Greek: politeia] of the Greeks,--the +State was absolute. Now it is the great object of the Church, by keeping +the two spheres permanently distinct,--by rendering to Caesar the things +that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's--to make all +absolutism, of whatever kind, impossible. + +As no form of government is in itself incompatible with tyranny, either +of a person or a principle, nor necessarily inconsistent with liberty, +there is no natural hostility or alliance between the Church and any one +of them. The same Church which, in the confusion and tumult of the great +migrations, restored authority by raising up and anointing kings, held +in later times with the aristocracy of the empire, and called into +existence the democracies of Italy. In the eighth century she looked to +Charlemagne for the reorganisation of society; in the eleventh she +relied on the people to carry out the reformation of the clergy. During +the first period of the Middle Ages, when social and political order had +to be reconstructed out of ruins, the Church everywhere addresses +herself to the kings, and seeks to strengthen and to sanctify their +power. The royal as well as the imperial dignity received from her their +authority and splendour. Whatever her disputes on religious grounds with +particular sovereigns, such as Lothar, she had in those ages as yet no +contests with the encroachments of monarchical power. Later on in the +Middle Ages, on the contrary, when the monarchy had prevailed almost +everywhere, and had strengthened itself beyond the limits of feudal +ideas by the help of the Roman law and of the notions of absolute power +derived from the ancients, it stood in continual conflict with the +Church. From the time of Gregory VII., all the most distinguished +pontiffs were engaged in quarrels with the royal and imperial power, +which resulted in the victory of the Church in Germany and her defeat in +France. In this resistance to the exaggeration of monarchy, they +naturally endeavoured to set barriers to it by promoting popular +institutions, as the Italian democracies and the aristocratic republics +of Switzerland, and the capitulations which in the thirteenth and +fourteenth centuries were imposed on almost every prince. Times had +greatly changed when a Pope declared his amazement at a nation which +bore in silence the tyranny of their king.[320] In modern times the +absolute monarchy in Catholic countries has been, next to the +Reformation, the greatest and most formidable enemy of the Church. For +here she again lost in great measure her natural influence. In France, +Spain, and Germany, by Gallicanism, Josephism, and the Inquisition, she +came to be reduced to a state of dependence, the more fatal and +deplorable that the clergy were often instrumental in maintaining it. +All these phenomena were simply an adaptation of Catholicism to a +political system incompatible with it in its integrity; an artifice to +accommodate the Church to the requirements of absolute government, and +to furnish absolute princes with a resource which was elsewhere supplied +by Protestantism. The consequence has been, that the Church is at this +day more free under Protestant than under Catholic governments--in +Prussia or England than in France or Piedmont, Naples or Bavaria. + +As we have said that the Church commonly allied herself with the +political elements which happened to be insufficiently represented, and +to temper the predominant principle by encouraging the others, it might +seem hardly unfair to conclude that that kind of government in which +they are all supposed to be combined,--"aequatum et temperatum ex tribus +optimis rerum publicarum modis" (Cicero, _Rep._ i. 45),--must be +particularly suited to her. Practically--and we are not here pursuing a +theory--this is a mere fallacy. If we look at Catholic countries, we +find that in Spain and Piedmont the constitution has served only to +pillage, oppress, and insult the Church; whilst in Austria, since the +empire has been purified in the fiery ordeal of the revolution, she is +free, secure, and on the highroad of self-improvement. In constitutional +Bavaria she has but little protection against the Crown, or in Belgium +against the mob. The royal power is against her in one place, the +popular element in the other. Turning to Protestant countries, we find +that in Prussia the Church is comparatively free; whilst the more +popular Government of Baden has exhibited the most conspicuous instance +of oppression which has occurred in our time. The popular Government of +Sweden, again, has renewed the refusal of religious toleration at the +very time when despotic Russia begins to make a show, at least, of +conceding it. In the presence of these facts, it would surely be absurd +to assume that the Church must look with favour on the feeble and +transitory constitutions with which the revolution has covered half the +Continent. It does not actually appear that she has derived greater +benefits from them than she may be said to have done from the revolution +itself, which in France, for instance in 1848, gave to the Church, at +least for a season, that liberty and dignity for which she had struggled +in vain during the constitutional period which had preceded. + +The political character of our own country bears hardly more resemblance +to the Liberal Governments of the Continent,--which have copied only +what is valueless in our institutions,--than to the superstitious +despotism of the East, or to the analogous tyranny which in the Far West +is mocked with the name of freedom. Here, as elsewhere, the progress of +the constitution, which it was the work of the Catholic Ages to build +up, on the principles common to all the nations of the Teutonic stock, +was interrupted by the attraction which the growth of absolutism abroad +excited, and by the Reformation's transferring the ecclesiastical power +to the Crown. The Stuarts justified their abuse of power by the same +precepts and the same examples by which the Puritans justified their +resistance to it. The liberty aimed at by the Levellers was as remote +from that which the Middle Ages had handed down, as the power of the +Stuarts from the mediaeval monarchy. The Revolution of 1688 destroyed one +without favouring the other. Unlike the rebellion against Charles I., +that which overthrew his son did not fall into a contrary extreme. It +was a restoration in some sort of the principles of government, which +had been alternately assailed by absolute monarchy and by a fanatical +democracy. But, as it was directed against the abuse of kingly and +ecclesiastical authority, neither the Crown nor the established Church +recovered their ancient position; and a jealousy of both has ever since +subsisted. There can be no question but that the remnants of the old +system of polity--the utter disappearance of which keeps the rest of +Christendom in a state of continual futile revolution--exist more +copiously in this country than in any other. Instead of the revolutions +and the religious wars by which, in other Protestant countries, +Catholics have obtained toleration, they have obtained it in England by +the force of the very principles of the constitution. "I should think +myself inconsistent," says the chief expounder of our political system, +"in not applying my ideas of civil liberty to religious." And speaking +of the relaxation of the penal laws, he says: "To the great liberality +and enlarged sentiments of those who are the furthest in the world from +you in religious tenets, and the furthest from acting with the party +which, it is thought, the greater part of the Roman Catholics are +disposed to espouse, it is that you owe the whole, or very nearly the +whole, of what has been done both here and in Ireland."[321] The danger +which menaces the continuance of our constitution proceeds simply from +the oblivion of those Christian ideas by which it was originally +inspired. It should seem that it is the religious as well as the +political duty of Catholics to endeavour to avert this peril, and to +defend from the attacks of the Radicals and from the contempt of the +Tories the only constitution which bears some resemblance to those of +Catholic times, and the principles which are almost as completely +forgotten in England as they are misunderstood abroad. If three +centuries of Protestantism have not entirely obliterated the ancient +features of our government, if they have not been so thoroughly barren +of political improvement as some of its enemies would have us +believe,--there is surely nothing to marvel at, nothing at which we may +rejoice. Protestants may well have, in some respects, the same +terrestrial superiority over Catholics that the Gentiles had over the +people of God. As, at the fall of paganism, the treasures it had +produced and accumulated during two thousand years became the spoils of +the victor,--when the day of reckoning shall come for the great modern +apostasy, it will surrender all that it has gathered in its diligent +application to the things of this world; and those who have remained in +the faith will have into the bargain those products of the Protestant +civilisation on which its claims of superiority are founded. + +When, therefore, in the political shipwreck of modern Europe, it is +asked which political form of party is favoured by the Church, the only +answer we can give is, that she is attached to none; but that though +indifferent to existing forms, she is attached to a spirit which is +nearly extinct. Those who, from a fear of exposing her to political +animosity, would deny this, forget that the truth is as strong against +political as against religious error, and shut their eyes to the only +means by which the political regeneration of the modern world is a +possibility. For the Catholic religion alone will not suffice to save +it, as it was insufficient to save the ancient world, unless the +Catholic idea equally manifests itself in the political order. The +Church alone, without influence on the State, is powerless as a security +for good government. It is absurd to pretend that at the present day +France, or Spain, or Naples, are better governed than England, Holland, +or Prussia. A country entirely Protestant may have more Catholic +elements in its government than one where the population is wholly +Catholic. The State which is Catholic _par excellence_ is a by-word for +misgovernment, because the orthodoxy and piety of its administrators are +deemed a substitute for a better system. The demand for a really +Catholic system of government falls with the greatest weight of reproach +on the Catholic States. + +Yet it is important to remember that in the ages of faith the same unity +prevailed in political ideas, and that the civil as well as the +religious troubles of our time are in great measure due to the +Reformation. It is common to advise Catholics to make up their minds to +accept the political doctrines of the day; but it would be more to the +purpose to recall the ideas of Catholic times. It is not in the results +of the political development of the last three centuries that the Church +can place her trust; neither in absolute monarchy, nor in the +revolutionary liberalism, nor in the infallible constitutional scheme. +She must create anew or revive her former creations, and instil a new +life and spirit into those remains of the mediaeval system which will +bear the mark of the ages when heresy and unbelief, Roman law, and +heathen philosophy, had not obscured the idea of the Christian State. +These remains are to be found, in various stages of decay, in every +State,--with the exception, perhaps, of France,--that grew out of the +mediaeval civilisation. Above all they will be found in the country +which, in the midst of its apostasy, and in spite of so much guilt +towards religion, has preserved the Catholic forms in its Church +establishment more than any other Protestant nation, and the Catholic +spirit in her political institutions more than any Catholic nation. To +renew the memory of the times in which this spirit prevailed in Europe, +and to preserve the remains of it, to promote the knowledge of what is +lost, and the desire of what is most urgently needed,--is an important +service and an important duty which it behoves us to perform. We are +greatly mistaken if these are not reflections which force themselves on +every one who carefully observes the political history of the Church in +modern Europe. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 300: _The Rambler_, 1858.] + +[Footnote 301: Tertullian, _Apologeticum_, 39; see also 30, 32. "We pray +also for the emperors, for the ministers of their Government, for the +State, for the peace of the world, for the delay of the last day."] + +[Footnote 302: _De Civil. Dei_, xv. 5. "The fratricide was the first +founder of the secular State."] + +[Footnote 303: "The Church reckons her subjects not as her servants but +as her children."] + +[Footnote 304: "It is the maddest insolence, not only to dispute against +that which we see the universal Church believing, but also against what +we see her doing. For not only is the faith of the Church the rule of +our faith, but also her actions of ours, and her customs of that which +we ought to observe" (Morinus, _Comment. de Discipl. in administ. +Poenitentiae_, Preface).] + +[Footnote 305: "Apud vos quodvis colere jus est Deum verum" (Tertullian, +_Apolog._ xxiv.).] + +[Footnote 306: August. _de Civ. Dei_, xx. 19. 3.] + +[Footnote 307: "Christianus nullius est hostis, nedum imperatoris, quem +... necesse est ut ... salvum velit cum toto Romano imperio quousque +saeculum stabit; tamdiu enim stabit" (Tert. _ad Scapulam_, 2). "Cum +caput illud orbis occiderit et [Greek: rhym] esse coeperit, quod +Sibyllae fore aiunt, quis dubitet venisse jam finem rebus humanis +orbique terrarum?" (Lactantius, _Inst. Div._ vii. 25). "Non prius veniet +Christus, quam regni Romani defectio fiat" (Ambrose _ad ep._ i. _ad +Thess._).] + +[Footnote 308: "There is nothing so voluntary as religion."] + +[Footnote 309: "God does not want unwilling worship, nor does he require +a forced repentance."] + +[Footnote 310: Athanas. i. 363 B and 384 C [Greek: mhe hanagkhazein +halla peithein] "not compulsion, but persuasion" (Chrysost. ii. 540 A +and C).] + +[Footnote 311: "If the State of which we are the secular children passes +away, that of which we are spiritual children passes not. Has God gone +to sleep and let the house be destroyed, or let in the enemy through +want of watchfulness? Why fearest thou when earthly kingdoms fall? +Heaven is promised thee, that thou mightest not fall with them. The +works of God Himself shall pass: how much sooner the works of Romulus! +Let us not quail, my brethren: all earthly kingdoms must come to an +end."] + +[Footnote 312: "The cry of the whole world is 'Christ.' The mind is +horrified in reviewing the ruins of our age. The Roman world is falling, +and yet our stiff neck is not bent. The barbarians' strength is in our +sins; the defeat of the Roman armies in our vices. We will not cut off +the occasions of the malady, that the malady may be healed. The world is +falling, but in us there is no falling off from sin" (St. Jerome, _ep. +35, ad Heliodorum_; _ep. 98, ad Gaudentium_).] + +[Footnote 313: "None are better witnesses of the words of heaven than +we, on whom the end of the world has come. We assist at the world's +setting, and diseases precede its dissolution" (_Expos. Ep. sec. Lucam_, +x.).] + +[Footnote 314: "What is well-nigh all Christendom but a sink of +iniquity?" (_De Gub. Dei_, iii. 9).] + +[Footnote 315: "In our age the devil has so defiled everything that +scarcely a thing is done without idolatry."] + +[Footnote 316: "Do we wonder that God has granted all our lands to the +barbarians, when they now purify by their chastity the places which the +Romans had polluted with their debauchery?"] + +[Footnote 317: Pope Anastasius writes to Clovis: "Sedes Petri in tanta +occasione non potest non laetari, cum plenitudinem gentium intuetur ad +eam veloci gradu concurrere" (Bouquet, iv. 50).] + +[Footnote 318: "The noble people of the Franks, founded by God, +converted to the Catholic faith, and free from heresy."] + +[Footnote 319: "Vetati sunt a Spiritu sancto loqui verbum Dei in Asia +... Tentabant ire in Bithyniam, et non permisit eos spiritus Jesu" +(_Acts_ xvi. 6, 7).] + +[Footnote 320: Innocent IV. wrote in 1246 to the Sicilians: "In omnem +terram vestrae sonus tribulationis exivit ... multis pro miro vehementi +ducentibus, quod pressi tam dirae servitutis opprobrio, et personarum ac +rerum gravati multiplici detrimento, neglexeritis habere concilium, per +quod vobis, sicut gentibus caeteris, aliqua provenirent solatia +libertatis ... super hoc apud sedem apostolicam vos excusante +formidine.... Cogitate itaque corde vigili, ut a collo vestrae +servitutis catena decidat, et universitas vestra in libertatis et +quietis gaudio reflorescat; sitque ubertate conspicuum, ita divina +favente potentia secura sit libertate decorum" (Raynaldus, _Ann._ ad +ann. 1246).] + +[Footnote 321: Burke's _Works_, i. 391, 404.] + + + + +VII + +INTRODUCTION TO L.A. BURD'S EDITION OF IL PRINCIPE BY MACHIAVELLI + + +Mr. Burd has undertaken to redeem our long inferiority in Machiavellian +studies, and it will, I think, be found that he has given a more +completely satisfactory explanation of _The Prince_ than any country +possessed before. His annotated edition supplies all the solvents of a +famous problem in the history of Italy and the literature of politics. +In truth, the ancient problem is extinct, and no reader of this volume +will continue to wonder how so intelligent and reasonable a man came to +propose such flagitious counsels. When Machiavelli declared that +extraordinary objects cannot be accomplished under ordinary rules, he +recorded the experience of his own epoch, but also foretold the secret +of men since born. He illustrates not only the generation which taught +him, but the generations which he taught, and has no less in common with +the men who had his precepts before them than with the Viscontis, +Borgias, and Baglionis who were the masters he observed. He represents +more than the spirit of his country and his age. Knowledge, +civilisation, and morality have increased; but three centuries have +borne enduring witness to his political veracity. He has been as much +the exponent of men whom posterity esteems as of him whose historian +writes: "Cet homme que Dieu, apres l'avoir fait si grand, avait fait bon +aussi, n'avait rien de la vertu." The authentic interpreter of +Machiavelli, the _Commentarius Perpetuus_ of the _Discorsi_ and _The +Prince_, is the whole of later history. + +Michelet has said: "Rapportons-nous-en sur ceci a quelqu'un qui fut bien +plus Machiaveliste que Machiavel, a la republique de Venise." Before his +day, and long after, down almost to the time when a price was set on the +heads of the Pretender and of Pontiac, Venice employed assassins. And +this was not the desperate resource of politicians at bay, but the +avowed practice of decorous and religious magistrates. In 1569 Soto +hazards an impersonal doubt whether the morality of the thing was sound: +"Non omnibus satis probatur Venetorum mos, qui cum complures a patria +exules habeant condemnatos, singulis facultatem faciunt, ut qui alium +eorum interfecerit, vita ac libertate donetur." But his sovereign +shortly after obtained assurance that murder by royal command was +unanimously approved by divines: "A los tales puede el Principe +mandarlos matar, aunque esten fuera de su distrito y reinos.--Sin ser +citado, secretamente se le puede quitar la vita.--Esta es doctrina comun +y cierta y recevida de todos los theologos." When the King of France, by +despatching the Guises, had restored his good name in Europe, a +Venetian, Francesco da Molino, hoped that the example would not be +thrown away on the Council of Ten: "Permeti sua divina bonta che questo +esempio habbi giovato a farlo proceder come spero con meno fretta e piu +sodamente a cose tali e d' importanza." Sarpi, their ablest writer, +their official theologian, has a string of maxims which seem to have +been borrowed straight from the Florentine predecessor: "Proponendo cosa +in apparenza non honesta, scusarla come necessaria, come praticata da +altri, come propria al tempo, che tende a buon fine, et conforme all' +opinione de' molti.--La vendetta non giova se non per fugir lo +sprezzo.--Ogn'huomo ha opinione che il mendacio sia buono in ragion di +medicina, et di far bene a far creder il vero et utile con premesse +false." One of his countrymen, having examined his writings, reports: "I +ricordi di questo grand' uomo furono piu da politico che da christiano." +To him was attributed the doctrine of secret punishment, and the use of +poison against public enemies: "In casi d' eccessi incorrigibili si +punissero secretamente, a fine che il sangue patrizio non resti +profanato.--Il veleno deve esser l' unico mezzo per levarli dal mondo, +quando alla giustizia non complisse farli passare sotto la manaia del +carnefice." Venice, otherwise unlike the rest of Europe, was, in this +particular, not an exception. + +Machiavelli enjoyed a season of popularity even at Rome. The Medicean +popes refused all official employment to one who had been the brain of a +hostile government; but they encouraged him to write, and were not +offended by the things he wrote for them. Leo's own dealings with the +tyrant of Perugia were cited by jurists as a suggestive model for men +who have an enemy to get rid of. Clement confessed to Contarini that +honesty would be preferable, but that honest men get the worst of it: +"Io cognosco certo che voi dicete il vero, et che ad farla da homo da +bene, et a far il debito, seria proceder come mi aricordate; ma +bisognerebbe trovar la corrispondentia. Non vedete che il mondo e +ridutto a un termine che colui il qual e piu astuto et cum piu trame fa +il fatto suo, e piu laudato, et estimato piu valente homo, et piu +celebrato, et chi fa il contrario vien detto di esso; quel tale e una +bona persona, ma non val niente? Et se ne sta cum quel titulo solo di +bona persona.--Chi va bonamente vien trata da bestia." Two years after +this speech the astute Florentine authorised _The Prince_ to be +published at Rome. + +It was still unprinted when Pole had it pressed on his attention by +Cromwell, and Brosch consequently suspects the story. Upon the death of +Clement, Pole opened the attack; but it was not pursued during the +reaction against things Medicean which occupied the reign of Farnese. +Machiavelli was denounced to the Inquisition on the 11th of November +1550, by Muzio, a man much employed in controversy and literary +repression, who, knowing Greek, was chosen by Pius V. for the work +afterwards committed to Baronius: "Senza rispetto alcuno insegna a non +servar ne fede, ne charita, ne religione; et dice che di queste cosi, +gli huomini se ne debbono servire per parer buoni, et per le grandezze +temporali, alle quali quando non servono non se ne dee fare stima. Et +non e questo peggio che heretica dottrina? Vedendosi che cio si +comporta, sono accetate come opere approvate dalla Santa Madre chiesa." +Muzio, who at the same time recommended the _Decamerone_, was not acting +from ethical motives. His accusation succeeded. When the Index was +instituted, in 1557, Machiavelli was one of the first writers condemned, +and he was more rigorously and implacably condemned than anybody else. +The Trent Commissioners themselves prepared editions of certain +prohibited authors, such as Clarius and Flaminius; Guicciardini was +suffered to appear with retrenchments; and the famous revision of +Boccaccio was carried out in 1573. This was due to the influence of +Victorius, who pleaded in vain for a castigated text of Machiavelli. He +continued to be specially excepted when permission was given to read +forbidden books. Sometimes there were other exceptions, such as +Dumoulin, Marini, or Maimbourg; but the exclusion of Machiavelli was +permanent, and when Lucchesini preached against him at the Gesu, he had +to apply to the Pope himself for licence to read him. Lipsius was +advised by his Roman censors to mix a little Catholic salt in his +Machiavellism, and to suppress a seeming protest against the universal +hatred for a writer _qui misera qua non manu hodie vapulat_. One of the +ablest but most contentious of the Jesuits, Raynaud, pursued his memory +with a story like that with which Tronchin improved the death of +Voltaire: "Exitus impiissimi nebulonis metuendus est eius aemulatoribus, +nam blasphemans evomuit reprobum spiritum." + +In spite of this notorious disfavour, he has been associated with the +excesses of the religious wars. The daughter of the man to whom he +addressed _The Prince_ was Catharine of Medici, and she was reported to +have taught her children "surtout des traictz de cet athee Machiavel." +Boucher asserted that Henry III. carried him in his pocket: "qui +perpetuus ei in sacculo atque manibus est"; and Montaigne confirms the +story when he says: "Et dict on, de ce temps, que Machiavel est encores +ailleurs en credit." The pertinently appropriate quotation by which the +Queen sanctified her murderous resolve was supplied, not by her father's +rejected and discredited monitor, but by a bishop at the Council of +Trent, whose sermons had just been published: "Bisogna esser severo et +acuto, non bisogna esser clemente; e crudelta l' esser pietoso, e pieta +l' esser crudele." And the argument was afterwards embodied in the +_Controversies_ of Bellarmin: "Haereticis obstinatis beneficium est, +quod de hac vita tollantur, nam quo diutius vivunt, eo plures errores +excogitant; plures pervertunt, et majorem sibi damnationem acquirunt." + +The divines who held these doctrines received them through their own +channels straight from the Middle Ages. The germ theory, that the wages +of heresy is death, was so expanded as to include the rebel, the +usurper, the heterodox or rebellious town, and it continued to develop +long after the time of Machiavelli. At first it had been doubtful +whether a small number of culprits justified the demolition of a city: +"Videtur quod si aliqui haeretici sunt in civitate potest exuri tota +civitas." Under Gregory XIII. the right is asserted unequivocally: +"Civitas ista potest igne destrui, quando in ea plures sunt haeretici." +In case of sedition, fire is a less suitable agent: "Propter rebellionem +civitas quandoque supponitur aratro et possunt singuli decapitari." As +to heretics the view was: "Ut hostes latronesque occidi possunt etiamsi +sunt clerici." A king, if he was judged a usurper, was handed over to +extinction: "Licite potest a quolibet de populo occidi, pro libertate +populi, quando non est recursus ad superiorem, a quo possit iustitia +fieri." Or, in the words of the scrupulous Soto: "Tunc quisque ius habet +ipsum extinguendi." To the end of the seventeenth century theologians +taught: "Occidatur, seu occidendus proscribatur, quando non alitur +potest haberi tranquillitas Reipublicae." + +This was not mere theory, or the enforced logic of men in thrall to +mediaeval antecedents. Under the most carnal and unchristian king, the +Vaudois of Provence were exterminated in the year 1545, and Paul Sadolet +wrote as follows to Cardinal Farnese just before and just after the +event: "Aggionta hora questa instantia del predetto paese di Provenza a +quella che da Mons. Nuntio s'era fatta a Sua Maesta Christianissima a +nome di Sua Beatitudine et di Vostra Reverendissima Signoria, siamo in +ferma speranza, che vi si debbia pigliare qualche bono expediente et +farci qualche gagliarda provisione.--E seguito, in questo paese, quel +tanto desiderato et tanto necessario effetto circa le cose di Cabrieres, +che da vostra Signoria Reverendissima e stato si lungamente ricordato et +sollicitato et procurato." Even Melanchthon was provoked by the death of +Cromwell to exclaim that there is no better deed than the slaughter of a +tyrant; "Utinam Deus alicui forti viro hanc mentem inserat!" And in 1575 +the Swedish bishops decided that it would be a good work to poison their +king in a basin of soup--an idea particularly repugnant to the author of +_De Rege et Regis Institutione_. Among Mariana's papers I have seen the +letter from Paris describing the murder of Henry III., which he turned +to such account in the memorable sixth chapter: "Communico con sus +superiores, si peccaria mortalmente un sacerdote que matase a un tirano. +Ellos le diceron que non era pecado, mas que quedaria irregular. Y no +contentandose con esto, ni con las disputas que avia de ordinario en la +Sorbona sobre la materia, continuando siempre sus oraciones, lo pregunto +a otros theologos, que le afirmavan lo mismo; y con esto se resolvio +enteramente de executarlo. Por el successo es de collegir que tuvo el +fraile alguna revelacion de Nuestro Senor en particular, y inspiracion +para executar el caso." According to Maffei, the Pope's biographer, the +priests were not content with saying that killing was no sin: "Cum illi +posse, nec sine magno quidem merito censuissent." Regicide was so +acceptable a work that it seemed fitly assigned to a divine +interposition. + +When, on the 21st of January 1591, a youth offered his services to make +away with Henry IV., the Nuncio remitted the matter to Rome: +"Quantunque mi sia parso di trovarlo pieno di tale humilita, prudenza, +spirito et cose che arguiscono che questa sia inspiratione veramente +piuttosto che temerita e leggerezza." In a volume which, though recent, +is already rare, the Foreign Office published D'Avaux's advice to treat +the Protestants of Ireland much as William treated the Catholics of +Glencoe; and the argument of the Assassination Plot came originally from +a Belgian seminary. There were at least three men living far into the +eighteenth century who defended the massacre of St. Bartholomew in their +books; and it was held as late as 1741 that culprits may be killed +before they are condemned: "Etiam ante sententiam impune occidi possunt, +quando de proximo erant banniendi, vel quando eorum delictum est +notorium, grave, et pro quo poena capitis infligenda esset." + +Whilst these principles were current in religion as well as in society, +the official censures of the Church and the protests of every divine +since Catharinus were ineffectual. Much of the profaner criticism +uttered by such authorities as the Cardinal de Retz, Voltaire, Frederic +the Great, Daunou, and Mazzini is not more convincing or more real. +Linguet was not altogether wrong in suggesting that the assailants knew +Machiavelli at second hand: "Chaque fois que je jette les yeux sur les +ouvrages de ce grand genie, je ne saurais concevoir, je l'avoue, la +cause du decri ou il est tombe. Je soupconne fortement que ses plus +grands ennemis sont ceux qui ne l'ont pas lu." Retz attributed to him a +proposition which is not in his writings. Frederic and Algernon Sidney +had read only one of his books, and Bolingbroke, a congenial spirit, who +quotes him so often, knew him very little. Hume spoils a serious remark +by a glaring eighteenth-century comment: "There is scarcely any maxim in +_The Prince_ which subsequent experience has not entirely refuted. The +errors of this politician proceeded, in a great measure, from his having +lived in too early an age of the world to be a good judge of political +truth." Bodin had previously written: "Il n'a jamais sonde le gue de la +science politique." Mazzini complains of his _analisi cadaverica ed +ignoranza della vita_; and Barthelemy St Hilaire, verging on paradox, +says: "On dirait vraiment que l'histoire ne lui a rien appris, non plus +que la conscience." That would be more scientific treatment than the +common censure of moralists and the common applause of politicians. It +is easier to expose errors in practical politics than to remove the +ethical basis of judgments which the modern world employs in common with +Machiavelli. + +By plausible and dangerous paths men are drawn to the doctrine of the +justice of History, of judgment by results, the nursling of the +nineteenth century, from which a sharp incline leads to _The Prince_. +When we say that public life is not an affair of morality, that there is +no available rule of right and wrong, that men must be judged by their +age, that the code shifts with the longitude, that the wisdom which +governs the event is superior to our own, we carry obscurely tribute to +the system which bears so odious a name. Few would scruple to maintain +with Mr. Morley that the equity of history requires that we shall judge +men of action by the standards of men of action; or with Retz: "Les +vices d'un archeveque peuvent etre, dans une infinite de rencontres, les +vertus d'un chef de parti." The expounder of Adam Smith to France, J.B. +Say, confirms the ambitious coadjutor: "Louis XIV. et son despotisme et +ses guerres n'ont jamais fait le mal qui serait resulte des conseils de +ce bon Fenelon, l'apotre et le martyr de la vertu et du bien des +hommes." Most successful public men deprecate what Sir Henry Taylor +calls much weak sensibility of conscience, and approve Lord Grey's +language to Princess Lieven: "I am a great lover of morality, public and +private; but the intercourse of nations cannot be strictly regulated by +that rule." While Burke was denouncing the Revolution, Walpole wrote: +"No great country was ever saved by good men, because good men will not +go the lengths that may be necessary." All which had been formerly +anticipated by Pole: "Quanto quis privatam vitam agens Christi similior +erit tanto minus aptus ad regendum id munus iudicio hominum +existimabitur." The main principle of Machiavelli is asserted by his +most eminent English disciple: "It is the solecism of power to think, to +command the end, and yet not to endure the means." And Bacon leads up to +the familiar Jesuit: "Cui licet finis, illi et media permissa sunt." + +The austere Pascal has said: "On ne voit rien de juste ou d'injuste qui +ne change de qualite en changeant de climat" (the reading _presque_ rien +was the precaution of an editor). The same underlying scepticism is +found not only in philosophers of the Titanic sort, to whom remorse is a +prejudice of education, and the moral virtues are "the political +offspring which flattery begat upon pride," but among the masters of +living thought. Locke, according to Mr. Bain, holds that we shall +scarcely find any rule of morality, excepting such as are necessary to +hold society together, and these too with great limitations, but what is +somewhere or other set aside, and an opposite established by whole +societies of men. Maine de Biran extracts this conclusion from the +_Esprit des Lois_: "Il n'y a rien d'absolu ni dans la religion, ni dans +la morale, ni, a plus forte raison, dans la politique." In the +mercantile economists Turgot detects the very doctrine of Helvetius: "Il +etablit qu'il n'y a pas lieu a la probite entre les nations, d'ou +suivroit que la monde doit etre eternellement un coupe-gorge. En quoi il +est bien d'accord avec les panegyristes de Colbert." + +These things survive, transmuted, in the edifying and popular epigram: +"Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht." Lacordaire, though he spoke so +well of "L'empire et les ruses de la duree," recorded his experience in +these words: "J'ai toujours vu Dieu se justifier a la longue." Reuss, a +teacher of opposite tendency and greater name, is equally consoling: +"Les destinees de l'homme s'accomplissent ici-bas; la justice de Dieu +s'exerce et se manifeste sur cette terre." In the infancy of exact +observation Massillon could safely preach that wickedness ends in +ignominy: "Dieu aura son tour." The indecisive Providentialism of +Bossuet's countrymen is shared by English divines. + +"Contemporaries," says Hare, "look at the agents, at their motives and +characters; history looks rather at the acts and their consequences." +Thirlwall hesitates to say that whatever is, is best; "but I have a +strong faith that it is for the best, and that the general stream of +tendency is toward good." And Sedgwick, combining induction with +theology, writes: "If there be a superintending Providence, and if His +will be manifested by general laws, operating both on the physical and +moral world, then must a violation of those laws be a violation of His +will, and be pregnant with inevitable misery." + +Apart from the language of Religion, an optimism ranging to the bounds +of fatalism is the philosophy of many, especially of historians: "Le +vrai, c'est, en toutes choses, le fait." Sainte-Beuve says: "Il y a dans +tout fait general et prolonge une puissance de demonstration +insensible"; and Scherer describes progress as "une espece de logique +objective et impersonelle qui resout les questions sans appel." Ranke +has written: "Der beste Pruefstein ist die Zeit"; and Sybel explains that +this was not a short way out of confusion and incertitude, but a +profound generalisation: "Ein Geschlecht, ein Volk loest das andere ab, +und der Lebende hat Recht." A scholar of a different school and fibre, +Stahr the Aristotelian, expresses the same idea: "Die Geschichte soll +die Richtigkeit des Denkens bewaehren." Richelieu's maxim: "Les grands +desseins et notables entreprises ne se verifient jamais autrement que +par le succes"; and Napoleon's: "Je ne juge les hommes que par les +resultats," are seriously appropriated by Fustel de Coulanges: "Ce qui +caracterise le veritable homme d'etat, c'est le succes, on le reconnait +surtout a ce signe, qu'il reussit." One of Machiavelli's gravest critics +applied it to him: "Die ewige Aufgabe der Politik bleibt unter den +gegebenen Verhaeltnissen und mit den vorhandenen Mitteln etwas zu +erreichen. Eine Politik die das verkennt, die auf den Erfolg verzichtet, +sich auf eine theoretische Propaganda, auf ideale Gesichtspunkte +beschraenkt, von einer verlorenen Gegenwart an eine kuenftige +Gerechtigkeit appellirt, ist keine Politik mehr." One of the mediaeval +pioneers, Stenzel, delivered a formula of purest Tuscan cinquecento: +"Was bei anderen Menschen gemeine Schlechtigkeit ist, erhaelt, bei den +ungewoehnlichen Geistern, den Stempel der Groesse, der selbst dem +Verbrechen sich aufdrueckt. Der Maassstab ist anders; denn das +Ausserordentliche laesst sich nur durch Ausserordentliches bewirken." +Treitschke habitually denounces the impotent Doctrinaires who do not +understand "dass der Staat Macht ist und der Welt des Willens angehoert," +and who know not how to rise "von der Politik des Bekenntnisses zu der +Politik der That." Schaefer, though a less pronounced partisan, derides +Macaulay for thinking that human happiness concerns political science: +"Das Wesen des Staates ist die Macht, und die Politik die Kunst ihn zu +erhalten." Rochau's _Realpolitik_ was a treatise in two volumes written +to prove "dass der Staat durch seine Selbsterhaltung das oberste Gebot +der Sittlichkeit erfuellt." Wherefore, nobody finds fault when a State in +its decline is subjugated by a robust neighbour. In one of those telling +passages which moved Mr. Freeman to complain that he seems unable to +understand that a small State can have any rights, or that a generous or +patriotic sentiment can find a place anywhere except in the breast of a +fool, Mommsen justifies the Roman conquests: "Kraft des Gesetzes dass +das zum Staat entwickelte Volk die politisch unmuendigen, das civilisirte +die geistig unmuendigen in sich aufloest." The same idea was imparted into +the theory of ethics by Kirchmann, and appears, with a sobering touch, +in the _Geschichte Jesu_ of Hase, the most popular German divine: "Der +Einzelne wird nach der Groesse seiner Ziele, nach den Wirkungen seiner +Thaten fuer das Wohl der Voelker gemessen, aber nicht nach dem Maasse der +Moral und des Rechts.--Vom Leben im Geiste seiner Zeit haengt nicht der +sittliche Werth eines Menschen, aber seine geschichtliche Wirksamkeit +ab." Ruemelin, both in politics and literature the most brilliant Suabian +of his time, and a strenuous adversary of Machiavelli, wrote thus in +1874: "Fuer den Einzelnen im Staat gilt das Princip der Selbsthingabe, +fuer den Staat das der Selbstbehauptung. Der Einzelne dient dem Recht; +der Staat handhabt, leitet und schafft dasselbe. Der Einzelne ist nur +ein fluechtiges Glied in dem sittlichen Ganzen; der Staat ist, wenn nicht +dieses Ganze selbst, doch dessen reale, ordnende Macht; er ist +unsterblich und sich selbst genug.--Die Erhaltung des Staats +rechtfertigt jedes Opfer und steht ueber jedem Gebot." Nefftzer, an +Alsatian borderer, says: "Le devoir supreme des individus est de se +devouer, celui des nations est de se conserver, et se confond par +consequent avec leur interet." Once, in a mood of pantheism, Renan +wrote: "L'humanite a tout fait, et, nous voulons le croire, tout bien +fait." Or, as Michelet abridges the _Scienza Nuova_: "L'humanite est son +oeuvre a elle-meme. Dieu agit sur elle, mais par elle." Mr. Leslie +Stephen thus lays down the philosophy of history according to Carlyle, +"that only succeeds which is based on divine truth, and permanent +success therefore proves the right, as the effect proves the cause." +Darwin, having met Carlyle, notes that "in his eyes might was right," +and adds that he had a narrow and unscientific mind; but Mr. Goldwin +Smith discovers the same lesson: "History, of itself, if observed as +science observes the facts of the physical world, can scarcely give man +any principle or any object of allegiance, unless it be success." Dr. +Martineau attributes this doctrine to Mill: "Do we ask what determines +the moral quality of actions? We are referred, not to their spring, but +to their consequences." Jeremy Bentham used to relate how he found the +greatest happiness principle in 1768, and gave a shilling for it, at the +corner of Queen's College. He found it in Priestley, and he might have +gone on finding it in Beccaria and Hutcheson, all of whom trace their +pedigree to the _Mandragola_: "Io credo che quello sia bene che facci +bene a' piu, e che i piu se ne contentino." This is the centre of unity +in all Machiavelli, and gives him touch, not with unconscious imitators +only, but with the most conspicuous race of reasoners in the century. + +English experience has not been familiar with a line of thought plainly +involving indulgence to Machiavelli. Dugald Stewart raises him high, but +raises him for a heavy fall: "No writer, certainly, either in ancient or +in modern times, has ever united, in a more remarkable degree, a greater +variety of the most dissimilar and seemingly the most discordant gifts +and attainments.--To his maxims the royal defenders of the Catholic +faith have been indebted for the spirit of that policy which they have +uniformly opposed to the innovations of the reformers." Hallam indeed +has said: "We continually find a more flagitious and undisguised +abandonment of moral rules for the sake of some idol of a general +principle than can be imputed to _The Prince_ of Machiavel." But the +unaccustomed hyperbole had been hazarded a century before in the +obscurity of a Latin dissertation by Feuerlein: "Longe detestabiliores +errores apud alios doctores politicos facile invenias, si eidem +rigorosae censurae eorum scripta subiicienda essent." What has been, +with us, the occasional aphorism of a masterful mind, encountered +support abroad in accredited systems, and in a vast and successful +political movement. The recovery of Machiavelli has been essentially the +product of causes operating on the Continent. + +When Hegel was dominant to the Rhine, and Cousin beyond it, the +circumstances favoured his reputation. For Hegel taught: "Der Gang der +Weltgeschichte steht ausserhalb der Tugend, des Lasters, und der +Gerechtigkeit." And the great eclectic renewed, in explicit language, +the worst maxim of the _Istorie Fiorentine_: "L'apologie d'un siecle est +dans son existence, car son existence est un arret et un jugement de +Dieu meme, ou l'histoire n'est qu'une fastasmagorie insignifiante.--Le +caractere propre, le signe d'un grand homme, c'est qu'il reussit.--Ou +nul guerrier ne doit etre appele grand homme, ou, s'il est grand, il +faut l'absoudre, et absoudre en masse tout ce qu'il a fait.--Il faut +prouver que le vainqueur non seulement sert la civilisation, mais qu'il +est meilleur, plus moral, et que c'est pour cela qu'il est vainqueur. +Maudire la puissance (j'entends une puissance longue et durable) c'est +blasphemer l'humanite." + +This primitive and everlasting problem assumed a peculiar shape in +theological controversy. The Catholic divines urged that prosperity is a +sign by which, even in the militant period, the true Church may be +known; coupling _Felicitas Temporalis illis collata qui ecclesiam +defenderunt_ with _Infelix exitus eorum qui ecclesiam oppugnant_. Le +Blanc de Beaulieu, a name famous in the history of pacific disputation, +holds the opposite opinion: "Crucem et perpessiones esse potius +ecclesiae notam, nam denunciatum piis in verbo Dei fore ut in hoc mundo +persecutionem patiantur, non vero ut armis sint adversariis suis +superiores." Renan, outbidding all, finds that honesty is the worst +policy: "En general, dans l'histoire, l'homme est puni de ce qu'il fait +de bien, et recompensee de ce qu'il fait de mal.--L'histoire est tout le +contraire de la vertu recompensee." + +The national movement which united, first Italy and then Germany, opened +a new era for Machiavelli. He had come down, laden with the distinctive +reproach of abetting despotism; and the men who, in the seventeenth +century, levelled the course of absolute monarchy, were commonly known +as _novi politici et Machiavellistae_. In the days of Grotius they are +denounced by Besold: "Novi politici, ex Italia redeuntes qui quavis +fraude principibus a subditis pecuniam extorquere fas licitumque esse +putant, Machiavelli plerumque praeceptis et exemplis principum, quorum +rationes non capiunt, ad id abutentes." But the immediate purpose with +which Italians and Germans effected the great change in the European +constitution was unity, not liberty. They constructed, not securities, +but forces. Machiavelli's time had come. The problems once more were his +own: and in many forward and resolute minds the spirit also was his, and +displayed itself in an ascending scale of praise. He was simply a +faithful observer of facts, who described the fell necessity that +governs narrow territories and unstable fortunes; he discovered the true +line of progress and the law of future society; he was a patriot, a +republican, a Liberal, but above all this, a man sagacious enough to +know that politics is an inductive science. A sublime purpose justifies +him, and he has been wronged by dupes and fanatics, by irresponsible +dreamers and interested hypocrites. + +The Italian Revolution, passing from the Liberal to the national stage, +at once adopted his name and placed itself under his invocation. Count +Sclopis, though he declared him _Penseur profond, ecrivain admirable_, +deplored this untimely preference: "Il m'a ete penible de voir le +gouvernement provisoire de la Tuscane, en 1859, le lendemain du jour ou +ce pays recouvrait sa liberte, publier un decret, portant qu'une edition +complete des oeuvres de Machiavel serait faite aux frais de l'etat." The +research even of our best masters, Villari and Tommasini, is prompted by +admiration. Ferrari, who comes so near him in many qualities of the +intellect, proclaims him the recorder of fate: "Il decrit les roles que +la fatalite distribue aux individus et aux masses dans ces moments +funestes et glorieux ou ils sont appeles a changer la loi et la foi des +nations." His advice, says La Farina, would have saved Italy. Canello +believes that he is disliked because he is mistaken for a courtier: +"L'orrore e l' antipatia che molti critici hanno provato per il +Machiavelli son derivati dal pensare che tutti i suoi crudi insegnamenti +fossero solo a vantaggio del Principe." One biographer, Mordenti, exalts +him as the very champion of conscience: "Risuscitando la dignita dell' +umana coscienza, ne affermo l' esistenza in faccia alla ragione." He +adds, more truly, "E uno dei personaggi del dramma che si va svolgendo +nell' eta nostra." + +That is the meaning of Laurent when he says that he has imitators but no +defenders: "Machiavel ne trouve plus un seul partisan au XIXe +siecle.--La posterite a voue son nom a l'infamie, tout en pratiquant sa +doctrine." His characteristic universality has been recognised by +Baudrillart: "En exprimant ce mauvais cote, mais ce mauvais cote, helas, +eternel! Machiavel n'est plus seulement le publiciste de son pays et de +son temps; it est le politique de tous les siecles.--S'il fait tout +dependre de la puissance individuelle, et de ses facultes de force, +d'habilete de ruse, c'est que, plus le theatre se retrecit, plus l'homme +influe sur la marche des evenements." Matter finds the same merits which +are applauded by the Italians: "Il a plus innove pour la liberte que +pour le despotisme, car autour de lui la liberte etait inconnue, tandis +que le despotisme lui posait partout." And his reviewer, Longperier, +pronounces the doctrine "parfaitement appropriee aux etats d'Italie." +Nourrisson, with Fehr, one of the few religious men who still have a +good word for the Secretary, admires his sincerity: "_Le Prince_ est un +livre de bonne foi, ou l'auteur, sans songer a mal, n'a fait que +traduire en maximes les pratiques habituelles a ses contemporains." +Thiers, though he surrendered _The Prince_, clung to the _Discorsi_--the +_Discorsi_, with the pointed and culminating text produced by Mr. Burd. +In the archives of the ministry he might have found how the idea struck +his successful predecessor, Vergennes: "Il est des choses plus fortes +que les hommes, et les grands interets des nations sont de ce genre, et +doivent par consequent l'emporter sur la facon de penser de quelques +particuliers." + +Loyalty to Frederic the Great has not restrained German opinion, and +philosophers unite with historians in rejecting his youthful moralities. +Zimmerman wonders what would have become of Prussia if the king had +practised the maxims of the crown prince; and Zeller testifies that the +_Anti-Machiavel_ was not permitted to influence his reign: "Wird man +doch weder in seiner Staatsleitung noch in seinen politischen +Grundsaetzen etwas von dem vermissen, worauf die Ueberlegenheit einer +gesunden Realpolitik allem liberalen oder conservativen, radikalen oder +legitimistischen, Doktrinarismus gegenueber beruht." Ahrens and +Windelband insist on the virtue of a national government: "Der Staat ist +sich selbst genug, wenn er in einer Nation wurzelt,--das ist der +Grundgedanke Machiavelli's." Kirchmann celebrates the emancipation of +the State from the moral yoke: "Man hat Machiavelli zwar in der Theorie +bekaempft, allein die Praxis der Staaten hat seine Lehren immer +eingehalten.--Wenn seine Lehre verletzt, so kommt diess nur von der +Kleinheit der Staaten und Fuersten, auf die er sie verwendet.--Es spricht +nur fuer seine tiefe Erkenntniss des Staatswesens, dass er die +Staatsgewalt nicht den Regeln der Privatmoral unterwirft, sondern selbst +vor groben Verletzungen dieser Moral durch den Fuersten nicht +zurueckschreckt, wenn das Wohl des Ganzen und die Freiheit des +Vaterlandes nicht anders vorbereitet und vermittelt werden kann." In +Kuno Fischer's progress through the systems of metaphysics Machiavelli +appears at almost every step; his influence is manifest to Dr. Abbott +throughout the whole of Bacon's political writings; Hobbes followed up +his theory to the conclusions which he abstained from; Spinoza gave him +the benefit of a liberal interpretation; Leibniz, the inventor of the +acquiescent doctrine which Bolingbroke transmitted to the _Essay on +Man_, said that he drew a good likeness of a bad prince; Herder reports +him to mean that a rogue need not be a fool; Fichte frankly set himself +to rehabilitate him. In the end, the great master of modern philosophy +pronounces in his favour, and declares it absurd to robe a prince in the +cowl of a monk: "Ein politischer Denker und Kuenstler dessen erfahrener +und tiefer Verstand aus den geschichtlich gegebenen Verhaeltnissen +besser, als aus den Grundsaetzen der Metaphysik, die politischen +Nothwendigkeiten, den Charakter, die Bildung und Aufgabe weltlicher +Herrschaft zu begreifen wusste.--Da man weiss, dass politische +Machtfragen nie, am Wenigsten in einem verderbten Volke, mit den Mitteln +der Moral zu loesen sind, so ist es unverstaendig, das Buch vom Fuersten zu +verschreien. Machiavelli hatte einen Herrscher zu schildern, keinen +Klosterbruder." + +Ranke was a grateful student of Fichte when he spoke of Machiavelli as a +meritorious writer, maligned by people who could not understand him: +"Einem Autor von hoechstem Verdienst, und der keineswegs ein boeser +Mensch war.--Die falsche Auffassung des _Principe_ beruht eben darauf, +dass man die Lehren Machiavells als allgemeine betrachtet, waehrend sie +bloss Anweisungen fuer einen bestimmten Zweck sind." To Gervinus, in +1853, he is "der grosse Seher," the prophet of the modern world: "Er +errieth den Geist der neuern Geschichte." Gervinus was a democratic +Liberal, and, taken with Gentz from another quarter, he shows how widely +the elements of the Machiavellian restoration were spread over Europe. +Gentz had not forgotten his classics in the service of Austria when he +wrote to a friend: "Wenn selbst das Recht je verletzt werden darf, so +geschehe es, um die rechtmaessige Macht zu erhalten; in allem Uebrigen +herrsche es unbedingt" Twesten is as well persuaded as Machiavelli that +the world cannot be governed "con Pater nostri in mano," and he deemed +that patriotism atoned for his errors: "Dass der weltgeschichtliche +Fortschritt nicht mit Schonung und Gelindigkeit, nicht in den Formen des +Rechts vollzogen werden koennte, hat die Geschichte aller Laender +bestaetigt.--Auch Machiavellis Suenden moegen wir als gesuehnt betrachten, +durch das hochsinnige Streben fuer das Grosse und das Ansehen seines +Volkes." One censor of Frederic, Boretius, makes him answerable for a +great deal of presuming criticism: "Die Gelehrten sind bis heute in +ihrem Urtheil ueber Machiavelli nicht einig, die oeffentliche Meinung ist +hierin gluecklicher.--Die oeffentliche Meinung kann sich fuer alle diese +Weisheit beim alten Fritz bedanken." On the eve of the campaign in +Bohemia, Herbst pointed out that Machiavelli, though previously a +republican, sacrificed liberty to unity: "Der Einheit soll die innere +Freiheit--Machiavelli war kurz zuvor noch begeisterter Anhaenger der +Republik--geopfert werden." According to Feuerlein the heart of the +writer was loyal, but the conditions of the problem were inexorable; and +Klein detects in _The Prince_, and even in the _Mandragola_, "die +reformatorische Absicht eines Sittenspiegels." Chowanetz wrote a book to +hold up Machiavelli as a teacher of all ages, but especially of our own: +"Die Absicht aber, welche Machiavel mit seinem Buche verband, ist +trefflich fuer alle Zeiten." And Weitzel hardly knows a better writer, or +one less worthy of an evil name: "Im Interesse der Menschheit und +gesetzmaessiger Verfassungen kann kaum ein besseres Werk geschrieben +werden.--Wohl ist mancher in der Geschichte, wie in der Tradition der +Voelker, auf eine unschuldige Weise um seinen verdienten, oder zu einem +unverdienten Rufe gekommen, aber keiner vielleicht unschuldiger als +Machiavelli." + +These are remote and forgotten names. Stronger men of the imperial epoch +have resumed the theme with better means of judging, and yet with no +harsher judgment. Hartwig sums up his penetrating and severe analysis by +confessing that the world as Machiavelli saw it, without a conscience, +is the real world of history as it is: "Die Thatsachen selbst scheinen +uns das Geheimniss ihrer Existenz zu verrathen; wir glauben vor uns die +Faeden sich verknuepfen und verschlingen zu sehen, deren Gewebe die +Weltgeschichte ist." Gaspary thinks that he hated iniquity, but that he +knew of no righteousness apart from the State: "Er lobte mit Waerme das +Gute und tadelte mit Abscheu das Boese; aber er studirte auch dieses mit +Interesse.--Er erkennt eben keine Moral, wie keine Religion, ueber dem +Staate, sondern nur in demselben; die Menschen sind von Natur schlecht, +die Gesetze machen sie gut.--Wo es kein Gericht giebt, bei dem man +klagen koennte, wie in den Handlungen der Fuersten, betrachtet man immer +das Ende." The common opinion is expressed by Baumgarten in his _Charles +the Fifth_, that the grandeur of the purpose assures indulgence to the +means proposed: "Wenn die Umstaende zum Wortbruch, zur Grausamkeit, +Habgier, Luege treiben, so hat man sich nicht etwa mit Bedauern, dass die +Not dazu zwinge, sondern schlechtweg, weil es eben politisch zweckmaessig +ist und ohne alles Bedenken so zu verhalten.--Ihre Deduktionen sind uns +unertraeglich, wenn wir nicht sagen koennen: alle diese schrecklichen +Dinge empfahl Machiavelli, weil er nur durch sie die Befreiung seines +Vaterlandes zu erreichen hoffte. Dieses erhabene Ziel macht uns die +fuerchterlichen Mittel annehmbar, welche Machiavelli seinem Fuersten +empfiehlt." Hillebrand was a more international German; he had swum in +many European waters, and wrote in three languages. He is scarcely less +favourable in his interpretation: "Cette dictature, il ne faut jamais le +perdre de vue, ne serait jamais que transitoire, et devrait faire place +a un gouvernement libre des que la grande reforme nationale et sociale +serait accomplie.--Il a parfaitement conscience du mal. L'atmosphere +ambiante de son siecle et de son pays n'a nullement oblitere son sens +moral--Il a si bien conscience de l'enormite de ces crimes, qu'il la +condamne hautement lorsque la derniere necessite ne les impose pas." + +Among these utterances of capable and distinguished men, it will be seen +that some are partially true, and others, without a particle of truth, +are at least representative and significant, and serve to bring +Machiavelli within fathomable depth. He is the earliest conscious and +articulate exponent of certain living forces in the present world. +Religion, progressive enlightenment, the perpetual vigilance of public +opinion, have not reduced his empire, or disproved the justice of his +conception of mankind. He obtains a new lease of life from causes that +are still prevailing, and from doctrines that are apparent in politics, +philosophy, and science. Without sparing censure, or employing for +comparison the grosser symptoms of the age, we find him near our common +level, and perceive that he is not a vanishing type, but a constant and +contemporary influence. Where it is impossible to praise, to defend, or +to excuse, the burden of blame may yet be lightened by adjustment and +distribution, and he is more rationally intelligible when illustrated by +lights falling not only from the century he wrote in, but from our own, +which has seen the course of its history twenty-five times diverted by +actual or attempted crime. + + + + +VIII + +MR. GOLDWIN SMITH'S IRISH HISTORY[322] + + +When Macaulay republished his Essays from the _Edinburgh Review_, he had +already commenced the great work by which his name will be remembered; +and he had the prudence to exclude from the collection his early paper +on the art of historical writing. In the maturity of his powers, he was +rightly unwilling to bring into notice the theories of his youth. At a +time when he was about to claim a place among the first historians, it +would have been injudicious to remind men of the manner in which he had +described the objects of his emulation or of his rivalry--how in his +judgment the speeches of Thucydides violate the decencies of fiction, +and give to his book something of the character of the Chinese +pleasure-grounds, whilst his political observations are very +superficial; how Polybius has no other merit than that of a faithful +narrator of facts; and how in the nineteenth century, from the practice +of distorting narrative in conformity with theory, "history proper is +disappearing." But in that essay, although the judgments are puerile, +the ideal at which the writer afterwards aimed is distinctly drawn, and +his own character is prefigured in the description of the author of a +history of England as it ought to be, who "gives to truth those +attractions which have been usurped by fiction," "intersperses the +details which are the charm of historical romances," and "reclaims those +materials which the novelist has appropriated." + +Mr. Goldwin Smith, like Macaulay, has written on the study of history, +and he has been a keen critic of other historians before becoming one +himself. It is a bold thing for a man to bring theory so near to +execution, and, amidst dispute on his principles and resentment at his +criticism, to give an opportunity of testing his theories by his own +practice, and of applying his own canons to his performance. It reminds +us of the professor of Cologne, who wrote the best Latin poem of modern +times, as a model for his pupils; and of the author of an attack on +Dryden's _Virgil_, who is styled by Pope the "fairest of critics," +"because," says Johnson, "he exhibited his own version to be compared +with that which he condemned." The work in which the professor of +history and critic of historians teaches by example is not unworthy of +his theory, whilst some of its defects may be explained by it. + +The point which most closely connects Mr. Goldwin Smith's previous +writings with his _Irish History_ is his vindication of a moral code +against those who identify moral with physical laws, who consider the +outward regularity with which actions are done to be the inward reason +why they must be done, and who conceive that all laws are opposed to +freedom. In his opposition to this materialism, he goes in one respect +too far, in another not far enough. + +On the one hand, whilst defending liberty and morality, he has not +sufficient perception of the spiritual element; and on the other, he +seems to fear that it would be a concession to his antagonists to dwell +on the constant laws by which nature asserts herself, and on the +regularity with which like causes produce like effects. Yet it is on the +observation of these laws that political, social, and economical science +rests; and it is by the knowledge of them that a scientific historian is +guided in grouping his matter. In this he differs from the artist, whose +principle of arrangement is drawn from himself, not from external +nature; and from the annalist, who has no arrangement, since he sees, +not the connection, but the succession of events. Facts are intelligible +and instructive,--or, in other words, history exhibits truths as well +as facts,--when they are seen not merely as they follow, but as they +correspond; not merely as they have happened, but as they are +paralleled. The fate of Ireland is to be understood not simply from the +light of English and Irish history, but by the general history of other +conquests, colonies, dependencies, and establishments. In this sort of +illustration by analogy and contrast Mr. Goldwin Smith is particularly +infelicitous. Nor does Providence gain what science loses by his +treatment of history. He rejects materialism, but he confines his view +to motives and forces which are purely human. + +The Catholic Church receives, therefore, very imperfect measure at his +hands. Her spiritual character and purpose he cannot discern behind the +temporal instruments and appendages of her existence; he confounds +authority with influence, devotion with bigotry, power with force of +arms, and estimates the vigour and durability of Catholicism by +criterions as material as those of the philosophers he has so vehemently +and so ably refuted. Most Protestant writers fail in approbation; he +fails in appreciation. It is not so much a religious feeling that makes +him unjust, as a way of thinking which, in great measure, ignores the +supernatural, and therefore precludes a just estimate of religion in +general, and of Catholicism in particular. Hence he is unjust rather to +the nature than to the actions of the Church. He caricatures more than +he libels her. He is much less given to misrepresentation and calumny +than Macaulay, but he has a less exalted idea of the history and +character of Catholicism. As he underrates what is divine, so he has no +very high standard for the actions of men, and he is liberal in +admitting extenuating circumstances. Though he never suspends the +severity of his moral judgment in consideration of the purpose or the +result, yet he is induced by a variety of arguments to mitigate its +rigour. In accordance with the theory he has formerly developed, he is +constantly sitting in judgment; and he discusses the morality of men and +actions far oftener than history--which has very different problems to +solve--either requires or tolerates. De Maistre says that in our time +compassion is reserved for the guilty. Mr. Goldwin Smith is a merciful +judge, whose compassion generally increases in proportion to the +greatness of the culprit; and he has a sympathy for what is done in the +grand style, which balances his hatred of what is wrongly done. + +It would not be fair to judge of an author's notion and powers of +research by a hasty and popular production. Mr. Goldwin Smith has +collected quite enough information for the purpose for which he has used +it, and he has not failed through want of industry. The test of solidity +is not the quantity read, but the mode in which the knowledge has been +collected and used. Method, not genius, or eloquence, or erudition, +makes the historian. He may be discovered most easily by his use of +authorities. The first question is, whether the writer understands the +comparative value of sources of information, and has the habit of giving +precedence to the most trustworthy informant. There are some vague +indications that Mr. Goldwin Smith does not understand the importance of +this fundamental rule. In his Inaugural Lecture, published two years +ago, the following extravagant sentence occurs: "Before the Revolution, +the fervour and the austerity of Rousseau had cast out from good society +the levity and sensuality of Voltaire" (p. 15). This view--which he +appears to have abandoned, for in his _Irish History_ he tells us that +France "has now become the eldest daughter of Voltaire"--he supports by +a reference to an abridgment of French history, much and justly esteemed +in French schools, but, like all abridgments, not founded on original +knowledge, and disfigured by exaggeration in the colouring. Moreover, +the passage he refers to has been misinterpreted. In the _Irish History_ +Mr. Goldwin Smith quotes, for the character of the early Celts, without +any sufficient reason, another French historian, Martin, who has no +great authority, and the younger Thierry, who has none at all. This is a +point of very little weight by itself; but until our author vindicates +his research by other writings, it is not in his favour. + +The defects of Mr. Goldwin Smith's historic art, his lax criticism, his +superficial acquaintance with foreign countries, his occasional +proneness to sacrifice accuracy for the sake of rhetorical effect, his +aversion for spiritual things, are all covered by one transcendent +merit, which, in a man of so much ability, promises great results. + +Writers the most learned, the most accurate in details, and the soundest +in tendency, frequently fall into a habit which can neither be cured nor +pardoned,--the habit of making history into the proof of their theories. +The absence of a definite didactic purpose is the only security for the +good faith of a historian. This most rare virtue Mr. Goldwin Smith +possesses in a high degree. He writes to tell the truths he finds, not +to prove the truths which he believes. In character and design he is +eminently truthful and fair, though not equally so in execution. His +candour never fails him, and he is never betrayed by his temper; yet his +defective knowledge of general history, and his crude notions of the +Church, have made him write many things which are untrue, and some which +are unjust. Prejudice is in all men of such early growth, and so +difficult to eradicate, that it becomes a misfortune rather than a +reproach, especially if it is due to ignorance and not to passion, and +if it has not its seat in the will. In the case of Mr. Goldwin Smith it +is of the curable and harmless kind. The fairness of his intention is +far beyond his knowledge. When he is unjust, it is not from hatred; +where he is impartial, it is not always from the copiousness of his +information. His prejudices are of a nature which his ability and +honesty will in time inevitably overcome. + +The general result and moral of his book is excellent. He shows that the +land-question has been from the beginning the great difficulty in +Ireland; and he concludes with a condemnation of the Established Church, +and a prophecy of its approaching fall. The weakness of Ireland and the +guilt of England are not disguised; and the author has not written to +stimulate the anger of one nation or to attenuate the remorse of the +other. To both he gives wise and statesman-like advice, that may soon be +very opportune. The first American war was the commencement of the +deliverance of Ireland, and it may be that a new American war will +complete the work of regeneration which the first began. Agreeing as we +do with the policy of the author, and admiring the spirit of his book, +we shall not attempt either to enforce or to dispute his conclusions, +and we shall confine our remarks to less essential points on which he +appears to us in the wrong. + +There are several instances of inaccuracy and negligence which, however +trivial in themselves, tend to prove that the author is not always very +scrupulous in speaking of things he has not studied. A purist so severe +as to write "Kelt" for "Celt" ought not to call Mercury, originally a +very different personage from Hermes, one of "the legendary authors of +Greek civilisation" (p. 43); and we do not believe that anybody who had +read the writings of the two primates could call Bramhall "an inferior +counterpart of Laud" (p. 105). In a loftier mood, and therefore +apparently with still greater license, Mr. Goldwin Smith declares that +"the glorious blood of Orange could scarcely have run in a low +persecutor's veins" (p. 123). The blood of Orange ran in the veins of +William the Silent, the threefold hypocrite, who confessed Catholicism +whilst he hoped to retain his influence at court, Lutheranism when there +was a chance of obtaining assistance from the German princes, Calvinism +when he was forced to resort to religion in order to excite the people +against the crown, and who persecuted the Protestants in Orange and the +Catholics in Holland. These, however, are matters of no consequence +whatever in a political history of Ireland; but we find ourselves at +issue with the author on the important question of political freedom. +"Even the highly civilised Kelt of France, familiar as he is with +theories of political liberty, seems almost incapable of sustaining +free institutions. After a moment of constitutional government, he +reverts, with a bias which the fatalist might call irresistible, to +despotism in some form" (p. 18). The warning so frequently uttered by +Burke in his last years, to fly from the liberty of France, is still +more needful now that French liberty has exhibited itself in a far more +seductive light. The danger is more subtle, when able men confound +political forms with popular rights. France has never been governed by a +Constitution since 1792, if by a Constitution is meant a definite rule +and limitation of the governing power. It is not that the French failed +to preserve the forms of parliamentary government, but that those forms +no more implied freedom than the glory which the Empire has twice given +in their stead. It is a serious fault in our author that he has not +understood so essential a distinction. Has he not read the _Rights of +Man_, by Tom Paine?-- + + It is not because a part of the government is elective that makes it + less a despotism, if the persons so elected possess afterwards, as a + parliament, unlimited powers. Election, in this case, becomes + separated from representation, and the candidates are candidates for + despotism.[323] + +Napoleon once consulted the cleverest among the politicians who served +him, respecting the durability of some of his institutions. "Ask +yourself," was the answer, "what it would cost you to destroy them. If +the destruction would cost no effort, you have created nothing; for +politically, as well as physically, only that which resists endures." In +the year 1802 the same great writer said: "Nothing is more pernicious in +a monarchy than the principles and the forms of democracy, for they +allow no alternative, but despotism and revolutions." With the +additional experience of half a century, a writer not inferior to the +last repeats exactly the same idea:-- + + Of all societies in the world, those which will always have most + difficulty in permanently escaping absolute government will be + precisely those societies in which aristocracy is no more, and can + no more be.[324] + +French constitutionalism was but a form by which the absence of +self-government was concealed. The State was as despotic under Villele +or Guizot as under either of the Bonapartes. The Restoration fenced +itself round with artificial creations, having no root in the condition +or in the sympathies of the people; these creations simply weakened it +by making it unpopular. The hereditary peerage was an anomaly in a +country unused to primogeniture, and so was the revival, in a nation of +sceptics, of the Gallican union between Church and State. The monarchy +of July, which was more suited to the nature of French society, and was +thus enabled to crush a series of insurrections, was at last forced, by +its position and by the necessity of self-preservation, to assume a very +despotic character. After the fortifications of Paris were begun, a +tendency set in which, under a younger sovereign, would have led to a +system hardly distinguishable from that which now prevails; and there +are princes in the House of Orleans whose government would develop the +principle of democracy in a manner not very remote from the institutions +of the second Empire. It is liberalism more than despotism that is +opposed to liberty in France; and it is a most dangerous error to +imagine that the Governments of the French Charter really resemble ours. +There are States without any parliament at all, whose principles and +fundamental institutions are in much closer harmony with our system of +autonomy. Mr. Goldwin Smith sees half the truth, that there is something +in the French nation which incapacitates it for liberty; but he does not +see that what they have always sought, and sometimes enjoyed, is not +freedom; that their liberty must diminish in proportion as their ideal +is attained; and that they are not yet familiar with the theory of +political rights. With this false notion of what constitutes liberty, it +is not surprising that he should repeatedly dwell on its connection +with Protestantism, and talk of "the political liberty which +Protestantism brought in its train" (p. 120). Such phrases may console a +Protestant reader of a book fatal to the Protestant ascendency in +Ireland; but as there are no arguments in support of them, and as they +are strangely contradicted by the facts in the context, Mr. Goldwin +Smith resorts to the ingenious artifice of calling to mind as many ugly +stories about Catholics as he can. The notion constantly recurs that, +though the Protestants were very wicked in Ireland, it was against their +principles and general practice, and is due to the Catholics, whose +system naturally led them to be tyrannical and cruel, and thus provoked +retaliation. Mr. Smith might have been reminded by Peter Plymley that +when Protestantism has had its own way it has uniformly been averse to +freedom: "What has Protestantism done for liberty in Denmark, in Sweden, +throughout the north of Germany, and in Prussia?"--not much less than +democracy has done in France. An admirer of the constitutions of 1791, +1814, or 1830 may be excused if he is not very severe on the absolutism +of Protestant countries. + +Mr. Goldwin Smith mistakes the character of the invasion of Ireland +because he has not understood the relative position of the civilisation +of the two countries at the time when it occurred. That of the Celts was +in many respects more refined than that of the Normans. The Celts are +not among the progressive, initiative races, but among those which +supply the materials rather than the impulse of history, and are either +stationary or retrogressive. The Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and +the Teutons are the only makers of history, the only authors of +advancement. Other races possessing a highly developed language, a +copious literature, a speculative religion, enjoying luxury and art, +attain to a certain pitch of cultivation which they are unable either to +communicate or to increase. They are a negative element in the world; +sometimes the barrier, sometimes the instrument, sometimes the material +of those races to whom it is given to originate and to advance. Their +existence is either passive, or reactionary and destructive, when, after +intervening like the blind forces of nature, they speedily exhibit their +uncreative character, and leave others to pursue the course to which +they have pointed. The Chinese are a people of this kind. They have long +remained stationary, and succeeded in excluding the influences of +general history. So the Hindoos; being Pantheists, they have no history +of their own, but supply objects for commerce and for conquest. So the +Huns, whose appearance gave a sudden impetus to a stagnant world. So the +Slavonians, who tell only in the mass, and whose influence is +ascertainable sometimes by adding to the momentum of active forces, +sometimes by impeding through inertness the progress of mankind. + +To this class of nations also belong the Celts of Gaul. The Roman and +the German conquerors have not altered their character as it was drawn +two thousand years ago. They have a history, but it is not theirs; their +nature remains unchanged, their history is the history of the invaders. +The revolution was the revival of the conquered race, and their reaction +against the creations of their masters. But it has been cunning only to +destroy; it has not given life to one constructive idea, or durability +to one new institution; and it has exhibited to the world an +unparalleled political incapacity, which was announced by Burke, and +analysed by Tocqueville, in works which are the crowning pieces of two +great literatures. + +The Celts of these islands, in like manner, waited for a foreign +influence to set in action the rich treasure which in their own hands +could be of no avail. Their language was more flexible, their poetry and +music more copious, than those of the Anglo-Normans. Their laws, if we +may judge from those of Wales, display a society in some respects highly +cultivated. But, like the rest of that group of nations to which they +belong, there was not in them the incentive to action and progress which +is given by the consciousness of a part in human destiny, by the +inspiration of a high idea, or even by the natural development of +institutions. Their life and literature were aimless and wasteful. +Without combination or concentration, they had no star to guide them in +an onward course; and the progress of dawn into day was no more to them +than to the flocks and to the forests. + +Before the Danish wars, and the decay, which is described by St. Bernard +in terms which must not be taken quite literally, had led to the English +invasion, there was probably as much material, certainly as much +spiritual, culture in Ireland as in any country in the West; but there +was not that by whose sustaining force alone these things endure, by +which alone the place of nations in history is determined--there was no +political civilisation. The State did not keep pace with the progress of +society. This is the essential and decisive inferiority of the Celtic +race, as conspicuous among the Irish in the twelfth century as among the +French in our own. They gave way before the higher political aptitude of +the English. + +The issue of an invasion is generally decided by this political +aptitude, and the consequences of conquest always depend on it. +Subjection to a people of a higher capacity for government is of itself +no misfortune; and it is to most countries the condition of their +political advancement. The Greeks were more highly cultivated than the +Romans, the Gauls than the Franks; yet in both cases the higher +political intelligence prevailed. For a long time the English had, +perhaps, no other superiority over the Irish; yet this alone would have +made the conquest a great blessing to Ireland, but for the separation of +the races. Conquering races necessarily bring with them their own system +of government, and there is no other way of introducing it. A nation can +obtain political education only by dependence on another. Art, +literature, and science may be communicated by the conquered to the +conqueror; but government can be taught only by governing, therefore +only by the governors; politics can only be learnt in this school. The +most uncivilised of the barbarians, whilst they slowly and imperfectly +learned the arts of Rome, at once remodelled its laws. The two kinds of +civilisation, social and political, are wholly unconnected with each +other. Either may subsist, in high perfection, alone. Polity grows like +language, and is part of a people's nature, not dependent on its will. +One or the other can be developed, modified, corrected; but they cannot +be subverted or changed by the people itself without an act of suicide. +Organic change, if it comes at all, must come from abroad. Revolution is +a malady, a frenzy, an interruption of the nation's growth, sometimes +fatal to its existence, often to its independence. In this case +revolution, by making the nation subject to others, may be the occasion +of a new development. But it is not conceivable that a nation should +arbitrarily and spontaneously cast off its history, reject its +traditions, abrogate its law and government, and commence a new +political existence. + +Nothing in the experience of ages, or in the nature of man, allows us to +believe that the attempt of France to establish a durable edifice on the +ruins of 1789, without using the old materials, can ever succeed, or +that she can ever emerge from the vicious circle of the last seventy +years, except by returning to the principle which she then repudiated, +and by admitting, that if States would live, they must preserve their +organic connection with their origin and history, which are their root +and their stem; that they are not voluntary creations of human wisdom; +and that men labour in vain who would construct them without +acknowledging God as the artificer. + +Theorists who hold it to be a wrong that a nation should belong to a +foreign State are therefore in contradiction with the law of civil +progress. This law, or rather necessity, which is as absolute as the law +that binds society together, is the force which makes us need one +another, and only enables us to obtain what we need on terms, not of +equality, but of dominion and subjection, in domestic, economic, or +political relations. The political theory of nationality is in +contradiction with the historic nation. Since a nation derives its ideas +and instincts of government, as much as its temperament and its +language, from God, acting through the influences of nature and of +history, these ideas and instincts are originally and essentially +peculiar to it, and not separable from it; they have no practical value +in themselves when divided from the capacity which corresponds to them. +National qualities are the incarnations of political ideas. No people +can receive its government from another without receiving at the same +time the ministers of government. The workman must travel with the work. +Such changes can only be accomplished by submission to a foreign State, +or to another race. Europe has seen two great instances of such +conquests, extending over centuries,--the Roman Empire, and the +settlement of the barbarians in the West. This it is which gives unity +to the history of the Middle Ages. The Romans established a universal +empire by subjecting all countries to the authority of a single power. +The barbarians introduced into all a single system of law, and thus +became the instrument of a universal Church. The same spirit of freedom, +the same notions of the State, pervade all the _Leges Barbarorum_, and +all the polities they founded in Europe and Asia. They differ widely in +the surrounding conditions, in the state of society, in the degree of +advancement, in almost all external things. The principle common to them +all is to acknowledge the freedom of the Church as a corporation and a +proprietor, and in virtue of the principle of self-government to allow +religion to develop her influence in the State. The great migration +which terminated in the Norman conquests and in the Crusades gave the +dominion of the Latin world to the Teutonic chivalry, and to the Church +her proper place. All other countries sank into despotism, into schism, +and at last into barbarism, under the Tartars or the Turks. The union +between the Teutonic races and the Holy See was founded on their +political qualities more than on their religious fervour. In modern +times, the most pious Catholics have often tyrannised over the Church. +In the Middle Ages her liberty was often secured and respected where her +spiritual injunctions were least obeyed. + +The growth of the feudal system coinciding with the general decay of +morals led, in the eleventh century, to new efforts of the Church to +preserve her freedom. The Holy See was delivered from the Roman factions +by the most illustrious of the emperors, and a series of German Popes +commenced the great reform. Other princes were unwilling to submit to +the authority of the imperial nominees, and the kings of France and +Castile showed symptoms of resistance, in which they were supported by +the heresy of Berengarius. The conduct of Henry IV. delivered the Church +from the patronage of the Empire, whilst the Normans defended her +against the Gallican tendencies and the feudal tyranny. In Sicily, the +Normans consented to hold their power from the Pope; and in Normandy, +Berengarius found a successful adversary, and the King of France a +vassal who compelled him to abandon his designs. The chaplain of the +Conqueror describes his government in terms which show how singularly it +fulfilled the conditions which the Church requires. He tells us that +William established in Normandy a truly Christian order; that every +village, town, and castle enjoyed its own privileges; and that, while +other princes either forbade the erection of churches or seized their +endowments, he left his subjects free to make pious gifts. In his reign +and by his conduct the word "bigot" ceased to be a term of reproach, and +came to signify what we now should call "ultramontane." He was the +foremost of those Normans who were called by the Holy See to reclaim +what was degenerate, and to renovate the declining States of the North. + +Where the Church addressed herself to the conversion of races of purely +Teutonic origin, as in Scandinavia, her missionaries achieved the work. +In other countries, as in Poland and Hungary, political dependence on +the Empire was the channel and safeguard of her influence. The Norman +conquest of England and of Ireland differs from all of these. In both +islands the faith had been freely preached, adopted, and preserved. The +rulers and the people were Catholic. The last Saxon king who died +before the Conquest was a saint. The last archbishop of Dublin appointed +before the invasion was a saint. Neither of the invasions can be +explained simply by the demoralisation of the clergy, or by the +spiritual destitution of the people. + +Catholicism spreads among the nations, not only as a doctrine, but as an +institution. "The Church," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, "is not a disembodied +spirit, but a spirit embodied in human society." Her teaching is +directed to the inner man, and is confined to the social order; but her +discipline touches on the political. She cannot permanently ignore the +acts and character of the State, or escape its notice. Whilst she +preaches submission to authorities ordained by God, her nature, not her +interest, compels her to exert an involuntary influence upon them. The +jealousy so often exhibited by governments is not without reason, for +the free action of the Church is the test of the free constitution of +the State; and without such free constitution there must necessarily +ensue either persecution or revolution. Between the settled organisation +of Catholicism and every form of arbitrary power, there is an +incompatibility which must terminate in conflict. In a State which +possesses no security for authority or freedom, the Church must either +fight or succumb. Now, as authority and freedom, the conditions of her +existence, can only be obtained through the instrumentality of certain +nations, she depends on the aid of these nations. Religion alone cannot +civilise men, or secure its own conquest. It promotes civilisation where +it has power; but it has not power where its way is not prepared. Its +civilising influence is chiefly indirect, and acts by its needs and +wants as much as by the fulness of its ideas. So Christianity extends +itself by the aid of the secular power, relying, not on the victories of +Christian arms, but on the progress of institutions and ideas that +harmonise with ecclesiastical freedom. Hence, those who have most +actively served the interests of the Church are not always those who +have been most faithful to her doctrines. The work which the Goth and +the Frank had done on the continent of Europe the Normans came to do in +England, where it had been done before but had failed, and in Ireland, +where neither Roman nor German influences had entered. + +Thus the theory of nationality, unknown to Catholic ages, is +inconsistent both with political reason and with Christianity, which +requires the dominion of race over race, and whose path was made +straight by two universal empires. The missionary may outstrip, in his +devoted zeal, the progress of trade or of arms; but the seed that he +plants will not take root, unprotected by those ideas of right and duty +which first came into the world with the tribes who destroyed the +civilisation of antiquity, and whose descendants are in our day carrying +those ideas to every quarter of the world. It was as impossible to +realise in Ireland the mediaeval notions of ecclesiastical liberty +without a great political reform, as to put an end to the dissolution of +society and the feuds of princes without the authority of a supreme +lord. + +There is one institution of those days to which Mr. Goldwin Smith has +not done entire justice. + + It is needless to say that the Eric, or pecuniary composition for + blood, in place of capital or other punishment, which the Brehon law + sanctioned, is the reproach of all primitive codes, and of none. It + is the first step from the license of savage revenge to the ordered + justice of a regular law (p. 41). + +Pecuniary composition for blood belongs to an advanced period of defined +and regular criminal jurisprudence. In the lowest form of civil society, +when the State is not yet distinct from the family, the family is +compelled to defend itself; and the only protection of society is the +vendetta. It is the private right of self-defence combined with the +public office of punishment, and therefore not only a privilege but an +obligation. The whole family is bound to avenge the injury; but the duty +rests first of all with the heir. Precedency in the office of avenger is +naturally connected with a first claim in inheritance; and the +succession to property is determined by the law of revenge. This leads +both to primogeniture, because the eldest son is most likely to be +capable of punishing the culprit; and, for the same reason, to +modifications of primogeniture, by the preference of the brother before +the grandson, and of the male line before the female. A practice which +appears barbarous is, therefore, one of the foundations of civilisation, +and the origin of some of the refinements of law. In this state of +society there is no distinction between civil and criminal law; an +injury is looked upon as a private wrong, not, as religion considers it, +a sin, or, as the State considers it, a crime. + +Something very similar occurs in feudal society. Here all the barons +were virtually equal to each other, and without any superior to punish +their crimes or to avenge their wrongs. They were, therefore, compelled +to obtain safety or reparation, like sovereigns, by force of arms. What +war is among States, the feud is in feudal society, and the vengeance of +blood in societies not yet matured into States--a substitute for the +fixed administration of justice. + +The assumption of this duty by the State begins with the recognisance of +acts done against the State itself. At first, political crimes alone are +visited with a public penalty; private injuries demand no public +expiation, but only satisfaction of the injured party. This appears in +its most rudimentary form in the _lex talionis_. Society requires that +punishment should be inflicted by the State, in order to prevent +continual disorders. If the injured party could be satisfied, and his +duty fulfilled without inflicting on the criminal an injury +corresponding to that which he had done, society was obviously the +gainer. At first it was optional to accept or to refuse satisfaction; +afterwards it was made obligatory. + +Where property was so valuable that its loss was visited on the life or +limb of the robber, and injuries against property were made a question +of life and death, it soon followed that injury to life could be made a +question of payment. To expiate robbery by death, and to expiate murder +by the payment of a fine, are correlative ideas. Practically this +custom often told with a barbarous inequality against those who were too +poor to purchase forgiveness; but it was otherwise both just and humane +in principle, and it was generally encouraged by the Church. For in her +eyes the criminal was guilty of an act of which it was necessary that he +should repent; this made her desire, not his destruction, but his +conversion. She tried, therefore, to save his life, and to put an end to +revenge, mutilation, and servitude; and for all this the alternative was +compensation. This purpose was served by the right of asylum. The Church +surrendered the fugitive only on condition that his life and person +should be spared in consideration of a lawful fine, which she often paid +for him herself. "Concedatur ei vita et omnia membra. Emendat autem +causam in quantum potuerit," says a law of Charlemagne, given in the +year 785, when the influence of religion on legislation was most +powerful in Europe. + +No idea occurs more frequently in the work we are reviewing than that of +the persecuting character of the Catholic Church; it is used as a +perpetual apology for the penal laws in Ireland:-- + + "When the Catholics writhe under this wrong, let them turn their eyes + to the history of Catholic countries, and remember that, while the + Catholic Church was stripped of her endowments and doomed to + political degradation by Protestant persecutors in Ireland, the + Protestant churches were exterminated with fire and sword by Catholic + persecutors in France, Austria, Flanders, Italy, and Spain" (p. 92). + He speaks of Catholicism as "a religion which all Protestants + believed to be idolatrous, and knew by fearful experience to be + persecuting" (p. 113). "It would not be difficult to point to + persecuting laws more sanguinary than these. Spain, France, and + Austria will at once supply signal examples.... That persecution was + the vice of an age and not only of a particular religion, that it + disgraced Protestantism as well as Catholicism, is true. But no one + who reads the religious history of Europe with an open mind can fail + to perceive that the persecutions carried on by Protestants were far + less bloody and less extensive than those carried on by Catholics; + that they were more frequently excusable as acts of retaliation; that + they arose more from political alarm, and less from the spirit of the + religion; and that the temper of their authors yielded more rapidly + to the advancing influence of humanity and civilisation" (pp. 127. + 129). + +All these arguments are fallacies; but as the statements at the same +time are full of error, we believe that the author is wrong because he +has not studied the question, not because he has designed to +misrepresent it. The fact that he does not distinguish from each other +the various kinds and occasions of persecution, proves that he is wholly +ignorant of the things with which it is connected. + +Persecution is the vice of particular religions, and the misfortune of +particular stages of political society. It is the resource by which +States that would be subverted by religious liberty escape the more +dangerous alternative of imposing religious disabilities. The exclusion +of a part of the community by reason of its faith from the full benefit +of the law is a danger and disadvantage to every State, however highly +organised its constitution may otherwise be. But the actual existence of +a religious party differing in faith from the majority is dangerous only +to a State very imperfectly organised. Disabilities are always a danger. +Multiplicity of religions is only dangerous to States of an inferior +type. By persecution they rid themselves of the peculiar danger which +threatens them, without involving themselves in a system universally +bad. Persecution comes naturally in a certain period of the progress of +society, before a more flexible and comprehensive system has been +introduced by that advance of religion and civilisation whereby +Catholicism gradually penetrates into hostile countries, and Christian +powers acquire dominion over infidel populations. Thus it is the token +of an epoch in the political, religious, and intellectual life of +mankind, and it disappears with its epoch, and with the advance of the +Church militant in her Catholic vocation. Intolerance of dissent and +impatience of contradiction are a characteristic of youth. Those that +have no knowledge of the truth that underlies opposite opinions, and no +experience of their consequent force, cannot believe that men are +sincere in holding them. At a certain point of mental growth, tolerance +implies indifference, and intolerance is inseparable from sincerity. +Thus intolerance, in itself a defect, becomes in this case a merit. +Again, although the political conditions of intolerance belong to the +youth and immaturity of nations, the motives of intolerance may at any +time be just and the principle high. For the theory of religious unity +is founded on the most elevated and truest view of the character and +function of the State, on the perception that its ultimate purpose is +not distinct from that of the Church. In the pagan State they were +identified; in the Christian world the end remains the same, but the +means are different. + +The State aims at the things of another life but indirectly. Its course +runs parallel to that of the Church; they do not converge. The direct +subservience of the State to religious ends would imply despotism and +persecution just as much as the pagan supremacy of civil over religious +authority. The similarity of the end demands harmony in the principles, +and creates a decided antagonism between the State and a religious +community whose character is in total contradiction with it. With such +religions there is no possibility of reconciliation. A State must be at +open war with any system which it sees would prevent it from fulfilling +its legitimate duties. The danger, therefore, lies not in the doctrine, +but in the practice. But to the pagan and to the mediaeval State, the +danger was in the doctrine. The Christians were the best subjects of the +emperor, but Christianity was really subversive of the fundamental +institutions of the Roman Empire. In the infancy of the modern States, +the civil power required all the help that religion could give in order +to establish itself against the lawlessness of barbarism and feudal +dissolution. The existence of the State at that time depended on the +power of the Church. When, in the thirteenth century, the Empire +renounced this support, and made war on the Church, it fell at once into +a number of small sovereignties. In those cases persecution was +self-defence. It was wrongly defended as an absolute, not as a +conditional principle; but such a principle was false only as the modern +theory of religious liberty is false. One was a wrong generalisation +from the true character of the State; the other is a true conclusion +from a false notion of the State. To say that because of the union +between Church and State it is right to persecute would condemn all +toleration; and to say that the objects of the State have nothing to do +with religion, would condemn all persecution. But persecution and +toleration are equally true in principle, considered politically; only +one belongs to a more highly developed civilisation than the other. At +one period toleration would destroy society; at another, persecution is +fatal to liberty. The theory of intolerance is wrong only if founded +absolutely upon religious motives; but even then the practice of it is +not necessarily censurable. It is opposed to the Christian spirit, in +the same manner as slavery is opposed to it. The Church prohibits +neither intolerance nor slavery, though in proportion as her influence +extends, and civilisation advances, both gradually disappear. + +Unity and liberty are the only legitimate principles on which the +position of a Church in a State can be regulated, but the distance +between them is immeasurable, and the transition extremely difficult. To +pass from religious unity to religious liberty is to effect a complete +inversion in the character of the State, a change in the whole spirit of +legislation, and a still greater revolution in the minds and habits of +men. So great a change seldom happens all at once. The law naturally +follows the condition of society, which does not suddenly change. An +intervening stage from unity to liberty, a compromise between toleration +and persecution, is a common but irrational, tyrannical, and impolitic +arrangement. It is idle to talk of the guilt of persecution, if we do +not distinguish the various principles on which religious dissent can be +treated by the State. The exclusion of other religions--- the system of +Spain, of Sweden, of Mecklenburg, Holstein, and Tyrol--is reasonable in +principle, though practically untenable in the present state of European +society. The system of expulsion or compulsory conformity, adopted by +Lewis XIV. and the Emperor Nicholas, is defensible neither on religious +nor political grounds. But the system applied to Ireland, which uses +religious disabilities for the purpose of political oppression,[325] +stands alone in solitary infamy among the crimes and follies of the +rulers of men. + +The acquisition of real definite freedom is a very slow and tardy +process. The great social independence enjoyed in the early periods of +national history is not yet political freedom. The State has not yet +developed its authority, or assumed the functions of government. A +period follows when all the action of society is absorbed by the ruling +power, when the license of early times is gone, and the liberties of a +riper age are not yet acquired. These liberties are the product of a +long conflict with absolutism, and of a gradual development, which, by +establishing definite rights revives in positive form the negative +liberty of an unformed society. The object and the result of this +process is the organisation of self-government, the substitution of +right for force, of authority for power, of duty for necessity, and of a +moral for a physical relation between government and people. Until this +point is reached, religious liberty is an anomaly. In a State which +possesses all power and all authority there is no room for the autonomy +of religious communities. Those States, therefore, not only refuse +liberty of conscience, but deprive the favoured Church of ecclesiastical +freedom. The principles of religious unity and liberty are so opposed +that no modern State has at once denied toleration and allowed freedom +to its established Church. Both of these are unnatural in a State which +rejects self-government, the only secure basis of all freedom, whether +religious or political. For religious freedom is based on political +liberty; intolerance, therefore, is a political necessity against all +religions which threaten the unity of faith in a State that is not free, +and in every State against those religions which threaten its existence. +Absolute intolerance belongs to the absolute State; special persecution +may be justified by special causes in any State. All mediaeval +persecution is of the latter kind, for the sects against which it was +directed were revolutionary parties. The State really defended, not its +religious unity, but its political existence. + +If the Catholic Church was naturally inclined to persecute, she would +persecute in all cases alike, when there was no interest to serve but +her own. Instead of adapting her conduct to circumstances, and accepting +theories according to the character of the time, she would have +developed a consistent theory out of her own system, and would have been +most severe when she was most free from external influences, from +political objects, or from temporary or national prejudices. She would +have imposed a common rule of conduct in different countries in +different ages, instead of submitting to the exigencies of each time and +place. Her own rule of conduct never changed. She treats it as a crime +to abandon her, not to be outside her. An apostate who returns to her +has a penance for his apostasy; a heretic who is converted has no +penance for his heresy. Severity against those who are outside her fold +is against her principles. Persecution is contrary to the nature of a +universal Church; it is peculiar to the national Churches. + +While the Catholic Church by her progress in freedom naturally tends to +push the development of States beyond the sphere where they are still +obliged to preserve the unity of religion, and whilst she extends over +States in all degrees of advancement, Protestantism, which belongs to a +particular age and state of society, which makes no claim to +universality, and which is dependent on political connection, regards +persecution, not as an accident, but as a duty. + +Wherever Protestantism prevailed, intolerance became a principle of +State, and was proclaimed in theory even where the Protestants were in a +minority, and where the theory supplied a weapon against themselves. The +Reformation made it a general law, not only against Catholics by way of +self-defence or retaliation, but against all who dissented from the +reformed doctrines, whom it treated, not as enemies, but as +criminals,--against the Protestant sects, against Socinians, and against +atheists. It was not a right, but a duty; its object was to avenge God, +not to preserve order. There is no analogy between the persecution which +preserves and the persecution which attacks; or between intolerance as a +religious duty, and intolerance as a necessity of State. The Reformers +unanimously declared persecution to be incumbent on the civil power; and +the Protestant Governments universally acted upon their injunctions, +until scepticism escaped the infliction of penal laws and condemned +their spirit. + +Doubtless, in the interest of their religion, they acted wisely. Freedom +is not more decidedly the natural condition of Catholicism than +intolerance is of Protestantism; which by the help of persecution +succeeded in establishing itself in countries where it had no root in +the affections of the people, and in preserving itself from the internal +divisions which follow free inquiry. Toleration has been at once a cause +and an effect of its decline. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, +supported the mediaeval State by religious unity, and has saved herself +in the modern State by religious freedom. No longer compelled to devise +theories in justification of a system imposed on her by the exigencies +of half-organised societies, she is enabled to revert to a policy more +suited to her nature and to her most venerable traditions; and the +principle of liberty has already restored to her much of that which the +principle of unity took away. It was not, as our author imagines (p. +119), by the protection of Lewis XIV. that she was formidable; nor is it +true that in consequence of the loss of temporalities, "the chill of +death is gathering round the heart of the great theocracy" (p. 94); nor +that "the visible decline of the papacy" is at hand because it no longer +wields "the more efficacious arms of the great Catholic monarchies" (p. +190). + +The same appeal to force, the same principles of intolerance which +expelled Catholicism from Protestant countries, gave rise in Catholic +countries to the growth of infidelity. The Revolutions of 1789 in +France, and of 1859 in Italy, attest the danger of a practice which +requires for its support the doctrines of another religion, or the +circumstances of a different age. Not till the Church had lost those +props in which Mr. Goldwin Smith sees the secret of her power, did she +recover her elasticity and her expansive vigour. Catholics may have +learnt this truth late, but Protestants, it appears, have yet to learn +it. + +In one point Mr. Goldwin Smith is not so very far from the views of the +Orange party. He thinks, indeed, that the Church is no longer dangerous, +and would not therefore have Catholics maltreated; but this is due, not +to her merits, but to her weakness. + + Popes might now be as willing as ever, if they had the power, to step + between a Protestant State and the allegiance of its subjects (p. + 190). + +Mr. Smith seems to think that the Popes claim the same authority over +the rulers of a Protestant State that they formerly possessed over the +princes of Catholic countries. Yet this political power of the Holy See +was never a universal right of jurisdiction over States, but a special +and positive right, which it is as absurd to censure as to fear or to +regret at the present time. Directly, it extended only over territories +which were held by feudal tenure of the Pope, like the Sicilian +monarchy. Elsewhere the authority was indirect, not political but +religious, and its political consequences were due to the laws of the +land. The Catholic countries would no more submit to a king not of their +communion than Protestant countries, England for instance, or Denmark. +This is as natural and inevitable in a country where the whole +population is of one religion, as it is artificial and unjust in a +country where no sort of religious unity prevails, and where such a law +might compel the sovereign to be of the religion of the minority. + +At any rate, nobody who thinks it reasonable that any prince abandoning +the Established Church should forfeit the English throne, can complain +of a law which compelled the sovereign to be of the religion, not of a +majority, but of the whole of his subjects. The idea of the Pope +stepping between a State and the allegiance of its subjects is a mere +misapprehension. The instrument of his authority is the law, and the law +resides in the State. The Pope could intervene, therefore, only between +the State and the occupant of the throne; and his intervention +suspended, not the duty of obeying, but the right of governing. The line +on which his sentence ran separated, not the subjects from the State, +but the sovereign from the other authorities. It was addressed to the +nation politically organised against the head of the organism, not to +the mass of individual subjects against the constituted authorities. +That such a power was inconsistent with the modern notion of sovereignty +is true; but it is also true that this notion is as much at variance +with the nature of ecclesiastical authority as with civil liberty. The +Roman maxim, _princeps legibus solutus_, could not be admitted by the +Church; and an absolute prince could not properly be invested in her +eyes with the sanctity of authority, or protected by the duty of +submission. A moral, and _a fortiori_ a spiritual, authority moves and +lives only in an atmosphere of freedom. + +There are, however, two things to be considered in explanation of the +error into which our author and so many others have fallen. Law follows +life, but not with an equal pace. There is a time when it ceases to +correspond to the existing order of things, and meets an invincible +obstacle in a new society. The exercise of the mediaeval authority of the +Popes was founded on the religious unity of the State, and had no basis +in a divided community. It was not easy in the period of transition to +tell when the change took place, and at what moment the old power lost +its efficacy; no one could foresee its failure, and it still remained +the legal and recognised means of preventing the change. Accordingly, it +was twice tried during the wars of religion, in France with success, in +England with disastrous effects. It is a universal rule that a right is +not given up until the necessity of its surrender is proved. But the +real difficulty arises, not from the mode in which the power was +exercised, but from the way in which it was defended. The mediaeval +writers were accustomed to generalise; they disregarded particular +circumstances, and they were generally ignorant of the habits and ideas +of their age. Living in the cloister, and writing for the school, they +were unacquainted with the polity and institutions around them, and +sought their authorities and examples in antiquity, in the speculations +of Aristotle, and the maxims of the civil law. They gave to their +political doctrines as abstract a form, and attributed to them as +universal an application, as the modern absolutists or the more recent +liberals. So regardless were they of the difference between ancient +times and their own, that the Jewish chronicles, the Grecian +legislators, and the Roman code supplied them indifferently with rules +and instances; they could not imagine that a new state of things would +one day arise in which their theories would be completely obsolete. +Their definitions of right and law are absolute in the extreme, and seem +often to admit of no qualification. Hence their character is essentially +revolutionary, and they contradict both the authority of law and the +security of freedom. It is on this contradiction that the common notion +of the danger of ecclesiastical pretensions is founded. But the men who +take alarm at the tone of the mediaeval claims judge them with a theory +just as absolute and as excessive. No man can fairly denounce imaginary +pretensions in the Church of the nineteenth century, who does not +understand that rights which are now impossible may have been +reasonable and legitimate in the days when they were actually exercised. + +The zeal with which Mr. Goldwin Smith condemns the Irish establishment +and the policy of the ascendency is all the more meritorious because he +has no conception of the amount of iniquity involved in them. + + The State Church of Ireland, however anomalous and even scandalous + its position may be as the Church of a dominant minority upheld by + force in the midst of a hostile people, does not, in truth, rest on a + principle different from that of other State Churches. To justify the + existence of any State Church, it must be assumed as an axiom that + the State is the judge of religious truth; and that it is bound to + impose upon its subjects, or at least to require them as a community + to maintain, the religion which it judges to be true (p. 91). + +No such analogy in reality subsists as is here assumed. There is a great +difference between the Irish and the English establishment; but even the +latter has no similarity of principle with the Catholic establishments +of the continent. + +The fundamental distinction is, that in one case the religion of the +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. + +The history of religion furnishes a complete illustration. Between the +later mediaeval sects and Protestantism there is an essential difference, +that outweighs the points of analogy found in those systems which are +regarded as heralds of the Reformation, and is enough to explain the +vitality of the last in comparison with the others. Whilst Wycliffe and +Hus contradicted certain particulars of the Catholic teaching, Luther +rejected the authority of the Church, and gave to the individual +conscience an independence which was sure to lead to an incessant +resistance. There is a similar difference between the Revolt of the +Netherlands, the Great Rebellion, the War of Independence, or the rising +of Brabant, on the one hand, and the French Revolution on the other. +Before 1789, insurrections were provoked by particular wrongs, and were +justified by definite complaints and by an appeal to principles which +all men acknowledged. New theories were sometimes advanced in the cause +of controversy, but they were accidental, and the great argument against +tyranny was fidelity to the ancient laws. Since the change produced by +the French Revolution, those aspirations which are awakened by the evils +and defects of the social state have come to act as permanent and +energetic forces throughout the civilised world. They are spontaneous +and aggressive, needing no prophet to proclaim, no champion to defend +them, but popular, unreasoning, and almost irresistible. The Revolution +effected this change, partly by its doctrines, partly by the indirect +influence of events. It taught the people to regard their wishes and +wants as the supreme criterion of right. The rapid vicissitudes of +power, in which each party successively appealed to the favour of the +masses as the arbiter of success, accustomed the masses to be arbitrary +as well as insubordinate. The fall of many governments, and the frequent +redistribution of territory, deprived all settlements of the dignity of +permanence. Tradition and prescription ceased to be guardians of +authority; and the arrangements which proceeded from revolutions, from +the triumphs of war, and from treaties of peace, were equally regardless +of established rights. Duty cannot be dissociated from right, and +nations refuse to be controlled by laws which are no protection. + +In this condition of the world, theory and action follow close upon each +other, and practical evils easily give birth to opposite systems. In the +realms of free-will, the regularity of natural progress is preserved by +the conflict of extremes. The impulse of the reaction carries men from +one extremity towards another. The pursuit of a remote and ideal object, +which captivates the imagination by its splendour and the reason by its +simplicity, evokes an energy which would not be inspired by a rational, +possible end, limited by many antagonistic claims, and confined to what +is reasonable, practicable, and just. One excess or exaggeration is the +corrective of the other, and error promotes truth, where the masses are +concerned, by counterbalancing a contrary error. The few have not +strength to achieve great changes unaided; the many have not wisdom to +be moved by truth unmixed. Where the disease is various, no particular +definite remedy can meet the wants of all. Only the attraction of an +abstract idea, or of an ideal state, can unite in a common action +multitudes who seek a universal cure for many special evils, and a +common restorative applicable to many different conditions. And hence +false principles, which correspond with the bad as well as with the just +aspirations of mankind, are a normal and necessary element in the social +life of nations. + +Theories of this kind are just, inasmuch as they are provoked by +definite ascertained evils, and undertake their removal. They are useful +in opposition, as a warning or a threat, to modify existing things, and +keep awake the consciousness of wrong. They cannot serve as a basis for +the reconstruction of civil society, as medicine cannot serve for food; +but they may influence it with advantage, because they point out the +direction, though not the measure, in which reform is needed. They +oppose an order of things which is the result of a selfish and violent +abuse of power by the ruling classes, and of artificial restriction on +the natural progress of the world, destitute of an ideal element or a +moral purpose. Practical extremes differ from the theoretical extremes +they provoke, because the first are both arbitrary and violent, whilst +the last, though also revolutionary, are at the same time remedial. In +one case the wrong is voluntary, in the other it is inevitable. This is +the general character of the contest between the existing order and the +subversive theories that deny its legitimacy. There are three principal +theories of this kind, impugning the present distribution of power, of +property, and of territory, and attacking respectively the aristocracy, +the middle class, and the sovereignty. They are the theories of +equality, communism, and nationality. Though sprung from a common +origin, opposing cognate evils, and connected by many links, they did +not appear simultaneously. Rousseau proclaimed the first, Baboeuf the +second, Mazzini the third; and the third is the most recent in its +appearance, the most attractive at the present time, and the richest in +promise of future power. + +In the old European system, the rights of nationalities were neither +recognised by governments nor asserted by the people. The interest of +the reigning families, not those of the nations, regulated the +frontiers; and the administration was conducted generally without any +reference to popular desires. Where all liberties were suppressed, the +claims of national independence were necessarily ignored, and a +princess, in the words of Fenelon, carried a monarchy in her wedding +portion. The eighteenth century acquiesced in this oblivion of corporate +rights on the Continent, for the absolutists cared only for the State, +and the liberals only for the individual. The Church, the nobles, and +the nation had no place in the popular theories of the age; and they +devised none in their own defence, for they were not openly attacked. +The aristocracy retained its privileges, and the Church her property; +and the dynastic interest, which overruled the natural inclination of +the nations and destroyed their independence, nevertheless maintained +their integrity. The national sentiment was not wounded in its most +sensitive part. To dispossess a sovereign of his hereditary crown, and +to annex his dominions, would have been held to inflict an injury upon +all monarchies, and to furnish their subjects with a dangerous example, +by depriving royalty of its inviolable character. In time of war, as +there was no national cause at stake, there was no attempt to rouse +national feeling. The courtesy of the rulers towards each other was +proportionate to the contempt for the lower orders. Compliments passed +between the commanders of hostile armies; there was no bitterness, and +no excitement; battles were fought with the pomp and pride of a parade. +The art of war became a slow and learned game. The monarchies were +united not only by a natural community of interests, but by family +alliances. A marriage contract sometimes became the signal for an +interminable war, whilst family connections often set a barrier to +ambition. After the wars of religion came to an end in 1648, the only +wars were those which were waged for an inheritance or a dependency, or +against countries whose system of government exempted them from the +common law of dynastic States, and made them not only unprotected but +obnoxious. These countries were England and Holland, until Holland +ceased to be a republic, and until, in England, the defeat of the +Jacobites in the forty-five terminated the struggle for the Crown. There +was one country, however, which still continued to be an exception; one +monarch whose place was not admitted in the comity of kings. + +Poland did not possess those securities for stability which were +supplied by dynastic connections and the theory of legitimacy, wherever +a crown could be obtained by marriage or inheritance. A monarch without +royal blood, a crown bestowed by the nation, were an anomaly and an +outrage in that age of dynastic absolutism. The country was excluded +from the European system by the nature of its institutions. It excited a +cupidity which could not be satisfied. It gave the reigning families of +Europe no hope of permanently strengthening themselves by intermarriage +with its rulers, or of obtaining it by bequest or by inheritance. The +Habsburgs had contested the possession of Spain and the Indies with the +French Bourbons, of Italy with the Spanish Bourbons, of the empire with +the house of Wittelsbach, of Silesia with the house of Hohenzollern. +There had been wars between rival houses for half the territories of +Italy and Germany. But none could hope to redeem their losses or +increase their power in a country to which marriage and descent gave no +claim. Where they could not permanently inherit they endeavoured, by +intrigues, to prevail at each election, and after contending in support +of candidates who were their partisans, the neighbours at last appointed +an instrument for the final demolition of the Polish State. Till then no +nation had been deprived of its political existence by the Christian +Powers, and whatever disregard had been shown for national interests and +sympathies, some care had been taken to conceal the wrong by a +hypocritical perversion of law. But the partition of Poland was an act +of wanton violence, committed in open defiance not only of popular +feeling but of public law. For the first time in modern history a great +State was suppressed, and a whole nation divided among its enemies. + +This famous measure, the most revolutionary act of the old absolutism, +awakened the theory of nationality in Europe, converting a dormant right +into an aspiration, and a sentiment into a political claim. "No wise or +honest man," wrote Edmund Burke, "can approve of that partition, or can +contemplate it without prognosticating great mischief from it to all +countries at some future time."