: irof/Wiiill'li
 
 DE QUINCEY'S WRITINGS.
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY'S WRITINGS. 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER, AND 
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 THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS 
 
 AND OTHER PAPERS. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY, 
 
 ADTHOa OP 
 
 ' CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER,' ETC. ETC. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS. 
 
 MDCCCLIV.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1654, by 
 TiCKNOR, R£ED, AND FlELDS, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 boston: 
 Thurston, Torry, & Emerson, Printers.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
 
 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN OF POLITICAL 
 MOVEMENT 1 
 
 PROTESTANTISM 63 
 
 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL EXPRESSION 
 FOR ETERNITY 12r 
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT 147 
 
 ON HUME'S ARGUMENT AGAINST MIRACLES . . 179 
 
 CASUISTRY 203 
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS 273
 
 ON CHRISTIAx^ITY, 
 
 AS AN ORGAN OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 
 
 [1846.] 
 
 Forces, which are illimitable in their compass of 
 effect, are often, for the same reason, obscure and un- 
 traceable in the steps of their movement. Growth, for 
 instance, animal or vegetable, what eye can arrest its 
 eternal increments ? The hour-hand of a watch, who 
 can detect the separate fluxions of its advance ? Judg- 
 ing by the past, and the change which is registered 
 between that and the present, we know that it must be 
 awake ; judging by the immediate appearances, we 
 should say that it was always asleep. Gravitation, 
 again, that works without holiday for ever, and searches 
 every corner of the universe, what intellect can follow 
 it to its fountains ? And yet, shyer than gravitation, 
 'less to be counted than the fluxions of sun-dials, 
 stealthier than the growth of a forest, are the footsteps 
 of Christianity amongst the political workings of man. 
 Nothing, that the heart of man values, is so secret; 
 nothing is so potent. 
 1
 
 "2 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 It is because Clu-istianity works so secretly, that it 
 works so potently; it is because Christianity burrows 
 and hides itself, that it towers above the clouds ; and 
 hence partly it is that its working comes to be misap- 
 prehended, or even lost out of sight. It is dark to eyes 
 touched with the films of human frailty : but it is 
 ' dark with excessive bright.' ^ Hence it has happened 
 sometimes that minds of the highest order have entered 
 into enmity with the Christian faith, have arraigned it 
 as a curse to man, and have fought against it even 
 upon Christian impulses, (impulses of benignity that 
 could not have had a birth except in Christianity.) 
 All comes from the labyrinthine intricacy in which the 
 social action of Christianity involves itself to the eye 
 of a contemporary. Simplicity the most absolute is 
 reconcilable with intricacy the most elaborate. The 
 weather — how simple would appear the laws of its 
 oscillations, if we stood at their centre ! and yet, be- 
 cause we do not, to this hour the weather is a mystery. 
 Human health — how transparent is its economy under 
 ordinary circumstances ! abstinence and cleanliness, 
 labor and rest, these simple laws, observed in just 
 proportions, laws that may be engrossed upon a finger 
 nail, are sufficient, on the whole, to maintain the 
 equilibrium of pleasurable existence. Yet, if once that 
 equilibrium is disturbed, where is the science often- 
 times deep enough to rectify the unfathomable watch- 
 work .'' Even the simplicities of^ planetary motions do 
 not escape distortion : nor is it easy to be convinced 
 that the distortion is in the eye which beholds, not in 
 the object beheld. Let a planet be wheeling with 
 heavenly science, upon arches of divine geometry :
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEiMENT. «S 
 
 suddenly, to us, it shall appear unaccountably retro- 
 grade ; flying when none pursues; and unweaving its 
 own work. Let this planet in its utmost elongations 
 travel out of sight, and for us its course will become 
 incoherent : bepause our sight is feeble, the beautiful 
 curve of the planet shall be dislocated into segments, 
 by a parenthesis of darkness ; because our earth is in 
 no true centre, the disorder of parallax shall trouble 
 the laws of light; and, because we ourselves are 
 wandering, the heavens shall seem fickle. 
 
 Exactly in the predicament of such a planet is 
 Christianity : its motions are intermingled with other 
 motions; crossed and thwarted, eclipsed and disguised, 
 by counter-motions in man himself, and by disturbances 
 that man cannot overrule. Upon lines that are direct, 
 upon curves that are circuitous, Christianity is ad- 
 vancing for ever ; but from our imperfect vision, or 
 from our imperfect opportunities for applying even 
 such a vision, we cannot trace it continuously. We 
 lose it, we regain it ; we see it doubtfully, we see it 
 interruptedly ; we see it in collision, we see it in com- 
 bination ; in collision with darkness that confounds, in 
 combination with cross lights that perplex. And this 
 in part is irremediable ; so that no finite intellect will 
 ever retrace the total curve upon v.hich Christianity 
 has moved, any more than eyes that are incarnate will 
 ever see God. 
 
 But part of this difficulty in unweaving the maze, 
 has its source in a misconception of the original 
 machinery by which Christianity moved, and of the 
 initial principle which constituted its differential power. 
 In books, at least, I have observed one capital blunder
 
 4 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 upon the relations which Christianity bears to Pagan- 
 ism : and out of tliat one mistake, grows a liability to 
 others, upon the possible relations of Christianity to the 
 total drama of this world. I will endeavor to explain 
 my views. And the reader, who takes any interest in 
 the subject, will not need to fear that the explanation 
 should prove tedious ; for the mere want of space, w\\[ 
 put me under a coercion to move rapidly over the 
 ground; I cannot be ditTusc; and, as regards quality, 
 he will find in this paper little of what is scattered over 
 the surface of books. 
 
 I begin with this question : — What do people mean 
 in a Christian land by the word ' religion 7 ' My 
 purpose is not to propound any metaphysical pro- 
 blem ; I wish only, in the plainest possible sense, 
 to ask, and to have an answer, upon this one point — 
 how much is understood by that obscure term,- ' re- 
 ligion,' when used by a Christian ? Only I am punc- 
 tilious upon one demand, viz., that the answer shall be 
 comprehensive. We are apt in such cases to answer 
 elliptically, omitting, because silently presuming as 
 understood between us, whatever seems obvious. To 
 prevent that, we will suppose the question to be pro- 
 posed by an emissary from some remote planet, — 
 who, knowing as yet absolutely nothing of us and our 
 intellectual differences, must insist (as / insist) upon 
 absolute precision, so that nothing essential shall be 
 wanting, and nothing shall be redundant. 
 
 What, then, is religion.^ Decomposed into its ele- 
 ments, as they are found in Christianity, how many 
 poicers for acting on the heart of man, does, by possi- 
 bility, this great agency include ? According to my
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 5 
 
 own view, four.^ I will state them, and number 
 them. 
 
 1st. A form of worship, a ciiltus. 
 
 2dly. An idea of God ; and (pointing the analysis to 
 Christianity in particular) an idea not purified merely 
 from ancient pollutions, but recast and absolutely born 
 again. 
 
 3dly. An idea of the relation which man occupies 
 to God : and of this idea also, when Christianity is the 
 religion concerned, it must be said, that it is so entirely 
 remodelled, as in no respect to resemble any element 
 in any other religion. Thus far we are reminded of 
 the poet's expression, ' Pure religion breathing house- 
 hold laws ;' that is, not teaching such laws, not formally 
 prescribing a new economy of life, so much as iu' 
 spiring it indirectly through a" new atmosphere sur- 
 rounding all objects with new attributes. But there is 
 also in Christianity, 
 
 4thly. A doctrinal part, a part directly and explicitly 
 occupied with teaching; and this divides into two 
 great sections, a, A system of ethics so absolutely new 
 as to be untranslatable"* into either of the classical 
 languages ; and, /3, A system of mysteries ; as, for 
 instance, the mystery of the Trinity, of the Divine 
 Incarnation, of the Atonement, of the Resurrection, 
 and others. 
 
 Here are great elements ; and now let me ask, how 
 many of these are found in the Heathen religion of 
 Greece and Rome } This is an important question ; 
 it being my object to show that no religion but the 
 Christian, and precisely through some one or two of
 
 b ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 its differential elements, could have been un organ of 
 polilical movement. 
 
 Most divines wlio anywhere glance at tliis ques^lion, 
 are here found in, what seems to me, the deepest of 
 errors. Great theologians are they, and eminent phi- 
 losophers, who have presumed that (as a matter of 
 course) all religions, however false, are introductory to 
 some scheme of morality, however imperfect. They 
 grant you that the morality is oftentimes unsound; 
 but still, they think that some morality there must have 
 been, or else for what purpose was the religion ? This 
 I pronounce error. 
 
 All the moral theories of antiquity were utterly dis- 
 joined from religion. But this fallacy of a dogmatic 
 or doctrinal part in Paganism is born out of Anachron- 
 ism. It is the anachronism of unconsciously reflecting 
 back upon the ancient religions of* darkness, and as if 
 essential to all religions, features that naver were 
 suspected as possible, until they had been revealed in 
 Christianity.^ Religion, in the eye of a Pagan, had no 
 more relation to morals, than it had to ship-building or 
 trigonometry. But, then, why was religion honored 
 amonfjst Pagans ? How did it ever arise ? What was 
 its object.' Object! it had no object; if by this you 
 mean ulterior object. Pagan religion arose in no 
 motive, but in an impulse. Pagan religion aimed at 
 no distant prize ahead : it fled from a danger iminedi- 
 ately behind. The gods of the Pagans were wicked 
 natures; but they were natures to be feared, and to be 
 propitiated ; for they were fierce, and they were 
 moody, and (as regarded man who had no wings) they 
 were powerful. Once accredited as facts, the Pagan
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. / 
 
 gods could not be regarded as other than terrific facts ; 
 and thus it was, that in terror, blind terror, as against 
 power in the hands of divine wickedness, arose the 
 ancient religions of Paganism. Because the gods were 
 wicked, man was religious; because Olympus was 
 cruel, earth trembled ; because the divine beings were 
 the most lawless, of Thugs, the human being became 
 the most abject of sycophants. 
 
 Had the religions of Paganism arisen teleologically ; 
 that is, with a view to certain purposes, to certain final 
 causes ahead ; had they grown out of /oru?arc?-looking 
 views, contemplating, for instance, the furthering of 
 civilization, or contemplating some interests in a world 
 beyond the present, there would probably have arisen, 
 concurrently, a section in all such religions, dedicated 
 to positive instruction. There would have been a 
 doctrinal part. There might have been interwoven 
 with the ritual or worship, a system of economics, or a 
 code of civil prudence, or a code of health, or a theory 
 of morals, or even a secret revelation of mysterious 
 relations between man and the Deity : all which 
 existed in Judaism. But, as the case stood, this was 
 impossible. The gods were mere odious facts, like 
 scorpions or rattlesnakes, having no moral aspects 
 whatever ; public nuisances ; and bearing no relation 
 to man but that of capricious tyrants. First arising 
 upon a basis of terror, these gods never subsequently 
 enlarged that basis ; nor sought to enlarge it. All 
 antiquity contains no hint of a possibility that love 
 could arise, as by any ray mingling with the senti- 
 ments in a human creature towards a Divine one ; 
 not even sycophants ever pretended to love the 
 gods.
 
 8 OM CHKISTIANlTi' AS AN ORGAN 
 
 Under this original peculiarity of Paganism, there 
 arose two consequences, which I will mark by the 
 Greek letters «• and /3. The latter I will notice in its 
 order, first calling the reader's attention to the conse- 
 quencp marked a, which is this: — In the full and 
 profoundest sense of the word believe, the pagans 
 could not be said to believe in any gods : but, in the 
 ordinary sense, they did, and do, and must believe, in 
 all gods. As this proposition will startle some readers, 
 and is yet closely involved in the main truth which I 
 am now pressing, viz. the meaning and effect of a 
 simple cuUus, as distinguished from a high doctrinal 
 religion, let us seek an illustration from our Indian 
 empire. The Christian missionaries from home, when 
 first opening their views to Hindoos, describe them- 
 selves as laboring to prove that Christianity is a true 
 religion, and as either asserting, or leaving it to be 
 inferred, that, on that assumption, the Hindoo religion 
 is a false one. But the poor Hindoo never dreamed 
 of doubting that the Christian was a true religion ; nor 
 will he at all infer, from your religion being true, that 
 his own must be false. Both are true, he thinks : all 
 religions are true ; all gods are true gods ; and all are 
 equally true. Neither can he understand what you 
 mean by a false religion, or how a religion could be 
 false ; and he is perfectly right. Wherever religions 
 consist only of a worship, as the Hindoo religion does, 
 there can be no competition amongst them as to truth. 
 That would be an absurdity, not less nor other than it 
 would be for a Prussian to denounce the Austrian 
 emperor, or an Austrian to denounce the Prussian 
 king, as a false sovereign. False ! How false } In 
 
 Jl
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. » 
 
 what sense false ? Surely not as non-existing. But 
 at least, (the reader will reply,) if the religions con- 
 tradict each other, one of them must be false. Yes; 
 but that is impossible. Two religions cannot contradict 
 each other, where both contain only a cultus : they 
 could come into collision only by means of a doctrinal, 
 or directly affirmative part, like those of Christianity 
 and Mahometanism. But this part is what no idolatrous 
 religion ever had, or will have. The reader must not 
 understand me to mean that, merely as a compromise 
 of courtesy, two professors of different idolatries would 
 agree to recognise each other. Not at all. The truth 
 of one does not imply the falsehood of the other. 
 Both are true as facts : neither can be false, in any 
 higher sense, because neither makes any pretence to 
 truth doctrinal. 
 
 This distinction between a religion having merely a 
 worship, and a religion having also a body of doctrinal 
 truth, is familiar to the Mahometans ; and they convey 
 the distinction by a very appropriate expression. Those 
 majestic religions, (as they esteem thcin,) which rise 
 above the mere pomps and tympanies of ceremonial 
 worship, they denominate ' I'eligions of the look.' 
 There are, of such religions, three, viz., Judaism, 
 Christianity, and Islamism. The 6rst builds upon the 
 Law and the Prophets ; or, perhaps, sufficiently upoa 
 the Pentateuch ; the second upon the Gospel ; the last 
 upon the Koran. No other religion can be said to rest 
 upon a book; or to need a book; or even to admit of 
 a book. For we must not be duped by the case where 
 a lawgiver attempts to connect his own human institutes 
 with the venerable sanctions of a national religion, or
 
 10 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 the case where a learned antiquary unfolds historically 
 the record of a vast mythology. Heaps of such cases, 
 (both law and mythological records,) survive in the 
 Sanscrit, and in other pagan languages. But these are 
 books which build upon the religion, not books upon 
 which the religion is built. If a religion consists only 
 of a ceremonial worship, in that case there can be no 
 opening for a book ; because the forms and details 
 publish themselves daily, in the celebration of the 
 worship, and are traditionally preserved, from age to 
 age, without dependence on a book. But, if a religion 
 has a doctrine, this implies a revelation or message 
 from Heaven, which cannot, in any other way, secure 
 the transmission of -this message to future generations, 
 than by causing it to be registered in a book. A 
 book, therefore, will be convertible with a doctrinal 
 religion: — no book, no doctrine; and, again, no doc- 
 trine, no book. 
 
 Upon these principles, we^ may understand that 
 second consequence (marked fi) which has perplexed 
 many men, viz., why it is that the Hindoos, in our own 
 times; but, equally, why it is that the Greek and 
 Roman idolaters of antiquity, never proselytized; no, 
 nor could have viewed such an attempt as rational. 
 Naturally, if a religion is doctrinal, any truth which it 
 possesses, as a secret deposit consigned to its keeping 
 by a revelation, must be equally valid for one man as 
 for another, without regard to race or nation. For a 
 doctrinal religion, therefore, to proselytize, is no more 
 than a duty of consistent humanity. You, the profes- 
 sors of that religion, possess the medicinal fountains. 
 You will not diminish your own share by imparting to
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEBIENT. 11 
 
 Others. What churlishness, if you should grudge to 
 others a health which does not interfere with your own ! 
 Christians, therefore, Mahometans, and Jews originally, 
 in proportion as they were sincere and conscientious, 
 have always invited, or even forced, the unbelieving to 
 their own faith : nothing but accidents of situation, 
 local or political, have disturbed this effort. But, on 
 the other hand, for a mere ' cult us' to attempt conver- 
 sions, is nonsense. An ancient Roman could have had 
 no motive for bringing you over to the worship of 
 Jupiter Capitolinus ; nor you any motive for going. 
 * Surely, poor man,' he would have said, 'you have 
 some god of your own, who will be quite as good for 
 t/our countrymen as Jupiter for mine. But, if you 
 have not, really I am sorry for your case ; and a 
 very odd case it is : but I don't see how it could be 
 improved by talking nonsense. You cannot bene- 
 ficially, you cannot rationally, worship a tutelary 
 Roman deity, unless in the character of a Roman ; 
 and a Roman you may become, legally and politically. 
 Being such, you will participate in all advantages, if 
 any there are, of our national religion ; and, without 
 needing a process of conversion, either in substance or 
 in form. Ipso facto, and without any separate clioico 
 of your own, on becoming a Roman citizen, you be- 
 come a party to the Roman worship.' For an idola- 
 trous religion to proselytize, would, therefore, be not 
 only useless but unintelligible. 
 
 Now, having explained that point, which is a great 
 step towards the final object of my paper, viz., the 
 investigation of the reason why Christianity is, which 
 no pagan religion ever has been, an organ of political
 
 12 ON CHKISTIANITY AS AN OKGAN 
 
 movement, I will go on to review rapidly those four 
 constituents of a religion, as they are realized in 
 Christianity, for the purpose of contrasting them with 
 the false shadows, or even blank negations, of these 
 constituents in pagan idolatries. 
 
 First, then, as to the Cultus, or form of the national 
 worship : — In our Christian ritual I recognise these 
 separate acts ; viz. A, an act of Praise ; B, an act of 
 Thanksgiving ; C, an act of Confession ; D, an act of 
 Prayer. In A, we commemorate with adoration the 
 general perfections of the Deity. There, all of us 
 have an equal interest. In B, we commemorate with 
 thankfulness those special qualities of the Deity, or 
 those special manifestations of them, by which we, the 
 individual worshippers, have recently benefited. In C, 
 by upright confession, we deprecate. In D, we pray, 
 or ask for the things which we need. Now, in the 
 cultus of the ancient pagans, B and C (the second act 
 and the third) were wanting altogether. No thanks- 
 giving ever ascended, on his own account, from the 
 lips of an individual ; and the state thanksgiving for a 
 triumph of the national armies, was but a mode of 
 ostentatiously publishing the news. As to C, it is 
 scarcely necessary to say that this was wanting, when 
 I mention that penitential feelings were unknown 
 amongst the ancients, and had no name •, for pmii- 
 tenlia^ means regret, not penitence; and me pcenitet 
 Imjiis facti, means, ' I rue this act in its consequences,' 
 not ' I repent of this act for its moral nature.' A and 
 D, the first act and the last, appear to be present ; 
 but are so most imperfectly. When ' God is praised 
 aright,' praised by means of such deeds or such
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 13 
 
 attributes as express a divine nature, we recognise one 
 great function of a national worship, — not otherwise. 
 This, however, we must overlook and pardon, as being 
 a fault essential to the religion : the poor creatures did 
 the best they could to praise their god, lying under the 
 curse of gods so thoroughly depraved. But in D, the 
 case is different. Strictly speaking, the ancients never 
 prayed ; and it may be doubted whether D approaches 
 so near to what ice mean by prayer, as even by a 
 mockery. You read of preces, of «?«', &c. and you 
 are desirous to believe that pagan supplications were 
 not always corrupt. It is too shocking to suppose, in 
 thinking of nations idolatrous yet noble, that never any 
 pure act of approach to the heavens took place on the 
 part of man ; that always the intercourse was corrupt ; 
 always doubly corrupt; that eternally the god was 
 bought, and the votary was sold. Oh, weariness of 
 man's spirit before that unresting mercenariness in 
 high places, which neither, when his race clamored 
 for 'justice, nor when it languished for pity, would 
 listen without hire! How gladly would man turn 
 away from his false rapacious divinities to the godlike 
 human heart, that so often would yield pardon before it 
 was asked, and for the thousandth time that would give 
 without a bribe ! In strict propriety, as my reader 
 knows, the classical Latin word for a prayer is voluin ; 
 it was a case of contract; of mercantile contract; of 
 that contract which the Roman law expressed by the 
 formula — Do ul des. Vainly you came before the 
 altars with empty hands. ' But 7ny hands are pure.' 
 Pure, indeed ! would reply the scoffuig god, let me see 
 what they contain. It was exactly what you daily
 
 14 
 
 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN OKGAN 
 
 read in morning papers, viz.: — that, in order to 
 appear etTectually before that Olympus in London, 
 which rains rarities upon us poor abject creatures in 
 the provinces, you must enclose 'an order on the Post- 
 Office or a reference.' It is true that a man did not 
 always register his iwf.um, (the particular offering 
 which he vowed on the condition of receiving what he 
 asked,) at the moment of asking. Ajax, for instance, 
 prays for light in the ' Iliad,' and he does not then and 
 there give either an order or a reference. Bui you are 
 much mistaken, if you fancy that even light was to be 
 had gratis. It would be ' carried to account.' Ajax 
 would be ' debited' with that ' advance.' 
 
 Yet, when it occurs to a man that, in this Do ut des, 
 the general Do was either a temple or a sacrifice, 
 naturally it occurs to ask what was a sacrifice ? I am 
 afraid that the dark murderous nature of the pagan 
 gods is here made apparent. Modern readers, who 
 have had no particular reason for reflecting on the 
 nature and management of a sacrifice, totally miscon- 
 ceive it. They have a vague notion that the slaugh- 
 tered animal was roasted, served up on the altars as a 
 banquet to the gods ; that these gods by some repre- 
 sentative ceremony ' made believe' to eat it; and that 
 finally, (as dishes that had now become hallowed to 
 divine use,) the several joints were disposed of in some 
 mysterious manner : burned, suppose, or buried under 
 the altars, or committed to the secret keeping of rivers. 
 Nothing of the sort: when a man made a sacrifice, the 
 meaning was, that he gave a dinner. And not only 
 was every sacrifice a dinner party, but every dinner 
 party v/as a sacrifice. This was strictly so in the good
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 15 
 
 old ferocious times of paganism, as may be seen in 
 the Iliad : it was not said, ' Agamemnon has a dinner 
 party to-day,' but 'Agamemnon sacrifices to Apollo.' 
 Even in Rome, to the last days of paganism, it is 
 probable that some slight memorial continued to con- 
 nect the dinner party [ccewa] with a divine sacrifice ; 
 and ihence partly arose the sanctity of the hospitable 
 board ; but to the east of the Mediterranean the full 
 ritual of a sacrifice must have been preserved in all 
 banquets, long after it had faded to a form in the less 
 superstitious West. This we may learn from that 
 point of casuistry treated by St. Paul, — whether a 
 Christian might lawfully cat of things offered to idols. 
 The question was most urgent ; because a Christian 
 could not accept an invitation to dine with a Grecian 
 fellow-citizen who still adhered to paganism, loithout 
 eating things offered to idols; — the whole banquet 
 was dedicated to an idol. If he would not take that, 
 he must continue impransus. Consequently, the ques- 
 tion virtually amounted to this : Were the Christians to 
 separate themselves altogether from those whose in- 
 terests were in so many ways entangled with their 
 own, on the single consideration that these persons 
 were heathens ? To refuse their hospitalities^ teas to 
 separate, and with a hostile expression of feeling. 
 That would be to throw hindrances in the way of 
 Christianity : the religion could not spread rapidly 
 under such repulsive prejudices ; and dangers, that it 
 became un-Christian to provoke, would thus multiply 
 against the infant faith. This being so, and as the 
 gods were really the only parties invited who got 
 nothing at all of the banquet, it becomes a question of
 
 16 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 some interest, — what did they get ? They were 
 merely mocked, if they had no compensatory interest 
 in the dinner! For surely it was an inconceivable 
 mode of honoring Jupiter, that you and I should eat a 
 piece of roast beef, leaving to the god's share only the 
 mockery of a Barmecide invitation, assigning him a 
 chair which every body knew that he would never fill, 
 and a plate which might as well have been filled with 
 warm water ? Jupiter got somethings be assured ; and 
 what ivas it? This it was, — the luxury of inhaling 
 the groans, the fleeting breath, the palpitations, the 
 agonies, of the dying victim. This was the dark 
 interest which the wretches of Olympus had in human 
 invitations to dinner: and it is too certain, upon com- 
 paring facts and dates, that, when left to their own 
 choice, the gods had a preference for vian as the 
 victim. All things concur to show, that precisely as 
 you ascend above civilization, which continually in- 
 creased the limitations upon the gods of Olympus, 
 precisely as you go back to that gloomy state in which 
 their true propensities had power to reveal themselves, 
 was man the genuine victim for them, and the dying 
 anguish of man the best 'nidor' that ascended from 
 earthlji banquets to their nostrils. Their stern eyes 
 smiled darkly upon the throbbings of tortured flesh, as 
 in Moloch's ears dwelt like music the sound of infants' 
 wailings. 
 
 Secondly, as to the birth of a new idea respecting 
 the nature of God : — It may not have occurred to 
 every reader, but none will perhaps object to it, when 
 once suggested to his consideration, that — as is the 
 god of any nation, such will be that nation. God,
 
 ' OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 17 
 
 however falsely conceived of by man, even though 
 splintered into fragments by Polytheism, or disfigured 
 by the darkest mythologies, is still the greatest of all 
 objects offered to human contemplation. ]\Ian, when 
 thrown upon his own delusions, may have raised himself, 
 or may have adopted from others, the very falsest of 
 ideals, as the true image and reflection of what he calls 
 god. In his lowest condition of darkness, terror may 
 be the moulding principle for spiritual conceptions ; 
 power, the engrossing attribute which he ascribes to 
 his deity; and this power may be hideously capricious, 
 or associated with vindictive cruelty. It may even 
 happen, that his standard of what is highest in the 
 divinity should be capable of falling greatly below 
 what an enlightened mind would figure to itself as 
 lowest in man. A more shocking monument, indeed, 
 there cannot be than this, of the infinity by which man 
 may descend below his own capacities of grandeur : 
 the gods, in some systems of religion, have been such 
 and so monstrous by excesses of wickedness, as to 
 insure, if annually one hour of periodical eclipse 
 should have left them at the mercy of man, a general 
 rush from their own worshippers for strangling them 
 as mad dogs. Hypocrisy, the cringing of sycophants, 
 and the credulities of fear, united to conceal this 
 misotheism ; but we may be sure that it was widely 
 diffused through the sincerities of the human heart. 
 An intense desire for kicking Jupiter, or for hanging 
 him, if found convenient, must have lurked in the 
 honorable Roman heart, before the sincerity of human 
 nature could have extorted upon the Roman stage a 
 public declaration, — that their supreme gods were
 
 18 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 capable of enormities which a poor, unpretending 
 human creature [homuncio] would have disdained. 
 Many times the ideal of the divine nature, as adopted 
 by pagan races, fell under the contempt, not only of 
 men superior to the national superstition, but of men 
 partaking in that superstition. Yet, with all those 
 drawbacks, an ideal zoas an ideal. The being setup 
 for adoration as god, was such upon the whole to the 
 worshipper ; since, if there had been any higher mode 
 of excellence conceivable for him^ that higher mode 
 would have virtually become his deity. It cannot be 
 doubted, therefore, that the nature of the national 
 divinities indicated the qualities which ranked highest 
 in the national estimation ; and that being contemplated 
 continually in the spirit of veneration, these qualities 
 must have worked an extensive conformity to their 
 own standard. The mythology sanctioned by the 
 ritual of public worship, the features of moral nature in 
 the gods distributed through that mythology, and some- 
 times commemorated by gleams in that ritual, dom- 
 ineered over the popular heart, even in those cases 
 W'here the religion had been a derivative religion, and 
 not originally moulded by impulses breathing from the 
 native disposition. So that, upon the whole, such as 
 were the gods of a nation, such was the nation : given 
 the particular idolatry, it became possible to decipher 
 the character of the idolaters. Where Moloch was 
 worshipped, the people would naturally be found cruel ; 
 whei'e the Paphian Venus, it could not be expected 
 that they should escape the taint of a voluptuous 
 effeminacy. 
 
 Against this principle, there could have been no
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 19 
 
 room for demur, were it not through that inveterate 
 prejudice besieging the modern mind, — as though all 
 religion, however false, implied some scheme of morals 
 connected with it. However imperfectly discharged, 
 one function even of tlie pagan priest (it is supposed) 
 must have been — to guide, to counsel, to exhort, as a 
 teacher of morals. And, had that been so, the practi- 
 cal precepts, and the moral commentary coming after 
 even the grossest forms of worship, or the most revolt- 
 ing mythological legends, might have operated to 
 neutralize their horrors, or even to allegorize them 
 into better meanings. Lord Bacon, as a trial of skill, 
 has attempted something of that sort in his ' Wisdom 
 of the Ancients.' But all this is modern refinement, 
 either in the spirit of playful ingenuity or of ignorance. 
 I have said sufficiently that there was no doctrinal 
 part in the religion of the pagans. There was a 
 cultus, or ceremonial worship : that constituted the 
 sum total of religion, in the idea of a pagan. There 
 was a necessity, for the sake of guarding its traditional 
 usages, and upholding and supporting its pomp, that 
 official persons should preside in this cultus : that con- 
 stituted the duty of the priest. Beyond this ritual of 
 public worship, there was nothing at all ; nothing to 
 believe, nothing to understand. A set of legendary 
 tales undoubtedly there was, connected with the mytho- 
 logic history of each separate deity. But in what 
 sense you understood these, or whether you were at all 
 acquainted with them, was a matter of indifference to 
 the priests ; since many of these legends were variously 
 related,^and some had apparently been propagated in 
 ridicule of the gods, rather than in their honor.
 
 20 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 With Christianity a new scene was opened. In this 
 religion the cullus, or form of worship, was not even 
 the primary business, far less was it the exclusive 
 business. The worship flowed as a direct consequence 
 from the new idea exposed of the divine nature, and 
 from the new idea of man's relations to this nature. 
 Here were suddenly unmasked great doctrines, truths 
 positive and directly avowed : whereas, in Pagan forms 
 of religion, any notices which then were, or seemed to 
 be, of circumstances surrounding the gods, related 
 only to matters of fact or accident, such as that a 
 particular god was the son or the nephew of some 
 other god ; a truth, if it were a truth, wholly imper- 
 tinent to any interest of man. 
 
 As there are some important truths, dimly perceived 
 or not at all, lurking in the idea of God, — an idea too 
 vast to be navigable as yet by the human understanding, 
 yet here and there to be coasted, — I wish at this point 
 to direct the reader's attention upon a passage which 
 he may happen to remember in Sir Isaac Newton : the 
 passage occurs at the end of the ' Optics ; ' and the 
 exact expressions I do not remember ; but the sense is 
 what I am going to state : Sir Isaac is speaking of 
 God ; and he takes occasion to say, that God is not 
 good, but goodness; is not holy, but holiness; is not 
 infinite, but infinity. This, I apprehend, will have 
 struck many readers as merely a rhetorical bravura ; 
 sublime, perhaps, and fitted to exalt the feeling of awe 
 connected with so unapproachable a mystery, but oth- 
 erwise not throwing any new light upon the darkness of 
 the idea as a problem before the intellect. Yet indi- 
 rectly perhaps it does, when brought out into its latent
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 21 
 
 sense by placing it in juxtaposition with paganism. If 
 a philosophic theist, who is also a Christian, or who 
 {not being a Christian,) has yet by his birth and breed- 
 ing become saturated with Christian ideas and feelings,''' 
 attempts to realize the idea of supreme Deity, he be- 
 comes aware of a double and contradictory movement 
 in his own mind whilst striving towards that result. He 
 demands, in the first place, something in the highest 
 degree generic ; and yet again in the opposite direc- 
 tion, something in the highest degree individual ; he 
 demands on the one path, a vast ideality, and yet on 
 the other, in union with a determinate personality. He 
 must not surrender himself to the first impulse, else he 
 is betrayed into a mere anima mundi ; he must not 
 surrender himself to the second, else he is betrayed into 
 something merely human. This difficult antagonism, 
 of what is most and what is least generic, must be 
 maintained, otherwise the idea, the possible idea, of 
 that august unveilihg which takes place in the Judaico- 
 Christian God, is absolutely in clouds. Now, this 
 antagonism utterly collapses in paganism. And to 
 a philosophic apprehension, this peculiarity of the 
 heathen gods is more shocking and fearful than what 
 at first sight had seemed most so. When a man 
 pauses for the purpose of attentively reviewing the 
 Pantheon of Greece and Rome, what strikes him at 
 the first with most depth of impression and with most 
 horror is, the wickedness of this Pantheon. And he 
 observes with surprise, that this wickedness, which is 
 at a furnace-heat in the superior gods, becomes fainter 
 and paler as you descend. Amongst the semi-dehies, 
 such as the Oreads or Dryads, the Nereids or Naiads,
 
 22 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN OBGAN 
 
 he feels not at all ofTended. Tbc odor of corruptiori, 
 the sccva mcyliUis, has by this time exhaled. The up- 
 roar of eternal outrage has ceased. And these gentle 
 divinities, if too human and too beset with infirmities, 
 are not impure, and not vexed with ugly appethcs, nor 
 instinct of quarrel : they are tranquil as are the hills 
 and the forests ; passionless as are the seas and the 
 fountains which they tenant. But, when he ascends to 
 the dii majorum gentium, to those twelve gods of the 
 supreme house, who may be called in respect of rank, 
 the Paladins of the classical Pantheon, secret horror 
 comes over him at the thought that demons, reflecting 
 the worst aspects of brutal races, ever could have levied 
 worship from his own. It is true they do so no longer 
 as regards our planet. But what has been apparently 
 may be. God made the Greeks and Romans of one 
 blood with himself; he cannot deny that intellectually 
 the Greeks — he cannot deny that morally the Romans 
 — were amongst the foremost of human races ; and he 
 trembles in thinking that abominations, whose smoke 
 ascended through so many ages to the supreme heavens, 
 may, or might, so far as human resistance is concerned, 
 again become the law for the noblest of his species. A 
 deep feeling, it is true, exists latently in human beings 
 of something perishable in evil. Whatsoever is founded 
 in wickedness, according to a deep misgiving dispersed 
 amongst men, must be tainted with corruption. There 
 might seem consolation ; but a man who reflects is not 
 quite so sure of that. As a commonplace resounding 
 in schools, it may be justly current amongst us, that 
 what is evil by nature or by origin must be transient. 
 But that may be because evil in all human things is
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT, 23 
 
 partial, is heterogeneous ; evil mixed with good ; and 
 the two natures, by their mutual enmity, must enter into 
 a collision, which may possibly guarantee the final 
 destruction of the whole compound. Such a result 
 may not threaten a nature that is purely and totally 
 evil, that is homogeneously evil. Dark natures there 
 may be, whose essence is evil, that may have an abiding 
 root in the system of the universe not less awfully ex- 
 empt from change than the mysterious foundations of 
 God. 
 
 This is dreadful. Wickedness that is immeasurable, 
 in connection with power that is superhuman, appals 
 the imagination. Yet this is a combination that might 
 easily have been conceived ; and a wicked god still 
 commands a mode of reverence. But that feature of 
 the pagan pantheon, which I am contrasting with this, 
 viz., that no pagan deity is an abstraction but a vile 
 concrete, impresses myself with a subtler sense of hor- 
 ror ; because it blends the hateful with a mode of the 
 ludicrous. For the sake of explaining myself to the 
 non-philosophic reader, I beg him to consider what is 
 the sort of feeling with which he regards an ancient 
 river-god, or the presiding nymph of a fountain. The 
 impression which he receives is pretty much like that 
 from the monumental figure of some allegoric being, 
 such as Faith or Hope, Fame or Truth. He hardly 
 believes that the most superstitious Grecian seriously 
 believed in such a being as a distinct personality. He 
 feels convinced that the sort of personal existence as- 
 cribed to such an abstraction, as well as the human 
 shape, arc merely modes of representing and drawing 
 into unity a variety of phenomena and agencies that
 
 24 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 seem one., by means of their unintcrmitting continuity, 
 and because they tend to one common purpose. Now, 
 from sucli a symbolic god as this, let him pass to Jupi- 
 ter or Mercury, and instantly he becomes aware of a 
 revolting individuality. He sees before him the oppo- 
 site pole of deity. The river-god had too little of a 
 concrete character. Jupiter has nothing else. In Ju- 
 piter you read no incarnation of any abstract quality 
 whatever : he represents nothing whatever in the meta- 
 physics of the universe. Except for the accident of his 
 power, he is merely a man. He has a character, that 
 is, a tendency or determination to this quality or that, 
 in excess ; whereas a nature truly divine must be in 
 equilihrio as to all qualities, and comprehend them all, 
 in the way that a genus comprehends the subordinate 
 species. He has even a personal history : he has 
 passed through certain adventures, faced certain dan- 
 gers, and survived hostilities that, at one time, were 
 doubtful in their issue. No trace, in short, appears, in 
 any Grecian god, of the generic. Whereas we, in our 
 Christian ideas of God, unconsciously, and without 
 thinking of Sir Isaac Newton, realize Sir Isaac's 
 conceptions. We think of him as having a sort of 
 allegoric generality, liberated from the bonds of the 
 individual ; and yet, also, as the most awful among 
 natures, having a conscious personality. He is diffused 
 through all things, present eveiywhere, and yet not 
 the less present locally. He is at a distance unap- 
 proachable by finite creatures ; and yet, without any 
 contradiction, (as the profound St. Paul observes,) ' not 
 very far ' from every one of us. And I will venture to 
 say, that many a poor old woman has, by virtue of her
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 25 
 
 Christian inoculation, Sir Isaac's great idea lurking in 
 her mind : as for instance, in relation to any of God's 
 attributes ; suppose holiness or happiness, she feels, 
 (though analytically she could not explain,) that God is 
 not holy or is not happy by way of participation, after 
 the manner of other beings : that is, he does not draw 
 happiness from a fountain separate and external to 
 himself, and common to other creatures, he drawing 
 more and they drawing less ; but that he himself is the 
 fountain ; that no other being can have the least pro- 
 portion of either one or the other but by drawing from 
 that fountain ; that as to all other good gifts, that as to 
 life itself, they are, in man, not on any separate tenure, 
 not primarily, but derivatively, and only in so far as 
 God enters into the nature of man ; that ' we live and 
 move ' only so far and so long as the incomprehensible 
 union takes place between the human spirit and the 
 fontal abyss of the divine. In short, here, and here 
 only, is found the outermost expansion, the centrifugal, 
 of the TO catholic, united with the innermost centripetal 
 of the personal consciousness. Had, therefore, the 
 pagan gods been less detestable, neither impure nor 
 malignant, they could not have won a salutary venera- 
 tion — being so merely concrete individuals. 
 
 Next, it must have degraded the gods, (and have 
 made them instruments of degradation for man,) that 
 they were, one and all, incarnations ; not, as even the 
 Christian God is, for a transitoiy moment and for an 
 eternal purpose ; but essentially and by overruling ne- 
 cessity. The Greeks could not conceive of spirituality. 
 Neither can ice, metaphysically, assign the conditions 
 of the spiritual ; but, practically, we all feel and repre-
 
 26 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 sent to our own minds the agencies of God, as liberated 
 from bonds of space and time, of flesh and of resistance. 
 This the Greeks could not feel, could not represent. 
 And the only advantage which the gods 'enjoyed over 
 the worm and the grub was, that they, (or at least the 
 Paladins amongst them — the twelve supreme gods,) 
 could pass, fluently, from one incarnation to another. 
 
 Thirdly. Out of that essential bondage to flesh arose 
 a dreadful suspicion of something worse : in what rela- 
 tion did the pagan gods stand to the abominable phe- 
 nomenon of death ? It is not by uttering pompous 
 flatteries of ever-living and aii^qoTug cut, &c., that a poet 
 could intercept the searching jealousies of human pene- 
 tration. These are merely oriental forms of compli- 
 ment. And here, by the way, as elsewhere, we find 
 Plato vehemently confuted : for it was the undue exal- 
 tation of the gods, and not their degradation, which 
 must be ascribed to the frauds of poets. Tradition, 
 and no poetic tradition, absolutely pointed to the grave 
 of more gods than one. But waiving all that as liable 
 to dispute, one thing we know, from the ancients them- 
 selves, as open to no question, that all the gods were 
 hor7i ; were born infants ; passed through the stages of 
 helplessness and growth ; from all which the inference 
 was but too fatally obvious. Besides, there were grand- 
 fathers, and even great-grandfathers in the Pantheon ; 
 some of these were confessedly superannuated ; nay, 
 some had disappeared. Even men, who knew but 
 little of Olympian records, knew this, at least, for cer- 
 tain, that more than one dynasty of gods had passed 
 over the golden stage of Olympus, had made their exit, 
 and were hurrying onward to oblivion. It was matter
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 27 
 
 of notoriety, also, that all these gods were and had 
 been liable to the taint of sorrow for the death of their 
 earthly children, (as the Homeric Jupiter for Sarpedon, 
 Thetis for Achilles, Calliope, in Euripides, for her 
 blooming Rhesus ;) all were liable to fear: all to phys- 
 ical pain ; all to anxiety ; all to the indefinite menaces 
 of a danger^ not measurable. Lookins; backwards or 
 looking forwards, the gods beheld enemies that attacked 
 their existence, or modes of decay, (known and un- 
 known.) which gnawed at their roots. All this I take 
 the trouble to insist upon : not as though it could be 
 worth any man's trouble, at this day, to expose (on its 
 own account) the frailty of the Pantheon, but with a 
 view to the closer estimate of the Divine idea amongst 
 men ; and by way of contrast to the power of that idea 
 under Christianity : since I contend that, such as is the 
 God of every people, such, in the corresponding fea- 
 tures of character, will be that people. If the god (like 
 Moloch) is fierce, the people will be cruel ; if (like ' 
 Typhon) a destroying energy, the people will be 
 gloomy ; if (like the Paphian Venus) libidinous, the 
 people will be voluptuously effeminate. When the 
 gods are perishable, man cannot have the grandeurs of 
 his nature developed : when the shadow of death sits 
 upon the highest of what man represents to himself as 
 celestial, essential blight will sit for ever upon human 
 aspirations. One thing only remains to be added on 
 this subject : Why were not the ancients more pro- 
 foundly afflicted by the treacherous gleams of mortality 
 in their gods? How was it that they could forget, for a 
 moment, a revelation so full of misery ? Since not only 
 the character of man partly depended upon the quality
 
 28 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 of his god, but also and a fortiori^ his destiny upon the 
 destiny of his god. But the reason of his indifference 
 to the divine mortality was — because, at any rate, the 
 pagan man's connection with the gods terminated at his 
 own death. Even selfish men would reconcile them- 
 selves to an earthquake, which should swallow up all 
 the world ; and the most unreasonable man has pro- 
 fessed his readiness, at all times, to die with a dying 
 universe — mundo secum pereunte, mori. 
 
 But, thirdly, the gods being such, in what rela- 
 tion to them did man stand ? It is a fact hidden from 
 the mass of the ancients themselves, but sufficiently 
 attested, that there was an ancient and secret enmity 
 between the whole family of the gods and the human 
 race. This is confessed by Herodotus as a persuasion 
 spread through some of the nations amongst which he 
 travelled : there was a sort of truce, indeed, between 
 the parties ; temples, whh their religious services, and 
 their votive offerings, recorded this truce. But below 
 all these appearances lay deadly enmity, to be explained 
 only by one who should know the mysterious history 
 of both parties from the eldest times. It is extraordi- 
 nary, however, that Herodotus should rely, for this 
 account, upon the belief of distant nations, when the 
 same belief was so deeply recorded amongst his own 
 countrymen in the sublime story of Prometheus. 
 Much 9 of the sufferings endured by Prometheus was 
 on account of man, whom he had befriended ; and, 
 hy befriending, had defeated the malignity of Jove. 
 According to some, man was even created by Pro- 
 metheus : but no accounts, until lying Platonic philos- 
 
 I
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 29 
 
 ophers arose, in far later times, represented man as 
 created by Jupiter. 
 
 Now let us turn to Christianity ; pursuing it through 
 the functions which it exercises in common with Pa- 
 ganism, and also through those which it exercises sepa- 
 rately and incommunicably. 
 
 I. As to the Idea of God, — how great was the 
 chasm dividing the Hebrew God from all gods of idol- 
 atrous birth, and with what starry grandeur this revela- 
 tion of Supreme deity must have wheeled upwards into 
 the field of human contemplation, when first surmount- 
 ing the steams of earth-born heathenism, I need not 
 impress upon any Christian audience. To their know- 
 ledge little could be added. Yet to knoio is not always 
 to feel : and without a correspondent depth of feeling, 
 there is in moral cases no effectual knowledge. Not 
 the understanding is sufficient upon such ground, but 
 that which the Scriptures in their profound philosophy 
 entitle the ' understanding heart.' And perhaps few 
 readers will have adequately appreciated the prodi- 
 gious change effected in the theatre of the human spirit, 
 by the transition, sudden as the explosion of light, in the 
 Hebrew cosmogony, when, from the caprice of a fleshly 
 god, in one hour man mounted to a justice that knew 
 no shadov/ of change ; from cruelty, mounted to a love 
 which was inexhaustible ; from gleams of essential evil, 
 to a holiness that could not be fathomed ; from a power 
 and a knowledge, under limitations so merely and ob- 
 viously i° human, to the same agencies lying underneath 
 creation, as a root below a plant. Not less awful in 
 power was the transition from the limitations of .^pace 
 and time to ubiquity and eternity, from the familiar to
 
 30 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 the mysterious, from the incarnate to the spiritual. 
 These enormous transitions were fitted to work changes 
 of answering magnitude in the human spirit. The 
 reader can hardly make any mistake as to this. He 
 must concede the changes. What he will be likely to 
 misconceive, unless he has reflected, is — the immen- 
 sity of these changes. And another mistake, which he 
 is even more likely to make, is this : he will imagine 
 that a new idea, even though the idea of an object so 
 vast as God, cannot become the ground of any revolu- 
 tion more than intellectual — cannot revolutionize the 
 moral and active principles in man, consequently can- 
 not lay the gi'ound of any political movement. We 
 shall see. But next, that is, — 
 
 II. Secondly, as to the idea of man's relation to God, 
 this, were it capable of disjunction, would be even more 
 of a revolutionary idea than the idea of God. But the 
 one idea is enlinked with the other. In Paganism, as 
 I have said, the higher you ascend towards the original 
 fountains of the religion, the more you leave behind 
 the frauds, forgeries, and treacheries of philosophy ; so 
 much the more clearly you descry the odious truth — 
 that man stood in the relation of a superior to his gods, 
 as respected all moral qualities of any value, but in the 
 relation of an inferior as respected physical power. 
 This was a position of the two parties fatal, by itself, to 
 all grandeur of moral aspirations. Whatever was good 
 or corrigibly bad, man saw associated with weakness ; 
 and power was sealed and guaranteed to absolute wick- 
 edness. The evil disposition in man to worship suc- 
 cess, was strengthened by this mode of superiority in 
 the gods. Merit was disjoined from prosperity. Even
 
 OF rOLITICAL MOVEMENT. 31 
 
 merit of a lower class, merit in things morally indiffer- 
 ent, was not so decidedly on the side of the gods as 
 to reconcile man to the reasonableness of their yoke. 
 They were compelled to acquiesce in a government 
 which they did not regard as just. The gods were 
 stronger, but not much ; they had the unfair advantage 
 of standing over the heads of men, and of wings for 
 flight or for manoeuvring. Yet even so, it was clearly 
 the opinion of Homer's age, that, in a fair fight, the 
 gods might have been found liable to defeat. The 
 gods again were generally beautiful : but not more so 
 than the elite of mankind ; else why did these gods, 
 both male and female, continually persecute our race 
 with their odious love t which love, be it observed, 
 uniformly brought ruin upon its objects. Intellectually 
 the gods were undoubtedly below men. They pre- 
 tended to no great works in philosophy, in legislation, 
 or in the fine arts, except only that, as to one of these 
 arts, viz. poetry, a single god vaunted himself greatly 
 in simple ages. But he attempted neither a tragedy 
 nor an epic poem. Even in what he did attempt, it is 
 worth while to follow his career. His literary fate was 
 what might have been expected. After the Persian 
 war, the reputation of his verses rapidly decayed. 
 Wits arose in Athens, who laughed so furiously at his 
 style and his metre, in the Delphic oracles, that at 
 length some echoes of their scoffing began to reach 
 Delphi ; upon which the god and his inspired ministers 
 became sulky, and finally took refuge in prose, as the 
 only shelter they could think of from the caustic venom 
 of Athenian malice. 
 
 These were the miserable relations of man to the
 
 32 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 Pagan gods. Every thing, which it is worth doing at 
 all, man could do better. Now it is some feature of 
 alleviation in a servile coiulition, if the lord appears by 
 natural endowments superior to his slave ; or at least 
 it embhters the degradation of slavery, if he does 7iot. 
 Greatly, therefore, must human interests have suffered, 
 had this jealous approximation of the two parties been 
 the sole feature noticeable in the relations between 
 them. But there was a worse. There was an original 
 enmity between man and the Pantheon; not the sort of 
 enmity which we Christians ascribe to our God ; that 
 is but a figure of speech : and even there is a deriva- 
 tive enmity ; an enmity founded on something in man 
 suhsequent to his creation, and having a I'ansom annexed 
 to it. But the. enmity of the heathen gods was original 
 — that is, to the very nature of man, and as though 
 man had in some stage of his career been their rival ; 
 which indeed he was, if we adopt Milton's hypothesis 
 of the gods as ruined angels, and of man as created to 
 supply the vacancy thus arising in heaven. 
 
 Now, from this dreadful scheme of relations, between 
 the human and divine, under Paganism, turn to the re- 
 lations under Christianity. It is remarkable that even 
 here, according to a doctrine current amongst many of 
 the elder divines, man was naturally superior to the 
 race of beings immediately ranking above him. Jeremy 
 Taylor notices the obscure tradition, that the angelic 
 order was, by original constitution, inferior to man ; 
 but this original precedency had been reversed for the 
 present, by the fact that man, in his higher nature, was 
 morally ruined, whereas the angelic race had not for- 
 feited the perfection of their nature, though otherwise
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 33 
 
 an inferior nature. Waiving a question so inscrutable 
 as this, we know, at least, that no allegiance or homage 
 is required from man towards this doubtfully superior 
 race. And when man first finds himself called upon to 
 pay tributes of this nature as to a being inimitably his 
 superior, he is at the same moment taught by a revela- 
 tion that this awful superior is the same who created 
 him, and that in a sense more than figurative, he him- 
 self is the child of God. There stand the two relations,' 
 as declared in Paganism and in Christianity, — both 
 probably true. In the former, man is the essential 
 enemy of the gods, though sheltered by some conven- 
 tional arrangement ; in the latter, he is the son of God. 
 In his own image God made him : and the very central 
 principle of his religion is, that God for a great purpose 
 assumed his own human nature ; a mode of incarnation 
 which could not be conceivable, unless through some 
 divine principle common to the two natures, and form- 
 ing the nexus between them. 
 
 With these materials it is, and others resembling 
 these, that Christianity has carried forward the work of 
 human progression. The ethics of Christianity it was, 
 — new ethics and unintelligible, in a degree as yet but 
 little understood, to the old pagan nations, — which fur- 
 nished the rudder, or guidance, for a human revolution ; 
 but the mysteries of Christianity it was, — new Eleu- 
 sinian shows, presenting God under a new form and 
 aspect, presenting man under a new relation to God, — 
 which furnished the oars and sails, the moving forces, 
 for the advance of this revolution. 
 
 It was my intention to have shown how this great 
 idea of man's relation to God, connected with the pre- 
 3
 
 34 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 vious idea of God, had first caused the state of slavery 
 to be regarded as an evil. Next, I proposed to show 
 how charitable institutions, not one of which existed in 
 pagan ages, hospitals, and asylums of all classes, had 
 arisen under the same idea brooding over man from 
 age to age. Thirdly, I should have attempted to show, 
 that from the same mighty influence had grown up a 
 social influence of woman, which did not exist in pagan 
 ages, and will hereafter be applied to greater purposes. 
 But, for want of room, I confine myself to saying a few 
 words on war, and the mode in which it will be extin- 
 guished by Christianity. 
 
 War. — This is amongst the foremost of questions 
 that concern human progress, and it is one which, of 
 all great questions, (the question of slavery not ex- 
 cepted, nor even the question of the fi\ave-trade,) has 
 travelled forward the most rapidly into public favor. 
 Thirty years ago, there was hardly a breath stirring 
 against war, as the sole natural resource of national 
 anger or national competition. Hardly did a wish rise, 
 at intervals, in that direction, or even a protesting sigh, 
 over the calamities of war. And if here and there a 
 contemplative author uttered such a sigh, it was in the 
 spirit of mere hopeless sorrow, that mourned over an 
 evil apparently as inalienable from man as hunger, as 
 death, as the frailty of human expectations. Cowper, 
 about sixty years ago, had said, 
 
 ' War is a. game •whicli, were their subjects wise, 
 Kings would not play at.' 
 
 But Cowper would not have said this, had he not 
 been nearly related to the Whig house of Panshanger.
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 35 
 
 Every Whig thought it a duty occasionally to look 
 
 fiercely at kings, saying — 'D , who's afraid?' 
 
 pretty much as a regular John Bull, in the lower 
 classes, expresses his independence by defying the 
 peerage, — ' A lord ! do you say ? what care I for a 
 lord ? I value a lord no more than a button top ; ' 
 whilst, in fact, he secretly reveres a lord as being 
 usually amongst the most ancient of landed proprietors, 
 and, secondly, amongst the richest. The scourge of 
 kingship was what Cowper glanced at, rather than the 
 scourge of war ; and in any case the condition which 
 he annexed to his suggestion of relief, is too remote to 
 furnish much consolation for cynics like myself, or the 
 reader. If war is to cease only when subjects become 
 wise, we need not contract the scale of our cannon- 
 founderies until the millennium. Sixty years ago, 
 therefore, the abolition of war looked as unprosperous 
 a speculation as Dr. Darwin's scheme for improving 
 our British climate by hauling out all the icebergs from 
 the polar basin in seasons when the wind sate fair for 
 the tropics ; by which means these wretched annoyers 
 of our peace would soon find themselves in quarters 
 too hot to hold them, and would disappear as rapidly 
 as sugar-candy in children's mouths. Others, however, 
 inclined rather to the Ancient Mariner's scheme, by 
 shooting an albatross : — 
 
 ' 'T-was right, said tliey, such birds to shoot, 
 That bring the frost and snow.' 
 
 Scarcely more hopeless than these crusades against 
 frost, were any of the serious plans which had then 
 been proposed for the extirpation of war. St. Pierre
 
 36 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 contributed '■ so7i petite possible' to this desirable end, 
 in the shape of an essay towards the idea of a perpetual 
 peace ; Kant, the great professor of Kosnigsberg, sub- 
 scribed to the same benevolent scheme his little essay 
 under the same title ; and others in England subscribed 
 a guinea each to the fund for the suppression of war. 
 These efforts, one and all, spent their fire as vainly as 
 Darwin spent his wrath against the icebergs : the ice- 
 bergs are as big and as cold as ever ; and war is still, 
 like a basking snake, ready to rear his horrid crest on 
 the least rustling in the forests. 
 
 But in quarters more powerful than either purses of 
 gold or scholastic reveries, there has, since the days of 
 Kant and Cowper, begun to gather a menacing thunder- 
 cloud against war. The nations, or at least the great 
 leading nations, are beginning to set their faces against 
 it. War, it is felt, comes under the denunciation of 
 Christianity, by the havoc which it causes amongst 
 those who bear God's image ; of political economy, by 
 its destruction of property and human labor ; of rational 
 logic, by the frequent absurdity of its pretexts. The 
 wrong, which is put forth as the ostensible ground of 
 the particular war, is oftentimes not of a nature to be 
 redressed by war, or is even forgotten in the course of 
 the war ; and, secondly, the war prevents another 
 course which might have redressed the wrong : viz., 
 temperate negotiation, or neutral arbitration. These 
 things were always true, and, indeed, heretofore more 
 flagrantly true : but the difference, in favor of our own 
 times, is, that they are now felt to be true. Formerly, 
 the truths were seen, but not felt : they were inopera- 
 tive truths, lifeless, and unvalued. Now, on the other
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT, 37 
 
 hand, in England, America, France, societies are rising 
 for making war upon war ; and it is a striking proof of 
 the progress made by such societies, that, some two 
 years ago, a deputation from one of them being pre- 
 sented to King Louis Philippe, received from him — 
 not the sort of vague answer which might have been ex- 
 pected, but a sincere one, expressed in very encourag- 
 ing words. ^' Ominous to himself this might have been 
 thought by the superstitious, who should happen to 
 recollect the sequel to a French king, of the very ear- 
 liest movement in this direction : the great (but to this 
 hour mysterious) design of Henry IV. in 1610, was 
 supposed by many to be a plan of this very nature, for 
 enforcing a general and permanent peace on Christen- 
 dom, by means of an armed intervention ; and no 
 sooner had it partially transpired through traitorous 
 evidence, or through angry suspicion, than his own 
 assassination followed. 
 
 Shall I offend the reader by doubting, after all, 
 whether war is not an evil still destined to survive 
 through several centuries ? Great progress has already 
 been made. In the two leading nations of the earth, 
 war can no longer be made with the levity which pro- 
 voked Cowper's words two generations back. France 
 is too ready to fight for mere bubbles of what she calls 
 glory. But neither in France nor England could a war 
 now be undertaken without a warrant from the popular 
 voice. This is a great step in advance ; but the final 
 step for its extinction will be taken by a new and 
 Christian code of international law. This cannot be 
 consummated until Christian philosophy shall have 
 traversed the earth, and reorganized the structure of 
 society.
 
