EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY 
 EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS 
 
 ESSAYS AND 
 BELLES LETTRES 
 
 NEWMAN'S SCOPE AND NATURE 
 
 OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 WILFRID WARD 
 
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On the SCOPE 
 
 NATURE f 
 UNIVERSITY 
 EDUCATION 
 ByCARDINAL 
 JOHN HENRY 
 NEWMAN 
 
 * I 
 
 LONDON &.TORONTO 
 PUBLISHED BYJMDENT 
 
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 BYE P DUTTON &L CO 
 
M 4 
 
. INTRODUCTION 
 
 CARDINAL NEWMAN'S lectures on the " Scope and 
 Nature of University Education " have quite speqjal 
 interest as a turning-point in his mental history. At 
 Oxford he was regarded as the head of the Reaction- 
 aries, the unflinching opponent of all " liberalism " in 
 Theology. In later life he was called by many a 
 " Liberal Catholic," and though he most strongly 
 repudiated that epithet he did admit in 1866 his 
 " enthusiastic agreement " with the general line of 
 thought of Montalembert and Lacordaire who gloried 
 in the title of "Liberal Catholic." Later on came a 
 phenomenon yet more surprising on the surface. Such 
 advocates of Modernism as Abb6 Loisy and M. Leroy 
 claimed Newman's philosophical thought as being in 
 line with their own speculations. The fact is that labels 
 and watchwords are constantly so inadequate as to 
 be quite misleading. Not all opponents of Liberalism 
 have been illiberal. All Newman's earlier career 
 emphasised his opposition to Liberalism. His later 
 years brought in evidence his true liberality. Newman 
 was never a Modernist, Jbut he was keenly alive to the 
 changes of outlook wrought by the thought and 
 research of modern days. One side of his thought was 
 emphasised at Oxford, another was developed in 
 later Catholic life. And the change was brought about 
 by the circumstances in which these lectures were 
 written. 
 
 The inadequacy of popular watchwords explains in 
 other cases also the gradual fusion of schools of thought 
 
 336300 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 which had been at first simply opposed to one another. 
 While liberal thinkers have claimed as their ally a man 
 whose opposition to Liberalism was the very keynote of 
 his mission at Oxford, we have seen a similar alliance in 
 later times between the descendants within the Church 
 of England of the two opposite schools which divided 
 Oxford in the forties. The High Church party which 
 long carried on the traditions of Tractarianism startled 
 the world in 1889 by a manifesto on behalf of breadth 
 in theology the famous Lux Mundi. The writers I 
 allude to singled out especially the subject of Biblical 
 inspiration and the historical treatment of dogma, 
 both of which had been exclusively associated in 
 earlier years with those implacable foes of Tractarian- 
 ism, the disciples of Dr. Arnold. The old opposition 
 in matters theological was between the High Church 
 and the Broad Church, though the phrase " Broad 
 Church " was subsequent to Newman's day. But Lux 
 Mundi, whose authors all claimed to be High Church- 
 men, was as broad as it was high in its theology. It 
 differed from Broad Church theology in retaining the 
 idea of the Catholic Church, which the Oxford Move- 
 ment had brought into evidence, as of paramount 
 importance both in theology and in the philosophy of 
 belief. 
 
 Newman never exhibited the highly speculative 
 vein apparent in Lux Mundi. But throughout his 
 opposition to unrestrained theological Liberalism, a 
 Liberalism which threw overboard the idea of a cor- 
 porate church and the sacredness of tradition, he had 
 been alive to the necessity of facing fearlessly the new 
 outlook presented by advancing science and research. 
 We can see this clearly in the first of the Oxford 
 viii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 University Sermons preached when he was only twenty- 
 five years old. In the days of the Oxford Movement 
 no doubt he was a party man and his party was in a 
 sense reactionary. But to careful readers of- the Uni- 
 versity Sermons and the Essay on Development the 
 width of his outlook was quite apparent. His concep- 
 tion of the development of Christian doctrine as 
 gradually bringing into view fresh aspects of truth 
 really made room for the advancement of secular 
 knowledge, its gradual reconciliation with the essence 
 of traditional Catholic truth, and the necessary 
 modifications in the analysis of that truth. What 
 changed with him was, as I have said, not so much 
 his views as his party and his emphasis. He had 
 opposite dangers to face in the earlier and the later 
 period. At Oxford he feared that Christianity would 
 be swept away by the tide of rationalistic Liberalism 
 which lost sight of the profound truths contained in 
 the Christian tradition and derived from revelation. 
 In later years his fear was exactly the opposite. He 
 was alive to the danger lest theological narrowness 
 might be an equally dangerous opponent to Christi- 
 anity by bringing about an apparent alliance between 
 Orthodoxy and Obscurantism. The lectures here 
 published mark the point at which this change of 
 emphasis began. Trhey are one long plea for the com- 
 patibility of a complete culture of mind and all the 
 frankness it entails with adherence to the Catholic 
 faith. He was, as Rector of a Catholic University, face 
 to face with the necessity of marking out for sharp- 
 witted young men an attitude towards science and 
 theology which was entirely reasonable. The task 
 before him was the formation in the undergraduate of 
 ix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 a mentality which should be at once thoroughly edu- 
 cated and thoroughly religious. He declares in his own 
 preface to these lectures that heroes not regard a 
 University as concerned with research, only witii * 
 teaching and education. But when he entered on the 
 duties of his office he saw that this hard and fast line 
 could not be drawn. A thoughtful Catholic must take 
 account of problems which every other thoughtful 
 man was discussing. It was impossible in a time of 
 constant scientific movement to disregard or be 
 indifferent to the results of research. 
 
 The lectures on the Scope and Nature of University 
 Education, therefore, led up to his great plea for in- 
 tellectual liberty in a University. That plea is con- 
 tained in the lecture on Christianity and Scientific 
 Investigation which is published in the larger volume 
 known as The Idea of a University, and is given at the 
 end of the present book^In the face of constantly 
 advancing science and criticism the attitude of the 
 thoughtful Catholic in their regard was an urgent ques- 
 tion, and he hoped gradually to define that attitude in 
 a University which should contain experts in all the 
 sciences, and which being a learned body might consent 
 to allow the complete freedom of discussion which is 
 indispensable to true scientific progress. The danger of 
 scandal and of upsetting the popular mind by novel 
 views would be reduced to a minimum in discus- 
 sions conducted not by a mixed body of learned and 
 unlearned in the periodical press, but among specialists 
 in a University. Thus tl|e conception of a University f 
 as a place in which young men should form habits of I 
 frank cultivated and accurate thought was enlarged 1 
 in the lecture on Christianity and Scientific Investiga- j 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 tion so as to include the fuller idea of a great institution 
 which should gradually define the attitude of a culti- 
 vated Catholic towards scientific investigation and 
 work out some approach to a synthesis between all 
 the sciences, including the science of theology. Un- 
 doubtedly the mediaeval Universities had in a very 
 different state of the scientific world performed this 
 function, and his ambition was that a Catholic Univer- 
 sity might once again perform a similar work in the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 / " What an empire is in political history," he writes 
 in the lecture of which I speak, " such is a University 
 in the sphere of philosophy and research. It is, as I 
 V have said, the high protecting power of all knowledge 
 ^ and science, of fact and principle, of inquiry and dis- 
 covery, of experiment and speculation; it maps out 
 the territory of the intellect, and sees that the boun- 
 daries of each province are religiously respected, and 
 that there is neither encroachment nor surrender on 
 any side. It acts as umpire between truth and truth, 
 and, taking into account the nature and importance of 
 each, assigns to all their due order of precedence. It 
 maintains no one department of thought exclusively, 
 however ample and noble; and it sacrifices none. It 
 is deferential and loyal, according to their respective 
 weight, to the claims of literature, of physical research, 
 of history, of metaphysics, of theological science. It is 
 impartial towards them all, and promotes each in its 
 own place and for its own object. It is ancillary cer- 
 tainly, and of necessity, to the Catholic Church; but 
 in the same way that one of the (Queen's judges is an 
 officer of the Queen's, and nevertheless determines 
 xi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 certain legal proceedings between the Queen and her 
 subjects. . . . Its immediate end (with which alone 
 we have here to do) is to secure the due disposition, 
 according to one sovereign order, and the cultivation in 
 that order, of all the provinces and methods of thought 
 which the human intellect has created. In this point 
 of view, its several professors are like the ministers of 
 various political powers at one court or conference. 
 They represent their respective sciences, and attend 
 to the private interests of those sciences respectively; 
 and, should dispute arise between those sciences, they 
 are the persons to talk over and arrange it, without 
 risk of extravagant pretensions on any side, of angry 
 collision, or of popular commotion. A liberal philo- 
 sophy becomes the habit of minds thus exercised; 
 a breadth and spaciousness of thought, in which lines, 
 seemingly parallel, may converge at leisure, and 
 principles, recognised as incommensurable, may be 
 safely antagonistic." 
 
 Whether Newman's idea will ever be practicable it 
 is hard to say; this must largely depend on the readi- 
 ness of Rome to accord to universities something of 
 the weight and influence which they had in the Middle 
 Ages. The idea, however, was well worth suggesting, 
 and if it could be realised its importance can hardly be 
 exaggerated. Such an institution as he conceived would 
 constitute a reliable authority where mere private judg- 
 ment might in most~cases be hopelessly at fault for 
 individuals cannot be specialists all round. In the 
 ever-shifting intellectual scene wrought by the active 
 thought and research of our day Christians fall chiefly 
 into two parties. There are on the one hand the 
 Xti 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 independent intellectual freelances who with inevit- 
 ably inadequate knowledge judge entirely for them- 
 selves on these complex questions, and on the other 
 hand there are the more anxious and narrow spirits 
 who adhere to traditionary views and shrink from 
 change. This latter class includes many who are little 
 alive to facts brought to light by modern research 
 which are to frank minds simply undeniable. This 
 general division holds good outside the Roman Catholic 
 body, but it is that body which Newman had especially 
 in his mind. In the Catholic Church itself authority 
 normally acts, as Newman points out in the Apologia, 
 as a check on the developments which are desired by 
 eager intellectual reformers who are generally some- 
 what undiscriminating and one -sided, though they 
 may be pioneers of true advance. Thus in appearance, 
 at all events, authority and enlightened thought are 
 ranged on opposite sides. But Newman sought to 
 institute a subordinate authority which should repre- 
 sent simply and solely genuine knowledge and thought 
 exercised in the interests of truth. Such an authority 
 might inspire the freelances with respect. The supreme 
 tribunals in Rome itself are quite inevitably influenced 
 not solely by the interests of scientific truth, but to a 
 great extent by considerations of ecclesiastical exipedi- 
 ency L And in cases where the interests of truth are 
 urgently pressing, a temporising policy on their part 
 might exasperate the intellectual minority. Truth is, 
 as Newman points out in his preface to the Via Media, 
 only one of the three interests which the Church 
 safeguards. She has to consider also the interests of 
 devotion, and the interests of rulej and, as he adds, the 
 guiding principle of the jruler is expediency. Such a 
 ~ ~ ""' """"xiu 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 University as Newman contemplated, on the other 
 hand, would reach its synthesis or its practical modus 
 vivendi between theology and modern research guided 
 solely by scientific interests theology, of course, 
 being included among the sciences. The results thus 
 reached would place at the disposal of Home a body 
 of probable conclusions which must command the 
 respect of scholars and thoughtful men. A letter 
 written by Newman to myself only two years before he 
 died showed that this idea never deserted him. If it 
 could be achieved it would make this great difference 
 in the situation, that Home, instead of feeling that the 
 immediate alternative lay between taking sides in 
 these controversies either with theologians of exces- 
 sively conservative tendencies or else with the highly 
 speculative theorists like Abb6 Loisy, would have 
 a third course ready marked out; Roman tribunals 
 could utilise in their decisions the results of the dis- 
 cussions between the learned men in the Catholic 
 University. 
 
 The bearing of this on matters which have anxiously 
 interested the public in recent years is obvious. The 
 history of Modernism would have been widely different 
 had Newman's ideal been fully realised. Highly sensi- 
 tive and easily overwrought intellectual natures may 
 be driven to extremes by a lack of understanding in 
 authoritative quarters of the problems which exercise 
 them intensely. It was a sense of this danger which 
 led many of us so eagerly to desire the formation of a 
 Biblical commission which should fulfil in the depart- 
 ment of Biblical exegesis the functions of Newman's 
 ideal University. But such a commission seated in 
 Rome itself becomes of its nature official. Being 
 xiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 official, considerations of expediency are sure to 
 prevail at times over considerations of intellectual 
 truth, and it tends to conform to the law which New- 
 man recognised, that Rome must be conservative; 
 that Rome's normal function is to be a brake^on 
 development, l^he Jess responsible and less final 
 authority of a University would be in quite a different 
 position. Constant pressure would be exercised on 
 the teaching body by the enquiring minds of thought- 
 ful young men which needed reasonable satisfaction. 
 Such young men desire to be at once religious and 
 rational. Cheap apologetics which do not carry 
 genuine conviction would inevitably be set aside, and it 
 would be impossible to ignore patent facts in the early 
 history of the Church or the text of the Bible. If the 
 presence of first-rate experts were secured, a rational 
 and coherent body of thought must gradually be 
 wrought out by the intercourse between them. The 
 larger -minded theologians and the Christian men of 
 science would find a modus vivendi. This was the ideal 
 of Cardinal Mercier in founding the Institut de St. 
 Thomas at Louvain, and it lay at the root of his saying 
 that every theologian should be in our day also a man 
 of science. 
 