[327] Thenceforward there was a nation +demanding to be united in a State,--a soul, as it were, wandering in +search of a body in which to begin life over again; and, for the first +time, a cry was heard that the arrangement of States was unjust--that +their limits were unnatural, and that a whole people was deprived of its +right to constitute an independent community. Before that claim could be +efficiently asserted against the overwhelming power of its +opponents,--before it gained energy, after the last partition, to +overcome the influence of long habits of submission, and of the contempt +which previous disorders had brought upon Poland,--the ancient European +system was in ruins, and a new world was rising in its place. + +The old despotic policy which made the Poles its prey had two +adversaries,--the spirit of English liberty, and the doctrines of that +revolution which destroyed the French monarchy with its own weapons; and +these two contradicted in contrary ways the theory that nations have no +collective rights. At the present day, the theory of nationality is not +only the most powerful auxiliary of revolution, but its actual substance +in the movements of the last three years. This, however, is a recent +alliance, unknown to the first French Revolution. The modern theory of +nationality arose partly as a legitimate consequence, partly as a +reaction against it. As the system which overlooked national division +was opposed by liberalism in two forms, the French and the English, so +the system which insists upon them proceeds from two distinct sources, +and exhibits the character either of 1688 or of 1789. When the French +people abolished the authorities under which it lived, and became its +own master, France was in danger of dissolution: for the common will is +difficult to ascertain, and does not readily agree. "The laws," said +Vergniaud, in the debate on the sentence of the king, "are obligatory +only as the presumptive will of the people, which retains the right of +approving or condemning them. The instant it manifests its wish the work +of the national representation, the law, must disappear." This doctrine +resolved society into its natural elements, and threatened to break up +the country into as many republics as there were communes. For true +republicanism is the principle of self-government in the whole and in +all the parts. In an extensive country, it can prevail only by the union +of several independent communities in a single confederacy, as in +Greece, in Switzerland, in the Netherlands, and in America; so that a +large republic not founded on the federal principle must result in the +government of a single city, like Rome and Paris, and, in a less degree, +Athens, Berne, and Amsterdam; or, in other words, a great democracy must +either sacrifice self-government to unity, or preserve it by federalism. + +The France of history fell together with the French State, which was the +growth of centuries. The old sovereignty was destroyed. The local +authorities were looked upon with aversion and alarm. The new central +authority needed to be established on a new principle of unity. The +state of nature, which was the ideal of society, was made the basis of +the nation; descent was put in the place of tradition, and the French +people was regarded as a physical product: an ethnological, not +historic, unit. It was assumed that a unity existed separate from the +representation and the government, wholly independent of the past, and +capable at any moment of expressing or of changing its mind. In the +words of Sieyes, it was no longer France, but some unknown country to +which the nation was transported. The central power possessed authority, +inasmuch as it obeyed the whole, and no divergence was permitted from +the universal sentiment. This power, endowed with volition, was +personified in the Republic One and Indivisible. The title signified +that a part could not speak or act for the whole,--that there was a +power supreme over the State, distinct from, and independent of, its +members; and it expressed, for the first time in history, the notion of +an abstract nationality. In this manner the idea of the sovereignty of +the people, uncontrolled by the past, gave birth to the idea of +nationality independent of the political influence of history. It sprang +from the rejection of the two authorities,--of the State and of the +past. The kingdom of France was, geographically as well as politically, +the product of a long series of events, and the same influences which +built up the State formed the territory. The Revolution repudiated alike +the agencies to which France owed her boundaries and those to which she +owed her government. Every effaceable trace and relic of national +history was carefully wiped away,--the system of administration, the +physical divisions of the country, the classes of society, the +corporations, the weights and measures, the calendar. France was no +longer bounded by the limits she had received from the condemned +influence of her history; she could recognise only those which were set +by nature. The definition of the nation was borrowed from the material +world, and, in order to avoid a loss of territory, it became not only an +abstraction but a fiction. + +There was a principle of nationality in the ethnological character of +the movement, which is the source of the common observation that +revolution is more frequent in Catholic than in Protestant countries. It +is, in fact, more frequent in the Latin than in the Teutonic world, +because it depends partly on a national impulse, which is only awakened +where there is an alien element, the vestige of a foreign dominion, to +expel. Western Europe has undergone two conquests--one by the Romans and +one by the Germans, and twice received laws from the invaders. Each time +it rose again against the victorious race; and the two great reactions, +while they differ according to the different characters of the two +conquests, have the phenomenon of imperialism in common. The Roman +republic laboured to crush the subjugated nations into a homogeneous and +obedient mass; but the increase which the proconsular authority obtained +in the process subverted the republican government, and the reaction of +the provinces against Rome assisted in establishing the empire The +Caesarean system gave an unprecedented freedom to the dependencies, and +raised them to a civil equality which put an end to the dominion of race +over race and of class over class. The monarchy was hailed as a refuge +from the pride and cupidity of the Roman people; and the love of +equality, the hatred of nobility, and the tolerance of despotism +implanted by Rome became, at least in Gaul, the chief feature of the +national character. But among the nations whose vitality had been broken +down by the stern republic, not one retained the materials necessary to +enjoy independence, or to develop a new history. The political faculty +which organises states and finds society in a moral order was exhausted, +and the Christian doctors looked in vain over the waste of ruins for a +people by whose aid the Church might survive the decay of Rome. A new +element of national life was brought to that declining world by the +enemies who destroyed it. The flood of barbarians settled over it for a +season, and then subsided; and when the landmarks of civilisation +appeared once more, it was found that the soil had been impregnated with +a fertilising and regenerating influence, and that the inundation had +laid the germs of future states and of a new society. The political +sense and energy came with the new blood, and was exhibited in the power +exercised by the younger race upon the old, and in the establishment of +a graduated freedom. Instead of universal equal rights, the actual +enjoyment of which is necessarily contingent on, and commensurate with, +power, the rights of the people were made dependent on a variety of +conditions, the first of which was the distribution of property. Civil +society became a classified organism instead of a formless combination +of atoms, and the feudal system gradually arose. + +Roman Gaul had so thoroughly adopted the ideas of absolute authority and +undistinguished equality during the five centuries between Caesar and +Clovis, that the people could never be reconciled to the new system. +Feudalism remained a foreign importation, and the feudal aristocracy an +alien race, and the common people of France sought protection against +both in the Roman jurisprudence and the power of the crown. The +development of absolute monarchy by the help of democracy is the one +constant character of French history. The royal power, feudal at first, +and limited by the immunities and the great vassals, became more +popular as it grew more absolute; while the suppression of aristocracy, +the removal of the intermediate authorities, was so particularly the +object of the nation, that it was more energetically accomplished after +the fall of the throne. The monarchy which had been engaged from the +thirteenth century in curbing the nobles, was at last thrust aside by +the democracy, because it was too dilatory in the work, and was unable +to deny its own origin and effectually ruin the class from which it +sprang. All those things which constitute the peculiar character of the +French Revolution,--the demand for equality, the hatred of nobility and +feudalism, and of the Church which was connected with them, the constant +reference to pagan examples, the suppression of monarchy, the new code +of law, the breach with tradition, and the substitution of an ideal +system for everything that had proceeded from the mixture and mutual +action of the races,--all these exhibit the common type of a reaction +against the effects of the Frankish invasion. The hatred of royalty was +less than the hatred of aristocracy; privileges were more detested than +tyranny; and the king perished because of the origin of his authority +rather than because of its abuse. Monarchy unconnected with aristocracy +became popular in France, even when most uncontrolled; whilst the +attempt to reconstitute the throne, and to limit and fence it with its +peers, broke down, because the old Teutonic elements on which it +relied--hereditary nobility, primogeniture, and privilege--were no +longer tolerated. The substance of the ideas of 1789 is not the +limitation of the sovereign power, but the abrogation of intermediate +powers. These powers, and the classes which enjoyed them, come in Latin +Europe from a barbarian origin; and the movement which calls itself +liberal is essentially national. If liberty were its object, its means +would be the establishment of great independent authorities not derived +from the State, and its model would be England. But its object is +equality; and it seeks, like France in 1789, to cast out the elements of +inequality which were introduced by the Teutonic race. This is the +object which Italy and Spain have had in common with France, and herein +consists the natural league of the Latin nations. + +This national element in the movement was not understood by the +revolutionary leaders. At first, their doctrine appeared entirely +contrary to the idea of nationality. They taught that certain general +principles of government were absolutely right in all States; and they +asserted in theory the unrestricted freedom of the individual, and the +supremacy of the will over every external necessity or obligation. This +is in apparent contradiction to the national theory, that certain +natural forces ought to determine the character, the form, and the +policy of the State, by which a kind of fate is put in the place of +freedom. Accordingly the national sentiment was not developed directly +out of the revolution in which it was involved, but was exhibited first +in resistance to it, when the attempt to emancipate had been absorbed in +the desire to subjugate, and the republic had been succeeded by the +empire. Napoleon called a new power into existence by attacking +nationality in Russia, by delivering it in Italy, by governing in +defiance of it in Germany and Spain. The sovereigns of these countries +were deposed or degraded; and a system of administration was introduced +which was French in its origin, its spirit, and its instruments. The +people resisted the change. The movement against it was popular and +spontaneous, because the rulers were absent or helpless; and it was +national, because it was directed against foreign institutions. In +Tyrol, in Spain, and afterwards in Prussia, the people did not receive +the impulse from the government, but undertook of their own accord to +cast out the armies and the ideas of revolutionised France. Men were +made conscious of the national element of the revolution by its +conquests, not in its rise. The three things which the Empire most +openly oppressed--religion, national independence, and political +liberty--united in a short-lived league to animate the great uprising by +which Napoleon fell. Under the influence of that memorable alliance a +political spirit was called forth on the Continent, which clung to +freedom and abhorred revolution, and sought to restore, to develop, and +to reform the decayed national institutions. The men who proclaimed +these ideas, Stein and Goerres, Humboldt, Mueller, and De Maistre,[328] +were as hostile to Bonapartism as to the absolutism of the old +governments, and insisted on the national rights, which had been invaded +equally by both, and which they hoped to restore by the destruction of +the French supremacy. With the cause that triumphed at Waterloo the +friends of the Revolution had no sympathy, for they had learned to +identify their doctrine with the cause of France. The Holland House +Whigs in England, the Afrancesados in Spain, the Muratists in Italy, and +the partisans of the Confederation of the Rhine, merging patriotism in +their revolutionary affections, regretted the fall of the French power, +and looked with alarm at those new and unknown forces which the War of +Deliverance had evoked, and which were as menacing to French liberalism +as to French supremacy. + +But the new aspirations for national and popular rights were crushed at +the restoration. The liberals of those days cared for freedom, not in +the shape of national independence, but of French institutions; and they +combined against the nations with the ambition of the governments. They +were as ready to sacrifice nationality to their ideal as the Holy +Alliance was to the interests of absolutism. Talleyrand indeed declared +at Vienna that the Polish question ought to have precedence over all +other questions, because the partition of Poland had been one of the +first and greatest causes of the evils which Europe had suffered; but +dynastic interests prevailed. All the sovereigns represented at Vienna +recovered their dominions, except the King of Saxony, who was punished +for his fidelity to Napoleon; but the States that were unrepresented in +the reigning families--Poland, Venice, and Genoa--were not revived, and +even the Pope had great difficulty in recovering the Legations from the +grasp of Austria. Nationality, which the old _regime_ had ignored, which +had been outraged by the revolution and the empire, received, after its +first open demonstration, the hardest blow at the Congress of Vienna. +The principle which the first partition had generated, to which the +revolution had given a basis of theory, which had been lashed by the +empire into a momentary convulsive effort, was matured by the long error +of the restoration into a consistent doctrine, nourished and justified +by the situation of Europe. + +The governments of the Holy Alliance devoted themselves to suppress with +equal care the revolutionary spirit by which they had been threatened, +and the national spirit by which they had been restored. Austria, which +owed nothing to the national movement, and had prevented its revival +after 1809, naturally took the lead in repressing it. Every disturbance +of the final settlements of 1815, every aspiration for changes or +reforms, was condemned as sedition. This system repressed the good with +the evil tendencies of the age; and the resistance which it provoked, +during the generation that passed away from the restoration to the fall +of Metternich, and again under the reaction which commenced with +Schwarzenberg and ended with the administrations of Bach and Manteuffel, +proceeded from various combinations of the opposite forms of liberalism. +In the successive phases of that struggle, the idea that national claims +are above all other rights gradually rose to the supremacy which it now +possesses among the revolutionary agencies. + +The first liberal movement, that of the Carbonari in the south of +Europe, had no specific national character, but was supported by the +Bonapartists both in Spain and Italy. In the following years the +opposite ideas of 1813 came to the front, and a revolutionary movement, +in many respects hostile to the principles of revolution, began in +defence of liberty, religion, and nationality. All these causes were +united in the Irish agitation, and in the Greek, Belgian, and Polish +revolutions. Those sentiments which had been insulted by Napoleon, and +had risen against him, rose against the governments of the restoration. +They had been oppressed by the sword, and then by the treaties. The +national principle added force, but not justice, to this movement, +which, in every case but Poland, was successful. A period followed in +which it degenerated into a purely national idea, as the agitation for +repeal succeeded emancipation, and Panslavism and Panhellenism arose +under the auspices of the Eastern Church. This was the third phase of +the resistance to the settlement of Vienna, which was weak, because it +failed to satisfy national or constitutional aspirations, either of +which would have been a safeguard against the other, by a moral if not +by a popular justification. At first, in 1813, the people rose against +their conquerors, in defence of their legitimate rulers. They refused to +be governed by usurpers. In the period between 1825 and 1831, they +resolved that they would not be misgoverned by strangers. The French +administration was often better than that which it displaced, but there +were prior claimants for the authority exercised by the French, and at +first the national contest was a contest for legitimacy. In the second +period this element was wanting. No dispossessed princes led the Greeks, +the Belgians, or the Poles. The Turks, the Dutch, and the Russians were +attacked, not as usurpers, but as oppressors,--because they misgoverned, +not because they were of a different race. Then began a time when the +text simply was, that nations would not be governed by foreigners. Power +legitimately obtained, and exercised with moderation, was declared +invalid. National rights, like religion, had borne part in the previous +combinations, and had been auxiliaries in the struggles for freedom, but +now nationality became a paramount claim, which was to assert itself +alone, which might put forward as pretexts the rights of rulers, the +liberties of the people, the safety of religion, but which, if no such +union could be formed, was to prevail at the expense of every other +cause for which nations make sacrifices. + +Metternich is, next to Napoleon, the chief promoter of this theory; for +the anti-national character of the restoration was most distinct in +Austria, and it is in opposition to the Austrian Government that +nationality grew into a system. Napoleon, who, trusting to his armies, +despised moral forces in politics, was overthrown by their rising. +Austria committed the same fault in the government of her Italian +provinces. The kingdom of Italy had united all the northern part of the +Peninsula in a single State; and the national feelings, which the French +repressed elsewhere, were encouraged as a safeguard of their power in +Italy and in Poland. When the tide of victory turned, Austria invoked +against the French the aid of the new sentiment they had fostered. +Nugent announced, in his proclamation to the Italians, that they should +become an independent nation. The same spirit served different masters, +and contributed first to the destruction of the old States, then to the +expulsion of the French, and again, under Charles Albert, to a new +revolution. It was appealed to in the name of the most contradictory +principles of government, and served all parties in succession, because +it was one in which all could unite. Beginning by a protest against the +dominion of race over race, its mildest and least-developed form, it +grew into a condemnation of every State that included different races, +and finally became the complete and consistent theory, that the State +and the nation must be co-extensive. "It is," says Mr. Mill, "in general +a necessary condition of free institutions, that the boundaries of +governments should coincide in the main with those of nationalities."[329] + +The outward historical progress of this idea from an indefinite +aspiration to be the keystone of a political system, may be traced in +the life of the man who gave to it the element in which its strength +resides,--Giuseppe Mazzini. He found Carbonarism impotent against the +measures of the governments, and resolved to give new life to the +liberal movement by transferring it to the ground of nationality. Exile +is the nursery of nationality, as oppression is the school of +liberalism; and Mazzini conceived the idea of Young Italy when he was a +refugee at Marseilles. In the same way, the Polish exiles are the +champions of every national movement; for to them all political rights +are absorbed in the idea of independence, which, however they may differ +with each other, is the one aspiration common to them all. Towards the +year 1830 literature also contributed to the national idea. "It was the +time," says Mazzini, "of the great conflict between the romantic and the +classical school, which might with equal truth be called a conflict +between the partisans of freedom and of authority." The romantic school +was infidel in Italy, and Catholic in Germany; but in both it had the +common effect of encouraging national history and literature, and Dante +was as great an authority with the Italian democrats as with the leaders +of the mediaeval revival at Vienna, Munich, and Berlin. But neither the +influence of the exiles, nor that of the poets and critics of the new +party, extended over the masses. It was a sect without popular sympathy +or encouragement, a conspiracy founded not on a grievance, but on a +doctrine; and when the attempt to rise was made in Savoy, in 1834, under +a banner with the motto "Unity, Independence, God and Humanity," the +people were puzzled at its object, and indifferent to its failure. But +Mazzini continued his propaganda, developed his _Giovine Italia_ into a +_Giovine Europa_, and established in 1847 the international league of +nations. "The people," he said, in his opening address, "is penetrated +with only one idea, that of unity and nationality.... There is no +international question as to forms of government, but only a national +question." + +The revolution of 1848, unsuccessful in its national purpose, prepared +the subsequent victories of nationality in two ways. The first of these +was the restoration of the Austrian power in Italy, with a new and more +energetic centralisation, which gave no promise of freedom. Whilst that +system prevailed, the right was on the side of the national aspirations, +and they were revived in a more complete and cultivated form by Manin. +The policy of the Austrian Government, which failed during the ten years +of the reaction to convert the tenure by force into a tenure by right, +and to establish with free institutions the condition of allegiance, +gave a negative encouragement to the theory. It deprived Francis Joseph +of all active support and sympathy in 1859, for he was more clearly +wrong in his conduct than his enemies in their doctrines. The real cause +of the energy which the national theory has acquired is, however, the +triumph of the democratic principle in France, and its recognition by +the European Powers. The theory of nationality is involved in the +democratic theory of the sovereignty of the general will. "One hardly +knows what any division of the human race should be free to do, if not +to determine with which of the various collective bodies of human beings +they choose to associate themselves."[330] It is by this act that a +nation constitutes itself. To have a collective will, unity is +necessary, and independence is requisite in order to assert it. Unity +and nationality are still more essential to the notion of the +sovereignty of the people than the cashiering of monarchs, or the +revocation of laws. Arbitrary acts of this kind may be prevented by the +happiness of the people or the popularity of the king, but a nation +inspired by the democratic idea cannot with consistency allow a part of +itself to belong to a foreign State, or the whole to be divided into +several native States. The theory of nationality therefore proceeds from +both the principles which divide the political world,--from legitimacy, +which ignores its claims, and from the revolution, which assumes them; +and for the same reason it is the chief weapon of the last against the +first. + +In pursuing the outward and visible growth of the national theory we are +prepared for an examination of its political character and value. The +absolutism which has created it denies equally that absolute right of +national unity which is a product of democracy, and that claim of +national liberty which belongs to the theory of freedom. These two views +of nationality, corresponding to the French and to the English systems, +are connected in name only, and are in reality the opposite extremes of +political thought. In one case, nationality is founded on the perpetual +supremacy of the collective will, of which the unity of the nation is +the necessary condition, to which every other influence must defer, and +against which no obligation enjoys authority, and all resistance is +tyrannical. The nation is here an ideal unit founded on the race, in +defiance of the modifying action of external causes, of tradition, and +of existing rights. It overrules the rights and wishes of the +inhabitants, absorbing their divergent interests in a fictitious unity; +sacrifices their several inclinations and duties to the higher claim of +nationality, and crushes all natural rights and all established +liberties for the purpose of vindicating itself.[331] Whenever a single +definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the +advantage of a class, the safety or the power of the country, the +greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any +speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. +Liberty alone demands for its realisation the limitation of the public +authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and +provokes no sincere opposition. In supporting the claims of national +unity, governments must be subverted in whose title there is no flaw, +and whose policy is beneficent and equitable, and subjects must be +compelled to transfer their allegiance to an authority for which they +have no attachment, and which may be practically a foreign domination. +Connected with this theory in nothing except in the common enmity of the +absolute state, is the theory which represents nationality as an +essential, but not a supreme element in determining the forms of the +State. It is distinguished from the other, because it tends to diversity +and not to uniformity, to harmony and not to unity; because it aims not +at an arbitrary change, but at careful respect for the existing +conditions of political life, and because it obeys the laws and results +of history, not the aspirations of an ideal future. While the theory of +unity makes the nation a source of despotism and revolution, the theory +of liberty regards it as the bulwark of self-government, and the +foremost limit to the excessive power of the State. Private rights, +which are sacrificed to the unity, are preserved by the union of +nations. No power can so efficiently resist the tendencies of +centralisation, of corruption, and of absolutism, as that community +which is the vastest that can be included in a State, which imposes on +its members a consistent similarity of character, interest, and opinion, +and which arrests the action of the sovereign by the influence of a +divided patriotism. The presence of different nations under the same +sovereignty is similar in its effect to the independence of the Church +in the State. It provides against the servility which flourishes under +the shadow of a single authority, by balancing interests, multiplying +associations, and giving to the subject the restraint and support of a +combined opinion. In the same way it promotes independence by forming +definite groups of public opinion, and by affording a great source and +centre of political sentiments, and of notions of duty not derived from +the sovereign will. Liberty provokes diversity, and diversity preserves +liberty by supplying the means of organisation. All those portions of +law which govern the relations of men with each other, and regulate +social life, are the varying result of national custom and the creation +of private society. In these things, therefore, the several nations +will differ from each other; for they themselves have produced them, and +they do not owe them to the State which rules them all. This diversity +in the same State is a firm barrier against the intrusion of the +government beyond the political sphere which is common to all into the +social department which escapes legislation and is ruled by spontaneous +laws. This sort of interference is characteristic of an absolute +government, and is sure to provoke a reaction, and finally a remedy. +That intolerance of social freedom which is natural to absolutism is +sure to find a corrective in the national diversities, which no other +force could so efficiently provide. The co-existence of several nations +under the same State is a test, as well as the best security of its +freedom. It is also one of the chief instruments of civilisation; and, +as such, it is in the natural and providential order, and indicates a +state of greater advancement than the national unity which is the ideal +of modern liberalism. + +The combination of different nations in one State is as necessary a +condition of civilised life as the combination of men in society. +Inferior races are raised by living in political union with races +intellectually superior. Exhausted and decaying nations are revived by +the contact of a younger vitality. Nations in which the elements of +organisation and the capacity for government have been lost, either +through the demoralising influence of despotism, or the disintegrating +action of democracy, are restored and educated anew under the discipline +of a stronger and less corrupted race. This fertilising and regenerating +process can only be obtained by living under one government. It is in +the cauldron of the State that the fusion takes place by which the +vigour, the knowledge, and the capacity of one portion of mankind may be +communicated to another. Where political and national boundaries +coincide, society ceases to advance, and nations relapse into a +condition corresponding to that of men who renounce intercourse with +their fellow-men. The difference between the two unites mankind not only +by the benefits it confers on those who live together, but because it +connects society either by a political or a national bond, gives to +every people an interest in its neighbours, either because they are +under the same government or because they are of the same race, and thus +promotes the interests of humanity, of civilisation, and of religion. + +Christianity rejoices at the mixture of races, as paganism identifies +itself with their differences, because truth is universal, and errors +various and particular. In the ancient world idolatry and nationality +went together, and the same term is applied in Scripture to both. It was +the mission of the Church to overcome national differences. The period +of her undisputed supremacy was that in which all Western Europe obeyed +the same laws, all literature was contained in one language, and the +political unity of Christendom was personified in a single potentate, +while its intellectual unity was represented in one university. As the +ancient Romans concluded their conquests by carrying away the gods of +the conquered people, Charlemagne overcame the national resistance of +the Saxons only by the forcible destruction of their pagan rites. Out of +the mediaeval period, and the combined action of the German race and the +Church, came forth a new system of nations and a new conception of +nationality. Nature was overcome in the nation as well as in the +individual. In pagan and uncultivated times, nations were distinguished +from each other by the widest diversity, not only in religion, but in +customs, language, and character. Under the new law they had many things +in common; the old barriers which separated them were removed, and the +new principle of self-government, which Christianity imposed, enabled +them to live together under the same authority, without necessarily +losing their cherished habits, their customs, or their laws. The new +idea of freedom made room for different races in one State. A nation was +no longer what it had been to the ancient world,--the progeny of a +common ancestor, or the aboriginal product of a particular region,--a +result of merely physical and material causes,--but a moral and +political being; not the creation of geographical or physiological +unity, but developed in the course of history by the action of the +State. It is derived from the State, not supreme over it. A State may in +course of time produce a nationality; but that a nationality should +constitute a State is contrary to the nature of modern civilisation. The +nation derives its rights and its power from the memory of a former +independence. + +The Church has agreed in this respect with the tendency of political +progress, and discouraged wherever she could the isolation of nations; +admonishing them of their duties to each other, and regarding conquest +and feudal investiture as the natural means of raising barbarous or +sunken nations to a higher level. But though she has never attributed to +national independence an immunity from the accidental consequences of +feudal law, of hereditary claims, or of testamentary arrangements, she +defends national liberty against uniformity and centralisation with an +energy inspired by perfect community of interests. For the same enemy +threatens both; and the State which is reluctant to tolerate +differences, and to do justice to the peculiar character of various +races, must from the same cause interfere in the internal government of +religion. The connection of religious liberty with the emancipation of +Poland or Ireland is not merely the accidental result of local causes; +and the failure of the Concordat to unite the subjects of Austria is the +natural consequence of a policy which did not desire to protect the +provinces in their diversity and autonomy, and sought to bribe the +Church by favours instead of strengthening her by independence. From +this influence of religion in modern history has proceeded a new +definition of patriotism. + +The difference between nationality and the State is exhibited in the +nature of patriotic attachment. Our connection with the race is merely +natural or physical, whilst our duties to the political nation are +ethical. One is a community of affections and instincts infinitely +important and powerful in savage life, but pertaining more to the animal +than to the civilised man; the other is an authority governing by laws, +imposing obligations, and giving a moral sanction and character to the +natural relations of society. Patriotism is in political life what faith +is in religion, and it stands to the domestic feelings and to +home-sickness as faith to fanaticism and to superstition. It has one +aspect derived from private life and nature, for it is an extension of +the family affections, as the tribe is an extension of the family. But +in its real political character, patriotism consists in the development +of the instinct of self-preservation into a moral duty which may involve +self-sacrifice. Self-preservation is both an instinct and a duty, +natural and involuntary in one respect, and at the same time a moral +obligation. By the first it produces the family; by the last the State. +If the nation could exist without the State, subject only to the +instinct of self-preservation, it would be incapable of denying, +controlling, or sacrificing itself; it would be an end and a rule to +itself. But in the political order moral purposes are realised and +public ends are pursued to which private interests and even existence +must be sacrificed. The great sign of true patriotism, the development +of selfishness into sacrifice, is the product of political life. That +sense of duty which is supplied by race is not entirely separated from +its selfish and instinctive basis; and the love of country, like married +love, stands at the same time on a material and a moral foundation. The +patriot must distinguish between the two causes or objects of his +devotion. The attachment which is given only to the country is like +obedience given only to the State--a submission to physical influences. +The man who prefers his country before every other duty shows the same +spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the State. They both +deny that right is superior to authority. + +There is a moral and political country, in the language of Burke, +distinct from the geographical, which may be possibly in collision with +it The Frenchmen who bore arms against the Convention were as patriotic +as the Englishmen who bore arms against King Charles, for they +recognised a higher duty than that of obedience to the actual +sovereign. "In an address to France," said Burke, "in an attempt to +treat with it, or in considering any scheme at all relative to it, it is +impossible we should mean the geographical, we must always mean the +moral and political, country.... The truth is, that France is out of +itself--the moral France is separated from the geographical. The master +of the house is expelled, and the robbers are in possession. If we look +for the corporate people of France, existing as corporate in the eye and +intention of public law (that corporate people, I mean, who are free to +deliberate and to decide, and who have a capacity to treat and +conclude), they are in Flanders and Germany, in Switzerland, Spain, +Italy, and England. There are all the princes of the blood, there are +all the orders of the State, there are all the parliaments of the +kingdom.... I am sure that if half that number of the same description +were taken out of this country, it would leave hardly anything that I +should call the people of England."[332] Rousseau draws nearly the same +distinction between the country to which we happen to belong and that +which fulfils towards us the political functions of the State. In the +_Emile_ he has a sentence of which it is not easy in a translation to +convey the point: "Qui n'a pas une patrie a du moins un pays." And in +his tract on Political Economy he writes: "How shall men love their +country if it is nothing more for them than for strangers, and bestows +on them only that which it can refuse to none?" It is in the same sense +he says, further on, "La patrie ne peut subsister sans la liberte."[333] + +The nationality formed by the State, then, is the only one to which we +owe political duties, and it is, therefore, the only one which has +political rights. The Swiss are ethnologically either French, Italian, +or German; but no nationality has the slightest claim upon them, except +the purely political nationality of Switzerland. The Tuscan or the +Neapolitan State has formed a nationality, but the citizens of Florence +and of Naples have no political community with each other. There are +other States which have neither succeeded in absorbing distinct races in +a political nationality, nor in separating a particular district from a +larger nation. Austria and Mexico are instances on the one hand, Parma +and Baden on the other. The progress of civilisation deals hardly with +the last description of States. In order to maintain their integrity +they must attach themselves by confederations, or family alliances, to +greater Powers, and thus lose something of their independence. Their +tendency is to isolate and shut off their inhabitants, to narrow the +horizon of their views, and to dwarf in some degree the proportions of +their ideas. Public opinion cannot maintain its liberty and purity in +such small dimensions, and the currents that come from larger +communities sweep over a contracted territory. In a small and +homogeneous population there is hardly room for a natural classification +of society, or for inner groups of interests that set bounds to +sovereign power. The government and the subjects contend with borrowed +weapons. The resources of the one and the aspirations of the other are +derived from some external source, and the consequence is that the +country becomes the instrument and the scene of contests in which it is +not interested. These States, like the minuter communities of the Middle +Ages, serve a purpose, by constituting partitions and securities of +self-government in the larger States; but they are impediments to the +progress of society, which depends on the mixture of races under the +same governments. + +The vanity and peril of national claims founded on no political +tradition, but on race alone, appear in Mexico. There the races are +divided by blood, without being grouped together in different regions. +It is, therefore, neither possible to unite them nor to convert them +into the elements of an organised State. They are fluid, shapeless, and +unconnected, and cannot be precipitated, or formed into the basis of +political institutions. As they cannot be used by the State, they cannot +be recognised by it; and their peculiar qualities, capabilities, +passions, and attachments are of no service, and therefore obtain no +regard. They are necessarily ignored, and are therefore perpetually +outraged. From this difficulty of races with political pretensions, but +without political position, the Eastern world escaped by the institution +of castes. Where there are only two races there is the resource of +slavery; but when different races inhabit the different territories of +one Empire composed of several smaller States, it is of all possible +combinations the most favourable to the establishment of a highly +developed system of freedom. In Austria there are two circumstances +which add to the difficulty of the problem, but also increase its +importance. The several nationalities are at very unequal degrees of +advancement, and there is no single nation which is so predominant as to +overwhelm or absorb the others. These are the conditions necessary for +the very highest degree of organisation which government is capable of +receiving. They supply the greatest variety of intellectual resource; +the perpetual incentive to progress, which is afforded not merely by +competition, but by the spectacle of a more advanced people; the most +abundant elements of self-government, combined with the impossibility +for the State to rule all by its own will; and the fullest security for +the preservation of local customs and ancient rights. In such a country +as this, liberty would achieve its most glorious results, while +centralisation and absolutism would be destruction. + +The problem presented to the government of Austria is higher than that +which is solved in England, because of the necessity of admitting the +national claims. The parliamentary system fails to provide for them, as +it presupposes the unity of the people. Hence in those countries in +which different races dwell together, it has not satisfied their +desires, and is regarded as an imperfect form of freedom. It brings out +more clearly than before the differences it does not recognise, and thus +continues the work of the old absolutism, and appears as a new phase of +centralisation. In those countries, therefore, the power of the imperial +parliament must be limited as jealously as the power of the crown, and +many of its functions must be discharged by provincial diets, and a +descending series of local authorities. + +The great importance of nationality in the State consists in the fact +that it is the basis of political capacity. The character of a nation +determines in great measure the form and vitality of the State. Certain +political habits and ideas belong to particular nations, and they vary +with the course of the national history. A people just emerging from +barbarism, a people effete from the excesses of a luxurious +civilisation, cannot possess the means of governing itself; a people +devoted to equality, or to absolute monarchy, is incapable of producing +an aristocracy; a people averse to the institution of private property +is without the first element of freedom. Each of these can be converted +into efficient members of a free community only by the contact of a +superior race, in whose power will lie the future prospects of the +State. A system which ignores these things, and does not rely for its +support on the character and aptitude of the people, does not intend +that they should administer their own affairs, but that they should +simply be obedient to the supreme command. The denial of nationality, +therefore, implies the denial of political liberty. + +The greatest adversary of the rights of nationality is the modern theory +of nationality. By making the State and the nation commensurate with +each other in theory, it reduces practically to a subject condition all +other nationalities that may be within the boundary. It cannot admit +them to an equality with the ruling nation which constitutes the State, +because the State would then cease to be national, which would be a +contradiction of the principle of its existence. According, therefore, +to the degree of humanity and civilisation in that dominant body which +claims all the rights of the community, the inferior races are +exterminated, or reduced to servitude, or outlawed, or put in a +condition of dependence. + +If we take the establishment of liberty for the realisation of moral +duties to be the end of civil society, we must conclude that those +states are substantially the most perfect which, like the British and +Austrian Empires, include various distinct nationalities without +oppressing them. Those in which no mixture of races has occurred are +imperfect; and those in which its effects have disappeared are decrepit. +A State which is incompetent to satisfy different races condemns itself; +a State which labours to neutralise, to absorb, or to expel them, +destroys its own vitality; a State which does not include them is +destitute of the chief basis of self-government The theory of +nationality, therefore, is a retrograde step in history. It is the most +advanced form of the revolution, and must retain its power to the end of +the revolutionary period, of which it announces the approach. Its great +historical importance depends on two chief causes. + +First, it is a chimera. The settlement at which it aims is impossible. +As it can never be satisfied and exhausted, and always continues to +assert itself, it prevents the government from ever relapsing into the +condition which provoked its rise. The danger is too threatening, and +the power over men's minds too great, to allow any system to endure +which justifies the resistance of nationality. It must contribute, +therefore, to obtain that which in theory it condemns,--the liberty of +different nationalities as members of one sovereign community. This is a +service which no other force could accomplish; for it is a corrective +alike of absolute monarchy, of democracy, and of constitutionalism, as +well as of the centralisation which is common to all three. Neither the +monarchical, nor the revolutionary, nor the parliamentary system can do +this; and all the ideas which have excited enthusiasm in past times are +impotent for the purpose except nationality alone. + +And secondly, the national theory marks the end of the revolutionary +doctrine and its logical exhaustion. In proclaiming the supremacy of the +rights of nationality, the system of democratic equality goes beyond its +own extreme boundary, and falls into contradiction with itself. Between +the democratic and the national phase of the revolution, socialism had +intervened, and had already carried the consequences of the principle to +an absurdity. But that phase was passed. The revolution survived its +offspring, and produced another further result. Nationality is more +advanced than socialism, because it is a more arbitrary system. The +social theory endeavours to provide for the existence of the individual +beneath the terrible burdens which modern society heaps upon labour. It +is not merely a development of the notion of equality, but a refuge from +real misery and starvation. However false the solution, it was a +reasonable demand that the poor should be saved from destruction; and if +the freedom of the State was sacrificed to the safety of the individual, +the more immediate object was, at least in theory, attained. But +nationality does not aim either at liberty or prosperity, both of which +it sacrifices to the imperative necessity of making the nation the mould +and measure of the State. Its course will be marked with material as +well as moral ruin, in order that a new invention may prevail over the +works of God and the interests of mankind. There is no principle of +change, no phase of political speculation conceivable, more +comprehensive, more subversive, or more arbitrary than this. It is a +confutation of democracy, because it sets limits to the exercise of the +popular will, and substitutes for it a higher principle. It prevents not +only the division, but the extension of the State, and forbids to +terminate war by conquest, and to obtain a security for peace. Thus, +after surrendering the individual to the collective will, the +revolutionary system makes the collective will subject to conditions +which are independent of it, and rejects all law, only to be controlled +by an accident. + +Although, therefore, the theory of nationality is more absurd and more +criminal than the theory of socialism, it has an important mission in +the world, and marks the final conflict, and therefore the end, of two +forces which are the worst enemies of civil freedom,--the absolute +monarchy and the revolution. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 326: _Home and Foreign Review_, July 1862.] + +[Footnote 327: "Observations on the Conduct of the Minority," _Works_, +v. 112.] + +[Footnote 328: There are some remarkable thoughts on nationality in the +State Papers of the Count de Maistre: "En premier lieu les nations sont +quelque chose dans le monde, il n'est pas permis de les compter pour +rien, de les affliger dans leurs convenances, dans leurs affections, +dans leurs interets les plus chers.... Or le traite du 30 mai aneantit +completement la Savoie; il divise l'indivisible; il partage en trois +portions une malheureuse nation de 400,000 hommes, une par la langue, +une par la religion, une par le caractere, une par l'habitude inveteree, +une enfin par les limites naturelles.... L'union des nations ne souffre +pas de difficultes sur la carte geographique; mais dans la realite, +c'est autre chose; il y a des nations _immiscibles_.... Je lui parlai +par occasion de l'esprit italien qui s'agite dans ce moment; il (Count +Nesselrode) me repondit: 'Oui, Monsieur; mais cet esprit est un grand +mal, car il peut gener les arrangements de l'Italie.'" (_Correspondance +Diplomatique de J. de Maistre_, ii. 7, 8, 21, 25). In the same year, +1815, Goerres wrote: "In Italien wie allerwaerts ist das Volk gewecht; es +will etwas grossartiges, es will Ideen haben, die, wenn es sie auch +nicht ganz begreift, doch einen freien unendlichen Gesichtskreis seiner +Einbildung eroeffnen. ... Es ist reiner Naturtrieb, dass ein Volk, also +scharf und deutlich in seine natuerlichen Graenzen eingeschlossen, aus der +Zerstreuung in die Einheit sich zu sammeln sucht." (_Werke_, ii. 20).] + +[Footnote 329: _Considerations on Representative Government_, p. 298.] + +[Footnote 330: Mill's _Considerations_, p. 296.] + +[Footnote 331: "Le sentiment d'independance nationale est encore plus +general et plus profondement grave dans le coeur des peuples que l'amour +d'une liberte constitutionnelle. Les nations les plus soumises au +despotisme eprouvent ce sentiment avec autant de vivacite que les +nations libres; les peuples les plus barbares le sentent meme encore +plus vivement que les nations policees" (_L'Italie au Dix-neuvieme +Siecle_, p. 148, Paris, 1821).] + +[Footnote 332: Burke's "Remarks on the Policy of the Allies" (_Works_, +v. 26, 29, 30).] + +[Footnote 333: _OEuvres_, i. 593, 595, ii. 717. Bossuet, in a passage of +great beauty on the love of country, does not attain to the political +definition of the word: "La societe humaine demande qu'on aime la terre +ou l'on habite ensemble, ou la regarde comme une mere et une nourrice +commune.... Les hommes en effet se sentent lies par quelque chose de +fort, lorsqu'ils songent, que la meme terre qui les a portes et nourris +etant vivants, les recevra dans son sein quand ils seront morts" +("Politique tiree de l'Ecriture Sainte," _OEuvres_, x. 317).] + + + + +X + +DOeLLINGER ON THE TEMPORAL POWER[334] + + +After half a year's delay, Dr. Doellinger has redeemed his promise to +publish the text of those lectures which made so profound a sensation in +the Catholic world.[335] We are sorry to find that the report which fell +into our hands at the time, and from which we gave the account that +appeared in our May Number, was both defective and incorrect; and we +should further regret that we did not follow the example of those +journals which abstained from comment so long as no authentic copy was +accessible, if it did not appear that, although the argument of the +lecturer was lost, his meaning was not, on the whole, seriously +misrepresented. Excepting for the sake of the author, who became the +object, and of those who unfortunately made themselves the organs, of so +much calumny, it is impossible to lament the existence of the erroneous +statements which have caused the present publication. Intending at first +to prefix an introduction to the text of his lectures, the Professor has +been led on by the gravity of the occasion, the extent of his subject, +and the abundance of materials, to compose a book of 700 pages. Written +with all the author's perspicuity of style, though without his usual +compression; with the exhaustless information which never fails him, but +with an economy of quotation suited to the general public for whom it is +designed, it betrays the circumstances of its origin. Subjects are +sometimes introduced out of their proper place and order; and there are +occasional repetitions, which show that he had not at starting fixed the +proportions of the different parts of his work. This does not, however, +affect the logical sequence of the ideas, or the accuracy of the +induction. No other book contains--no other writer probably could +supply--so comprehensive and so suggestive a description of the state of +the Protestant religion, or so impartial an account of the causes which +have brought on the crisis of the temporal power. + +The _Symbolik_ of Moehler was suggested by the beginning of that movement +of revival and resuscitation amongst the Protestants, of which Doellinger +now surveys the fortunes and the result. The interval of thirty years +has greatly altered the position of the Catholic divines towards their +antagonists. Moehler had to deal with the ideas of the Reformation, the +works of the Reformers, and the teaching of the confessions; he had to +answer in the nineteenth century the theology of the sixteenth. The +Protestantism for which he wrote was a complete system, antagonistic to +the whole of Catholic theology, and he confuted the one by comparing it +with the other, dogma for dogma. But that of which Doellinger treats has +lost, for the most part, those distinctive doctrines, not by the growth +of unbelief, but in consequence of the very efforts which its most +zealous and religious professors have made to defend and to redeem it. +The contradictions and errors of the Protestant belief were formerly the +subject of controversy with its Catholic opponents, but now the +controversy is anticipated and prevented by the undisguised admissions +of its desponding friends. It stands no longer as a system consistent, +complete, satisfying the judgment and commanding the unconditional +allegiance of its followers, and fortified at all points against +Catholicism; but disorganised as a church, its doctrines in a state of +dissolution, despaired of by its divines, strong and compact only in its +hostility to Rome, but with no positive principle of unity, no ground of +resistance, nothing to have faith in but the determination to reject +authority. This, therefore, is the point which Doellinger takes up. +Reducing the chief phenomena of religious and social decline to the one +head of failing authority, he founds on the state of Protestantism the +apology of the Papacy. He abandons to the Protestant theology the +destruction of the Protestant Church, and leaves its divines to confute +and abjure its principles in detail, and to arrive by the exhaustion of +the modes of error, through a painful but honourable process, at the +gates of truth; he meets their arguments simply by a chapter of +ecclesiastical history, of which experience teaches them the force; and +he opposes to their theories, not the discussions of controversial +theology, but the character of a single institution. The opportunity he +has taken to do this, the assumed coincidence between the process of +dissolution among the Protestants and the process of regeneration in the +Court of Rome, is the characteristic peculiarity of the book. Before we +proceed to give an analysis of its contents, we will give some extracts +from the Preface, which explains the purpose of the whole, and which is +alone one of the most important contributions to the religious +discussions of the day. + + This book arose from two out of four lectures which were delivered in + April this year. How I came to discuss the most difficult and + complicated question of our time before a very mixed audience, and in + a manner widely different from that usually adopted, I deem myself + bound to explain. It was my intention, when I was first requested to + lecture, only to speak of the present state of religion in general, + with a comprehensive view extending over all mankind. It happened, + however, that from those circles which had given the impulse to the + lectures, the question was frequently put to me, how the position of + the Holy See, the partly consummated, partly threatening, loss of its + secular power is to be explained. What answer, I was repeatedly + asked, is to be given to those out of the Church who point with + triumphant scorn to the numerous Episcopal manifestoes, in which the + States of the Church are declared essential and necessary to her + existence although the events of the last thirty years appear with + increasing distinctness to announce their downfall? I had found the + hope often expressed in newspapers, books, and periodicals, that + after the destruction of the temporal power of the Popes, the Church + herself would not escape dissolution. At the same time, I was struck + by finding in the memoirs of Chateaubriand that Cardinal Bernetti, + Secretary of State to Leo XII., had said, that if he lived long, + there was a chance of his beholding the fall of the temporal power of + the Papacy. I had also read, in the letter of a well-informed and + trustworthy correspondent from Paris, that the Archbishop of Rheims + had related on his return from Rome that Pius IX. had said to him, "I + am under no illusions, the temporal power must fall. Goyon will + abandon me; I shall then disband my remaining troops. I shall + excommunicate the king when he enters the city; and shall calmly + await my death." + + I thought already, in April, that I could perceive, what has become + still more clear in October, that the enemies of the secular power of + the Papacy are determined, united, predominant, and that there is + nowhere a protecting power which possesses the will, and at the same + time the means, of averting the catastrophe. I considered it + therefore probable that an interruption of the temporal dominion + would soon ensue--an interruption which, like others before it, would + also come to an end, and would be followed by a restoration. I + resolved, therefore, to take the opportunity, which the lectures gave + me, to prepare the public for the coming events, which already cast + their shadows upon us, and thus to prevent the scandals, the doubt, + and the offence which must inevitably arise if the States of the + Church should pass into other hands, although the pastorals of the + Bishops had so energetically asserted that they belonged to the + integrity of the Church. I meant, therefore, to say, the Church by + her nature can very well exist, and did exist for seven centuries, + without the territorial possessions of the Popes; afterwards this + possession became necessary, and, in spite of great changes and + vicissitudes, has discharged in most cases its function of serving as + a foundation for the independence and freedom of the Popes. As long + as the present state and arrangement of Europe endures, we can + discover no other means to secure to the Holy See its freedom, and + with it the confidence of all. But the knowledge and the power of God + reach farther than ours, and we must not presume to set bounds to the + Divine wisdom and omnipotence, or to say to it, In this way and no + other! Should, nevertheless, the threatening consummation ensue, and + should the Pope be robbed of his land, one of three eventualities + will assuredly come to pass. Either the loss of the State is only + temporary, and the territory will revert, after some intervening + casualties, either whole or in part, to its legitimate sovereign; or + Providence will bring about, by ways unknown to us, and combinations + which we cannot divine, a state of things in which the object, + namely, the independence and free action of the Holy See, will be + attained without the means which have hitherto served; or else we are + approaching great catastrophes in Europe, the doom of the whole + edifice of the present social order,--events of which the ruin of the + Roman State is only the precursor and the herald. + + The reasons for which, of these three possibilities, I think the + first the most probable, I have developed in this book. Concerning + the second alternative, there is nothing to be said; it is an + unknown, and therefore, indescribable, quantity. Only we must retain + it against certain over-confident assertions which profess to know + the secret things to come, and, trespassing on the divine domain, + wish to subject the Future absolutely to the laws of the immediate + Past. That the third possibility must also be admitted, few of those + who studiously observe the signs of the time will dispute. One of the + ablest historians and statesmen--Niebuhr--wrote on the 5th October + 1830: "If God does not miraculously aid, a destruction is in store + for us such as the Roman world underwent in the middle of the third + century--destruction of prosperity, of freedom, of civilisation, and + of literature." And we have proceeded much farther on the inclined + plane since then. The European Powers have overturned, or have + allowed to be overturned, the two pillars of their existence,--the + principle of legitimacy, and the public law of nations. Those + monarchs who have made themselves the slaves of the Revolution, to do + its work, are the active agents in the historical drama; the others + stand aside as quiet spectators, in expectation of inheriting + something, like Prussia and Russia, or bestowing encouragement and + assistance, like England; or as passive invalids, like Austria and + the sinking empire of Turkey. But the Revolution is a permanent + chronic disease, breaking out now in one place, now in another, + sometimes seizing several members together. The Pentarchy is + dissolved; the Holy Alliance, which, however defective or open to + abuse, was one form of political order, is buried; the right of might + prevails in Europe. Is it a process of renovation or a process of + dissolution in which European society is plunged? I still think the + former; but I must, as I have said, admit the possibility of the + other alternative. If it occurs, then, when the powers of destruction + have done their work, it will be the business of the Church at once + to co-operate actively in the reconstruction of social order out of + the ruins, both as a connecting civilising power, and as the + preserver and dispenser of moral and religious tradition. And thus + the Papacy, with or without territory, has its own function and its + appointed mission. + + These, then, were the ideas from which I started; and it may be + supposed that my language concerning the immediate fate of the + temporal power of the Pope necessarily sounded ambiguous, that I + could not well come with the confidence which is given to + other--perhaps more far-sighted--men before my audience, and say, + Rely upon it, the States of the Church--the land from Radicofani to + Ceperano, from Ravenna to Civita Vecchia, shall and must and will + invariably remain to the Popes. Heaven and earth shall pass away + before the Roman State shall pass away. I could not do this, because + I did not at that time believe it, nor do I now; but am only + confident that the Holy See will not be permanently deprived of the + conditions necessary for the fulfilment of its mission. Thus the + substance of my words was this: Let no one lose faith in the Church + if the secular principality of the Pope should disappear for a + season, or for ever. It is not essence, but accident; not end, but + means; it began late; it was formerly something quite different from + what it is now. It justly appears to us indispensable, and as long as + the existing order lasts in Europe, it must be maintained at any + price; or if it is violently interrupted, it must be restored. But a + political settlement of Europe is conceivable in which it would be + superfluous, and then it would be an oppressive burden. At the same + time I wished to defend Pope Pius IX. and his government against many + accusations, and to point out that the inward infirmities and + deficiencies which undeniably exist in the country, by which the + State has been reduced to so deplorable a condition of weakness and + helplessness, were not attributable to him: that, on the contrary, he + has shown, both before and since 1848, the best will to reform; and + that by him, and under him, much has been really improved. + + The newspaper reports, written down at home from memory, gave but an + inaccurate representation of a discourse which did not attempt in the + usual way to cut the knot, but which, with buts and ifs, and + referring to certain elements in the decision which are generally + left out of the calculation, spoke of an uncertain future, and of + various possibilities. This was not to be avoided. Any reproduction + which was not quite literal must, in spite of the good intentions of + the reporter, have given rise to false interpretations. When, + therefore, one of the most widely read papers reported the first + lecture, without any intentional falsification, but with omissions + which altered the sense and the tendency of my words, I immediately + proposed to the conductors to print my manuscript; but this offer was + declined. In other accounts in the daily press, I was often unable to + recognise my ideas; and words were put into my mouth which I had + never uttered. And here I will admit that, when I gave the lectures, + I did not think that they would be discussed by the press, but + expected that, like others of the same kind, they would at most be + mentioned in a couple of words, _in futuram oblivionem_. Of the + controversy which sprang up at once, in separate works and in + newspaper articles, in Germany, France, England, Italy, and even in + America, I shall not speak. Much of it I have not read. The writers + often did not even ask themselves whether the report which accident + put into their hands, and which they carelessly adopted, was at all + accurate. But I must refer to an account in one of the most popular + English periodicals, because I am there brought into a society to + which I do not belong. The author of an article in the July Number of + the _Edinburgh Review_ ... appeals to me, misunderstanding the drift + of my words, and erroneously believing that I had already published + an apology of my orthodoxy.... A sharp attack upon me in the _Dublin + Review_ I know only from extracts in English papers; but I can see + from the vehemence with which the writer pronounces himself against + liberal institutions, that, even after the appearance of this book, I + cannot reckon on coming to an understanding with him, ... + + The excitement which was caused by my lectures, or rather by the + accounts of them in the papers, had this advantage, that it brought + to light, in a way which to many was unexpected, how widely, how + deeply, and how firmly the attachment of the people to the See of St + Peter is rooted. For the sake of this I was glad to accept all the + attacks and animosity which fell on me in consequence. But why, it + will be asked--and I have been asked innumerable times--why not cut + short misunderstandings by the immediate publication of the lectures, + which must, as a whole, have been written beforehand? why wait for + five months? For this I had two reasons: first, it was not merely a + question of misunderstanding. Much of what I had actually said had + made an unpleasant impression in many quarters, especially among our + optimists. I should, therefore, with my bare statements, have become + involved in an agitating discussion in pamphlets and newspapers, and + that was not an attractive prospect. The second reason was this: I + expected that the further progress of events in Italy, the + irresistible logic of facts, would dispose minds to receive certain + truths. I hoped that people would learn by degrees, in the school of + events, that it is not enough always to be reckoning with the figures + "revolution," "secret societies," "Mazzinism," "Atheism," or to + estimate things only by the standard supplied by the "Jew of Verona," + but that other factors must be admitted into the calculation; for + instance, the condition of the Italian clergy, and its position + towards the laity, I wished, therefore, to let a few months go by + before I came before the public. Whether I judged rightly, the + reception of this book will show. + + I thoroughly understand those who think it censurable that I should + have spoken in detail of situations and facts which are gladly + ignored, or touched with a light and hasty hand, and that especially + at the present crisis. I myself was restrained for ten years by these + considerations, in spite of the feeling which urged me to speak on + the question of the Roman government, and it required the + circumstances I have described, I may almost say, to compel me to + speak publicly on the subject. I beg of these persons to weigh the + following points. First, when an author openly exposes a state of + things already abundantly discussed in the press, if he draws away + the necessarily very transparent covering from the gaping wounds + which are not on the Church herself, but on an institution nearly + connected with her, and whose infirmities she is made to feel, it may + fairly be supposed that he does it, in agreement with the example of + earlier friends and great men of the Church, only to show the + possibility and the necessity of the cure, in order, so far as in him + lies, to weaken the reproach that the defenders of the Church see + only the mote in the eyes of others, not the beam in their own, and + with narrow-hearted prejudice endeavour to soften, or to dissimulate, + or to deny every fact which is or which appears unfavourable to their + cause. He does it in order that it may be understood that where the + powerlessness of men to effect a cure becomes manifest, God + interposes in order to sift on His threshing-floor the chaff from + the wheat, and to consume it with the fire of the catastrophes which + are only His judgments and remedies. Secondly, I could not, as a + historian, present the effects without going back to their causes; + and it was therefore my duty, as it is that of every religious + inquirer and observer, to try to contribute something to the + _Theodicee_. He that undertakes to write on such lofty interests, + which nearly affect the weal and woe of the Church, cannot avoid + examining and displaying the wisdom and justice of God in the conduct + of terrestrial events regarding them. The fate which has overtaken + the Roman States must above all be considered in the light of a + Divine ordinance for the advantage of the Church. Seen by that light, + it assumes the character of a trial, which will continue until the + object is attained, and the welfare of the Church so far secured. + + It seemed evident to me, that as a new order of things in Europe lies + in the design of Providence, the disease, through which for the last + half-century the States of the Church unquestionably have passed, + might be the transition to a new form. To describe this malady + without overlooking or concealing any of the symptoms was, therefore, + an undertaking which I could not avoid. The disease has its source in + the inward contradiction and discord of the institutions and + conditions of the government; for the modern French institutions + stand there, without any reconciling qualifications, besides those of + the mediaeval hierarchy. Neither of these elements is strong enough to + expel the other; and either of them would, if it prevailed alone, be + again a form of disease. Yet, in the history of the last few years I + recognise symptoms of convalescence, however feeble, obscure, and + equivocal its traces may appear. What we behold is not death or + hopeless decay, it is a purifying process, painful, consuming, + penetrating bone and marrow,--such as God inflicts on His chosen + persons and institutions. There is abundance of dross, and time is + necessary before the gold can come pure out of the furnace. In the + course of this process it may happen that the territorial dominion + will be interrupted, that the State may be broken up or pass into + other hands; but it will revive, though perhaps in another form, and + with a different kind of government. In a word, _sanabilibus + laboramus malis_--that is what I wished to show; that, I believe, I + have shown. Now, and for the last forty years, the condition of the + Roman States is the heel of Achilles of the Catholic Church, the + standing reproach for adversaries throughout the world, and a + stumbling-block for thousands. Not as though the objections, which + are founded on the fact of this transitory disturbance and discord in + the social and political sphere, possessed any weight in a + theological point of view, but it cannot be denied that they are of + incalculable influence on the disposition of the world external to + the Church. + + Whenever a state of disease has appeared in the Church, there has + been but one method of cure,--that of an awakened, renovated, healthy + consciousness and of an enlightened public opinion in the Church. + The goodwill of the ecclesiastical rulers and heads has not been able + to accomplish the cure, unless sustained by the general sense and + conviction of the clergy and of the laity. The healing of the great + malady of the sixteenth century, the true internal reformation of the + Church, only became possible when people ceased to disguise or to + deny the evil, and to pass it by with silence and concealment,--when + so powerful and irresistible a public opinion had formed itself in + the Church, that its commanding influence could no longer be evaded. + At the present day, what we want is the whole truth, not merely the + perception that the temporal power of the Pope is required by the + Church,--for that is obvious to everybody, at least out of Italy, and + everything has been said that can be said about it; but also the + knowledge of the conditions under which this power is possible for + the future. The history of the Popes is full of instances where their + best intentions were not fulfilled, and their strongest resolutions + broke down, because the interests of a firmly compacted class + resisted like an impenetrable hedge of thorns. Hadrian VI. was fully + resolved to set about the reformation in earnest; and yet he achieved + virtually nothing, and felt himself, though in possession of supreme + power, altogether powerless against the passive resistance of all + those who should have been his instruments in the work. Only when + public opinion, even in Italy, and in Rome itself, was awakened, + purified, and strengthened; when the cry for reform resounded + imperatively on every side,--then only was it possible for the Popes + to overcome the resistance in the inferior spheres, and gradually, + and step by step, to open the way for a more healthy state. May, + therefore, a powerful, healthy, unanimous public opinion in Catholic + Europe come to the aid of Pius IX.!... + + Concerning another part of this book I have a few words to say. I + have given a survey of all the Churches and ecclesiastical + communities now existing. The obligation of attempting this presented + itself to me, because I had to explain both the universal importance + of the Papacy as a power for all the world, and the things which it + actually performs. This could not be done fully without exhibiting + the internal condition of the Churches which have rejected it, and + withdrawn from its influence. It is true that the plan increased + under my hands, and I endeavoured to give as clear a picture as + possible of the development which has accomplished itself in the + separated Churches since the Reformation, and through it, in + consequence of the views and principles which had been once for all + adopted. I have, therefore, admitted into my description no feature + which is not, in my opinion, an effect, a result, however remote, of + those principles and doctrines. There is doubtless room for + discussion in detail upon this point, and there will unavoidably be a + decided opposition to this book, if it should be noticed beyond the + limits of the Church to which I belong. I hope that there also the + justice will be done me of believing that I was far from having any + intention of offending; that I have only said what must be said, if + we would go to the bottom of these questions; that I had to do with + institutions which, because of the dogmas and principles from which + they spring, must, like a tree that is nailed to a wall, remain in + one position, however unnatural it may be. I am quite ready to admit + that, on the opposite side, the men are often better than the system + to which they are, or deem themselves, attached; and that, on the + contrary, in the Church the individuals are, on the average, inferior + in theory and in practice to the system under which they live.... + + The union of the two religions, which would be socially and + politically the salvation of Germany and of Europe, is not possible + at present; first because the greater, more active, and more + influential portion of the German Protestants do not desire it, for + political or religious reasons, in any form or under any practicable + conditions. It is impossible, secondly, because negotiations + concerning the mode and the conditions of union can no longer be + carried on. For this, plenipotentiaries on both sides are required; + and these only the Catholic Church is able to appoint, by virtue of + her ecclesiastical organisation, not the Protestants.... + + Nevertheless, theologically, Protestants and Catholics have come + nearer each other; for those capital doctrines, those articles with + which the Church was to stand or fall, for the sake of which the + Reformers declared separation from the Catholic Church to be + necessary, are now confuted and given up by Protestant theology, or + are retained only nominally, whilst other notions are connected with + the words.... Protestant theology is at the present day less hostile, + so to speak, than the theologians. For whilst theology has levelled + the strongest bulwarks and doctrinal barriers which the Reformation + had set up to confirm the separation, the divines, instead of viewing + favourably the consequent facilities for union, often labour, on the + contrary, to conceal the fact, or to provide new points of + difference. Many of them probably agree with Stahl of Berlin, who + said, shortly before his death, "Far from supposing that the breach + of the sixteenth century can be healed, we ought, if it had not + already occurred, to make it now." This, however, will not continue; + and a future generation, perhaps that which is even now growing up, + will rather adopt the recent declaration of Heinrich Leo, "In the + Roman Catholic Church a process of purification has taken place since + Luther's day; and if the Church had been in the days of Luther what + the Roman Catholic Church in Germany actually is at present, it would + never have occurred to him to assert his opposition so energetically + as to bring about a separation." Those who think thus will then be + the right men and the chosen instruments for the acceptable work of + the reconciliation of the Churches, and the true unity of Germany. + Upon the day when, on both sides, the conviction shall arise vivid + and strong that Christ really desires the unity of His Church, that + the division of Christendom, the multiplicity of Churches, is + displeasing to God, that he who helps to prolong the situation must + answer for it to the Lord,--on that day four-fifths of the + traditional polemics of the Protestants against the Church will with + one blow be set aside, like chaff and rubbish; for four-fifths + consist of misunderstandings, logomachies, and wilful falsifications, + or relate to personal, and therefore accidental, things, which are + utterly insignificant where only principles and dogmas are at stake. + + On that day, also, much will be changed on the Catholic side. + Thenceforward the character of Luther and the Reformers will no more + be dragged forward in the pulpit. The clergy, mindful of the saying, + _interficite errores, diligite homines_, will always conduct + themselves towards members of other Churches in conformity with the + rules of charity, and will therefore assume, in all cases where there + are no clear proofs to the contrary, the _bona fides_ of opponents. + They will never forget that no man is convinced and won over by + bitter words and violent attacks, but that every one is rather + repelled by them. Warned by the words of the Epistle to the Romans + (xiv, 13), they will be more careful than heretofore to give to their + separate brethren no scandal, no grounds of accusation against the + Church. Accordingly, in popular instruction and in religious life, + they will always make the great truths of salvation the centre of all + their teaching: they will not treat secondary things in life and + doctrine as though they were of the first importance; but, on the + contrary, they will keep alive in the people the consciousness that + such things are but means to an end, and are only of inferior + consequence and subsidiary value. + + Until that day shall dawn upon Germany, it is our duty as Catholics, + in the words of Cardinal Diepenbrock, "to bear the religious + separation in a spirit of penance for guilt incurred in common." We + must acknowledge that here also God has caused much good as well as + much evil to proceed from the errors of men, from the contests and + passions of the sixteenth century; that the anxiety of the German + nation to see the intolerable abuses and scandals in the Church + removed was fully justified, and sprang from the better qualities of + our people, and from their moral indignation at the desecration and + corruption of holy things, which were degraded to selfish and + hypocritical purposes. + + We do not refuse to admit that the great separation, and the storms + and sufferings connected with it, was an awful judgment upon Catholic + Christendom, which clergy and laity had but too well deserved--a + judgment which has had an improving and salutary effect. The great + conflict of intellects has purified the European atmosphere, has + impelled the human mind on to new courses, and has promoted a rich + scientific and literary life. Protestant theology, with its restless + spirit of inquiry, has gone along by the side of the Catholic, + exciting and awakening, warning and vivifying; and every eminent + Catholic divine in Germany will gladly admit that he owes much to the + writings of Protestant scholars. + + We must also acknowledge that in the Church the rust of abuses and of + a mechanical superstition is always forming afresh; that the + spiritual in religion is sometimes materialised, and therefore + degraded, deformed, and applied to their own loss, by the servants of + the Church, through their indolence and want of intelligence, and by + the people, through their ignorance. The true spirit of reform most, + therefore, never depart from the Church, but must periodically break + out with renovating strength, and penetrate the mind and the will of + the clergy. In this sense we do not refuse to admit the justice of a + call to penance, when it proceeds from those who are not of us,--that + is, of a warning carefully to examine our religious life and pastoral + conduct, and to remedy what is found defective. + + At the same time it must not be forgotten that the separation did not + ensue in consequence of the abuses of the Church. For the duty and + necessity of removing these abuses has always been recognised; and + only the difficulty of the thing, the not always unjustifiable fear + lest the wheat should be pulled up with the tares, prevented for a + time the Reformation, which was accomplished in the Church and + through her. Separation on account merely of abuses in ecclesiastical + life, when the doctrine is the same, is rejected as criminal by the + Protestants as well as by us. It is, therefore, for doctrine's sake + that the separation occurred; and the general discontent of the + people, the weakening of ecclesiastical authority by the existence of + abuses, only facilitated the adoption of the new doctrines. But now + on one side some of these defects and evils in the life of the Church + have disappeared; the others have greatly diminished since the + reforming movement; and on the other side, the principal doctrines + for which they separated, and on the truth of which, and their + necessity for salvation, the right and duty of secession was based, + are given up by Protestant science, deprived of their Scriptural + basis by exegesis, or at least made very uncertain by the opposition + of the most eminent Protestant divines. Meanwhile we live in hopes, + comforting ourselves with the conviction that history, or that + process of development in Europe which is being accomplished before + our eyes, as well in society and politics as in religion, is the + powerful ally of the friends of ecclesiastical union; and we hold out + our hands to Christians on the other side for a combined war of + resistance against the destructive movements of the age. + +There are two circumstances which make us fear that the work will not be +received in the spirit in which it is written, and that its object will +not immediately be attained. The first of these is the extraordinary +effect which was produced by the declaration which the author made on +the occasion of the late assembly of the Catholic associations of +Germany at Munich. He stated simply, what is understood by every +Catholic out of Italy, and intelligible to every reasonable Protestant, +that the freedom of the Church imperatively requires that, in order to +protect the Pope from the perils which menace him, particularly in our +age, he should possess a sovereignty not merely nominal, and that his +right to his dominions is as good as that of all other legitimate +sovereigns. In point of fact, this expression of opinion, which occurs +even in the garbled reports of the lectures, leaves all those questions +on which it is possible for serious and dispassionate men to be divided +entirely open. It does not determine whether there was any excuse for +the disaffection of the Papal subjects; whether the security afforded by +a more extensive dominion is greater than the increased difficulty of +administration under the conditions inherited from the French +occupation; whether an organised system of tribute or domains might be +sufficient, in conjunction with a more restricted territory; whether the +actual loss of power is or is not likely to improve a misfortune for +religion. The storm of applause with which these words, simply +expressing that in which all agree, were received, must have suggested +to the speaker that his countrymen in general are unprepared to believe +that one, who has no other aspiration in his life and his works than the +advancement of the Catholic religion, can speak without a reverent awe +of the temporal government, or can witness without dismay its impending +fall. They must have persuaded themselves that not only the details, but +the substance of his lectures had been entirely misreported, and that +his views were as free from novelty as destitute of offence. It is hard +to believe that such persons will be able to reconcile themselves to the +fearless and straightforward spirit in which the first of Church +historians discusses the history of his own age. + +Another consideration, almost equally significant with the attitude of +the great mass of Catholics, is the silence of the minority who agree +with Doellinger. Those earnest Catholics who, in their Italian +patriotism, insist on the possibility of reconciling the liberty of the +Holy See with the establishment of an ideal unity, Passaglia, Tosti, +the followers of Gioberti, and the disciples of Rosmini, have not +hesitated to utter openly their honest but most inconceivable +persuasion. But on the German side of the Alps, where no political +agitation affects the religious judgment, or drives men into disputes, +those eminent thinkers who agree with Doellinger are withheld by various +considerations from publishing their views. Sometimes it is the +hopelessness of making an impression, sometimes the grave inconvenience +of withstanding the current of opinion that makes them keep silence; and +their silence leaves those who habitually follow them not only without +means of expressing their views, but often without decided views to +express. The same influences which deprive Doellinger of the open support +of these natural allies will impede the success of his work, until +events have outstripped ideas, and until men awake to the discovery that +what they refused to anticipate or to prepare for, is already +accomplished. + +Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when +they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge. One source of the +difficulty of which we are speaking is as much a defect of faith as a +defect of knowledge. Just as it is difficult for some Catholics to +believe that the supreme spiritual authority on earth could ever be in +unworthy hands, so they find it hard to reconcile the reverence due to +the Vicar of Christ, and the promises made to him, with the +acknowledgment of intolerable abuses in his temporal administration. It +is a comfort to make the best of the case, to draw conclusions from the +exaggerations, the inventions, and the malice of the accusers against +the justice of the accusation, and in favour of the accused. It is a +temptation to our weakness and to our consciences to defend the Pope as +we would defend ourselves--with the same care and zeal, with the same +uneasy secret consciousness that there are weak points in the case which +can best be concealed by diverting attention from them. What the defence +gains in energy it loses in sincerity; the cause of the Church, which is +the cause of truth, is mixed up and confused with human elements, and +is injured by a degrading alliance. In this way even piety may lead to +immorality, and devotion to the Pope may lead away from God. + +The position of perpetual antagonism to a spirit which we abhor; the +knowledge that the clamour against the temporal power is, in very many +instances, inspired by hatred of the spiritual authority; the +indignation at the impure motives mixed up with the movement--all these +things easily blind Catholics to the fact that our attachment to the +Pope as our spiritual Head, our notion that his civil sovereignty is a +safeguard of his freedom, are the real motives of our disposition to +deny the truth of the accusations made against his government. It is +hard to believe that imputations which take the form of insults, and +which strike at the Church through the State, are well founded, and to +distinguish the design and the occasion from the facts. It is, perhaps, +more than we can expect of men, that, after defending the Pope as a +sovereign, because he is a pontiff, and adopting against his enemies the +policy of unconditional defence, they will consent to adopt a view which +corroborates to a great extent the assertions they have combated, and +implicitly condemns their tactics. It is natural to oppose one extreme +by another; and those who avoid both easily appear to be capitulating +with error. The effects of this spirit of opposition are not confined to +those who are engaged in resisting the No-popery party in England, or +the revolution in Italy. The fate of the temporal power hangs neither on +the Italian ministry nor on English influence, but on the decision of +the Emperor of the French; and the loudest maintainers of the rights of +the Holy See are among that party who have been the most zealous +adversaries of the Imperial system. The French Catholics behold in the +Roman policy of the emperor a scheme for obtaining over the Church a +power of which they would be the first victims. Their religious freedom +is in jeopardy while he has the fate of the Pope in his hands. That +which is elsewhere simply a manifestation of opinion and a moral +influence is in France an active interference and a political power. +They alone among Catholic subjects can bring a pressure to bear on him +who has had the initiative in the Italian movement. They fear by silence +to incur a responsibility for criminal acts. For them it is a season for +action, and the time has not yet come when they can speak with judicial +impartiality, or with the freedom of history, or determine how far, in +the pursuit of his ambitious ends, Napoleon III. is the instrument of +Providence, or how far, without any merit of his own, he is likely to +fulfil the expectations of those who see in him a new Constantine. +Whilst they maintain this unequal war, they naturally identify the +rights of the Church with her interests; and the wrongs of the Pope are +before their eyes so as to eclipse the realities of the Roman +government. The most vehement and one-sided of those who have dwelt +exclusively on the crimes of the Revolution and the justice of the Papal +cause, the Bishop of Orleans for instance, or Count de Montalembert, +might without inconsistency, and doubtless would without hesitation, +subscribe to almost every word in Doellinger's work; but in the position +they have taken they would probably deem such adhesion a great +rhetorical error, and fatal to the effect of their own writings. There +is, therefore, an allowance to be made, which is by no means a reproach, +for the peculiar situation of the Catholics in France. + +When Christine of Sweden was observed to gaze long and intently at the +statue of Truth in Rome, a court-like prelate observed that this +admiration for Truth did her honour, as it was seldom shared by persons +in her station. "That," said the Queen, "is because truths are not all +made of marble." Men are seldom zealous for an idea in which they do not +perceive some reflection of themselves, in which they have not embarked +some portion of their individuality, or which they cannot connect with +some subjective purpose of their own. It is often more easy to +sympathise with a person in whose opposite views we discern a weakness +corresponding to our own, than with one who unsympathetically avoids to +colour the objectivity of truth, and is guided in his judgment by +facts, not by wishes. We endeavoured not many months ago to show how +remote the theology of Catholic Germany is in its scientific spirit from +that of other countries, and how far asunder are science and policy. The +same method applied to the events of our own day must be yet more +startling, and for a time we can scarcely anticipate that the author of +this work will escape an apparent isolation between the reserve of those +who share his views, but are not free to speak, and the foregone +conclusions of most of those who have already spoken. But a book which +treats of contemporary events in accordance with the signs of the time, +not with the aspirations of men, possesses in time itself an invincible +auxiliary. When the lesson which this great writer draws from the +example of the mediaeval Popes has borne its fruit; when the purpose for +which he has written is attained, and the freedom of the Holy See from +revolutionary aggression and arbitrary protection is recovered by the +heroic determination to abandon that which in the course of events has +ceased to be a basis of independence--he will be the first, but no +longer the only, proclaimer of new ideas, and he will not have written +in vain. + +The Christian religion, as it addresses and adapts itself to all +mankind, bears towards the varieties of national character a relation of +which there was no example in the religions of antiquity, and which +heresy repudiates and inevitably seeks to destroy. For heresy, like +paganism, is national, and dependent both on the particular disposition +of the people and on the government of the State. It is identified with +definite local conditions, and moulded by national and political +peculiarities. Catholicity alone is universal in its character and +mission, and independent of those circumstances by which States are +established, and nations are distinguished from each other. Even Rome +had not so far extended her limits, nor so thoroughly subjugated and +amalgamated the races that obeyed her, as to secure the Church from the +natural reaction of national spirit against a religion which claimed a +universality beyond even that of the Imperial power. The first and most +terrible assault of ethnicism was in Persia, where Christianity appeared +as a Roman, and therefore a foreign and a hostile, system. As the Empire +gradually declined, and the nationalities, no longer oppressed beneath a +vigorous central force, began to revive, the heresies, by a natural +affinity, associated themselves with them. The Donatist schism, in which +no other country joined, was an attempt of the African people to +establish a separate national Church. Later on, the Egyptians adopted +the Monophysite heresy as the national faith, which has survived to this +day in the Coptic Church. In Armenia similar causes produced like +effects. + +In the twelfth century--not, as is commonly supposed, in the time of +Photius and Cerularius, for religious communion continued to subsist +between the Latins and the Greeks at Constantinople till about the time +of Innocent III., but after the Crusades had embittered the antagonism +between East and West--another great national separation occurred. In +the Eastern Empire the communion with Rome was hateful to the two chief +authorities. The patriarch was ambitious to extend his own absolute +jurisdiction over the whole Empire, the emperor wished to increase that +power as the instrument of his own: out of this threefold combination of +interests sprang the Byzantine system. It was founded on the +ecclesiastical as well as civil despotism of the emperor, and on the +exclusive pride of the people in its nationality; that is, on those +things which are most essentially opposed to the Catholic spirit, and to +the nature of a universal Church. In consequence of the schism, the +sovereign became supreme over the canons of the Church and the laws of +the State; and to this imperial papacy the Archbishop of Thessalonica, +in the beginning of the fifteenth century, justly attributes the ruin +and degradation of the Empire. Like the Eastern schism, the schism of +the West in the fourteenth century arose from the predominance of +national interests in the Church: it proceeded from the endeavour to +convert the Holy See into a possession of the French people and a +subject of the French crown. Again, not long after, the Hussite +revolution sprang from the union of a new doctrine with the old +antipathy of the Bohemians for the Germans, which had begun in times +when the boundaries of Christianity ran between the two nations, and +which led to a strictly national separation, which has not yet exhausted +its political effects. Though the Reformation had not its origin in +national feelings, yet they became a powerful instrument in the hands of +Luther, and ultimately prevailed over the purely theological elements of +the movement. + +The Lutheran system was looked on by the Germans with patriotic pride as +the native fruit, and especial achievement of the genius of their +country, and it was adopted out of Germany only by the kindred races of +Scandinavia. In every other land to which it has been transplanted by +the migrations of this century, Lutheranism appears as eradicated from +its congenial soil, loses gradually its distinctive features, and +becomes assimilated to the more consolatory system of Geneva. Calvinism +exhibited from the first no traces of the influence of national +character, and to this it owes its greater extension; whilst in the +third form of Protestantism, the Anglican Church, nationality is the +predominant characteristic. In whatever country and in whatever form +Protestantism has prevailed, it has always carried out the principle of +separation and local limitation by seeking to subject itself to the +civil power, and to confine the Church within the jurisdiction of the +State. It is dependent not so much on national character as on political +authority, and has grafted itself rather on the State than on the +people. But the institution which Christ founded in order to collect all +nations together in one fold under one shepherd, while tolerating and +respecting the natural historical distinctions of nations and of States, +endeavours to reconcile antagonism, and to smooth away barriers between +them, instead of estranging them by artificial differences, and erecting +new obstacles to their harmony. The Church can neither submit as a +whole to the influence of a particular people, nor impose on one the +features or the habits of another; for she is exalted in her catholicity +above the differences of race, and above the claims of political power. +At once the most firm and the most flexible institution in the world, +she is all things to all nations--educating each in her own spirit, +without violence to its nature, and assimilating it to herself without +prejudice to the originality of its native character. Whilst she thus +transforms them, not by reducing them to a uniform type, but by raising +them towards a common elevation, she receives from them services in +return. Each healthy and vigorous nation that is converted is a dynamic +as well as a numerical increase in the resources of the Church, by +bringing an accession of new and peculiar qualities, as well as of +quantity and numbers. So far from seeking sameness, or flourishing only +in one atmosphere, she is enriched and strengthened by all the varieties +of national character and intellect. In the mission of the Catholic +Church, each nation has its function, which its own position and nature +indicate and enable it to fulfil. Thus the extinct nations of antiquity +survive in the beneficial action they continue to exert within her, and +she still feels and acknowledges the influence of the African or of the +Cappadocian mind. + +The condition of this immunity from the predominant influence of +national and political divisions, and of this indifference to the +attachment of particular States and races,--the security of unity and +universality,--consists in the existence of a single, supreme, +independent head. The primacy is the bulwark, or rather the +corner-stone, of Catholicism; without it, there would be as many +churches as there are nations or States. Not one of those who have +denounced the Papacy as a usurpation has ever attempted to show that the +condition which its absence necessarily involves is theologically +desirable, or that it is the will of God. It remains the most radical +and conspicuous distinction between the Catholic Church and the sects. +Those who attempt to do without it are compelled to argue that there is +no earthly office divinely appointed for the government of the Church, +and that nobody has received the mission to conduct ecclesiastical +affairs, and to preserve the divine order in religion. The several local +churches may have an earthly ruler, but for the whole Church of Christ +there is no such protection. Christ, therefore, is the only head they +acknowledge, and they must necessarily declare separation, isolation, +and discord to be a principle and the normal condition of His Church. +The rejection of the primacy of St. Peter has driven men on to a +slippery course, where all the steps are downwards. The Greeks first +proclaimed that they recognised no Pope, that each patriarch ruled over +a portion of the Church. The Anglicans rejected both Pope and patriarch, +and admitted no ecclesiastical order higher than the Episcopate. Foreign +Protestanism refused to tolerate even bishops, or any authority but the +parish clergy under the supremacy of the ruler of the land. Then the +sects abolished the local jurisdiction of the parish clergy, and +retained only preachers. At length the ministry was rejected as an +office altogether, and the Quakers made each individual his own prophet, +priest, and doctor. + +The Papacy, that unique institution, the Crown of the Catholic system, +exhibits in its history the constant working of that law which is at the +foundation of the life of the Church, the law of continuous organic +development. It shared the vicissitudes of the Church, and had its part +in everything which influences the course and mode of her existence. In +early times it grew in silence and obscurity, its features were rarely +and imperfectly distinguishable; but even then the Popes exerted their +authority in all directions, and while the wisdom with which it was +exercised was often questioned, the right itself was undisputed. So long +as the Roman Empire upheld in its strong framework and kept together the +Church, which was confined mostly within its bounds, and checked with +the stern discipline of a uniform law the manifestations of national and +local divergence, the interference of the Holy See was less frequently +required, and the reins of Church government did not need to be tightly +drawn. When a new order of States emerged from the chaos of the great +migration, the Papacy, which alone stood erect amid the ruins of the +empire, became the centre of a new system and the moderator of a new +code. The long contest with the Germanic empire exhausted the political +power both of the empire and of the Papacy, and the position of the Holy +See, in the midst of a multitude of equal States, became more difficult +and more unfavourable. The Popes were forced to rely on the protection +of France, their supremacy over the States was at an end, and the +resistance of the nations commenced. The schism, the opposition of the +general Councils, the circumstances which plunged the Holy See into the +intrigues of Italian politics, and at last the Reformation, hastened the +decline of that extensive social and political power, the echoes and +reminiscences of which occasioned disaster and repulse whenever an +attempt was made to exercise it Ever since the Tridentine age, the Popes +have confined themselves more and more exclusively to the religious +domain; and here the Holy See is as powerful and as free at the present +day as at any previous period of its history. The perils and the +difficulties which surround it arise from temporal concerns,--from the +state of Italy, and from the possessions of the pontifical dominions. + +As the Church advances towards fulness and maturity in her forms, +bringing forward her exhaustless resources, and calling into existence a +wealth of new elements,--societies, corporations, and institutions,--so +is the need more deeply felt for a powerful supreme guide to keep them +all in health and harmony, to direct them in their various spheres, and +in their several ways towards the common ends and purposes of all, and +thus to provide against decay, variance, and confusion. Such an office +the Primacy alone can discharge, and the importance of the Papacy +increases as the organisation of the Church is more complete. One of its +most important but most delicate duties is to act as an independent, +impartial, and dispassionate mediator between the churches and the +governments of the different States, and between the conflicting claims +and contradictory idiosyncrasies of the various nations. Yet, though the +Papacy is so obviously an essential part of a Church whose mission is to +all mankind, it is the chosen object of attack both to enemies of +Catholicism and to discontented Catholics. Serious and learned men +complain of its tyranny, and say that it claims universal dominion, and +watches for an opportunity of obtaining it; and yet, in reality, there +is no power on earth whose action is restricted by more sacred and +irresistible bonds than that of the Holy See. It is only by the closest +fidelity to the laws and tradition of the Church that the Popes are able +to secure the obedience and the confidence of Catholics. Pius VII., who, +by sweeping away the ancient church of France, and depriving +thirty-seven protesting bishops of their sees, committed the most +arbitrary act ever done by a Pope, has himself described the rules which +guided the exercise of his authority:-- + + The nature and constitution of the Catholic Church impose on the + Pope, who is the head of the Church, certain limits which he cannot + transgress.... The Bishops of Rome have never believed that they + could tolerate any alteration in those portions of the discipline + which are directly ordained by Jesus Christ; or in those which, by + their nature, are connected with dogma, or in those which heretics + assail in support of their innovations. + +The chief points urged against the ambition of Rome are the claim of the +deposing Power, according to the theory that all kinds of power are +united in the Church, and the protest against the Peace of Westphalia, +the basis of the public law and political order of modern Europe. It is +enough to cite one of the many authorities which may be cited in +refutation of the first objection. Cardinal Antonelli, Prefect of +Propaganda, states in his letter to the Irish bishops, 1791, that "the +See of Rome has never taught that faith is not to be kept with those of +another religion, or that an oath sworn to kings who are separated from +the Catholic communion may be broken, or that the Pope is permitted to +touch their temporal rights and possessions." The Bull in which Boniface +VIII. set up the theory of the supremacy of the spiritual over the +secular power was retracted soon after his death. + +The protest of Innocent X. against the Peace of Westphalia is one of the +glories of the Papacy. That peace was concluded on an unchristian and +tyrannical principle, introduced by the Reformation, that the subjects +may be compelled to follow the religion of the ruler. This was very +different in principle and in effect from the intolerance of the ages of +faith, when prince and people were members of one religion, and all were +agreed that no other could be permitted in the State. Every heresy that +arose in the Middle Ages involved revolutionary consequences, and would +inevitably have overthrown State and society, as well as Church, +wherever it prevailed. The Albigenses, who provoked the cruel +legislation against heretics, and who were exterminated by fire and +sword, were the Socialists of those days. They assailed the fundamental +institutions of society, marriage, family, and property, and their +triumph would have plunged Europe into the barbarism and licence of +pagan times. The principles of the Waldenses and the Lollards were +likewise incompatible with European civilisation. In those days the law +relating to religion was the same for all. The Pope as well as the king +would have lost his crown if he had fallen into heresy. During a +thousand years, from the fall of Rome to the appearance of Luther, no +Catholic prince ever made an attempt to introduce a new religion into +his dominions, or to abandon the old. But the Reformation taught that +this was the supreme duty of princes; whilst Luther declared that in +matters of faith the individual is above every authority, and that a +child could understand the Scriptures better than Popes or Councils, he +taught at the same time, with an inconsistency which he never attempted +to remove, that it is the duty of the civil power to exterminate popery, +to set up the Gospel, and to suppress every other religion. + +The result was a despotism such as the world had never seen. It was +worse than the Byzantine system; for there no attempt was made to change +the faith of the people. The Protestant princes exercised an +ecclesiastical authority more arbitrary than the Pope had ever +possessed; for the papal authority can only be used to maintain an +existing doctrine, whilst theirs was aggressive and wholly unlimited. +Possessing the power to command, and to alter in religion, they +naturally acquired by degrees a corresponding absolutism in the civil +order. The consistories, the office by which the sovereign ruled the +Church, were the commencement of bureaucratic centralisation. A great +lawyer of those days says, that after the treaties of Westphalia had +recognised the territorial supremacy over religion, the business of +administration in the German States increased tenfold. Whilst that +system remained in its integrity, there could be no peaceful +neighbourhood between Catholics and Protestants. From this point of +view, the protest of the Pope was entirely justified. So far from having +been made in the spirit of the mediaeval authority, which would have been +fatal to the work of the Congress, it was never used by any Catholic +prince to invalidate the treaties. They took advantage of the law in +their own territories to exercise the _jus reformandi_. It was not +possible for them to tolerate a body which still refused to tolerate the +Catholic religion by the side of its own, which accordingly eradicated +it wherever it had the means, and whose theory made the existence of +every religion depend on the power and the will of the sovereign. A +system which so resolutely denied that two religions could coexist in +the same State, put every attempt at mutual toleration out of the +question. The Reformation was a great movement against the freedom of +conscience--an effort to subject it to a new authority, the arbitrary +initiative of a prince who might differ in religion from all his +subjects. The extermination of obstinate Catholics was a matter of +course; Melanchthon insisted that the Anabaptists should be put to +death, and Beza was of opinion that Anti-Trinitarians ought to be +executed, even after recantation. But no Lutheran could complain when +the secular arm converted him into a Calvinist. "Your conscience is in +error," he would say, "but under the circumstances you are not only +justified, but compelled, on my own principles, to act as you do."