 38 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 But, finally, and (as regards extent, though not -as 
 regards intensity of effect) far beyond all other political 
 powers of Christianity, is the power, the demiurgic 
 power of this religion over the kingdoms of human 
 opinion. Did it ever strike the reader, that the Greeks 
 and Romans, although so frantically republican, and, 
 in so7ne of their institutions, so democratic, yet, on the 
 other hand, never developed the idea of representative 
 government, either as applied to legislation or to ad- 
 ministration ? The elective principle was widely used 
 amongst them. Nay, the nicer casuistries of this prin- 
 ciple had been latterly discussed. The separate advan- 
 tages of open or of secret voting, had been the subject 
 of keen dispute in t)ie political circles of Rome ; and 
 the art was well understood of disturbing the natural 
 course of the public suffrage, by varying the modes of 
 combining the voters under the different forms of the 
 Comitia. Public authority and jurisdiction were created 
 and modified by the elective principle ; but never was 
 this principle applied to the creation or direction of 
 public opinion. The senate of Rome, for instance, 
 like our own sovereign, represented the national ma- 
 jesty, and, to a certain degree, continued to do so for 
 centuries after this majesty had received a more imme- 
 diate representative in the person of the reigning 
 CcEsar. The senate, like our own sovereign, repre- 
 sented the grandeur of the nation, the hospitality of the 
 nation to illustrious strangers, and the gratitude of the 
 nation in the distribution of honors. For the senate 
 continued to be the fountain of honors, even to Csesar 
 himself: the titles of Germanicus, Britannicus, Dalma- 
 ticus, &c. (which may be viewed as peerages,) the
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 39 
 
 privilege of precedency, the privilege of wearing a 
 laurel diadem, &c. (which may be viewed as the Gar- 
 ter, Bath, Thistle,) all were honors conferred by the 
 senate. But the senate, no more than our own sove- 
 reign ever represented, by any one act or function, the 
 public opinion. How was this ? Strange, indeed, that 
 so mighty a secret as that of delegating public opinions 
 to the custody of elect representatives, a secret which 
 has changed the face of the world, should have been 
 missed by nations applying so vast an energy to the 
 whole theory of public administration. But the truth, 
 however paradoxical, is, that in Greece and Rome no 
 body of public opinions existed that could have fur- 
 nished a standing ground for adverse parties, or that 
 consequently could have required to be represented. 
 In all the dissensions of Rome, from the secessions of 
 the Plebs to the factions of the Gracchi, of Marius and 
 Sylla, of Cajsar and Pompey ; in all the caastg of the 
 Grecian republics, — the contest could no more be de- 
 scribed as a contest of opinion, than could the feuds of 
 our buccaneers in the seventeenth century, when part- 
 ing company, or fighting for opposite principles of 
 dividing the general booty. One faction has, another 
 sought to have, a preponderant share of power : but 
 these struggles never look the shape, even in pretence, 
 of differences that moved tlirough the conflict of prin- 
 ciples. The case was alwaj-s the simple one of power 
 matched against power, faction against faction, usage 
 against innovation. It was not that the patricians de- 
 luded themselves by any speculative views into the 
 refusal of intermarriages with the plebeians : it was not 
 as upon any opinion that they maintained the contest,
 
 40 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 (such as at this day divides ourselves from the French 
 upon the question of opinion with regard to the social 
 rank of literar}' men) but simply as upon a fact : they 
 appealed to evidences not to speculations ; to usage, 
 not to argument. They were in possession, and fought 
 against change, not as inconsistent with a theory, but 
 as hostility to an interest. In the contest of Ctesar 
 with the oligarchic knavery of Cicero, Cato, and Pom- 
 pey, no possible exercise of representative functions 
 (had the people possessed them) could have been ap- 
 plied beneficially to the settlement of the question at 
 issue. Law, and the abuses of law, good statutes and 
 evil customs, had equally thrown the public power into 
 a settlement fatal to the public welfare. Not any decay 
 of public virtue, but increase of poverty amongst the 
 inferior citizens, had thrown the suffrages, and conse- 
 quently the honors and powers of the state, into the 
 hands of some forty or fifty houses, rich enough to 
 bribe, and bribing systematically. Caesar, undertaking 
 to correct a state of disease which would else have 
 convulsed the republic every third year by civil war, 
 knew that no arguments could be available against a 
 competition of mere interests. The remedy lay, not 
 through opposition speeches in the senate, or from the 
 rostra, — not through pamphlets or journals, — but 
 through a course of intense cudgelling. This he hap- 
 pily accomplished ; and by that means restored Rome 
 for centuries, — not to the aspiring condition which she 
 once held, but to an immunity from annual carnage, 
 and in other respects to a condition of prosperity 
 which, if less than during her piopular state, was 
 greater than any else attainable after that popular state
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 41 
 
 had become impossible, from changes in the composi- 
 tion of society. 
 
 Here, and in all other critical periods of ancient re- 
 publics, we shall find that opinions did not exist as the 
 grounds offend, nor could by any dexterity have been 
 applied to the settlement of feuds. Whereas, on the 
 other hand, with ourselves for centuries, and latterly 
 with the French, no public contest has arisen, or does 
 now exist, without fighting its way through every stage 
 of advance by appeals to public opinion. If, for in- 
 stance, an improved tone of public feeling calls for a 
 gradual mitigation of army punishments, the quarrel 
 becomes instantly an intellectual one : and much infor- 
 mation is brought forward, which throws light upon 
 human nature generally. But in Rome, such a discus- 
 sion would have been stopped summarily, as interfering 
 with the discretional power of the Pra^torium. To take 
 the vitis, or cane, from the hands of the centurion, was 
 a perilous change ; but, perilous or not, must be com- 
 mitted to the judgment of the particular imperator, or 
 of his legatus. The executive business of the Roman 
 exchequer, again, could not have been made the sub- 
 ject of public discussion ; not only because no sufficient 
 material for judgment could, under the want of a public 
 press, have been gathered, except from the parties in- 
 terested in all its abuses, but also because these parties 
 (a faction amongst the equestrian order) could have 
 effectually overthrown any counter-faction formed 
 amongst parties not personally ajfected by the question. 
 The Roman institution of cUentda — which iiad out- 
 lived its early uses — does any body imagine that this 
 was open to investigation .'' The influence of murder-
 
 42 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 ous riots would easily have been brought to bear upon 
 it, but not the light of public opinion. Even if public 
 opinion could liave been evoked in those days, or 
 trained to combined action, insuperable difficulties 
 would have arisen in adjusting its force to the necessi- 
 ties of the Roman provinces and allies. Any arrange- 
 ment that was practicable, would have obtained an 
 influence for these parties, either dangerous to the 
 supreme section of the empire, or else nugatory for 
 each of themselves. It is a separate consideration, 
 that through total defect of cheap instruments for 
 communication, whether personally or in the way of 
 thought, public opinion must always have moved in the 
 dark : what I chiefly assert is, that the feuds bearing at 
 all upon public interests, never did turn, or could have 
 turned, upon any collation of opinions. And two things 
 must strengthen the reader's conviction upon this point, 
 viz. first, that no public meetings (such as with us 
 carry on the weight of public business throughout the 
 empire) were ever called in Rome ; secondly, that in 
 the regular and ' official ' meetings of the people, no 
 social interest was ever discussed, but only some polit- 
 ical interest. 
 
 Now, on the other hand, amongst ourselves, every 
 question, that is large enough to engage public interest, 
 though it should begin as a mere comparison of strength 
 with strength, almost immediately travels forward into 
 a comparison of right witli rights, or of duty with duty. 
 A mere fiscal question of restraint upon importation 
 from this or that particular quarter, passes into a ques- 
 tion of colonial rights. Arrangements of convenience 
 for the management of the pauper, or the debtor, or
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 43 
 
 the criminal, or the war-captive, become the occasions 
 of profound investigations into the rights of persons 
 occupying those relations. Sanatory ordinances for 
 the protection of public health ; such as quarantine, 
 fever hospitals, draining, vaccination, &c., connect 
 themselves, in the earliest stages of their discussion, 
 with the general consideration of the duties which the 
 state owes to its subjects. If education is to be pro- 
 moted by public counsels, every step of the inquiry 
 applies itself to the consideration of the knowledge to 
 be communicated, and of the limhs within which any 
 section of religious partisanship can be safely author- 
 ized to interfere. If coercion, beyond the warrant of 
 the ordinary law, is to be applied as a remedy for local 
 outrages, a tumult of opinions arises instantly, as to the 
 original causes of the evil, as to the sufficiency of the 
 subsisting laws to meet its pressure, and as to the 
 modes of connecting enlarged powers in the magistrate 
 with the minimum of offence to the general rights of the 
 subject. 
 
 Everywhere, in short, some question of duty and 
 responsibility arises to face us in any the smallest pub- 
 lic interest that can become the subject of public opin- 
 ion. Questions, in fact, that fall short of this dignity ; 
 questions that concern public convenience only, and do 
 not wear any moral aspect, such as the bullion question, 
 never do become subjects of public opinion. It cannot 
 be said in which direction lies the bias of public opin- 
 ion. In the very possibility of interesting the public 
 judgment, is involved the certainty of wearing some 
 relation to moral principles. Hence the ardor of our 
 public disputes ; for no man views, without concern, a
 
 44 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN 
 
 great moral principle darkened by party motives, or 
 placed in risk by accident : hence the dignity and ben- 
 efit of our public disputes ; hence, also, their ultimate 
 relation to the Christian faith. We do not, indeed, in 
 these days, as did our homely ancestors in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries, cite texts of Scripture as 
 themes for senatorial commentary or exegesis ; but the 
 virtual reference to scriptural principles is now a thou- 
 sand times more frequent. The great principles of 
 Christian morality are now so interwoven with our 
 habits of thinking, that we appeal to them no longer as 
 scriptural authorities, but as the natural suggestions of 
 a sound judgment. For instance, in the case of any 
 wrong offered to the Hindoo races, now so entirely de- 
 pendent upon our wisdom and justice, we British '2 
 immediately, by our solemnity of investigation, testify 
 our sense of the deep responsibility to India with which 
 our Indian supremacy has invested us. We make no 
 mention of the Christian oracles. Yet where, then, 
 have we learned this doctrine of far-stretching respon- 
 sibility ? In all pagan systems of morality, there is the 
 vaguest and slightest appreciation of such relations as 
 connect us with our colonies. But, from the profound 
 philosophy of Scripture, we have learned that no rela- 
 'tions whatever, not even those of property, can connect 
 us with even a brute animal, but that we contract con- 
 current obligations of justice and mercy. 
 
 In this age, then, public interests move and prosper 
 tlirough conflicts of opinion. Secondly, as I have en- 
 deavored to show, public opinion cannot settle, power- 
 fully, upon any question that is not essentially a moral 
 question. And, thirdly, in all moral questions, we, of
 
 OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT. 45 
 
 Christian nations, are compelled, by habit and training, 
 as well as other causes, to derive our first principles, 
 consciously or not, from the Scriptures. It is, there- 
 fore, through the doctrinalily of our religion that we 
 derive arms for all moral questions ; and it is as moral 
 questions that any political disputes much affect us. 
 The daily conduct, therefore, of all great political in- 
 terests, throws us unconsciously upon the first principles 
 which we all derive from Christianity. And, in this 
 respect, we are more advantageously placed, by a very 
 noticeable distinction, than the professors of the two 
 other doctrinal religions. The Koran having pirated 
 many sentiments from the Jewish and the Christian 
 systems, could not but offer some rudiments of moral 
 judgment ; yet, because so much of these rudiments is 
 stolen, the whole is incoherent, and does not form a 
 system of ethics. In Judaism, again, the special and 
 insulated situation of the Jews has unavoidably im- 
 pressed an exclusive bias upon its principles. In both 
 codes the rules are often of restricted and narrow ap- 
 plication. But, in the Christian Scriptures, the rules 
 are so comprehensive and large as uniformly to furnish 
 the major proposition of a syllogism ; whilst the partic- 
 ular act under discussion, wearing, perhaps, some 
 modern name, naturally is not directly mentioned : and 
 to bring this, in the minor proposition, under the prin- 
 ciple contained in tiic major, is a task left to the judg- 
 ment of the inquirer in each particular case. Some- 
 thing is here intrusted to individual understanding; 
 whereas in the Koran, from the circumstantiality of the 
 rule, you are obliged mechanically to rest in the letter 
 of the precept. The Christian Scriptures, therefore,
 
 46 ON CHRISTIANITY AS AN ORGAN, ETC. 
 
 not only teach, but train the mind to habits of self- 
 teaching in all moral questions, by enforcing more or 
 less of activity in applying the rule ; that is, in sub- 
 suming the given case proposed under the scriptural 
 principle. 
 
 Hence it is certain, and has been repeatedly illus- 
 trated, that whilst the Christian faith, in collision with 
 others, would inevitably rouse to the most active fer- 
 mentation of minds, the Mahometan (as also doctrinal 
 but unsystematical) would have the same effect, in 
 kind, but far feebler in degree ; and an idolatrous 
 religion would have no such effect at all. Agreeably 
 to this scale, some years ago, a sect of reforming or 
 fanatical Mahometans, in Bengal, ^3 commenced a per- 
 secution of the surrounding Hindoos. At length, a re- 
 action took place on the part of the idolaters, but in 
 what temper ? Bitter enough, and so far alarming as 
 to call down a government interference with troops 
 and artillery, but yet with no signs of religious retalia- 
 tion. That was a principle of movement which the 
 Hindoos could not understand : their retaliation was 
 simply to the personal violence they had suffered. 
 Such is the inertia of a mere cultus. And, in the other 
 extreme, if we Christians, in our intercourse with both 
 Hindoos and Mahometans, were not sternly reined up 
 by the vigilance of the local governments, no long time 
 would pass before all India would be incurably con- 
 vulsed by disorganizing feuds.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note 1. Page 2. 
 • Davk with excessive bright.' Paradise Lost. Book lU. 
 
 Note 2. Page 4. 
 
 ' That obscure term ; ' — i. e. not obscure as regards the use 
 of the term, or its present value, but as regards its original gen- 
 esis, or what in civil law is called the dedudio. Under what 
 angle, under what aspect, or relation, to the field which it con- 
 cerns did the term religion originally come forward ? The gen- 
 eral field, overlooked by religion, is the ground which lies between 
 the spirit of man and the supernatural world. At present, under 
 the humblest conception of religion, the human spirit is supposed 
 to be interested in such a field by the conscience and the nobler 
 affections But I suspect that originally these great faculties 
 were absolutely excluded from the point of view. Probably the 
 relation between spiritual terrors and man's power of propitia- 
 tion, was tlie problem to which the word religion formed the 
 answer. Pieligion meant apparently, in the infancies of the va- 
 rious idolatries, that latreia, or service of sycophantic fear, by 
 which, as the most approved method of approach, man was able 
 to conciliate the favor, or to buy off the malice of supernatural 
 powers. In all Pagan nations, it is probable that religion would, 
 on the whole, be a degrading influence ; although I see, even for 
 iuch nations, two cases, at the least, where the uses of a religion 
 would be indispensable; viz. for the sanction of oaths, and as a
 
 48 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 channel for gratitude not pointing to a human object. If so, the 
 answer is easy : religion was degrading : but heavier degradations 
 would have arisen from irreligion. The noblest of all idolatrous 
 peoples, viz. the Romans, have left deeply scored in their very 
 use of their word ■religio, their testimony to the degradation 
 wrought by any religion that Paganism could yield. Rarely in- 
 deed is this word employed, by a Latin autlior, in speaking of an 
 individual, without more or less of sneer. Reading that word, 
 in a Latin book, we all try it and ring it, as a petty shopkeeper 
 rings a half-crown,, before we venture to receive it as offered in 
 good f lith and loyalty. Even the Greeks are nearly in the same 
 un:uoui, when they wish to speak of religiosity in a spirit of 
 serious praise. Some circuitous form, commending the correct- 
 ness of a man, .Tfoi ru 6^ia, in respect of divine things, becomes 
 I'equisite; for all the direct terms, expressing the religious tem- 
 per, are preoccupied by a taint of scorn. The word omoc, means 
 pious, — not as regards the gods, but as regards the dead; and 
 even ir-af^t;?, though not used sneeringly, is a world short of our 
 word 'religious.' This condition of language we need not won- 
 der at : the language of life must naturally receive, as in a 
 mirror, the realities of life. Difficult it is to maintain a just 
 equipoise in any moral habits, but in none so much as in habits 
 of religious demeanor under a Pagan [that is, a degrading] 
 religion. To be a coward, is base : to be a sycophant, is base : 
 but to be a sycophant in the service of cowardice, is the perfection 
 of baseness : and yet this was the brief analysis of a desotee 
 amongst the ancient Romans. Now, considering that the word 
 religion is originally Roman, [probably from the Etruscan,] it 
 seenis probable that it presented the idea of religion under some 
 one of its bad aspects. Coleridge must quite have forgotten this 
 Paganism of the word, when he suggested as a plausible idea, 
 that originally it had presented religion under the aspect of a 
 coercion or restraint. Morality having been viewed as the prime 
 restraint or obligation I'esting upon man, then Coleridge thought 
 that religion might have been viewed as a religatio, a reiterated 
 restraint, or secondary obligation. This is ingenious, but it will 
 not do. It is cracked in the ring. Perhaps as many as three 
 objections might be mustered to such a derivation : but the last of
 
 NOTES. 49 
 
 the three is conclusive. The ancients never did view morality 
 as a mode of obligation : I affirm this peremptorily; and with the 
 more emphasis, because there are great consequences suspended 
 upon that question. 
 
 Note 3. Page 5. 
 
 ' Four : ' there are six, in one sense, of religion : viz. 5thly, 
 corresponding moral affections; Gthli/,o, suitable life. But this 
 applies to religion as subjectively possessed by a man, not to 
 religion as objectively contemplated. 
 
 Note 4. Page 5. 
 
 ' Untranslatable.^ — This is not generally perceived. On the 
 contrary, people are ready to say, ' Why, so far from it, the 
 very earliest language in which the Gospels appeared, excepting 
 only St. Matthew's, was the Greek.' Yes, reader ; but what 
 Greek? Had not the Greeks been, for a long time, colonizing 
 Syria under princes of Grecian blood, — had not the Greek lan- 
 guage (as a lingua Hellenistica) become steeped in Hebrew 
 ideas, — no door of communication could have been opened be- 
 tween the new world of Christian feeling, and the old world so 
 deaf to its music. Here, therefore, we may observe two prepar- 
 ations made secretly by Providence for receiving Christianity and 
 clearing the road before it; first, the diffusion of the Greek lan- 
 guage through the whole civilized world (^i, oi/.ovutvrf) some time 
 before Christ, by which means the Evangelists found wings, as 
 it were, for flying abroad through the kingdoms of the earth ; 
 secondly, the Hebraizing of this language, by which means the 
 Evangelists found a new material made plastic and obedient to 
 these new ideas, which they had to build with, and which they 
 had to build upon. 
 
 Note 5. Page 6. 
 * In Christianity.' — Once for all, to save the trouble of con- 
 tinual repetitions, understand Judaism to be commemorated 
 jointly with Christianity; the dark root together with the golden 
 fruitage; whenever the nature of the case does not presume a 
 contradistinction of the one to the other. 
 4
 
 50 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Note 6. Page 12. 
 
 In Greek, there is a word for repentance, but not until it had 
 been rebaptized into a Christian use. Metanoia, however, is 
 not that word : it is grossly to defeat the profound meaning of 
 the New Testament, if John the Baptist is translated as though 
 summoning the world to repentance ; it was not that to which he 
 ' summoned them. 
 
 Note 7. Page 21. 
 
 ' JVot being a Christian, has yet become saturated with Chris- 
 tian ideas : ' — tliis case is far from uncommon ; and undoubt- 
 edly, from having too much escaped observation, it has been the 
 cause of much error. Poets I could mention, if it were not invid- 
 ious to do so, who, whilst composing in a spirit of burning enmity 
 to the Christian faith, yet rested for the very sting of their 
 pathos upon ideas that but for Christianity could never have 
 existed. Translators there have been, English, French, Ger- 
 man, of Mahometan books, who have so colored the whole vein 
 of thinking with sentiments peculiar to Christianity, as to draw 
 from a reflecting reader the exclamation, ' If this can be indeed 
 the product of Islamism, wherefore should Christianity exist? ' 
 If thoughts so divine can, indeed, belong to a false religion, what 
 more could we gain from a true one ? 
 
 Note 8. Page 27. 
 
 • Danger not measurable : ' — it must not be forgotten that all 
 the superior gods passed through an infancy (as Jove, &c.) or 
 even an adolescence, (as Bacchus,) or even a maturity, (as the 
 majority of Olj'mpus during the insurrection of the Titans,) sur- 
 rounded by perils that required not strength only, but artifice, 
 and even abject self-concealment to evade. 
 
 Note 9. Page 28. 
 
 ' Much,' — not all : for part was due to the obstinate conceal- 
 ment from Jupiter, by Prometheus, of the danger which threat- 
 ened his throne in a coming generation. 
 
 I
 
 NOTES. 51 
 
 Note 10. Page 29. 
 
 ' So merely and obviously human :' — It is a natural thought, 
 to any person who has not explored these recesses of human 
 degradation, that surely the Pagans must have had it in their 
 power to invest their gods with all conceivable perfections, quite 
 as much as we that are 7wt Pagans. The thing wanting to the 
 Pagans, he will think, Avas the right: otlierwise as regarded 
 the power. 
 
 Note 11. Page 37. 
 
 ' Encouraging words : ' and ratlier presumptuous words, if 
 the newspapers reported them correctly : for they went the 
 length of promising, that he separately, as King of the French, 
 would coerce Europe into peace. But, from the known good 
 sense of the king, it is more probable that he promised his nega- 
 tive aid, — the aid of not personally concurring to any war which 
 might otherwise be attractive to the French government. 
 
 Note 12. Page 41. 
 
 ' We British .• ' — It may be thought that, in the prosecution 
 of Yerres, the people of Rome acknowledged something of the 
 same high responsibility. Not at all. The case came before 
 Pvome, not as a case of injury to a colonial child, whom the gen- 
 eral mother was bound to protect and avenge ; but as an appeal, 
 by way of special petition, from Sicilian clients. It was no grand 
 political movement, but simply judicial. Verres was an ill-used 
 man and the victim of private intrigues. Or, whatever he 
 might be, Rome certainly sate upon the cause, not in any char- 
 acter of maternal protectress, taking up voluntarily the support 
 of the weak, but as a sheriff assessing damages in a case forced 
 upon his court by the plaintiff. 
 
 Note 13. Page 46. 
 At Baraset, if I remember rightly.
 
 PROTESTANTISM.* 
 
 [1847.] 
 
 The work whose substance and theme are thus 
 briefly abstracted is, at this moment, making a noise 
 in the world. It is ascribed by report to two bishops — 
 not jointly, but alternatively — in the sense that, if one 
 did not write the book, the other did. The Bishops of 
 Oxford and St. David's, Wilberforce and Thirlwall, are 
 the two pointed at by the popular finger; and, in some 
 quarters, a third is suggested, viz., Stanley, Bishop of 
 Norwich. The betting, however, is altogether in favor 
 of Oxford. So runs the current of puhlic gossip. But 
 the public is a bad guesser, ' stiff in opinion' it is, and 
 almost ' always in the wrong.' Now let me guess. 
 When I had read for ten minutes, I offered a bet of 
 .seven to one (no takers) that the author's name began 
 with H. Not out of any love for that amphibious 
 letter ; on the contrary, being myself what Professor 
 Wilson calls a hedonist, or philosophical voluptuary, 
 and murmuring, with good reason, if a rose leaf lies 
 doubled below me, naturally I murmur at a letter that 
 puts one to the expense of an aspiration, forcing into 
 
 * A Vindication of Protestant Principles. By Pliileleutheros 
 Anglicanus. London ; Parker. IS 17.
 
 54 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 the lungs an extra charge of raw air on frosty morn- 
 ings. But truth is truth, in spite of frosty air. And 
 yet, upon further reading, doubts gathered upon my 
 mind. The H. that I mean is an Englishman ; now 
 it happens that here and there a word, or some pecu- 
 liarity in using a word, indicates, in this author, a 
 Scotchman; for instance, the expletive 'just,' which so 
 much infests Scotch phraseology, written or spoken, at 
 page 1 ; elsewhere the word ' short-comings,^ which, 
 being horridly tabernacular, and such that no gentle- 
 man could allow himself to touch it without gloves, it 
 is to be wished that our Scottish brethren would resign, 
 together with ' hackslidings^'' to the use of field preach- 
 ers. But worse, by a great deal, and not even intelli- 
 gible in England, is the word thereafter, used as an 
 adverb of time, i. e., as the correlative of hereafter. 
 Thereafter, in pure vernacular English, bears a totally 
 different sense. In ' Paradise Lost,' for instance, hav- 
 ing heard the character of a particular angel, you are 
 told that he spoke thereafter, i. e., spoke agreeably 
 to that character. ' How a score of sheep, Master 
 Shallow ? ' The answer is, ' Thereafter as they be.' 
 Again, ' Thereafter as a man sows shall he reap.' 
 The objections are overwhelming to the Scottish use of 
 the word ; first, because already in Scotland it is a 
 barbarism transplanted from the filthy vocabulary of 
 attorneys, locally called writers ; secondly, because in 
 England it is not even intelligible, and, what is worse 
 still, sure to be rajs-intelligible. And yet, after all, 
 these exotic forms may be a mere blind. The writer 
 is, perhaps, purposely leading us astray with his ^there- 
 aflers,'' and his horrid ' short-comings.' Or, because
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 55 
 
 London newspapers, and Acts of Parliament, are be- 
 ginning to be more and more polluted with these bar- 
 barisms, he may even have caught them unconsciously. 
 And, on looking again at one case of ' thereafter,'' viz. 
 at page 79, it seems impossible to determine whether 
 he uses it in the classical English sense, or in the sense 
 of leguleian barbarism. 
 
 This question of authorship, meantime, may seem 
 to the reader of little moment. Far from it ! The 
 weightier part of the interest depends upon that very 
 point. If the author really is a bishop, or supposing the 
 public rumor so far correct as that he is a man of dis- 
 tinction in the English church, then, and by that simple 
 fact, this book, or this pamphlet, interesting at any rate 
 for itself, becomes separately interesting through its 
 authorship, so as to be the most remarkable phenome- 
 non of the day ; and why ? Because the most remark- 
 able expression of a movement, accomplished and 
 proceeding in a quarter that, if any on this earth, 
 might be thought sacred from change. Oh, fearful are 
 the motions of time, when suddenly lighted up to a 
 retrospect of thirty years ! Pathetic are the ruins of 
 time in its slowest advance! Solemn are the prospects, 
 so new and so incredible, which time unfolds at every 
 turn of its wheeling flight ! Is it come to tliis ? Could 
 any man, one generation back, have anticipated that 
 an English dignitary, and speaking on a very delicate 
 religious question, should deliberately appeal to a 
 writer confessedly infidel, and proud of being an infi- 
 del, as a 'triumphant' settler of Christian scruples? 
 But if the infidel is right, a point which I do not here 
 discuss — but if the infidel is a man of genius, a point
 
 56 PROTESTANTISM, 
 
 which I do not deny — was it not open to cite him, 
 even though the citer were a bishop? Why, yes — 
 uneasily one answers, yes ; but still the case records a 
 strange alteration, and still one could have wished to 
 hear such a doctrine, which ascribes human infirmity 
 (nay, human criminality) to every book of the Bible, 
 uttered by anybody rather than by a father of the 
 Church, and guaranteed by anybody rather than by an 
 infidel, in triumph. A boy may fire his pistol unno- 
 ticed ; but a sentinel, mounting guard in the dark, must 
 remember the trepidation that will follow any shot from 
 /itm, and the certainty that it will cause all the stations 
 within hearing to get under arms immediately. Yet 
 why, if this bold opinion does come from a prelate, he 
 being but one man, should it carry so alarming a 
 sound ? Is the whole bench of bishops bound and 
 compromised by the audacity of any one amongst its 
 members ? Certainly not. But yet such an act, 
 though it should be that of a rash precursor, marks the 
 universal change of position ; there is ever some sym- 
 pathy between the van and the rear of the same body 
 at the same time ; and the boldest could not have dared 
 to go ahead so rashly, if the rearmost was not known 
 to be pressing forward to his support, far more closely 
 than thirty years ago he could have done. There have 
 been, it is true, heterodox professors of divinity and 
 free-thinking bishops before now. England can show 
 a considerable list of such people — even Rome has a 
 smaller list. Rome, that weeds all libraries, and is 
 continually burning books, in effigy, by means of her 
 vast Index Expurgatorius,^ which index, continually, 
 she is enlarging by successive supplements, needs also
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 57 
 
 an Index Expurgatorius for the catalogue of her pre- 
 lates. Weeds there are in the very flower-garden and 
 conservatory of the church. Fathers of the church are 
 no more to he relied on, as safe authorities, than we 
 rascally lay authors, that notoriously will say anything. 
 And it is a striking proof of this amongst our English 
 bishops, that the very man who, in the last generation, 
 most of all won the public esteem as the champion of 
 the Bible against Tom Paine, was privately known 
 amongst us connoisseurs in heresy (that are always 
 prying into ugly secrets) to be the least orthodox 
 thinker, one or other, amongst the whole brigade of 
 fifteen thousand contemporary clerks who had sub- 
 scribed the Thirty-nine Articles. Saving your pres- 
 ence, reader, his lordship was no better than a bigoted 
 Socinian, which, in a petty diocese that he never vis- 
 ited, and amongst South Welshmen, that are all incor- 
 rigible Methodists, mattered little, but would have been 
 awkward had he come to be Archbishop of York ; and 
 that he did not^ turned upon the accident of a few 
 weeks too soon, by which the Fates cut short the thread 
 of the Whig ministry in 1807. Certainly, for a Romish 
 or an English bishop to be a Socinian is tm peu fort. 
 But I contend that it is quite possible to be far less 
 heretical, and yet dangerously bold; yes, upon the free 
 and spacious latitudes, purposely left open by the Eng- 
 lish Thirty-nine Articles (ay, or by any Protestant 
 Confession), to plant novelties not less startling to re- 
 ligious ears than Socinianism itself. Besides (which 
 adds to the shock), the dignitaiy now before us, 
 whether bishop or no bishop, does not write in the 
 tone of a conscious heretic ; or, like Archdeacon
 
 58 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Blackburne- of old, in a spirit of hostility to his own 
 fellow-churchmen ; but, on the contrary, in the tone of 
 one relying upon support from his clerical brethren, he 
 stands forward as expositor and champion of views now 
 prevailing amongst the elite of the English Church. 
 So construed, the book is, indeed, a most extraordinary 
 one, and exposes a history that almost shocks one of 
 the strides made in religious speculation. Opinions 
 change slowly and stealthily. The steps of the 
 changes are generally continuous ; but sometimes it 
 happens that the notice of such steps, the publication 
 of such changes, is not continuous, that it comes upon 
 us per saltum, and, consequently, with the stunning 
 effect of an apparent treachery. Every thoughtful 
 man raises his hands with an involuntary gesture of 
 awe at the revolutions of so revolutionary an age, 
 when thus summoned to the spectacle of an English 
 prelate serving a piece of artillery against what once 
 were fancied to be main outworks of religion, and at a 
 station sometimes considerably in advance of any 
 occupied by Voltaire.-^ 
 
 It is this audacity of speculation, I apprehend, this 
 elalage of bold results, rather than any success in their 
 development, which has fixed the public attention. 
 Development, indeed, applied to philosophic problems, 
 or research applied to questions of erudition, was hard- 
 ly possible within so small a compass as one hundred 
 and seventeen pages, for that is the extent of the 
 work, except as regards the notes, which amount to 
 seventy-four pages more. Such brevity, on such a 
 subject, is unseasonable, and almost culpable. On 
 such a subject as the Philosophy of Protestantism —
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 59 
 
 ' satius erat silere, quam parcius dicere.'' Better 
 were absolute silence, more respectful as regards the 
 theme, less tantalizing as regards the reader, than a 
 style of discussion so fragmentary and so rapid. 
 
 But, before we go farther, what are we to call this 
 bold man } One must have some name for a man 
 that one is reviewing; and, as he comes abroad incog- 
 nito, it is difficult to see what name could have any 
 propriety. Let me consider : there are three bishops 
 in the field, Mr. H., and the Scotchman — that makes 
 five. But every one of these, you say, is represented 
 equally by the name in tlie title — Phileleutheros An- 
 glicanus. True, but thafs as long as a team of horses. 
 If it had but Esquire at the end, it would measure 
 against a Latin Hendecasyllable verse. I'm afraid 
 that we must come at last to Phil. Vve been seeking 
 to avoid it, for it's painful to say 'Jack' or 'Dick' 
 either to or o/an ecclesiastical great gun. But if such 
 big wigs will come abroad in disguise, and witli names 
 as long as Fielding's Hononchrononthononthologus, 
 they must submit to be hustled by pickpockets and 
 critics, and to have their names docked as well as pro- 
 fane authors. 
 
 Phil., then, be it — that's settled. Now, let us in- 
 quire what it is that Phil, has been saying, to cause 
 such a sensation amongst the Gnostics. And, to begin 
 at the beginning, what is Phil.'s capital object ? Phil. 
 shall state it himself — these arc his opening words: — 
 ' In the following pages we propose to vindicate the 
 fundamental and inherent principles of Protestantism.' 
 Good ; but what are the fundamental principles of 
 Protestantism > ' They are,' says Phil., ' the sole suffi-
 
 60 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 ciency of Scripture,'* the right of private judgment in 
 its interpretation, and the authority of individual con- 
 science in matters of religion.' Errors of logic show 
 themselves more often in a man's terminology, and his 
 antithesis, and his subdivisions, than anywhere else. 
 Phil, goes on to make this distinction, which brings 
 out his imperfect conception. ' We,' says he (and, by 
 the way, if Phil, is we^ then it must be my duty to 
 call him they), ' we do not propose to defend the varie- 
 ties of doctrine held by the different communities of 
 Protestants.' Why, no ; that would be a sad task for 
 the most skilful of funambulists or theological tum- 
 blers, seeing that many of these varieties stand related 
 to each other as categorical affirmative and categorical 
 negative : it's heavy work to make yes and no pull 
 together in the same proposition. But this, fortunately 
 for himself, Phil, declines. You are to understand 
 that he will not undertake the defence of Protestantism 
 in its doctrines, but only in its princijjles. That won't 
 do ; that antithesis is as hollow as a drum ; and, if the 
 objection were verbal only, I would not make it. But 
 the contradistinction fails to convey the real meaning. 
 It is not that he has falsely expressed his meaning, but 
 that he has falsely developed that meaning to his own 
 consciousness. Not the word only is wrong ; but the 
 wrong word is put forward for the sake of hiding the 
 imperfect idea. What he calls principles might almost 
 as well be called doctrines ; and what he calls doc- 
 trijies as well be called principles. Out of these 
 terms, apart from the rectifications suggested by the 
 context, no man could collect his drift, which is simply 
 this. Protestantism, we must recollect, is not an abso-
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 61 
 
 lute and self-dependent idea ; it stands in relation to 
 something antecedent, against which it protests, viz., 
 Papal Rome. And under what phasis does it protest 
 against Rome ? Not against the Christianity of Rome, 
 because every Protestant Church, though disapproving 
 a great deal of that, disaproves also a great deal in its 
 own sister churches of the protesting household ; and 
 because every Protestant Church holds a great deal of 
 Christian truth, in common with Rome. But what fur- 
 nishes the matter of protest is — the deduction of the 
 title upon which Rome plants the right to be church at 
 all. This deduction is so managed by Rome as to 
 make herself, not merely a true church (which many 
 Protestants grant), but the exclusive church. Now, 
 what Phil, in effect undertakes to defend is not prin- 
 ciples by preference to doctrines (for they are pretty 
 nearly the same thing), but the question of title to 
 teach at all, in preference to the question of what is 
 the thing taught. There is the distinction, as I appre- 
 hend it. All these terfns — 'principle,' 'doctrine,' 
 'system,' 'theory,' 'hypothesis' — are used nearly 
 always most licentiously, and as arbitrarily as a New- 
 market jockey selects the colors for his riding-dress. 
 It is true that one shadow of justification oflers itself 
 for Phil.'s distinction. All principles are doctrines, 
 but all doctrines are not principles ; which, then, in 
 particular ? Why, those properly arc princi|)les which 
 contain the j;rmciyn'«, the beginnings, or starting-points 
 of evolution, out of which any system of truth is 
 evolved. Now, it may seem that the very starting- 
 point of our Protestant pretensions is, first of all, to 
 argue our title or right to be a church sui juris ; ap-
 
 62 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 parently we must begin by making good our locus 
 standi, before we can be heard upon our doctrines. 
 And upon this mode of approach, the pleadings about 
 the title, or right to teach at all, taking precedency of 
 the pleadings about the particular things taught, would 
 be the principia, or beginning of the whole process, 
 and so far would be entitled by preference to the name 
 of principles. But such a mode of approach is merely 
 an accident, and contingent upon our being engaged 
 in a polemical discussion of Protestantism in relation 
 to Popery. That, however, is a pure matter of choice ; 
 Protestantism may be discussed, as though Rome were 
 not, in relation to its own absolute merits ; and this 
 treatment is the logical treatment, applying itself to 
 what is permanent in the nature of the object ; whereas 
 the other treatment applies itself to what is casual and 
 vanishing in the history (or the origin) of Protestantism. 
 For, after all, it would be no great triumph to Protest- 
 antism that she should prove her birthright to revolve 
 as a primary planet in the s6lar system; that she had 
 the same original right as Rome to wheel about the 
 great central orb, undegraded to the rank of satellite 
 or secondary projection — if, in the meantime, tele- 
 scopes should reveal the fact that she was pretty nearly 
 a sandy desert. WJiat a church teaches is true or not 
 true, without reference to her independent right of 
 teaching; and eventually, when the irritations of earth- 
 ly feuds and political schisms shall be soothed by time, 
 the philosophy of this whole question will take an 
 inverse order. The credentials of a church will not 
 be put in first, and the quality of her doctrine discussed 
 as a secondary question. On the contrary, her ere-
 
 PEOTESTANTISM. 63 
 
 dentials will be sought in her doctrine. The Protest- 
 ing Church will say, I have the right to stand separate, 
 because I stand ; and from my holy teaching I deduce 
 my title to teach. Jus est ihi summnm docendi^uhi est 
 fons purissimus doctrincc. That inversion of the Pro- 
 testant plea with Rome is even now valid with many; 
 and, when it becomes universally current, then the 
 principles, or great beginnings of the controversy, will 
 be transplanted from the locus, or centre, where Phil. 
 places them, to the very locus which he neglects. 
 
 There is another expression of Fhil.\': (I am afraid 
 Phil, is getting angry by this time) to which I object. 
 He describes the doctrines held by all the separate 
 Protestant churches as doctrines of Protestantism. I 
 would not delay either Phil, or myself for the sake of 
 a trifle ; but an impossibility is not a trifle. If from 
 orthodox Turkey you pass to heretic Persia, if from 
 the rigor of the Sonnees to the laxity of the Sheeahs, 
 you could not, in explaining those schisms, go on to 
 say, ' And these are the doctrines of Islamism ; ' for 
 they destroy each other. Both arc supported by 
 earthly powers ; but one only could be supported by 
 central Islamism. So of Calvinism and Arminianism ; 
 you cannot call them doctrines of Protestantism, as if 
 growing out of some reconciling Protestant principles; 
 one of the two, though not manifested to human eyes 
 in its falsehood, must secretly be false ; and a false- 
 hood cannot be a doctrine of Protestantism. It is more 
 accurate to say that the separate creeds of Turkey and 
 Persia are leilhin Mahommedanism ; such, viz., as that 
 neither excludes a man from the name of Mussulman ; 
 and, again, that Calvinism and Arminianism arc doc-
 
 64 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 trines within the Protestant Church — as a church of 
 general toleration for all religious doctrines not rfe- 
 monstrably hostile to any cardinal truth of Christian- 
 ity- 
 
 Phil., then, we all understand, is not going to tra- 
 verse the vast field of Protestant opinions as they are 
 distributed through our many sects ; that would be 
 endless ; and he illustrates the mazy character of the 
 wilderness over which these sects are wandering, 
 
 ' ubi passim 
 
 Palantes error recto dc tramite pellit,' 
 
 by the four cases of — 1, the Calvinist ; 2, the New- 
 manite ; 3, the Romanist;^ 4, the Evangelical enthu- 
 siast — as holding systems of doctrine, 'no one of 
 which is capable of recommending itself to the favor- 
 able opinion of an impartial judge.' Impartial ! but 
 what Christian can be impartial ? To be free from all 
 bias, and to begin his review of sects in that temper, 
 he must begin by being an infidel. Vainly a man 
 endeavors to reserve in a state of neutrality any pre- 
 conceptions that he may have formed for himself, or 
 prepossessions that he may have inherited from ' mam- 
 ma ; ' he cannot do it any more than he can dismiss 
 his own shadow. And it is strange to contemplate the 
 weakness of strong minds in fancying that they can. 
 Calvin, whilst amiably engaged in hunting Servetus to 
 death, and writing daily letters to his friends, in which 
 he expresses his hope that the executive power would 
 not think of burning the poor man, since really justice 
 would be quite satisfied by cutting his head off, meets 
 with some correspondents who conceive (idiots that
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 65 
 
 they were !) even that Ihtle amputation not indispensa- 
 ble. But Calvin soon settles their scruples. You 
 don't perceive, he tells them, what this man has been 
 about. When a writer attacks Popery, it's very wrong 
 in the Papists to cut his head off; and why } Because 
 he has only been attacking error. But here lies the 
 difference in this case ; Servetus had been attacking 
 the TRUTH. Do you see the distinction, my friends I 
 Consider it, and I am sure you will be sensible that 
 this quite alters the case. It is shocking, it is perfectly 
 ridiculous, that the Bishop of Rome should touch a 
 hair of any man's head for contradicting Mm ; and 
 why ? Because, do you see } he is wrong. On the 
 other hand, it is evidently agreeable to philosophy, 
 that 1, John Calvin, should shave off the hair, and, 
 indeed, the head itself (as I heartily hope^ will be 
 done in this present case) of any man presumptuous 
 enough to contradict me ; but then, why ? For a rea- 
 son that makes all the difference in the world, and 
 which, one would think, idiocy itself could not over- 
 look, viz., that I, John Calvin, am right — right, 
 through three degrees of comparison — right, righter, 
 or more right, rightest, or most right. Calvin fancied 
 that he could demonstrate his own impartiality. 
 
 The self-sufficingness of the Bible, and the right of 
 private judgment — here, then, are the two great char- 
 ters in which Protestantism commences ; these are the 
 bulwarks behind which it intrenches itself against 
 Rome. And it is remarkable that these two great 
 preliminary laws, which soon diverge into fields so 
 different, at the first are virtually one and the same 
 law. The refusal of an oracle alien to the Bible, 
 5
 
 66 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 extrinsic to the Bible, and claiming the sole interpre- 
 tation of the Bible ; the refusal of an oracle that re- 
 duced the Bible to a hollow masque, underneath which 
 fraudulently introducing itself any earthly voice could 
 mimic a heavenly voice, was in effect to refuse the 
 coercion of this false oracle over each man's consci- 
 entious judgment ; to make the Bible independent of 
 the Pope, was to make man independent of all relig- 
 ious controllers. The self-siifficingness of Scripture, 
 its independency of any external interpreter, passed in 
 one moment into the other great Protestant doctrine of 
 Toleration. It was but the same triumphal monument 
 under a new angle of sight, the golden and silver faces 
 of the same heraldic shield. The very same act 
 which denies the right of interpretation to a myste- 
 rious Papal pha3nix, renewed from generation to gen- 
 eration, having the antiquity and the incomprehensible 
 omniscience of the Simorg in Southey, transferred this 
 right of mere necessity to the individuals of the whole 
 human race. For where else could it have been 
 lodged ? Any attempt in any other direction was but 
 to restore the Papal power in a new impersonation. 
 Every man, therefore, suddenly obtained the right of 
 interpreting the Bible for himself. But the word ' right ' 
 obtained a new sense. Every man has the right, under 
 the Queen's Bench, of publishing an unlimited number 
 of metaphysical systems ; and, under favor of the 
 same indulgent Bench, we all enjoy the unlimited right 
 of laughing at him. But not the whole race of man 
 has a right to coerce, in the exercise of his intellectual 
 rights, the humblest of individuals. The rights of men 
 are thus unspeakably elevated ; for, being now freed
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 67 
 
 from all anxiety, being sacred as merely legal rights, 
 they suddenly rise into a new mode of responsibility 
 as intellectual rights. As a Protestant, every mature 
 man has the same dignified right over his own opinions 
 and profession of faith that he has over his own hearth. 
 But his hearth can rarely be abused ; whereas his re- 
 ligious system, being a vast kingdom, opening by im- 
 measurable gates upon worlds of light and worlds of 
 darkness, now brings him within a new amenability — 
 called upon to answer new impeachments, and to seek 
 for new assistances. Formerly another was answer- 
 able for his belief ; if that were wrong, it was no fault 
 of his. Now he has new rights, but these have bur- 
 thened him with new obligations. Now he is crowned 
 with the glory and the palms of an intellectual crea- 
 ture, but he is alarmed by the certainty of correspond- 
 ing struggles. Protestantism it is that has created hirn 
 into this child and heir of liberty ; Protestantism it is 
 that has invested him with these unbounded privileges 
 of private judgment, giving him in one moment the 
 sublime powers of a Pope within his own conscience ; 
 but Protestantism it is that has introduced him to the 
 most dreadful of responsibilities. 
 
 I repeat that the twin maxims, the columns of Her- 
 cules through which Protestantism entered the great 
 sea of humaij activities, were originally but two aspects 
 of one law : to deny the Papal control over men's con- 
 science being to affirm man's self-control, was, there- 
 fore, to affirm man's universal right to toleration, which 
 again implied a corresponding duty of toleration. Un- 
 der this bi-fronted law, generated by Protestantism, but 
 in its turn regulating Protestantisn>, Phil, undertakes
 
 68 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 to develope all the principles that belong to a Protest- 
 ant church. The seasonableness of such an investiga- 
 tion — its critical application to an evil now spreading 
 like a fever through Europe — he perceives fully; and 
 in the following terms he expresses this perception : — 
 
 ' That we stand on the brink of a great theological crisis, that 
 the problem must soon be solved, how far orthodox Christianity is 
 possible for those who are not behind their age in scholarship 
 and science ; this is a solemn fact, which may be ignored by the 
 partisans of short-sighted bigotry, but which is felt by all, and 
 confessed by most of those who are capable of appreciating its 
 reality and importance. The deep Sibylline vaticinations of 
 Coleridge's philosophical mind, the practical working of Arnold's 
 religious sentimentalism, and the open acknowledgment of many 
 divines who are living examples of the spirit of the age, have 
 all, in different ways, foretold the advent of a Church of the 
 Future.' 
 
 This is from the preface, p. ix., where the phrase» 
 Church of the Future^ points to the Prussian minister's 
 (Bunsen's) Kirche der Zukunft ; but in the body of the 
 work, and not far from its close, (p. 114,) he recurs to 
 this crisis, and more circumstantially. 
 
 Phil, embarrasses himself and his readers in this 
 development of Protestant principles. His own view of 
 the task before him requires that he should separate 
 himself from the consideration of any particular church, 
 and lay aside all partisanship — plausible or not plau- 
 sible. It is his own overture that warrants us in ex- 
 pecting this. And yet, before we have travelled three 
 measured inches, he is found entangling himself with 
 Church of Englandism. Let me not be misunderstood, 
 as though, borrowing a Bentham word, I were there- 
 fore a Jerry Benthamite : I, that may describe myself
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 69 
 
 generally as Philo-Phil., am not less a son of the 
 ' Reformed Anglican Church ' than Phil. Conse- 
 quently, it is not likely that, in any vindication of that 
 church, simply as such, and separately for itself, I 
 should be the man to find grounds of exception. Lov- 
 ing most of what Phil, loves, loving Phil, himself, and 
 hating (I grieve to say), with a theological hatred, 
 whatever Phil, hates, why should 1 demur at this par- 
 ticular point to a course of argument that travels in the 
 line of my own partialities ? And yet I do demur. 
 Having been promised a philosophic defence of the 
 principles concerned in the great European schism of 
 the sixteenth century, suddenly we find ourselves col- 
 lapsing from that altitude of speculation into a defence 
 of one individual church. Nobody would complain of 
 Phil., if, after having deduced philosophically the 
 principles upon which all Protestant separation from 
 Rome should revolve, he had gone forward to show, 
 that in some one of the Protestant churches, more than 
 in others, these principles had been asserted with pecu- 
 liar strength, or carried through with special consist- 
 ency, or associated pre-eminently with the other graces 
 of a Christian church, such as a ritual more impressive 
 to the heart of man, or a polity more symmetrical with 
 the structure of English society. Once having un- 
 folded from philosophic grounds the primary conditions 
 of a pure scriptural church, Phil, might then, without 
 blame, have turned sharp round upon us, saying, such 
 being the conditions under which the great idea of a 
 true Christian church must be constructed , I now go on 
 to show that the Church of England has conformed to 
 those conditions more faithfully than any other. But
 
 70 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 to entangle the pure outlines of the idealizing mind 
 with the practical forms of any militant church, embar- 
 rassed (as we know all churches to have been) by pre- 
 occupations of judgment, derived from feuds too local 
 and interests too political, moving too (as we know all 
 churches to have moved) in a spirit of compromise, oc- 
 casionally from mere necesshies of position ; this is in 
 the result to injure the object of the writer doubly : 
 first, as leaving an impression of partisanship the reader 
 is mistrustful from the first, as against a judge that, in 
 reality, is an advocate ; second, without reference to 
 the effect upon the reader, directly to Phil, it is inju- 
 rious, by fettering the freedom of his speculations, or, 
 if leaving their freedom undisturbed, by narrov/ing 
 their compass. 
 
 And, if Phil., as to the general movement of his 
 Protestant pleadings, modulates too little in the trans- 
 cendental key, sometimes he does so too much. For 
 instance, at p. 69, sec. 35, we find ]iim half calling 
 upon Protestantism to account for her belief in God ; 
 how then ? Is this belief special to Protestants ? Are 
 Roman Catholics, are those of the Greek, the Arme- 
 nian, and other Christian churches, atheistically given ? 
 We used to be told that there is no royal road to geom- 
 etry. I don't know whether there is or not; but I am 
 sure there is no Protestant by-road, no Reformation 
 short-cut, to the demonstration of Deity. It is true that 
 Phil, exonerates his philosophic scholar, when throwing 
 himself in Protestant freedom upon pure intellectual 
 aids, from the vain labor of such an effort. He con- 
 signs him, however philosophic, to the evidence of 
 ' inevitable assumptions, upon axiomatic postulates,
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 71 
 
 which the rcflecthig miiul is compelled to accept, and 
 which no more admit of doubt and cavil than of estab- 
 lishment by formal proof.' I am not sure whether I 
 understand PJiil. in this section. Apparently he is 
 glancing at Kant. Kant was the first person, and per- 
 haps the last, that ever undertook formally to demon- 
 strate the indemonstrability of God. He showed that 
 the three great arguments for the existence of the Deity 
 were virtually one, inasmuch as the two weaker bor- 
 rowed their value and vis apodeictica from the more 
 rigorous metaphysical argument. The physico-theo- 
 logical argument he forced to back, as it were, into the 
 cosmological, and that into the ontological. After this 
 reluctant regressus of the three into one, shutting up 
 like a spying-glass, which (with the iron hand of Her- 
 cules forcing Cerberus up to daylight) the stern man of 
 Kosnigsberg resolutely dragged to the front of the 
 arena, nothing remained, now that he had this pet 
 scholastic argument driven up into a corner, than to 
 break its neck — which he did. Kant took the conceit 
 out of all the three arguments ; but, if this is what PhiJ. 
 alludes to, he should have added, that these three, after 
 all, were only the arguments of speculating or theoretic 
 reason. To this faculty Kant peremptorily denied the 
 power of demonstrating the Deity ; but then that same 
 apodeixis, which he had thus inexorably torn from rea- 
 son under one manifestation, Kant himself restored to 
 the reason in another (the praldische vernunft.) God 
 he asserts to be a. postulate of the human reason, as 
 speaking through the conscience and will, not proved 
 ostensively, but indirectly proved as being wanted in-
 
 72 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 dispensably, and presupposed in other necessities of our 
 human nature. This, probably, is what Phil, means 
 by his short-hand expression of ' axiomatic postulates.' 
 But then it should not have been said that the case does 
 not ' admit of formal proof,' since the proof is as ' for- 
 mal' and rigorous by this new method of Kant as by 
 the old obsolete methods of Sam. Clarke and the 
 schoolmen.'^ 
 
 But it is not the too high or the too low — the two 
 much or the too little — of what one might call by 
 analogy the transcendental course, which I charge upon 
 Phil. It is, that he is too desultory — too eclectic. 
 And the secret purpose, which seems to me predomi- 
 nant throughout his work, is, not so much the defence 
 of Protestantism, or even of the Anglican Church, as a 
 report of the latest novelties that have found a roosting- 
 place in the English Church, amongst the most tem- 
 perate of those churchmen who keep pace with modern 
 philosophy ; in short, it is a selection from the classical 
 doctrines of religion, exhibited under their newest re- 
 vision ; or, generally, it is an attempt to show, fi'om 
 what is going on amongst the most moving orders in the 
 English Church, how far it is possible that strict ortho- 
 doxy should bend, on the one side, to new impulses, 
 derived from an advancing philosophy, and yet, on the 
 other side, should reconcile itself, both verbally and in 
 spirit, with ancient standards. But if Phil, is eclectic, 
 then I will be eclectic ; if Phil, has a right to be de- 
 sultory, then I have a right, Phil, is my leader. I 
 can't, in reason, be expected to be better than he is. 
 If I'm wrong, Phil, ought to set me a better example.
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 73 
 
 And here, before this honorable audience of the public, 
 I charge all my errors (whatever they may be, past or 
 coming) upon Phil.''s misconduct. 
 
 Having thus established my patent of vagrancy, and 
 my license for picking and choosing, I choose out these 
 three articles to toy with : — first, Bibliolatry; second, 
 Development applied to the Bible and Christianity ; 
 third. Philology, as the particular resource against false 
 philosophy, relied on by Phil. 
 
 Bibliolatry. — We Protestants charge upon the Pon- 
 teficii, as the more learned of our fathers always called 
 the Roman Catholics, Mariclatry ; they pay undue 
 honors, say we, to the Virgin. They in return charge 
 upon us, Bibliolatry, or a superstitious allegiance — an 
 idolatrous homage — to the words, syllables, and punc- 
 tuation of the Bible. They, according to lis, deify a 
 woman ; and we, according to them, deify an arrange- 
 ment of printer's types. As to their error, we need not 
 mind that : let us attend to our own. And to this ex- 
 tent it is evident at a glance that Bibliolatrists jnust be 
 wrong, viz., because, as a pun vanishes on being trans- 
 lated into another language, even so would, and must 
 melt away, like ice in a hot-house, a large majority of 
 those conceits \v4iich every Christian nation is apt to 
 ground upon the verbal text of the Scriptures in its own 
 separate vernacular version. But onco aware that 
 much of their Bibliolatry depends upon ignorance of 
 Hebrew and Greek, and often upon peculiarity of idiom 
 or structures in their mother dialect, cautious people 
 begin to suspect the whole. Here arises a very inter- 
 esting, startling, and perplexing situation for all who 
 venerate the Bible ; one which must always have ex-
 
 74 
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 isted for prying, inquisitive people, but which has been 
 incalculably sharpened for the apprehension of these 
 days by the extraordinary advances made and making 
 in Oriental and Greek philology. It is a situation of 
 public scandal even to the deep reverencers of the 
 Bible ; but a situation of much more than scandal; of 
 real grief, to the profound and sincere amongst religious 
 people. On the one hand, viewing the Bible as the 
 word of God, and not merely so in the sense of its con- 
 taining most salutary counsels, but, in the highest sense, 
 of its containing a revelation of the most awful secrets, 
 they cannot for a moment listen to the pretence that 
 the Bible has benefited by God's inspiration only as 
 other good books may be said to have done. They are 
 confident that, in a much higher sense, and in a sense 
 incommunicable to other books, it is inspired. Yet, on 
 the other hand, as they will not tell lies, or countenance 
 lies, even in what seems the service of religion, they 
 cannot hide from themselves that the materials of this 
 imperishable book are perishable, frail, liable to crum- 
 ble, and actually have crumbled to some extent, in 
 various instances. There is, therefore, lying broadly 
 befoi'e us, something like what Kant called an antinomy 
 — a case where two laws equally binding on the mind 
 are, or seem to be, in collision. Such cases occur in 
 morals — cases which are carried out of the general 
 rule, and the jurisdiction of that rule, by peculiar de- 
 flexions ; and from the word case we derive the word 
 casuistry, as a general science dealing with such anom- 
 alous cases. There is a casuistry, also, for the specu- 
 lative understanding, as well as for the moral (which is 
 the practical) understanding. And this question, as to 
 
 Jl
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 75 
 
 the inspiration of the Bible, with its apparent conflict of 
 forces, repelling it and yet atfirming it, is one of its 
 most perplexing and most momentous problems. 
 
 My own solution of the problem would reconcile all 
 that is urged against an inspiration with all that the in- 
 ternal necessity of the case would plead in behalf of an 
 inspiration. So would Phil.''s. His distinction, like 
 mine, would substantially come down to this — that the 
 grandeur and extent of religious truth is not of a nature 
 to be affected by verbal changes such as can be made 
 by time, or accident, or without treacherous design. It 
 is like lightning, which could not be mutilated, or trun- 
 cated, or polluted. But it may be well to rehearse a 
 little more in detail, both PhiVs view and my own. 
 Let my principal go first ; make way, I desire, for my 
 leader : let Phil, have precedency, as, in all reason, it 
 is ray duty to see that he has. 
 
 Whilst rejecting altogether any inspiration as attach- 
 ing to the separate words and phrases of the Scriptures, 
 Phil, insists (sect. 25, p. 49) upon such an inspiration 
 as attaching to the spiritual truths and doctrines deliv- 
 ered in these Scriptures. And he places this theory in 
 a striking light, equally for what it affirms and for what 
 it denies, by these two arguments — first (in affirmation 
 of the real spiritual inspiration), that a series of more 
 than thirty writers, speaking in succession along a vast 
 line of time, and absolutely without means of concert, 
 yet all combine unconsciously to one end — lock like 
 parts of a great machine into one system — conspire to 
 the unity of a very elaborate scheme, without being at 
 all aware of what was to come after. Here, for in- 
 stance, is one, living nearly one thousand six hundred
 
 76 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 years before the last in the series, who lays a founda- 
 tion (in reference to man's ruin, to God's promises and 
 plan for human restoration), which is built upon and 
 carried forward by all, without exception, that follow. 
 Here come a multitude that prepare each for his suc- 
 cessor — that unconsciously integrate each other — that, 
 finally, when reviewed, make up a total drama, of which 
 each writer's separate share would have been utterly 
 imperfect without corresponding parts that he could not 
 have foreseen. At length all is finished. A profound 
 piece of music, a vast oratorio, perfect and of elaborate 
 unity, has resulted from a long succession of strains, 
 each for itself fragmentary. On such a final creation 
 resulting from such a distraction of parts, it is indis- 
 pensable to suppose an overruling inspiration, in order 
 at all to account for the final result of a most elaborate 
 harmony. Besides, which would argue some incon- 
 ceivable magic, if we did not assume a providential 
 inspiration watching over the coherencies, tendencies, 
 and intertessellations (to use a learned word) of the 
 whole, — it happens that, in many instances, typical 
 things are recorded — things ceremonial, that could 
 have no meaning to the person recording — prospective 
 words, that were reported and transmitted in a spirit of 
 confiding faith, but that could have little meaning to the 
 reporting parties for many hundreds of years. Briefly, 
 a great mysterious word is spelt as it were by the whole 
 sum of the scriptural books — every separate book 
 forming a letter or syllable in that secret and that un- 
 finished word, as it was for so many ages. This co- 
 operation of ages, not able to communicate or concert 
 arrangements with each other, is neither more nor less
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 77 
 
 an argument of an overruling inspiration, than if the 
 separation of the contributing parties were by space, 
 and not by time. As if, for example, every island at 
 the same moment were to send its contribution, without 
 previous concert, to a sentence or chapter of a book ; 
 in which case the result, if full of meaning, much more 
 if full of awful and profound meaning, could not be 
 explained rationally without the assumption of a super- 
 natural overruling of these unconscious co-operators to 
 a common result. So far on behalf of inspiration. 
 Yet, on the other hand, a^ an argument in denial of any 
 blind mechanic inspiration cleaving to words and sylla- 
 bles, Phil, notices this consequence as resulting from 
 such an assumption, viz., that if you adopt any one 
 gospel, St. John's suppose, or any one narrative of a 
 particular transaction, as inspired in this minute and 
 pedantic sense, then for every other report, which, ad- 
 hering to the spiritual value of the circumstances, and 
 virtually the same, should differ in the least of the de- 
 tails, there woul-d instantly arise a solemn degradation. 
 All parts of Scripture, in fact, would thus be made 
 active and operative in degrading each other. 
 