 If such a body were habitually tolerated by Roman 
 authority men like Loisy and Tyrrell, instead of being 
 goaded to extremes by total lack of sympathy in 
 authoritative quarters, might conceivable have taken 
 their place in the good work, content to bear a part in 
 it and contributing their conclusions to the common 
 stock of discussion, but ready to refrain from insist- 
 ing on them in instances where no interpretation of 
 Catholic theology could admit them. Such scholars 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 living in the society of other learned men who under- 
 stood them would not improbably have become 
 genuinely more moderate from the presence of an 
 opposition which was really scientific. There is much 
 in Tyrrell's history which points to this possibility, 
 but anyhow, even assuming that he and Loisy were 
 men who would inevitably have broken with Catholic 
 teaching however interpreted, there are beyond ques- 
 tion many whom the existence of such a University as 
 Newman desired and its respectful recognition by 
 authority would affect in the way I have described. 
 It is hardly too much to say that the Encyclical 
 Pascendi would not have been written had New- 
 man's ideal been realised, for the policy marked out 
 by that Encyclical might easily lead to the almost 
 indiscriminate proscription of ^ novelty as danger- 
 \V>us. Ilm tiot denying that theologians by collating 
 this Encyclical with other documents equally authori- 
 tative may find that a satisfactory via media has 
 sanction from Home. Indeed, shortly after its publica- 
 tion the Professor of Biblical exegesis at the Institut 
 Catholique in Paris pointed this out in a remarkable 
 lecture. But the Encyclical Pascendi read by itself is 
 an eloquent witness to just that state of things I have 
 spoken of which Newman desired to remedy, namely, 
 that Rome felt herself to be solicited by opposite 
 extreme parties; that she felt the practical alternative 
 to lie between sanctioning unbridled liberty and taking 
 measures of the utmost severity against innovation. 
 This arose from the absence of a recognised body of 
 discriminating thought in these complex questions. 
 The work of discriminating is arduous, and can only 
 be done by learned men. It must be a work of time, it 
 xvi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 cannot be extemporised to meet an emergency. A 
 University with its continuous life of thought and 
 learning is just the machinery that is required. It is 
 not a court which is called u]?on to hear evidence and 
 decide at a moment of crisis; it is an ever -living, ever- 
 working machine which is constantly at work on these 
 problems and has first-rate experts at its disposal. 
 
 In point of fact, Newman's exposition of the func- 
 tions of the ideal Catholic University was an 
 
 portion of his vindication of the claims of authority 
 against the claims of private judgment. His early 
 quarrel with the liberals was that they strove to en- 
 force the speculation of the hour against the gradually 
 accumulating knowledge due to the experience of the 
 race. They ignored those grounds of belief which had 
 their roots in experience and were beyond the access 
 of the individual reason. This view is apparent in a 
 remarkable letter to his mother written as early as 
 1829. The contest became primarily ecclesiastical and 
 theological when the Oxford Movement began in 
 1833. But the philosophy which underlay his views 
 was the philosophy of Coleridge. Like Coleridge he 
 vindicated the claims of tradition as representing the 
 thought of great minds and the revelation of Christ 
 Himself. Tradition thus supplies the human race with 
 knowledge not provable by the individual reason. The 
 mind of the ages was an authority which the individual 
 thinker had no right to set aside because he could not 
 establish by his own demonstration what was really based 
 on the experience and insight of many minds in the past. 
 The corporate conviction which had its roots in past 
 experience, and had stood the test of later experience, 
 was an authoritative basis on which the individual 
 xvii 6 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I 
 
 thinker could work. It was only when later experience 
 
 fwas at variance with traditional belief s that their inter- 
 pretation must be modified. The business of the indivi- 
 dual was to continue the work of his predecessors and 
 correct it in detail, not to wreck it. But he was to 
 continue this work, as his ancestors had wrought it 
 i out, by co-operative reasoning which should issue in 
 i a body of more or less authoritative conclusions. While 
 i he opposed " reason " when it meant the individual's 
 / private judgment when it presumed to set aside the 
 t acquisitions of the race, he regarded " reason " as abso- 
 i lutely supreme in the domain of science. For science 
 was itself organised experience. And he contemplated 
 the erection of a fresh authority which should represent 
 contemporary thought and science and should correct 
 and enlarge, but not set aside the legacy we have 
 received from the past. 
 
 Hence the apparently opposite language he uses at 
 different times in regard to human " reason," which 
 seems at first sight so perplexing. He seems at once 
 to be the critic of reason and its staunch supporter. 
 The " usurpations of reason " were a favourite theme 
 in Oxford days. These usurpations are dwelt on even 
 fin the Apologia. The tendency of the human reason 
 freely exercised is, he there maintains, to destroy 
 religious belief. That he used such language in 1864 
 is a fact which should give pause to any idea that there 
 was a real change in Newman's fundamental views. 
 What he had said in 1839 he repeated in 1864. On the 
 other hand, in the lecture I am considering he regards 
 human reason as supreme. If it really reaches a 
 demonstration which is at variance with received 
 religious opinions it means, he contends, that those 
 xviii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 opinions though they may have been even supposed 
 to be part of revealed truth, are really only opinions 
 which have become confused by Christians with 
 revelation. But grave innovations on received views I 
 cannot wisely be allowed to prevail on the strength of ^ < 
 he ipse dixit of a private individual. The ideal Uni- 
 versity which welcomes di cussion among experts is J 
 the terrain in which such conclusions gradually become^^^ 
 corporate and authoritative. It is the intellectual 
 authority of the day which at once uses and controls 
 private judgment, as the accumulations of past experi- 
 ence themselves are the outcome of co-operation among 
 many minds which have mutually corrected each 
 other. The Essay on Development in its early chapters 
 describes this co-operation in the past in the domain 
 of theology itself. The lecture on Christianity and 
 Scientific Investigation describes it in the present in 
 the field of all the sciences, theology included. 
 
 "... I am making no outrageous request," he 
 writes, " when, in the name of a University, I ask 
 religious writers, jurists, anatomists, physiologists, 
 chemists, geologists, and historians, to go on quietly, 
 and in a neighbourly way, in their own respective lines 
 of speculation, research and experiment, with full 
 faith in the consistency of that multiform truth, 
 which they share between them, in a generous con- 
 fidence that they will be ultimately consistent, one 
 and all, in their combined results, though there may 
 be momentary collisions, awkward appearances, and 
 many forebodings and prophecies of contrariety, and 
 at all times things hard to the Imagination, though y 
 not, I repeat, to the Reason. It surely is not asking 
 xix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 them a great deal to beg of them since they are forced 
 to admit mysteries in the truths of Revelation, taken 
 by themselves, and in the truths of Reason, taken by 
 themselves to beg of them, I say, to keep the peace, 
 to live in good -will, and to exercise equanimity, if, 
 when Nature and Revelation are compared with each 
 other, there be, as I have said, discrepancies not in 
 the issue, but in the reasonings, the circumstances, 
 the associations, the anticipations, the accidents, 
 proper to their respective teachings. ... He who 
 believes Revelation with that absolute faith which is 
 the prerogative of a Catholic, is not the nervous 
 creature who startles at every sudden sound, and is 
 fluttered by every strange or novel appearance which 
 I meets his eyes. He has no sort of apprehension, he 
 ' laughs at the idea, that anything can be discovered 
 {by any other scientific method, wJuok "can contradict 
 any one of the dogmas of his religion. He knows full 
 fwell tnereisTio'scieSS^whifttever, but, in the course of 
 its extension, runs the risk of infringing, without any 
 meaning of offence on its own part, the path of other 
 sciences: and he knows also that, if there be any one 
 science which, from its sovereign and unassailable 
 position, can calmly bear such unintentional collisions 
 on the part of the children of earth, it is Theology. He 
 is sure, and nothing shall make him doubt, that, if 
 anything seems to be proved by astronomer, or geolo- 
 gist, or chronologist, or antiquarian, or ethnologist, in 
 contradiction to the dogmas of faith, that point will 
 eventually turn out, first, not to be proved, or, secondly, 
 not contradictory, or thirdly, not contradictory to 
 anything really revealed, but to something which has 
 been confused with revelation." 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I have already alluded to the famous passage in the 
 Apologia in which Newman maintains that the human 
 reason where it has a free career practically issues in 
 infidelity in matters of religious belief, and on the other 
 hand I have noted the absolute trust in the human 
 reason shown in the lectures of which I am speaking. 
 A further word of explanation must be given as to this 
 contrast. In the Apologia he expressly says that he 
 is not considering the human reason lawfully exercised 
 so considered he admits that it leads to truth. He 
 is regarding the reason as it is practically exercised in 
 fallen man, as tainted by original sin, as perverted by 
 passion and as exceeding its lawful limits and profess- 
 ing to judge of the truths of revelation, which belong 
 really to a sphere above its competence. In the Dublin 
 lecture, on the contrary, he is dealing with lawful exer- 
 cise of the reason in the terrain of science. Here the 
 vices of the reason referred to in the Apologia have 
 practically no place. It is a sphere in which the reason 
 is competent to come to its own conclusions. In such 
 a sphere reason is not confused by an atmosphere of 
 human passion, but works in the dry light of scientific 
 enquiry. No passage in the lecture on Christianity and 
 Scientific Investigation is more memorable than that 
 in which he exhorts the scientific specialists in his 
 ideal University to be confident that those free dis- 
 cussions which he advocates will find their issue in 
 truth. 
 
 " What I would urge upon every one, whatever \J 
 
 may be his particular line of research what I would 
 
 urge upon men of Science in their thoughts of Theology, 
 
 what I would venture to recommend to theologians, 
 
 xxi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 when their attention is drawn to the subject of 
 scientific investigations is a great and firm belief in 
 the sovereignty of Truth. Error may flourish for a 
 time, but Truth will prevail in the end. The only effect 
 of error ultimately is to promote Truth. Theories, 
 speculations, hypotheses, are started; perhaps they 
 are to die, still not before they have suggested ideas 
 better than themselves. These better ideas are taken 
 up in turn by other men, and, if they do not lead to 
 truth, nevertheless they lead to what is still nearer the 
 truth than themselves; and thus knowledge on the 
 whole makes progress. The errors of some minds in 
 scientific investigation are more fruitful than the truths 
 of others. A Science seems making no progress, but to 
 
 , abound in failures, yet imperceptibly all the time it is 
 
 ' advancing." 
 
 The remarkable contrast in Newman's language 
 concerning reason in the two contexts I am considering 
 is completed and further explained in the last lecture 
 he ever gave at Dublin, delivered before the Dublin 
 Medical School. In that lecture he points out that the 
 phenomena which are the basis of morals and religion 
 may be obscured in the human mind by passion or 
 moral fault or other causes. Reason then becomes 
 powerless in dealing with them, for we cannot reason 
 on elements of knowledge of which we have lost sight. 
 Physical nature on the other hand, which is the subject 
 matter of scientific reasoning, is always unmistakably 
 present. Hence the wide contrast between the func- 
 tions of reason in the two cases. Here again it is import- 
 ant to give his own words as the point is too subtle to 
 risk a summary. 
 
 xxii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 " The physical nature lies before us, patent to the 
 sight, ready to the touch, appealing to the senses in so 
 unequivocal a way that the science which is founded 
 upon it is as real to us as the fact of our personal 
 existence. But the phenomena, which are the basis of 
 morals and religion, have nothing of this luminous 
 evidence. Instead of being obtruded upon our notice, 
 so that we cannot possibly overlook them, they are 
 dictates either of conscience or of faith. They are 
 faint shadows and tracings, certain indeed, but delicate, 
 fragile and almost evanescent, which the mind recog- 
 nises at one time, not at another, discerns when it is 
 calm, loses when it is in agitation. The reflection of 
 sky and mountains in the lake is a proof that sky and 
 mountains are around it; but the twilight, or the mist, 
 or the sudden storm hurries away the beautiful image, 
 which leaves behind it no memorial of what it was. 
 Something like this are the moral law and the informa- 
 tions of faith, as they present themselves to individual 
 minds. Who can deny the existence of conscience? 
 Who does not feel the force of its injunctions ? But how 
 dim is the illumination in which it is invested, and 
 how feeble its influence, compared with that evidence 
 of sight and touch which is the foundation of physical 
 science ! How easily can we be talked out of our clearest 
 views of duty, how does this or that moral precept 
 crumble into nothing when we rudely handle it, how 
 does the fear of sin pass off from us as quickly as the 
 glow of modesty dies away from the countenance, and 
 then we say, * It is all superstition ! ' However, after 
 a time we look round, and then to our surprise we see, 
 as before, the same law of duty, the same moral pre- 
 cepts, the same protests against sin, appearing over 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 against us, in their old places, as if they never had 
 been brushed away, like the divine handwriting upon 
 the wall at the banquet. Then perhaps we approach 
 them rudely, and inspect them irreverently, and accost 
 them sceptically, and away they go again, like so many 
 spectres, shining in their cold beauty, but not present- 
 big themselves bodily to us, for our inspection, so to 
 say, of their hands and feet. And thus these awful, 
 supernatural, bright, majestic, delicate apparitions, 
 much as we may in our heart acknowledge their sove- 
 reignty, are no match as a foundation of science for 
 the hard, palpable, material facts which make up the 
 province of physics." 
 
 He goes on to claim as among the most important 
 functions of the Catholic Church that it guards and 
 keeps before men those religious truths of which 
 human nature left to itself may so easily lose sight. 
 The Church is, as he expresses it in the Apologia, " the 
 concrete representative of things invisible." 
 
 I have now, I think, taken a fairly complete view of 
 the lines of thought worked out by Newman inM^ 
 lectures at the Catholic University of Dublin. |Tne 
 problem before him was to make men good Catholics 
 and thoroughly educated men. And he had to outline 
 their attitude towards the modern world of thought 
 and research and to erect an authority which would 
 enable them to take a reasonable view (hi the rough) 
 of questions whose exact solutionjjguld only be reached 
 by the co-operation of specialists^ While in his early 
 career he had vindicated the^tSmolic Church as an/{ ; 
 authority preserving and enforcing religious truthj j 
 against the speculations of private judgment, hi Dublin 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 he urged the value of a standing board of experts as an 
 authority which should set aside the vagaries of private 
 judgment in the scientific domain, theology entering 
 into his scheme as one of the sciences. In each case 
 he sought to control private judgment by corporate 
 judgment to which individuals should minister. In * 
 the first period the authority he invoked told for 
 conservatism, in the last it told for progress. These 
 opposite roles arose from the widely different circum- 
 stances in which he found himself, but nevertheless 
 they revealed fundamental unity of thought. At 
 Oxford his mission was to overthrow individualistic 
 liberalism which was tantamount to rationalism, and to 
 vindicate against it the traditions of the corporate 
 Church. Hence he was conservative. In Dublin he 
 strove to counteract the influence of those who failed 
 to look frankly at the trend of science owing to their 
 extreme conservatism in theology. He desired to build 
 up in the rising generation minds which should be at \ 
 once sensitively alive to the world of fact, and Catholic / 
 in religious belief. Consequently he was at this period 
 on the whole an opponent of the conservative theo- 
 logians. At Oxford he had deprecated free discussion 
 of the truths of revelation as rationalistic; at Dublin 
 he advocated the freest discussion as indispensable in 
 the terrain of science, including scientific theology. 
 At Oxford his object had been to vindicate the 
 corporate Church as a standing witness to religious 
 truth. In Dublin his object was to erect a standing 
 committee of experts as an intellectual guide for 
 educated Catholics. At both periods he was the friend 
 of reason, the opponent of private judgment and of 
 rationalism. The wide difference between the two 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 periods in his rhetoric involved no difference of logic. 
 The animus was different, for at Oxford the liberal 
 school aroused his apprehensions for the safety of 
 Christianity, while at Dublin he feared lest Cardinal 
 Cullen might promote a system of education which 
 should be frankly Obscurantist. The writings of the 
 Oxford period gave the basis of his faith, notably the 
 University Sermons, and portions of the Essay on 
 Development. The Dublin period indicated the lines 
 of the superstructure, that is to say, the intellectual 
 position, faith being supposed, which an educated 
 Christian ought to entertain towards the thought and 
 science of his day. 
 