[336] + +The resistance of the Catholic Governments to the progress of a religion +which announced that it would destroy them as soon as it had the power, +was an instinct of self-preservation. No Protestant divine denied or +disguised the truth that his party sought the destruction of +Catholicism, and would accomplish it whenever they could. The +Calvinists, with their usual fearless consistency, held that as civil +and ecclesiastical power must be in the same hands, no prince had any +right to govern who did not belong to them. Even in the Low Countries, +where other sects were free, and the notion of unity abandoned, the +Catholics were oppressed. + +This new and aggressive intolerance infected even Catholic countries, +where there was neither, as in Spain, religious unity to be preserved; +nor, as in Austria, a menacing danger to be resisted. For in Spain the +persecution of the Protestants might be defended on the mediaeval +principle of unity, whilst under Ferdinand II. it was provoked in the +hereditary dominions by the imminent peril which threatened to dethrone +the monarch, and to ruin every faithful Catholic. But in France the +Protestant doctrine that every good subject must follow the religion of +his king grew out of the intensity of personal absolutism. At the +revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the official argument was the will of +the sovereign--an argument which in Germany had reigned so triumphantly +that a single town, which had ten times changed masters, changed its +religion ten times in a century. Bayle justly reproaches the Catholic +clergy of France with having permitted, and even approved, a proceeding +so directly contrary to the spirit of their religion, and to the wishes +of the Pope. A convert, who wrote a book to prove that Huguenots were in +conscience bound to obey the royal edict which proscribed their worship, +met with applause a hundred years later. This fault of the French clergy +was expiated in the blood of their successors. + +The excess of evil led to its gradual cure. In England Protestantism +lost its vigour after the victory over the Catholic dynasty; religion +faded away, and with it that religious zeal which leads to persecution: +when the religious antagonism was no longer kept alive by a political +controversy, the sense of right and the spirit of freedom which belongs +to the Anglo-Saxon race accomplished the work which indifference had +begun. In Germany the vitality of the Lutheran theology expired after it +had lasted for about two hundred years. The intellectual contradictions +and the social consequences of the system had become intolerable to the +German mind. Rationalism had begun to prevail, when Frederick II. +declared that his subjects should work out their salvation in their own +way. That generation of men, who looked with contempt on religious zeal, +looked with horror on religious persecution. The Catholic Church, which +had never taught that princes are supreme over the religion of their +subjects, could have no difficulty in going along with public opinion +when it disapproved of compulsion in matters of conscience. It was +natural that in the new order of things, when Christendom had lost its +unity, and Protestantism its violence, she should revert to the position +she occupied of old, when she admitted other religions to equal rights +with herself, and when men like St. Ambrose, St. Martin, and St. Leo +deprecated the use of violence against heretics. Nevertheless, as the +preservation of morality depends on the preservation of faith, both +alike are in the interest and within the competence of the State. The +Church of her own strength is not strong enough to resist the advance of +heresy and unbelief. Those enemies find an auxiliary in the breast of +every man whose weakness and whose passions repel him from a Church +which imposes such onerous duties on her members. But it is neither +possible to define the conditions without which liberty must be fatal to +the State, nor the limits beyond which protection and repression become +tyrannical, and provoke a reaction more terrible than the indifference +of the civil power. The events of the last hundred years have tended in +most places to mingle Protestants and Catholics together, and to break +down the social and political lines of demarcation between them; and +time will show the providential design which has brought about this +great change. + +These are the subjects treated in the first two chapters on "The Church +and the Nations," and on the Papacy in connection with the universality +of Catholicism, as contrasted with the national and political dependence +of heresy. The two following chapters pursue the topic farther in a +general historical retrospect, which increases in interest and +importance as it proceeds from the social to the religious purpose and +influence of the Papacy, and from the past to the present time. The +third chapter, "The Churches and Civil Liberty," examines the effects of +Protestantism on civil society. The fourth, entitled "The Churches +without a Pope," considers the actual theological and religious fruits +of separation from the visible Head of the Church. + +The independence of the Church, through that of her Supreme Pontiff, is +as nearly connected with political as with religious liberty, since the +ecclesiastical system which rejects the Pope logically leads to +arbitrary power. Throughout the north of Europe--in Sweden and Denmark, +in Mecklenburg and Pomerania, in Prussia, Saxony, and Brunswick--the +power which the Reformation gave to the State introduced an unmitigated +despotism. Every security was removed which protected the people +against the abuse of the sovereign power, and the lower against the +oppression of the upper class. The crown became, sooner or later, +despotic; the peasantry, by a long series of enactments, extending to +the end of the seventeenth century, was reduced to servitude; the +population grew scanty, and much of the land went out of cultivation. +All this is related by the Protestant historians and divines, not in the +tone of reluctant admission, but with patriotic indignation, +commensurate with the horrors of the truth. In all these countries +Lutheran unity subsisted. If Calvinism had ever succeeded in obtaining +an equal predominance in the Netherlands, the power of the House of +Orange would have become as despotic as that of the Danish or the +Prussian sovereigns. But its triumph was impeded by sects, and by the +presence of a large Catholic minority, destitute indeed of political +rights or religious freedom, but for that very reason removed from the +conflicts of parties, and therefore an element of conservatism, and a +natural ally of those who resisted the ambition of the Stadtholders. The +absence of religious unity baffled their attempts to establish arbitrary +power on the victory of Calvinism, and upheld, in conjunction with the +brilliant policy abroad, a portion of the ancient freedom. In Scotland, +the other home of pure Calvinism, where intolerance and religious +tyranny reached a pitch equalled only among the Puritans in America, the +perpetual troubles hindered the settlement of a fixed political system, +and the restoration of order after the union with England stripped the +Presbyterian system of its exclusive supremacy, and opened the way for +tolerance and freedom. + +Although the political spirit of Anglicanism was as despotic as that of +every other Protestant system, circumstances prevented its full +development. The Catholic Church had bestowed on the English the great +elements of their political prosperity,--the charter of their liberties, +the fusion of the races, and the abolition of villeinage,--that is, +personal and general freedom, and national unity. Hence the people were +so thoroughly impregnated with Catholicism that the Reformation was +imposed on them by foreign troops in spite of an armed resistance; and +the imported manufacture of Geneva remained so strange and foreign to +them, that no English divine of the sixteenth century enriched it with a +single original idea. The new Church, unlike those of the Continent, was +the result of an endeavour to conciliate the Catholic disposition of the +people, by preserving as far as possible the externals to which they +were attached; whilst the queen--who was a Protestant rather by policy +than by conviction--desired no greater change than was necessary for her +purpose. But the divines whom she placed at the head of the new Church +were strict Calvinists, and differed from the Puritans only in their +submission to the court. The rapidly declining Catholic party accepted +Anglicanism as the lesser evil; while zealous Protestants deemed that +the outward forms ought to correspond to the inward substance, and that +Calvinistic doctrines required a Calvinistic constitution. Until the end +of the century there was no Anglican theology; and the attempt to devise +a system in harmony with the peculiar scheme and design of the +institution, began with Hooker. The monarch was absolute master in the +Church, which had been established as an instrument of royal influence; +and the divines acknowledged his right by the theory of passive +obedience. The consistent section of the Calvinists was won over, for a +time, by the share which the gentry obtained in the spoils of the +Church, and by the welcome concession of the penal laws against her, +until at last they found that they had in their intolerance been forging +chains for themselves. One thing alone, which our national jurists had +recognised in the fifteenth century as the cause and the sign of our +superiority over foreign States--the exclusion of the Roman code, and +the unbroken preservation of the common law--kept England from sinking +beneath a despotism as oppressive as that of France or Sweden. + +As the Anglican Church under James and Charles was the bulwark of +arbitrary power, the popular resistance took the form of ecclesiastical +opposition. The Church continued to be so thoroughly committed to the +principle of unconditional submission to the power from which it derived +its existence, that James II. could reckon on this servile spirit as a +means of effecting the subversion of the Establishment; and Defoe +reproached the bishops with having by their flattery led on the king, +whom they abandoned in the moment of his need. The Revolution, which +reduced the royal prerogative, removed the oppressiveness of the royal +supremacy. The Established Church was not emancipated from the crown, +but the Nonconformists were emancipated from the tyranny of the +Established Church. Protestantism, which in the period of its power +dragged down by its servility the liberties of the nation, did +afterwards, in its decay and disorganisation, by the surrender of its +dogmatic as well as of its political principle, promote their recovery +and development. It lost its oppressiveness in proportion as it lost its +strength, and it ceased to be tyrannical when divines had been forced to +give up its fundamental doctrine, and when its unity had been dissolved +by the sects. The revival of those liberties which, in the Middle Ages, +had taken root under the influence of the Church, coincided with the +progress of the Protestant sects, and with the decay of the penal laws. +The contrast between the political character of those countries in which +Protestantism integrally prevailed, and that of those in which it was +divided against itself, and could neither establish its system nor work +out its consequences, is as strongly marked as the contrast between the +politics of Catholic times and those which were introduced by the +Reformation. The evil which it wrought in its strength was turned to +good by its decline. + +Such is the sketch of the effects of the Protestant apostasy in the +political order, considered chiefly in relation to the absence of a +supreme ecclesiastical authority independent of political control. It +would require far more space to exhibit the positive influence of +heretical principles on the social foundations of political life; and +the picture would not be complete without showing the contrast exhibited +by Catholic States, and tracing their passage from the mediaeval system +under the influence of the reaction against the Reformation. The third +chapter covers only a portion of this extensive subject; but it shows +the action of the new mode of ecclesiastical government upon the civil +order, and proves that the importance of the Papacy is not confined to +its religious sphere. It thus prepares the way for the subject discussed +in the fourth chapter,--the most comprehensive and elaborate in the +book. + +Dr. Doellinger begins his survey of the churches that have renounced the +Pope with those of the Eastern schism. The Patriarch of Constantinople, +whose ecclesiastical authority is enormous, and whose opportunities of +extorting money are so great that he is generally deposed at the end of +two or three years, in order that many may succeed each other in the +enjoyment of such advantages, serves not as a protection, but as an +instrument for the oppression of the Christians. The Greek clergy have +been the chief means by which the Turks have kept down both the Greek +and the Slavonic population, and the Slavs are by degrees throwing off +their influence. Submission to the civil power is so natural in +communities separated from the Universal Church, that the Greeks look up +to the Turkish authorities as arbiters in ecclesiastical matters. When +there was a dispute between Greeks and Armenians respecting the mixture +of water with the wine in the chalice, the question was referred for +decision to the proper quarter, and the Reis Effendi decided that, wine +being condemned by the Koran, water alone might be used. Yet to this +pusillanimous and degenerate Church belong the future of European +Turkey, and the inheritance of the sinking power of the Turks. The +vitality of the dominant race is nearly exhausted, and the +Christians--on whose pillage they live--exceed them, in increasing +proportions, in numbers, prosperity, intelligence, and enterprise. + +The Hellenic Church, obeying the general law of schismatical +communities, has exchanged the authority of the patriarch for that of +the crown, exercised through a synod, which is appointed on the Russian +model by the Government. The clergy, disabled for religious purposes by +the necessity of providing for their families, have little education and +little influence, and have no part in the revival of the Grecian +intellect. But the people are attached to their ecclesiastical system, +not for religion's sake, for infidelity generally accompanies education, +but as the defence of their nationality. + +In Russia the Catholic Church is considered heretical because of her +teaching on the procession of the Holy Ghost, and schismatical in +consequence of the claims of the Pope. In the doctrine of purgatory +there is no essential difference; and on this point an understanding +could easily be arrived at, if none had an interest in widening the +breach. In the seventeenth century, the Russian Church retained so much +independence that the Metropolitan of Kiev could hold in check the power +of the Czar, and the clergy were the mediators between the people and +the nobles or the crown. This influence was swept away by the despotism +of Peter the Great; and under Catherine II. the property of the Church +was annexed to the crown lands, in order, it was said, to relieve the +clergy of the burden of administration. Yet even now the Protestant +doctrine that the sovereign is supreme in all matters of religion has +not penetrated among the Russians. But though the Czar does not possess +this authority over the national Church, of which he is a member, the +Protestant system has conceded it to him in the Baltic provinces. Not +only are all children of mixed marriages between Protestants and +schismatics brought up in the religion of the latter, by which the +gradual decline of Protestanism is provided for, but conversions to +Protestanism, even of Jews, Mohammedans, and heathens, are forbidden; +and, in all questions of doctrine or of liturgy, the last appeal is to +the emperor. The religious despotism usually associated with the Russian +monarchy subsists only for the Protestants. + +The Russian Church is dumb; the congregation does not sing, the priest +does not preach. The people have no prayer-books, and are therefore +confined to the narrow circle of their own religious ideas. Against the +cloud of superstition which naturally gathers in a religion of +ceremonies, destitute of the means of keeping alive or cultivating the +religious sentiments of the people, there is no resource. In spite of +the degeneracy of their clergy, which they are unable to feel, the +Russians cling with patriotic affection to their Church, and identify +its progress and prosperity with the increase of their empire. As it is +an exclusively national institution, every war may become a war of +religion, and it is the attachment to the Church which creates the +longing and the claim to possess the city from which it came. From the +Church the empire derives its tendency to expand, and the Czar the hopes +of that universal dominion which was promised to him by the Synod of +Moscow in 1619, and for which a prayer was then appointed. The +schismatical clergy of Eastern Europe are the channel of Russian +influence, the pioneers of Russian aggression. The political dependence +of the Church corresponds to its political influence; subserviency is +the condition of the power it possesses. The certificate of Easter +confession and communion is required for every civil act, and is +consequently an object of traffic. In like manner, the confessor is +bound to betray to the police all the secrets of confession which affect +the interest of the Government. In this deplorable state of corruption, +servitude, and decay within, and of threatening hostility to Christian +civilisation abroad, the Russian Church pays the penalty of its +Byzantine descent. + +The Established Church and the sects in England furnish few +opportunities of treating points which would be new to our readers. +Perhaps the most suggestive portion is the description of the effects of +Protestantism on the character and condition of the people. The plunder +and oppression of the poor has everywhere followed the plunder of the +Church, which was the guardian and refuge of the poor. The charity of +the Catholic clergy aimed not merely at relieving, but at preventing +poverty. It was their object not only to give alms, but to give to the +lower orders the means of obtaining a livelihood. The Reformation at +once checked alms-giving; so that, Selden says, in places where twenty +pounds a year had been distributed formerly, not a handful of meal was +given away in his time, for the wedded clergy could not afford it. The +confiscation of the lands where thousands had tilled the soil under the +shadow of the monastery or the Church, was followed by a new system of +cultivation, which deprived the peasants of their homes. The sheep, men +said, were the cause of all the woe; and whole towns were pulled down to +make room for them. The prelates of the sixteenth century lament the +decline of charity since the Catholic times; and a divine attributed the +growing selfishness and harshness to the doctrine of justification by +faith. The alteration in the condition of the poor was followed by +severe enactments against vagrancy; and the Protestant legislature, +after creating a proletariate, treated it as a crime. The conversion of +Sunday into a Jewish Sabbath cut off the holiday amusements and soured +the cheerfulness of the population. Music, singing, and dancing, the +favourite relaxation of a contented people, disappeared, and, especially +after the war in the Low Countries, drunkenness began to prevail among a +nation which in earlier times had been reckoned the most sober of +Northern Europe. The institution which introduced these changes has +become a State, not a national Church, whose services are more attended +by the rich than by the poor. + +After describing the various parties in the Anglican system, the decay +of its divinity, and the general aversion to theological research, +Doellinger concludes that its dissolution is a question of time. No State +Church can long subsist in modern society which professes the religion +of the minority. Whilst the want of a definite system of doctrine, +allowing every clergyman to be the mouthpiece, not of a church, but of a +party, drives an increasing portion of the people to join the sects +which have a fixed doctrine and allow less independence to their +preachers, the great danger which menaces the Church comes from the +State itself. The progress of dissent and of democracy in the +legislature will make the Church more and more entirely dependent on the +will of the majority, and will drive the best men from the communion of +a servile establishment. The rise and fortunes of Methodism are related +with peculiar predilection by the author, who speaks of John Wesley as +the greatest intellect English Protestantism has produced, next to +Baxter. + +The first characteristic of Scottish Presbyterianism is the absence of a +theology. The only considerable divines that have appeared in Scotland +since the Reformation, Leighton and Forbes, were prelates of the +Episcopal Church. Calvinism was unable to produce a theological +literature, in spite of the influence of English writers, of the example +of Holland, and of the great natural intelligence of the Scots. "Their +theology," says a distinguished Lutheran divine, "possesses no system of +Christian ethics." This Doellinger attributes to the strictness with +which they have held to the doctrine of imputation, which is +incompatible with any system of moral theology. In other countries it +was the same; where that doctrine prevailed, there was no ethical +system, and where ethics were cultivated, the doctrine was abandoned. +For a century after Luther, no moral theology was written in Germany. +The first who attempted it, Calixtus, gave up the Lutheran doctrine. The +Dutch historians of Calvinism in the Netherlands record, in like manner, +that there the dread of a collision with the dogma silenced the teaching +of ethics both in literature and at the universities. Accordingly, all +the great Protestant moralists were opposed to the Protestant doctrine +of justification. In Scotland the intellectual lethargy of churchmen is +not confined to the department of ethics; and Presbyterianism only +prolongs its existence by suppressing theological writing, and by +concealing the contradictions which would otherwise bring down on the +clergy the contempt of their flocks. + +Whilst Scotland has clung to the original dogma of Calvin, at the price +of complete theological stagnation, the Dutch Church has lost its +primitive orthodoxy in the progress of theological learning. Not one of +the several schools into which the clergy of the Netherlands are divided +has remained faithful to the five articles of the synod of Dortrecht, +which still command so extensive an allegiance in Great Britain and +America. The conservative party, headed by the statesman and historian, +Groen van Prinsterer, who holds fast to the theology which is so closely +interwoven with the history of his country and with the fortunes of the +reigning house, and who invokes the aid of the secular arm in support of +pure Calvinism, is not represented at the universities. For all the +Dutch divines know that the system cannot be revived without sacrificing +the theological activity by which it has been extinguished. The old +confessional writings have lost their authority; and the general synod +of 1854 decided that, "as it is impossible to reconcile all opinions and +wishes, even in the shortest confession, the Church tolerates divergence +from the symbolical books." The only unity, says Groen, consists in +this, that all the preachers are paid out of the same fund. The bulk of +the clergy are Arminians or Socinians. From the spectacle of the Dutch +Church, Dr. Doellinger comes to the following result: first, that without +a code of doctrine laid down in authoritative confessions of faith, the +Church cannot endure; secondly, that the old confessional writings +cannot be maintained, and are universally given up; and thirdly, that it +is impossible to draw up new ones. + +French Protestantism suffered less from the Revolution than the Catholic +Church, and was treated with tenderness, and sometimes with favour. The +dissolution of Continental Protestantism began in France. Before their +expulsion in 1685, the French divines had cast off the yoke of the +Dortrecht articles, and in their exile they afterwards promoted the +decline of Calvinism in the Netherlands. The old Calvinistic tradition +has never been restored, the works of the early writers are forgotten, +no new theological literature has arisen, and the influence of Germany +has borne no considerable fruit. The evangelical party, or Methodists, +as they are called, are accused by the rest of being the cause of their +present melancholy state. The rationalism of the _indifferens_ generally +prevails among the clergy, either in the shape of the naturalism of the +eighteenth century (Coquerel), or in the more advanced form of modern +criticism, as it is carried out by the faculty of Strasburg, with the +aid of German infidelity. Payment by the State and hatred of Catholicism +are the only common marks of French Protestant divines. They have no +doctrine, no discipline, no symbol, no theology. Nobody can define the +principle or the limits of their community. + +The Calvinism of Switzerland has been ruined in its doctrine by the +progress of theology, and in its constitution by the progress of +democracy. In Geneva the Church of Calvin fell in the revolutions of +1841 and 1846. The symbolical books are abolished; the doctrine is based +on the Bible; but the right of free inquiry is granted to all; the +ruling body consists of laymen. "The faith of our fathers," says Merle +d'Aubigne, "counts but a small group of adherents amongst us." In the +canton of Vaud, where the whole ecclesiastical power was in the hands of +the Government, the yoke of the democracy became insupportable, and the +excellent writer, Vinet, seceded with 180 ministers out of 250. The +people of Berne are among the most bitter enemies of Catholicism in +Europe. Their fanaticism crushed the Sonderbund; but the recoil drove +them towards infidelity, and hastened the decrease of devotion and of +the influence of the clergy. None of the German Swiss, and few of the +French, retain in its purity the system of Calvin. The unbelief of the +clergy lays the Church open to the attacks of a Caesaro-papistic +democracy. A Swiss Protestant divine said recently: "Only a Church with +a Catholic organisation could have maintained itself without a most +extraordinary descent of the Holy Spirit against the assaults of +Rationalism." "What we want," says another, "in order to have a free +Church, is pastors and flocks; dogs and wolves there are in plenty." + +In America it is rare to find people who are openly irreligious. Except +some of the Germans, all Protestants generally admit the truth of +Christianity and the authority of Scripture. But above half of the +American population belongs to no particular sect, and performs no +religious functions. This is the result of the voluntary principle, of +the dominion of the sects, and of the absence of an established Church, +to receive each individual from his birth, to adopt him by baptism, and +to bring him up in the atmosphere of a religious life. The majority of +men will naturally take refuge in indifference and neutrality from the +conflict of opinions, and will persuade themselves that where there are +so many competitors, none can be the lawful spouse. Yet there is a +blessing on everything that is Christian, which can never be entirely +effaced or converted into a curse. Whatever the imperfections of the +form in which it exists, the errors mixed up with it, or the degrading +influence of human passion, Christianity never ceases to work +immeasurable social good. But the great theological characteristic of +American Protestantism is the absence of the notion of the Church. The +prevailing belief is, that in times past there was always a war of +opinions and of parties, that there never was one unbroken vessel, and +that it is necessary, therefore, to put up with fragments, one of which +is nearly as good as another. Sectarianism, it is vaguely supposed, is +the normal condition of religion. Now a sect is, by its very nature, +instinctively adverse to a scientific theology; it feels that it is +short-lived, without a history, and unconnected with the main stream of +ecclesiastical progress, and it is inspired with hatred and with +contempt for the past, for its teaching and its writings. Practically, +sectaries hold that a tradition is the more surely to be rejected the +older it is, and the more valuable in proportion to the lateness of its +origin. As a consequence of the want of roots in the past, and of the +thirst for novelty, the history of those sects which are not sunk in +lethargy consists in sudden transitions to opposite extremes. In the +religious world ill weeds grow apace; and those communities which strike +root, spring up, and extend most rapidly are the least durable and the +least respectable. The sects of Europe were transplanted into America: +but there the impatience of authority, which is the basis of social and +political life, has produced in religion a variety and a multiplicity, +of Which Europe has no experience. + +Whilst these are the fruits of religious liberty and ecclesiastical +independence among a people generally educated, the Danish monarchy +exhibits unity of faith strictly maintained by keeping the people under +the absolute control of the upper class, on whose behalf the Reformation +was introduced, and in a state of ignorance corresponding to their +oppression. Care was taken that they should not obtain religious +instruction, and in the beginning of the eighteenth century the +celebrated Bishop Pontoppidan says, "an almost heathen blindness +pervades the land." About the same time the Norwegian prelates declared, +in a petition to the King of Denmark: "If we except a few children of +God, there is only this difference between us and our heathen ancestors, +that we bear the name of Christians." The Danish Church has given no +signs of life, and has shown no desire for independence since the +Reformation; and in return for this submissiveness, the Government +suppressed every tendency towards dissent. Things were not altered when +the tyranny of the nobles gave way to the tyranny of the crown; but when +the revolution of 1848 had given the State a democratic basis, its +confessional character was abrogated, and whilst Lutheranism was +declared the national religion, conformity was no longer exacted. The +king is still the head of the Church, and is the only man in Denmark who +must be a Lutheran. No form of ecclesiastical government suitable to the +new order of things has yet been devised, and the majority prefer to +remain in the present provisional state, subject to the will of a +Parliament, not one member of which need belong to the Church which it +governs. Among the clergy, those who are not Rationalists follow the +lead of Grundtvig. During many years this able man has conducted an +incessant resistance against the progress of unbelief and of the German +influence, and against the Lutheran system, the royal supremacy, and the +parochial constitution. Not unlike the Tractarians, he desires the +liberty of establishing a system which shall exclude Lutheranism, +Rationalism, and Erastianism; and he has united in his school nearly all +who profess positive Christianity in Denmark. In Copenhagen, out of +150,000 inhabitants, only 6000 go regularly to church. In Altona, there +is but one church for 45,000 people. In Schleswig the churches are few +and empty. "The great evil," says a Schleswig divine, "is not the +oppression which falls on the German tongue, but the irreligion and +consequent demoralisation which Denmark has imported into Schleswig. A +moral and religious tone is the exception, not the rule, among the +Danish clergy." + +The theological literature of Sweden consists almost entirely of +translations from the German. The clergy, by renouncing study, have +escaped Rationalism, and remain faithful to the Lutheran system. The +king is supreme in spirituals, and the Diet discusses and determines +religious questions. The clergy, as one of the estates, has great +political influence, but no ecclesiastical independence. No other +Protestant clergy possesses equal privileges or less freedom. It is +usual for the minister after the sermon to read out a number of trivial +local announcements, sometimes half an hour long; and in a late Assembly +the majority of the bishops pronounced in favour of retaining this +custom, as none but old women and children would come to church for the +service alone. + +In no other country in Europe is the strict Lutheran system preached but +in Sweden. The doctrine is preserved, but religion is dead, and the +Church is as silent and as peaceful as the churchyard. The Church is +richly endowed; there are great universities, and Swedes are among the +foremost in almost every branch of science, but no Swedish writer has +ever done anything for religious thought. The example of Denmark and its +Rationalist clergy brought home to them the consequences of theological +study. In one place the old system has been preserved, like a frail and +delicate curiosity, by excluding the air of scientific inquiry, whilst +in the other Lutheranism is decomposing under its influence. In Norway, +where the clergy have no political representation, religious liberty was +established in 1844. + +Throughout the north of Europe the helpless decline of Protestantism is +betrayed by the numerical disproportion of preachers to the people. +Norway, with a population of 1,500,000, thinly scattered over a very +large territory, has 485 parishes, with an average of 3600 souls apiece. +But the clergy are pluralists, and as many as five parishes are often +united under a single incumbent. Holstein has only 192 preachers for an +almost exclusively Lutheran population of 544,000. In Schleswig many +parishes have been deserted because they were too poor to maintain a +clergyman's family. Sometimes there are only two ministers for 13,000 +persons. In the Baltic provinces the proportion is one to 4394. In this +way the people have to bear the burden of a clergy with families to +support. + +The most brilliant and important part of this chapter is devoted to the +state of Protestantism in the author's native country. He speaks with +the greatest authority and effect when he comes near home, describes the +opinions of men who have been his rivals in literature, or his +adversaries in controversy, and touches on discussions which his own +writings have influenced. There is a difference also in the tone. When +he speaks of the state of other countries, with which he has made +himself acquainted as a traveller, or through the writings of others, he +preserves the calmness and objectivity of a historian, and adds few +reflections to the simple description of facts. But in approaching the +scenes and the thoughts of his own country, the interests and the most +immediate occupations of his own life, the familiarity of long +experience gives greater confidence, warmth, and vigour to his touch; +the historian gives way to the divine, and the narrative sometimes +slides into theology. Besides the position of the author, the +difference of the subject justifies a change in the treatment. The +examination of Protestantism in the rest of the world pointed with +monotonous uniformity to a single conclusion. Everywhere there was the +same spectacle and the same alternative: either religion sacrificed to +the advancement of learning, or learning relinquished for the +preservation of religion. Everywhere the same antagonism between +intellectual progress and fidelity to the fundamental doctrines of +Protestantism: either religion has become stark and stagnant in States +which protect unity by the proscription of knowledge, or the progress of +thought and inquiry has undermined belief in the Protestant system, and +driven its professors from one untenable position to another, or the +ascendency of the sectarian spirit has been equally fatal to its +dogmatic integrity and to its intellectual development. But in the home +of the Reformation a league has been concluded in our time between +theology and religion, and many schools of Protestant divines are +labouring, with a vast expenditure of ability and learning, to devise, +or to restore, with the aid of theological science, a system of positive +Christianity. Into this great scene of intellectual exertion and +doctrinal confusion the leading adversary of Protestantism in Germany +conducts his readers, not without sympathy for the high aims which +inspire the movement, but with the almost triumphant security which +belongs to a Church possessing an acknowledged authority, a definite +organisation, and a system brought down by tradition from the apostolic +age. Passing by the schools of infidelity, which have no bearing on the +topic of his work, he addresses himself to the believing Protestantism +of Germany, and considers its efforts to obtain a position which may +enable it to resist unbelief without involving submission to the Church. + +The character of Luther separates the German Protestants from those of +other countries. His was the master-spirit, in whom his contemporaries +beheld the incarnation of the genius of their nation. In the strong +lineaments of his character they recognised, in heroic proportions, the +reflection of their own; and thus his name has survived, not merely as +that of a great man, the mightiest of his age, but as the type of a +whole period in the history of the German people, the centre of a new +world of ideas, the personification of those religious and ethical +opinions which the country followed, and whose influence even their +adversaries could not escape. His writings have long ceased to be +popular, and are read only as monuments of history; but the memory of +his person has not yet grown dim. His name is still a power in his own +country, and from its magic the Protestant doctrine derives a portion of +its life. In other countries men dislike to be described by the name of +the founder of their religious system, but in Germany and Sweden there +are thousands who are proud of the name of Lutheran. + +The results of his system prevail in the more influential and +intelligent classes, and penetrate the mass of the modern literature of +Germany. The Reformation had introduced the notion that Christianity was +a failure, and had brought far more suffering than blessings on mankind; +and the consequences of that movement were not calculated to impress +educated men with the belief that things were changed for the better, or +that the reformers had achieved the work in which the Apostles were +unsuccessful. Thus an atmosphere of unbelief and of contempt for +everything Christian gradually arose, and Paganism appeared more +cheerful, more human, and more poetical than the repulsive Galilean +doctrine of holiness and privation. This spirit still governs the +educated class. Christianity is abominated both in life and in +literature, even under the form of believing Protestantism. + +In Germany theological study and the Lutheran system subsisted for two +centuries together. The controversies that arose from time to time +developed the theory, but brought out by degrees its inward +contradictions. The danger of biblical studies was well understood, and +the Scriptures were almost universally excluded from the universities in +the seventeenth century; but in the middle of the eighteenth Bengel +revived the study of the Bible, and the dissolution of the Lutheran +doctrine began. The rise of historical learning hastened the process. +Frederic the Great says of himself, that the notion that the history of +the Church is a drama, conducted by rogues and hypocrites, at the +expense of the deceived masses, was the real cause of his contempt for +the Christian religion. The Lutheran theology taught, that after the +Apostolic age God withdrew from the Church, and abandoned to the devil +the office which, according to the Gospel, was reserved for the Holy +Spirit. This diabolical millennium lasted till the appearance of Luther. +As soon, therefore, as the reverence for the symbolical books began to +wane, the belief in the divine foundation departed with the belief in +the divine guidance of the Church, and the root was judged by the stem, +the beginning by the continuation. As research went on, unfettered now +by the authorities of the sixteenth century, the clergy became +Rationalists, and stone after stone of the temple was carried away by +its own priests. The infidelity which at the same time flourished in +France, did not, on the whole, infect the priesthood. But in Germany it +was the divines who destroyed religion, the pastors who impelled their +flocks to renounce the Christian faith. + +In 1817 the Prussian Union added a new Church to the two original forms +of Protestantism. But strict Calvinism is nearly extinct in Germany, and +the old Lutheran Church itself has almost disappeared. It subsists, not +in any definite reality, but only in the aspirations of certain divines +and jurists. The purpose of the union was to bring together, in +religious communion, the reigning family of Prussia, which had adopted +Calvinism in 1613, and the vast Lutheran majority among the people. It +was to be, in the words of the king, a merely ritual union, not an +amalgamation of dogmas. In some places there was resistance, which was +put down by military execution. Some thousands emigrated to America; but +the public press applauded the measures, and there was no general +indignation at their severity. The Lutherans justly perceived that the +union would promote religious indifference; but at the accession of the +late king there came a change; religious faith was once more sought +after, believing professors were appointed in almost all the German +universities, after the example of Prussia; Jena and Giessen alone +continued to be seats of Rationalism. As soon as theology had begun to +recover a more religious and Christian character, two very divergent +tendencies manifested themselves. Among the disciples of Schleiermacher +and of Neander a school of unionists arose who attempted a conciliatory +intermediate theology. At the same time a strictly Lutheran theology +flourished at the universities of Erlangen, Leipzig, Rostock, and +Dorpat, which sought to revive the doctrine of the sixteenth century, +clothed in the language of the nineteenth. But for men versed in +Scripture theology this was an impossible enterprise, and it was +abandoned by the divines to a number of parochial clergymen, who are +represented in literature by Rudelbach, and who claim to be the only +surviving Protestants whom Luther would acknowledge as his sons and the +heirs of his spirit. + +The Lutheran divines and scholars formed the new Lutheran party,[337] +whose most illustrious lay champion was the celebrated Stahl. They +profess the Lutheran doctrine of justification, but reject the notion of +the invisible Church and the universal priesthood. Holding to the divine +institution of the offices of the Church, in opposition to the view +which refers them to the congregation, they are led to assume a +sacrament of orders, and to express opinions on ordination, sacraments, +and sacrifice, which involve them in the imputation of Puseyism, or even +of Catholicism. As they remain for the most part in the State Church, +there is an open war between their confessional spirit and the +syncretism of the union. In 1857 the Evangelical Alliance met at Berlin +in order to strengthen the unionist principles, and to testify against +these Pharisees. Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians--sects +connected by nothing but a common hatred of Catholicism--were greeted +by the union divines as bone of their bone, and welcome allies in the +contest with an exclusive Lutheranism and with Rome. The confusion in +the minds of the people was increased by this spectacle. The union +already implied that the dogma of the Lord's Supper, on which Lutherans +and Calvinists disagree, was uncertain, and therefore not essential. The +alliance of so many denominations added baptism to the list of things +about which nothing is positively known. The author of this measure was +Bunsen, who was full of the idea of uniting all Protestant sects in a +union against the Catholic Church and catholicising tendencies. + +For the last fifteen years there has been an active agitation for the +improvement of the Church among the Protestant divines. The first +question that occupies and divides them is that of Church government and +the royal Episcopate, which many deem the chief cause of the +ecclesiastical decay. The late King of Prussia, a zealous and +enlightened friend of the Protestant Church, declared that "the +territorial system and the Episcopal authority of the sovereign are of +such a nature that either of them would alone be enough to kill the +Church if the Church was mortal," and that he longed to be able to +abdicate his rights into the hands of the bishops. In other countries, +as in Baden, a new system has been devised, which transfers political +constitutionalism to the Church, and makes it a community, not of those +who believe in Christ, but, in the words of the Government organ, of +those who believe in a moral order. Hopes were entertained that the +introduction of Synods would be an improvement, and in 1856 and 1857 a +beginning was made at Berlin; but it was found that the existence of +great evils and disorders in the Church, which had been a secret of the +initiated, would be published to the world, and that government by +majorities, the ecclesiastical democracy which was Bunsen's ideal, would +soon destroy every vestige of Christianity. + +In their doctrinal and theological literature resides at the present day +the strength and the renown of the Protestants; for a scientific +Protestant theology exists only in Germany. The German Protestant Church +is emphatically a Church of theologians; they are its only authority, +and, through the princes, its supreme rulers. Its founder never really +divested himself of the character of a professor, and the Church has +never emancipated itself from the lecture-room: it teaches, and then +disappears. Its hymns are not real hymns, but versified theological +dissertations, or sermons in rhyme. Born of the union of princes with +professors, it retains the distinct likeness of both its parents, not +altogether harmoniously blended; and when it is accused of worldliness, +of paleness of thought, of being a police institution rather than a +Church, that is no more than to say that the child cannot deny its +parentage. + +Theology has become believing in Germany, but it is very far from being +orthodox. No writer is true to the literal teaching of the symbolical +books, and for a hundred years the pure doctrine of the sixteenth +century has never been heard. No German divine could submit to the +authority of the early articles and formulas without hypocrisy and +violence to his conscience, and yet they have nothing else to appeal to. +That the doctrine of justification by faith only is the principal +substance of the symbolical writings, the centre of the antagonism +against the Catholic Church, all are agreed. The neo-Lutherans proclaim +it "the essence and treasure of the Reformation," "the doctrine of which +every man must have a clear and vivid comprehension who would know +anything of Christianity," "the banner which must be unfurled at least +once in every sermon," "the permanent death that gnaws the bones of +Catholics," "the standard by which the whole of the Gospel must be +interpreted, and every obscure passage explained," and yet this article +of a standing or falling Church, on the strength of which Protestants +call themselves evangelical, is accepted by scarcely one of their more +eminent divines, even among the Lutherans. The progress of biblical +studies is too great to admit of a return to the doctrine which has +been exploded by the advancement of religious learning. Dr. Doellinger +gives a list (p. 430) of the names of the leading theologians, by all of +whom it has been abandoned. Yet it was for the sake of this fundamental +and essential doctrine that the epistle of St. James was pronounced an +epistle of straw, that the Augsburg Confession declared it to have been +the belief of St Augustine, and that when the author of the Confession +had for very shame omitted this falsehood in the published edition, the +passage was restored after his death. For its sake Luther deliberately +altered the sense of several passages in the Bible, especially in the +writings of St. Paul. To save this doctrine, which was unknown to all +Christian antiquity, the breach was made with all ecclesiastical +tradition, and the authority of the dogmatic testimony of the Church in +every age was rejected. While the contradiction between the Lutheran +doctrine and that of the first centuries was disguised before the laity, +it was no secret among the Reformers. Melanchthon confessed to Brenz +that in the Augsburg Confession he had lied. Luther admitted that his +theory was new, and sought in consequence to destroy the authority of +the early Fathers and Councils. Calvin declared that the system was +unknown to tradition. All these men and their disciples, and the whole +of the Lutheran and Calvinistic theology of the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries, professed to find their doctrine of imputation +laid down distinctly in the Bible. The whole modern scientific theology +of the Protestants rejects both the doctrine and the Lutheran exegesis +of the passages in question. But it is the supreme evangelical +principle, that the Scripture is perfectly clear and sufficient on all +fundamental points. Yet the point on which this great divergence +subsists is a doctrine which is decisive for the existence of the +Church, and most important in its practical influence on life. The whole +edifice of the Protestant Church and theology reposes therefore on two +principles, one material, the other formal--the doctrine of imputation, +and the sufficiency of the Bible. But the material principle is given up +by exegesis and by dogmatic theology; and as to the formal principle, +for the sufficiency of the Bible, or even for the inspiration of the +writings of the disciples of the Apostles, not the shadow of a +scriptural argument can be adduced. The significance of this great fact +is beginning to make its way. "Whilst Rationalism prevailed," says a +famous Lutheran divine, "we could impute to its action that our churches +were deserted and empty. But now that Christ crucified is everywhere +preached, and no serious effect is to be observed, it is necessary to +abandon this mistake, and not to conceal from ourselves that preaching +is unable to revive religious life." + +The religious indifference of the educated classes is the chief security +for the existence of the Protestant Church. If they were to take an +interest in matters of worship and doctrine, and to inform themselves as +to the present relation of theological science to the teaching of the +pulpit, the day of discovery and exposure would come, and confidence in +the Church would be at an end. The dishonesty of Luther in those very +things on which the Reformation depended could not be concealed from +them. In Prussia there was a conscientious clergyman who taught his +parishioners Greek, and then showed them all the passages, especially in +the Epistles of St. Paul, which were intentionally altered in the +translation. But one of the Protestant leaders impresses on the clergy +the danger of allowing the people to know that which ought to be kept a +secret among the learned. At most, he says, it may be necessary to admit +that the translation is not perspicuous. The danger of this discovery +does not, however, appear to be immediate, for no book is less familiar +to the laity than the Bible. "There is scarcely one Christian family in +a hundred," says Tholuck, "in which the Holy Scriptures are read." In +the midst of this general downfall of Christianity, in spite of the +great efforts of Protestants, some take refuge in the phrase of an +invisible Church, some in a Church of the future. Whilst there exists a +real, living, universal Church, with a settled system and means of +salvation, the invisible Church is offered in her stead, wrapped up in +the swaddling clothes of rhetoric, like the stone which Rhea gave her +husband instead of the child. In a novel of Jean Paul, a Swedish +clergyman is advised in the middle of winter to walk about with a bit of +orange-sugar in his mouth, in order to realise with all his senses the +sunny climes of the South. It requires as much imagination to realise +the Church by taking a "spiritual league" into one's mouth. + +Another acknowledgment, that the Church has become estranged from the +people, and subsists only as a ruin of a past age, is the widely spread +hope of a new Pentecost. Eminent theologians speak of it as the only +conceivable salvation, though there is no such promise in Scripture, no +example in history of a similar desire. They rest their only hope in a +miracle, such as has not happened since the Apostles, and thereby +confess that, in the normal process of religious life by which Christ +has guided His Church till now, their cause is lost. A symptom of the +same despair is the rise of chiliastic aspirations, and the belief in +the approaching end of the world. To this party belongs the present +minister of public worship and education in Berlin. Shortly before his +appointment he wrote: "Both Church and State must perish in their +earthly forms, that the kingdom of Christ may be set up over all +nations, that the bride of the Lamb, the perfect community, the new +Jerusalem, may descend from heaven." Not long before this was published +another Prussian statesman, Bunsen, had warned his Protestant readers to +turn away from false prophets, who announce the end of the world because +they have come to the end of their own wisdom. + +In the midst of this desperate weakness, although Catholics and +Protestants are so mixed up with each other that toleration must soon be +universal throughout Germany, the thoughts of the Protestants are yet +not turned towards the Catholic Church; they still show a bitter +animosity against her, and the reproach of Catholic tendencies has for +twenty years been the strongest argument against every attempt to +revive religion and worship. The attitude of Protestantism towards Rome, +says Stahl, is that of the Borghese gladiator. To soften this spirit of +animosity the only possible resource is to make it clear to all +Protestants who still hold to Christianity, what their own internal +condition is, and what they have come to by their rejection of the unity +and the authority which the Catholic Church possesses in the Holy See. +Having shown the value of the Papacy by the results which have ensued on +its rejection, Doellinger proceeds, with the same truth and impartiality, +to trace the events which have injured the influence and diminished the +glory and attractiveness of the Holy See, and have converted that which +should be the safeguard of its spiritual freedom into a calamity and a +dishonour in the eyes of mankind. It seems as though he wished to point +out, as the moral to be learnt from the present condition of the +religious world, that there is a coincidence in time and in providential +purpose between the exhaustion and the despair at which enlightened +Protestantism has arrived, from the failure of every attempt to organise +a form of church government, to save the people from infidelity, and to +reconcile theological knowledge with their religious faith,--between +this and that great drama which, by destroying the bonds which linked +the Church to an untenable system, is preparing the restoration of the +Holy See to its former independence, and to its just influence over the +minds of men. + +The Popes, after obtaining a virtual independence under the Byzantine +sceptre, transferred their allegiance to the revived empire of the West. +The line between their authority and that of the emperor in Rome was +never clearly drawn. It was a security for the freedom and regularity of +the election, which was made by the lay as well as ecclesiastical +dignitaries of the city, that it should be subject to the imperial +ratification; but the remoteness of the emperors, and the inconvenience +of delay, caused this rule to be often broken. This prosperous period +did not long continue. When the dynasty of Charlemagne came to an end, +the Roman clergy had no defence against the nobles, and the Romans did +all that men could do to ruin the Papacy. There was little remaining of +the state which the Popes had formed in conjunction with the emperors. +In the middle of the tenth century the Exarchate and the Pentapolis were +in the power of Berengarius, and Rome in the hands of the Senator +Alberic. Alberic, understanding that a secular principality could not +last long, obtained the election of his son Octavian, who became Pope +John XII. Otho the Great, who had restored the empire, and claimed to +exercise its old prerogative, deposed the new Pope; and when the Romans +elected another, sent him also into exile beyond the Alps. For a whole +century after this time there was no trace of freedom of election. +Without the emperor, the Popes were in the hands of the Roman factions, +and dependence on the emperor was better for the Church than dependence +on the nobles. The Popes appointed under the influence of the prelates, +who were the ecclesiastical advisers of the Imperial Government, were +preferable to the nominees of the Roman chiefs, who had no object or +consideration but their own ambition, and were inclined to speculate on +the worthlessness of their candidates. During the first half of the +eleventh century they recovered their predominance, and the deliverance +of the Church came once more from Germany. A succession of German Popes, +named by the emperor, opened the way for the permanent reform which is +associated with the name of Gregory VII. Up to this period the security +of the freedom of the Holy See was the protection of the emperor, and +Gregory was the last Pope who asked for the imperial confirmation. + +Between the middle of the ninth century and the middle of the eleventh +the greater part of the Roman territory had passed into the hands of +laymen. Some portions were possessed by the emperor, some by the great +Italian families, and the revenues of the Pope were derived from the +tribute of his vassals. Sylvester II. complains that this was very +small, as the possessions of the Church had been given away for very +little. Besides the tribute, the vassals owed feudal service to the +Pope; but the government was not in his hands, and the imperial +suzerainty remained. The great families had obtained from the Popes of +their making such extensive grants that there was little remaining, and +Otho III. tried to make up for it by a new donation. The loss of the +patrimonies in Southern Italy established a claim on the Norman +conquerors, and they became papal vassals for the kingdom of Sicily. But +throughout the twelfth century the Popes had no firm basis of their +power in Italy. They were not always masters of Rome, and there was not +a single provincial town they could reckon on. Seven Popes in a hundred +years sought a refuge in France; two remained at Verona. The donation of +Matilda was disputed by the emperors, and brought no material accession +of territory, until Innocent III., with his usual energy, secured to the +Roman Church the south of Tuscany. He was the first Pope who governed a +considerable territory, and became the real founder of the States of the +Church. Before him, the Popes had possessions for which they claimed +tribute and service, but no State that they administered. Innocent +obtained the submission of Benevento and Romagna. He left the towns to +govern themselves by their own laws, demanding only military aid in case +of need, and a small tribute, which was not always exacted; Viterbo, for +instance, paid nothing until the fifteenth century. + +The contest with Frederic II. stripped the Holy See of most of these +acquisitions. In many cases its civil authority was no longer +acknowledged; in many it became a mere title of honour, while the real +power had passed into the hands of the towns or of the nobles, sometimes +into those of the bishops. Rudolph of Habsburg restored all that had +been lost, and surrendered the imperial claims. But while the German +influence was suspended, the influence of France prevailed over the +Papacy; and during the exile at Avignon the Popes were as helpless as if +they had possessed not an acre of their own in Italy. It was during +their absence that the Italian Republics fell under the tyrannies, and +their dominions were divided among a swarm of petty princes. The famous +expedition of Cardinal Albornoz put an end to these disorders. He +recovered the territories of the Church, and became, by the AEgidian +Constitutions, which survived for ages, the legislator of Romagna. In +1376 eighty towns rose up in the space of three days, declared +themselves free, or recalled the princes whom Albornoz had expelled. +Before they could be reduced, the schism broke out, and the Church +learnt the consequences of the decline of the empire, and the +disappearance of its advocacy and protectorate over the Holy See. +Boniface IX. sold to the republics and the princes, for a sum of money +and an annual tribute, the ratification of the rights which they had +seized. + +The first great epoch in the history of the temporal power after the +schism is the election of Eugenius IV. He swore to observe a statute +which had been drawn up in conclave, by which all vassals and officers +of State were to swear allegiance to the College of Cardinals in +conjunction with the Pope. As he also undertook to abandon to the +cardinals half the revenue, he shared in fact his authority with them. +This was a new form of government, and a great restriction of the papal +power; but it did not long endure. + +The centrifugal tendency, which broke up Italy into small +principalities, had long prevailed, when at last the Popes gave way to +it. The first was Sixtus IV., who made one of his nephews lord of Imola, +and another of Sinigaglia. Alexander VI. subdued all the princes in the +States of the Church except the Duke of Montefeltro, and intended to +make the whole an hereditary monarchy for his son. But Julius II. +recovered all these conquests for the Church, added new ones to them, +and thus became, after Innocent III. and Albornoz, the third founder of +the Roman State. The age which beheld this restoration was marked in +almost every country by the establishment of political unity on the +ruins of the mediaeval independence, and of monarchical absolutism at +the expense of mediaeval freedom. Both of these tendencies asserted +themselves in the States of the Church. The liberties of the towns were +gradually destroyed. This was accomplished by Clement VII. in Ancona, in +1532; by Paul III. in Perugia, in 1540. Ravenna, Faenza, Jesi had, under +various pretexts, undergone the same fate. By the middle of the +sixteenth century all resistance was subdued. In opposition, however, to +this centralising policy, the nepotism introduced by Sixtus IV. led to +dismemberment. Paul III. gave Parma and Piacenza to his son Pier Luigi +Farnese, and the duchy was lost to the Holy See for good. Paul IV. made +a similar attempt in favour of his nephew Caraffa, but he was put to +death under Pius IV.; and this species of nepotism, which subsisted at +the expense of the papal territory, came to an end. Pius V. forbade, +under pain of excommunication, to invest any one with a possession of +the Holy See, and this law was extended even to temporary concessions. + +In the eighteenth century a time came when the temporal power was a +source of weakness, and a weapon by which the courts compelled the Pope +to consent to measures he would otherwise never have approved. It was +thus that the suppression of the Jesuits was obtained from Clement XIV. +Under his successors the world had an opportunity of comparing the times +when Popes like Alexander III. or Innocent IV. governed the Church from +their exile, and now, when men of the greatest piety and +conscientiousness virtually postponed their duty as head of the Church +to their rights as temporal sovereigns, and, like the senators of old, +awaited the Gauls upon their throne. There is a lesson not to be +forgotten in the contrast between the policy and the fate of the great +mediaeval pontiffs, who preserved their liberty by abandoning their +dominions, and that of Pius VI. and Pius VII., who preferred captivity +to flight. + +The nepotism of Urban VIII. brought on the war of Castro, and in its +train increase of debt, of taxes, impoverishment of the State, and the +odious union of spiritual with temporal arms, which became a permanent +calamity for the Holy See. This attachment to the interest of their +families threw great discredit on the Popes, who were dishonoured by the +faults, the crimes, and the punishment of their relatives. But since the +death of Alexander VIII., in 1691, even that later form of nepotism +which aimed at wealth only, not at political power, came to an end, and +has never reappeared except in the case of the Braschi. The nepotism of +the cardinals and prelates has survived that of the Popes. If the +statute of Eugenius IV. had remained in force, the College of Cardinals +would have formed a wholesome restraint in the temporal government, and +the favouritism of the papal relations would have been prevented. But +the Popes acted with the absolute power which was in the spirit of the +monarchies of that age. When Paul IV. announced to the Sacred College +that he had stripped the house of Colonna of its possessions to enrich +his nephew, and that he was at war with Spain, they listened in silence, +and have been passive ever since. No European sovereignty enjoyed so +arbitrary an authority. Under Julius II. the towns retained considerable +privileges, and looked on their annexation to the Papal State as a +deliverance from their former oppressors. Machiavelli and Guicciardini +say that the Popes required neither to defend nor to administer their +dominions, and that the people were content in the enjoyment of their +autonomy. In the course of the sixteenth century the administration was +gradually centralised in Rome, and placed in the hands of ecclesiastics. +Before 1550 the governors were ordinarily laymen, but the towns +themselves preferred to be governed by prelates. By the close of the +century the independence of the corporations had disappeared; but the +centralisation, though complete, was not vigorous, and practically the +towns and the barons, though not free, were not oppressed. + +The modern system of government in the Roman States originated with +Sixtus V. He introduced stability and regularity in the administration, +and checked the growth of nepotism, favouritism, and arbitrary power, by +the creation of permanent congregations. In connection with this measure +the prelates became the upper class of official persons in the State, +and were always expected to be men of fortune. A great burden for the +country was the increase of offices, which were created only to be sold. +No important duties and no fixed salary were attached to them, and the +incumbent had to rely on fees and extortion. In the year 1470 there were +650 places of this kind. In eighty years they had increased to 3500. The +theory was, that the money raised by the sale of places saved the people +from the imposition of new taxes. Innocent XII., in 1693, put an end to +this traffic; but it had continued so long that the ill-effects +survived. + +There was a great contrast between the ecclesiastical administration, +which exhibited a dignified stability, resting on fixed rules and +ancient traditions, and the civil government, which was exposed to +continual fluctuation by the change of persons, of measures, and of +systems; for few Popes continued the plans of their predecessors. The +new Pontiff commenced his reign generally with a profound sense of the +abuses and of the discontent which prevailed before his elevation, and +naturally sought to obtain favour and improvement by opposite measures. +In the cultivation of the Roman Campagna, for instance, it was observed +that each Pope followed a different system, so that little was +accomplished. The persons were almost always changed by the new Pope, so +that great offices rarely remained long in the same hands. The Popes +themselves were seldom versed in affairs of State, and therefore +required the assistance of statesmen of long experience. In the +eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, when the election was free +from outward influence, men were generally chosen who had held under one +or two Popes the highest office of state,--Gregory VII., Urban II., +Gelasius II., Lucius II., Alexander III., Gregory VIII., Gregory IX., +Alexander IV. But in modern times it has been the rule that the +Secretary of State should not be elected, and that the new Pope should +dismiss the heads of the administration. Clement IX. was the first who +gave up this practice, and retained almost all those who had been +employed under his predecessor. + +The burdens of the State increased far beyond its resources from the aid +which the Popes gave to the Catholic Powers, especially in the Turkish +wars. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the debt amounted to +12,242,620 _scudi_, and the interest absorbed three-fourths of the whole +income. In 1655 it had risen to 48,000,000 _scudi_. The financial +administration was secret, free from the control of public accounts, and +the _Tesoriere_, being necessarily a cardinal, was irresponsible. There +was no industry in the towns; they remained for the most part small and +poor; almost all articles of common use were imported, and the country +had little to give in exchange. All the interest of the public debt went +to foreign creditors. As early as 1595 the discontent was very great, +and so many emigrated, in order to escape the heavy burdens, that +Cardinal Sacchetti said, in 1664, that the population was reduced by +one-half. In the year 1740 the president De Brosses found the Roman +Government the most defective but the mildest in Europe. Becattini, in +his panegyrical biography of Pius VI., declares that it was the worst +after that of Turkey. There were none of those limitations which in +other countries restrained the power of the monarch, no fundamental +laws, no coronation oath, no binding decrees of predecessors, no +provincial estates, no powerful corporations. But, in reality, this +unlimited absolutism was softened by custom, and by great indulgence +towards individuals. + +When Consalvi adopted the French institutions, he did not understand +that an absolute government is intolerable, and must sink under the +weight of its responsibility, unless it recognises the restraint of +custom and tradition, and of subordinate, but not dependent forces. The +unity and uniformity he introduced were destructive. He restored none +of the liberties of the towns, and confided the administration to +ecclesiastics superficially acquainted with law, and without knowledge +of politics or of public economy. In the ecclesiastical States of +Germany, the civil and religious departments were separate; and it is as +wrong to say that the double position of the head must repeat itself +throughout the administration, as to say that a king, because he is the +head of the army as well as of the civil government, ought to mix the +two spheres throughout the State. It would, in reality, be perfectly +possible to separate the political and ecclesiastical authorities. + +Leo XII. attempted to satisfy the _Zelanti_, the adversaries of +Consalvi, by restoring the old system. He abolished the provincial +Councils, revived the Inquisition, and subjected official honesty and +public morality to a strict espionage. Leo saw the error of Consalvi, +but mistook the remedy; and his government was the most unpopular that +had been seen for a century. Where the laity are excluded from the +higher offices, and the clergy enjoy the monopoly of them, that moral +power which modern bureaucracy derives from the corporate spirit, and +the feelings of honour which it inspires, cannot subsist. One class +becomes demoralised by its privileged position, the other by its limited +prospects and insufficient pay. Leo tried to control them by the +_congregazione di vigilanze_, which received and examined all charges +against official persons; but it was suppressed by his successor. + +The famous Memorandum of the Powers, 31st May 1831, recommended the +admission of the laity to all secular offices, the restoration of the +provincial Councils, and the introduction of elective communal Councils +with the power of local government; and finally, a security against the +changes incident to an elective sovereignty. The historian Coppi, who +was charged to draw up a plan of reform in reply to these demands, +relates that the Pope and the majority of the cardinals rejected every +serious change, and were resolved to uphold the old principles, and to +concede nothing to the lay party, "because, if anything was voluntarily +conceded, there would be no right of recalling it afterwards." Two +things in particular it was determined not to grant--elective Councils +in the towns and provinces, and a lay Council of State beside the Sacred +College. In a general way, vague reforms were promised; but the promise +was not redeemed. Austria would not tolerate any liberal concessions in +Italy which were in contradiction with her own system and her own +interests; thus all Italian aspirations for reforms were concentrated in +the wish to get rid of the foreign yoke, and Austria never succeeded in +forming a party amongst the Italians favourable to her power. Yet +Gregory XVI. knew that great changes were needed. In 1843 he said:-- + + The civil administration requires a great reform. I was too old when + I was elected; I did not expect to live so long, and had not the + courage to begin the undertaking. For whoever begins, must accomplish + it. I have now only a few more years to live; perhaps only a few + days. After me they will choose a young Pope, whose mission it will + be to perform the act, without which it is impossible to go on. + +The Austrian occupation caused the Roman Government to be identified +with the foreign supremacy, and transferred to it the hatred of the +patriots. The disaffection of the subjects of the Pope had deeper +motives. Except the clergy, that overshadows all, there are no distinct +orders in the society of the Roman State; no country nobility, no +wealthy class of peasant proprietors; nothing but the population of the +towns, and a degenerate class of patricians. These were generally +hostile to the ecclesiastical system. The offices are so distributed, +that the clergy govern, and the laity are their instruments. In the +principal departments, no amount of services or ability could raise a +layman above a certain level, beyond which younger and less competent +ecclesiastics were promoted over his head. This subordination, which led +to a regular dependence of the lay officials on the prelates, drove the +best men away from the service of the State, and disposed the rest to +long for a government which should throw open to them the higher prizes +of their career. Even the country people, who were never tainted with +the ideas of the secret societies, were not always well affected. + +It is more difficult for a priest than for a layman to put aside his +private views and feelings in the administration of justice. He is the +servant and herald of grace, of forgiveness, of indulgence, and easily +forgets that in human concerns the law is inexorable, that favour to one +is often injury to many or to all, and that he has no right to place his +own will above the law. He is still more disqualified for the direction +of the police, which, in an absolute State and in troubled times, uses +its unlimited power without reference to Christian ideas, leaves +unpunished acts which are grievous sins, and punishes others which in a +religious point of view are innocent. It is hard for the people to +distinguish clearly the priestly character from the action of its bearer +in the administration of police. The same indifference to the strict +letter of the law, the same confusion between breaches of divine and of +human ordinances, led to a practice of arbitrary imprisonment, which +contrasts painfully with the natural gentleness of a priestly +government. Hundreds of persons were cast into prison without a trial or +even an examination; only on suspicion, and kept there more than a year +for greater security. + +The immunities of the clergy were as unpopular as their power. The laws +and decrees of the Pope as a temporal sovereign were not held to be +binding on them unless it was expressly said, or was clear from the +context, that they were given also in his character of Head of the +Church. Ecclesiastics were tried before their own tribunals, and had the +right to be more lightly punished than laymen for the same delinquency. +Those events in the life of Achilli, which came out at his trial, had +not only brought down on him no severe punishment, but did not stand in +the way of his promotion. With all these privileges, the bulk of the +Roman clergy had little to do; little was expected of them, and their +instruction was extremely deficient. + +At the end of the pontificate of Gregory XVI. the demand for reforms was +loud and universal, and men began to perceive that the defects of the +civil government were undermining the religious attachment of the +people. The conclave which raised Pius IX. to the Papal throne was the +shortest that had occurred for near three hundred years. The necessity +of choosing a Pontiff disposed to understand and to satisfy the pressing +requirements of the time, made it important to hasten matters in order +to escape the interference of Austria. It was expected that Cardinal +Gizzi or Cardinal Mastai would be elected. The latter had been pointed +out by Gregory XVI. as his fittest successor, and he made Gizzi +Secretary of State. The first measure of the new reign, the amnesty, +which, as Metternich said, threw open the doors of the house to the +professional robbers, was taken not so much as an act of policy, as +because the Pope was resolved to undo an accumulation of injustice. The +reforms which followed soon made Pius the most popular of Italian +princes, and all Catholics rejoiced that the reconciliation of the +Papacy with modern freedom was at length accomplished, and that the +shadow which had fallen on the priesthood throughout the world was +removed with the abuses in the Roman Government. The Constitution was, +perhaps, an inevitable though a fatal necessity. "The Holy Father must +fall," said his minister, "but at least he will fall with honour." The +preliminary conditions of constitutional life were wanting--habits of +self-government in the towns and provinces, security from the vexations +of the police, separation of spiritual and temporal jurisdiction. It +could not be but that the existence of an elective chamber must give to +the lay element a preponderance in the State, whilst in the +administration the contrary position was maintained. There could be no +peaceful solution of this contradiction, and it is strange that the +cardinals, who were unanimously in favour of the statute, should not +have seen that it would lead to the destruction of the privileges of the +clergy. But in the allocution of 20th April 1849, the Pope declared that +he had never intended to alter the character of his government; so that +he must have thought the old system of administration by ecclesiastics +compatible with the working of the new Constitution. At his return from +exile all his advisers were in favour of abrogating all the concessions +of the first years of his reign. Balbo and Rosmini visited him at Gaeta, +to plead for the Constitution, but they obtained nothing. Pius IX. was +persuaded that every concession would be a weapon in the hands of the +Radicals. A lay _consulta_ gave to the laity a share of the supreme +government; but the chief offices and the last decision remained, as +before, in the hands of the prelates. Municipal reforms were promised. +In general the old defects continued, and the old discontent was not +conciliated. + +It is manifest that Constitutionalism, as it is ordinarily understood, +is not a system which can be applied to the States of the Church. It +could not be tolerated that a warlike faction, by refusing supplies, +should compel the Pope to go to war with a Christian nation, as they +sought to compel him to declare war against Austria in 1848. His +sovereignty must be real, not merely nominal. It makes no difference +whether he is in the power of a foreign State or of a parliamentary +majority. But real sovereignty is compatible with a participation of the +people in legislation, the autonomy of corporations, a moderate freedom +of the press, and the separation of religion and police. + +Recent events would induce one to suppose that the enormous power of the +press and of public opinion, which it forms and reflects, is not +understood in Rome. In 1856 the Inquisitor at Ancona issued an edict, +threatening with the heaviest censures all who should omit to denounce +the religious or ecclesiastical faults of their neighbours, relatives, +or superiors; and in defiance of the general indignation, and of the +despondency of those who, for the sake of religion, desired reforms in +the States of the Church, the _Civilta Cattolica_ declared that the +Inquisitor had done his duty. Such cases as this, and those of Achilli +and Mortara, weighed more heavily in the scale in which the Roman State +is weighed than a lost battle. Without discussing the cases themselves, +it is clear what their influence has been on public opinion, with which +it is more important at the present day to treat than with the +governments which depend on it. This branch of diplomacy has been +unfortunately neglected, and hence the Roman Government cannot rely on +lay support. + +After describing the evils and disorders of the State, which the Pope so +deeply felt that he put his own existence in peril, and inflamed half of +Europe with the spirit of radical change in the attempt to remove them, +Dr. Doellinger contrasts, with the gloomy picture of decay and failure, +the character of the Pontiff who attempted the great work of reform. + + Nevertheless, the administration of Pius IX. is wise, benevolent, + indulgent, thrifty, attentive to useful institutions and + improvements. All that proceeds from Pius IX. personally is worthy of + a head of the Church--elevated, liberal in the best sense of the + term. No sovereign spends less on his court and his own private + wants. If all thought and acted as he does, his would be a model + State. Both the French and the English envoys affirm that the + financial administration had improved, that the value of the land was + increasing, agriculture flourishing, and that many symptoms of + progress might be observed. Whatever can be expected of a monarch + full of affection for his people, and seeking his sole recreation in + works of beneficence, Pius richly performs. _Pertransiit + benefaciendo_,--words used of one far greater,--are simply the truth + applied to him. In him we can clearly perceive how the Papacy, even + as a temporal state, might, so far as the character of the prince is + concerned, through judicious elections, be the most admirable of + human institutions. A man in the prime of life, after an + irreproachable youth and a conscientious discharge of Episcopal + duties, is elevated to the highest dignity and to sovereign power. He + knows nothing of expensive amusements; he has no other passion but + that of doing good, no other ambition but to be beloved by his + subjects. His day is divided between prayer and the labours of + government; his relaxation is a walk in the garden, a visit to a + church, a prison, or a charitable institution. Free from personal + desires and from terrestrial bonds, he has no relatives, no + favourites to provide for. For him the rights and powers of his + office exist only for the sake of its duties.... Grievously outraged, + injured, rewarded with ingratitude, he has never harboured a thought + of revenge, never committed an act of severity, but ever forgiven and + ever pardoned. The cup of sweetness and of bitterness, the cup of + human favour and of human aversion, he has not only tasted, but + emptied to the dregs; he heard them cry "Hosannah!" and soon after + "Crucifige!" The man of his confidence, the first intellectual power + of his nation, fell beneath the murderer's knife; the bullet of an + insurgent struck down the friend by his side. And yet no feeling of + hatred, no breath of anger could ever obscure, even for a moment, the + spotless mirror of his soul. Untouched by human folly, unmoved by + human malice, he proceeds with a firm and regular step on his way, + like the stars of heaven. + + Such I have seen the action of this Pope in Rome, such it has been + described to me by all, whether near him or afar; and if he now seems + to be appointed to pass through all the painful and discouraging + experience which can befall a monarch, and to continue to the end the + course of a prolonged martyrdom, he resembles in this, as in so many + other things, the sixteenth Louis; or rather; to go up higher, he + knows that the disciple is not above the Master, and that the pastor + of a church, whose Lord and Founder died upon the cross, cannot + wonder and cannot refuse that the cross should be laid also upon him + (pp. 624-627). + +It is a common opinion, that the Pope, as a sovereign, is bound by the +common law to the forms and ideas of the Middle Ages; and that in +consequence of the progress of society, of the difference between the +thirteenth century and the nineteenth, there is an irreconcilable +discord between the Papacy and the necessities of civil government. All +Catholics are bound to oppose this opinion. Only that which is of Divine +institution is unchangeable through all time. But the sovereignty of the +Popes is extremely elastic, and has already gone through many forms. No +contrast can be stronger than that between the use which the Popes made +of their power in the thirteenth or the fifteenth century, and the +system of Consalvi. There is no reason, therefore, to doubt, that it +will now, after a violent interruption, assume the form best adapted to +the character of the age and the requirements of the Italian people. +There is nothing chimerical in the vision of a new order of things, in +which the election shall fall on men in the prime of their years and +their strength; in which the people shall be reconciled to their +government by free institutions and a share in the conduct of their own +concerns, and the upper classes satisfied by the opening of a suitable +career in public affairs. Justice publicly and speedily administered +would obtain the confidence of the people; the public service would be +sustained by an honourable _esprit de corps_; the chasm between laity +and priesthood would be closed by equality in rights and duties; the +police would not rely on the help of religion, and religion would no +longer drag itself along on the crutches of the police. The integrity of +the Papal States would be under the joint guardianship of the Powers, +who have guaranteed even the dominions of the Sultan; and the Pope would +have no enemies to fear, and his subjects would be delivered from the +burden of military service and of a military budget. + +Religious liberty is not, as the enemies of the Holy See declare, and +some even of its friends believe, an insurmountable difficulty. Events +often cut the knots which appear insoluble to theory. Attempts at +proselytising have not hitherto succeeded among the subjects of the +Pope; but if it had been otherwise, would it have been possible for the +Inquisition to proceed against a Protestant? The agitation that must +have ensued would be a welcome opportunity to put an end to what remains +of the temporal power. It is true that the advance of Protestantism in +Italy would raise up a barrier between the Pope and his subjects; but no +such danger is to be apprehended. At the time when the doctrines of the +Reformation exercised an almost magical power over mankind, they never +took root in Italy beyond a few men of letters; and now that their power +of attraction and expansion has long been exhausted, neither Sardinian +policy nor English gold will succeed in seducing the Italians to them. + +The present position of helpless and humiliating dependence will not +long endure. The determination of the Piedmontese Government to annex +Rome is not more certain than the determination of the Emperor Napoleon +to abrogate the temporal power. Pius IX. would enjoy greater security in +Turkey than in the hands of a State which combines the tyranny of the +Convention, the impudent sophistry of a government of advocates, and the +ruthless brutality of military despotism. Rather than trust to Piedmont, +may Pius IX. remember the example of his greatest predecessors, who, +relying on the spiritual might of the Papacy, sought beyond the Alps the +freedom which Italy denied to them. The Papacy has beheld the rise and +the destruction of many thrones, and will assuredly outlive the kingdom +of Italy, and other monarchies besides. It can afford to wait; _patiens +quia aeternus_. The Romans need the Pope more than the Pope needs Rome. +Above the Catacombs, among the Basilicas, beside the Vatican, there is +no place for a tribune or for a king. We shall see what was seen in the +fourteenth century: envoys will come from Rome to entreat the Pope to +return to his faithful city. + +Whilst things continue as they are, the emperor can, by threatening to +withdraw his troops, compel the Pope to consent to anything not actually +sinful. Such a situation is alarming in the highest degree for other +countries. But for the absolute confidence that all men have in the +fidelity and conscientiousness of the present Pope, and for the +providential circumstance that there is no ecclesiastical complication +which the French Government could use for its own ends, it would not be +tolerated by the rest of the Catholic world. Sooner or later these +conditions of security will disappear, and the interest of the Church +demands that before that happens, the peril should be averted, even by a +catastrophe. + +The hostility of the Italians themselves to the Holy See is the tragic +symptom of the present malady. In other ages, when it was assailed, the +Italians were on its side, or at least were neutral. Now they require +the destruction of the temporal power, either as a necessary sacrifice +for the unity and greatness of their country, or as a just consequence +of incurable defects. The time will come, however, when they will be +reconciled with the Papacy, and with its presence as a Power among them. +It was the dependence of the Pope on the Austrian arms, and his +identification in popular opinion with the cause of the detested +foreigner, that obscured his lofty position as the moral bulwark and +protector of the nation. For 1500 years the Holy See was the pivot of +Italian history, and the source of the Italian influence in Europe. The +nation and the See shared the same fortunes, and grew powerful or feeble +together. It was not until the vices of Alexander VI. and his +predecessors had destroyed the reverence which was the protection of +Italy, that she became the prey of the invaders. None of the great +Italian historians has failed to see that they would ruin themselves in +raising their hands against Rome. The old prophecy of the _Papa +Angelico_, of an Angel Pope, who was to rise up to put an end to discord +and disorder, and to restore piety and peace and happiness in Italy, was +but the significant token of the popular belief that the Papacy and the +nation were bound up together, and that one was the guardian of the +other. That belief slumbers, now that the idea of unity prevails, whilst +the Italians are attempting to put the roof on a building without walls +and without foundations, but it will revive again, when centralisation +is compelled to yield to federalism, and the road to the practicable has +been found in the search after impossibilities. + +The tyrannical character of the Piedmontese Government, its contempt for +the sanctity of public law, the principles on which it treats the clergy +at home, and the manner in which it has trampled on the rights of the +Pope and the interests of religion, the perfidy and despotism it +exhibits, render it impossible that any securities it may offer to the +Pope can possess a real value. Moreover, in the unsettled state of the +kingdom, the uncertain succession of parties, and the fluctuation of +power, whatever guarantee is proposed by the ministry, there is nobody +to guarantee the guarantor. It is a system without liberty and without +stability; and the Pope can never be reconciled to it, or become a +dweller in the new Italian kingdom. + +If he must choose between the position of a subject and of an exile, he +is at home in the whole Catholic world, and wherever he goes he will be +surrounded by children who will greet him as their father. It may become +an inevitable, but it must always be a heroic resolution. The court and +the various congregations for the administration of the affairs of the +Church are too numerous to be easily moved. In former times the +machinery was more simple, and the whole body of the pontifical +government could be lodged in a single French monastery. The absence of +the Pope from Rome will involve great difficulties and annoyance; but it +is a lesser evil than a surrender of principle, which cannot be +recalled. + +To remove the Holy See to France would, under present circumstances, be +an open challenge to a schism, and would afford to all who wish to +curtail the papal rights, or to interrupt the communication between the +Pope and the several churches, the most welcome pretexts, and it would +put arms in the hands of governments that wish to impede the action of +his authority within their States. + +The conclusion of the book is as follows:-- + + If the Court of Rome should reside for a time in Germany, the Roman + prelates will doubtless be agreeably surprised to discover that our + people is able to remain Catholic and religious without the + leading-strings of a police, and that its religious sentiments are a + better protection to the Church than the episcopal _carceri_, which, + thank God, do not exist. They will learn that the Church in Germany + is able to maintain herself without the Holy Office; that our + bishops, although, or because, they use no physical compulsion, are + reverenced like princes by the people, that they are received with + triumphal arches, that their arrival in a place is a festival for the + inhabitants. They will see how the Church with us rests on the broad, + strong, and healthy basis of a well-organised system of pastoral + administration and of popular religious instruction. They will + perceive that we Catholics have maintained for years the struggle for + the deliverance of the Church from the bonds of bureaucracy + straightforwardly and without reservation; that we cannot entertain + the idea of denying to the Italians what we have claimed for + ourselves; and that therefore we are far from thinking that it is + anywhere an advantage to fortify the Church with the authority of the + police and with the power of the secular arm. Throughout Germany we + have been taught by experience the truth of Fenelon's saying, that + the spiritual power must be carefully kept separate from the civil, + because their union is pernicious. They will find, further, that the + whole of the German clergy is prepared to bless the day when it shall + learn that the free sovereignty of the Pope is assured, without + sentence of death being still pronounced by ecclesiastics, without + priests continuing to discharge the functions of treasury-clerks or + police directors, or to conduct the business of the lottery. And, + finally, they will convince themselves that all the Catholics of + Germany will stand up as one man for the independence of the Holy + See, and the legitimate rights of the Pope; but that they are no + admirers of a form of government of very recent date, which is, in + fact, nothing else than the product of the mechanical polity of + Napoleon combined with a clerical administration. And this + information will bear good fruit when the hour shall strike for the + return, and restitution shall be made.... + + Meanwhile Pius IX. and the men of his Council will "think upon the + days of old, and have in their minds the eternal years." They will + read the future in the earlier history of the Papacy, which has + already seen many an exile and many a restoration. The example of the + resolute, courageous Popes of the Middle Ages will light the way. It + is no question now of suffering martyrdom, of clinging to the tombs + of the Apostles, or of descending into the catacombs; but of quitting + the land of bondage, in order to exclaim on a free soil, "Our bonds + are broken, and we are free!" For the rest God will provide, and the + unceasing gifts and sympathies of the Catholic world. And the parties + in Italy, when they have torn and exhausted the land which has become + a battle-field; when the sobered and saddened people, tired of the + rule of lawyers and of soldiers, has understood the worth of a moral + and spiritual authority, then will be the time to think of returning + to the Eternal City. In the interval, the things will have + disappeared for whose preservation such pains are taken; and then + there will be better reason than Consalvi had, in the preface to the + _Motu Proprio_ of 6th July 1816, to say: "Divine Providence, which so + conducts human affairs that out of the greatest calamity innumerable + benefits proceed, seems to have intended that the interruption of the + papal government should prepare the way for a more perfect form of + it." + +We have written at a length for which we must apologise to our readers; +and yet this is but a meagre sketch of the contents of a book which +deals with a very large proportion of the subjects that occupy the +thoughts and move the feelings of religious men. We will attempt to sum +up in a few words the leading ideas of the author. Addressing a mixed +audience, he undertakes to controvert two different interpretations of +the events which are being fulfilled in Rome. To the Protestants, who +triumph in the expected downfall of the Papacy, he shows the +consequences of being without it. To the Catholics, who see in the Roman +question a great peril to the Church, he explains how the possession of +the temporal sovereignty had become a greater misfortune than its loss +for a time would be. From the opposite aspects of the religious camps of +our age he endeavours to awaken the misgivings of one party, and to +strengthen the confidence of the other. There is an inconsistency +between the Protestant system and the progress of modern learning; there +is none between the authority of the Holy See and the progress of modern +society. The events which are tending to deprive the Pope of his +territory are not to be, therefore, deplored, if we consider the +preceding causes, because they made this catastrophe inevitable; still +less if, looking to the future, we consider the state of Protestantism, +because they remove an obstacle to union which is humanly almost +insurmountable. In a former work Doellinger exhibited the moral and +intellectual exhaustion of Paganism as the prelude to Christianity. In +like manner he now confronts the dissolution and spiritual decay of +Protestantism with the Papacy. But in order to complete the contrast, +and give force to the vindication, it was requisite that the true +function and character of the Holy See should not be concealed from the +unpractised vision of strangers by the mask of that system of government +which has grown up around it in modern times. The importance of this +violent disruption of the two authorities consists in the state of +religion throughout the world. Its cause lies in the deficiences of the +temporal power; its end in the mission of the spiritual. + +The interruption of the temporal sovereignty is the only way we can +discern in which these deficiences can be remedied and these ends +obtained. But this interruption cannot be prolonged. In an age in which +the State throughout the Continent is absolute, and tolerates no +immunities; when corporations have therefore less freedom than +individuals, and the disposition to restrict their action increases in +proportion to their power, the Pope cannot be independent as a subject. +He must, therefore, be a sovereign, the free ruler of an actual +territory, protected by international law and a European guarantee. The +restoration consequently is necessary, though not as an immediate +consequence of the revolution. In this revolutionary age the protection +of the Catholic Powers is required against outward attack. They must +also be our security that no disaffection is provoked within; that there +shall be no recurrence of the dilemma between the right of insurrection +against an arbitrary government and the duty of obedience to the Pope; +and that civil society shall not again be convulsed, nor the pillars of +law and order throughout Europe shaken, by a revolution against the +Church, of which, in the present instance, the conservative powers share +the blame, and have already felt the consequences. + +In the earnest and impressive language of the conclusion, in which +Doellinger conveys the warnings which all Transalpine Catholicism owes to +its Head as an Italian sovereign, it seems to us that something more +definite is intended than the expression of the wish, which almost every +Catholic feels, to receive the Pope in his own country. The anxiety for +his freedom which would be felt if he took refuge in France, would be +almost equally justified by his presence in Austria. A residence in an +exclusively Catholic country, such as Spain, would be contrary to the +whole spirit of this book, and to the moral which it inculcates, that +the great significance of the crisis is in the state of German +Protestantism. If the position of the Catholics in Germany would supply +useful lessons and examples to the Roman court, it is also from the +vicinity of the Protestant world that the full benefit can best be drawn +from its trials, and that the crimes of the Italians, which have begun +as calamities, may be turned to the advantage of the Church. But +against such counsels there is a powerful influence at work. Napoleon +has declared his determination to sweep away the temporal power. The +continuance of the occupation of Rome, and his express prohibition to +the Piedmontese government to proceed with the annexation during the +life of the present Pope, signify that he calculates on greater +advantages in a conclave than from the patient resolution of Pius IX. +This policy is supported by the events in Italy in a formidable manner. +The more the Piedmontese appear as enemies and persecutors, the more the +emperor will appear as the only saviour; and the dread of a prolonged +exile in any Catholic country, and of dependence for subsistence on the +contributions of the faithful, must exhibit in a fascinating light the +enjoyment of the splendid hospitality and powerful protection of France. +On these hopes and fears, and on the difficulties which are pressing on +the cardinals from the loss of their revenues, the emperor speculates, +and persuades himself that he will be master of the next election. On +the immovable constancy of her Supreme Pontiff the Catholic Church +unconditionally relies; and we are justified in believing that, in an +almost unparalleled emergency, he will not tremble before a resolution +of which no Pope has given an example since the consolidation of the +temporal power. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 334: _The Rambler_, November 1861.] + +[Footnote 335: _Kirche und Kirchen_, Munich, 1861 ("Papstum und +Kirchenstaat").] + +[Footnote 336: So late as 1791 Pius VI. wrote: "Discrimen intercedit +inter homines, qui extra gremium Ecclesiae semper fuerunt, quales sunt +Infideles atque Judaei, atque inter illos qui se Ecclesiae ipsi per +susceptum baptismi sacramentum subjecerunt. Primi enim constringi ad +catholicam obedientiam non debent, contra vero alteri sunt cogendi." If +this theory had, like that of the Protestants, been put in practice by +the Government, it would have furnished the Protestants with an argument +precisely similar to that by which the Catholics justified the severity +they exercised towards them.] + +[Footnote 337: The works contained in Clark's library of translations +are chiefly of this school.] + + + + +XI + +DOeLLINGER'S HISTORICAL WORK[338] + + +When first seen, at Wuerzburg, in the diaries of Platen the poet, Dr. +Doellinger was an eager student of general literature, and especially of +Schlegel and the romantic philosophy. It was an epoch in which the +layman and the _dilettante_ prevailed. In other days a divine had half a +dozen distinct schools of religious thought before him, each able to +develop and to satisfy a receptive mind; but the best traditions of +western scholarship had died away when the young Franconian obtained a +chair in the reorganised university of Munich. His own country, Bavaria, +his time, the third decade of the century, furnished no guide, no +master, and no model to the new professor. Exempt, by date and position, +from the discipline of a theological party, he so continued, and never +turned elsewhere for the dependence he escaped at home. No German +theologian, of his own or other churches, bent his course; and he +derived nothing from the powerful writer then dominant in the North. To +a friend describing Herder as the one unprofitable classic, he replied, +"Did you ever learn anything from Schleiermacher?" And if it is doubtful +which way this stroke was aimed, it is certain that he saw less than +others in the Berlin teacher. + +Very young he knew modern languages well, though with a defective ear, +and having no local or contemporary attachments he devoted himself +systematically to the study of foreign divines. The characteristic +universality of his later years was not the mere result of untiring +energy and an unlimited command of books. His international habit sprang +from the inadequacy of the national supply, and the search for truth in +every century naturally became a lecturer whose function it was to +unfold from first to last the entire life of the Church, whose range +extended over all Christian ages, and who felt the inferiority of his +own. Doellinger's conception of the science which he was appointed to +carry forward, in conformity with new requirements and new resources, +differed from the average chiefly by being more thorough and +comprehensive. At two points he was touched by currents of the day. +Savigny, the legal expert of a school recruited from both denominations +and gravitating towards Catholicism, had expounded law and society in +that historic spirit which soon pervaded other sciences, and restored +the significance of national custom and character. By his writings +Protestant literature overlapped. The example of the conspicuous jurist +served as a suggestion for divines to realise the patient process of +history; and Doellinger continued to recognise him as a master and +originator of true scientific methods when his influence on +jurisprudence was on the wane. On the same track, Drey, in 1819, +defended the theory of development as the vital prerogative of Rome over +the fixity of other churches. Moehler was the pupil of Drey, and they +made Tuebingen the seat of a positive theology, broader and more +progressive than that of Munich. + +The first eminent thinker whom he saw and heard was Baader, the poorest +of writers, but the most instructive and impressive talker in Germany, +and the one man who appears to have influenced the direction of his +mind. Bishop Martensen has described his amazing powers; and Doellinger, +who remembered him with more scant esteem, bore equal testimony to the +wealth and worth of his religious philosophy. He probably owed to him +his persistent disparagement of Hegel, and more certainly that +familiarity with the abstruse literature of mysticism which made him as +clear and sure of vision in the twilight of Petrucci and St. Martin as +in the congenial company of Duperron. Baader is remembered by those who +abstain from sixteen volumes of discordant thought, as the inventor of +that system of political insurance which became the Holy Alliance. That +authority is as sacred and sovereignty as absolute in the Church as in +the State, was an easy and obvious inference, and it had been lately +drawn with an energy and literary point to which Baader was a stranger, +by the Count de Maistre, who was moreover a student of St. Martin. When +the ancient mystic welcomed his new friend, he was full of the praises +of De Maistre. He impressed upon his earnest listener the importance of +the books on the pope and on the Gallican church, and assured him that +the spirit which animates them is the genuine Catholicism. These +conversations were the origin of Doellinger's specific ultramontanism. It +governed one half of his life, and his interest in De Maistre outlasted +the assent which he once gave to some of his opinions. Questions arising +from the Savoyard's indictment against Bacon, which he proposed to +Liebig, formed the connection between the two laboured attacks on the +founder of English philosophy. + +Much of that which at any time was unhistoric or presumptive in his mind +may be ascribed to this influence; and it divided him from Moehler, who +was far before him in the fulness of the enjoyment of his powers and his +fame, whom he survived half a century, and never ceased to venerate as +the finest theological intellect he had known. The publication of the +_Symbolik_ made it difficult for the author to remain in Wirtemberg; +Tuebingen, he said, was a place where he could neither live nor die +happy; and having made Doellinger's acquaintance, he conceived an ardent +wish to become his colleague at Munich. + + Im Verkehre mit Ihnen, und dem Kreise in dem Sie leben, habe ich mich + aufs anmuthigste erheitert, sittlich gestaerkt, und religioes getroestet + und ermuthigt gefunden; ein Verein von Einwirkungen auf mich wuerde + mir gewaehrt, deren aller ich in fast gleichein Grade beduerftig war. + +Doellinger negotiated his appointment, overcame the resisting ministerial +medium through the intervention of the king, and surrendered his own +department of theology, which they both regarded as the most powerful +agency in religious instruction. Moehler had visited Goettingen and +Berlin, and recognised their superiority. A public address to Planck, +praising the Protestant treatment of history, was omitted by Doellinger +from the edition of his miscellaneous writings. They differed so widely +that one of them hesitated to read Bossuet's _Defensio_, and generally +kept the stronger Gallicans out of sight, whilst the other warmly +recommended Richer, and Launoy, and Dupin, and cautioned his pupils +against Baronius, as a forger and a cheat, who dishonestly attributed to +the primitive Church ideas quite foreign to its constitution. He found +fault with his friend for undue favour to the Jesuits, and undue +severity towards Jansenism. The other advised him to read Fenelon, and +succeeded in modifying this opinion. + + Sie werden vielleicht um so geneigter sein, mir zu verzeihen, wenn + ich Ihnen melde, dass ich inzwischen recht fleissig die + Jansenistischen Streitigkeiten, durch Ihre freundliche Zuschrift + angeregt, studirt habe, und Ihrer Darstellung ohne Zweifel jetzt weit + naeher stehe als frueher. Selbst die Bulle Unigenitus erscheint mir in + einem weit guenstigeren Lichte als frueher, obschon ich die Censur + mancher Quesnel'scher Saetze immer noch nicht begreifen kann. Sie + schrieben mir, dass die Fenelon'sche Correspondenz einen grossen + Einfluss auf Ihre Betrachtungsweise ausgeuebt habe. Auch bei mir ist + dieses der Fall. + +But in describing the failure of scholastic theology, the exaggeration +of De Maistre, the incompetence of the Roman censorship, the irreligion +of Leo X., and the strength of Luther's case against the Papacy, the +sensitive Suabian made a contrast, then, and long after, with +Doellinger's disciplined coolness and reserve. + + Dann war wirklich die bestehende Form der Kirche im hoechsten Grade + tadelhaft, und bedurfte der Reinigung. Die Paepste waren Despoten, + willkuehrliche Herrscher geworden. Gebraeuche hatten sich angehaeuft, + die im hoechsten Grade dem Glauben und der christlichen Froemmigkeit + entgegen waren. In vielen Punkten hatte Luther immer Recht, wenn er + von Missbraeuchen der Roemischen Gewalt spricht, dass dort alles feil + sei.