 Such is P/ti7.'s way of explaining ^tonvavaTia ^ 
 {theopneustia) , or divine prompting, so as to reconcile 
 the doctrine affirming a virtual inspiration, an inspira- 
 tion as to the truths revealed, with a peremptory denial 
 of any inspiration at all, as to the mere verbal vehicle 
 of those revelations. He is evidently as sincere in 
 regard to the inspiration which he upholds as in regard 
 to that which he denies. Phil, is honest, and Phil, is 
 able. Now comes my turn. I rise to support my 
 leader, and shall attempt to wrench this notion of a
 
 78 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 verbal inspiration from the hands of its champions by a 
 reductio ad ahsurdum^ viz., by showing the monstrous 
 consequences to which it leads — which form of logic 
 rhil. also has employed briefly in the last paragraph 
 of last month's paper ; but mine is different and more 
 elaborate. Yet, first of all, let me frankly confess to 
 the reader, that some people allege a point-blank as- 
 sertion by Scripture itself of its own verbal inspiration ; 
 which assertion, if it I'eally had any existence, would 
 summarily put down all cavils of human dialectics. 
 That makes it necessary to review this assertion. This 
 famous passage of Scripture, this locus classicus, or 
 prerogative text, pleaded for the verbatim et literatim 
 inspiration of the Bible, is the following ; and I will so 
 exhibit its very words as that the reader, even if no 
 Grecian, may understand the point in litigation. The 
 
 passage is this : Ilaaa yi^acjitj {Itorcrevarog y.at axft/.iuog, &C., 
 
 taken from St. Paul, (2 Tim. iii. 16.) Let us construe 
 it literally, expressing the Greek by Latin characters : 
 Pasa graphs, all written lore (or every writing) — 
 theopneustos, God-breathed, or, God-prornpted — kai, 
 and (or, also) — ophelimos, serviceable — pros, towards, 
 didaskalian, doctrinal truth. Now this sentence, when 
 thus rendered into English according to the rigor of the 
 Grecian letter, wants something to complete its sense 
 — it wants an is. There is a subject, as the logicians 
 say, and there is a predicate (or, something affirmed of 
 that subject), but there is no copula to connect them — 
 we miss the is. This omission is common in Greek, 
 but cannot be allowed in English. The is must be 
 supplied ; but where must it be supplied ? That's the 
 very question, for there is. a choice between two places;
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 79 
 
 and, according to the choice, will the word theopneustos 
 become part of the subject, or part of the predicate ; 
 which will make a world of difference. Let us try it 
 both ways : — 
 
 1. All writing inspired by God (i. e. being inspired 
 by God, supposing it inspired, which makes theop- 
 neustos part of the subject) is also profitable for teach- 
 ing, &c. 
 
 2. All writing is inspired by God, and profitable, 
 6z;c. (which makes theopneustos part of the predicate.) 
 
 Now, in this last way of construing the text, which 
 is the way adopted by our authorized version, one ob- 
 jection strikes everybody at a glance, viz., that St. Paul 
 could not possibly mean to say of all writing, indis- 
 criminately, that it was divinely inspired, this being so 
 revoltingly opposed to the truth. It follows, therefore, 
 that, on this way of interpolating the is, we must under- 
 stand the Apostle to use the word graphe, writing, in a 
 restricted sense, not for writing generally, but for 
 sacred writing, or (as our English phrase runs) ' Holy 
 Writ;'' upon which will arise three separate demurs 
 — Jirst^ one already stated by Phil., viz., that, when 
 graphe is used in this sense, it is accompanied by the 
 article ; the phrase is either ;; -/Q^'p^n ' the writing,' or 
 else (as in St. Luke) ui ynacpai, * the writings,' just as in 
 English it is said, ' the Scripture,' or ' the Scriptures.' 
 Secondly, that, according to the Greek usage, this 
 would not be the natural place for introducing the is. 
 Thirdly — which disarms the whole objection from this 
 text, howsoever construed — that, after all, it leaves the 
 dispute with the bibliolaters wholly untouched. We 
 also, the anti-bibliolaters, say that all Scripture is in-
 
 80 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 spired, though we may not therefore suppose the Apos- 
 tle to be hero insisting on that doctrine. But no matter 
 whether he is or not, in relation to this dispute. Both 
 parties are contending for the inspiration — so far they 
 are agreed ; the question between them arises upon 
 quite another point, viz., as to the mode of that inspira- 
 tion, whether incarnating its golden light in the cor- 
 ruptibilities of perishing syllables, or in the sanctities of 
 indefeasible, word-transcending ideas. Now, upon that 
 question, the apostolic words, torture them how you 
 please, say nothing at all. 
 
 There is, then, no such dogma (or, to speak Ger- 
 manice, no such macht-spruch) in behalf of verbal 
 inspiration as has been ascribed to St. Paul, and I pass 
 to my own argument against it. This argument turns 
 upon the self-confounding tendency of the common 
 form ascribed to -dionvivana, or divine inspiration. 
 When translated from its true and lofty sense of an in- 
 spiration — brooding, with outstretched wings, over the 
 mighty abyss of secret truth — to the vulgar sense of an 
 inspiration, burrowing, like a rabbit or a worm, in 
 grammatical quillets and syllables, mark how it comes 
 down to nothing at all ; mark how a stream, pretending 
 to derive itself from a heavenly fountain, is finally lost 
 and confounded in a morass of human perplexities. 
 
 First of all, at starting, we have the inspiration (No. 
 1) to the original composers of the sacred books. That 
 I grant, though distinguishing as to its nature. 
 
 Next, we want another inspiration (No. 2) for the 
 countless translators of the Bible. Of what use is it to 
 a German, to a Swiss, or to a Scotsman, that, three 
 thousand years before the Reformation, the author of
 
 PROTESTANTISBI. 81 
 
 the Pentateuch was kept from erring by a divuie re- 
 straint over his words, if the authoi's of this Reforma- 
 tion — Luther, suppose, Zwinglc, John Knox — either 
 making translations themselves, or relying upon trans- 
 lations made by others under no such verbal restraint, 
 have been left free to bias his mind, pretty nearly as 
 much as if the original Hebrew writer had been resigned 
 to his own human discretion ? 
 
 Thirdly, even if we adopt the inspiration No. 2, that 
 will not avail us; because many different translators 
 exist. Does the very earliest translation of the Law 
 and the Prophets, viz., the Greek translation of the 
 Septuagint, always agree verbally with the Hebrew ? 
 Or the Samaritan Pentateuch always with the Hebrew } 
 Or do the earliest Latin versions of the entire Bible 
 agree verhaUy with modern Latin versions ? Jerome's 
 Latin version, for instance, memorable as being that 
 adopted by the Romish Church, and known under the 
 name of the Vulgate, does it agree verbally with the 
 Latin versions of the Bible or parts of the Bible made 
 since the Reformation } In the English, again, if we 
 begin with the translation still sleeping in MS., made 
 five centuries ago, and passing from that to the first 
 printed translation (which was, I tliink, Coverdale's, in 
 1535), if we thence travel down to our own day, so as 
 to include all that have confined themselves to separate 
 versions of some one book, or even of some one car- 
 dinal text, the versions that differ — and to the idolater 
 of words all diflerences are important — may be de- 
 scribed as countless. Here, then, on that doctrine of 
 inspiration which ascribes so much to the power of 
 verbal accuracy, we shall want a fourth inspiration, 
 6
 
 82 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 No. 4, for the guidance of each separate Christian ap- 
 plying himself to the Scriptures in his mother tongue ; 
 he will have to select not one (where is the one that 
 has been uniformly correct?) but a multitude ; else the 
 same error will again rush in by torrents through the 
 license of interpretation assumed by these many adverse 
 translators. 
 
 Fourthly, as these differences of version arise often 
 under the same reading of the original text ; but as, in 
 the meantime, there are many different readings, here 
 a fifth source of possible error calls for a fifth inspira- 
 tion overruling us to the proper choice amongst various 
 readings. What may be called a ' textual ' inspiration 
 for selecting the right reading is requisite for the very 
 same reason, neither more nor less, which supposes 
 any verbal inspiration originally requisite for consti- 
 tuting a right reading. It matters not in which stage of 
 the Bible's progress the error commences ; first stage 
 and last stage are all alike in the sight of God. There 
 was, reader, as perhaps you know, about six score 
 years ago, another Phil., not the same as this Phil. 
 now before us (who would be quite vexed if you fancied 
 him as old as all that comes to — oh dear, no! he's not 
 near as old) — well, that earlier Phil, was Bentley, who 
 wrote (under the name of Phileleutheros Lipsiansis) 
 a pamphlet connected with this very subject, partly 
 against an English infidel of that day. In that pam- 
 phlet, Phil, the first pauses to consider and value this 
 very objection from textual variation to the validity of 
 Scripture : for the infidel (as is usual with infidels) 
 being no great scholar, had argued as though it were 
 impossible to urge anything whatever for the word of
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 83 
 
 GodJ since so vast a variety in the readings rendered it 
 impossible to know what was the word of God. Bent- 
 ley, though rather rough, from having too often to deal 
 with shallow coxcombs, was really and unaffectedly a 
 pious man. He was shocked at this argument, and set 
 himself seriously to consider it. Now, as all the va- 
 rious readings were Greek, and as Bentley happened 
 to be the first of Grecians, his deliberate review of this 
 argument is entitled to great attention. There were, 
 at that moment when Bentley spoke, something more 
 (as I recollect) than ten thousand varieties of reading 
 in the text of the New Testament ; so many had been 
 collected in the early part of Queen Anne's reign by 
 Wetstein, the Dutchman, who was then at the head of the 
 collators. Mill, the Englishman, was at that very time 
 making further collations. . How many he added, I can- 
 not tell without consulting books — a thing which I very 
 seldom do. But since that day, and long after Bentley 
 and Mill were in their graves, Griesbach, the German, 
 has risen to the top of the tree, by towering above them 
 all in the accuracy of his collations. Yet, as the har- 
 vest comes before the gleanings, we may be sure that 
 Wetslein's barn housed the very wealth of all this va- 
 riety. Of this it was, then, that Bentley spoke. And 
 what was it that he spoke ? Why, he, the great scholar, 
 pronounced, as with the authority of a Chancery decree, 
 that the vast majority of various readings made no dif- 
 ference at all in the sense. In the sense, observe ; but 
 many things viight make a difference in the sense 
 which would still leave the doctrine undisturbed. For 
 instance, in the passage about a camel going through 
 the eye of a needle, it will make a difference in the
 
 84 PROTESTANTISai. 
 
 sense, whether you read in the Greek word for camel 
 the oriental animal of that name, or a ship's cable ; but 
 no difference at all arises in the spiritual doctrine. Or, 
 illustrating the case out of Shakspeare, it makes no 
 difference as to the result, whether you read in Hamlet 
 * to take arms against a sea of troubles,' or (as has been 
 suggested), ' against a siege of troubles ;' but it makes 
 a difference as to the integrity of the image.^ What 
 has a sea to do with arms ? What has a camel, '" the 
 quadruped, to do with a needle ? A prodigious minor- 
 ity, therefore, there is of such various readings as 
 slightly affect the sense ; but this minority becomes 
 next to nothing, when we inquire for such as affect any 
 doctrine. This was Bentley's opinion upon the possi- 
 ble disturbance offered to the Christian by various read- 
 ings in the New Testament. You thought that the 
 carelessness, or, at times, even the treachery of men, 
 through so many centuries, must have ended in cor- 
 rupting the original truth ; yet, after all, you see the 
 light burns as brightly and steadily as ever. We, now, 
 that are not bibliolatrists, no more believe that, from the 
 disturbance of a few words here or there, any evangel- 
 ical truth can have suffered a wound or mutilation, 
 than we believe that the burning of a wood, or even of 
 a forest, which happens in our vast American posses- 
 sions, sometimes from natural causes (lightning, or 
 spontaneous combustion), sometimes from an Indian's 
 carelessness, can seriously have injured botany. But 
 for Ztim, who conceives an inviolable sanctity to have 
 settled upon each word and particle of the original 
 record, there should have been strictly required an in- 
 spiration (No. 5) to prevent the possibility of various
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 85 
 
 readings arising. It is too late, however, to pray for 
 Lhat ; the various readings have arisen ; here they are ; 
 and what's to be done now ? The only resource for 
 the bibliolatrist is — to invoke a new inspiration (No. 4) 
 for helping him out of his difficulty, by guiding his 
 choice. AVe, anti-bibliolaters, are not so foolish as to 
 believe that God having once sent a deep message of 
 truth to man, would suffer it to lie at the mercy of a 
 careless or a wicked copyist. Treasures so vast would 
 not be left at the mercy of accidents so vile. Very 
 litde more than two hundred years ago, a London com- 
 positor, not wicked at all, but simply drunk, in printing 
 Deuteronomy, left out the most critical of words ; the 
 seventh commandment he exhibited thus — 'Thou shalt 
 commit adultery ; ' in which form the sheet was struck 
 off. And though in those days no practical mischief 
 could arise from this singular erratum, which English 
 Griesbachs will hardly enter upon the roll of various 
 readings, yet, harmless as it was, it met with punish- 
 ment. ' Scandalous ! ' said Laud, ' shocking ! to tell 
 men in the seventeenth centuiy, as a biblical rule, that 
 they positively must commit adultery ! ' The brother 
 compositors of this drunken biblical reviser, being too 
 honorable to betray the individual delinquent, the Star 
 Chamber fined the whole ' chapel.' Now, the copyists 
 of MSS. were as certain to be sometimes drunk as this 
 compositor — famous by his act — utterly forgotten in 
 his person — whose crime is remembered — the record 
 of whose name has perished. We therefore hold, that 
 it never was in the power, or placed within the discre- 
 tion, of any copyist, whether writer or printer, to injure 
 the sacred oracles. But the bibliolatrist cannot sav
 
 86 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 that ; because, if he does, then he is formally unsaying 
 the veiy principle which is meant by bibliolatry. He 
 therefore must require another supplementary inspira- 
 tion, viz., No. 4, to direct him in his choice of the true 
 reading amongst so many as continually offer them- 
 selves. ^^ 
 
 Fifthly, as all words cover ideas, and many a word 
 covers a choice of ideas, and very many ideas split 
 into a variety of modifications, we shall, even after a 
 fourth inspiration has qualified us for selecting the true 
 reading, still be at a loss how, upon this right reading, 
 to fix the right acceptation. So tliere^ at that fifth 
 stage, in rushes the total deluge of human theological 
 controversies. One church, or one sect, insists upon 
 one sense ; another, and another, ' to the end of time,' 
 insists upon a different sense. Babel is upon us ; and, 
 to get rid of Babel, we shall need a fifth inspiration. 
 No. 5 is clamorously called for.^^ 
 
 But we all know, each knows by his own experience, 
 that No. 5 is not forthcoming ; and, in the absence of 
 that, what avail for us the others ? ' Man overboard ! ' 
 is the crj' upon deck ; but what avails it for the poor 
 drowning creature that a rope being thrown to him is 
 thoroughly secured at one end to the ship, if the other 
 end floats wide of his grasp ? We are in prison : we 
 descend from our prison-roof, that seems high as the 
 clouds, by knotting together all the prison bed-clothes, 
 and all the aids from friends outside. But all is too 
 short : after swarming down the line, in middle air, we 
 find ourselves hanging : sixty feet of line are still 
 wanting. To reascend — that is impossible: to drop 
 boldly — alas! <Aai is to die.
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 87 
 
 Meantime, what need of this eternal machinery, that 
 eternally is breaking like ropes of sand ? Or of this 
 earth resting on an elephant, that rests on a tortoise, 
 that, when all is done, must still consent to rest on the 
 common atmosphere of God ? Tliese chains of inspira- 
 tion are needless. The great ideas of the Bible protect 
 themselves. The heavenly truths, by their own imper- 
 ishablcness, defeat the mortality of languages with 
 which for a moment they are associated. Is the light- 
 ning enfeebled or dimmed, because for thousands of 
 years it has blended with the tarnish of earth and the 
 steams of earthly graves ? Or light, which so long has 
 travelled in the chambers of our sickly air, and searched 
 the haunts of impurity — is that less pure than it was in 
 the first chapter of Genesis ? Or that more holy light 
 of truth — the truth, suppose, written from his creation 
 upon the tablets of man's lieart — which truth never was 
 imprisoned in any Hebrew or Greek, but has ranged 
 for ever through courts and camps, deserts and cities, 
 the original lesson of justice to man and piety to God 
 — has that become tainted by intercourse with flesh ? 
 or has it become hard to decipher, because the very 
 heart, that human heart where it is inscribed, is so often 
 blotted with falsehoods ? You are aware, perhaps, 
 reader, that in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of 
 Asia Minor (and, indeed, elsewhere), through the very 
 middle of the salt-sea billows, rise up, in shining col- 
 umns, fountains wof fresh water. '^ In the desert of the 
 sea are found Arabian fountains of Ishmael and Isaac ! 
 Are these fountains poisoned for tlie poor victim of 
 fever, because they have to travel through a contagion 
 of waters not potable ? Oh, no ! They bound up-
 
 88 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 wards like arrows, cleaving the seas above with as 
 much projectile force as the glittering water-works of 
 Versailles cleave the air, and rising as sweet to the lip 
 as ever mountain torrent that comforted the hunted 
 deer. 
 
 It is impossible to suppose that any truth, launched 
 by God upon the agitations of things so unsettled as 
 languages, can perish. The very frailty of languages 
 is the strongest proof of this ; because it is impossible 
 to suppose that anything so great can have been com- 
 mitted to the fidelity of anything so treacherous. There 
 is laughter in heaven when it is told of man, that he 
 fancies his earthly jargons, which, to heavenly ears, 
 must sound like the chucklings of poultry, equal to the 
 task of hiding or distorting any light of revelation. 
 Had ivords possessed any authority or restraint over 
 scriptural truth, a Inuch worse danger would have 
 threatened it than any malice in the human will, 
 suborning false copyists, or surreptitiously favoring 
 depraved copies. Even a general conspiracy of the 
 human race for such a purpose would avail against the 
 Bible only as a general conspiracy to commit suicide 
 might avail against the drama of God's providence. 
 Either conspiracy would first become dangerous when 
 first either became possible. But a real danger seems 
 to lie in the insensible corruption going on for ever 
 within all languages, by means of which they are eter- 
 nally dying away from their own vital powers ; and 
 that is a danger which is travelling fast after all the wis- 
 dom and the wit, the eloquence and the poetry of this 
 earth, like a mountainous wave, and will finally over- 
 take them — their very vehicles being lost and con-
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 89 
 
 founded to human sensibilities. But such a wave will 
 break harmlessly against scriptural truth ; and not 
 merely because that truth will for ever evade such a 
 shock by its eternal transfer from language to language 
 — from languages dying out to languages in vernal 
 bloom — but also because, if it could not evade the 
 shock, supreme truth would surmount it for a pro- 
 founder reason. A danger analogous to this once ex- 
 isted in a different form. The languages into which the 
 New Testament was first translated offered an apparent 
 obstacle to the translation that seemed insurmountable. 
 The Latin, for instance, did not present the spiritual 
 words which such a translation demanded ; and how 
 should it, when the corresponding ideas had no exist- 
 ence amongst the Romans.? Yet, if not spiritual, the 
 language of Rome was intellectual ; it was the lan- 
 guage of a cultivated and noble race. But what shall 
 be done if the New Testament wishes to drive a tunnel 
 through a rude forest race, having an undeveloped lan- 
 guage, and understanding nothing but war ? Four cen- 
 turies after Christ, the Gothic Bishop Ulphilas set about 
 translating the Gospels for his countrymen. He had 
 no words for expressing spiritual relations or spiritual 
 operations. The new nomenclature of moral graces, 
 humility, resignation, the spirit of forgiveness, &c., 
 hitherto unrecognised for such amongst men, having 
 first of all been shown in blossom, and distinguished 
 from weeds, by Christian gardening, had to be repro- 
 duced in the Gothic language, with apparently no 
 means whatever of effecting it. In this earliest of what 
 we may call ancestral translations, (for the Goths were 
 of our own blood,) and, therefore, by many degrees,
 
 90 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 this most interesting of translations, may be seen to this 
 day, after fourteen centuries and upwards have passed, 
 how the good bisliop succeeded, to what extent he suc- 
 ceeded, and by what means. I shall take a separate 
 opportunity for investigating that problem ; but at 
 present I will content myself with noticing a remarka- 
 ble principle which applies to the case, and illustrating 
 it by a remarkable anecdote. The principle is this — ■ 
 that in the grander parts of knowledge, which do not 
 deal much with petty details, nearly all the building or 
 constructive ideas (those ideas which build up the sys- 
 tem of that particular knowledge) lie involved within 
 each other ; so that any one of the series, being awak- 
 ened in the mind, is sufficient (given a multitude of 
 minds) to lead backwards or forwards, analytically or 
 synthetically, into many of the rest. That is the prin- 
 ciple ; ^^ and the story which illustrates it is this : — A 
 great work of Apollonius, the sublime geometer, was 
 supposed in part to have perished : seven of the eight 
 books remained in the original Greek ; but the eighth 
 was missing. The Greek, after much search, was not 
 recovered ; but at length there was found (in the Bod- 
 leian, I think,) an Arabic translation of it. An English 
 mathematician, Halley, knowing not one word of Ara- 
 bic, determined (without waiting for«that Arabic key) 
 to pick the lock of this MS. And he did so. Through 
 strength of preconception, derived equally from his 
 knowledge of the general subject, and from his know- 
 ledge of this particular work in • its earlier sections, 
 using also to some extent the subtle art of the deci- 
 pherer,'^ now become so powerful an instrument of 
 analysis, he translated the whole Arabic MS. lie
 
 PEOTESTANTISM. 91 
 
 printed it — he published it. He tore — he extorted 
 the truth from the darkness of an unknown language — 
 he would not suffer the Arabic to benefit by its own 
 obscurity to the injury of mathematics. And the book 
 remains a monument to this day, that a system of ideas, 
 having internal coherency and interdependency, is 
 vainly hidden under an unknown tongue ; that it may 
 be illuminated and restored chiefly through their own 
 reciprocal involutions. The same principle applies, 
 and a fortiori applies, to religious truth, as one which 
 lies far deeper than geometry in the spirit of man, one 
 to which the inner attestation is profounder, and to 
 which the key-notes of Scripture (once awakened on 
 the great organ of the heart) are sure to call up corres- 
 ponding echoes. It is not in the power of language to 
 arrest or to defeat this mode of truth ; because, when 
 once the fundamental base is furnished by revelation, 
 the human heart itself is able to co-operate in develop- 
 ing the great harmonies of the system, without aid 
 from language, and in defiance of language — without 
 aid from human learning, and in defiance of human 
 learning. 
 
 Finally, there is another security against the sup- 
 pression or distortion of any great biblical truth by false 
 readings, which I will state in the briefest terms. The 
 reader is aware of the boyish sport sometimes called 
 'drake-stone;' a flattish stone is thrown by a little 
 dexterity so as to graze the surface of a river, but so, 
 also, as in grazing it to dip below the surface, to rise 
 again from this dip, again to dip, again to ascend, and 
 so on alternately, a plusieurs reprises. In the same 
 way, with the same effect of alternate resurrections, all
 
 92 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 scriptural truths reverberate and difTuse themselves 
 along the pages of the Bible ; none is confined to one 
 text, or to one mode of enunciation ; all parts of the 
 scheme are eternally chasing each other, like the parts 
 of a fugue ; they hide themselves in one chapter, only 
 to restore themselves in another ; they diverge, only to 
 recombine ; and under such a vast variety of expres- 
 sions, that even in that way, supposing language to have 
 powers over religious truth — which it never had, or can 
 have — any abuse of such a power would be thoroughly 
 neutralized. The case resembles the diffusion of vege- 
 table seeds through the air and through the waters : 
 draw a cordon sanitaire against dandelion or thistle- 
 down, and see if the armies of earth would suffice to 
 interrupt this process of radiation, which yet is but the 
 distribution of weeds. Suppose, for instance, the text 
 about the three heavenly witnesses to have been elimi- 
 nated finally as an interpolation. The first thought is 
 — there goes to wreck a great doctrine! Not at all. 
 That text occupied but a corner of the garden. The 
 truth, and the secret implications of the truth, have 
 escaped at a thousand points in vast arches above our 
 heads, rising high above the garden wall, and have 
 sown the earth with memorials of the mystery which 
 they envelope. 
 
 The final inference is this — that scriptural truth is 
 endowed with a self-conservative and a self-restorative 
 virtue ; it needs no long successions of verbal protec- 
 tion by inspiration ; it is self-protected ; first, internally, 
 by the complex power which belongs to the Christian 
 system of involving its own integrations, in the same 
 way as a musical chord involves its own successions of
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 93 
 
 sound, and its own resolutions ; secondly, in an exter- 
 nal and obvious way, it is protected by its prodigious 
 iteration, and secret presupposal in all varieties of form. 
 Consequently, as the peril connected with language is 
 thus effectually barred, the call for any verbal inspira- 
 tion (which, on separate grounds, is shown to be self- 
 confounding) shows itself now, in a second form, to be 
 a gratuitous delusion, since, in eiTect, it is a call for 
 protection against a danger which cannot have any 
 existence. 
 
 There is another variety of bibliolatry arising in a 
 different way — not upon errors of language incident to 
 human infirmity, but upon deliberate errors indispensa- 
 ble to divine purposes. The case is one which has 
 been considered with far too little attention, else it 
 could never have been thought strange that Christ 
 should comply in things indifferent with popular errors* 
 A few words will put the reader in possession of my 
 view. Speaking of the Bible, Phil, says, ' We admit 
 that its separate parts are the work of frail and fallible 
 human beings. We do not seek to build upon it sys- 
 tems of cosmogony, chronology, astronomy, and natural 
 history. We know no reason of internal or external 
 probability which should induce us to believe that such 
 matters could ever have been the subjects of direct rev- 
 elation.' Is thai all ? There is no reason, certainly, 
 for expectations so foolish ; but is there no adamantine 
 reason against them ? It is no business of the Bible, we 
 are told, to teach science. Certainly not ; but that is 
 far too little. It is an obligation resting upon the Bible, 
 if it is to be consistent with itself, that it should refuse 
 to teach science ; and, if the Bible ever had taught any
 
 94 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 one art, science, or process of life, capital doubts would 
 have clouded our confidence in the authority of the 
 book. By what caprice, it would have been asked, is 
 a divine mission abandoned suddenly for a human mis- 
 sion ? By what caprice is this one science taught, and 
 others not r Or these two, suppose, and not all ? But 
 an objection, even deadlier, would have followed. It 
 is clear as is the purpose of daylight, that the whole 
 body of the arts and sciences composes one vast ma- 
 chinery for the irritation and development of the human 
 intellect. For this end they exist. To see God, ^there- 
 fore, descending into the arena of science, and con- 
 tending, as it were, for his own prizes, by teaching 
 science in the Bible, would be to see him intercepting 
 from their self-evident destination, (viz., man's intel- 
 lectual benefit,) his own problems by solving them him- 
 self. No spectacle could more dishonor the divine 
 idea. The Bible must not teach ant/thing that man can 
 teach himself. Does the doctrine require a revelation ? 
 — then nobody but God can teach it. Does it require 
 none ? — then in whatever case God has qualified man 
 to do a thing for himself, he has in that very qualifica- 
 tion silently laid an injunction upon man to do it, by 
 giving the power. But it is fancied that a divine 
 teacher, without descending to the unworthy office of 
 teaching science, might yet have kept his own language 
 free from all collusion with human error. Hence, for 
 instance, it was argued at one time, that any language 
 in the Bible implying the earth to be stationary, and 
 central to our system, could not not have been a com- 
 pliance with the popular errors of the time, but must be 
 taken to express the absolute truth. And so grew the
 
 TROTESTANTISM. 95 
 
 anti-Galilean fanatics. Out of similar notions have 
 risen the absurdities of a polemic Bible chronology, 
 &C.16 Meantime, if a man sets himself steadily to con- 
 template the consequences which must inevitably have 
 followed any deviation from the usual erroneous phrase- 
 ology, he will see the utter impossibility that a teacher 
 (pleading a heavenly mission) could allow himself to 
 deviate by one hair's breadth (and why should he wish 
 to deviate ?) from the ordinary language of the times. 
 To have uttered one syllable for instance, that implied 
 motion in the earth, would have issued into the follow- 
 ing ruins : — First, it would have tainted the teacher 
 with the suspicion of lunacy ; and, secondly, would 
 have placed him in this inextricable dilemma. On the 
 one hand, to answer the questions prompted by his own 
 perplexing language, would have opened upon him, as 
 a necessity, one stage after another of scientific cross- 
 examination, until his spiritual mission would have been 
 forcibly swallowed up in the mission of natural philoso- 
 pher; but, on the other hand, to pause resolutely at any 
 one stage of this public examination, and to refuse all 
 further advance, would be, in the popular opinion, to 
 retreat as a baffled disputant from insane paradoxes 
 which he had not been able to support. One step 
 taken in that direction was fatal, whether the great 
 envoy retreated from his own words to leave behind 
 the impression that he was defeated as a rash specula- 
 tor, or stood to these words, and thus fatally entangled 
 himself in the inexhaustible succession of explanations 
 and justifications. In either event the spiritual mission 
 was at an end : it would have perished in shouts of de- 
 rision, from which there could have been no retreat.
 
 96 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 and no retrieval of character. The greatest of astron- 
 omers, rather than seem ostentatious or unseasonably 
 learned, will stoop to the popular phrase of the sun's 
 rising, or the sun's motion in the ecliptic. But God, 
 for a purpose commensurate with man's eternal welfare, 
 is by these critics supposed incapable of the same petty 
 abstinence. 
 
 The same line of argument applies to all the com- 
 pliances of Christ with the Jewish prejudices (partly 
 imported from the Euphrates) as to demonology, witch- 
 craft, &c. By the way, in this last word, * witchcraft,' 
 and the too memorable histories connected with it, lies 
 a perfect mine of bibliolatrous madness. As it illus- 
 trates the folly and the wickedness of the biliolaters, 
 let us pause upon it. 
 
 The word icitch, these bibliolaters take it for granted, 
 must mean exactly what the original Hebrew means, or 
 the Greek word chosen by the LXX. ; so much, and 
 neither more nor less. That is, from total ignorance 
 of the machinery by which language moves, they fancy 
 that every idea and word which exists, or has existed, 
 for any nation, ancient or modern, must have a direct 
 interchangeable equivalent in all other languages ; and 
 that, if the dictionaries do not show it, that must be 
 because the dictionaries are bad. Will these worthy 
 people have the goodness, then, to translate coquette 
 into Hebrew, and post-office into Greek ? The fact is, 
 that all languages, and in the I'atio of their develop- 
 ment, offer ideas absolutely separate and exclusive to 
 themselves. In the highly cultured languages of Eng- 
 land, France, and Germany, are words, by thousands, 
 which are strictly untranslatable. They may be ap-
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 97 
 
 preached, but cannot be reflected as from a mirror. 
 To take an image from the language of eclipses, the 
 correspondence between the disk of the original word 
 and its translated representative is, in thousands of in- 
 stances, not annular ; the centres do not coincide ; the 
 words overlap ; and this arises from the varying modes 
 in which different nations combine ideas. The French 
 word shall combine the elements, Z, 7n, n, o — the 
 nearest English word, perhaps, m, n, o, p. For in- 
 stance, in all words applied to the nuances of manners, 
 and generally to social differences, how prodigious is 
 the wealth of the French language ! How merely 
 untranslatable for all Europe ! I suppose, my bibli- 
 olater, you have not yet finished your Hebrew or Sa- 
 maritan translation of coquette. Well, you shall be 
 excused from that^ if you will only translate it into 
 English. You cannot : you are obliged to keep the 
 French word ; and yet you take for granted, without 
 inquiry, that in the word ' witchcraft,' and in the word 
 ' witch,' applied to the sorceress of Endor, our author- 
 ized English Bible of King James's day must be cor- 
 rect. And your wicked bibliolatrous ancestors pro- 
 ceeded on that idea throughout Christendom to murder 
 harmless, friendless, and oftentimes crazy old women. 
 Meantime the witch of Endor in no respect resembled 
 our modern domestic witch.^"^ There was as much 
 difference as between a Roman Proconsul, surrounded 
 with eagle-bearers, and a commercial Consul's clerk 
 with a pen behind his ear. Apparently she was not so 
 much a Medea as an Erichtho. (See the Pharsalia.) 
 She was an Evocatrix, or female necromancer, evoking 
 phantoms that stood in some unknown relation to dead 
 7
 
 98 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 men; and tlien by some artifice (it has been supposed) 
 of ventriloquism,'^ causing these phantoms to deliver 
 oracular answers upon great political questions. Oh, 
 that one had lived in the times of those New-England 
 wretches that desolated whole districts and terrified vast 
 provinces by their judicial murders of witches, under 
 plea of a bibliolatrous warrant ; until at last the fiery 
 furnace, which they had heated for women and chil- 
 dren, shot forth flames that, like those of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's furnace, seizing upon his very agents, began 
 to reach some of the murderous judges and denoun- 
 cers ! 
 
 Yet, after all, are there not express directions in 
 Scripture to exterminate witches from the land ? Cer- 
 tainly ; but that does not argue any scriptural re- 
 cognition of witchcraft as a possible offence. An 
 imaginary crime may imply a criminal intention that 
 is not imaginary ; but also, which much more directly 
 concerns the interests of a state, a criminal purpose, 
 that rests upon a pure delusion, may work by means 
 that are felonious for ends that are fatal. At this mo- 
 ment, we English and the Spaniards have laws, and 
 severe ones, against witchcraft, viz., in the West Indies, 
 and indispensable it is that we should. The Obeah 
 man from Africa can do no mischief to one of us. The 
 proud and enlightened white man despises his arts ; and 
 for him, therefore, these arts have no existence, for they 
 work only through strong preconceptions of their re- 
 ality, and through trembling faith in their efficacy. 
 But by that very agency they are all-sufficient for the 
 ruin of the poor credulous negro ; he is mastered by 
 original faith, and has perished thousands of times
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 99 
 
 under the knowledge that Obi had been set for him. 
 Justly, therefore, do our colonial courts punish the 
 Obeah sorcerer, who (though an impostor) is not the 
 less a murderer. Now the Hebrew witchcraft was 
 probably even worse ; equally resting on delusions, 
 nevertheless, equally it worked for unlawful ends, and 
 (which chiefly made it an object of divine wrath) it 
 worked through idolatrous agencies. It must, there- 
 fore, have kept up that connection with idolatry which 
 it was the unceasing effort of the Hebrew polity to ex- 
 terminate from the land. Consequently, the Hebrew 
 commonwealth might, as consistently as our own, 
 denounce and punish witchcraft without liability to the 
 inference that it therefore recognised the pretensions of 
 witches as real, in the sense of working their bad ends 
 by the means which they alleged. Their magic was 
 causatively of no virtue at all, but, being believed in, 
 through this belief it became the occasional means of 
 exciting the imagination of its victims; after which the 
 consequences were the same as if the magic had acted 
 physically according to its pretences.'^ 
 
 II. Development, as applicable to Christianity, is a 
 doctrine of the very days that are passing over our 
 heads, and due to Mr. Newman, originally the ablest 
 son of Puseyism, but now a powerful architect of re- 
 ligious philosophy on his own account. I should have 
 described him more briefly as a ' master-builder,' had 
 my ear been able to endure a sentence ending with two 
 consecutive trochees, and each of those trochees end- 
 ing with the same syllable er. Ah, reader ! I would 
 the gods had made thee rhythmical, that thou mightest 
 comprehend the thousandth part of my labors in the
 
 100 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 evasion of cacoplion. Phil, has a general dislike to 
 the Puseyites, though he is too learned to be ignorant, 
 (as are often the Low-Church, or Evangelical, party 
 in England,) that, in many of their supposed innova- 
 tions, the Puseyites were really only restoring what the 
 torpor of the eighteenth century had suffered to go into 
 disuse. They were reforming the Church in the sense 
 sometimes belonging to the particle re, viz., retroform- 
 ing it, moulding it back into compliance with its origi- 
 nal form and model. It is true that this effort for 
 quickening the Church, and for adorning her exterior 
 service, moved under the impulse of too undisguised a 
 sympathy with Papal Rome. But there is no great 
 reason to mind that in our age and our country. Pro- 
 testant zealotry may be safely relied on in this island 
 as a match for Popish bigotry. There will be no love 
 lost between them — be assured of that — and justice 
 will be done to both, though neither should do it to her 
 rival ; for philosophy, which has so long sought only 
 amusement in either, is in these latter days of growing 
 profundityapplying herself steadily to the profound truths 
 which dimly are descried lurking in both. It is these 
 which Mr. Newman is likely to illuminate, and not the 
 faded forms of an obsolete ceremonial that cannot now 
 be I'estored elTectually, were it even important that they 
 should. Strange it is, however, that he should open his 
 career by offering to Rome, as a mode of homage, this 
 doctrine of development, which is the direct inversion 
 of her own. Rome founds herself upon the idea, that 
 to her, by tradition and exclusive privilege, was com- 
 municated, once for all, the whole truth fromjhe begin- 
 ning. Mr. Newman lays his corner-stone in the very
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 101 
 
 opposite idea of a gradual development given to Chris- 
 tianity by the motion of time, by experience, by ex- 
 panding occasions, and by the progress of civilization. 
 Is Newmanism likely to prosper ? Let me tell a little 
 anecdote. Twenty years ago, roaming one day (as I 
 had so often the honor to do) with our immortal Words- 
 worth, 1 took the liberty of telling him, at a point of our 
 walk, where nobody could possibly overhear me, unless 
 it were old Father Helvellyn, that I feared his theolog- 
 ical principles were not quite so sound as his friends 
 would wish. They wanted repairing a little. But, 
 what was worse, I did not see how they coiild be 
 repaired in the particular case which prompted my re- 
 mark, for in that pkice, to repair, or in any respect to 
 alter, v/as to destroy. It was a passage in the ' ^j^xcur- 
 sion,' where the Solitary had described the baptismal 
 rite as washing away the taint of original sin, and, in 
 fact, working the effect which is called technically re- 
 generation. In the 'Excursion' this view was ad- 
 vanced, not as the poet's separate opinion, but as the 
 avowed doctrine of the English Church, to which 
 Church Wordsworth and myself yielded gladly a filial 
 reverence. But loas this the doctrine of the English 
 Church ? That I doubted — not that I pretended to any 
 sufficient means of valuing the preponderant opinion 
 between two opinions in the Church ; a process far 
 more difficult than is imagined by historians, always so 
 ready to tell us fluently what ' the nation ' or ' the 
 people' thought upon a particular question, (whilst, in 
 fact, a whole life might be often spent vainly in col- 
 lecting the popular opinion) ; but, judging by my own 
 casual experience, I fancied that a considerable majority
 
 102 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 in the Church gave an interpretation to this Sacra- 
 ment ditTering by much from that in the ' Excursion.' 
 Wordsworth was startled and disturbed at hearing it 
 whispered even before Helvellyn, who is old enough to 
 keep a secret, that his divinity might possibly limp a little. 
 I, on my part, was not sure that it did, but I feared so ; 
 and, as there was no chance that I should be murdered 
 for speaking freely, (though the place was lonely, and 
 the evening getting dusky,) I stood to my disagreeable 
 communication with the courage of a martyr. The 
 question between us being one of mere fact, (not what 
 ought to be the doctrine, but what xoas the doctrine of 
 our Church at that time,) there was no opening for any 
 discussion ; and, on Wordsworth's suggestion, it was 
 agreed to refer the point to his learned brother, Dr. 
 Christopher Wordsworth, just then meditating a visit to 
 his native lakes. That visit in a short time ' came off,' 
 and then, without delay, our dispute 'came on' for 
 judgment. I had no bets upon the issue — one can't 
 bet with Wordsworth — and I don't know that I should 
 have ventured to back myself in a case of that nature. 
 However, I felt a slight anxiety on the subject, which 
 was very soon and kindly removed by Dr. W'ords- 
 worth's deciding, ' sans phrase,' that I, the original 
 mover of the strife, was wrong, wrong as wrong could 
 be. To this decision I bowed at once, on a principle 
 of courtesy. One ought always to presume a man 
 right within his own profession, even if privately one 
 should think him wrong. But I could not think that of 
 Dr. Wordsworth. He was a D. D. ; he was head of 
 Trinity College, which has viy entire permission to 
 hold its head up amongst twenty and more colleges,
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 103 
 
 as the leading one in Cambridge, (provided it can 
 obtain St. John's permission), ' and which,' says Phil., 
 ' has done more than any other foundation in Europe 
 for the enlightenment of the world, and for the over- 
 throw of literary, philosophical, and religious super- 
 stitions.' I quarrel not with this bold assertion, re- 
 membering reverentially that Isaac Barrow, that Isaac 
 Newton, that Richard Bentley belonged to Trinity, but 
 . I wish to understand it. The total pretensions of the 
 College can be known only to its members; and there- 
 fore, Phil, should have explained himself more fully. 
 He can do so, for Phil, is certainly a Trinity man. If 
 the police are in search of him, they'll certainly hear 
 of him at Trinity. Suddenly it strikes me as a dream? 
 that Lord Bacon belonged to this College. Don't laugh 
 at me, Phil., if I'm wrong, and still less (because then 
 you'll laugh even more ferociously) if I happen to be 
 right. Can one remember everything ? Ah ! the 
 worlds of distracted facts that one ought to remember. 
 Would to heaven that I remembered nothing at all, and 
 had nothing to remember ! This thing, however, I 
 certainly do remember, that Milton was not of Trinity, 
 nor Jeremy Taylor ; so don't think to hoax me there, 
 my parent! Dr. Wordsworth was, or had been, an 
 examining chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 If Lambeth could be at fault on such a question, then 
 it's of no use going to Newcastle for coals. Delphi, 
 we all know, and Jupiter Ammon had vanished. What 
 other court of appeal was known to man ? So I sub- 
 mitted as cheerfully as if the learned Doctor, instead of 
 kicking me out of court, had been handing me in. 
 Yet, for all that, as I returned musing past Rydal
 
 104 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Water, I could not help muttering to myself — Ay, now, 
 what rebellious thought was it that I muttered ? You 
 fancy, reader, that perhaps I said, ' But yet, Doctor, in 
 spite of your wig, I am in the right.' No ; you're 
 quite wrong ; I said nothing of the sort. What I did 
 mutter was this — ' The prevailing doctrine of the 
 Church must be what Dr. Wordsworth says, viz., that 
 baptism is regeneration — he cannot be mistaken as to 
 that — and I have been misled by the unfair proportion 
 of Evangelical people, bishops, and others, whom acci- 
 dent has thrown in my way at Barley Wood (Hannah 
 More's). These, doubtless, form a minority in the 
 Church ; and yet, from the strength of their opinions, 
 from their being a moving party, as also from their 
 being a growing party, I prophesy this issue, that many 
 years will not pass before this very question, now slum- 
 bering, will rouse a feud within the English Church- 
 There is a quarrel brewing. Such feuds, long after 
 they arc ripe for explosion, sometimes slumber on, 
 until accident kindles them into flame.' That accident 
 was furnished by the tracts of the Puseyites, and since 
 then, according to the word which I spoke on Rydal 
 Water, there has been open \yar raging upon this very 
 point. 
 
 At present, with even more certainty, I prophesy that 
 mere necessity, a necessity arising out of continual col- 
 lisions with sceptical philosophy, will, in a few years, 
 carry all churches enjoying a learned priesthood into 
 the disputes connected with this doctrine of develop- 
 ment. Phil., meantime, is no friend to that Newman- 
 ian doctrine ; and in sect. 31, j\. 66, he thus describes 
 it: — 'According to these writers' (viz., the 'writers
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 105 
 
 ' who advocate the theory of development '), ' the pro- 
 gressive and gradual development of religious truth, 
 which appears to us ' {us, meaning, I suppose, the OJd- 
 mannians,) ' to have been terminated by the final reve- 
 lation of the Gospel, has been going on ever since the 
 foundation of the Church, is going on still, and must 
 continue to advance. This theory presumes that the 
 Bible does not contain a full -and final exposition of a 
 complete system of religion ; that the Church has de- 
 veloped from the Scriptures true doctrines not explicitly 
 contained therein,' &c. &c. 
 
 But, without meaning to undertake a defence of Mr. 
 Newman (whose book I am as yet too slenderly ac- 
 quainted with), may I be allowed, at this point, to inter- 
 cept a fallacious view of that doctrine, as though essen- 
 tially it proclaimed some imperfection in Christianity. 
 The imperfection is in us, the Christians, not in Chris- 
 tianity, The impression given by Phil, to the hasty 
 reader is, that, according to Newmanism, the Scrip- 
 tures make a good beginning to which we ourselves are 
 continually adding — a solid foundation, on which we 
 ourselves build the superstructure. Not so. In the 
 course of a day or a year, the sun passes through a 
 vast variety of positions, aspects, and corresponding 
 powers, in relation to ourselves. Daily and annually 
 he is developed to us — he runs a cycle of development. 
 Yet, after all, this practical result does not argue any 
 change or imperfection, growth or decay, in the sun. 
 This great orb is stationary as regards his place, and 
 unchanging as regards his power. It is the subjective 
 change in ourselves that projects itself into this endless 
 succession of phantom changes in the object. Not
 
 106 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Otherwise on the scheme of development ; the Chris- 
 tian theory and system are perfect from the beginning. 
 In itself, Christianity changes not, neither waxing nor 
 waning; but the motions of time and the evolutions of 
 experience continually uncover new parts of its station- 
 ary disk. The orb grows, so far as practically wo are 
 speaking of our own benefit ; but absolutely, as regards 
 itself, the orb, eternally the same, has simply more or 
 fewer of its digits exposed. Christianity, perfect from the 
 beginning, had a curtain over much of its disk, which 
 Time and Social Progress are continually withdrawing. 
 This I say not as any deliberate judgment on develop- 
 ment, but merely as a suspending, or ad interim idea, 
 by way of barring too summary an interdict against 
 the doctrine at this premature stage. Phil., however, 
 hardens his face against Newman and all his works. 
 Him and them he defies ; and would consign, perhaps 
 secretly, to the care of a well-known (not new, but) old 
 gentleman, if only he had any faith in that old gentle- 
 man's existence. On that point, he is a fixed infidel, 
 and quotes with applause the answer of Robinson, the 
 once celebrated Baptist clergyman, who being asked if 
 he believed in the devil, replied, ' Oh, no; /, for my 
 part, believe in God — don't you? ' 
 
 Phil.., therefore, as we have seen, in eflfect, con- 
 demns development. But, at p. 33, when as yet he is 
 not thinking of Mr, Newman, he says, ' If knowledge 
 is progressive, the development of Christian doctrine 
 must be progressive likewise.' I do not see the must ; 
 but I see the Newmanian cloven foot. As to the must, 
 knowledge is certainly progressive ; but the develop- 
 ment of the multiplication table is not therefore pro-
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 107 
 
 gressivc, nor of anything else that is finished from the 
 beginning. My reason, however, for quoting the sen- 
 tence is, because here we suddenly detect Phil, in lay- 
 ing down the doctrine which in Mr. Newman he had 
 regarded as heterodox. Phil, is taken red-hand, as the 
 English law expresses it, crimson with the blood of his 
 offence ; assuming, in fact, an original imperfection 
 quoad the scire, though not quoad the esse ; as to the 
 ' exposition of the system,' though not as to the ' sys- 
 tem' of Christianity. Mr. Newman, after all, asserts 
 (I believe) only one mode of development as applicable 
 to Christianity. Phil, having broke the ice, may now 
 be willing to allow of two developments ; whilst I, that 
 am always for going to extremes, should be disposed 
 to assert thi:ee, viz : — 
 
 First. The Philological development. And this is 
 a point on which I, Philo-Phil. (or, as for brevity you 
 may call me, Phil-Phil.) shall, without wishing to do 
 so, vex Phil. It's shocking that one should vex the 
 author of one's existence, which Phil, certainly is in 
 relation to me, when considered as Phil-Phil. Still 
 it is past all denial, that, to a certain extent, the Scrip- 
 tures must benefit, like any other book, by an increas- 
 ing accuracy and compass of learning in the exegesis 
 applied to them. But if all the world denied this, 
 Phil., my parent, is the man that cannot; since he it 
 is that relies upon philological knowledge as the one 
 resource of Christian philosophy in all circumstances of 
 difficulty for any of its interests, positive or negative. 
 Philolosiv, according to Phil., is the sheet-anchor of 
 Christianity. Already it is the author of a Christianity 
 more in harmony with philosophy ; and, as regards the
 
 108 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 future, Phil, it is that charges Philology with the whole 
 service of divinity. Wherever anything, being right, 
 needs to be defended — wherever anything, being 
 amiss, needs to be improved — oh ! what a life he will 
 lead this poor Philology ! Philology, with Phil., is the 
 great benefactress for the past, and the sole trustee for 
 the future. Here, therefore, Phil, is caught in a fix, 
 hahemus confitentem. He denounces development when 
 dealing with the Newmanites; he relies on it when 
 vaunting the functions of Philology ; and the only eva- 
 sion for him would be to distinguish about the modes 
 of development, were it not that, by insinuation, he has 
 apparently denied all modes. 
 
 Secondly. There is the Philosophic development, 
 from the reaction upon the Bible of advancing know- 
 ledge. This is a mode of development continually 
 going on, and reversing the steps of past human follies. 
 In every age, man has imported his own crazes into 
 the Bible, fancied that he saw them there, and then 
 d?awn sanctions to his wickedness or absurdity from 
 what were nothing else than fictions of his own. Thus 
 did the Papists draw a plenary justification of intoler- 
 ance, or even of atrocious persecution, from the evan- 
 gelical ' Compel them to come in ! ' The right of un- 
 limited coercion was read in those words. People, 
 again, that were democratically given, or had a fancy 
 for treason, heard a trumpet of insurrection in the 
 words ' To your tents, oh Israel!'' But far beyond 
 these in multitude were those that drew from the Bible 
 the most extravagant claims for kings and rulers. 
 ' Rebellion was as the sin of witchcraft.' This was a 
 jewel of a text ; it killed two birds with one stone.
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 109 
 
 Broomsticks were proved out of it most clearly, and 
 also the atrocity of representative government. What 
 a little text to contain so much ! Look into Algernon 
 Sidney, or into Locke's controversy with Sir Robert 
 Filmer's -" ' Patriarcha,' or into any books of those 
 days on political principles, and it will be found that 
 Scripture was so used as to form an absolute bar 
 against human progress. All public benefits were, in 
 the strictest sense of the word, precarious, as depend- 
 ing upon prayers and entreaties to those who had an 
 interest in refusing them. All improvements were 
 eleemosynary ; for the initial step in all cases belonged 
 to the Crown. ' The right divine of kings to govern 
 wrong ' was in those days what many a man would 
 have died for — what many a man did die for ; and all 
 in pure simplicity of heart — faithful to the Bible, but to 
 the Bible of misinterpretation. They obeyed (often to 
 their own ruin) an order which they had misread. 
 Their sincerity, the disinterestedness of their folly, is 
 evident ; and in that degree is evident the opening for 
 Scripture development. Nobody could better obey 
 Scripture as they had understood it. Change in the 
 obedience, there could be none for the better; it de- 
 manded only that there should be a change in the 
 interpretation, and that change would be what is meant 
 by a development of Scripture. Two centuries of 
 enormous progress in the relations between subjects 
 and rulers have altered the whole reading. ' How 
 readest thou?'' was the question of Christ himself; 
 that is, in what meaning dost thou read the particular 
 Scripture that applies to this case ? All the texts and 
 all the cases remain at this hour just as they were for
 
 110 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 our ancestors ; and our reverence for these texts is as 
 absolute as theirs ; but we, applying lights of experi- 
 ence which they had not, construe these texts by a dif- 
 ferent logic. There now is development applied to the 
 Bible in one of its many strata — that stratum which 
 connects itself most with civil polity. Again, what a 
 development have we made of. Christian truth; how 
 differently do we now read our Bibles in relation to the 
 poor tenants of dungeons that once were thought, even 
 by Christian nations, to have no rights at all ! — in rela- 
 tion to ' all prisoners and captives ;' and in relation to 
 slaves ! The New Testament had said nothing directly 
 upon the question of slavery ; nay, by the misreader it 
 was rather supposed indirectly to countenance that in- 
 stitution. But mark — it is Mohammedanism, having 
 little faith in its own laws, that dares not confide in its 
 children for developing anything, but must tie them up 
 for every contingency by the letter of a rule. Chris- 
 tianity — how differently does she proceed ! She throws 
 herself broadly upon the pervading spirit which burns 
 within her morals. * Let them alone,' she says of na- 
 tions; ' leave them to themselves. I have put a new 
 law into their hearts ; and if it is really there, and 
 really cherished, that law will tell them — will develop 
 for them — what it is that they ought to do in every 
 case as it arises, when once its consequences are 
 comprehended.' No need, therefore, for the New 
 Testament explicitly to forbid slavery ; silently and 
 implicitly it is forbidden in many passages of the New 
 Testament, an,d it is at war with the spirit of all. Be- 
 sides, the religion which trusts to formal and literal rules 
 breaks down the very moment that a new case arises
 
 PROTESTANTISM. Ill 
 
 not described in the rules. Such a case is virtually 
 unprovided for, if it does not answer to a circumstan- 
 tial textual description ; whereas every case is provided 
 for, as soon as its tendencies and its moral relations are 
 made known, by a religion that speaks through a spirit- 
 ual organ to a spiritual apprehension in man. Accord- 
 ingly, we find that, whenever a new mode of intoxica- 
 tion is introduced, not depending upon grapes, the most 
 devout Mussulmans hold themselves absolved from the 
 restraints of the Koran. And so it would have been 
 with Christians, if the New Testament had laid down 
 literal prohibitions of slavery, or of the slave traffic _ 
 Thousands of variations would have been developed by 
 time which no letter of Scripture could have been com- 
 prehensive enough to reach. Were the domestic ser- 
 vants of Greece, the Srj^g (thetes), within the descrip- 
 tion ? Were the serfs and the ascripti gleice of feudal 
 Europe to be accounted slaves ? Or those amongst our 
 own brothers and sisters, that within so short a period 
 were born subterraneously,^'^ in Scottish mines, or in 
 the English collieries of Cumberland, and were sup- 
 posed to be ascripti mctallo, sold by nature to the mine, 
 and indorsed upon its machinery for the whole term of 
 their lives ; in whom, therefore, it was a treason to see 
 the light of upper day — would they, would these i)uor 
 Scotch and English Pariahs, have stood within any 
 scriptural privilege if the New Testament had legisla- 
 ted by name and letter for this class of doidoi (slaves)? 
 No attorney would have found them entitled to plead 
 the benefit of the Bible statute. Endless are the varia- 
 tions of the conditions that new combinations of society 
 would bring forward ; endless would be the virtual
 
 112 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 restorations of slavery that would take place under a 
 Mahometan literality; endless would be the defeats 
 that such restorations must sustain under a Christianity 
 relying on no letter, but on the spirit of God's com- 
 mandments, and that will understand no equivocations 
 with the secret admonitions of the heart. Meantime, 
 this sort of development, it may be objected, is not a 
 light that Scripture throws out upon human life so much 
 as a light that human life and its development throw 
 back upon Scripture. True ; but then how was it pos- 
 sible that life and the human intellect should be carried 
 forward to such developments ? Solely through the 
 training which both had received under the discipline 
 of Christian truth. Christianity utters some truth widely 
 applicable to society. This truth is caught up by some 
 influential organ of social life — is expanded prodigious- 
 ly by human experience, and, when travelling back as 
 an illustrated or improved text to the Bible, is found to 
 be made up, in all its details, of many human develop- 
 ments. Does that argue anything disparaging to Chris- 
 tianity, as though she contributed little and man con- 
 tributed much? On the contrary, man would have 
 contributed nothing at all but for that nucleus by which 
 Christianity started and moulded the principle. To 
 give one instance — Public charity, when did it com- 
 mence ? — who first thought of it ? Who first noticed 
 hunger and cold as awful realities afflicting poor women 
 and innocent children ? Who first made a public pro- 
 vision to meet these evils ? — Constantino it was, the 
 first Christian that sat upon a throne. Had, then, rich 
 Pagans before his time no charity — no pity ? — no 
 money available for hopeless poverty .? Not much —
 
 PROTESTANTISM. 113 
 
 very little, I conceive ; about so much as Shakspeare 
 insinuates that there is of milk in a male tiger. Think, 
 for instance, of that black-hearted reprobate, Cicero, 
 the moralist. This moral knave, who wrote such beau- 
 tiful Ethics, and tvas so wicked — who spoke so charm- 
 ingly and acted so horribly — mentions, with a petrify- 
 ing coolness, that he knew of desolate old women in 
 Rome who passed three days in succession without 
 tasting food. Did not the wretch, when thinking of 
 this, leap up, and tumble down stairs in his anxiety to 
 rush abroad and call a public meeting for considering 
 so dreadful a case ? Not he ; the man continued to 
 strut about his library, in a huge toga as big as the 
 Times newspaper, singing out, ' Oh ! fortunatam natam 
 me Consule Romam ! ' and he mentioned the fact at all 
 only for the sake of Natural Philosophers or of the 
 curious in old women. Charity, even in that sense, 
 had little existence — nay, as a duty, it had no place 
 or rubric in human conceptions before Christianity. 
 Thence came the first rudiments of all public relief to 
 starving men and women ; but the idea, the principle, 
 was all that the Bible furnished, needed to furnish, or 
 could furnish. The practical arrangements, the end- 
 less details for carrying out this Christian idea — these 
 were furnished by man ; and why not ? This case 
 illustrates only one amongst innumerable modes of de- 
 velopment applicable to the Bible ; and this power of 
 development, in general, proves also one other thing of 
 the last importance to prove,- viz. the power of Chris- 
 tianity to work in co-operation with time and social pro- 
 gress ; to work variably according to the endless varia- 
 tions of time and place ; and that is the exact shibboleth 
 8
 
 114 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 of a true and spiritual religion — for, on reviewing the 
 history of false religions, and inquiring what it was that 
 ruined them, rarelj^ is it found that any of them per- 
 ished by external violence. Even the dreadful fury of 
 the early Mahometan Sultans in India, before the house 
 of Timour, failed to crush the monstrous idolatries of 
 the Hindoos. All false religions have perished by their 
 own hollowness, under that searching trial applied by 
 social life and its changes, which awaits eveiy mode of 
 relicrion. One after another they have sunk away, as 
 by palsy, from new aspe^cts of society and new neces- 
 sities of man which they were not able to face. Com- 
 mencing in one condition of society, in one set of feel- 
 ings, and in one system of ideas, they sank uniformly 
 under any great change in these elements, to which 
 they had no natural power of accommodation. A false 
 religion furnished a key to one subordinate lock; but a 
 religion that is true will prove a master-key for all 
 locks alike. This transcendental principle, by which 
 Christianity transfers herself so readily from climate to 
 climate,"- from century to century, from the simplicity 
 of shepherds to the utmost refinement of philosophers, 
 carries with it a necessity, corresponding to such infi- 
 nite flexibility of endless development.
 
 NOTES 
 
 Note 1. Page 56. 
 
 ' Index Expurgatorius' — A question of some interest arises 
 npon the casuistical construction of this Index. We, that are 
 not by name included, may we consider ourselves indirectly 
 licensed ? Silence, I should think, gives consent. And if it 
 wasn't that the present Pope, being a horrid Radical, would be 
 sure to blackball 7ne as an honest Tory, I would send him a copy 
 of my Opera Omnia, requesting his Holiness to say, by return 
 of post, whether I ranked amongst the chaif winnowed by St. 
 Peter's flail, or had his gracious permission to hold myself 
 amongst the pure wheat gathered into the Vatican garner. 
 
 Note 2. Page 58. 
 
 * Archdeacon Blackhurne.' — He was the author of TTie Con- 
 fessional, which at one time made a memorable ferment amongst 
 all those who loved as sons, or who hated as nonconformists, the 
 English Establishment. This was his most popular work,t)ut he 
 wrote many others in the same temper, that fill six or seven 
 octavos. 
 
 Note 3. Page 58. 
 