 I have in this Introduction travelled far from the 
 immediate argument of the lectures on the Scope and 
 Nature of University Education, because their interest 
 is so greatly enhanced by the lines of thought to which 
 they led Newman under pressure of his experience 
 in the University. They need the supplement 
 which they led him to write in order that we may 
 understand their significance. This fact, I think, 
 explains a remark in his prefatory note. He says, that 
 the lectures satisfied him less than anything he had 
 published. I venture to think that the cause of this 
 was just what I am pointing out, that they could not 
 stand by themselves as satisfactory without the 
 development of those further considerations which I 
 have attempted to exhibit in this Introduction. Taken 
 in conjunction with the Essay on Christianity and 
 Scientific Investigation, the lectures on " The Scope 
 and Nature of University Education" are second in 
 importance to none of Newman's writings. 
 
 WILFRID WARD. 
 
 October, 1915. xxvi 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The Arians of the Fourth Century, 1833; 29 Tracts to 
 Tracts for the Times, 1834-1841; Lyra Apostolica, 1834; 
 Elucidations of Dr. Hampden's Theological Statements, 
 1836; Parochial Sermons, 6 vols., 1837-1842; A Letter to 
 the Rev. G. Faussett on Certain Points of Faith and Practice, 
 1838; Lectures on Justification, 1838; Sermons on Sub- 
 jects of the Day, 1842; Plain Sermons, 1843; Sermons 
 before the University of Oxford, 1843; The Cistercian Saints 
 of England, 1844; An Essay on the Development of Chris- 
 tian Doctrine, 1845; Loss and Gain, 1848; Discourse 
 addressed to Mixed Congregations, 1849; Lectures on Cer- 
 tain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching, 
 1850; Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in 
 England, 1851; The Idea of a University, 1852; Callista, 
 1856; Mr. Kingsley and Dr. Newman, 1864; Apologia pro 
 Vita Sua, 1864; The Dream of Gerontius, 1865; Letter to 
 the Rev. E. B. Pusey on his Eirenicon, 1866; Verses on 
 Various Occasions, 1868; An Essay in Aid of a Grammar 
 of Assent, 1870; Letter addressed to His Grace the Duke of 
 Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation, 1875 ; 
 Meditations and Devotions, 1893. 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES. By W. Meynell, 1890; by Dr. Wm. Barry* 
 1890; by R. H. Hutton, 1891; Early History of Cardinal 
 Newman, by F. W. Newman, 1891; Letters and Corre- 
 spondence of J. H. Newman, during his life in the English 
 Church (with a brief autobiography), edited by Miss Anne 
 Mozley, 1891; Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman, by 
 Dr. E. A. Abbott, 1892; as a Musician, by E. Bellasis, 1892; 
 by A. R. Waller and G. H. S. Burrow, 1901 ; an Apprecia- 
 tion, by Dr. A. Whyte, 1901 ; Addresses to Cardinal New- 
 man, with his Replies, edited by Rev. W. P. Neville, 1905; 
 by W. Ward (in Ten Personal Studies), 1908. 
 
 The Standard Life, by Wilfrid Ward, appeared in 1912. 
 
 xxvii 
 
Hospes cram, et collegtstts Me. 
 
 IN GRATEFUL NEVER-DYING REMEMBRANCE 
 OF HIS MANY FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS, 
 
 LIVING AND DEAD, 
 
 AT HOME AND ABROAD, 
 
 IN IRELAND, GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, 
 
 IN BELGIUM, GERMANY, POLAND, ITALY, AND MALTA, 
 
 IN NORTH AMERICA, AND OTHER COUNTRIES, 
 
 WHO, BY THEIR RESOLUTE PRAYERS AND PENANCES, 
 
 AND BY THEIR GENEROUS STUBBORN EFFORTS, 
 
 AND BY THEIR MUNIFICENT ALMS, 
 
 HAVE BROKEN FOR HIM THE STRESS 
 
 OF A GREAT ANXIETY, 
 
 THESE DISCOURSES, 
 
 OFFERED TO OUR LADY AND ST. PHILIP ON ITS RISE, 
 
 COMPOSED UNDER ITS PRESSURE, 
 
 FINISHED ON THE EVE OF ITS TERMINATION, 
 
 ARE RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 IN FEST. PRJESENT 
 
 B M. V. 
 NOV. 21, 1852 
 
 XXIX 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 THE following Discourses were written for delivery 
 before Catholic audiences in Dublin in the year 1852, 
 preparatory to the Author's taking upon himself the 
 honourable and responsible office of Rector of the new 
 Irish Catholic University. They belong to a time, 
 when he was tried both by sorrow and by anxiety, 
 and by indisposition also, and required a greater effort 
 to write, and gave him less satisfaction when written, 
 than any of his Volumes. He has in this new Edition 
 attempted in some respects to remedy what he feels to 
 be their imperfection. He has removed from the text 
 much temporary, collateral, or superfluous matter, and 
 has thus reduced it to the size of his two other volumes 
 on University Teaching, and that with advantage, as 
 he conceives, both to the force, and to the clearness 
 of his argument. 
 
 Nov. 9, 1859. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION ...... v ii 
 
 PREFACE ..... . xx j x 
 
 DISCOURSE I 
 THEOLOGY A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE . . l 
 
 DISCOURSE II 
 
 BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON OTHER BRANCHES OF 
 
 KNOWLEDGE ..... 34 
 
 DISCOURSE III 
 BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 ON THEOLOGY ..... 62 
 
 DISCOURSE IV 
 
 LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE ITS OWN END . . 90 
 
 DISCOURSE V 
 
 LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO 
 
 LEARNING . . . . . HQ 
 
 xxxi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 DISCOURSE VI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO 
 
 PROFESSIONAL . . . . .144 
 
 DISCOURSE VII 
 
 LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO 
 
 RELIGION . . . . . .173 
 
 DISCOURSE VIII 
 
 DUTIES OF THE CHURCH TOWARDS LIBERAL 
 
 KNOWLEDGE ...... 207 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION . 235 
 A LIST OF DATES IN CARDINAL NEWMAN'S LIFE . 261 
 
PREFACE 
 
 view which these Discourses take of a 
 University is of the following kind : that 
 it is a place of teaching universal knowledge. 
 This implies that its object is, on the one hand, intel- 
 lectual, not moral ; and, on the other, that it is the 
 diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than the 
 advancement. If its object were scientific and philo- 
 sophical discovery, I do not see why a University 
 should have students ; if religious training, I do not 
 see how it can be the seat of literature and science. 
 
 Such is a University in its essence, and independently 
 of its relation to the Church. But, practically speak- 
 ing, it cannot fulfil its object duly, such as I have 
 described it, without the Church's assistance ; or, to 
 use the theological term, the Church is necessary for 
 its integrity. Not that its main characters are changed 
 by this incorporation : it still has the office of intel- 
 lectual education ; but the Church steadies it in the 
 performance of that office. 
 
 Such are the main principles of the Discourses 
 which follow ; though it would be unreasonable for 
 me to expect that I have treated so large and im- 
 portant a field of thought with the fulness and precision 
 necessary to secure me from incidental misconceptions 
 of my meaning on the part of the reader. It is true, 
 there is nothing novel or singular in the argument 
 
PREFACE 
 
 which I have been pursuing, but this does not protect 
 me from such misconceptions ; for the very circum- 
 stance that the views I have been delineating are not 
 original with me may lead to false notions as to my 
 relations in opinion towards those from whom I 
 happened in the first instance to learn them, and 
 may cause me to be interpreted by the objects or 
 sentiments of schools to which I should be simply 
 opposed. 
 
 For instance, some persons may be tempted to 
 complain that I have servilely followed the English 
 idea of a University, to the disparagement of that 
 Knowledge which I profess to be so strenuously up- 
 holding ; and they may anticipate that an academical 
 system, formed upon my model, will result in nothing 
 better or higher than in the production of that anti- 
 quated variety of human nature and remnant of 
 feudalism called " a gentleman." l Now, I have 
 anticipated this charge in various parts of my 
 discussion ; if, however, any Catholic is found to 
 prefer it (and to Catholics of course this Volume 
 is addressed), I would have him first of all ask 
 himself the previous question, what he conceives to be 
 the reason contemplated by the Holy See in recom- 
 mending just now to the Irish Church the establish- 
 ment of a Catholic University ? Has the Supreme 
 Pontiff recommended it for the sake of the Sciences, 
 which are to be the matter, or rather of the Students, 
 who are to be the subjects, of its teaching ? Has 
 he any obligation or duty at all towards secular 
 knowledge as such ? Would it become his Apos- 
 tolical Ministry, and his descent from the Fisherman, 
 
 1 Vid. Huber's " English Universities," London, 1843, 
 vol. ii., part i, pp. 321, &c. 
 
 xxxiv 
 
PREFACE 
 
 to have a zeal for the Baconian or other philosophy of 
 man for its own sake ? Is the Vicar of Christ bound 
 by office or by vow to be the preacher of the theory 
 of gravitation, or a martyr for electro-magnetism ? 
 Would he be acquitting himself of the dispensation 
 committed to him if he were smitten with an abstract 
 love of these matters, however true, or beautiful, or 
 ingenious, or useful ? Or rather, does he not con- 
 template such achievements of the intellect, as far as he 
 contemplates them, solely and simply in their relation 
 to the interests of Revealed Truth ? Surely, what he 
 does he does for the sake of Religion ; if he looks 
 with satisfaction on strong temporal governments, 
 which promise perpetuity, it is for the sake of Reli- 
 gion ; and if he encourages and patronises art and 
 science, it is for the sake of Religion. He rejoices 
 in the widest and most philosophical systems of intel- 
 lectual education, from an intimate conviction that 
 Truth is his real ally, as it is his profession ; and 
 that Knowledge and Reason are sure ministers to 
 Faith. 
 
 i ins being undeniable, it is plain that, when he sug- 
 gests to the Irish Hierarchy the establishment of a 
 University, his first and chief and direct object is, not 
 science, art, professional skill, literature, the discovery 
 of knowledge, but some benefit or other, by means 
 of literature and science, to his own children ; not 
 indeed their formation on any narrow or fantastic 
 type, as, for instance, that of an " English Gentleman " 
 may be called, but their exercise and growth in certain 
 habits, moral or intellectual. Nothing short of this 
 can be his aim, if, as becomes the Successor of the 
 Apostles, he is to be able to say with St. Paul, 
 " Non judicavi me scire aliquid inter vos, nibi Jesum 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Christum, et hunc crucifixum." Just as a commander 
 wishes to have tall and well-formed and vigorous 
 soldiers, not from any abstract devotion to the mili- 
 tary standard of height or age, but for the purposes of 
 war, and no one thinks it anything but natural and 
 praiseworthy in him to be contemplating, not abstract 
 qualities, but his own living and breathing men ; so, in 
 like manner, when the Church founds a University, she 
 is not cherishing talent, genius, or knowledge, for their 
 own sake, but for the sake of her children, with a 
 view to their spiritual welfare and their religious influ- 
 ence and usefulness, with the object of training them 
 to fill their respective posts in life better, and of making 
 them more intelligent, capable, active members of 
 society. 
 
 Nor can it justly be said that in thus acting she 
 sacrifices Science, and under a pretence of fulfilling 
 the duties of her mission, perverts a University from its 
 proper end, as soon as it is taken into account that 
 there are other institutions far more suited to act as 
 instruments of stimulating philosophical inquiry, and 
 extending the boundaries of our knowledge, than a 
 University. Such, for instance, are the literary and 
 scientific " Academies," which are so celebrated in 
 Italy and France, and which have frequently been 
 connected with Universities, as committees, or, as it 
 were, congregations or delegacies subordinate to them. 
 Thus the present Royal Society orginated in Charles 
 the Second's time, in Oxford ; such just now are the 
 Ashmolean and Architectural Societies in the same 
 seat of learning, which have risen in our own time. 
 Such, too, is the British Association, a migratory 
 body, which at least at times is found in the halls of 
 the Protestant Universities of the United Kingdom, 
 
PREFACE 
 
 and the faults of which lie, not in its exclusive de- 
 votion to science, but in graver matters which it is 
 irrelevant here to enter upon. Such again is the Anti- 
 quarian Society, the Royal Academy for the Fine 
 Arts, and others which might be mentioned. This, 
 then, is the sort of institution, which primarily con- 
 templates Science itself, and not students ; and, in 
 thus speaking, I am saying nothing of my own, being 
 supported by no less an authority than Cardinal Gerdil. 
 ' Ce n'est pas," he says, " qu'il y ait aucune veritable 
 opposition entre 1' esprit des Academies et celui des 
 Universites ; ce sont seulement des vues differentes. 
 Les Universites sont etablies pour enselgner les sciences 
 aux e/eves qui veulent s'y former ; les Academies se 
 proposent de nouvelles recherches a faire dans la car- 
 rire des sciences. Les Universites d'ltalie ont fourni 
 des sujets qui ont fait honneur aux Academies ; et 
 celles-ci ont donne aux Universites des Professeurs, 
 qui ont rempli les chaires avec la plus grande dis- 
 tinction." 1 
 
 The nature of the case and the history of philosophy 
 combine to recommend to us this " division of" intel- 
 lectual "labour" between Academies and Universities. 
 To discover and to teach are distinct functions ; they 
 are also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found 
 united in the same person. He, too, who spends his ^ 
 day in dispensing his existing knowledge to all comers, 
 is unlikely to have either leisure or energy to acquire 
 new. The common sense of mankind has associated 
 the search after truth with seclusion and quiet. The 
 greatest thinkers have been too intent on their subject 
 to admit of interruption ; they have been men of 
 
 1 Opere, t. iii., p. 353. 
 xxxvii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 absent minds and idiosyncratic habits, and have, more 
 or less, shunned the lecture room and the public school. 
 Pythagoras, the light of Magna Graecia, lived for a 
 time in a cave. Thales, the light of Ionia, lived un- 
 married and in private, and refused the invitations of 
 princes. Plato withdrew from Athens to the groves 
 of Academus. Aristotle gave twenty years to a 
 studious discipleship under him. Friar Bacon lived 
 in his tower upon the Isis. Newton indulged in an 
 intense severity of meditation which almost shook his 
 reason. The great discoveries in chemistry and 
 electricity were not made in Universities. Obser- 
 vatories are more frequently out of Universities than 
 in them, and even when within their bounds need 
 have no moral connection with them. Porson had no 
 classes ; Elmsley lived good part of his life in the 
 country. I do not say that there are not great ex- 
 amples the other way, perhaps Socrates, certainly Lord 
 Bacon ; still I think it must be allowed on the whole 
 that, while teaching involves external engagements, 
 the natural home for experiment and speculation is 
 retirement. 
 