--Tetzel verfuhr ohnediess auf die empoerendste Weise, und + uebertrieb, mit einer religioesen Rohheit und einem Stumpfsinn ohne + Gleichen, das Bedenkliche der Sache auf die aeusserste Spitze. + +The disagreement which made itself felt from time to time between the +famous colleagues was not removed when one of them wished the other to +change his confessor before his last illness. + +Moehler claimed the supreme chair of ecclesiastical history as a matter +of course, and by right of seniority. He apologised for venturing to +supersede one who had gained distinction in that lecture-room, but he +hinted that he himself was the least fit of the two for dogmatics. + + Ich habe mich fuer die historischen Faecher entschieden. Ihr Opfer, + wenn Sie Dogmatik lesen, anerkenne ich, aber ich bitte das meinige + nicht zu uebersehen. Welcher Entschluss, ich moechte sagen, welche + Unverschaemtheit ist es, nach Ihnen und bei Ihren Lebzeiten, + Kirchengeschichte in Muenchen zu doziren? + +Doellinger took that branch for the time, but he never afterwards taught +theology proper. As Moehler, who was essentially a theologian, deserted +divinity to compose inferior treatises on the gnostics and the false +decretals, Doellinger, by choice and vocation a divine, having religion +as the purpose of his life, judged that the loftier function, the more +spiritual service, was historical teaching. The problem is to know how +it came to pass that a man who was eminently intelligent and perspicuous +in the exposition of doctrines, but who, in narrative, description, and +knowledge of character, was neither first nor second, resolved that his +mission was history. + +In early life he had picked up chance copies of Baronius and Petavius, +the pillars of historic theology; but the motives of his choice lay +deeper. Church history had long been the weakest point and the cause of +weakness among the Catholics, and it was the rising strength of the +German Protestants. Therefore it was the post of danger; and it gave to +a theologian the command of a public of laymen. The restoration of +history coincided with the euthanasia of metaphysic; when the foremost +philosophic genius of the time led over to the historic treatment both +of philosophy and religion, and Hamilton, Cousin, Comte, severally +converted the science into its history. Many men better equipped for +speculation than for erudition went the same way; the systematic +theology was kept up in the universities by the influence of Rome, where +scholasticism went on untouched by the romantic transformation. Writing +of England, Wiseman said: "There is still a scholastic hardness in our +controversial theology, an unbendingness of outward forms in our +explanations of Catholic principles, which renders our theologians dry +and unattractive to the most catholicly inclined portion of our +Protestants." The choice which these youths made, towards 1830, was, +though they did not know it, the beginning of a rift that widened. + +Doellinger was more in earnest than others in regarding Christianity as +history, and in pressing the affinity between catholic and historical +thought. Systems were to him nearly as codes to Savigny, when he +exhorted his contemporaries not to consolidate their law, lest, with +their wisdom and knowledge, they should incorporate their delusions and +their ignorance, and usurp for the state what belonged to the nation. He +would send an inquiring student to the _Historia Congregationis de +Auxiliis_ and the _Historia Pelagiana_ rather than to Molina or Lemos, +and often gave the advice which, coming from Oriel, disconcerted Morris +of Exeter: "I am afraid you will have to read the Jesuit Petavius." He +dreaded the predominance of great names which stop the way, and +everything that interposes the notions of an epoch, a region, or a +school between the Church and the observer. + +To an Innsbruck professor, lamenting that there was no philosophy which +he could heartily adopt, he replied that philosophies do not subsist in +order to be adopted. A Thomist or a Cartesian seemed to him as a +captive, or a one-armed combatant. Prizing metaphysicians for the +unstrung pearls which they drop beyond the seclusion of system, he loved +the _disjecta membra_ of Coleridge, and preferred the _Pensieri_, and +_Parerga und Paralipomena_ to the constructed work of Gioberti and +Schopenhauer. He knew Leibniz chiefly in his letters, and was +perceptibly affected by his law of continuous progression, his general +optimism, and his eclectic art of extracting from men and books only the +good that is in them; but of monadology or pre-established harmony there +was not a trace. His colleague, Schelling, no friend to the friends of +Baader, stood aloof. The elder Windischmann, whom he particularly +esteemed, and who acted in Germany as the interpreter of De Maistre, had +hailed Hegel as a pioneer of sound philosophy, with whom he agreed both +in thought and word. Doellinger had no such condescension. Hegel +remained, in his _eyes_, the strongest of all the enemies of religion, +the guide of Tuebingen in its aberrations, the reasoner whose abstract +dialectics made a generation of clever men incapable of facing facts. He +went on preferring former historians of dogma, who were untainted by the +trail of pantheism, Baumgarten-Crusius, and even Muenscher, and by no +means admitted that Baur was deeper than the early Jesuits and +Oratorians, or gained more than he lost by constriction in the Hegelian +coil. He took pleasure in pointing out that the best recent book on the +penitential system, Kliefoth's fourth volume, owed its substance to +Morinus. The dogmas of pantheistic history offended him too much to give +them deep study, and he was ill prepared with counsel for a wanderer +lost in the pervading haze. Hegelians said of him that he lacked the +constructive unity of idea, and knew the way from effect to cause, but +not from cause to law. + +His own lectures on the philosophy of religion, which have left no deep +furrow, have been praised by Ketteler, who was not an undiscriminating +admirer. He sent on one of his pupils to Rosmini, and set another to +begin metaphysics with Suarez; and when Lady Ashburton consulted him on +the subject, he advised her to read Norris and Malebranche. He +encouraged the study of remoter luminaries, such as Cusa and Raymundus, +whose _Natural Theology_ he preferred to the _Analogy_; and would not +have men overlook some who are off the line, like Postel. But although +he deemed it the mark of inferiority to neglect a grain of the gold of +obsolete and eccentric writers, he always assigned to original +speculation a subordinate place, as a good servant but a bad master, +without the certainty and authority of history. What one of his English +friends writes of a divine they both admired, might fitly be applied to +him: + + He was a disciple in the school of Bishop Butler, and had learned as + a first principle to recognise the limitations of human knowledge, + and the unphilosophical folly of trying to round off into finished + and pretentious schemes our fragmentary yet certain notices of our + own condition and of God's dealing with it. + +He alarmed Archer Gurney by saying that all hope of an understanding is +at an end, if logic be applied for the rectification of dogma, and to +Dr. Plummer, who acknowledged him as the most capable of modern +theologians and historians, he spoke of the hopelessness of trying to +discover the meaning of terms used in definitions. To his archbishop he +wrote that men may discuss the mysteries of faith to the last day +without avail; "we stand here on the solid ground of history, evidence, +and fact." Expressing his innermost thought, that religion exists to +make men better, and that the ethical quality of dogma constitutes its +value, he once said: "Tantum valet quantum ad corrigendum, purgandum, +sanctificandum hominem confert." In theology as an intellectual +exercise, beyond its action on the soul, he felt less interest, and +those disputes most satisfied him which can be decided by appeal to the +historian. + +From his early reputation and his position at the outpost, confronting +Protestant science, he was expected to make up his mind over a large +area of unsettled thought and disputed fact, and to be provided with an +opinion--a freehold opinion of his own--and a reasoned answer to every +difficulty. People had a right to know what he knew about the end of the +sixteenth chapter of St. Mark, and the beginning of the eighth chapter +of St. John, the lives of St. Patrick and the sources of Erigena, the +author of the _Imitation_ and of the _Twelve Articles_, the _Nag's Head_ +and the _Casket Letters_. The suspense and poise of the mind, which is +the pride and privilege of the unprofessional scholar, was forbidden +him. Students could not wait for the master to complete his studies; +they flocked for dry light of knowledge, for something defined and +final, to their keen, grave, unemotional professor, who said sometimes +more than he could be sure of, but who was not likely to abridge thought +by oracular responses, or to give aphorism for argument. He accepted the +necessity of the situation. A time came when everybody was invited, once +a week, to put any imaginable question from the whole of Church history, +and he at once replied. If this was a stimulus to exertion during the +years spent in mastering and pondering the immense materials, it served +less to promote originality and care than premature certitude and the +craving for quick returns. Apart from the constant duty of teaching, his +knowledge might not have been so extensive, but his views would have +been less decided and therefore less liable to change. + +As an historian, Doellinger regarded Christianity as a force more than as +a doctrine, and displayed it as it expanded and became the soul of later +history. It was the mission and occupation of his life to discover and +to disclose how this was accomplished, and to understand the history of +civilised Europe, religious and profane, mental and political, by the +aid of sources which, being original and authentic, yielded certainty. +In his vigorous prime, he thought that it would be within his powers to +complete the narrative of the conquest of the world by Christ in a +single massive work. The separated churches, the centrifugal forces, +were to have been treated apart, until he adopted the ampler title of a +history of Christianity. We who look back upon all that the combined and +divided labour of a thousand earnest, gifted, and often instructed men +has done and left undone in sixty years, can estimate the scientific +level of an age where such a dream could be dreamed by such a man, +misled neither by imagination nor ambition, but knowing his own +limitations and the immeasurable world of books. Experience slowly +taught him that he who takes all history for his province is not the man +to write a compendium. + +The four volumes of _Church History_ which gave him a name in literature +appeared between 1833 and 1838, and stopped short of the Reformation. In +writing mainly for the horizon of seminaries, it was desirable to eschew +voyages of discovery and the pathless border-land. The materials were +all in print, and were the daily bread of scholars. A celebrated +Anglican described Doellinger at that time as more intentional than +Fleury; while Catholics objected that he was a candid friend; and +Lutherans, probing deeper, observed that he resolutely held his ground +wherever he could, and as resolutely abandoned every position that he +found untenable. He has since said of himself that he always spoke +sincerely, but that he spoke as an advocate--a sincere advocate who +pleaded only for a cause which he had convinced himself was just. The +cause he pleaded was the divine government of the Church, the fulfilment +of the promise that it would be preserved from error, though not from +sin, the uninterrupted employment of the powers committed by Christ for +the salvation of man. By the absence of false arts he acquired that +repute for superior integrity which caused a Tyrolese divine to speak of +him as the most chivalrous of the Catholic celebrities; and the nuncio +who was at Munich during the first ten years called him the "professeur +le plus eclaire, le plus religieux, en un mot le plus distingue de +l'universite." + +Taking his survey from the elevation of general history, he gives less +space to all the early heresies together than to the rise of +Mohammedanism. His way lies between Neander, who cares for no +institutions, and Baur, who cares for no individuals. He was entirely +exempt from that impersonal idealism which Sybel laid down at the +foundation of his review, which causes Delbrueck to complain that +Macaulay, who could see facts so well, could not see that they are +revelations, which Baur defines without disguise in his +_Dreieinigkeitslehre_: "Alle geschichtlichen Personen sind fuer uns +blosse Namen." The two posthumous works of Hegel which turned events +into theories had not then appeared. Doellinger, setting life and action +above theory, omitted the progress of doctrine. He proposed that Moehler +should take that share of their common topic, and the plan, entertained +at first, was interrupted, with much besides, by death. He felt too +deeply the overwhelming unity of force to yield to that atomic theory +which was provoked by the Hegelian excess: "L'histoire n'est pas un +simple jeu d'abstractions, et les hommes y sont plus que les doctrines. +Ce n'est pas une certaine theorie sur la justification et la redemption +qui a fait la Reforme: c'est Luther, c'est Calvin." But he allows a vast +scope to the variable will and character of man. The object of religion +upon earth is saintliness, and its success is shown in holy individuals. +He leaves law and doctrine, moving in their appointed orbits, to hold up +great men and examples of Christian virtue. + +Doellinger, who had in youth acted as secretary to Hohenlohe, was always +reserved in his use of the supernatural. In the vision of Constantine +and the rebuilding of the temple, he gives his reader both the natural +explanation and the miraculous. He thought that the witness of the +fathers to the continuance of miraculous powers could not be resisted +without making history _a priori_, but later on, the more he sifted and +compared authorities, the more severe he became. He deplored the +uncritical credulity of the author of the _Monks of the West_; and, in +examining the Stigmata, he cited the experience of a Spanish convent +where they were so common that it became a sign of reprobation to be +without them. Historians, he said, have to look for natural causes: +enough will remain for the action of Providence, where we cannot +penetrate. In his unfinished book on _Ecclesiastical Prophecy_ he +enumerates the illusions of mediaeval saints when they spoke of the +future, and describes them, as he once described Carlyle and Ruskin, as +prophets having nothing to foretell. At Frankfort, where he spoilt his +watch by depositing it in unexpected holy water, and it was whispered +that he had put it there to mend it, everybody knew that there was +hardly a Catholic in the Parliament of whom such a fable could be told +with more felicitous unfitness. + +For twenty years of his life at Munich, Goerres was the impressive +central figure of a group reputed far and wide, the most intellectual +force in the Catholic world. Seeing things by the light of other days, +Nippold and Maurenbrecher describe Doellinger himself as its most eminent +member. There was present gain and future peril in living amongst a +clever but restricted set, sheltered, supported, and restrained by +friends who were united in aims and studies, who cherished their +sympathies and their enmities in common, and who therefore believed that +they were divided by no deep cleft or ultimate principle. Doellinger +never outlived the glamour of the eloquence and ascendancy of Goerres, +and spoke of him long after his death as a man of real knowledge, and of +greater religious than political insight Between the imaginative +rhetorician and the measured, scrutinising scholar, the contrast was +wide. One of the many pupils and rare disciples of the former complained +that his friend supplied interminable matter for the sterile and +unavailing _Mystik_, in order to amuse him with ropes of sand: and the +severest censure of Doellinger's art as an historian was pronounced by +Goerres when he said, "I always see analogies, and you always see +differences." + +At all times, but in his early studies especially, he owed much to the +Italians, whose ecclesiastical literature was the first that he +mastered, and predominates in his Church history. Several of his +countrymen, such as Savigny and Raumer, had composed history on the +shoulders of Bolognese and Lombard scholars, and some of their most +conspicuous successors to the present day have lived under heavy +obligations to Modena and San Marino. During the tranquil century +before the Revolution, Italians studied the history of their country +with diligence and success. Even such places as Parma, Verona, Brescia, +became centres of obscure but faithful work. Osimo possessed annals as +bulky as Rome. The story of the province of Treviso was told in twenty +volumes. The antiquities of Picenum filled thirty-two folios. The best +of all this national and municipal patriotism was given to the service +of religion. Popes and cardinals, dioceses and parish churches became +the theme of untiring enthusiasts. There too were the stupendous records +of the religious orders, their bulls and charters, their biography and +their bibliography. In this immense world of patient, accurate, devoted +research, Doellinger laid the deep foundations of his historical +knowledge. Beginning like everybody with Baronius and Muratori, he gave +a large portion of his life to Noris, and to the solid and enlightened +scholarship that surrounded Benedict XIV., down to the compilers, +Borgia, Fantuzzi, Marini, with whom, in the evil days of regeneration by +the French, the grand tradition died away. He has put on record his +judgment that Orsi and Saccarelli were the best writers on the general +history of the Church. Afterwards, when other layers had been +superposed, and the course he took was his own, he relied much on the +canonists, Ballerini and Berardi; and he commended Bianchi, De +Bennettis, and the author of the anonymous _Confutazione_, as the +strongest Roman antidote to Blondel, Buckeridge, and Barrow. Italy +possessed the largest extant body of Catholic learning; the whole sphere +of Church government was within its range, and it enjoyed something of +the official prerogative. + +Next to the Italians he gave systematic attention to the French. The +conspicuous Gallicans, the Jansenists, from whom at last he derived much +support, Richer, Van Espen, Launoy, whom he regarded as the original of +Bossuet, Arnauld, whom he thought his superior, are absent from his +pages. He never overcame his distrust of Pascal, for his methodical +scepticism and his endeavour to dissociate religion from learning; and +he rated high Daniel's reply to the _Provinciales_. He esteemed still +more the French Protestants of the seventeenth century, who transformed +the system of Geneva and Dort. English theology did not come much in his +way until he had made himself at home with the Italians and the primary +French. Then it abounded. He gathered it in quantities on two journeys +in 1851 and 1858, and he possessed the English divines in perfection, at +least down to Whitby, and the nonjurors. Early acquaintance with Sir +Edward Vavasour and Lord Clifford had planted a lasting prejudice in +favour of the English Catholic families, which sometimes tinged his +judgments. The neglected literature of the Catholics in England held a +place in his scheme of thought, which it never obtained in the eyes of +any other scholar, native or foreign. This was the only considerable +school of divines who wrote under persecution, and were reduced to an +attitude of defence. In conflict with the most learned, intelligent, and +conciliatory of controversialists, they developed a remarkable spirit of +moderation, discriminating inferior elements from the original and +genuine growth of Catholic roots; and their several declarations and +manifestoes, from the Restoration onwards, were an inexhaustible supply +for irenics. Therefore they powerfully attracted one who took the words +of St Vincent of Lerins not merely for a flash of illumination, but for +a scientific formula and guiding principle. Few writers interested him +more deeply than Stapleton, Davenport, who anticipated Number XC., +Irishmen, such as Caron and Walshe, and the Scots, Barclay, the +adversary and friend of Bellarmine, Ramsay, the convert and recorder of +Fenelon. It may be that, to an intellect trained in the historic +process, stability, continuity, and growth were terms of more vivid and +exact significance than to the doctors of Pont-a-Mousson and Lambspring. +But when he came forward arrayed in the spoils of Italian libraries and +German universities, with the erudition of centuries and the criticism +of to-day, he sometimes was content to follow where forgotten +Benedictines or Franciscans had preceded, under the later Stuarts. + +He seldom quotes contemporary Germans, unless to dispute with them, +prefers old books to new, and speaks of the necessary revision and +renovation of history. He suspected imported views and foregone +conclusions even in Neander; and although he could not say, with +Macaulay, that Gieseler was a rascal, of whom he had never heard, he +missed no opportunity of showing his dislike for that accomplished +artificer in mosaic. Looking at the literature before him, at England, +with Gibbon for its one ecclesiastical historian; at Germany, with the +most profound of its divines expecting the Church to merge in the State, +he inferred that its historic and organic unity would only be recognised +by Catholic science, while the soundest Protestant would understand it +least. In later years, Kliefoth, Ritschl, Gass, perhaps also Dorner and +Uhlhorn, obliged him to modify an opinion which the entire school of +Schleiermacher, including the illustrious Rothe, served only to confirm. +Germany, as he found it when he began to see the world, little resembled +that of his old age, when the work he had pursued for seventy years was +carried forward, with knowledge and power like his own, by the best of +his countrymen. The proportion of things was changed. There was a +religious literature to be proud of, to rely on: other nations, other +epochs, had lost their superiority. As his own people advanced, and +dominated in the branches of learning to which his life was given, in +everything except literary history and epigraphies, and there was no +more need to look abroad, Doellinger's cosmopolitan characteristic +diminished, he was more absorbed in the national thought and work, and +did not object to be called the most German of the Germans. + +The idea that religious science is not so much science as religion, that +it should be treated differently from other matters, so that he who +treats it may rightly display his soul, flourished in his vicinity, +inspiring the lives of Saint Elizabeth and Joan of Arc, Moehler's fine +lectures on the early fathers, and the book which Gratry chose to +entitle a _Commentary on St. Matthew_. Doellinger came early to the +belief that history ought to be impersonal, that the historian does +well to keep out of the way, to be humble and self-denying, making it a +religious duty to prevent the intrusion of all that betrays his own +position and quality, his hopes and wishes. Without aspiring to the calm +indifference of Ranke, he was conscious that, in early life, he had been +too positive, and too eager to persuade. The Belgian scholar who, +conversing with him in 1842, was reminded of Fenelon, missed the acuter +angles of his character. He, who in private intercourse sometimes +allowed himself to persist, to contradict, and even to baffle a bore by +frankly falling asleep, would have declined the evocation of Versailles. +But in reasonableness, moderation, and charity, in general culture of +mind and the sense of the demands of the progress of civilisation, in +the ideal church for which he lived, he was more in harmony with Fenelon +than with many others who resembled him in the character of their work. + +He deemed it catholic to take ideas from history, and heresy to take +them into it. When men gave evidence for the opposite party, and against +their own, he willingly took for impartiality what he could not always +distinguish from indifference or subdivision. He felt that sincere +history was the royal road to religious union, and he specially +cultivated those who saw both sides. He would cite with complacency what +clever Jesuits, Raynaud and Faure, said for the Reformation, Mariana and +Cordara against their society. When a Rhenish Catholic and a Genevese +Calvinist drew two portraits of Calvin which were virtually the same, or +when, in Ficker's revision of Boehmer, the Catholic defended the Emperor +Frederic II. against the Protestant, he rejoiced as over a sign of the +advent of science. As the Middle Ages, rescued from polemics by the +genial and uncritical sympathy of Mueller, became an object of popular +study, and Royer Collard said of Villemain, _Il a fait, il fait, et il +fera toujours son Gregoire VII._, there were Catholics who desired, by a +prolonged _sorites_, to derive advantage from the new spirit. Wiseman +consulted Doellinger for the purpose. "Will you be kind enough to write +me a list of what you consider the best books for the history of the +Reformation; Menzel and Buchholz I know; especially any exposing the +characters of the leading reformers?" In the same frame of mind he asked +him what pope there was whose good name had not been vindicated; and +Doellinger's reply, that Boniface VIII. wanted a friend, prompted both +Wiseman's article and Tosti's book. + +In politics, as in religion, he made the past a law for the present, and +resisted doctrines which are ready-made, and are not derived from +experience. Consequently, he undervalued work which would never have +been done from disinterested motives; and there were three of his most +eminent contemporaries whom he decidedly underestimated. Having known +Thiers, and heard him speak, he felt profoundly the talent of the +extraordinary man, before Lanfrey or Taine, Haeusser and Bernhardt had so +ruined his credit among Germans that Doellinger, disgusted by his +advocacy, whether of the Revolution, of Napoleon, or of France, +neglected his work. Stahl claims to be accounted an historian by his +incomparably able book on the Church government of the Reformation. As a +professor at Munich, and afterwards as a parliamentary leader at Berlin, +he was always an avowed partisan. Doellinger depreciated him accordingly, +and he had the mortification that certain remarks on the sovereign +dialectician of European conservatism were on the point of appearing +when he died. He so far made it good in his preface that the thing was +forgotten when Gerlach came to see the assailant of his friend. But +once, when I spoke of Stahl as the greatest man born of a Jewish mother +since Titus, he thought me unjust to Disraeli. + +Most of all, he misjudged Macaulay, whose German admirers are not always +in the higher ranks of literature, and of whom Ranke even said that he +could hardly be called an historian at all, tried by the stricter test. +He had no doubt seen how his unsuggestive fixity and assurance could +cramp and close a mind; and he felt more beholden to the rivals who +produced d'Adda, Barillon, and Bonnet, than to the author of so many +pictures and so much bootless decoration. He tendered a course of +Bacon's Essays, or of Butler's and Newman's Sermons, as a preservative +against intemperate dogmatism. He denounced Macaulay's indifference to +the merits of the inferior cause, and desired more generous treatment of +the Jacobites and the French king. He deemed it hard that a science +happily delivered from the toils of religious passion should be involved +in political, and made to pass from the sacristy to the lobby, by the +most brilliant example in literature. To the objection that one who +celebrates the victory of parliaments over monarchs, of democracy over +aristocracy, of liberty over authority, declares, not the tenets of a +party, but manifest destiny and the irrevocable decree, he would reply +that a narrow induction is the bane of philosophy, that the ways of +Providence are not inscribed on the surface of things, that religion, +socialism, militarism, and revolution possibly reserve a store of cogent +surprises for the economist, utilitarian, and whig. + +In 1865 he was invited to prepare a new edition of his Church history. +Whilst he was mustering the close ranks of folios which had satisfied a +century of historians, the world had moved, and there was an increase of +raw material to be measured by thousands of volumes. The archives which +had been sealed with seven seals had become as necessary to the serious +student as his library. Every part of his studies had suffered +transformation, except the fathers, who had largely escaped the +crucible, and the canon law, which had only just been caught by the +historical current. He had begun when Niebuhr was lecturing at Bonn and +Hegel at Berlin; before Tischendorf unfolded his first manuscript; +before Baur discovered the Tuebingen hypothesis in the congregation of +Corinth; before Rothe had planned his treatise on the primitive church, +or Ranke had begun to pluck the plums for his modern popes. Guizot had +not founded the _Ecole des Chartes_, and the school of method was not +yet opened at Berlin. The application of instruments of precision was +just beginning, and what Prynne calls the heroic study of records had +scarcely molested the ancient reign of lives and chronicles. None had +worked harder at his science and at himself than Doellinger; and the +change around him was not greater than the change within. In his early +career as a teacher of religion he had often shrunk from books which +bore no stamp of orthodoxy. It was long before he read Sarpi or the +_Lettres Provinciales_, or even Ranke's _Popes_, which appeared when he +was thirty-five, and which astonished him by the serene ease with which +a man who knew so much touched on such delicate ground. The book which +he had written in that state of mind, and with that conception of +science and religion, had only a prehistoric interest for its author. He +refused to reprint it, and declared that there was hardly a sentence fit +to stand unchanged. He lamented that he had lost ten years of life in +getting his bearings, and in learning, unaided, the most difficult craft +in the world. Those years of apprenticeship without a master were the +time spent on his _Kirchengeschichte_. The want of training remained. He +could impart knowledge better than the art of learning. Thousands of his +pupils have acquired connected views of religion passing through the +ages, and gathered, if they were intelligent, some notion of the meaning +of history; but nobody ever learnt from him the mechanism by which it is +written. + +Brougham advised the law-student to begin with Dante; and a +distinguished physician informs us that Gibbon, Grote, and Mill made him +what he is. The men to whom Doellinger owed his historic insight and who +mainly helped to develop and strengthen and direct his special faculty, +were not all of his own cast, or remarkable in the common description of +literary talent. The assistants were countless, but the masters were +few, and he looked up with extraordinary gratitude to men like Sigonius, +Antonius Augustinus, Blondel, Petavius, Leibniz, Burke, and Niebuhr, who +had opened the passes for him as he struggled and groped in the +illimitable forest. + +He interrupted his work because he found the materials too scanty for +the later Middle Ages, and too copious for the Reformation. The +defective account of the Albigensian theology, which he had sent to one +of his translators, never appeared in German. At Paris he searched the +library for the missing information, and he asked Resseguier to make +inquiry for the records of the Inquisition in Languedoc, thus laying the +foundations of that _Sektengeschichte_ which he published fifty years +later. Munich offered such inexhaustible supplies for the Reformation +that his collections overran all bounds. He completed only that part of +his plan which included Lutheranism and the sixteenth century. The third +volume, published in 1848, containing the theology of the Reformation, +is the most solid of his writings. He had miscalculated, not his +resources, of which only a part had come into action, but the +possibilities of concentration and compression. The book was left a +fragment when he had to abandon his study for the Frankfort barricades. + +The peculiarity of his treatment is that he contracts the Reformation +into a history of the doctrine of justification. He found that this and +this alone was the essential point in Luther's mind, that he made it the +basis of his argument, the motive of his separation, the root and +principle of his religion. He believed that Luther was right in the +cardinal importance he attributed to this doctrine in his system, and he +in his turn recognised that it was the cause of all that followed, the +source of the reformer's popularity and success, the sole insurmountable +obstacle to every scheme of restoration. It was also, for him, the +centre and the basis of his antagonism. That was the point that he +attacked when he combated Protestantism, and he held all other elements +of conflict cheap in comparison, deeming that they are not invariable, +or not incurable, or not supremely serious. Apart from this, there was +much in Protestantism that he admired, much in its effects for which he +was grateful. With the Lutheran view of imputation, Protestant and +Catholic were separated by an abyss. Without it, there was no lasting +reason why they should be separate at all. Against the communities that +hold it he stood in order of battle, and believed that he could scarcely +hit too hard. But he distinguished very broadly the religion of the +reformers from the religion of Protestants. Theological science had +moved away from the symbolical books, the root dogma had been repudiated +and contested by the most eminent Protestants, and it was an English +bishop who wrote: "Fuit haec doctrina jam a multis annis ipsissimum +Reformatae Ecclesiae opprobrium ac dedecus.--Est error non levis, error +putidissimus." Since so many of the best writers resist or modify that +which was the main cause, the sole ultimate cause, of disunion, it +cannot be logically impossible to discover a reasonable basis for +discussion. Therefore conciliation was always in his thoughts; even his +_Reformation_ was a treatise on the conditions of reunion. He long +purposed to continue it, in narrower limits, as a history of that +central doctrine by which Luther meant his church to stand or fall, of +the reaction against it, and of its decline. In 1881, when Ritschl, the +author of the chief work upon the subject, spent some days with +Doellinger, he found him still full of these ideas, and possessing Luther +at his fingers' ends. + +This is the reason why Protestants have found him so earnest an opponent +and so warm a friend. It was this that attracted him towards Anglicans, +and made very many of them admire a Roman dignitary who knew the +Anglo-Catholic library better than De Lugo or Ripalda. In the same +spirit he said to Pusey: "Tales cum sitis jam nostri estis," always +spoke of Newman's _Justification_ as the greatest masterpiece of +theology that England has produced in a hundred years, and described +Baxter and Wesley as the most eminent of English Protestants--meaning +Wesley as he was after 1st December 1767, and Baxter as the life-long +opponent of that theory which was the source and the soul of the +Reformation. Several Englishmen who went to consult him--Hope Scott and +Archdeacon Wilberforce--became Catholics. I know not whether he urged +them. Others there were, whom he did not urge, though his influence over +them might have been decisive. In a later letter to Pusey he wrote: "I +am convinced by reading your _Eirenicon_ that we are united inwardly in +our religious convictions, although externally we belong to two +separated churches." He followed attentively the parallel movements that +went on in his own country, and welcomed with serious respect the +overtures which came to him, after 1856, from eminent historians. When +they were old men, he and Ranke, whom, in hot youth, there was much to +part, lived on terms of mutual goodwill. Doellinger had pronounced the +theology of the _Deutsche Reformation_ slack and trivial, and Ranke at +one moment was offended by what he took for an attack on the popes, his +patrimony. In 1865, after a visit to Munich, he allowed that in religion +there was no dispute between them, that he had no fault to find with the +Church as Doellinger understood it. He added that one of his colleagues, +a divine whose learning filled him with unwonted awe, held the same +opinion. Doellinger's growing belief that an approximation of part of +Germany to sentiments of conciliation was only a question of time, had +much to do with his attitude in Church questions after the year 1860. If +history cannot confer faith or virtue, it can clear away the +misconceptions and misunderstandings that turn men against one another. +With the progress of incessant study and meditation his judgment on many +points underwent revision; but with regard to the Reformation the change +was less than he supposed. He learnt to think more favourably of the +religious influence of Protestantism, and of its efficacy in the defence +of Christianity; but he thought as before of the spiritual consequences +of Lutheranism proper. When people said of Luther that he does not come +well out of his matrimonial advice to certain potentates, to Henry and +to Philip, of his exhortations to exterminate the revolted peasantry, of +his passage from a confessor of toleration to a teacher of intolerance, +he would not have the most powerful conductor of religion that +Christianity has produced in eighteen centuries condemned for two pages +in a hundred volumes. But when he had refused the test of the weakest +link, judging the man by his totals, he was not less severe on his +theological ethics. + + Meinerseits habe ich noch eine andre schwere Anklage gegen ihn zu + erheben, naemlich die, dass er durch seine falsche Imputationslehre + das sittlich-religioese Bewusstseyn der Menschen auf zwei Jahrhunderte + hinaus verwirrt und corrumpirt hat (3rd July 1888). + +The revolution of 1848, during which he did not hold his professorship, +brought him forward uncongenially in active public life, and gave him +the means of telling the world his view of the constitution and policy +of the Church, and the sense and limits of liability in which he gave +his advocacy. When lecturing on canon law he was accustomed to dwell on +the strict limit of all ecclesiastical authority, admitting none but +spiritual powers, and invoking the maxims of pontiffs who professed +themselves guardians, not masters, of the established legislation--"Canones +ecclesiae solvere non possumus, qui custodes canonum sumus." Acting on +these principles, in the Paulskirche, and at Ratisbon, he vindicated Rome +against the reproach of oppression, argued that society can only gain by +the emancipation of the Church, as it claims no superiority over the State, +and that both Gallicans and Jesuits are out of date. Addressing the +bishops of Germany in secret session at Wuerzburg, he exhorted them to +avail themselves fully of an order of things which was better than the old, +and to make no professions of unconditional allegiance. He told them that +freedom is the breath of the Catholic life, that it belongs to the Church +of God by right divine, and that whatever they claimed must be claimed for +others. + +From these discourses, in which the scholar abandoned the details by +which science advances for the general principles of the popular orator, +the deductions of liberalism proceed as surely as the revolution from +the title-page of Sieyes. It should seem that the key to his career lies +there. It was natural to associate him with the men whom the early +promise of a reforming pope inspired to identify the cause of free +societies with the papacy which had Rosmini for an adviser, Ventura for +a preacher, Gioberti for a prophet, and to conclude that he thus became +a trusted representative, until the revolving years found him the +champion of a vanished cause, and the Syllabus exposed the illusion and +bore away his ideal. Harless once said of him that no good could be +expected from a man surrounded by a ring of liberals. When Doellinger +made persecution answer both for the decline of Spain and the fall of +Poland, he appeared to deliver the common creed of Whigs; and he did not +protest against the American who called him the acknowledged head of the +liberal Catholics. His hopefulness in the midst of the movement of 1848, +his ready acquiescence in the fall of ancient powers and institutions, +his trust in Rome, and in the abstract rights of Germans, suggested a +reminiscence of the _Avenir_ in 1830. + +Lamennais, returning with Montalembert after his appeal to Rome, met +Lacordaire at Munich, and during a banquet given in their honour he +learnt, privately, that he was condemned. The three friends spent that +afternoon in Doellinger's company; and it was after he had left them that +Lamennais produced the encyclical and said: _Dieu a parle_. Montalembert +soon returned, attracted as much by Munich art as by religion or +literature. The fame of the Bavarian school of Catholic thought spread +in France among those who belonged to the wider circles of the _Avenir_; +and priests and laymen followed, as to a scientific shrine. In the +_Memoires d'un Royaliste_ Falloux has preserved, with local colour, the +spirit of that pilgrimage: + + Munich lui fut indique comme le foyer d'une grande renovation + religieuse et artistique. Quels nobles et ardents entretiens, quelle + passion pour l'Eglise et pour sa cause! Rien n'a plus ressemble aux + discours d'un portique chretien que les apologies enflammees du vieux + Goerres, les savantes deductions de Doellinger, la verve originale de + Brentano. + +Rio, who was the earliest of the travellers, describes Doellinger as he +found him in 1830: + + Par un privilege dont il serait difficile de citer un autre exemple, + il avait la passion des etudes theologiques comme s'il n'avait ete + que pretre, et la passion des etudes litteraires appliquees aux + auteurs anciens et modernes comme s'il n'avait ete que litterateur; a + quoi il faut ajouter un autre don qu'il y aurait ingratitude a + oublier, celui d'une exposition lucide, patiente et presque + affectueuse, comme s'il n'avait accumule tant de connaissances que + pour avoir le plaisir de les communiquer. + +For forty years he remained in correspondence with many of these early +friends, who, in the educational struggle which ended with the ministry +of Falloux in 1850, revived the leading maxims of the rejected master. +As Lacordaire said, on his deathbed: "La parole de l'Avenir avait germe +de son tombeau comme une cendre feconde." Doellinger used to visit his +former visitors in various parts of France, and at Paris he attended the +salon of Madame Swetchine. One day, at the seminary, he inquired who +were the most promising students; Dupanloup pointed out a youth, who was +the hope of the Church, and whose name was Ernest Renan. + +Although the men who were drawn to him in this way formed the largest +and best-defined cluster with which he came in contact, there was more +private friendship than mutual action or consultation between them. The +unimpassioned German, who had no taste for ideas released from +controlling fact, took little pleasure in the impetuous declamation of +the Breton, and afterwards pronounced him inferior to Loyson. Neither of +the men who were in the confidence of both has intimated that he made +any lasting impression on Lamennais, who took leave of him without +discussing the action of Rome. Doellinger never sought to renew +acquaintance with Lacordaire, when he had become the most important man +in the church of France. He would have a prejudice to overcome against +him whom Circourt called the most ignorant man in the Academy, who +believed that Erasmus ended his days at Rotterdam, unable to choose +between Rome and Wittemberg, and that the Irish obtained through +O'Connell the right to worship in their own way. He saw more of +Dupanloup, without feeling, as deeply as Renan, the rare charm of the +combative prelate. To an exacting and reflective scholar, to whom even +the large volume of heavy erudition in which Rosmini defended the +_Cinque Piaghe_ seemed superficial, there was incongruity in the +attention paid to one of whom he heard that he promoted the council, +that he took St. Boniface for St Wilfrid, and that he gave the memorable +advice: _Surtout mefiez-vous des sources_. After a visit from the Bishop +of Orleans he sat down in dismay to compose the most elementary of his +books. Seeing the inferiority of Falloux as a historian, he never +appreciated the strong will and cool brain of the statesman who overawed +Tocqueville. Eckstein, the obscure but thoughtful originator of much +liberal feeling among his own set, encouraged him in the habit of +depreciating the attainments of the French clergy, which was confirmed +by the writings of the most eminent among them, Darboy, and lasted until +the appearance of Duchesne. The politics of Montalembert were so heavily +charged with conservatism, that in defiance of such advisers as +Lacordaire, Ravignan, and Dupanloup, he pronounced in favour of the +author of the _coup d'etat_, saying: "Je suis pour l'autorite contre la +revolte"; and boasted that, in entering the Academy he had attacked the +Revolution, not of '93 but '89, and that Guizot, who received him, had +nothing to say in reply. There were many things, human and divine, on +which they could not feel alike; but as the most urgent, eloquent, and +persevering of his Catholic friends, gifted with knowledge and +experience of affairs, and dwelling in the focus, it may be that on one +critical occasion, when religion and politics intermingled, he +influenced the working of Doellinger's mind. But the plausible reading of +his life which explains it by his connection with such public men as +Montalembert, De Decker, and Mr. Gladstone is profoundly untrue; and +those who deem him a liberal in any scientific use of the term, miss the +keynote of his work. + +The political party question has to be considered here, because, in +fact, it is decisive. A liberal who thinks his thought out to the end +without flinching is forced to certain conclusions which colour to the +root every phase and scene of universal history. He believes in upward +progress, because it is only recent times that have striven +deliberately, and with a zeal according to knowledge, for the increase +and security of freedom. He is not only tolerant of error in religion, +but is specially indulgent to the less dogmatic forms of Christianity, +to the sects which have restrained the churches. He is austere in +judging the past, imputing not error and ignorance only, but guilt and +crime, to those who, in the dark succession of ages, have resisted and +retarded the growth of liberty, which he identifies with the cause of +morality, and the condition of the reign of conscience. Doellinger never +subjected his mighty vision of the stream of time to correction +according to the principles of this unsympathising philosophy, never +reconstituted the providential economy in agreement with the Whig +Theodicee. He could understand the Zoroastrian simplicity of history in +black and white, for he wrote: "obgleich man allerdings sagen kann, das +tiefste Thema der Weltgeschichte sei der Kampf der Knechtschaft oder +Gebundenheit, mit der Freiheit, auf dem intellectuellen, religioesen, +politischen und socialen Gebiet." But the scene which lay open before +his mind was one of greater complexity, deeper design, and infinite +intellect. He imagined a way to truth through error, and outside the +Church, not through unbelief and the diminished reign of Christ. +Lacordaire in the cathedral pulpit offering his thanks to Voltaire for +the good gift of religious toleration, was a figure alien to his spirit. +He never substituted politics for religion as the test of progress, and +never admitted that they have anything like the dogmatic certainty and +sovereignty of religious, or of physical, science. He had all the +liberality that consists of common sense, justice, humanity, +enlightenment, the wisdom of Canning or Guizot. But revolution, as the +breach of continuity, as the renunciation of history, was odious to him, +and he not only refused to see method in the madness of Marat, or +dignity in the end of Robespierre, but believed that the best measures +of Leopold, the most intelligent reformer in the era of repentant +monarchy, were vitiated and frustrated by want of adaptation to custom. +Common party divisions represented nothing scientific to his mind; and +he was willing, like De Quincey, to accept them as corresponding halves +of a necessary whole. He wished that he knew half as much as his +neighbour, Mrs. Somerville; but he possessed no natural philosophy, and +never acquired the emancipating habit which comes from a life spent in +securing progress by shutting one's eyes to the past. "Alle Wissenschaft +steht und ruht auf ihrer historischen Entwicklung, sie lebt von ihrer +traditionellen Vergangenheit, wie der Baum von seiner Wurzel." + +He was moved, not by the gleam of reform after the conclave of Pius IX., +but by Pius VII. The impression made upon him by the character of that +pope, and his resistance to Napoleon, had much to do with his resolution +to become a priest. He took orders in the Church in the days of revival, +as it issued from oppression and the eclipse of hierarchy; and he +entered its service in the spirit of Sailer, Cheverus, and Doyle. The +mark of that time never left him. When Newman asked him what he would +say of the Pope's journey to Paris, for the coronation of the emperor, +he hardly recognised the point of the question. He opposed, in 1853, the +renewal of that precedent; but to the end he never felt what people mean +when they remark on the proximity of Notre-Dame to Vincennes. + +Doellinger was too much absorbed in distant events to be always a close +observer of what went on near him; and he was, therefore, not so much +influenced by contact with contemporary history as men who were less +entirely at home in other centuries. He knew about all that could be +known of the ninth: in the nineteenth his superiority deserted him. +Though he informed himself assiduously his thoughts were not there. He +collected from Hormayr, Radowitz, Capponi, much secret matter of the +last generation; and where Brewer had told him about Oxford, and +Plantier about Louis Philippe, there were landmarks, as when Knoblecher, +the missionary, set down Krophi and Mophi on his map of Africa. He +deferred, at once, to the competent authority. He consulted his able +colleague Hermann on all points of political economy, and used his +advice when he wrote about England. Having satisfied himself, he would +not reopen these questions, when, after Hermann's death, he spent some +time in the society of Roscher, a not less eminent economist, and of all +men the one who most resembled himself in the historian's faculty of +rethinking the thoughts and realising the knowledge, the ignorance, the +experience, the illusions of a given time. + +He had lived in many cities, and had known many important men; he had +sat in three parliamentary assemblies, had drawn constitutional +amendments, had been consulted upon the policy and the making of +ministries, and had declined political office; but as an authority on +recent history he was scarcely equal to himself. Once it became his duty +to sketch the character of a prince whom he had known. There was a +report that this sovereign had only been dissuaded from changing his +religion and abolishing the constitution by the advice of an archbishop +and of a famous parliamentary jurist; and the point of the story was +that the Protestant doctrinaire had prevented the change of religion, +and the archbishop had preserved the constitution. It was too early to +elucidate these court mysteries; instead of which there is a remarkable +conversation about religion, wherein it is not always clear whether the +prince is speaking, or the professor, or Schelling. + +Although he had been translated into several languages and was widely +known in his own country, he had not yet built himself a European name. +At Oxford, in 1851, when James Mozley asked whom he would like to see, +he said, the men who had written in the _Christian Remembrancer_ on +Dante and Luther. Mozley was himself one of the two, and he introduced +him to the other at Oriel. After thirty-two years, when the writer on +Dante occupied a high position in the Church and had narrowly escaped +the highest, that visit was returned. But he had no idea that he had +once received Doellinger in his college rooms and hardly believed it when +told. In Germany, the serried learning of the _Reformation_, the +author's energy and decisiveness in public assemblies, caused him to +stand forth as an accepted spokesman, and, for a season, threw back the +reticent explorer, steering between the shallows of anger and affection. + +In that stage the _Philosophumena_ found him, and induced him to write a +book of controversy in the shape of history. Here was an anonymous +person who, as Newman described it, "calls one pope a weak and venal +dunce, and another a sacrilegious swindler, an infamous convict, and an +heresiarch _ex cathedra_." In the Munich Faculty there was a divine who +affirmed that the Church would never get over it. Doellinger undertook to +vindicate the insulted See of Rome; and he was glad of the opportunity +to strike a blow at three conspicuous men of whom he thought ill in +point both of science and religion. He spoke of Gieseler as the flattest +and most leathern of historians; he accused Baur of frivolity and want +of theological conviction; and he wished that he knew as many +circumlocutions for untruth as there are Arabian synonyms for a camel, +that he might do justice to Bunsen without violation of courtesy. The +weight of the new testimony depended on the discovery of the author. +Adversaries had assigned it to Hippolytus, the foremost European writer +of the time, venerated as a saint and a father of the Church. Doellinger +thought them right, and he justified his sincerity by giving further +reasons for a conclusion which made his task formidable even for such +dexterity as his own. Having thus made a concession which was not +absolutely inevitable, he resisted the inference with such richness of +illustration that the fears of the doubting colleague were appeased. In +France, by Pitra's influence, the book was reviewed without making known +that it supported the authorship of Hippolytus, which is still disputed +by some impartial critics, and was always rejected by Newman. +_Hippolytus und Kallistus_, the high-water mark of Doellinger's official +assent and concurrence, came out in 1853. His next book showed the ebb. + +He came originally from the romantic school, where history was +honeycombed with imagination and conjecture; and the first important +book he gave to a pupil in 1850 was Creuzer's _Mythology_. In 1845 he +denounced the rationalism of Lobeck in investigating the _Mysteries_; +but in 1857 he preferred him as a guide to those who proceed by analogy. +With increase of knowledge had come increase of restraining caution and +sagacity. The critical acumen was not greater in the _Vorhalle_ that +when he wrote on the _Philosophumena_, but instead of being employed in +a chosen cause, upon fixed lines, for welcome ends, it is applied +impartially. Ernst von Lasaulx, a man of rich and noble intellect, was +lecturing next door on the philosophy and religion of Greece, and +everybody heard about his indistinct mixture of dates and authorities, +and the spell which his unchastened idealism cast over students. +Lasaulx, who brilliantly carried on the tradition of Creuzer, who had +tasted of the mythology of Schelling, who was son-in-law to Baader and +nephew to Goerres, wrote a volume on the fall of Hellenism which he +brought in manuscript and read to Doellinger at a sitting. The effect on +the dissenting mind of the hearer was a warning; and there is reason to +date from those two hours in 1853 a more severe use of materials, and a +stricter notion of the influence which the end of an inquiry may +lawfully exert on the pursuit of it. + +_Heidenthum und Judenthum_, which came out in 1857, gave Lasaulx his +revenge. It is the most positive and self-denying of histories, and owes +nothing to the fancy. The author refused the aid of Scandinavia to +illustrate German mythology, and he was rewarded long after, when +Caspari of Christiania and Conrad Maurer met at his table and confirmed +the discoveries of Bugge. But the account of Paganism ends with a +significant parallel. In December 69 a torch flung by a soldier burnt +the temple on the Capitol to the ground. In August 70 another Roman +soldier set fire to the temple on Mount Sion. The two sanctuaries +perished within a year, making way for the faith of men still hidden in +the back streets of Rome. When the Hellenist read this passage it struck +him deeply. Then he declared that it was hollow. All was over at +Jerusalem; but at Rome the ruin was restored, and the smoke of sacrifice +went up for centuries to come from the altar of Capitoline Jove. + +In this work, designed as an introduction to Christian history, the +apologist betrays himself when he says that no Greek ever objected to +slavery, and when, out of 730 pages on paganism, half a page is allotted +to the moral system of Aristotle. That his Aristotelian chapter was +weak, the author knew; but he said that it was not his text to make more +of it. He did not mean that a Christian divine may be better employed +than in doing honour to a heathen; but, having to narrate events and the +action of causes, he regarded Christianity more as an organism employing +sacramental powers than as a body of speculative ideas. To cast up the +total of moral and religious knowledge attained by Seneca, Epictetus, +and Plutarch, to measure the line and rate of progress since Socrates, +to compare the point reached by Hermas and Justin, is an inquiry of the +highest interest for writers yet to come. But the quantitative +difference of acquired precept between the later pagan and the early +Christian is not the key to the future. The true problem is to expose +the ills and errors which Christ, the Healer, came to remove. The +measure must be taken from the depth of evil from which Christianity had +to rescue mankind, and its history is more than a continued history of +philosophical theories. Newman, who sometimes agreed with Doellinger in +the letter, but seldom in the spirit, and who distrusted him as a man in +whom the divine lived at the mercy of the scholar, and whose burden of +superfluous learning blunted the point and the edge of his mind, so much +liked what he heard of this book that, being unable to read it, he had +it translated at the Oratory. + +The work thus heralded never went beyond the first volume, completed in +the autumn of 1860, which was received by the _Kirchenzeitung_ of +Berlin as the most acceptable narrative of the founding of Christianity, +and as the largest concession ever made by a Catholic divine. The +author, following the ancient ways, and taking, with Reuss, the New +Testament as it stands, made no attempt to establish the position +against modern criticism. Up to this, prescription and tradition held +the first place in his writings, and formed his vantage-ground in all +controversy. His energy in upholding the past as the rule and measure of +the future distinguished him even among writers of his own communion. In +_Christenthum und Kirche_ he explained his theory of development, under +which flag the notion of progress penetrates into theology, and which he +held as firmly as the balancing element of perpetuity: "In dem Maass als +dogmenhistorische Studien mehr getrieben werden, wird die absolute +innere Nothwendigkeit und Wahrheit der Sache immer allegingr +einleuchten." He conceived no bounds to the unforeseen resources of +Christian thought and faith. A philosopher in whose works he would not +have expected to find the scientific expression of his own idea, has a +passage bearing close analogy to what he was putting forward in 1861: + + It is then in the change to a higher state of form or composition + that development differs from growth. We must carefully distinguish + development from mere increase; it is the acquiring, not of greater + bulk, but of new forms and structures, which are adapted to higher + conditions of existence. + +It is the distinction which Uhhorn draws between the terms _Entfaltung_ +and _Entwickelung_. Just then, after sixteen years spent in the Church +of Rome, Newman was inclined to guard and narrow his theory. On the one +hand he taught that the enactments and decisions of ecclesiastical law +are made on principles and by virtue of prerogatives which _jam antea +latitavere_ in the Church of the apostles and fathers. But he thought +that a divine of the second century on seeing the Roman catechism, would +have recognised his own belief in it, without surprise, as soon as he +understood its meaning. He once wrote: "If I have said more than this, +I think I have not worked out my meaning, and was confused--whether the +minute facts of history will bear me out in this view, I leave to others +to determine." Doellinger would have feared to adopt a view for its own +sake, without knowing how it would be borne out by the minute facts of +history. His own theory of development had not the same ingenious +simplicity, and he thought Newman's brilliant book unsound in detail. +But he took high ground in asserting the undeviating fidelity of +Catholicism to its principle. In this, his last book on the Primitive +Church, as in his early lectures, he claims the unswerving unity of +faith as a divine prerogative. In a memorable passage of the _Symbolik_ +Moehler had stated that there is no better security than the law which +pervades human society, which preserves harmony and consistency in +national character, which makes Lutheranism perpetually true to Luther, +and Islamism to the Koran. + +Speaking in the name of his own university, the rector described him as +a receptive genius. Part of his career displays a quality of +assimilation, acquiescence, and even adaptation, not always consistent +with superior originality or intense force of character. His +_Reformation_, the strongest book, with the _Symbolik_, which Catholics +had produced in the century, was laid down on known lines, and scarcely +effected so much novelty and change as the writings of Kampschulte and +Kolde. His book on the first age of the Church takes the critical points +as settled, without special discussion. He appeared to receive impulse +and direction, limit and colour, from his outer life. His importance was +achieved by the force within. Circumstances only conspired to mould a +giant of commonplace excellence and average ideas, and their influence +on his view of history might long be traced. No man of like +spirituality, of equal belief in the supreme dignity of conscience, +systematically allowed as much as he did for the empire of chance +surroundings and the action of home, and school, and place of worship +upon conduct. He must have known that his own mind and character as an +historian was not formed by effort and design. From early impressions, +and a life spent, to his fiftieth year, in a rather unvaried +professional circle, he contracted homely habits in estimating objects +of the greater world; and his imagination was not prone to vast +proportions and wide horizons. He inclined to apply the rules and +observation of domestic life to public affairs, to reduce the level of +the heroic and sublime; and history, in his hands, lost something both +in terror and in grandeur. He acquired his art in the long study of +earlier times, where materials are scanty. All that can be known of +Caesar or Charlemagne, or Gregory VII., would hold in a dozen volumes; a +library would not be sufficient for Charles V. or Lewis XVI. Extremely +few of the ancients are really known to us in detail, as we know +Socrates, or Cicero, or St. Augustine. But in modern times, since +Petrarca, there are at least two thousand actors on the public stage +whom we see by the revelations of private correspondence. Besides +letters that were meant to be burnt, there are a man's secret diaries, +his autobiography and table-talk, the recollections of his friends, +self-betraying notes on the margins of books, the report of his trial if +he is a culprit, and the evidence for beatification if he is a saint. +Here we are on a different footing, and we practise a different art when +dealing with Phocion or Dunstan, or with Richelieu or Swift. In one case +we remain perforce on the surface of character, which we have not the +means of analysing: we have to be content with conjecture, with probable +explanations and obvious motives. We must constantly allow the benefit +of the doubt, and reserve sentence. The science of character comes in +with modern history. Doellinger had lived too long in the ages during +which men are seen mostly in outline, and never applied an historical +psychology distinct from that of private experience. Great men are +something different from an enlarged repetition of average and familiar +types, and the working and motive of their minds is in many instances +the exact contrary of ordinary men, living to avoid contingencies of +danger, and pain, and sacrifice, and the weariness of constant thinking +and far-seeing precaution. + + We are apt to judge extraordinary men by our own standard, that is to + say, we often suppose them to possess, in an extraordinary degree, + those qualities which we are conscious of in ourselves or others. + This is the easiest way of conceiving their characters, but not the + truest They differ in kind rather than in degree. + +We cannot understand Cromwell or Shaftesbury, Sunderland or Penn, by +studies made in the parish. The study of intricate and subtle character +was not habitual with Doellinger, and the result was an extreme dread of +unnecessary condemnation. He resented being told that Ferdinand I. and +II., that Henry III. and Lewis XIII. were, in the coarse terms of common +life, assassins; that Elizabeth tried to have Mary made away with, and +that Mary, in matters of that kind, had no greater scruples; that +William III. ordered the extirpation of a clan, and rewarded the +murderers as he had rewarded those of De Witt; that Lewis XIV. sent a +man to kill him, and James II. was privy to the Assassination Plot. When +he met men less mercifully given than himself, he said that they were +hanging judges with a Malthusian propensity to repress the growth of +population. This indefinite generosity did not disappear when he had +long outgrown its early cause. It was revived, and his view of history +was deeply modified, in the course of the great change in his attitude +in the Church which took place between the years 1861 and 1867. + +Doellinger used to commemorate his visit to Rome in 1857 as an epoch of +emancipation. He had occasionally been denounced; and a keen eye had +detected latent pantheism in his _Vorhalle_, but he had not been +formally censured. If he had once asserted the value of nationality in +the Church, he was vehement against it in religion; and if he had joined +in deprecating the dogmatic decree in 1854, he was silent afterwards. By +Protestants he was still avoided as the head and front of offending +ultramontanism; and when the historical commission was instituted at +Munich, by disciples of the Berlin school, he was passed over at first, +and afterwards opposed. When public matters took him to Berlin in 1857, +he sought no intercourse with the divines of the faculty. The common +idea of his _Reformation_ was expressed by Kaulbach in a drawing which +represented the four chief reformers riding on one horse, pursued by a +scavenger with the unmistakable features of their historian. He was +received with civility at Rome, if not with cordiality. The pope sent to +Cesena for a manuscript which it was reported that he wished to consult; +and his days were spent profitably between the Minerva and the Vatican, +where he was initiated in the mysteries of Galileo's tower. It was his +fortune to have for pilot and instructor a prelate classified in the +pigeon-holes of the Wilhelmsstrasse as the chief agitator against the +State, "dessen umfangreiches Wissen noch durch dessen Feinheit und +geistige Gewandtheit uebertroffen wird." He was welcomed by Passaglia and +Schrader at the Collegio Romano, and enjoyed the privilege of examining +San Callisto with De Rossi for his guide. His personal experience was +agreeable, though he strove unsuccessfully to prevent the condemnation +of two of his colleagues by the Index. + +There have been men connected with him who knew Rome in his time, and +whose knowledge moved them to indignation and despair. One bishop +assured him that the Christian religion was extinct there, and only +survived in its forms; and an important ecclesiastic on the spot wrote: +_Delenda est Carthago_. The archives of the Culturkampf contain a +despatch from a Protestant statesman sometime his friend, urging his +government to deal with the Papacy as they would deal with Dahomey. +Doellinger's impression on his journey was very different. He did not +come away charged with visions of scandal in the spiritual order, of +suffering in the temporal, or of tyranny in either. He was never in +contact with the sinister side of things. Theiner's _Life of Clement the +Fourteenth_ failed to convince him, and he listened incredulously to +his indictment of the Jesuits. Eight years later Theiner wrote to him +that he hoped they would now agree better on that subject than when they +discussed it in Rome. "Ich freue mich, dass Sie jetzt erkennen, dass +mein Urtheil ueber die Jesuiten und ihr Wirken gerecht war.--Im kommenden +Jahr, so Gott will, werden wir uns hoffentlich besser verstehen als im +Jahr 1857." He thought the governing body unequal to the task of ruling +both Church and State; but it was the State that seemed to him to suffer +from the combination. He was anxious about the political future, not +about the future of religion. The persuasion that government by priests +could not maintain itself in the world as it is, grew in force and +definiteness as he meditated at home on the things he had seen and +heard. He was despondent and apprehensive; but he had no suspicion of +what was then so near. In the summer of 1859, as the sequel of Solferino +began to unfold itself, he thought of making his observations known. In +November a friend wrote: "Je ne me dissimule aucune des miseres de tout +ordre qui vous ont frappe a Rome." For more than a year he remained +silent and uncertain, watching the use France would make of the +irresistible authority acquired by the defeat of Austria and the +collapse of government in Central Italy. + +The war of 1859, portending danger to the temporal power, disclosed +divided counsels. The episcopate supported the papal sovereignty, and a +voluntary tribute, which in a few years took shape in tens of millions, +poured into the treasury of St. Peter. A time followed during which the +Papacy endeavoured, by a series of connected measures, to preserve its +political authority through the aid of its spiritual. Some of the most +enlightened Catholics, Dupanloup and Montalembert, proclaimed a sort of +holy war. Some of the most enlightened Protestants, Guizot and Leo, +defended the Roman government, as the most legitimate, venerable, and +necessary of governments. In Italy there were ecclesiastics like +Liverani, Tosti, Capecelatro, who believed with Manzoni that there +could be no deliverance without unity, or calculated that political +loss might be religious gain. Passaglia, the most celebrated Jesuit +living, and a confidential adviser of the pope, both in dogma and in the +preparation of the Syllabus, until Perrone refused to meet him, quitted +the Society, and then fled from Rome, leaving the Inquisition in +possession of his papers, in order to combat the use of theology in +defence of the temporal power. Forty thousand priests, he said, publicly +or privately agreed with him; and the diplomatists reported the names of +nine cardinals who were ready to make terms with Italian unity, of which +the pope himself said: "Ce serait un beau reve." In this country, Newman +did not share the animosity of conservatives against Napoleon III. and +his action in Italy. When the flood, rising, reached the papal throne, +he preserved an embarrassed silence, refusing, in spite of much +solicitation, to commit himself even in private. An impatient M.P. took +the train down to Edgbaston, and began, trying to draw him: "What times +we live in, Father Newman! Look at all that is going on in +Italy."--"Yes, indeed! And look at China too, and New Zealand!" +Lacordaire favoured the cause of the Italians more openly, in spite of +his Paris associates. He hoped, by federation, to save the interests of +the Holy See, but he was reconciled to the loss of provinces, and he +required religious liberty at Rome. Lamoriciere was defeated in +September 1860, and in February the fortress of Gaeta, which had become +the last Roman outwork, fell. Then Lacordaire, disturbed in his +reasoning by the logic of events, and by an earnest appeal to his +priestly conscience, as his biographer says: "ebranle un moment par une +lettre eloquente," broke away from his friends:-- + + Que Montalembert, notre ami commun, ne voie pas dans ce qui se passe + en Italie, sauf le mal, un progres sensible dans ce que nous avons + toujours cru le bien de l'eglise, cela tient a sa nature passionnee. + Ce qui le domine aujourd'hui c'est la haine du gouvernement + francais.--Dieu se sert de tout, meme du despotisme, meme de + l'egoisme; et il y a meme des choses qu'il ne peut accomplir par des + mains tout a fait pures.--Qu'y puis-je? Me declarer contre l'Italie + parce que ses chaines tombent mal a propos? Non assurement: je laisse + a d'autres une passion aussi profonde, et j'aime mieux accepter ce + que j'estime un bien de quelque part qu'il vienne.--Il est vrai que + la situation temporelle du Pape souffre presentement de la liberation + de l'Italie, et peut-etre en souffrira-t-elle encore assez longtemps: + mais c'est un malheur qui a aussi ses fins dans la politique + mysterieuse de la Providence. Souffrir n'est pas mourir, c'est + quelquefois expier et s'eclairer. + +This was written on 22nd February 1861. In April Doellinger spoke on the +Roman question in the Odeon at Munich, and explained himself more fully +in the autumn, in the most popular of all his books. + +The argument of _Kirche und Kirchen_ was, that the churches which are +without the pope drift into many troubles, and maintain themselves at a +manifest disadvantage, whereas the church which energetically preserves +the principle of unity has a vast superiority which would prevail, but +for its disabling and discrediting failure in civil government. That +government seemed to him as legitimate as any in the world, and so +needful to those for whose sake it was instituted, that if it should be +overthrown, it would, by irresistible necessity, be restored. Those for +whose sake it was instituted were, not the Roman people, but the +catholic world. That interest, while it lasted, was so sacred, that no +sacrifice was too great to preserve it, not even the exclusion of the +clerical order from secular office. + +The book was an appeal to Catholics to save the papal government by the +only possible remedy, and to rescue the Roman people from falling under +what the author deemed a tyranny like that of the Convention. He had +acquired his politics in the atmosphere of 1847, from the potential +liberality of men like Radowitz, who declared that he would postpone +every political or national interest to that of the Church, Capponi, the +last Italian federalist, and Tocqueville, the minister who occupied +Rome. His object was not materially different from that of Antonelli and +Merode, but he sought it by exposing the faults of the papal government +during several centuries, and the hopelessness of all efforts to save it +from the Revolution unless reformed. He wrote to an English minister +that it could not be our policy that the head of the Catholic Church +should be subject to a foreign potentate:-- + + Das harte Wort, mit welchem Sie im Parlamente den Stab ueber Rom + gebrochen haben--_hopelessly incurable_, oder _incorrigible_,--kann + ich mir nicht aneignen; ich hoffe vielmehr, wie ich es in dem Buche + dargelegt habe, das Gegentheil. An die Dauerhaftigkeit eines ganz + Italien umfassenden Piemontesisch-Italiaenischen Reiches glaube ich + nicht.--Inzwischen troeste ich mich mit dem Gedanken, dass in Rom + zuletzt doch _vexatio dabit intellectum_, und dann wird noch alles + gut werden. + +To these grateful vaticinations his correspondent replied:-- + + You have exhibited the gradual departure of the government in the + states of the church from all those conditions which made it + tolerable to the sense and reason of mankind, and have, I think, + completely justified, in principle if not in all the facts, the + conduct of those who have determined to do away with it. + +The policy of exalting the spiritual authority though at the expense of +sacrifices in the temporal, the moderation even in the catalogue of +faults, the side blow at the Protestants, filling more than half the +volume, disarmed for a moment the resentment of outraged Rome. The Pope, +on a report from Theiner, spoke of the book as one that might do good. +Others said that it was pointless, that its point was not where the +author meant it to be, that the handle was sharper than the blade. It +was made much more clear that the Pope had governed badly than that +Russia or Great Britain would gain by his supremacy. The cold analysis, +the diagnosis by the bedside of the sufferer, was not the work of an +observer dazzled by admiration or blinded by affection. It was a step, a +first unconscious, unpremeditated step, in the process of detachment. +The historian here began to prevail over the divine, and to judge Church +matters by a law which was not given from the altar. It was the outcome +of a spirit which had been in him from the beginning. His English +translator had uttered a mild protest against his severe treatment of +popes. His censure of the Reformation had been not as that of Bossuet, +but as that of Baxter and Bull. In 1845 Mr. Gladstone remarked that he +would answer every objection, but never proselytised. In 1848 he rested +the claims of the Church on the common law, and bade the hierarchy +remember that national character is above free will: "Die Nationalitaet +ist etwas der Freiheit des menschlichen Willens entruecktes, +geheimnissvolles und in ihrem letzen Grunde selbst etwas von Gott +gewolltes." In his _Hippolytus_ he began by surrendering the main point, +that a man who so vilified the papacy might yet be an undisputed saint. +In the _Vorhalle_ he flung away a favourite argument, by avowing that +paganism developed by its own lines and laws, untouched by Christianity, +until the second century; and as with the Gentiles, so with the sects; +he taught, in the suppressed chapter of his history, that their +doctrines followed a normal course. And he believed so far in the +providential mission of Protestantism, that it was idle to talk of +reconciliation until it had borne all its fruit. He exasperated a Munich +colleague by refusing to pronounce whether Gregory and Innocent had the +right to depose emperors, or Otho and Henry to depose popes; for he +thought that historians should not fit theories to facts, but should be +content with showing how things worked. Much secret and suppressed +antagonism found vent in 1858, when one who had been his assistant in +writing the _Reformation_ and was still his friend, declared that he +would be a heretic whenever he found a backing. + +Those with whom he actively coalesced felt at times that he was +incalculable, that he pursued a separate line, and was always learning, +whilst others busied themselves less with the unknown. This note of +distinctness and solitude set him apart from those about him, during his +intimacy with the most catholic of Anglican prelates, Forbes, and with +the lamented Liddon. And it appeared still more when the denominational +barrier of his sympathy was no longer marked, and he, who had stood in +the rank almost with De Maistre and Perrone, found himself acting for +the same ends with their enemies, when he delivered a studied eulogy on +Mignet, exalted the authority of Laurent in religious history and of +Ferrari in civil, and urged the Bavarian academy to elect Taine, as a +writer who had but one rival in France, leaving it to uncertain +conjecture whether the man he meant was Renan. In theory it was his +maxim that a man should guard against his friends. When he first +addressed the university as Rector, saying that as the opportunity might +never come again, he would employ it to utter the thoughts closest to +his heart, he exhorted the students to be always true to their +convictions and not to yield to surroundings; and he invoked, rightly or +wrongly, the example of Burke, his favourite among public men, who, +turning from his associates to obey the light within, carried the nation +with him. A gap was apparent now between the spirit in which he devoted +himself to the service of his Church and that of the men whom he most +esteemed. At that time he was nearly the only German who knew Newman +well and appreciated the grace and force of his mind. But Newman, even +when he was angry, assiduously distinguished the pontiff from his court: + + There will necessarily always be round the Pope second-rate people, + who are not subjects of that supernatural wisdom which is his + prerogative. For myself, certainly I have found myself in a different + atmosphere, when I have left the Curia for the Pope himself. + +Montalembert protested that there were things in _Kirche und Kirchen_ +which he would not have liked to say in public: + + Il est certain que la seconde partie de votre livre deplaira + beaucoup, non seulement a Rome, mais encore a la tres grande majorite + des Catholiques. Je ne sais donc pas si, dans le cas ou vous + m'eussiez consulte prealablement, j'aurais eu le courage d'infliger + cette blessure a mon pere et a mes freres. + +Doellinger judged that the prerogative even of natural wisdom was often +wanting in the government of the Church; and the sense of personal +attachment, if he ever entertained it, had worn away in the friction and +familiarity of centuries. + +After the disturbing interlude of the Roman question he did not resume +the history of Christianity. The second century with its fragments of +information, its scope for piercing and conjecture, he left to +Lightfoot. With increasing years he lost the disposition to travel on +common ground, impregnably occupied by specialists, where he had nothing +of his own to tell; and he preferred to work where he could be a +pathfinder. Problems of Church government had come to the front, and he +proposed to retraverse his subject, narrowing it into a history of the +papacy. He began by securing his foundations and eliminating legend. He +found so much that was legendary that his critical preliminaries took +the shape of a history of fables relating to the papacy. Many of these +were harmless: others were devised for a purpose, and he fixed his +attention more and more on those which were the work of design. The +question, how far the persistent production of spurious matter had +permanently affected the genuine constitution and theology of the Church +arose before his mind as he composed the _Papstfabeln des Mittelalters_. +He indicated the problem without discussing it. The matter of the volume +was generally neutral, but its threatening import was perceived, and +twenty-one hostile critics sent reviews of it to one theological +journal. + +Since he first wrote on these matters, thirty years earlier, the advance +of competitive learning had made it a necessity to revise statements by +all accessible lights, and to subject authorities to a closer scrutiny. +The increase in the rigour of the obligation might be measured by +Tischendorf, who, after renewing the text of the New Testament in seven +editions, had more than three thousand changes to make in the eighth. +The old pacific superficial method yielded no longer what would be +accepted as certain knowledge. Having made himself master of the +reconstructive process that was carried on a little apart from the main +chain of durable literature, in academic transactions, in dissertations +and periodicals, he submitted the materials he was about to use to the +exigencies of the day. Without it, he would have remained a man of the +last generation, distanced by every disciple of the new learning. He +went to work with nothing but his trained and organised common sense, +starting from no theory, and aiming at no conclusion. If he was beyond +his contemporaries in the mass of expedient knowledge, he was not before +them in the strictness of his tests, or in sharpness or boldness in +applying them. He was abreast as a critic, he was not ahead. He did not +innovate. The parallel studies of the time kept pace with his; and his +judgments are those which are accepted generally. His critical mind was +pliant, to assent where he must, to reject where he must, and to doubt +where he must. His submission to external testimony appeared in his +panegyric of our Indian empire, where he overstated the increase of +population. Informed of his error by one of his translators, he replied +that the figures had seemed incredible also to him, but having verified, +he found the statement so positively made that he did not venture to +depart from it. If inclination ever swayed his judgment, it was in his +despair of extracting a real available Buddha from the fables of +Southern India, which was conquered at last by the ablest of Mommsen's +pupils. + +He was less apprehensive than most of his English friends in questions +relating to the Old Testament; and in the New, he was disposed, at +times, to allow some force to Muratori's fragment as to the person of +the evangelist who is least favourable to St. Peter; and was puzzled at +the zeal of the Speaker's commentator as to the second epistle of the +apostle. He held to the epistles of St. Ignatius with the tenacity of a +Caroline prelate, and was grateful to De Rossi for a chronological point +in their favour. He rejected the attacks of Lucius on the most valued +passages in Philo, and stood with Gass against Weingarten's argument on +the life of St. Anthony and the origin of Monasticism. He resisted +Overbeck on the epistle to Diognetus, and thought Ebrard all astray as +to the Culdees. There was no conservative antiquarian whom he prized +higher than Le Blant: yet he considered Ruinart credulous in dealing +with acts of early martyrs. A pupil on whose friendship he relied, made +an effort to rescue the legends of the conversion of Germany; but the +master preferred the unsparing demolitions of Rettberg. Capponi and Carl +Hegel were his particular friends; but he abandoned them without +hesitation for Scheffer Boichorst, the iconoclast of early Italian +chronicles, and never consented to read the learned reply of Da Lungo. + +The _Pope Fables_ carried the critical inquiry a very little way; but he +went on with the subject. After the Donation of Constantine came the +Forged Decretals, which were just then printed for the first time in an +accurate edition. Doellinger began to be absorbed in the long train of +hierarchical fictions, which had deceived men like Gregory VII., St. +Thomas Aquinas, and Cardinal Bellarmine, which he traced up to the false +Areopagite, and down to the Laminae Granatenses. These studies became the +chief occupation of his life; they led to his excommunication in 1871, +and carried him away from his early system. For this, neither syllabus +nor ecumenical council was needed; neither crimes nor scandals were its +distant cause. The history of Church government was the influence which +so profoundly altered his position. Some trace of his researches, at an +early period of their progress, appears in what he wrote on the occasion +of the Vatican Council, especially in the fragment of an ecclesiastical +pathology which was published under the name of Janus. But the history +itself, which was the main and characteristic work of his life, and was +pursued until the end, was never published or completed. He died without +making it known to what extent, within what limit, the ideas with which +he had been so long identified were changed by his later studies, and +how wide a trench had opened between his earlier and his later life. +Twenty years of his historical work are lost for history. + +The revolution in method since he began to write was partly the better +use of old authorities, partly the accession of new. Doellinger had +devoted himself to the one in 1863; he passed to the other in 1864. For +definite objects he had often consulted manuscripts, but the harvest was +stacked away, and had scarcely influenced his works. In the use and +knowledge of unpublished matter he still belonged to the old school, and +was on a level with Neander. Although, in later years, he printed six or +seven volumes of Inedita, like Mai and Theiner he did not excel as an +editor: and this part of his labours is notable chiefly for its effect +on himself. He never went over altogether to men like Schottmueller, who +said of him that he made no research--_er hat nicht geforscht_--meaning +that he had made his mind up about the Templars by the easy study of +Wilkins, Michelet, Schottmueller himself, and perhaps a hundred others, +but had not gone underground to the mines they delved in. Fustel de +Coulanges, at the time of his death, was promoting the election of the +Bishop of Oxford to the Institute, on the ground that he surpassed all +other Englishmen in his acquaintance with manuscripts. Doellinger agreed +with their French rival in his estimate of our English historian, but he +ascribed less value to that part of his acquirements. He assured the +Bavarian Academy that Mr. Freeman, who reads print, but nevertheless +mixes his colours with brains, is the author of the most profound work +on the Middle Ages ever written in this country, and is not only a +brilliant writer and a sagacious critic, but the most learned of all our +countrymen. Ranke once drew a line at 1514, after which, he said, we +still want help from unprinted sources. The world had moved a good deal +since that cautious innovation, and after 1860, enormous and excessive +masses of archive were brought into play. The Italian Revolution opened +tempting horizons. In 1864 Doellinger spent his vacation in the libraries +of Vienna and Venice. At Vienna, by an auspicious omen, Sickel, who was +not yet known to Greater Germany as the first of its mediaeval +palaeographers, showed him the sheets of a work containing 247 +Carolingian acts unknown to Boehmer, who had just died with the repute of +being the best authority on Imperial charters. During several years +Doellinger followed up the discoveries he now began. Theiner sent him +documents from the _Archivio Segreto_; one of his friends shut himself +up at Trent, and another at Bergamo. Strangers ministered to his +requirements, and huge quantities of transcripts came to him from many +countries. Conventional history faded away; the studies of a lifetime +suddenly underwent transformation; and his view of the last six +centuries was made up from secret information gathered in thirty +European libraries and archives. As many things remote from current +knowledge grew to be certainties, he became more confident, more +independent, and more isolated. The ecclesiastical history of his youth +went to pieces against the new criticism of 1863, and the revelation of +the unknown which began on a very large scale in 1864. + +During four years of transition occupied by this new stage of study, he +abstained from writing books. Whenever some local occasion called upon +him to speak, he spoke of the independence and authority of history. In +cases of collision with the Church, he said that a man should seek the +error in himself; but he spoke of the doctrine of the universal Church, +and it did not appear that he thought of any living voice or present +instructor. He claimed no immunity for philosophy; but history, he +affirmed, left to itself and pursued disinterestedly, will heal the ills +it causes; and it was said of him that he set the university in the +place of the hierarchy. Some of his countrymen were deeply moved by the +measures which were being taken to restore and to confirm the authority +of Rome; and he had impatient colleagues at the university who pressed +him with sharp issues of uncompromising logic. He himself was reluctant +to bring down serene research into troublesome disputation, and wished +to keep history and controversy apart. His hand was forced at last by +his friends abroad. Whilst he pursued his isolating investigations he +remained aloof from a question which in other countries and other days +was a summary and effective test of impassioned controversy. Persecution +was a problem that had never troubled him. It was not a topic with +theoretical Germans; the necessary books were hardly available, and a +man might read all the popular histories and theologies without getting +much further than the Spanish Inquisition. Ranke, averse from what is +unpleasant, gave no details. The gravity of the question had never been +brought home to Doellinger in forty years of public teaching. When he +approached it, as late as 1861, he touched lightly, representing the +intolerance of Protestants to their disadvantage, while that of +Catholics was a bequest of Imperial Rome, taken up in an emergency by +secular powers, in no way involving the true spirit and practice of the +Church. With this light footfall the topic which has so powerful a +leverage slipped into the current of his thought. The view found favour +with Ambrose de Lisle, who, having read the _Letters to a Prebendary_, +was indignant with those who commit the Church to a principle often +resisted or ignored. Newman would admit to no such compromise: + + Is not the miraculous infliction of judgments upon blasphemy, lying, + profaneness, etc., in the apostles' day a sanction of infliction upon + the same by a human hand in the times of the Inquisition? + Ecclesiastical rulers may punish with the sword, if they can, and if + it is expedient or necessary to do so. The church has a right to make + laws and to enforce them with temporal punishments. + +The question came forward in France in the wake of the temporal power. +Liberal defenders of a government which made a principle of persecution +had to decide whether they approved or condemned it. Where was their +liberality in one case, or their catholicity in the other? It was the +simple art of their adversaries to press this point, and to make the +most of it; and a French priest took upon him to declare that +intolerance, far from being a hidden shame, was a pride and a glory: +"L'Eglise regarde l'Inquisition comme l'apogee de la civilisation +chretienne, comme le fruit naturel des epoques de foi et de catholicisme +national." Gratry took the other side so strongly that there would have +been a tumult at the Sorbonne, if he had said from his chair what he +wrote in his book; and certain passages were struck out of the printed +text by the cautious archbishop's reviser. He was one of those French +divines who had taken in fuel at Munich, and he welcomed _Kirche und +Kirchen_: "Quant au livre du docteur Doellinger sur la Papaute, c'est, +selon moi, le livre decisif. C'est un chef-d'oeuvre admirable a +plusieurs egards, et qui est destine a produire un bien incalculable et +a fixer l'opinion sur ce sujet; c'est ainsi que le juge aussi M. de +Montalembert. Le docteur Doellinger nous a rendu a tous un grand +service." This was not the first impression of Montalembert. He deplored +the Odeon lectures as usurping functions divinely assigned not to +professors, but to the episcopate, as a grief for friends and a joy for +enemies. When the volume came he still objected to the policy, to the +chapter on England, and to the cold treatment of Sixtus V. At last he +admired without reserve. Nothing better had been written since Bossuet; +the judgment on the Roman government, though severe, was just, and +contained no more than the truth. There was not a word which he would +not be able to sign. A change was going on in his position and his +affections, as he came to regard toleration as the supreme affair. At +Malines he solemnly declared that the Inquisitor was as horrible as the +Terrorist, and made no distinction in favour of death inflicted for +religion against death for political motives: "Les buchers allumes par +une main catholique me font autant d'horreur que les echafauds ou les +Protestants ont immole tant de martyrs." Wiseman, having heard him once, +was not present on the second day; but the Belgian cardinal assured him +that he had spoken like a sound divine. He described Dupanloup's defence +of the Syllabus as a masterpiece of eloquent subterfuge, and repudiated +his _interpretations equivoques_. A journey to Spain in 1865 made him +more vehement than ever; although, from that time, the political +opposition inflamed him less. He did not find imperialism intolerable. +His wrath was fixed on the things of which Spain had reminded him: +"C'est la qu'il faut aller pour voir ce que le catholicisme exclusif a +su faire d'une des plus grandes et des plus heroiques nations de la +terre.--Je rapporte un surcroit d'horreur pour les doctrines fanatiques +et absolutistes qui ont cours aujourd'hui chez les catholiques du monde +entier." In 1866 it became difficult, by the aid of others, to overcome +Falloux's resistance to the admission of an article in the +_Correspondant_, and by the end of the year his friends were unanimous +to exclude him. An essay on Spain, his last work--"dernier soupir de mon +ame indignee et attristee"--was, by Dupanloup's advice, not allowed to +appear. Repelled by those whom he now designated as spurious, servile, +and prevaricating liberals, he turned to the powerful German with whom +he thought himself in sympathy. He had applauded him for dealing with +one thing at a time, in his book on Rome: "Vous avez bien fait de ne +rien dire de l'absolutisme spirituel, quant a present. _Sat prata +biberunt_. Le reste viendra en son temps." He avowed that spiritual +autocracy is worse than political; that evil passions which had +triumphed in the State were triumphant in the Church; that to send human +beings to the stake, with a crucifix before them, was the act of a +monster or a maniac. He was dying; but whilst he turned his face to the +wall, lamenting that he had lived too long, he wished for one more +conference with the old friend with whom, thirty-five years before, in a +less anxious time, he had discussed the theme of religion and liberty. +This was in February 1867; and for several years he had endeavoured to +teach Doellinger his clear-cut antagonism, and to kindle in him something +of his gloomy and passionate fervour, on the one point on which all +depended. + +Doellinger arrived slowly at the contemplation of deeper issues than that +of churchmen or laymen in political offices, of Roman or German pupils +in theological chairs. After seeing Baron Arnim, in 1865, he lost the +hope of saving the papal government, and ceased to care about the things +he had contended for in 1861; and a time came when he thought it +difficult to give up the temporal power, and yet revere the Holy See. He +wrote to Montalembert that his illusions were failing: "Ich bin sehr +ernuechtert.--Es ist so vieles in der Kirche anders gekommen, als ich es +mir vor 20-30 Jahren gedacht, und rosenfarbig ausgemalt hatte." He +learnt to speak of spiritual despotism almost in the words of his +friend. The point of junction between the two orders of ideas is the use +of fire for the enforcement of religion on which the French were laying +all their stress: "In Frankreich bewegt sich der Gegensatz blos auf dem +socialpolitischen Gebiete, nicht auf dem theologisch-wissenschaftlichen, +weil es dort genau genommen eine theologische Wissenschaft nicht gibt" +(16th October 1865). The Syllabus had not permanently fixed his +attention upon it. Two years later, the matter was put more definitely, +and he found himself, with little real preparation, turning from +antiquarian curiosities, and brought face to face with the radical +question of life and death. If ever his literary career was influenced +by his French alliances, by association with men in the throng, for whom +politics decided, and all the learning of the schools did not avail, the +moment was when he resolved to write on the Inquisition. + +The popular account which he drew up appeared in the newspapers in the +summer of 1867; and although he did not mean to burn his ships, his +position as an official defender of the Holy See was practically at an +end. He wrote rapidly, at short notice, and not in the steady course of +progressive acquisition. Ficker and Winkelmann have since given a +different narrative of the step by which the Inquisition came into +existence; and the praise of Gregory X., as a man sincerely religious +who kept aloof, was a mark of haste. In the work which he was using, +there was no act by that pontiff; but if he had had time to look deeper +he would not have found him, in this respect, different from his +contemporaries. There is no uncertainty as to the author's feeling +towards the infliction of torture and death for religion, and the +purpose of his treatise is to prevent the nailing of the Catholic +colours to the stake. The spirit is that of the early lectures, in which +he said: "Diese Schutzgewalt der Kirche ist rein geistlich. Sie kann +also auch einen solchen oeffentlichen hartnaeckigen und sonst unheilbaren +Gegner der Kirche nur seiner rein geistlichen kirchlichen Rechte +berauben." Compared with the sweeping vehemence of the Frenchmen who +preceded, the restrained moderation of language, the abstinence from the +use of general terms, leaves us in doubt how far the condemnation +extended, and whether he did more, in fact, than deplore a deviation +from the doctrine of the first centuries. "Kurz darauf trat ein +Umschwung ein, den man wohl einen Abfall von der alten Lehre nennen +darf, und der sich ausnimmt, als ob die Kaiser die Lehrmeister der +Bischoefe geworden seien." He never entirely separated himself in +principle from the promoters, the agents, the apologists. He did not +believe, with Hefele, that the spirit survives, that there are men, not +content with eternal flames, who are ready to light up new Smithfields. +Many of the defenders were his intimate friends. The most conspicuous +was the only colleague who addressed him with the familiar German _Du_. +Speaking of two or three men, of whom one, Martens, had specially +attacked the false liberalism which sees no good in the Inquisition, he +wrote: "Sie werden sich noch erinnern ... wie hoch ich solche Maenner +stelle." He differed from them widely, but he differed academically; and +this was not the polish or precaution of a man who knows that to assail +character is to degrade and to betray one's cause. The change in his own +opinions was always before him. Although convinced that he had been +wrong in many of the ideas and facts with which he started, he was also +satisfied that he had been as sincere and true to his lights in 1835 as +in 1865. There was no secret about the Inquisition, and its observances +were published and republished in fifty books; but in his early days he +had not read them, and there was not a German, from Basel to +Koenigsberg, who could have faced a _viva voce_ in the _Directorium_ or +the _Arsenale_, or who had ever read Percin or Paramo. If Lacordaire +disconnected St. Dominic from the practice of persecution, Doellinger had +done the same thing before him. + + Weit entfernt, wie man ihm wohl vorgeworfen hat, sich dabei Gewalt + und Verfolgung zu erlauben, oder gar der Stifter der Inquisition zu + werden, wirkte er, nicht den Irrenden, sondern den Irrthum befehdend, + nur durch ruhige Belehrung und Eroerterung. + +If Newman, a much more cautious disputant, thought it substantial truth +to say that Rome never burnt heretics, there were things as false in his +own early writings. If Moehler, in the religious wars, diverted attention +from Catholic to Protestant atrocities, he took the example from his +friend's book, which he was reviewing. There may be startling matter in +Locatus and Pegna, but they were officials writing under the strictest +censorship, and nobody can tell when they express their own private +thoughts. There is a copy of Suarez on which a priest has written the +marginal ejaculation: "Mon Dieu, ayez pitie de nous!" But Suarez had to +send the manuscript of his most aggressive book to Rome for revision, +and Doellinger used to insist, on the testimony of his secretary, in +Walton's _Lives_, that he disavowed and detested the interpolations that +came back. + +The French group, unlike him in spirit and motive, but dealing with the +same opponents, judged them freely, and gave imperative utterance to +their judgments. While Doellinger said of Veuillot that he meant well, +but did much good and much evil, Montalembert called him a hypocrite: +"L'Univers, en declarant tous les jours qu'il ne veut pas d'autre +liberte que la sienne, justifie tout ce que nos pires ennemis ont jamais +dit sur la mauvaise foi et l'hypocrisie des polemistes chretiens." +Lacordaire wrote to a hostile bishop: "L'Univers est a mes yeux la +negation de tout esprit chretien et de tout bon sens humain. Ma +consolation au milieu de si grandes miseres morales est de vivre +solitaire, occupe d'une oeuvre que Dieu benit, et de protester par mon +silence, et de temps en temps par mes paroles, contre la plus grande +insolence qui se soit encore autorisee au nom de Jesus-Christ." Gratry +was a man of more gentle nature, but his tone is the same: "Esprits faux +ou nuls, consciences intellectuelles faussees par l'habitude de +l'apologie sans franchise: _partemque ejus cum hypocritis ponet_.--Cette +ecole est bien en verite une ecole de mensonge.--C'est cette ecole qui +est depuis des siecles, et surtout en ce siecle, l'opprobre de notre +cause et le fleau de la religion. Voila notre ennemi commun; voila +l'ennemi de l'Eglise." + +Doellinger never understood party divisions in this tragic way. He was +provided with religious explanations for the living and the dead; and +his maxims in regard to contemporaries governed and attenuated his view +of every historical problem. For the writers of his acquaintance who +were unfaltering advocates of the Holy Office, for Philips and Gams, and +for Theiner, who expiated devious passages of early youth, amongst other +penitential works, with large volumes in honour of Gregory XIII., he had +always the same mode of defence: "Mir begegnet es noch jede Woche, dass +ich irgend einem Irrthum, mitunter einem lange gepflegten, entsage, ihn +mir gleichsam aus der Brust herausreissen muss. Da sollte man freilich +hoechst duldsam und nachsichtig gegen fremde Irrthuemer werden" (5th +October 1866). He writes in the same terms to another correspondent +sixteen years later: "Mein ganzes Leben ist ein successives Abstreifen +von Irrthuemern gewesen, von Irrthuemern, die ich mit Zaehigkeit festhielt, +gewaltsam gegen die mir aufdaemmernde bessere Erkenntniss mich stemmend; +und doch meine ich sagen zu duerfen, dass ich dabei nicht _dishonest_ +war. Darf ich andre verurtheilen _in eodem luto mecum haerentes_?" He +regretted as he grew old the hardness and severity of early days, and +applied the same inconclusive deduction from his own experience to the +past. After comparing Baronius and Bellarmine with Bossuet and Arnauld +he goes on: "Wenn ich solche Maenner auf einem Irrthum treffe, so sage +ich mir: 'Wenn Du damals gelebt, und an seiner Stelle gestanden waerest, +haettest Du nicht den allegingn Wahn getheilt; und er, wenn er die Dir zu +Theil gewordenen Erkenntnissmittel besessen, wuerde er nicht besseren +Gebrauch davon gemacht haben, die Wahrheit nicht frueher erkannt und +bekannt haben, als Du?'" + +He sometimes distrusted his favourite argument of ignorance and early +prepossessions, and felt that there was presumption and unreality in +tendering such explanations to men like the Bollandist De Buck, De +Rossi, whom the Institute elected in preference to Mommsen, or +Windischmann, whom he himself had been accused of bringing forward as a +rival to Moehler. He would say that knowledge may be a burden and not a +light, that the faculty of doing justice to the past is among the rarest +of moral and intellectual gifts: "Man kann viel wissen, viele Notizen im +Kopf haben, ohne das rechte wissenschaftliche Verstaendniss, ohne den +historischen Sinn. Dieser ist, wie Sie wohl wissen, gar nicht so haeufig; +und we er fehlt, da fehlt auch, scheint mir, die volle Verantwortlichkeit +fuer das gewusste." + +In 1879 he prepared materials for a paper on the Massacre of St. +Bartholomew. Here he was breaking new ground, and verging on that which +it was the policy and the aspiration of his life to avoid. Many a man +who gives no tears to Cranmer, Servetus, or Bruno, who thinks it just +that the laws should be obeyed, who deems that actions done by order are +excused, and that legality implies morality, will draw the line at +midnight murder and wholesale extermination. The deed wrought at Paris +and in forty towns of France in 1572, the arguments which produced it, +the arguments which justified it, left no room for the mists of +mitigation and compromise. The passage from the age of Gregory IX. to +that of Gregory XIII., from the Crusades to the wars of Religion, +brought his whole system into jeopardy. The historian who was at the +heels of the divine in 1861, and level with him in 1867, would have come +to the front. The discourse was never delivered, never composed. But the +subject of toleration was absent no more from his thoughts, filling +space once occupied by Julian of Eclanum and Duns Scotus, the Variata +and the Five Propositions. To the last days of 1889 he was engaged in +following the doctrines of intolerance back to their root, from Innocent +III. to the Council of Rheims, from Nicholas I. to St. Augustine, +narrowing the sphere of individual responsibility, defending agents, and +multiplying degrees so as to make them imperceptible. Before the +writings of Priscillian were published by the Vienna Academy the nature +of their strange contents was disclosed. It then appeared that a copy of +the _Codex unicus_ had been sent to Doellinger from Wuerzburg years +before; and that he had never adverted to the fact that the burning of +heretics came, fully armed, from the brain of one man, and was the +invention of a heretic who became its first victim. + +At Rome he discussed the council of Trent with Theiner, and tried to +obtain permission for him to publish the original acts. Pius IX. +objected that none of his predecessors had allowed it, and Theiner +answered that none of them had defined the Immaculate Conception. In a +paper which Doellinger drew up, he observed that Pallavicini cannot +convince; that far from proving the case against the artful Servite, the +pettiness of his charges indicates that he has no graver fault to find; +so that nothing but the production of the official texts can enforce or +disprove the imputation that Trent was a scene of tyranny and intrigue. +His private belief then was that the papers would disprove the +imputation and vindicate the council. When Theiner found it possible to +publish his _Acta Authentica_, Doellinger also printed several private +diaries, chiefly from Mendham's collection at the Bodleian. But the +correspondence between Rome and the legates is still, in its integrity, +kept back. The two friends had examined it; both were persuaded that it +was decisive; but they judged that it decided in opposite ways. Theiner, +the official guardian of the records, had been forbidden to communicate +them during the Vatican Council; and he deemed the concealment prudent. +What passed in Rome under Pius IX. would, he averred, suffer by +comparison. According to Doellinger, the suppressed papers told against +Trent. + + Wenn wir nicht allen unseren henotischen Hoffnungen entsagen und uns + nicht in schweren Konflikt mit der alten (vormittel-alterigen) Kirche + bringen wollen, werden wir doch auch da das Korrektiv des + Vincentianischen Prinzips (_semper, ubique, ab omnibus_) zur + Anwendung bringen muessen. + +After his last visit to the Marciana he thought more favourably of +Father Paul, sharing the admiration which Venetians feel for the +greatest writer of the Republic, and falling little short of the +judgments which Macaulay inscribed, after each perusal, in the copy at +Inveraray. Apart from his chief work he thought him a great historian, +and he rejected the suspicion that he professed a religion which he did +not believe. He even fancied that the manuscript, which in fact was +forwarded with much secrecy to Archbishop Abbot, was published against +his will. The intermediate seekers, who seem to skirt the border, such +as Grotius, Ussher, Praetorius, and the other celebrated Venetian, De +Dominis, interested him deeply, in connection with the subject of +Irenics, and the religious problem was part motive of his incessant +study of Shakespeare, both in early life, and when he meditated joining +in the debate between Simpson, Rio, Bernays, and the _Edinburgh Review_. + +His estimate of his own work was low. He wished to be remembered as a +man who had written certain books, but who had not written many more. +His collections constantly prompted new and attractive schemes, but his +way was strewn with promise unperformed, and abandoned from want of +concentration. He would not write with imperfect materials, and to him +the materials were always imperfect. Perpetually engaged in going over +his own life and reconsidering his conclusions, he was not depressed by +unfinished work. When a sanguine friend hoped that all the contents of +his hundred note-books would come into use, he answered that perhaps +they might, if he lived for a hundred and fifty years. He seldom wrote a +book without compulsion, or the aid of energetic assistants. The +account of mediaeval sects, dated 1890, was on the stocks for half a +century. The discourse on the Templars, delivered at his last appearance +in public, had been always before him since a conversation with Michelet +about the year 1841. Fifty-six years lay between his text to the +_Paradiso_ of Cornelius and his last return to Dante. + +When he began to fix his mind on the constitutional history of the +Church, he proposed to write, first, on the times of Innocent XI. It was +the age he knew best, in which there was most interest, most material, +most ability, when divines were national classics, and presented many +distinct types of religious thought, when biblical and historical +science was founded, and Catholicism was presented in its most winning +guise. The character of Odescalchi impressed him, by his earnestness in +sustaining a strict morality. Fragments of this projected work +reappeared in his lectures on Louis XIV., and in his last publication on +the Casuists. The lectures betray the decline of the tranquil idealism +which had been the admiration and despair of friends. Opposition to Rome +had made him, like his ultramontane allies in France, more indulgent to +the ancient Gallican enemy. He now had to expose the vice of that +system, which never roused the king's conscience, and served for sixty +years, from the remonstrance of Caussin to the anonymous warning of +Fenelon, as the convenient sanction of absolutism. In the work on +seventeenth-century ethics, which is his farthest, the moral point of +view prevails over every other, and conscience usurps the place of +theology, canon law, and scholarship. This was his tribute to a new +phase of literature, the last he was to see, which was beginning to put +ethical knowledge above metaphysics and politics, as the central range +of human progress. Morality, veracity, the proper atmosphere of ideal +history, became the paramount interest. + +When he was proposed for a degree, the most eloquent lips at Oxford, +silenced for ever whilst I write this page, pointed to his excellence in +those things which are the merit of Germans. "Quaecunque in Germanorum +indole admiranda atque imitanda fere censemus, ea in Doellingero maxime +splendent." The patriotic quality was recognised in the address of the +Berlin professors, who say that by upholding the independence of the +national thought, whilst he enriched it with the best treasure of other +lands, he realised the ideal of the historian. He became more German in +extreme old age, and less impressive in his idiomatic French and English +than in his own language. The lamentations of men he thought good +judges, Mazade and Taine, and the first of literary critics, Montegut, +diluted somewhat his admiration for the country of St. Bernard and +Bossuet. In spite of politics, his feeling for English character, for +the moral quality of English literature, never changed; and he told his +own people that their faults are not only very near indeed to their +virtues, but are sometimes more apparent to the observer. The belief in +the fixity and influence of national type, confirmed by his authorities, +Ganganelli and Moehler, continued to determine his judgments. In his last +letter to Mr. Gladstone, he illustrated the Irish question by means of a +chronicle describing Ireland a thousand years ago. + +Everybody has felt that his power was out of proportion to his work, and +that he knew too much to write. It was so much better to hear him than +to read all his books, that the memory of what he was will pass away +with the children whom he loved. Hefele called him the first theologian +in Germany, and Hoefler said that he surpassed all men in the knowledge +of historical literature; but Hefele was the bishop of his predilection, +and Hoefler had been fifty years his friend, and is the last survivor of +the group which once made Munich the capital of citramontane +Catholicity. Martensen, the most brilliant of Episcopalian divines, +describes him as he talked with equal knowledge and certainty of every +age, and understood all characters and all situations as if he had lived +in the midst of them. The best ecclesiastical historian now living is +the fittest judge of the great ecclesiastical historian who is dead. +Harnack has assigned causes which limited his greatness as a writer, +perhaps even as a thinker; but he has declared that no man had the same +knowledge and intelligence of history in general, and of religious +history which is its most essential element, and he affirms, what some +have doubted, that he possessed the rare faculty of entering into alien +thought. None of those who knew Professor Doellinger best, who knew him +in the third quarter of the century, to which he belonged by the full +fruition of his powers and the completeness of his knowledge, will ever +qualify these judgments. It is right to add that, in spite of boundless +reading, there was no lumber in his mind, and in spite of his classical +learning, little ornament. Among the men to be commemorated here, he +stands alone. Throughout the measureless distance which he traversed, +his movement was against his wishes, in pursuit of no purpose, in +obedience to no theory, under no attraction but historical research +alone. It was given to him to form his philosophy of history on the +largest induction ever available to man; and whilst he owed more to +divinity than any other historian, he owed more to history than any +other divine. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 338: _English Historical Review_,1890.] + + + + +XII + +CARDINAL WISEMAN AND THE HOME AND FOREIGN REVIEW[339] + + +It is one of the conditions inseparable from a public career to be often +misunderstood, and sometimes judged unfairly even when understood the +best. No one who has watched the formation of public opinion will be +disposed to attribute all the unjust judgments which assail him to the +malice of individuals, or to imagine that he can prevent misconceptions +or vindicate his good name by words alone. He knows that even where he +has committed no errors he must pay tribute to the fallibility of +mankind, and that where he is in fault he must also pay tribute to his +own. This is a natural law; and the purer a man's conscience is, and the +more single his aim, the less eager will he be to evade it, or to defend +himself from its penalties. + +The man whose career is bound up with that of some school or party will +estimate the value of his opponents' censures by the worth which he +attributes to the undiscriminating praise of his friends; but he who has +devoted himself to the development of principles which will not always +bend to the dictates of expediency will have no such short way of +dealing with objections. His independence will frequently and inexorably +demand the sacrifice of interests to truth--of what is politic to what +is right; and, whenever he makes that sacrifice, he will appear a +traitor to those whom he is most anxious to serve, while his act will be +hailed by those who are farthest from sharing his opinions as a proof of +secret sympathy, and harbinger of future alliance. Thus, the censure +which he incurs will most often come from those whose views are +essentially his own; and the very matter which calls it forth will be +that which elicits the applause of adversaries who cannot bring +themselves to believe either in the truth of his opinions, in the +integrity of his motives, or in the sincerity of his aims. + +There are few men living whose career has been more persistently +misinterpreted, more bitterly assailed, or more ignorantly judged, than +the illustrious person who is the head in England of the Church to which +we belong, Cardinal Wiseman has been for many years the chief object of +the attacks of those who have desired to injure or degrade our +community. He is not only the canonical chief of English Catholics, but +his ability, and the devotion of his life to their cause, have made him +their best representative and their most powerful champion. No prelate +in Christendom is more fully trusted by the Holy See, or exercises a +more extensive personal influence, or enjoys so wide a literary renown. +Upon him, therefore, intolerance and fanaticism have concentrated their +malice. He has had to bear the brunt of that hatred which the holiness +of Catholicism inspires in its enemies; and the man who has never been +found wanting when the cause of the Church was at stake may boast, with +a not unworthy pride, of the indifference with which he has encountered +the personal slander of a hostile press. + +The Catholics of this country are attached to Cardinal Wiseman by warmer +feelings and more personal ties than those of merely ecclesiastical +subordination. It has been his privilege to gather the spiritual fruits +of the Catholic Emancipation Act; and the history of English Catholicism +has been, for a whole generation, bound up with his name. That immense +change in the internal condition of the Church in England which +distinguishes our days from the time of Milner has grown up under his +influence, and has been in great part his work. We owe it to him that we +have been brought into closer intercourse with Rome, and into contact +with the rest of Europe. By his preaching and his spiritual direction he +has transformed the devotions of our people; while his lectures and +writings have made Protestants familiar with Catholic ideas, and have +given Catholics a deeper insight into their own religion. As a +controversialist he influenced the Oxford movement more deeply than any +other Catholic. As director of the chief literary organ of Catholics +during a quarter of a century he rendered services to our literature, +and overcame difficulties, which none are in a better position to +appreciate than those who are engaged in a similar work. And as +President of Oscott, he acquired the enduring gratitude of hundreds who +owed to his guidance the best portion of their training. + +These personal relations with English Catholics, which have made him a +stranger to none and a benefactor to all, have at the same time given +him an authority of peculiar weight amongst them. With less unity of +view and tradition than their brethren in other lands, they were +accustomed, in common with the rest of Englishmen, to judge more +independently and to speak more freely than is often possible in +countries more exclusively Catholic. Their minds are not all cast in the +same mould, nor their ideas derived from the same stock; but all alike, +from bishop to layman, identify their cause with that of the Cardinal, +and feel that, in the midst of a hostile people, no diversity of opinion +ought to interfere with unity of action, no variety of interest with +identity of feeling, no controversy with the universal reverence which +is due to the position and character of the Archbishop of Westminster. + +In this spirit the Catholic body have received Cardinal Wiseman's latest +publication--his "Reply to the Address of his Clergy on his return from +Rome." He speaks in it of the great assemblage of the Episcopate, and of +their address to the Holy Father. Among the bishops there present he +was the most conspicuous, and he was President of the Commission to +which the preparation of their address was intrusted. No account of it, +therefore, can be more authentic than that which he is able to give. The +reserve imposed by his office, and by the distinguished part he had to +bear, has been to some extent neutralised by the necessity of refuting +false and exaggerated rumours which were circulated soon after the +meeting, and particularly two articles which appeared in _The Patrie_ on +the 4th and 5th of July, and in which it was stated that the address +written by Cardinal Wiseman contained "most violent attacks on all the +fundamental principles of modern society." + +After replying in detail to the untruths of this newspaper, the Cardinal +proceeds as follows:-- + + With far greater pain I feel compelled to advert to a covert + insinuation of the same charges, in a publication avowedly Catholic, + and edited in my own diocese, consequently canonically subject to my + correction. Should such a misstatement, made under my own eyes, be + passed over by me, it might be surmised that it could not be + contradicted; and whether chronologically it preceded or followed the + French account it evidently becomes my duty to notice it, as French + bishops have considered it theirs to correct the inaccuracies of + their native writers. + + Otherwise, in a few years, we might find reference made, as to a + recognised Catholic authority, for the current and unreproved + statement of what occurred at Rome, to _The Home and Foreign Review_. + And that in a matter on which reprehension would have been doubly + expected, if merited. In its first number the Address, which has, I + believe, wonderfully escaped the censure of Protestant and infidel + journals, is thus spoken of: "This Address is said to be a compromise + between one which took the violent course of recommending that major + excommunication should be at once pronounced against the chief + enemies of the temporal power by name, and one still more moderate + than the present" (_The Home and Foreign Review_, p. 264). Now this + very charge about recommending excommunication is the one made by the + French paper against my Address. But, leaving to the writer the + chance of an error, in this application of his words, I am bound to + correct it, to whomever it refers. He speaks of only two addresses: + the distinction between them implies severe censure on one. I assure + you that neither contained the recommendation or the sentiment + alluded to. + + My Brethren, I repeat that it pains me to have to contradict the + repetition, in my own diocese, of foreign accusations, without the + smallest pains taken to verify or disprove them with means at hand. + But this can hardly excite surprise in us who know the antecedents of + that journal under another name, the absence for years of all reserve + or reverence in its treatment of persons or of things deemed sacred, + its grazing over the very edges of the most perilous abysses of + error, and its habitual preferences of uncatholic to catholic + instincts, tendencies, and motives. In uttering these sad thoughts, + and entreating you to warn your people, and especially the young, + against such dangerous leadership, believe me I am only obeying a + higher direction than my own impulses, and acting under much more + solemn sanctions. Nor shall I stand alone in this unhappily necessary + correction. + + But let us pass to more cheerful and consoling thoughts. If my + connection with the preparation of the Address, from my having held, + though unworthy, office in its Committee, enables and authorises me + to rebut false charges against it, it has further bestowed upon me + the privilege of personal contact with a body of men who justly + represented the entire Episcopate, and would have represented it with + equal advantage in any other period of the Church. I know not who + selected them, nor do I venture to say that many other equal + committees of eighteen could not have been extracted from the + remainder. I think they might; but I must say that a singular wisdom + seemed to me to have presided over the actual, whatever might have + been any other possible, choice. + + Deliberations more minute, more mutually respectful, more courteous, + or at the same time more straightforward and unflinching, could + hardly have been carried on. More learning in theology and canon law, + more deep religious feeling, a graver sense of the responsibility + laid upon the Commission, or a more scrupulous regard to the claims + of justice, and no less of mercy, could scarcely have been exhibited. + Its spirit was one of mildness, of gentleness, and of reverence to + all who rightly claimed it. "Violent courses," invitations to "draw + the sword and rush on enemies," or to deal about "the major + excommunication by name," I deliberately assure you, were never + mentioned, never insinuated, and I think I may say, never thought of + by any one in that Council. In the sketches proposed by several, + there was not a harsh or disrespectful word about any sovereign or + government; in anything I ever humbly proposed, there was not a + single allusion to "King or Kaiser." + +Our duty to the Cardinal and our duty to our readers alike forbid us to +pass by these remarks without notice. Silence would imply either that we +admitted the charge, or that we disregarded the censure; and each of +these suppositions would probably be welcome to the enemies of our +common cause, while both of them are, in fact, untrue. The impossibility +of silence, however, involves the necessity of our stating the facts on +which charges so definite and so formidable have been founded. In doing +so, we shall endeavour both to exhibit the true sequence of events, and +to explain the origin of the Cardinal's misapprehension; and in this way +we shall reply to the charges made against us. + +But we must first explicitly declare, as we have already implied, that +in the Cardinal's support and approbation of our work we should +recognise an aid more valuable to the cause we are engaged in than the +utmost support which could be afforded to us by any other person; and +that we cannot consider the terms he has used respecting us otherwise +than as a misfortune to be profoundly regretted, and a blow which might +seriously impair our power to do service to religion. + +A Catholic Review which is deprived of the countenance of the +ecclesiastical authorities is placed in an abnormal position. A germ of +distrust is planted in the ground where the good seed should grow; the +support which the suspected organ endeavours to lend to the Church is +repudiated by the ecclesiastical rulers; and its influence in Protestant +society, as an expositor of Catholic ideas, is in danger of being +destroyed, because its exposition of them may be declared unsound and +unfair, even when it represents them most faithfully and defends them +most successfully. The most devoted efforts of its conductors are liable +to be misconstrued, and perversely turned either against the Church or +against the _Review_ itself; its best works are infected with the +suspicion with which it is regarded, and its merits become almost more +perilous than its faults. + +These considerations could not have been overlooked by the Cardinal when +he resolved to take a step which threatened to paralyse one of the few +organs of Catholic opinion in England. Yet he took that step. If an +enemy had done this, it would have been enough to vindicate ourselves, +and to leave the burden of an unjust accusation to be borne by its +author. But since it has been done by an ecclesiastical superior, with +entire foresight of the grave consequences of the act, it has become +necessary for us, in addition, to explain the circumstances by which he +was led into a course we have so much reason to deplore, and to show how +an erroneous and unjust opinion could arise in the mind of one whom +obvious motives would have disposed to make the best use of a +publication, the conductors of which are labouring to serve the +community he governs, and desired and endeavoured to obtain his sanction +for their work. If we were unable to reconcile these two +necessities,--if we were compelled to choose between a forbearance +dishonourable to ourselves, and a refutation injurious to the Cardinal, +we should be placed in a painful and almost inextricable difficulty. For +a Catholic who defends himself at the expense of an ecclesiastical +superior sacrifices that which is generally of more public value than +his own fair fame; and an English Catholic who casts back on Cardinal +Wiseman the blame unjustly thrown on himself, hurts a reputation which +belongs to the whole body, and disgraces the entire community of +Catholics. By such a course, a Review which exists only for public +objects would stultify its own position and injure its own cause, and +_The Home and Foreign Review_ has no object to attain, and no views to +advance, except objects and views in which the Catholic Church is +interested. The ends for which it labours, according to its light and +ability, are ends by which the Church cannot but gain; the doctrine it +receives, and the authority it obeys, are none other than those which +command the acceptance and submission of the Cardinal himself. It +desires to enjoy his support; it has no end to gain by opposing him. But +we are not in this painful dilemma. We can show that the accusations of +the Cardinal are unjust; and, at the same time, we can explain how +naturally the suppositions on which they are founded have arisen, by +giving a distinct and ample statement of our own principles and +position. + +The complaint which the Cardinal makes against us contains, +substantially, five charges: (1) that we made a misstatement, affirming +something historically false to be historically true; (2) that the +falsehood consists in the statement that only two addresses were +proposed in the Commission--one violent, the other very moderate,--and +that the address finally adopted was a compromise between these two; (3) +that we insinuated that the Cardinal himself was the author of the +violent address; (4) that we cast, by implication, a severe censure on +that address and its author; and (5) that our narrative was derived from +the same sources, and inspired by the same motives, as that given in +_The Patrie_,--for the Cardinal distinctly connects the two accounts, +and quotes passages indifferently from both, in such a way that words +which we never used might by a superficial reader be supposed to be +ours. + +To these charges our reply is as follows: (1) We gave the statement of +which the Cardinal complains as a mere rumour current on any good +authority at the time of our publication, and we employed every means in +our power to test its accuracy, though the only other narratives which +had then reached England were, as the Cardinal says (p. 9), too "partial +and perverted" to enable us to sift it to the bottom. We stated that a +rumour was current, not that its purport was true. (2) We did not speak +of "only two addresses" actually submitted to the Commission. We +supposed the report to mean, that of the three possible forms of +address, two extreme and one mean, each of which actually had partisans +in the Commission, the middle or moderate form was the one finally +adopted. (3) We had no suspicion that the Cardinal had proposed any +violent address at all; we did not know that such a proposal had been, +or was about to be, attributed to him; and there was no connection +whatever between him and it either in our mind or in our language. (4) +We implied no censure either on the course proposed or on its proposer, +still less on the Cardinal personally. (5) The articles in _The Patrie_ +first appeared--and that in France--some days after our Review was in +the hands of the public; we know nothing of the authority on which their +statements were founded, and we have not the least sympathy either with +the politics or the motives of that newspaper. + +This reply would be enough for our own defence; but it is right that we +should show, on the other side, how it came to pass that the Cardinal +was led to subject our words to that construction which we have so much +reason to regret. Reading them by the light of his own knowledge, and +through the medium of the false reports which afterwards arose with +regard to himself, his interpretation of them may easily have appeared +both plausible and likely. For there were more draft addresses than one: +one was his; the actual address was a compromise between them, and he +had been falsely accused of, and severely censured for, proposing +violent courses in his address. Knowing this, he was tempted to suspect +a covert allusion to himself under our words, and the chronological +relation between our own article and those of _The Patrie_ was easily +forgotten, or made nugatory by the supposition of their both being +derived from the same sources of information. + +But this will be made clearer by the following narrative of facts: A +Commission was appointed to draw up the address of the bishops; Cardinal +Wiseman, its president, proposed a draft address, which was not +obnoxious to any of the criticisms made on any other draft, and is, in +substance, the basis of the address as it was ultimately settled. It was +favourably received by the Commission; but, after some deliberation, its +final adoption was postponed. + +Subsequently, a prelate who had been absent from the previous discussion +presented another draft, not in competition with that proposed by the +president, nor as an amendment to it, but simply as a basis for +discussion. This second draft was also favourably received; and the +Commission, rather out of consideration for the great services and +reputation of its author than from any dissatisfaction with the address +proposed by the president, resolved to amalgamate the two drafts. All +other projects were set aside; and, in particular, two proposals were +deliberately rejected. One of these proposals was, to pay a tribute of +acknowledgment for the services of the French nation to the Holy See; +the other was, to denounce the perfidious and oppressive policy of the +Court of Turin in terms which we certainly should not think either +exaggerated or undeserved. We have neither right nor inclination to +complain of the ardent patriotism which has been exhibited by the +illustrious Bishop of Orleans in the two publications he has put forth +since his return to his See, or of the indignation which the system +prevailing at Turin must excite in every man who in his heart loves the +Church, or whose intelligence can appreciate the first principles of +government. Whatever may have been the censure proposed, it certainly +did not surpass the measure of the offence. Nevertheless, the impolicy +of a violent course, which could not fail to cause irritation, and to +aggravate the difficulties of the Church, appears to have been fully +recognised by the Commission; and we believe that no one was more prompt +in exposing the inutility of such a measure than the Cardinal himself. +The idea that anything imprudent or aggressive was to be found in his +draft is contradicted by all the facts of the case, and has not a shadow +of foundation in anything that is contained in the address as adopted. + +We need say no more to explain what has been very erroneously called our +covert insinuation. From this narrative of facts our statement comes +out, no longer as a mere report, but as a substantially accurate summary +of events, questioned only on one point,--the extent of the censure +which was proposed. So that in the account which the Cardinal quoted +from our pages there was no substantial statement to correct, as in fact +no correction of any definite point but one has been attempted. + +How this innocent statement has come to be suspected of a hostile +intent, and to be classed with the calumnies of _The Patrie_, is another +question. The disposition with which the Cardinal sat in judgment upon +our words was founded, not on anything they contained, but, as he +declares, on the antecedents of the conductors of _The Home and Foreign +Review_, and on the character of a journal which no longer exists. That +character he declares to consist in "the absence for years of all +reserve or reverence in its treatment of persons or of things deemed +sacred, its grazing over the very edges of the most perilous abysses of +error, and its habitual preferences of uncatholic to catholic instincts, +tendencies, and motives." In publishing this charge, which amounts to a +declaration that we hold opinions and display a spirit not compatible +with an entire attachment and submission of intellect and will to the +doctrine and authority of the Catholic Church, the Cardinal adds, "I am +only obeying a higher direction than my own impulses, and acting under +much more solemn sanctions. Nor shall I stand alone in this unhappily +necessary correction." + +There can be little doubt of the nature of the circumstances to which +this announcement points. It is said that certain papers or +propositions, which the report does not specify, have been extracted +from the journal which the Cardinal identifies with this Review, and +forwarded to Rome for examination; that the Prefect of Propaganda has +characterised these extracts, or some of them, in terms which correspond +to the Cardinal's language; and that the English bishops have +deliberated whether they should issue similar declarations. We have no +reason to doubt that the majority of them share the Cardinal's view, +which is also that of a large portion both of the rest of the clergy and +also of the laity; and, whatever may be the precise action which has +been taken in the matter, it is unquestionable that a very formidable +mass of ecclesiastical authority and popular feeling is united against +certain principles or opinions which, whether rightly or wrongly, are +attributed to us. No one will suppose that an impression so general can +be entirely founded on a mistake. Those who admit the bare orthodoxy of +our doctrine will, under the circumstances, naturally conclude that in +our way of holding or expounding it there must be something new and +strange, unfamiliar and bewildering, to those who are accustomed to the +prevalent spirit of Catholic literature; something which our +fellow-Catholics are not prepared to admit; something which can +sufficiently explain misgivings so commonly and so sincerely +entertained. Others may perhaps imagine that we are unconsciously +drifting away from the Church, or that we only professedly and +hypocritically remain with her. But the Catholic critic will not forget +that charity is a fruit of our religion, and that his anxiety to do +justice to those from whom he must differ ought always to be in equal +proportion with his zeal. Relying, then, upon this spirit of fairness, +convinced of the sincerity of the opposition we encounter, and in order +that there may remain a distinct and intelligible record of the aim to +which we dedicate our labours, we proceed to make that declaration which +may be justly asked of nameless writers, as a testimony of the purpose +which has inspired our undertaking, and an abiding pledge of our +consistency. + +This Review has been begun on a foundation which its conductors can +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. + +Great consideration is due to those whose minds are not prepared for the +full light of truth and the grave responsibilities of knowledge; who +have not learned to distinguish what is divine from what is +human--defined dogma from the atmosphere of opinion which surrounds +it,--and who honour both with the same awful reverence. Great allowances +are also due to those who are constantly labouring to nourish the spark +of belief in minds perplexed by difficulties, or darkened by ignorance +and prejudice. These men have not always the results of research at +command; they have no time to keep abreast with the constant progress of +historical and critical science; and the solutions which they are +obliged to give are consequently often imperfect, and adapted only to +uninstructed and uncultivated minds. Their reasoning cannot be the same +as that of the scholar who has to meet error in its most vigorous, +refined, and ingenious form. As knowledge advances, it must inevitably +happen that they will find some of their hitherto accepted facts +contradicted, and some arguments overturned which have done good +service. They will find that some statements, which they have adopted +under stress of controversy, to remove prejudice and doubt, turn out to +be hasty and partial replies to the questions they were meant to answer, +and that the true solutions would require more copious explanation than +they can give. And thus will be brought home to their minds that, in the +topics upon which popular controversy chiefly turns, the conditions of +discussion and the resources of arguments are subject to gradual and +constant change. + +A Review, therefore, which undertakes to investigate political and +scientific problems, without any direct subservience to the interests of +a party or a cause, but with the belief that such investigation, by its +very independence and straightforwardness, must give the most valuable +indirect assistance to religion, cannot expect to enjoy at once the +favour of those who have grown up in another school of ideas. Men who +are occupied in the special functions of ecclesiastical life, where the +Church is all-sufficient and requires no extraneous aid, will naturally +see at first in the problems of public life, the demands of modern +society, and the progress of human learning, nothing but new and +unwelcome difficulties,--trial and distraction to themselves, temptation +and danger to their flocks. In time they will learn that there is a +higher and a nobler course for Catholics than one which begins in fear +and does not lead to security. They will come to see how vast a service +they may render to the Church by vindicating for themselves a place in +every movement that promotes the study of God's works and the +advancement of mankind. They will remember that, while the office of +ecclesiastical authority is to tolerate, to warn, and to guide, that of +religious intelligence and zeal is not to leave the great work of +intellectual and social civilisation to be the monopoly and privilege of +others, but to save it from debasement by giving to it for leaders the +children, not the enemies, of the Church. And at length, in the progress +of political right and scientific knowledge, in the development of +freedom in the State and of truth in literature, they will recognise one +of the first among their human duties and the highest of their earthly +rewards. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 339: "Rome and the Catholic Episcopate. Reply of His Eminence +Cardinal Wiseman to an Address presented by the Clergy, Secular and +Regular, of the Archdiocese of Westminster, on Tuesday, the 5th of +August 1862." London: Burns and Lambert. (_Home and Foreign Review_, +1862.)] + + + + +XIII + +CONFLICTS WITH ROME[340] + + +Among the causes which have brought dishonour on the Church in recent +years, none have had a more fatal operation than those conflicts with +science and literature which have led men to dispute the competence, or +the justice, or the wisdom, of her authorities. Rare as such conflicts +have been, they have awakened a special hostility which the defenders of +Catholicism have not succeeded in allaying. They have induced a +suspicion that the Church, in her zeal for the prevention of error, +represses that intellectual freedom which is essential to the progress +of truth; that she allows an administrative interference with +convictions to which she cannot attach the stigma of falsehood; and that +she claims a right to restrain the growth of knowledge, to justify an +acquiescence in ignorance, to promote error, and even to alter at her +arbitrary will the dogmas that are proposed to faith. There are few +faults or errors imputed to Catholicism which individual Catholics have +not committed or held, and the instances on which these particular +accusations are founded have sometimes been supplied by the acts of +authority itself. Dishonest controversy loves to confound the personal +with the spiritual element in the Church--to ignore the distinction +between the sinful agents and the divine institution. And this confusion +makes it easy to deny, what otherwise would be too evident to question, +that knowledge has a freedom in the Catholic Church which it can find in +no other religion; though there, as elsewhere, freedom degenerates +unless it has to struggle in its own defence. + +Nothing can better illustrate this truth than the actual course of +events in the cases of Lamennais and Frohschammer. They are two of the +most conspicuous instances in point; and they exemplify the opposite +mistakes through which a haze of obscurity has gathered over the true +notions of authority and freedom in the Church. The correspondence of +Lamennais and the later writings of Frohschammer furnish a revelation +which ought to warn all those who, through ignorance, or timidity, or +weakness of faith, are tempted to despair of the reconciliation between +science and religion, and to acquiesce either in the subordination of +one to the other, or in their complete separation and estrangement. Of +these alternatives Lamennais chose the first, Frohschammer the second; +and the exaggeration of the claims of authority by the one and the +extreme assertion of independence by the other have led them, by +contrary paths, to nearly the same end. + +When Lamennais surveyed the fluctuations of science, the multitude of +opinions, the confusion and conflict of theories, he was led to doubt +the efficacy of all human tests of truth. Science seemed to him +essentially tainted with hopeless uncertainty. In his ignorance of its +methods he fancied them incapable of attaining to anything more than a +greater or less degree of probability, and powerless to afford a strict +demonstration, or to distinguish the deposit of real knowledge amidst +the turbid current of opinion. He refused to admit that there is a +sphere within which metaphysical philosophy speaks with absolute +certainty, or that the landmarks set up by history and natural science +may be such as neither authority nor prescription, neither the doctrine +of the schools nor the interest of the Church, has the power to disturb +or the right to evade. These sciences presented to his eyes a chaos +incapable of falling into order and harmony by any internal +self-development, and requiring the action of an external director to +clear up its darkness and remove its uncertainty. He thought that no +research, however rigorous, could make sure of any fragment of knowledge +worthy the name. He admitted no certainty but that which relied on the +general tradition of mankind, recorded and sanctioned by the infallible +judgment of the Holy See. He would have all power committed, and every +question referred, to that supreme and universal authority. By its means +he would supply all the gaps in the horizon of the human intellect, +settle every controversy, solve the problems of science, and regulate +the policy of states. + +The extreme Ultramontanism which seeks the safeguard of faith in the +absolutism of Rome he believed to be the keystone of the Catholic +system. In his eyes all who rejected it, the Jesuits among them, were +Gallicans; and Gallicanism was the corruption of the Christian +idea.[341] "If my principles are rejected," he wrote on the 1st of +November 1820, "I see no means of defending religion effectually, no +decisive answer to the objections of the unbelievers of our time. How +could these principles be favourable to them? they are simply the +development of the great Catholic maxim, _quod semper, quod ubique, quod +ab omnibus_." Joubert said of him, with perfect justice, that when he +destroyed all the bases of human certainty, in order to retain no +foundation but authority, he destroyed authority itself. The confidence +which led him to confound the human element with the divine in the Holy +See was destined to be tried by the severest of all tests; and his +exaggeration of the infallibility of the Pope proved fatal to his +religious faith. + +In 1831 the Roman Breviary was not to be bought in Paris. We may hence +measure the amount of opposition with which Lamennais's endeavours to +exalt Rome would be met by the majority of the French bishops and +clergy, and by the school of St. Sulpice. For him, on the other hand, no +terms were too strong to express his animosity against those who +rejected his teaching and thwarted his designs. The bishops he railed +at as idiotic devotees, incredibly blind, supernaturally foolish. "The +Jesuits," he said, "were _grenadiers de la folie_, and united imbecility +with the vilest passions."[342] He fancied that in many dioceses there +was a conspiracy to destroy religion, that a schism was at hand, and +that the resistance of the clergy to his principles threatened to +destroy Catholicism in France. Rome, he was sure, would help him in his +struggle against her faithless assailants, on behalf of her authority, +and in his endeavour to make the clergy refer their disputes to her, so +as to receive from the Pope's mouth the infallible oracles of eternal +truth.[343] Whatever the Pope might decide, would, he said, be right, +for the Pope alone was infallible. Bishops might be sometimes resisted, +but the Pope never.[344] It was both absurd and blasphemous even to +advise him. "I have read in the _Diario di Roma_," he said, "the advice +of M. de Chateaubriand to the Holy Ghost. At any rate, the Holy Ghost is +fully warned; and if he makes a mistake this time, it will not be the +ambassador's fault." + +Three Popes passed away, and still nothing was done against the traitors +he was for ever denouncing. This reserve astounded him. Was Rome herself +tainted with Gallicanism, and in league with those who had conspired for +her destruction? What but a schism could ensue from this inexplicable +apathy? The silence was a grievous trial to his faith. "Let us shut our +eyes," he said, "let us invoke the Holy Spirit, let us collect all the +powers of our soul, that our faith may not be shaken."[345] In his +perplexity he began to make distinctions between the Pope and the Roman +Court. The advisers of the Pope were traitors, dwellers in the outer +darkness, blind and deaf; the Pope himself and he alone was infallible, +and would never act so as to injure the faith, though meanwhile he was +not aware of the real state of things, and was evidently deceived by +false reports.[346] A few months later came the necessity for a further +distinction between the Pontiff and the Sovereign. If the doctrines of +the _Avenir_ had caused displeasure at Rome, it was only on political +grounds. If the Pope was offended, he was offended not as Vicar of +Christ, but as a temporal monarch implicated in the political system of +Europe. In his capacity of spiritual head of the Church he could not +condemn writers for sacrificing all human and political considerations +to the supreme interests of the Church, but must in reality agree with +them.[347] As the Polish Revolution brought the political questions into +greater prominence, Lamennais became more and more convinced of the +wickedness of those who surrounded Gregory XVI., and of the political +incompetence of the Pope himself. He described him as weeping and +praying, motionless, amidst the darkness which the ambitious, corrupt, +and frantic idiots around him were ever striving to thicken.[348] Still +he felt secure. When the foundations of the Church were threatened, when +an essential doctrine was at stake, though, for the first time in +eighteen centuries, the supreme authority might refuse to speak,[349] at +least it could not speak out against the truth. In this belief he made +his last journey to Rome. Then came his condemnation. The staff on which +he leaned with all his weight broke in his hands; the authority he had +so grossly exaggerated turned against him, and his faith was left +without support. His system supplied no resource for such an emergency. +He submitted, not because he was in error, but because Catholics had no +right to defend the Church against the supreme will even of an erring +Pontiff.[350] He was persuaded that his silence would injure religion, +yet he deemed it his duty to be silent and to abandon theology. He had +ceased to believe that the Pope could not err, but he still believed +that he could not lawfully be disobeyed. In the two years during which +he still remained in the Church his faith in her system fell rapidly to +pieces. Within two months after the publication of the Encyclical he +wrote that the Pope, like the other princes, seemed careful not to omit +any blunder that could secure his annihilation.[351] Three weeks +afterwards he denounced in the fiercest terms the corruption of Rome. He +predicted that the ecclesiastical hierarchy was about to depart with the +old monarchies; and, though the Church could not die, he would not +undertake to say that she would revive in her old forms.[352] The Pope, +he said, had so zealously embraced the cause of antichristian despotism +as to sacrifice to it the religion of which he was the chief. He no +longer felt it possible to distinguish what was immutable in the +external organisation of the Church. He admitted the personal +fallibility of the Pope, and declared that, though it was impossible, +without Rome, to defend Catholicism successfully, yet nothing could be +hoped for from her, and that she seemed to have condemned Catholicism to +die.[353] The Pope, he soon afterwards said, was in league with the +kings in opposition to the eternal truths of religion, the hierarchy was +out of court, and a transformation like that from which the Church and +Papacy had sprung was about to bring them both to an end, after eighteen +centuries, in Gregory XVI.[354] Before the following year was over he +had ceased to be in communion with the Catholic Church. + +The fall of Lamennais, however impressive as a warning, is of no great +historical importance; for he carried no one with him, and his favourite +disciples became the ablest defenders of Catholicism in France. But it +exemplifies one of the natural consequences of dissociating secular from +religious truth, and denying that they hold in solution all the elements +necessary for their reconciliation and union. In more recent times, the +same error has led, by a contrary path, to still more lamentable +results, and scepticism on the possibility of harmonising reason and +faith has once more driven a philosopher into heresy. Between the fall +of Lamennais and the conflict with Frohschammer many metaphysical +writers among the Catholic clergy had incurred the censures of Rome. It +is enough to cite Bautain in France, Rosmini in Italy, and Guenther in +Austria. But in these cases no scandal ensued, and the decrees were +received with prompt and hearty submission. In the cases of Lamennais +and Frohschammer no speculative question was originally at issue, but +only the question of authority. A comparison between their theories will +explain the similarity in the courses of the two men, and at the same +time will account for the contrast between the isolation of Lamennais +and the influence of Frohschammer, though the one was the most eloquent +writer in France, and the head of a great school, and the other, before +the late controversy, was not a writer of much name. This contrast is +the more remarkable since religion had not revived in France when the +French philosopher wrote, while for the last quarter of a century +Bavaria has been distinguished among Catholic nations for the faith of +her people. Yet Lamennais was powerless to injure a generation of +comparatively ill-instructed Catholics, while Frohschammer, with +inferior gifts of persuasion, has won educated followers even in the +home of Ultramontanism. + +The first obvious explanation of this difficulty is the narrowness of +Lamennais's philosophy. At the time of his dispute with the Holy See he +had somewhat lost sight of his traditionalist theory; and his attention, +concentrated upon politics, was directed to the problem of reconciling +religion with liberty,--a question with which the best minds in France +are still occupied. But how can a view of policy constitute a +philosophy? He began by thinking that it was expedient for the Church to +obtain the safeguards of freedom, and that she should renounce the +losing cause of the old _regime_. But this was no more philosophy than +the similar argument which had previously won her to the side of +despotism when it was the stronger cause. As Bonald, however, had +erected absolute monarchy into a dogma, so Lamennais proceeded to do +with freedom. The Church, he said, was on the side of freedom, because +it was the just side, not because it was the stronger. As De Maistre had +seen the victory of Catholic principles in the Restoration, so Lamennais +saw it in the revolution of 1830. + +This was obviously too narrow and temporary a basis for a philosophy. +The Church is interested, not in the triumph of a principle or a cause +which may be dated as that of 1789, or of 1815, or of 1830, but in the +triumph of justice and the just cause, whether it be that of the people +or of the Crown, of a Catholic party or of its opponents. She admits the +tests of public law and political science. When these proclaim the +existence of the conditions which justify an insurrection or a war, she +cannot condemn that insurrection or that war. She is guided in her +judgment on these causes by criteria which are not her own, but are +borrowed from departments over which she has no supreme control. This is +as true of science as it is of law and politics. Other truths are as +certain as those which natural or positive law embraces, and other +obligations as imperative as those which regulate the relations of +subjects and authorities. The principle which places right above +expedience in the political action of the Church has an equal +application in history or in astronomy. The Church can no more identify +her cause with scientific error than with political wrong. Her interests +may be impaired by some measure of political justice, or by the +admission of some fact or document. But in neither case can she guard +her interests at the cost of denying the truth. + +This is the principle which has so much difficulty in obtaining +recognition in an age when science is more or less irreligious, and when +Catholics more or less neglect its study. Political and intellectual +liberty have the same claims and the same conditions in the eyes of the +Church. The Catholic judges the measures of governments and the +discoveries of science in exactly the same manner. Public law may make +it imperative to overthrow a Catholic monarch, like James II., or to +uphold a Protestant monarch, like the King of Prussia. The +demonstrations of science may oblige us to believe that the earth +revolves round the sun, or that the _donation of Constantine_ is +spurious. The apparent interests of religion have much to say against +all this; but religion itself prevents those considerations from +prevailing. This has not been seen by those writers who have done most +in defence of the principle. They have usually considered it from the +standing ground of their own practical aims, and have therefore failed +to attain that general view which might have been suggested to them by +the pursuit of truth as a whole. French writers have done much for +political liberty, and Germans for intellectual liberty; but the +defenders of the one cause have generally had so little sympathy with +the other, that they have neglected to defend their own on the grounds +common to both. There is hardly a Catholic writer who has penetrated to +the common source from which they spring. And this is the greatest +defect in Catholic literature, even to the present day. + +In the majority of those who have afforded the chief examples of this +error, and particularly in Lamennais, the weakness of faith which it +implies has been united with that looseness of thought which resolves +all knowledge into opinion, and fails to appreciate methodical +investigation or scientific evidence. But it is less easy to explain how +a priest, fortified with the armour of German science, should have +failed as completely in the same inquiry. In order to solve the +difficulty, we must go back to the time when the theory of Frohschammer +arose, and review some of the circumstances out of which it sprang. + +For adjusting the relations between science and authority, the method of +Rome had long been that of economy and accommodation. In dealing with +literature, her paramount consideration was the fear of scandal. Books +were forbidden, not merely because their statements were denied, but +because they seemed injurious to morals, derogatory to authority, or +dangerous to faith. To be so, it was not necessary that they should be +untrue. For isolated truths separated from other known truths by an +interval of conjecture, in which error might find room to construct its +works, may offer perilous occasions to unprepared and unstable minds. +The policy was therefore to allow such truths to be put forward only +hypothetically, or altogether to suppress them. The latter alternative +was especially appropriated to historical investigations, because they +contained most elements of danger. In them the progress of knowledge has +been for centuries constant, rapid, and sure; every generation has +brought to light masses of information previously unknown, the +successive publication of which furnished ever new incentives, and more +and more ample means of inquiry into ecclesiastical history. This +inquiry has gradually laid bare the whole policy and process of +ecclesiastical authority, and has removed from the past that veil of +mystery wherewith, like all other authorities, it tries to surround the +present. The human element in ecclesiastical administration endeavours +to keep itself out of sight, and to deny its own existence, in order +that it may secure the unquestioning submission which authority +naturally desires, and may preserve that halo of infallibility which the +twilight of opinion enables it to assume. Now the most severe exposure +of the part played by this human element is found in histories which +show the undeniable existence of sin, error, or fraud in the high places +of the Church. Not, indeed, that any history furnishes, or can furnish, +materials for undermining the authority which the dogmas of the Church +proclaim to be necessary for her existence. But the true limits of +legitimate authority are one thing, and the area which authority may +find it expedient to attempt to occupy is another. The interests of the +Church are not necessarily identical with those of the ecclesiastical +government. A government does not desire its powers to be strictly +defined, but the subjects require the line to be drawn with increasing +precision. Authority may be protected by its subjects being kept in +ignorance of its faults, and by their holding it in superstitious +admiration. But religion has no communion with any manner of error: and +the conscience can only be injured by such arts, which, in reality, give +a far more formidable measure of the influence of the human element in +ecclesiastical government than any collection of detached cases of +scandal can do. For these arts are simply those of all human governments +which possess legislative power, fear attack, deny responsibility, and +therefore shrink from scrutiny. + +One of the great instruments for preventing historical scrutiny had long +been the Index of prohibited books, which was accordingly directed, not +against falsehood only, but particularly against certain departments of +truth. Through it an effort had been made to keep the knowledge of +ecclesiastical history from the faithful, and to give currency to a +fabulous and fictitious picture of the progress and action of the +Church. The means would have been found quite inadequate to the end, if +it had not been for the fact that while society was absorbed by +controversy, knowledge was only valued so far as it served a +controversial purpose. Every party in those days virtually had its own +prohibitive Index, to brand all inconvenient truths with the note of +falsehood. No party cared for knowledge that could not be made available +for argument. Neutral and ambiguous science had no attractions for men +engaged in perpetual combat. Its spirit first won the naturalists, the +mathematicians, and the philologists; then it vivified the otherwise +aimless erudition of the Benedictines; and at last it was carried into +history, to give new life to those sciences which deal with the +tradition, the law, and the action of the Church. + +The home of this transformation was in the universities of Germany, for +there the Catholic teacher was placed in circumstances altogether novel. +He had to address men who had every opportunity of becoming familiar +with the arguments of the enemies of the Church, and with the +discoveries and conclusions of those whose studies were without the bias +of any religious object. Whilst he lectured in one room, the next might +be occupied by a pantheist, a rationalist, or a Lutheran, descanting on +the same topics. When he left the desk his place might be taken by some +great original thinker or scholar, who would display all the results of +his meditations without regard for their tendency, and without +considering what effects they might have on the weak. He was obliged +often to draw attention to books lacking the Catholic spirit, but +indispensable to the deeper student. Here, therefore, the system of +secrecy, economy, and accommodation was rendered impossible by the +competition of knowledge, in which the most thorough exposition of the +truth was sure of the victory, and the system itself became inapplicable +as the scientific spirit penetrated ecclesiastical literature in +Germany. + +In Rome, however, where the influences of competition were not felt, the +reasons of the change could not be understood, nor its benefits +experienced; and it was thought absurd that the Germans of the +nineteenth century should discard weapons which had been found +efficacious with the Germans of the sixteenth. While in Rome it was +still held that the truths of science need not be told, and ought not to +be told, if, in the judgment of Roman theologians, they were of a nature +to offend faith, in Germany Catholics vied with Protestants in +publishing matter without being diverted by the consideration whether it +might serve or injure their cause in controversy, or whether it was +adverse or favourable to the views which it was the object of the Index +to protect. But though this great antagonism existed, there was no +collision. A moderation was exhibited which contrasted remarkably with +the aggressive spirit prevailing in France and Italy. Publications were +suffered to pass unnoted in Germany which would have been immediately +censured if they had come forth beyond the Alps or the Rhine. In this +way a certain laxity grew up side by side with an unmeasured distrust, +and German theologians and historians escaped censure. + +This toleration gains significance from its contrast to the severity +with which Rome smote the German philosophers like Hermes and Guenther +when they erred. Here, indeed, the case was very different. If Rome had +insisted upon suppressing documents, perverting facts, and resisting +criticism, she would have been only opposing truth, and opposing it +consciously, for fear of its inconveniences. But if she had refrained +from denouncing a philosophy which denied creation or the personality of +God, she would have failed to assert her own doctrines against her own +children who contradicted them. The philosopher cannot claim the same +exemption as the historian. God's handwriting exists in history +independently of the Church, and no ecclesiastical exigence can alter a +fact. The divine lesson has been read, and it is the historian's duty to +copy it faithfully without bias and without ulterior views. The Catholic +may be sure that as the Church has lived in spite of the fact, she will +also survive its publication. But philosophy has to deal with some facts +which, although as absolute and objective in themselves, are not and +cannot be known to us except through revelation, of which the Church is +the organ. A philosophy which requires the alteration of these facts is +in patent contradiction against the Church. Both cannot coexist. One +must destroy the other. + +Two circumstances very naturally arose to disturb this equilibrium. +There were divines who wished to extend to Germany the old authority of +the Index, and to censure or prohibit books which, though not heretical, +contained matter injurious to the reputation of ecclesiastical +authority, or contrary to the common opinions of Catholic theologians. +On the other hand, there were philosophers of the schools of Hermes and +Guenther who would not retract the doctrines which the Church condemned. +One movement tended to repress even the knowledge of demonstrable truth, +and the other aimed at destroying the dogmatic authority of the Holy +See. In this way a collision was prepared, which was eventually brought +about by the writings of Dr. Frohschammer. + +Ten years ago, when he was a very young lecturer on philosophy in the +university of Munich, he published a work on the origin of the soul, in +which he argued against the theory of pre-existence, and against the +common opinion that each soul is created directly by Almighty God, +defending the theory of Generationism by the authority of several +Fathers, and quoting, among other modern divines, Klee, the author of +the most esteemed treatise of dogmatic theology in the German language. +It was decided at Rome that his book should be condemned, and he was +informed of the intention, in order that he might announce his +submission before the publication of the decree. + +His position was a difficult one, and it appears to be admitted that his +conduct at this stage was not prompted by those opinions on the +authority of the Church in which he afterwards took refuge, but must be +explained by the known facts of the case. His doctrine had been lately +taught in a book generally read and approved. He was convinced that he +had at least refuted the opposite theories, and yet it was apparently in +behalf of one of these that he was condemned. Whatever errors his book +contained, he might fear that an act of submission would seem to imply +his acceptance of an opinion he heartily believed to be wrong, and would +therefore be an act of treason to truth. The decree conveyed no +conviction to his mind. It is only the utterances of an infallible +authority that men can believe without argument and explanation, and +here was an authority not infallible, giving no reasons, and yet +claiming a submission of the reason. Dr. Frohschammer found himself in a +dilemma. To submit absolutely would either be a virtual acknowledgment +of the infallibility of the authority, or a confession that an +ecclesiastical decision necessarily bound the mind irrespectively of its +truth or justice. In either case he would have contradicted the law of +religion and of the Church. To submit, while retaining his own opinion, +to a disciplinary decree, in order to preserve peace and avoid scandal, +and to make a general acknowledgment that his work contained various +ill-considered and equivocal statements which might bear a bad +construction,--such a conditional submission either would not have been +that which the Roman Court desired and intended, or, if made without +explicit statement of its meaning, would have been in some measure +deceitful and hypocritical. In the first case it would not have been +received, in the second case it could not have been made without loss of +self-respect. Moreover, as the writer was a public professor, bound to +instruct his hearers according to his best knowledge, he could not +change his teaching while his opinion remained unchanged. These +considerations, and not any desire to defy authority, or introduce new +opinions by a process more or less revolutionary, appear to have guided +his conduct. At this period it might have been possible to arrive at an +understanding, or to obtain satisfactory explanations, if the Roman +Court would have told him what points were at issue, what passages in +his book were impugned, and what were the grounds for suspecting them. +If there was on both sides a peaceful and conciliatory spirit, and a +desire to settle the problem, there was certainly a chance of effecting +it by a candid interchange of explanations. It was a course which had +proved efficacious on other occasions, and in the then recent discussion +of Guenther's system it had been pursued with great patience and decided +success. + +Before giving a definite reply, therefore, Dr. Frohschammer asked for +information about the incriminated articles. This would have given him +an opportunity of seeing his error, and making a submission _in foro +interno_. But the request was refused. It was a favour, he was told, +sometimes extended to men whose great services to the Church deserved +such consideration, but not to one who was hardly known except by the +very book which had incurred the censure. This answer instantly aroused +a suspicion that the Roman Court was more anxious to assert its +authority than to correct an alleged error, or to prevent a scandal. It +was well known that the mistrust of German philosophy was very deep at +Rome; and it seemed far from impossible that an intention existed to put +it under all possible restraint. + +This mistrust on the part of the Roman divines was fully equalled, and +so far justified, by a corresponding literary contempt on the part of +many German Catholic scholars. It is easy to understand the grounds of +this feeling. The German writers were engaged in an arduous struggle, in +which their antagonists were sustained by intellectual power, solid +learning, and deep thought, such as the defenders of the Church in +Catholic countries have never had to encounter. In this conflict the +Italian divines could render no assistance. They had shown themselves +altogether incompetent to cope with modern science. The Germans, +therefore, unable to recognise them as auxiliaries, soon ceased to +regard them as equals, or as scientific divines at all. Without +impeaching their orthodoxy, they learned to look on them as men +incapable of understanding and mastering the ideas of a literature so +very remote from their own, and to attach no more value to the +unreasoned decrees of their organ than to the undefended _ipse dixit_ of +a theologian of secondary rank. This opinion sprang, not from national +prejudice or from the self-appreciation of individuals comparing their +own works with those of the Roman divines, but from a general view of +the relation of those divines, among whom there are several +distinguished Germans, to the literature of Germany. It was thus a +corporate feeling, which might be shared even by one who was conscious +of his own inferiority, or who had written nothing at all. Such a man, +weighing the opinion of the theologians of the Gesu and the Minerva, not +in the scale of his own performance, but in that of the great +achievements of his age, might well be reluctant to accept their verdict +upon them without some aid of argument and explanation. + +On the other hand, it appeared that a blow which struck the Catholic +scholars of Germany would assure to the victorious congregation of Roman +divines an easy supremacy over the writers of all other countries. The +case of Dr. Frohschammer might be made to test what degree of control it +would be possible to exercise over his countrymen, the only body of +writers at whom alarm was felt, and who insisted, more than others, on +their freedom. But the suspicion of such a possibility was likely only +to confirm him in the idea that he was chosen to be the experimental +body on which an important principle was to be decided, and that it was +his duty, till his dogmatic error was proved, to resist a questionable +encroachment of authority upon the rights of freedom. He therefore +refused to make the preliminary submission which was required of him, +and allowed the decree to go forth against him in the usual way. +Hereupon it was intimated to him--though not by Rome--that he had +incurred excommunication. This was the measure which raised the +momentous question of the liberties of Catholic science, and gave the +impulse to that new theory on the limits of authority with which his +name has become associated. + +In the civil affairs of mankind it is necessary to assume that the +knowledge of the moral code and the traditions of law cannot perish in a +Christian nation. Particular authorities may fall into error; decisions +may be appealed against; laws may be repealed, but the political +conscience of the whole people cannot be irrecoverably lost. The Church +possesses the same privilege, but in a much higher degree, for she +exists expressly for the purpose of preserving a definite body of +truths, the knowledge of which she can never lose. Whatever authority, +therefore, expresses that knowledge of which she is the keeper must be +obeyed. But there is no institution from which this knowledge can be +obtained with immediate certainty. A council is not _a priori_ +oecumenical; the Holy See is not separately infallible. The one has to +await a sanction, the other has repeatedly erred. Every decree, +therefore, requires a preliminary examination. + +A writer who is censured may, in the first place, yield an external +submission, either for the sake of discipline, or because his conviction +is too weak to support him against the weight of authority. But if the +question at issue is more important than the preservation of peace, and +if his conviction is strong, he inquires whether the authority which +condemns him utters the voice of the Church. If he finds that it does, +he yields to it, or ceases to profess the faith of Catholics. If he +finds that it does not, but is only the voice of authority, he owes it +to his conscience, and to the supreme claims of truth, to remain +constant to that which he believes, in spite of opposition. No authority +has power to impose error, and, if it resists the truth, the truth must +be upheld until it is admitted. Now the adversaries of Dr. Frohschammer +had fallen into the monstrous error of attributing to the congregation +of the Index a share in the infallibility of the Church. He was placed +in the position of a persecuted man, and the general sympathy was with +him. In his defence he proceeded to state his theory of the rights of +science, in order to vindicate the Church from the imputation of +restricting its freedom. Hitherto his works had been written in defence +of a Christian philosophy against materialism and infidelity. Their +object had been thoroughly religious, and although he was not deeply +read in ecclesiastical literature, and was often loose and incautious in +the use of theological terms, his writings had not been wanting in +catholicity of spirit; but after his condemnation by Rome he undertook +to pull down the power which had dealt the blow, and to make himself +safe for the future. In this spirit of personal antagonism he commenced +a long series of writings in defence of freedom and in defiance of +authority. + +The following abstract marks, not so much the outline of his system, as +the logical steps which carried him to the point where he passed beyond +the limit of Catholicism. Religion, he taught, supplies materials but no +criterion for philosophy; philosophy has nothing to rely on, in the last +resort, but the unfailing veracity of our nature, which is not corrupt +or weak, but normally healthy, and unable to deceive us.[355] There is +not greater division or uncertainty in matters of speculation than on +questions of faith.[356] If at any time error or doubt should arise, +the science possesses in itself the means of correcting or removing it, +and no other remedy is efficacious but that which it applies to +itself.[357] There can be no free philosophy if we must always remember +dogma.[358] Philosophy includes in its sphere all the dogmas of +revelation, as well as those of natural religion. It examines by its own +independent light the substance of every Christian doctrine, and +determines in each case whether it be divine truth.[359] The conclusions +and judgments at which it thus arrives must be maintained even when they +contradict articles of faith.[360] As we accept the evidence of +astronomy in opposition to the once settled opinion of divines, so we +should not shrink from the evidence of chemistry if it should be adverse +to transubstantiation.[361] The Church, on the other hand, examines +these conclusions by her standard of faith, and decides whether they can +be taught in theology.[362] But she has no means of ascertaining the +philosophical truth of an opinion, and cannot convict the philosopher of +error. The two domains are as distinct as reason and faith; and we must +not identify what we know with what we believe, but must separate the +philosopher from his philosophy. The system may be utterly at variance +with the whole teaching of Christianity, and yet the philosopher, while +he holds it to be philosophically true and certain, may continue to +believe all Catholic doctrine, and to perform all the spiritual duties +of a layman or a priest. For discord cannot exist between the certain +results of scientific investigation and the real doctrines of the +Church. Both are true, and there is no conflict of truths. But while the +teaching of science is distinct and definite, that of the Church is +subject to alteration. Theology is at no time absolutely complete, but +always liable to be modified, and cannot, therefore, be made a fixed +test of truth.[363] Consequently there is no reason against the union of +the Churches. For the liberty of private judgment, which is the formal +principle of Protestantism, belongs to Catholics; and there is no actual +Catholic dogma which may not lose all that is objectionable to +Protestants by the transforming process of development.[364] + +The errors of Dr. Frohschammer in these passages are not exclusively his +own. He has only drawn certain conclusions from premisses which are very +commonly received. Nothing is more usual than to confound religious +truth with the voice of ecclesiastical authority. Dr. Frohschammer, +having fallen into this vulgar mistake, argues that because the +authority is fallible the truth must be uncertain. Many Catholics +attribute to theological opinions which have prevailed for centuries +without reproach a sacredness nearly approaching that which belongs to +articles of faith: Dr. Frohschammer extends to defined dogmas the +liability to change which belongs to opinions that yet await a final and +conclusive investigation. Thousands of zealous men are persuaded that a +conflict may arise between defined doctrines of the Church and +conclusions which are certain according to all the tests of science; Dr. +Frohschammer adopts this view, and argues that none of the decisions of +the Church are final, and that consequently in such a case they must +give way. Lastly, uninstructed men commonly impute to historical and +natural science the uncertainty which is inseparable from pure +speculation: Dr. Frohschammer accepts the equality, but claims for +metaphysics the same certainty and independence which those sciences +possess. + +Having begun his course in company with many who have exactly opposite +ends in view, Dr. Frohschammer, in a recent tract on the union of the +Churches, entirely separates himself from the Catholic Church in his +theory of development. He had received the impulse to his new system +from the opposition of those whom he considered the advocates of an +excessive uniformity and the enemies of progress, and their +contradiction has driven him to a point where he entirely sacrifices +unity to change. He now affirms that our Lord desired no unity or +perfect conformity among His followers, except in morals and +charity;[365] that He gave no definite system of doctrine; and that the +form which Christian faith may have assumed in a particular age has no +validity for all future time, but is subject to continual +modification.[366] The definitions, he says, which the Church has made +from time to time are not to be obstinately adhered to; and the +advancement of religious knowledge is obtained by genius, not by +learning, and is not regulated by traditions and fixed rules.[367] He +maintains that not only the form but the substance varies; that the +belief of one age may be not only extended but abandoned in another; and +that it is impossible to draw the line which separates immutable dogma +from undecided opinions.[368] + +The causes which drove Dr. Frohschammer into heresy would scarcely have +deserved great attention from the mere merit of the man, for he cannot +be acquitted of having, in the first instance, exhibited very +superficial notions of theology. Their instructiveness consists in the +conspicuous example they afford of the effect of certain errors which at +the present day are commonly held and rarely contradicted. When he found +himself censured unjustly, as he thought, by the Holy See, it should +have been enough for him to believe in his conscience that he was in +agreement with the true faith of the Church. He would not then have +proceeded to consider the whole Church infected with the liability to +err from which her rulers are not exempt, or to degrade the fundamental +truths of Christianity to the level of mere school opinions. Authority +appeared in his eyes to stand for the whole Church; and therefore, in +endeavouring to shield himself from its influence, he abandoned the +first principles of the ecclesiastical system. Far from having aided the +cause of freedom, his errors have provoked a reaction against it, which +must be looked upon with deep anxiety, and of which the first +significant symptom remains to be described. + +On the 21st of December 1863, the Pope addressed a Brief to the +Archbishop of Munich, which was published on the 5th of March. This +document explains that the Holy Father had originally been led to +suspect the recent Congress at Munich of a tendency similar to that of +Frohschammer, and had consequently viewed it with great distrust; but +that these feelings were removed by the address which was adopted at the +meeting, and by the report of the Archbishop. And he expresses the +consolation he has derived from the principles which prevailed in the +assembly, and applauds the design of those by whom it was convened. He +asked for the opinion of the German prelates, in order to be able to +determine whether, in the present circumstances of their Church, it is +right that the Congress should be renewed. + +Besides the censure of the doctrines of Frohschammer, and the +approbation given to the acts of the Munich Congress, the Brief contains +passages of deeper and more general import, not directly touching the +action of the German divines, but having an important bearing on the +position of this _Review_. The substance of these passages is as +follows: In the present condition of society the supreme authority in +the Church is more than ever necessary, and must not surrender in the +smallest degree the exclusive direction of ecclesiastical knowledge. An +entire obedience to the decrees of the Holy See and the Roman +congregations cannot be inconsistent with the freedom and progress of +science. The disposition to find fault with the scholastic theology, and +to dispute the conclusions and the method of its teachers, threatens the +authority of the Church, because the Church has not only allowed +theology to remain for centuries faithful to their system, but has +urgently recommended it as the safest bulwark of the faith, and an +efficient weapon against her enemies. Catholic writers are not bound +only by those decisions of the infallible Church which regard articles +of faith. They must also submit to the theological decisions of the +Roman congregations, and to the opinions which are commonly received in +the schools. And it is wrong, though not heretical, to reject those +decisions or opinions. + +In a word, therefore, the Brief affirms that the common opinions and +explanations of Catholic divines ought not to yield to the progress of +secular science, and that the course of theological knowledge ought to +be controlled by the decrees of the Index. + +There is no doubt that the letter of this document might be interpreted +in a sense consistent with the habitual language of the _Home and +Foreign Review_. On the one hand, the censure is evidently aimed at that +exaggerated claim of independence which would deny to the Pope and the +Episcopate any right of interfering in literature, and would transfer +the whole weight heretofore belonging to the traditions of the schools +of theology to the incomplete, and therefore uncertain, conclusions of +modern science. On the other hand, the _Review_ has always maintained, +in common with all Catholics, that if the one Church has an organ it is +through that organ that she must speak; that her authority is not +limited to the precise sphere of her infallibility; and that opinions +which she has long tolerated or approved, and has for centuries found +compatible with the secular as well as religious knowledge of the age, +cannot be lightly supplanted by new hypotheses of scientific men, which +have not yet had time to prove their consistency with dogmatic truth. +But such a plausible accommodation, even if it were honest or dignified, +would only disguise and obscure those ideas which it has been the chief +object of the _Review_ to proclaim. It is, therefore, not only more +respectful to the Holy See, but more serviceable to the principles of +the _Review_ itself, and more in accordance with the spirit in which it +has been conducted, to interpret the words of the Pope as they were +really meant, than to elude their consequences by subtle distinctions, +and to profess a formal adoption of maxims which no man who holds the +principles of the _Review_ can accept in their intended signification. + +One of these maxims is that theological and other opinions long held and +allowed in the Church gather truth from time, and an authority in some +sort binding from the implied sanction of the Holy See, so that they +cannot be rejected without rashness; and that the decrees of the +congregation of the Index possess an authority quite independent of the +acquirements of the men composing it. This is no new opinion; it is only +expressed on the present occasion with unusual solemnity and +distinctness. But one of the essential principles of this _Review_ +consists in a clear recognition, first, of the infinite gulf which in +theology separates what is of faith from what is not of faith,--revealed +dogmas from opinions unconnected with them by logical necessity, and +therefore incapable of anything higher than a natural certainty--and +next, of the practical difference which exists in ecclesiastical +discipline between the acts of infallible authority and those which +possess no higher sanction than that of canonical legality. That which +is not decided with dogmatic infallibility is for the time susceptible +only of a scientific determination, which advances with the progress of +science, and becomes absolute only where science has attained its final +results. On the one hand, this scientific progress is beneficial, and +even necessary, to the Church; on the other, it must inevitably be +opposed by the guardians of traditional opinion, to whom, as such, no +share in it belongs, and who, by their own acts and those of their +predecessors, are committed to views which it menaces or destroys. The +same principle which, in certain conjunctures, imposes the duty of +surrendering received opinions imposes in equal extent, and under like +conditions, the duty of disregarding the fallible authorities that +uphold them. + +It is the design of the Holy See not, of course, to deny the distinction +between dogma and opinion, upon which this duty is founded, but to +reduce the practical recognition of it among Catholics to the smallest +possible limits. A grave question therefore arises as to the position of +a _Review_ founded in great part for the purpose of exemplifying this +distinction.[369] In considering the solution of this question two +circumstances must be borne in mind: first, that the antagonism now so +forcibly expressed has always been known and acknowledged; and secondly, +that no part of the Brief applies directly to the _Review_. The _Review_ +was as distinctly opposed to the Roman sentiment before the Brief as +since, and it is still as free from censure as before. It was at no time +in virtual sympathy with authority on the points in question, and it is +not now in formal conflict with authority. + +But the definiteness with which the Holy See has pronounced its will, +and the fact that it has taken the initiative, seem positively to invite +adhesion, and to convey a special warning to all who have expressed +opinions contrary to the maxims of the Brief. A periodical which not +only has done so, but exists in a measure for the purpose of doing so, +cannot with propriety refuse to survey the new position in which it is +placed by this important act. For the conduct of a _Review_ involves +more delicate relations with the government of the Church than the +authorship of an isolated book. When opinions which an author defends +are rejected at Rome, he either makes his submission, or, if his mind +remains unaltered, silently leaves his book to take its chance, and to +influence men according to its merits. But such passivity, however right +and seemly in the author of a book, is inapplicable to the case of a +_Review_. The periodical iteration of rejected propositions would amount +to insult and defiance, and would probably provoke more definite +measures; and thus the result would be to commit authority yet more +irrevocably to an opinion which otherwise might take no deep root, and +might yield ultimately to the influence of time. For it is hard to +surrender a cause on behalf of which a struggle has been sustained, and +spiritual evils have been inflicted. In an isolated book, the author +need discuss no more topics than he likes, and any want of agreement +with ecclesiastical authority may receive so little prominence as to +excite no attention. But a continuous _Review_, which adopted this kind +of reserve, would give a negative prominence to the topics it +persistently avoided, and by thus keeping before the world the position +it occupied would hold out a perpetual invitation to its readers to +judge between the Church and itself. Whatever it gained of approbation +and assent would be so much lost to the authority and dignity of the +Holy See. It could only hope to succeed by trading on the scandal it +caused. + +But in reality its success could no longer advance the cause of truth. +For what is the Holy See in its relation to the masses of Catholics, and +where does its strength lie? It is the organ, the mouth, the head of the +Church. Its strength consists in its agreement with the general +conviction of the faithful. When it expresses the common knowledge and +sense of the age, or of a large majority of Catholics, its position is +impregnable. The force it derives from this general support makes direct +opposition hopeless, and therefore disedifying, tending only to division +and promoting reaction rather than reform. The influence by which it is +to be moved must be directed first on that which gives its strength, and +must pervade the members in order that it may reach the head. While the +general sentiment of Catholics is unaltered, the course of the Holy See +remains unaltered too. As soon as that sentiment is modified, Rome +sympathises with the change. The ecclesiastical government, based upon +the public opinion of the Church, and acting through it, cannot separate +itself from the mass of the faithful, and keep pace with the progress of +the instructed minority. It follows slowly and warily, and sometimes +begins by resisting and denouncing what in the end it thoroughly adopts. +Hence a direct controversy with Rome holds out the prospect of great +evils, and at best a barren and unprofitable victory. The victory that +is fruitful springs from that gradual change in the knowledge, the +ideas, and the convictions of the Catholic body, which, in due time, +overcomes the natural reluctance to forsake a beaten path, and by +insensible degrees constrains the mouthpiece of tradition to conform +itself to the new atmosphere with which it is surrounded. The slow, +silent, indirect action of public opinion bears the Holy See along, +without any demoralising conflict or dishonourable capitulation. This +action belongs essentially to the graver scientific literature to +direct: and the inquiry what form that literature should assume at any +given moment involves no question which affects its substance, though it +may often involve questions of moral fitness sufficiently decisive for a +particular occasion. + +It was never pretended that the _Home and Foreign Review_ represented +the opinions of the majority of Catholics. The Holy See has had their +support in maintaining a view of the obligations of Catholic literature +very different from the one which has been upheld in these pages; nor +could it explicitly abandon that view without taking up a new position +in the Church. All that could be hoped for on the other side was silence +and forbearance, and for a time they have been conceded. But this is the +case no longer. The toleration has now been pointedly withdrawn; and the +adversaries of the Roman theory have been challenged with the summons to +submit. + +If the opinions for which submission is claimed were new, or if the +opposition now signalised were one of which there had hitherto been any +doubt, a question might have arisen as to the limits of the authority of +the Holy See over the conscience, and the necessity or possibility of +accepting the view which it propounds. But no problem of this kind has +in fact presented itself for consideration. The differences which are +now proclaimed have all along been acknowledged to exist; and the +conductors of this _Review_ are unable to yield their assent to the +opinions put forward in the Brief. + +In these circumstances there are two courses which it is impossible to +take. It would be wrong to abandon principles which have been well +considered and are sincerely held, and it would also be wrong to assail +the authority which contradicts them. The principles have not ceased to +be true, nor the authority to be legitimate, because the two are in +contradiction. To submit the intellect and conscience without examining +the reasonableness and justice of this decree, or to reject the +authority on the ground of its having been abused, would equally be a +sin, on one side against morals, on the other against faith. The +conscience cannot be relieved by casting on the administrators of +ecclesiastical discipline the whole responsibility of preserving +religious truth; nor can it be emancipated by a virtual apostasy. For +the Church is neither a despotism in which the convictions of the +faithful possess no power of expressing themselves and no means of +exercising legitimate control, nor is it an organised anarchy where the +judicial and administrative powers are destitute of that authority which +is conceded to them in civil society--the authority which commands +submission even where it cannot impose a conviction of the righteousness +of its acts. + +No Catholic can contemplate without alarm the evil that would be caused +by a Catholic journal persistently labouring to thwart the published +will of the Holy See, and continuously defying its authority. The +conductors of this _Review_ refuse to take upon themselves the +responsibility of such a position. And if it were accepted, the _Review_ +would represent no section of Catholics. But the representative +character is as essential to it as the opinions it professes, or the +literary resources it commands. There is no lack of periodical +publications representing science apart from religion, or religion apart +from science. The distinctive feature of the _Home and Foreign Review_ +has been that it has attempted to exhibit the two in union; and the +interest which has been attached to its views proceeded from the fact +that they were put forward as essentially Catholic in proportion to +their scientific truth, and as expressing more faithfully than even the +voice of authority the genuine spirit of the Church in relation to +intellect. Its object has been to elucidate the harmony which exists +between religion and the established conclusions of secular knowledge, +and to exhibit the real amity and sympathy between the methods of +science and the methods employed by the Church. That amity and sympathy +the enemies of the Church refuse to admit, and her friends have not +learned to understand. Long disowned by a large part of our Episcopate, +they are now rejected by the Holy See; and the issue is vital to a +_Review_ which, in ceasing to uphold them, would surrender the whole +reason of its existence. + +Warned, therefore, by the language of the Brief, I will not provoke +ecclesiastical authority to a more explicit repudiation of doctrines +which are necessary to secure its influence upon the advance of modern +science. I will not challenge a conflict which would only deceive the +world into a belief that religion cannot be harmonised with all that is +right and true in the progress of the present age. But I will sacrifice +the existence of the _Review_ to the defence of its principles, in order +that I may combine the obedience which is due to legitimate +ecclesiastical authority, with an equally conscientious maintenance of +the rightful and necessary liberty of thought. A conjuncture like the +present does not perplex the conscience of a Catholic; for his +obligation to refrain from wounding the peace of the Church is neither +more nor less real than that of professing nothing beside or against his +convictions. If these duties have not been always understood, at least +the _Home and Foreign Review_ will not betray them; and the cause it has +imperfectly expounded can be more efficiently served in future by means +which will neither weaken the position of authority nor depend for their +influence on its approval. + +If, as I have heard, but now am scarcely anxious to believe, there are +those, both in the communion of the Church and out of it, who have found +comfort in the existence of this _Review_, and have watched its straight +short course with hopeful interest, trusting it as a sign that the +knowledge deposited in their minds by study, and transformed by +conscience into inviolable convictions, was not only tolerated among +Catholics, but might be reasonably held to be of the very essence of +their system; who were willing to accept its principles as a possible +solution of the difficulties they saw in Catholicism, and were even +prepared to make its fate the touchstone of the real spirit of our +hierarchy; or who deemed that while it lasted it promised them some +immunity from the overwhelming pressure of uniformity, some safeguard +against resistance to the growth of knowledge and of freedom, and some +protection for themselves, since, however weak its influence as an +auxiliary, it would, by its position, encounter the first shock, and so +divert from others the censures which they apprehended; who have found a +welcome encouragement in its confidence, a satisfaction in its sincerity +when they shrank from revealing their own thoughts, or a salutary +restraint when its moderation failed to satisfy their ardour; whom, not +being Catholics, it has induced to think less hardly of the Church, or, +being Catholics, has bound more strongly to her;--to all these I would +say that the principles it has upheld will not die with it, but will +find their destined advocates, and triumph in their appointed time. From +the beginning of the Church it has been a law of her nature, that the +truths which eventually proved themselves the legitimate products of her +doctrine, have had to make their slow way upwards through a phalanx of +hostile habits and traditions, and to be rescued, not only from open +enemies, but also from friendly hands that were not worthy to defend +them. It is right that in every arduous enterprise some one who stakes +no influence on the issue should make the first essay, whilst the true +champions, like the Triarii of the Roman legions, are behind, and wait, +without wavering, until the crisis calls them forward. + +And already it seems to have arrived. All that is being done for +ecclesiastical learning by the priesthood of the Continent bears +testimony to the truths which are now called in question; and every work +of real science written by a Catholic adds to their force. The example +of great writers aids their cause more powerfully than many theoretical +discussions. Indeed, when the principles of the antagonism which +divides Catholics have been brought clearly out, the part of theory is +accomplished, and most of the work of a _Review_ is done. It remains +that the principles which have been made intelligible should be +translated into practice, and should pass from the arena of discussion +into the ethical code of literature. In that shape their efficacy will +be acknowledged, and they will cease to be the object of alarm. Those +who have been indignant at hearing that their methods are obsolete and +their labours vain, will be taught by experience to recognise in the +works of another school services to religion more momentous than those +which they themselves have aspired to perform; practice will compel the +assent which is denied to theory; and men will learn to value in the +fruit what the germ did not reveal to them. Therefore it is to the +prospect of that development of Catholic learning which is too powerful +to be arrested or repressed that I would direct the thoughts of those +who are tempted to yield either to a malignant joy or an unjust +despondency at the language of the Holy See. If the spirit of the _Home +and Foreign Review_ really animates those whose sympathy it enjoyed, +neither their principles, nor their confidence, nor their hopes will be +shaken by its extinction. It was but a partial and temporary embodiment +of an imperishable idea--the faint reflection of a light which still +lives and burns in the hearts of the silent thinkers of the Church. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 340: _Home and Foreign Review_, April 1864.] + +[Footnote 341: Lamennais, _Correspondence_, Nouvelle edition (Paris: +Didier).] + +[Footnote 342: April 12 and June 25, 1830.] + +[Footnote 343: Feb. 27, 1831.] + +[Footnote 344: March 30, 1831.] + +[Footnote 345: May 8 and June 15, 1829.] + +[Footnote 346: Feb. 8, 1830.] + +[Footnote 347: Aug. 15, 1831.] + +[Footnote 348: Feb. 10, 1833.] + +[Footnote 349: July 6, 1829.] + +[Footnote 350: Sept. 15, 1832.] + +[Footnote 351: Oct. 9, 1832.] + +[Footnote 352: Jan. 25, 1833.] + +[Footnote 353: Feb. 5, 1833.] + +[Footnote 354: March 25, 1833.] + +[Footnote 355: _Naturphilosophie_, p. 115; _Einleitung in die +Philosophie_, pp. 40, 54; _Freiheit der Wissenschaft_, pp. 4, 89; +_Athenaeum_, i. 17.] + +[Footnote 356: _Athenaeum_, i. 92.] + +[Footnote 357: _Freiheit der Wissenschaft_, p. 32.] + +[Footnote 358: _Athenaeum_, i. 167.] + +[Footnote 359: _Einleitung_, pp. 305, 317, 397.] + +[Footnote 360: _Athenaeum_, i. 208.] + +[Footnote 361: _Ibid._ ii. 655.] + +[Footnote 362: _Ibid._ ii. 676.] + +[Footnote 363: _Ibid._ ii. 661.] + +[Footnote 364: _Wiedervereinigung der Katholiken und Protestanten_, pp. +26, 35.] + +[Footnote 365: _Wiedervereinigung_, pp. 8, 10.] + +[Footnote 366: _Ibid._ p. 15.] + +[Footnote 367: _Ibid._ p. 21.] + +[Footnote 368: _Ibid._ pp. 25, 26.] + +[Footnote 369: The prospectus of the _Review_ contained these words: "It +will abstain from direct theological discussion, as far as external +circumstances will allow; and in dealing with those mixed questions into +which theology indirectly enters, its aim will be to combine devotion to +the Church with discrimination and candour in the treatment of her +opponents: to reconcile freedom of inquiry with implicit faith, and to +discountenance what is untenable and unreal, without forgetting the +tenderness due to the weak, or the reverence rightly claimed for what is +sacred. Submitting without reserve to infallible authority, it will +encourage a habit of manly investigation on subjects of scientific +interest."] + + + + +XIV + +THE VATICAN COUNCIL[370] + + +The intention of Pius IX. to convene a General Council became known in +the autumn of 1864, shortly before the appearance of the Syllabus. They +were the two principal measures which were designed to restore the +spiritual and temporal power of the Holy See. When the idea of the +Council was first put forward it met with no favour. The French bishops +discouraged it; and the French bishops holding the talisman of the +occupying army, spoke with authority. Later on, when the position had +been altered by the impulse which the Syllabus gave to the ultramontane +opinions, they revived the scheme they had first opposed. Those who felt +their influence injured by the change persuaded themselves that the +Court of Rome was more prudent than some of its partisans, and that the +Episcopate was less given to extremes than the priesthood and laity. +They conceived the hope that an assembly of bishops would curb the +intemperance of a zeal which was largely directed against their own +order, and would authentically sanction such an exposition of Catholic +ideas as would reconcile the animosity that feeds on things spoken in +the heat of controversy, and on the errors of incompetent apologists. +They had accepted the Syllabus; but they wished to obtain canonicity for +their own interpretation of it. If those who had succeeded in assigning +an acceptable meaning to its censures could appear in a body to plead +their cause before the Pope, the pretensions which compromised the +Church might be permanently repressed. + +Once, during the struggle for the temporal power, the question was +pertinently asked, how it was that men so perspicacious and so +enlightened as those who were its most conspicuous champions, could +bring themselves to justify a system of government which their own +principles condemned. The explanation then given was, that they were +making a sacrifice which would be compensated hereafter, that those who +succoured the Pope in his utmost need were establishing a claim which +would make them irresistible in better times, when they should demand +great acts of conciliation and reform. It appeared to these men that the +time had come to reap the harvest they had arduously sown. + +The Council did not originate in the desire to exalt beyond measure the +cause of Rome. It was proposed in the interest of moderation; and the +Bishop of Orleans was one of those who took the lead in promoting it. +The Cardinals were consulted, and pronounced against it The Pope +overruled their resistance. Whatever embarrassments might be in store, +and however difficult the enterprise, it was clear that it would evoke a +force capable of accomplishing infinite good for religion. It was an +instrument of unknown power that inspired little confidence, but +awakened vague hopes of relief for the ills of society and the divisions +of Christendom. The guardians of immovable traditions, and the leaders +of progress in religious knowledge, were not to share in the work. The +schism of the East was widened by the angry quarrel between Russia and +the Pope; and the letter to the Protestants, whose orders are not +recognised at Rome, could not be more than a ceremonious challenge. +There was no promise of sympathy in these invitations or in the answers +they provoked; but the belief spread to many schools of thought, and was +held by Dr. Pusey and by Dean Stanley, by Professor Hase and by M. +Guizot, that the auspicious issue of the Council was an object of vital +care to all denominations of Christian men. + +The Council of Trent impressed on the Church the stamp of an intolerant +age, and perpetuated by its decrees the spirit of an austere +immorality. The ideas embodied in the Roman Inquisition became +characteristic of a system which obeyed expediency by submitting to +indefinite modification, but underwent no change of principle. Three +centuries have so changed the world that the maxims with which the +Church resisted the Reformation have become her weakness and her +reproach, and that which arrested her decline now arrests her progress. +To break effectually with that tradition and eradicate its influence, +nothing less is required than an authority equal to that by which it was +imposed. The Vatican Council was the first sufficient occasion which +Catholicism had enjoyed to reform, remodel, and adapt the work of Trent. +This idea was present among the motives which caused it to be summoned. +It was apparent that two systems which cannot be reconciled were about +to contend at the Council; but the extent and force of the reforming +spirit were unknown. + +Seventeen questions submitted by the Holy See to the bishops in 1867 +concerned matters of discipline, the regulation of marriage and +education, the policy of encouraging new monastic orders, and the means +of making the parochial clergy more dependent on the bishops. They gave +no indication of the deeper motives of the time. In the midst of many +trivial proposals, the leading objects of reform grew more defined as +the time approached, and men became conscious of distinct purposes based +on a consistent notion of the Church. They received systematic +expression from a Bohemian priest, whose work, _The Reform of the Church +in its Head and Members_, is founded on practical experience, not only +on literary theory, and is the most important manifesto of these ideas. +The author exhorts the Council to restrict centralisation, to reduce the +office of the Holy See to the ancient limits of its primacy, to restore +to the Episcopate the prerogatives which have been confiscated by Rome, +to abolish the temporal government, which is the prop of hierarchical +despotism, to revise the matrimonial discipline, to suppress many +religious orders and the solemn vows for all, to modify the absolute +rule of celibacy for the clergy, to admit the use of the vernacular in +the Liturgy, to allow a larger share to the laity in the management of +ecclesiastical affairs, to encourage the education of the clergy at +universities, and to renounce the claims of mediaeval theocracy, which +are fruitful of suspicion between Church and State. + +Many Catholics in many countries concurred in great part of this +programme; but it was not the symbol of a connected party. Few agreed +with the author in all parts of his ideal church, or did not think that +he had omitted essential points. Among the inveterate abuses which the +Council of Trent failed to extirpate was the very one which gave the +first impulse to Lutheranism. The belief is still retained in the +superficial Catholicism of Southern Europe that the Pope can release the +dead from Purgatory; and money is obtained at Rome on the assurance that +every mass said at a particular altar opens heaven to the soul for which +it is offered up. On the other hand, the Index of prohibited books is an +institution of Tridentine origin, which has become so unwieldy and +opprobrious that even men of strong Roman sympathies, like the bishops +of Wuerzburg and St. Poelten, recommended its reform. In France it was +thought that the Government would surrender the organic articles, if the +rights of the bishops and the clergy were made secure under the canon +law, if national and diocesan synods were introduced, and if a +proportionate share was given to Catholic countries in the Sacred +College and the Roman congregations. The aspiration in which all the +advocates of reform seemed to unite was that those customs should be +changed which are connected with arbitrary power in the Church. And all +the interests threatened by this movement combined in the endeavour to +maintain intact the papal prerogative. To proclaim the Pope infallible +was their compendious security against hostile States and Churches, +against human liberty and authority, against disintegrating tolerance +and rationalising science, against error and sin. It became the common +refuge of those who shunned what was called the liberal influence in +Catholicism. + +Pius IX. constantly asserted that the desire of obtaining the +recognition of papal infallibility was not originally his motive in +convoking the Council. He did not require that a privilege which was +practically undisputed should be further defined. The bishops, +especially those of the minority, were never tired of saying that the +Catholic world honoured and obeyed the Pope as it had never done before. +Virtually he had exerted all the authority which the dogma could confer +on him. In his first important utterance, the Encyclical of November +1846, he announced that he was infallible; and the claim raised no +commotion. Later on he applied a more decisive test, and gained a more +complete success, when the bishops summoned to Rome, not as a Council +but as an audience, received from him an additional article of their +faith. But apart from the dogma of infallibility he had a strong desire +to establish certain cherished opinions of his own on a basis firm +enough to outlast his time. They were collected in the Syllabus, which +contained the essence of what he had written during many years, and was +an abridgment of the lessons which his life had taught him. He was +anxious that they should not be lost. They were part of a coherent +system. The Syllabus was not rejected; but its edge was blunted and its +point broken by the zeal which was spent in explaining it away; and the +Pope feared that it would be contested if he repudiated the soothing +interpretations. In private he said that he wished to have no +interpreter but himself. While the Jesuit preachers proclaimed that the +Syllabus bore the full sanction of infallibility, higher functionaries +of the Court pointed out that it was an informal document, without +definite official value. Probably the Pope would have been content that +these his favourite ideas should be rescued from evasion by being +incorporated in the canons of the Council. Papal infallibility was +implied rather than included among them. Whilst the authority of his +acts was not resisted, he was not eager to disparage his right by +exposing the need of a more exact definition. The opinions which Pius +IX. was anxiously promoting were not the mere fruit of his private +meditations; they belonged to the doctrines of a great party, which was +busily pursuing its own objects, and had not been always the party of +the Pope. In the days of his trouble he had employed an advocate; and +the advocate had absorbed the client. During his exile a Jesuit had +asked his approbation for a Review, to be conducted by the best talents +of the Order, and to be devoted to the papal cause; and he had warmly +embraced the idea, less, it should seem, as a prince than as a divine. +There were his sovereign rights to maintain; but there was also a +doctrinaire interest, there were reminiscences of study as well as +practical objects that recommended the project. In these personal views +the Pope was not quite consistent. He had made himself the idol of +Italian patriots, and of the liberal French Catholics; he had set +Theiner to vindicate the suppresser of the Jesuits; and Rosmini, the +most enlightened priest in Italy, had been his trusted friend. After his +restoration he submitted to other influences; and the writers of the +_Civilta Cattolica_, which followed him to Rome and became his +acknowledged organ, acquired power over his mind. These men were not +identified with their Order. Their General, Roothan, had disliked the +plan of the Review, foreseeing that the Society would be held +responsible for writings which it did not approve, and would forfeit the +flexibility in adapting itself to the moods of different countries, +which is one of the secrets of its prosperity. The Pope arranged the +matter by taking the writers under his own protection, and giving to +them a sort of exemption and partial immunity under the rule of their +Order. They are set apart from other Jesuits; they are assisted and +supplied from the literary resources of the Order, and are animated more +than any of its other writers by its genuine and characteristic spirit; +but they act on their own judgment under the guidance of the Pope, and +are a bodyguard, told off from the army, for the personal protection of +the Sovereign. It is their easy function to fuse into one system the +interests and ideas of the Pope and those of their Society. The result +has been, not to weaken by compromise and accommodation, but to +intensify both. The prudence and sagacity which are sustained in the +government of the Jesuits by their complicated checks on power, and +their consideration for the interests of the Order under many various +conditions, do not always restrain men who are partially emancipated +from its rigorous discipline and subject to a more capricious rule. They +were chosen in their capacity as Jesuits, for the sake of the peculiar +spirit which their system develops. The Pope appointed them on account +of that devotion to himself which is a quality of the Order, and +relieved them from some of the restraints which it imposes. He wished +for something more papal than other Jesuits; and he himself became more +subject to the Jesuits than other pontiffs. He made them a channel of +his influence, and became an instrument of their own. + +The Jesuits had continued to gain ground in Rome ever since the Pope's +return. They had suffered more than others in the revolution that +dethroned him; and they had their reward in the restoration. They had +long been held in check by the Dominicans; but the theology of the +Dominicans had been discountenanced and their spirit broken in 1854, +when a doctrine which they had contested for centuries was proclaimed a +dogma of faith. In the strife for the Pope's temporal dominion the +Jesuits were most zealous; and they were busy in the preparation and in +the defence of the Syllabus. They were connected with every measure for +which the Pope most cared; and their divines became the oracles of the +Roman congregations. The papal infallibility had been always their +favourite doctrine. Its adoption by the Council promised to give to +their theology official warrant, and to their Order the supremacy in the +Church. They were now in power; and they snatched their opportunity when +the Council was convoked. + +Efforts to establish this doctrine had been going on for years. The +dogmatic decree of 1854 involved it so distinctly that its formal +recognition seemed to be only a question of time and zeal. People even +said that it was the real object of that decree to create a precedent +which should make it impossible afterwards to deny papal infallibility. +The Catechisms were altered, or new ones were substituted, in which it +was taught. After 1852 the doctrine began to show itself in the Acts of +provincial synods, and it was afterwards supposed that the bishops of +those provinces were committed to it. One of these synods was held at +Cologne; and three surviving members were in the Council at Rome, of +whom two were in the minority, and the third had continued in his +writings to oppose the doctrine of infallibility, after it had found its +way into the Cologne decree. The suspicion that the Acts had been +tampered with is suggested by what passed at the synod of Baltimore in +1866. The Archbishop of St. Louis signed the Acts of that synod under +protest, and after obtaining a pledge that his protest would be inserted +by the apostolic delegate. The pledge was not kept. "I complain," writes +the archbishop, "that the promise which had been given was broken. The +Acts ought to have been published in their integrity, or not at +all."