 • Voltaire.^ — Let not the reader misunderstand me ; I do not 
 mean that the clerical writer now before us (bishop or not 
 bishop) is more hostile to religion than Voltaire, or is hostile at 
 all. On the contrary, he is, perhaps, profoundly religious, and
 
 116 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 he writes with neither levity nor insincerity. But this conscien- 
 tious spirit, and this piety, do but the more call into relief the 
 audacity of his free-thinking — do but the more forcibly illus- 
 trate the prodigious changes wrought by time, and by the conta- 
 gion from secular revolutions, in the spirit of religious philosophy. 
 
 Note 4. Page CO. 
 
 ^ Sole sufficiency of Scripture.^ — This is much too elliptical 
 a way of expressing the Protestant meaning. Sufficiency for 
 what ? • Sufficiency for salvation ' is the phrase of many, and I 
 think elsewhere of PhiJ. But that is objectionable on more 
 grounds than one ; it is redundant, and it is aberrant from 
 the true point contemplated. Sufficiency for itself, without 
 alien helps, is the thing contemplated. The Greek autarkeia 
 (avTaQxiici), self-sufficiency, or, because that phrase, in English, 
 has received a deflexion towards a bad meaning, the word self- 
 sufficingness might answer ; sufficiency for the exposition of its 
 own most secret meaning, out of fountains within itself ; needing, 
 therefore, neither the supplementary aids of tradition, on the 
 one hand, nor the complementary aids on the other, (in the event 
 of unprovided cases, or of dilemmas arising,) from the infallibility 
 of a living expoxinder. 
 
 Note .'S. Page 64. 
 
 * The Romanist.' — What, amongst Protestant sects? Ay, 
 even so. It's Phil.'s mistake, not mine. He will endeavor to 
 doctor the case, by pleading that he was speaking universally of 
 Christian error; but the position of the clause forbids this plea. 
 Not only in relation to what immediately precedes, the passage 
 must be supposed to contemplate Protesta?it error ; but the im- 
 mediate inference from it, viz., that ' the world may well be ex- 
 cused for doubting whether there is, after all, so much to be 
 gained by that liberty of private judgment, which is the essential 
 characteristic of Protestantism; whether it be not, after all, 
 merely a liberty to fall into error,' nails Phil, to that construc- 
 tion — argues too strongly that it is an oversight of indolence. 
 Phil. -vms sleeping for the moment, which is excusable enough to-
 
 NOTES. 117 
 
 wards the end of a book, but hardly in section I. P. S. — I have - 
 since observed (which not to have observed is excused, perhaps, 
 by the too complex machinery of hooks and eyes between the text 
 and the notes involving a double reference — first, to the section; 
 second, to the particular clause of the section) that Phil, has not 
 here committed an inadvertency ; or, if he haa, is determined to 
 fight himself through his inadvertency, rather than break up his 
 quaternion of cases. ' In speaking of Romanism as arising from 
 a misapplication of Protestant principles ; we refer, not to those 
 who were born, but to those who have become members of the 
 Church of Rome.' What is the name of those people? And 
 where do they live ? I have heard of many who think (and there 
 are cases in which most of us, that meddle with philosophy, are 
 apt to think) occasional principles of Protestantism available for 
 the defence of certain Roman Catholic mysteries too indiscrimi- 
 nately assaulted by the Protestant zealot; but, with this excep- 
 tion, I am not aware of any parties professing to derive their 
 Popish learnings /rom Protestantism; it is in spite of Protestant- 
 ism, as seeming to them not strong enough, or through principles 
 omitted by Protestantism, which thei'efore seems to thejn not 
 careful enough or not impartial enough, that Protestants have 
 lapsed to Popery. Protestants have certainly been known to be- 
 come Papists, not through Popish arguments, but simply through 
 their own Protestant books ; yet never, that I heard of, through 
 an affirmative process, as though any Protestant argument in- 
 volved the rudiments of Popery, but by a negative process, as 
 fancying the Protestant reasons, though lying in the right direc- 
 tion, not going far enough ; or, again, though right partially, 
 yet defective as a whole. P/ii7. therefore, seems to me absolutely 
 caught in a sort of Furcm Caudina, unless he has a dodge in 
 reserve to puzzle us all. In a difierent point, I, that hold myself 
 a doctor seraphicus, and also inexpugnabilis upon quillets of logic, 
 justify Phil., whilst also I blame him. He defends himself 
 rightly for distinguishing between the Romanist and Newmanite 
 on the one hand, between the Calvinist and the Evangelican man 
 on the other, though perhaps a young gentleman, commencing 
 his studies on the Organon, will fancy that here he has Phil, in 
 a trap, for these distinctions, he will say, do not entirely exclude
 
 118 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 each other as they ought to do. The class calling itself Evangel- 
 ical, for instance, may also be Calviuistic ; the Newmanite is not, 
 f/ierc/ore, anti-Romanish. True, says Phil.; I am quite aware 
 of it. But to be aware of an objection is not to answer it. The 
 fact seems to be, that the actual combinations of life, not con- 
 forming to the truth of abstractions, compel us to seeming 
 breaches of logic. It would be right practically to d stinguish 
 the Radical from the Whig ; and yet it might shock Duns or 
 Lombardus, the magister sententiarum, when he came to under- 
 stand that partially the principles of Radicals and Whigs coin- 
 cide. But, for all that, the logic which distinguishes them is 
 right ; and the apparent error must be sought in the fact, that all 
 cases (political or religi us) being cases of life, are concretes, 
 which never conform to the exquisite truth of abstractions. 
 Practically, the Radical is opposed to the Whig, though casually 
 the two are in conjunction continually ; for, as acting parti- 
 sans, they work from diflerent centres, and linally,/or diiierent 
 results. 
 
 Note 6. Page 65. 
 
 The reader may imagine that, in thus abstracting Calvin's 
 epistolary sentiments.. I am a little improving them. Certainly 
 they would bear improvement, but that is not my business. 
 What the reader sees here is but the result of bringing scattered 
 passages into closer juxtaposition; whilst, as to the strongest 
 (viz., the most sanguinary) sentiments here ascribed to him, it 
 will be a sulBtient evidence of ray fidelity to the literal truth, if 
 I cite three separate sentences. Writing to Parrel, he says, 
 ' Spero capitale saltern fore judicium.' Sentence of the court, he 
 hopes, will, at any rate, reach the life of Servetus. Die he must, 
 and die he shall. But why should he die a cruel death ? ' Psenoe 
 vero atrocitatem remitti cupio.' To the same purpose, when 
 writing to Sultzer, he expresses his satisfaction in being able to 
 assure him that a principal civic officer of Geneva was, in this 
 case, entirely upright, and animated by the most virtuous senti- 
 ments. Indeed I what an interesting character ! and in what 
 vay now might this good man show this beautiful tenderness of 
 conscience ? Why, by a fixed resolve that Servetus should not
 
 NOTES. 119 
 
 in any case escape the catastroplie wliich I, John Calvin, am 
 longing for, (' ut saltern exitum, qiieni optamus, non fugiat.') 
 Finally, writing to the same Sultzer, he remarks that — when 
 we see the Papists such avenging champions of their own super- 
 stitious fables as not to filter in shedding innocent blood, ' pudeat 
 Christianos magistratus [as if the Roman Catholic magistrates 
 were not Christians] in tuenda certu veritate nihil prorsus habere 
 animi ' — ' Christian magistrates ought to be ashamed of them- 
 selves for manifesting no energy at all in the vindication of truth 
 undeniable;' yet really since these magistrates had at that time 
 the full design, which design not many days after they executed, 
 of maintaining truth by fire and faggot, one does not see the call 
 upon them for blushes so very deep as Calvin requires. Hands 
 so crimson with blood might compensate the absence of crimson 
 cheeks. 
 
 Note 7. Page 72. 
 The method of Des Cartes was altogether separate and peculiar 
 to himself; it is a mere conjuror's juggle; and yet, what is 
 strange, like some other audacious sophisms, it is capable of 
 being so stated as most of all to baffle the subtle dialectician ; 
 and Kant himself, though not cheated, was never so much per- 
 plexed in his life as in the effort to make its hoUowness apparent. 
 
 Note 8. Page 77. 
 ♦ 0fO7TvevnTta.' — I must point out to Phil, an oversight of his 
 as to this word at p. 45 ; he there describes the doctrine of theop- 
 neusiia as being that of ' plenary and verbal inspiration.' But 
 this he cannot mean, for obviously this word theopiieustia com- 
 prehends equally the verbal inspiration which he is denouncing, 
 and the inspiration of power or spiritual virtue which he is sub- 
 stituting. Neither Phil., nor any one of his school, is to be un- 
 derstood as rejecting theopneustia, but as rejecting that particular 
 mode of theopneustia which appeals to the eye by mouldering 
 symbols, in favor of that other mode which appeals to the heart 
 by incorruptible radiations of inner truth. 
 
 Note 0. Pago 84. 
 'Integrity of the metaphor.'' — One of the best notes ever
 
 120 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 written by Warburton was in justification of tlie old reading, sea. 
 It was true, that against a sea it would be idle to take arins. 
 We, that have lived since Warburton's day, have learned by the 
 solemn example of Mrs. Partington, (which, it is to be hoped, 
 none of us will ever forget,) how useless, how vain it is to take 
 up a mop against the Atlantic Ocean. Great is the mop, great 
 is Mrs. Partington, but greater is the Atlantic. Yet, though all 
 arms must be idle against the sea considered literally, and xara 
 Tijv (favraoiuv under that image, Warburton contended justly 
 that all images, much employed, evanesce into the ideas which 
 they represent. A sea of troubles comes to mean only a muUi- 
 tude of troubles. No image of the sea is suggested ; and arms, 
 incongruous in relation to the literal sea, is not so in relation to 
 a multitude ; besides, that the image arms itself, evanesces for 
 the same reason into resistance. For this one note, which I cite 
 from boyish remembrance, I have always admired the subtlety 
 of Warburton. 
 
 Note 10. Page 84. 
 Meantime, though using this case as an illustration, I believe 
 that camel is, after all, the true translation ; first, on account of 
 the undoubted proverb in the East about the elephant going 
 through the needle's eye ; the relation is that of contrast as to 
 magnitude ; and the same relation holds as to the camel and the 
 needle's eye; secondly, because the proper word for a cable, it 
 has been alleged, is not ' camdus,' but ' camilus.' 
 
 Note 11. Page 86. 
 
 I recollect no variation in 'the text of Scripture which makes 
 any startling change, even to the amount of an eddy in its own 
 circumjacent waters, except that famous passage about the three 
 witnesses — ' There are three that bare record in heaven,' &c. 
 This has been denounced with perfect fury as an interpolation ; 
 and it is impossible to sum up the quart bottles of ink, black and 
 blue, that have been shed in the dreadful skirmish. Person even, 
 the all-accomplished Grecian, in his letters to Archdeacon Travis, 
 took a conspicuous part in the controversy; his wish was, that 
 men should think of him as a second Bentley tilting against
 
 NOTES. 121 
 
 Phalaris; and he stung like a hornet. To be a Cambridge man 
 in those days was to be a hater of all Establishments in England; 
 things and persons were hated alike. I hope the same thing may 
 not be true at present. It may chance that on this subject Mas- 
 ter Person will get stung through his coffin, before he is many 
 years deader. However, if this particular variation troubles the 
 waters just around itself (for it would desolate a Popish village 
 to withdraw its local saint), yet carrying one's eye from this 
 Epistle to the whole domains of the New Testament — yet, look- 
 ing away from that defrauded village to universal Christendom, 
 we must exclaim — What does one miss ? Surely Christendom is 
 not disturbed because a village suffers wrong; the sea is not 
 roused because an eddy in a corner is boiling; the doctrine of the 
 Trinity is not in danger because Mr. Porson is in a passion. 
 
 Note 12. Page 86. 
 One does not wish to be tedious ; or, if one has a gift in that 
 way, naturally one does not wish to bestow it all upon a perfect 
 stranger, as ' the reader ' usually is, but to reserve a part for the 
 fireside, and the use of one's most beloved friends; else I could 
 torment the reader by a longer succession of numbers, and perhaps 
 drive him to despair. But one more of the series, viz., No. 6, as 
 a parting gage d' a?nitie, he must positively permit me to drop 
 into his pocket. Supposing, then, that No. 5 were surmounted, 
 and that, supernaturally, you knew the value to a hair's breadth 
 of every separate word (or, perhaps, composite phrase made up 
 from a constellation of words) — ah, poor traveller in trackless 
 forests, still you are lost again — for, oftentimes, and especially 
 in St. Paul, the words may be known, their sense may be known, 
 but their logical relation is still doubtful. The word X and the 
 word Y are separately clear; but has Y the dependency of a 
 consequence upon X, or no dependency at all ? Is the clause 
 which stands eleventh in the series a direct prolongation of that 
 which stands tenth .' or is the tenth wholly independent and in- 
 sulated ? or does it occupy the place of a parenthesis, so as to 
 modify the ninth clause ? People that have pracised composition 
 as much, and with as vigilant an eye as myself, know also, by 
 thousands of cases, how infinite is the disturbance caused in the
 
 122 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 logic of a thought by the mere position of a woi'd as despicable as 
 the Avord even. A mote, that is itself invisible, shall darken the 
 august faculty of sight in a human eye — the heavens shall be 
 hidden by a wretched atom that dares not show itself — and the 
 station of a syllable shall cloud the judgment of a council. Nay, 
 even an ambiguous emphasis falling to the right-hand word, or 
 the left-hand word, shall confound a system. 
 
 Note 13. • Page 87. 
 
 See Mr. Yates's ' Annotations upon Fellowes's Kesearches in 
 Anatolia,' as one authority for this singular phenomenon. 
 
 Note U. Page 90. 
 
 ' That is the pri?iciple.' — I am afraid, on reviewing this pas- 
 sage, that the reader may still say, ' TV/iat is the principle ? ' 
 I will add, therefore, tlie shortest explanation of my meaning. 
 If into any Pagan language you had occasion to translate the 
 ■word love, or purity, or penitence, &c., you could not do it. 
 The Greek language itself, perhaps the finest (all things weighed 
 and valued) that man has employed, could not do it. The scale 
 was not so pitched as to make the transfer possible. It was to 
 execute organ music on a guitar. And, hereafter, I will en- 
 deavor to show how scandalous an error has been committed on 
 this subject, not by scholars only, but by religious philosophers. 
 The relation of Christian ethics (which word ethics, however, is 
 itself most insufficient) to natural or universal ethics is a field 
 yet uncultured by a rational thought. The first word of senso 
 has yet to be spoken. There lies the difiiculty; and the principle 
 which meets it is this, that what any one idea could never efiect 
 for itself (insulated, it must remain an unknown quality for ever), 
 the total system of the ideas developed from its centre would 
 effect for each separately. To know the part, you must first know 
 the whole, or know it, at least, by some outline. The idea of 
 purity, for instance, in its Christian altitude, would be utterly 
 incomprehensible, and, besides, could not sustain itself for a mo- 
 ment if by any glimpse it were approached. But when a ruin 
 was unfolded that had aficcted the "human race, and many things
 
 NOTES. 123 
 
 heretofore unobserved, because uncombined, were gathered into a 
 unity of evidence to that ruin, spread through innumerable chan- 
 nels, the great altitude would begin dimly to reveal itself by 
 means of the mighty depth in correspondence. One deep calleth 
 to another. One after one the powers lodged in the awful suc- 
 cession of uncoverings would react upon each other; and thus 
 the feeblest language would be as capable of receiving and re- 
 flecting the system of truths (because the system is an arch that 
 supports itself) as the richest and noblest ; and for the same rea- 
 son that makes geometry careless of language. The vilest jar- 
 gon that ever was used by a shivering savage of Terra del Fuego 
 is as capable of dealing with the sublime and eternal aflections of 
 space and quantity, with up and down, with more and less, with 
 circle and radius, angle and tangent, as is the golden language 
 of Athens. 
 
 Note 15. Page 90. 
 
 • Art of the decipherer.' — An art which, in the preceding cen- 
 tury, had been greatly improved by Wallis, Savilian professor of 
 geometry at Oxford, the improver of analytic mathematics, and 
 the great historian of algebra. Algebra it was that suggested to 
 him his exquisite deciphering skill, and the parliamentary war it 
 was that furnished him with a sufficient field of j^i'actice. The 
 King's private cabinet of papers, all written in cipher, and cap- 
 tured in the royal coach on the decisive day of Naseby (June, 
 1615), was (I beheve) deciphered by Wallis, propria martc. 
 
 Note 16. Page 95. 
 
 The Bible cosmology stands upon another footing. TViat is 
 not gathered from a casual expression, shaped to meet popular 
 comprehension, but is delivered directly, formally, and elabo- 
 rately, as a natural preface to the history of man and his liabita- 
 tion. Here, accordingly, tliere is no instance of accommodation 
 to vulgar ignorance; and the persuasion gains ground continually 
 that the order of succession in the phenomena of creation will be 
 eventually confirmed by scientific geology, so f\ir as this science 
 may ever succeed in unlinking the steps of tlie process. Nothing, 
 in fact, disturbs the grandeur and solemnity of the Mosaical cos-
 
 124 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 mogony, except (as usual) the ruggedness of the bibliolater. He, 
 finding the English word day employed in the measurement of 
 the intervals, takes it for granted that this must mean a nychthe- 
 meron of twenty-four hours; imports, therefore, into the biblical 
 text this conceit ; fights for his own opinion, as for a revelation 
 from heaven ; and thus disfigures the great inaugural chapter of 
 human history with this single feature of a fairy-tale, where 
 everything else is told with the most majestic simplicity. But 
 this word, which so ignorantly he presumes to be an ordinary 
 human day, bears that meaning only in common historical trans- 
 actions between man and man ; but never once in the great 
 prophetic writings, where God comes forward as himself the 
 principal agent. It then means always a vast and mysterious 
 duration — undetermined, even to this hour, in Daniel. The 
 heptameron is not a week, but a shadowy adumbration of a week. 
 
 Note 17. Page 97., 
 
 ' The domestic witch.' — It is the common notion that the su- 
 perstition of the evil eye, so widely diffused in the Southern lands, 
 and in some, not a slumbering, but a fiercely operative super- 
 stition, is unknown in England and other Northern latitudes. 
 On the contrary, to my thinking, the regular old vulgar witch of 
 England and Scotland was but an impersonatrix of the very 
 same superstition. Virgil expresses this mode of sorcery to the 
 letter, when his shepherd says — 
 
 ' Nescio quis tenero3 oculus mihi fascinat agnos f ' 
 
 Precisely in that way it was that the British witch operated. 
 She, bij her eye, blighted the natural powers of growth and fer- 
 tility. By the way, I ought to mention, as a case parallel to that 
 of the Bible's recognising witchcraft, and of enlightened nations 
 continuing to punish it, that St. Paul himself, in an equal degree, 
 recognises the evil eye; that is, he uses the idea, (though cer- 
 tainly not meaning to accredit such an idea,) as one that briefly 
 and energetically conveyed his meaning to those whom he was 
 addressing. ' Oh, foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you 1 ' 
 That is, literally, who has fascinated your senses by the evil
 
 NOTES. 125 
 
 eye ? For the Greek is, tis vmas ebaskanen ? Now the word 
 ebaskanen is a past tense of the -verb baskaino, which was the 
 technical term for the action of the evil eye. Without having 
 written a treatise on the iEolic digamma, probably the reader is 
 aware that F is V, and that, in many languages, B and V are 
 interchangeable letters through thousands of words, as the Italian 
 tavola, from the Latin tabula. Under that little process it was 
 that the Greek baskaino transmigrated into the Latin /ascino; 
 so that St. Paul's word, in speaking to the Galatians, is the very 
 same word as Virgil's, in speaking of the shepherd's flock as 
 charmed by the evil eye. 
 
 Note 18. Page 98. 
 
 I am not referring to German infidels. Very pious commenta- 
 tors have connected her with the engustrimuthoi (f)7uoT()i^i;6ot) 
 or ventriloquists. 
 
 Note 19. Page 99. 
 
 Does that argument not cover ' the New England wretches' 
 so unreservedly denounced in a preceding paragraph ? — Ed. 
 
 Note 20. Page 109. 
 
 'Filmer^s Patriarcha.' — I mention the book as the antagonist, 
 and not the man, because (according to my impression) Sir 
 Robert was dead when Locke was answering him. 
 
 Note 21. Page 111. 
 
 See, for some very interesting sketches of this Pariah popula- 
 tion, the work (title I forget) of I\Ir. Bald, a Scottish engineer, 
 well known and esteemed in Edinburgh and Glasgow. He may 
 be relied on. What he tells against Scotland is violently against 
 his own will, for he is intensely national, of which I will give the 
 reader one instance that may make him smile. Much of the 
 rich, unctuous coal, from Northumberland and Durham, gives a 
 deep ruddy light, verging to a blood-red, and certainly is i-ather 
 sullen, on a winter evening, to the eye. On the other hand, the 
 Scottish coal or most of it, being far poorer as to heat, throws out
 
 128 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 a very beautiful and animated scarlet blaze ; upon which hint, Mr. 
 Bald, when patriotically distressed at not being able to deny the 
 double power of the eastern English coal, suddenly revivifies his 
 Scottisli heart that had been chilled, perhaps, by the Scottish 
 coals in his fire-grate, upon recurring to this picturesque differ- 
 ence in the two blazes — ' Ah ! ' he says gratefully, ' that New- 
 castle blaze is well enough for a " gloomy " Englishman, but it 
 wouldn't do at all for cheerful Scotland.' 
 
 Note 22. Page 114. 
 
 'From climate to climate.' — Sagacious Mahometans have 
 been often scandalized and troubled by the secret misgiving that, 
 after all, their Prophet must have been an ignorant fellow. It is 
 clear that the case of a cold climate had never occurred to him ; 
 and even a hot one had been conceived most narrowly. Many 
 of the Bedouin Arabs comj^lain of ablutions not adapted to their 
 waterless condition. These evidences of oversight would have 
 been fatal to Islamism, had Islamism produced a high civilization.
 
 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL EX- 
 PRESSION FOR ETERNITY. 
 
 [1852.] 
 
 Forty years ago (or, in all probability, a good deal 
 more, for we have already completed thirty-seven 
 years from Waterloo, and my remembrances upon this 
 subject go back to a period lying much behind that 
 great era), I used to be annoyed and irritated by the 
 false interpretation given to the Greek word aion, and 
 given necessarily, therefore, to the adjective aionios 
 as its immediate derivative. It was not so much the 
 falsehood of this interpretation, as the narrowness of 
 that falsehood, which disturbed me. There was a 
 glimmer of truth in it ; and precisely that glimmer it 
 was which led the way to a general and obstinate mis- 
 conception of the meaning. The word is remark- 
 ably situated. It is a scriptural word, and it is also a 
 Greek word ; from which the inevitable inference is, 
 that we must look for it only in the New Testament. 
 Upon any question arising of deep, aboriginal, doc- 
 trinal truth, we have nothing to do with translations. 
 Those are but secondary questions, archajological and 
 critical, upon which we have a right to consult the 
 Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures known by 
 the name of the Septuagint. 
 
 Suffer me to pause at this point for the sake of pre-
 
 128 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL 
 
 mising an explanatioa needful to the unlearned reader. 
 As the reading pubhc and the thinking public is every 
 year outgrowing more and more notoriously the mere 
 learned public, it becomes every year more and more 
 the right of the former public to give the law prefer- 
 ably to the latter public, upon all points which concern 
 its own separate interests. In past generations, no 
 pains were taken to make explanations that were not 
 called for by the learned public. All other readers 
 were ignored. They formed a mob, for whom no 
 provision was made. And that many difficulties should 
 be left entirely unexplained for them, was superciliously 
 assumed to be no fault at all. And yet any sensible 
 man, let him be as supercilious as he may, must on 
 consideration allow that amongst the crowd of un- 
 learned or half-learned readers, who have had neither 
 time nor opportunities for what is called ' erudition' or 
 learned studies, there must always lurk a proportion of 
 men that, by constitution of mind, and by the bounty 
 of nature, are much better fitted for thinking, originally 
 more philosophic, and are more capaciously endowed, 
 than those who are, by accident of position, more 
 learned. Sucli a natural superiority certainly takes 
 precedency of a merely artificial superiority ; and, 
 therefore, it entitles those who possess it to a special 
 consideration. Let there be an audience gathered 
 about any book of ten thousand one hundred readers : 
 it might be fair in these days to assume that ten thou- 
 sand would be in a partial sense illiterate, and the 
 remaining one hundred what would be rigorously 
 classed as ' learned.' Now, on such a distribution of 
 the readers, it would be a matter of certainty that the
 
 EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY. 129 
 
 rnost powerful intellects would lie amongst the illiterate 
 ten thousand, counting, probably, to fifteen to one as 
 against those in the learned minority. The inference, 
 therefore, would be, that, in all equity, the interest of 
 the unlearned section claimed a priority of attention, 
 not merely as the more numerous section, but also as, 
 by a high probability, the more philosophic. And in 
 proportion as this unlearned section widens and ex- 
 pands, which every year it does, in that proportion the 
 obligation and cogency of this equity strengthens. An 
 attention to the unlearned part of an audience, which 
 fifteen years ago might have rested upon pure cour- 
 tesy, now rests upon a basis of absolute justice. I 
 make this preliminary explanation, in order to take 
 away the appearance of caprice from such occasional 
 pauses as I may make for the purpose of clearing up 
 obscurities or difficulties. Formerly, in a case of that 
 nature, the learned reader would have told me that I 
 was not entitled to delay him by elucidations that in 
 his case must be supposed to be superfluous : and in 
 such a remonstrance there would once have been some 
 equity. The illiterate section of the readers might 
 then be fairly assumed as present only by accident; 
 as no abiding part of the audience ; but, like the gen- 
 eral public in the gallery of the House of Commons, 
 as present only by sufferance ; and officially in any 
 records of the house whatever, utterly ignored as 
 existences. At present, half way on our pilgrimage 
 through the nineteenth century, I reply to such a 
 learned remonstrant — that it gives mc pain to annoy 
 him by superfluous explanations, but that, unhappily, 
 this infliction of tedium upon him is inseparable from 
 9
 
 130 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL 
 
 what has now become a duty to others. This being 
 said, I now go on to inform the illiterate reader, that 
 the earliest translation of the Hebrew Scriptures ever 
 made was into Greek. It was undertaken on the 
 encouragement of a learned prince, Ptolemy Phila- 
 delphus, by an association of Jewish emigrants in 
 Alexandria. It was, as the event has shown in very 
 many instances, an advantage of a rank rising to 
 providential, that such a cosmopolitan version of the 
 Hebrew sacred writings should have been made at a 
 moment when a rare concurrence of circumstances 
 happened to make it possible ; such as, for example, 
 a king both learned in his tastes and liberal in his prin- 
 ciples of religious toleration; a language, viz., the 
 Greek, which had already become, what for many 
 centuries it continued to be, a common language of 
 communication for the learned of the whole oixHueni 
 (i. e., in effect of the civilized world, viz., Greece, the 
 shores of the Euxine, the whole of Asia Minor, Syria, 
 Egypt, Carthage, and all the dependencies of Car- 
 thage, finally, and above all, Rome, then beginning to 
 loom upon the western horizon), together with all the 
 dependencies of Rome, and, briefly, every state and 
 city that adorned the imperial islands of the Mediter- 
 ranean, or that glittered like gems in that vast belt of 
 land, roundly speaking, one thousand miles in average 
 breadth, and in circuit running up to five thousand 
 miles. One thousand multiplied into five times one 
 thousand, or, otherwise expressed, a thousand thousand 
 five times repeated, or otherwise a million five times 
 repeated, briefly a territory measuring five millions 
 of square miles, or forty-five time^ the surface of our
 
 EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY. 131 
 
 two British islands — such was the boundless domain 
 which this extraordinary act of Ptolemy suddenly 
 threw open to the literature and spiritual revelation 
 of a little obscure race, nestling in a little angle of 
 Asia, scarcely visible as a fraction of Syria, buried in 
 the broad shadows thrown out on one side by the great 
 and ancient settlements on the Nile, and on the other 
 by the vast empire that for thousands of years occu- 
 pied the Tigris and the Euphrates. In the twinkling 
 of an eye, at a sudden summons, as it were from the 
 sounding of a trumpet, or the oriental call by a clap- 
 ping of hands, gates are thrown open, which have an 
 effect corresponding in grandeur to the effect that 
 would arise from the opening of a ship canal across 
 the Isthmus of Daricn, viz., the introduction to each 
 other — face to face — of two separate infinities. 
 Such a canal would suddenly lay open to each other 
 the two great oceans of our planet, the Atlantic and 
 the Pacific ; whilst the act of translating into Greek 
 and from Hebrew, that is, transferring out of a mys- 
 terious cipher as little accessible as Sanscrit, and which 
 never would be more accessible through any worldly 
 attractions of alliance with power and civic grandeur 
 or commerce, out of this darkness into the golden 
 light of a language the most beautiful, the most hon- 
 ored amongst men, and the most widely diffused 
 through a thousand years to come, had the immeasur- 
 able effect of throwing into the great crucible of 
 human speculation, even then beginning to ferment, 
 to boil, to overthrow — that mightiest of all elements 
 for exalting the chemistry of philosophy — grand and, 
 for the first time, adequate conceptions of the Deity.
 
 132 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL 
 
 For, although it is true that, until Elias should come — 
 that is, until Christianity should have applied its final 
 revelation to the completion of this great idea — we 
 could not possess it in its total effulgence, it is, how- 
 ever, certain that an immense advance was made, a 
 prodigious usurpation across the realms of chaos, by 
 the grand illuminations of the Hebrew discoveries. 
 Too terrifically austere we must presume the Hebrew 
 idea to have been : too undeniably it had not withdrawn 
 the veil entirely which still rested upon the Divine 
 countenance ; so much is involved in the subsequent 
 revelations of Christianity. But still the advance made 
 in reading aright the divine lineaments had been enor- 
 mous. God was now a holy spirit that could not tole- 
 rate impurity. He was the fountain of justice, and 
 no longer disfigured by any mode of sympathy with 
 human caprice or infirmity. And, if a frown too 
 awful still rested upon his face, making the approach 
 to him too fearful for harmonizing with that perfect 
 freedom and that childlike love which God seeks in his 
 worshippers, it was yet made evident that no step for 
 conciliating his favor did or could lie through any but 
 moral graces. 
 
 Three centuries after this great epoch of the publi- 
 cation (for such it was) secured so providentially to 
 the Hebrew theology, two learned Jews — viz., .lose- 
 phus and Philo Judrous — had occasion to seek a cos- 
 mopolitan utterance for that burden of truth (or what 
 they regarded as truth) which oppressed the spirit 
 within them. Once again they found a deliverance 
 from the very same freezing imprisonment in an un- 
 known language, through the very same magical key,
 
 EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY. 133 
 
 viz., the all-pervading language of Greece, whicli car- 
 ried their communications to the four winds of heaven, 
 and carried them precisely amongst the class of men, 
 viz. — the enlightened and educated class — which 
 pre-eminently, if not exclusively, their wish was to 
 reach. About one generation after Christ it was, when 
 the utter prostration, and, politically speaking, the 
 destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, threw 
 these two learned Jews upon this recourse to the 
 Greek language as their final resource, in a condition 
 otherwise of absolute hopelessness. Pretty nearly 
 three centuries before Christ it was (two hundred and 
 eighty-four years, according to the common reckon- 
 ing), when the first act of communication took place 
 between the sealed-up literature of Palestine and the 
 Greek catholic interpretation. Altogether, we may 
 say that three hundred and twenty years, or some- 
 where about ten generations of men, divided these 
 two memorable acts of intei-communication. Such a 
 space of time allows a large range of influence and of 
 silent, unconscious operation to the vast and potent 
 ideas that brooded over this awful Hebrew literature. 
 Too little weight has been allowed to the probable con- 
 tagiousness, and to the preternatural shock, of such a 
 new and strange philosophy, acting upon the jaded and 
 exhausted intellect of the Grecian race. We must 
 remember, that precisely this particular range of time 
 was that in which the Greek systems of philosophy, 
 having thoroughly completed their evolution, had suf- 
 fered something of a collapse ; and, having exhausted 
 their creative energies, began to gratify the cravings 
 for novelty by remodclliifgs of old forms. It is re-
 
 134 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL 
 
 markable, indeed, that this very city of Alexandria 
 founded and matured this new principle of remodelling 
 applied to poetry not less than to philosophy and criti- 
 cism. And, considering the activity of this great com- 
 mercial city and port, which was meant to act, and did 
 act, as a centre of communication between the East 
 and the West, it is probable that a far greater eflect was 
 produced by the Greek translation of the Jewish Scrip- 
 tures, in the way of preparing the mind of nations for 
 the apprehension of Christianity, than has ever been 
 distinctly recognised. The silent destruction of books 
 in those centuries has robbed us of all means for tracing 
 innumerable revolutions, that nevertheless, by the evi- 
 dence of results, must have existed. Taken, however, 
 with or without this additional result, the translation of 
 the Hebrew Scriptures in their most important portions 
 must be ranked amongst what are called ' providential' 
 events. Such a king — a kin"; whose father had been 
 a personal friend of Alexander, the mighty civilizing 
 conqueror, and had shared in the liberalization con- 
 nected with his vast revolutionary projects for extend- 
 ing a higher civilization over the globe, such a king, 
 conversing with such a language, having advantages 
 so absolutely unrivalled, and again this king and this 
 language concurring with a treasure so supernatural of 
 spiritual wisdom as the subject of their ministrations, 
 and all three concurring with political events sq auspi- 
 cious^^ the founding of a new and mighty metropolis 
 in Egypt, and the silent advance to supreme power 
 amongst men of a new empire, martial beyond all 
 precedent as regarded means, but not as regarded ends 
 — working in all things towards the unity of civiliza-
 
 EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY. 135 
 
 tiorl and the unity of law, so that any new impulse, as, 
 for instance, impulse of a new religion, was destined 
 to find new facilities for its own propagation, resem- 
 bling electric conductors, underthe unity of government 
 and of law — concurrences like these, so many and so 
 strange, justly impress upon this translation, the most 
 memorable, because the most influential of all that 
 have ever been accomplished, a character of grandeur 
 that place it on the same level of interest as the build- 
 ing of the first or second temple at Jerusalem. 
 
 There is a Greek legend which openly ascribes to 
 this translation all the characters of a miracle. But, 
 as usually happens, this vulgarizing form of the mira- 
 culous is far less impressive than the plain history 
 itself, unfolding its stages with the most unpretending 
 historical fidelity. Even the Greek language, on 
 which, as the natural language of the new Greek 
 dynasty in Egypt, the duty of the translation devolved, 
 enjoyed a double advantage : 1st, as being the only 
 language then spoken upon earth that could diffuse a 
 book over every part of the civilized earth ; 2dly, as 
 being a language of unparalleled power and compass 
 for expressing and reproducing effectually all ideas, 
 however alien and novel. Even the city, again, in 
 which this translation was accomplished, had a double 
 dowery of advantages towards such a labor, not only 
 as enjoying a large literary society, and, in particular, 
 a large Jewish society, together with unusual provision 
 in the shape of libraries, on a scale probably at that 
 time unprecedented, but also as having the most exten- 
 sive machinery then known to human experience for 
 publishing, that is, for transmitting to foreign capitals
 
 136 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL 
 
 all books in the readiest and the cheapest fashion, by 
 means of its prodigious shipping. 
 
 Having thus indicated to the unlearned reader the 
 particular natpre of that interest which invests this 
 earliest translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, viz., that 
 in fact this translation was the earliest publication to 
 the human race of a revelation which had previously- 
 been locked up in a language destined, as surely as 
 the Welsh language or the Gtelic, to eternai obscurity 
 amongst men, I go on to mention that the learned 
 Jews selected for this weighty labor happened to be in 
 number seventy-two ; but, as the Jews systematically 
 reject fractions in such cases (whence it is that always, 
 in order to express the period of six weeks, they say 
 forty days, and not, as strictly they should, forty-two 
 days), popularly, the translators were called 'the 
 seventy,' for which the Latin word is septuaginta. 
 And thus in after ages the translators were usually 
 indicated as ' The LXX,' or, if the work and not the 
 workmen should be noticed, it was cited as The Sep- 
 tuagint. In fact, this earliest of Scriptural versions, 
 viz., into Greek, is by much the most famous ; or, if 
 any other approaches it in notoriety, it is the Latin 
 translation by St. Jerome, which, in this one point, 
 enjoys even a superior importance, that in the Church 
 of Rome it is the authorized translation. Evidently, 
 in every church, it must be a matter of primary im- 
 portance to assign the particular version to which that 
 church appeals, and by which, in any controversy 
 arising, that church consents to be governed. Now, 
 the Jerome version fulfils this function for the Romish 
 Church ; and accordingly, in the sense of being pub-
 
 EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY. 137 
 
 lishcd (vulgafa), or publicly authorized by that church, 
 it is commonly called The Vulgate. 
 
 But, in a large polemic question, unless, like the 
 Romish church, we uphold a secondary inspiration as 
 having secured a special privileged translation from 
 the possibility of error, vvc cannot refuse an appeal to 
 the Hebrew text for the Old Testament, or to the 
 Greek text for the New. The word aeonios [aivmog), 
 as purely Grecian, could not connect itself with the 
 Old Testament, unless it were through the Septuagint 
 translation into Greek. Now, with that version, in 
 any case of controversy, none of us, Protestants alike 
 or Roman Catholics, have anything whatever to do. 
 Controversially, we can be concerned only with the 
 original language of the Scriptures, with its actual 
 verbal expressions textually produced. To be liable, 
 therefore, to such a textual citation, any Greek word 
 must belong to the Neio Testament. Because, though 
 the word might happen to occur in the Septuagint, yet, 
 since that is merely a translation, for any of us who 
 occupy a conti;oversial place, that is, who are bound 
 by the responsibilities, or who claim the strict privi- 
 leges of controversy, the Septuagint has no virtual 
 existence. We should not be at liberty to allege the 
 Septuagint as any authority, if it liappened to coun- 
 tenance our own views; and, consequently, we could 
 not be called on to recognise the Septuagint in any 
 case where it should happen to be against us. I make 
 this preliminary caveat, as not caring whether the 
 word aeonios does or does not occur in the Septuagint. 
 Either way, the reader understands that I disown the 
 authority of that version as in any degree afiecting
 
 138 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL 
 
 myself. The word which, forty years ago, moved my 
 disgust by its servile misinterpretation, was a word 
 proper to the New Testament ; and any sense which it 
 may have received from an Alexandrian Jew in the 
 third century before Christ, is no more relevant to any 
 criticism that I am now going to suggest, than is the 
 classical use of the word aeon (aicu)) familiar to the 
 learned in Sophocles or Euripides. 
 
 The reason which gives to this word aeonian what I 
 do not scruple to call a dreadful importance, is the 
 same reason, and no other, which prompted the dis- 
 honesty concerned in the ordinary interpretation of 
 this word. The word happened to connect itself — 
 but that was no practical concern of mine ; me it had 
 not biassed in the one direction, nor should it have 
 biassed any just critic in the counter direction — hap- 
 pened, I say, to connect itself with the ancient dispute 
 upon the duration of future punishments. What was 
 meant by the aeonian punishments in the next world } 
 Was the proper sense of the word eternal^ or was- it 
 not } I, for my part, meddled not, nor upon any con- 
 sideration could have been tempted to meddle, with a 
 speculation repellent alike by the horror and by the 
 hopeless mystery which invest it. Secrets of the 
 prison-house, so afflicting to contemplate steadily, and 
 so hopeless of solution, there could be no proper 
 motive for investigating, unless the investigation prom- 
 ised a great deal more than it could ever accomplish ; 
 and my own feeling as to all such problems is, that 
 they vulgarize what, left to itself, would take its natural 
 station amongst the freezing horrors that Shakspeare 
 dismisses with so potent an expression of awe, in a
 
 EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY. 139 
 
 well-known scene of ' Measure for Measure.' I reite- 
 rate my protest against being in any way decoyed into 
 the controversy. Perhaps I may have a strong opinion 
 upon the subject. But, anticipating the coarse discus- 
 sions into which the slightest entertainment of such a 
 question would be every moment approaching, once for 
 all, out of reverential regard for the dignitv of human 
 nature, I beg permission to decline the controversy 
 altogether. 
 
 But does this declinature involve any countenance to 
 a certain argument which I began by rejecting as 
 abominable ? Most certainly not. That argument 
 runs thus — that the ordinary construction of the term 
 aeonian, as equivalent to everlasting, could not pos- 
 sibly be given up when associated with penal misery, 
 because in that case, and by the very same act, the 
 idea of eternity must be abandoned as applicable to 
 the counter-bliss of Paradise. Torment and blessed- 
 ness, it was argued, punishment and beatification, stood 
 upon the same level ; the same word it was, the word 
 aeoman, which qualified the duration of either; and, 
 if eternity in the most rigorous acceptation fell away 
 from the one idea, it must equally fall away from the 
 other. Well ; be it so. But that would not settle the 
 question. It might be very painful to renounce a 
 long-cherished anticipation ; but the necessity of doing 
 so could not be received as a sufficient reason for 
 adhering to the old unconditional use of the word 
 aeonian. The argument is — that we must retain the 
 old sense of eternal, because else we lose upon one 
 scale what we had gained upon the other. But what 
 then ? would be the reasonable man's retort. We are
 
 140 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL 
 
 not to accept or to reject a new construction (if other- 
 wise the more colorable) of the word aeonian, simply 
 because the consequences might seem such as upon 
 the whole to displease us. We may gain nothing; for 
 by the new interpretation our loss may balance our 
 gain ; and we may prefer the old arrangement. But 
 how monstrous is all this! We are not summoned as 
 to a choice of two different arrangements that may 
 suit difTerent tastes, but to a grave question as to what 
 is the sense and operation of the word aeonian. Let 
 the limitation of the word disturb our previous esti- 
 mate of Paradise, grant that it so disturbs that estimate, 
 not the less all such consequences leave the dispute 
 exactly where it was ; and if a balance of reason can 
 be found for limiting the extent of the word aeonian, 
 it will not be the less true because it may happen to 
 disturb a crotchet of our own. 
 
 Meantime, all this speculation, first and last, is pure 
 nonsense. Aeonian does not mean eternal ; neither 
 does it mean of limited duration ; nor would the un- 
 settling of aeonian in its old use, as applied to punish- 
 ment, to torment, to misery, &c., carry with it any 
 necessary unsettling of the idea in its application to 
 the beatitudes of Paradise. Pause, reader; and thou, 
 my favored and privileged reader, that boastest thyself 
 to be unlearned, pause doubly whilst I communicate 
 my views as to this remarkable word. 
 
 What is an aeon 7 In the use and acceptation of the 
 Apocalypse, it is evidently this, viz., the duration or 
 cycle of existence which belongs to any object, not 
 individually for itself, but universally in right of its 
 genus. Kant, for instance, in a little paper which I
 
 EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY. 141 
 
 once translated, proposed and debated the question as 
 to the age of our planet the Earth. What did he 
 mean ? Was he to be understood as asking whether 
 the Earth were half a million, two millions, or three 
 millions of years old ? Not at all. The probabilities 
 certainly lean, one and all, to the assignment of an 
 antiquity greater by many thousands of times than that 
 which we have most idly supposed ourselves to extract 
 from Scripture, which assuredly never meant to ap- 
 proach a question so profoundly irrelevant to the great 
 purposes of Scripture as any geological speculation 
 ■whatsoever. But this was not within the field of Kant's 
 inquiry. What he wished to know was simply the 
 exact stage in the whole course of her development 
 which the Earth at present occupies. Is she still in 
 her infancy, for example, or in a stage corresponding 
 to middle age, or in a stage approaching to superan- 
 nuation ? The idea of Kant presupposed a certain 
 average duration as belonging to a planet of our par- 
 ticular system ; and supposing this known, or discov- 
 erable, and that a certain assignable development 
 belonged to a planet so circumstanced as ours, then in 
 what particular stage of that development may wc, the 
 tenants of this respectable little planet Tellus, reason- 
 ably be conceived to stand ? 
 
 Man, again, has a certain aeonian life ; possibly 
 ranging somewhere about the period of seventy years 
 assigned in the Psalms. That is, in a state as highly 
 improved as human infirmity and the errors of the 
 earth herself, together with the diseases incident to our 
 atmosphere, &c., could be supposed to allow, possibly 
 the human race might average seventy years for each
 
 142 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL 
 
 individual. This period would in that case represent 
 the ' aeo7i ' of the individual Tellurian ; but the ' aeon'' 
 of the Tellurian race would probably amount to many 
 millions of our earthly years; and it would remain an 
 unfathomable mystery, deriving no light at all from 
 the septuagenarian '■aeon'' of the individual; though 
 between the two aeons I have no doubt that some 
 secret link of connection does and must subsist, how- 
 ever undiscoverable by human sagacity. 
 
 The crow, the deer, the eagle, &c., are all supposed 
 to be long-lived. Some people have fancied that in 
 their normal state they tended to a period of two* 
 centuries. I myself know nothing certain for or 
 against this belief; but, supposing the case to be as 
 it is represented, then this would be the aeonian period 
 of these animals, considered as individuals. Among 
 trees, in like manner, the oak, the cedar, the yew, are 
 notoriously of very slow growth, and their aeonian 
 period is unusually long as regards the individual. 
 What may be the aeon of the whole species is utterly 
 
 * I have heard the same normal duration ascribed to the tor- 
 toise, and one case became imperfectly known to myself per- 
 sonally. Somewhere I may have mentioned the case in print. 
 These, at any rate, are the facts of the case : A lady (by birth a 
 Cowper, of the whig family, and cousin to the poet Cowper ; 
 and, equally with him, related to Dr. Madan, bishop of Peter- 
 borough), in the early part of this century, mentioned to me 
 that, in the palace at Peterborough, she had for years known as 
 a pet of the household a venerable tortoise, who bore some in- 
 scription on his shell indicating that, from 1G38 to 1643, he had 
 belono'ed to Archbishop Laud, who (if I am not mistaken) held 
 the bishopric of Peterborough before he was translated to Lou- 
 don, and finally to Canterbury.
 
 EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY. 143 
 
 unknown. Amongst birds, one species at least has 
 become extinct in our own generation : its aeon was 
 accomplished. So of all tb.e fossil species in zoology, 
 which Palaeontology has revealed. Nothing, in short, 
 throughout universal nature, can for a moment be con- 
 ceived to have been resigned to accident for its normal 
 aeon. All periods and dates of this order belong to 
 the certainties of nature, but also, at the same time, to 
 the mysteries of Providence. Throughout the Pro- 
 phets, we are uniformly taught that nothing is more 
 below the grandeur of Heaven than to assign earthly 
 dates in fixing either the revolutions or the duration of 
 great events such as prophecy would condescend to 
 notice. A day has a prophetic meaning, but what sort 
 of day ? A mysterious expression for a time which 
 has no resemblance to a natural day — sometimes com- 
 prehending long successions of centuries, and altering 
 its meaning according to the object concerned. 'A 
 time,' and 'times,' or ' half a time' — 'an aeon,' or 
 ^ aeons of aeons'' — and other variations of this pro- 
 phetic language (so full of dreadful meaning, but also 
 of doubt and perplexity), are all significant. The 
 peculiar grandeur of such expressions lies partly in the 
 dimness of the approximation to any attempt at settling 
 their limits, and still more in this, that the conventional 
 character, and consequent meanness of ordinary human 
 dates, are abandoned in the celestial chronologies. 
 Hours and days, or lunations and months, have no trufe 
 or philosophic relation to the origin, or duration, or 
 periods of return belonging to great events, or revolu- 
 tionary agencies, or vast national crimes ; but the 
 normal period and duration of all acts whatever, the
 
 144 ON THE SUPPOSED SCRIPTURAL 
 
 time of their emergence, of their agency, or their 
 reagency, fall into harmony with the secret proportions 
 of a heavenly scale, when they belong by mere neces- 
 sity of their own internal constitution to the vital 
 though hidden motions that are at work in their own 
 life and manifestation. Under the old and ordinary 
 view of the apocalyptic aeon, which supposed it always 
 to mean the same period of time — mysterious, indeed, 
 and uncertain, as regards our knowledge, but fixed and 
 rigorously certain in the secret counsels of God — it 
 was presumed that this period, if it lost its character of 
 infinity when applied to evil, to criminality, or to pun- 
 ishment, must lose it by a corresponding necessity 
 equally when applied to happiness and the golden 
 aspects of hope. But, on the contrary, every object 
 vi'hatsoever, every mode of existence, has its own 
 separate and independent aeon. The most thoughtless 
 person must be satisfied, on reflection, even apart from 
 the express commentary upon this idea furnished by 
 the Apocalypse, that every life and mode of being 
 must have hidden within itself the secret why of its 
 duration. It is impossible to believe of any duration 
 whatever that it is determined capriciously. Always 
 it rests upon some ground, ancient as light and dark- 
 ness, though undiscoverable by man. This only is 
 discoverable, as a general tendency, that the aeon, or 
 generic period of evil, is constantly towards a fugitive 
 duration. The aeon, it is alleged, must always express 
 the same idea, .whatever that may be ; if it is less than 
 eternity for the evil cases, then it must be less for the 
 good ones. Doubtless the idea of an aeon is in one 
 sense always uniform, always the same, viz., as a
 
 EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY. 145 
 
 tenth or a twelfth is always the same. Arithmetic 
 couhl not exist if any caprice or variation affected 
 these ideas — a tenth is always more than an eleventh, 
 always less than a ninth. But this uniformity of ratio 
 and proportion does not hinder but that a tenth may 
 now represent a guinea, and next moment represent 
 a thousand guineas. The exact amount of the dura- 
 tion expressed by an aeon depends altogether upon 
 the particular subject which yields the aeon. It is, as 
 I have said, a radix ; and, like an algebraic square-root 
 or cube-root, though governed by the most rigorous 
 laws of limitation, it must vary in obedience to the 
 nature of the particular subject whose radix it forms. 
 
 Reader, I take my leave. I have been too loitering. 
 I know it, and will make such efforts in future to cul- 
 tivate the sternest brevity as nervous distress will allow. 
 Meantime, as the upshot of my speculation, accept 
 these three propositions : — • 
 
 A. That man (which is in effect every mtxn hitherto,) 
 "who allows himself to infer the eternity of evil from 
 the counter eternity of good, builds upon the mistake 
 of assigning a stationary and mechanic value to the 
 idea of an aeon ; whereas the very purpose of Scrip- 
 ture in using this word was to evade such a value. 
 The word is always varying, for the very purpose of 
 keeping it faithful to a spiritual identity. The period 
 or duration of every object would be an essentially 
 variable quantity, were it not mysteriously commen- 
 surate to the inner nature of that object as laid open to 
 the eyes of God. And thus it happens, that every- 
 thing in this world, possibly without a solitary excep- 
 10
 
 146 SCRIPTURAL EXPRESSION FOR ETERNITY. 
 
 tion, has its own separate aeon : how many entities, so 
 many aeons. 
 
 B. But if it be an excess of blindness which can 
 overlook the aeonian differences amongst even neutral 
 entities, much deeper is that blindness which overlooks 
 the separate tendencies of things evil and things good. 
 Naturally, all evil is fugitive and allied to death. 
 
 C. I separately, speaking for myself only, profound- 
 ly believe that the Scriptures ascribe absolute and 
 metaphysical eternity to one sole Being, viz., to God ; 
 and derivatively to all others according to the interest 
 which they can plead in God's favor. Having anchor- 
 age in God, innumerable entities may possibly be 
 admitted to a participation in divine aeon. But what 
 interest in the favor of God can belong to falsehood, 
 to malignity, to impurity ? To invest them with 
 aeonian privileges, is in effect, and by its results, to 
 distrust and to insult the Deity. Evil would not be 
 evil, if it had that power of self-subsistence which is 
 imputed to it in supposing its aeonian life to be co- 
 eternal, with that which crowns and glorifies the good.
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 [1852.] 
 
 Everything connected with our ordinary concep- 
 tions of this man, of his real purposes, and of his ulti- 
 mate fate, apparently is erroneous. That neither any 
 motive of his, nor any ruling impulse, was tainted with 
 the vulgar treachery imputed to him, appears probable 
 from the strength of his remorse. And this view of 
 his case comes recommended by so much of internal 
 plausibility, that in Germany it has long since shaped 
 itself into the following well-known hypothesis : — 
 Judas Iscariot, it is alleged, participated in the common 
 delusion of the apostles as to that earthly kingdom which, 
 under the sanction and auspices of Christ, they sup- 
 posed to be waiting and ripening for the Jewish people. 
 So far there was nothing in Judas to warrant any spe- 
 cial wonder or any special blame. If he erved, so did 
 the other apostles. But in one point Judas went further 
 than his brethren, viz., in speculating upon the reasons 
 of Christ for delaying the inauguration of this kingdom. 
 All things were apparently ripe for it ; all things pointed 
 to it ; the expectation and languishing desires of many 
 Hebrew saints; the warning from signs; the prophetic 
 alarms and kindling signals raised aloft by heralds like 
 the Baptist ; the fermentation of revolutionary doctrines
 
 148 JUDAS ISCAKIOT. 
 
 all over Judea ; the passionate impatience of the Roman 
 yoke ; the continual openings of new convulsions and 
 new opporfunilies at the great centre of Rome ; the 
 insurrectionary temper of Jewish society, as indicated 
 by the continual rise of robber leaders, that drew off 
 multitudes into the neighboring deserts ; and, univer- 
 sally, the unsettled mind of the Jewish nation. These 
 explosive materials had long been accumulated ; they 
 needed only a kindling spark. Heavenly citations to 
 war had long been felt in the insults and aggressions of 
 paganism ; there wanted only a leader. And such a 
 leader, if he would but consent to assume that office, 
 stood ready in the founder of Christianity. The su- 
 preme qualifications for leadership, as revealed in the 
 person of Jesus Christ, were evident to all parties in 
 the Jewish community, and not merely to the religious 
 body of his own immediate followers. These qualifi- 
 cations were published and expounded to the world in 
 the facilit}' with which everywhere he drew crowds 
 about himself,^ in the extraordinary depth of impression 
 which attended his teaching, and in the fear as well as 
 hatred which possessed the Jewish rulers against him. 
 Indeed, had it not been for the predominance of the 
 Roman element in the governmentof Judea, it is pretty 
 certain that Christ would have been crushed in an earlier 
 stage in his career. 
 
 Believing, therefore, as Judas did, that Christ con- 
 templated the establishment of a temporal kingdom — 
 the restoration, in fact, of David's throne ; believing, 
 also, that all the conditions towards the realization of 
 such a scheme met and centred in the person of Christ, 
 when viewed in relation to the circumstances of the
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 149 
 
 times; what was it that, upon any solution intelligible 
 to Judas, neutralized so grand a scene of promise ? 
 Simply and obviously, to a man with the views of Ju- 
 das, it was the character of Christ himself, sublimely 
 over-gifted for purposes of speculation, but, like Shak- 
 speare's great creation of Prince Hamlet, not commen- 
 surately endowed for the business of action and the 
 sudden emergencies of life. Indecision and doubt (such 
 was the interpretation of Judas) crept over the faculties 
 of the Divine Man as often as he was summoned away 
 from his own natural Sabbath of heavenly contempla- 
 tion to the gross necessities of action. It became im- 
 portant, therefore, according to the views adopted by 
 Judas, that his master should be precipitated into action 
 by a force from without, and thrown into the centre of 
 some popular movement, such as, once beginning to 
 revolve, could not afterwards be suspended or checked. 
 It is by no means improbable that this may have been 
 the theory of Judas. Nor is it at all'neccssary to seek 
 for the justification of such a theory, considered as a 
 matter of prudential policy, in Jewish fanaticism. The 
 Jews of that day were distracted by internal schisms. 
 Else, and with any benefit from national unity, the 
 headlong rapture of Jewish zeal, when combined in 
 vindication of their insulted temple and temple-worship, 
 would have been equal to the effort of dislodging the 
 Roman legionary force for the moment from the mili- 
 tary possession of Palestine. After which, ahhough 
 the restoration of the Roman supremacy could not ulti- 
 mately have been evaded, it is not at all certain that a 
 compromise might not have been welcome at Rome, 
 such as had, in fact, existed under Herod the Great
 
 150 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 and his father.^ The radical power, in fact, would have 
 been lodged in Rome ; but with such external conces- 
 sions to Jewish nationality as might have consulted 
 the real interests of both parties. Administered under 
 Jewish names, the land might have yielded a larger 
 revenue than, as a refractory nest of insurgents, it ever 
 did yield to the Roman exchequer; and, on the other 
 hand, a ferocious bigotry, which was really sublime in 
 its indomitable obstinacy, might have been humored 
 without prejudice to the grandeur of the imperial 
 claims. Even little Palmyra in later times was 
 indulged to a greater extent without serious injury in 
 any quarter, had it not been for the feminine arrogance 
 that misinterpreted and abused that indulgence. 
 