 Returning, then, to the consideration of the ques- 
 tion, from which I may seem to have digressed, thus 
 much we have made good that, whether or no a 
 Catholic University should put before it, as its great 
 object, to make its students " gentlemen," still to- 
 make them something or other is its great object, and 
 not simply to protect the interests and advance the 
 dominion of Science. If, then, this may be taken for 
 granted, as I think it may, the only point which 
 remains to be settled is, whether I have formed a pro- 
 bable conception of the sort of benefit which the Holy 
 See has intended to confer on Catholics who speak the 
 
PREFACE 
 
 English tongue by recommending to the Irish Hier- 
 archy the establishment of a University ; and this I 
 now proceed to consider. 
 
 Here, then, it is natural to ask those who are in- 
 terested in the question, whether any better interpreta- 
 tion of the recommendation of the Holy See can be 
 given than that which I have suggested in this Volume. 
 Certainly it does not seem to me rash to pronounce 
 that, whereas Protestants have great advantages of 
 education in the Schools, Colleges, and Universities 
 of the United Kingdom, our ecclesiastical rulers have 
 it in purpose that Catholics should enjoy the like advan- 
 tages, whatever they are, to the full. I conceive they 
 view it as prejudicial to the interests of Religion that 
 there should be any cultivation of mind bestowed upon 
 Protestants which is not given to their own youth also. 
 As they wish their schools for the poorer and middle 
 classes to be at least on a par with those of Protestants, 
 they contemplate the same object also as regards that 
 higher education which is given to comparatively the 
 few. Protestant youths, who can spare the time, 
 continue their studies till the age of twenty-one or 
 twenty-two ; thus they employ a time of life all- 
 important and especially favourable to mental culture. 
 I conceive that our Prelates are impressed with the 
 fact and its consequences, that a youth who ends his 
 education at seventeen is no match (ctterit paribus} for 
 one who ends it at twenty-one. 
 
 All classes indeed of the community are impressed 
 with a fact so obvious as this. The consequence is, 
 that Catholics who aspire to be on a level with Protestants 
 in discipline and refinement of intellect have recourse 
 to Protestant Universities to obtain what they cannot 
 find at home. Assuming (as the Rescripts from Pro- 
 
PREFACE 
 
 paganda allow me to do) that Protestant education is 
 inexpedient for our youth we see here an additional 
 reason why those advantages, whatever they are, which 
 Protestant communities dispense through the medium 
 of Protestantism should be accessible to Catholics in a 
 Catholic form. 
 
 What are these advantages ? I repeat, they are 
 in one word the culture of the intellect." Robbed, 
 oppressed, and thrust aside, Catholics in these islands 
 have not been in a condition for centuries to attempt 
 the sort of education which is necessary for the man 
 of the world, the statesman, the landholder, or the 
 opulent gentleman. Their legitimate stations, duties, 
 employments, have been taken from them, and the 
 qualifications withal, social and intellectual, which are 
 necessary both for reversing the forfeiture and for 
 availing themselves of the reversal. The time is come 
 when this moral disability must be removed. Our 
 desideratum is, not the manners and habits of gentle- 
 men ; these can be, and are, acquired in various other 
 ways, by good society, by foreign travel, by the innate 
 grace and dignity of the Catholic mind ; but the 
 force, the steadiness, the comprehensiveness and the 
 versatility of intellect, the command over our own 
 powers, the instinctive just estimate of things as they 
 pass before us, which sometimes indeed is a natural 
 gift, but commonly is not gained without much effort 
 and the exercise of years. 
 
 This is real cultivation of mind ; and I do not deny 
 that v the characteristic excellences of a gentleman are 
 included in it." Nor need we be ashamed that they 
 should be, since the Poet long ago wrote, that " In- 
 genuas didicisse fideliter artes, Emollit mores." Cer- 
 tainly a liberal education does manifest itself in a 
 xl 
 
PREFACE 
 
 courtesy, propriety, and polish of word and action, 
 which is beautiful in itself, and acceptable to others ; 
 but it does much more. It brings the mind into form, 
 for the mind is like the body. Boys outgrow their 
 shape and their strength ; their limbs have to be knit 
 together, and their constitution needs tone. Mistaking 
 animal spirits for nerve, and over-confident in their 
 health, ignorant -what they can bear and how to 
 manage themselves, they are immoderate and extrava- 
 gant; and fall into sharp sicknesses. This is an 
 emblem of their minds ; at first they have no 
 principles laid down within them as a foundation for 
 the intellect to build upon ; they have no discriminat- 
 ing convictions and no grasp of consequences. In con- 
 sequence they talk at random, if they talk much, and 
 cannot help being flippant, or what is emphatically 
 called "young" They are merely dazzled by phe- 
 nomena, instead of perceiving things as they are. 
 v It were well if none remained boys all their lives ; 
 but what is more common than the sight of grown 
 men, talking on political or moral or religious subjects, 
 in that ofthand, idle way, which we signify by the word 
 unreal? "That they simply do not know what they 
 are talking about" is the spontaneous silent remark 
 of any man of sense who hears them. Hence such 
 persons have no difficulty in contradicting themselves 
 in successive sentences, without being conscious of it. 
 Hence others, whose defect in intellectual training is 
 more latent, have their most unfortunate crotchets, as 
 they are called, or hobbies, which deprive them of the 
 influence which their estimable qualities would other- 
 wise secure. Hence others can never look straight 
 before them, never see the point, and have no difficulties 
 in the most difficult subjects. Others are hopelessly 
 xli 
 
PREFACE 
 
 obstinate and prejudiced, and return the next moment 
 to their old opinions, after they have been driven 
 from them, without even an attempt to explain why. 
 Others are so intemperate and intractable that there is- 
 no greater calamity for a good cause than that they 
 should get hold of it. It is very plain from the very 
 particulars I have mentioned that, in this delineation of 
 intellectual infirmities, I am drawing, not from Catho- 
 lics, but from the world at large ; I am referring to an 
 evil which is forced upon us in every railway carriage, 
 in every coffee-room or table d'hote, in every mixed 
 company, an evil, however, to which Catholics are 
 not less exposed than the rest of mankind. 
 
 * When the intellect has once been properly trained 
 and formed to have a connected view or grasp of 
 things, it will display its powers with more or less 
 effect according to its particular quality and measure 
 in the individual.'' In the case of most men it makes 
 itself felt in the good sense, sobriety of thought, 
 reasonableness, candour, self-command, and steadiness 
 of view, which characterise it. In some it will have 
 developed habits of business, power of influencing 
 others, and sagacity. In others it will elicit the talent 
 of philosophical speculation, and lead the mind forward 
 to eminence in this or that intellectual department. 
 'Jn all it will be a faculty of entering with comparative 
 ease into any subject of thought, and of taking up with 
 aptitude any science or profession. All this it will be 
 and will do in a measure, even when the mental forma- 
 tion be made after a model but partially true ; for, as 
 far as effectiveness goes, even false views of things 
 have more influence and inspire more respect than no 
 views at all. Men who fancy they see what is not are 
 more energetic, and make their way better, than those 
 xlii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 who see nothing ; and so the undoubting infidel, the 
 fanatic, the bigot, are able to do much, while the 
 mere hereditary Christian, who has never realised the 
 truths which he holds, is unable to do anything. But, 
 if consistency of view can add so much strength 
 even to error, what may it not be expected to furnish 
 to the dignity, the energy, and the influence of Truth ! 
 
 Some one, however, will perhaps object that I am n 
 but advocating that spurious philosophism, which shows 
 itself in what, for want of a word, I may call " viewi- 
 ness," when I speak so much of the formation, and 
 consequent grasp, of the intellect. It may be said V 1 -: 
 that the theory of University Education, which I have 
 been delineating, if acted upon, would teach youths 
 nothing soundly or thoroughly, and would dismiss 
 them with nothing better than brilliant general views 
 about all things whatever. 
 
 This indeed would be a most serious objection, 
 if well founded, to what I have advanced in this 
 Volume, and would gain my immediate attention, 
 had I any reason to think that I could not rempve 
 it at once, by a simple explanation of what I consider 
 the true mode of educating, were this the place to do 
 so. But these Discourses are directed simply to the 
 consideration of the alms and principles of Education. 
 Suffice it, then, to say here, that I hold very strongly 
 that 'the first step in intellectual training is to impress 
 upon a boy's mind the idea of science, method, order, 
 principle, and system ; of rule and exception, of rich- 
 ness and harmony. This is commonly and excellently 
 done by making him begin with Grammar; nor can 
 too great accuracy, or minuteness and subtlety of 
 teaching be used towards him, as his faculties expand, 
 with this simple view. Hence it is that critical 
 xliii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 scholarship is so important a discipline for him when 
 he is leaving school for the University. A second 
 science is the Mathematics : this should follow Gram- 
 mar, still with the same object, viz., to give him a 
 Ap- conception of development and arrangement from and 
 ground a common centre. Hence it is that Chronology 
 and Geography are so necessary for him, when he reads 
 History, which is otherwise little better than a story- 
 book. Hence, too, Metrical Composition, when he 
 reads Poetry ; in order to stimulate his powers into 
 action in every practicable way, and to prevent a merely 
 passive reception of images and ideas which in that 
 case are likely to pass out of mind as soon as they have 
 entered it. s Let him once gain this habit of method, 
 of starting from fixed points, of making his ground 
 good as he goes, of distinguishing what he knows from 
 what he does not know, and I conceive he will be 
 gradually initiated into the largest and truest philoso- 
 phical views, and will feel nothing but impatience and 
 disgust at the random theories and imposing sophistries 
 and dashing paradoxes, which carry away half- formed 
 and superficial intellects.* 
 
 ^ Such parti-coloured ingenuities are indeed one of the 
 chief evils of the day, and men of real talent are not 
 slow to minister to them. An intellectual man, as the 
 world now conceives of him, is one who is full of 
 " views " on all subjects of philosophy, on all matters 
 of the day. It is almost thought a disgrace not to 
 have a view at a moment's notice on any question 
 from the Personal Advent to the Cholera or Mes- 
 merism. This is owing in great measure to the 
 necessities of periodical literature, now so much in 
 request. Every quarter of a year, every month, every 
 day, there must be a supply, for the gratification of the 
 xliv 
 
PREFACE 
 
 public, of new and luminous theories on the subjects 
 of religion, foreign politics, home politics, civil eco- 
 nomy, finance, trade, agriculture, emigration, and the 
 colonies. Slavery, the gold-fields, German philo- 
 sophy, the French Empire, Wellington, Peel, Ireland, 
 must all be practised on, day after day, by what are 
 called original thinkers. As the great man's guest 
 must produce his good stories or songs at the evening 
 banquet, as the platform orator exhibits his telling 
 facts at midday, so the journalist lies under the stern 
 obligation of extemporising his lucid views, leading 
 ideas, and nutshell truths for the breakfast table. 
 The very nature of periodical literature, broken into 
 small wholes, and demanded punctually to an hour, 
 involves this extempore philosophy. "Almost all 
 the Ramblers," says Boswell of Johnson, " were 
 written just as they were wanted for the press ; he 
 sent a certain portion of the copy for an essay, and 
 wrote the remainder while the former part of it was 
 printing." Few men have the gifts of Johnson, who 
 to great vigour and resource of intellect, when it was 
 fairly roused, united a rare common-sense and a con- 
 scientious regard for veracity, which preserved him 
 from flippancy or extravagance in writing. Few men 
 are Johnsons ; yet how many men at this day are 
 assailed by incessant demands on their mental powers, 
 which only a productiveness like his could suitably 
 supply ! There is a demand for a reckless originality 
 of thought, and a sparkling plausibility of argument, 
 which he would have despised, even if he could have 
 displayed ; a demand for crude theory and unsound 
 philosophy, rather than none at all. It is a sort of 
 repetition of the " Quid novi ? " of the Areopagus, 
 and it must have an answer. Men must be found 
 xlv 
 
PREFACE 
 
 who can treat, where it is necessary, like the Athenian 
 . sophist, de omnl scibili, 
 
 *' Grammaticus, Rhetor, Geometres, Pictor, Aliptes, 
 Augur, Schcenobates, Medicus, Magus, omnia novit." 
 
 v I am speaking of such writers with a feeling of real 
 sympathy for men who are under the rod of a cruel 
 slavery'. I have never indeed been in such circum- 
 stances myself, nor in the temptations which they 
 involve ; but most men who have had to do with 
 composition must know the distress which at times it 
 * occasions them to have to write a distress sometimes 
 so keen and so specific that it resembles nothing else 
 than bodily pain. That pain is the token of the wear 
 and tear of mind ; and, if works done comparatively 
 at leisure involve such mental fatigue and exhaustion, 
 what must be the toil of those whose intellects are to 
 be' flaunted daily before the public in full dress, and 
 that dress ever new and varied, and spun, like the 
 silkworm's, out of themselves ! Still, whatever true 
 sympathy we may feel for the ministers of this dearly 
 purchased luxury, and whatever sense we may have 
 of the great intellectual power which the literature in 
 question displays, we cannot honestly close our eyes 
 to the evil. 
 