[371] This process was carried on so boldly that men understood +what was to come. Protestants foretold that the Catholics would not rest +until the Pope was formally declared infallible; and a prelate returning +from the meeting of bishops at Rome in 1862 was startled at being asked +by a clear-sighted friend whether infallibility had not been brought +forward. + +It was produced not then, but at the next great meeting, in 1867. The +Council had been announced; and the bishops wished to present an address +to the Pope. Haynald, Archbishop of Colocza, held the pen, assisted by +Franchi, one of the clever Roman prelates and by some bishops, among +whom were the Archbishop of Westminster and the Bishop of Orleans. An +attempt was made to get the papal infallibility acknowledged in the +address. Several bishops declared that they could not show themselves in +their dioceses if they came back without having done anything for that +doctrine. They were resisted in a way which made them complain that its +very name irritated the French. Haynald refused their demand, but agreed +to insert the well-known words of the Council of Florence; and the +bishops did not go away empty-handed. + +A few days before this attempt was made, the _Civilta Cattolica_ had +begun to agitate, by proposing that Catholics should bind themselves to +die, if need be, for the truth of the doctrine; and the article was +printed on a separate sheet, bearing the papal _imprimatur_, and +distributed widely. The check administered by Haynald and his colleagues +brought about a lull in the movement; but the French bishops had taken +alarm, and Maret, the most learned of them, set about the preparation of +his book. + +During the winter of 1868-69 several commissions were created in Rome to +make ready the materials for the Council. The dogmatic commission +included the Jesuits Perrone, Schrader, and Franzelin. The question of +infallibility was proposed to it by Cardoni, Archbishop of Edessa, in a +dissertation which, having been revised, was afterwards published, and +accepted by the leading Roman divines as an adequate exposition of their +case. The dogma was approved unanimously, with the exception of one +vote, Alzog of Freiberg being the only dissentient. When the other +German divines who were in Rome learned the scheme that was on foot in +the Dogmatic Commission, they resolved to protest, but were prevented by +some of their colleagues. They gave the alarm in Germany. The intention +to proclaim infallibility at the Council was no longer a secret. The +first bishop who made the wish public was Fessler of St. Poelten. His +language was guarded, and he only prepared his readers for a probable +contingency; but he was soon followed by the Bishop of Nimes, who +thought the discussion of the dogma superfluous, and foreshadowed a vote +by acclamation. The _Civilta_ on the 6th of February gave utterance to +the hope that the Council would not hesitate to proclaim the dogma and +confirm the Syllabus in less than a month. Five days later the Pope +wrote to some Venetians who had taken a vow to uphold his infallibility, +encouraging their noble resolution to defend his supreme authority and +all his rights. Until the month of May Cardinal Antonelli's confidential +language to diplomatists was that the dogma was to be proclaimed, and +that it would encounter no difficulty. + +Cardinal Reisach was to have been the President of the Council. As +Archbishop of Munich he had allowed himself and his diocese to be +governed by the ablest of all the ultramontane divines. During his long +residence in Rome he rose to high estimation, because he was reputed to +possess the secret, and to have discovered the vanity, of German +science. He had amused himself with Christian antiquities; and his +friendship for the great explorer De' Rossi brought him for a time under +suspicion of liberality. But later he became unrelenting in his ardour +for the objects of the _Civilta_, and regained the confidence of the +Pope. The German bishops complained that he betrayed their interests, +and that their church had suffered mischief from his paramount +influence. But in Rome his easy temper and affable manners made him +friends; and the Court knew that there was no cardinal on whom it was so +safe to rely. + +Fessler, the first bishop who gave the signal of the intended +definition, was appointed Secretary. He was esteemed a learned man in +Austria, and he was wisely chosen to dispel the suspicion that the +conduct of the Council was to be jealously retained in Roman hands, and +to prove that there are qualities by which the confidence of the Court +could be won by men of a less favoured nation. Besides the President and +Secretary, the most conspicuous of the Pope's theological advisers was +a German. At the time when Passaglia's reputation was great in Rome, +his companion Clement Schrader shared the fame of his solid erudition. +When Passaglia fell into disgrace, his friend smote him with reproaches +and intimated the belief that he would follow the footsteps of Luther +and debauch a nun. Schrader is the most candid and consistent asserter +of the papal claims. He does not shrink from the consequences of the +persecuting theory; and he has given the most authentic and unvarnished +exposition of the Syllabus. He was the first who spoke out openly what +others were variously attempting to compromise or to conceal. While the +Paris Jesuits got into trouble for extenuating the Roman doctrine, and +had to be kept up to the mark by an abbe who reminded them that the +Pope, as a physical person, and without co-operation of the Episcopate, +is infallible, Schrader proclaimed that his will is supreme even against +the joint and several opinions of the bishops.[372] + +When the proceedings of the dogmatic commission, the acts of the Pope, +and the language of French and Austrian bishops, and of the press +serving the interests of Rome, announced that the proclamation of +infallibility had ceased to be merely the aspiration of a party and was +the object of a design deliberately set on foot by those to whom the +preparation and management of the Council pertained, men became aware +that an extraordinary crisis was impending, and that they needed to make +themselves familiar with an unforeseen problem. The sense of its gravity +made slow progress. The persuasion was strong among divines that the +episcopate would not surrender to a party which was odious to many of +them; and politicians were reluctant to believe that schemes were +ripening such as Fessler described, schemes intended to alter the +relations between Church and State. When the entire plan was made public +by the _alleging Zeitung_ in March 1869, many refused to be convinced. + +It happened that a statesman was in office who had occasion to know that +the information was accurate. The Prime Minister of Bavaria, Prince +Hohenlohe, was the brother of a cardinal; the University of Munich was +represented on the Roman commissions by an illustrious scholar; and the +news of the thing that was preparing came through trustworthy channels. +On the 9th of April Prince Hohenlohe sent out a diplomatic circular on +the subject of the Council. He pointed out that it was not called into +existence by any purely theological emergency, and that the one dogma +which was to be brought before it involved all those claims which cause +collisions between Church and State, and threaten the liberty and the +security of governments. Of the five Roman Commissions, one was +appointed for the express purpose of dealing with the mixed topics +common to religion and to politics. Besides infallibility and politics, +the Council was to be occupied with the Syllabus, which is in part +directed against maxims of State. The avowed purpose of the Council +being so largely political, the governments could not remain indifferent +to its action; lest they should be driven afterwards to adopt measures +which would be hostile, it would be better at once to seek an +understanding by friendly means and to obtain assurance that all +irritating deliberations should be avoided, and no business touching the +State transacted except in presence of its representatives. He proposed +that the governments should hold a conference to arrange a plan for the +protection of their common interest. + +Important measures proposed by small States are subject to suspicion of +being prompted by a greater Power. Prince Hohenlohe, as a friend of the +Prussian alliance, was supposed to be acting in this matter in concert +with Berlin. This good understanding was suspected at Vienna; for the +Austrian Chancellor was more conspicuous as an enemy of Prussia than +Hohenlohe as a friend. Count Beust traced the influence of Count +Bismarck in the Bavarian circular. He replied, on behalf of the Catholic +empire of Austria, that there were no grounds to impute political +objects to the Council, and that repression and not prevention was the +only policy compatible with free institutions. After the refusal of +Austria, the idea of a conference was dismissed by the other Powers; and +the first of the storm clouds that darkened the horizon of infallibility +passed without breaking. + +Although united action was abandoned, the idea of sending ambassadors to +the Council still offered the most inoffensive and amicable means of +preventing the danger of subsequent conflict. Its policy or impolicy was +a question to be decided by France. Several bishops, and Cardinal +Bonnechose among the rest, urged the Government to resume its ancient +privilege, and send a representative. But two powerful parties, united +in nothing else, agreed in demanding absolute neutrality. The democracy +wished that no impediment should be put in the way of an enterprise +which promised to sever the connection of the State with the Church. M. +Ollivier set forth this opinion in July 1868, in a speech which was to +serve him in his candidature for office; and in the autumn of 1869 it +was certain that he would soon be in power. The ministers could not +insist on being admitted to the Council, where they were not invited, +without making a violent demonstration in a direction they knew would +not be followed. The ultramontanes were even more eager than their +enemies to exclude an influence that might embarrass their policy. The +Archbishop of Paris, by giving the same advice, settled the question. He +probably reckoned on his own power of mediating between France and Rome. +The French Court long imagined that the dogma would be set aside, and +that the mass of the French bishops opposed it. At last they perceived +that they were mistaken, and the Emperor said to Cardinal Bonnechose, +"You are going to give your signature to decrees already made." He +ascertained the names of the bishops who would resist; and it was known +that he was anxious for their success. But he was resolved that it +should be gained by them, and not by the pressure of his diplomacy at +the cost of displeasing the Pope. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and +his chief secretary were counted by the Court of Rome among its friends; +and the ordinary ambassador started for his post with instructions to +conciliate, and to run no risk of a quarrel. He arrived at Rome +believing that there would be a speculative conflict between the +extremes of Roman and German theology, which would admit of being +reconciled by the safer and more sober wisdom of the French bishops, +backed by an impartial embassy. His credulity was an encumbrance to the +cause which it was his mission and his wish to serve. + +In Germany the plan of penetrating the Council with lay influence took a +strange form. It was proposed that the German Catholics should be +represented by King John of Saxony. As a Catholic and a scholar, who had +shown, in his Commentary on Dante, that he had read St. Thomas, and as a +prince personally esteemed by the Pope, it was conceived that his +presence would be a salutary restraint. It was an impracticable idea; +but letters which reached Rome during the winter raised an impression +that the King regretted that he could not be there. The opinion of +Germany would still have some weight if the North and South, which +included more than thirteen millions of Catholics, worked together. It +was the policy of Hohenlohe to use this united force, and the +ultramontanes learned to regard him as a very formidable antagonist. +When their first great triumph, in the election of the Commission on +Doctrine, was accomplished, the commentary of a Roman prelate was, "Che +colpo per il Principe Hohenlohe!" The Bavarian envoy in Rome did not +share the views of his chief, and he was recalled in November. His +successor had capacity to carry out the known policy of the prince; but +early in the winter the ultramontanes drove Hohenlohe from office, and +their victory, though it was exercised with moderation, and was not +followed by a total change of policy, neutralised the influence of +Bavaria in the Council. + +The fall of Hohenlohe and the abstention of France hampered the Federal +Government of Northern Germany. For its Catholic subjects, and +ultimately in view of the rivalry with France, to retain the friendship +of the papacy is a fixed maxim at Berlin. Count Bismarck laid down the +rule that Prussia should display no definite purpose in a cause which +was not her own, but should studiously keep abreast of the North German +bishops. Those bishops neither invoked, nor by their conduct invited, +the co-operation of the State; and its influence would have been +banished from the Council but for the minister who represented it in +Rome. The vicissitudes of a General Council are so far removed from the +normal experience of statesmen that they could not well be studied or +acted upon from a distance. A government that strictly controlled and +dictated the conduct of its envoy was sure to go wrong, and to frustrate +action by theory. A government that trusted the advice of its minister +present on the spot enjoyed a great advantage. Baron Arnim was +favourably situated. A Catholic belonging to any but the ultramontane +school would have been less willingly listened to in Rome than a +Protestant who was a conservative in politics, and whose regard for the +interests of religion was so undamaged by the sectarian taint that he +was known to be sincere in the wish that Catholics should have cause to +rejoice in the prosperity of their Church. The apathy of Austria and the +vacillation of France contributed to his influence, for he enjoyed the +confidence of bishops from both countries; and he was able to guide his +own government in its course towards the Council. + +The English Government was content to learn more and to speak less than +the other Powers at Rome. The usual distrust of the Roman Court towards +a Liberal ministry in England was increased at the moment by the measure +which the Catholics had desired and applauded. It seemed improbable to +men more solicitous for acquired rights than for general political +principle, that Protestant statesmen who disestablished their own Church +could feel a very sincere interest in the welfare of another. Ministers +so Utopian as to give up solid goods for an imaginary righteousness +seemed, as practical advisers, open to grave suspicion. Mr. Gladstone +was feared as the apostle of those doctrines to which Rome owes many +losses. Public opinion in England was not prepared to look on papal +infallibility as a matter of national concern, more than other dogmas +which make enemies to Catholicism. Even if the Government could have +admitted the Prussian maxim of keeping in line with the bishops, it +would have accomplished nothing. The English bishops were divided; but +the Irish bishops, who are the natural foes of the Fenian plot, were by +an immense majority on the ultramontane side. There was almost an +ostentation of care on the part of the Government to avoid the +appearance of wishing to influence the bishops or the Court of Rome. +When at length England publicly concurred in the remonstrances of +France, events had happened which showed that the Council was raising up +dangers for both Catholic and liberal interests. It was a result so easy +to foresee, that the Government had made it clear from the beginning +that its extreme reserve was not due to indifference. + +The lesser Catholic Powers were almost unrepresented in Rome. The +government of the Regent of Spain possessed no moral authority over +bishops appointed by the Queen; and the revolution had proved so hostile +to the clergy that they were forced to depend on the Pope. Diplomatic +relations being interrupted, there was nothing to restrain them from +seeking favour by unqualified obedience. + +Portugal had appointed the Count de Lavradio ambassador to the Council; +but when he found that he was alone he retained only the character of +envoy to the Holy See. He had weight with the small group of Portuguese +bishops; but he died before he could be of use, and they drifted into +submission. + +Belgium was governed by M. Frere Orban, one of the most anxious and +laborious enemies of the hierarchy, who had no inducement to interfere +with an event which justified his enmity, and was, moreover, the +unanimous wish of the Belgian Episcopate. When Protestant and Catholic +Powers joined in exhorting Rome to moderation, Belgium was left out. +Russia was the only Power that treated the Church with actual hostility +during the Council, and calculated the advantage to be derived from +decrees which would intensify the schism. + +Italy was more deeply interested in the events at Rome than any other +nation. The hostility of the clergy was felt both in the political and +financial difficulties of the kingdom; and the prospect of conciliation +would suffer equally from decrees confirming the Roman claims, or from +an invidious interposition of the State. Public opinion watched the +preparations for the Council with frivolous disdain; but the course to +be taken was carefully considered by the Menabrea Cabinet. The laws +still subsisted which enabled the State to interfere in religious +affairs; and the government was legally entitled to prohibit the +attendance of the bishops at the Council, or to recall them from it. The +confiscated church property was retained by the State, and the claims of +the episcopate were not yet settled. More than one hundred votes on +which Rome counted belonged to Italian subjects. The means of applying +administrative pressure were therefore great, though diplomatic action +was impossible. The Piedmontese wished that the resources of their +ecclesiastical jurisprudence should be set in motion. But Minghetti, who +had lately joined the Ministry, warmly advocated the opinion that the +supreme principle of the liberty of the Church ought to override the +remains of the older legislation, in a State consistently free; and, +with the disposition of the Italians to confound Catholicism with the +hierarchy, the policy of abstention was a triumph of liberality. The +idea of Prince Hohenlohe, that religion ought to be maintained in its +integrity and not only in its independence, that society is interested +in protecting the Church even against herself, and that the enemies of +her liberty are ecclesiastical as well as political, could find no +favour in Italy. During the session of 1869, Menabrea gave no pledge to +Parliament as to the Council; and the bishops who inquired whether they +would be allowed to attend it were left unanswered until October. +Menabrea then explained in a circular that the right of the bishops to +go to the Council proceeded from the liberty of conscience, and was not +conceded under the old privileges of the crown, or as a favour that +could imply responsibility for what was to be done. If the Church was +molested in her freedom, excuse would be given for resisting the +incorporation of Rome. If the Council came to decisions injurious to the +safety of States, it would be attributed to the unnatural conditions +created by the French occupation, and might be left to the enlightened +judgment of Catholics. + +It was proposed that the fund realised by the sale of the real property +of the religious corporations should be administered for religious +purposes by local boards of trustees representing the Catholic +population, and that the State should abdicate in their favour its +ecclesiastical patronage, and proceed to discharge the unsettled claims +of the clergy. So great a change in the plans by which Sella and +Rattazzi had impoverished the Church in 1866 and 1867 would, if frankly +carried into execution, have encouraged an independent spirit among the +Italian bishops; and the reports of the prefects represented about +thirty of them as being favourable to conciliation. But the Ministry +fell in November, and was succeeded by an administration whose leading +members, Lanza and Sella, were enemies of religion. The Court of Rome +was relieved from a serious peril. + +The only European country whose influence was felt in the attitude of +its bishops was one whose government sent out no diplomatists. While the +Austrian Chancellor regarded the issue of the Council with a profane and +supercilious eye, and so much indifference prevailed at Vienna that it +was said that the ambassador at Rome did not read the decrees, and that +Count Beust did not read his despatches, the Catholic statesmen in +Hungary were intent on effecting a revolution in the Church. The system +which was about to culminate in the proclamation of infallibility, and +which tended to absorb all power from the circumference into the centre, +and to substitute authority for autonomy, had begun at the lower +extremities of the hierarchical scale. The laity, which once had its +share in the administration of Church property and in the deliberations +of the clergy, had been gradually compelled to give up its rights to the +priesthood, the priests to the bishops, and the bishops to the Pope. +Hungary undertook to redress the process, and to correct centralised +absolutism by self-government. In a memorandum drawn up in April 1848, +the bishops imputed the decay of religion to the exclusion of the people +from the management of all Church affairs, and proposed that whatever is +not purely spiritual should be conducted by mixed boards, including lay +representatives elected by the congregations. The war of the revolution +and the reaction checked this design; and the Concordat threw things +more than ever into clerical hands. The triumph of the liberal party +after the peace of Prague revived the movements; and Eoetvoes called on +the bishops to devise means of giving to the laity a share and an +interest in religious concerns. The bishops agreed unanimously to the +proposal of Deak, that the laity should have the majority in the boards +of administration; and the new constitution of the Hungarian Church was +adopted by the Catholic Congress on the 17th of October 1869, and +approved by the King on the 25th. The ruling idea of this great measure +was to make the laity supreme in all that is not liturgy and dogma, in +patronage, property, and education; to break down clerical exclusiveness +and government control; to deliver the people from the usurpations of +the hierarchy, and the Church from the usurpations of the State. It was +an attempt to reform the Church by constitutional principles, and to +crush ultramontanism by crushing Gallicanism. The Government, which had +originated the scheme, was ready to surrender its privileges to the +newly-constituted authorities; and the bishops acted in harmony with the +ministers and with public opinion. Whilst this good understanding +lasted, and while the bishops were engaged in applying the impartial +principles of self-government at home, there was a strong security that +they would not accept decrees that would undo their work. Infallibility +would not only condemn their system, but destroy their position. As the +winter advanced the influence of these things became apparent. The +ascendency which the Hungarian bishops acquired from the beginning was +due to other causes. + +The political auspices under which the Council opened were very +favourable to the papal cause. The promoters of infallibility were able +to coin resources of the enmity which was shown to the Church. The +danger which came to them from within was averted. The policy of +Hohenlohe, which was afterwards revived by Daru, had been, for a time, +completely abandoned by Europe. The battle between the papal and the +episcopal principle could come off undisturbed, in closed lists. +Political opposition there was none; but the Council had to be governed +under the glare of inevitable publicity, with a free press in Europe, +and hostile views prevalent in Catholic theology. The causes which made +religious science utterly powerless in the strife, and kept it from +grappling with the forces arrayed against it, are of deeper import than +the issue of the contest itself. + +While the voice of the bishops grew louder in praise of the Roman +designs, the Bavarian Government consulted the universities, and +elicited from the majority of the Munich faculty an opinion that the +dogma of infallibility would be attended with serious danger to society. +The author of the Bohemian pamphlet affirmed that it had not the +conditions which would enable it ever to become the object of a valid +definition. Janus compared the primacy, as it was known to the Fathers +of the Church, with the ultramontane ideal, and traced the process of +transformation through a long series of forgeries. Maret published his +book some weeks after Janus and the Reform. It had been revised by +several French bishops and divines, and was to serve as a vindication of +the Sorbonne and the Gallicans, and as the manifesto of men who were to +be present at the Council. It had not the merit of novelty or the fault +of innovation, but renewed with as little offence as possible the +language of the old French school.[373] While Janus treated +infallibility as the critical symptom of an ancient disease, Maret +restricted his argument to what was directly involved in the defence of +the Gallican position. Janus held that the doctrine was so firmly rooted +and so widely supported in the existing constitution of the Church, that +much must be modified before a genuine OEcumenical Council could be +celebrated. Maret clung to the belief that the real voice of the Church +would make itself heard at the Vatican. In direct contradiction with +Janus, he kept before him the one practical object, to gain assent by +making his views acceptable even to the unlearned. + +At the last moment a tract appeared which has been universally +attributed to Doellinger, which examined the evidences relied on by the +infallibilists, and stated briefly the case against them. It pointed to +the inference that their theory is not merely founded on an illogical +and uncritical habit, but on unremitting dishonesty in the use of texts. +This was coming near the secret of the whole controversy, and the point +that made the interference of the Powers appear the only availing +resource. For the sentiment on which infallibility is founded could not +be reached by argument, the weapon of human reason, but resided in +conclusions transcending evidence, and was the inaccessible postulate +rather than a demonstrable consequence of a system of religious faith. +The two doctrines opposed, but never met each other. It was as much an +instinct of the ultramontane theory to elude the tests of science as to +resist the control of States. Its opponents, baffled and perplexed by +the serene vitality of a view which was impervious to proof, saw want of +principle where there was really a consistent principle, and blamed the +ultramontane divines for that which was of the essence of ultramontane +divinity. How it came that no appeal to revelation or tradition, to +reason or conscience, appeared to have any bearing whatever on the +issue, is a mystery which Janus and Maret and Doellinger's reflections +left unexplained. + +The resources of mediaeval learning were too slender to preserve an +authentic record of the growth and settlement of Catholic doctrine. Many +writings of the Fathers were interpolated; others were unknown, and +spurious matter was accepted in their place. Books bearing venerable +names--Clement, Dionysius, Isidore--were forged for the purpose of +supplying authorities for opinions that lacked the sanction of +antiquity. When detection came, and it was found that fraud had been +employed in sustaining doctrines bound up with the peculiar interests of +Rome and of the religious Orders, there was an inducement to depreciate +the evidences of antiquity, and to silence a voice that bore obnoxious +testimony. The notion of tradition underwent a change; it was required +to produce what it had not preserved. The Fathers had spoken of the +unwritten teaching of the apostles, which was to be sought in the +churches they had founded, of esoteric doctrines, and views which must +be of apostolic origin because they are universal, of the inspiration of +general Councils, and a revelation continued beyond the New Testament. +But the Council of Trent resisted the conclusions which this language +seemed to countenance, and they were left to be pursued by private +speculation. One divine deprecated the vain pretence of arguing from +Scripture, by which Luther could not be confuted, and the Catholics were +losing ground;[374] and at Trent a speaker averred that Christian +doctrine had been so completely determined by the Schoolmen that there +was no further need to recur to Scripture. This idea is not extinct, and +Perrone uses it to explain the inferiority of Catholics as Biblical +critics.[375] If the Bible is inspired, says Peresius, still more must +its interpretation be inspired. It must be interpreted variously, says +the Cardinal of Cusa, according to necessity; a change in the opinion of +the Church implies a change in the will of God.[376] One of the greatest +Tridentine divines declares that a doctrine must be true if the Church +believes it, without any warrant from Scripture. According to Petavius, +the general belief of Catholics at a given time is the work of God, and +of higher authority than all antiquity and all the Fathers. Scripture +may be silent, and tradition contradictory, but the Church is +independent of both. Any doctrine which Catholic divines commonly +assert, without proof, to be revealed, must be taken as revealed. The +testimony of Rome, as the only remaining apostolic Church, is equivalent +to an unbroken chain of tradition.[377] In this way, after Scripture had +been subjugated, tradition itself was deposed; and the constant belief +of the past yielded to the general conviction of the present. And, as +antiquity had given way to universality, universality made way for +authority. The Word of God and the authority of the Church came to be +declared the two sources of religious knowledge. Divines of this school, +after preferring the Church to the Bible, preferred the modern Church to +the ancient, and ended by sacrificing both to the Pope. "We have not the +authority of Scripture," wrote Prierias in his defence of Indulgences, +"but we have the higher authority of the Roman pontiffs."[378] A bishop +who had been present at Trent confesses that in matters of faith he +would believe a single Pope rather than a thousand Fathers, saints, and +doctors.[379] The divine training develops an orthodox instinct in the +Church, which shows itself in the lives of devout but ignorant men more +than in the researches of the learned, and teaches authority not to need +the help of science, and not to heed its opposition. All the arguments +by which theology supports a doctrine may prove to be false, without +diminishing the certainty of its truth. The Church has not obtained, and +is not bound to sustain it, by proof. She is supreme over fact as over +doctrine, as Fenelon argues, because she is the supreme expounder of +tradition, which is a chain of facts.[380] Accordingly, the organ of one +ultramontane bishop lately declared that infallibility could be defined +without arguments; and the Bishop of Nimes thought that the decision +need not be preceded by long and careful discussion. The Dogmatic +Commission of the Council proclaims that the existence of tradition has +nothing to do with evidence, and that objections taken from history are +not valid when contradicted by ecclesiastical decrees.[381] Authority +must conquer history. + +This inclination to get rid of evidence was specially associated with +the doctrine of papal infallibility, because it is necessary that the +Popes themselves should not testify against their own claim. They may be +declared superior to all other authorities, but not to that of their own +see. Their history is not irrelevant to the question of their rights. It +could not be disregarded; and the provocation to alter or to deny its +testimony was so urgent that men of piety and learning became a prey to +the temptation of deceit. When it was discovered in the manuscript of +the _Liber Diurnus_ that the Popes had for centuries condemned Honorius +in their profession of faith, Cardinal Bona, the most eminent man in +Rome, advised that the book should be suppressed if the difficulty could +not be got over; and it was suppressed accordingly.[382] Men guilty of +this kind of fraud would justify it by saying that their religion +transcends the wisdom of philosophers, and cannot submit to the +criticism of historians. If any fact manifestly contradicts a dogma, +that is a warning to science to revise the evidence. There must be some +defect in the materials or in the method. Pending its discovery, the +true believer is constrained humbly but confidently to deny the fact. + +The protest of conscience against this fraudulent piety grew loud and +strong as the art of criticism became more certain. The use made of it +by Catholics in the literature of the present age, and their acceptance +of the conditions of scientific controversy, seemed to ecclesiastical +authorities a sacrifice of principle. A jealousy arose that ripened into +antipathy. Almost every writer who really served Catholicism fell sooner +or later under the disgrace or the suspicion of Rome. But its censures +had lost efficacy; and it was found that the progress of literature +could only be brought under control by an increase of authority. This +could be obtained if a general council declared the decisions of the +Roman congregations absolute, and the Pope infallible. + +The division between the Roman and the Catholic elements in the Church +made it hopeless to mediate between them; and it is strange that men who +must have regarded each other as insincere Christians or as insincere +Catholics, should not have perceived that their meeting in Council was +an imposture. It may be that a portion, though only a small portion, of +those who failed to attend, stayed away from that motive. But the view +proscribed at Rome was not largely represented in the episcopate; and it +was doubtful whether it would be manifested at all. The opposition did +not spring from it, but maintained itself by reducing to the utmost the +distance that separated it from the strictly Roman opinions, and +striving to prevent the open conflict of principles. It was composed of +ultramontanes in the mask of liberals, and of liberals in the mask of +ultramontanes. Therefore the victory or defeat of the minority was not +the supreme issue of the Council. Besides and above the definition of +infallibility arose the question how far the experience of the actual +encounter would open the eyes and search the hearts of the reluctant +bishops, and how far their language and their attitude would contribute +to the impulse of future reform. There was a point of view from which +the failure of all attempts to avert the result by false issues and +foreign intrusion, and the success of the measures which repelled +conciliation and brought on an open struggle and an overwhelming +triumph, were means to another and a more importunate end. + +Two events occurred in the autumn which portended trouble for the +winter. On the 6th of September nineteen German bishops, assembled at +Fulda, published a pastoral letter in which they affirmed that the whole +episcopate was perfectly unanimous, that the Council would neither +introduce new dogmas nor invade the civil province, and that the Pope +intended its deliberations to be free. The patent and direct meaning of +this declaration was that the bishops repudiated the design announced by +the _Civilta_ and the _alleging Zeitung_, and it was received at Rome +with indignation. But it soon appeared that it was worded with studied +ambiguity, to be signed by men of opposite opinions, and to conceal the +truth. The Bishop of Mentz read a paper, written by a professor of +Wuerzburg, against the wisdom of raising the question, but expressed his +own belief in the dogma of papal infallibility; and when another bishop +stated his disbelief in it, the Bishop of Paderborn assured him that +Rome would soon strip him of his heretical skin. The majority wished to +prevent the definition, if possible, without disputing the doctrine; and +they wrote a private letter to the Pope warning him of the danger, and +entreating him to desist. Several bishops who had signed the pastoral +refused their signatures to the private letter. It caused so much dismay +at Rome that its nature was carefully concealed; and a diplomatist was +able to report, on the authority of Cardinal Antonelli, that it did not +exist. + +In the middle of November, the Bishop of Orleans took leave of his +diocese in a letter which touched lightly on the learned questions +connected with papal infallibility, but described the objections to the +definition as of such a kind that they could not be removed. Coming from +a prelate who was so conspicuous as a champion of the papacy, who had +saved the temporal power and justified the Syllabus, this declaration +unexpectedly altered the situation at Rome. It was clear that the +definition would be opposed, and that the opposition would have the +support of illustrious names. + +The bishops who began to arrive early in November were received with the +assurance that the alarm which had been raised was founded on phantoms. +It appeared that nobody had dreamed of defining infallibility, or that, +if the idea had been entertained at all, it had been abandoned. +Cardinals Antonelli, Berardi, and De Luca, and the Secretary Fessler +disavowed the _Civilta_. The ardent indiscretion that was displayed +beyond the Alps contrasted strangely with the moderation, the friendly +candour, the majestic and impartial wisdom, which were found to reign in +the higher sphere of the hierarchy. A bishop, afterwards noted among the +opponents of the dogma, wrote home that the idea that infallibility was +to be defined was entirely unfounded. It was represented as a mere +fancy, got up in Bavarian newspapers, with evil intent; and the Bishop +of Sura had been its dupe. The insidious report would have deserved +contempt if it had caused a revival of obsolete opinions. It was a +challenge to the Council to herald it with such demonstrations, and it +unfortunately became difficult to leave it unnoticed. The decision must +be left to the bishops. The Holy See could not restrain their legitimate +ardour, if they chose to express it; but it would take no initiative. +Whatever was done would require to be done with so much moderation as to +satisfy everybody, and to avoid the offence of a party triumph. Some +suggested that there should be no anathema for those who questioned the +doctrine; and one prelate imagined that a formula could be contrived +which even Janus could not dispute, and which yet would be found in +reality to signify that the Pope is infallible. There was a general +assumption that no materials existed for contention among the bishops, +and that they stood united against the world. + +Cardinal Antonelli openly refrained from connecting himself with the +preparation of the Council, and surrounded himself with divines who were +not of the ruling party. He had never learned to doubt the dogma itself; +but he was keenly alive to the troubles it would bring upon him, and +thought that the Pope was preparing a repetition of the difficulties +which followed the beginning of his pontificate. He was not trusted as a +divine, or consulted on questions of theology; but he was expected to +ward off political complications, and he kept the ground with +unflinching skill. + +The Pope exhorted the diplomatic corps to aid him in allaying the alarm +of the infatuated Germans. He assured one diplomatist that the _Civilta_ +did not speak in his name. He told another that he would sanction no +proposition that could sow dissension among the bishops. He said to a +third, "You come to be present at a scene of pacification." He described +his object in summoning the Council to be to obtain a remedy for old +abuses and for recent errors. More than once, addressing a group of +bishops, he said that he would do nothing to raise disputes among them, +and would be content with a declaration in favour of intolerance. He +wished of course that Catholicism should have the benefit of toleration +in England and Russia, but the principle must be repudiated by a Church +holding the doctrine of exclusive salvation. The meaning of this +intimation, that persecution would do as a substitute for infallibility, +was that the most glaring obstacle to the definition would be removed if +the Inquisition was recognised as consistent with Catholicism. Indeed it +seemed that infallibility was a means to an end which could be obtained +in other ways, and that he would have been satisfied with a decree +confirming the twenty-third article of the Syllabus, and declaring that +no Pope has ever exceeded the just bounds of his authority in faith, in +politics, or in morals.[383] + +Most of the bishops had allowed themselves to be reassured, when the +Bull _Multiplices inter_, regulating the procedure at the Council, was +put into circulation in the first days of December. The Pope assumed to +himself the sole initiative in proposing topics, and the exclusive +nomination of the officers of the Council. He invited the bishops to +bring forward their own proposals, but required that they should submit +them first of all to a Commission which was appointed by himself, and +consisted half of Italians. If any proposal was allowed to pass by this +Commission, it had still to obtain the sanction of the Pope, who could +therefore exclude at will any topic, even if the whole Council wished to +discuss it. Four elective Commissions were to mediate between the +Council and the Pope. When a decree had been discussed and opposed, it +was to be referred, together with the amendments, to one of these +Commissions, where it was to be reconsidered, with the aid of divines. +When it came back from the Commission with corrections and remarks, it +was to be put to the vote without further debate. What the Council +discussed was to be the work of unknown divines: what it voted was to be +the work of a majority in a Commission of twenty-four. It was in the +election of these Commissions that the episcopate obtained the chance of +influencing the formation of its decrees. But the papal theologians +retained their predominance, for they might be summoned to defend or +alter their work in the Commission, from which the bishops who had +spoken or proposed amendments were excluded. Practically, the right of +initiative was the deciding point. Even if the first regulation had +remained in force, the bishops could never have recovered the surprises, +and the difficulty of preparing for unforeseen debates. The regulation +ultimately broke down under the mistake of allowing the decree to be +debated only once, and that in its crude state, as it came from the +hands of the divines. The authors of the measure had not contemplated +any real discussion. It was so unlike the way in which business was +conducted at Trent, where the right of the episcopate was formally +asserted, where the envoys were consulted, and the bishops discussed the +questions in several groups before the general congregations, that the +printed text of the Tridentine Regulation was rigidly suppressed. It was +further provided that the reports of the speeches should not be +communicated to the bishops; and the strictest secrecy was enjoined on +all concerning the business of the Council. The bishops, being under no +obligation to observe this rule, were afterwards informed that it bound +them under grievous sin. + +This important precept did not succeed in excluding the action of public +opinion. It could be applied only to the debates; and many bishops spoke +with greater energy and freedom before an assembly of their own order +than they would have done if their words had been taken down by +Protestants, to be quoted against them at home. But printed documents, +distributed in seven hundred copies, could not be kept secret. The rule +was subject to exceptions which destroyed its efficacy; and the Roman +cause was discredited by systematic concealment, and advocacy that +abounded in explanation and colour, but abstained from the substance of +fact. Documents couched in the usual official language, being dragged +into the forbidden light of day, were supposed to reveal dark mysteries. +The secrecy of the debates had a bad effect in exaggerating reports and +giving wide scope to fancy. Rome was not vividly interested in the +discussions; but its cosmopolitan society was thronged with the several +adherents of leading bishops, whose partiality compromised their dignity +and envenomed their disputes. Everything that was said was repeated, +inflated, and distorted. Whoever had a sharp word for an adversary, +which could not be spoken in Council, knew of an audience that would +enjoy and carry the matter. The battles of the Aula were fought over +again, with anecdote, epigram, and fiction. A distinguished courtesy and +nobleness of tone prevailed at the beginning. When the Archbishop of +Halifax went down to his place on the 28th of December, after delivering +the speech which taught the reality of the opposition, the Presidents +bowed to him as he passed them. The denunciations of the Roman system by +Strossmayer and Darboy were listened to in January without a murmur. +Adversaries paid exorbitant compliments to each other, like men whose +disagreements were insignificant, and who were one at heart. As the plot +thickened, fatigue, excitement, friends who fetched and carried, made +the tone more bitter. In February the Bishop of Laval described +Dupanloup publicly as the centre of a conspiracy too shameful to be +expressed in words, and professed that he would rather die than be +associated with such iniquity. One of the minority described his +opponents as having disported themselves on a certain occasion like a +herd of cattle. By that time the whole temper of the Council had been +changed; the Pope himself had gone into the arena; and violence of +language and gesture had become an artifice adopted to hasten the end. + +When the Council opened, many bishops were bewildered and dispirited by +the Bull _Multiplices_. They feared that a struggle could not be +averted, as, even if no dogmatic question was raised, their rights were +cancelled in a way that would make the Pope absolute in dogma. One of +the Cardinals caused him to be informed that the Regulation would be +resisted. But Pius IX. knew that in all that procession of 750 bishops +one idea prevailed. Men whose word is powerful in the centres of +civilisation, men who three months before were confronting martyrdom +among barbarians, preachers at Notre Dame, professors from Germany, +Republicans from Western America, men with every sort of training and +every sort of experience, had come together as confident and as eager as +the prelates of Rome itself, to hail the Pope infallible. Resistance was +improbable, for it was hopeless. It was improbable that bishops who had +refused no token of submission for twenty years would now combine to +inflict dishonour on the Pope. In their address of 1867 they had +confessed that he is the father and teacher of all Christians; that all +the things he has spoken were spoken by St. Peter through him; that they +would believe and teach all that he believed and taught. In 1854 they +had allowed him to proclaim a dogma, which some of them dreaded and some +opposed, but to which all submitted when he had decreed without the +intervention of a Council. The recent display of opposition did not +justify serious alarm. The Fulda bishops feared the consequences in +Germany; but they affirmed that all were united, and that there would be +no new dogma. They were perfectly informed of all that was being got +ready in Rome. The words of their pastoral meant nothing if they did not +mean that infallibility was no new dogma, and that all the bishops +believed in it. Even the Bishop of Orleans avoided a direct attack on +the doctrine, proclaimed his own devotion to the Pope, and promised that +the Council would be a scene of concord.[384] It was certain that any +real attempt that might be made to prevent the definition could be +overwhelmed by the preponderance of those bishops whom the modern +constitution of the Church places in dependence on Rome. + +The only bishops whose position made them capable of resisting were the +Germans and the French; and all that Rome would have to contend with was +the modern liberalism and decrepit Gallicanism of France, and the +science of Germany. The Gallican school was nearly extinct; it had no +footing in other countries, and it was essentially odious to the +liberals. The most serious minds of the liberal party were conscious +that Rome was as dangerous to ecclesiastical liberty as Paris. But, +since the Syllabus made it impossible to pursue the liberal doctrines +consistently without collision with Rome, they had ceased to be +professed with a robust and earnest confidence, and the party was +disorganised. They set up the pretence that the real adversary of their +opinions was not the Pope, but a French newspaper; and they fought the +King's troops in the King's name. When the Bishop of Orleans made his +declaration, they fell back, and left him to mount the breach alone. +Montalembert, the most vigorous spirit among them, became isolated from +his former friends, and accused them, with increasing vehemence, of +being traitors to their principles. During the last disheartening year +of his life he turned away from the clergy of his country, which was +sunk in Romanism, and felt that the real abode of his opinions was on +the Rhine.[385] It was only lately that the ideas of the Coblentz +address, which had so deeply touched the sympathies of Montalembert, had +spread widely in Germany. They had their seat in the universities; and +their transit from the interior of lecture-rooms to the outer world was +laborious and slow. The invasion of Roman doctrines had given vigour and +popularity to those which opposed them, but the growing influence of the +universities brought them into direct antagonism with the episcopate. +The Austrian bishops were generally beyond its reach, and the German +bishops were generally at war with it. In December, one of the most +illustrious of them said: "We bishops are absorbed in our work, and are +not scholars. We sadly need the help of those that are. It is to be +hoped that the Council will raise only such questions as can be dealt +with competently by practical experience and common sense." The force +that Germany wields in theology was only partially represented in its +episcopate. + +At the opening of the Council the known opposition consisted of four +men. Cardinal Schwarzenberg had not published his opinion, but he made +it known as soon as he came to Rome. He brought with him a printed +paper, entitled _Desideria patribus Concilii oecumenici proponenda_, in +which he adopted the ideas of the divines and canonists who are the +teachers of his Bohemian clergy. He entreated the Council not to +multiply unnecessary articles of faith, and in particular to abstain +from defining papal infallibility, which was beset with difficulties, +and would make the foundations of faith to tremble even in the devoutest +souls. He pointed out that the Index could not continue on its present +footing, and urged that the Church should seek her strength in the +cultivation of liberty and learning, not in privilege and coercion; that +she should rely on popular institutions, and obtain popular support. He +warmly advocated the system of autonomy that was springing up in +Hungary.[386] Unlike Schwarzenberg, Dupanloup, and Maret, the Archbishop +of Paris had taken no hostile step in reference to the Council, but he +was feared the most of all the men expected at Rome. The Pope had +refused to make him a cardinal, and had written to him a letter of +reproof such as has seldom been received by a bishop. It was felt that +he was hostile, not episodically, to a single measure, but to the +peculiar spirit of this pontificate. He had none of the conventional +prejudices and assumed antipathies which are congenial to the +hierarchical mind. He was without passion or pathos or affectation; and +he had good sense, a perfect temper, and an intolerable wit. It was +characteristic of him that he made the Syllabus an occasion to impress +moderation on the Pope: "Your blame has power, O Vicar of Jesus Christ; +but your blessing is more potent still. God has raised you to the +apostolic See between the two halves of this century, that you may +absolve the one and inaugurate the other. Be it yours to reconcile +reason with faith, liberty with authority, politics with the Church. +From the height of that triple majesty with which religion, age, and +misfortune adorn you, all that you do and all that you say reaches far, +to disconcert or to encourage the nations. Give them from your large +priestly heart one word to amnesty the past, to reassure the present, +and to open the horizons of the future." + +The security into which many unsuspecting bishops had been lulled +quickly disappeared; and they understood that they were in presence of a +conspiracy which would succeed at once if they did not provide against +acclamation, and must succeed at last if they allowed themselves to be +caught in the toils of the Bull _Multiplices_. It was necessary to make +sure that no decree should be passed without reasonable discussion, and +to make a stand against the regulation. The first congregation, held on +the 10th of December, was a scene of confusion; but it appeared that a +bishop from the Turkish frontier had risen against the order of +proceeding, and that the President had stopped him, saying that this was +a matter decided by the Pope, and not submitted to the Council. The +bishops perceived that they were in a snare. Some began to think of +going home. Others argued that questions of Divine right were affected +by the regulation, and that they were bound to stake the existence of +the Council upon them. Many were more eager on this point of law than on +the point of dogma, and were brought under the influence of the more +clear-sighted men, with whom they would not have come in contact through +any sympathy on the question of infallibility. The desire of protesting +against the violation of privileges was an imperfect bond. The bishops +had not yet learned to know each other; and they had so strongly +impressed upon their flocks at home the idea that Rome ought to be +trusted, that they were going to manifest the unity of the Church and to +confound the insinuations of her enemies, that they were not quick to +admit all the significance of the facts they found. Nothing vigorous was +possible in a body of so loose a texture. The softer materials had to be +eliminated, the stronger welded together by severe and constant +pressure, before an opposition could be made capable of effective +action. They signed protests that were of no effect. They petitioned; +they did not resist. + +It was seen how much Rome had gained by excluding the ambassadors; for +this question of forms and regulations would have admitted the action of +diplomacy. The idea of being represented at the Council was revived in +France; and a weary negotiation began, which lasted several months, and +accomplished nothing but delay. It was not till the policy of +intervention had ignominiously failed, and till its failure had left the +Roman court to cope with the bishops alone, that the real question was +brought on for discussion. And as long as the chance remained that +political considerations might keep infallibility out of the Council, +the opposition abstained from declaring its real sentiments. Its union +was precarious and delusive, but it lasted in this state long enough to +enable secondary influences to do much towards supplying the place of +principles. + +While the protesting bishops were not committed against infallibility, +it would have been possible to prevent resistance to the bull from +becoming resistance to the dogma. The Bishop of Grenoble, who was +reputed a good divine among his countrymen, was sounded in order to +discover how far he would go; and it was ascertained that he admitted +the doctrine substantially. At the same time, the friends of the Bishop +of Orleans were insisting that he had questioned not the dogma but the +definition; and Maret, in the defence of his book, declared that he +attributed no infallibility to the episcopate apart from the Pope. If +the bishops had been consulted separately, without the terror of a +decree, it is probable that the number of those who absolutely rejected +the doctrine would have been extremely small. There were many who had +never thought seriously about it, or imagined that it was true in a +pious sense, though not capable of proof in controversy. The possibility +of an understanding seemed so near that the archbishop of Westminster, +who held the Pope infallible apart from the episcopate, required that +the words should be translated into French in the sense of independence, +and not of exclusion. An ambiguous formula embodying the view common to +both parties, or founded on mutual concession, would have done more for +the liberty than the unity of opinion, and would not have strengthened +the authority of the Pope. It was resolved to proceed with caution, +putting in motion the strong machinery of Rome, and exhausting the +advantages of organisation and foreknowledge. + +The first act of the Council was to elect the Commission on Dogma. A +proposal was made on very high authority that the list should be drawn +up so as to represent the different opinions fairly, and to include some +of the chief opponents. They would have been subjected to other +influences than those which sustain party leaders; they would have been +separated from their friends and brought into frequent contact with +adversaries; they would have felt the strain of official responsibility; +and the opposition would have been decapitated. If these sagacious +counsels had been followed, the harvest of July might have been gathered +in January, and the reaction that was excited in the long struggle that +ensued might have been prevented. Cardinal de Angelis, who ostensibly +managed the elections, and was advised by Archbishop Manning, preferred +the opposite and more prudent course. He caused a lithographed list to +be sent to all the bishops open to influence, from which every name was +excluded that was not on the side of infallibility. + +Meantime the bishops of several nations selected those among their +countrymen whom they recommended as candidates. The Germans and +Hungarians, above forty in number, assembled for this purpose under the +presidency of Cardinal Schwarzenberg; and their meetings were continued, +and became more and more important, as those who did not sympathise with +the opposition dropped away. The French were divided into two groups, +and met partly at Cardinal Mathieu's, partly at Cardinal Bonnechose's. A +fusion was proposed, but was resisted, in the Roman interest, by +Bonnechose. He consulted Cardinal Antonelli, and reported that the Pope +disliked large meetings of bishops. Moreover, if all the French had met +in one place, the opposition would have had the majority, and would have +determined the choice of the candidates. They voted separately; and the +Bonnechose list was represented to foreign bishops as the united choice +of the French episcopate. The Mathieu group believed that this had been +done fraudulently, and resolved to make their complaint to the Pope; but +Cardinal Mathieu, seeing that a storm was rising, and that he would be +called on to be the spokesman of his friends, hurried away to spend +Christmas at Besancon. All the votes of his group were thrown away. Even +the bishop of Grenoble, who had obtained twenty-nine votes at one +meeting, and thirteen at the other, was excluded from the Commission. It +was constituted as the managers of the election desired, and the first +trial of strength appeared to have annihilated the opposition. The force +under entire control of the court could be estimated from the number of +votes cast blindly for candidates not put forward by their own +countrymen, and unknown to others, who had therefore no recommendation +but that of the official list. According to this test Rome could dispose +of 550 votes. + +The moment of this triumph was chosen for the production of an act +already two months old, by which many ancient censures were revoked, and +many were renewed. The legislation of the Middle Ages and of the +sixteenth century appointed nearly two hundred cases by which +excommunication was incurred _ipso facto_, without inquiry or sentence. +They had generally fallen into oblivion, or were remembered as instances +of former extravagance; but they had not been abrogated, and, as they +were in part defensible, they were a trouble to timorous consciences. +There was reason to expect that this question, which had often occupied +the attention of the bishops, would be brought before the Council; and +the demand for a reform could not have been withstood. The difficulty +was anticipated by sweeping away as many censures as it was thought safe +to abandon, and deciding, independently of the bishops, what must be +retained. The Pope reserved to himself alone the faculty of absolving +from the sin of harbouring or defending the members of any sect, of +causing priests to be tried by secular courts, of violating asylum or +alienating the real property of the Church. The prohibition of anonymous +writing was restricted to works on theology, and the excommunication +hitherto incurred by reading books which are on the Index was confined +to readers of heretical books. This Constitution had no other immediate +effect than to indicate the prevailing spirit, and to increase the +difficulties of the partisans of Rome. The organ of the Archbishop of +Cologne justified the last provision by saying, that it does not forbid +the works of Jews, for Jews are not heretics; nor the heretical tracts +and newspapers, for they are not books; nor listening to heretical books +read aloud, for hearing is not reading. + +At the same time, the serious work of the Council was begun. A long +dogmatic decree was distributed, in which the special theological, +biblical, and philosophical opinions of the school now dominant in Rome +were proposed for ratification. It was so weak a composition that it was +as severely criticised by the Romans as by the foreigners; and there +were Germans whose attention was first called to its defects by an +Italian cardinal. The disgust with which the text of the first decree +was received had not been foreseen. No real discussion had been +expected. The Council hall, admirable for occasions of ceremony, was +extremely ill adapted for speaking, and nothing would induce the Pope to +give it up. A public session was fixed for the 6th of January, and the +election of Commissions was to last till Christmas. It was evident that +nothing would be ready for the session, unless the decree was accepted +without debate, or infallibility adopted by acclamation. + +Before the Council had been assembled a fortnight, a store of discontent +had accumulated which it would have been easy to avoid. Every act of the +Pope, the Bull _Multiplices_, the declaration of censures, the text of +the proposed decree, even the announcement that the Council should be +dissolved in case of his death, had seemed an injury or an insult to the +episcopate. These measures undid the favourable effect of the caution +with which the bishops had been received. They did what the dislike of +infallibility alone would not have done. They broke the spell of +veneration for Pius IX. which fascinated the Catholic Episcopate. The +jealousy with which he guarded his prerogative in the appointment of +officers, and of the great Commission, the pressure during the +elections, the prohibition of national meetings, the refusal to hold the +debates in a hall where they could be heard, irritated and alarmed many +bishops. They suspected that they had been summoned for the very purpose +they had indignantly denied, to make the papacy more absolute by +abdicating in favour of the official prelature of Rome. Confidence gave +way to a great despondency, and a state of feeling was aroused which +prepared the way for actual opposition when the time should come. + +Before Christmas the Germans and the French were grouped nearly as they +remained to the end. After the flight of Cardinal Mathieu, and the +refusal of Cardinal Bonnechose to coalesce, the friends of the latter +gravitated towards the Roman centre, and the friends of the former held +their meetings at the house of the Archbishop of Paris. They became, +with the Austro-German meeting under Cardinal Schwarzenberg, the +strength and substance of the party that opposed the new dogma; but +there was little intercourse between the two, and their exclusive +nationality made them useless as a nucleus for the few scattered +American, English, and Italian bishops whose sympathies were with them. +To meet this object, and to centralise the deliberations, about a dozen +of the leading men constituted an international meeting, which included +the best talents, but also the most discordant views. They were too +little united to act with vigour, and too few to exercise control. Some +months later they increased their numbers. They were the brain but not +the will of the opposition. Cardinal Rauscher presided. Rome honoured +him as the author of the Austrian Concordat; but he feared that +infallibility would bring destruction on his work, and he was the most +constant, the most copious, and the most emphatic of its opponents. + +When the debate opened, on the 28th of December, the idea of proclaiming +the dogma by acclamation had not been abandoned. The Archbishop of Paris +exacted a promise that it should not be attempted. But he was warned +that the promise held good for the first day only, and that there was no +engagement for the future. Then he made it known that one hundred +bishops were ready, if a surprise was attempted, to depart from Rome, +and to carry away the Council, as he said, in the soles of their shoes. +The plan of carrying the measure by a sudden resolution was given up, +and it was determined to introduce it with a demonstration of +overwhelming effect. The debate on the dogmatic decree was begun by +Cardinal Rauscher. The Archbishop of St. Louis spoke on the same day so +briefly as not to reveal the force and the fire within him. The +Archbishop of Halifax concluded a long speech by saying that the +proposal laid before the Council was only fit to be put decorously under +ground. Much praise was lavished on the bishops who had courage, +knowledge, and Latin enough to address the assembled Fathers; and the +Council rose instantly in dignity and in esteem when it was seen that +there was to be real discussion. On the 30th, Rome was excited by the +success of two speakers. One was the Bishop of Grenoble, the other was +Strossmayer, the bishop from the Turkish frontier, who had again +assailed the regulation, and had again been stopped by the presiding +Cardinal. The fame of his spirit and eloquence began to spread over the +city and over the world. The ideas that animated these men in their +attack on the proposed measure were most clearly shown a few days later +in the speech of a Swiss prelate. "What boots it," he exclaimed, "to +condemn errors that have been long condemned, and tempt no Catholic? The +false beliefs of mankind are beyond the reach of your decrees. The best +defence of Catholicism is religious science. Give to the pursuit of +sound learning every encouragement and the widest field; and prove by +deeds as well as words that the progress of nations in liberty and light +is the mission of the Church."[387] + +The tempest of criticism was weakly met; and the opponents established +at once a superiority in debate. At the end of the first month nothing +had been done; and the Session imprudently fixed for the 6th of January +had to be filled up with tedious ceremonies. Everybody saw that there +had been a great miscalculation. The Council was slipping out of the +grasp of the Court, and the regulation was a manifest hindrance to the +despatch of business. New resources were required. + +A new president was appointed. Cardinal Reisach had died at the end of +December without having been able to take his seat, and Cardinal De Luca +had presided in his stead. De Angelis was now put into the place made +vacant by the death of Reisach. He had suffered imprisonment at Turin, +and the glory of his confessorship was enhanced by his services in the +election of the Commissions. He was not suited otherwise to be the +moderator of a great assembly; and the effect of his elevation was to +dethrone the accomplished and astute De Luca, who had been found +deficient in thoroughness, and to throw the management of the Council +into the hands of the junior Presidents, Capalti and Bilio. Bilio was a +Barnabite monk, innocent of court intrigues, a friend of the most +enlightened scholars in Rome, and a favourite of the Pope. Cardinal +Capalti had been distinguished as a canonist. Like Cardinal Bilio, he +was not reckoned among men of the extreme party; and they were not +always in harmony with their colleagues, De Angelis and Bizarri. But +they did not waver when the policy they had to execute was not their +own. + +The first decree was withdrawn, and referred to the Commission on +Doctrine. Another, on the duties of the episcopate, was substituted; and +that again was followed by others, of which the most important was on +the Catechism. While they were being discussed, a petition was prepared, +demanding that the infallibility of the Pope should be made the object +of a decree. The majority undertook to put a strain on the prudence or +the reluctance of the Vatican. Their zeal in the cause was warmer than +that of the official advisers. Among those who had the responsibility of +conducting the spiritual and temporal government of the Pope, the belief +was strong that his infallibility did not need defining, and that the +definition could not be obtained without needless obstruction to other +papal interests. Several Cardinals were inopportunists at first, and +afterwards promoted intermediate and conciliatory proposals. But the +business of the Council was not left to the ordinary advisers of the +Pope, and they were visibly compelled and driven by those who +represented the majority. At times this pressure was no doubt +convenient. But there were also times when there was no collusion, and +the majority really led the authorities. The initiative was not taken by +the great mass whose zeal was stimulated by personal allegiance to the +Pope. They added to the momentum, but the impulse came from men who were +as independent as the chiefs of the opposition. The great Petition, +supported by others pointing to the same end, was kept back for several +weeks, and was presented at the end of January. + +At that time the opposition had attained its full strength, and +presented a counter-petition, praying that the question might not be +introduced. It was written by Cardinal Rauscher, and was signed, with +variations, by 137 bishops. To obtain that number the address avoided +the doctrine itself, and spoke only of the difficulty and danger in +defining it; so that this, their most imposing act, was a confession of +inherent weakness, and a signal to the majority that they might force on +the dogmatic discussion. The bishops stood on the negative. They showed +no sense of their mission to renovate Catholicism; and it seemed that +they would compound for the concession they wanted, by yielding in all +other matters, even those which would be a practical substitute for +infallibility. That this was not to be, that the forces needed for a +great revival were really present, was made manifest by the speech of +Strossmayer on the 24th of January, when he demanded the reformation of +the Court of Rome, decentralisation in the government of the Church, and +decennial Councils. That earnest spirit did not animate the bulk of the +party. They were content to leave things as they were, to gain nothing +if they lost nothing, to renounce all premature striving for reform if +they could succeed in avoiding a doctrine which they were as unwilling +to discuss as to define. The words of Ginoulhiac to Strossmayer, "You +terrify me with your pitiless logic," expressed the inmost feelings of +many who gloried in the grace and the splendour of his eloquence. No +words were too strong for them if they prevented the necessity of +action, and spared the bishops the distressing prospect of being brought +to bay, and having to resist openly the wishes and the claims of Rome. + +Infallibility never ceased to overshadow every step of the Council,[388] +but it had already given birth to a deeper question. The Church had less +to fear from the violence of the majority than from the inertness of +their opponents. No proclamation of false doctrines could be so great a +disaster as the weakness of faith which would prove that the power of +recovery, the vital force of Catholicism, was extinct in the episcopate. +It was better to be overcome after openly attesting their belief than to +strangle both discussion and definition, and to disperse without having +uttered a single word that could reinstate the authorities of the Church +in the respect of men. The future depended less on the outward struggle +between two parties than on the process by which the stronger spirit +within the minority leavened the mass. The opposition was as averse to +the actual dogmatic discussion among themselves as in the Council. They +feared an inquiry which would divide them. At first the bishops who +understood and resolutely contemplated their real mission in the Council +were exceedingly few. Their influence was strengthened by the force of +events, by the incessant pressure of the majority, and by the action of +literary opinion. + +Early in December the Archbishop of Mechlin brought out a reply to the +letter of the Bishop of Orleans, who immediately prepared a rejoinder, +but could not obtain permission to print it in Rome. It appeared two +months later at Naples. Whilst the minority were under the shock of this +prohibition, Gratry published at Paris the first of four letters to the +Archbishop of Mechlin, in which the case of Honorius was discussed with +so much perspicuity and effect that the profane public was interested, +and the pamphlets were read with avidity in Rome. They contained no new +research, but they went deep into the causes which divided Catholics. +Gratry showed that the Roman theory is still propped by fables which +were innocent once, but have become deliberate untruths since the excuse +of mediaeval ignorance was dispelled; and he declared that this school of +lies was the cause of the weakness of the Church, and called on +Catholics to look the scandal in the face, and cast out the religious +forgers. His letters did much to clear the ground and to correct the +confusion of ideas among the French. The bishop of St. Brieuc wrote that +the exposure was an excellent service to religion, for the evil had gone +so far that silence would be complicity.[389] Gratry was no sooner +approved by one bishop than he was condemned by a great number of +others. He had brought home to his countrymen the question whether they +could be accomplices of a dishonest system, or would fairly attempt to +root it out. + +While Gratry's letters were disturbing the French, Doellinger published +some observations on the petition for infallibility, directing his +attack clearly against the doctrine itself. During the excitement that +ensued, he answered demonstrations of sympathy by saying that he had +only defended the faith which was professed, substantially, by the +majority of the episcopate in Germany. These words dropped like an acid +on the German bishops. They were writhing to escape the dire necessity +of a conflict with the Pope; and it was very painful to them to be +called as compurgators by a man who was esteemed the foremost opponent +of the Roman system, whose hand was suspected in everything that had +been done against it, and who had written many things on the sovereign +obligations of truth and faith which seemed an unmerciful satire on the +tactics to which they clung. The notion that the bishops were opposing +the dogma itself was founded on their address against the regulation; +but the petition against the definition of infallibility was so worded +as to avoid that inference, and had accordingly obtained nearly twice as +many German and Hungarian signatures as the other. The Bishop of Mentz +vehemently repudiated the supposition for himself, and invited his +colleagues to do the same. Some followed his example, others refused; +and it became apparent that the German opposition was divided, and +included men who accepted the doctrines of Rome. The precarious alliance +between incompatible elements was prevented from breaking up by the next +act of the Papal Government. + +The defects in the mode of carrying on the business of the Council were +admitted on both sides. Two months had been lost; and the demand for a +radical change was publicly made in behalf of the minority by a letter +communicated to the _Moniteur_. On the 22nd of February a new +regulation was introduced, with the avowed purpose of quickening +progress. It gave the Presidents power to cut short any speech, and +provided that debate might be cut short at any moment when the majority +pleased. It also declared that the decrees should be carried by +majority--_id decernetur quod majori Patrum numero placuerit_. The +policy of leaving the decisive power in the hands of the Council itself +had this advantage, that its exercise would not raise the question of +liberty and coercion in the same way as the interference of authority. +By the Bull _Multiplices_, no bishop could introduce any matter not +approved by the Pope. By the new regulation he could not speak on any +question before the Council, if the majority chose to close the +discussion, or if the Presidents chose to abridge his speech. He could +print nothing in Rome, and what was printed elsewhere was liable to be +treated as contraband. His written observations on any measure were +submitted to the Commission, without any security that they would be +made known to the other bishops in their integrity. There was no longer +an obstacle to the immediate definition of papal infallibility. The +majority was omnipotent. + +The minority could not accept this regulation without admitting that the +Pope is infallible. Their thesis was, that his decrees are not free from +the risk of error unless they express the universal belief of the +episcopate. The idea that particular virtue attaches to a certain number +of bishops, or that infallibility depends on a few votes more or less, +was defended by nobody. If the act of a majority of bishops in the +Council, possibly not representing a majority in the Church, is +infallible, it derives its infallibility from the Pope. Nobody held that +the Pope was bound to proclaim a dogma carried by a majority. The +minority contested the principle of the new Regulation, and declared +that a dogmatic decree required virtual unanimity. The chief protest was +drawn up by a French bishop. Some of the Hungarians added a paragraph +asserting that the authority and oecumenicity of the Council depended +on the settlement of this question; and they proposed to add that they +could not continue to act as though it were legitimate unless this point +was given up. The author of the address declined this passage, urging +that the time for actual menace was not yet come. From that day the +minority agreed in rejecting as invalid any doctrine which should not be +passed by unanimous consent. On this point the difference between the +thorough and the simulated opposition was effaced, for Ginoulhiac and +Ketteler were as positive as Kenrick or Hefele. But it was a point which +Rome could not surrender without giving up its whole position. To wait +for unanimity was to wait for ever, and to admit that a minority could +prevent or nullify the dogmatic action of the papacy was to renounce +infallibility. No alternative remained to the opposing bishops but to +break up the Council. The most eminent among them accepted this +conclusion, and stated it in a paper declaring that the absolute and +indisputable law of the Church had been violated by the Regulation +allowing articles of faith to be decreed on which the episcopate was not +morally unanimous; and that the Council, no longer possessing in the +eyes of the bishops and of the world the indispensable condition of +liberty and legality, would be inevitably rejected. To avert a public +scandal, and to save the honour of the Holy See, it was proposed that +some unopposed decrees should be proclaimed in solemn session, and the +Council immediately prorogued. + +At the end of March a breach seemed unavoidable. The first part of the +dogmatic decree had come back from the Commission so profoundly altered +that it was generally accepted by the bishops, but with a crudely +expressed sentence in the preamble, which was intended to rebuke the +notion of the reunion of Protestant Churches. Several bishops looked +upon this passage as an uncalled-for insult to Protestants, and wished +it changed; but there was danger that if they then joined in voting the +decree they would commit themselves to the lawfulness of the Regulation +against which they had protested. On the 22nd of March Strossmayer +raised both questions. He said that it was neither just nor charitable +to impute the progress of religious error to the Protestants. The germ +of modern unbelief existed among the Catholics before the Reformation, +and afterwards bore its worst fruits in Catholic countries. Many of the +ablest defenders of Christian truth were Protestants, and the day of +reconciliation would have come already but for the violence and +uncharitableness of the Catholics. These words were greeted with +execrations, and the remainder of the speech was delivered in the midst +of a furious tumult. At length, when Strossmayer declared that the +Council had forfeited its authority by the rule which abolished the +necessity of unanimity, the Presidents and the multitude refused to let +him go on.[390] On the following day he drew up a protest, declaring +that he could not acknowledge the validity of the Council if dogmas were +to be decided by a majority,[391] and sent it to the Presidents after it +had been approved at the meeting of the Germans, and by bishops of other +nations. The preamble was withdrawn, and another was inserted in its +place, which had been written in great haste by the German Jesuit +Kleutgen, and was received with general applause. Several of the Jesuits +obtained credit for the ability and moderation with which the decree was +drawn up. It was no less than a victory over extreme counsels. A +unanimous vote was insured for the public session of 24th April; and +harmony was restored. But the text proposed originally in the Pope's +name had undergone so many changes as to make it appear that his +intentions had been thwarted. There was a supplement to the decree, +which the bishops had understood would be withdrawn, in order that the +festive concord and good feeling might not be disturbed. They were +informed at the last moment that it would be put to the vote, as its +withdrawal would be a confession of defeat for Rome. The supplement was +an admonition that the constitutions and decrees of the Holy See must be +observed even when they proscribe opinions not actually heretical.[392] +Extraordinary efforts were made in public and in private to prevent any +open expression of dissent from this paragraph. The Bishop of Brixen +assured his brethren, in the name of the Commission, that it did not +refer to questions of doctrine, and they could not dispute the general +principle that obedience is due to lawful authority. The converse +proposition, that the papal acts have no claim to be obeyed, was +obviously untenable. The decree was adopted unanimously. There were some +who gave their vote with a heavy heart, conscious of the snare.[393] +Strossmayer alone stayed away. + +The opposition was at an end. Archbishop Manning afterwards reminded +them that by this vote they had implicitly accepted infallibility. They +had done even more. They might conceivably contrive to bind and limit +dogmatic infallibility with conditions so stringent as to evade many of +the objections taken from the examples of history; but, in requiring +submission to papal decrees on matters not articles of faith, they were +approving that of which they knew the character, they were confirming +without let or question a power they saw in daily exercise, they were +investing with new authority the existing Bulls, and giving unqualified +sanction to the Inquisition and the Index, to the murder of heretics and +the deposing of kings. They approved what they were called on to reform, +and solemnly blessed with their lips what their hearts knew to be +accursed. The Court of Rome became thenceforth reckless in its scorn of +the opposition, and proceeded in the belief that there was no protest +they would not forget, no principle they would not betray, rather than +defy the Pope in his wrath. It was at once determined to bring on the +discussion of the dogma of infallibility. At first, when the minority +knew that their prayers and their sacrifices had been vain, and that +they must rely on their own resources, they took courage in extremity. +Rauscher, Schwarzenberg, Hefele, Ketteler, Kenrick, wrote pamphlets, or +caused them to be written, against the dogma, and circulated them in the +Council. Several English bishops protested that the denial of +infallibility by the Catholic episcopate had been an essential condition +of emancipation, and that they could not revoke that assurance after it +had served their purpose, without being dishonoured in the eyes of their +countrymen.[394] The Archbishop of St. Louis, admitting the force of the +argument, derived from the fact that a dogma was promulgated in 1854 +which had long been disputed and denied, confessed that he could not +prove the Immaculate Conception to be really an article of faith.[395] + +An incident occurred in June which showed that the experience of the +Council was working a change in the fundamental convictions of the +bishops. Doellinger had written in March that an article of faith +required not only to be approved and accepted unanimously by the +Council, but that the bishops united with the Pope are not infallible, +and that the oecumenicity of their acts must be acknowledged and +ratified by the whole Church. Father Hoetzl, a Franciscan friar, having +published a pamphlet in defence of this proposition, was summoned to +Rome, and required to sign a paper declaring that the confirmation of a +Council by the Pope alone makes it oecumenical. He put his case into the +hands of German bishops who were eminent in the opposition, asking first +their opinion on the proposed declaration, and, secondly, their advice +on his own conduct. The bishops whom he consulted replied that they +believed the declaration to be erroneous; but they added that they had +only lately arrived at the conviction, and had been shocked at first by +Doellinger's doctrine. They could not require him to suffer the +consequences of being condemned at Rome as a rebellious friar and +obstinate heretic for a view which they themselves had doubted only +three months before. He followed the advice, but he perceived that his +advisers had considerately betrayed him. + +When the observations on infallibility which the bishops had sent in to +the Commission appeared in print it seemed that the minority had burnt +their ships. They affirmed that the dogma would put an end to the +conversion of Protestants, that it would drive devout men out of the +Church and make Catholicism indefensible in controversy, that it would +give governments apparent reason to doubt the fidelity of Catholics, and +would give new authority to the theory of persecution and of the +deposing power. They testified that it was unknown in many parts of the +Church, and was denied by the Fathers, so that neither perpetuity nor +universality could be pleaded in its favour; and they declared it an +absurd contradiction, founded on ignoble deceit, and incapable of being +made an article of faith by Pope or Council.[396] One bishop protested +that he would die rather than proclaim it. Another thought it would be +an act of suicide for the Church. + +What was said, during the two months' debate, by men perpetually liable +to be interrupted by a majority acting less from conviction than by +command,[397] could be of no practical account, and served for protest, +not for persuasion. Apart from the immediate purpose of the discussion, +two speeches were memorable--that of Archbishop Conolly of Halifax, for +the uncompromising clearness with which he appealed to Scripture and +repudiated all dogmas extracted from the speculations of divines, and +not distinctly founded on the recorded Word of God,[398] and that of +Archbishop Darboy, who foretold that a decree which increased authority +without increasing power, and claimed for one man, whose infallibility +was only now defined, the obedience which the world refused to the whole +Episcopate, whose right had been unquestioned in the Church for 1800 +years, would raise up new hatred and new suspicion, weaken the influence +of religion over society, and wreak swift ruin on the temporal +power.[399] + +The general debate had lasted three weeks, and forty-nine bishops were +still to speak, when it was brought to a close by an abrupt division on +the 3rd of June. For twenty-four hours the indignation of the minority +was strong. It was the last decisive opportunity for them to reject the +legitimacy of the Council. There were some who had despaired of it from +the beginning, and held that the Bull _Multiplices_ deprived it of legal +validity. But it had not been possible to make a stand at a time when no +man knew whether he could trust his neighbour, and when there was fair +ground to hope that the worst rules would be relaxed. When the second +regulation, interpreted according to the interruptors of Strossmayer, +claimed the right of proclaiming dogmas which part of the Episcopate did +not believe, it became doubtful whether the bishops could continue to +sit without implicit submission. They restricted themselves to a +protest, thinking that it was sufficient to meet words with words, and +that it would be time to act when the new principle was actually +applied. By the vote of the 3rd of June the obnoxious regulation was +enforced in a way evidently injurious to the minority and their cause. +The chiefs of the opposition were now convinced of the invalidity of the +Council, and advised that they should all abstain from speaking, and +attend at St. Peter's only to negative by their vote the decree which +they disapproved. In this way they thought that the claim to +oecumenicity would be abolished without breach or violence. The greater +number were averse to so vigorous a demonstration; and Hefele threw the +great weight of his authority into their scale. He contended that they +would be worse than their word if they proceeded to extremities on this +occasion. They had announced that they would do it only to prevent the +promulgation of a dogma which was opposed. If that were done the Council +would be revolutionary and tyrannical; and they ought to keep their +strongest measure in reserve for that last contingency. The principle +of unanimity was fundamental. It admitted no ambiguity, and was so +clear, simple, and decisive, that there was no risk in fixing on it. The +Archbishops of Paris, Milan, Halifax, the Bishops of Djakovar, Orleans, +Marseilles, and most of the Hungarians, yielded to these arguments, and +accepted the policy of less strenuous colleagues, while retaining the +opinion that the Council was of no authority. But there were some who +deemed it unworthy and inconsistent to attend an assembly which they had +ceased to respect. + +The debate on the several paragraphs lasted till the beginning of July, +and the decree passed at length with eighty-eight dissentient votes. It +was made known that the infallibility of the Pope would be promulgated +in solemn session on the 18th, and that all who were present would be +required to sign an act of submission. Some bishops of the minority +thereupon proposed that they should all attend, repeat their vote, and +refuse their signature. They exhorted their brethren to set a +conspicuous example of courage and fidelity, as the Catholic world would +not remain true to the faith if the bishops were believed to have +faltered. But it was certain that there were men amongst them who would +renounce their belief rather than incur the penalty of excommunication, +who preferred authority to proof, and accepted the Pope's declaration, +"La tradizione son' io." It was resolved by a small majority that the +opposition should renew its negative vote in writing, and should leave +Rome in a body before the session. Some of the most conscientious and +resolute adversaries of the dogma advised this course. Looking to the +immediate future, they were persuaded that an irresistible reaction was +at hand, and that the decrees of the Vatican Council would fade away and +be dissolved by a power mightier than the Episcopate and a process less +perilous than schism. Their disbelief in the validity of its work was so +profound that they were convinced that it would perish without violence, +and they resolved to spare the Pope and themselves the indignity of a +rupture. Their last manifesto, _La derniere Heure_, is an appeal for +patience, an exhortation to rely on the guiding, healing hand of +God.[400] They deemed that they had assigned the course which was to +save the Church, by teaching the Catholics to reject a Council which was +neither legitimate in constitution, free in action, nor unanimous in +doctrine, but to observe moderation in contesting an authority over +which great catastrophes impend. They conceived that it would thus be +possible to save the peace and unity of the Church without sacrifice of +faith and reason. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 370: _The North British Review_, October 1870.] + +[Footnote 371: Fidem mihi datam non servatam fuisse queror. Acta +supprimere, aut integra dare oportebat. He says also: Omnia ad nutum +delegati Apostolici fiebant.] + +[Footnote 372: Citra et contra singulorum suffragia, imo praeter et +supra omnium vota pontificis solius declarationi atque sententiae +validam vim atque irreformabilem adesse potestatem.] + +[Footnote 373: Nous restons dans les doctrines de Bossuet parce que nous +les croyons generalement vraies; nous les defendons parce qu'elles sont +attaquees, et qu'un parti puissant veut les faire condamner. Ces +doctrines de l'episcopat francais, de l'ecole de Paris, de notre vieille +Sorbonne, se ramenent pour nous a trois propositions, a trois verites +fondamentales: 1o l'Eglise est une monarchie efficacement temperee +d'aristocracie; 2o la souverainete spirituelle est essentiellement +composee de ces deux elements quoique le second soit subordonne au +premier; 3o le concours de ces elements est necessaire pour etablir la +regle absolue de la foi, c'est-a-dire, pour constituer l'acte par +excellence de la souverainete spirituelle.] + +[Footnote 374: Si hujus doctrinae memores fuissemus, haereticos seil cet +non esse infirmandos vel convincendos ex Scripturis, meliore sane loco +essent res nostrae; sed dum ostentandi ingenii et eruditionis gratia cum +Luthero in certamen descenditur Scripturarum, excitatum est hoc, quod, +proh dolor! nunc videmus, incendium (Pighius).] + +[Footnote 375: Catholici non admondum solliciti sunt de critica et +hermeneutica biblica ... Ipsi, ut verbo dicam, jam habent aedificium +absolutum sane ac perfectum, in cujus possessione firme ac secure +consistant.] + +[Footnote 376: Praxis Ecclesiae uno tempore interpretatur Scripturam uno +modo et alio tempore alio modo, nam intellectus currit cum +praxi.--Mutato judicio Ecclesiaemutatum est Dei judicium.] + +[Footnote 377: Si viri ecclesiastici, sive in concilio oecumenico +congregati, sive seorsim scribentes, aliquod dogma vel unamquamque +consuetudinem uno ore ac diserte testantur ex traditione divina haberi, +sine dubio certum argumentum est, uti ita esse credamus.--Ex testimonio +hujus solius Ecclesiae sumi potest certum argumentum ad probandas +apostolicas traditiones (Bellarmine).] + +[Footnote 378: Veniae sive indulgentiae autoritate Scripturae nobis non +innotuere, sed autoritate ecclesiae Romanae Romanorumque Pontificum, +quae major est.] + +[Footnote 379: Ego, ut ingenue fatear, plus uni summo pontifici +crederem, in his, quae fidei mysteria tangunt, quam mille Augustinis, +Hieronymis, Gregoriis (Cornelius Mussus).] + +[Footnote 380: The two views contradict each other; but they are equally +characteristic of the endeavour to emancipate the Church from the +obligation of proof. Fenelon says: "Oseroit-on soutenir que l'Eglise +apres avoir mal raisonne sur tous les textes, et les avoir pris a +contre-sens, est tout a coup saisie par un enthousiasme aveugle, pour +juger bien, en raisonnant mal?" And Moehler: "Die aeltesten oekumenischen +Synoden fuehrten daher fuer ihre dogmatischen Beschluesse nicht einmal +bestimmte biblische Stellen an; und die katholischen Theologen lehren +mit allegingr Uebereinstimmung und ganz aus dem Geiste der Kirche +heraus, dass selbst die biblische Beweisfuehrung eines fuer untrueglich +gehaltenen Beschlusses nicht untrueglich sei, sondern eben nur das +ausgesprochene Dogma selbst."] + +[Footnote 381: Cujuscumque ergo scientiae, etiam historiae +ecclesiasticae conclusiones, Romanorum Pontificum infallibiltati +adversantes, quo manifestius haec ex revelationis fontibus infertur, eo +certius veluti totidem errores habendas esse consequitur.] + +[Footnote 382: Cum in professione fidei electi pontificis damnetur +Honorius Papa, ideo quia pravis haereticorum assertionibus fomentum +impendit, si verba delineata sint vere in autographo, nec ex notis +apparere possit, quomodo huic vulneri medelam offerat, praestat non +divulgari opus.] + +[Footnote 383: That article condemns the following proposition: "Romani +Pontifices et Concilia oecumenica a limitibus suae potestati +recesserunt, jura Principum usurparunt, atque etiam in rebus fidei et +morum definiendis errarunt."] + +[Footnote 384: J'en suis convaincu: a peine aurai-je touche la terre +sacree, a peine aurai-je baise le tombeau des Apotres, que je me +sentirai dans la paix, hors de la bataille, au sein d'une assemblee +presidee par un Pere et composee de Freres. La, tous les bruits +expireront, toutes les ingerences temeraires cesseront, toutes les +imprudences disparaitront, les flots et les vents seront apaises.] + +[Footnote 385: Vous admirez sans doute beaucoup l'eveque d'Orleans, mais +vous l'admireriez bien plus encore, si vous pouviez vous figurer l'abime +d'idolatrie ou est tombe le clerge francais. Cela depasse tout ce que +l'on aurait jamais pu l'imaginer aux jours de ma jeunesse, au temps de +Frayssinous et de La Mennais. Le pauvre Mgr. Maret, pour avoir expose +des idees tres moderees dans un langage plein d'urbanite et de charite, +est traite publiquement dans les journaux soi-disant religieux +d'heresiarque et d'apostat, par les derniers de nos cures. De tous les +mysteres que presente en si grand nombre l'histoire de l'Eglise je n'en +connais pas qui egale ou depasse cette transformation si prompte et si +complete de la France Catholique en une basse-cour de _l'anticamera du +Vatican_. J'en serais encore plus desespere qu'humilie, si la, comme +partout dans les regions illuminees par la foi, la misericorde et +l'esperance ne se laissaient entrevoir a travers les tenebres. "C'est du +Rhin aujourd'hui que nous vient la lumiere." L'Allemagne a ete choisie +pour opposer une digue a ce torrent de fanatisme servile que menacait de +tout englouter (Nov. 7, 1869).] + +[Footnote 386: Non solum ea quae ad scholas theologicas pertinent +scholis relinquantur, sed etiam doctrinae quae a fidelibus pie tenentur +et coluntur, sine gravi causa in codicem dogmatum ne inferantur. In +specie ne Concilium declaret vel definiat infallibilitatem Summi +Pontificis, a doctissimis et prudentissimis fidelibus Sanctae sedi +intime addictis, vehementer optatur. Gravia enim mala exinde oritura +timent tum fidelibus tum infidelibus. Fideles enim, qui Primatum +magisterii et jurisdictionis in Summo Pontifice ultro agnoscunt, quorum +pietas et obedientia erga Sanctam Sedem nullo certe tempore major fuit, +corde turbarentur magis quam erigerentur, ac si nunc demum fundamentum +Ecclesiae et verae doctrinae stabiliendum sit; infideles vero novam +calumniarum et derisionum materiam lucrarentur. Neque desunt, qui +ejusmodi definitionem logice impossibilem vocant.... Nostris diebus +defensio veritatis ac religionis tum praesertim efficax et fructuosa +est, si sacerdotes a lege caeterorum civium minus recedunt, sed +communibus omnium juribus utuntur, ita ut vis defensionis sit in +veritate interna non per tutelam externae exemtionis.... Praesertim +Ecclesia se scientiarum, quae hominem ornant perficiuntque, amicam et +patronam exhibeat, probe noscens, omne verum a Deo esse, et profunda ac +seria literarum studia opitulari fidei.] + +[Footnote 387: Quid enim expedit damnare quae damnata jam sunt, quidve +juvat errores proscribere quos novimus jam esse proscriptos?... Falsa +sophistarum dogmata, veluti cineres a turbine venti evanuerunt, +corrupuerunt, fateor, permultos, infecerunt genium saeculi hujus, sed +numquid credendum est, corruptionis contaginem non contigisse, si +ejusmodi errores decretorum anathemate prostrati fuissent?... Pro tuenda +et tute servanda religione Catholica praeter gemitus et preces ad Deum +aliud medium praesidiumque nobis datum non est nisi Catholica scientia, +cum recta fide per omnia concors. Excolitur summopere apud heterodoxos +fidei inimica scientia, excolatur ergo oportet et omni opere augeatur +apud Catholicos vera scientia. Ecclesiae amica.... Obmutescere faciamus +ora obtrectantium qui falso nobis imputare non desistunt, Catholicam +Ecclesiam opprimere scientiam, et quemcumque liberum cogitandi modum ita +cohibere, ut neque scientia, nec ulla alia animi libertas in ea +subsistere vel florescere possit.... Propterea monstrandum hoc est, et +scriptis et factis manifestandum, in Catholica Ecclesia veram pro +populis esse libertatem, verum profectum, verum lumen, veramque +prosperitatem.] + +[Footnote 388: Il n'y a au fond qu'une question devenue urgente et +inevitable, dont la decision faciliterait le cours et la decision de +toutes les autres, dont le retard paralyse tout. Sans cela rien n'est +commence ni meme abordable (_Univers_, February 9).] + +[Footnote 389: Gratry had written: "Cette apologetique sans franchise +est l'une des causes de notre decadence religieuse depuis des +siecles.... Sommes-nous les predicateurs du mensonge ou les apotres de +la verite? Le temps n'est-il pas venu de rejeter avec degout les +fraudes, les interpolations, et les mutilations que les menteurs et les +faussaires, nos plus cruels ennemis, ont pu introduire parmi nous?" The +bishop wrote: "Jamais parole plus puissante, inspiree par la conscience +et le savoir, n'est arrivee plus a propos que la votre.... Le mal est +tel et le danger si effrayant que le silence deviendrait de la +complicite."] + +[Footnote 390: Pace eruditissimorum virorum dictum esto: mihi haecce nec +veritati congrua esse videntur, nec caritati. Non veritati; verum quidem +est Protestantes gravissimam commisisse culpam, dum spreta et +insuperhabita divina Ecclesiae auctoritate, aeternas et immutabiles +fidei veritates subjectivae rationis judicio et arbitrio subjecissent. +Hoc superbiae humanae fomentum gravissimis certe malis, rationalismo, +criticismo, etc. occasionem dedit. Ast hoc quoque respectu dici debet, +protestantismi ejus qui cum eodem in nexu existit rationalismi germen +saeculo xvi. praeextitisse in sic dicto humanismo et classicismo, quem +in sanctuario ipso quidam summae auctoritatis viri incauto consilio +fovebant et nutriebant; et nisi hoc germen praeextitisset concipi non +posset quomodo tam parva scintilla tantum in medio Europae excitare +potuisset incendium, ut illud ad hodiernum usque diem restingui non +potuerit. Accedit et illud: fidei et religionis, Ecclesiae et omnis +auctoritatis contemptum absque ulla cum Protestantismo cognatione et +parentela in medio Catholicae gentis saeculo xviii. temporibus Voltarii +et encyclopaedistarum enatum fuisse.... Quidquid interim sit de +rationalismo, puto venerabilem deputationem omnino falli dum texendo +genealogiam naturalismi, materialismi, pantheismi, atheismi, etc., omnes +omnino hos errores foetus Protestantismi esse asserit.... Errores +superius enumerati non tantum nobis verum et ipsis Protestantibus +horrori sunt et abominationi, ut adeo Ecclesiae et nobis Catholicis in +iis oppugnandis et refellendis auxilio sint et adjumento. Ita Leibnitius +erat certe vir eruditus et omni sub respectu praestans; vir in +dijudicandis Ecclesiae Catholicae institutis aequus; vir in debellandis +sui temporis erroribus strenuus; vir in revehenda inter Christianas +communitates concordia optime animatus et meritus. [Loud cries of "Oh! +Oh!" The President de Angelis rang the bell and said, "Non est hicce +locus laudandi Protestantes."] ... Hos viros quorum magna copia existit +in Germania, in Anglia, item et in America septentrionali, magna hominum +turba inter Protestantes sequitur, quibus omnibus applicari potest illud +magni Augustini: "Errant, sed bona fide errant; haeretici sunt, sed illi +nos haereticos tenent. Ipsi errorem non invenerunt, sed a perversis et +in errorem inductis parentibus haereditaverunt, parati errorem deponere +quamprimum convicti fuerint." [Here there was a long interruption and +ringing of the bell, with cries of "Shame! shame!" "Down with the +heretic!"] Hi omnes etiamsi non spectent ad Ecclesiae corpus, spectant +tamen ad ejus animam, et de muneribus Redemptionis aliquatenus +participant. Hi omnes in amore quo erga Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum +feruntur, atque in illis positivis veritatibus quas ex fidei naufragio +salvarunt, totidem gratiae divinae momenta possident, quibus +misericordia Dei utetur, ut eos ad priscam fidem et Ecclesiam reducat, +nisi nos exaggerationibus nostris et improvidis charitatis ipsis debitae +laesionibus tempus misericordiae divinae elongaverimus. Quantum autem ad +charitatem, ei certe contrarium est vulnera aliena alio fine tangere +quam ut ipsa sanentur; puto autem hac enumeratione errorum, quibus +Protestantismus occasionem dedisset, id non fieri.... Decreto, quod in +supplementum ordinis interioris nobis nuper communicatum est, statuitur +res in Concilio hocce suffragiorum majoritate decidendas fore. Contra +hoc principium, quod omnem praecedentium Conciliorum praxim funditus +evertit, multi episcopi reclamarunt, quin tamen aliquod responsum +obtinuerint. Responsum autem in re tanti momenti dari debuisset clarum, +perspicuum et omnis ambiguitatis expers. Hoc ad summas Concilii hujus +calamitates spectat, nam hoc certe et praesenti generationi et posteris +praebebit ansam dicendi: huic concilio libertatem et veritatem defuisse. +Ego ipse convictus sum, aeternam ac immutabilem fidei et traditionis +regulam semper fuisse semperque mansuram communem, adminus moraliter +unanimem consensum. Concilium, quod hac regula insuperhabita, fidei et +morum dogmata majoritate numerica definire intenderet, juxta meam +intimam convictionem eo ipso excideret jure conscientiam orbis Catholici +sub sanctione vitae ac mortis aeternae obligandi.] + +[Footnote 391: Dum autem ipse die hesterno ex suggestu hanc quaestionem +posuissem et verba deconsensu moraliter unanimi in rebus fidei +definiendis necessario protulissem, interruptus fui, mihique inter +maximum tumultum et graves comminationes possibilitas sermonis +continuandi adempta est. Atque haec gravissima sane circumstantia magis +adhuc comprobat necessitatem habendi responsi, quod clarum sit omnisque +ambiguitatis expers. Peto itaque humillime, ut hujusmodi responsum in +proxima congregatione generali detur. Nisi enim haec fierent anceps +haererem an manere possem in Concilio, ubi libertas Episcoporum ita +opprimitur, quemadmodum heri in me oppressa fuit, et ubi dogmata fidei +definirentur novo et in Ecclesia Dei adusque inaudito modo.] + +[Footnote 392: Quoniam vero satis non est, haereticam pravitatem +devitare, nisi ii quoque errores diligenter fugiantur, qui ad illam plus +minusve accedunt, omnes officii monemus, servandi etiam Constitutiones +et Decreta quibus pravae eiusmodi opiniones, quae isthic diserte non +enumerantur, ab hac Sancta Sede proscriptae et prohibitae sunt.] + +[Footnote 393: In the speech on infallibility which he prepared, but +never delivered. Archbishop Kenrick thus expressed himself: "Inter alia +quae mihi stuporem injecerunt dixit Westmonasteriensis, nos additamento +facto sub finem Decreti de Fide, tertia Sessione lati, ipsam Pontificiam +Infallibilitatem, saltem implicite, jam agnovisse, nec ab ea recedere +nunc nobis licere. Si bene intellexerim Rm Relatorem, qui in +Congregatione generali hoc additamentum, prius oblatum, deinde +abstractum, nobis mirantibus quid rei esset, illud iterum inopinato +commendavit--dixit, verbis clarioribus, per illud nullam omnino +doctrinam edoceri; sed earn quatuor capitibus ex quibus istud decretum +compositum est imponi tanquam eis coronidem convenientem; eamque +disciplinarem magis quam doctrinalem characterem habere. Aut deceptus +est ipse, si vera dixit Westmonasteriensis; aut nos sciens in errorem +induxit, quod de viro tam ingenuo minime supponere licet. Utcumque +fuerit, ejus declarationi fidentes, plures suffragia sua isti decreto +haud deneganda censuerunt ob istam clausulam; aliis, inter quos egomet, +doles parari metuentibus, et aliorum voluntati hac in re aegre +cedentibus. In his omnibus non est mens mea aliquem ex Reverendissimis +Patribus malae fidei incusare; quos omnes, ut par est, veneratione +debita prosequor. Sed extra concilium adesse dicuntur viri +religiosi--forsan et pii--qui maxime in illud influunt; qui calliditati +potius quam bonis artibus confisi, rem Ecclesiae in maximum ex quo orta +sit discrimen adduxerant; qui ab inito concilio effecerunt ut in +Deputationes conciliares ii soli eligerentur qui eorum placitis fovere +aut noscerentur aut crederentur; qui nonnullorum ex eorum +praedecessoribus vestigia prementes in schematibus nobis propositis, et +ex eorum officina prodeuntibus, nihil magis cordi habuisse videntur quam +Episcopalem auctoritatem deprimere, Pontificiam autem extollere; et +verborum ambagibus incautos decipere velle videntur, dum alia ab aliis +in eorum explicationem dicantur. Isti grave hoc incendium in Ecclesia +excitarunt, et in illud insufflare non desinunt, scriptis eorum, +pietatis speciem prae se ferentibus sed veritate ejus vacuis, in populos +spargentibus."] + +[Footnote 394: The author of the protest afterwards gave the substance +of his argument as follows: "Episcopi et theologi publice a Parlamento +interrogati fuerunt, utrum Catholici Angliae tenerent Papam posse +definitiones relativas ad fidem et mores populis imponere absque omni +consensu expresso vel tacito Ecclesiae. Omnes Episcopi et theologi +responderunt Catholicos hoc non tenere. Hisce responsionibus confisum +Parlamentum Angliae Catholicos admisit ad participationem iurium +civilium. Quis Protestantibus persuadebit Catholicos contra honorem et +bonam fidem non agere, qui quando agebatur de iuribus sibi acquirendis +publice professi sunt ad fidem Catholicam non pertinere doctrinam +infallibilitatis Romani Pontificis, statim autem ac obtinuerint quod +volebant, a professione publice facta recedunt et contrarium +affirmant?"] + +[Footnote 395: Archbishop Kenrick's remarkable statement is not +reproduced accurately in his pamphlet _De Pontificia infallibilitate_. +It is given in full in the last pages of the _Observationes_, and is +abridged in his _Concio habenda sed non habita_, where he concludes: +"Eam fidei doctrinam esse neganti, non video quomodo responderi possit, +cum objiceret Ecclesiam errorem contra fidem divinitus revelatam diu +tolerare non potuisse, quin, aut quod ad fidei depositum pertineret non +scivisse, aut errorem manifestum tolerasse videretur."] + +[Footnote 396: Certissimum ipsi esse fore ut infallibilitate ista +dogmatice definita, in dioecesi sua, in qua ne vestigium quidem +traditionis de infallibilitate S.P. hucusque inveniatur, et in aliis +regionibus multi, et quidem non solum minoris, sed etiam optimae notae, +a fide deficiant.--Si edatur, omnis progressus conversionum in +Provinciis Foederatis Americae funditus extinguetur. Episcopi et +sacerdotes in disputationibus cum Protestantibus quid respondere possent +non haberent.--Per eiusmodi definitionem acatholicis, inter quos haud +pauci iique optimi hisce praesertim temporibus firmum fidei fundamentum +desiderant, ad Ecclesiam reditus redditur difficilis, imo +impossibilis.--Qui Concilii decretis obsequi vellent, invenient se +maximis in difficultatibus versari. Gubernia civilia eos tanquam +subditos minus fidos, haud sine verisimilitudinis specie, habebunt. +Hostes Ecclesiae eos lacessere non verebuntur, nunc eis objicientes +errores quos Pontifices aut docuisse, aut sua agendi ratione probasse, +dicuntur et risu excipient responsa quae sola afferri possint.--Eo ipso +definitur in globo quidquid per diplomata apostolica huc usque definitum +est.... Poterit, admissa tali definitione, statuere de dominio +temporali, de eius mensura, de potestate deponendi reges, de usu +coercendi haereticos.--Doctrina de Infallibilitate Romani Pontificis nec +in Scriptura Sacra, nec in traditione ecclesiastica fundata mihi +videtur. Immo contrarian., ni fallor, Christiana antiquitas tenuit +doctrinam.--Modus dicendi Schematis supponit existere in Ecclesia +duplicem infallibilitatem, ipsius Ecclesiae et Romani Pontificis, quod +est absurdum et inauditum.--Subterfugiis quibus theologi non pauci in +Honorii causa usi sunt, derisui me exponerem. Sophismata adhibere et +munere episcopali et natura rei, quae in timore Domini pertractanda est, +indignum mihi videtur.--Plerique textus quibus eam comprobant etiam +melioris notae theologi, quos Ultramontanos vocant, mutilati sunt, +falsificati, interpolati, circumtruncati, spurii, in sensum alienum +detorti.