 The miscalculation, in fact, of Judas Iscariot — sup- 
 posing him really to have entertained the views ascribed 
 to him — did not hinge at all upon political oversights, 
 but upon a total spiritual blindness; in which blindness, 
 however, he went no farther than at the time did prob- 
 ably most of his brethren. Upon ihem., quite as little 
 as upon him^ had as yet dawned the true grandeur of 
 the Christian scheme. In this only he outran his 
 brethren — that, sharing in their blindness, he greatly 
 exceeded them in presumption. All alike had imputed 
 to their Master views utterly irreconcilable with the 
 grandeur of his new and heavenly religion. It was no 
 religion at all which they as yet supposed to be the 
 object of Christ's teaching, but a simple preparation for 
 a pitiably vulgar scheme of earthly aggrandizement. 
 But, whilst the other apostles had simply failed to com- 
 prehend their master, Judas had presumptuously as- 
 sumed that he comprehended the purposes of Christ
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 151 
 
 more fully than Christ himself. His object was auda- 
 cious in a high degree, but (according to the theory 
 which I am explaining) for that very reason not treach- 
 erous at all. The more that he was liable to the re- 
 proach of audacity, the less can he be suspected of 
 perfidy. He supposed himself executing the very 
 innermost purposes of Christ, but with an energy w:hich 
 it was the characteristic infirmity of Christ to want. 
 His hope was, that, when at length actually arrested by 
 the Jewish authorities, Christ would no longer vacillate ; 
 he would be forced into giving the signal to the popu- 
 lace of Jerusalem, ^who would then have risen unani- 
 mously, for the double purpose of placing Christ at the 
 head of an insurrectionary movement, and of throwing 
 off the Roman yoke. As regards the worldly prospects 
 of this scheme, it is by no means improbable that 
 Iscariot was right. It seems, indeed, altogether impos- 
 sible that he, who (as the treasurer of the apostolic 
 fraternity) had in all likelihood the most of worldly 
 wisdom, and was best acquainted with the temper of 
 the times, could have made any gross blunder as to the 
 wishes and secret designs of the populace in Jerusalem.^ 
 This populace, however, not being backed by any 
 strong section of the aristocracy, having no confidence 
 again in any of the learned bodies connected with the 
 great service of their national temple, and having no 
 leaders, were apparently dejected, and without unity. 
 The probability, meantime, is, that some popular 
 demonstration would have been made on behalf of 
 Christ, had he himself offered it any encouragement. 
 But we, who know the incompatibility of any such 
 encouragement with the primary purpose of Christ's
 
 152 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 mission upon earth, know of necessity that Judas, and 
 the populace on which he relied, must equally and 
 simultaneously have found themselves undeceived for 
 ever. In an instant of time one grand decisive word 
 and gesture of Christ must have put an end perempto- 
 rily to all hopes of that kind. In that brief instant, 
 enough was made known to Judas for final despair. 
 Whether he had ever drunk profoundly enough from 
 the cup of spiritual religion to understand the full 
 meaning of Christ's refusal ; whether he still adhered 
 to his worldly interpretation of Christ's mission, and 
 simply translated the refusal into a confession that all 
 was lost, whilst in very fact all was on the brink of 
 absolute and triumphant consummation, it is impossible 
 for us, without documents or hints, to conjecture. 
 Enough is apparent to show that, in reference to any 
 hopes that could be consolatory for him, all was indeed 
 lost. The kingdom of this world had melted away in a 
 moment like a cloud ; and it mattered little to him that 
 a spiritual kingdom survived, and that intellectually he 
 might suddenly become aware of it, if in his heart 
 there were no spiritual organ by which he could appro- 
 priate the new and stunning revelation. Equally he 
 might be swallowed up by despair in the case of retain- 
 ing his old worldly delusions, and finding the ground of 
 his old anticipations suddenly giving way below his 
 feet, or again in the opposite case of suddenly correct- 
 ing his own false constructions of Christ's mission, and 
 apprehending a far higher purpose; but which purpose, 
 in the very moment of becoming intelligible, rose into 
 a region far beyond his own frail fleshly sympathies. 
 He might read more truly — far more truly; but what
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 153 
 
 of that, if the new truth were nothing to him? The 
 despondency of Judas might be of two different quali- 
 ties, more or less selfish ; indeed, I would go so far as 
 to say, selfish or altogether unselfish. And it is with 
 a view to this question, and under a persuasion of a 
 wrong done to Judas by gross mistranslation disturbing 
 the Greek text, that 1 entered at all upon this little 
 memorandum. Else what 1 have hitherto been at- 
 tem|)ting to explain (excepting only the part relating to 
 the hakim, which is entirely my own suggestion) be- 
 longs to German writers. The whple construction of 
 Iscariot's conduct, as arising, not out of perfidy, but out 
 of iiis sincere belief that some quickening impulse was 
 called for by a morbid feature in Christ's temperament 
 — all this I believe was originally due to the Germans ; 
 and it is an important correction, for it must alwaj^s be 
 important to recall within the fold of Christian forgive- 
 ness any one who has long been sequestered from 
 human charily, and has tenanted a Pariah grave. In 
 the greatest and most memorable of earthly tragedies, 
 Judas is a prominent figure. So long as the earth re- 
 volves, he cannot be forgotten. If, therefore, there is 
 a doubt affecting his case, he is entitled to the benefit 
 of that doubt; and if he has suffered to any extent — if 
 simply to the extent of losing a palliation, or the shadow 
 of a palliation — by means of a false translation from 
 the Greek, we ought not to revise or mitigate his sen- 
 tence merely, but to dismiss him from the bar. The 
 Germans make it a question — in what spirit Iscariot 
 lived? My question is — how he died ? If he were 
 a traitor at last, in that case he was virtually a traitor 
 always. If he perpetrated treason in the last hours of
 
 154 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 his connection with Christ, and even a mercenary trea- 
 son, then he must have been dallying with the purpose 
 of treason during all the hours of his apostleship. If, 
 in reality, when selling his master for money, he meant 
 to betray him, and regarded the money as the com- 
 mensurate motive for betraying him, then his case will 
 assume a very different aspect from that impressed 
 upon it by the German construction of the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The life of Judas, and the death of Judas, taken 
 apart, or taken jointly, each separately upon indepen- 
 dent grounds, or both together upon common groundsj 
 are open to doubts and perplexities. And possibly the 
 double perplexities, if fully before us, might turn out to 
 be self-neutralized. Taking them jointly, we might 
 ask — Were they, this life and this death, to be 
 regarded as a common movement on behalf of a deep 
 and heart-fretting Hebrew patriotism, which was not 
 the less sincere, because it ran headlong into the un- 
 amiable form of rancorous rationality and inhuman 
 bigotry ? Were they a wild degeneration from a prin- 
 ciple originally noble ? Or, on the contrary, this life 
 and this death, were they alike the expression of a 
 base mercenary selfishness, caught and baffled in the 
 meshes of its own chicanery ? The life, if it could be 
 appreciated in its secret principles, might go far to 
 illustrate the probable character of the death. The 
 death, if its circumstances were recoverable, and could 
 be liberated from the self-contradictory details in the 
 received report, might do something to indicate retro- 
 spectively the character and tenor of that life. The 
 life of Judas, under a German construction of it, as a
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 155 
 
 spasmodic effort of vindictive patriotism and of rebel- 
 lious ambition, noble by possibility, though erring and 
 worldly-minded, when measured by a standard so ex- 
 alted as that of Christianity, would infer (as its natural 
 sequel) a death of fierce despair. Read under the ordi- 
 nary construction as a life exposed to temptations that 
 were petty, and frauds that were always mercenary, it 
 could not reasonably be supposed to furnish any occasion 
 for passions upon so great a scale as those which seem 
 to have been concerned in the tragical end of Judas, 
 whether the passions were those of remorse and peni- 
 tential anguish, or of personal disappointment. Leav- 
 ing, however, to the Germans, the task of conjecturally 
 restoring its faded lineaments to this mysterious record 
 of a crime that never came before any human tribunal, 
 my own purpose is narrower. I seek to recall and to 
 recombine the elements, not of the Iscariot's life, nor of 
 his particular offence, but simply of his death. 
 
 The reader is probably aware, that there has always 
 been an obscurity, or even a perplexity, connected 
 with the death of Iscario.t. Two only out of the entire 
 five documents, which record the rise and early Wstory 
 of Christianity, have circumstantially noticed this event, 
 Mark, Luke, and John, leave it undcscribed. St. Mat* 
 thevv and the Acts of the Apostles have bequeathed to 
 us a picturesque account of it, which, to my own be- 
 lief, has been thoroughly misunderstood ; and, once 
 heing misunderstood, naturally enough has been inter- 
 preted as something fearfully preternatural. The 
 crime, though great, of Iscariot has probably been 
 much exaggerated. It was the crime of signal and 
 earthly presumption, seeking not to thwart the purposes
 
 156 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 of Christ, or to betray them, but to promote them by 
 means utterly at war with their central spirit. As far 
 as can be judged, it was an attempt to forward the 
 counsels of God by weapons borrowed from the 
 armory of darkness. The crrtne being once misap- 
 prehended as a crime, without a name or a precedent, 
 it was inevitable that the punishment, so far as it was 
 expounded by the death of the criminal, should, in 
 obedience to this first erroneous preconception, be 
 translated into something preternatural. To a mode 
 of guilt which seemed to have no parallel, it was rea- 
 sonable enough that there should be apportioned a death 
 which allowed of no medical explanation.'^ 
 
 This demur, moreover, of obscurity was not the 
 only one raised against the death of Judas : there was 
 a separate objection — that it was inconsistent with 
 itself. He was represented, in the ordinary modern 
 versions, as dying by a double death — viz., 1st, by a 
 suicidal death: * Ae toent and hanged himself — this is 
 the brief account of his death given by St. Matthew; 
 but, 2d, by a death not suicidal : in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, we have a very different account of his 
 death, not suggesting suicide at all, and otherwise 
 describing it as mysteriously complex; that is, pre- 
 senting us with various circumstances of the case, 
 none of which, in the common vernacular versions 
 (English and Continental), is at all intelligible. The 
 elements in the case are three : that he * fell down 
 headlong ; ' that he ' burst asunder in the middle ; '. and 
 that 'his bowels gushed out' — the first of these ele 
 ments being unintelligible in the English expression of 
 it, and the two others being purely and blankly impos- 
 sible.
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 157 
 
 These objections to the particular mode of that 
 catastrophe which closed the career of Judas, had been 
 felt pretty generally in the Christian church, and prob- 
 ably from the earliest limes; and the more so on 
 account of that deep obscurity which rested upon the 
 nature of his offence. That a man, who had been 
 solemnly elected into the small band of the apostles, 
 should so far wander from his duty as to incur for- 
 feiture of his great office — this was in itself suffi- 
 ciently dreadful, and a shocking revival to the human 
 imagination of that eldest amongst all traditions — a 
 tradition descending to us from what date we know 
 not, nor through what channel of original comininii- 
 cation — the possibility that even into the heaven of 
 heavens, and amongst the angelic hosts, rebellion 
 against God, long before man and human frailty 
 existed, should have crept by some way metaphy- 
 sically inconceivable. What search could be suffi- 
 cient, where even the eye of Christ had failed to 
 detect any germ of evil ? Still, though the crime of 
 Judas had doubtless been profound,"' and evidently to 
 me it had been the intention of the early church to 
 throw a deep pall of mystery over its extent — charily, 
 that unique charity which belongs to Christianity, as 
 being the sole charity ever preached to men, which 
 ' hopeth all things,' inclined through every age the 
 hearts of musing readers to suspend their verdict where 
 the Scriptures had themselves practised some reserve, 
 and .(were it only by the extreme perplexity of its final 
 and revised expressions) had left an opening, if not 
 almost an invitation, to doubt. The doubt was left by 
 the primitive church where Scripture had left it. There
 
 158 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 was not any absolute necessity that this should ever be 
 cleared up to man. But it was felt from the very first 
 that some call was made upon the church to explain 
 and to harmonize the apparently contradictory expres- 
 sions used in what may be viewed as the official report 
 of the one memorable domestic tragedy in the infant 
 stage of the Christian history. Official I call it, as 
 being in a manner countersigned by the whole con- 
 federate church, when proceeding to their first com- 
 mon act in filling up the vacancy consequent upon the 
 transgression of Judas, whereas the account of St. 
 Matthew pleaded no authority but his own. And 
 domestic I call the tragedy, in prosecution of that 
 beautiful image under which a father of our English 
 church has called the twelve apostles, when celebi'at- 
 ing the paschal feast, ' the family'^ of Christ.' 
 
 This early essay of the church to harmonize the 
 difficult expressions employed in the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles — an essay which, therefore, recognises at once 
 the fact that these expressions really were likely to 
 perplex the simple-hearted, and not merely such read- 
 ers as systematically raised cavils — was brought for- 
 ward in the earliest era of the church, and under the 
 sanction of the very highest authority, viz., by one 
 who sat at the feet of the beloved apostle ; by 
 one, therefore, who, if he had not seen Christ, had 
 seen familiarly him in whom Christ most confided. 
 But I will report the case in the words of that golden- 
 mouthed rhetorician, that Chrysostom of the English 
 Church, from whose lips all truth came mended, and 
 who, in spite of Shakspeare himself, found it possible
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 159 
 
 ' To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 
 And add another perfume to the "Violet.' 
 
 The following is the account given by Jeremy Taylor 
 of the whole history, in so far as it affects the Scrip- 
 ture report of what Judas did, and what finally he 
 suffered : — ' Two days before the passover, the 
 Scribes and Pharisees called a council to contrive 
 crafty ways '^ of destroying Jesus, they not daring to do 
 it by open violence. Of which meeting, when Judas 
 Iscariot had notice (for those assemblies were public 
 and notorious) he ran from Bethany, and offered him- 
 self to betray his Master to them, if they would give 
 him a considerable reward. They agreed for thirty 
 pieces of silver.' In a case so memorable as this, 
 nothing is or can be trivial ; and even that curiosity is 
 not unhallowed which has descended to inquire what 
 sum, at that era of Jewish history, this expression 
 might indicate. The bishop replies thus : — 'Of Avhat 
 value each piece was, is uncertain ; but their own na- 
 tion hath given a rule, that, when a piece of silver is 
 named in the Pentateuch, it signifies a side ; if it be 
 named in the Prophets, it signifies a pound ; if in the 
 other writings of the Old Testament, it signifies a 
 talent.'' For this, besides other less familiar authority, 
 there is cited the well-known Arius Montanus, in the 
 Syro-Chaldaic dictionary. It is, however, self-evident 
 that any service open to Judas would have been pre- 
 posterously overpaid by thirty talents, a sum which 
 exceeded five thousand pounds sterling. And since 
 this particular sum had originally rested on the author- 
 ity of a prophet, cited by one of the evangelists,^ ' it 
 is probable,' proceeds the bishop, ' that tlie price at
 
 160 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 which Judas sold his lord was thirty pounds weight of 
 silver [that is, about ninety guineas sterling in English 
 money] — a goodly price for the Saviour of the world 
 to be prized at by his undiscernlng and unworthy 
 countrymen.' Where, however, the learned writer 
 makes a slight oversight in logic, since it was not pre- 
 cisely Christ that was so valued — this prisoner as 
 against the certain loss of this prisoner — but simply 
 this particular mode of contending with the difficulty 
 attached to his apprehension, so that, in the worst case, 
 this opportunity lost might be replaced by other oppor- 
 tunities ; and the price, therefore, was not calculated 
 as it would have been under -one solitary chance. 
 
 Tlie bishop then proceeds with the rehearsal of all 
 the circumstances connected with the pretended trial 
 of Christ ; and coming in the process of his narrative 
 to the conduct of Judas on learning the dreadful turn 
 which things were taking (conduct which surely argues 
 that he had anticipated a most opposite catastrophe), 
 he winds up the case of the Tscariot in the following 
 passage — ' When Judas heard that they had passed 
 the final and decretory sentence of death upon his 
 Lord, he, who thought not it would ha vo- gone so far, 
 repented him to have been an instrument of so damn- 
 able a machination, and came and brought the silver 
 which they gave him for hire, threw it in amongst 
 them, and said, ' 1 have sinned in betraying the inno. 
 cent blood.' But they, incurious of those hell-torments 
 Judas felt within him, because their own fires burned 
 not yet, dismissed him,' I pause for a moment to 
 observe that, in the expression, ' repented him to have 
 been an instrument,' the context shows the bishop
 
 JXJDAS ISCARIOT. 161 
 
 intending to represent Judas as recoiling from the issue 
 of his own acts, and from so damnable a machination, 
 not because his better feelings were evoked, as the 
 prospect of ruin to his Master drew near, and that he 
 shrank from that same thing when taking a definite 
 shape of fulfilment, which he had faced cheerfully 
 when at a distance — not at all : the bishop's meaning is 
 — that Judas recoiled from his own acts at the very 
 instant when he began to understand their real con- 
 sequences now solemnly opening upon his horror- 
 stricken understanding. He had hoped, probably, 
 much from the Roman interference ; and the history 
 itself shows that in this he had not been at all too san- 
 guine. Justice has never yet been done to the conduct 
 of Pilate. That man has little comprehended the style 
 and manner of the New Testament who does not per- 
 ceive the demoniac earnestness of Pilate to effect the 
 liberation of Christ, or who fails to read the anxiety of 
 the several evangelists to put on record his profound 
 sympathy with the prisoner. The falsest word that 
 ever yet was uttered upon any part of the New Testa- 
 ment, is that sneer of Lord Bacon's at ^jesting Pilate.' 
 Pilate was in deadly earnest from first to last, and 
 retired from his frantic effort on behalf of Christ, only 
 when his own safety began to be seriously compro- 
 mised. Do the thoughtless accusers of Pilate fancy 
 that he was a Christian ? If not, why, or on what 
 principle, was he to ruin himself at Rome, in order to 
 favor one he could not save at Jerusalem ? How 
 reasonably Judas had relied upon the Roman inter- 
 ference, is evident from what actually took place. 
 Judas relied, secondly, upon the populace, and tha 
 11
 
 162 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 this reliance also was well warranted, appears from 
 repeated instances of the fear with which the Jewish 
 rulers contemplated Christ. Why did they fear him 
 at all? Simply, as he was backed by the people : had 
 it not been for their support, Christ was no more an 
 object of terror to them than his herald, the Baptist. 
 But what I here insist on is (which else from some 
 expressions the reader might fail to understand), that 
 Jeremy Taylor nowhere makes the mistake of suppos- 
 ing Judas to have originally designed the ruin of his 
 Master, and nowhere understands by his 'repentance' 
 that he felt remorse on coming near to consequences 
 which from a distance he had welcomed. He admits 
 clearly that Judas was a traitor only in the sense of 
 seeking his Master's aggrandizement by methods which 
 placed him in revolt against that Master, methods which 
 not only involved express and formal disobedience to 
 that Master, but which ran into headlong hostility 
 against the spirit of all that he came on earth to effect. 
 It was the revolt, not of perfidious malignity, but of 
 arrogant and carnal blindness. In respect to the 
 gloomy termination of the Iscariot's career, and to the 
 perplexing account of it given in the Acts of the Apos- 
 tles, the bishop closes his account thus: — 'And Judas 
 went and hanged himself; and the judgment was made 
 more notorious and eminent by an unusual accident at 
 such deaths ; for he so swelled, that he burst, and his 
 bowels gushed out. But the Greek scholiast and some 
 others report out of Papias, St. John's scholar, that 
 Judas fell from the fig-tree, on which he hanged, before 
 he was quite dead, and survived his attempt somewhile ; 
 being so sad a spectacle of deformity and pain, and a
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 163 
 
 prodigious tumor, that his plague was deplorable and 
 highly miserable ; till at last he burst in the very sub- 
 stance of his trunk, as being extended beyond the pos- 
 sibilities ^ and capacities of nature.' 
 
 In this corrected version of Papias, we certainly gain 
 an intelligible account of what otherwise is far from in- 
 telligible, viz., the falling headlong. But all the rest 
 is a dismal heap of irrationalities ; and the single ray 
 of light which is obtained, viz., the suggestion of the 
 fig-tree as an elevation, which explains the possibility 
 of a headlong fall, is of itself an argument that some 
 great disturbance must have happened to the text at 
 this point, else how could so material a circumstance 
 have silently dropped out of the narrative } There are 
 passages in every separate book of the canon, into 
 which accident, or the somnolence of copyists, has in- 
 troduced errors seriously disturbing the sense and the 
 coherence. Many of these have been rectified in the 
 happiest manner by ingenious suggestions ; and a con- 
 siderable proportion of these suggestions has been since 
 verified and approved by the discovery of new manu- 
 scripts, or the more accurate collation of old ones. In 
 the present case, a much slighter change than might be 
 supposed will suffice to elicit a new and perfect sense 
 from the general outline of that text which still survives. 
 First, as to the phrase '■fell headlong,'* I do not under- 
 stand it of any fall from a fig-tree, or from any tree 
 whatever. This fig-tree I regard as a purely fanciful 
 resource ; and evidently an innovation to this extent 
 ranks amongst those conjectural audacities which shock 
 the discreet reader, as most unsatisfactory and licen- 
 tious, because purely gratuitous, when they rest upon
 
 164 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 no traces th^t can be indicated as still lurking in the 
 present text. Fell headlong may stand as at present : 
 it needs no change, for it discloses a very good and 
 sufficient sense, if we understand it figuratively as 
 meaning that he came to utter and unmitigated ruin, 
 that his wreck was total, for that, instead of dedicating 
 himself to a life of penitential sorrow, such as would 
 assuredly have conciliated the divine forgiveness, the 
 unhappy criminal had rushed out of life by suicide. So 
 far, at least, all is sound and coherent, and under no 
 further obligations to change small or great, beyond the 
 reading that, in a metaphorical sense, which, if read 
 (as hitherto) in a literal sense, would require the very 
 serious interpolation of an imaginary fig-tree. 
 
 What remains is equally simple : the change re- 
 quired involves as little violence, and the result from 
 this change will appear equally natural. But a brief 
 preliminary explanation is requisite, in order to place 
 it. advantageously before the reader. The ancients use 
 the term lowels with a latitude unknown generally to 
 modern literature, but especially to English literature. 
 In the midst of the far profounder passion which distin- 
 guishes the English from all literatures on the modern 
 European continent, it is singular that a fastidious de- 
 corum never sleeps for a moment. It might be imag- 
 ined that this fastidiousness would be in the Inverse 
 ratio of the passion : but it is not so. In particular the 
 French, certainly the literature which ranges at the 
 lowest elevation upon the scale of passion, nevertheless 
 is often homely, and even gross, in its recurrences to 
 frank elementary nature. For a lady to describe her- 
 self as laughing d gorge deployee^ a grossness which
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 165 
 
 with us, equally on the stage or in /eal life, would be 
 regarded with horror, amongst the French attracts no 
 particular attention. Again, amidst the supposed refine- 
 ments of French tragedy, and not observe the coarser 
 tragedy of Corneille, but amidst the more feminine and 
 polished tragedy of Racine, there is no recoil at all from 
 saying of such or such a sentiment, ' 11 me perce les 
 entrailles ' — it penetrates my bowels. The Greeks 
 and Romans still more extensively use the several va- 
 rieties of expression for the intestines, as a symbolic 
 phraseology for the domestic and social affections. We 
 English even, fastidious as we are, employ the term 
 bowels as a natural symbolization for the affections of 
 pity, mercy, or parental and brotherly affection. At 
 least we do so in recurring to the simplicities of the 
 scriptural style. But, amongst the Romans, the word 
 viscera is so naturally representative of the household 
 affections, that at length it becomes necessary to recall 
 an English reader to the true meaning of this word. 
 Through some physiological prejudice, it is true that 
 the bowels have always been regarded as the seat of 
 the more tender and sorrowing sympathies. But the 
 viscera comprehended all the intestines, or (as the 
 French term them) les entrailles. The heart even is a 
 viscus ; perhaps in a very large acceptation the brain 
 might be regarded as a co-viscus with the heart. There 
 is very slight ground for holding the brain to be the 
 organ of thinking, or the heart of moral sensibilities, 
 more than the stomach, or the bowels, or the intestines 
 generally. But waive all this : the Romans designated 
 the seat of the larger and nobler [i. e., the moral) sen- 
 sibilities indifferently by these three terms : the pectus^
 
 166 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 the prcccordia, and the viscera ; as to the cor, it seems 
 to me that it denoted the heart in its grosser and more 
 animal capacities : ' Molie meum levibus cor est viola- 
 bile relis ;' it was the seat of sexual passion ; but nobler 
 and more reflective sensibilities inhabited the pectus or 
 prcBcordia ; and naturally out of these physiologic 
 preconceptions arose corresponding expressions for 
 wounded or ruined sensibilities. We English, for in- 
 stance, insist on the disease of hroken hearty which 
 Sterne, in a well-known passage, postulates as a malady 
 not at all less definite than phthisis, or podagra, though 
 (as he says) not formally recognised in the bills of mor- 
 tality. But it is evident that a theory which should 
 represent the viscera as occupied by those functions of 
 the moral sensibilities which ive place in the central 
 viscus of the heart, must, in following out that hypo- 
 thesis, figure the case of these sensibilities when utterly 
 ruined under corresponding images. Our ' broken 
 heart' will therefore to them become ruptured viscera, 
 or prcBcordia that have burst. To burst in the middle, 
 is simply to be shattered and ruined in the central organ 
 of our sensibilities, which is the heart ; and in saying 
 that the viscera of Iscariot, or his middle, had burst and 
 gushed out, the original reporter meant simply that his 
 heart had broke. That was precisely his case. Out of 
 pure anguish that the scheme which he meant for the 
 sudden glorification of his Master, had recoiled (accord- 
 ing to all worldly interpretation) in his utter ruin ; that 
 the sudden revolution, through a democratic movement, 
 which was to raise himself and his brother apostles into 
 Hebrew princes, had scattered them like sheep without 
 a shepherd ; and that superadded to this common bur-
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 167 
 
 den of ruin he personally had to bear a separate load of 
 conscious disobedience to God and insupportable re- 
 sponsibility ; naturally enough out of all this he fell into 
 fierce despair ; his heart broke ; and under that storm 
 of affliction he hanged himself. Here, again, all clears 
 itself up by the simple substitution of a figurative inter- 
 pretation for one grossly physical. All contradiction 
 disappears ; not three deaths assault him, viz., suicide, 
 and also a rupture of the intestines, and also an unin- 
 telligible effusion of the viscera ; but simply suicide, 
 and suicide as the result of that despondency which was 
 figured under the natural idea of a broken heart. The 
 incoherences are gone ; the contradictions have van- 
 ished ; and the gross physical absurdities, which under 
 mistranslation had perplexed the reverential student, no 
 longer disfigure the Scriptures. 
 
 Looking back to the foot-note on the oriental idea of 
 the hakim, as a mask politically assumed by Christ and 
 the evangelists, under the conviction of its indispcnsa- 
 bleness to the free propagation of Christian philosophy, 
 I am induced, for the sake of detaining the reader's eye 
 a little longer upon a matter so important in the history 
 of Christianity, if only it may be regarded as true, to 
 subjoin an extract from a little paper written by myself 
 heretofore, but not published. I may add these two 
 remarks, viz., first, that the attribution to St. Luke of 
 this medical character, probably had its origin in the 
 simple fact, that an assumption made by all the evan- 
 gelists, and perhaps by all the apostles, had hap- 
 pened to attract more attention in him from merely 
 local causes. One or two of the other apostles having 
 pursued their labors of Propagandism under the avowed
 
 168 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 character of hakiins, many others in the same region 
 would escape special notice in that character, simply 
 because, as men notoriously ready to plead it, they had 
 not been challenged to do so by the authorities ; whilst 
 others, in regions where the government had not become 
 familiar with the readiness to plead such a privilege as 
 part of the apostolic policy, would be driven into the 
 necessity of actually advancing the plea, and would 
 thus (like St. Luke) obtain a traditionary claim to the 
 medical title which in a latent sense had belonged to 
 all, though all had not been reduced to the necessity of 
 pleading it. Secondly, I would venture to suggest, that 
 the T/ierapeuta;, or healers, technically so called, who 
 came forward in Egypt during the generation immedi- 
 ately succeeding to that of Christ, were neither more 
 nor less than disguised apostles to Christianity, preach- 
 ing the same doctrines essentially as Christ, and under 
 the very same protecting character of hakims, but put- 
 ting forward this character perhaps more prominently, 
 or even retreating into it altogether, according to the 
 increasing danger which everywhere awaited them from 
 the hostile bigotry of expatriated Jews, as they gradually 
 came to understand the true and anti-national views of 
 those who called themselves Christians, or Nazarenes, 
 or Galileans. 
 
 In short, abstracting altogether from the haired to 
 Christ, founded on eternal principles of the enmity be- 
 tween the wof-ldly and the spiritual, and looking only 
 to the political uneasiness amongst magistrates which 
 accompanied the early footsteps of Christianity, one 
 may illustrate it by the parallel feelings which in our 
 own generation, amongst the Portuguese, for instance,
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 169 
 
 have (logged the movements of free-masonry, AVe in 
 England view this panic as irrational : and amongst 
 ourselves it would be so ; for British free-masonry con- 
 ceals nothing worse than it professes. But, on the 
 Continent, it became a mask for shrouding any or every 
 system of anti-social doctrine, or, again, for playing 
 into the hands of treason and conspiracy. There was 
 always in the first place a reasonable fear of secret and 
 perilous doctrines — Communism, for instance, under 
 some modification, or rancorous Jacobinism. And 
 secondly, suppose that for the present, or in the exist- 
 ing stage of the secret society, there really were no 
 esoteric and mischievous doctrine propagated, there 
 was at any rate the custom established of meeting to- 
 gether in secret, of corresponding by an alphabet of 
 conventional signals, and of acting by an impenetrable 
 organization, always applicable to evil purposes, even 
 where it might not originally have been so applied. 
 The machinery which binds together any secret society, 
 as being always available for evil ends, must inevitably 
 justify some uneasiness in all political authorities. And, 
 under those circumstances, the public jealousy must 
 have operated against the free movement of early 
 Christianity : nothing could have disarmed it, except 
 some counter-principle so managed, as to insure that 
 freedom of public meetings which opened the sine qua 
 non channel for the free propagation of religious truth. 
 Sucli a counter-force was brought into play by Christ 
 on that day when first he offered himself to Judea as a 
 hakiiit, or popular physician. Under the shelter of that 
 benign character, at one blow he overthrew an obstacle 
 that would else infallibly have frozen the very clement
 
 170 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 in which only any system of novel teaching could 
 attempt to move. Most diseases were by the Jews in- 
 vested with more or less of a supernatural character ; 
 and in no department of knowledge was the immediate 
 illumination from above more signally presumed than 
 in the treatment of diseases. A physician who was 
 thus divinely guided in the practice of his art was a 
 debtor to God and to his fellow-men for the adequate 
 application of so heavenly a gift. And, if he could not 
 honorably withdraw from the mission with which God 
 had charged him, far less could politicians and magis- 
 trates under any allegation of public inconveniences 
 presume to obstruct or to make of none effect the sub- 
 lime mysteries of art and sagacity with which the prov- 
 idence of God had endowed an individual for the relief 
 of suffering humanity ; the hakim was a debtor to the 
 whole body of his afflicted countrymen : but for that 
 very reason he was also a creditor ; a creditor entitled 
 to draw upon the amplest funds of indulgence ; and 
 privileged to congregate his countrymen wherever he 
 moved. Here opened suddenly a broad avenue to 
 social intercourse, without which all communication for 
 purposes of religious teaching would have been sealed 
 against Christ. As a hakim, Christ obtained that 
 unlimited freedom of intercourse with the populace, 
 which, as a religious proselytizer, he never could have 
 obtained. Here, therefore, and perhaps by the very 
 earliest exemplification of the serpent's wisdom and 
 foresight engrafting itself upon the holy purposes of 
 dovelike benignity, Christ kept open for himself (and 
 for his disciples in times to come) the freedom of public 
 communication, and the license of public meetings.
 
 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 171 
 
 Once announcing himself, and attesting his own mis- 
 eion as a hakim, he could not be rejected or thwarted 
 as a public oracle of truth and practical counsel to hu- 
 man weakness. This explains, what else would have 
 been very obscure, the undue emphasis which Christ 
 allowed men to place upon his sanatory miracles. His 
 very name in Greek, viz., ii,aiig, presented him to men 
 under the idea of the healer ; but then, to all who com- 
 prehended his secret and ultimate functions, as a healer 
 of unutterable and spiritual wounds. That usurpation, 
 by which a very trivial function of Christ's public min- 
 istrations was allowed to disturb and sometimes to 
 eclipse far grander pretensions, carried with it so far an 
 erroneous impression. But then, on the other hand, 
 seventy-fold it redeemed that error, by securing (which 
 nothing else could have secured) the benefit of a per- 
 petual passport to the religious missionary : since, 
 once admitted as a medical counsellor, the missionary, 
 the hakim, obtained an unlimited right of intercourse. 
 If medical advice, why not religious advice ? And 
 subsequently, by the continuance of the same medical 
 gifts to -the apostles and their successors, all exercised 
 the same powers, and benefited by the same privileges 
 as hakims.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note 1. Page 148. 
 
 ' Brew crowds about him :' — As connected with these crowds, 
 I have elsewhere noticed, many years ago, the secret reason 
 which probably governed our Saviour in cultivating the charac- 
 ter and functions of a hakim, or physician. Throughout the 
 whole world of civilization at that era [», oixovuiv)], whatever 
 might be otherwise the varieties of the government, there was 
 amongst the ruling authorities a great jealousy of mobs and 
 popular gatherings. To a grand revolutionary teacher, no 
 obstacle so fatal as this initial prejudice could have offered itself. 
 Already, in the first place, a new and mysterious body of truth, 
 having vast and illimitable relations to human duties and pros- 
 pects, presented a tield of indefinite alarm. That this truth 
 should in the second place publish itself, not through books and 
 written discourses, but orally, by word of mouth, and by personal 
 communication between vast mobs and the divine teacher — 
 already that, as furnishing a handle of influence to a mob-leader, 
 justified a preliminary alarm. But then, thirdly, as furnishing a 
 plea for bringing crowds together, such a mode of teaching must 
 have crowned the suspicious presumptions against itself. One 
 peril there was at any rate to begin with — the peril of a mob : 
 that was certain. And, secondly, there was the doctrine taught : 
 which doctrine was mysterious and uncertain ; and iu that un- 
 certainty lay another peril. So that, equally through what was 
 fixed and what was doubtful, there arose that ' fear cf change ' 
 which by authentic warrant ' perplexes monarchs.'
 
 174 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 Note 2. Page 150. 
 ♦ Under Herod the Great and his father :' — It was a tradition 
 which circulated at Rome down to the days of the Flavian family, 
 that the indulgence conceded to Judea by the imperial policy from 
 Augustus downwards, arose out of the following little diplomatic 
 secret : — On the rise of the Parthian power, ambassadors had 
 been sent to Antipater, the father of Herod, offering the Parthian 
 alliance and support. At the same moment there happened to 
 be at Jerusalem a Roman agent, having a mission from the 
 Roman Government with exactly the same objects. The question 
 was most solemnly debated, for it was obvious, that ultimately 
 this question touched the salvation of the kingdom, since to 
 accept an alliance with either empire, would be to insure the 
 bitter hostility of the other. AVith that knowledge fully before 
 his mind, Antipater made his definitive election for Rome. The 
 case transpired at Rome — the debate, and the issue of the 
 debate — and eventually proved worth a throne to the Ilerodian 
 family ; for the honor of Rome seemed to be concerned in 
 supporting the man who, in this sort of judgment of Paris, 
 had solemnly awarded the prize of superiority to the remoter 
 potentate. 
 
 Note 3. Page 151. 
 
 ' Of the populace in Jer7isalem : ^ — Judas, not less than the 
 other apostles, had doubtless been originally chosen, upon the 
 apparent ground of superior simplicity and unworldliness, or 
 else of superior zeal in testifying his obedience to the wishes of 
 his Master. But the other eleven were probably exposed to no 
 special temptation : Judas, as the purse-bearer, was. His 
 official duty must have brought him every day into minute and 
 circumstantial communication with an important order of men, 
 viz., petty shop-keepers. In all countries alike, these men fulfil 
 a great political function. Beyond all others, they are brought 
 into the most extensive connection with the largest stratum by 
 far in the composition of society. They receive, and with dread- 
 ful fidelity they give back, all Jacobinical impulses. They know 
 thoroughly in what channels, under any call arising for action, 
 these impulses are at any time moving. They are always kept
 
 NOTES. 175 
 
 np au courant of the interior councils and ultimate objects of the 
 most national, and, in one sense, the most powerful body in the 
 ■whole community. Consciousness, which such men always have, 
 of deep incorruptible fidelity to their mother-land, and to her 
 interests, however ill understood, ennobles their politics, even 
 when otherwise base. They are corrupters in a service that 
 never can be utterly corrupt. They have therefore a power to 
 win attention from virtuous men ; and, being known to speak a 
 representative language, they would easily, in a land so agitated 
 and unreconciled, so wild, stormy, and ignorant as Judea, kindle 
 in stirring minds the most worldly contagions as to principle and 
 purpose : on the one hand, kept through these men in vital sym- 
 pathy with the restless politics of the insurrectionist populace — 
 on the other, hearing a sublime philosophy that rested for its 
 key-note upon the advent of vast revolutions among men — what 
 wonder that Judas should connect his daily experience by an 
 imaginary synthesis ? 
 
 Note 4. Page 156. 
 • JVb medical explanation .- ' — In neutral points, having no 
 relation to morals or religious philosophy, it is not concealed by 
 the scriptural records themselves, that even inspired persons 
 made grave mistakes. All the apostles, it is probable, or with 
 the single exception of St. John, shared in the mistake about the 
 second coming of Christ, as an event immediately to be looked 
 for. With respect to diseases, again, it is evident that the apos- 
 tles, in common with all Jews, were habitually disposed to read 
 in them distinct manifestations of heavenly wrath. In blind- 
 ness, for instance, or, again, in death from the fall of a tower, 
 they read, as a matter of course, a plain expression of tiic divine 
 displeasure pointed at an individual. That they should even 
 pause so far as to make a doubt whether the individual or his 
 parents were the object of this displeasure, arose only from the 
 absolute coercion to so much reserve as this which was contin- 
 ually obtruding itself in the cases where innocent infants were 
 the sufferers. This, in fact, was a prejudice inalienable from 
 tlieir Jewish training ; and as it would unavoidably lead often- 
 times to judgments not only false but also uucharitable, it re-
 
 176 JUDAS ISCARIOT. 
 
 ceiveil, on more occasions than one, a stern rebuke from Christ 
 himself. In the same spirit, it is probable that the symptoms 
 attending death were sometimes erroneously reported as preter- 
 natural, when, in fact, such as every hospital could match. 
 The death of the first Hei-od was regarded by the early Christians 
 universally as a judicial expression of God's wrath to the author 
 of the massacre at Bethlehem, though in reality the symptoms 
 were suoli as often occur in obstinate derangements of the ner- 
 vous system. Indeed, as to many features, the malady of the 
 Fi'enuh king, Charles IX., whose nervous system had been shat- 
 tered by the horrors of the St. Bartholomew massacre, very 
 nearly resembled it ; with such differences as might be looked 
 for between an old, ruined constitution, such as Herod's, and 
 one so youtiiful as that of Charles. In the Acts of tlie Apostles, 
 again, the grandson of Herod (Herod Agrippa) is evidently sup- 
 posed to have died by a judicial and preternatural death, whereas 
 apparently one part of his malady was the morbus pedicalaris — 
 cases of which 1 have myself circumstantially known in persons 
 of all ranks ; one, for instance, being that of a countess enor- 
 mously rich, and the latest a female servant. 
 
 Note 5. Page 157. 
 ' Profound ; ' — In measuring which, however, the reader 
 must not allow himself to be too much biassed by the English 
 phrase, ' son of perdition.^ This, and the phrase which we 
 translate ' damnation,' have been alike colored unavoidably by 
 the particular intensity of the feeling associated with our Eng- 
 lish use of the words. Now, one great difficulty in translating 
 is to find words that even as to mere logical elements correspond 
 to the original text. Even that is often a trying problem. But 
 to find also such words as shall graduate and adjust their depth 
 of feeling to the scale of another language, and that language a 
 dead language, is many times beyond all reach of human skill. 
 
 Note G. Page 158. 
 ' The family of Christ ; ' for the reader must not forget that 
 the original meaning of the Latin word familia was the sum 
 total of iha famuli. Hence, whenever it is said in an ancient
 
 ' NOTES. 177 
 
 classic that such or such a man had a large family, or that he 
 was kind to his family, or was loved by his family, always we 
 are to understand not at all his wife and children, but the train 
 and retinue of his domestic slaves. Now, the relation of the 
 Apostles to their Master, and the awfulness of their dependency 
 upon him, which represented a golden chain suspending the 
 whole race of man to the heavens above, justified, in the first 
 place, that form of expression which should indicate the humility 
 and loyalty that is owned by servants to a lord j whilst, on the 
 other hand, the tenderness involved in the relations expressed 
 by the English word family, redressed what would else have 
 been too austere in the idea, and recomposed the equilibrium 
 between the two forces of reverential awe and of childlike love 
 which arc equally indispensable to the orbicular perfection of 
 Christian duty. 
 
 Note 7. Page 159. 
 'Crafty ways : ' — Otherwise, it must naturally occur to every 
 reader — What powers could Judas furnish towards the arrest of 
 Jesus beyond what the authorities in Jerusalem already possess- 
 ed ? But the bishop suggests that the dilemma was this : — 
 By day it was unsafe to seize him, such was the veneration of 
 the populace for his person. If done at all, it must be done 
 during the darkness. But, precisely during those hours, Christ 
 withdrew into solitudes known only to his disciples. So that to 
 corrupt one of these was the preliminary step to the discovery of 
 that secret. 
 
 Note 8. Page 159. 
 
 Viz., St. Matthew. Upon which the bishop notices the error 
 which had crept into the prevailing text of Jeremias instead of 
 Zecharias. But in the fourth century, some copies had already 
 corrected this reading ; which, besides, had a traditional excuse 
 in the proverbial saying that the spirit of Jeremiah had settled 
 and found a resting-place in Zecharias. 
 
 Note 9. Page 1G3. 
 'Possibilities : ' — Qutere, whether the true reading is not more 
 probably ' passibilities, ' i. «., liabilities to suffering. 
 12
 
 HUME'S ARGUMENT AGAINST MIRACLES. 
 
 [1839.] 
 
 Hume's argument against miracles is simply this: — 
 Every possible event, however various in its degree of 
 credibility, must, of necessity, be more credible when 
 it rests upon a sufficient cause lying within the field of 
 what is called nature, than when it does not : more 
 credible when it obeys some mechanical cause, than 
 when it transcends such a cause, and is miraculous. 
 
 Therefore, assume the resistance to credibility, in 
 any preternatural occurrence, as equal to x, and the 
 very ideal or possible value of human testimony as 
 no more than x, in that case, under the most favor- 
 able circumstances conceivable, the argument for and 
 against a miracle will be equal ; or, expressing the 
 human testimony by x, affected with the affirmative 
 sign [-j-x] ; and expressing the resistance to credibil- 
 ity on the other side of the equation, by x, affected 
 with the negative sign [ — .r], the two values will, in 
 algebraical language, destroy each other, and the re- 
 sult will be = 0. 
 
 But, inasmuch as this expresses the value of human 
 testimony in its highest or ideal form, a form which is 
 never realized in experience, the true result will be
 
 180 ON home's argument 
 
 different, — there will always be a negative result m 
 — y ; much or little according to the circumstances, 
 but always enough to turn the balance against believ- 
 ing a miracle. • 
 
 ' Or in other words,' said Hume, popularizing his 
 argument, ' it will always be more credible that the 
 reporter of a miracle should tell a falsehood, or should 
 himself have been the dupe of appearances, than that 
 a miracle should have actually occurred — that is, an 
 infraction of those natural laws (any or all) which 
 compose what we call experience. For, assume the 
 utmost disinterestedness, veracity, and sound judgment 
 in the witness, with the utmost advantage in the cir- 
 cumstances for giving full play to those qualities ; even 
 in such a case the value of affirmative testimony could, 
 at the very utmost, be equal to the negative value on 
 the other side the equation : and the result would be, 
 to keep my faith suspended in equilibrio. But in any 
 real case, ever likely to come before us, the result will 
 be worse ; for the affirmative testimony will be sure to 
 fall in many ways below its ideal maximum ; leaving, 
 therefore, for the final result a considerable excess to 
 the negative side of the equation. 
 
 Section II. 
 
 Of the Argument as affected by the Covekt Limitations 
 under whicu it is presented. 
 
 Such is the Argument : and, as the first step towards 
 investigating its sanity and its degree — its kind of 
 force, and its quantity of force, we must direct our 
 attention to the following fact, viz., that amongst three
 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 181 
 
 separate conditions under which a miracle (or any 
 event whatever} might become known to us, Hume's 
 argument is applied only to one. Assuming a miracle 
 to happen (for the possibility of a miracle is of 
 course left open throughout the discussion, since any 
 argument against that would at once foreclose every 
 question about its communicability), — then it might 
 happen under three several sets of circumstances, in 
 relation to our consciousness. 1st, It might happen in 
 the presence of a single witness — that witness not 
 being ourselves. This case let us call Alpha. 2dly, 
 It might happen in the presence of many witnesses, — 
 witnesses to a vast amount, but still (as before) our- 
 selves not being amongst that multitude. This case let 
 us call Beta. And 3dly, It might happen in our own 
 presence, and fall within the direct light of our own 
 consciousness. This case let us call Gamma. 
 
 Now these distinctions are important to the whole 
 extent of the question. For the 2d case, which is the 
 actual case of many miracles recorded in the New 
 Testament, at once cuts away a large body of sources 
 in which either error or deceit could lurk^ Hume's 
 argument supposes the reporter of the miracle to be a 
 dupe, or the maker of dupes — himself deluded, or 
 wishing to delude othe"rs. But, in the case of the 
 thousands fed from a few loaves and small fishes, the 
 chances of error, wilful or not wilful, are diminished 
 in proportion to the number of observers ; * and Hume's 
 
 *'Ia proportion to the number of observers.' — Perhaps, 
 however, on the part of Hume, some critical apologist will say 
 — ' Doubtless he was aware of that ; but still the reporters of
 
 182 ON Hume's argument 
 
 inference as to the declension of the affirmative .r, 
 in relation to the negative x, no longer applies, or, if 
 at all, with vastly diminished force. With respect to 
 the 3d case, it cuts away the whole argument at once 
 in its very radix. For Hume's argument applies to the 
 communication of a miracle, and therefore to a case 
 of testimony. But, wherever the miracle falls within 
 direct personal cognizance, there it follows that no 
 question can arise ahout the value of human testimony. 
 The affirmative x, expressing the value of testimony, 
 disappears altogether ; and that side of the equation is 
 possessed by a new quantity (viz., ourselves — our 
 own consciousness) not at all concerned in Hume's 
 argument. 
 
 Hence it results, that of three possible conditions 
 under which a miracle may be supposed to offer itself 
 to our knowledge, two are excluded from the view of 
 Hume's argument. 
 
 Section III. 
 Wheiuer tue second of these Conditions is not expressly 
 
 NOTICED BY HuME. 
 
 It may seem so. But in fact it is not. And (what 
 is more to the purpose) wo are not at liberty to con- 
 sider it any accident that it is not. Hume had his 
 
 reasons. Let us take all in proper order : 1st, that it 
 
 ^ I 
 
 the miracle were few. No matter how many were present, the 
 witnesses for us are but the Evangelists.' Yes, certainly, the 
 Evangelists ; and let us add, all those contemporaries to whom 
 the Evangelists silently appealed. These make up the ' multi- 
 tude ' contemplated in the second case.
 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 183 
 
 seems so ; 2dly, that in fact it is not so ; and Sdly, 
 that is no accident, but intentional. 
 
 1st. Hume seems to contemplate such a case, the 
 case of a miracle witnessed and attested by a multitude 
 of persons, in the following imaginary miracle which 
 he proposes as a basis for reasoning. Q«een Elizabeth, 
 as every body will remember who has happened to read 
 Lord Monmouth's Memoirs, died on the night between 
 the last day of 1603 and the first day of 1603 : this 
 could not be forgotten by the reader, because, in fact, 
 Lord M., who was one of Her Majesty's nearest rela- 
 tives (being a younger son of her first cousin Lord 
 Hunsdon), obtained his title and subsequent prefermen*- 
 as a reward for the furious ride he performed to Edin 
 burgh (at that time at least 440 miles distant from Lon- 
 don), without taking off" his boots, in order to lay the 
 earliest tidings of the great event at the feet of her 
 successor. In reality, never did any death cause so 
 much posting day and night over the high roads of 
 Europe. And the same causes which made it so in- 
 teresting has caused it to be the best dated event in 
 modern history ; that one which could least be shaken 
 by any discordant evidence yet discoverable. Now, 
 says Hume, imagine the case, that, in spite of all this 
 chronological precision — this precision, and this no- 
 toriety of precision — Her Majesty's court physicians 
 should have chosen to propagate a story of her res- 
 urrection. Imagine that these learned gentlemen should 
 have issued a bulletin, declaring that Queen Elizabeth 
 had been met in Greenwich Park, or at Nonsuch, on 
 May-day of 1603, or in Westminster, two years after, by 
 the Lord Chamberlain when detecting Guy Faux — let
 
 184 ON Hume's argument 
 
 them even swear it before twenty justices of the peace ; 
 I for one, says Hume, am free to confess that I would 
 not believe them. No, nor, to say the truth, would we ; 
 nor would we advise our readers to believe them. 
 
 2dly. Here, therefore, it would seem as if Hume 
 were boldly pressing his principles to the very utter- 
 most — that is, were challenging a miracle as unten- 
 able, though attested by a multitude. But, in fact, he 
 is not. He only seems to do so ; for, if no number of 
 witnesses could avail anything in proof of a miracle, 
 why does he timidly confine himself to the hypothesis 
 of the queen's physicians only coming forward ? Why 
 not call in the whole Privy Council .'' — or the Lord 
 Mayor and Common Council of London — the Sheriffs 
 of Middlesex — and the Twelve Judges? As to the 
 court physicians, though three or four nominally, vir- 
 tually they are but one man. They have a common 
 interest, and in two separate ways they are liable to a 
 suspicion of collusion: first, because the same motives 
 which act upon one probably act upon the rest. In 
 this respect, they are under a common influence ; sec- 
 ondly, because, if not the motives, at any rate the 
 physicians themselves, act upon each other. In this 
 respect, they are under a reciprocal influence. They 
 are to be reasoned about as one individual. 
 
 3dly. As Hume could not possibly fail to see all this, 
 we may be sure that his choice of witnesses was not 
 accidental. In fact, his apparent carelessness is very 
 discreet management. His object was, under the fic- 
 tion of an independent multitude, to smuggle in a virtual 
 unity ; for his court physicians are no plural body in 
 effect and virtue, but a mere pleonasm and a tautology.
 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 185 
 
 And in good earnest, Hume had reason enough for 
 his caution. How much or how Httle testimony would 
 avail to establish a resurrection in any neutral* case 
 few people would be willing to pronounce off-hand, 
 and, above all, on a fictitious case. Prudent men, in 
 such circumstances, would act as the judges in our 
 English courts, who are always displeased if it is at- 
 tempted to elicit their opinions upon a point of law by 
 a proposed fiction. And very reasonably ; for in these 
 fictitious cases all the little circumstances of reality are 
 wanting, and the oblique relations to such circum- 
 stances, out of which it is that any sound opinion can 
 be formed. We all know very well what Hume is 
 after in this problem of a resurrection. And his case 
 of Queen Elizabeth's resurrection being a perfectly 
 fictitious case, we are at liberty to do any one of three 
 different things : — either simply to refuse an answer ; 
 or, 2dly, to give such an answer as he looks for, viz., 
 to agree with him in his disbelief under the supposed 
 contingency ; without, therefore, offering the slightest 
 prejudice to any scriptural case of resurrection : i. e., 
 wc might go along with him in his premises, and yet 
 balk him of his purpose ; or, 3dly, we might even join 
 issue with him, and peremptorily challenge his verdict 
 upon his own fiction. For it is singular enough, that a 
 modern mathematician of eminence (Mr. Babbage) has 
 expressly considered this very imaginary question of a 
 resurrection, and he pronounces the testimony of seven 
 
 * By a neutral case is meant, 1st, cue in ■which there is no 
 previous reason from a great doctrine requiring such an event 
 for its support, to expect a resurrection ; 2dly, a case belonging 
 to a period of time in which it is fully believed that miraculous 
 agency has ceased.
 
 186 ON Hume's argument 
 
 witnesses, competent and veracious, and presumed to 
 have no bias, as sufficient to establish such a miracle. 
 Strip Hume's case of the ambiguities already pointed 
 out: — suppose the physicians really separate and inde- 
 pendent witnesses — not a corporation speaking by one 
 organ — it will then become a mere question of degree 
 between the philosopher and the mathematician — 
 seven witnesses ? or fifty ? or a hundred ? For though 
 none of us (not Mr. Babbage, we may be sure) seriously 
 believes in the possibility of a resurrection occurring in 
 these days, as little can any of us believe in the possi- 
 bility that seven witnesses, of honor and sagacity (but 
 say seven hundred) could be found to attest such an 
 event when not occurring. 
 
 But the useful result from all this is, that Mr. Hume 
 is evidently aware of the case Beta, (of last Sect.) as a 
 distinct case from Alpha or from Gamma, though he 
 affects blindness : he is aware that a multitude of com- 
 petent witnesses, no matter whether seven or seven 
 hundred, is able to establish that which a single witness 
 could not; in fact, that increasing the number of wit- 
 nesses is able to compensate increasing incredibility in 
 the subject of doubt ; that even supposing this subject a 
 resurrection from the dead, there may be assigned a 
 quantity of evidence (z) greater than the resistance to 
 the credibility. And he betrays the fact, that he has 
 one eye open to his own Jesuitism by palming upon us 
 an apparent multitude for a real one, thus drawing all 
 the credit he can from the name of a multitude, and 
 yet evading the force which he strictly knew to be 
 lodged in the thing ; seeking the reputation of the case 
 Beta, but shrinking from its hostile force.
 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 187 
 
 Section IV. 
 Of the Argument as affected by a Classificatiox of 
 
 ]\IlRACLES. 
 
 Let us now inquire whether Hume's argument would 
 be affected by the differences in miracles upon the most 
 general distribution of their kinds. 
 
 Miracles may be classed generally as inner or outer. 
 
 I. The inner, or those which may be called miracles 
 for the individual, are such as go on, or may go on, 
 within the separate personal consciousness of each 
 separate man. And it shows how forgetful people are 
 of the very doctrines which they themselves profess as 
 Christians, when we consider, on the one hand, that 
 miracles, in this sense, are essential to Christianity, 
 and yet, on the other hand, consider how often it is 
 said that the age of miracles is past. Doubtless, in the 
 sense of external miracles, all such agencies are past. 
 But in the other sense, there are distinct classes of the 
 supernatural agency, which we are now considering; 
 and these three are held by many Christians ; two by 
 most Christians; and the third by all. They are 
 
 <*. — Special Providences : which class it is that 
 many philosophic Christians doubt or deny. 
 
 /3. — Grace: both predisposing [by old theologians 
 caWed p rev en ient] and effectual. 
 
 y. — Prayer considered as efficacious. 
 
 Of these three wc repeat, that the two last are held 
 by most Christians : and yet it is evident that both pre- 
 sume a supernatural agency. But this agency exists 
 only where it is sought. And even where it does 
 exist, from its very nature (as an interior experience 
 for each separate consciousness) it is incommunicable.
 
 188 ON Hume's argument 
 
 But that does not defeat its purpose. It is of its 
 essence to be incommunicable.' And, therefore, with 
 relation to Hume's great argument, which was de- 
 signed, to point out a vast hiatus or inconsistency in the 
 divine economy — ' Here is a miraculous agency, 
 perhaps, but it is incommunicable : it may exist, but 
 it cannot manifest itself; which defect neutralizes it, 
 and defeats the very purpose of its existence' — the 
 answer is, that as respects these interior miracles, 
 there is no such inconsistency. They are meant for 
 the private forum of each man's consciousness : nor 
 would it have met any human necessity to have made 
 them communicable. The language of Scripture is, 
 that he who wishes experimentally to know the changes 
 that may be accomplished by prayer, must pray. In 
 that way only, and not by communication of knowledge 
 from another, could he understand it as a practical 
 effect. And to understand it not practically, but only 
 in a speculative way, could not meet any religious 
 wish, but merely an irreligious curiosity. 
 
 As respects one great division of miraculous agency, 
 it is clear, therefore, that Hume's argument does not 
 apply. The arrow glances past : not so much missing 
 its aim as taking a false one. The hiatus which it 
 supposes, the insulation and incommunicability which 
 it charges upon the miraculous as a capital oversight, 
 was part of the design : such mysterious agencies were 
 meant to be incommunicable, and for the same reason 
 which shuts up each man's consciousness into a silent 
 world of its own — separate and inaccessible to all 
 other consciousnesses. U a communication is thrown 
 open by such agencies between the separate spirit of
 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 189 
 
 each man and the supreme Spirit of the universe, then 
 the end is accompUshed : and it is part of that end to 
 close this communication against all other cognizance. 
 So far Hume is baffled. The supernatural agency is 
 incommunicable : it ought to be so. That is its per- 
 fection. 
 
 II. But now, as respects the other great order of 
 miracles — viz., the external^ first of all, we may- 
 remark a very important subdivision : miracles, in this 
 sense, subdivide into two most different orders — 1st, 
 Evidential miracles, which simply prove Christianity. 
 2d, Constituent miracles, which, in a partial sense, 
 are Christianity. And, perhaps, it may turn out that 
 Hume's objection, if applicable at all, is here applicable 
 in a separate way and with a varying force. 
 
 The first class, the evidential miracles, are all those 
 which were performed merely as evidences (whether 
 simply as indications, or as absolute demonstrations) of 
 the- divine power which upheld Christianity. The 
 second class, the constituent miracles, are those which 
 constitute a part of Christianity. Two of these are ab- 
 solutely indispensable to Christianity, and cannot be 
 separated from it even in thought, viz., the miraculous 
 birth of our Saviour, and his miraculous resurrection. 
 The first is essential upon this ground — that unless 
 Christ had united the two natures (divine and human) 
 he could not have made the satisfaction required : not 
 being human, then, indeed, he might have had power 
 • to go through the mysterious sufferings of the satisfac- 
 tion : but how would that have applied to man ? It 
 would have been perfect, but how would it have been 
 relevant } Not being divine, then indeed any satisfac-
 
 190 ON Hume's argument 
 
 tion he could make would be relevant : but how would 
 it have been perfect ? The mysterious and super- 
 natural birth, therefore, was essential, as a capacitation 
 for the work to be performed ; and, on the other hand, 
 the mysterious death and consequences were essential, 
 as the very work itself. 
 
 Now, therefore, having made this distinction, we may 
 observe, that the first class of miracles was occasional 
 and polemic : it was meant to meet a special hostility 
 incident to the birth-struggles of a new religion, and a 
 religion which, for the very reason that it was true, 
 stood opposed to the spirit of the world ; of a religion 
 which, in its first stage, had to fight against a civil 
 power in absolute possession of the civilized earth, and 
 backed by seventy legions. This being setded, it fol- 
 lows, that if Hume's argument were applicable in its 
 whole strength to the evidential miracles, no result of 
 any importance could follow. It is clear that a Chris- 
 tianized earth never can want polemic miracles again ; 
 polemic miracles were wanted for a transitional state, 
 but such a state cannot return. Polemic miracles were 
 wanted for a state of conflict with a dominant idolatry. 
 It was Christianity militant, and militant with childlike 
 arms, against Paganism triumphant. But Christianity, 
 in league with civilization, and resting on the powers of 
 this earth allied with her own, never again can speak 
 to idolatrous man except from a station of infinite su- 
 periority. If, therefore, these evidential miracles are 
 incommunicable as respecfs their proofs to after gener- 
 ations, neither are they wanted. 
 
 Still it will be urged — Were not the miracles meant 
 for purposes ulterior to the transitional state ? Were
 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 191 
 
 they not meant equally for the polemic purpose of con- 
 futing hostility at the moment, and of propping the 
 faith of Christians in all after ages ? The growing 
 opinion amongst reflecting Christians is, that they were 
 not : that the evidential miracles accomplished their 
 whole purpose in their own age. Something of super- 
 natural agency, visibly displayed, was wanted for the 
 first establishment of a new faith. But, once estab- 
 lished, it was a false faith only that could need this ex- 
 ternal support. Christianity could not unroot itself 
 now, though every trace of evidential miracle should 
 have vanished. Being a true religion, once rooted in 
 man's knowledge and man's heart, it is self-sustained ; 
 it never could be eradicated. 
 
 But, waiving that argument, it is evident, that what- 
 ever becomes of the evidential miracles, Christianity 
 never can dispense with those transcendent miracles 
 which we have called constituent^ — those which do not 
 so much demonstrate Christianity as are Christianity in 
 a large integral section. Now as to the way in which 
 Hume's argument could apply to these, we shall re- 
 serve what we have to say until a subsequent section. 
 Meantime, with respect to the other class, the simply 
 evidential miracles, it is plain, that if ever they should 
 be called for again, then, as to them^ Hume's argument 
 will be evaded, or not, according to their purpose. If 
 their function regards an individual, it will be no just 
 objection to them that they are incommunicable. If it 
 regards a multitude or a nation, then the same power 
 which utters the miracle can avail for its manifestation 
 before a multitude, as happened in the days of the New 
 Testament, and then is realized the case Beta of
 
 192 ON Hume's argument 
 
 Sect. II. And If ijt is still objected, that even in that 
 case there could be no sufficient way of propagating 
 the miracle, with its evidence, to other times or places, 
 the answer must be, — 
 
 1st. That supposing the purpose merely polemic, 
 that purpose is answered without such a propagation. 
 
 2dly. That, supposing the purpose, by possibility, an 
 ulterior purpose, stretching into distant ages, even then 
 our modern arts of civilization, printing, &c., give us 
 advantages which place a remote age on a level with 
 the present as to the force of evidence ; and that even 
 the defect of autopsy may be compensated by sufficient 
 testimony of a multitude, it is evident that Hume him- 
 self felt, by his evasion in the case of the imaginary 
 Elizabethan miracle proposed by himself 
 
 RECAPITULATION. 
 
 Now let us recapitulate the steps we have made be- 
 fore going on to the rest. 
 
 1st. We have drawn into notice [Sect. II.] the case 
 Beta., — overlooked by Hume in his argument, but ap- 
 parently not overlooked in his consciousness, — the case 
 where a multitude of witnesses overrules the incommu- 
 nicability attaching to a single witness. 
 