 One other remark suggests itself, which is the last 
 I shall think it necessary to make. The authority, 
 which in former times was lodged in Universities, 
 now resides in very great measure in that literary 
 world, as it is called, to which I have been alluding. 
 This is not satisfactory, if, as no one can deny, its 
 teaching be so offhand, so ambitious, so changeable. 
 It increases the seriousness of the mischief, that so 
 very large a portion of its writers are anonymous, for 
 xlvi 
 
PRE1 
 
 irresponsible power can never be anything but a great 
 evil ; and, moreover, that, even when they are known, 
 they can give no better guarantee for the philosophical v 
 truth of their principles than their popularity at the 
 moment, and their happy conformity in ethical char- 
 acter to the age which admires them. Protestants, 
 however, may do as they will : it is a matter for their 
 own consideration ; but at least it concerns us that our 
 own literary tribunals and oracles of moral duty should 
 bear a graver character. NAt least v it is a matter of 
 deep solicitude to Catholic Prelates that their people 
 should be taught a wisdom, safe from the excesses and 
 vagaries of individuals, embodied in institutions which 
 have stood the trial and received the sanction of ages, 
 and administered by men who have no need to be 
 anonymous, as being supported by their consistency 
 with their predecessors and with each other. < 
 
 Nov. zi, 1852. 
 
 xlvii 
 
The Scope & Nature of 
 University Education 
 
 DISCOURSE I 
 
 THEOLOGY A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 addressing myself, gentlemen, to the considera- 
 tion of a question which has excited so much 
 interest, and elicited so much discussion at the 
 present day, as that of University Education, I feel 
 some explanation is due from me for supposing, after 
 such high ability and wide experience have been brought 
 to bear upon it, that any field remains for the additional 
 labours either of a disputant or of an inquirer. If, 
 nevertheless, I still venture to ask permission to con- 
 tinue the discussion, already so protracted, it is because 
 the subject of Liberal Education, and of the principles 
 on which it must be conducted, has ever had a hold 
 upon my own mind; and because I have lived the 
 greater part of my life in a place which has all that 
 time been occupied in a series of controversies among 
 its inmates and with strangers, and of measures, experi- 
 mental or definitive, bearing upon it.' About fifty years 
 since, the Protestant University, of which I was so 
 long a member, after a century of inactivity, at length 
 
 A 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 was roused, at a time when (as I may say) it was 
 giving no education at all to the youth committed to 
 its keeping, to a sense of the responsibilities which its 
 profession and its station involved, and it presents to 
 us the singular example of an heterogeneous and an in- 
 dependent body of men, setting about a work of self- 
 reformation, not from any pressure of public opinion, 
 but because it was fitting and right to undertake it. 
 Its initial efforts, begun and carried on amid many 
 obstacles, were met from without, as often happens 
 in such cases, by ungenerous and jealous criticisms, 
 which, at the very moment that they were urged, were 
 beginning to be unjust. Controversy did but bring out 
 more clearly to its own apprehension the views on 
 which its reformation was proceeding, and throw them 
 into a philosophical form. The course of beneficial 
 change made progress, and what was at first but the 
 result of individual energy and an act of the academical 
 corporation, gradually became popular, and was taken 
 up and carried out by the separate collegiate bodies, 
 of which the University is composed. This was the 
 first stage of the controversy. Years passed away, and 
 then political adversaries arose against it, and the sys- 
 tem of education which it had established was a second 
 time assailed ; but still, since that contest was conducted 
 for the most part through the medium, not of political 
 acts, but of treatises and pamphlets, it happened as before 
 that the threatened dangers, in the course of their re- 
 pulse, did but afford fuller development and more exact 
 delineation to the principles of which the University 
 was the representative. 
 
 In the former of these two controversies the charge 
 brought against its studies was their remoteness from 
 the occupations and duties of life, to which they arc 
 
 2 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 the formal introduction, or, in other words, their *'- 
 utility ; in the latter, it was their connection with a par- ' 
 ticular form of belief, or, in other words, their religious 
 exc/usiveness. 
 
 Living then so long as a witness, though hardly as an 
 actor, in these scenes of intellectual conflict, I am able, .^ 
 gentlemen, to bear witness to views of University Educa- 
 tion, without authority indeed in themselves, but not 
 without value to a Catholic, and less familiar to him, 
 as I conceive, than they deserve to be. And, while 
 an argument originating in the controversies to which I 
 have referred, may be serviceable at this season to that 
 great cause in which we are here so especially inter- 
 ested, 'to me personally it will afford satisfaction of a ^ 
 peculiar kind'; for, though it has been my lot for many 
 years to take a prominent, sometimes a presumptuous, 
 part in theological discussions, yet the natural turn of 
 my mind carries me off to trains of thought like those 
 which I am now about to open, which, important 
 though they be for Catholic objects, and admitting of 
 a Catholic treatment, are sheltered from the extreme 
 delicacy and peril which attach to disputations directly 
 bearing on the subject-matter of Divine Revelation. 
 
 There are several reasons why I should open the v^.V 
 discussion with a reference to the lessons with which v 
 past years have supplied me. One reason is this : It 
 would concern me, gentlemen, were I supposed to have 
 got up my opinions for the occasion. This, indeed, 
 would have been no reflection on me personally, sup- 
 posing I were persuaded of their truth, when at length 
 addressing myself to the inquiry ; but it would have 
 destroyed, of course, the force of my testimony, and 
 deprived such arguments, as I might adduce, of that 
 moral persuasiveness which attends on tried and sus- 
 
 3 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 tained conviction. It would have made me seem the 
 advocate, rather than the cordial and deliberate main- 
 tainer and witness, of the doctrines which I was to 
 support ; and, though it might be said to evidence the 
 faith I reposed in the practical judgment of the Church, 
 and the intimate concurrence of my own reason with 
 the course she had authoritatively sanctioned, and the 
 devotion with which I could promptly put myself at her 
 disposal, it would have cast suspicion on the validity 
 of reasonings and conclusions which rested on no in- 
 dependent inquiry, and appealed to no past experience. 
 In that case it might have been plausibly objected by 
 opponents that I was the serviceable expedient of an 
 emergency, and never could be more than ingenious 
 and adroit in the management of an argument which 
 was not my own, and which I was sure to forget again 
 as readily as I had mastered it. v But this is not so. 
 The views to which I have referred have grown 
 into my whole system of thought, and are, as it 
 were, part of myself. < Many changes has my mind 
 gone through : here it has known no variation or 
 vacillation of opinion, and though this by itself is no 
 proof of truth, it puts a seal upon conviction and is 
 a justification of earnestness and zeal. The prin- 
 ciples, which I am now to set forth under the 
 sanction of the Catholic Church, were my profession 
 at that early period of my life, when religion was to 
 me more a matter of feeling and experience than of 
 faith. They did but take greater hold upon me, as I 
 was introduced to the records of Christian Antiquity, 
 and approached in sentiment and desire to Catholicism ; 
 and my sense of their truth has been increased with 
 the events of every year since I have been brought 
 within its pale. 
 
 4 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 And here I am brought to a second and more im- 
 portant reason for referring, on this occasion, to the 
 conclusions at which Protestants have arrived on the 
 subject of Liberal Education ; and it is as follows : 
 Let it be observed, then, that the principles on which 
 I would conduct it are attainable, as I have already 
 implied, by the mere experience of life. They do not 
 come simply of theology ; they imply no supernatural 
 discernment ; they have no special connection with 
 Revelation ; they almost arise out of the nature of 
 the case ; they are dictated by merely human prudence 
 and wisdom, though a divine illumination be absent, 
 and they are recognised by common sense, even where 
 self-interest is not present to quicken it ; and, "there- 
 fore, though true, and just, and good in themselves, 
 they imply nothing whatever as to the religious profes- 
 sion of those who maintain them/ They may be held 
 by Protestants as well as by Catholics ; nay, there is 
 reason to anticipate that in certain times and places 
 they will be more thoroughly investigated, and better | 
 understood, and held more firmly by Protestants than ! 
 by ourselves. 
 
 It is natural to expect this from the very circum- 
 stance that the philosophy of Education is founded on 
 truths in the natural order. Where the sun shines 
 bright, in the warm climate of the south, the natives 
 of the place know little of safeguards against cold and 
 wet. They have, indeed, bleak and piercing blasts ; 
 they have chill and pouring rain, but only now and 
 then, for a day or a week ; they bear the incon- 
 venience as they best may, but they have not made 
 it an art to repel it ; it is not worth their while ; the 
 science of calefaction and ventilation is reserved for 
 the north. ^It is in this way that Catholics stand 
 
 5 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 relatively to Protestants in the science of Education ; 
 Protestants depending on human means solely, are led 
 to make the most of them ^ their sole resource is to 
 use what they have ; " Knowledge is " their " power " 
 and nothing else ; they are the anxious cultivators of a 
 rugged soil. It is otherwise with us ; "fanes ceclderunt 
 mihi in praclaris" We have a goodly inheritance. 
 This is apt to cause us (I do not mean to rely too 
 much on prayer, and the Divine Blessing, for that is 
 impossible; but) we sometimes forget that we shall 
 please Him best, and get most from Him, when, 
 according to the Fable, we " put our shoulder to the 
 wheel," when we use what we have by nature to the 
 utmost, at the same time that we look out for what is 
 beyond nature in the confidence of faith and hope. 
 However, we are sometimes tempted to let things take 
 their course, as if they would in one way or another 
 turn up right at last for certain ; , and so we go on, 
 living from hand to mouth, getting into difficulties and 
 getting out of them, succeeding certainly on the whole, 
 but with failure in detail which might be avoided, and 
 with much of imperfection or inferiority in our appoint- 
 ments and plans, and much disappointment, discour- 
 agement, and collision of opinion in consequence. If 
 this be in any measure the state of the case, there is 
 certainly so far a reason for availing ourselves of the 
 investigations and experience of those who are not 
 Catholics, when we have to address ourselves to the 
 subject of Liberal Education. 
 
 v Nor is there surely anything derogatory to the 
 position of a Catholic in such a proceeding./ The 
 Church has ever appealed and deferred to witnesses 
 and authorities external to herself, in those matters in 
 which she thought they had means of forming a judg- 
 6 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 raent : and that on the principle, Culque in sua arte 
 credcndum. She has even used unbelievers and pagans 
 in evidence of her truth, as far as their testimony 
 went. She avails herself of scholars, critics, and 
 antiquarians, who are not of her communion. She 
 has worded her theological teaching in the phraseology 
 of Aristotle; Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Origen, 
 Eusebius, and Apollinaris, all more or less heterodox, 
 have supplied materials for primitive exegetics. St. 
 Cyprian called Tertullian his master ; St. Augustin 
 refers to Ticonius ; Bossuet, in modern times, com- 
 plimented the labours of the Anglican Bull; the 
 Benedictine editors of the Fathers are familiar with 
 the labours of Fell, Ussher, Pearson, and Beveridge. 
 Pope Benedict XIV. cites according to the occasion 
 the works of Protestants without reserve, and the late 
 French collection of Christian Apologists contains the 
 writings of Locke, Burnet, Tillotson, and Paley. If, 
 then, I come forward in any degree as borrowing the 
 views of certain Protestant schools on the point which 
 is to be discussed, I do so, gentlemen, as believ- 
 ing, first, that the Catholic Church has ever, in the 
 plenitude of her divine illumination, made use of what- 
 ever truth or wisdom she has found in their teaching or 
 their measures ; and next, that in particular times or 
 places her children are likely to profit from external 
 suggestions or lessons, which cannot be considered t 
 necessary for herself. 
 
 And here I may mention a third reason for appeal- 
 ing at the outset to the proceedings of Protestant bodies 
 in regard to Liberal Education. It will serve to inti- 
 mate the mode in which I propose to handle my subject 
 altogether. * Observe then, gentlemen, I have no in- 
 tention, in anything I shall say, of bringing into the 
 7 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 argument the authority of the Church, or any authority 
 at all ; but I shall consider the question simply on the 
 grounds of human reason and human wisdom. ^ I am 
 investigating in the abstract, and am determining what 
 is in itself right and true. For the moment I know 
 nothing, so to say, of history. I take things as I find 
 them ; I have no concern with the past ; I find myself 
 here ; I set myself to the duties I find here ; I set 
 myself to further, by every means in my power, doc- 
 trines and views, true in themselves, recognised by 
 Catholics as such, familiar to my own mind ; and to 
 do this quite apart from the consideration of questions 
 which have been determined without me and before 
 me. I am here the advocate apd the minister of a 
 certain great principle ; yet not merely advocate and 
 minister, else had I not been here at all. It has been 
 my previous keen sense and hearty reception of that 
 principle, that has been at once the cause, as I must 
 suppose, of my selection, and the ground of my 
 acquiescence. I am told on authority that a prin- 
 ciple is necessary, which I have ever felt to be 
 true. And I argue in its behalf on its own merits, 
 the authority, which brings me here, being my 
 reason for arguing, but not the ground of my argument 
 itself. 
 
 And a fourth reason is here suggested for consulting 
 the history of Protestant institutions, when I am going 
 to speak of the object and nature of University Educa- 
 tion. N It will serve to remind you, gentlemen, that 
 I am concerned with questions, not of immutable 
 truth, but of practice and expedience. < It would ill 
 have become me to undertake a subject, on which 
 points of dispute have arisen among persons so far 
 above me in authority and name, in relation to a state 
 8 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 of society, about which I have so much to learn, if it 
 involved an appeal to sacred truths, or the determina- 
 tion of some imperative rule of conduct. It would 
 have been presumptuous in me so to have acted, nor 
 am I so acting. Even the question of the union of 
 Theology with the secular Sciences, which is its 
 religious side, simple as it is of solution in the abstract, 
 has, according to difference of circumstances, been at 
 different times differently decided. Necessity has no 
 law, and expedience is often one form of necessity. 
 It is no principle with sensible men, of whatever cast 
 of opinion, to do always what is abstractedly best. 
 Where no direct duty forbids, we may be obliged to 
 do, as being best under circumstances, what we murmur 
 and rise against, wh*le we do it. We see that to 
 attempt more is to effect less ; that we must accept so 
 much, or gain nothing ; and so perforce we reconcile 
 ourselves to what we would have far otherwise, if we 
 could. Thus a system of what is called Mixed 
 Education, in which Theology and the Sciences are 
 taught separately, may, in a particular place or time, 
 be the least of evils ; it may be of long standing ; it 
 may be dangerous to meddle with ; it may be pro- 
 fessedly a temporary arrangement ; it may be under a 
 process of improvement ; its disadvantages may be 
 neutralised by the persons by whom, or the provisions 
 under which, it is administered. 
 