--Asserere audeo eam sententiam, ut in schemate jacet, non esse +fidei doctrinam, nec talem devenire posse per quamcumque definitionem +etiam conciliarem.] + +[Footnote 397: This, at least, was the discouraging impression of +Archbishop Kenrick: Semper contigit ut Patres surgendo assensum +sententiae deputationis praebuerint. Primo quidem die suffragiorum, cum +quaestio esset de tertia parte primae emendationis, nondum adhibita +indicatione a subsecretario, deinde semper facta, plures surrexerunt +adeo ut necesse foret numerum surgentium capere, ut constaret de +suffragiis. Magna deinde confusio exorta est, et ista emendatio, quamvis +majore forsan numero sic acceptata, in crastinum diem dilata est. +Postero die Rms Relator ex ambone Patres monuit, deputationem +emendationem istam admittere nolle. Omnes fere eam rejiciendam surgendo +statim dixerunt.] + +[Footnote 398: Quodcumque Dominus Noster non dixerit etiam si +metaphysice aut physice certissimum nunquam basis esse poterit dogmatis +divinae fidei. Fides enim per auditum, auditus autem non per scientiam +sed per verba Christi.... Non ipsa verba S. Scripturae igitur, sed +genuinus sensus, sive litteralis, sive metaphoricus, prout in mente Dei +revelantis fuit, atque ab Ecclesiae patribus semper atque ubique +concorditer expositus, et quem nos omnes juramento sequi abstringimur, +hic tantummodo sensus Vera Dei revelatio dicendus est.... Tota +antiquitas silet vel contraria est.... Verbum Dei volo et hoc solum, +quaeso et quidem indubitatum, ut dogma fiat.] + +[Footnote 399: Hanc de infallibilitate his conditionibus ortam et isto +modo introductam aggredi et definire non possumus, ut arbitror, quin eo +ipso tristem viam sternamus tum cavillationibus impiorum, tum etiam +objectionibus moralem hujus Concilii auctoritatem minuentibus. Et hoc +quidem eo magis cavendum est, quod jam prostent et pervulgentur scripta +et acta quae vim ejus et rationem labefactare attentant; ita ut nedum +animos sedare queat et quae pacis sunt afferre, e contra nova +dissensionis et discordiarum semina inter Christianos spargere +videatur.... Porro, quod in tantis Ecclesiae angustiis laboranti mundo +remedium affertur? Iis omnibus qui ab humero indocili excutiunt onera +antiquitus imposita, et consuetudine Patrum veneranda, novum ideoque +grave et odiosum onus imponi postulant schematis auctores. Eos omnes qui +infirmae fidei sunt novo et non satis opportuno dogmate quasi obruunt, +doctrina scilicet hucusque nondum definita, praesentis discussionis +vulnere nonnihil sauciata, et a Concilio cujus libertatem minus aequo +apparere plurimi autumant et dicunt pronuntianda.... Mundus aut aeger +est aut perit, non quod ignorat veritatem vel veritatis doctores, sed +quod ab ea refugit eamque sibi non vult imperari. Igitur, si eam +respuit, quum a toto docentis Ecclesiae corpore, id est ab 800 episcopis +per totum orbem sparsis et simul cum S. Pontifice infallibilibus +praedicatur, quanto magis quum ab unico Doctore infallibili, et quidem +ut tali recenter declarato praedicabitur? Ex altera parte, ut valeat et +efficaciter agat auctoritas necesse est non tantum eam affirmari, sed +insuper admitti.... Syllabus totam Europam pervasit at cui malo mederi +potuit etiam ubi tanquam oraculum infallibile susceptus est? Duo tantum +restabant regna in quibus religio florebat, non de facto tantum, sed et +de jure dominans: Austria scilicet et Hispania. Atqui in his duobus +regnis ruit iste Catholicus ordo, quamvis ab infallibili auctoritate +commendatus, imo forsan saltem in Austria eo praecise quod ab hac +commendatus. Audeamus igitur res uti sunt considerare. Nedum Sanctissimi +Pontificis independens infallibilitas praejudicia et objectiones +destruat quae permultos a fide avertunt, ea potius auget et aggravat.... +Nemo non videt si politicae gnarus, quae semina dissensionum schema +nostrum contineat et quibus periculis exponatur ipsa temporalis Sanctae +sedis potestas.] + +[Footnote 400: Esperons que l'exces du mal provoquera le retour du bien. +Ce Concile n'aura eu qu'un heureux resultat, celui d'en appeler un +autre, reuni dans la liberte.... Le Concile du Vatican demeurera +sterile, comme tout ce qui n'est pas eclos sous le souffle de l'Esprit +Saint. Cependant il aura revele non seulement jusqu'a quel point +l'absolutisme peut abuser des meilleures institutions et des meilleurs +instincts, mais aussi ce que vaut encore le droit, alors meme qu'il n'a +plus que le petit nombre pour le defendre.... Si la multitude passe +quand meme nous lui predisons qu'elle n'ira pas loin. Les Spartiates, +qui etaient tombes aux Thermopyles pour defendre les terres de la +liberte, avaient prepare au flot impitoyable au despotisme la defaite de +Salamis.] + + + + +XV + +A HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION OF THE MIDDLE AGES. By HENRY CHARLES +LEA[401] + + +A good many years ago, when Bishop Wilberforce was at Winchester, and +the Earl of Beaconsfield was a character in fiction, the bishop was +interested in the proposal to bring over the Utrecht Psalter. Mr. +Disraeli thought the scheme absurd. "Of course," he said, "you won't get +it." He was told that, nevertheless, such things are, that public +manuscripts had even been sent across the Atlantic in order that Mr. Lea +might write a history of the Inquisition. "Yes," he replied, "but they +never came back again." The work which has been awaited so long has come +over at last, and will assuredly be accepted as the most important +contribution of the new world to the religious history of the old. Other +books have shown the author as a thoughtful inquirer in the remunerative +but perilous region where religion and politics conflict, where ideas +and institutions are as much considered as persons and events, and +history is charged with all the elements of fixity, development, and +change. It is little to say, now, that he equals Buckle in the extent, +and surpasses him in the intelligent choice and regulation, of his +reading. He is armed at all points. His information is comprehensive, +minute, exact, and everywhere sufficient, if not everywhere complete. In +this astonishing press of digested facts there is barely space to +discuss the ideas which they exhibit and the law which they obey. M. +Molinier lately wrote that a work with this scope and title "serait, a +notre sens, une entreprise a peu pres chimerique." It will be +interesting to learn whether the opinion of so good a judge has been +altered or confirmed. + +The book begins with a survey of all that led to the growth of heresy, +and to the creation, in the thirteenth century, of exceptional tribunals +for its suppression. There can be no doubt that this is the least +satisfactory portion of the whole. It is followed by a singularly +careful account of the steps, legislative and administrative, by which +Church and State combined to organise the intermediate institution, and +of the manner in which its methods were formed by practice. Nothing in +European literature can compete with this, the centre and substance of +Mr. Lea's great history. In the remaining volumes he summons his +witnesses, calls on the nations to declare their experience, and tells +how the new force acted upon society to the end of the Middle Ages. +History of this undefined and international cast, which shows the same +wave breaking upon many shores, is always difficult, from the want of +visible unity and progression, and has seldom succeeded so well as in +this rich but unequal and disjointed narrative. On the most significant +of all the trials, those of the Templars and of Hus, the author spends +his best research; and the strife between Avignon and the Franciscans, +thanks to the propitious aid of Father Ehrle, is better still. Joan of +Arc prospers less than the disciples of Perfect Poverty; and after Joan +of Arc many pages are allotted, rather profusely, to her companion in +arms, who survives in the disguise of Bluebeard. The series of +dissolving scenes ends, in order of time, at Savonarola; and with that +limit the work is complete. The later Inquisition, starting with the +Spanish and developing into the Roman, is not so much a prolongation or +a revival as a new creation. The mediaeval Inquisition strove to control +states, and was an engine of government. The modern strove to coerce the +Protestants, and was an engine of war. One was subordinate, local, +having a kind of headquarters in the house of Saint Dominic at Toulouse. +The other was sovereign, universal, centred in the Pope, and exercising +its domination, not against obscure men without a literature, but +against bishop and archbishop, nuncio and legate, primate and professor; +against the general of the Capuchins and the imperial preacher; against +the first candidate in the conclave, and the president of the +oecumenical council. Under altered conditions, the rules varied and even +principles were modified. Mr. Lea is slow to take counsel of the +voluminous moderns, fearing the confusion of dates. When he says that +the laws he is describing are technically still in force, he makes too +little of a fundamental distinction. In the eye of the polemic, the +modern Inquisition eclipses its predecessor, and stops the way. + +The origin of the Inquisition is the topic of a lasting controversy. +According to common report, Innocent III. founded it, and made Saint +Dominic the first inquisitor; and this belief has been maintained by the +Dominicans against the Cistercians, and by the Jesuits against the +Dominicans themselves. They affirm that the saint, having done his work +in Languedoc, pursued it in Lombardy: "Per civitates et castella +Lombardiae circuibat, praedicans et evangelizans regnum Dei, atque +contra haereticos inquirens, quos ex odore et aspectu dignoscens, +condignis suppliciis puniebat" (Fontana, _Monumenta Dominicana_, 16). He +transferred his powers to Fra Moneta, the brother in whose bed he died, +and who is notable as having studied more seriously than any other +divine the system which he assailed: "Vicarium suum in munere +inquisitionis delegerat dilectissimum sibi B. Monetam, qui spiritu +illius loricatus, tanquam leo rugiens contra haereticos surrexit.... +Iniquos cum haereticos ex corde insectaretur, illisque nullo modo +parceret, sed igne ac ferro consumeret." Moneta is succeeded by Guala, +who brings us down to historic times, when the Inquisition flourished +undisputed: "Facta promotione Guallae constitutus est in eius locum +generalis inquisitor P.F. Guidottus de Sexto, a Gregorio Papa IX., qui +innumeros propemodum haereticos igne consumpsit" (Fontana, _Sacrum +Theatrum Dominicanum_, 595). Sicilian inquisitors produce an imperial +privilege of December 1224, which shows the tribunal in full action +under Honorius III.: "Sub nostrae indignationis fulmine praesenti edicto +districtius praecipiendo mandamus, quatenus inquisitoribus haereticae +pravitatis, ut suum libere officium prosequi et exercere valeant, prout +decet, omne quod potestis impendatis auxilium" (Franchina, _Inquisizione +di Sicilia_, 1774, 8). This document may be a forgery of the fifteenth +century; but the whole of the Dominican version is dismissed by Mr. Lea +with contempt. He has heard that their founder once rescued a heretic +from the flames; "but Dominic's project only looked to their peaceful +conversion, and to performing the duties of instruction and +exhortation." Nothing is better authenticated in the life of the saint +than the fact that he condemned heretics and exercised the right of +deciding which of them should suffer and which should be spared. +"Contigit quosdam haereticos captos et per eum convictos, cum redire +nollent ad fidem catholicam, tradi judicio saeculari. Cumque essent +incendio deputati, aspiciens inter alios quemdam Raymundum de Grossi +nomine, ac si aliquem eo divinae praedestinationis radium fuisset +intuitus, istum, inquit officialibus curiae, reservate, nec aliquo modo +cum caeteris comburatur" (Constantinus, _Vita S. Dominici_; Echard, +_Scriptores O.P._, 1. 33). The transaction is memorable in Dominican +annals as the one link distinctly connecting Saint Dominic with the +system of executions, and the only security possessed by the order that +the most conspicuous of its actions is sanctioned by the spirit and +example of the founder. The original authorities record it, and it is +commemorated by Bzovius and Malvenda, by Fontana and Percin, by Echard +and Mamachi, as well as in the _Acta Sanctorum_. Those are exactly the +authors to whom in the first instance a man betakes himself who desires +to understand the inception and early growth of the Inquisition. I +cannot remember that any one of them appears in Mr. Lea's notes. He says +indeed that Saint Dominic's inquisitorial activity "is affirmed by all +the historians of the order," and he is a workman who knows his tools so +well that we may hesitate to impute this grave omission to +inacquaintance with necessary literature. It is one of his +characteristics to be suspicious of the _Histoire Intime_ as the seat of +fable and proper domain of those problems in psychology against which +the certitude of history is always going to pieces. Where motives are +obscure, he prefers to contemplate causes in their effects, and to look +abroad over his vast horizon of unquestioned reality. The difference +between outward and interior history will be felt by any one who +compares the story of Dolcino here given with the account in Neander. +Mr. Lea knows more about him and has better materials than the ponderous +professor of pectoral theology. But he has not all Neander's patience +and power to read significance and sense in the musings of a reckless +erratic mind. + +He believes that Pope Gregory IX. is the intellectual originator, as +well as the legislative imponent, of the terrific system which ripened +gradually and experimentally in his pontificate. It does not appear +whether he has read, or knows through Havet the investigations which +conducted Ficker to a different hypothesis. The transition of 1231 from +the saving of life to the taking of life by fire was nearly the sharpest +that men can conceive, and in pursuance of it the subsequent legal forms +are mere detail. The spirit and practice of centuries were renounced for +the opposite extreme; and between the mercy of 1230 and the severity of +1231 there was no intervening stage of graduated rigour. Therefore it is +probable that the new idea of duty, foreign to Italian and specifically +to Roman ways, was conveyed by a new man, that a new influence just then +got possession of the Pope. Professor Ficker signals Guala as the real +contriver of the _regime_ of terror, and the man who acquired the +influence imported the idea and directed the policy. Guala was a +Dominican prior whom the Pope trusted in emergencies. In the year 1230 +he negotiated the treaty of San Germano between Frederic II. and the +Church, and was made Bishop of Brescia. In that year Brescia, first +among Italian cities, inserted in its statutes the emperor's Lombard law +of 1224, which sent the heretic to the stake. The inference is that the +Dominican prelate caused its insertion, and that nobody is so likely to +have expounded its available purport to the pontiff as the man who had +so lately caused it to be adopted in his own see, and who stood high +just then in merit and in favour. That Guala was bishop-elect on 28th +August, half a year before the first burnings at Rome, we know; that he +caused the adoption of Frederic's law at Brescia or at Rome is not in +evidence. Of that abrupt and unexplained enactment little is told us, +but this we are told, that it was inspired by Honorius: "Leges quoque +imperiales per quondam Fredericum olim Romanorum imperatorem, tunc in +devotione Romane sedis persistentem, procurante eadem sede, fuerunt +edite et Padue promulgate" (Bern. Guidonis, _Practica Inquisitionis_, +173). At any rate, Gregory, who had seen most things since the elevation +of Innocent, knew how Montfort dealt with Albigensian prisoners at +Minerve and Lavaur, what penalties were in store at Toulouse, and on +what principles Master Conrad administered in Germany the powers +received from Rome. The Papacy which inspired the coronation laws of +1220, in which there is no mention of capital punishment, could not have +been unobservant of the way in which its own provisions were +transformed; and Gregory, whom Honorius had already called "magnum et +speciale ecclesie Romane membrum," who had required the university of +Bologna to adopt and to expound the new legislation, and who knew the +Archbishop of Magdeburg, had little to learn from Guala about the +formidable weapon supplied to that prelate for the government of +Lombardy. There is room for further conjecture. + +In those days it was discovered that Arragon was infested with heresy; +and the king's confessor proposed that the Holy See be applied to for +means of active suppression. With that object, in 1230 he was sent to +Rome. The envoy's name was Raymond, and his home was on the coast of +Catalonia in the town of Pennaforte. He was a Bolognese jurist, a +Dominican, and the author of the most celebrated treatise on morals made +public in the generation preceding the scholastic theology. The five +years of his abode in Rome changed the face of the Church. He won the +confidence of Gregory, became penitentiary, and was employed to codify +the acts of the popes militant since the publication of Gratian. Very +soon after Saint Raymond appeared at the papal court, the use of the +stake became law, the inquisitorial machinery had been devised, and the +management given to the priors of the order. When he departed he left +behind him instructions for the treatment of heresy, which the pope +adopted and sent out where they were wanted. He refused a mitre, rose to +be general, it is said in opposition to Albertus Magnus, and retired +early, to become, in his own country, the oracle of councils on the +watch for heterodoxy. Until he came, in spite of much violence and many +laws, the popes had imagined no permanent security against religious +error, and were not formally committed to death by burning. Gregory +himself, excelling all the priesthood in vigour and experience, had for +four years laboured, vaguely and in vain, with the transmitted +implements. Of a sudden, in three successive measures, he finds his way, +and builds up the institution which is to last for centuries. That this +mighty change in the conditions of religious thought and life and in the +functions of the order was suggested by Dominicans is probable. And it +is reasonable to suppose that it was the work of the foremost Dominican +then living, who at that very moment had risen to power and predominance +at Rome. + +No sane observer will allow himself to overdraw the influence of +national character on events. Yet there was that in the energetic race +that dwell with the Pyrenees above them and the Ebro below that suited a +leading part in the business of organised persecution. They are among +the nations that have been inventors in politics, and both the +constitution of Arragon and that of the society of Jesus prove their +constructive science. While people in other lands were feeling their +way, doubtful and debonair, Arragon went straight to the end. Before the +first persecuting pope was elected, before the Child of Apulia, who was +to be the first persecuting emperor, was born, Alfonso proscribed the +heretics. King and clergy were in such accord that three years later the +council of Girona decreed that they might be beaten while they remained, +and should be burnt if they came back. It was under this government, +amid these surroundings, that Saint Dominic grew up, whom Sixtus V., +speaking on authority which we do not possess, entitled the First +Inquisitor. Saint Raymond, who had more to do with it than Saint +Dominic, was his countryman. Eymerici, whose _Directorium_ was the best +authority until the _Practica_ of Guidonis appeared, presided during +forty years over the Arragonese tribunal; and his commentator Pegna, the +Coke upon Littleton of inquisitorial jurisprudence, came from the same +stern region. + +The _Histoire Generale de Languedoc_ in its new shape has supplied Mr. +Lea with so good a basis that his obligations to the present editors +bring him into something like dependence on French scholarship. He +designates monarchs by the names they bear in France--Louis le +Germanique, Charles le Sage, Philippe le Bon, and even Philippe; and +this habit, with Foulques and Berenger of Tours, with Aretino for +Arezzo, Oldenburg for Altenburg, Torgau for Zuerich, imparts an exotic +flavour which would be harmless but for a surviving preference for +French books. Compared with Bouquet and Vaissete, he is unfamiliar with +Boehmer and Pertz. For Matthew Paris he gets little or no help from Coxe, +or Madden, or Luard, or Liebermann, or Huillard. In France few things of +importance have escaped him. His account of Marguerite Porrette differs +from that given by Haureau in the _Histoire Litteraire_, and the +difference is left unexplained. No man can write about Joan of Arc +without suspicion who discards the publications of Quicherat, and even +of Wallon, Beaucourt, and Luce. Etienne de Bourbon was an inquisitor of +long experience, who knew the original comrade and assistant of Waldus. +Fragments of him scattered up and down in the works of learned men have +caught the author's eye; but it is uncertain how much he knows of the +fifty pages from Stephanus printed in Echard's book on Saint Thomas, or +of the volume in which Lecoy de la Marche has collected all, and more +than all, that deserves to live of his writings. The "Historia +Pontificalis," attributed to John of Salisbury, in the twentieth volume +of the _Monumenta_, should affect the account of Arnold of Brescia. The +analogy with the Waldenses, amongst whom his party seems to have merged, +might be more strongly marked. "Hominum sectam fecit que adhuc dicitur +heresis Lumbardorum.... Episcopis non parcebat ob avariciam et turpem +questum, et plerumque propter maculam vite, et quia ecclesiam Dei in +sanguinibus edificare nituntur." He was excommunicated and declared a +heretic. He was reconciled and forgiven. Therefore, when he resumed his +agitation his portion was with the obstinate and relapsed. "Ei populus +Romanus vicissim auxilium et consilium contra omnes homines et nominatim +contra domnum papam repromisit, eum namque excommunicaverat ecclesia +Romana.... Post mortem domni Innocentii reversus est in Italiam, et +promissa satisfactione et obediencia Romane ecclesie, a domno Eugenio +receptus est apud Viterbum." And it is more likely that the fear of +relics caused them to reduce his body to ashes than merely to throw the +ashes into the Tiber. + +The energy with which Mr. Lea beats up information is extraordinary even +when imperfectly economised. He justly makes ample use of the _Vitae +Paparum Avenionensium_, which he takes apparently from the papal volume +of Muratori. These biographies were edited by Baluze, with notes and +documents of such value that Avignon without him is like Athenaeus +without Casaubon, or the Theodosian Code without Godefroy. But if he +neglects him in print, he constantly quotes a certain Paris manuscript +in which I think I recognise the very one which Baluze employed. +Together with Guidonis and Eymerici, the leading authority of the +fourteenth century is Zanchini, who became an inquisitor at Rimini in +1300, and died in 1340. His book was published with a commentary by +Campeggio, one of the Tridentine fathers; and Campeggio was further +annotated by Simancas, who exposes the disparity between Italian and +Spanish usage. It was reprinted, with other treatises of the same kind, +in the eleventh volume of the _Tractatus_. Some of these treatises, and +the notes of Campeggio and Simancas, are passed over by Mr. Lea without +notice. But he appreciates Zanchini so well that he has had him copied +from a manuscript in France. Very much against his habit, he prints one +entire sentence, from which it appears that his copy does not agree to +the letter with the published text. It is not clear in every case +whether he is using print or manuscript. One of the most interesting +directions for inquisitors, and one of the earliest, was written by +Cardinal Fulcodius, better known as Clement IV. Mr. Lea cites him a +dozen times, always accurately, always telling us scrupulously which of +the fifteen chapters to consult. The treatise of Fulcodius occupies a +few pages in Carena, _De Officio S.S. Inquisitionis_, in which, besides +other valuable matter, there are notes by Carena himself, and a tract by +Pegna, the perpetual commentator of the Inquisition. This is one of the +first eight or ten books which occur to any one whose duty it is to lay +in an inquisitor's library. Not only we are never told where to find +Fulcodius, but when Carena is mentioned it is so done as to defy +verification. Inartistic references are not, in this instance, a token +of inadequate study. But a book designed only for readers who know at a +glance where to lay their finger on _S. Francis. Collat. Monasticae, +Collat. 20_, or _Post constt. IV. XIX. Cod. I. v._ will be slow in +recovering outlay. + +Not his acquaintance with rare books only, which might be the curiosity +of an epicurean, but with the right and appropriate book, amazes the +reader. Like most things attributed to Abbot Joachim, the Vaticinia +Pontificum is a volume not in common use, and decent people may be found +who never saw a copy. Mr. Lea says: "I have met with editions of Venice +issued in 1589, 1600, 1605, and 1646, of Ferrara in 1591, of Frankfort +in 1608, of Padua in 1625, and of Naples in 1660, and there are +doubtless numerous others." This is the general level throughout; the +rare failures disappear in the imposing supererogation of knowledge. It +could not be exceeded by the pupils of the Goettingen seminary or the +Ecole des Chartes. They have sometimes a vicious practice of overtopping +sufficient proof with irrelevant testimony: but they transcribe all +deciding words in full, and for the rest, quicken and abridge our toil +by sending us, not to chapter and verse, but to volume and page, of the +physical and concrete book. We would gladly give Bluebeard and his +wife--he had but one after all--in exchange for the best quotations from +sources hard of access which Mr. Lea must have hoarded in the course of +labours such as no man ever achieved before him, or will ever attempt +hereafter. It would increase the usefulness of his volumes, and double +their authority. There are indeed fifty pages of documentary matter not +entirely new or very closely connected with the text. Portions of this, +besides, are derived from manuscripts explored in France and Italy, but +not it seems in Rome, and in this way much curious and valuable material +underlies the pages; but it is buried without opportunity of display or +scrutiny. Line upon line of references to the Neapolitan archives only +bewilder and exasperate. Mr. Lea, who dealt more generously with the +readers of _Sacerdotal Celibacy_, has refused himself in these +overcrowded volumes that protection against overstatement. The want of +verifiable indication of authorities is annoying, especially at first; +and it may be possible to find one or two references to Saint +Bonaventure or to Wattenbach which are incorrect. But he is exceedingly +careful in rendering the sense of his informants, and neither strains +the tether nor outsteps his guide. The original words in very many cases +would add definiteness and a touch of surprise to his narrative. + +If there is anywhere the least infidelity in the statement of an +author's meaning, it is in the denial that Marsilius, the imperial +theorist, and the creator with Ockam of the Ghibelline philosophy that +has ruled the world, was a friend of religious liberty. Marsilius +assuredly was not a Whig. Quite as much as any Guelph, he desired to +concentrate power, not to limit or divide it. Of the sacred immunities +of conscience he had no clearer vision than Dante. But he opposed +persecution in the shape in which he knew it, and the patriarchs of +European emancipation have not done more. He never says that there is no +case in which a religion may be proscribed; but he speaks of none in +which a religion may be imposed. He discusses, not intolerance, but the +divine authority to persecute, and pleads for a secular law. It does not +appear how he would deal with a Thug. "Nemo quantumcumque peccans contra +disciplinas speculativas aut operativas quascumque punitur vel arcetur +in hoc saeculo praecise in quantum huiusmodi, sed in quantum peccat +contra praeceptum humanae legis.... Si humana lege prohibitum fuerit +haereticum aut aliter infidelem in regione manere, qui talis in ipsa +repertus fuerit, tanquam legis humanae transgressor, poena vel supplicio +huic transgressioni eadem lege statutis, in hoc saeculo debet arceri." +The difference is slight between the two readings. One asserts that +Marsilius was tolerant in effect; the other denies that he was tolerant +in principle. + +Mr. Lea does not love to recognise the existence of much traditional +toleration. Few lights are allowed to deepen his shadows. If a stream of +tolerant thought descended from the early ages to the time when the +companion of Vespucci brought his improbable tale from Utopia, then the +views of Bacon, of Dante, of Gerson cannot be accounted for by the +ascendency of a unanimous persuasion. It is because all men were born to +the same inheritance of enforced conformity that we glide so easily +towards the studied increase of pain. If some men were able to perceive +what lay in the other scale, if they made a free choice, after +deliberation, between well-defined and well-argued opinions, then what +happened is not assignable to invincible causes, and history must turn +from general and easy explanation to track the sinuosities of a tangled +thread. In Mr. Lea's acceptation of ecclesiastical history intolerance +was handed down as a rule of life from the days of St. Cyprian, and the +few who shrank half-hearted from the gallows and the flames were +exceptions, were men navigating craft of their own away from the track +of St. Peter. Even in his own age he is not careful to show that the +Waldenses opposed persecution, not in self-defence, but in the necessary +sequence of thought. And when he describes Eutychius as an obscure man, +who made a point at the fifth general council, for which he was rewarded +with the patriarchate of Constantinople--Eutychius, who was already +patriarch when the council assembled; and when he twice tears Formosus +from his grave to parade him in his vestments about Rome,--we may +suspect that the perfect grasp of documentary history from the twelfth +century does not reach backwards in a like degree. + +If Mr. Lea stands aloft, in his own domain, as an accumulator, his +credit as a judge of testimony is nearly as high. The deciding test of +his critical sagacity is the masterly treatment of the case against the +Templars. They were condemned without mercy, by Church and State, by +priest and jurist, and down to the present day cautious examiners of +evidence, like Prutz and Lavocat, give a faltering verdict. In the face +of many credulous forerunners and of much concurrent testimony Mr. Lea +pronounces positively that the monster trial was a conspiracy to murder, +and every adverse proof a lie. His immediate predecessor, Schottmueller, +the first writer who ever knew the facts, has made this conclusion easy. +But the American does not move in the retinue of the Prussian scholar. +He searches and judges for himself; and in his estimate of the chief +actor in the tragedy, Clement V., he judges differently. He rejects, as +forgeries, a whole batch of unpublished confessions, and he points out +that a bull disliked by inquisitors is not reproduced entire in the +_Bullarium Dominicanum_. But he fails to give the collation, and is +generally jealous about admitting readers to his confidence, taking them +into consultation and producing the scales. In the case of Delicieux, +which nearly closes the drama of Languedoc, he consults his own sources, +independently of Haureau, and in the end adopts the marginal statement +in Limborch, that the pope aggravated the punishment. In other places, +he puts his trust in the _Historia Tribulationum_, and he shows no +reason for dismissing the different account there given of the death of +Delicieux: "Ipsum fratrem Bernardum sibi dari a summo pontifice +petierunt. Et videns summus pontifex quod secundum accusationes quas de +eo fecerant fratres minores justitiam postularent, tradidit eis eum. +Qui, quum suscepissent eum in sua potestate, sicut canes, cum vehementer +furiunt, lacerant quam capiunt bestiam, ita ipsi diversis afflictionibus +et cruciatibus laniaverunt eum. Et videntes quod neque inquisitionibus +nec tormentis poterant pompam de eo facere in populo, quam quaerebant, +in arctissimo carcere eum reduxerunt, ibidem eum taliter tractantes, +quod infra paucos menses, quasi per ignem et aquam transiens, de carcere +corporis et minorum et praedicatorum liberatus gloriose triumphans de +mundi principe, migravit ad coelos." + +We obtain only a general assurance that the fate of Cecco d' Ascoli is +related on the strength of unpublished documents at Florence. It is not +stated what they are. There is no mention of the epitaph pronounced by +the pope who had made him his physician: "Cucullati Minores recentiorum +Peripateticorum principem perdiderunt." We do not learn that Cecco +reproached Dante with the same fatalistic leaning for which he himself +was to die: "Non e fortuna cui ragion non vinca." Or how they disputed: +"An ars natura fortior ac potentior existeret," and argument was +supplanted by experiment: "Aligherius, qui opinionem oppositam mordicus +tuebatur, felem domesticam Stabili objiciebat, quam ea arte instituerat, +ut ungulis candelabrum teneret, dum is noctu legeret, vel coenaret. +Cicchius igitur, ut in sententiam suam Aligherium pertraheret, scutula +assumpta, ubi duo musculi asservabantur inclusi, illos in conspectum +felis dimisit; quae naturae ingenio inemendabili obsequens, muribus vix +inspectis, illico in terram candelabrum abjecit, et ultro citroque +cursare ac vestigiis praedam persequi instituit." Either Appiani's +defence of Cecco d' Ascoli has escaped Mr. Lea, who nowhere mentions +Bernino's _Historia di tutte l' Heresie_ where it is printed; or he may +distrust Bernino for calling Dante a schismatic; or it may be that he +rejects all this as legend, beneath the certainty of history. But he +does not disdain the legendary narrative of the execution: "Tradition +relates that he had learned by his art that he should die between Africa +and Campo Fiore, and so sure was he of this that on the way to the stake +he mocked and ridiculed his guards; but when the pile was about to be +lighted he asked whether there was any place named Africa in the +vicinage, and was told that that was the name of a neighbouring brook +flowing from Fiesole to the Arno. Then he recognised that Florence was +the Field of Flowers, and that he had been miserably deceived." The +Florentine document before me, whether the same or another I know not, +says nothing about untimely mockery or miserable deception: "Aveva +inteso dal demonio dover lui morire di morte accidentale infra l'Affrica +e campo di fiore; per lo che cercando di conservare la reputazione sua, +ordino di non andar mai nelle parti d'Affrica; e credendo tal fallacia e +di potere sbeffare la gente, pubblicamente in Italia esecutava l'arte +della negromanzia, et essendo per questo preso in Firenze e per la sua +confessione essendo gia giudicato al fuoco e legato al palo, ne vedendo +alcun segno della sua liberazione, avendo prima fatto i soliti +scongiuri, domando alle persone che erano all'intorno, se quivi vicino +era alcun luogo che si chiamasse Affrica, et essendogli risposto di si, +cioe un fiumicello che correva ivi presso, il quale discende da Fiesole +ed e chiamato Affrica, considerando che il demonio per lo campo de' +fiori aveva inteso Fiorenza, e per l'Affrica quel fiumicello, ostinato +nella sua perfidia, disse al manigoldo che quanto prima attaccasse il +fuoco." + +Mr. Lea thinks that the untenable conditions offered to the count of +Toulouse by the council of Arles in 1211 are spurious. M. Paul Meyer has +assigned reasons on the other side in his notes to the translation of +the _Chanson de la Croisade_, pp. 75-77; and the editors of Vaissete +(vi. 347) are of the same opinion as M. Paul Meyer. It happens that Mr. +Lea reads the _Chanson_ in the _editio princeps_ of Fauriel; and in this +particular place he cites the _Histoire du Languedoc_ in the old and +superseded edition. From a letter lately brought to light in the +_Archiv fuer Geschichte des Mittelalters_, he infers that the decree of +Clement V. affecting the privilege of inquisitors was tampered with +before publication. A Franciscan writes from Avignon when the new canons +were ready: "Inquisitores etiam heretice pravitatis restinguuntur et +supponuntur episcopis"--which he thinks would argue something much more +decisive than the regulations as they finally appeared. Ehrle, who +publishes the letter, remarks that the writer exaggerated the import of +the intended change; but he says it not of this sentence, but of the +next preceding. Mr. Lea has acknowledged elsewhere the gravity of this +Clementine reform. As it stands, it was considered injurious by +inquisitors, and elicited repeated protests from Bernardus Guidonis: "Ex +predicta autem ordinatione seu restrictione nonnulla inconvenientia +consecuntur, que liberum et expeditum cursum officii inquisitoris tam in +manibus dyocesanorum quam etiam inquisitorum diminuunt seu retardant.... +Que apostolice sedis circumspecta provisione ac provida circumspectione +indigent, ut remedientur, aut moderentur in melius, seu pocius totaliter +suspendantur propter nonnulla inconvenientia que consecuntur ex ipsis +circa liberum et expeditum cursum officii inquisitoris." + +The feudal custom which supplied Beaumarchais with the argument of his +play recruits a stout believer in the historian of the Inquisition, who +assures us that the authorities may be found on a certain page of his +_Sacerdotal Celibacy_. There, however, they may be sought in vain. Some +dubious instances are mentioned, and the dissatisfied inquirer is passed +on to the Fors de Bearn, and to Lagreze, and is informed that M. Louis +Veuillot raised an unprofitable dust upon the subject. I remember that +M. Veuillot, in his boastful scorn for book learning, made no secret +that he took up the cause because the Church was attacked, but got his +facts from somebody else. Graver men than Veuillot have shared his +conclusion. Sir Henry Maine, having looked into the matter in his quick, +decisive way, declared that an instance of the _droit du seigneur_ was +as rare as the Wandering Jew. In resting his case on the Pyrenees, Mr. +Lea shows his usual judgment. But his very confident note is a too easy +and contemptuous way of settling a controversy which is still wearily +extant from Spain to Silesia, in which some new fact comes to light +every year, and drops into obscurity, riddled with the shafts of +critics. + +An instance of too facile use of authorities occurs at the siege of +Beziers. "A fervent Cistercian contemporary informs us that when Arnaud +was asked whether the Catholics should be spared, he feared the heretics +would escape by feigning orthodoxy, and fiercely replied, 'Kill them +all, for God knows his own.'" Caesarius, to whom we owe the _locus +classicus_, was a Cistercian and a contemporary, but he was not so +fervent as that, for he tells it as a report, not as a fact, with a +caution which ought not to have evaporated. "Fertur dixisse: Caedite +eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius!" The Catholic defenders had been +summoned to separate from the Cathari, and had replied that they were +determined to share their fate. It was then resolved to make an example, +which we are assured bore fruit afterwards. The hasty zeal of Citeaux +adopted the speech of the abbot and gave it currency. But its rejection +by the French scholars, Tamizey de Larroque and Auguste Molinier, was a +warning against presenting it with a smooth surface, as a thing tested +and ascertained. Mr. Lea, in other passages, has shown his disbelief in +Caesarius of Heisterbach, and knows that history written in reliance +upon him would be history fit for the moon. Words as ferocious are +recorded of another legate at a different siege (Langlois, _Regne de +Philippe le Hardi_, p. 156). Their tragic significance for history is +not in the mouth of an angry crusader at the storming of a fortress, but +in the pen of an inoffensive monk, watching and praying under the +peaceful summit of the Seven Mountains. + +Mr. Lea undertakes to dispute no doctrine and to propose no moral. He +starts with an avowed desire not to say what may be construed +injuriously to the character or feelings of men. He writes pure history, +and is methodically oblivious of applied history. The broad and +sufficient realm of fact is divided by a scientific frontier from the +outer world of interested argument. Beyond the frontier he has no +cognisance, and neither aspires to inflame passions nor to compose the +great eirenikon. Those who approach with love or hatred are to go empty +away; if indeed he does not try by turns to fill them both. He seeks his +object not by standing aloof, as if the name that perplexed Polyphemus +was the proper name for historians, but by running successively on +opposing lines. He conceives that civilised Europe owes its preservation +to the radiant centre of religious power at Rome, and is grateful to +Innocent III. for the vigour with which he recognised that force was the +only cure for the pestiferous opinions of misguided zealots. One of his +authorities is the inquisitor Bernardus Guidonis, and there is no writer +whom, in various shapes, he quotes so often. But when Guidonis says that +Dolcino and Margarita suffered _per juditium ecclesie_, Mr. Lea is +careful to vindicate the clergy from the blame of their sufferings. + +From a distinction which he draws between despotism and its abuse, and +from a phrase, disparaging to elections, about rivers that cannot rise +above the level of their source, it would appear that Mr. Lea is not +under compulsion to that rigid liberalism which, by repressing the +time-test and applying the main rules of morality all round, converts +history into a frightful monument of sin. Yet, in the wake of passages +which push the praises of authority to the verge of irony, dire +denunciations follow. When the author looks back upon his labours, he +discerns "a scene of almost unrelieved blackness." He avers that "the +deliberate burning alive of a human being simply for difference of +belief, is an atrocity," and speaks of a "fiendish legislation," "an +infernal curiosity," a "seemingly causeless ferocity which appears to +persecute for the mere pleasure of persecuting." The Inquisition is +"energetic only in evil"; it is "a standing mockery of justice, perhaps +the most iniquitous that the arbitrary cruelty of man has ever +devised." + +This is not the protest of wounded humanity. The righteous resolve to +beware of doctrine has not been strictly kept. In the private judgment +of the writer, the thinking of the Middle Ages was sophistry and their +belief superstition. For the erring and suffering mass of mankind he has +an enlightened sympathy; for the intricacies of speculation he has none. +He cherishes a disbelief, theological or inductive it matters not, in +sinners rescued by repentance and in blessings obtained by prayer. +Between remitted guilt and remitted punishment he draws a vanishing line +that makes it doubtful whether Luther started from the limits of +purgatory or the limits of hell. He finds that it was a universal +precept to break faith with heretics, that it was no arbitrary or +artificial innovation to destroy them, but the faithful outcome of the +traditional spirit of the Church. He hints that the horror of sensuality +may be easily carried too far, and that Saint Francis of Assisi was in +truth not very much removed from a worshipper of the devil. Prescott, I +think, conceived a resemblance between the god of Montezuma and the god +of Torquemada; but he saw and suspected less than his more learned +countryman. If any life was left in the Strappado and the Samarra, no +book would deserve better than this description of their vicissitudes to +go the way of its author, and to fare with the flagrant volume, snatched +from the burning at Champel, which is still exhibited to Unitarian +pilgrims in the Rue de Richelieu. + +In other characteristic places we are taught to observe the agency of +human passion, ambition, avarice, and pride; and wade through oceans of +unvaried evil with that sense of dejection which comes from Digby's +_Mores Catholici_ or the _Origines de la France Contemporaine_, books +which affect the mind by the pressure of repeated instances. The +Inquisition is not merely "the monstrous offspring of mistaken zeal," +but it is "utilised by selfish greed and lust of power." No piling of +secondary motives will confront us with the true cause. Some of those +who fleshed their swords with preliminary bloodshed on their way to the +holy war may have owed their victims money; some who in 1348 shared the +worst crime that Christian nations have committed perhaps believed that +Jews spread the plague. But the problem is not there. Neither credulity +nor cupidity is equal to the burden. It needs no weighty scholar, +pressed down and running over with the produce of immense research, to +demonstrate how common men in a barbarous age were tempted and +demoralised by the tremendous power over pain, and death, and hell. We +have to learn by what reasoning process, by what ethical motive, men +trained to charity and mercy came to forsake the ancient ways and made +themselves cheerfully familiar with the mysteries of the +torture-chamber, the perpetual prison, and the stake. And this cleared +away, when it has been explained why the gentlest of women chose that +the keeper of her conscience should be Conrad of Marburg, and, +inversely, how that relentless slaughterer directed so pure a penitent +as Saint Elizabeth, a larger problem follows. After the first +generation, we find that the strongest, the most original, the most +independent minds in Europe--men born for opposition, who were neither +awed nor dazzled by canon law and scholastic theology, by the master of +sentences, the philosopher and the gloss--fully agreed with Guala and +Raymond. And we ask how it came about that, as the rigour of official +zeal relaxed, and there was no compulsion, the fallen cause was taken up +by the Council of Constance, the University of Paris, the +States-General, the House of Commons, and the first reformers; that +Ximenes outdid the early Dominicans, while Vives was teaching +toleration; that Fisher, with his friend's handy book of revolutionary +liberalism in his pocket, declared that violence is the best argument +with Protestants; that Luther, excommunicated for condemning +persecution, became a persecutor? Force of habit will not help us, nor +love and fear of authority, nor the unperceived absorption of +circumambient fumes. + +Somewhere Mr. Lea, perhaps remembering Maryland, Rhode Island, and +Pennsylvania, speaks of "what was universal public opinion from the +thirteenth to the seventeenth century." The obstacle to this theory, as +of a ship labouring on the Bank, or an orb in the tail of a comet, is +that the opinion is associated with no area of time, and remains +unshaken. The Dominican democrat who took his seat with the Mountain in +1848 never swerved from the principles of his order. More often, and, I +think, more deliberately, Mr. Lea urges that intolerance is implied in +the definition of the mediaeval Church, that it sprang from the root and +grew with "the very law of its being." It is no desperate expedient of +authority at bay, for "the people were as eager as their pastors to send +the heretic to the stake." Therefore he does not blame the perpetrator, +but his inherited creed. "No firm believer in the doctrine of exclusive +salvation could doubt that the truest mercy lay in sweeping away the +emissaries of Satan with fire and sword." What we have here is the logic +of history, constraining every system to utter its last word, to empty +its wallets, and work its consequences out to the end. But this radical +doctrine misguides its author to the anachronism that as early as the +first Leo "the final step had been taken, and the Church was definitely +pledged to the suppression of heresy at whatever cost." + +We do not demand that historians shall compose our opinions or relieve +us from the purifying pains of thought. It is well if they discard +dogmatising, if they defer judgment, or judge, with the philosopher, by +precepts capable of being a guide for all. We may be content that they +should deny themselves, and repress their sentiments and wishes. When +these are contradictory, or such as evidently to tinge the medium, an +unholy curiosity is engendered to learn distinctly not only what the +writer knows, but what he thinks. Mr. Lea has a malicious pleasure in +baffling inquiry into the principle of his judgments. Having found, in +the Catechism of Saint Sulpice, that devout Catholics are much on a par +with the fanatics whose sympathy with Satan made the holy office a +requisite of civilisation, and having, by his exuberant censure, +prepared us to hear that this requisite of civilisation "might well seem +the invention of demons," he arrives at the inharmonious conclusion that +it was wrought and worked, with benefit to their souls, by sincere and +godly men. The condemnation of Hus is the proper test, because it was +the extreme case of all. The council was master of the situation, and +was crowded with men accustomed to disparage the authority of the Holy +See and to denounce its acts. Practically, there was no pope either of +Rome or Avignon. The Inquisition languished. There was the plausible +plea of deference to the emperor and his passport; there was the +imperative consideration for the religious future of Bohemia. The +reforming divines were free to pursue their own scheme of justice, of +mercy, and of policy. The scheme they pursued has found an assiduous +apologist in their new historian. "To accuse the good fathers of +Constance of conscious bad faith" is impossible. To observe the +safe-conduct would have seemed absurd "to the most conscientious jurists +of the council." In a nutshell, "if the result was inevitable, it was +the fault of the system and not of the judges, and their conscience +might well feel satisfied." + +There may be more in this than the oratorical precaution of a scholar +wanting nothing, who chooses to be discreet rather than explicit, or the +wavering utterance of a mind not always strung to the same pitch. It is +not the craving to rescue a favourite or to clear a record, but a fusion +of unsettled doctrines of retrospective contempt. There is a +demonstration of progress in looking back without looking up, in finding +that the old world was wrong in the grain, that the kosmos which is +inexorable to folly is indifferent to sin. Man is not an abstraction, +but a manufactured product of the society with which he stands or falls, +which is answerable for crimes that are the shadow and the echo of its +own nobler vices, and has no right to hang the rogue it rears. Before +you lash the detected class, mulct the undetected. Crime without a +culprit, the unavenged victim who perishes by no man's fault, law +without responsibility, the virtuous agent of a vicious cause--all these +are the signs and pennons of a philosophy not recent, but rather +inarticulate still and inchoate, which awaits analysis by Professor +Flint. + +No propositions are simpler or more comprehensive than the two, that an +incorrigible misbeliever ought to burn, or that the man who burns him +ought to hang. The world as expanded on the liberal and on the hegemonic +projection is patent to all men, and the alternatives, that Lacordaire +was bad and Conrad good, are clear in all their bearings. They are too +gross and palpable for Mr. Lea. He steers a subtler course. He does not +sentence the heretic, but he will not protect him from his doom. He does +not care for the inquisitor, but he will not resist him in the discharge +of his duty. To establish a tenable footing on that narrow but needful +platform is the epilogue these painful volumes want, that we may not be +found with the traveller who discovered a precipice to the right of him, +another to the left, and nothing between. Their profound and admirable +erudition leads up, like Hellwald's _Culturgeschichte_, to a great note +of interrogation. When we find the Carolina and the savage justice of +Tudor judges brought to bear on the exquisitely complex psychological +revolution that proceeded, after the year 1200, about the Gulf of Lyons +and the Tyrrhene Sea, we miss the historic question. When we learn that +Priscillian was murdered (i. 214), but that Lechler has no business to +call the sentence on John Hus "ein wahrer Justizmord" (ii. 494), and +then again that the burning of a heretic is a judicial murder after all +(i. 552), we feel bereft of the philosophic answer. + +Although Mr. Lea gives little heed to Pani and Hefele, Gams and Du Boys, +and the others who write for the Inquisition without pleading ignorance, +he emphasises a Belgian who lately wrote that the Church never employed +direct constraint against heretics. People who never heard of the +Belgian will wonder that so much is made of this conventional figleaf. +Nearly the same assertion may be found, with varieties of caution and of +confidence, in a catena of divines, from Bergier to Newman. To appear +unfamiliar with the defence exposes the writer to the thrust that you +cannot know the strength or the weakness of a case until you have heard +its advocates. The liberality of Leo XIII., which has yielded a +splendid and impartial harvest to Ehrle, and Schottmueller, and the +Ecole Francaise, raises the question whether the Abbe Duchesne or Father +Denifle supplied with all the resources of the archives which are no +longer secret would produce a very different or more complete account. +As a philosophy of religious persecution the book is inadequate. The +derivation of sects, though resting always upon good supports, stands +out from an indistinct background of dogmatic history. The intruding +maxims, darkened by shadows of earth, fail to ensure at all times the +objective and delicate handling of mediaeval theory. But the vital parts +are protected by a panoply of mail. From the Albigensian crusade to the +fall of the Templars and to that Franciscan movement wherein the key to +Dante lies, the design and organisation, the activity and decline of the +Inquisition constitute a sound and solid structure that will survive the +censure of all critics. Apart from surprises still in store at Rome, and +the manifest abundance of Philadelphia, the knowledge which is common +property, within reach of men who seriously invoke history as the final +remedy for untruth and the sovereign arbiter of opinion, can add little +to the searching labours of the American. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 401: _English Historical Review_, 1888.] + + + + +XVI + +THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH. By JAMES BRYCE[402] + + +_THE AMERICAN COMMONWEALTH_ cancels that sentence of Scaliger which +Bacon amplifies in his warning against bookish politicians: "Nec ego nec +alius doctus possumus scribere in politicis." The distinctive import of +the book is its power of impressing American readers. Mr. Bryce is in a +better position than the philosopher who said of another, "Ich hoffe, +wir werden uns recht gut verstaendigen koennen; und wenn auch keiner den +andern ganz versteht, wird doch jeder dem andern dazu helfen, dass er +sich selbst besser verstehe." He writes with so much familiarity and +feeling--the national, political, social sympathy is so spontaneous and +sincere--as to carry a very large measure indeed of quiet reproach. The +perfect tone is enough to sweeten and lubricate a medicine such as no +traveller since Hippocrates has administered to contrite natives. Facts, +not comments, convey the lesson; and I know no better illustration of a +recent saying: "Si un livre porte un enseignement, ce doit etre malgre +son auteur, par la force meme des faits qu'il raconte." + +If our countryman has not the chill sententiousness of his great French +predecessor, his portable wisdom and detached thoughts, he has made a +far deeper study of real life, apart from comparative politics and the +European investment of transatlantic experience. One of the very few +propositions which he has taken straight from Tocqueville is also one of +the few which a determined fault-finder would be able to contest. For +they both say that the need for two chambers has become an axiom of +political science. I will admit that the doctrine of Paine and Franklin +and Samuel Adams, which the Pennsylvanian example and the authority of +Turgot made so popular in France, is confuted by the argument of +Laboulaye: "La division du corps legislatif est une condition +essentielle de la liberte. C'est la seule garantie qui assure la nation +contre l'usurpation de ses mandataires." But it may be urged that a +truth which is disputed is not an axiom; and serious men still imagine a +state of things in which an undivided legislature is necessary to resist +a too powerful executive, whilst two chambers can be made to curb and +neutralise each other. Both Tocqueville and Turgot are said to have +wavered on this point. + +It has been said that Tocqueville never understood the federal +constitution. He believed, to his last edition, that the opening words +of the first section, "all legislative powers herein granted," meant +"tous les pouvoirs legislatifs determines par les representants." Story +thought that he "has borrowed the greater part of his reflections from +American works [meaning his own and Lieber's] and little from his own +observation." The French minister at Washington described his book as +"interessant mais fort peu exact"; and even the _Nation_ calls it +"brilliant, superficial, and attractive." Mr. Bryce can never be accused +of imperfect knowledge or penetration, of undue dependence upon others, +or of writing up to a purpose. His fault is elsewhere. This scholar, +distinguished not only as a successful writer of history, which is said +to be frequent, but as a trained and professed historian, which is rare, +altogether declines the jurisdiction of the HISTORICAL REVIEW. His +contumacy is in gross black and white: "I have had to resist another +temptation, that of straying off into history." Three stout volumes tell +how things are, without telling how they came about. I should have no +title to bring them before this tribunal, if it were not for an +occasional glimpse at the past; if it were not for a strongly marked +and personal philosophy of American history which looms behind the Boss +and the Boom, the Hoodlum and the Mugwump. + +There is a valid excuse for preferring to address the unhistoric mind. +The process of development by which the America of Tocqueville became +the America of Lincoln has been lately described with a fulness of +knowledge which no European can rival. Readers who thirst for the +running stream can plunge and struggle through several thousand pages of +Holst's _Verfassungsgeschichte_, and it is better to accept the division +of labour than to take up ground so recently covered by a work which, if +not very well designed or well composed, is, by the prodigious digestion +of material, the most instructive ever written on the natural history of +federal democracy. The author, who has spent twenty years on American +debates and newspapers, began during the pause between Sadowa and Woerth, +when Germany was in the throes of political concentration that made the +empire. He explains with complacency how another irrepressible conflict +between centre and circumference came and went, and how the welfare of +mankind is better served by the gathering than by the balance or +dispersion of forces. Like Gneist and Tocqueville, he thinks of one +country while he speaks of another; he knows nothing of reticence or +economy in the revelation of private opinion; and he has none of Mr. +Bryce's cheery indulgence for folly and error. But when the British +author refuses to devote six months to the files of Californian +journalism, he leaves the German master of his allotted field. + +The actual predominates so much with Mr. Bryce that he has hardly a word +on that extraordinary aspect of democracy, the union in time of war; and +gives no more than a passing glance at the confederate scheme of +government, of which a northern writer said: "The invaluable reforms +enumerated should be adopted by the United States, with or without a +reunion of the seceded States, and as soon as possible." There are +points on which some additional light could be drawn from the roaring +loom of time. In the chapter on Spoils it is not stated that the idea +belongs to the ministers of George III. Hamilton's argument against +removals is mentioned, but not the New York edition of _The Federalist_ +with the marginal note that "Mr. H. had changed his view of the +constitution on that point." The French wars of speculation and plunder +are spoken of; but, to give honour where honour is due, it should be +added that they were an American suggestion. In May 1790, Morris wrote +to two of his friends at Paris: "I see no means of extricating you from +your troubles, but that which most men would consider as the means of +plunging you into greater--I mean a war. And you should make it to +yourselves a war of men, to your neighbours a war of money.... I hear +you cry out that the finances are in a deplorable situation. This should +be no obstacle. I think that they may be restored during war better than +in peace. You want also something to turn men's attention from their +present discontents." There is a long and impartial inquiry into +parliamentary corruption as practised now; but one wishes to hear so +good a judge on the report that money prevailed at some of the +turning-points of American history; on the imputations cast by the +younger Adams upon his ablest contemporaries; on the story told by +another president, of 223 representatives who received accommodation +from the bank, at the rate of a thousand pounds apiece, during its +struggle with Jackson. + +America as known to the man in the cars, and America observed in the +roll of the ages, do not always give the same totals. We learn that the +best capacity of the country is withheld from politics, that there is +what Emerson calls a gradual withdrawal of tender consciences from the +social organisation, so that the representatives approach the level of +the constituents. Yet it is in political science only that America +occupies the first rank. There are six Americans on a level with the +foremost Europeans, with Smith and Turgot, Mill and Humboldt. Five of +these were secretaries of state, and one was secretary of the treasury. +We are told also that the American of to-day regards the national +institutions with a confidence sometimes grotesque. But this is a +sentiment which comes down, not from Washington and Jefferson, but from +Grant and Sherman. The illustrious founders were not proud of their +accomplished work; and men like Clay and Adams persisted in desponding +to the second and third generation. We have to distinguish what the +nation owes to Madison and Marshall, and what to the army of the +Potomac; for men's minds misgave them as to the constitution until it +was cemented by the ordeal and the sacrifice of civil war. Even the +claim put forward for Americans as the providers of humour for mankind +seems to me subject to the same limitation. People used to know how +often, or how seldom, Washington laughed during the war; but who has +numbered the jokes of Lincoln? + +Although Mr. Bryce has too much tact to speak as freely as the Americans +themselves in the criticism of their government, he insists that there +is one defect which they insufficiently acknowledge. By law or custom no +man can represent any district but the one he resides in. If ten +statesmen live in the same street, nine will be thrown out of work. It +is worth while to point out (though this may not be the right place for +a purely political problem) that even in that piece of censure in which +he believes himself unsupported by his friends in the States, Mr. Bryce +says no more than intelligent Americans have said before him. It chances +that several of them have discussed this matter with me. One was +governor of his State, and another is among the compurgators cited in +the preface. Both were strongly persuaded that the usage in question is +an urgent evil; others, I am bound to add, judged differently, deeming +it valuable as a security against Boulangism--an object which can be +attained by restricting the number of constituencies to be addressed by +the same candidate. The two American presidents who agreed in saying +that Whig and Tory belong to natural history, proposed a dilemma which +Mr. Bryce wishes to elude. He prefers to stand half-way between the two, +and to resolve general principles into questions of expediency, +probability, and degree: "The wisest statesman is he who best holds the +balance between liberty and order." The sentiment is nearly that of +Croker and De Quincey, and it is plain that the author would discard the +vulgar definition that liberty is the end of government, and that in +politics things are to be valued as they minister to its security. He +writes in the spirit of John Adams when he said that the French and the +American Revolution had nothing in common, and of that eulogy of 1688 as +the true Restoration, on which Burke and Macaulay spent their finest +prose. A sentence which he takes from Judge Cooley contains the brief +abstract of his book: "America is not so much an example in her liberty +as in the covenanted and enduring securities which are intended to +prevent liberty degenerating into licence, and to establish a feeling of +trust and repose under a beneficent government, whose excellence, so +obvious in its freedom, is still more conspicuous in its careful +provision for permanence and stability." Mr. Bryce declares his own +point of view in the following significant terms: "The spirit of 1787 +was an English spirit, and therefore a conservative spirit.... The +American constitution is no exception to the rule that everything which +has power to win the obedience and respect of men must have its roots +deep in the past, and that the more slowly every institution has grown, +so much the more enduring is it likely to prove.... There is a hearty +puritanism in the view of human nature which pervades the instrument of +1787.... No men were less revolutionary in spirit than the heroes of the +American Revolution. They made a revolution in the name of Magna Charta +and the Bill of Rights." I descry a bewildered Whig emerging from the +third volume with a reverent appreciation of ancestral wisdom, Burke's +_Reflections_, and the eighteen Canons of Dort, and a growing belief in +the function of ghosts to make laws for the quick. + +When the last Valois consulted his dying mother, she advised him that +anybody can cut off, but that the sewing on is an acquired art. Mr. +Bryce feels strongly for the men who practised what Catharine thought so +difficult, and he stops for a moment in the midst of his very impersonal +treatise to deliver a panegyric on Alexander Hamilton. _Tanto nomini +nullum par elogium._ His merits can hardly be overstated. Talleyrand +assured Ticknor that he had never known his equal; Seward calls him "the +ablest and most effective statesman engaged in organising and +establishing the union"; Macmaster, the iconoclast, and Holst, poorly +endowed with the gift of praise, unite in saying that he was the +foremost genius among public men in the new world; Guizot told Rush that +_The Federalist_ was the greatest work known to him, in the application +of elementary principles of government to practical administration; his +paradox in support of political corruption, so hard to reconcile with +the character of an honest man, was repeated to the letter by Niebuhr. +In estimating Hamilton we have to remember that he was in no sense the +author of the constitution. In the convention he was isolated, and his +plan was rejected. In _The Federalist_, written before he was thirty, he +pleaded for a form of government which he distrusted and disliked. He +was out of sympathy with the spirit that prevailed, and was not the true +representative of the cause, like Madison, who said of him, "If his +theory of government deviated from the republican standard, he had the +candour to avow it, and the greater merit of co-operating faithfully in +maturing and supporting a system which was not his choice." The +development of the constitution, so far as it continued on his lines, +was the work of Marshall, barely known to us by the extracts in late +editions of the _Commentaries_. "_The Federalist_," says Story, "could +do little more than state the objects and general bearing of these +powers and functions. The masterly reasoning of the chief-justice has +followed them out to their ultimate results and boundaries with a +precision and clearness approaching, as near as may be, to mathematical +demonstration." Morris, who was as strong as Hamilton on the side of +federalism, testifies heavily against him as a leader: "More a theoretic +than a practical man, he was not sufficiently convinced that a system +may be good in itself, and bad in relation to particular circumstances. +He well knew that his favourite form was inadmissible, unless as the +result of civil war; and I suspect that his belief in that which he +called an approaching crisis arose from a conviction that the kind of +government most suitable, in his opinion, to this extensive country, +could be established in no other way.... He trusted, moreover, that in +the changes and chances of time we should be involved in some war, which +might strengthen our union and nerve the executive. He was of all men +the most indiscreet. He knew that a limited monarchy, even if +established, could not preserve itself in this country.... He never +failed, on every occasion, to advocate the excellence of, and avow his +attachment to, monarchical government.... Thus, meaning very well, he +acted very ill, and approached the evils he apprehended by his very +solicitude to keep them at a distance." The language of Adams is more +severe; but Adams was an enemy. It has been justly said that "he wished +good men, as he termed them, to rule; meaning the wealthy, the +well-born, the socially eminent." The federalists have suffered somewhat +from this imputation; for a prejudice against any group claiming to +serve under that flag is among the bequests of the French Revolution. +"Les honnetes gens ont toujours peur: c'est leur nature," is a maxim of +Chateaubriand. A man most divergent and unlike him, Menou, had drawn the +same conclusion: "En revolution il ne faut jamais se mettre du cote des +honnetes gens: ils sont toujours balayes." And Royer Collard, with the +candour one shows in describing friends, said: "C'est le parti des +honnetes gens qui est le moins honnete de tous les partis. Tout le +monde, meme dans ses erreurs, etait honnete a l'assemblee constituante, +excepte le cote droit." Hamilton stands higher as a political +philosopher than as an American partisan. Europeans are generally +liberal for the sake of something that is not liberty, and conservative +for an object to be conserved; and in a jungle of other motives besides +the reason of state we cannot often eliminate unadulterated or +disinterested conservatism. We think of land and capital, tradition and +custom, the aristocracy and the services, the crown and the altar. It is +the singular superiority of Hamilton that he is really anxious about +nothing but the exceeding difficulty of quelling the centrifugal forces, +and that no kindred and coequal powers divide his attachment or +intercept his view. Therefore he is the most scientific of conservative +thinkers, and there is not one in whom the doctrine that prefers the +ship to the crew can be so profitably studied. + +In his scruple to do justice to conservative doctrine Mr. Bryce extracts +a passage from a letter of Canning to Croker which, by itself, does not +adequately represent that minister's views. "Am I to understand, then, +that you consider the king as completely in the hands of the Tory +aristocracy as his father, or rather as George II. was in the hands of +the Whigs? If so, George III. reigned, and Mr. Pitt (both father and +son) administered the government, in vain. I have a better opinion of +the real vigour of the crown when it chooses to put forth its own +strength, and I am not without some reliance on the body of the people." +The finest mind reared by many generations of English conservatism was +not always so faithful to monarchical traditions, and in addressing the +incessant polemist of Toryism Canning made himself out a trifle better +than he really was. His intercourse with Marcellus in 1823 exhibits a +diluted orthodoxy: "Le systeme britannique n'est que le butin des +longues victoires remportees par les sujets contre le monarque. +Oubliez-vous que les rois ne doivent pas donner des institutions, mais +que les institutions seules doivent donner des rois?... Connaissez-vous +un roi qui merite d'etre libre, dans le sens implicite du mot?... Et +George IV., croyez-vous que je serais son ministre, s'il avait ete libre +de choisir?... Quand un roi denie au peuple les institutions dont le +peuple a besoin, quel est le procede de l'Angleterre? Elle expulse ce +roi, et met a sa place un roi d'une famille alliee sans doute, mais qui +se trouve ainsi, non plus un fils de la royaute, confiant dans le droit +de ses ancetres, mais le fils des institutions nationales, tirant tous +ses droits de cette seule origine.... Le gouvernement representatif est +encore bon a une chose que sa majeste a oubliee. Il fait que des +ministres essuient sans repliquer les epigrammes d'un roi qui cherche a +se venger ainsi de son impuissance." + +Mr. Bryce's work has received a hearty welcome in its proper hemisphere, +and I know not that any critic has doubted whether the pious founder, +with the dogma of unbroken continuity, strikes the just note or covers +all the ground. At another angle, the origin of the greatest power and +the grandest polity in the annals of mankind emits a different ray. It +was a favourite doctrine with Webster and Tocqueville that the beliefs +of the pilgrims inspired the Revolution, which others deem a triumph of +pelagianism; while J.Q. Adams affirms that "not one of the motives which +stimulated the puritans of 1643 had the slightest influence in actuating +the confederacy of 1774." The Dutch statesman Hogendorp, returning from +the United States in 1784, had the following dialogue with the +stadtholder: "La religion, monseigneur, a moins d'influence que jamais +sur les esprits.... Il y a toute une province de quakers?... Depuis la +revolution il semble que ces sortes de differences s'evanouissent.... +Les Bostoniens ne sont-ils pas fort devots?... Ils l'etaient, +monseigneur, mais a lire les descriptions faites il y a vingt ou meme +dix ans, on ne les reconnait pas de ce cote-la." It is an old story that +the federal constitution, unlike that of Herault de Sechelles, makes no +allusion to the Deity; that there is none in the president's oath; and +that in 1796 it was stated officially that the government of the United +States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. No three +men had more to do with the new order than Franklin, Adams, and +Jefferson. Franklin's irreligious tone was such that his manuscripts, +like Bentham's, were suppressed, to the present year. Adams called the +Christian faith a horrid blasphemy. Of Jefferson we are assured that, if +not an absolute atheist, he had no belief in a future existence; and he +hoped that the French arms "would bring at length kings, nobles, and +priests to the scaffolds which they have been so long deluging with +human blood." If Calvin prompted the Revolution, it was after he had +suffered from contact with Tom Paine; and we must make room for other +influences which, in that generation, swayed the world from the rising +to the setting sun. It was an age of faith in the secular sense +described by Guizot: "C'etait un siecle ardent et sincere, un siecle +plein de foi et d'enthousiasme. Il a eu foi dans la verite, car il lui a +reconnu le droit de regner." + +In point both of principle and policy, Mr. Bryce does well to load the +scale that is not his own, and to let the jurist within him sometimes +mask the philosophic politician. I have to speak of him not as a +political reasoner or as an observer of life in motion, but only in the +character which he assiduously lays aside. If he had guarded less +against his own historic faculty, and had allowed space to take up +neglected threads, he would have had to expose the boundless innovation, +the unfathomed gulf produced by American independence, and there would +be no opening to back the Jeffersonian shears against the darning-needle +of the great chief-justice. My misgiving lies in the line of thought of +Riehl and the elder Cherbuliez. The first of those eminent conservatives +writes: "Die Extreme, nicht deren Vermittelungen und Abschwaechungen, +deuten die Zukunft vor." The Genevese has just the same remark: "Les +idees n'ont jamais plus de puissance que sous leur forme la plus +abstraite. Les idees abstraites ont plus remue le monde, elles ont cause +plus de revolutions et laisse plus de traces durables que les idees +pratiques." Lassalle says, "Kein Einzelner denkt mit der Consequenz +eines Volksgeistes." Schelling may help us over the parting ways: "Der +erzeugte Gedanke ist eine unabhaengige Macht, fuer sich fortwirkend, ja, +in der menschlichen Seele, so anwachsend, dass er seine eigene Mutter +bezwingt und unterwirft." After the philosopher, let us conclude with a +divine: "C'est de revolte en revolte, si l'on veut employer ce mot, que +les societes se perfectionnent, que la civilisation s'etablit, que la +justice regne, que la verite fleurit." + +The anti-revolutionary temper of the Revolution belongs to 1787, not to +1776. Another element was at work, and it is the other element that is +new, effective, characteristic, and added permanently to the experience +of the world. The story of the revolted colonies impresses us first and +most distinctly as the supreme manifestation of the law of resistance, +as the abstract revolution in its purest and most perfect shape. No +people was so free as the insurgents; no government less oppressive than +the government which they overthrew. Those who deem Washington and +Hamilton honest can apply the term to few European statesmen. Their +example presents a thorn, not a cushion, and threatens all existing +political forms, with the doubtful exception of the federal constitution +of 1874. It teaches that men ought to be in arms even against a remote +and constructive danger to their freedom; that even if the cloud is no +bigger than a man's hand, it is their right and duty to stake the +national existence, to sacrifice lives and fortunes, to cover the +country with a lake of blood, to shatter crowns and sceptres and fling +parliaments into the sea. On this principle of subversion they erected +their commonwealth, and by its virtue lifted the world out of its orbit +and assigned a new course to history. Here or nowhere we have the broken +chain, the rejected past, precedent and statute superseded by unwritten +law, sons wiser than their fathers, ideas rooted in the future, reason +cutting as clean as Atropos. The wisest philosopher of the old world +instructs us to take things as they are, and to adore God in the event: +"Il faut toujours etre content de l'ordre du passe, parce qu'il est +conforme a la volonte de Dieu absolue, qu'on connoit par l'evenement." +The contrary is the text of Emerson: "Institutions are not aboriginal, +though they existed before we were born. They are not superior to the +citizen. Every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular +case. We may make as good; we may make better." More to the present +point is the language of Seward: "The rights asserted by our forefathers +were not peculiar to themselves, they were the common rights of mankind. +The basis of the constitution was laid broader by far than the +superstructure which the conflicting interests and prejudices of the day +suffered to be erected. The constitution and laws of the federal +government did not practically extend those principles throughout the +new system of government; but they were plainly promulgated in the +declaration of independence. Their complete development and reduction to +practical operation constitute the progress which all liberal statesmen +desire to promote, and the end of that progress will be complete +political equality among ourselves, and the extension and perfection of +institutions similar to our own throughout the world." A passage which +Hamilton's editor selects as the keynote of his system expresses well +enough the spirit of the Revolution: "The sacred rights of mankind are +not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are +written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the +hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by +mortal power. I consider civil liberty, in a genuine, unadulterated +sense, as the greatest of terrestrial blessings. I am convinced that the +whole human race is entitled to it, and that it can be wrested from no +part of them without the blackest and most aggravated guilt." Those were +the days when a philosopher divided governments into two kinds, the bad +and the good, that is, those which exist and those which do not exist; +and when Burke, in the fervour of early liberalism, proclaimed that a +revolution was the only thing that could do the world any good: "Nothing +less than a convulsion that will shake the globe to its centre can ever +restore the European nations to that liberty by which they were once so +much distinguished." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 402: _English Historical Review_, 1889.] + + + + +XVII + +HISTORICAL PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE AND FRENCH BELGIUM AND SWITZERLAND. + +By ROBERT FLINT[403] + + +When Dr. Flint's former work appeared, a critic, who, it is true, was +also a rival, objected that it was diffusely written. What then occupied +three hundred and thirty pages has now expanded to seven hundred, and +suggests a doubt as to the use of criticism. It must at once be said +that the increase is nearly all material gain. The author does not cling +to his main topic, and, as he insists that the science he is adumbrating +flourishes on the study of facts only, and not on speculative ideas, he +bestows some needless attention on historians who professed no +philosophy, or who, like Daniel and Velly, were not the best of their +kind. Here and there, as in the account of Condorcet, there may be an +unprofitable or superfluous sentence. But on the whole the enlarged +treatment of the philosophy of history in France is accomplished not by +expansion, but by solid and essential addition. Many writers are +included whom the earlier volume passed over, and Cousin occupies fewer +pages now than in 1874, by the aid of smaller type and the omission of a +passage injurious to Schelling. Many necessary corrections and +improvements have been made, such as the transfer of Ballanche from +theocracy to the liberal Catholicism of which he is supposed to be the +founder. + +Dr. Flint's unchallenged superiority consists alike in his familiarity +with obscure, but not irrelevant authors, whom he has brought into +line, and in his scrupulous fairness towards all whose attempted systems +he has analysed. He is hearty in appreciating talent of every kind, but +he is discriminating in his judgment of ideas, and rarely sympathetic. +Where the best thoughts of the ablest men are to be displayed, it would +be tempting to present an array of luminous points or a chaplet of +polished gems. In the hands of such artists as Stahl or Cousin they +would start into high relief with a convincing lucidity that would rouse +the exhibited writers to confess that they had never known they were so +clever. Without transfiguration the effect might be attained by +sometimes stringing the most significant words of the original. +Excepting one unduly favoured competitor, who fills two pages with +untranslated French, there is little direct quotation. Cournot is one of +those who, having been overlooked at first, are here raised to +prominence. He is urgently, and justly, recommended to the attention of +students. "They will find that every page bears the impress of patient, +independent, and sagacious thought. I believe I have not met with a more +genuine thinker in the course of my investigations. He was a man of the +finest intellectual qualities, of a powerful and absolutely truthful +mind." But then we are warned that Cournot never wrote a line for the +general reader, and accordingly he is not permitted to speak for +himself. Yet it was this thoughtful Frenchman who said: "Aucune idee +parmi celles qui se referent a l'ordre des faits naturels ne tient de +plus pres a la famille des idees religieuses que l'idee du progres, et +n'est plus propre a devenir le principe d'une sorte de foi religieuse +pour ceux qui n'en ont pas d'autres. Elle a, comme la foi religieuse, la +vertu de relever les ames et les caracteres." + +The successive theories gain neither in clearness nor in contrast by the +order in which they stand. As other countries are reserved for other +volumes, Cousin precedes Hegel, who was his master, whilst Quetelet is +barely mentioned in his own place, and has to wait for Buckle, if not +for Oettingen and Ruemelin, before he comes on for discussion. The finer +threads, the underground currents, are not carefully traced. The +connection between the _juste milieu_ in politics and eclecticism in +philosophy was already stated by the chief eclectic; but the subtler +link between the Catholic legitimists and democracy seems to have +escaped the author's notice. He says that the republic proclaimed +universal suffrage in 1848, and he considers it a triumph for the party +of Lafayette. In fact, it was the triumph of an opposite school--of +those legitimists who appealed from the narrow franchise which sustained +the Orleans dynasty to the nation behind it. The chairman of the +constitutional committee was a legitimist, and he, inspired by the abbe +de Genoude, of the _Gazette de France_, and opposed by Odilon Barrot, +insisted on the pure logic of absolute democracy. + +It is an old story now that the true history of philosophy is the true +evolution of philosophy, and that when we have eliminated whatever has +been damaged by contemporary criticism or by subsequent advance, and +have assimilated all that has survived through the ages, we shall find +in our possession not only a record of growth, but the full-grown fruit +itself. This is not the way in which Dr. Flint understands the building +up of his department of knowledge. Instead of showing how far France has +made a way towards the untrodden crest, he describes the many flowery +paths, discovered by the French, which lead elsewhere, and I expect that +in coming volumes it will appear that Hegel and Buckle, Vico and +Ferrari, are scarcely better guides than Laurent or Littre. Fatalism and +retribution, race and nationality, the test of success and of duration, +heredity and the reign of the invincible dead, the widening circle, the +emancipation of the individual, the gradual triumph of the soul over the +body, of mind over matter, reason over will, knowledge over ignorance, +truth over error, right over might, liberty over authority, the law of +progress and perfectibility, the constant intervention of providence, +the sovereignty of the developed conscience--neither these nor other +alluring theories are accepted as more than illusions or half-truths. +Dr. Flint scarcely avails himself of them even for his foundations or +his skeleton framework. His critical faculty, stronger than his gift of +adaptation, levels obstructions and marks the earth with ruin. He is +more anxious to expose the strange unreason of former writers, the +inadequacy of their knowledge, their want of aptitude in induction, than +their services in storing material for the use of successors. The result +is not to be the sifted and verified wisdom of two centuries, but a +future system, to be produced when the rest have failed by an exhaustive +series of vain experiments. We may regret to abandon many brilliant laws +and attractive generalisations that have given light and clearness and +simplicity and symmetry to our thought; but it is certain that Dr. Flint +is a close and powerful reasoner, equipped with satisfying information, +and he establishes his contention that France has not produced a classic +philosophy of history, and is still waiting for its Adam Smith or Jacob +Grimm. + +The kindred topic of development recurs repeatedly, as an important +factor in modern science. It is still a confused and unsettled chapter, +and in one place Dr. Flint seems to attribute the idea to Bossuet; in +another he says that it was scarcely entertained in those days by +Protestants, and not at all by Catholics; in a third he implies that its +celebrity in the nineteenth century is owing in the first place to +Lamennais. The passage, taken from Vinet, in which Bossuet speaks of the +development of religion is inaccurately rendered. His words are the same +which, on another page, are rightly translated "the course of +religion"--_la suite de la religion_. Indeed, Bossuet was the most +powerful adversary the theory ever encountered. It was not so alien to +Catholic theology as is here stated, and before the time of Jurieu is +more often found among Catholic than Protestant writers. When it was put +forward, in guarded, dubious, and evasive terms, by Petavius, the +indignation in England was as great as in 1846. The work which contained +it, the most learned that Christian theology had then produced, could +not be reprinted over here, lest it should supply the Socinians with +inconvenient texts. Nelson hints that the great Jesuit may have been a +secret Arian, and Bull stamped upon his theory amid the grateful +applause of Bossuet and his friends. Petavius was not an innovator, for +the idea had long found a home among the Franciscan masters: "Proficit +fides secundum statum communem, quia secundum profectum temporum +efficiebantur homines magis idonei ad percipienda et intelligenda +sacramenta fidei.--Sunt multae conclusiones necessario inclusae in +articulis creditis, sed antequam sunt per Ecclesiam declaratae et +explicatae non oportet quemcumque eas credere. Oportet tamen circa eas +sobrie opinari, ut scilicet homo sit paratus eas tenere pro tempore, pro +quo veritas fuerit declarata." Cardinal Duperron said nearly the same +thing as Petavius a generation before him: "L'Arien trouvera dans sainct +Irenee, Tertullien et autres qui nous sont restez en petit nombre de ces +siecles-la, que le Fils est l'instrument du Pere, que le Pere a commande +au Fils lors qu'il a este question de la creation des choses, que le +Pere et le Fils sont _aliud et aliud_; choses que qui tiendroit +aujourd'huy, que le langage de l'Eglise est plus examine, seroit estime +pour Arien luy-mesme." All this does not serve to supply the pedigree +which Newman found it so difficult to trace. Development, in those days, +was an expedient, an hypothesis, and not even the thing so dear to the +Oxford probabilitarians, a working hypothesis. It was not more +substantial than the gleam in Robinson's farewell to the pilgrims: "I am +very confident that the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of +His holy word." The reason why it possessed no scientific basis is +explained by Duchesne: "Ce n'est guere avant la seconde moitie du xviie +siecle qu'il devint impossible de soutenir l'authenticite des fausses +decretales, des constitutions apostoliques, des 'Recognitions +Clementines,' du faux Ignace, du pseudo-Dionys et de l'immense fatras +d'oeuvres anonymes ou pseudonymes qui grossissait souvent du tiers ou de +la moitie l'heritage litteraire des auteurs les plus considerables. Qui +aurait pu meme songer a un developpement dogmatique?" That it was +little understood, and lightly and loosely employed, is proved by +Bossuet himself, who alludes to it in one passage as if he did not know +that it was the subversion of his theology: "Quamvis ecclesia omnem +veritatem funditus norit, ex haeresibus tamen discit, ut aiebat magni +nominis Vincentius Lirinensis, aptius, distinctius, clariusque eandem +exponere." + +The account of Lamennais suffers from the defect of mixing him up too +much with his early friends. No doubt he owed to them the theory that +carried him through his career, for it may be found in Bonald, and also +in De Maistre, though not, perhaps, in the volumes he had already +published. It was less original than he at first imagined, for the +English divines commonly held it from the seventeenth century, and its +dirge was sung only the other day by the Bishop of Gloucester and +Bristol.[404] A Scottish professor would even be justified in claiming +it for Reid. But of course it was Lamennais who gave it most importance, +in his programme and in his life. And his theory of the common sense, +the theory that we can be certain of truth only by the agreement of +mankind, though vigorously applied to sustain authority in State and +Church, gravitated towards multitudinism, and marked him off from his +associates. When he said _quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_, he +was not thinking of the Christian Church, but of Christianity as old as +the creation; and the development he meant led up to the Bible, and +ended at the New Testament instead of beginning there. That is the +theory which he made so famous, which founded his fame and governed his +fate, and to which Dr. Flint's words apply when he speaks of celebrity. +In that sense it is a mistake to connect Lamennais with Moehler and +Newman; and I do not believe that he anticipated their teaching, in +spite of one or two passages which do not, on the face of them, bear +date B.C., and may, no doubt, be quoted for the opposite opinion. + +In the same group Dr. Flint represents De Maistre as the teacher of +Savigny, and asserts that there could never be a doubt as to the +liberalism of Chateaubriand. There was none after his expulsion from +office; but there was much reason for doubting in 1815, when he +entreated the king to set bounds to his mercy; in 1819, when he was +contributing to the _Conservateur_; and in 1823, when he executed the +mandate of the absolute monarchs against the Spanish constitution. His +zeal for legitimacy was at all times qualified with liberal elements, +but they never became consistent or acquired the mastery until 1824. De +Maistre and Savigny covered the same ground at one point; they both +subjected the future to the past. This could serve as an argument for +absolutism and theocracy, and on that account was lovely in the eyes of +De Maistre. If it had been an argument the other way he would have cast +it off. Savigny had no such ulterior purpose. His doctrine, that the +living are not their own masters, could serve either cause. He rejected +a mechanical fixity, and held that whatever has been made by process of +growth shall continue to grow and suffer modification. His theory of +continuity has this significance in political science, that it supplied +a basis for conservatism apart from absolutism and compatible with +freedom. And, as he believed that law depends on national tradition and +character, he became indirectly and through friends a founder of the +theory of nationality. + +The one writer whom Dr. Flint refuses to criticise, because he too +nearly agrees with him, is Renouvier. Taking this avowal in conjunction +with two or three indiscretions on other pages, we can make a guess, not +at the system itself, which is to console us for so much deviation, but +at its tendency and spirit The fundamental article is belief in divine +government. As Kant beheld God in the firmament of heaven, so too we can +see him in history on earth. Unless a man is determined to be an +atheist, he must acknowledge that the experience of mankind is a +decisive proof in favour of religion. As providence is not absolute, but +reigns over men destined to freedom, its method is manifested in the law +of progress. Here, however, Dr. Flint, in his agreement with Renouvier, +is not eager to fight for his cause, and speaks with a less jubilant +certitude. He is able to conceive that providence may attain its end +without the condition of progress, that the divine scheme would not be +frustrated if the world, governed by omnipotent wisdom, became steadily +worse. Assuming progress as a fact, if not a law, there comes the +question wherein it consists, how it is measured, where is its goal. Not +religion, for the Middle Ages are an epoch of decline. Catholicism has +since lost so much ground as to nullify the theories of Bossuet; whilst +Protestantism never succeeded in France, either after the Reformation, +when it ought to have prevailed, nor after the Revolution, when it ought +not. The failure to establish the Protestant Church on the ruins of the +old _regime_, to which Quinet attributes the breakdown of the +Revolution, and which Napoleon regretted almost in the era of his +concordat, is explained by Mr. Flint on the ground that Protestants were +in a minority. But so they were in and after the wars of religion; and +it is not apparent why a philosopher who does not prefer orthodoxy to +liberty should complain that they achieved nothing better than +toleration. He disproves Bossuet's view by that process of deliverance +from the Church which is the note of recent centuries, and from which +there is no going back. On the future I will not enlarge, because I am +writing at present in the HISTORICAL, not the PROPHETICAL, REVIEW. But +some things were not so clear in France in 1679 as they are now at +Edinburgh. The predominance of Protestant power was not foreseen, except +by those who disputed whether Rome would perish in 1710 or about 1720. +The destined power of science to act upon religion had not been proved +by Newton or Simon. No man was able to forecast the future experience of +America, or to be sure that observations made under the reign of +authority would be confirmed by the reign of freedom. + +If the end be not religion, is it morality, humanity, civilisation, +knowledge? In the German chapters of 1874 Dr. Flint was severe upon +Hegel, and refused his notion that the development of liberty is the +soul of history, as crude, one-sided, and misunderstood. He is more +lenient now, and affirms that liberty occupies the final summit, that it +profits by all the good that is in the world, and suffers by all the +evil, that it pervades strife and inspires endeavour, that it is almost, +if not altogether, the sign, and the prize, and the motive in the onward +and upward advance of the race for which Christ was crucified. As that +refined essence which draws sustenance from all good things it is +clearly understood as the product of civilisation, with its complex +problems and scientific appliances, not as the elementary possession of +the noble savage, which has been traced so often to the primeval forest. +On the other hand, if sin not only tends to impair, but does inevitably +impair and hinder it, providence is excluded from its own mysterious +sphere, which, as it is not the suppression of all evil and present +punishment of wrong, should be the conversion of evil into an instrument +to serve the higher purpose. But although Dr. Flint has come very near +to Hegel and Michelet, and seemed about to elevate their teaching to a +higher level and a wider view, he ends by treating it coldly, as a +partial truth requiring supplement, and bids us wait until many more +explorers have recorded their soundings. That, with the trained capacity +for misunderstanding and the smouldering dissent proper to critics, I +might not mislead any reader, or do less than justice to a profound +though indecisive work, I should have wished to piece together the +passages in which the author indicates, somewhat faintly, the promised +but withheld philosophy which will crown his third or fourth volume. Any +one who compares pages 125, 135, 225, 226, 671, will understand better +than I can explain it the view which is the master-key to the book. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 403: _English Historical Review_, 1895.] + +[Footnote 404: [Dr. Ellicott.]] + + + + +APPENDIX + +By the kindness of the Abbot Gasquet we are enabled to supplement the +Bibliography of Acton's writings published by the Royal Historical +Society with the following additional items:-- + +In _The Rambler_, 1858 + +April--Burke. +July--[With Simpson] Mr. Buckle's Thesis and Method. + Short Reviews. +August--Mr. Buckle's Philosophy of History. +October--Theiner's _Documents inedits relatifs aux affaires religieuses + de France 1790-1800_, pp. 265-267. +December--The Count de Montalembert, pp. 421-428 and note, 432. + Carlyle's _History of Frederick the Great_, vols. i. and + ii. p. 429. + +1859 + +January--Political Thoughts on the Church. +February--The Catholic Press. +September--Contemporary Events. + +1860 + +September--National Defence. + Irish Education in Current Events. + +1862 + +Correspondence. +The Danger of the Physical Sciences. + + + + +INDEX + + +Abbot, Archbishop, and Father Paul, 432 + +Abbott, Dr., on Bacon and Machiavelli, 228 + +Absolutism, causes contributing to, 288 + impulse given to, by teaching of Machiavelli, 41 + inherently present in France, 237-40 + and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 121 + the old, its most revolutionary act, 275 + sanction of, 433 + +Absolutists, eighteenth century, their care solely for the State, 273 + +_Acta Sanctorum_ authority on the inception and early growth of the + Inquisition, 554 + +Acton, Lord-- + Character and characteristics of-- + Absolutism detested by, xxxi, xxxiv + admiration of, for George Eliot and for Gladstone, basis of, xxiii + Catholicism of, xii-xiv, xix, xx, xxvii, xxviii; + attitude of, to doctrine of Papal Infallibility, xxv, xxvi; + reality of his faith, xviii _et seq._ + ideals cherished by, document embodying, xxxviii-ix; + need of directing ideals practised by, xxii, xxiv + individualistic tendencies of, xxviii + intense individuality of, xvi + objection of, to doctrine of moral relativity, xxxii, xxxiii + personality of, as exhibited in present volume, xii; + greatness of, xxii, xxxvii, xxxviii + severity of his judgments, xxv, xxvii + Literary activity and tastes of-- + contributions of, to periodicals, light thrown by, on his erudition + and critical faculty, ix + _History of Liberty_ projected by, xxxv + as leader-writer, ix + preference of, for matter rather than manner in literature, xxii + literary activity, three chief periods in, xii-xiv + writings of, planned, xxxv, xxxvi; + and completed, ix _et passim_; + why comparatively few, xxxv-vii; + qualities in, iv, x, xvi; + instance of, xi; + the real inspiration of, and of his life, xxi; + style of, xxxiv _et seq._ + origin, birth, and environment of, xiv, xviii, xix, xxxiii + political errors of, xxviii _et seq._; + on freedom, xxxi; + on Liberalism, xxv, xxx + on Stahl, 391 + +Adams, J.Q., on the Christian faith, 585 + denying the influence of the pilgrims on the American Revolution, 584 + despondency of, as to American constitution, 579 + discriminating between American and French Revolutions, 580 + on Hamilton, 582 + +Adams, the younger, 578 + +Addison, J., inconsistent ideas of, regarding liberty, 53 + +Address of the Bishops at Rome, Wiseman's draft, the facts + concerning, 444-5; + attacks on, of the _Patrie_, 439, 443, 444, 445; + Wiseman's reply, _and see Home and Foreign Review_ + +Ahrens, _cited_ on national government, 227 + +Alamanni, forecasting the Huguenot massacres, 109 + +Albertus Magnus, 557 + +Albigenses, how dealt with by Montfort, 556 + why persecuted, 168 + +Aldobrandini, Cardinal Hippolyto, _see_ Clement VIII. + +Alessandria, Cardinal of, Michielli Bonelli, Legate of Pius V. mission of, + to Spain, Portugal, and France, 112; + his famous companion, 113; + his ostensible purpose, its failure, information given to, on the + forthcoming massacre, 113-14 + after the St. Bartholomew 140 + +Alfonso, King of Aragon, proscription by, of heretics, 558 + +Alva, Duke of, Catherine de' Medici's message to, on the massacres, 122 + failure of, in the Low Countries, 103 + judgment of, on the St. Bartholomew, 124 + letter of, on the St. Bartholomew. 