 2dly. We have drawn into notice the class of inter- 
 nal miracles, — miracles going on in the inner econ- 
 omy of every Christian's heart ; for it is essential to a 
 Christian to allow of prayer. He cannot he a Christian 
 if he should condemn prayer ; and prayer cannot hope 
 to produce its object without a miracle. And to such 
 miracles Hume's argument, the argument of incommu- 
 nicability, is inapplicable. They do not seek to trans-
 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 193 
 
 plant themselves ; every man's personal experience in 
 this respect is meant for himself alone. 
 
 3dly. Even amongst mir.icles not internal, we have 
 shown — that if one class (the merely evidential and 
 polemic) are incommunicable, i. e, not capable of prop- 
 agation to a remote age or place, they have sufficiently 
 fulfilled their Immediate purpose by their immediate 
 effect. But such miracles are alien and accidental to 
 Christianity. Christ himself reproved severely those 
 who sought such signs, as a wicked, unbelieving gen- 
 eration ; and afterwards he reproved, with a most 
 pathetic reproach, that one of his own disciples who 
 demanded such a sign. But besides these evidential 
 miracles, we noticed also, 
 
 4thly. The constituent miracles of Christianity ; upon 
 which, as regarded Hume's argument, we reserved 
 ourselves to the latter section : and to these we now 
 address ourselves. 
 
 But first we premise this 
 
 Lemma: — That an a priori (or, as we shall show, 
 an a posteriori) reason for believing a miracle, or for 
 expecting a miracle, will greatly disturb the valuation 
 of X (that is, the abstract resistance to credibility), as 
 assumed in Hume's argument. This is the centre in 
 which we are satisfied, lurks that TTQmTov y.'iv3og which 
 Hume himself suspected : and we add, that as a vast 
 number of witnesses (according to a remark made in 
 Sect. II.) will virtually operate as a reduction of the 
 value allowed to x, until x may be made to vanish alto- 
 gether, — so in the reverse order, any material reduc- 
 tion of value in x will virtually operate exactly as the 
 13
 
 194 ON Hume's argument 
 
 multiplication of witnesses ; and the case Alpha will be 
 raised to the case Beta. 
 
 This Lemma being stated as a point of appeal in what 
 follows, we proceed to 
 
 Section V. 
 On Hume's Argument, as affected by the Pceposb. 
 
 This topic is so impressive, and indeed awful, in its 
 relation to Christianity, that we shall not violate its ma- 
 jesty by doing more than simply stating the case. All 
 the known or imagined miracles that ever were recorded 
 as flowing from any Pagan origin, were miracles — 1, 
 of ostentation ; 2, of ambition and rivalship ; 3, ex- 
 pressions of power; or, 4, were blind accidents. Not 
 even in pretence were any of them more than that. 
 First and last came the Christian miracles, on behalf of 
 a moral purpose. The purpose was to change man's 
 idea of his own nature ; and to change his idea of 
 God's nature. Many other purposes might be stated ; 
 but all were moral. Now to any other wieldcr of 
 supernatural power, real or imaginary, it never had 
 occurred by way of pretence even, that in working 
 miracles he had a moral object. And here, indeed, 
 comes in the argument of Christ with tremendous effect 
 — that, whilst all other miracles might be liable to the 
 suspicion of having been effected by alliance with 
 darker agencies, his only (as sublime moral agencies 
 for working the only revolution that ever was worked in 
 man's nature) could not be liable to such a suspicion ; 
 since, if an evil spirit would lend himself to the propa- 
 gation of good in its most transcendent form, in that
 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 195 
 
 case the kingdom of darkness would be ' divided 
 against itself.' 
 
 Here, then, is an d posteriori reason, derived from 
 the whole subsequent life and death of the miracle- 
 worker, for diminishing the value of a; according to the 
 Lemma. 
 
 Section VI. 
 
 On the Argument of Hume as affected by Matters of 
 Fact. 
 
 It is a very important axiom of the schoolmen in this 
 case — that, a posse ad esse nan vaJet consequential 
 you can draw no inference from the possibility of a 
 thing to its reality, but that, in the reverse order, ah 
 esse ad posse, the inference is inevitable : if it is, or 
 if it ever has been — then of necessity it can be. 
 Hume himself would have admitted, that the proof of 
 any one miracle, beyond all possibility of doubt, at 
 once lowered the — x of his argument [i. e. the value 
 of the resistance to our faith) so as to affect the whole 
 force of that argument, as applying to all other mira- 
 cles whatever having a rational and an adequate 
 purpose. Now it happens that we have two cases of 
 miracles which can be urged in this view : one a pos' 
 teriori, derived from our historical experience, and the 
 other a priori. We will take them separately. 
 
 1. The a priori miracle we call such — not (as the 
 unphilosophic may suppose) because it occurred pre- 
 viously to our own period, or from any consideration 
 of time whatever, but in the logical meaning, as having 
 been derived from our reason in opposition to our ex- 
 perience. This order of miracle it is manifest that
 
 196 ON Hume's argument 
 
 Hume overlooked altogether, because he says express- 
 ly that we have nothing to appeal to in this dispute 
 except our human experience. But it happens that we 
 have ; and precisely where the possibilities of experi- 
 ence desert us. We know nothing through experience 
 (whether physical or historical) of what preceded or 
 accompanied the first introduction of man upon this 
 earth. But in the absence of all experience, our 
 reason informs us — that he must have been introduced 
 by a supernatural agency. Thus far we are sure. 
 For the sole alternative is one which would be equally 
 mysterious, and besides, contradictory to the marks of 
 change — of transition — and of perishableness in our 
 planet itself, — viz. the hypothesis of an eternal un- 
 originated race : and that is more confounding to the 
 human intellect than any miracle whatever : so that, 
 even tried merely as one probability against another, 
 the miracle would have the advantage. The miracle 
 supposes a supersensual and transcendent cause. The 
 opposite hypothesis supposes effects without any cause. 
 In short, upon any hypothesis, we are driven \o sup- 
 pose — and compelled to suppose — a miraculous state 
 as introductory to the earliest state of nature. The 
 planet, indeed, might form itself by mechanical laws 
 of motion, repulsion, attraction, and central forces. 
 But man could not. Life could not. Organization, 
 even animal organization, might perhaps be explained 
 out of mechanical causes. But life could not. Life 
 is itself a great miracle. Suppose the nostrils formed 
 by mechanic agency ; still the breath of life could not 
 enter them without a supernatural force. And a for- 
 tiori, man, with his intellectual and moral capacities,
 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 197 
 
 could not arise upon this planet without a higher 
 agency than any lodged in that nature which is the 
 object of our present experience. This kind of miracle, 
 as deduced by our reason, and not witnessed experi- 
 mentally, or drawn from any past records, we call an 
 d priori miracle. 
 
 2. But there is another kind of miracle, which Hume 
 ought not to have overlooked, but which he has, how- 
 ever, overlooked : he himself observes, very justly, 
 that prophecy is a distinct species of the miraculous ; 
 and, no doubt, he neglected the Scriptural Prophecies, 
 as supposing them all of doubtful interpretation, or 
 believing with Porphyry, that such as are not doubtful, 
 must have been posterior to the event which they point 
 to. It happens, however, that there are some prophe- 
 cies which cannot be evaded or ' refused,' some to 
 which neither objection will apply. One, we will here 
 cite, by way of example : — The prophecy of Isaiah, 
 describing the desolation of Babylon, was delivered 
 about seven centuries before Christ. A century or so 
 after Christ, comes Porphyry, and insinuates, that all 
 the prophecies alike might be comparatively recent 
 forgeries ! Well, for a moment suppose it : but, at 
 least, they existed in the days of Porphyry. Now, it 
 happens, that more than two centuries after Porphyry, 
 we have good evidence, as to Babylon, that it had not 
 yet reached the stage of utter desolation predicted by 
 Isaiah. Four centuries after Christ, we learn from a 
 Father of the Christian Church, who had good personal 
 information as to its condition, that it was then become 
 a solitude, but a solitude in good preservation as a 
 royal park. The vast city had disppearcd, and the
 
 198 ON Hume's argument 
 
 murmur of myriads : but as yet there were no signs 
 whatever of ruin or desolation. Not until our own 
 nineteenth century was the picture of Isaiah seen in 
 full realization — then lay the lion basking at noonday 
 — then crawled the serpents from their holes ; and at 
 night the whole region echoed with the wild cries pecu- 
 liar to arid wildernesses. The transformations, there- 
 fore, of Babylon, have been going on slowly through 
 a vast number of centuries until the perfect accom- 
 plishment of Isaiah's picture. Perhaps they have 
 travelled through a course of much more than two 
 thousand years : and from the glimpses we gain of 
 Babylon at intervals, we know for certain that Isaiah 
 had been dead for many centuries before his vision 
 could have even begun to realize itself. But then, 
 says an objector, the final ruins of great empires and 
 cities may be safely assumed on general grounds of 
 observation. Hardly, however, if they happen to be 
 seated in a region so fertile as Mesopotamia, and on a 
 great river like the Euphrates. But allow this possi- 
 bility — allow the natural disappearance of Babylon in 
 a long course of centuries. In other cases the disap- 
 pearance is gradual, and at length perfect. No traces 
 can now be found of Carthage ; none of Memphis ; or, 
 if you suppose something peculiar to Mesopotamia, no 
 traces can be found of Nineveh, or on the other side 
 of that region: none of other great cities — Roman, 
 Parthian, Persian, Median, in that same region or 
 adjacent regions. Babylon only is circumstantially 
 described by Jewish prophecy as long surviving itself 
 in a state of visible and audible desolation : and to 
 Babylon only such a description applies. Other pro-
 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 199 
 
 phecies might be cited with the same result. But this 
 is enough. And here is an a posteriori miracle. 
 
 Now, observe : these two orders of miracle, by their 
 very nature, absolutely evade the argument of Mume. 
 The incommunicability disappears altogether. The 
 value of — X absolutely vanishes and becomes ■=. 0. 
 The human reason being immutable, suggests to every 
 age, renews and regenerates for ever, the necessary 
 inference of a miraculous state antecedent to the 
 natural state. And, for the miracles of prophecy, 
 these require no evidence and depend upon none : 
 they carry their own evidence along with them ; they 
 utter their own testimonies, and they are continually re- 
 inforcing them ; for, probably, every successive period 
 of time reproduces fresh cases of prophecy completed. 
 But even one, like that of Babylon, realizes the case 
 of Bela (Sect. II.) in its most perfect form. History, 
 which attests it, is the voice of every generation, 
 checked and countersigned in effect by all the men 
 who compose it. 
 
 Section VII. 
 
 Of the Argument as affected by the particular Worker 
 OF THE Miracles. 
 
 This is the last ' moment,' to use the language of 
 Mechanics^ which we shall notice in this discussion. 
 And here there is a remarkable petilio principii in 
 Hume's management of his argument. He says, 
 roundly, that it makes no difference at all if God were 
 connected with the question as the author of the sup- 
 posed miracles. And why t Because, says he, we 
 know God only by experience — meaning as involved
 
 200 ON Hume's argument 
 
 in nature — and, therefore, that in so far as miracles 
 transcend our experience of nature, they transcend by 
 implication our experience of God. But the very 
 question under discussion is — whether God did, or did 
 not, manifest himself to human experience in the 
 miracles of the New Testament. But at all events, 
 the idea of God in itself already includes the notion of 
 a power to work miracles, whether that power were 
 ever exercised or not ; and as Sir Isaac Newton thought 
 that space might be the sensorium of God, so may we 
 (and with much more philosophical propriety) affirm 
 that the miraculous and the transcendent is the very 
 nature of God. God being assumed, it is as easy to 
 believe in a miracle issuing from him as in any opera- 
 tion according to the laws of nature (which, after all, 
 is possibly in many points only the nature of our 
 planet) : it is as easy, because either mode of action 
 is indifTerent to him. Doubtless this argument, when 
 addressed to an Atheist, loses its force ; because he 
 refuses to assume a God. But then, on the other hand, 
 it must be remembered that Hume's argument itself 
 does not stand on the footing of Atheism. He sup- 
 poses it binding on a Theist. Now a Theist, in starting 
 from the idea of God, grants, of necessity, the plenary 
 power of miracles as greater and more awful than man 
 could even comprehend. All he wants is a sufficient 
 motive for such transcendent agencies ; but this is 
 supplied in excess (as regards what we have called 
 the constituent miracles of Christianity) by the case of 
 a religion that was to revolutionize the moral nature of 
 man. The moral nature — the kingdom of the will — 
 is esentially opposed to the kingdom of nature even by
 
 AGAINST MIRACLES. 201 
 
 the confession of irreligious philosophers ; and, there- 
 fore, being itself a supersensual field, it seems more 
 reasonably adapted to agencies supernatural than such 
 as are natural. 
 
 GENERAL RECAPITULATION. 
 
 In Hume's argument, — ?■, which expresses the re- 
 sistance to credibility in a miracle, is valued as of 
 necessity equal to the very maximum or ideal of hu- 
 man testimony ; which, under the very best circum- 
 stances, might be equal to -j- r, in no case more, and 
 in all known cases less. We, on the other hand, have, 
 endeavored to show — 
 
 1. That, because Hume contemplates only the case 
 of a single witness, it will happen that the case Beta 
 [of Sect. II.] where a multitude of witnesses exist, 
 may greatly exceed -j-x ; and with a sufficient multi- 
 tude must exceed x. 
 
 2. That in the case of internal miracles — opera- 
 tions of divine agency within the mind and conscience 
 of the individual — Hume's argument is necessarily 
 set aside: the evidence, the -f~^' ^^ perfect for the 
 individual, and the miraculous agency is meant for 
 him only. 
 
 3. That, in the case of one primary miracle, viz. 
 the first organization of man on this planet, the evi- 
 dence greatly transcends x : because here it is an 
 evidence not derived from experience at all, but from 
 the reflecting reason : and the miracle has the same 
 advantage over facts of experience, that a mathe- 
 matical truth has over the truths which rest on induc- 
 tion. It is the difference between must be and is — 
 between the inevitable and the merely actual.
 
 202 ON Hume's argument against miracles. 
 
 4. That, in the case of another order of miracles, 
 viz. prophecies, Hume's argument is again overruled; 
 because the -\-x in this case, the affirmative evidence, 
 is not derived from human testimony. Some prophe- 
 cies are obscure ; they may be fulfilled possibly with- 
 out men's being aware of the fulfilment. But others, 
 as that about the fate of Babylon — about the fate of 
 the Arabs (the children of Ishmael) — about the fate 
 of the Jews — are not of a nature to be misunder- 
 stood ; and the evidence wliich attends them is not 
 alien, but is intrinsic, and developed by themselves in 
 successive stages from age to age. 
 
 5. That, because the primary miracle in No. 3, 
 argues at least a power competent to the working of a 
 miracle, for any after miracle we have only to seek a 
 sufficient motive. Now, the objects of the Christian 
 revelation were equal at the least to those of the origi- 
 nal creation. In fact, Christianity may be considered 
 as a second creation ; and the justifying cause for the 
 constituent miracles of Christianity is even to us as 
 apparent as any which could have operated at the 
 primary creation. The epigenesis was, at least, as 
 grand an occasion as the genesis. Indeed, it is evident, 
 for example, that Christianity itself could not have 
 existed without the constituent miracle of the Resur- 
 rection ", because without that there would have been 
 no conquest over death. And here, as in No. 3, -\- x 
 is derived — not from any experience, and therefore 
 cannot be controlled by that sort of hostile experience 
 which Hume's argument relies on; but is derived from 
 the reason which transcends all experience.
 
 CASUISTRY. 
 
 [1839.] 
 
 PART I. 
 
 It is remarkable, in the sense of being noticeable 
 and interesting, but not in the sense of being surpris- 
 ing, that Casuistry has fallen into disrepute througbout 
 all Protestant lands. This^ disrepute is a result partly 
 due to the upright morality which usually follows in 
 the train of the Protestant faith. So far it is honorable, 
 and an evidence of superior illuminaiion. But, in the 
 excess to which it has been pushed, we may trace also 
 a blind and somewhat bigoted reaction of the horror 
 inspired by the abuses of the Popish Confessional. 
 Unfortunately for the interests of scientific ethics, the 
 first cultivators of casuistry had been those who kept 
 in view the professional service of auricular confes- 
 sion. Their purpose was — to assist the reverend 
 confessor in appraising the quality of doubtful actions, 
 in order that he might properly adjust his scale of 
 counsel, of warning, of reproof, and of penance. 
 Some, therefore, in pure simplicity and conscientious 
 discharge of the duty they had assumed, but others, 
 from lubricity of morals or the irritations of curiosity, 
 pushed their investigations into unhallowed paths of 
 speculation. They held aloft a torch for exploring 
 guilty recesses of human life, which it is far better for
 
 204 CASUISTRY. 
 
 US all to leave in their original darkness. Crimes that 
 were often all but imaginary, extravagances of erring 
 passion that would never have been known as possi- 
 bilities to the young and the innocent, were thus pub- 
 lished in their most odious details. At first, it is true, 
 the decent draperies of a dead language were sus- 
 pended before these abominations : but sooner or later 
 some knave was found, on mercenary motives, to tear 
 away this partial veil ; and thus the vernacular litera- 
 ture of most nations in Southern Europe, was grad- 
 ually polluted with revelations that had been originally 
 made in the avowed service of religion. Indeed, there 
 was one aspect of such books which proved even more 
 extensively disgusting. Speculations pointed to mon- 
 strous offences, bore upon their very face and frontis- 
 piece the intimation that they related to cases rare and 
 anomalous. But sometimes casuistry pressed into the 
 most hallowed recesses of common domestic life. 
 The delicacy of youthful wives, for example, was often 
 not less grievously shocked than the manliness of hus- 
 bands, by refinements of monkish subtlety applied to 
 cases never meant for relisfious cognisance — but far 
 better left to the decision of good feeling, of nature, 
 and of pure household morality. Even this revolting 
 use of casuistry, however, did less to injure its name 
 and pretensions than a persuasion, pretty generally dif- 
 fused, that the main purpose and drift of this science 
 was a sort of hair-splitting process, by which doubts 
 might be applied to the plainest duties of life, or ques- 
 tions raised on the extent of their obligations, for the 
 single benefit of those who sought to evade them. A 
 casuist was viewed, in short, as a kind of lawyer or
 
 CASUISTRY. 205 
 
 special pleader in morals, such as those who, in Lon- 
 don, are known as Old Bailey practitioners, called in 
 to manage desperate cases — to suggest all available 
 advantages — to raise doubts or distinctions where sim- 
 ple morality saw no room for either — and generally 
 to teach the art, in nautical phrase, of sailing as near 
 the wind as possible, without fear of absolutely foun- 
 dering. 
 
 Meantime it is certain that casuistry, when soberly 
 applied, is not only a beneficial as well as a very inter- 
 esting study ; but that, by whatever title, it is absolutely 
 indispensable to the practical treatment of morals. 
 We may reject the name ; the thing we cannot reject. 
 And accordingly the custom has been, in all English 
 treatises on ethics, to introduce a good deal of cas- 
 uistry under the idea of special illustration, but with- 
 out any reference to casuistry as a formal branch of 
 research. Indeed, as society grows complex, the uses 
 of casuistry become more urgent. Even Cicero could 
 not pursue his theme through such barren generaliza- 
 tions as entirely to evade all notice of special cases : 
 and Paley has given the chief interest to his very loose 
 investigations of morality, by scattering a selection of 
 such cases over the whole field of his discussion. 
 
 The necessity of casuistry might, in fact, be de- 
 duced from the very origin and genesis of the word. 
 First came the general law or rule of action. This 
 was like the major proposition of a syllogism. But 
 next came a special instance or case, so stated as to 
 indicate whether it did or did not fall under the general 
 rule. This, again, was exactly the minor proposition 
 in a syllogism. For example, in logic we say, as the
 
 206 CASUISTRY. 
 
 major proposition in a syllogism, Man is mortal. This 
 is the rule. And then ' subsuming' (such is the tech- 
 nical phrase — subsuming) Socrates under the rule by 
 a minor proposition — viz. Socrates is a man — we 
 are able mediately to connect him with the predicate 
 of that rule, viz, ergo., Socrates is mortal.^ Precisely 
 upon this model arose casuistry. A general rule, or 
 major proposition, was laid down — suppose that he 
 who killed any human being, except under the pallia- 
 tions X, Y, Z, was a murderer. Then in a minor prop- 
 osition, the special case of the suicide was considered. 
 It was affirmed, or it was denied, that his case fell 
 under some one of the palliations assigned. And then, 
 finally, accordingly to the negative or affirmative shape 
 of this minor proposition, it was argued, in the conclu- 
 sion, that the suicide was or was not, a murderer. 
 Out of these cases, i. e. oblique deflexions from the 
 universal rule (which is also the grammarian's sense of 
 the word case) arose casuistry. 
 
 After morality has done its very utmost in clearing 
 up the grounds upon which it rests its decisions — 
 after it has multiplied its rules to any possible point of 
 circumstantiality — there will always continue to arise 
 cases without end, in the shifting combinations of 
 human action, about which a question will remain 
 whether they do or do not fall under any of these 
 rules. And the best way for seeing this truth illus- 
 trated on a broad scale, the shortest way and the most 
 decisive is — to point our attention to one striking fact, 
 viz. that all law, as it exists in every civilized land, is 
 nothing but casuistry. Simply because new cases are 
 for ever arising to raise new doubts whether they do or
 
 CASUISTRY. 207 
 
 do not fall under the rule of law, therefore it is that 
 law is so inexhaustible. The law terminates a dispute 
 for the present by a decision of a court, (which con- 
 stitutes our ' common Jaw,') or by an express act of the 
 legislature, (which constitutes our ' statute law.'') For 
 a month or two matters flow on smoothly. But then 
 comes a new case, not contemplated or not verbally 
 provided for in the previous rule. It is varied by some 
 feature of difference. The feature, it is suspected, 
 makes no essential difference : substantially it may be 
 the old case. Ay — but that is the very point to be 
 decided. And so arises a fresh suit at law, and a fresh 
 decision. For example, after many a decision and 
 many a statute, (all arising out of cases supervening 
 upon cases,) suppose that great subdivision of juris- 
 prudence called the Bankrupt Laws to have been grad- 
 ually matured. It has been settled, suppose, that he 
 who exercises a trade, and no other whatsoever, shall 
 be entitled to the benefit of the bankrupt laws. So far 
 is fixed : and people vainly imagine that at length a 
 station of rest is reached, and that in this direction at 
 least, the onward march of law is barred. Not at all. 
 Suddenly a schoolmaster becomes insolvent, and at- 
 tempts to avail himself of privileges as a technical 
 bankrupt. But then arises a resistance on the [)art of 
 those who are interested in resisting : and the question 
 is raised — Whether tlic calling of a schoolmaster can 
 be legally considered a tnide ? This also is settled : it 
 is solemnly determined that a schoolmaster is a trades- 
 man. But next arises a case, in which, from peculiar 
 variation of the circumstances, it is doubtful whether 
 the teacher can technically be considered a school-
 
 208 CASUISTRY. 
 
 master. Suppose that case settled : a schoolmaster, 
 sub-distinguished as an X Y schoolmaster, is adjudged 
 to come within the meaning of the law. But scarcely 
 is this sub-variety disposed of, than up rises some de- 
 complex case, which is a sub-variety of this sub-varie- 
 ety : and so on for ever. 
 
 Hence, therefore, we may see the shortsightedness 
 of Paley in quoting with approbation, and as if it im- 
 plied a reproach, that the Mussulman religious code 
 contains ' not less than seventy-five thousand tradi- 
 tional precepts.' True: but if this statement shows 
 an excess of circumstantiality in the moral systems of 
 Mussulmans, that result expresses a fact which Paley 
 overlooks — viz. that their moral code is in reality 
 their legal code. It is by aggregation of cases, by the 
 everlasting depullulation of fresh sprouts and shoots 
 from old boughs, that this enormous accumulation takes 
 place ; and, therefore, the apparent anomaly is exact- 
 ly paralleled in our unmanageable superstructure of 
 law, and in the French supplements to their code, 
 which have already far overbuilt the code itself. If 
 names were disregarded, we and the Mahometans are 
 in the very same circumstances. 
 
 Casuistry, therefore, is the science of cases, or of 
 those special varieties which are forever changing the 
 face of actions as contemplated in general rules. The 
 tendency of such variations is, in all states of complex 
 civilization, to absolute infinity ,2 It is our present pur- 
 pose to state a few of such cases, in order to fix 
 attention upon the interest and the importance which 
 surround them. No modern book of ethics can be 
 worth notice, unless in so far as it selects and argues
 
 CASUISTRY. 209 
 
 the more prominent of such cases, as they offer them- 
 selves in the economy of daily life. For we repeat — 
 that the name, the word casuistry, may be evaded, but 
 the tiling cannot ; nor is it evaded in our daily conver- 
 sations. 
 
 1. The Case of the Jaffa Massacre. — No case in 
 the whole compass of casuistry has been so much 
 argued to and fro — none has been argued with so 
 little profit; for, in fact, the main elements of the 
 moral decision have been left out of view. Let us 
 state the circumstances: — On the 11th of February, 
 1799, Napoleon, then and for seven months before in 
 military possession of Egypt, began his march towards 
 Syria. His object was to break the force of any Turk- 
 ish invasion, by taking it in fractions. It had become 
 notorious to every person in Egypt, that the Porte 
 rejected the French pretence of having come for the 
 purpose of quelling Mameluke rebellion — the absurd- 
 ity of which, apart from its ludicrous Quixotism, was 
 evident in the most practical way, viz. by the fact, that 
 the whole revenues of Egypt were more than swal- 
 lowed up by the pay and maintenance of the French 
 army. What could the Mamelukes have done worse ? 
 Hence it had become certain that the Turks would 
 send an expedition to Egypt ; and Napoleon viewing 
 the garrisons in Syria as the advanced guard of such 
 an expedition, saw the best chance for general victory 
 in meeting these troops beforehand, and destroying 
 them in detail. About nineteen days brought him 
 within view of the Syrian fields. On the last day of 
 February he slept at the Arimathca of the Gospel. In 
 a day or two after his army was before Jalia, (the 
 U
 
 210 CASUISTRY. 
 
 Joppa of the Crusaders,) — a weak place, but of some 
 military interest,^ from the accident of being the very 
 first fortified town to those entering Palestine from the 
 side of Egypt. On the 4th of March this place was 
 invested ; on the 6th, barely forty-eight hours after, it 
 was taken by storm. This fact is in itself important ; 
 because it puts an end to the pretence so often brought 
 forward, that the French army had been irritated by a 
 long resistance. Yet, supposing the fact to have been 
 so, how often in the history of war must every reader 
 have met with cases where honorable terms were 
 granted to an enemy merely on account of his obsti- 
 nate resistance ? But then here, it is said, the resist- 
 ance was wilfully pushed to the arbitration of a storm. 
 Even that might be otherwise staled ; but, suppose it 
 true, a storm in military law confers some rights upon 
 the assailants which else they would not have had — 
 rights, however, which cease with the day of storming. 
 Nobody denies that the French army might have massa- 
 cred all whom they met in arms at the time and during 
 the agony of storming. But the question is, Whether a 
 I'csistance of forty-eight hours could create the right, 
 or in the least degree palliate the atrocity, of putting 
 prisoners to death in cold blood ? Four days after the 
 storming, when all things had settled back into the 
 quiet routine of ordinary life, men going about their 
 aflfairs as usual, confidence restored, and, above all 
 things, after the faith of a Christian army had been 
 pledged to these prisoners that not a hair of their 
 heads should be touched, the imagination is appalled 
 by this wholesale butchery — even the apologists of 
 Napoleon are shocked by 'the amount of murder,
 
 CASUISTRY. 211 
 
 though justifying its principle. They admit that there 
 were two divisions of the prisoners — one of fifteen 
 hundred, the other of two thousand five hundred. 
 Their combined amount is equal to a little army ; in 
 fact, just about that army with which we fought and 
 won the battle of Maida in Calabria. They composed 
 a force equal to about six English regiments of infan- 
 try on the common establishment. Every man of 
 these four thousand soldiers, chiefly brave Albanians 
 — every man of this little army was basely, brutally, 
 in the very spirit of abject poltroonery, murdered — 
 murdered as foully as the infants of Bethlehem ; re- 
 sistance being quite hopeless, not only because they 
 had surrendered their arms, but also because, in reli- 
 ance on Christian honor, they had quietly submitted to 
 have their hands confined with ropes behind their 
 backs. If this blood did not lie heavy on Napoleon's 
 heart in his dying hours, it must have been because a 
 conscience originally callous had been seared by the 
 very number of his atrocities. 
 
 Now, having stated the case, let us review the casu- 
 istical apologies put forward. What was to be done with 
 these prisoners ? There lay the difficulty. Could they 
 be retained according to the common usage with re- 
 gard to prisoners? No«; for there was a scarciiy of 
 provisions, barely sufficient for the French army itself. 
 Could they be transported to Egypt by sea ? No ; for 
 two English line-of-battle ships, the Theseus and the 
 Tiger, were cruising in the offing, and watching the 
 interjacent seas of Egypt and Syria. Could they be 
 transported to Egypt by land ? No ; for it was not pos- 
 sible to spare a sufficient escort; besides, this plan
 
 212 CASUISTRY. 
 
 would have included the separate difficulty as to food. 
 Finally, then, as the sole resource left, could they be 
 turned adrift ? No ; for this was but another mode of 
 saying, 'Lotus fight the matter over again; reinstate 
 yourselves as our enemies ; let us leave Jaffa re iiifectd, 
 and let all begin again de novo ' — since, assuredly, say 
 the French apologists, in a fortnight from that date, 
 the prisoners would have been found swelling the 
 ranks of those Turkish forces whom Napoleon had 
 reason to expect in front. 
 
 Before we take one step in replying to these argu- 
 ments, let us cite two parallel cases from history: they 
 are interesting for themselves, and they show how 
 other armies, not Christian, have treated the self-same 
 difficulty in practice. The first shall be a leaf taken 
 from the great book of Pagan experience ; the second 
 from Mahometan : and both were cases in which the 
 parties called on to cut the knot had been irritated 
 to madness by the parties lying at their disposal. 
 
 1. The Pagan Decision. — In that Jewish war of 
 more than three years' duration, which terminated in 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, two cities on the lake of 
 Gennesaret were besieged by Vespasian. One of 
 these was Tiberias : the other Tarichse. Both had 
 been defended with desperation ; and from their pecu- 
 liar situation upon water, and amongst profound preci- 
 pices, the Roman battering apparatus had not been 
 found applicable to their walls. Consequently the re- 
 sistance and the loss to the Romans had been unexam- 
 pled. At the latter siege Vespasian was present in 
 person. Six thousand five hundred had perished of the 
 enemy. A number of prisoners remained, amounting
 
 CASUISTEY. 213 
 
 to about forty thousand. What was to be done with 
 them ? A great council was held, at which the com- 
 mander-in-chief presided, assisted (as Napoleon) by 
 his whole staff. Many of the officers were strongly 
 for having the whole put to death : they used the very 
 arguments of the French — ' that, being people now 
 destitute of habitations, they would infallibly urge any 
 cities which received them into a war : ' fighting, in 
 fact, henceforward upon a double impulse — viz. the 
 original one of insurrection, and a new one of revenge. 
 Vespasian was sensible of all this; and he himself 
 remarked, that, if they had any indulgence of flight 
 conceded, they would assuredly use it against the 
 authors of that indulgence. But still, as an answer to 
 all objections, he insisted on the solitary fact, that he 
 had pledged the Roman faith for the security of their 
 lives ; ' and to offer violence, after he had given them 
 his right hand, was what he could not bear to think of.' 
 Such are the simple words of Josephus. In the end, 
 overpowered by his council, Vespasian made a sort of 
 compromise. Twelve hundred, as persons who could 
 not have faced the hardships of captivity and travel, he 
 gave up to the sword. Six thousand select young men 
 were transported as laborers into Greece, with a view 
 to Nero's scheme, then in agitation, for cutting through 
 the isthmus of Corinth ; the main body, amounting to 
 thirty thousand, were sold for slaves ; and all the rest, 
 who happened to be subjects of Agrippa, as a mark of 
 courtesy to that prince, were placed at his disposal. 
 Now, in this case, it will be alleged that perhaps the 
 main feature of Napoleon's case was not realized, viz. 
 the want of provisions. Every Roman soldier carried
 
 214 CASUISTRY. 
 
 on his shoulders a load of seventeen days' provisions, 
 expressly in preparation for such dilemmas ; and Pal- 
 estine was then rank with population gathered into 
 towns. This objection will be noticed immediately : 
 but, meantime, let it be remembered that the prisoners 
 personally appeared before their conquerors in far 
 worse circumstances than the garrison of Jaffa, except 
 as to the one circumstance (in which both parties stood 
 on equal ground) of having had their lives guaranteed. 
 For the prisoners of Gennesaret were chiefly aliens 
 and fugitives from justice, who had no national or local 
 interest in the cities which they had tempted or forced 
 into insurrection ; they were clothed with no military 
 character whatever ; in short, they were pure vagrant 
 incendiaries. And the populous condition of Palestine 
 availed little towards the execution of Vespasian's sen- 
 tence : nobody in that land would have bought such 
 prisoners; nor, if they would, were there any means 
 available, in the agitated state of the Jewish people, for 
 maintaining their purchase. It would, therefore, be 
 necessary to escort them to Ceesarea, as the nearest 
 Roman port for shipping them : thence perhaps to Al- 
 exandria, in order to benefit by the corn vessels : and 
 from Alexandria the voyage to remoter places would 
 be pursued at great cost and labor — all so many ob- 
 jections exactly corresponding to those of Napoleon, 
 and yet all overruled by the single consideration of a 
 Roman (viz. a Pagan) right hand pledged to the fulfil- 
 ment of a promise. As to the twelve hundred old and 
 helpless people nlassacred in cold blood, as regarded 
 themselves it was a merciful doom, and one which 
 many of the Jerusalem captives afterwards eagerly
 
 CASUISTRY. 215 
 
 courted. But still it was a shocking case. It was felt 
 to be so by many Romans themselves : Vespasian was 
 overruled in that instance : and the horror which settled 
 upon the mind of Titus, his eldest son, from that very 
 case amongst others, made him tender of human life, 
 and anxiously merciful, through the great tragedies 
 which were now beginning to unrol themselves. 
 
 2. The Mahometan Decision. — The Emperor 
 Charles V., at different periods, twice invaded the pirat- 
 ical states in the north of Africa. The last of these 
 invasions, directed against Algiers, failed miserably, 
 covering the Emperor with shame, and strewing both 
 land and sea with the wrecks of his great armament. 
 But six years before, he had conducted a most splendid 
 and successful expedition against Tunis, then occupied 
 by Heyradin Barbarossa, a valiant corsair and a pros- 
 perous usurper. Barbarossa had an irregular force of 
 fifty thousand men ; the Emperor had a veteran army, 
 but not acclimatized, and not much above one half as 
 numerous. Things tended, therefore, strongly to an 
 equilibrium. Such were the circumstances — such 
 was the position on each side : Barbarossa, with his 
 usual adventurous courage, was drawing out of Tunis 
 in order to fight the invader : precisely at that moment 
 occurred the question of what should be done with the 
 Christian slaves. A stronger case cannot be imagined : 
 they were ten thousand fighting men ; and the more 
 horrible it seemed to murder so many defenceless peo- 
 ple, the more dreadfully did the danger strike upon the 
 imagination. It was their number which appalled the 
 conscience of those who speculated on their murder ; 
 but precisely that it was, when pressed upon the recol-
 
 216 CASUISTRY. 
 
 lection, which appalled the prudence of their Moorish 
 masters. Barbarossa himself, fiimiliar with bloody- 
 actions, never hesitated about the proper course : ' mas- 
 sacre without mercy ' was his proposal. But his offi- 
 cers thought otherwise : they were brave men ; ' and,' 
 says Eobertson, ' they all approved warmly of his in- 
 tention to fight. But, inured as they were to scenes of 
 bloodshed, the barbarity of his proposal filled them 
 with horror ; and Barbarossa, from the dread of irri- 
 tating them, consented to spare the lives of the slaves.' 
 Now, in this case, the penalty attached to mercy, in 
 case it should turn out unhappily for those who so 
 nobly determined to stand the risk, cannot be more 
 tragically expressed, than by saying that it did turn 
 out unhappily. We need not doubt that the merciful 
 officers were otherwise rewarded ; but for this world 
 and the successes of this world the ruin was total. 
 Barbarossa was defeated in the battle which ensued ; 
 flying pell-mell to Tunis with the wrecks of his army, 
 he found these very ten thousand Christians in posses- 
 sion of the fort and town : they turned his own artillery 
 upon himself: and his overthrow was sealed by that 
 one act of mercy — so unwelcome from the very first 
 to his own Napoleonish temper. 
 
 Thus we see how this very case of Jaffa, had been 
 settled by Pagan and Mahometan casuists, where cour- 
 age and generosity happened to be habitually preva- 
 lent. Now, turning back to the pseudo-Christian army, 
 let us very briefly review the arguments {or them. 
 First, there were no provisions. But how happened 
 that r or liow is it proved ? Feeding the prisoners 
 from the 6th to the 10th inclusively of March, proves
 
 CASUISTRY. 
 
 217 
 
 that there was no instant want. And how was it, then, 
 that Napoleon had run his calculations so narrowly ! 
 The prisoners were just 83 per cent, on the total 
 French army, as originally detached from Cairo. Some 
 had already perished of that army : and in a few 
 weeks more, one half of that army had perished, or 
 six thousand men, whose rations were hourly becoming 
 disposable for the prisoners. Secondly, a most impor- 
 tant point, resources must have been found in Jaffa. 
 But thirdly, if not, if Jaffa were so ill-provisioned, how 
 had it ever dreamed of standinij a sie";e .-' And know- 
 ing its condition, as Napoleon must have done from 
 deserters and otherwise, how came he to adopt so 
 needless a measure as that of storming the place .'' 
 Three days must have compelled it to surrender upon 
 any terms, if it could be really true that, after losing 
 vast numbers of its population in the assault (for it was 
 the bloodshed of the assault which originally suggested 
 the interference of the aides-de-camp,) Jaffa was not 
 able to allow half-rations even to a part of its garrison 
 for a few weeks. What was ft meant that the whole 
 should have done, had Napoleon simply blockaded it } 
 Through all the.se contradictions we see the truth loom- 
 ing as from behind a mist : it was not because provis- 
 ions failed that Napoleon butchered four thousand 
 young men in cold blood ; it was because he wished to 
 signalize his entrance into Palestine by a sanguinary 
 act, such as might strike terror far and wide, resound 
 through Syria as well as Egypt, and paralyze the 
 nerves of his enemies. Fourthly, it is urged that, if 
 he had turned the prisoners loose, they would have 
 faced him again in his next battle. How so.? Prison-
 
 218 
 
 CASUISTRY. 
 
 ers without arms ? But then, perhaps, they could have 
 retreated upon Acre, \vh$re it is known that Djezzar, 
 the Turkish pacha, had a great magazine of arms. 
 That might have been dangerous, if any such retreat 
 had been open. But surely the French army, itself 
 under orders for Acre, could at least have intercepted 
 the Acre route from the prisoners. No other remain- 
 ed but that through the defiles of Naplous. In this 
 direction, however, there was no want of men. Be- 
 yond the mountains cavalry only were in use : and the 
 prisoners had no horses, nor habits of acting as cav- 
 alry. In the defiles it was riflemen who were wanted, 
 and tlie prisoners had no rifles ; besides that, the line 
 of the French operations never came near to that 
 route. Then, again, if provisions were so scarce, how 
 were the unarmed prisoners to obtain them on the 
 simple allegation that they had fought unsuccessfully 
 against the French ! 
 
 But, finally, one conclusive argument there is against 
 this damnable atroc ty of Napoleon's, which, in all fu- 
 ture Lives of Napoleon, one may expect to see noticed, 
 viz., that if the circumstances of Palestine were such as 
 to forbid the ordinary usages of war, if (which we are 
 far from believing) want of provisions made it indis- 
 pensable to murder prisoners in cold blood — in that 
 case a Syrian war became impossible to a man of 
 honor; and the guilt commences from a higher point 
 than Jalfa. Already at Cairo, and in the elder stages 
 of the expedition, planned in face of such afllicting 
 necessities, we read the counsels of a murderer ; of 
 one rightly carrying such a style of warfare towards 
 the ancient country of the assassins ; of one not an
 
 CASUISTRY. 219 
 
 apostate merely from Christian humanity, but from the 
 lowest standard of soldierly honor. He and his friends 
 abuse Sir Hudson Lowe as a jailer. But far better to 
 be a jailer, and faithful to one's trust, than to be the 
 cut-throat of unarmed men. 
 
 One consideration remains, which we reserve to the 
 end ; because it has been universally overlooked, and 
 because it is conclusive against Napoleon, even on his 
 own hypothesis of an absolute necessity. ' In Vespa- 
 sian's case it does not appear that he had gained any- 
 thing for himself, or for his army, by his promise of 
 safety to the enemy : he had simply gratified his own 
 feelings by holding out prospects of final escape. But 
 Napoleon had absolutely seduced the four thousand men 
 from a situation of power, from vantage-ground, by his 
 treacherous promise. And when the French apologists 
 plead — ' If we had dismissed the prisoners we should 
 soon have had to fight the battle over again ' — they 
 totally forget the state of the facts : rthey had not fought 
 the battle at all : they had evaded the battle as to these 
 prisoners : as many enemies as could have faced them 
 de novo, so many had they bought off from fighting. 
 Forty centuries of armed men, brave and despairing, 
 and firing from windows, must have made prodigious 
 havoc : and this havoc the French evaded by a trick, 
 by a perfidy, perhaps unexampled in the annals of 
 military men. 
 
 II. Piracy. — It is interesting to trace the revolutions 
 of moral feeling. In the early stages of history we 
 find piracy in high esteem. Thucydides tells us that 
 Xi^oTiia or robbery, when conducted at sea, {i. e. robbery 
 on non-Grecian people,) was held in the greatest honor
 
 220 CASUISTRY. 
 
 by his countrymen in elder ages. And this, in fact, is 
 the true station, this point of feeling for primitive man, 
 from which we ought to view the robberies and larce- 
 nies of savages. Captain Cook, though a good and 
 often a wise man, erred in this point. He took a plain 
 Old Bailey view of the case ; and very sincerely be- 
 lieved, (as all sea-captains ever have done,) that a 
 savage must be a bad man, who would purloin any- 
 thing that was not his. Yet it is evident that the poor 
 child of uncultured nature, who saw strangers descend- 
 ing, as it were from the moon, upon his aboriginal 
 forests and lawns, must have viewed them under the 
 same angle as the Greeks of old. They were no part 
 of any system to which he belonged ; and why should 
 he not plunder them ? By force if he could : but, 
 where that was out of the question, why should he not 
 take the same credit for an undetected theft that the 
 Spartan gloried in taking ? To be detected was both 
 shame and loss ; but he was certainly entitled to any 
 glory which might seem to settle upon success, not at 
 all less than the more pretending citizen of Sparta. 
 Besides all which, amongst us civilized men the rule 
 obtains universally — that the state and duties of peace 
 are to be presumed until war is proclaimed. Whereas, 
 amongst rude nations, war is understood to be the rule 
 — war, open or covert, until suspended by express con- 
 tract. Bellum inter omnes is the natural state of things 
 for all, except those who view themselves as brothers 
 by natural affinity, by local neighborhood, by common 
 descent, or who make themselves brothers by artificial 
 contracts. Captain Cook, who overlooked all this, 
 should have begun by arranging a solemn treaty with
 
 CASUISTRY. 221 
 
 the saVages amongst whom he meant to reside for any 
 length of time. This would have prevented many an 
 angry broil then, and since then : it would also have 
 prevented his own tragical fate. Meantime the savage 
 is calumniated and misrepresented, for want of being 
 understood. 
 
 There is, however, amongst civilized nations a mode 
 of piracy still tolerated, or which icas tolerated in the 
 last war, but is now ripe for extinction. It is th.at war 
 of private men upon private men, which goes on under 
 the name of privateering. Great changes have taken 
 place in our modes of thinking within the last twenty- 
 five years ; and the greatest change of all lies in the 
 thoughtful spirit which we now bring to the investiga- 
 tion of all public questions. We have no doubt at all 
 that, when next a war arises at sea, the whole system 
 of privateering will be condemned by the public voice. 
 And the next step after that will be, to explode all war 
 whatsoever, public or private, upon commerce. War 
 will be conducted by belligerents and upon belligerents 
 exclusivel5^ To imagine the extinction of war itself, 
 in the present stage of human advance, is, we fear, 
 idle. Higher modes of civilization — an earth more 
 universally colonized — the homo sapiens of Linnrous 
 more humanized, and other improvements must pave 
 the way for that : but amongst the earliest of those 
 improvements, will be the abolition of war carried into 
 quarters where the spirit of war never ought to pene- 
 trate. Privateering will be abolished. War, on a 
 national scale, is often ennobling, and one great instru- 
 ment of pioneering for civilization ; but war of private 
 citizen upon his fellow, in another land, is always 
 demoralizing.
 
 222 CASUISTRY. 
 
 III. Usury. — This ancient subject of casuistry we 
 place next to ]}lracy, for a significant reason : tlie two 
 practices have both changed their public reputation as 
 civilization has advanced, but inversely — they have 
 interchanged characters. Piracy, beginning in honor, 
 has ended in infamy : and at this moment it happens 
 to be the sole ofience against society in which all the 
 accomplices, without pity or intercession, let them be 
 ever so numerous, are punished capitally. Elsewhere, 
 we decimate, or even centesimate : here, we are all 
 children of Rhadamanthus. Usury, on the other hand, 
 beginning in utter infamy, has travelled upwards into 
 considerable esteem ; and Mr. ' 10 per shent'' stands a 
 very fair chance of being pricked for sheriff next year ; 
 and, in one generation more, of passing for a great 
 patriot. Charles Lamb complained that, by gradual 
 changes, not on his part, but in the spirit of refinement, 
 he found himself growing insensibly into ' an indecent 
 character.' The same changes which carry some 
 downwards, carry others up ; and Shylock himself 
 will soon be viewed as an, eminent martyr or confessor 
 for the truth as it is in the Alley. Seriously, however, 
 there is nothing more remarkable in the history of 
 casuistical ethics, than the utter revolution in human 
 estimates of usury. In this one point the Hebrew legis- 
 lator agreed with the Roman — Deuteronomy with the 
 Twelve Tables. Cicero mentions that the elder Cato 
 being questioned on various actions, and how he ranked 
 them in his esteem, was at length asked. Quid fcene- 
 rari ? — how did he rank usury ? His indignant 
 answer was, by a retorted question — Quid ho7ninem 
 occidere 7 — what do I think of murder ? In this par-
 
 CASUISTRY. 223 
 
 ticular case, as in some others, we must allow that our 
 worthy ancestors and forerunners upon this terraqueous 
 planet were enormous blockheads. And their ' exqui- 
 site reason ' for this opinion on usury, was quite worthy 
 of Sir Andrew Aguecheek : — ' money,' they argued, 
 ' could not breed money : one guinea was neither father 
 nor mother to another guinea : and where could be the 
 justice of making a man pay for the use of a thing 
 which that thing could never produce ? ' But, venera- 
 ble blockheads, that argument applies to the case of 
 him who locks up his borrowed guinea. Suppose him 
 7iof to lock it up, but to buy a hen, and the hen to lay 
 a dozen eggs ; one of those eggs will be so much per 
 cent. ; and the thing borrowed has then produced its 
 own foemis. A still greater inconsistency was this : 
 Our ancestors would have rejoined — that many people 
 did not borrow in order to produce, i. e. to use the 
 money as capital, but in order to spend, i. e. to use it 
 as income. In that case, at least, the borrowers must 
 derive the fcenus from some other fund than the thing 
 borrowed : for, by the supposition, the thing borrowed 
 lias been spent. True ; but on the same principle 
 these ancestors ought to have forbidden every man to 
 sell any article whatsoever to him who paid for it out 
 of other funds than those produced by the article sold. 
 Mere logical consistency required this : it happens, in- 
 deed, to be impossible : but that only argues their entire 
 non-comprehension of their own doctrines. 
 
 The whole history of usury teems with instruction : 
 1st, comes the monstrous absurdity in which the pro- 
 scription of usury anchored ; 2d, the absolute compul- 
 sion and pressure of realities in forcing men into a
 
 224 CASUISTRY. 
 
 timid abandonment of their own doctrines; 3d, the 
 unconquerable power of sympathy, which humbled all 
 minds to one level, and forced the strongest no less 
 than the feeblest intellects into the same infatuation of 
 stupidity. The casuistry of ancient moralists on this 
 question, especially of the scholastic moralists, such as 
 Suarrez, «Stc. — the oscillations by which they ultimate- 
 ly relaxed and tied up the law, just as their erring 
 conscience, or the necessities of social life prevailed, 
 would compose one of the interesting chapters in this 
 science. But the Jewish relaxation is the most amus- 
 ing : it coincides altogether with the theory of savages 
 as to property, which we have 'already noticed under 
 the head of Piracy. All men on earth, except Jews, 
 were held to be fair subjects for usury ; not as though 
 usury were a just or humane thing: no — it was a bel- 
 ligerent act: but then all foreigners in the Jewish eye 
 were enemies for the same reason that the elder 
 Romans had a common term for an enemy and a 
 stranger. And it is probable that many- Jews at this 
 day, in exercising usury, conceive themselves to be 
 seriously making war, in a privateering fashion, upon 
 Christendom, and practising reprisals on the Gentiles 
 for ruined Jerusalem. 
 
 IV. Bishop Gibso7i''s Chronicon Preciosum. — Many 
 people are aware that this book is a record of prices, 
 as far as they were recoverable, pursued through six 
 centuries of English History. But they are not aware 
 that this whole inquiry is simply the machinery for 
 determining a casuistical question. The question was 
 this: — An English College, but we cannot say in 
 which of our universities, had been founded in the
 
 CASUISTRY. 22b 
 
 reign of Henry VI., and between 1440 and 1460 — 
 probably it might be King's College, Cambridge. Now, 
 the statutes of this college make it imperative upon 
 every candidate for a fellowship to swear that he does 
 not possess an estate in land of inheritance, nor a per- 
 petual pension amounting to five pounds per annum. 
 It is certain, however, that the founder did not mean 
 superstitiously so much gold or silver as made nominal- 
 ly the sum of five pounds, but so much as virtually 
 represented the five pounds of Henry VI. 's time — so 
 much as would buy the same quantity of ordinary com- 
 fort. Upon this, therefore, arose two questions for the 
 casuist: (1.) What sum did substantially represent, in 
 1706, (the year of publishing the Chron. rreciosum,) 
 that nominal <£5 of 1440? (2.) Supposing this ascer- 
 tained, might a man with safe conscience retain his 
 fellowship by swearing that he had not £5 a-year, 
 when perhaps he had .£20, provided that c£20 were 
 proved to be less in efiicacy than the ^5 of the elder 
 period ? Verbally this was perjury : was it such in 
 reality and to the conscience ? 
 
 The Chronicle is not, as by its title the reader might 
 suppose, a large folio : on the contrary, it is a small 
 octavo of less than 200 pages. But it is exceedingly 
 interesting, very ably reasoned, and as circumstantial 
 in its illustrations as the good bishop's opportunities 
 allowed him to make it. In one thing he was more 
 liberal than Sir William Petty, Dr. Davenant, &c., or 
 any elder economists of the preceding century ; he 
 would have statistics treated as a classical or scholar- 
 like study ; and he shows a most laudable curiosity in 
 all the questions arising out of his main one. His 
 15
 
 226 CASUISTRY. 
 
 answer to thai is as follows : 1st, tliat £^ in Henry 
 VI.'s time contained forty ounces of silver, whereas in 
 Queen Anne's it contained only nineteen ounces and 
 one-third ; so that, in reality, the £b of 1440, was, 
 even as to weight of silver, rather more than .£10 of 
 1706. 2d, as to the efficacy of ^10 in Henry VI.'s 
 reign : upon reviewing the main items of common 
 household (and therefore of common academic) ex- 
 penditure, and pursuing this review through bad years 
 and good years, the bishop decides that it is about 
 equal to .£25 or £30 of Queen Anne's reign. Sir 
 George Shuckburgh has since treated this casuistical 
 problem more elaborately : but Bishop Gibson it was, 
 who, in his Chronicon Preciosum, first broke the ice. 
 
 After this, he adds an ingenious question upon the 
 apparently parallel case of a freeholder swearing him- 
 self worth 40s. per annum as a qualification for an 
 electoral vote : ought not he to hold himself perjured in 
 voting upon an estate often so much below the original 
 4O5. contemplated by Parliament, for the very same 
 reason that a collegian is 7wt perjured in holding a 
 fellowship, whilst, in fact, he may have four or five 
 times the nominal sum privileged by the founder .'* 
 The bishop says no ; and he distinguishes the case 
 thus: the college ^5 must always mean a virtual £5 
 — a £5 in efficacy, and not merely in name. But the 
 freeholder's 40s. is not so restricted ; and for the fol- 
 lowing reason — that this sum is constantly coming 
 under the review of Parliament. It is clear, therefore, 
 from the 'fact of not having altered it, that Parliament 
 is satisfied with a merely nominal 40s., and sees no 
 reason to alter it. True, it was a rule enacted by the
 
 CASUISTRY. 227 
 
 Parliament of 1430 ; at which time 405. was even in 
 weight of silver equal to 80s. of 1706 ; and in virtue 
 or power of purchasing equal to ,£12 at the least. 
 The qualification of a freeholder is, therefore, much 
 lower in Queen Anne's days than in those of Henry 
 VI. But what of that ? Parliament, it must be pre- 
 sumed, sees good, reason why it should be lower. And 
 at all events, till the law operates amiss, there can be 
 no reason to alter it. 
 
 A case of the same kind with those argued by Bishop 
 Gibson arose often in trials for larceny — we mean as 
 to that enactment which fixed the minimum for a 
 capital offence. This case is noticed by the bishop, 
 and juries of late years often took the casuistry into 
 their own hands. They were generally thought to act 
 with no more than a proper humanity to the prisoner ; 
 but still people thought such juries incorrect. Where- 
 as, if Bishop Gibson is right, who allows a man to 
 swear positively that he has not c£5 a-year, when 
 nominally he has much more, such juries were even 
 technically right. However, this point is now altered 
 by Sir Robert Peel's reforms. But there are other 
 cases, and especially those which arise not between 
 different times but between different places, which will 
 often require the same kind of casuistry as that which 
 is so ably applied by the good and learned bishop. 
 
 V. Suicide. — It seems passing strange that the 
 main argument upon which Pagan moralists relied in 
 their unconditional condemnation of suicide, viz. the 
 supposed analogy of our situation in life to that of a 
 sentinel mounting guard, who cannot, without a capital 
 offence, quit his station until called off by his com-
 
 228 CASUISTRY. 
 
 manding officer, is dismissed with contempt by a 
 Christian moralist, viz. Paley. But a stranger thing 
 still is — that the only man who ever wrote a book in 
 palliation of suicide, should have been not only a 
 Christian — not only an official minister and dignitary 
 of a metropolitan Christian church — but also a scru- 
 pulously pious man. We allude, as the reader will 
 suppose, to Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul's. His opinion 
 is worthy of consideration. Not that we would wil- 
 lingly diminish, by one hair's weight, the reasons 
 against suicide ; but it is never well to rely upon 
 ignorance or inconsideration for the defence of any 
 principle whatever. Donne's notion was, (a notion, 
 however, adopted in his earlier years,) that as we do 
 not instantly pronounce a man a murderer upon hear- 
 ing that he has killed a fellow-creature, but, according 
 tO' the circumstances of the case, pronounce his act 
 either murder, or manslaughter, or justifiable homi- 
 cide ; so by parity of reason, suicide is open to 
 distinctions of the same or corresponding kinds ; that 
 there may be such a thing as self-homicide not less 
 than self-murder — culpable self-homicide — justifia- 
 ble self-homicide. Donne called his Essay by the 
 Greek name Biathaiiatos, ^ meaning violent death. 
 But a thing equally strange and a blasphemy almost 
 unaccountable, is the fancy of a Prussian or Saxon 
 baron, who wrote a book to prove that Christ commit- 
 ted suicide, for which he had no other argument than 
 that, in fact, he had surrendered himself unresistingly 
 into the hands of his enemies, and had in a manner 
 caused his own death. This, however, describes the 
 case of every martyr that ever was or can be. It is 
 
 A
 
 CASUISTRY. 229 
 
 the very merit and grandeur of the nnartyr, that he 
 proclaims the truth with his eyes open to the conse- 
 quences of proclaiming it. Those consequences are 
 connected with the truth, but not by a natural link : 
 the connection is by means of false views, which it is 
 the very business of the martyr to destroy. And, if a 
 man founds my death upon an act which my con- 
 science enjoys, even though I am aware and fully 
 warned that he will found my death upon it, I am not, 
 therefore, guilty of suicide. For, by the supposition, 
 I was obliged to the act in question by the highest of 
 all obligations, viz. moral obligation, which far trans- 
 cends all physical obligation ; so that, whatever excuse 
 attaches to a physical necessity, attaches, a fortiori, 
 to the moral necessity. The case is, therefore, pre- 
 cisely the same as if he had said, — ' I will put you to 
 death if the frost benumbs your feet.' The answer is 
 — ' I cannot help this effect of frost.' Far less can I 
 help revealing a celestial truth. I have no power, no 
 liberty, to forbear. And, in killing me, he punishes 
 me for a mere necessity of my situation and my 
 knowledge. 
 
 It is urged that brutes never commit suicide — ex- 
 cept, indeed, the salamander, who has been suspected 
 of loose principles in this point ; and we ourselves 
 know a man who constantly affirmed that a horse of 
 his had committed suicide, by violently throwing him- 
 self from the summit of a precipice. ' But why,' — as 
 we still asked him — 'why should the horse have com- 
 mitted felony on himself? Were oats rising in the 
 market ? — or was he in love ? — or vexed by politics ? 
 — or could a horse, and a young one rising four, be
 
 230 CASmSTRY. 
 
 supposed to suffer from tcedium vit.ce?'' Meantime, as 
 respects the general question of brute suicides, two 
 points must be regarded, — 1st, That brutes are cut 
 off from the vast world of morcd and imaginative suf- 
 ferings entailed upon man ; 2dly, That this very im- 
 munity presupposes another immunity — 
 
 * A cool suspense from pleasure and from pain,' 
 
 in the far coarser and less irritable animal organization 
 which must be the basis of an insulated physical sen- 
 sibility. Brutes can neither suffer from intellectual 
 passions, nor, probably, from very complex derange- 
 ments of the animal system ; so that in them the mo- 
 tives to suicide, the temptations to suicide, are prodigi- 
 ously diminished. Nor are they ever alive to ' the 
 sublime attractions of the grave.' It is, however, a 
 humiliating reflection, that, if any brutes can feel such 
 aspirations, it must be those which are under the care 
 of man. Doub less the happiness of brutes is some- 
 times extended by man ; but also, too palpably, their 
 misery. 
 
 ^\'hy suicide is not noticed in the New Testament is 
 a problem yet open to the profound investigator. 
 