 Hence it was, that in the early ages the Church 
 allowed her children to attend the heathen schools for 
 the acquisition of secular accomplishments, where, as 
 no one can doubt, evils existed, at least as great as 
 can attend on Mixed Education now. The gravest 
 Fathers recommended for Christian youth the use of 
 Pagan masters ; the most saintly Bishops and most 
 9 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 authoritative Doctors had been sent in their adoles- 
 cence by Christian parents to Pagan lecture halls. 1 
 And, not to take other instances, at this very time, 
 and in this very country, as regards at least the poorer 
 classes of the community, whose secular acquirements 
 ever must be limited, it has seemed best to the Irish 
 Bishops, under the circumstances, to suffer the intro- 
 duction into the country of a system of Mixed Educa- 
 tion in the schools called National. Such a state of 
 Ithings, however, is passing away ; as regards Univer- 
 sity education at least, the highest authority has now 
 decided that the plan, which is abstractedly best, is in 
 L ' this time and country also most expedient. 
 
 This is the branch of my subject on which I pro- 
 pose first to enter, and I do so without further delay. 
 It is one of the two questions, on which the Protestant 
 controversies turned to which I have alluded. The 
 earlier of them was the inutility of Oxford education, 
 the latter was its exc /usiveness ; in the former it was 
 debated whether Liberal Knowledge should have the 
 foremost place in University teaching ; in the latter, 
 whether Theology should be excluded. I am to 
 begin with the latter. 
 
 It is the fashion just now, gentlemen, as you very 
 well know, to erect so-called Universities, without 
 making any provision in them at all for Theological 
 chairs. Institutions of this kind exist both here and 
 in England. Such a procedure, though defended by 
 writers of the generation just passed with much 
 plausible argument and not a little wit, seems to me 
 an intellectual absurdity ; and my reason for saying 
 
 1 Vid. M. L'Abb Lalanne's recent work. 
 10 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 so runs, with whatever abruptness, into the form of a 
 syllogism ; -A University y I should lay down, by its 
 very name professes to teach universal knowledge : 
 Theology is surely a branch of knowledge : how then 
 is it possible to profess all branches of knowledge, and 
 yet to exclude not the meanest, nor the narrowest, of 
 the number ? I do not see that either premiss oi this 
 argument is open to exception. 
 
 , As to the range of University teaching, certainly 
 the yery name is inconsistent with restrictions of 
 any kind. > Whatever was the original reason of 
 its adoption, which is unknown, 1 I am only putting 
 on it its popular, its recognised sense, when I say 
 that a University should teach universal knowledge. 
 That there is a real necessity for this universal teach- 
 ing in the highest schools of intellect, I will show 
 by-and-by; here it is sufficient to say that such uni- 
 versality is considered by writers on the subject as 
 the very characteristic of a University, as contrasted 
 with other seats of learning. Thus Johnson, in his 
 Dictionary, defines it to be "a school where all arts 
 and faculties are taught ; " and Mosheim, writing as 
 an historian, says that, before the rise of the Univer- 
 sity of Paris, for instance, at Padua, or Salamanca, 
 or Cologne, " the whole circle of sciences then 
 known was not taught ; " but that the school of Paris, 
 " which exceeded all others in various respects, as well 
 as in the number of teachers and students, was the first 
 to embrace all the arts and sciences, and therefore first 
 became a University." 2 
 
 1 In Roman law it means a Corporation. Vid. Keuffel, 
 de Scholis. 
 
 2 Hist., vol. ii. p. 529. London, 1841. 
 
 II 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 If, with other authors, we consider the word to be 
 derived from the invitation which is held out by a 
 University to students of every kind, the result is the 
 same ; for, if certain branches of knowledge were ex- 
 cluded, those students of course would be excluded 
 also, who desired to pursue them. 
 
 Is it, then, logically consistent in a seat of learning 
 to call itself a University, and to exclude Theology 
 from the number of its studies ? And again, is it won- 
 derful that Catholics, even in the view of reason, put- 
 ting aside faith or religious duty, should be dissatisfied 
 with existing institutions, which profess to be Univer- 
 sities, and refuse to teach Theology ; and that they 
 should in consequence desire to possess seats of learning, 
 which are, not only more Christian, but more philoso- 
 phical in their construction, and larger and deeper in 
 their provisions ? 
 
 But this, of course, is to assume that Theology is a 
 science, and an important one : so I will throw my 
 argument into another form. I say, then, that if 
 a University be, from the nature of the case, a place 
 of instruction, where universal knowledge is professed, 
 and if in a certain University, so called, the. subject of 
 Religion is excluded, one of two conclusions is inevit- 
 able, either, on the one hand, that the province of 
 Religion is very barren of real knowledge, or, on the 
 other hand, that in such University one special and 
 important branch of knowledge is omitted. I say the 
 advocate of such an institution must say this, or he must 
 say that ; he must own, either that little or nothing is 
 known about the Supreme Being, or that his seat of 
 learning calls itself what it is not. This is the thesis 
 which I lay down, and on which I shall insist in the 
 remainder of this Discourse. I repeat, such a compro- 
 12 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 mise between religious parties, as is involved in the 
 establishment of a University which makes no religious 
 profession, implies that thfcse parties severally consider, 
 not indeed that their own respective opinions are 
 trifles in a moral and practical point of view of course 
 not ; but certainly as much as this, that they are not 
 knowledge. Did they in their hearts believe that their 
 private views of religion, whatever they are, were abso- 
 lutely and objectively true, it is inconceivable that they 
 would so insult them as to consent to their omission in 
 an Institution which is bound, from the nature of the 
 case from its very idea and its name to make a 
 profession of all sorts of knowledge whatever. 
 
 I think this will be found to be no matter of words. 
 I allow then fully, that, when men combine together 
 for any common object, they are obliged, as a matter 
 of course, in order to secure the advantages accruing 
 from united action, to sacrifice many of tneir private 
 opinions and wishes and to drop the minor differences, 
 as they are commonly called, which exist between 
 man and man. No two persons perhaps are to be 
 found, however intimate, however congenial in tastes 
 and judgments, however eager to have one heart and 
 one soul, but must deny themselves, for the sake of 
 each other, much which they like or desire, if they are 
 to live together happily. Compromise, in a large sense 
 of the word, is the first principle of combination ; and 
 any one who insists on enjoying his rights to the full, 
 and his opinions without toleration for his neighbour's, 
 and his own way in all things, will soon have all things 
 altogether to himself, and no one to share them with 
 him. But most true as this confessedly is, still there 
 is an obvious limit, on the other hand, to these 
 compromises, necessary as they are ; and this is found 
 '3 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 in the proviso, that the differences surrendered should 
 be but " minor," or that there should be no sacrifice of 
 the main object of the combination, in the concessions 
 which are mutually made. Any sacrifice which com- 
 promises that object is destructive of the principle of 
 the combination, and no one who would be consistent 
 can be a party to it. 
 
 Thus, for instance, if men of various religious de- 
 nominations join together for the dissemination of what 
 are called "evangelical" tracts, it is under the belief 
 that, the object of their uniting, as recognised on all 
 hands, being the spiritual benefit of their neighbours, 
 no religious exhortation, whatever be its character, 
 can essentially interfere with that benefit, which is 
 founded upon the Lutheran doctrine of Justification. 
 If, again, they agree together in printing and circulat- 
 ing the Protestant Bible, it is because they, one and 
 all, hold to the principle, that, however serious be their 
 differences of religious sentiment, such differences fade 
 away before the one great principle, which that circu- 
 lation symbolises that the Bible, the whole Bible, 
 and nothing but the Bible, is the religion of Pro- 
 testants. On the contrary, if the committee of some 
 such association inserted tracts into the copies of the 
 said Bible which they sold, and tracts in recommenda- 
 tion of the Athanasian Creed or the merit of good 
 works, I conceive any subscribing member would have 
 a just right to complain of a proceeding, which compro- 
 mised both the principle of Private Judgment and the 
 doctrine of Justification by Faith only. These instances 
 are sufficient to illustrate my general position, that coali- 
 tions and comprehensions for an object, have their life in 
 the prosecution of that object, and cease to haveany mean- 
 ing as soon as that object is compromised or disparaged. 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 When, then, a number of persons come forward, 
 not as politicians, not as diplomatists, lawyers, traders, 
 or speculators, but with the one object of advancing 
 Universal Knowledge, much we may allow them 
 to sacrifice ambition, reputation, leisure, comfort, 
 gold ; one thins they may not sacrifice, Know- 
 ledge itself. Knowledge being their object, they 
 need not of course insist on their own private views 
 about ancient or modern history, or national pros- 
 perity, or the balance of power ; they need not of 
 course shrink from the co-operation of those who hold 
 the opposite views ; but stipulate they must that Know- 
 ledge itself is not compromised ; and as to those views, 
 of whatever kind, which they do allow to be dropped, 
 it is plain they consider such to be opinions, and nothing 
 more, however dear, however important to themselves 
 personally ; opinions ingenious, admirable, pleasurable, 
 beneficial, expedient, but not worthy the name of 
 Knowledge or Science. Thus no one would insist 
 on the Malthusian teaching being a sine qua non in a 
 seat of learning, who did not think it simply ignorance 
 not to be a Malthusian ; and no one would consent 
 to drop the Newtonian theory, who thought it to 
 be proved true, in the same sense as the existence of 
 the sun and moon is true. If, then, in an Institution 
 which professes all knowledge, nothing is professed, 
 nothing is taught about the Supreme Being, it is fair 
 to infer that every individual in the number of those 
 who advocate that Institution, supposing him consis- 
 tent, distinctly holds that nothing is known for certain 
 about the Supreme Being ; nothing such, as to have any 
 claim to be regarded as an accession to the stock of 
 general knowledge existing in the world. If, on the 
 other hand, it turns out that something considerable is 
 
 15 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 known about the Supreme Being, whether from Reason 
 or Revelation, then the Institution in question professes 
 every science, and yet leaves out the foremost of them. 
 In a word, strong as may appear the assertion, I do 
 not see how I can avoid making it, and bear with me, 
 gentlemen, while I do so, viz., such an Institution can- 
 not be what it professes, if there be a God. I do not 
 wish to declaim ; but by the very force of the terms, it 
 is very plain, that a Divine Being and such a University 
 cannot co-exist. 
 
 Still, however, this may seem to many a a abrupt 
 conclusion, and will not be acquiesced in : what answer, 
 gentlemen, will be made to it? Perhaps this: It 
 will be said, that there are different kinds or spheres 
 of Knowledge, human, divine, sensible, intellectual, 
 and the like ; and that a University certainly takes in 
 all varieties of Knowledge in its own line, but still that 
 it has a line of its own. It contemplates, it occupies 
 a certain order, a certain platform, of Knowledge. I 
 understand the remark ; but I own to you, gentlemen, 
 I do not understand how it can be made to apply to the 
 matter in hand. I cannot so construct my definition of 
 the subject-matter of University Knowledge, and so 
 draw my boundary lines around it, as to include therein 
 the other sciences commonly studied at Universities, and 
 to exclude the science of Religion. Are we to limit 
 our idea of University Knowledge by the evidence of 
 our senses ? then we exclude history ; by testimony ? we 
 exclude metaphysics ; by abstract reasoning ? we ex- 
 clude physics. Is not the being of a God reported to us 
 by testimony, handed down by history, inferred by an 
 inductive process, brought home to us by metaphysical 
 necessity, urged on us by the suggestions of our con- 
 16 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 science ? It is a truth in the natural order, as well 
 as in the supernatural. So much for its origin ; and, 
 when obtained, what is it worth ? Is it a great truth 
 or a small one ? Is it a comprehensive truth ? Say 
 that no other religious idea whatever were given but 
 it, and you have enough to fill the mind ; you have 
 at once a whole dogmatic system. The word " God " 
 is a Theology in itself, indivisibly one, inexhaustibly 
 various, from the vastness and the simplicity of its 
 meaning. Admit a God, and you introduce among 
 the subjects of your knowledge, a fact encompassing, 
 closing in upon, absorbing, every other fact conceivable. 
 How can we investigate any part of any order of 
 Knowledge, and stop short of that which enters into 
 every order ? All true principles run over with it, all 
 phenomena converge to it ; it is truly the First and 
 the Last. In word indeed, and in idea, it is easy 
 enough to divide Knowledge into human and divine, 
 secular and religious, and to lay down that we will 
 address ourselves to the one, without interfering with 
 the other ; but it is impossible in fact. Granting 
 that divine truth differs in kind from human, so do 
 human truths differ in kind one from another. If 
 the knowledge of the Creator is in a different order 
 from knowledge of the creature, so, in like manner, 
 metaphysical science is in a different order from 
 physical, physics from history, history from ethics. 
 You will soon break up into fragments the whole 
 circle of secular knowledge, if you begin the mutilation 
 with divine. 
 
 J I have been speaking simply of Natural Theology ; 
 my argument of course is stronger when I go on to 
 Revelation. Let the doctrine of the Incarnation be 
 true : is it not at once of the nature of an historical 
 
 17 B 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 fact, and oi a metaphysical ? Let it be true that there 
 are Angels : how is this not a point of knowledge 
 in the same sense as the naturalist's asseveration, that 
 there are myriads of living things on the point of 
 a needle ? That the Earth is to be burned by fire, 
 is, if true, as large a fact as that huge monsters once 
 played amid its depths ; that Antichrist is to come, is 
 as categorical a heading to a chapter of history, as 
 that Nero or Julian was Emperor of Rome ; that a 
 divine influence moves the will, is a subject of thought 
 not more mysterious than the result of volition on the 
 animal frame, which we admit as a fact in metaphysics. 
 
 I do not see how it is possible for a philosophical 
 mind, first, to believe these religious facts to be true ; 
 next, K> consent to put them aside ; and thirdly, in 
 spite of this, to go on to profess to be teaching all the 
 while de omni scibili. No ; if a man thinks in his 
 heart that these religious facts are short of truth, are 
 not true in the sense in which the fall of a stone to 
 the earth is true, I understand his excluding Religion 
 from his University, though he professes other reasons 
 for its exclusion. In that case the varieties of re- 
 ligious opinion under which he shelters his conduct, 
 are not only his apology for publicly ignoring Religion, 
 but a cause of his privately disbelieving it. He does 
 not think that anything is known or can be known 
 for certain, about the origin of the world or the end of 
 man. 
 