108 & _note_ + ordered to slay all Huguenot prisoners, 141-2 + +America, colonists of, opposition of Lords Chatham and Camden to, 55 + early settlers in, Catholic and Protestant, contrasted action as to + religious liberty, 187 + doctrine of rights of man, originated from, 55 + United States, democracy in, 64 + government, based on Burke's political philosophy, 56; + how the value of this foundation was negatived, 56 + humour in, 579 + national institutions of, attitude to, of Americans of to-day, not + that of the founders, 579 + place of, in political science, 578 + presidency of Monroe, "the era of good feeling," 56 + progress of democracy in, 84 + religion in, Doellinger on, 339-40 + representation in, defect concerning, 579 + +_American Commonwealth The_, by James Bryce, _review_, 575 + +American Constitution, Hamilton's position regarding, 581; + its development due to Marshall, _ib._ + how cemented, 579 + government, confederate scheme of, 577 + Judge Cooley on, 580 + liberty, Judge Cooley on, 580 + revolution, the abstract revolution in perfection, 586 + no point of comparison between it and the French, 580 + not inspired by the beliefs of the Pilgrim Fathers, 584-5 + spirit of, 580, 587 + +Americans, attitude of the best towards politics, 578 + +Anabaptists, destructive tendency of their teaching, 157, 169, 171, 174, + 175, 178, 185; + and its effect on Luther, 155 + intolerance of, 171-2 + views of reformers as to their toleration, 157, 164, 167, 176 + +Andreae. Lutheran divine, on the Huguenots, 145 + +Angelis, de Cardinal, manager of elections to Commission on Dogma, 529 + President of Vatican Council, 534 + +Anglicanism, appreciation of Doellinger for some exponents of, 395 + and growth of other sects, 334-7 + progress of, 329-32 + +Anjou, Confession of, on the St. Bartholomew, 107 + +Anjou, Duke of (_see also_ Henry III.), and the crown of Poland, 105, + 120, 144 + schemes for marriage of, with Queen Elizabeth, 105 + guilt of, for the St. Bartholomew, 110 + orders of, for Huguenot massacre in his lands, 119 + +Annalists, method of, compared with that of scientific historians, 233 + +Antiquity, authority of State excessive in, 4 + of liberty proved by recent historians, 5 + +Antonelli, Cardinal, advice of, to Bonnechose, 529 + discussion of Infallibilty by Vatican Council, denied by, 518-19 + on temporal power of Papacy, 414 + +Apologists for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 147-8 + +Apology of Confession of Augsburg on excommunication, 158 + +Arianism among the Teutonic tribes, 199 + suggested, of Petavius, and why, 592 + +Aristides and democracy, 68 + +Aristocracy, destruction of, in the Reign of Terror, 262 + early eighteenth-century, 273-4 + government by, advocated by Pythagoras, 21; + government by, danger of, 20 + Roman, struggle with plebeians, 13, 14 + +Aristotle on class interests, 69 + estimation of, by Doellinger, 406 + _Ethics_ of, democracy condemned by, 71 + _Politics_ of, 22, 79; + makes concession to democracy, 72 + saying of, reflecting the illiberal sentiments of his age, 18 + +Arles, Council of, and the Count of Toulouse, 565 + +Arnaud and the saying, "God knows His own," 567 + +Arnauld, 429 + +Arnim, Baron, influence of, at Vatican Council, 506 + interview of, with Doellinger, 426 + +Arnold of Brescia, 559 + +Arragon, constructive science of its people, 557 + heresy in (1230), 556; + lead of the country in persecution, 557 + +Artists, method of, compared with that of scientific historians, 233 + +Ascoli, Cecco d', fate of, 564-5 + +Ashburton, Lady, 382 + +Asoka (Buddhist king), first to proclaim and establish representative + government, 26 + +Assassination, _see also_ Murder and Regicide + Catherine de' Medici's plan, inspired by member of Council of Trent, 216 + expediency of, view of Swedish bishops, 217 + as a political weapon, 213-14 + religious, considered expedient, 325 + the reward of heresy, a doctrine of the Church in Middle Ages, 216 + +Athenagoras _cited_, 70 + +Athenians, character of, 11 + +Athens, constitution of, rapid decline in career of, 11; + revision of, provided for by Solon with good results, 7, 8 + democracy of, 66; + tyranny manifested by, 12 + government by consent superseded government by compulsion, under Solon, 7 + laws of, revised by Solon, 6 + political equality at, 68 + Republic of, causes of ruin of, 70 + death of Socrates crowning act of guilt of, 12 + reform in, came too late, 12, 13 + +Aubigne, Merle d', and the charge against the Bordeaux clergy, 127 _note_ + +Auger, Edmond, S.J., and the Bordeaux massacres, 127 + +Augsburg, Confession of, axiom concerning importance of, in Luther's + system of politics, 159 + Apology of, on excommunication, 158 + +Austria, Concordat in, its failure, 292 + opposition to Vatican politics in, and to the Council, 503, 506 + policy of repression in, after Waterloo, 283 + representation of, on Vatican Council, 509 + +Austria, Don Juan of, and the victory of Lepanto, 104; + effect of, marred by Charles IX., 105 + +Austrian Empire, nationalities in, 295, 296; + why substantial, one of the most perfect States, 298 + +Austrian power in Italy, effect of, on nationality, 287 + rule in Italy, error of, 285 + +Authorities, use made of, revealing qualities of historians, 235 + +Authority of the Church questioned through Frohschammer's + excommunication, 477-8 + +Authority, supreme, of the Church, 192; + attitude of _Home and Foreign Review_ towards, 482-91 + +Avaux, D', view of expedient political massacre, 218 + +Avignon, removal of the Papacy to, 370; + strife between, and the Franciscans, 552 + +Ayamonte, Spanish Ambassador to Paris, 123 + + +Baader, F.X. von, estimate of, by Doellinger and Martensen, 376; + work of, 377; + father-in-law of Lasaulx, 405 + Schelling's coolness to, 381 + +Baboeuf, proclaimer of Communism, 273 + +Bach, administration of, in Austria, 283 + +Bacon, Francis, 562 + advocate of passive obedience to kings, 48 + modern attacks on, 377 + on bookish politicians, 575 + on St. Thomas Aquinas, 37 + influence of Machiavelli on, 228 + _cited_ on political justification, 220 + +Bacon, Sir Nicholas, 44 + +Baden (1862), nationality in, 295 + +Baglioni, family of, models for Machiavelli, 212 + +Bain, T., interpreter of Locke, 220 + +Ballanche and liberal Catholicism, 588 + +Ballerini, influence on Doellinger, 387 + +Balmez, classed as Ultramontane, 451 + +Baltimore, synod of, and Infallibility, 499 + +Baluze, 559 + +Barbarians, the, become instrument of the Church by introducing single + system of law, 244 + +Barberini, Cardinal, on reason for condemning De Thou's History, 147 + +Baronius, 379, 429; + Doellinger's study of, 387 + +Barrot, O., opposed to universal suffrage, 590 + +Barrow, Isaac, Doellinger's Roman antidote to, 387 + +Basel, Church government at, under OEcolampadius, 176 + +Baudrillart, cited on Machiavelli's universality, 226 + +Baumgarten, Crusius, on political expediency, 230 + works of, esteemed by Doellinger, 381 + +Baur, Ferdinand, on historical facts, 385 + work of, estimated by Doellinger, 381, 404 + +Bavaria, Catholic stronghold (1572), 103 + +Baxter, Richard, 416 + +Bayle, Pierre, _cited_ on Servetus, 185 + +Bayonne, conference of, massacre of St. Bartholomew the outcome of, + 108, 109 & _note_, 124 + +Beaconsfield, Earl of, story of, 551; + view of Doellinger on, 391 + +Beauville, bearer to Rome of news of the St. Bartholomew, 132-3 + +Beccaria, on importance of success as result of action, 223 + +Belgian revolution, causes united in, 284 + +Belgium, representation of, on Vatican Council, 507 + vigorous growth of municipal liberties in, 38 + +Bellarmine, Cardinal, deceived by hierarchical fictions, 420 + +"Bellum Haereticorum pax est Ecclesiae," maxim utilised by Polish + bishops, 103 + +Benedict XIV., Pope, 148 + scholarship under, 387 + +Bennettis, De, appreciated by Doellinger, 387 + +Bentham, Jeremy, pioneer in abolition of legal abuses, 3 + principle of greatest happiness, 223 + +Berardi, Cardinal, influence of, on Doellinger, 387 + proposed announcement of discussion of Infallibility at Vatican Council + set aside, 518 + +Bergier, 573 + +Berlin, 378 + +Bernard, Brother, 564 + +Bernays, 432 + +Besold, followers of Machiavelli denounced by, 225 + +Beust, Count, on Vatican Council, 503; + indifference to, 509 + +Beza, Theodore, death of Servetus approved by, 185 + defence of Calvin, 183 + on the Huguenot massacres, on toleration, and on the civil authority + over religious crime, 146 + on religious assassination, 326 + +Beziers, siege of, 567 + +Bianchi, recommended by Doellinger, 387 + +Bible, inspiration of, 513-15 + as sole guide in all things, Luther's principle, 154, 158, 159, 161 + +Bigamy of the Landgrave of Hesse, how dealt with by Luther, and why, 160 + +Bilio, Cardinal, junior president of Vatican Council, 534 + +Biner, apologist of the St. Bartholomew, 148 + +Biran, Maine de, _cited_ on political expediency, 220 + +Bishops, the, address to Pius, in preparation for Vatican Council, 494, 499 + attitude of, towards Bull _Multiplices inter_, 520-25 + and the Papacy, 511 + protesting, charge of sharing Doellinger's views, repudiated by, 538 + deception of, at Vatican Council, 518-526 + hostility of, harm done by, 531 + withdrawal of, from close of Vatican Council, 549 + +Bismarck, Count, on State participation in Vatican Council, 506 + +Bizarri, policy of, on Vatican Council, 534 + +Blanc, Louis, a secret worker for overthrow of Louis Philippe, 92 + +Blasphemy, reasons for its punishment by the Reformers, 169, 175 + +Blois, French court at, 112; + Coligny at, 1571., 115 + +Blondel, Doellinger's gratitude to, 393 + +Blue Laws of Connecticut, 55 + +Boccaccio, Giovanni, revision of the _Decamerone_, 215 + +Boccapaduli, Papal secretary, speech of, on the Massacre of St. + Bartholomew, 136 + +Bodin, _cited_ on _Il Principe_, 218 + +Bohemia, religious future of, in relation to the case of Hus, 571 + +Bolingbroke, Lord, slight knowledge of Machiavelli's works, 218 + +Bologna, University of, 556 + +Bona, Cardinal, urged suppression of _Liber Diurnus_, 516 + +Bonald, and absolute monarchy, 467 + and Lamennais's theory, 593 + ultramontanism of, 451 + +Bonelli, Michiel, _see_ Alessandria, Cardinal of + +Boniface VIII., Pope, Bull of, on supreme spiritual power, 324; + vindications of, inspired by Doellinger, 391 + +Bonnechose, Cardinal, share of, in elections to Commission of + Dogma, 529, 532 + urged French representation on Vatican Council, 504 + +Bordeaux, the Huguenot massacres of, 127 + +Boretius, _cited_ on Frederick the Great and Machiavelli, 229 + +Borghese, Cardinal, afterwards Paul V., Pope, his knowledge of the + planned character of St. Bartholomew, 114 + +Borgia, compiler of history, 387 + family, models for Machiavelli, 212 + Francis, S.J., 113 + +Borromeo, Cardinal, 108 _& notes_, 108-9 + +Bossuet, advocate of passive obedience to kings, 47, 429, 434 + _Defensio_ feared, 378 + indignation of, 148 + and the idea of development, 591, 592, 593, 595 + on love of country, 20 _& note_ + work of, compared to Doellinger, 424 + +Boucher, 45; + on Henry III. of France and reliance on maxims of _Il Principe_, 215 + +Bourbon, Cardinal of, unguarded speech of, on coming Huguenot massacre, 111 + Etienne de, inquisitor, works of, 558-9 + House of, French and Spanish, contests of the Habsburgs with, 275 + House of, upholders of supremacy of kingship over people, 47 + +Bourges, massacre of Huguenots commanded at, by Charles IX. La Chastre's + refusal to obey, 115 + +Boys, Du, defender of the Inquisition, 573 + +Brandenburg, Albrecht, Margrave of, and the Anabaptists, 157, _& see_ + 156 _note_ + +Brantome on the death of Elizabeth of Valois, 104 + +Brescia, Bishop of, _see_ Guala + city, centre of historical work, 387 + +Brewer, intercourse with Doellinger, 402 + +Brief of Pius IX. to Archbishop of Munich, and attitude of _Home and + Foreign Review_ to supreme authority of the Church, 482-491 + +Brill, the, Dutch maritime victory, its importance, 103 + +British empire, why substantially one of the most perfect states, 298 + +Brittany, and the Huguenot massacres, 119 + +Brixen, Bishop of, on Papal authority, 543 + +Brosch, on Cardinal Pole and _Il Principe_, 214 + +Brougham, Lord, advice to students, 393 + +Bruce, house of, struggle with house of Plantagenet, 35 + +Bruno, 430 + +Bryce, James, _The American Commonwealth_, review, 575 + +Bucer, Martin, in favour of persecution, 172-73 + +Buch, De, 430 + +Buchanan, 44, 45 + +Buckeridge, Blondel, Doellinger's Roman antidote to, 387 + +Buckle, H.T., 589, 590 + +Bugge, discoveries of, 405 + +Bull, censure of the Reformation of, 416 + +Bull of Boniface VIII., on supreme spiritual authority, 324 + +Bull of Gregory XIII. relating to the Huguenot massacres, 134-45 & _note_; + not admitted into official collections 101 + +Bull _Multiplices inter_, of Vatican Council, 520-22 + +_Bullarium Dominicanum_, the, referred to by Lea, 563 + +Bullinger, Heinrich, death of Servetus approved by, 185 + _cited_ on persecution, 174-76 + +Burd, L.A., edition of Machiavelli's _Il Principe_, introduction to, + 212-31; + skill as exponent of Machiavelli's political system, 212 + text of the _Discorsi_ produced by, 227 + +Burgundy, refusal of its governors to massacre Huguenots, 118 + +Burke, Edmund, 580; + Doellinger's political model, 393, 417 + French Revolution denounced by, 219 + on the moral and political as distinct from the merely geographical, 294 + on the partition of Poland, 275 + on revolution, 587 + _cited_ on political oppression in Ireland, 253, _note_ + on the rights of mankind, 56 + +Burning of heretics, Lea's view on, 568 + +Byzantine despotism, due to combined influence of Church and State, 33 + +Bzovius, authority on the Inquisition, 554 + + +Cadiz Constitution, 1812., 89; + its overthrow the triumph of the restored monarchy of France, 89 + +Caesarius of Heisterbach, authority of, distrusts by Lea, 567 + +Calhoun, J.C., indictment against democracy, 93 + +Calvin, John, 176, 585 + action of, with regard to Servetus, 184; + and his defence of the same, 181 + attitude of, to the civil power, 179-81 + hostility to, of Lutherans, 145 + republican views of, 42, 43 + system of Church government, 177-79 + +Calvinism in Germany, 345 + +Calvinists, English, tolerated by Melanchthon, 170 & _note_ + +Camden, Lord, _cited_ in disfavour of American taxation, 55 + +Campanella, ideal society of, 270 + +Campeggio, Cardinal, commentary of, on Zanchini, 559 + +Canello, _cited_ on Machiavelli's unpopularity, 226 + +Canning, G., on the question as to who reigned, George III. or his + ministers, 583; + his wisdom, 40 + +Capalti, Cardinal, junior President of Vatican Council, 534 + +Capecelatro, 412 + +Capilupi, Camillo, author of _Lo Stratagemma di Carlo IX._, 129; + its bearing on the position of the Cardinal of Lorraine, 130; + and others, on Alessandria's information as to forthcoming massacre + of Huguenots, 114 + family, glorification by, of Charles IX. for the St. Bartholomew, + 128 _et seq._ + Hippolyto, Bishop of Fano, support given by, to Charles IX., 128-9 + +Capito, Wolfgang Fabricius, reformer, 172, 174 + +Capponi, friend of Doellinger, 420 + as federalist, 414 + Doellinger's study of, 402 + +Capuchins, General of, and the Inquisition, 553 + +Carbonari, supporters of, 284; + their impotence, 286 + +Carcassonne, no Huguenot massacres at, 142 + +Cardinal Wiseman, 436 + +Cardinals, approval by, of the St. Bartholomew, 140 + opposition of, to Vatican Council, 493 + French, and absolute monarchy, 41 + +Carena, "_De Officio S.S. Inquisitionis_," valuable matter in, on the + Inquisition, 560 + +Carius, works of, edited by Trent Commissioners, 215 + +Carlstadt, Andreas, polygamy defended by, 159 + +Carlyle, Thomas, on truth as basis of success, 223 + +Carneades, his infusion of Greek ideas into minds of Roman statesmen, 16 + +Carouge, and the Rouen massacre of Huguenots, 119 + +Caspari, at Doellinger's house, 405 + +Castagna, Papal Nuncio, 117 + +Catechism of St. Sulpice, Lea's deductions from, 571 + +Catherine de' Medici, Queen-Mother of France, advisers urging, to destroy + Coligny and his party, 108-9 & _notes_ + challenge of, to Queen Elizabeth, 122 + children of, trained on Machiavelli's principles, 215 + hints of the intended massacre, 110, 111, 113-14 + jealous for her merit in the St. Bartholomew, 130 + levity of her religious feelings, 122 + long premeditation by, of the massacre, 115 + methods of, to balance Catholic and Huguenot power, 103 + wrath of, at Gregory's demand for revocation of the edict of + Toleration, 137 + on the death of her daughter, Queen of Spain, 104 & _note_ + _cited_, 580-81 + +Catholic attitude to Huguenot massacres, 146-8; + change in, how induced, 148 + Church, _see_ Church + countries, revolution more frequent in, than in Protestant, and why, 278 + Emancipation Act, spiritual fruits of, gathered by Wiseman, 437 + legitimists and democracy, link between, 590 + literature, phases of, last hundred years as to principles in politics + and science, 450-51 + theory on the proper way to deal with heretics, discredit caused by, + 140-41 + use of subterfuge, 454 + +Catholic and Protestant intolerance, difference between, 165, 168-70, + 186-7 + +Catholicism, in the Dark Ages, 200 + ground lost by, since the Middle Ages, 593 + holiness of, hated by its enemies, 437 + identification of, with some secular cause an Ultramontane + peculiarity, 451 + liberal, supposed founder of, 588 + spreads as an institution as well as a doctrine, 246 + tendency of, 189 + +Catholics, English, peculiarities of their position, 438; + unity aimed at by them, _ib._ + treatment of, by the Reformers, 157, 162, 163, 168, 174, 178-9 + +Cavalli, Venetian ambassador, on the bad management of the St. + Bartholomew, 109 + +Celts, Gallic and British, why conquered, 241 + the materials less than the impulse of history supplied by, 240 + +Champel, half-burned book from, 569 + +_Chanson de la Croisade_, 565 + +Character, national, influence of, on events, limits of, 557 + +Charlemagne, 409 + +Charles Albert, King of Piedmont, revolution under, 285 + +Charles I., King of England, execution of, a triumph for Royalism, 51 + +Charles II., King of England, secret treaty between him and Louis XIV., 53 + +Charles V., Emperor, records of reign of, 409 + +Charles IX., King of France, active conciliation by, of Protestants, 105 + alliances made by, with Protestant rulers, 105 + attempts of, to appease Protestant powers after the massacre, 120 + blamed for "leniency," "cruel clemency," etc., in the massacre, + 126, 141, 143 + Cardinal Lorraine's eulogy of, for the massacre, 112 + civil war resulting from persecutions during his minority, 103 + date when Catherine suggested the massacre to him, 115 + desirous of thwarting Spain, his measures to that end, 104, 105 + effect on his attitude to Rome of his success in crushing Huguenots, 137 + explanations offered by, various, on the massacre, 118 + hints dropped by, of the coming massacre, 111 + letters of, to Rome, fate of, 101 + letter from, to the Pope, announcing the massacre, 132; + reasons alleged in, 133 + massacre of Huguenot prisoners ordered by, 141 + methods of, in the provincial massacres, 118 _et seq._ + Naude's Apology for its basis, 147 + negotiations of, for Anjou's marriage with Queen Elizabeth, 105 + Nuncio on Charles IX., tenacity of his authority, 137 + panegyric on, by Panigarola, 125 + personal share of, in the massacre, approved by Mendoca, 124 + praised for his conduct as to the massacre, 112, 125, 128-9, 136, + 140, 147 + suppression by, of materials for history of the massacre, 121 & _note_ + threats of Pius V. to, 139 + tracts on his danger from Coligny, and on his joy at the massacre, 131 + on his plan for the massacre, 117 + death of, Sorbin's account, 126-7 + his wife and her parentage, 105 + +Charron, on subordination to universal reason, 46 + +Chastre, La, refuses to execute Charles IX.'s orders as to Huguenot + massacre at Bourges, 115 + +Chateaubriand, Marquis de, 464 + liberalism of, discussed, 594 + maxim of, on the timidity of the better sort of men, 582; + endorsed by Menou, _ib._ + transcription by, of Salviati's despatches, 102 + +Chatham, Lord, against taxation of American colonists, 55 + +Chatillon, House of, feud of, with the Guises, 112 + +Chemnitz, Lutheran divine, on Calvinists, 145 + +Cherbuliez, the elder, on the power of abstract ideas, 585 + +Cheverus, 402 + +Chinese, stationary national character of, 241 + +Christ, His divine sanction the true definition of the authority of + government, 29 + +Christian states, constitution of the Church as model for, 192 + +Christianity, appeal to barbarian rulers, 33 + considered as force, not doctrine, by Doellinger, 383-7 + in the Dark Ages, 200 + as history, Doellinger's view of, 380 + how employed by Constantine, 30, 31 + influence of, on the human race, 200; + and on popular government, 79 + primitive, penetration of influence over State gradual, 27 + progress of, must be supplemented by secular power, 246, 247 + teaching of Stoics nearest approach to that of, 24, 25 + universality of, influence of nations on, 317-21 + why Romans opposed establishment of, 195, 198 + freedom in, appeal of Christianity to rulers, 33 + effects on, of Teutonic invasion, 32 + influence on, of feudalism, 35 + political influence of the Reformation on, 43 + supplying faculty of self-government in classical era, 31 + political advances of Middle Ages due to, 39 + rise of Guelphs and Ghibellines as affecting, 36 + rise and progress of absolute monarchy as affecting, 41, 47, 48 + rise of religious liberty and toleration as resulting from, 52, 53 + rise and progress of political liberty due to, 56, 57, 58 + sovereignty of people in Middle Ages acknowledged in consequence of, 35 + +Christina, Queen, of Sweden, on truth, 316 + +_Chronicle, The_, Acton's leaders in, ix + +Chrysippus, views of, 73 + +Church, the, _see also_ Catholicism, Papacy, Popes, _and_ Rome attitude + of, to isolation of nations, 292 + attitude of, to Wycliffe, Hus, and Luther, 271; + difference in their attitude to her, _ib._ + both accepting and preparing the individual to receive, 450; + how she performs this, _ib._ + censure of, ineffectual against Machiavelli's political doctrines, 218 + condemnation of Frohschammer's book, and excommunication, 477 + and the development of Machiavelli's policy, 225 + difficulties of, how nourished, 455 + Doellinger's vindication of, 404 + effect on, of growth of feudalism, 245 + fables of, Doellinger's investigation of, in _Papstfabeln des + Mittelalters_, 418-21 + free action of, test of free constitution of State, 246 + Goldwin Smith's unfair estimate of, 234 + in Ireland, Goldwin Smith's views on, 259 + great work (salvation of souls) and its subsidiaries, 448-9 + hostility to, roused by conflicts with science and literature, 461-91 + indebted to the barbarians for corporate position, 244 + manifestation of, how seen, 269 + minority in, in agreement with Doellinger, 313 + not justified in resisting political law or scientific truth on + grounds of peril in either to the faith, 449 _et seq._ + not openly attacked, eighteenth century, 273-4 + her peculiar mission to act as channel of grace not her sole + mission, 448-9 + political thoughts on, 188; + authority, supreme, the Church as, 192; + Catholicism in the "Dark Ages," 200; + Christianity, influence of, on human race, 200; + divine order in the world, establishment of, 189; + English race, Christianity a cause of greatness of, 204; + liberty, influence of Christianity on, 203; + religion, true, definition of, 197; + Romans, persecution of Christians by, reasons for, 196, 198 + position of, in State, regulation difficult, 252 + struggle of feudalism with, 35 + tolerance of, in early days, 186 + view of, on government, 260 + +Church discipline, Bucer's system of, 172-3 + government, under control in the modern State, 151 + +Church of England, internal condition of, 437-8 + establishment, English and Irish, difference between, 259 + +Church and State Teutonic, quarrel between, cause of revival of + democracy, 80 + relations of, 150-52, 162, 163-4 + union of, creating Byzantine despotism, 33; + effect of, on paganism, 33 + views on, of Anabaptists, 171-2; + Bucer, 172-3; + Calvin, 177 _et seq._; + Luther, 154, 156, 157-8, 159, 161-4, 180; + Melanchthon, 164 _et seq._; + OEcolampadius, 176-7; + Zwingli, 173-4; + Reformers in general, 181 + +Cicero, 409 + +Cienfuegos, Cardinal and Jesuit, view of, on Charles IX., 148 + +_Circumspice_, as motto for the Catholic Church, 269 + +Citeaux, 567 + +Citizenship in Athens, 68 + +"City of the Sun," an ideal society described by, 270 + +Civil authority over religious crime (_see also_ Passive obedience), + Beza's view, 146 + liberty, point of unison of, with religious liberty, 151; + its two worst enemies, 300 + War of America, consolidating effects of, on the Constitution, 579 + society, its aim and end, 298 + +Civilisation, despotism in relation to, 5, 6, 27 + liberty the product of, 596 + mature, liberty the fruit of, 1 + social, unconnected with political civilisation, 243 + in Western Europe retarded by five centuries owing to Teutonic invasion + and domination, 32, 33 + +_Civilta Cattolica_, organ of Pius IX., 497 + +Classical literature, subjects not found in, 25, 26 + +Clay, H., despondency of, as to American institutions, 579 + +Clement IV., Pope, directions of, for Inquisitors, 560 + +Clement V., Pope, decree of, on privilege of Inquisitors, deductions + on, of Lea, 566 + share of, in the trial of the Templars, 563 + _cited_ on political honesty, 214 + publication of _Il Principe_ authorised by, 214 + +Clement VIII., Pope (Aldobrandini), testimony of, on premeditation of + the St Bartholomew, 114-15 & _notes_ + +Clergy, immunities of, 34; + unpopular in Italy, 363 + upholders of absolute monarchy, 41 + +Clifford, Lord, acquaintance of, with Doellinger, 388 + +Colbert, admirers of, in accord with Helvetius, 220 + +Coleridge, S.T., metaphysics of, Doellinger's love for, 381 + +Coligny, Admiral de, 105; + death of, origin and motives of, discussed, 101 _et seq._, 117-18; + the story of, 106, 111 _et seq._, 118; + the question of its premeditation discussed, 106-7 _et seq._ + alleged plot to kill Charles IX., 131, 135, 136 + murderer of, 124; + reward of, from Philip II., 123, + and presented to the Pope, 144 & _note_; + nationality (alleged) of, 124 + +Colocza, Archbishop of, head of Council of Bishops, 1867., 499 + +Cologne, Archbishop of, loose reading of terms of the legal reform + of Index, 531 + +Cologne, Synod at, and infallibility, 499 + +Commines, Philip de, on levying of taxes, 39 + +_Commonwealth, The American_, by James Bryce, review, 575 + +Commonwealths, founders of, 70 + +Communism, a subversive theory, proclaimed by Baboeuf, 273; + theory of its antiquity due to Critias, 17 + +Comte, Auguste, historic treatment of philosophy, 380 + +Concordat, Austrian, failure of, 292 + +Confederacy essential to a great democracy, 277 + +Confederate scheme of American government, 577 + +Conference of Bayonne, resolutions inimical to Huguenots taken + at, 108-9 & _notes_ + +Confession of Anjou, on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 107 + +Confession of Augsburg, apology of, on excommunication, 158 + importance of, recognised by Luther, 159 + +Conflicts with Rome, 461-91 + +Connecticut, Blue Laws of, 55 + +Conrad, Master (of Marburg), principles inspiring, 556; + as confessor of St. Elizabeth, 570 + +Conscience, freedom of, a postulate of religious revolution, 153 + in politics, expedient elasticity of, 212-14 + +_Conservateur_, the, 594 + +Conservatism, indirect elections not always a safeguard of, 2; + restriction of suffrage in relation to, 96 + +Conservatism of American revolutionists, 580 + European, 583 + +Constance, Council of, support of, to the Inquisition, 570 + +_Constantine, donation of_, 469; + political Christianity of, 30, 31 + +Constantinople, seat of Roman Empire transferred to, 30 + Patriarchs of, _see_ Eutychius + +Constitution, American, consolidated by the Civil War, 579 + despondency of its founders as to, 579 + Hamilton's views on, 581-3 + not understood by Tocqueville, 576 + +Constitution of England, Sir E. May on, 62 + +Constitutions, evolution of, 58 + growth of, nature of, 5 + Periclean, characteristic of, 10 + view of Guelph writers respecting, 36 + how ancient, differ from modern, 19 + mixed, difficulty of establishing and impossibility of maintaining, 20 + +Contarini, Gaspar, 214 + +Contarini, Venetian ambassador, on the expected change in France + (as to the Huguenots), 109 + +Conti, story of priests and the St. Bartholomew disproved, 126 + +Cooley, Judge, _cited_ by Bryce, on American liberty and government, 580 + +Copernican system, the, derided by Luther, 160 + +Corsica, 105 + +Cortes, Donoso, classed as ultramontane, 451 + +Council of Arles and the Count of Toulouse, 565 + +Council of Constance, support of, to the Inquisition, 570 + +Council of Trent, 111, 138; + Doellinger's investigations of, 431; + and tradition, 513 + +Council of Ten, Molino on, 213 + +Cournot, intellectual qualities of, 589 + +Cousin, Victor, 224, 588, 589 + historic treatment of philosophy, 380 + +Cranmer, 430 + +Creuzer, 405 + +Critias, _cited_, 70 + originator of notion of original communism of mankind, 17 + +Croker, _see_ Canning + +Cromwell, Oliver, Constitutions of, short-lived, 50 + study of, 410 + +Cromwell, Thomas, acquaintance of, with _Il Principe_, 214 + death of, a joy of Melanchthon, 217 + +_Culturgeschichte_ of Hellwald, 573 + +Cumberland, expositor of Grotius, 46 + +Cusa, Cardinal of, on Christian doctrine, 514 + + +Daniel, historian, 588 + +Dante, Doellinger's return to study of, 433 + key to, where found, 574 + views of, on conscience, 562 + and Cecco d'Ascoli, on schism, 564 + +Danton, his action in the Reign of Terror, 266 + +Darboy, Archbishop, on Papal Infallibility, 547 + opposition of, at Vatican Council, 522 + +Daru, revival by, of Hohenlohe's policy, 511 + +Darwin, Charles, estimate of Carlyle, 223 + +Deak on Hungarian administration, 510 + +Decree, the first, issued to Vatican Council, 531; + withdrawn, 535 + +Defoe, Daniel, on want of principle among contemporary politicians, 53 + +"De Haereticis," tract on toleration, 182 + +Delbrueck, criticism of Macaulay's power of historical deduction, 385 + +Delicieux, fall of, conclusions on, of Lea, 563, 564 + +Democracy (_see also_ Will of the People), alliance of, with despotism, 238 + alliance of, with socialism baneful, 92, 93, 98 + attitude to, of Aristotle, 71, 72 + and Catholic Legitimists, link between, 590 + curbing of, by ancient constitutions, 19 + definition and tendencies of, 62 + enlightened ideas of Lilburne on, 83 + essence of, 7 + federalism most effective check on, 98 + in fourteenth century, 80 + government by, danger of, 20 + a great, in relation to self-government, 277 + modern mistakes in true conception of, 93, 94 + in Pennsylvania, 84 + pervading evil of, 97 + political writers against, 93 + Presbyterianism and, 81, 82 + present aim, 95 + principles of, advocated by Pericles, 9 + progress of, in Europe, 85 + revival of, to what due, 80 + ancient, partial solution of, by popular government, 79 + Athenian, tyranny manifested by, 12 + Swiss, 90 + +_Democracy in Europe_, by Sir Erskine May, 61 + +Democratic method of Socrates, 71 + principle, triumph of, in France, results of, 287 + +Denifle, Father, 574 + +Denmark, religion in, Doellinger on, 340-31 + +Derby, Lord, cited, 189 + +Descartes, advocate of passive obedience to kings, 48 + +Despotic spirit, old, its two adversaries, 276 + +Despotism after peace of Westphalia, 325 + alliance of democracy with, 238 + emancipation of mankind from, to what due, 24, 25 + overpowering strength of, the doom of classical civilisation, 27 + product of civilisation, 5, 6 + _see also_ Absolutism + +Development, _see also_ Progress + and its earlier supporters, 592 + Flint on, topic discussed, 591, 592 + +Diocletian's persecution of the Christians due to attempt to transform + Roman government into despotism of Eastern type, 30, 31 + +Dispensation, the, for the Navarre marriage long withheld, 128 & _note_; + price, assumed, for, ib.; + never granted, 131-2; + Charles IX.'s hope regarding, 133 + +Divine right of freeholders established by Revolution of 1688., 54 + of kings, principle of, led to advocacy of passive obedience, 47 + of the people, 36, _see also_ Will of the People with respect to + election of monarch, 35 + +Divine order in the world, establishment of, 189 + +Djakovar, Bishop of, on validity of Vatican Council's decrees, 549 + +Doctrine, danger from, motive for religious persecution in pagan + and mediaeval times, 251 + +Dogma, Commission on, at Vatican Council, election and proceedings + of, 529-31 + +Dolcino, two versions of the story of, 555, 568 + +Doellinger, Dr. J.J. Ignatius von, his attacks on Papal Infallibility, + 538, 545; + on episcopal authority, in Council, 545 + character of, 403 + declaration of, on papal necessity for temporal power, 312-13 + fame of, 463 + historical insight of, limitations of, 409-10 + judgments of, compared to Moehler's, 378; + their gentleness, 410 + influences acting upon, earlier and later studies, intercourse, + literatures, etc.--evolution due to--375-6, 379-82, 383, 386-9, + 392-3, 399; + later views of, 396, 425-36 + later life of, 399 + and Moehler in Munich, views at variance, 377-80 + politics and their interest for, 400-403 + reliance of scholars on, in theological difficulties, 382-3 + silence of followers of, 313-15 + style of, 375-435; own estimate of, 432; + views on, and methods of, 383, 385, 389-92 + tract attributed to, on Infallibility, 512, 513 + value as historian of the Church, 408-10 + views of, compared to Moehler's, 378-9; + on temporal power, 301-74 + visits of, to Oxford, 403; to Rome, 410-14 + Works by-- + _Church History_, interpretations of, 379-435; + source of, 386; + new edition of, refused by, 392-3 + _Heidenthum und Judenthum_, publication of, 405-7 + _Hippolytus und Kallistus_, publication of, 404-5 + _Kirche und Kirchen_, argument of, 414-18; + description of, 384-6; + source of, 386; + preface to, _cited_ on temporal authority of the Church, 303-12; + purpose of, 371-4 + _Papstfabeln des Mittetalters_, spurious authority of the Church, + 418-21 + _Philosophumena_, vindication of Rome, after publication of, by, 404 + _Reformation_, preparation for, 392-4; + publication of, 394; + ridiculed in Rome, 411; + style of, 393-7 + _cited on_ attitude of Pius IX. and the Council, 371 + character of Pius IX., 365-6 + Council of Trent, 432 + England's attitude to temporal power of Pope, 415 + German loyalty to the Church, 370-71 + Luther, 397 + mistaken judgments of youth, 429 + St. Dominic, 428 + the temporal power of the Pope, 414-15 + +Dominicans, the, theology of, discountenanced, 498 + +Dominis, De, 432 + +Dorner, 389 + +Dort, Canons of, 580 + +Doyle, 402 + +Duchesne, Abbe, 400, 574 + on the idea of development, and what impeded its acceptance, 592-3 + +Dupanloup, 400, 425; + opposition of, at Vatican Council, 522, 526 + defence of Syllabus by, 424 + opposition of, to Papal temporal power, 412 + +Duperron, Cardinal, on Arianism, apparent, in St. Irenaeus and Tertullian, + 592 + +Duplessis-Mornay, forebodings of, as to Huguenot perils, 107 + +Dutch independence due to maritime successes, 103 + +Dynastic interest, dominant in old European system, 273 + at the Congress of Vienna, 283 + + +Ebrard, Doellinger's opinion of work of, 420 + +Ecclesiastical authority, functions of its office, 460 + +Echard, authority on the Inquisition, 554 + book by, on St. Thomas, pages by another, printed in, 558-9 + +Eckstein, character of, 400 + +Ecole des Chartes, pupils of, methods of, 561 + +Ecole Francaise, 574 + +Edessa, Archbishop of, at commission of preparation for Vatican Council, + 500 + +Edict of Nantes, Revocation of, an inconsistency, 170 + not approved by Innocent XI., 147 + remarks on, 260 + of Pacification, 108 + of Toleration, deceitful, of Charles IX., 117, 135 + +Elections, indirect, 97; + not always a safeguard of conservatism, 2 + +Elizabeth, Queen of England, Catherine de' Medici's challenge to a + massacre of Catholics, 122 + Doellinger's lenient view of, 410 + murder of, sanctioned by Pius V., 139 + not alienated by Charles IX.'s Huguenot massacres, 120 + proposed league of, for Protestant defence, Lutheran protest, 145 + +Elizabeth of Valois, first wife of Philip II. of Spain, fate of, + 104 & _note_ + +Ellicott, Dr., Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, on Lamennais's theory, 593 + +Emerson, R.W., on attitude of the best Americans to politics, 578 + +Encyclical, the, of 1846, Infallibility proclaimed in, 496 + +England, an exception to the common law of dynastic States till 1745., 274 + indignation in, at the idea of development in religion, 591 + Inquisition never admitted into, 59 + status of kings in, Canning on, 583-4 + under the Stuarts, Church and liberty in, 208 + +English Catholics, peculiarities of their position, 438; + Wiseman's personal relations with, 437, 438 + legal system, pioneer work of Jeremy Bentham in reform of, 3 + liberty, adversary of the despotic policy, 276 + nation, endurance of, and supremacy of, in art of labour, 60 + foremost in battle for liberty, 59 + views of, on the Huguenot massacres, 144 + race, Christianity a cause of greatness of, 204 + writers, Doellinger's acquaintance with, 388 + +Entremont, Countess, marriage of, with Coligny, Salviati's denunciation + on, 110 + +Eoetvoes on lay interest in religious government, 510 + +Ephialtes and democracy, 68 + +Epictetus, 406 + +Epicurus on purpose of foundation of societies, 18 + +Equality, passion for, in France, 57, 58 + subversive theory proclaimed by Rousseau, 273; + making French Revolution (1789) disastrous to liberty, 88 + of fortune, and class interests, 69 + political, observations on the right to, 262 + +Erasmus, his idea of renovating society on the principles of + self-sacrifice, 58 + +Erhle, Father, 552, 560, 574 + +Essenes, disappearance of, 66 + idea of renovating society on the principles of self-sacrifice, 58 + slavery, both in principle and practice, rejected by, 26 + +Ethical offices of the Church not exclusively hers, 448-9 + +Ethnology and Geography united, in relation to security of free + institutions, Mill on, 286 + +Eudaemon-Johannes, praise given by, to the St. Bartholomew, 147 + +Eugenius IV., Pope, election of, 355 + +Euphemus, _cited_, 70 + +Europe, attitude of, to the French massacre of Huguenots, 120. 124-5; + progress of democracy in, 85; + theory of Nationality in, how awakened, 275 + civilised, to what its preservation is due according to Lea, 568 + Latin, frequency in, of revolution, 278; + its object, 280-81 + Western, retrogression in arts and sciences due to domination of + Teutons, 32, 33 + the two conquests of, and their effects on social ideas, 278 _et seq._ + +European liberalism and conservatism, 582-3 + system, the old, reigning families, not nationalities, dominant in, 273 + +Eutychius, Lea's remarks on, challenged, 563 + +Excommunication, of Frohschammer, 477 + what it involves, according to the confession of Schmalkald, etc., 158 + +Eymeric, author of the _Directorium_, President of Arragonese tribunal + against heretics, 558, 559 + + +Fables of the Church (_Papstfabeln des Mittelalters_), Doellinger's + investigations of, 418-21 + +Faenza, why menaced by Pius V., 137 + +Faith not to be kept with heretics, Catholic theory on, 140-41 + +Falloux, value of, as historian, 400 + opposition of, to Montalembert, 425 + +False principles, place of, in social life of nations, 272 + +Fantuzzi, compiler of history, 387 + +Farel, death of Servetus approved by, 185 + +Farnese, Cardinal, _see_ Paul III., Pope + +Fatalism, philosophy of historians, 221 + +Fauriel, 565 + +Federal government, views on, of Hamilton, 581-3 + +Federalism, most effective check on democracy, 98; + value of, 20 + +_Federalist, The_, by Alexander Hamilton, various views on, 581 + +Federal form of American constitution, said not to be understood by + Tocqueville, 576 + +Fenelon, his idea of renovating society + on the principles of self-sacrifice, 58 + on absolutism, 433 + on domains as dowries, 273 + on national distress, 49 + +Ferdinand I., Doellinger's lenient estimate of, 410 + +Ferdinand II., Doellinger's lenient estimate of, 410 + +Ferralz, despatches of, on attitude of Roman Court to the St. Bartholomew, + unused, 102 + quarrels of, with the Cardinal of Lorraine, 129 + true particulars of the Navarre marriage according to, 131-2 + on the attitude of Gregory XIII. on hearing of the St. Bartholomew, + 132-3 _note_ + +Ferrara, Alfonso, Duke of, a massacre of Huguenots advised by (1564), + 108 & _note_ + +Ferrari, 590; + Doellinger's tribute to, 417 + on Machiavelli's character, 226 + +Ferrier, Du, Catherine de' Medici's words to, on the death of the Queen + of Spain and the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 104 + +Ferrieres, 122 + +Fessler, _see_ St. Poelten, Bishop of + +Feudalism, alien to the sentiment of France, 279 + growth of, 34; + effect on Church, 245 + struggles of, with the Church, 34, 35 + +Feuerlein, Machiavelli's loyalty upheld by, 229 + on political expediency, 224 + +Fichte, J.S., _cited_ in praise of Machiavelli's policy, 228 + +Ficker, Prof., account by, of the Inquisition, 426 + on the real contriver of the Inquisition's rule by terror, 555 + +First Empire, the French, things most oppressed by, the causes of + its downfall, 281 + +Fischer, Kuno, trace of Machiavelli in metaphysics of, 228 + +Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, on persecution, 570 + +Flaminian Gate, ancient custom connected with, 136 + +Flaminius, works of, edited by Trent Commissioners, 215 + +Fleury, style of, Doellinger's compared to, 381 + +Flint, Professor Robert, 572; + _Historical Philosophy in France and French Belgium and + Switzerland_, review, 588 + critical faculty strong in, 591 + nature of his superiority as writer, 588-9; + some defects, 589-90 + +Florence, prepared for the St. Bartholomew, 109 + +Fontana, authority on the Inquisition, 554 + +Forbes (Bishop of Brechin), Doellinger's intimacy with, 416 + +Force replaced by opinion as Catholic tribunal, 148 + +Foreign rulers, objection to, as third cause of popular risings, 284 + +Forgery, Church authority supported by 511, 513 + +Formosus, 563 + +Fors de Bearn, the, 566 + +"Fourth Estate," rise of, 67 + +Fox, Charles James, 54 + +France, absolute monarchy in, 48; + how built up, 41 + the Church in, and Protestantism, Doellinger on, 337 + democratic principle in, its triumph the cause of the energy of the + national theory, 287 + feudalism alien to, 279 + Gallican theory in, with respect to reigning houses, 35 + governed by Paris during Revolution of 1789., 88 + of history, how, and why, it fell, 277 + inherent absence of political freedom and presence of absolutism + in, 237-40 + kingdom of, how evolved, 278 + opposition in, to Lamennais's Ultramontanism, 463-4 + passion in, for equality, 57, 158 + political ideas concerning, of Charles IX., and of Richelieu, 116 + removal of Papacy to, 370 + and representation on Vatican Council, 504-5 + "the slave of heretics" according to Pius V., 105 + restored monarchy of, _see_ Restoration + +Franchi at Council of Bishops in 1867., 499 + +Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, in 1859., 287 + +Franciscan masters, the, and the idea of development in religion, 592 + +Franciscans, General of, on the planned character of the St. + Bartholomew, 124 + struggle of Avignon with, 552 + +Franklin, Benjamin, irreligious tone of, 584 + +Franks, preamble of the Salic law of, 200 + +Franzelin on commission of preparation for Vatican Council, 500 + +Frederic the Great and Machiavelli's political schemes, 227 + ignorant opposition of, to Machiavelli's works, 218 + +Frederic II., Emperor, treaty of, with the Church, 555 + Lombard law of, 152; + its provisions, 555, 556 + +Free institutions, a generally necessary condition for securing, + Mill on, 286 + +Freedom (_see also_ Liberty) accorded to English Catholics, 438 + in antiquity-- + age of Pericles, 9 + antiquity of liberty, modernity of despotism, 5 + cause of liberty benefited more under Roman Empire than under + Republic, 15 + dangers of monarchy, of aristocracy and democracy, 19, 20 + decline of Athenian constitution, 11 + definition of liberty, 3 + early communism and utilitarianism, 17, 18 + emancipation by Stoics of mankind from despotic rule, 24 + guiding principle of Roman Republic, 13 + highest teaching of classical civilisation powerless to avert + despotism, 27 + history of institutions often deceptive and illusive, 2 + implicit opposition of Stoics to principle of slavery, 25, 26 + influence of Christianity over the State, gradual, 27 + infusion of Greek ideas of statesmanship among Romans, 16 + liberty, highest political end, 22, 23, 24 + limitation and excess in duties of State, 4 + method of growth of constitution, 5 + nature of government of Israelites, 4 + object of constitutions, 10 + reform in English legal system instituted by Jeremy Bentham, 3 + representative government, emancipation of slaves, and liberty of + conscience not a subject of classical literature, 25, 26 + revision of laws of Athens by Solon, 6 + sanction of Christ the true definition of the authority of + government, 29 + teaching of Plato and Aristotle respecting politics, 22 + teaching of Pythagoras and Heraclitus of Ephesus, 21, 22 + triumphs due to minorities, 1, 4 + value of federalism, 20 + vice of the Classic State, 16 + wisest minds among the ancients tainted with perverted morality, 18 + +Freedom in Christianity, history of-- + Christianity employed by Constantine to strengthen his empire, 30, 31 + civil, its two worst enemies, 300 + conscience, a postulate of religious revolution, 153 + +Freeholders, "divine right of," established by Revolution of 1688, 54 + +Freeman, Doellinger on, as a historian, 421 + on Mommsen's want of generous sentiment, 222 + +_French Belgium_, see _Historical Philosophy in France and French Belgium + and Switzerland_ + +French Catholics, reasons of their confusion between piety and + ferocity, 141 + clergy, and the St. Bartholomew, 126-7 & _notes_ + monarchy, aid of the democracy in establishing and in demolishing, + reasons for both, 278-80 + people, attitude of, to and after the Huguenot massacres, 143 _et seq._ + how regarded after the Revolution, 277 + provincial massacres of Huguenots, 118-19, 134 + writers, influence of, on Doellinger, 387 + scholarship, dependence on, of Mr. H.C. Lea, 558 + +French Republic of 1848, of what school the triumph, 590 + +French Revolution, _see_ Revolution, French + +Frohschammer, 473-7 + conflict with Rome, 462, 467, 469, 473-483 + +Fulcodius, Cardinal, _see_ Clement IV. + +Fulda, council of bishops at, 517 + +Funds of the Church, proposed disposal of, in Italy, 509 + + +Gallicanism, corruption of Christianity, 463, 524 + Lamennais's crusade against, 464 + theory of, on reigning houses in France, 35 + +Gams, 429; defender of the Inquisition, 573 + +Ganganelli, Cardinal, influence of, on Doellinger, 434 + +Gaspary, _cited_ on Machiavelli's loyalty, 230 + +Gass, on St. Anthony's life and origin of monasticism, 420 + +Gaul, Roman, tolerance in, of absolutism, 279 + +_Gazette de France_ and universal suffrage, 590 + +Geneva, trial of Servetus at, 184 + +Genlis, Huguenot commander, defeat of, the consequences to Coligny, + 116, 117, 141 + +Genoa, extinction of, as State, 283 + +Gentz _cited_ on Machiavelli's policy, 229 + +George III., King of England, 583 + +George IV., King of England, 583 + +German, or Teutonic, conquest of Europe, its consequences, 277 _et seq._ + writers, as influencing Doellinger, 389 + +Germany, effect on, of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 124, 143 + Protestantism in (1572), 103 + theology of, unique and scientific, 317, 347-351, 376, 471-482 + union of, 225 + and the Vatican Council-- + circular of German bishops to, 517 + opposition in, 503; + and to Infallibility, 500; + representation of, 505 + +Gerson, 562; _cited_, 191 + +Gervinus, G.G.. on Machiavelli as prophet of modern politics, 229 + +Ghibellines, political theory of, 37 + +Gibbon, Edward, 389 + +Gieseler, Doellinger's dislike of, 389, and estimate of, 404 + +Ginoulhiac, on Papal Infallibility, 540 + on Strossmayer's influence, 536 + +Gioberti, followers of, 314 + metaphysics of, Doellinger's love for, 381 + +Girondists, objects of, 263 + +Gladstone, W.E., Acton's admiration for, xxiii; + and Doellinger, letter to, on the Irish question, 434; + estimate of historical judgment and style, 416; + intercourse of, 400 + policy of, feared in Rome, 507 + +Glencoe, massacre of, 218, 410 + +Gneist, 377 + +Gonzaga, Lewis, _see_ Nevers + +Goerres, Joseph, 282, 405 + centre of Munich group of theologians, 386 + +Goettingen, 378; + seminary pupils of, methods of, 561 + +Government, authority of, defined by Divine sanction of Christ, 29 + Catholic view of, 260 + chief duty of, to maintain political right, 449 + American, Judge Cooley on, 580 + +Gracchus, opposition to Octavius, 76 + +Grant, General Ulysses, 579 + +Granvelle, Cardinal, Viceroy of Naples, on the massacre of St. + Bartholomew, 125, 140; + on Alva's prisoners, 142 + +Gratian, 557 + +Gratry, letters of, to the Archbishop of Mechlin, on divisions in + the Church, 537-8 + on the Inquisition, 424 + tribute from, to Doellinger, 424 + _cited_ on Veuillot's school, 429 + +Greece, national beliefs yielding to doubt during age of Pericles, 8, 9 + politics of, infused into minds of Roman statesmen, 16 + +Greek Church, development of, 332-3 + revolution, causes united in, 284 + +Greeks, democracy of, 66 + as makers of history, 240 + slavery discouraged by, 63 + +Gregory VII., Pope, deception of, by hierarchical fictions, 420 + and democracy, 80 + his disparagement of civil authorities, 36 + +Gregory IX., Pope, 430 + appointed Guala as first Inquisitor, 553 + Lea's view of, as intellectual originator of the Inquisition, 555, 557 + +Gregory X., Pope, and the Inquisition, 426 + +Gregory XIII., Pope, 430 + and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew-- + Bull of, on, 101, 134 + complicity of, discussed, 128 + fate of his letters to France, 101 + previous knowledge of, 110, 116 + receipt of the news by, his public and private attitude, and his + reply, 132-5, 137 + urges full and complete extirpation of Huguenots, 142 + conduct as viewed by French and by Italians, 148 + reply, 137 + undue hatred of, consequent on his attitude to the matter, 138 + and the Navarre marriage, his steady opposition, 105, 111, 113, 128 + on destruction as result of sedition, 216 + +Gregory XVI., Pope, personal fallibility of, admitted, and denounced by + Lamennais, 465, 466 + +Grenoble, Bishop of, doctrine of Papal Infallibility admitted by, 528 + excluded from Commission on Dogma, 530 + on dogmatic decrees of the Vatican Council, 533 + +Grey, Lord, 219 + +Grotius, 432; days of, 225 + founder of study of real political science, 46 + on the principles of law, 46 + +Guala, Bishop of Brescia, successor of Moneta and St. Dominic, 553 + and the burning of heretics. 555-6 + +Guelphs, political theory of, 36 + +Guicciardini, Francesco, abridged by Trent Commissioners, 215 + +Guidonis, Bernardus, frequently cited by Lea, 568 + leading authority of the fourteenth century, 559 + _Practitia_ of, 558 + protests of, on Clement V.'s decree on privilege of Inquisitors, 566 + +Guise, Duke of, initiative of, in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 112 + recalled to France, 213 + slain by Henry III. of France, 121 + +Guise, House of, 112, 118 + +Guizot, 400 + on the eighteenth century, 585 + on Hamilton's work _The Federalist_, 581 + on importance, to all denominations, of the Vatican Council, 493 + wisdom of, 401 + +Guenther, 473 + +Gurney, Archer, alarm of, at Doellinger's views, 382 + +Guyon on the murder of heretics, 147 + + +_Habeas Corpus_ Act, principle originated in Middle Ages, 39 + +Habsburg family, contests of, 274 + +Halifax Archbishop of (Conolly), on the dogmatic decree, 533 + opposition of, at Vatican Council, 522 + on Scriptural authority, 547 + +Halifax, George Savile, Lord, 53 + +Hallam, Henry, favourable comparison of theory of _Il Principe_ with + other political theories, 224 + +Hamilton, Alexander, eulogised, 581-3 + history, treatment of philosophy, 380 + political example of, 586 + views of, as cited by Bryce, 578 + +Harnack, estimate of Doellinger, 434 + +Harrington, political writer in advance of his time, 51 + +Hartwig, 230 + +Hase, Prof. K., _cited_ on political expediency, view of, on importance + of Vatican Council to all denominations, 493 + +Haureau, _Histoire Litteraire_ by, divergence from, of Lea, 558, 563 + +Havet, 555 + +Haynald, Archbishop of Colocza, at Council of Bishops, 1867, 499 + +Hefele, defender of the Inquisition, 573 + estimate by, of Doellinger, 434 + on Papal Infallibility, 540, 544 + on validity of dicta of Vatican Council, 548 + +Hegel, Carl, friend of Doellinger, 420 + +Hegel, G.W.F., 589, 590 + definition by, of universal history, 224 + as enemy of religion, Doellinger's disparaging view of, 376, 381 + master of Cousin, 589 + posthumous work of, 385 + view of, on Development of Liberty, 596 + +Henry III., King of France (_see also_ Anjou. Duke of), 44, 580 + Doellinger's lenient estimate of, 410 + hopes of his destroying the Huguenots root and branch, 142; + urged on him by Muzio, 143 + and the murder of the Guises, 121, 213 + reliance of, on _Il Principe_, 215 + +Henry IV., King of France, _see_ Navarre, King of + +Heraclitus, of Ephesus, on the supremacy of reason and divine origin of + laws, 21, 22 + +Herbert, _cited_ to show Machiavelli's sacrifice to unity, 229 + +Herder, J.G., 375 + on _Il Principe_, 228 + +Heresy (_see also_ Intolerance, Persecution, _and_ Toleration), books + on, definition of, by the Archbishop of Cologne, 531 + Calvin's views on punishment, 181; + its famous refutation, 182 + causes of, in Frohschammer, 481 + dependent on the State, 317 + laws of Frederic II. on, 152, 555 + punishable by death, doctrine of the Church, 216-19 + methods of dealing with the Reformers _cited_ on, 154, 157, 163-164, + 166, 167, 175, 181, 183 + +Heretics, attitude towards, of St. Dominic, 554 + Catholic theory on the proper way to deal with, 569; + discredit incurred from, 140-41 + a prominent dissentient, 144 + divisions among, 103 + first proscribed in Aragon, 557-58 + murder of, Guyon on, 147 + +Hermann, reliance of Doellinger on authority of, 403 + +Hermas, 406 + +Hermes and followers denied the power of _the Index_, 473 + +Hesse, Landgrave of, bigamy of, why condoned by Luther, 160 & _note_ + +Hindoos, stationary national character of, 241 + +Historians, qualities of, revealed by use made of their authorities, 235 + scientific, method of, how differing from that of artist and annalist, + 233 + +_Historical Philosophy in France and French Belgium and Switzerland_, + by Robert Flint, _review_, 588 + +History, deductions of, Doellinger's theory, 389-92; + not drawn from moral standards, 219-21 + Doellinger's work in, 375-435 + equity of, deductions drawn from action, 219 + God seen in, 594 + no conscience in, Hartwig's opinion of, 230 + teaching of, Doellinger's desertion of theology for, 379-83 + theory of, Doellinger's view, 385 + +_History, A, of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages_, by Henry Charles Lea, + review, 551 + +Hobbes, Thomas, advocate of passive obedience to kings, 48 + and Machiavelli's policy, 228 + +Hoefler, 434 + +Hogendorp, on the American Revolution and the decline of religion in + America (circ. 1784), 584 + +Hohenlohe, Prince, defeat of his policy, 511 + defeated by Ultramontanes, 505 + Doellinger secretary to, 385 + opposed to discussion of Infallibility at Vatican Council, 503-4 + +Hohenzollern, house of, contests of Silesia with, 275 + +Holland, _see also_ Low Countries and Netherlands, declares for the + Prince of Orange, 103 + republican, an exception to common law of dynastic states, 274 + +Holst on Hamilton's genius, 581 + _Verfassungsgeschichte_, by, 577 + +Holy Alliance, originated by Baader, 377; + the devotion of, to absolutist interests, 282; + and to suppression of the revolution and national spirit, 283 + +_Home and Foreign Review, The_, action concerning, of Wiseman, 439-40; + deprecated, 440 et seq.; + his complaints investigated, 442-43; + and replied to, 443-44; + how Wiseman came to misconceive the words of the Review, 444 _et seq._; + position on which the Review was founded, 447, 457; + sphere of such a publication delimited, 448-56; + topics excluded from its purview, 457; + its aid to religion indirect but valuable, 459; + attitude of, on supreme authority of the Church, 482-91 + +Honorius III., Pope, characterisation by, of Gregory IX., 556 + the Inquisition extant under, 554 + and the Lombard law for burning heretics, 556 + +Hooker's _Ecclesiastical Polity_, 45 + +Hosius, Cardinal, opposition of, to Beza, concerning the Polish + Socinians, 146 + +Hoetzl, Father, support of Doellinger, 545 + +House of Commons, the, and the Inquisition, 570 + +Huguenots, expulsion of from Switzerland, 125 + massacres of, in Paris and the provinces, 106, _and see_ Massacre + of St. Bartholomew _passim_ + position of, in 1572, and apparent prospects, 102 + views of, on the massacres of co-religionists, 145-46 + +Humboldt, W. von, 282 + +Hume, David, 54; _cited_ on _Il Principe_, 218 + +Hungary, Church constitution of 1869., 510 + growing autonomy of, 526 + +Huns, stationary national character of, 241 + +Hus, John, difference between his teaching and Luther's, 271 + trial of, 552, 570; + a test case, 572; + Lea's puzzling views on, 573 + + +Ideals, energy evoked by, why greater than in case of rational ends, 272 + usefulness of, 272; + how limited, 273 + +Ideas, abstract, more powerful than practical, views on cited, 585 + +_Il Principe_ (Machiavelli's), dedication of, 215 + Nourrisson's praise of, 227 + Pole's attention called to, 214 + publication of, 214; + interpretation of, by all later history, 213; + known to Pole and Cromwell, 214 + various criticisms of, 218 + +Immaculate Conception, doctrine of, Archbishop of St. Louis on, 545 + +Income Tax, known in Middle Ages, 39 + +Independent congregations, advocacy of toleration by, 52 + +_Index_, the Church's instrument of preventing scandal by literature, + 469-471 + institution and origin of, 215, 495 + permanent exclusion of _Il Principe_ by, 215 + power of, in Germany, 473 + reform of, urged on and effected by the Vatican Council, 495, 525, 531 + sanction of, 544 + +Indifference, religious, of educated Protestants, 350-51 + +Indulgences granted by Pius V., in connection with war against the + heretics, 141 + +Infallibility, Papal-- + attitude to, of Lamennais, 462-4, 465, 466 + Bavarian warning against adoption of, by Vatican Council, 511 + _Civilta Cattolica_ on, 500-501 + continental discussions on, 518 + debate on, at Vatican Council, 532-549 + declaration of, urged on Vatican Council, 499 + definition of, not to be made, by Vatican Council, 518 + discussion and definition of, by Vatican Council, 525-49 + doctrine of the Jesuits, 498; + establishment of, Vatican Council, 499 + opinions in England, on discussion of, at Vatican Council, 507 + opposition to, 502-4 + origin of doctrine of, 513-515 + to be presented at Vatican Council, 500-501 + proposed by Cardoni at commission of preparation for Vatican Council, 500 + +Infidelity, growth of, due to intolerance, 256 + +Innocent III., commonly reported as founder of the Inquisition, 553; + intolerance of, 431 + treatment of heretics, 568 + +Innocent IV., Pope, _cited_, 206 + +Innocent X., Pope, protest against Peace of Westphalia, 324-25 + +Innocent XI., Doellinger's proposed history of, 433 + +Innocent XI., Pope, and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 147 + +Inquisition, the, earlier and later, distinction between aims and + characteristics of, 552 + Lea's view on, 568 + Machiavelli denounced to, 214-15 + never admitted into England, 59 + origin of, controversy on, 553 + period of its activity and decline, 574 + problem of, 570 + sanction of, 544 + in Spain, 152 + supporters of, 570 + tribunal of, appropriation by Spanish kings leading to absolute + monarchy, 41 + at Vienna, 184 + writers defending, 573 + _Inquisition, The, of the Middle Ages, A History of_, by Henry Charles + Lea, review, 551 + +_Institutes_, Calvin's, on Toleration, 182 + +Insurrections previous to 1789, wherein differing from the French + Revolution, 271 + +Intellectual offices of the Church not exclusively hers, 448-9 + +International league of nations founded by Mazzini, 286 + +Intolerance carried to an extreme by the Anabaptists, 172 + Catholic and Protestant, distinguished, 165, 168-70, 186-7 + cause of growth of infidelity, 256 + inherent in the Mediaeval Church, Leas view, 571 + motive and principle of, when justifiable, 251 + of Reformers, 184 + as a rule of life, Lea's view on, 562-3 + +Ireland, Church in, Goldwin Smith's views on, 259 + Celtic race in, yielding to higher political aptitude of the + English, 242 + failure of Reformation in, 43 + history of, comparative method of, study of, 234 + land question, the great difficulty in, 236 + question of, Doellinger's views on, 434 + religious disabilities in, an engine of political oppression, 253 + and Ultramontanism at Vatican Council, 507 + +Irish agitation, causes united in, 284 + +Israelites, democracy of the, 65 + government of, exhibiting principle upon which freedom has been won, 4, 5 + a federation held together by faith and race, 4 + resistance of monarchy among, by prophet Samuel, 4 + +Italian States (1862), nationality in, 295 + +Italy, Austrian rule in, error of, 285 + effect on, of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 124, 143 + literature of, influence on Doellinger, 386-7 + policy of, under Machiavelli and before, use of assassination, 213 + politics of, influenced by Vatican Council, 508-511 + reliance in, on Machiavelli, 226 + Machiavelli's triumph, 225, 266 + temporal power of papacy in, 355-62, 367-71 + wisdom of Huguenot massacres confessed, 125 + +Ivan the Terrible. Czar of Muscovy, protests of, on the St. + Bartholomew, 144 + + +Jackson, Andrew, American President, 578 + +Jacobins, policy of, criticism of, 261 + +James II., King of England, 54, 410 + overthrow imperative, 468 + +Janus, 519; book on Ultramontane ideal, 511, 513 + +Jefferson, Thomas, President, U.S.A., 579 + irreligion of, 585 + +Jesuit attitude to the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 1, 127, 147, 148 + +Jesuits, the, and infallibility, 498 + and preparations for Vatican Council, 497-98 + +Jews, _see also_ Israelites + treatment of, by Catholics, 169; + and by Protestants, 164, 179 + +Joachim, Abbot, and his work, 560 + +Joan of Arc, 552; + authorities on, not consulted by Lea, 558 + +John Of Salisbury, 45; + reputed author of the _Historia Pontificalis_, 559 + +Joubert, on authority of the Church, 463 + +Judae, Leo, views of, as to persecution, 174 + +Julian, apostate, reasons for persecution by, 196 + +Julius Caesar, conversion by, of Roman republic into monarchy, 15 + +Juergens, his estimate of Luther, 161 + +Justification by faith, dogma of, as test of orthodoxy, 158 + +Justin, summit reached by, 406 + +Justinian, code of, greatest obstacle to liberty next to feudalism, 79 + on the absolute authority of the Roman Emperor, 31 + + +Kolde, effect of works of, 408 + +Kampschulte, effect of works of, 408 + +Kant, Immanuel, 594 + +Kaulbach, pictorial ridicule of Doellinger's _Reformation_, 411 + +Kenrick, on Papal infallibility, 540, 544 + +Ketteler, W.E. von, Doellinger's lectures praised by, 381 + on Papal infallibility, 540, 544 + +Kings, status of, in England, Canning on, 583-84 + +Kirchmann on political ethics, 222 + _cited_ on the adoption of Machiavelli's policy, 227-28 + +Klein. J.L., _cited_ on Machiavelli's moral purpose, 229 + +Kleutgen, garbled version of Strossmayer's protest, 542 + +Kliefoth, influence on Doellinger, 389 + work on penitential system, 381 + +Knowledge, growth of, freedom of, in the Church, 461 + +Knox, John, 44 + "Monstrous Regiment of Women," 45 + + +Laboulaye, indictment against democracy, 93 + +Labour, supremacy of English nation in art of, 60 + +Lacordaire, Henry, advice of, ignored by Montalembert, 400 + _cited_ on political honesty, 220 + Doellinger antagonistic to, 401 + on St. Dominic, 428 + +Lafayette, 590 + +La Farina, tribute to Machiavelli, 226 + +Lamennais and the Church, condemnation and fall, and cause of the + latter, 398, 465, 466-73 + conflict with Rome, 462-473 + classed as Ultramontane, 451 + endeavours of, to exalt Rome, 463-4 + intercourse of, with Doellinger, 398 + and the idea of development, 591, 593 + theory of common sense, 593 + +Land question, the great difficulty in Ireland, 236 + +Languedoc, work in, of St. Dominic, 553 + +Lanza, 509 + +La Roche-sur-Yon, on the resolutions of the conference of Bayonne, + 108 & _notes_ + +Larroque, Tamizey de, rejection by, of Arnaud's speech at Beziers, 567 + +Lasaulx, Ernst von, estimation of, 405 + +Lassalle, Ferdinand, on collective thought, 585 + +Laurent, 590; + Doellinger's praise of, 417 + _cited_ on Machiavelli's doctrines, followed by detractors, 226 + +Laval, Bishop of, opposition of, at Vatican Council, 522 + +Lavradeo, Count de, Portuguese ambassador to Vatican Council, 507 + +Lavaur, fate of Albigenses at, 556 + +Law, custom and national qualities, not will of government, makers of, 58 + mediaeval opinions on, 258 + in relation to the will of the people, Vergniaud on, 276 + +Laws (_see also_ Legal system), divine origin of, 22 + of realm, Socratic view that they were only sure guide of conduct, 18 + view of Ghibelline writers respecting, 37 + view of Guelph writers respecting, 36 + +Lay representation on Vatican Council, plans for, 503-8 + +Lea, Henry Charles, _A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages_, + review, 551 + characteristics of, 555, 559, _passim_; + as historical writer, 551 + +League, the, Charles IX.'s refusal to join, 129 + +League, Holy, attempts to bring France into, 113 + +Le Blanc de Beaulieu on political expediency, 225 + +Lecoy de la Marche, collection, 559 + +Lee, murder of, note on, 65 + +Legal system, English, pioneer work in reform of, of Jeremy Bentham, 3 + +'_Leges Barbarorum_,' principle of, in respect to the Church, 244 + +Legislation, liberty independent of domain of, 2 + +Legitimate ruler, defence of, first cause of popular risings, 1813., 284 + +Leibniz, Doellinger's gratitude to, 393 + on _Il Principe_, 228 + influence of, on Doellinger, 381 + +Leo I., Pope, and the suppression of heresy at any cost, 571 + +Leo X. (Medici), Pope, character of, 378 + treatment of tyrant of Perugia, 214 + +Leo XIII., Pope, literary fruits of his liberality, 573-4 + +Leopold, 401 + +Lepanto, naval battle of, 104; + effect foiled by Charles IX., 105 + victory of, less dear to the Pope than the Massacre of St. + Bartholomew, 134 + +Leti, _cited_, 140 + +Lewis XII., king of France, extermination of Vaudois of Provence by, 217 + +Lewis XIII., king of France, Doellinger's lenient estimate of, 410 + +Lewis XIV., king of France, death penalty by, indicted for disobedience + to his will, 48 + Doellinger's lectures on, 433 + ordinance against Protestants, 50 + as political assassin, 410 + records of reign of, 409 + secret treaty between, and Charles II., 53 + supreme among tyrants for bad use of his power, 49; + adulation bestowed on him sign of national subjection to absolutism, 49 + +L'Hopital, 126 + +Liberal movement in Latin Europe, its objects, 280-81 + +Liberalism, European, 582-3 + +Liberals, eighteenth century, their care only for the individual, 273 + of the French Restoration, limitations of, 282 + +Liberty (_see also_ Freedom), change in constitution not effected by, in + Italy and Germany, 225 + definition of, 3 + and democracy, 63 + essential condition and guardian of, religion, 4 + essential to the subsistence of a country, Rousseau on, 294 + failure of Protestant systems to secure, 181 + influences of Christianity on, 203 + Luther's attitude to, 156 + and property, connection between, 54 + realisation of, on what depended, 288 + reconciled to religion, dispute concerning, 467-9 + theory of, as regards nationality, 289 + religion and nationality, causes united in revolutions after 1815., 284 + sacrificed to unity, by Machiavelli, 229 + views on, of Hegel, and of Flint, 596 + vulgar definition of, 580 + +Liberty, American, Judge Cooley on, 580 + civil and religious, point of unison between, 151 + English, adversary of old despotic policy, 276 + English, adversary of former despotic power, 276 + municipal, vigorous growth of, in Belgium, 38 + religious, definition of, 151-2 + effect on, of State control, 151-3 + in Maryland, 187 + necessary conditions of, 152-3 + not impossible, 367 + +Liddon, Canon, intimacy with Doellinger, 416 + +Liebig, 377 + +Lightfoot (Bishop of Durham), Church history of, 418 + +Lilburne, political writer in advance of his time, 50; + his enlightened ideas on democracy, 83 + +Limborch, 563 + +Lipsius, R.A., study of Machiavelli by, 215 + +Lisle, Ambrose de, 423 + +Littre, 590 + +Locke, John, 54 + doctrine of resistance, 54 + inconsistent ideas regarding liberty, 53 + on rules of morality, 221 + +Lombard law of Frederick II., as affecting heretics, 152, 555, 556 + +Lombardy, the heresy of (Waldensian), 559 + work of St. Dominic in, 553 + +Longperier, _cited_, on Italy's adoption of Machiavelli's policy, 227 + +Lorraine, Cardinal of (Guise), on Anjou's hatred of Protestants and its + consequences, 105 _& note_ + approval expressed by, of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 140 + high position of, 111; + on his initiative in the Huguenot massacre, his praise of Charles IX., + 112 _& note_; + complicity of, in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 129-30 + quarrels with, of Ferralz, 129; + its reason, the Pope's attitude to him, 130 + on the price of the Navarre marriage, 128 + slain by Henry III., attitude of the Pope, 121 + +Louis XVI., king of France, policy of, 57 + powerlessness of, to effect reform, 85 + why he perished, 280 + +Louis Philippe, king of the French, his good opinion of republican + government, 56, 90 + decline of his popularity, 92 + +Love of country, Bossuet on, 294 _note_ + +Low Countries (_see also_ Holland _and_ Netherlands), Alva's failure + in, 103 + +Loyola, Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus, 113 + +Luca, Cardinal de, proposed discussion of infallibility at Vatican + Council denied by, 518 + Reisach's deputy as president, 534 + +Lucchesini, sermon against Machiavelli, 215 + +Lucius, attack of, on Philo, 419 + +Luther, Martin, 502 + attitude of, to the marriage difficulties of Henry VIII., 160 + and the bigamy of Philip of Hesse, 160 + Doellinger's estimate of, 397 + early utterances of, on toleration, 153-5; + his change of view, 155 + influence of, on politics, 81 + Moehler on, 378 + persecuting principles involved in his system, 164, 590 + teaching of, wherein differing from that of Wycliffe and of Hus, 271 + views of, on government, 42; + on polygamy, 159, 162; + on the relations of Church and Slate, 156, 157-58, 161-63, 173, + 177, 180; + logical outcome of his theory, 159; + its inconsistency, 162; + work of, on the Civil Power, 154 & _note_; + _cited_ on toleration of Anabaptists, 157 + +Lutheran attitude to heretics, gradual change in, 154, 157 + to Huguenots, 145-6 + theory of persecution, political element in, 172 + +Lutheranism, decline of, 327-9 + in Denmark, 341 + description of, 343-5 + national character of, 319-320 + roused by abuses in the Church, 495 + in Sweden, 341 + +Lyons, massacre of Huguenots at, 119; + news of, sent to Rome, 132; + horror aroused by, in Provence, 144; + letter from, on the massacres at that place, 131 + + +Macaulay, T.B., 580 + historical limitation of, 385 + injustice of Doellinger to, 391-2 + opinion of, on Father Paul, 432 + on the study of history, 232 + +Machiavelli, Niccolo (_see also_ Il Principe), character of, 225-6; + its complexity, 212-14 + crime of Catherine de' Medici not instigated by, 216 + denouncement of, to Inquisition, by Muzio, 214-15 + doctrine of, 40, 41; + impulse given by, to absolutism, 41 + influence on succeeding generations, 40, 41; + political, 49; + held by rulers before and since, 216-19; + estimated by early historians, 225-231 + ignorance of, displayed by great men, 218-19 + indulgent views taken of methods of, 224 + Medici patron and his daughter, 122 + merits of, admitted by later historians, 230-231 + methods of, 225-6 + secret patriotism of, upheld by various historians, 229-230 + in touch with reasoners and imitators, by theory of success, 223 + zenith of power, 225-7 + +Mackintosh, Sir James, on constitutions, 581 + +Macmaster, on Hamilton's genius, 581 + +Madison, James, 579 + on Hamilton's theory of government, 581 + +Maffei, on regicide, 217 + +Magdeburg, Archbishop of, _temp._ Gregory IX., 556 + +Mai, Cardinal, as an editor, 421 + +Maimbourg, 215 + +Maine, Sir Henry, on the _Droit du Seigneur_, 566-7 + +Maistre, Count de, Ultramontane writer, 451, 468; + on the authority of the Church, 377 + and Lamennais's theory, 593 + relation to Savigny, 593 + exaggerations of, 378 + influence on Doellinger, 377 + interpreted by elder Windischmann, 381 + rank of, as writer, 417 + thoughts of, on Nationality, 282 & _note_ + +Malebranche, 382 + +Malvenda, authority on the Inquisition, 554 + +Mamachi, authority on the Inquisition, 554 + +Mandelot, Governor of Lyons, and the Huguenot massacres, 119 + +Manin, Daniele, 287 + +Manning, Cardinal, Archbishop of Westminster, adviser of De Angelis, 529 + on admission of papal infallibility by acknowledgment of supreme + authority, 543-4 + +Manteuffel, administration of, 283 + +Manzoni on temporal power of Papacy, 512 + +Marat, madness of, 401 + outcome of Rousseau's teaching on his policy, 57, 58 + +Maret, book of, on Vatican Council plans, 512, 513 + opposition of, at Vatican Council, 426 + and papal infallibility, 528 + +Mariana, rejoicing of, over the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 124 + _cited_ on death of Henry III., 217 + +Marini, as a compiler of history, 387 + occasional removal of, from _Index_, 215 + +Marlborough, Duke of (the Great), character of, 53 + +Marseilles, Bishop of, on validity of Vatican Council's decrees, 549 + +Marsilius of Padua, the Ghibelline, + views of, on power and persecution, 561-2 + _cited_ on the relation of kings to the people, 37 + +Marshall, John, 579; + and the development of the American Constitution, 581 + +Martens, 427 + +Martensen, Bishop, estimate of Doellinger, 434 + tribute to Baader's powers, 376 + +Martineau, Dr., and Mill's opinion of results as test of actions, 223 + +Mary Tudor, Queen of England, 410 + +Maryland, religious history of, 187 + +Massachusetts, history of, contrasted with that of Maryland, 187 + +Massacre, the, of St. Bartholomew, 101 + defects in plan and execution of, as judged by immediate results, 106; + sources of the same, 117 + defence of, on political grounds, 218 + Doellinger's work on, 430-31 + evidence concerning, how dealt with, difficult of access, 101; + best existing sources, 102 + motive inspiring its chief author, 121 + question of numbers slain in, 106, 137 + question of premeditation of, contemporary view, 106; + modern view, 107; + evidence in support of the former, 107 _et seq._ + results anticipated from, 69; + Philip II., 123; + view not stated by Alva, 124 + +Massillon, Jean-Baptiste, _cited_ on retribution, 220 + +Mathieu, Cardinal, share in elections to Commission of Dogma, 529, 530, 532 + +Matter, cited on Machiavelli's influence on liberty, 227 + +Maurenbrecher, rank of Doellinger estimated by, 386 + +Maurer, Conrad, at Doellinger's house, 405 + +Maximillian II., Emperor, information sent to, of the Massacre of + St. Bartholomew, 107 + opinion of, on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 144 + toleration of, 105 + urged to follow example of Charles IX., 134 & _note_ + +May, Sir Erskine, _Democracy in Europe_, by, 61 + +Mazade, influence on Doellinger, 434 + +Mazzini, Giuseppe, association of, with the growth of the idea of + Nationality, 286 + association of his revolutionary ideas with conservatism of Niebuhr, 59 + on Machiavelli's politics, 219 + proclaimer of Nationality, 273 + profane criticism by, 218 + +Mazzuchelli, 114 + +Mechlin, Archbishop of, reply to the Bishop of Orleans by, 537 + +Medici, Cosmo de', patron of Machiavelli, father of Catherine, 122 + family of, in disfavour under Paul III., 214 + Machiavelli not countenanced by followers of, 214 + +Mediaeval writers on law and right, 258 + +Melanchthon, Philip, his theory of persecution, 164-170 + views of, on polygamy, and the bigamy of Philip of Hesse, 160 & _note_ + on religious assassination, 325 + _cited on_ Cromwell's death, 217 + +Memorandum of the Powers, 183; + on temporal power, 366 + +Menabrea, circular of, on representation of Vatican Council, 509 + +Mendoca, praise of those concerned in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 124 + +Mentz, Bishop of, belief in infallibility doctrine, 518 + +Merode, 414 + +Metternich, Prince, 283; + attitude of, to Nationality, 285 + +Metz, Bishop of, repudiation of Doellinger's declaration, 538 + +Mexico, nationality in, 245-46 + +Meyer, Paul, on the Council of Arles, 565 + +Michelet, Jules, Flint compared to, 596 + _cited_ on human action as interpreter of God's commands, 223 + on Machiavelli, 213 + influence on Doellinger, 433 + Doellinger's study of, 421 + +Michiel, Giovanni, Venetian ambassador, 109; + on premeditation of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 110 + +Middle Ages, authority of State inadequate in, 4 + decline of religion in, 595 + history of, reason for its unity, 244 + political advances in, 39 + persecution in, 152, 168 + revival of study of, 390-91 + +_Middle Ages, The, A History of the_ + _Inquisition of_, by Henry Charles Lea, review, 551 + +Mignet, Doellinger's praise of, 417 + +Milan, Archbishop of, on validity of Vatican Council's decrees, 549 + +Mill, John Stuart, indictment of democracy, 93 + on results as tests of actions, 223 + on states as coincident with nationalities, 285 + +Milton, John, his justification of execution of Charles I., 51 + +Minerve, fate of Albigenses at, 556 + +Modena, 386 + +Mohammedans, treatment of, by Catholics, 169; + by Protestants, 179; + their tolerance, 186 + +Moehler, J.A., 593 + influence on Doellinger's views of fixity of national types, 434 + publication of _Symbolik_, 377 + on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 149 + suggested history of progress of doctrine of, 385 + _cited_ on Doellinger's rank as theologian, 379 + _cited_ on intercourse with Doellinger, 377 + partiality as historian of religious wars, 428 + rank of, 430 + views of, compared to Doellinger's, 378-9 + _cited_ on Luther, 378-9 + +Moehler and Doellinger in Munich, views at variance, 377-380 + +Molina, Luis, 380 + +Molinier, Auguste, on a history of the Inquisition, 551-2 + rejection by, of Arnaud's speech at Beziers, 567 + +Molino, Francesco da, cited on the recall of the Guises, 213 + +Mommsen, Theodor, cited on political expediency, 222 + distinction of pupils of, 419 + indifference of the public to, 430 + +Monarchy-- + adulation manifested towards, after the Middle Ages, 48 + danger of, 19, 20 + and democracy, 64 + limitation of powers, aim of modern constitutions, 19 + resistance of, among Israelites, justified in later ages, 4 + restricted suffrage not always a safeguard of, 2 + Absolute-- + clergy upholders of, 41 + development and destruction of, by the democracy in France, + & _notes_, 279-80 + France chief centre of, 48 + one of the worst enemies of civil freedom, 300 + +Monarchs, election and deposition of, divine right of people with + respect to, 35 + Guelphic and Ghibelline views respecting, 36, 37 + subjection of, to public law, 35 + +Mondoucet, French agent at Brussels, Charles IX.'s letter to, on the + proposed Massacre, 117 + +Moneta, Fra, successor of St. Dominic, 553 + +Monluc, Bishop of Valenca, dying speech of, its bitterness against + Huguenots, 141 + on the effect of the Huguenot massacres on Poland, 120 + view of, on St. Bartholomew, 107 + +Monroe, James, President, his term of office "the era of good feeling," 56 + +Mons, fall of, 103; + Lewis of Nassau at, 105 + the garrison devoted to death by Charles IX. and Philip II., 141-2 + +Montaigne, Michel de, view held by, on Machiavelli's fame, 215 + +Montalembert, Count de, classed as Ultramontane, 451 + influence of, on Doellinger, 400 + intercourse unbroken, 463 + unacknowledged agreement with Doellinger, 316 + and _Kirche und Kirchen_, views cited, 417; + estimate of that work, 424 + in Munich, 398 + opposition of, at Vatican Council, 524-5 + politics of, 400 + and the temporal power of the Papacy, 412 + +Montalto, Cardinal, alleged dissent of from congratulation on the + St. Bartholomew, 140 + +Montegut, influence on Doellinger, 434 + +Montesquieu, and his development of Locke's teaching, 54 + +Montezuma, and Torquemada, resemblance between the gods of, 569 + +Montferaud, Sieur de, rumoured orders + to, as to massacre of Huguenots, 127 _note_ + +Montfort and the Albigenses, 556 + +Montgomery and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 107, 122 + +Montpensier, Duke of, Huguenot massacres ordered by, in Brittany, 119 + unguarded speech by, on coming massacre, 111 + +Montpezat, Lieutenant of Guienne, and the Bordeaux massacres, 127 + +Morality, perverted ideas of, prevailing among classic sages, 18 + public, how differing from private, 40 + +Mordenti, _cited_ on Machiavelli, as champion of conscience, 226 + +More, Sir Thomas, author of the Utopia, 270 + idea of renovating society on the principles of self-sacrifice, 58 + +_Mores Catholici_, Digby's, 569 + +Morinus _cited_, 194 + basis of Kliefoth's work in, 381 + +Morley, John, on equity of history, 219 + +Mornay, _see_ Duplessis-Mornay + +Morris of Exeter, and study of Petavius, 380 + +Morris, Robert, an American, the suggester of the French wars of + speculation and plunder, 578 + _cited_ on Hamilton as a leader, 582-3 + +Morvilliers, Bishop of Orleans, attitude of, to the Massacre of + St. Bartholomew, 126 + +Mozley, James, visit of Doellinger to, 403 + +Muenscher, works of, esteemed by Doellinger, 381 + +Mueller, 282 + +Munich, Archbishop of (Reisach), brief from the Pope to, denouncing + Frohschammer, 481-5 + nominated as President of Vatican Council, 501; + death of, before taking seat as, 534 + +Munich, conference at, Doellinger's declaration to, 312-13 + Doellinger at, 386; + lectures in, 375 + Frohschammer's work in, 473 + Moehler with Doellinger in, 377-80 + school of theology at, 398-9, 434 + +Municipal liberties, vigorous growth in Belgium, 38 + +Muenster (Westphalia), excesses of Anabaptists at, 171 + +Muenzer, Thomas, intolerance of, 171 + +Muratori, Doellinger's study of, 387 + on evangelists, 419 + papal biographies by, 559 + and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 148 + +Murder (_see also_ Assassination, Heretics, and Persecution), on plea + of religion, attitude to, of Rome, 138, 139, 140, 147 + +Muretus, 101; famous speech of, on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 130 + +Muzio, the _Decamerone_ recommended to students by, 215 + in favour with Pius V., 214-15 + letter from, to Henry III. of France, urging unsparing extirpation + of Huguenots, 143 + Machiavelli denounced by, to the Inquisition, 214-15 + +Mylius, view of, on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 107 + + +Nantes, city, refusal of, to massacre Huguenots, 119 + edict of, revocation of, not approved by Innocent XI., 147; + inconsistency, 170; + remarks on, 260 + +Napoleon I., causes of his downfall, 281, 284 + new power called into existence by, 281 + question respecting the durability of his institutions, 238 + _cited_ on importance of results, 221 + _cited_ on quality of endurance in English nation, 66 + +Napoleon III., ambition of, 316 + and discussion of infallibility doctrine at Vatican Council, 504 + +Nassau, Lewis of, at Mons, French auxiliaries with, 105 + +National character, influence of, on events, units of, 557 + claims, based on race only, futility of, an instance, 295 + +Nationality, essay on, 270 + auxiliary and substance of present-day revolution, 276 + denial of, what it implies, 297 + evolution of, three stages in, 284-5; + and definition of, in its final form, 285 + idea of, as influencing modern thought greater than that of liberty, 59 + modern theory of, greatest advocate of rights of, 297 + historical importance of, its two chief causes, 298, 299 + how awakened in Europe, 273, 275, 276; + its parentage, 277, 286, 287; + how first seen, 278, 281, 286 + mission of, in the world, 300 + more absurd and criminal than that of Socialism, 300 + political character and value of, discussed, 280 _et seq._ + a retrograde step in history, 298 + rights of, and greatest adversary of, 297 + some of its first supporters, 281-2 + a subversive theory, 273 + summing up of, 287-8 + political theory of, in contradiction with the historic nation, 243 + the true, 294, 295 + +Nations, different, in one State, considerations regarding, 289 _et seq._ + +Naude, basis of his apology for Charles IX., 147 + +Navarre, Henry, King of, later Henry IV., King of France, 44 + marriage of, with Margaret of Valois, opposed by the Popes, 105, + 109, 111, 128; + real facts regarding, 131-3; + representations on, of Charles IX. and his mother, 135; + dissolution of, by Paul V., 114 + murder of, schemed as a good deed, 139 + and the proposed league of Protestant defence, 145 + +Navarre, Queen of (Margaret of Valois), death of, reckoned on in + France, 109, and _see_ Marriage, under Navarre, Henry, King of + +Neander, rank of, 421 + special gifts of, 555 + unconventionally of, 384 + +Nelson, 592 + +Netherlands (_see also_ Holland _and_ Low Countries), deposition of + Philip II., and establishment of republic, 44 + republic of, inaugurated reign of law through freedom of press, 50 + +Nevers, Duke of (Lewis Gonzaga), high station of, 128 + share of, in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 110; + his "ill-timed generosity" on this occasion, 122; + praises of, by Capilupi, 129 + +Newman, John Henry, Cardinal, 573, 592, 593 + distinction drawn between Pope and Court, 417 + Doellinger's early appreciation of, 395; + intercourse with, 402 + Napoleon III. not condemned by, 413 + theory of development different from Doellinger's, 407-8 + _cited_ on papal authority, 423 + +Nicholas I., 431 + +Niebuhr, 581; + association of his conservatism with revolutionary ideas of Mazzini, 59 + Doellinger's gratitude to, 393 + +Nimes, Bishop of, on infallibility, 515; + opposed to discussion of, 501 + +Nimes (city), no Huguenot massacres at, 143 + +Nippold, rank of Doellinger estimated by, 386 + +Nourrison cited on Machiavelli's sincerity, 227 + +Nugent, Count, proclamation by, on Italian independence, 285 + +Nuremberg, Anabaptists at, 157 + + +Octavius, opposition of Gracchus to, 76 + +Odescalchi, character of, 433 + +OEcolampadius, Joannes, opinions of, on Church government, 176-7 + +Ollivier, opposition of, to French lay representation in Vatican + Council, 504 + +Orange, Prince of (William the Silent), 44 + alliance made with, by Charles IX., 105 + declaration for (1572), of province of Holland, 103 + Huguenot expedition to aid, failure of results, 116, 141 + not alienated by Charles IX.'s Huguenot massacres, 120 + +_Origines de la France Contemporaine_, 569 + +Orleans, Bishop of, attitude of, to papal infallibility, 228, + 316, 515, 523, 524 + at Council of Bishops, 1867., 500 + patriotism of (1862), 445 + permission refused to, for publication of reply to the Archbishop + of Mechlin, 537 + promotion of Vatican Council by, 493 + unacknowledged agreement with Doellinger, 316 + on validity of Vatican Council's decrees, 549 + Orleans, city of, horrors of Huguenot massacre at, 124 + Orleans dynasty, result of appeal from, in 1848., 590 + +Orsi, Doellinger's tribute to, 387 + +Orsini, Cardinal, Legatine mission of, to France, his instructions, 137; + Charles IX.'s representations to him, 138 + +Oscott, Wiseman's work as President of, 438 + +Osiander, Andreas, _cited_ on toleration, 157 + +Ossat, D' 114 & _note_ + +Overbeck, on Epistle to Diognetus, 420 + +Oxford movement, Doellinger told of, by Brewer. 402 + Wiseman's influence on, 438 + + +Paderborn, Bishop of, on infallibility of Pope, 518 + +Paine, Thomas, 585; + citation of, from _Rights of Man_, on the confusion of political + forms with political liberty, 238 + +Pallavicini, Theiner on, 431 + +Panhellenism, 284 + +Panigarola, panegyric by, on Charles IX., 125 + +Panslavism, rise of, 284 + +Papacy, the, acknowledgment of small principalities of Italy, 355 + based on organic development, 321-4 + and the Byzantine Empire, 353 + extraordinary notions of Godwin Smith on the, 267 + future of, 367-70 + government of, reform in, 363-5 + reform of, attempted by Pius IX., Doellinger on, 365 + removal to France, a challenge to schism, 370 + temporal power of, _see_ Temporal power + +Papal Legations rescued from Austria at the Congress of Vienna, 283 + See, confusion between direct and indirect authority of, 256 + struggle with the Franciscans, 552 + +Papinian, _cited_ on political progress, 79 + +Paramo, 428 + +Paris, attitude hostile to the Huguenots, 116, 117 + attitude after the murder of Coligny and Massacre of St. Bartholomew + in, 106, 126, _and see both heads_ + France governed by, during revolution of 1789, 88 + Mendoca's praise of its Catholic inhabitants, 124 + Archbishop of, cardinals hat refused for, by Pius IX., 526 + career of, 526 + character of, 326 + French representation on Vatican Council urged by, 505 + on Papal infallibility, 532 + on validity of Vatican Council's decrees, 549 + university of, and the Inquisition, 570 + +Paris, Matthew, Lea's authorities on, 558 + +Parliamentary corruption in America, past and present, 578 + government, primitive republicanism the germ of, 32 + +Parma, centre of historical work, 387 + (1862) nationality in, 292 + +Partition of Poland, _see under_ Poland + +Pascal, Blaise, advocate of passive obedience to kings, 48 + _cited_ on varying standards of right and wrong, 220 + +Passaglia, fame of, 413 + on papal liberty, 313 + reputation of, 502 + +Passive obedience to the State, doctrine upheld by theologians and + philosophers, 47, 48 + taught by Luther, 156, 161, 180; + asserted by Calvin, 180-81 + +_Patrie_, French newspaper, criticism by, of Wiseman's address at Rome, + 439, 443, 444, 445; + his reply, 439 + +Paul, Father, 432 + +Paul III., Pope (Cardinal Farnese), hatred of the Medici family, 214; + letter from Sadolet, praising the extermination of the Vaudois, 217 + +Paul V., Pope (Borghese), aware of premeditated Huguenot massacre, 114 + +Peace of St. Germains, as affecting French Huguenots, 105; + alarmist views on, held by Salvati, 110 + +Peasants' war, the, in Germany, attitude of Luther towards, 155, 156 + & _note_, 162 + +Pegna, Arragonese origin of, 558, 560 + character of works of, 428 + +Pelleve, Cardinal, Archbishop of Sens, on the premeditation of a massacre + of Huguenots, 111 + +Peloponnesian war, influence of, on Athens, 69 + +Penn, William, 410; + follower of doctrine of toleration, 84 + +Pennaforte, home of St. Raymond, 556 + +Pennsylvania, democratic constitution of, 84 + +People, _see also_ Democracy _and_ Will of the People + sovereignty of, idea of parent of idea of Nationality, 277 + wishes, etc., of, as criterion of right, teaching on, of the French + Revolution as to, 271 + +Percin, authority on the Inquisition, 554 + German ignorance of, 428 + +Peresius, on Bible inspiration, 514 + +Perez, Antonio, accusation by, of + +Philip II. of Spain, 104 + +Pericles and democracy, 9, 68 + effort to prevent predominance of any particular interest in + politics, 10 + +Perronne, on biblical critics, 514 + on commission of preparation for Vatican Council, 500 + hostility to Passaglia, 413 + rank of, 417 + +Persecution, attitude to, of Marsilius, 562 + by Catholics, principles of, 168-170, 186 + by heathen Rome, justified on political grounds, 186 + mediaeval, justification of, 254 + method of escaping from imposition of religious disabilities, 250 + natural stage in the progress of society, 250 + Protestant theory of, 150; + the book by H.C. Lea, review, inadequate as history of, 574 + reasons for and against, as a political principle, 252 + some noted supporters of, 570 + Spain and Sweden contrasted, 170 + two propositions regarding, 572-3 + +Persian wars, influence of, 67 + +Persians, makers of history, 240 + +Petavius (s.j.) and the idea of development in religion, 591, 592 + Doellinger's early study of, 379 + Doellinger's gratitude to, 393 + Morris of Exeter advised to read, 380 + +Peter Martyr, death of Servetus approved by, 185 + +Petrucci, communications of, forecasting the Massacre of St. + Bartholomew, 109 + mysticism of, 376 + +Philip II., king of Spain, aid of, essential to crush French Huguenots, 104 + the St. Bartholomew massacre urged by, 116-17 + orders from, for slaughter of Alva's Huguenot prisoners, 142 + revolt against, of the Netherlands, 44 + +Philo of Alexandria, Lucius's attacks on, 420 + on customs of the Essenes, 26 + +Philosophers, doctrine of passive obedience, upheld by, 48 + schemes of, for ideal societies, why never realised, 270-71 + +Piatti, apologist of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 148 + +Piedmontese government and the Papacy, 368-9 + +Pilgrim fathers, belief of, not influencing the American revolution, 584-5 + +Pistoja, on treatment of heretics in Rome under Pius V., 138 + +Pitra, influence of, in France, 404 + +Pius IV., Pope, Bull _Multiplices inter_, published by, 520-25 + +Pius V., Pope, blessing given by, to war against Huguenots, 141 + denunciatory letter from, to court of France, 110 + patron of Muzio, 214-15 + previous information of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew supplied + to, 130-31 + strong anti-Protestant views of, 138-9 + on the peace of St. Germains, 105 + +Pius VII., Pope, destruction of church of France by, 323 + influence on Doellinger, 402 + _cited_ on Papal authority, 323 + +Pius IX., Pope, alarm of dissenting bishops allayed by, 519 + Archbishop of Paris rebuked by, 526 + brief of, to the Archbishop of Munich, censuring Frohschammer, 481-5 + character of, described by Doellinger, 365-6 + confidence in the support of the bishops at the discussion of Papal + infallibility, 523-4 + on Doellinger's _Kirche und Kirchen_, 415 + on the infallibility of the Pope, 496 + personal popularity of, 497 + quarrel with Russia, 493 + reform of excommunication laws, 531 + treatment of Doellinger, 411 + Vatican Council convened and prepared for by, 492-511 + obstinacy in management of Vatican Council, 532 + reforms of, 402 + refusal of permission to Theiner to publish acts of Council of Trent, 431 + and Vatican Council, Doellinger's estimate of, 431 + veneration of, spell broken by protesting bishops, 531 + +Planck, Moehler's address to, 378 + +Plantagenet, house of, claims backed by Rome against house of Bruce, 35 + +Plantier, authority on Louis Philippe, 402 + +Platen, diaries of, description of Doellinger's early studies in, 375 + +Plato, _Laws_, 22 + on class interests, 69, 71 + opinions of, 71 + not without perverted notions of morality, 18 + _Republic_ of, 270 + +Plebeians, Roman, struggle with aristocracy, 13, 14 + +Plotinus, ideal society of, 270 + +Plutarch, religious knowledge of, 406 + +Poland, 105; + Anjou as candidate for throne of, 105; + prospects of, after the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 144 + an exception to common law of dynastic States, 274; + and why, 275; + the consequence, the partition, 275 + extinction of, 283 + government of, and the Reformation, 43 + partition of, awakening theory of nationality in Europe, 275 + religious toleration in sixteenth century, 103 + republic of, nature, 49 + Socinians in, Beza's hostility to, 146 + wrath in, at the Huguenot massacres, 120 + +Pole, Cardinal, _Il Principe_ brought to notice of, 214 + _cited_ on political scruples, 219 + +Polish exiles, why always champions of national movements, 286 + Protestants, strength and unity of, 103 + revolution, causes united in, 284 + +Political corruption, Hamilton's paradox on, 581 + disorders, distribution supersedes concentration of power as remedy + against, under Solon, 7 + equality at Athens, 68 + forms, confusion with popular rights, 238 + freedom inherently absent in France, 237-40 + habits and ideas special to particular nations, varying in the + national history, 297 + intelligence, not culture, the test of a conquering race, 242 + liberty in modern times the fruit of self-government, 253 + life a sign of true patriotism, 293 + opposition to Vatican Council, absence of, 511 + power should be in proportion to public service, 8 + observance of this principle at Athens, 8 + principles, obligation of, essentials for understanding, 458 + science, America's rank in, its exponents, 578 + theory of nationality in contradiction with the historic notion, 243 + thoughts on the Church, 188 + +Politics, attitude to, of the best Americans, 578 + conscience in, expedient elasticity of, 212-14 + contemporary, Doellinger's part in, 400-403 + honesty in, approved by great men, 219-23; + not always expedient, 219-21; + opinions of Pope Clement, 214; + Machiavelli, 212; + Michelet, 213; + Molino, 213; + Sarpi, 213; + Soto, 213 + laws of, rest on experience, 391 + liberty highest end of, 22, 23, 24 + Machiavellian, tribute to, 219 + principles of, high teaching regarding, in Plato's _Laws_ and + Aristotle's _Polities_, 22 + retribution in, 220-23 + science of, impartial study, unknown in seventeenth century, 43-46; + impartial study originated by Grotius, 46 + +Politics and science, authority of, now re-established, extent of, 453; + discoveries and principles of, how generally judged, 454 + +Polygamy, attitude of reformers to, 159, 160 + +Pontiac, price on head of, 213 + +Pope, the, and the court, Lamennais's distinction between, 464-5 + intervention of, between state and sovereign, 257 + +Popes, the (Medicean), unofficial countenance of Machiavelli, 214 + +Popular rights, confusion of political forms with, 238 + +Population, masses of, not benefited by liberty of subject, 94 + relief of, aim of modern democracy, 95 + +Porrette, Marguerite, 558, 568 + +Portugal, lay representative of, on Vatican Council, 507 + +Postel, 382 + +Potomac, army of, 579 + +Praetorius, 432 + +Presbyterianism, democratic element in, 81, 82 + Doellinger's sketch of, 336-7 + +Prescott, W., 569 + +Press, freedom of, in Netherlands Republic inaugurated reign of law, 50 + +Principles, false, place of, in social life of nations, 272 + political, obligation of, essentials for understanding, 458 + touchstone and watershed of, 454 + +Principles and interests, relative importance of, 449 + +Priscillian, fate of, Lea's view on, 572 + +Property, liberty and connection between, 54 + +Protagoras _cited_, 70 + +Protestant authorities, use made of, by the Ultramontanes, 451-2 + Church government, agitation for reform in Prussia, 347 + establishment, its views on government, 260 + Reformers, _see_ Reformers + "Protestant Theory, The, of Persecution," 150, & _see_ 254, 255, 576 + involved in Luther's teaching, 164 + developed by Melanchthon, 164 _et seq._ + carried to an extreme by the Anabaptists, 172 + carried out by Calvin, 178; + and defended by Beza, 183 + continued in Massachusetts, 187 + characteristics of, 168-70 + failure of, 187 + Zwinglian varieties of, 174 _et seq._ + +Protestantism, aversion of, to freedom, 240 + and the civil power, 150, 159, 161, 181 + decline of, in Northern Europe, Doellinger's description of, 342-51 + Doellinger's survey of, 302-303 + final acceptance by, of toleration, 187 + friendly feeling of Doellinger towards, 396-7 + growth of, 325-52 + and the later mediaeval sects, essential difference between, 271 + never successful in France, 595 + toleration as, cause and effect of its decline, 255 + +Protestants, the, _see also_ Huguenots and Lutherans + as cats' paws of France against Spain, 105-16 + ordinance of Louis XIV. against, and their action, 50 + position and apparent prospects of (1572), 102 + English, unanimity amongst, 189 + Polish, unity and strength among, 103 + +Provincial massacres of Huguenots, 105 + +Prussia, nationality shown in the opposition to Napoleon I., 281 + +Prynne, on study of records, 393 + +Pufendorf, expositor of Grotius' doctrines, 46 + +Purgatory, release from (_see_ Indulgences), obtainable from the Pope, + belief in, 495 + +Puritans in America, intolerance of, 187 + +Pusey, Dr., Doellinger's letters to, 395-6 + in favour of Vatican Council, 493 + +Puygaillard, mission of, to ensure provincial massacres of Huguenots, + 118 _note_, 119 + +Pythagoras, an advocate of government by aristocracy, 21 + + +Quetelet, 589 + +Quicherat and other authorities on Joan of Arc, 558 + +Quinet, cause to which he attributes the breakdown of the French + Revolution, 595 + + +Radowitz, Doellinger's debt to, 402 + potential liberality of, 414 + +_Rambler, The_, 447 + +Rambouillet, French Ambassador at Rome, 136 + +Ranke, Leopold von, calm indifference of historical deductions of, 390 + estimate of Macaulay by, 391 + old age of, friendship with Doellinger, 396 + style of, admiration of Doellinger for, 393 + _cited_ on judgment of time, 221; + on Luther's conservatism, 161; + on Machiavelli's merits, 228 + +Rattazzi, impoverishing policy of, 509 + +Raumer, source of historical work of, 386 + +Rauscher, Cardinal, opponent of Papal infallibility, 532, 533, 535, 544 + +Ravignan, 400 + +Raymundus, Doellinger's opinion of works of, 382 + +Raynaud, account of Machiavelli's death, 215 + +Rebellion punished by death by the Church in the Middle Ages, 216-19 + +Reformation, the, discredited by the Peasants' War, 155 + Doellinger on, 393-7 + early character of, 153 + effect of, on governments, 41, 42, 43 + +Reformers, Protestant, attitude of, to polygamy, 159, 160 + common origin of their views on State policy, 150-51 + intolerance of, exemplified, 184 + Saxon and Swiss, reason of their political differences, 173, 177 + on the treatment of heresy, 183 + views of, on Church and State, 181 + writings of, 150 + +Regicide (_see also_ Assassination _and_ Murder) urged by mediaeval + Church to remove tyrants, 217-18 + +Reid, 593 + +Reisach, Cardinal, _see_ Munich, Archbishop of + +Religion in relation to the American government, 584-5 + decay in belief of, among Greeks, 8 + development of, attitude to, of Bossuet, 591 + how it influences State policy, 150 + principles of, non-sectarian study of, unknown in seventeenth + century, 45-46 + reconcilable to liberty, dispute on, 467-9 + toleration in, early advocates of, 52 + turned into engine of despotism after + Reformation, 44 + true, definition of, 197 + differentiation of, from false, standards for, 449 + +Religions, multiplicity of, danger from, limited, 250 + suppression of, due to danger from doctrine in pagan and mediaeval + times, 251; + only necessary when practice of, dangerous to State, 251 + +Religious crime, civil jurisdiction over, Beza's views, 146 + disabilities, danger of, greater than multiplicity of religions, 250 + in Ireland made an engine of political oppression, 253 + intelligence and zeal, office of, 460 + liberty, defined, 151-2 + effect on, of State control, 151-3 + incompatibility of, with unity frequent, 252 + in Maryland, 187 + and political emancipation, connection of, not accidental, 292 + persecution and slavery, 64 + toleration, _see_ Toleration + +Renan, Ernest, commendation by, of dishonesty in politics, 225 + rank of, as writer in France, 417 + +Renouvier, Flint's agreement with, 594-5 + +Representation separability from taxation, origin of this principle + in Middle Ages, 39 + in America, restrictions on, 579 + +Representative assemblies, methods of strengthening, 97 + government, earliest proclamation and enactment of, 26 + not discussed in classical literature, 25, 26 + origin of, in Middle Ages, 39 + +Republic, French (the first), its title and what it signified, 277 + +Republic of 1848 (France), of what school the triumph, 590 + +Republican views of Zwingli and Calvin, 42 + +Republicanism of Athens, 68 + primitive, germ of Parliamentary government, 32 + true, defined, 277 + +Republics, government by, good opinion of Louis Philippe as to, 56, 90 + of Poland and Venice, contrast between, 49 + +Resistance, doctrine of, 54 + law of, as manifested in the American Revolution, 586 + +Restoration, French (under Louis XVIII.), effects of, on Nationality, 282 + the true, that of 1688., 580 + +Rettberg, 420 + +Retz, Cardinal de, opposed to, yet ignorant of, Machiavelli's + doctrines, 218 + _cited_ on political adaptability, 219 + +Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, an inconsistency, 170; + not approved by Innocent XI., 147; + remarks on, 266 + +Revolution, identity of, and difference from, passive obedience, 162 + one of the worst enemies of civil freedom, 300 + its most powerful auxiliary, present day, 276 + Protestantism favourable to, 181 + American-- + not inspired by the belief of the Pilgrim Fathers, 584-5 + nothing of, in common with the French, 580 + spirit of, 580, 587 + supreme manifestation of the law of resistance, 586 + of 1848, double debt to, of Nationality, 287 + the French-- + abolition by, of traces of national history, 278 + the (1789), causes leading up to, 85, 86, 87 + change produced by, how effected, 271; + consequences, 272 + characteristics peculiar to, roots far back in history, 280 + denounced by Burke, 219 + doctrines of, adversary of the old despotic policy, 276 + essential difference between it and others, 271 + injured by its religious policy, 86 + ethnological character of, 277, 278 + nothing in it in common with the American revolution, 580 + revival of a conquered race, 241 + no constructive idea given rise to by it, 241 + substance of its ideas, 280 + theory of equality disastrous to liberty, 88 + of 1688, "divine right of freeholders" established by, 54 + principles of, anticipated, 179 + statesmen of, represented as ancestors of modern liberty, 53 + +Revolutionary leaders of 1789, ideas of, contrary to idea of + Nationality, 281 + +Revolutions, three phases of those subsequent to the Congress of + Vienna, 284-5 + +Rhode Island, State of, rise of, 187 + +Richelieu, Cardinal, historical insight of, 409 + method of dealing with Protestants, its effect, 116 + on subjection of nation, 48 + _cited_ on historical deductions based on success, 221 + +Riehl, on abstract ideas and their power, 585 + +Rimini, 559 + +Rio, 432; _cited_ on Doellinger as a theologian, 399 + +Ritschl, 389 + +Robespierre, fate of, 401 + terrorism of, causes of production of, 262 + +Robinson _cited_ on progressive revelation, 592 + +Rochelle, La, siege of, 113 _note_, 115, 118 + +Roman conquest of Europe and its consequences, 277 _et seq._ + +Romans, as makers of history, 240 + persecution of Christians by, reasons for, 196, 198 + +Rome, _see also_ Church, the conflicts with, 461-91 + attitude at, towards Doellinger, 410-14 + and the Church at variance, 516-17 + popularity of Machiavelli in, 214 + statesmen of, permeation of, with Greek ideas, 16 + Court of, reformation demanded by Strossmayer, 536 + religious power of, as the preservation of civilised Europe, + Lea's view, 568 + and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, its complicity (believed in), + 128, 131; + reception at, of the news of, 132, 134, 135 + result of Vatican Council, scorn of opposition, 544 + ties of English Catholics with, tightened by Wiseman, 438 + Wiseman's Address at, criticised by _The Patrie_, 439; + his reply and rebuttal of "covert insinuations" in _The Home and + Foreign Review_, 439-40; + reply of that publication, 440; + statement of facts concerning the Address, 444 + Emperors of, above legal restraint, 78, 79 + pleasure of, force of law possessed by, 31 + Empire of, creation of the Roman people, not by usurpation, 77, 78 + better services rendered by, to cause of liberty than by the + Republic, 15 + seat of, transferred from Rome to Constantinople, 30 + heathen, persecution by, how justified, 186 + Republic of, conversion into monarchy by Julius Caesar, 15 + influenced by precept and example, 13, 14 + ruined by its own vices, 74 + +Roscher, intercourse of, with Doellinger, 403 + +Rosmini, 381; + disciples of, 314 + Doellinger's pupils sent to, 381 + erudition of, 400 + +Rossi, De, 431; Doellinger's guide in Rome, 411 + on epistles of St. Ignatius, 419 + friendship with Cardinal Reisach, 501 + +Rouen, clergy of, desirous of Huguenot extirpation, 142 + reluctance of Carouge to allow Huguenot + massacre at, 119 + +Rousseau, Jean Jacques, cause of his power as a political writer, 84 + definition of the social compact, 57 + effects of his teaching on Marat, 57, 58 + proclaimer of equality, 273 + vindication of natural society by, 263 + on true sense of country, 294 + +Royalism, execution of Charles I., a triumph for, 51 + +Royalty exalted into a religion (_see also_ Divine Right of Kings + _and_ Passive Obedience), 47 + +Ruinart, credulous criticism of, 420 + +Ruemelin, 589; on political expediency, 222 + +Russia, and its adoption of Greek Church, 333-4 + attitude of, to Vatican Council, 508 + quarrel of, with Pius IX., 493 + +Russian nationality attacked by Napoleon I., 281 + + +Saccarelli, Doellinger's tribute to, 387 + +"Sacerdotal Celibacy," 561; + and the _Droit du Seigneur_, 566 + +Sacred College, the, attitude of, on the St. Bartholomew, 140 + +Salviati's eminence at, 110 + +Sadolet, Paul, _cited_, on massacre of Vaudois of Provence, 217 + +Sailer, 402 + +St. Augustine, _cited_, 197; + in praise of Seneca, 25 + +St. Bartholomew, the Massacre of (_see_ Massacre of St, Bartholomew), + 44, 101; + not a crime of the people, 43 + +St. Bernard, 434 + +St. Brieuc, agreement with Gratry's views, 537 + +St. Cyprian, intolerance a rule of life from the days of, Lea's view, 562 + +St. Dominic as the First Inquisitor, 553; + so entitled by Sixtus V. 558 + attitude of, to heretics, 428, 554 + house of, at Toulouse, headquarters of the Inquisition, 552 + +St. Elizabeth of Hungary, strange choice by, of a confessor, 570 + +St. Francis of Assisi, Lea's view of, 569 + +St. Germains, Peace of, advantages of, to French Huguenots, 105; + alarmist views on, of Salviati, 110 + +St. Irenaeus, language of, which might be taken as Arian, 592 + +St. Louis, Archbishop of, on the Immaculate Conception, 545 + on Papal Infallibility, 533, 545; + his protest against the doctrine, 499 + +St. Martin, mysticism of, 376; + study of, by De Maistre, 377 + +St. Poelten, Bishop of (Fessler), and the proposed discussion of Papal + Infallibility at Vatican Council, 500-501, 513 + reform urged by, 495 + Secretary of Vatican Council, 501 + +St. Raymond and the Inquisition, 556-7 + +St. Sulpice, Catechism of, Lea's deductions from, 570 + opposition of, to Lamennais's Ultramontanism, 463 + +St. Thomas Aquinas, later exponent of Plato's _Politics_, 72 + _cited_ on the relation of Kings to the People, 36, 37 + +Sainte Beuve, C.A., _cited_ on political fatalism, 221 + +Ste. Hilaire, Barthelemy, _cited_ on Machiavelli's politics, 219 + +Salvianus on social virtues of pagans, 33 + +Salviati, despatches of, on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 132, 133; + as utilised by Acton, and his predecessors, 102 + on the "spirit of a Christian," as shown by Charles IX. at the Massacre + of St. Bartholomew, 122 + on the true reason for the Navarre marriage, 135 + +Samarra, the, 569 + +San Callisto, Doellinger's visit to, 411 + +San Germano, treaty of, 555 + +San Marino, 386 + +Santa Croce, Nuncio, information derived from, on the Massacre of + St. Bartholomew, 102; + on the plans framed at Bayonne against Huguenots, 108 & _note_, 108-9 + alleged report by, on the intended Huguenot massacre, 131-2 + +Sarpi, Paolo, _cited_ on political honesty, 213 + +Savigny, 380; + influence of, on Doellinger, 376 + leading doctrines of, 594 + source of historical works of, 386 + +Savonarola, Girolamo, 556 + +Savoy, motto of its abortive rising in 1834., 286 + not surprised by the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 109 + Duke of, and the marriage of Coligny, 110 + +Say, J.B., _cited_ on political virtues, 219 + +Schelling, 403 + estrangement of, from Doellinger, 381 + mythology of, 405 + _cited_ on collective thought, 585-6 + +Scherer, Edmond, _cited_ on progress, 221 + +Schlegel, H.W.F. von, classed as Ultramontane, 451 + studied by Doellinger, 375 + +Schleiermacher, F.E.D., Doellinger on, 375 + +Schmalkald, Confession of, on excommunication, 158 + +Schomberg on Charles IX. and the provincial massacres, 120 + +Schopenhauer, metaphysics of, Doellinger's love for, 381 + +Schottmueller, 421, 574; + conclusions of, on the trial of the Templars, 563 + +Schrader, Clement, reputation of, 502 + on commission of preparation for Vatican Council, 500 + +Schwarzenberg, Cardinal, manager of German elections to Commission + on Dogma, 529, 532 + Cardinal, opposition of, at Vatican Council, 525-6 + on Papal Infallibility, 544 + +Schwenkfeld, Kaspar von, his doctrines condemned by Melanchthon, 167 + +Science, demands of, on its students, 453 + liberty of, in the Church, 461-91 + liberty in, questioned through Frohschammer's excommunication, 477 + power of, to act upon religion, not foreseen in 1679., 595 + +Science and religion, reconciliation of, 462; + denied by Frohschammer, 462; + accepted by Lamennais, 462-3 + +Science, truth essential in, 449 + German, great services to intellectual liberty, 469 + religious, definition of, 389 + +Scientific truth, certainty of essentials for understanding, 458 + +Sclopis, Count, on character of Machiavelli, 226 + +Scotland, Doellinger on Presbyterianism of, 337 + triumph of Reformation in, over the State, 43 + +Scott, Hope, consulted by Doellinger, 395 + +Sega, Bishop of Piacenza and Nuncio, attitude of, to murder for the + glory of God, 139 + +Self-government, faculty of, opposed to tradition of antiquity, 31 + in a great democracy, how alone preservable, 277; + that kind of, which constitutes true republicanism, 277 + modern political liberty the result of, 253 + +Self-sacrifice, renovation of society on principles of, 58 + +Seneca, his elevated sentiments praised by St. Augustine, 25 + religious knowledge of, 406 + views of, 73 + +Sermoneta, 131 + +Servetus, Michael, 430; + his condemnation approved by Melanchthon, 167; + and by other Reformers, 175, 184-5; + defended by Calvin, 181-2; + but not politically justified, 184-5 + +Seward, W.H., on the rights sought by the revolting Americans, 587 + praise by, of Hamilton's statesmanship, 581 + +Shakespeare, study of, Doellinger's motive for, 432 + +Sherman, General, 579 + +Sicily, the Inquisition in, 1224., 553-4 + +Sickel, 422 + +Sidney, Algernon, character of, 53 + slight knowledge of Machiavelli's works, 218 + +Sieyes, 277; council suggested by, 96 + doctrine of, 57 + +Sigismund, King of Poland, Beza's advice to, on Socinianism, 146 + +Sigonius, Doellinger's gratitude to, 393 + +Simancas, annotations of, on Campeggio's commentary, 559-60 + +Simpson, 432 + +Sixtine Chapel, Vasari's paintings in, illustrative of the Massacre + of St. Bartholomew, 135 + +Sixtus V., Pope, attitude of, to the murder of the Guises, 121-2 + Doellinger's estimate of, 424 + St. Dominic entitled by, the First Inquisitor, 558 + a strong Pope, 138 + +Slavery and democracy, 63 + +Slavery, general extinction of, in Europe in Middle Ages, 39 + principle of, implicit opposition of Stoics to, 25, 26 + and practice of, rejected by Essenes, 26 + +Slavonic races, 245 + stationary national character of, 241 + +Smith, Adam, doctrine of, 57 + known in France, 219 + +Smith, Goldwin, on the Catholic Church in Ireland, 259 + on history, success only attribute acknowledged by, 223 + +Smith, Sir Thomas, on English attitude to the French, after the + Huguenot massacres, 144 & _note_ + +Socialism, baneful alliance of, with democracy, 92, 93, 98 + and slavery, 63 + +Societies, Epicurean notion that they are founded on contract for + mutual protection, 18 + +Society and government, association and correspondence of, 265 + +Society of Jesus (_see also_ Jesuits), Arragonese influence in + its constitution, 557 + +Socinians, reason of their persecution, 169 + +Socinus, partial advocate of toleration, 52 + +Socrates, 406; on democracy, 71 + death of, crowning act of guilt of Athenian government, 12 + method of, essentially democratic, 71 + records of, 409 + view of, on laws of country as sole guide of conduct, 18 + +Solon, decentralisation of power advised by, to remedy social + disorders, 7 + doctrine of, that political power should be commensurate with + public service, 8 + influence of, on democracy, 66, 68 + revision of laws of Athens by, 6 + good results of his forethought in providing for revision of + Athenian constitution, 7, 8 + +Sophists, doctrine of, 70 + their ideas of utilitarianism, 17 + +Sorbin, Confessor of Charles IX., and the Orleans massacres, 126; + his account of the death of Charles IX., 126-7 & _note_ + on premeditation of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 112 + +Soto, on political conscience, 216 + _cited_ on assassination as a political resource, 213 + +Spain (_see also_ Cadiz Constitution), abortive monarchy of (1812), 89 + absolute monarchy in, due to appropriation of tribunal of Inquisition, 41 + designs against, of Charles IX., utilisation in, of the Protestants, + 105, 116 + effect on, of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 124, 143 + and the Inquisition, 152 + Montalembert's journey to, 425 + national character of rejection of French forces and ideas, 281 + Parliamentary system of, origin, 34 + reasons for persecution in, 170 + and representation on Vatican Council, 507 + view in, of the planned character of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 124 + +Spinoza, advocate of passive obedience to the State, 48 + interpreter of Machiavelli, 228 + +Spirit of the American Revolution, what it was, 587; + what it was not, 584-5 + +Spondanus, Bishop, on Gregory XIII., reasons for permitting the Navarre + marriage, 128 + +Stahl, J., 589; injustice of Doellinger to, 391 + +Stahr, A., _cited_ on historical deductions, 221 + +Stanley, Dean, considered Vatican Council important to all + denominations, 493 + +State, the (_see also_ Church and State), authority of, excessive in + ancient times, insufficient in Middle Ages, 4 + free constitution of, free action of Church a test of, 246 + limitations of its duties, 3 + and religious liberty, 151-3 + sole authority according to modern theory, 151 + sole care of the Absolutists, eighteenth century, 273 + +State Church, its connection with the community, 260 + of Ireland, Goldwin Smith on, 259 + +States, boundaries of, as coincident with Nationalities, J.S. Mill on, 285 + classic, taking from citizens more than they gave them. 17; + vice of, 16 + small, drawbacks of, 295 + +States-General, the, and the Inquisition, 570 + +Stein, 282 + +Stenzel, G.A.H., _cited_ on political expediency, 222 + +Stephen, Leslie, _cited_ on philosophy of history based on truth, 223 + +Stewart, Dugald, praise of Machiavelli, 224 + +Stoics, their emancipation of mankind from subjugation to despotic rule, 24 + their implied opposition to principle of slavery, 25, 26 + their teaching nearest approach to that of Christianity, 24, 25 + views of, 73 + +Stolberg, classed as Ultramontane, 451 + +Story, on Tocqueville's views of the American Constitution, 576 + _cited_ on _The Federalist_, 581 + +Strappado, the, 569 + +Strasburg, Senate of, reluctance of, to act harshly to Catholics, 172 + +_Stratagemma, Lo, di Carlo IX._, and its author, 129 + +Strossmayer, Bishop (upon Turkish frontier), 548; + absence of, from vote on decree (involving acceptance of + Infallibility), 543 + demand for reform made by, 536 + opposition of, at Vatican Council, 522 + protest of, to Vatican Council altered before presentation, harmony + restored by, 542 + on authority of Vatican Council, 541 + on the dogmatic decree, 527, 533 + on ungenerous treatment of Protestants, 541 + +Strozza, Philip, 113 _note_ + +Stuart, House of, misrule of, only temporarily foiled under Cromwell, 50 + upholders of supremacy of kingship over people, 47 + +Suarez, revision of MS. of, in Rome, 428 + +Suffrage, limitations of, effects of, 96 + restricted, not always a safeguard of monarchy, 2 + universal, of what school the triumph, 590 + +Sunderland, 410 + +Sura, Bishop of, 519 + +Sweden, bishops of, and political assassinations, 217 + religion in, Doellinger on, 341-2 + working of Protestant theory of persecution in, 170 + +Swift, Jonathan, 409 + +Swiss, the, true nationality of, 294-5 + Constitution (1874), significant work of modern democracy, 91 + reformers, unlikenesses of, to the Saxons, 173 + +Switzerland, _see_ Historical Philosophy in France and French Belgium and + Calvinism in, Doellinger on, 338-9 + Cantons of, influence in days preceding French Revolution, 50 + progress and success of democracy in, 91 + and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 120, 124-5 + +Sybel, H. von, historical style of, 384 + _cited_ on historical deduction, 221 + +Sylla, invested with dangerous powers, 77 + +Syllabus, the Archbishop of Paris led by, to urge moderation, 526 + the, designed to restore authority to the Church, 492 + opinions of Pius IX. collected in, 496-8 + opposition controlled by, 524 + Prince Hohenlohe opposed to discussing state maxims of, at Vatican + Council, 503-4 + Symmachus, _cited_, 196 + +Synods, Acts of, alleged tampering with, as affecting doctrine of + Infallibility, 499 + + +Tacitus, confession of, respecting mixed constitutions, 20 + +Taine, Henri, Doellinger's ambiguous praise of, 417 + influence of, on Doellinger, 434 + +Talleyrand de Perigord, Charles Maurice, 100 + signs of sympathy with idea of nationality shown by, 282-3 + _cited_ on Hamilton, 581 + +Tapparelli, classed as Ultramontane, 451 + +Taxation of American colonists, opposition of Lords Chatham and + Camden to, 55 + exemption of clergy from, 34 + inseparable from representation, origin of this principle in Middle + Ages, 39 + +Taylor, Sir Henry, on necessity for political subtlety, 219 + +Teligny and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 107 + +Tempesti on Catherine de' Medici and the Massacre of St-Bartholomew, 148 + +Templars, Doellinger's lecture on, 433 + trial of, Lea's conclusions on, 552, 563 + +Temporal power of the Papacy, 312-13, 352-62, 367-71, 412-16, 422-5 + antagonism to, 315-16 + Doellinger on, 301-74 + +Terror, the, _see_ Reign of Terror + +Tertullian, language of, which might be taken as Arian, 592 + +Teutonic races, missionaries the channel of conversion to Christianity, 245 + union political more than religious, 244 + State and the Church, quarrel between, cause of revival of democracy, 80 + tribes, Christianity readily accepted by, 199 + +Theiner, A., early views of, superseded, 429 + _Life of Clement the Fourteenth_, by, 411 + Permission to publish acts of Council of Trent, refused to, by the + Pope, 431 + skill of, as editor, 421 + as source of information on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 102 + views of, on Jesuits not in agreement with Doellinger, 411-12 + +Theognis on domination of oligarchies, 6 + +Theology in Germany, unique and scientific, 317, 347-51, 376, 471-82 + schools of, at Munich, 375, and Tuebingen, 376 + +Theramenes as statesman, 70 + +Thiers, Adolphe, opinion of Machiavelli's works, 227 + +Thou, De, and the charge against the Bordeaux clergy, 127 _note_ + on the Navarre marriage, 128 + reproached for condemning Huguenot massacres, 147 + +Thucydides on reformed government at Athens, 12 + +Tocqueville, 400; + indictment brought by, against democracy, 93 + influence of, on Doellinger's politics, 414 + on the inspiration of the American Revolution, 584 + on the need for two chambers in a Senate, 575-6 + _cited_ on the American federal constitution, 576 + on democracy and absolute government, 239 + +Toledo, Councils of, framework of Parliamentary system of Spain, 34 + +Toleration, advocacy of, by William Penn, 84 + of Anabaptists, varying views of Reformers on, 157, 164, 176 + anonymous tract on, against Calvin, 182 + Calvinism a danger to, 180 + cause and effect of decline of Protestantism, 255 + early attitude of Reformers towards, 153-55, 168 + in the early church, 186 + Edict of, deceitful, of Charles IX., 117 + Maryland an example of, 187 + as a political principle, reasons for and against, 252 + religious, in Poland, 103 + forced upon Protestantism, 187 + Protestant theory of, 151 + and religious liberty, 152 + traditional, attitude to, of Lea, 562 + views of Beza on, 146 + +Tommasini, praise of Machiavelli, 226 + +Torquemada, 569 + +Tosti, on Papal Liberty, 313 + on Temporal Power, 412 + +Toulouse, and the Albigenses, 556 + Count of, and the Council of Arles, 565 + +Treitschke, _cited_ on Political Morality, 222 + +Trent Commissioners and prohibited works, 215 + +Trent, Council of, 111, 175 + intolerance of, reformed by Vatican Council, 493-4 + spirit of, 138 + +Treviso (province), story of, 387 + +Tridentine Reformation, _see_ Trent, Council of + +Tronchin, on Voltaire's death, 215 + +Tuebingen, heresies of, 381 + school of positive theology at, 376, 377 + +Turgot, attempted reforms of, 85 + _cited_ on political expediency, 220 + views of, on single or double form of Legislature, 576 + +Turin, Court of, policy of, 445 + +Turks, Charles IX.'s pourparlers with, 104 + +Twesten, _cited_ in support of Machiavelli's policy, 229 + +Tyrol, movement in, against Napoleonic institutions, a national one, 281 + + +Ultramontane school, eminent writers of, two peculiarities of, 451 + supersession of, 452 + +Ultramontanism, _see also_ Doellinger extreme, considered to be keystone + of the Church, by Lamennais, 462-3 + +United States, _see_ America + +Unity, aimed at, by English Catholics, 438 + change of constitution effected by, in Italy and Germany, 225 + of faith in France, enforcement of, aim of the Court, 117 + liberty sacrificed to, by Machiavelli, 229 + in relation to nationality, 287, 289 + and religious liberty, incompatibility of, frequent, 252 + necessity for, in Church and State, 252 + religious, in relation to religious freedom, 152 + +Universal suffrage, of what school the triumph, 590 + +University of Paris and the Inquisition, 570 + +Ussher, Archbishop, advocate of passive obedience to kings, 47 + +Utilitarianism in classical ages, 17 + +Utrecht Psalter, story of, 551 + + +Vaissete, 565 + +Valois, Margaret of, _see_ Navarre, Queen of + +Vasari, paintings by, in the Sixtine Chapel, of the Massacre of + St. Bartholomew, 135 + +Vatican Council, 431, 492-550 + constitution of, 501-11 + convened by Pius IX., 492; + approbation of Pius IX.'s action in convening, 492-511 + decree of, dissatisfaction with, 531 + discussion on validity of dicta of, 548 + Infallibility, doctrine of, its victory over opposition, 543 + letter from German bishops to, on doctrinal points, 517 + methods of, reformed to involve admission of Papal Infallibility, 539 + opening of, 511 + opposition at, 492-511, 525-9 + preparations for, 492-511 + proceedings of, 527-50 + programme of, discussed in _The Reform of the Church in its Head and + Members_, 494-6 + representation on:-- + by Belgium, 507 + by England, 506 + by France, 504 + by Germany, 505 + by Italy, 508 + by Portugal, 507 + by Spain, 507 + Strossmayer prevented by, from protesting, 541 + +_Vaticinia Pontificum_, Lea's knowledge of, 560 + +Vauban, Marshal, 48 + +Vaudois, the, of Provence, extermination of, by Louis XII., 217 + +Vavasour, Sir Edward, acquaintance of, with Doellinger, 388 + +Venice, extinction of, as State, 283 + not surprised by the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 109; + the event celebrated at, 125 + and political murders, 213, 214 + withdrawal of, from the League, 105, 107 + republic of, nature, 49 + +Vergennes, _cited_ on political judgment, 227 + +Vergniaud, on the laws in relation to the will of the people, 276 + +Verona, centre of historical work, 387 + +Vespucci, 562 + +Veuillot, Louis, Doellinger on, 428 + and the _Droit du Seigneur_, 566 + Montalembert, _cited_ on, 428 + +Vico, 590 + +Vienna, Congress of, dynastic interests + predominant at, 282-3 + effects of, on ideas of nationality, 283 + +Vienne, Inquisition at, and Servetus, 184 + +Villari, admiration of Machiavelli, 226 + +Vinet, 591 + +Virginia and Maryland, 187 + +Visconti family, models for Machiavelli, 212 + +_Vitae Paparum Avenionensium_, utilised by Lea and others, 559 + +Vives, toleration taught by, 570 + +Voltaire, profane criticism of, 218 + + +Waldenses, analogy of Arnold of Brescia with, 559 + why they opposed persecution, 563 + +Waldus, 558 + +Walpole, Horace, _cited_ on political scruples, 219 + +Walsingham, English ambassador in France, his reports on the Massacre + of St. Bartholomew, 101, 107, 115-16 + condemnation by French Catholics as a whole, 143 + +War, art of, no national feeling in, till after 1789., 274 + of Deliverance, new forces evoked by, 282 + of 1859, troubles of the Papacy after, 412-14 + +Wars of religion, end of, 274 + +Washington, George, 579 + political example of, 586 + +Waterloo, 282 + +Webster, 584 + +Weingarten on St. Anthony's life and origin of monasticism, 420 + +Wesel, English Calvinists at, 170 + +Wesley, John, Doellinger's tribute to, 395 + +Westminster, Archbishop of, at Council of Bishops, 1867., 500 + on Papal Infallibility, 528 + +Westphalia, Peace of, and Roman ambition, 323, 324 + +Whigs, English, and their continental counterparts, attitude of, + after Waterloo, 282 + +Wilberforce, Archdeacon, Doellinger consulted by, 395 + Samuel, Bishop of Winchester, story of, 551 + +Wilkins, 421 + +Will or sovereignty, the, of the people (_see also_ Democracy), + as criterion of right, 271; + as above the law, 276; + idea of, the parent of idea of nationality, 277 + theory of nationality involved in, 287 + +William III., King of England, and massacre of Glencoe, 218, 410 + +Windelband, _cited_ on national government, 227 + +Windischmann (elder), Doellinger's esteem for, 381 + public indifference to, 430 + +Winkelmann on the Inquisition, 426 + +Wirtemberg, left by Moehler, after publication of _Symbolik_, 377 + Duke of, and the Huguenot refugees, 145 + +Wiseman, Cardinal, 424, 436 + Doellinger consulted by, on mediaeval authorities, 390-91 + influence of, on the Church of England, and on the Oxford movement, + 437-8 + literary standing of, 437, 438 + position of, universal and local in Catholicism, 437 + relations of, with English Catholics, 437, 438 + view of, on English theology, 380 + work of, at Oscott, 438 + on the "covert insinuations" of the _Home and Foreign Review_, 439-40; + the editor's defence of that publication, 440 _et seq._ + +Witt, De, murder of, 410 + +Wittelsbach, house of, contests of the Empire in the, 275 + +Wuerzburg, Bishop of, reform urged by, 495 + (city) Doellinger and Platen at, 375 + +Wycliffe, John, difference between his teaching and Luther's, 271 + + +Ximenes, Cardinal, and the Inquisition, 570 + + +_Young Europe_, Mazzini's evolution of _Young Italy_, 286 + +_Young Italy_ and Mazzini, 286 + + +Zanchini, an Inquisitor, leading authority of the fourteenth century, 559; + _cited_ by Lea, 560 + +Zeller, _cited_ on Anti-Machiavel policy in Prussia, 227 + +Zimmerman, Wilhelm, and Machiavelli's policy, 227 + +Zuniga, Juan and Diego, 123 + denunciation by, of French treachery even to heretics, etc., 144 + +Zuerich, the question of toleration in, 174, 175 + +Zwickau, Saxony, prophets of, Melanchthon's attitude towards, 164 + +Zwingli, Ulrich, influence of, on politics, 81; + influence of environment on him, 173, 177 + theory of government, including persecution, 173-4 + republican views of, 42 + +Zwinglian schism, influence of, on Luther, 155 + +Zwinglians, the, condemned by Melanchthon, 167, 170 _note_ + + +_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR. + +_8vo. 10s. net._ + +HISTORICAL ESSAYS + +AND STUDIES + +BY THE LATE LORD ACTON, D.C.L., LL.D., ETC. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN +HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE + +Edited with an Introduction by JOHN NEVILLE FIGGIS, M.A., and REGINALD +VERE LAURENCE, M.A. + +CONTENTS + +I. Wolsey and the Divorce of Henry VIII. +II. The Borgias and their Latest Historian. +III. Secret History of Charles II. +IV. The Civil War in America. +V. The Rise and Fall of the Mexican Empire. +VI. Cavour. +VII. The Causes of the Franco-Prussian War. +VIII. The War of 1870. +IX. George Eliot's "Life." +X. Mr. Buckle's "Thesis and Method." +XI. German Schools of History. +XII. Talleyrand's Memoirs. +XIII. The "Life" of Lord Houghton. +XIV. A History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation. +XV. A Short History of Napoleon I. The First Napoleon: A Sketch, +Political and Military. +XVI. Mabillon et la Societe de l'Abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Pres +a la Fin du XVIIe Siecle. +XVII. A History of England, 1837-1880. +XVIII. A History of the French Revolution. +XIX. Wilhelm von Giesebrecht. + +MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + +_8vo. 10s. net._ + +LECTURES ON MODERN HISTORY + +BY THE LATE LORD ACTON, D.C.L., LL.D., ETC. + +REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE + +Edited with an Introduction by JOHN NEVILLE FIGGIS, M.A., and REGINALD +VERE LAURENCE, M.A. + +CONTENTS + +Introduction. + +Inaugural Lecture on the Study of History. + +LECTURES ON MODERN HISTORY +I. Beginning of the Modern State. +II. The New World. +III. The Renaissance. +IV. Luther. +V. The Counter-Reformation. +VI. Calvin and Henry VIII. +VII. Philip II., Mary Stuart, and Elizabeth. +VIII. The Huguenots and the League. +IX. Henry the Fourth and Richelieu. +X. The Thirty Years' War. +XI. The Puritan Revolution. +XII. The Rise of the Whigs. +XIII. The English Revolution. +XIV. Lewis XIV. +XV. The War of the Spanish Succession. +XVI. The Hanoverian Settlement. +XVII. Peter the Great and the Rise of Prussia. +XVIII. Frederic the Great. +XIX. The American Revolution. +Appendix I.--Letter to Contributors to the Cambridge Modern History. +Appendix II.--Notes to Inaugural Lecture. +Index. + +MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of Freedom, by +John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF FREEDOM *** + +***** This file should be named 31278.txt or 31278.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/2/7/31278/ + +Produced by Steven Giacomelli, Graeme Mackreth and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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