 VI. Duelling. — No one case, in the vast volume of 
 casuistry, is so difficult to treat with justice and reason- 
 able adaptation to the spirit of modern times, as this of 
 duelling. For, as to those who reason all upon one 
 side, and never hearken in good faith to objections or 
 difficulties, such people convince nobody but those 
 who were already convinced before they began. At 
 present, (1839,) society has for some years been tak- 
 ing a lurch to one side against duelling : but inevita-
 
 CiSDISTEY. 231 
 
 bly a reaction will succeed ; for, after all, be it as 
 much opposed as it may to Christianity, duelling 
 performs such important functions in society as now 
 constituted — we mean by the sense of instant per- 
 sonal accountability which it diffuses universally 
 amongst gentlemen, and all who have much sensibility 
 to the point of honor — that, for one life which it takes 
 away as an occasional sacrifice, it saves myriads from 
 outrage and affronts — millions from the anxiety at- 
 tached to inferior bodily strength. However, it is no 
 part of our present purpose to plead the cause of duel- 
 ling, though pleaded it must be, more fairly than it 
 ever has been, before any progress will be made in 
 suppressing it. 
 
 But the point which we wish to notice at present, is 
 the .universal blunder about the Romans and Greeks. 
 They, it is alleged, fought no duels ; and occasion is 
 thence taken to make very disadvantageous reflections 
 upon us, the men of this Christian era, who, in de- 
 fiance of our greater light, do fight duels. Lord Bacon 
 himself is duped by this enormous blunder, and founds 
 upon it a long speech in the Star-Chambcr. 
 
 Now, in the first place, who does not see that, if the 
 Pagans really were enabled by their religion to master 
 their movements of personal anger and hatred, the in- 
 evitable inference will be to the disadvantage of Chris- 
 tianity. It would be a clear case. Christianity and 
 Paganism have been separately tried as means of self- 
 control ; Christianity has flagrantly failed; Paganism 
 succeeded universally ; not having been found unequal 
 to the task in any one known instance. 
 
 But this is not so. A profounder error never ex-
 
 232 CASUISTRY. 
 
 isted. No religious influence whatever restrained the 
 Greek or the Roman from fighting a duel. It was 
 purely a civic influence, and it was sustained by this 
 remarkable usage — in itself a standing opprobrium to 
 both Greek and Roman — viz. the unlimited license of 
 tongue allowed to anger in the ancient assemblies and 
 senates. This liberty of foul language operated in two 
 ways : 1st, Being universal, it took away all ground 
 for feeling the words of an antagonist as any personal 
 insult ; so he had rarely a motive for a duel. 2dly, 
 The anger was thus less acute ; yet, if it were acute, 
 then this Billingsgate resource furnished an instanta- 
 neous vehicle for expectorating the wrath. Look, for 
 example, at Cicero's orations against Mark Antony, 
 or Catiline, or against Piso, This last person was a 
 senator of the very highest rank, family, connections; 
 yet, in the course of a few pages, does Cicero, a man of 
 letters, polished to the extreme standard of Rome, ad- 
 dress him by the elegant appellations of 'filth,' 'mud,' 
 ' carrion,' {projectum cadaver.) How could Piso have 
 complained .? It would have been said — ' Oh, there's 
 an end of republican simplicity, if plain speaking is to 
 be put down.' And then it would have been added 
 invidiously — 'Better men than ever stood in your 
 shoes have borne worse language. Will you complain 
 of what was tolerated by Africanus, by Paul us JEmi' 
 lius, by Marius, by Sylla? ' Who could reply to that.? 
 And why should Piso have even wished to call out his 
 foul-mouthed antagonist ? On the contrary, a far more 
 genial revenge awaited him than any sword could have 
 furnished. Pass but an hour, and you will hear Piso 
 speaking — it will then be his turn — every dog has his
 
 CASUISTEY. 233 
 
 day ; and, though not quite so eloquent as his brilliant 
 enemy, he is yet eloquent enough for the purposes of 
 revenge — he is eloquent enough to call Cicero ' filth,' 
 ' mud,' carrion.' 
 
 No : the reason of our modern duelling lies deeper 
 than is supposed ; it lies in the principle of honor — a 
 direct product of chivalry — as that was in part a 
 product of Christianity. The sense of honor did not 
 exist in Pagan times. Natural equity, and the equity 
 of civil laws— those were the two moral forces under 
 which men acted. Honor applies to cases where both 
 those forces are silent. And precisely because they 
 had no such sense, and because their revenge emptied 
 itself by the basest of all channels, viz. foul speaking 
 and license of tongue, was it that the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans had no duelling. It was no glory to them that 
 they had not, but the foulest blot on their moral gran- 
 deur. 
 
 How it was that Christianity was able, mediately, to 
 generate the principle of honor, is a separate problem. 
 But this is the true solution of that common casuistical 
 question about duelling.
 
 234 CASUISTRY. ' 
 
 PART II. 
 
 ' C'elebrare domestica facta.' — lIoB. 
 
 In a former notice of Casuistry, we touched on such 
 cases only as were of public bearings, or such as (if 
 private) were of rare occurrence and of a tragical 
 standard. But ordinary life, in its most domestic paths, 
 teems with cases of difficult decision ; or if not always 
 difficult in the decision of the abstract question at issue, 
 difficult in the accommodation of that decision to imme- 
 diate practice. A few of these more homely cases, 
 intermixed with more public ones, we shall here select 
 and review ; for, according to a remark in our first 
 paper, as social economy grows more elaborate, the 
 demand grows more intense for such circumstantial 
 morality. As man advances, casuistry advances. 
 Principles are the same : but the abstraction of prin- 
 ciples from accidents and circumstances becomes a 
 work of more effort. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean 
 Ethics, has not one case ; Cicero, three hundred years 
 after, has a few ; Paley, eighteen hundred years after 
 Cicero, has many. 
 
 There is also something in place as well as in time 
 — in the people as well as the century — which deter- 
 mines the amount of interest in casuistry. We once 
 heard an eminent person delivering it as an opin- 
 ion, derived from a good deal of personal experi- 
 ence — that of all European nations^ the British was 
 that which suffered most from remorse ; and that, if 
 internal struggles, during temptation, or suflferings of 
 mind after yielding to temptation, were of a nature to 
 be measured upon a scale, or could express themselves
 
 CASUISTRY. 235 
 
 sensibly to human knowledge, the annual report from 
 Great Britain, its annual balance-sheet, by comparison 
 with those from continental Europe, would show a 
 large excess. At the time of hearing this remarkable 
 opinion, we, the hearers, were young ; and we had 
 little other ground for assent or dissent, than such gen- 
 eral impressions of national differences as we might 
 happen to have gathered from tl^e several literatures of 
 Christian nations. These were of a nature to confirm 
 the stranger's verdict; and it will not be denied that 
 much of national character comes forward in literature : 
 but these were not sufficient. Since then, we have had 
 occasion to think closely on that question. We have 
 had occasion to review the public records of Christen- 
 dom; and beyond all doubt the public conscience, the 
 international conscience, of a people, is the reverbera- 
 tion of its private conscience. History is but the con- 
 verging into a focus of what is moving in the domestic 
 life below ; a set of great circles expressing and sum- 
 ming up, on the dial-plate, the motions of many little 
 circles in the machinery within. Now History, what 
 may be called the Comparative History of Modern 
 Europe, countersigns the traveller's opinion. 
 
 ' So, then,' says a foreigner, or an Englishman with 
 foreign sympathies, ' the upshot and amount of this 
 doctrine is, that England is more moral than other 
 nations.' 'Well,' we answer, 'and wiiat of that.'' Ob- 
 serve, however, that the doctrine went no farther than 
 as to conscientiousness ; the principle out of which 
 comes sorrow for all violation of duty ; out of which 
 comes a high standard of duty. Meantime both the 
 ' sorrow ' and the ' high standard ' arc very compatible
 
 236 CASUISTRY. 
 
 with a lax performance. But suppose we had gone as 
 far as the objector supposes, and had ascribed a moral 
 superiority every way to England, what is there in that 
 to shock probability ? Whether the general probability 
 from analogy, or the special probability from the cir- 
 cumstances of this particular case ? We all know that 
 there is no general improbability in supposing one na- 
 tion, or one race, to outrun another. The modern Ital- 
 ians have excelled all nations in musical sensibility, and 
 in genius for painting. They have produced far better 
 music than all the rest of the world put together. And 
 four of their great painters have not been appi-oached 
 hitherto by the painters of any nation. That facial 
 structure, again, which is called the Caucasian, and 
 which, through the ancient Greeks, has travelled west- 
 ward to the nations of Christendom, and from them 
 (chiefly ourselves) has become the Transatlantic face, 
 is, past all disputing, the finest type of the human 
 countenance divine on this planet. And most other 
 nations, Asiatic or African, have hitherto put up with 
 this insult ; except, indeed, the Kalmuck Tartars, who 
 are highly indignant at our European vanity in this 
 matter; and some of them, says Bergmann, the Ger- 
 man traveller, absolutely howl with rage, whilst others 
 only laugh hysterically, at any man's having the insan- 
 ity to prefer the Grecian features to the Kalmuck. 
 Again, amongst the old pagan nations, the Romans 
 seem to have had ' the call ' for going ahead ; and 
 they fulfilled their destiny in spite of all that the rest 
 of the world could do to prevent them. So that, far 
 from it being an improbable or unreasonable assump- 
 tion, superiority (of one kind or other) has been the
 
 CASUISTRY. 237 
 
 indefeasible inheritance of this and that nation, at all 
 periods of history. 
 
 Still less is the notion tenable of any special improb- 
 ability applying to this particular pretension. For cen- 
 turies has England enjoyed — 1st, civil liberty ; 2d, 
 the Protestant faith. Now in those two advantages 
 are laid the grounds, the very necessities, a priori, of 
 a superior morality. But watch the inconsistency of 
 men: ask one of these men who dispute this English 
 pretension mordicus ; ask him, or bid an Austrian serf 
 ask him, what are the benefits of Protestantism, and 
 what the benefits of liberty, that he should risk any- 
 thing to obtain either. Hear how eloquently he insists 
 upon their beneficial results, severally and jointly ; 
 and notice that he places foremost among those re- 
 sults a pure morality. Is he wrong ? No : the man 
 speaks bare truth. But what brute oblivion he mani- 
 fests of his own doctrine, in taxing with arrogance any 
 people for claiming one of those results m esse, which 
 he himself could see so clearly in posse ! Talk no 
 more of freedom, or of a pure religion, as fountains of 
 a moral pre-eminence, if those who have possessed 
 them in combination for the longest space of time 
 may not, without arrogance, claim the van ward place 
 amongst the nations of Europe. 
 
 So far as to the presumptions, general or special; 
 80 far as to the probabilities, analogous or direct, in 
 countenance of this British claim. Finally, when we 
 come to the proofs, from fact and historical experience, 
 we might appeal to a singular case in the records of 
 our Exchequer; viz., that for much more than a cen- 
 tury back, our Gazette and other public advertisers,
 
 238 CASUISTRY. 
 
 have acknowledged a series of anonymous remittarrces 
 from tliose who, at some time or other, had appro- 
 priated public money. We understand that no corres- 
 ponding fact can be cited from foreign records. Now, 
 this is a direct instance of that compunction which our 
 travelled friend insisted on. But we choose rather to 
 throw ourselves upon the general history of Great 
 Britain, upon the spirit of her policy, domestic or 
 foreign, and upon the universal principles of her public 
 morality. Take the case of public debts, and the 
 fulfilment of contracts to those who could not have 
 compelled the fulfilment ; we first set this precedent. 
 All nations have now learned that honesty in such 
 cases is eventually the best policy ; but this they 
 learned from our experience, and not till nearly all of 
 them had tried the other policy. We it was, who, 
 under the most trying circumstances of war, main- 
 tained the sanctity from taxation of all foreign invest- 
 ments in our funds. Our conduct with regard to slaves, 
 whether in the case of slavery or of the slave-trade — 
 how prudent it may always have been, we need not 
 inquire ; as to its moral principles, they went so far 
 ahead of European standards, that we were neither 
 comprehended nor believed. The perfection of romance 
 was ascribed to us by all who did not reproach us with 
 the perfection of Jesuitical knavery; by many our 
 nlotto was supposed to be no longer the old one of 
 ^divide et impera,'' but '■ annihila el appropria.'' 
 Finally, looking back to our dreadful conflicts with 
 the three conquering despots of modern history, Philip 
 II. of Spain, Louis XIV., and Napoleon, we may 
 incontestably boast of having been single in main-
 
 CASUISTRY. 239 
 
 taining the general equities of Europe by war upon 
 a colossal scale, and by our councils in the general 
 congresses of Christendom. 
 
 Such a review would amply justify the traveller's 
 remarkable dictum upon the principle of remorse, and 
 therefore of conscientiousness, as existing in greater 
 strength amongst the people of Great Britain. In the 
 same proportion we may assume, in such a people, a 
 keener sensibility to moral distinctions ; more attention 
 to shades of difference in the modes of action ; more 
 anxiety as to the grounds of action. In the same pro- 
 portion we may assume a growing and more direct 
 regard to casuistry ; which is precisely the part of 
 ethics that will be continually expanding, and contin- 
 ually throwing up fresh doubts. Not as though a 
 moral principle could ever be doubtful. But that the 
 growing complexity of the circumstances will make it 
 more and more difficult in judgment to detach the 
 principle from the case ; or, in practice, to determine 
 the application of tlie principle to the facts. It will 
 happen, therefore, as Mr. Coleridge used to say hap- 
 pened in all cases of importance, that extremes meet: 
 for casuistical ethics will be most consulted by two 
 classes the most opposite to each other — by those 
 who seek excuses for evading their duties, and by those 
 who seek a special fulness of light for fulfilling them. 
 
 Case I. 
 
 HEALTH . 
 
 Strange it is, that moral treatises, when professing 
 to lay open the great edifice of human duties, and to
 
 240 CASUISTRY. 
 
 expose its very foundations, should not have begun 
 with, nay, should not have noticed at all, those duties 
 which a man owes to himself, and, foremost amongst 
 them, the duty of cultivating his own health. For it is 
 evident, that, from mere neglect of that one personal 
 duty, with the very best intentions possible, all other 
 duties whatever may become impossible ; for good 
 intentions exist in all stages of efficiency, from the 
 fugitive impulse to the realizing self-determination. 
 In this life, the elementary blessing is health. What ! 
 do we presume to place it before peace of mind ? 
 Far from it ; but we speak of the genesis ; of the suc- 
 cession in which all blessings descend ; not as to time, 
 but the order of dependency. All morality implies 
 free agency : it presumes beyond all other conditions 
 an agent who is in perfect possession of his own voli- 
 tions. Now, it is certain that a man without health is 
 not uniformly master of his own purposes. Often he 
 cannot be said either to be in the path of duty or oui 
 of it ; so incoherent are the actions of a man forced 
 back continually from the objects of his intellect and 
 choice upon some alien objects dictated by internal 
 wretchedness. It is true that, by possibility, some 
 derangements of the human system are not incom- 
 patible with happiness : and a celebrated German 
 author of the last century. Von Hardenberg — better 
 known by his assumed name of Novalis — maintained, 
 that certain modes of ill health, or valetudinarianism, 
 were pre-requisites towards certain modes of intel- 
 lectual development. But the ill health to which he 
 pointed could not have gone beyond a luxurious indis- 
 position \ nor the corresponding intellectual purposes
 
 CASUISTRY. 241 
 
 liave been other than narrow, fleeting, and anomalous. 
 Inflammatory action, in its earlier stages, is sometimes 
 connected with voluptuous sensations : so is the preter- 
 natural stimulation of the liver. But these states, as 
 pleasurable states, are transitory. All fixed derange- 
 ments of the health are doubly hostile to the moral 
 energies : first, through the intellect, which they debil- 
 itate unconsciously in many ways ; and next, both 
 consciously and semi-consciously, through the will. 
 The judgment is, perhaps, too clouded to fix upon a 
 right purpose : the will too enfeebled to pursue it. 
 
 Two general remarks may be applied to all inter- 
 ferences of the physical with the moral sanity ; 1st, 
 That it is not so much by absolute deductions of time 
 that ill health operates upon the serviceableness of a 
 man, as by its lingering effects upon his temper and 
 his animal spirits. Many a man has not lost one hour 
 of his life from illness, whose faculties of usefulness 
 have been most seriously impaired through gloom, or 
 untuned feelings; 2d, That it is not the direct and 
 known risks to our health which act with the most 
 fatal effects, but the semi-conscious condition, the 
 atmosphere of circumstances, with which artificial life 
 surrounds us. The great cities of Europe, perhaps 
 London beyond all others, under the modern modes 
 of life and business, create a vortex of preternatural 
 tumult, a rush and frenzy of excitement, which is fatal 
 to far more than are heard of as express victims to 
 that system. 
 
 The late Lord Londonderry's nervous seizure was 
 no solitary or rare case. So much we happen to know. 
 We arc well assured by medical men of great London 
 16
 
 242 * CASUISTRY. 
 
 practice, that the case is one of growing frequency. 
 In Lord Londonderry it attracted notice for reasons 
 of obvious personal interest, as well as its tragical 
 catastrophe. But the complaint, though one of modern 
 growth, is well known, and comes forward under a 
 most determinate type as to symptoms, among the 
 mercantile class. The original predisposition to it, 
 lies permanently in the condition of London life, espe- 
 cially as it exists for public men. But the immediate 
 existing cause, which fires the train always ready for 
 explosion, is invariably some combination of per- 
 plexities, such as are continually gathering into dark 
 clouds over the heads of great merchants ; sometimes 
 only teasing and molesting, sometimes menacing and 
 alarming. These perplexities are generally moving 
 in counteracting paths : some progressive, some retro- 
 grade. There lies a man's safety. But at times it 
 will happen that all comes at once ; and then comes a 
 shock such as no brain already predisposed by a 
 London life, is strong enough (but more truly let us 
 say — coarse enough) to support. 
 
 Lord Londonderry's case was precisely of that 
 order : he had been worried by a long session of 
 Parliament, which adds the crowning irritation in the 
 interruption of. sleep. The nervous system, ploughed 
 up by intense wear and tear, is denied the last resource 
 of natural relief. In this crisis, already perilous, a 
 new tempest was called in — of all the most terrific — 
 the tempest of anxiety : and from what source ? Anx- 
 iety from fear, is bad : from hope delayed, is bad : 
 but worst of all is anxiety from responsibility, in cases 
 where disease or weakness makes a man feel that he
 
 CASUISTRY. 243 
 
 ■>* 
 is unequal to the burden. The diplomatic interests of 
 
 the country had been repeatedly confided to Lord Lon- 
 donderry : he had justified that confidence : he had 
 received affecting testimonies of the honor which 
 belonged to such a situation. But a short time before 
 bis fatal seizure, in passing through Birmingham at a 
 moment when all the gentleme.i of the place were 
 assembled, he had witnessed the whole assembly — no 
 mob, but the collective good sense of the place — by 
 one impulse standing bareheaded in his presence, — 
 a tribute of disinterested homage which affected him 
 powerfully, and which was well understood as offered 
 to his foreign diplomacy. Under these circumstances 
 could he bear to transfer or delegate the business of 
 future negotiation ? Could he suffer to lapse into other 
 hands, as a derelict, the consummation of that task 
 which thus far he had so prosperously conducted ? 
 Was it in human nature to do so ? He felt the same 
 hectic of human passion which Lord Nelson felt in the 
 very gates of death, when some act of command was 
 thoughtlessly suggested as belonging to his successor 
 — ' Not whilst I live, Hardy ; not whilst I live.' Yet, in 
 Lord Londonderry's case, it was necessary, if he would 
 not transfer the trust, that he should rally his energies 
 instantly : for a new Congress was even then assem- 
 bling. There was no delay open to him by the nature 
 of the case : the call was — noii\ now^ just as you are, 
 my lord, with those shattered nerves and that agitated 
 brain, take charge of interests the most complex in 
 Christendom : to say the truth, of interests which are 
 those of Christendom. 
 
 This struggle, between a nervous system too griev-
 
 244 CASUISTRY, 
 
 « 
 
 ously shaken, and the instant demand for energy seven 
 times intensified, was too much for any generous na- 
 ture. A ceremonial embassy might have been ful- 
 filled by shattered nerves ; but not this embassy. 
 Anxiety supervening upon nervous derangement was 
 bad ; anxiety through responsibility was worse ; but 
 through a responsibility created by grateful confidence, 
 it was an appeal through the very pangs of martyr- 
 dom. No brain could stand such a siege. Lord Lon- 
 donderry's gave way ; and he fell whh the tears of the 
 generous, even where they might happen to differ from 
 him in politics. 
 
 Meantime, this case, belonging to a class generated 
 by a London life, was in some quarters well understood 
 even then ; now, it is well known that, had differ- 
 ent remedies been applied, or had the sufferer been 
 able to stand up under his torture until the cycle of 
 the symptoms had begun to come round, he might 
 have been saved. The treatment is now well under- 
 stood ; but even then it was understood by some phy- 
 sicians ; amongst others by that Dr. Willis who had 
 attended George IIL In several similar cases over- 
 powering doses had been given of opium, or of bran- 
 dy; and usually a day or two had carried off the 
 oppression of the brain by a tremendous reaction. 
 
 In Birmingham and other towns, where the body of 
 people called Quakers are accumulated, different forms 
 of nervous derangement are developed ; the secret 
 principle of which turns not, as in these London cases, 
 upon feelings too much called out by preternatural 
 stimulation, but upon feelings too much repelled and 
 driven in. Morbid suppression of deep sensibilities
 
 CASUISTRY. a 
 
 must lead to states of disease equally terrific and per- 
 haps even less tractable ; not so sudden and critical 
 perhaps, but more settled and gloomy. We speak not 
 of any physical sensibilities, but of those which are 
 purely moral — sensibilities to poetic emotions, to am- 
 bition, to social gaiety. Accordingly it is amongst the 
 young men and women of this body that the most 
 afflicting cases under this type occur. Even for chil- 
 dren, however, the systematic repression of all ebul- 
 lient feeling, under the Quaker discipline, must be 
 sometimes perilous ; and would be more so, were it 
 not for that marvellous flexibility with which nature 
 adapts herself to all changes — whether imposed by 
 climate or by situation — by inflictions of Providence 
 or by human spirit of system. 
 
 These cases we point to as formidable mementos, 
 monumenta sacra, of those sudden catastrophes which 
 either ignorance of what concerns the health, or neg- 
 lect in midst of knowledge, may produce. Any 
 mode of life in London, or not in London, which trains 
 the nerves to a state of permanent irritation, prepares 
 a nidus for. disease ; and unhappily not for chronic 
 disease only, but for disease of that kind which finishes 
 the struggle almost before it is begun. In such a state 
 of habitual training for morbid action, it may happen 
 — and often has happened — that one and the same 
 week sees the victim apparently well and in his grave. 
 
 These, indeed, are extreme cases : though still such 
 as threaten many more than they actually strike ; for, 
 though uncommon, they grow out of very common 
 habits. But even the ordinary cases of unhealthy 
 action in the system, are sufficient to account for per-
 
 246 ~ CASUISTRY. 
 
 haps three-fourths of all the disquiet and bad temper 
 which disfigure daily life. Not one man in every ten 
 is perfectly clear of some disorder, more or less, in 
 the digestive system — not one man in fifty enjoys the 
 absolutely normal state of that organ ; and upon that 
 depends the daily cheerfulness, in the first place, and 
 through that • (as well as by more direct actions) the 
 sanity of the judgment. To speak strictly, not one 
 man in a hundred is perfectly sane even as to his 
 mind. For, though the greater disturbances of the 
 mind do not take place in more than one man of each 
 thousand,^ the slighter shades that settle on the judg- 
 ment, which daily bring up thoughts such as a man 
 would gladly banish, which force him into moods of 
 feeling irritating at the moment, and wearing to the 
 animal spirits, — these derangements are universal. 
 
 From the greater alike and the lesser, no man can 
 free himself but in the proportion of his available 
 knowledge applied to his own animal system, and of 
 the surrounding circumstances, as constantly acting on 
 that system. Would we, then, desire that every man 
 should interrupt his proper studies or pursuits for the 
 sake of studying medicine ? Not at all : nor is that 
 requisite. The laws of health are as simple as the 
 elements of arithmetic or geometry. It is required 
 only that a man should open his eyes to perceive the 
 three great "forces which support health. 
 
 They are these : 1. The hlood requires exercise : 
 2. The great central organ of the stomach requires 
 adaptation of diet: 3. The nervous system requires 
 regularity of sleep. In those three functions of sleep, 
 diet, exercise, is contained the whole economy of
 
 CASUISTRY. 247 
 
 health. All three of course act and react upon 
 each other : and all three are wofully deranged by a 
 London life — above all, by a parliamentary life. As 
 to the first point, it is probable that any torpor, or even 
 lentor in the blood, such as scarcely expresses itself 
 sensibly through the pulse, renders that fluid less able 
 to resist the first actions of disease. As to the second, 
 a more complex subject, luckily we benefit not by our 
 .own brief experience exclusively ; every man benefits 
 practically by the traditional experience of ages, which 
 constitutes the culinary experience in every land and 
 every household. The inheritance of knowledge, 
 which every generation receives, as to the salubrity of 
 this or that article of diet, operates continually in pre- 
 venting dishes from being brought to table. Each 
 man's separate experience does something to arm him 
 against the temptation when it is offered ; and again, 
 the traditional experience far oftener intercepts the 
 temptation. As to the third head, sleep, this of all is 
 the most immediately fitted by nature to the relief of 
 the brain and its exquisite machinery of nerves: — it 
 is the function of health most attended to in our navy ; 
 and of all it is the one most painfully ravaged by a 
 London life. 
 
 Thus it would appear, that the three great laws of 
 health, viz., motion, rest, and temperance, (or, by a 
 more adequate expression, adaptation to the organ,) 
 are, in a certain gross way, taught to every man by his 
 personal experience. The difficulty is — as in so many 
 other cases — not for the understanding, but for the 
 will — not to know, but to execute. 
 
 Now here steps in Casuistry with two tremendous
 
 248 CASUISTRY. 
 
 suggestions, sufficient to alarm any thoughtful man, 
 and rouse him more effectually to the performance of 
 his duty. 
 
 First, that under the same law (whatever that law 
 may be) which makes suicide a crime, must the neglect 
 of health be a crime ? For thus stand the two ac- 
 counts : — By suicide you have cut off a portion un- 
 known from your life : years it may be, but possibly 
 only days. By neglect of health you have cut off a 
 portion unknoitm from your life : days it may be, but 
 also by possibility years. So the practical result may 
 be the same in either case ; or, possibly, the least is 
 suicide. ' Yes,' you reply, ' the -practical results — but 
 not the purpose — not the intention — ergo, not the 
 crime.' Certainly not : in the one case the result 
 arises from absolute predetermination, with the whole 
 energies of the will ; in the other it arises in spite of 
 your will, (meaning your choice) — it arises out of 
 human infirmity. But still the difference is as between 
 choosing a crime for its own sake, and falling into it 
 from strong temptation. 
 
 Secondly, that in every case of duty unfulfilled, or 
 duty imperfectly fulfilled, in consequence of illness, 
 languor, decaying spirits, &c., there is a high proba- 
 bility (under the age of sixty-five almost a certainty) 
 that a part of the obstacle is due to self-neglect. No 
 man that lives but loses some of his time from ill 
 health, or at least from the incipient forms of ill health 
 — bad spirits, or indisposition to exertion. Now, taking 
 men even as they are, statistical societies have ascer- 
 tained that, from the ages of twenty to sixty-five, ill 
 health, such as to interrupt daily labor, averages from
 
 CASUISTRY. 249 
 
 seven days to about fourteen per annum. In the best 
 circumstances of climate, occupation, &c., one fifty- 
 second part of the time perishes to the species — in the 
 least favorable, two such parts. Consequently, in the 
 forty-five years from twenty to sixty-five, not very far 
 from a year perishes on an average to every man — to 
 some as much more. A considerable part even of this 
 loss is due to neglect or mismanagement of health. 
 But this estimate records only the loss of time in a pe- 
 cuniary sense ; which loss, being powerfully restrained 
 by self-interest, will be the least possible under the cir- 
 cumstances. The loss of energy, as applied to duties 
 not connected with any self-interest, will be far more. 
 In so far as that loss emanates from defect of spirits, or 
 other modes of vital torpor, such as neglect of health 
 has either caused or promoted, and care might have 
 prevented, in so far the omission is charged to our own 
 responsibility. Many men fancy that the slight injuries 
 done by each single act of intemperance, are like the 
 glomeration of moonbeams upon moonbeams — myriads 
 will not amount to a positive value. Perhaps they are 
 wrong; possibly eveiy act — nay, every separate pulse 
 or throb of intemperate sensation — is numbered in our 
 own after actions ; reproduces itself in some future 
 perplexity ; comes back in some reversionary shape 
 that injures the freedom of action for all men, and 
 makes good men afllicted. At all events, it is an un- 
 deniable fact, that many a case of difficulty, which in 
 apology for ourselves we very truly plead to be insur- 
 mountable by our existing energies, has borrowed its 
 sting from previous acts or omissions of our own ; it 
 might not have been insurmountable, had we better
 
 250 CASUISTRY. 
 
 cherished our physical resources. For instance, of 
 such a man it is said — he did not assist in repelling an 
 injury from his friend or his native land. ' True,' says 
 his apologist, ' but you would not require him to do so 
 when he labors under paralysis ? ' ' No, certainly ; but, 
 perhaps, he might not have labored under paralysis had 
 he uniformly taken care of his health.''^ 
 
 Let not the reader suspect us of the Popish doctrine, 
 that men arc to enter hereafter into a separate reckon- 
 ing for each separate adt, or to stand at all upon their 
 own merits. That reckoning, we Protestants believe, 
 no man could stand ; and that some other resource 
 must be had than any personal merits of the individual. 
 But still we should recollect that this doctrine, though 
 providing a refuge for past offences, provides none for 
 such offences as are committed deliberately, with a 
 prospective view to the benefits of such a refuge. 
 Offend we may, and we must : but then our offences 
 must come out of mere infirmity — not because we 
 calculate upon a large allowance being made to us, and 
 say to ourselves, ' Let us take out our allowance.^ 
 
 Casuistrj', therefore, justly, and without infringing 
 any truth of Christianity, urges the care of health as 
 the basis of all moral action, because, in fact, of all 
 perfectly voluntary action. Every impulse of bad 
 health jars or untunes some string in the fine harp of 
 human volition ; and because a man cannot be a moral 
 being but in the proportion of his free action, therefore 
 it is clear that no man can be in a high sense moral, 
 except in so far as through health he commands his 
 bodily powers, and is not commanded by them.
 
 CASTTISTRY. 251 
 
 Case II. 
 
 LAWS OF HOSPITALITY IN COLLISION WITH CIVIC DUTIES. 
 
 Suppose the case, that taking shelter from a shower 
 of rain in a stranger's house, you discover proofs of a 
 connection with smugglers. Take this for one pole of 
 such case, the trivial extreme ; then for the other pole, 
 the greater extreme, suppose the case, that, being hos- 
 pitably entertained, and happening to pass the night in 
 a stranger's house, you are so unfortunate as to detect 
 unquestionable proofs of some dreadful crime, say 
 murder, perpetrated in past times by one of the family. 
 The principle at issue is the same in both cases : viz., 
 the command resting upon the conscience to forget 
 private consideration and personal feelings in the pres- 
 ence of any solemn duty ; yet merely the difference of 
 degree, and not any at all in the kind of duty, would 
 lead pretty generally to a separate practical decision 
 for the several cases. In the last of the two, whatever 
 might be the pain to a person's feelings, he would feel 
 himself to have no discretion or choice left. Reveal 
 he must ; not only, if otherwise revealed, he must come 
 forward as a witness, but, if not revealed, he must de- 
 nounce — he must lodge an information, and that in- 
 stantly, else even in law, without question of morality, 
 he makes himself a party to the crime — an accomplice 
 after the act. That single consideration would with 
 most men at once cut short all deliberation. And yet 
 even in such a situation, there is a possible variety of 
 the case that might alter its complexion. If the crime 
 had been committed many years before, and under 
 circumstances which precluded all fear that the same
 
 252 CASUISTRY. 
 
 temptation or the same provocation should arise again, 
 most reflecting people would think it the better course 
 to leave the criminal to his conscience. Often in such 
 denunciations it is certain that human impertinence, and 
 the spirit which sustains the habit of gossip, and mere 
 incontinence of secrets, and vulgar craving for being 
 the author of a sensation, have far more often led to 
 the publication of the offence, than any concern for the 
 interests of morality. 
 
 On the other hand, with respect to the slighter ex- 
 treme — viz. in a case where the offence is entirely 
 created by the law, with no natural turpitude about it 
 and besides (which is a strong argument in the case) 
 enjoying no special facilities of escaping justice — no 
 man in the circumstances supposed would have a rea- 
 son for hesitating. The laws of hospitality are of 
 everlasting obligation ; they are equally binding on the 
 host and on the guest. Coming under a man's roof 
 for one moment, in the clear character of guest, cre- 
 ates an absolute sanctity in the consequent relations 
 which connect the parties. That is the popular feel- 
 ing. The king in the old ballads is always repre- 
 sented as feeling that it would be damnable to make a 
 legal offence out of his own venison which he had 
 eaten as a guest. There is a cleaving pollution, like 
 that of the Syrian leprosy, in the act of abusing your 
 privileges as a guest, or in any way profiting by your 
 opportunities as a guest to the injury of your confiding 
 host. Henry VII. though a prince, was no gentleman ; 
 and in the famous case of his dining with Lord Oxford, 
 and saying at his departure, with reference to an in- 
 fraction of his recent statute, ' My Lord, I thank you
 
 CASUISTRY. 253 
 
 for my good cheer, but my attorney must speak with 
 you ;' Lord Oxford might have justly retorted, ' If he 
 does, then posterity will speak pretty plainly with your 
 Majesty ; ' for it was in the character of Lord Oxford's 
 guest that he had learned the infraction of his law. 
 Meantime, the general rule, and the rationale of the 
 rule, in such cases, appears to be this : Whenever there 
 is, or can be imagined, a sanctity in the obligations on 
 one side, and only a benefit of expediency in the obli- 
 gations upon the other, the latter must give way. For 
 the detection of smuggling, (the particular offence sup- 
 posed in the case stated,) society has an express and 
 separate machinery maintained. If their activity 
 droops, that is the business of government. In such a 
 case, government is entitled to no aid from private 
 citizens ; on the express understanding that no aid 
 must be expected, has so expensive an establishment 
 been submitted to. Each individual refuses to partici- 
 pate in exposure of such offences, for the same reason 
 that he refuses to keep the street clean even before his 
 own door — he has already paid for having such work 
 discharged by proxy. , 
 
 Case III. 
 
 GIVINQ CHARACTERS TO SERVANTS WHO HAVE MISCONDUCTED 
 THEMSELVES. 
 
 No case so constantly arises to perplex the con- 
 science in private life as this — which, in principle, 
 is almost beyond solution. Sometimes, indeed, the 
 coarse realities of law step in to cut that Gordian knot 
 which no man can untie ; for it is an actionable offence
 
 254 CASUISTRY. 
 
 to give a character wilfully false. That little fact at 
 once exorcises all aerial phantoms of the conscience. 
 True : but this coarse machinery applies only to those 
 cases in which the servant has been guilty in a way 
 amenable to law. In any case short of that, no plain- 
 tiff would choose to face the risks of an action ; nor 
 could he sustain it ; the defendant would always have 
 a sufficient resource in the vagueness and large lati- 
 tude allowed to opinion when estimating the qualities 
 of a servant. Almost universally, therefore, the case 
 comes back to the forum of conscience. Now in that 
 forum how stands the pleading .'' Too certainly, we 
 will suppose, that the servant has not satisfied your 
 reasonable expectations. This truth you would have no 
 difficulty in declaring; here, as much as anywhere else, 
 you would feel it unworthy of your own integrity to 
 equivocate — you open your writing-desk, and sit 
 down to tell the mere truth in as few words as possi- 
 ble. But then steps in the consideration, that to do 
 this without disguise or mitigation, is oftentimes to sign 
 a warrant for the ruin of a fellow-creature — and that 
 fellow-creature possibly penitent, in any case thrown 
 upon your mercy. Who can stand this ? In lower 
 walks of life, it is true that mistresses often take ser- 
 vants without any certificate of character; but in 
 higher grades this is notoriously uncommon, and in 
 great cities dangerous. Besides, the candidate may 
 happen to be a delicate girl, incapable of the hard la- 
 bor incident to such a lower establishment. Here, 
 then, is a case where conscience says into your left 
 ear — Fiat juslitia, mat ccdum — ' Do your duty 
 without looking to C9nsequences.' Meantime, into the
 
 CASUISTRY. 255 
 
 right car conscience says, ' But mark, in that case 
 possibly you consign this poor girl to prostitution.' 
 Lord Nelson, as is well known, was once placed in a 
 dilemma equally trying ; '^ on one side, an iron tongue 
 sang out from the commander-in-chief — retreat; on 
 the other, his own oracular heart sang to him — ad- 
 vance. How he decided is well known ; and the words 
 in which he proclaimed his decision ought to be em- 
 blazoned for ever as the noblest of all recorded repar- 
 tees. Waiving his hand towards the Admiral's ship, 
 he said to his own officers, who reported the signal of 
 recall — 'You may see it; I cannot; you know I am 
 blind on that side.' Oh, venerable blindness! immor- 
 tal blindness ! None so deaf as those who will not 
 hear ; none so gloriously blind as those who will not 
 see any danger or difficulty — who have a dark eye 
 on that side, whilst they reserve another blazing like a 
 meteor for honor and their country's interest. Most of 
 us, we presume, in the case stated about the servant, 
 hear but the whispering voice of conscience as regards 
 the truth, and her thundering voice as regards the 
 poor girl's interest. In doing this, however, we (and 
 doubtless others) usually attempt to compromise the 
 opposite suggestions of conscience by some such Jesu- 
 itical device as this. We dwell pointedly upon those 
 good qualities which the servant really possesses, and 
 evade speaking of any others. But how, if minute, 
 searching and circumstantial inquiries are made by 
 way of letter } In that case, we aflect to have noticed 
 only such as we can answer with success, passing the 
 dangerous ones as so many rocks, sub silcntio. All 
 this is not quite right, you think, reader. Why, no ;
 
 256 CASUISTRY. 
 
 so think we ; but what alternative is allowed ? * Say, 
 ye severest, what would ye have done ?' In very truth, 
 this is a dilemma for which Casuistry is not a match ; 
 unless, indeed, Casuistry as armed and equipped in 
 the school of Ignatius Loyola. But that is with us re- 
 puted a piratical Casuistry. The whole estate of a 
 servant lies in his capacity of serving ; and often if 
 you tell the truth, by one word you ruin this estate for 
 ever. Meantime, a case very much of the same 
 quality, and of even greater difiiculty, is 
 
 Case IV. 
 
 CRIMINAL PROSECUTION OF FRAUDULENT SERVANTS. 
 
 Any reader, who is not deeply read in the economy 
 of English life, will have a most inadequate notion of 
 the vast extent to which this case occurs. We are 
 well assured, (for our information comes from quarters 
 judicially conversant with the question,) that in no 
 other channel of human life does there flow one-hun- 
 dredth part of the forbearance and the lenity which are 
 called into action by the relation between injured 
 masters, and their servants. We are informed that, 
 were every third charge pursued effectually, half the 
 courts in Europe would not suffice for the cases of 
 criminality which emerge in London alone under 
 this head. All England would, in the course of five 
 revolving years, have passed under the torture of 
 subpoena, as witnesses for the prosecution or the de- 
 fence. This multiplication of cases arises from the 
 coincidence of hourly opportunity with hourly tempta- 
 tion, both carried to the extreme verge of possibility, 
 and generally falling in with youth in the offenders.
 
 CASUISTRY. 257 
 
 These aggravations of the danger are three several 
 palliations of the crime, and they have weight allowed 
 to them by the indulgent feelings of masters in a cor- 
 responding degree ; not one case out of six score that 
 are discovered (while, perhaps, another six score go 
 undiscovered) being ever prosecuted with rigor and 
 effect. 
 
 In this universal laxity of temper lies an injury too 
 serious to public morals ; and the crime reproduces 
 itself abundantly under an indulgence so Christian in 
 its motive, but unfortunately operating with the full 
 effect of genial culture. Masters, who have made 
 themselves notorious by indiscriminate forgiveness, 
 might be represented symbolically as gardeners water- 
 ing and tending luxuriant crops of crime in hot-beds 
 or forcing-houses. In London, many are the trades- 
 men, who, being reflective as well as benevolent, 
 perceive that something is amiss in the whole system. 
 In part the law has been to blame, stimulating false 
 mercy by punishment disproportioned to the offence. 
 But many a judicious master has seen cause to suspect 
 his own lenity as more mischievously operative even 
 than the law's hardness, and as an effeminate surren- 
 der to luxurious sensibilities. Those have not been 
 the sevei'est masters whose names arc attached to fatal 
 prosecutions : on the contrary, three out of four have 
 "been persons who looked forward to general conse- 
 quences — having, therefore, been more than usually 
 thoughtful, were, for that reason, likely to be more 
 than usually humane. They did not suffer the less 
 acutely, because their feelings ran counter to the 
 course of what they believed to be their duty. Pros- 
 17
 
 258 CASUISTET. 
 
 ecutors often sleep with less tranquillity during the 
 progress of a judicial proceeding than the objects of 
 the prosecution. An English judge of the last cen- 
 tury, celebrated for his uprightness, used to balance 
 against that pity so much vaunted for the criminal, the 
 duty of ' a pity to the country.' But private prosecu- 
 tors of their own servants, often feel both modes of 
 pity at the same moment. 
 
 For this difficulty a book of Casuistry might suggest 
 a variety of resources, not so much adapted to a case 
 of that nature already existing, as to the prevention of 
 future cases. Every mode of trust or delegated duty 
 would suggest its own separate improvements ; but all 
 improvements must fall under two genuine heads — 
 first, the diminution of temptation, either by abridging 
 the amount of trust reposed ; or, where that is difficult, 
 by shortening its duration, and muhiplying the counter- 
 checks : secondly, by the moderation of the punish- 
 ment in the event of detection, as the sole means 
 of reconciling the public conscience to the law, and 
 diminishing the chances of impunity. There is a 
 memorable proof of the rash extent to which the 
 London tradesmen, at one time, carried their confi- 
 dence in servants. So many clerks, or apprentices, 
 were allowed to hold large balances of money in 
 their hands through the intervals of their periodical 
 settlings, that during the Parliamentary war multi- 
 tudes were tem.pted, by that single cause, into abscond- 
 ing. They had always a refuge in the camps. And 
 the loss sustained in this way was so heavy, when all 
 payments were made in gold, that to this one evil sud- 
 denly assuming a shape of excess, is ascribed, by some
 
 CASUISTRY. 259 
 
 writers, the first establishment of goldsmiths as bank- 
 
 ers 
 
 Two other weighty considerations attach to this 
 head — 1, The known fact that large breaches of 
 trust, and embezzlements, are greatly on the increase, 
 and have been since the memorable case of Mr. 
 Fauntleroy. America is, and will be for ages, a city of 
 refuge for this form of guilt. 2. That the great train- 
 ing of the conscience in all which regards pecuniary 
 justice and fidelity to engagements, lies through the 
 discipline and tyrocinium of the humbler ministerial 
 offices — those of clerks, book-keepers, apprentices. 
 The law acts through these offices, for the unconfirmed 
 conscience, as leading-strings to an infant in its ear- 
 liest efforts at walking. It forces to go right, until the 
 choice may be supposed trained and fully developed. 
 That is the great function of the law ; a function 
 which it will perform with more or less success, as it 
 is more or less fitted to win the cordial support of mas- 
 ters. 
 
 Case V. 
 
 VERACITY. 
 
 Here is a special ' title,' (to speak with the civil law- 
 yers,) under that general claim put in for England 
 with respect to a moral pre-eminence amongst the 
 nations. Many are they who, in regions widely apart, 
 have noticed with honor the English superiority in the 
 article of veneration for truth. Not many years ago, 
 two Englishmen, on their road overland to India, fell 
 in with a royal cortege^ and soon after with the prime 
 minister and the crown prince of Persia. The prince
 
 260 CASUISTRY. 
 
 honored them with an interview ; both parties being on 
 horseback, and the conversation therefore reduced to 
 the points of nearest interest. Amongst these was the 
 English character. Upon this the prince's remark 
 was — that what had most impressed him with respect 
 for England and her institutions was, the remarkable 
 spirit of truth-speaking which distinguished her sons ; 
 as supposing her institutions to grow out of her sons, 
 and her sons out of her institutions. And indeed well 
 he might have this feeling by comparison with his own 
 countrymen : Persians have no principles apparently 
 on this point — all is impulse and accident of feeling. 
 Thus the journal of the two Persian princes in London, 
 as lately reported in the newspapers, is one tissue of 
 falsehoods : not, most undoubtedly, from any purpose 
 of deceiving, but from the overmastering habit (cher- 
 ished by their whole training and experience) of re- 
 peating everything in a spirit of amplification, with a 
 view to the wonder only of the hearer. The Persians 
 are notoriously the Frenchmen of the East ; the same 
 gaiety, the same levity, the same want of depth both 
 as to feeling and principle. The Turks are much 
 nearer to the English : the same gravity of tempera- 
 ment, the same meditativeness, the same sternness of 
 principle. Of all European nations, the French is 
 that which least regards truth. The whole spirit of 
 their private memoirs and their anecdotes illustrates 
 this. To point an anecdote or a repartee, there is no 
 extravagance of falsehood that the French will not 
 endure. What nation but the French would have tol- 
 erated that monstrous fiction about La Fontaine, by 
 way of illustrating his supposed absence of mind —
 
 CASUISTRY. 261 
 
 viz, that, on meeting his own son in a friend's house, 
 he expressed his admiration of the young man, and 
 begged to know his name. Tlie fact probably may 
 have been that La Fontaine was not liable to any 
 absence at all : apparently this ' distraction ' was as- 
 sumed as a means of making a poor sort of sport for 
 his friends. Like many another man in such circum- 
 stances, he saw and entered into the fun which his own 
 imaginary forgatfulness produced. But were it other- 
 wise, who can believe so outrageous a self-forgctful- 
 ness as that which would darken his eyes to the very 
 pictures of his own hearth ? Were such a thing pos- 
 sible, were it even real, it would still be liable to the 
 just objection of the critics — that, being marvellous in 
 appearance, even as a fact it ought not to be brought 
 forward for any purpose of wit, but only as a truth of 
 physiology, or as a fact in the records of a surgeon. 
 The ' incredulus odi ' is too strong in such cases, and 
 it adheres to three out of every four French anecdotes. 
 The French taste is, indeed, anything but good in all 
 that department of wit and humor. And the ground 
 lies in their national want of veracity. To return to 
 England — and hj^ving cited an Oriental witness to the 
 English character on this point, let us now cite a most 
 observing one in the West. Kant, in Konigsberg, was 
 surrounded by Englishmen and by foreigners of all 
 nations — foreign and English students, foreign and 
 English merchants ; and he pronounced the main char- 
 acteristic feature of the English as a nation to lie in 
 their severe reverence for truth. This from him was 
 no slight praise ; for such was the stress he laid upon 
 veracity, that upon this one quality he planted the
 
 262 CASUISTRY. 
 
 whole edifice of moral excellence. General integrity 
 could not exist, he held, without veracity as its basis ; 
 nor that basis exist without superinducing general in- 
 tegrity. 
 
 This opinion, perhaps, many beside Kant will see 
 cause to approve. For ourselves we can truly say — 
 never did we know a human being, boy or girl, who 
 began life as an habitual undervaluer of truth, that did 
 not afterwards exhibit a character conformable to that 
 beginning — such a character as, however superficially 
 correct under the steadying hand of self-interest, was 
 not in a lower key of moral feeling as well as of prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 But out of this honorable regard to veracity in Im- 
 manuel Kant, branched out a principle in Casuistry 
 which most people will pronounce monstrous. It has 
 occasioned much disputing backwards and forwards. 
 But as a practical principle of conduct, (for which Kant 
 meant it,) inevitably it must be rejected — if for no 
 other reason because it is at open war with the laws 
 and jurisprudence of all Christian Europe. Kant's 
 doctrine was this ; and the illustrative case in which it 
 is involved, let it be remembered, is his own: — So 
 sacred a thing, said he, is truth — that if a murderer, 
 pursuing another with an avowed purpose of killing 
 him, were to ask of a third person by what road the 
 fleeing party had fled, that person is bound to give him 
 true information. And you are at liberty to suppose 
 this third person a wife, a daughter, or under any con- 
 ceivable obligations of love and duty to the fugitive. 
 Now this is monstrous : and Kant himself, with all his 
 parental fondness for the doctrine, would certainly
 
 CASUISTRY. 263 
 
 have been recalled to sounder thoughts by these two 
 considerations — 
 
 1st. That by all the codes of law received through- 
 out Europe, he who acted upon Kant's principle would 
 be held a particeps criminis — an accomplice before 
 the fact. 
 
 2d. That, in reality, a just principle is lurking under 
 Kant's error ; but a principle translated from its proper 
 ground. Not truth, individual or personal — not truth 
 of mere facts, but truth doctrinal — the truth which 
 teaches, the truth which changes men and nations — 
 — this is the truth concerned in Kant's meaning, had 
 he explained his own meaning to himself more dis- 
 tinctly. With respect to that truth, wheresoever it lies, 
 Kant's doctrine applies — that all men have a right to 
 it; that perhaps you have no right to suppose of any 
 race or nation that it is not prepared to receive it ; and, 
 at any rate, that no circumstances of expedience can 
 justify you in keeping it back. 
 
 Case VI. 
 
 THE CASE OF CHARLES I. 
 
 Many cases arise from the life and political difficul- 
 ties of Charles I. But there is one so peculiarly per- 
 tinent to an essay which entertains the general question 
 of Casuistry — its legitimacy, its value — that with 
 this, although not properly a domestic case, or only 
 such in a mixed sense, we shall conclude. 
 
 No person has been so much attacked for his scru- 
 ples of conscience as this prince ; and what seems odd 
 enough, no person has been so much attacked for 
 reso.ting to books of Casuistry, and for encouraging
 
 •264 CASUISTRY. 
 
 literary men to write books of Casuistry. Under his 
 suggestion and sanction, Saunderson wrote his book on 
 the obligation of an oath, (for which there was surely 
 reason enough in days when the democratic tribunals 
 were forcing men to swear to an et ccetera ;) and, by 
 an impulse originally derived from him, Jeremy Tay- 
 lor wrote afterwards his Ductor Dubitantmrn, Bishop 
 Barlow wrote his Cases of Conscience, &c. &c. 
 
 For this dedication of his studies, Charles has been 
 plentifully blamed in after times. He was seeking eva- 
 sions for plain duties, say his enemies. He was arming 
 himself for intrigue in the school of Machiavel. But now 
 turn to his history, and ask in what way any man could 
 have extricated himself from that labyrinth which in- 
 vested his path hut by Casuistry. Cases the most diffi- 
 cult are ofTered for his decision : peace for a distracted 
 nation in 1647, on terms which seemed fatal to the mon- 
 archy ; peace for the same nation under the prospect 
 of war rising up again during the Isle of Wight treaty 
 in 1648, but also under the certainty of destroying the 
 Church of England. On the one side, by refusing, he 
 seemed to disown his duties as the father of his people. 
 On the other side, by yielding, he seemed to forget his 
 coronation oath, and the ultimate interests of his people 
 — to merge the future and the reversionary in the present 
 and the fugitive. It was not within the possibilities that 
 he could so act as not to offend one half of the nation. 
 His dire calamity it was, that he must be hated, act 
 how he would, and must be condemned by posterity. 
 Did his enemies allow for the misery of this internal 
 conflict ? Milton, who never appears to more disad- 
 vantage than when he comes forward against his sove- 
 
 jf
 
 CASUISTRY. 265 
 
 reign, is indignant tliat Charles should liave a con- 
 science, or plead a conscience, in a public matter. 
 Henderson, the celebrated Scotch theologian, came 
 post from Edinburgh to London (whence he went to 
 Newcastle) expressly to combat the king's scruples. 
 And he also (in his private letters) seems equally en- 
 raged as Milton, that Charles should pretend to any 
 private conscience in a state question. 
 
 Now let us ask — what was it that originally drove 
 Charles to books of Casuistry ? It was the deep shock 
 which he received, both in his affections and his con- 
 science, from the death of Lord Strafford. Every 
 body had then told him, even those who felt how much 
 the law must be outraged to obtain a conviction of 
 Lord Strafford, how many principles of justice must be 
 shaken, and how sadly the royal word must suffer in its 
 sanctity, — yet all had told him that it was expedient to 
 sacrifice that nobleman. One man ought not to stand 
 between the king and his alienated people. It was good 
 for the common welfare that Lord Strafford should die. 
 Charles was unconvinced. He was sure of the injus- 
 tice ; and perhaps he doubted even of the expedience. 
 But his very virtues were armed against his peace. In 
 all parts of his life self-distrust and diffidence had 
 marked his character. What was he, a single person, 
 to resist so many wise counsellors, and what in a rep- 
 resentative sense was the nation ranged on the other 
 side ? He yielded : and it is not too much to say that 
 he never had a happy day afterwards. The stirring 
 period of his life succeeded — the period of war, camps, 
 treaties. Much time was not allowed him for medita-
 
 266 CASUISTRY. 
 
 tion. But there is abundant proof that such time as he 
 had, always pointed his thoughts backwards to the 
 afflicting case of Lord StrafTord. This he often spoke 
 of as the great blot — the ineffaceable transgression of 
 his life. For this he mourned in penitential words yet 
 on record. To this he traced back the calamity of his 
 latter life. Lord Strafford's memorable words — 'Put 
 not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of princes,' — 
 rang for ever in his ear. Lord Strafford's blood lay 
 like a curec upon his throne. 
 
 Now, by what a pointed answei*, drawn from this 
 one case, might Charles have replied to the enemies 
 we have noticed — to those, like so many historians 
 since his day, who taxed him with studying Casuistry 
 for the purposes of intrigue — to those, like Milton and 
 Henderson, who taxed him with exercising his private 
 conscience on public questions. 
 
 ' I hiid studied no books of Casuistry,' he might have 
 replied, ' when I made the sole capital blunder in a 
 case of conscience, which the review of my life can 
 slipw. 
 
 ' I did not insist on my private conscience ; woe is me 
 that I did not : I yielded to what was called the public 
 conscience in that one case which has proved the afflic- 
 tion of my life, and which, perhaps, it was that wrecked 
 the national peace.' 
 
 A more plenary answer there cannot be to those 
 who suppose that Casuistry is evaded by evading books 
 of Casuistry. That dread forum of conscience will for 
 ever exist as a tribunal of difficulty. The discussion 
 must proceed on some principle or other, good or bad ;
 
 CASUISTRY. 267 
 
 and the only way for obtaining light is by clearing up 
 the grounds of action, and applying the principles of 
 moral judgment to such facts or circumstances as 
 most frequently arise to perplex the understanding, or 
 the affections, or the conscience.
 
 4
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Note 1. Page 206, 
 
 The ludicrous blunder of Reid (as first published by Lord 
 Kames in his Sketches), and of countless others, through the 
 last seventy or eighty years, in their critiques on the logic of 
 Aristotle, has been to imagine that such illustrations of syllo- 
 gism as these vrere meant for specimens of what syllogism could 
 perform. What an elaborate machinery, it was said, for bring- 
 ing out the merest self-evident truisms ! But just as reasonably 
 it might have been objected, when a mathematician illustrated 
 the process of addition by saying 3 + 4=7, Behold what pom- 
 pous nothings ! These Aristotelian illustrations were purposely 
 drawn from cases not open to dispute, and simply as exemplifi- 
 cations of the meaning : they were intentionally self-evident. 
 
 Note 2. Page 208. 
 
 'To absolute infinity.' — We have noticed our own vast pile of 
 law, and that of the French. But neither of us has yet reached 
 the alarming amount of the Koman law, under which the very 
 powers of social movement threatened to break down. Courts 
 could not decide, advocates could not counsel, so interminable 
 was becoming the task of investigation. This led to the great 
 digest of Justinian. But, had Roman society advanced in 
 wealth, extent, and social development, instead of retrograding, 
 the same result would have returned in a worse shape. The 
 same result now menaces England, and will soon menace her 
 much more.
 
 270 CASUISTRY. 
 
 Note 3. Page 210. 
 
 'Of some military interest.^ — It is singular that some pecu- 
 liar interest has always settled upon Jaifa, no matter who was 
 the military leader of the time, or what the object of the strug- 
 gle. From Julius Caesar, Joppa enjoyed some special privileges 
 and immunities — about a century after, in the latter years of 
 Nero, a most tragical catastrophe happened at Joppa to the 
 Syrian pirates, by which the Yery same number perished as in 
 the Napoleon massacre, viz. something about 4000. In the 200 
 years of the Crusades, Joppa revived again into military ver- 
 dure. The fact is, that the shore of Syria is pre-eminently 
 deficient in natural harbors, or facilities for harbors — those 
 which exist have been formed by art and severe contest with the 
 opposition of nature. Hence their extreme paucity, and hence 
 their disproportionate importance in every possible war. 
 
 Note 4. Page 228. 
 
 This word, however, which occurs nowhere that we remember, 
 except in Lampridius, one of the Augustan historians, is here 
 applied to Heliogabalus ; and means, not the act of suicide, but 
 a suicidal person. And possibly Donne, who was a good scholar, 
 may so mean it to be understood in his title-page. Heliogabalus, 
 says Lampridius, had been told by the Syrian priests that he 
 should be Biathanatos, i. e. should commit suicide. He pro- 
 vided, therefore, ropes of purple and of gold intertwisted, that he 
 might hang himself imperatorially. He provided golden swords, 
 that he might run himself through'as became Cassar. He had 
 poisons inclosed in jewels, that he might drink his farewell heel- 
 taps, if drink he must, in a princely style. Other modes of 
 august death he had prepared. Unfortunately all were unavail- 
 ing, for he was murdered and dragged through the common 
 sewers by ropes, without either purple or gold in their base 
 composition. The poor fellow has been sadly abused in his- 
 tory ; but, after all, he was a mere boy, and as mad as a March 
 hare.
 
 . NOTES. 271 
 
 Note 5. Page 246. 
 
 'One man of each thousand .- ' in several nations that has been 
 found to be the average proportion of the insane. But this cal- 
 culation has never been made to include all the slighter cases. 
 It is not impossible that at some periods the whole human race 
 may have been partially insane. 
 
 Note 6. Page 250. 
 
 With respect to the management of health, although it is un- 
 doubtedly true that like the ' primal charities,' in the language 
 of Wordsworth, in proportion to its importance it shines alike 
 for all, and is diffused universally — yet not the less, in every 
 age, some very obstinate prejudices have prevailed to darken the 
 ti'uth. Thus Dryden authorizes the conceit, that medicine can 
 never be useful or requisite, because — 
 
 ' God never made his work for man to mend.' 
 
 To mend ! No, glorious John, neither physician nor patient has 
 any such presumptuous fancy ; we take medicine to mend the 
 injuries produced by our own folly. What the medicine mends 
 is not God's work, but our own. The medicine is a plus cer- 
 tainly; but it is a plus applied to a minus of our own introduc- 
 ing. Even in these days of practical knowledge, errors prevail 
 on the subject of health which are neither trivial nor of narrow 
 operation. Universally, the true theory of digestion, as partial- 
 ly unfolded in Dr. Wilson Philip's experiments on rabbits, is so 
 far mistaken, and even inverted — that Lord Byron, when seek- 
 ing a diet of easy digestion, instead of resorting to animal food 
 broiled and underdone, which all medical men know to be the 
 most digestible food, took to a vegetable diet, which requires a 
 stomach of extra power. The same error is seen in the common 
 notion about the breakfast of ladies in Elizabeth's daj-s, as if fit 
 only for ploughmen; whereas it is our breakfasts of slops which 
 require the powerful organs of digestion. The same error, 
 again, is current in the notion that a weak watery diet is fit for 
 a weak person. Such a person peculiarly requires solid food. 
 Tt is also a common mistake to suppose that, because no absolute
 
 272 CASUISTRY. 
 
 illness is caused by daily errors of diet, these errors are practi- 
 cally cancelled. Covvper the poet delivers the very just opinion 
 — that all disorders of a function (as, suppose, the seci-etion of 
 bile,) sooner or later, if not corrected, cease to bo functional 
 disorders, aud become organic. 
 