 This, I fear, is the conclusion to which intellects, 
 clear, logical, and consistent, have come, or are com- 
 ing, from the nature of the case ; and, alas ! in addition 
 to this prima facie suspicion, there are actual tendencies 
 in the same direction in Protestantism, viewed whether 
 in its original idea, or again in the so-called Evangelical 
 18 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 movement in these islands during the last century. The 
 religious world, as it is styled, holds, generally speak- 
 ing, that Religion consists, not in knowledge, t>ut in 
 feeling or sentiment. The old Catholic notion, which 
 still lingers in the Established Church, was, that Faith 
 was an intellectual act, its object truth, and its result 
 knowledge. Thus if you look into the Anglican 
 Prayer Book, you will find definite credenda, as well 
 as definite agenda ; but in proportion as the Lutheran 
 leaven spread, it became fashionable to say that Faith 
 was, not an acceptance of revealed doctrine, not an act 
 of the intellect, but a feeling, an emotion, an affection, 
 an appetency ; and, as this view of Faith obtained, so 
 was the connection of Faith with Truth and Know- 
 ledge more and more either forgotten or denied. At 
 length the identity of this (so-called) spirituality of 
 heart and the virtue of Faith was acknowledged on all 
 hands. Some men indeed disapproved the pietism in 
 question, others admired it ; but whether they admired 
 or disapproved, both the one party and the other found 
 themselves in agreement on the main point, viz. in 
 considering that this really was in substance Religion, 
 and nothing else ; that Religion was based, not on 
 argument, but on taste and sentiment, that nothing 
 was objective, everything subjective, in doctrine. I 
 say, even those who saw through the affectation in 
 which the religious school of which I am speaking 
 clad itself, still came to think that Religion, as such, 
 consisted in something short of intellectual exercises, 
 viz., in the affections, in the imagination, in inward 
 persuasions and consolations, in pleasurable sensations, 
 sudden changes, and sublime fancies. They learned 
 to believe and to take it for granted, that Religion 
 was nothing beyond a supply of the wants of human 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 nature, not an external fact and a work of God. 
 There was, it appeared, a demand for Religion, and 
 therefore there was a supply ; human nature could not 
 do without Religion, any more than it could do with- 
 out bread ; a supply was absolutely necessary, good or 
 bad, and, as in the case of the articles of daily susten- 
 ance, an article which was really inferior was better 
 than none at all. Thus Religion was useful, venerable, 
 beautiful, the sanction of order, the stay of government, 
 the curb of self-will and self-indulgence, which the 
 laws cannot reach : but, after all, on what was it 
 based ? Why, that was a question delicate to ask, 
 and imprudent to answer ; but if the truth must be 
 spoken, however reluctantly, the long and the short of 
 the matter was this, that Religion was based on custom, 
 on prejudice, on law, on education, on habit, on 
 loyalty, on feudalism, on enlightened expedience, on 
 many, many things, but not at all on reason ; reason 
 was neither its warrant, nor its instrument, and science 
 had as little connection with it as with the fashions, 
 or the state of the weather. 
 
 You see, gentlemen, how a theory or philosophy, 
 which began with the religious changes of the six- 
 teenth century, has led to conclusions, which the 
 authors of those changes would be the first to denounce, 
 and has been taken up by that large and influential 
 body which goes by the name of Liberal or Latitudi- 
 narian ; and how, where it prevails, it is as unreason- 
 able of course to demand for Religion a chair in a 
 University, as to demand one for fine feeling, sense of 
 honour, patriotism, gratitude, maternal affection, or 
 good companionship, proposals which would be simply 
 unmeaning. 
 
 Now, in illustration of what I have been saying, I 
 
 20 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 will appeal, in the first place, to a statesman, but not 
 merely so, to no mere politician, no trader in places, 
 or votes, or the stock market, but to a philosopher, 
 to an orator, to one whose profession, whose aim, has 
 ever been to cultivate the fair, the noble, and the 
 generous. I cannot forget the celebrated discourse of 
 the celebrated man to whom I am alluding ; a man 
 who is first in his peculiar walk ; and who, moreover 
 (which is much to my purpose), has had a share, as 
 much as any one alive, in effecting the public recog- 
 nition in these Islands of the principle of separating 
 secular and religious knowledge. This brilliant 
 thinker, during the years in which he was exerting 
 himself in its behalf, made a speech or discourse, on 
 occasion of a public solemnity ; and in reference to 
 the bearing of general knowledge upon religious belief, 
 he spoke as follows : 
 
 " As men," he said, " will no longer suffer them- 
 selves to be led blindfold in ignorance, so will they 
 no more yield to the vile principle of judging and 
 treating their fellow-creatures, not according to the 
 intrinsic merit of their actions, but according to the 
 accidental and involuntary coincidence of their opinions. 
 The great truth has finally gone forth to ajl the ends 
 of the earth," and he prints it in capital letters, " that 
 man shall no more render account to man for his 
 belief, over which he has himself no control. Hence- 
 forward, nothing shall prevail upon us to praise or to 
 blame any one for that which he can no more change, 
 than he can the hue of his skin or the height of his 
 stature." 1 You see, gentlemen, if this philosopher is 
 to decide the matter, religious ideas are just as far 
 
 1 Mr. Brougham's Glasgow Discourse. 
 21 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 from being real, or representing anything beyond 
 themselves, are as truly peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, 
 accidents of the individual, as his having the stature of 
 a Patagonian, or the features of a Negro. 
 
 But perhaps this was the rhetoric of an excited 
 moment. Far from it, gentlemen, or I should not 
 have fastened on the words of a fertile mind, uttered 
 so long ago. What Mr. Brougham laid down as a 
 principle in 1825, resounds on all sides of us, with 
 ever-growing confidence and success, in 1852. I 
 open the Minutes of the Committee of Council on 
 Education for the years 1848-50, presented to both 
 Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, 
 and I find one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, 
 at p. 467 of the second volume, dividing " the topics 
 usually embraced in the better class of primary schools" 
 into four : the knowledge of signs, as reading and 
 writing ; of facts, as geography and astronomy ; of 
 relations and laws, as mathematics ; and lastly sentiment, 
 such as poetry and music. Now, on first catching 
 sight of this division, it occurred to me to ask myself, 
 before ascertaining the writer's own resolution of the 
 matter, under which of these four heads would fall 
 Religion, or whether it fell under any of them. Did 
 he put it aside as a thing too delicate and sacred to be 
 enumerated with earthly studies ? or did he distinctly 
 contemplate it when he made his division ? Anyhow, 
 I could really find a place for it under the first head, 
 or the second, or the third ; for it has to do with 
 facts, since it tells of the Self-subsisting ; it has to do 
 with relations, for it tells of the Creator ; it has to do 
 with signs, for it tells of the due manner of speaking of 
 Him. There was just one head of the division to 
 which I could not refer it, viz., to sentiment ; for, 
 
 22 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 I suppose, music and poetry, which are the writer's 
 own examples of sentiment, have not much to do with 
 Truth, which is the main object of Religion. Judge 
 then my surprise, gentlemen, when I found the fourth 
 was the very head selected by the writer of the Report 
 in question, as the special receptacle of religious topics, 
 44 The inculcation of sentiment" he says, "embraces 
 reading in its higher sense, poetry, music, together 
 with moral and religious Education/' What can be 
 clearer than that, in this writer's idea (whom I am far 
 from introducing for his own sake, because I have no 
 wish to hurt the feelings of a gentleman, who is but 
 exerting himself zealously in the discharge of anxious 
 duties; I do but introduce him as an illustration of 
 the wide-spreading school of thought to which he 
 belongs), what, I say, can more clearly prove than a 
 candid avowal like this, that, in the view of that school, 
 Religion is not knowledge, has nothing whatever to do 
 with knowledge, and is excluded from a University 
 course of instruction, not simply because the exclusion 
 cannot be helped, from political or social obstacles, 
 but because it has no business there at all, because it is 
 to be considered a mere taste, sentiment, opinion, and 
 nothing more ? 
 
 The writer avows this conclusion himself, in the 
 explanation into which he presently enters, in which 
 he says : " According to the classification proposed, 
 the essential idea of all religious Education will consist 
 in the direct cultivation of the feelings." What we 
 contemplate, then, what we aim at, when we give a 
 religious Education, is, it seems, not to impart any 
 knowledge whatever, but to satisfy anyhow desires 
 which will arise after the Unseen in spite of us, to 
 provide the mind with a means of self-command, to 
 2 3 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 impress on it the beautiful ideas which saints and 
 sages have struck out, to embellish it with the bright 
 hues of a celestial piety, to teach it the poetry of de- 
 votion, the music of well-ordered affections, and the 
 luxury of doing good. As for the intellect, its exercise 
 happens to be unavoidable, whenever moral impres- 
 sions are made, from the constitution of the human mind, 
 and it varies in its conclusions with the peculiarities of 
 the individual. Something like this seems to be the 
 writer's meaning, but we need not pry into its finer issues 
 in order to gain a distinct view of its general bearing ; 
 and taking it, as I think we fairly may take it, as a 
 specimen of the philosophy of the day, as adopted by 
 those who are not conscious unbelievers, or open 
 scoffers, I consider it amply explains how it comes to 
 pass that this day's philosophy sets up a system of 
 universal knowledge, and teaches of plants, and earths, 
 and creeping things, and beasts, and gases, about the 
 crust of the earth and the changes of the atmosphere, 
 about sun, moon, and stars, about man and his doings, 
 about the history of the world, about sensation, memory, 
 and the passions, about duty, about cause and effect, 
 about all things imaginable, except one and that is, 
 about Him that made all these things, about God. 
 I say the reason is plain because they consider know- 
 ledge, as regards the creature, is illimitable, but im- 
 possible or hopeless as regards the being and attributes 
 and works of the Creator. 
 
 Here, however, it may be objected to me that this 
 representation is certainly extreme, for the school in 
 question does, in fact, lay great stress on the evidence 
 afforded by the creation, to the Being and Attributes 
 of the Creator. I may be referred, for instance, to the 
 words of one of the speakers on a memorable occasion. 
 24 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 At the very time of laying the first stone of the Uni- 
 versity of London, I confess it, a learned person, since 
 elevated to the Protestant See of Durham, which he 
 still fills, opened ihe proceedings with prayer. He 
 addressed the Deity, as the authoritative Report in- 
 forms us, "the whole surrounding assembly standing 
 uncovered in solemn silence." " Thou," he said, in 
 the name of all present, "Thou hast constructed the 
 vast fabric of the universe in so wonderful a manner, 
 so arranged its motions, and so formed its productions, 
 that the contemplation and study of Thy works exer- 
 cise at once the mind in the pursuit of human science, 
 and lead it onwards to Divine Truth" Here is ap- 
 parently a distinct recognition that there is such a 
 thing as Truth in the province of Religion ; and, did 
 the passage stand by itself, and were it the only means 
 we possessed of ascertaining the sentiments of the 
 powerful body whom this distinguished person there 
 represented, it would, as far as it goes, be satisfactory. 
 I admit it ; and I admit also the recognition of the 
 Being and certain Attributes of the Deity, contained in 
 the writings of the gifted person whom I have already 
 quoted, whose genius, versatile and multiform as it is, 
 in nothing has been so constant, as in its devotion to 
 the advancement of knowledge, scientific and literary. 
 He then, in his "Discourse of the objects, advan- 
 tages, and pleasures of science," after variously illus- 
 trating what he terms its "gratifying treats," crowns 
 the catalogue with mention of " the highest of all our 
 gratifications in the contemplation of science," which 
 he proceeds to explain thus: 
 
 "We are raised by them," says he, "to an under- 
 standing of the infinite wisdom and goodness which 
 the Creator has displayed in all His works. Not a 
 
 2 5 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 step can be taken in any direction," he continues, 
 * without perceiving the most extraordinary traces of 
 design ; and the skill, everywhere conspicuous, is cal- 
 culated in so vast a proportion of instances to promote 
 the happiness of living creatures, and especially of our- 
 selves, that we can feel no hesitation in concluding, 
 that, if we knew the whole scheme of Providence, 
 every part would be in harmony with a plan of absolute 
 benevolence. Independent, however, of this most con- 
 soling inference, the delight is inexpressible, of being 
 able to follow, as it were, with our eyes, the mar- 
 vellous works of the Great Architect of Nature, to 
 trace the unbounded power and exquisite skill which 
 are exhibited in the most minute, as well as the 
 mightiest parts of His system. The pleasure derived 
 from this study is unceasing, and so various, that it 
 never tires the appetite. But it is unlike the low 
 gratifications of sense in another respect : it elevates 
 and refines our nature, while those hurt the health, 
 debase the understanding, and corrupt the feelings ; it 
 teaches us to look upon all earthly objects as insigni- 
 ficant and below our notice, except the pursuit of 
 knowledge and the cultivation of virtue, that is to say, 
 the strict performance of our duty in every relation of 
 society ; and it gives a dignity and importance to the 
 enjoyment of life, which the frivolous and the grovel- 
 ling cannot even comprehend." 
 
 Such are the words of this prominent champion of 
 Mixed Education. If logical inference be, as it un- 
 doubtedly is, an instrument of truth, surely, it may be 
 answered to me, in admitting the possibility of inferring 
 the Divine Being and Attributes from the phenomena 
 of nature, he distinctly admits a basis of truth for the 
 doctrines of Religion. 
 
 26 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 I wish, gentlemen, to give these representations 
 their full weight, both from the gravity of the ques- 
 tion, and the consideration due to the persons whom I 
 am arraigning ; but, before I can feel sure I understand 
 them, I must ask an abrupt question. When I am 
 told, then, by the partisans of Universities without 
 Theological teaching, that human science leads to 
 belief in a Supreme Being, without denying the fact, 
 nay, as a Catholic, with full conviction of it, neverthe- 
 less I am obliged to ask what the statement means in 
 their mouths, what they, the speakers, understand by 
 the word " God." Let me not be thought offensive, 
 if I question, whether it means the same thing on the 
 two sides of the controversy. With us Catholics, as 
 with the first race of Protestants, as with Mahometans, 
 and all Theists, the word contains, as I have already 
 said, a theology in itself. | At the risk of anticipating 
 what I shall have occasion to insist upon in my next 
 Discourse, let me say that, according to the teaching 
 of Monotheism] God is an Individual, Self-dependent, 
 All-perfect, Unchangeable Being; intelligent, living, 
 personal, and present ; almighty, all-seeing, all-remem- 
 bering ; between whom and His creatures there is an 
 infinite gulf; who has no origin, who is all-sufficient 
 for Himself; who created and upholds the universe; 
 who will judge every one of us, sooner or later, ac- 
 cording to that Law of right and wrong which He 
 has written on our hearts. He is One who is sove- 
 reign over, operative amidst, independent of, the ap- 
 pointments which He has made ; One in whose hands 
 are all things, who has a purpose in every event, and a 
 standard for every deed, and thus has relations of His 
 own towards the subject-matter of each particular 
 science which the book of knowledge unfolds ; who 
 27 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 has with an adorable, never-ceasing energy mixed Him- 
 self up with all the history of creation, the constitution 
 of nature, the course of the world, the origin of society, 
 the fortunes of nations, the action of the human mind; 
 and who thereby necessarily becomes the subject-matter 
 of a science, far wider and more noble than any of 
 those which are included in the circle of secular 
 Education. 
 