 Note 7. Page 255. 
 
 'Once placed in a dilemma.' — On the first expedition 
 against Copenhagen, (in 1801.) He was unfortunately second 
 in command j his principal, a brave man in person, wanted 
 moral courage — he could not face responsibility in a trying 
 shape. And had he not been blessed with a disobedient second in 
 command, he must have returned home re infectd. 
 
 NoTK 8. Page 259. 
 
 'First establishment of goldsmiths as bankers.' — Goldsmiths 
 certainly acted in that capacity from an earlier period. But 
 from this era, until the formation of the Bank of England in 
 160G, they entered more fully upon the functions of bankers, is- 
 suing notes which passed current in London.
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS.* 
 
 [1844.] 
 
 What is called Philosophical History we believe to 
 be yet in its infancy. It is the profound remark of 
 Mr. Finlay — profound as we ourselves understand it, 
 i. e., in relation to this philosophical treatment, ' That 
 history will ever remain inexhaustible.' How inex- 
 haustible ? Are the facts of history inexhaustible ? 
 In regard to the ancient division of history with which 
 he is there dealing, this would be in no sense true ; 
 and in any case it would be a lifeless truth. So en- 
 tirely have the mere facts of Pagan history been dis- 
 interred, ransacked, sifted, that except by means of 
 some chance medal that may be unearthed in the 
 illiterate East (as of late towards Bokhara), or by 
 means of some mysterious inscription, such as those 
 which still mock the learned traveller in Persia, north- 
 wards near Hamadan (Ecbatana), and southwards at 
 Persepolis, or those which distract him amongst the 
 shadowy ruins of Yucatan (Uxmal, suppose, and Pa- 
 lenque), — once for all, barring these pure godsends, 
 it is hardly ' in the dice' that any downright novelty of 
 fact should remain in reversion for this nineteenth cen- 
 
 * Greece under the Romans. By Geokqe Finlat. 
 18
 
 274 GKEECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 tury. The merest possibility exists, that in Armenia, 
 or in a Graeco-Russian monastery on Mount Athos, or 
 in Pompeii, &c., some authors hitherto avtydoret may 
 yet be concealed ; and by a channel in that degree 
 improbable, it is possible that certain new facts of his- 
 tory may still reach us. But else, and failing these 
 cryptical or subterraneous currents of communication, 
 for us the record is closed. History in that sense has 
 come to an end, and sealed up as by the angel in the 
 Apocalypse. What then ? The facts so understood 
 are but the dry bones of the mighty past. And the 
 question arises here also, not less than in that sublimest 
 of prophetic visions, ' Can these dry bones live .? ' 
 Not only can they live, but by an infinite variety of 
 life. The same historic facts, viewed in different 
 lights, or brought into connection with other facts, 
 according to endless diversities of permutation and 
 combination, furnish grounds for such eternal succes- 
 sions of new speculations as make the facts themselves 
 virtually new. The same Hebrew words are read by 
 different sets of vowel points, and the same hierogly- 
 phics are decipered by key's everlastingly varied. 
 
 To us we repeat that oftentimes it seems as though 
 the science of history were yet scarcely founded. 
 There will be such a science, if at present there is 
 not; and in one feature of its capacities it will resem- 
 ble chemistry. What is so familiar to the perceptions 
 of man as the common chemical agents of water, air, 
 and the soil on which we tread .? Yet each one of 
 these elements is a mystery to this day; handled, used, 
 tried, searched experimentally, in ten thousand ways 
 — it is still unknown ; fathomed by recent science 
 
 Jl
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 275 
 
 down to a certain depth, it is still probably by its des- 
 tiny unfathomable. Even to the end of days, it is 
 pretty certain that the minutest particle of earth — 
 that a dew-drop scarcely distinguishable as a separate 
 object — that the slenderest filament of a plant will 
 include within itself secrets inaccessible to man. And 
 yet, compared with the mystery of man himself, these 
 physical worlds of mystery are but as a radix of infin- 
 ity. Chemistry is in this view mysterious and spino- 
 sistically sublime — that it is the science of the latent 
 in all things, of all things as lurking in all. Within 
 the lifeless flint, within the silent pyrites, slumbers an 
 agony of potential combustion. Iron is imprisoned in 
 blood. With cold water (as every child is now-a-days 
 aware) you may lash a fluid into angry ebullitions of 
 heat ; with hot water, as with the rod of Amram's 
 son, you may freeze a fluid down to the temperature 
 of the Sarsar wind, provided only that you regulate 
 the pressure of the air. The sultry and dissolving 
 fluid shall bake into a solid, the petrific fluid shall 
 melt into a liquid. Heat shall freeze, frost shall thaw ; 
 and wherefore ? Simply because old things are brought 
 together in new modes of combination. And in end- 
 less instances beside we see the same Panlike latency 
 of forms and powers, which gives to the external world 
 a capacity of self-transformation, and of pohjmorpho- 
 sis absolutely inexhaustible. 
 
 But the same capacity belongs to the facts of history. 
 And we do not mean merely that, from subjective 
 differences in the minds reviewing them, such facts 
 assume endless varieties of interpretation and estimate, 
 but that objectively, from lights still increasing in the
 
 276 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 science of government and of social philosophy, all 
 the primary facts of history become liable continually 
 to new theories, to new combinations, and to new 
 valuations of their moral relations. We have seen 
 some kinds of marble, where the veinings happened 
 to be unusually multiplied, in which human faces, 
 figures, processions, or fragments of natural scenery 
 seemed absolutely illimitable, vmder the endless varia- 
 tions or inversions of the order, according to which 
 they might be combined and grouped. Something 
 analogous takes effect in reviewing the remote parts of 
 history. Rome, for instance, has been the object of 
 historic pens for twenty centuries (dating from Poly- 
 bius) ; and yet hardly so much as twenty years have 
 elapsed since Niebuhr opened upon us almost a new 
 revelation, by re-combining the same eternal facts, 
 according to a different set of principles. The same 
 thing may be said, though not with the same degree 
 of emphasis, upon, the Grecian researches of the late 
 Ottfried Mueller. Egyptian history again, even at this 
 moment, is seen stealing upon us through the dusky 
 twilight in its first distinct lineaments. Before Young, 
 ChampolUon, and the others who have followed on 
 their traces in this field of history, all was outer dark- 
 ness ; and whatsoever we do know or shall know of 
 Egyptian Thebes will now be recovered as if from the 
 unswathing of a mummy. Not until a flight of three 
 thousand years has left Thebes the Hekatompylos a 
 dusky speck in the far distance, have we even begun 
 to read her annals, or to understand her revolutions. 
 
 Another instance we have now before us of this new 
 historic faculty for resuscitating the buried, and for
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 277 
 
 calling back the breath to the frozen features of death, 
 in Mr, Finlay's work upon the Greeks as related to 
 the Roman empire. He presents us with old facts, 
 but under the purpose of clothing them with a new 
 life. He rehearses ancient stories, not with the humble 
 ambition of better adorning them, of more perspicu- 
 ously narrating, or ev.en of more forcibly pointing 
 their moral, but of extracting from them some new 
 meaning, and thus forcing them to arrange themselves, 
 under some latent connection, with other phenomena 
 now first detected, as illustrations of some great prin- 
 ciple or agency now first revealing its importance. 
 Mr. Finlay's style of intellect is appropriate to such a 
 task ; for it is subtle and Machiavelian. But there is 
 this difficulty in doing justice to the novelty, and at 
 times we may say with truth to the profundity of his 
 views, that they are by necessity thrown out in con- 
 tinued successions of details, are insulated, and, in one 
 word, sporadic. This follows from the very nature of 
 his work ; for it is a perpetual commentary on the 
 incidents of Grecian history, from the era of the 
 Roman conquest to the commencement of what Mr. 
 Finlay, in a peculiar sense, calls the Byzantine empire. 
 These incidents have nowhere been systematically or 
 continuously recorded ; they come forward by casual 
 flashes in the annals, perhaps, of some church histo- 
 rian, as they happen to connect themselves with his 
 momentary theme ; or they betray themselves in the 
 embarrassments of the central government, whether at 
 Rome or at Constantinople, when arguing at one time 
 a pestilence, at another an insurrection, or an inroad 
 of barbarians. It is not the fault of Mr. Finlay, but
 
 278 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 his great disadvantage, that the affairs of Greece have 
 been thus discontinuously exhibited, and that its inter- 
 nal changes of condition have been never treated 
 except obliquely, and by men aliud agentihus. The 
 Grecian race had a primary importance on our planet ; 
 but the Grecian name, represented by Greece consid- 
 ered as a territory, or as the original seat of the Hel- 
 lenic people, ceased to have much importance, in the 
 eyes of historians, from the time when it became a 
 conquered province ; and it declined into absolute 
 insignificance after the conquest of so many other 
 provinces had degraded Hellas into an arithmetical 
 unit, standing amongst a total amount of figures, so 
 vast and so much more dazzling to the ordinary mind. 
 Hence it was that in ancient times no complete history 
 of Greece, through all her phases and stages, was 
 ever attempted. The greatness of her later revolu- 
 tions, simply as changes, would have attracted the 
 historian ; but, as changes associated with calamity 
 and loss of power, they repelled his curiosity, and 
 alienated his interest. It is the very necessity, there- 
 fore, of Mr. Finlay's position, when coming into such 
 an inheritance, that he must splinter his philosophy 
 into separate individual notices ; for the records of his- 
 tory furnish no grounds for more. Spartam, quam nac- 
 tus est, ornavit. But this does not remedy the difiiculty 
 for ourselves, in attempting to give a representative 
 view of his philosophy. General abstractions he had 
 no opportuuity for presenting; consequently we, have 
 no opportunity for valuing; and, on the other hand, 
 single cases selected from a succession of hundreds 
 would not justify any representative criticism, more
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 279 
 
 than the single brick, in the anecdote of Hierocles, 
 would serve representatively to describe or to appraise 
 the house. 
 
 Under this difficulty as to the possible for ourselves, 
 and the just for Mr. Finlay, we shall adopt the fol- 
 lowing course. So far as the Greek people collected 
 themselves in any splendid manner with the Roman 
 empire, they did so whh the eastern horn of that 
 empire, and in point of time from the foundation 
 of Constantinople as an eastern Rome, in the fourth 
 •century, to a period not fully agreed on; but for the 
 moment we will say with Mr. Finlay, up to the early 
 part of the eighth century. A reason given by Mr, 
 Finlay for this latter date is — that about that time the 
 Grecian blood, so widely diffijsed in Asia, and even in 
 Africa, became finally detached by the progress of 
 Mahometanism and Mahometan systems of power 
 from all further concurrence or coalition with the views 
 of the Byzantine Cresar. Constantinople was from that 
 date thrown back more upon its own peculiar heritage 
 and jurisdiction, of which the main resources for war 
 and peace lay in Europe and (speaking by the nar- 
 rowest terms) in Thrace. Henceforth, therefore, for 
 the city and throne of Constantino, resuming its old 
 Grecian name of Byzantium, there succeeded a theatre 
 less diffusive, a population more concentrated, a char- 
 acter of action more determinate and jealous, a style 
 of courtly ceremonial more elaborate as well as more 
 haughtily repulsive, and universally a system of inter- 
 ests, as much more definite and selfish, as might 
 naturally be looked for in a nation now everywhere 
 surrounded by new thrones gloomy with malice, and
 
 280 GREECE TINDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 swelling with the consciousness of youthful power. 
 This new and final state of the eastern Rome Mr. 
 Finlay denominates the Byzantine empire. Possibly 
 this use of the term may be- capable of justification : 
 but more questions would arise in the discussion than 
 Mr. Finlay has thought it of importance to notice. 
 And for the present we shall take the word Byzantine 
 in its most ordinary acceptation, as denoting the local 
 empire founded by Constantihe in Byzantium early in 
 the fourth century, under the idea of a translation 
 from the old western Rome, and overthrown by the 
 Ottoman Turks in the year 1453. In the fortunes and 
 main stages of this empire, what ai'e the chief arresting 
 phenomena, aspects, or relations, to the greatest of 
 modern interests ? We select by preference these : 
 
 I. First, this was the earliest among the kingdoms 
 of our planet lohich connected itself with Christianity. 
 In Armenia, there had been a previous state recog- 
 nition of Christianity. But that was neither splendid 
 nor distinct. Whereas the Byzantine Rome built 
 avowedly upon Christianity as its own basis, and con- 
 secrated its own nativity by the sublime act of founding 
 the first provision ever attempted for the poor, consid- 
 ered simply as poor [i. e. as objects of pity, nc^t as 
 instruments of ambition). 
 
 II. Secondly, as the great cEgis of western Christen- 
 dom, nay, the barrier which made it possible that any 
 Christendom should ever exist, this Byzantine empire 
 is entitled to a very different station in the enlightened 
 gratitude of us Western Europeans from any which it 
 has yet held. We do not scruple to say — that, by 
 comparison with the services of the Byzantine people
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 281 
 
 to Europe, no nation on record has ever stood in the 
 same relation to any other single nation, much less to 
 a whole family of nations, whether as regards the 
 opportunity and means ,of conferring benefits, or as 
 regards the astonishing perseverance in supporting the 
 succession of these benefits, or as regards the ultimate 
 event of these benefits. A great wrong has been done 
 for ages ; for we have all been accustomed to speak of 
 the Byzantine empire with scorn,* as chiefly known by 
 its effeminacy ; and the greater is the call for a fervent 
 palinode. 
 
 III. Thirdly. In a reflex way, as the one great 
 danger which overshadowed Europe for generations, 
 and against which the Byzantine empire proved the 
 capital bulwark, Mahometanism may rank as one of 
 the Byzantine aspects or counterforces. And if there 
 is any popular error applying to the history of that 
 great convulsion, as a political effort for revolutionizing 
 the world, some notice of it will find a natural place 
 in connection with these present trains of speculation. 
 
 Let us, therefore, have permission to throw together 
 a few remarks on these three subjects — 1st, on the 
 
 * * With scorn. ^ — This has arisen from two causes : one is the 
 habit of regarding the whole Roman empire as in its * decline ' 
 from so e:irly a period as that of Commodus ; agreeably to which 
 conceit, it would naturally follow that, during its latter stages, 
 the Eastern empire must have been absolutely in its dotage. If 
 already declining in the second century, then, from the tenth to 
 the fifteenth, it must have been paralytic and bed-ridden The 
 other cause may be found in the accidental but reasonable hos- 
 tility of the Byzantine court to the first Crusaders, as also in the 
 disadvantageous comparison with respect to manly virtues be- 
 tween the simplicity of these western children, and the refined 
 dissimulation of the Byzantines.
 
 282 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 remarkable distinction by which the eldest of Christian 
 rulers proclaimed and inaugurated the Christian basis 
 of his empire ; 2dly, on the true but forgotten relation 
 of this great empire to our modern Christendom, under 
 which idea we comprehend Europe and the whole 
 continent of America ; 3dly, on the false pretensions 
 of Mahometanism, whether advanced by itself or by 
 inconsiderate Christian speculators on its behalf. We 
 shall thus obtain this advantage, that some sort of unity 
 will be given to our own glances at Mr. Finlay's 
 theme ; and, at the same time, by gathering under 
 these general heads any dispersed comments of Mr. 
 Finlay, whether for confirmation of our own views, or 
 for any purpose of objection to his, we shall give to 
 those comments also that kind of unity, by means of 
 a reference to a common purpose, which we could not 
 have given them by citing each independently for 
 itself. 
 
 I. First, then, as to that memorable act by which 
 Constantinople {i. e. the Eastern empire) connected 
 herself for ever with Christianity ; viz. the recognition 
 of pauperism as an element in the state entitled to 
 the maternal guardianship of the state. In this new 
 principle, introduced by Christianity, we behold a far- 
 seeing or proleptic wisdom, making provision for evils 
 before they had arisen ; for it is certain that great 
 expansions of pauperism did not exist in the ancient 
 world. A pauper population is a disease peculiar to 
 the modern or Christian world. Various causes latent 
 in the social systems of the ancients prevented such 
 developments of surplus people. But does not this 
 argue a superiority in the social arrangements of these
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 283 
 
 ancients ? Not at all ; they were atrociously worse. 
 They evaded this one morbid affection by means of 
 others far more injurious to the moral advance of man. 
 The case was then everywhere as at this day it is in 
 Persia. A Persian ambassador to London or Paris 
 might boast that, in his native Iran, no such spectacles 
 existed of hunger-bitten myriads as may be seen every- 
 where during seasons of distress in the crowded cities 
 of Christian Europe. ' No,' would be the answer, ' most 
 certainly not ; but why ? The reason is, that your 
 accursed form of society and government intercepts 
 such surplus people, does not suffer them to be born. 
 What is the result ? You ought, in Persia, to have 
 three hundred millions of people ; your vast territory 
 is easily capacious of that number. You have — how 
 many have you ? Something less than eight millions.' 
 Think of this, startled reader. But, if that be a good 
 state of things, then any barbarous soldier who makes 
 a wilderness, is entitled to call himself a great philoso- 
 pher and public benefactor. This is to cure the 
 headache by amputating the head. Now, the same 
 principle of limitation to population a parte arite, 
 though not in the same savagi3 excess as in Mahometan 
 Persia, operated upon Greece and Rome. The whole 
 Pagan world escaped the evils of redundant population 
 by vicious repressions of it beforehand. But under 
 Christianity a new state of things was destined to take 
 effect. Many protections and excitements to popula- 
 tion were laid in the framework of this new religion, 
 which, by its new code of rules and impulses, in so 
 many waj's extended the free-agency of human beings. 
 Manufacturing industry was destined first to arise on
 
 284 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 any great scale under Christianity. Except in Tyre 
 and Alexandria (see the Emperor Hadrian's account 
 of this last), there was no town or district in the an- 
 cient world where the populace could be said properly 
 to work. The rural laborers worked a little — not 
 much; — and sailors worked a little; — nobody else 
 worked at all. Even slaves had little more work dis- 
 tributed amongst each ten than now settles upon one. 
 And in many, other ways, by protecting the principle 
 of life, as a mysterious sanctity, Christianity has fa- 
 vored the development of an excessive population. 
 There it is that Christianity, being answerable for the 
 mischief, is answerable for its redress. Therefore it 
 is that, breeding the disease, Christianity breeds the 
 cure. Extending the vast lines of poverty, Christianity 
 it was that first laid down the principle of a relief for 
 poverty. Constantino, the first Christian potentate, laid 
 the first stone of the mighty overshadowing institution 
 since reared in Christian lands to poverty, disease, 
 orphanage, and mutilation. Christian instincts, moving 
 and speaking through that Caesar, first carried out that 
 great idea of Christianity. Six years was Christianity 
 in building Constantinople, and in the seventh she 
 rested from her labors, saying, ' Henceforward let 
 the poor man have a haven of rest for ever ; a rest 
 from his work for one day in seven ; a rest from his 
 anxieties by a legal and fixed relief.' Being legal, it 
 could not be open to disturbances of caprice in the 
 f^iver ; being fixed, it was not open to disturbances of 
 miscalculation in the receiver. Now, first, when first 
 Christianity was installed as a public organ of govern- 
 ment (and first owned a distinct political responsibility).
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 285 
 
 did it become the duty of a religion which assumed, as 
 it were, the official tutelage of poverty, to proclaim 
 and consecrate that function by some great memo- 
 rial precedent. And, accordingly, in testimony of that 
 obligation, the first Christian Csesar, on behalf of 
 Christianity, founded the first system of relief for pau- 
 perism. It is true, that largesses from the public 
 treasury, gratuitous coin, or corn sold at diminished 
 rates, not to mention the sportiihs or stated doles of 
 private Roman nobles, had been distributed amongst 
 the indigent citizens of Western Rome for centuries 
 before Constantino ; but all these had been the selfish 
 bounties of factious ambition or intrigue. 
 
 To Christianity was reserved the inaugural act of 
 public charity in the spirit of charity. We must re- 
 member that no charitable or beneficent institutions of 
 any kind, grounded on disinterested kindness, existed 
 amongst the Pagan Romans, and still less amongst the 
 Pagan Greeks. Mr. Coleridge, in one of his lay ser- 
 mons, advanced the novel doctrine — that in the Scrip- 
 ture is contained all genuine and profound statesman- 
 ship. Of course he must be understood to mean — in 
 its capital principles; for, as to subordinate and execu- 
 tive rules for applying such principles, these, doubtless, 
 are in part suggested by the local circumstances in 
 each separate case. Now, amongst the political theo- 
 ries of the Bible is this — that pauperism is not an 
 accident in the constitution of states, but an indefeasible 
 necessity; or, in the scriptural words, that 'the poor 
 shall never cease out of the land.' This theory or 
 great canon of social philosophy, during many centu- 
 ries, drew no especial attention from philosophers. It
 
 286 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 passed for a truism, bearing no particular emphasis 
 or meaning beyond some general purpose of sanction 
 to the impulses of charity. But there is good reason 
 to believe, that it slumbered, and" was meant to slum- 
 ber, until Christianity arising and moving forwards 
 should call it into a new life, as a principle suited to a 
 new order of things. Accordingly, we have seen of 
 late that this scriptural dictum — 'The poor shall never 
 cease out of the land' — has terminated its career as 
 a truism (that is, as a truth, either obvious on one 
 hand, or inert on the other), and has wakened into a 
 polemic or controversial life. People arose who took 
 upon them utterly to deny this scriptural doctrine. 
 Peremptorily they challenged the assertion that pover- 
 ty must always exist. The Bible said that it was an 
 affection of human society which could not be ex- 
 terminated ; the economist of 1800 said that it was a 
 foul disease, which must and should be exterminated. 
 The scriptural philosophy said, that pauperism was 
 inalienable from man's social condition in the same 
 way that decay was inalienable from his flesh. 'I 
 shall soon see that,'' said the economist of 1800, 
 
 ' for as sure as my name is M , I will have 
 
 this poverty put down by law within one generation, if 
 there's a law to be had in the courts of Westminster.' 
 The Scriptures have left word — that, if any man 
 should come to the national banquet declaring himself 
 unable to pay his contribution, that man should be ac- 
 counted the guest of Christianity, and should be privi- 
 leged to sit at the table in thankful remembrance of 
 
 what Christianity had done for man. But Mr. M 
 
 left word with all the servants, that, if any man should
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 287 
 
 present himself under those circumstances, he was to 
 be told, ' the table is full' — (his words, not ours) ; ' go 
 
 away, good man.' Go away ! Mr. M > Where 
 
 was he to go to ? Whither ? In what direction ? — 
 ' Why, if you come to that,'' said the man of 1800, 'to 
 any ditch that he prefers : surely there's good choice 
 of ditches for the most fastidious taste.' During twen- 
 ty years, viz. from 1800 to 1820, this new philosophy, 
 which substituted a ditch for a dinner, and a paving- 
 stone for a loaf, prevailed and prospered. At one time 
 it seemed likely enough to prove a snare to our own 
 aristocracy — the noblest of all ages. But that peril 
 was averted, and the further history of the case was 
 this : By the year 1820, much discussion having 
 passed to and fro, serious doubts had arisen in many 
 quarters ; scepticism had begun to arm itself against 
 the sceptic ; the economist of 1800 was no longer 
 quite sure of his ground. He was now suspected of 
 being fallible ; and what seemed of worse augury, he 
 was beginning himself to suspect as much. To one 
 capital blunder he was obliged publicly to plead guilty. 
 What it was, we shall have occasion to mention im- 
 mediately. Meantime it was justly thought that, in a 
 dispute loaded with such prodigious practical conse- 
 quences, good sense and prudence demanded a more 
 extended inquiry than had yet been instituted. Whether 
 poverty would ever cease from the land, might be 
 doubted by those who balanced their faith in Scripture 
 against their faith in the man of 1800. But this at 
 least could not be doubted — that as yet poverty had 
 not ceased, nor indeed had made any sensible prepar- 
 ations for ceasing from any land in Europe. It was a
 
 288 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 clear case, therefore, that, howsoever Europe might 
 please to dream upoo the matter when pauperism 
 should have reached that glorious euthanasy predicted 
 by the alchemist of old and the economist of 1800, for 
 the present she must deal actively with her own pau- 
 perism on some avowed plan and principle, good or 
 evil — gentle or harsh. Accordingly, in the train of 
 years between 1820 and 1830, inquiries were made 
 of every separate state in Europe, what were those 
 plans and principles. For it was justly said — 'As 
 one step towards judging rightly of our own system, 
 now that it has been so clamorously challenged for a 
 bad system, let us learn what it is that other nations 
 think upon the subject, but above all what it is that they 
 do.'' The answers to our many inquiries varied con- 
 siderably; and some amongst the most enlightened 
 nations .appear to have adopted the good old plan of 
 laissez faire, giving nothing from any public fund to 
 the pauper, but authorizing him to levy contribution?^ 
 on that gracious allegoric lady. Private Charity, where- 
 ever he could meet her taking the air with her babes. 
 This reference appeared to be the main one in reply 
 to any application of the pauper ; and for all the rest 
 they referred him generally to the ' ditch,' or to his 
 own uYilimited choice of ditches, according to the ap- 
 proved method of public benevolence published in 4to 
 and in 8vo by the man of 1800, But there were other 
 and humbler states in Europe, whose very pettiness 
 has brought more fully within their vision the whole 
 machinery and watchwork of pauperism, as it acted 
 and reacted on the industrious poverty of the land, and 
 on other interests, by means of the system adopted in
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 289 
 
 relieving it. From these states came many interesting 
 reports, all tending to some good purpose. But at last, 
 and before the year 1830, amongst other results of 
 more or less value, three capital points were established, 
 not more decisive for the justification of the English 
 system of administering national relief to paupers, and 
 of all systems that reverenced the authority of Scrip- 
 ture, than they were for the overthrow of IMr. M , 
 
 the man of 1800. These three points are worthy of 
 being used as buoys in mapping out the true channels, 
 or indicating the breakers on this difficult line of navi- 
 gation ; and we n9w rehearse them. They may seem 
 plain almost to obviousness ; but it is enough that they 
 involve all the disputed questions of the case. 
 
 First. That, in spite of the assurances from econo- 
 mists, no progress whatever had been made by Eng- 
 land or by any state which lent any sanction to the 
 hope of ever eradicating poverty from society. 
 
 Secondly. That, in absolute contradiction of the whole 
 
 hypothesis relied on by M and his brethren, in its 
 
 most fundamental doctrine, a legal provision for pover- 
 ty did not act as a bounty on marriage. The experi- 
 ence of England, where the trial had been made on 
 the largest scale, was decisive on this point; and the 
 opposite experience of Ireland, under the opposite 
 circumstances, was equally decisive. And this result 
 
 had made itself so clear by 1820, that even M (as 
 
 we have already noticed by anticipation) was compelled 
 to publish a recantation as to this particular error, 
 which in effect was a recantation of his entire theory. 
 
 Thirdly. That, according to the concurring experi- 
 ence of all the most enlightened states of Christendom, 
 19
 
 290 GREECE' UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 the public suffered least (not merely in molestation but 
 in money), pauperism benefited most, and the growth 
 of pauperism was retarded most, precisely as the 
 provision for the poor had been legalized as to its 
 obligation, and fixed as to its amount. Left to indi- 
 vidual discretion, the burden was found to press most 
 unequally ; and, on the other hand, the evil itself of 
 pauperism, whilst much less effectually relieved, never- 
 theless through the irregular action of this relief was 
 much more powerfully stimulated. 
 
 Such is the abstract of our latest public warfare on 
 this great question through a period of nearly fifty 
 years. And the issue is this — starting from the con- 
 temptuous defiance of the scriptural doctrine upon the 
 necessity of making provision for poverty as an indis- 
 pensable element in civil communities, the economy of 
 the age has lowered its tone by graduated descents, in 
 each one successively of the four last decennia. The 
 philosophy of the day as to this point at least is at 
 length in coincidence with Scripture. And thus the 
 very extensive researches of this nineteenth century, 
 as to pauperism, have re-acted with the effect of a full 
 justification upon Constantino's attempt to connect the 
 foundation of his empire with that new theory of Chris- 
 tianity upon the imperishableness of poverty, and upon 
 the duties corresponding to it. 
 
 Meantime, Mr. Finlay denies that Christianity had 
 been raised by Constantino into the religion of the 
 state ; and others have denied that, in the extensive 
 money privileges conceded to Constantinople, he con- 
 templated any but political principles. As to the first 
 point, we apprehend that Constantino will be found not 
 
 i 
 
 !
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 291 
 
 SO much to have shrunk back from fear of installing 
 Christianity in the seat of supremacy, as to have di- 
 verged in policy from our modern methods of such 
 an installation. Our belief is, that according to his 
 notion of a state religion, he supposed himself to have 
 conferred that distinction upon Christianity. With 
 respect to the endowments and privileges of Constan- 
 tinople, they were various ; some lay in positive dona- 
 tions, others in immunities and exemptions; some 
 again were designed to attract strangers, others to 
 attract nobles from old Rome. But, with fuller op- 
 portunities for pursuing that discussion, we think it 
 would be easy to show, that in more than one of his 
 institutions and his decrees he had contemplated the 
 special advantage of the poor as such ; and that, next 
 after the august distinction of having founded the first 
 Christian throne, he had meant to challenge and fix 
 the gaze of future ages upon this glorious pretension 
 — that he first had executed the scriptural injunction 
 to make a provision for the poor, as an order of society 
 that by laws immutable should ' never cease out of the 
 land.' 
 
 II. Let us advert to the value and functions of 
 Constantinople as the tutelary genius of western or 
 dawning Christianity. 
 
 The history of Constantinople, or more generally of 
 the Eastern Roman empire, wears a peculiar interest 
 to the children of Christendom ; and for two separate 
 reasons — first, as being the narrow isthmus or bridge 
 which connects the two continents of ancient and mod- 
 ern history, and that is a philosophic interest ; but 
 secondly^ which in the very highest degree is a prac^
 
 292 GEEECE UNDER THE KOMANS. 
 
 tical interest, as the record of our earthly salvation 
 from Mahometanism. On two horns was Europe as- 
 saulted by the Moslems ; first, last, and through the 
 largest tract of time, on the horn of Constantinople ; 
 there the contest raged for more than eight hundred 
 years, and by the time that the mighty bulwark fell 
 (1453), Vienna and other cities upon or near the Dan- 
 ube had found leisure for growing up ; so that, if one 
 range of Alps had slowly been surmounted, another 
 had now slowly reared and embattled itself against the 
 westward progress of the Crescent. On the western 
 horn, in France, but hy Germans, once for all Charles 
 Martel had arrested the progress of the fanatical Mos- 
 lem almost in a single battle ; certainly a single gene- 
 ration saw the whole danger dispersed, inasmuch as 
 within that space the Saracens were effectually forced 
 back into their original Spanish lair. This demon- 
 strates pretty forcibly the difference of the Mahometan 
 resources as applied to the western and the eastern 
 struggle. To throw the whole weight of that differ- 
 ence, a difference in the result as between eight cen- 
 turies and thirty years, upon the mere difference of 
 energy in German and Byzantine forces, as though the 
 first did, by a rapturous fervor, in a few revolutions of 
 summer what the other had protracted through nearly 
 a millennium, is a representation which defeats itself 
 by its own extravagance. To prove too much is more 
 dangerous than to prove too little. The fact is, that 
 vast armies and mighty nations were continually dispos- 
 able for the war upon the city of Constantine ; nations 
 had time to arise in juvenile vigor, to grow old and 
 superannuated, to melt away, and totally to disappear,
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 293 
 
 in that long struggle on the Hellespont and Propontis. 
 It was a struggle which might often intermit and slum- 
 ber ; armistices there might be, truces, or unproclaimed 
 suspensions of war out of mutual exhaustion, but 
 peace there could not be, because any resting from the 
 duty of hatred towards those who reciprocally seemed 
 to lay the foundations of their creed in a dishonoring 
 of God, was impossible to aspiring human nature. 
 Malice and mutual hatred, we repeat, became a duty 
 in those circumstances. Why had they legun to fight.? 
 Personal feuds there had been none between the par- 
 ties. For the early caliphs did not conquer Syria and 
 other vast provinces of the Roman empire, because 
 they had a quarrel with the Ccesars who represented 
 Christendom ; but, on the contrary, they had a quarrel 
 with the Caesars because they had conquered Syria, or, 
 at the most, the conquest and the feud (if not always 
 lying in that exact succession as cause and effect) were 
 joint effects from a common cause, which cause was 
 imperishable as death, or the ocean, and as deep as are 
 the fountains of animal life. Could the ocean be 
 altered by a sea-fight ? Or the atmosphere be tainted 
 for ever by an earthquake .'' As little could any single 
 reign or its events affect the feud of the Moslem and 
 the Christian ; a feud which could not cease unless God 
 could change, or unless man (becoming careless of 
 spiritual things) should sink to the level of a brute. 
 
 These are considerations of great importance in 
 weighing the value of the Eastern Empire. If the 
 cause and interest of Islamism, as against Christianity, 
 were undying — then we may be assured that the 
 Moorish infidels of Spain did not reiterate their trans-
 
 294 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 Pyrenean expeditions after one generation — simply 
 because they could not. But we know that on the 
 south-eastern horn of Europe they could, upon the 
 plain argument that for many centuries they did. 
 Over and above this, we are of opinion that the Sara- 
 cens were unequal to the sort of hardships bred by 
 cold climates; and there lay another repulsion for Sar- 
 acens from France, &c., and not merely the Carlovin- 
 gian sword. We children of Christendom show our 
 innate superiority to the children of the Orient upon 
 this scale or tariff of acclimatizing powers. We travel 
 as wheat travels through all reasonable ranges of tem- 
 perature ; they, like rice, can migrate only to warm 
 latitudes. They cannot support our cold, but we can 
 support the countervailing hardships of their heat. 
 This cause alone would have weatherbound the Mus- 
 sulmans for ever within the Pyrenean cloisters. Mus- 
 sulmans in cold latitudes look as blue and as absurd as 
 sailors on horseback. Apart from which cause, we 
 see that the fine old Visigothic races in Spain found 
 them full employment up to the reign of Ferdinand 
 and Isabella, which reign first created a kingdom of 
 Spain ; in that reign the whole fabric of their power 
 thawed away, and was confounded with forgotten 
 things. Columbbs, according to a local tradition, was 
 personally present at some of the latter campaigns in 
 Grenada : he saw the last of them. So that the dis- 
 covery of America may be used as a convertible date 
 with that of extinction for the Saracen power in west- 
 ern Europe. True that the overthrow of Constanti- 
 nople had forerun this event by nearly half a century. 
 But then we insist upon the different proportions of the
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 295 
 
 struggle. Whilst in Spain a province had fought 
 against a province, all Asia militant had fought against 
 the eastern Roman empire. Amongst the many races 
 whom dimly we decry in those shadowy hosts, tilting 
 for ages in the vast plains of Angora, are seen latterly 
 pressing on to the van, two mighty powers, the chil- 
 dren of Persia and the Ottoman family of the Turks. 
 Upon these nations, both now rapidly decaying, the 
 faith of Mahomet has ever leaned as upon her eldest 
 sons ; and these powers the Byzantine Caesars had to 
 face in every phsfsis of their energy, as it revolved 
 from perfect barbarism, through semi-barbarism, to 
 that crude form of civilization which Mahometans can 
 support. And through all these transmigrations of 
 their power we must remember that they were under a 
 martial training and discipline, never suffered to be- 
 come effemipate. One set of warriors after another 
 did, it is true, become effeminate in Persia : but upon 
 that advantage opening, always another set stepped in 
 from Torkistan or from the Imaus. The nation, the 
 individuals melted away; the Moslem armies were 
 immortal. 
 
 Here, therefore, it is, and standing at this point of 
 our review, that we complain of Mr. Finlay's too facile 
 compliance with historians far beneath himself. He 
 has a fine understanding: oftentimes his commentaries 
 on the past are ebullient with subtlety; and his fault 
 strikes us as lying even in the excess of his sagacity 
 applying itself too often to a basis of facts, quite insuf- 
 ficient for supporting the superincumbent weight of his 
 speculations. But in this instance he surrenders him- 
 self too readily to the ordinary current of history. How
 
 296 GREECE UNUER THE ROMANS. 
 
 would he like it, if he happened to be a Turk himself, 
 finding his nation thus implicitly undervalued ? For 
 clearly, in undervaluing the Byzantine resistance, he 
 does undervalue the Mahometan assault. Advantages 
 of local situation cannot eternally make good the defi- 
 ciencies of man. If the Byzantines (being as weak 
 as historians would represent them) yet for ages re- 
 sisted the whole impetus of Mahometan Asia, then it 
 follows, either that the Crescent was correspondingly 
 weak, or that, not being weak, she must have found 
 the Cross pretty strong. The facit*o^ history does not 
 here coi respond with the numerical items. 
 
 Nothing has ever surprised us more, we will frankly 
 own, than this coincidence of authors in treating the 
 Byzantine empire as feeble and crazy. On the con- 
 trary, to us it is clear that some secret and preternatu- 
 ral strength it must have had, lurking where the eye 
 of man did not in those days penetrate, or by what 
 miracle did it undertake our universal Christian cause, 
 fight for us all, keep the waters open from freezing us 
 up, and through nine centuries prevent the ice of 
 Mahometanism from closing over our heads for ever .'' 
 Yet does Mr. Finlay (p. 424) describe this empire as 
 laboring, in A. D. 623, equally with Persia, under ' in- 
 ternal weakness,' and as ' equally incapable of offering 
 any popular or national resistance to an active or 
 enterprising enemy.' In this Mr. Finlay does but 
 agree with other able writers ; but he and they should 
 have recollected, that hardly had that very year 623 
 departed, even yet the knell of its last hour was 
 sounding upon the winds, when this effeminate empire 
 had occasion to show that she could clothe herself with
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 297 
 
 consuming terrors, as a belligerent both defensive and 
 aggressive. In the absence of her great emperor, and 
 of the main imperial forces, the golden capital herself, 
 by her own resources, routed and persecuted into 
 wrecks a Persian army that bad come down upon her 
 by stealth and a fraudulent circuit. Even at that same 
 period, she advanced into Persia more than a thousand 
 miles from her own metropolis in Europe, under the 
 blazing ensigns of the cross, kicked the crown of 
 Persia to and fro like a tennis-ball, upset the throne of 
 Artaxerxes, countersigned haughtily the elevation of a 
 new Basileus more friendly to herself, and then 
 recrossed the Tigris homewards, after having torn 
 forcibly out of the heart and palpitating entrails of 
 Persia, whatever trophies that idolatrous empire had 
 formerly wrested from herself. These were not the 
 acts of an effeminate kingdom. In the language of 
 Wordsworth we may say — 
 
 ' All power was giv'n her in the dreadful trance; 
 Infidel kings she wither'd like a flame.' 
 
 Indeed, no image that we remember can do justice 
 to the first of these acts, except that Spanish legend of 
 the Cid, which assures us that, long after the death of 
 the mighty cavalier, when the children of those Moors 
 who had fled from his face whilst living, w^ere insulting 
 the marble statue above his grave, suddenly the statue 
 raised its right arm, stretched out its marble lance, and 
 drifted the heathen dogs like snow. The mere sanctity 
 of the Christian champion's sepulchre was its own 
 protection ; and so we must suppose, that, when the 
 Persian hosts came by surprise upon Constantinople —
 
 298 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 her natural protector being absent by three montlis' 
 march — simply the golden statues of the mighty 
 Csesars, half rising on their thrones, must have caused 
 that sudden panic which dissipated the danger. Hardly 
 fifty years later, Mr. Finlay well knows that Constanti- 
 nople again stood an assault — not from a Persian 
 hourrah, or tempestuous surprise, but from a vast 
 expedition, armaments by land and sea, fitted out 
 elaborately in the early noontide of Mahometan vigor 
 — and that assault, also, in the presence of the caliph 
 and the crescent, was gloriously discomfited. Now if, 
 in the moment of triumph, some voice in the innume- 
 rable crowd had cried out, ' How long shall this great 
 Christian breakwater, against which are shattered into 
 surge and foam all the mountainous billows of idolaters 
 and misbelievers, stand up on behalf of infant Chris- 
 tendom ? ' and if from the clouds some trumpet of 
 prophecy had replied, ' Even yet for eight hundred 
 years ! ' could any man have persuaded himself that 
 such a fortress against such antogonists — such a 
 monument against a millennium of fury — was to be 
 classed amongst the weak things of this earth ? This 
 oriental Rome, it is true, equally with Persia, was 
 liable to sudden inroads and incursions. But the dif- 
 ference was this — Persia was strongly protected in all 
 ages by the wilderness on her main western frontier ; 
 if this were passed, and a hand-to-hand conflict suc- 
 ceeded, where light cavalry or fugitive archers could 
 be of little value, the essential weakness of the Per- 
 sian empire then betrayed itself. Her sovereign was 
 assassinated, and peace was obtained from the con- 
 descension of the invader. But the enemies of Con-
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 299 
 
 stantinople, Goths, Avars, Balgarians, or even Persians, 
 were strong only by their weakness. Being contemp- 
 tible, they were neglected ; being chased, they made 
 no stand ; and thus only they escaped. They entered 
 like thieves by means of darkness, and escaped like 
 sheep by means of dispersion. But, if caught, they 
 were annihilated. No ; we resume our thesis ; we 
 close this head by reiterating our correction of history ; 
 we re-affirm our position — that in Eastern Rome 
 lay the salvation of Western and Central Europe ; in 
 Constantinople "and the Propontis lay the sine qua non 
 condition of any future Christendom. Emperor and 
 people 7nust have done their duty ; the result, the vast 
 extent of generations surmounted, furnish the trium- 
 phant argument. Finally, indeed, they fell, king "and 
 people, shepherd and flock ; but by that time their 
 mission was fulfilled. And doubtless, as the noble 
 PaltEologus lay on heaps of carnage, with his noble 
 people, as life was ebbing away, a voice from heaven 
 vSoundcd in his ears the great words of the Hebrew 
 prophet, ' Behold ! your ^vork is done ; your warfare 
 is accomplished.' 
 
 III. Such, then, being the unmerited disparagement 
 of the Byzantine government, and so great the ingrati- 
 tude of later Christendom to that sheltering power 
 under which themselves enjoyed the leisure of a 
 thousand years for knitting and expanding into strong 
 nations ; on the other hand, what is to be thought of 
 the Saracen revolutionists ? Everywhere it has passed 
 for a lawful postulate, that the Saracen conquests pre- 
 vailed, half by the feebleness of the Roman govern- 
 ment at Constantinople, and half by the preternatural
 
 200 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 energy infused into the Arabs by their false prophet 
 and legislator. In either of its faces, this theory is 
 falsified by a steady review of facts. With regard to 
 the Saracens, Mr. Finlay thinks as we do, and argues 
 that they prevailed through the locals or sometimes the 
 casual, weakness of their immediate enemies, and 
 rarely through any strength of their own. We must 
 remember one fatal weakness of the Imperial admin- 
 istration in those days, not due to men or to principles, 
 but entirely to nature and the slow growth of scientific 
 improvements — viz. : the difficulties of locomotion. 
 As respected Syria, Egypt, Cyrenaica, and so on to 
 the most western provinces of Africa, the Saracens 
 had advantages for moving rapidly which the Cisesar 
 had not. But is not a water movement speedier than 
 a land movement, which for an army never has much 
 exceeded fourteen miles a-day ? Certainly it is ; but 
 in this case there were two desperate defects in the 
 imperial control over that water service. To use a 
 fleet, you must have a fleet; but their whole naval 
 interest had been starved by the intolerable costs of the 
 Persian war. Immense had been the expenses^ of 
 Heraclius, and annually decaying had been his Asiatic 
 revenues. Secondly, the original position of the Arabs 
 had been better than that of the emperor, in every 
 stage of the warfare which so suddenly arose. In 
 Arabia they stood nearest to Syria, in Syria nearest to 
 Egypt, in Egypt nearest to Cyrenaica. AVhat reason 
 had there been for expecting a martial legislator at 
 that moment in Arabia, who should fuse and sternly 
 combine her distracted tribes ? What blame, there- 
 fore, to Heraclius, that Syria — the first object of
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 201 
 
 assault, being also by much the weakest part of the 
 empire, and immediately after the close of a desolating 
 war — should in four campaigns be found indefen- 
 sible ? We must remember the unexampled abrupt- 
 ness of the Arabian revolution. The year sixteen 
 hundred and twenty-two, by its very name of Hegira, 
 does not record a triumph but a humiliation. In that 
 year, therefore, and at the very moment when Herac- 
 lius was entering upon his long Persian struggle, Ma- 
 homet was yet prostrate, and his destiny was doubtful. 
 Eleven years after, viz. in six hundred and thirty-three, 
 the prophet was dead and gone ; but his first successor 
 was already in Syria as a conqueror. Such had been 
 the velocity of events. The Persian war had then 
 been finished by three years, but the exhaustion of the 
 empire had perhaps, at that moment, reached its maxi- 
 mum. We are satisfied, that ten years' repose from 
 this extreme state of collapse would have shown us 
 another result. Even as it was, and caught at this 
 enormous disadvantage, Heraclius taught the robbers 
 to tremble, and would have exterminated thein, if not 
 baffled by two irremediable calamities, neither of them 
 due to any act or neglect of his own. The first lay 
 in the treason of his lieutenants. The governors of 
 Damascus, of Aleppo, of Emesa, of Bostra, of Kin- 
 nisrin, all proved traitors. The root of this evil lay, 
 probably, in the disorders following the Persian inva- 
 sion, which had made it the perilous interest of the 
 emperor to appoint great officers from amongst those 
 who had a local influence. Such persons it might have 
 been ruinous too suddenly to set aside, as, in the event, 
 it proved ruinous to employ them. A, dilemma of this
 
 302 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 kind, ofTering but a choice of evils, belonged to the 
 nature of any Persian war ; and that particular war 
 was bequeathed to Heraclius by the management of 
 his predecesors. But the second calamity was even 
 more fatal ; it lay in the composition of the Syrian 
 population, and its original want of vital cohesion. For 
 no purpose could this population be united : they form- 
 ed a rope of sand. There was the distraction of 
 religion (Jacobites, Nestorians, &c.) ; there was the 
 distraction of races — slaves and masters, conquered 
 and conquerors, modern intruders mixed, but not 
 blended with, aboriginal mountaineers. Property be- 
 came the one principle of choice between the two gov- 
 ernments. Where was protection to be had for that 7 
 Barbarous as were the Arabs, they saw their present 
 advantage. Often it would happen from the position 
 of the armies, that they could, whilst the emperor 
 could not, guarantee the instant security of land or 
 of personal treasures ; the Arabs could also promise, 
 sometimes, a total immunity from [taxes, very often a 
 diminished scale of taxation, always a remission of 
 arrears ; none of which demands could be listened to by 
 the emperor, partly on account of the public necessities, 
 partly from jealousy of establishing operative prece- 
 dents. For religion, again, protection was more easily 
 obtained in that day from the Arab, who made war on 
 Christianity, than from the Byzantine emperor, who 
 was its champion. What were the different sects and 
 subdivisions of Christianity to the barbarian.? Mono- 
 physite, Monothelite, Eutychian, or Jacobite, all were 
 to him as the scholastic disputes of noble and intellec- 
 tual Europe to the camps of gypsies. The Arab felt
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMAKS. 303 
 
 himself to be the depository of one sublime truth, the 
 unity of God. His mission, therefore, was principally 
 against idolaters. Yet even to them his policy was to 
 sell toleration for tribute. Clearly, as Mr. Finlay hints, 
 this was merely a provisional moderation, meant to be 
 laid aside when sufficient power was obtained ; and it 
 was laid aside, in after ages, by many a wretch like 
 Timor or Nadir Shah. Religion, therefore, and prop- 
 erty once secured, what more had the Syrians to seek ? 
 And if to these advantages for the Saracens we add 
 the fact, that a considerable Arab population was dis- 
 persed through Syria, who became so many emissaries, 
 spies, and decoys for their countrymen, it does great 
 honor to the emperor, that through so many campaigns 
 he should at all have maintained his ground, which at 
 last he resigned only under the despondency caused by 
 almost universal treachery. 
 
 The Saracens, therefore, had no great merit even in 
 their earliest exploits ; and the impetus of their move- 
 ment forwards, that principle of proselytism which 
 carried them so strongly 'ahead' through a few gen- 
 erations, was very soon brought to a stop. IVfr. Finlay, 
 in our mind, does right to class these barbarians as 
 ' socially and politically little better than the Gothic, 
 Hunnish, and Avar monarchies.' But, on considera- 
 tion, the Gothic monarchy embosomed the germs of a 
 noble civilization ; whereas the Saracens have never 
 propagated great principles of any kind, nor attained 
 even a momentary grandeur in their institutions, ex- 
 cept where coalescing with a higher or more ancient 
 civilization. 
 
 Meantime, ascending from the earliest Mahometans
 
 304 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 to their prophet, what are we to think of him? Was 
 Mahomet a great man ? We think not. The case 
 was thus : the Arabian tribes had long stood ready, 
 like dogs held in a leash, for a start after distant game. 
 It was not Mahomet who gave them that impulse. 
 But next, what was it that had hindered the Arab 
 tribes from obeying the impulse ? Simply this, that 
 they were always in feud with each other ; so that their 
 expeditions, beginning in harmony, were sure to break 
 up in anger on the road. What they needed was, 
 some one grand compressing and unifying principle, 
 such as the Roman found in the destinies of his city. 
 True ; but this, you say, they found in the sublime 
 principle that God was one, and had appointed them to 
 be the scourges of all who denied it. Their mission 
 was to cleanse the earth from Polytheism ; and, as 
 ambassadors from God, to tell the nations — ' Ye shall 
 have no other Gods but me.' That was grand ; and 
 that surely they had from Mahomet ? Perhaps so ; 
 but where did he get it } He stole it from the Jewish 
 Scriptures, and from the Scriptures no less than from 
 the traditions of the Christians. Assuredly, then, the 
 first projecting impetus was not impressed upon Islam- 
 ism by Mahomet. This lay in a revealed truth ; and 
 by Mahomet it was furtively translated to his own use 
 from those oracles which held it in keeping. But pos- 
 sibly, if not the principle of motion, yet at least the 
 steady conservation of this motion was secured to Is- 
 lamism by Mahomet. Granting (you will say) that 
 the launch of this religion might be due to an alien 
 inspiration, yet still the steady movement onwards of 
 this religion through some centuries, might be due
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 305 
 
 exclusively to the code of laws bequeathed by Maho- 
 met in the Koran. And this has been the opinion of 
 many European scholars. They fancy that Mahomet, 
 however worldly and sensual as the founder of a pre- 
 tended revelation, was wise in the wisdom of this 
 world ; and that, if ridiculous as a prophet, he was 
 worthy of veneration as a statesman. He legislated 
 well and presciently, they imagine, for the interests of 
 a remote posterity. Now, upon that question let us 
 hear Mr. Finlay. He, when commenting upon the 
 steady resistance offered to the Saracens by the Afri- 
 can Christians of the seventh and eighth centuries — a 
 resistance which terminated disastrously for both sides 
 — the poor Christians being exterminated, and the 
 Moslem invaders being robbed of an indigenous work- 
 ing population, naturally inquires what it was that led 
 to so tragical a result. The Christian natives of these 
 provinces were, in a political condition, little favorable 
 to belligerent efforts ; and there cannot be much doubt, 
 that, with any wisdom or any forbearance on the part 
 of the intruders, both parties might soon have settled 
 down into a pacific compromise of their feuds. In- 
 stead of this, the cimeter was invoked and worshipped 
 as the sole possible arbitrator ; and truce there was 
 none until the silence of desolation brooded over those 
 once fertile fields. How savage was the fanaticism, 
 and how blind the worldly wisdom, which could have 
 co-operated to such a result ! The cause must have 
 lain in the unaccommodating nature of the Mahometan 
 institutions, in the bigotry of the Mahometan leaders, 
 and in the defect of expansive views on the part of 
 their legislator. He had not provided even for other 
 20
 
 306 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 elimates than that of his own sweltering sty in the 
 Hedjas, or for manners more polished, or for institu- 
 tions more philosophic, than those of his own sun- 
 baked Ishmaelites. ' The construction of the political 
 government of the Saracen empire' — says Mr. Fin- 
 lay (p. 462-3) — 'was imperfect, and shows that 
 Mahomet had neither contemplated extensive foreign 
 conquests, nor devoted the energies of his powerful 
 mind to the consideration of the questions of adminis- 
 tration which would arise out of the difficult task of 
 ruling a numerous and wealthy population, possessed 
 of property, but deprived of equal rights.' He then 
 shows how the whole power of the state settled into 
 the hands of a chief priest — systematically irre- 
 sponsible. When, therefore, that momentary state of 
 responsibility had passed away, which was created 
 (like the state of martial law) ' by national feelings, 
 military companionship, and exalted enthusiasm,' the 
 administration of the caliphs became ' far more op- 
 pressive than that of the Roman empire.' It is in 
 fact an insult to the majestic Romans, if we should 
 place them seriously in the balance with savages like 
 the Saracens.. The Romans were essentially the lead- 
 ers of civilization, according to the possibilities then 
 existing ; for their earliest usages and social forms 
 involved a high civilization, whilst promising a higher : 
 whereas all Moslem nations have described a petty 
 arch of national civility — soon reaching its apex, and 
 rapidly barbarizing backwards. This fatal gravitation 
 towards decay and decomposition in Mahometan insti- 
 tutions, which, at this day, exhibits to the gaze of man- 
 kind one uniform spectacle of Mahometan ruins, all
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 307 
 
 the great Moslem nations being already in a Strulhrug 
 state, and held erect only by the colossal support of 
 Christian powers, could not, as a reversionary evil, 
 have been healed by the Arabian prophet. His own 
 religious principles would have prevented that, for they 
 offer a permanent bounty on sensuality ; so that every 
 man who serves a Mahometan state faithfully and bril- 
 liantly at twenty-five, is incapacitated at thirty-five for 
 any further service, by the very nature of the rewards 
 which he receives from the state. Within a very few 
 years, every public servant is usually emasculated by 
 that unlimited voluptuousness which equally the Mos- 
 lem princes and the common Prophet of all Moslems 
 countenance as the proper object of human pursuit. 
 Here is the mortal ulcer of Islamism, which can never 
 cleanse itself from death and the odor of death. A 
 political ulcer would or might have found restoration 
 for itself; but this ulcer is higher and deeper: — it 
 lies in the religion, which is incapable of reform : it is 
 an ulcer reaching as high as the paradise which Islam- 
 ism promises, and deep as the hell which it creates. 
 We repeat, that Mahomet could not effectually have 
 neutralized a poison which he himself had introduced 
 into the circulation and life-blood of 'his I\Ioslem 
 economy. The false prophet was forced to reap as he 
 had sown. But an evil which is certain, may be 
 retarded ; and ravages which tend finally to confusion, 
 may be limited for many generations. Now, in the 
 case of the African provincials which we have noticed, 
 we see an original incapacity of Islamism, even in 
 its palmy condition, for amalgamating with any supe' 
 rior culture. And the specific action of Mahometan-
 
 308 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 ism in the African case, as contrasted with the Roman 
 economy which it supplanted, is thus exhibited by Mr. 
 Finlay in a most instructive passage, where every 
 negation on the Mahometan side is made to suggest the 
 countervailing usage positively on the side of the Ro- 
 mans. O children of Romulus ! how noble do you 
 appear when thus fiercely contrasted with the wild 
 boars who desolated your vineyards ! ' No local mag- 
 istrates elected by the people, and no parish priests 
 connected by their feelings and interests both with their 
 superiors and inferiors, bound society together by com- 
 mon ties ; and no system of legal administration, inde- 
 pendent of the military and financial authorities, pre- 
 served the property of the people from the rapacity of 
 the government.' 
 
 Such, we are to understand, was not the Mahometan 
 system ; such had been the system of Rome. ' Social- 
 ly and politically,' proceeds the passage, ' the Saracen 
 empire was little better than the Gothic, Hunnish, 
 and Avar monarchies ; and that it proved more dura- 
 ble, with almost equal oppression, is to be attributed to 
 the powerful enthusiasm of Mahomet's religion, which 
 tempered for some time its avarice and tyranny.' 
 The same sentiment is repeated still more emphati- 
 cally at p. 468 — ' The political policy of the Saracens 
 was of itself utterly barbarous ; and it only caught a 
 passing gleam of justice from the religious feeling of 
 their prophet's doctrines.' 
 
 Thus far, therefore, it appears that Mahometanism 
 is not much indebted to its too famous founder ; it 
 owes to him a principle, viz. the unity of God, which, 
 merely through a capital blunder, it fancies peculiar
 
 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 309 
 
 to itself. Nothing but the grossest ignorance in Ma- 
 homet, nothing but the grossest non-acquaintance 
 with Greek authors on the part of the Arabs, could 
 have created or sustained the delusion current amongst 
 that illiterate people — that it was themselves only who 
 rejected Polytheism. Had but one amongst the per- 
 sonal enemies of Mahomet been acquainted with 
 Greek, there was an end of the new religion in the 
 first moon of its existence. Once open the eyes of the 
 Arabs to the fact, that Christians had anticipated them 
 in this great truth of the divine unity ^and Mahometan- 
 ism could only have ranked as a subdivision of Chris- 
 tianity. Mahomet would have ranked only as a Chris- 
 tian heresiarch or schismatic ; such as Nestorius or 
 Marcian at one time, such as Arius or Pelagius at 
 another. In his character of theologian, therefore, Ma- 
 homet was simply the most memorable of blunderers, 
 supported in his blunders by the most unlettered of 
 nations. In his other character of legislator, we have 
 seen that already the earliest stages of Mahometan ex- 
 perience exposed decisively his ruinous imbecility. 
 Where a rude tribe offered no resistance to his system, 
 for the simple reason that their barbarism suggested no 
 motive for resistance, it could be no honor to prevail. 
 And where, on the other hand, a higher civilization 
 had furnished strong points of repulsion to his system, 
 it appears plainly that this pretended apostle of social 
 improvements had devised or hinted no readier mode 
 of conciliation than by putting to the sword all dissen- 
 tients. He starts as a theological reformer, with a 
 fancied defiance to the world which was no defiance 
 at all, being exactly what Christians had believed for
 
 310 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS. 
 
 six centuries, and Jews for six-and-twenty- He 
 starts as a political reformer, with a fancied concili- 
 ation to the world, which was no conciliation at all, 
 but was sure to provoke imperishable hostility where- 
 soever it had any effect at all. 
 
 We have thus reviewed some of the more splendid 
 aspects connected with Mr. Finlay's theme ; but that 
 theme, in its entire compass, is worthy of a far more 
 extended investigation than our own limits will allow, 
 or than the historical curiosity of the world (misdirect- 
 ed here as in so many other cases) has hitherto de- 
 manded. The Greek race, suffering a long occulta- 
 tion under the blaze of the Roman empire, into which 
 for a time it had been absorbed, but again emerging 
 from this blaze, and reassuming a distinct Greek 
 agency and influence, offers a subject great by its own 
 inherent attractions, and separately interesting by the 
 unaccountable neglect which it has suffered. To have 
 overlooked this subject, is one amongst the capital 
 oversights of Gibbon. To have rescued it from utter 
 oblivion, and to have traced an outline for its better 
 illumination, is the peculiar merit of Mr. Finlay. His 
 greatest fault is — to have been careless or slovenly in 
 the niceties of classical and philological precision. His 
 greatest praise, and a very great one indeed, is — to 
 have thrown the light of an original philosophic sa- 
 gacity upon a neglected province of history, indispen- 
 sable to the arrondissement of Pagan archseology.
 
 r
 
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