 This is the doctrine which belief in a God 
 implies : if it means anything, it means all this, 
 and cannot keep from meaning ail this, and a 
 great deal more ; and, even though there were 
 nothing in the religious tenets of the last three cen- 
 turies to disparage dogmatic truth, still, even then, 
 I should have difficulty in believing that a doc- 
 trine so mysterious, so peremptory, approved itself 
 as a matter of course to educated men of this day, 
 who gave their minds attentively to consider it. 
 Rather, in a state of society such as ours, in which 
 authority, prescription, tradition, habit, moral instinct, 
 and the divine influences go for nothing, in which 
 patience of thought, and depth and consistency of 
 view, are scorned as subtle and scholastic, in which 
 free discussion and fallible judgment are prized as 
 the birthright of each individual, I must be ex- 
 cused if I exercise towards this age, as regards its 
 belief in this doctrine, some portion of that scepticism 
 which it exercises itself towards every received but 
 nnscrutinised assertion whatever. I cannot take it for 
 granted, I must have it brought home to me by tan- 
 gible evidence, that the spirit of the age means by the 
 Supreme Being what Catholics mean. Nay, it would 
 be a relief to my mind to gain some ground of assur- 
 ance, that the parties influenced by that spirit had, I 
 28 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 will not say, a true apprehension of God, but even so 
 much as the idea of what a true apprehension is. 
 
 Nothing is easier than to use the word, and mean 
 nothing by it. The heathens used to say, "God 
 wills," when they meant " Fate " ; " God provides," 
 when they meant " Chance " ; " God acts," when 
 they meant "Instinct" or "Sense"; and "God is 
 everywhere," when they meant " the Soul of Nature. 1 ' 
 The Almighty is something infinitely different from a 
 principle, or a centre of action, or a quality, or a generali- 
 sation of phenomena. If, then, by the word, you do 
 but mean a Being who has contrived the world and keeps 
 in in order, who acts in it, but only in the way of general 
 Providence, who acts towards us but only through 
 what are called laws of Nature, who is more certain 
 not to act at all than to act independent of those laws, 
 who is known and approached indeed, but only through 
 the medium of those laws ; such a God it is riot diffi- 
 cult for any one to conceive, not difficult for any one 
 to endure. If, I say, as you would revolutionise 
 society, so you would revolutionise heaven, if you have 
 changed the divine sovereignty into a sort of constitu- 
 tional monarchy, in which the Throne has honour and 
 ceremonial enough, but cannot issue the most ordinary 
 command except through legal forms and precedents, 
 and with the counter-signature of a minister, then 
 belief in a God is no more than an acknowledgment 
 of existing, sensible powers and phenomena, which 
 none but an idiot can deny. If the Supreme Being is 
 powerful or skilful, just so far forth as the telescope 
 shows power, and the microscope shows skill, if His 
 moral law is to be ascertained simply by the physical 
 processes of the animal frame, or His will gathered from 
 the immediate issues of human affairs, if His Essence 
 29 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 is just as high and deep and broad and long as the 
 universe, and no more ; if this be the fact, then will 
 I confess that there is no specific science about God, 
 that Theology is but a name, and a protest in its behalf 
 an hypocrisy. Then is He but coincident with the 
 laws of the universe ; then is He but a function, or 
 correlative, or subjective reflection and mental impres- 
 sion of each phenomenon of the material or moral 
 world, as it flits before us. Then, pious as it is to 
 think of Him, while the pageant of experiment or 
 abstract reasoning passes by, still, such piety is nothing 
 more than a poetry of thought or an ornament of 
 language, and has not even an infinitesimal influence 
 upon philosophy or science, of which it is rather the 
 parasitical production. I understand, in that case, 
 why Theology should require no specific teaching, for 
 there is nothing to mistake about ; why it is powerless 
 against scientific anticipations, for it merely is one of 
 them ; why it is simply absurd in its denunciations of 
 heresy, for heresy does not lie in the region of feet 
 and experiment. I understand, in that case, how it is 
 that the religious sense is but a " sentiment/' and its 
 exercise a " gratifying treat," for it is like the sense of 
 the beautiful or the sublime. I understand how the 
 contemplation of the universe " leads onwards to divine 
 truth," for divine truth is not something separate from 
 Nature, but it is Nature with a divine glow upon it. 
 I understand the zeal expressed for Natural Theo- 
 logy, for this study is but a mode of looking at 
 Nature, a certain view taken of Nature, private 
 and personal, which one man has, and another has 
 not, which gifted minds strike out, which others 
 see to be admirable and ingenious, and which all 
 would be the better for adopting. It is but the 
 30 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 theology of Nature, just as we talk of the philosophy 
 or the romance of history, or the poetry of childhood, 
 or the picturesque, or the sentimental, or the humorous, 
 or any other abstract quality, which the genius or the 
 caprice of the individual, or the fashion of the day, 
 or the consent of the world, recognises in any set of 
 objects which are subjected to its contemplation. 
 
 Such ideas of religion seem to me short of Mono- 
 theism ; I do not impute them to this or that indi- 
 vidual who belongs to the school which gives them 
 currency ; but what I read about the " gratification " 
 of keeping pace in our scientific researches with " the 
 Architect of Nature " ; about the said gratification 
 " giving a dignity and importance to the enjoyment of 
 life," and teaching us that knowledge and our duties 
 to society are the only earthly objects worth our 
 notice, all this, I own it, gentlemen, frightens me; 
 nor is Dr. Maltby's address to the Deity sufficient to 
 reassure me. I do not see much difference between 
 avowing that there is no God, and implying that 
 nothing definite can for certain be known about Him ; 
 and when I find Religious Education treated as the 
 cultivation of sentiment, and Religious Belief as the 
 accidental hue or posture of the mind, I am reluctantly 
 but forcibly reminded of a very unpleasant page of 
 Metaphysics, viz., of the relations between God and 
 Nature insinuated by such philosophers as Hume. 
 This acute, though most low-minded of speculators, 
 in his inquiry concerning the Human Understanding, 
 introduces, as is well known, Epicurus, that is, a 
 teacher of atheism, delivering an harangue to the 
 Athenian people, not indeed in defence, but in ex- 
 tenuation of that opinion. His object is to show that, 
 whereas the atheistic view is nothing else than the 
 3 1 
 
THEOLOGY 
 
 repudiation of theory, and an accurate representation 
 of phenomenon and fact, it cannot be dangerous, un- 
 less phenomenon and fact be dangerous. Epicurus is 
 made to say, that the paralogism of philosophy has 
 ever been that of arguing from Nature in behalf of 
 something beyond Nature, greater than Nature ; 
 whereas God, as he maintains, being known only 
 through the visible world, our knowledge of Him is 
 absolutely commensurate with our knowledge of it 
 is nothing distinct from it is but a mode of viewing 
 it. Hence it follows that, provided we admit, as we 
 cannot help admitting, the phenomena of Nature and 
 the world, it is only a question of words whether or 
 not we go on to the hypothesis of a second Being, 
 not visible but immaterial, parallel and coincident with 
 Nature, to whom we give the name of God. " Allow- 
 ing," he says, "the gods to be the authors of the 
 existence or order of the universe, it follows that they 
 possess that precise degree of power, intelligence, and 
 benevolence, which appear s in their workmanship ; 
 but nothing further can be proved, except we call in 
 the assistance of exaggeration and flattery to supply 
 the defects of argument and reasoning. So far as the 
 traces of any attributes, at present, appear, so far may 
 we conclude these attributes to exist. The supposition 
 of further attribmes is mere hypothesis ; much more 
 the supposition that, in distant periods of place and 
 time, there has been, or will be, a more magnificent 
 display of these attributes, and a scheme of administra- 
 tion more suitable to such imaginary virtues." 
 
 Here is a reasoner, who would not hesitate to deny 
 that there is any distinct science or philosophy possible 
 concerning the Supreme Being ; since every single 
 thing we know of Him is this or that or the other 
 
A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 phenomenon, material or moral, which already falls 
 under this or that natural science. In him then it 
 would be only consistent to drop Theology in a course 
 of University Education : but how is it consistent in 
 any one who shrinks from his companionship ? I am 
 glad to see that the author, several times mentioned, is 
 in opposition to Hume, in one sentence of the quota- 
 tion I have made from his Discourse upon Science, 
 deciding, as he does, that the phenomena of the 
 material world are insufficient for the full exhibition 
 of the Divine Attributes, and implying that they 
 require a supplemental process to complete and 
 harmonise their evidence. But is not this supple- 
 mental process a science ? and if so, why not acknow- 
 ledge its existence ! If God is more than Nature, 
 Theology claims a place among the sciences : but, on 
 the other hand, if you are not sure of as much as this, 
 how do you differ from Hume or Epicurus? 
 
 I end then as I began : religious doctrine is know- 
 ledge. This is the important truth, little entered into 
 at this day, which I wish that all who have honoured 
 me with their presence here would allow me to beg 
 them to take away with them. I am not catching at 
 sharp arguments, but laying down grave principles. 
 Religious doctrine is knowledge, in as full a sense as 
 Newton's doctrine is knowledge. University Educa- 
 tion without Theology is simply unphilosophical. 
 Theology has at least as good a right to claim a 
 place there as Astronomy. 
 
 In my next Discourse it will be my object to show 
 that its omission from the list of recognised sciences is 
 not only indefensible in itself, but prejudicial to all the 
 rest. 
 
 33 
 
DISCOURSE II 
 
 BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON OTHER BRANCHES 
 OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 men of great intellect, who have 
 long and intently and exclusively given 
 themselves to the study or investigation 
 of some one particular branch of secular knowledge, 
 whose mental life is concentrated and hidden in their 
 chosen pursuit, and who have neither eyes nor ears for 
 anything which does not immediately bear upon it, 
 when such men are at length made to realise that there 
 is a clamour all around them, which must be heard, for 
 what they have been so little accustomed to place in 
 the category of knowledge as Religion, and that they 
 themselves are accused of disaffection to it, they are 
 impatient at the interruption ; they call the demand 
 tyrannical, and the requisitionists bigots or fanatics. 
 They are tempted to say, that their only wish is to be 
 let alone ; for themselves, they are not dreaming of 
 offending any one, or interfering with any one ; they 
 are pursuing their own particular line, they have 
 never spoken a word against any one's religion, who- 
 ever he may be, and never mean to do so. It does 
 not follow that they deny the existence of a God, be- 
 cause they are not found talking of it, when the topic 
 would be utterly irrelevant. All they say is, that 
 there are other beings in the world besides the Supreme 
 34 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 Being ; their business is with them. After all, the 
 creation is not the Creator, nor things secular religious. 
 Theology and human science are two things, not one, 
 and have their respective provinces, contiguous it may 
 be and cognate to each other, but not identical. When 
 we are contemplating earth, we are not contemplating 
 heaven ; and when we are contemplating heaven, we 
 are not contemplating earth. Separate subjects should 
 be treated separately. As division of labour, so 
 division of thought is the only means of successful 
 application . " Let us go our own way," they say, 
 " and you go yours. We do not pretend to lecture on 
 Theology, and you have no claim to pronounce upon 
 Science." 
 
 With this feeling they attempt a sort of compromise, 
 between their opponents who claim for Theology a 
 free introduction into the Schools of Science, and them- 
 selves who would exclude it altogether, and it is this : 
 viz., that it should remain indeed excluded from the 
 public schools, but that it should be permitted in 
 private, wherever a sufficient number of persons is 
 found to desire it. Such persons, they seem to say, 
 may have it all their own way, when they are by 
 themselves, so that they do not attempt to disturb a 
 comprehensive system of instruction, acceptable and 
 useful to all, by the intrusion of opinions peculiar to 
 their own minds. 
 
 j I am now going to attempt a philosophical answer 
 to this representation, that is, to the project of teach- 
 ing secular knowledge in the University Lecture 
 Room, and remanding religious knowledge to the 
 parish priest, the catechism, and the parlour ; and in 
 doing so, you must pardon me, gentlemen, if my sub- 
 ject should oblige me to pursue a course of thought 
 35 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 which is wearisome to the hearer : I begin then 
 thus : 
 
 Truth is the object of Knowledge of whatever kind ; 
 and when we inquire what is meant by Truth, I sup- 
 pose it is right to answer that Truth means facts and 
 their relations, which stand towards each other pretty 
 much as subjects and predicates in logic. All that 
 exists, as contemplated by the human mind, forms one 
 large system or complex fact, and this of course re- 
 solves itself into an indefinite number of particular facts, 
 which, as being portions of a whole, have countless 
 relations of every kind, one towards another. Know- 
 ledge is the apprehension of these facts, whether in 
 themselves, or in their mutual positions and bearings. 
 And, as all taken together form one integral subject for 
 contemplation, so there are no natural or real limits 
 between part and part; one is ever running into another ; 
 all, as viewed by the mind, are combined together, and 
 possess a correlative character one with another, from the 
 internal mysteries of the Divine Essence down to our 
 own sensations and consciousness, from the most solemn 
 appointments of the Lord of all down to what may be 
 called the accident of the hour, from the most glorious 
 seraph down to the vilest and most noxious of reptiles. 
 
 Now, it is not wonderful that, with all its capabilities, 
 the human mind cannot take in this whole vast fact at 
 a single glance, or gain possession of it at once. Like 
 a short-sighted reader, its eye pores closely, and travels 
 slowly, over the awful volume which lies open for its 
 inspection. Or again, as we deal with some huge 
 structure of many parts and sides, the mind goes round 
 abaut it, noting down, first one thing, then another, as 
 it best may, and viewing it under different aspects, by 
 way of making progress towards mastering the whole. 
 
 36 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 So by degrees and by circuitous advances does it rise 
 aloft and subject to itself that universe into which it 
 has been born. 
 
 These various partial views or abstractions, by means 
 of which the mind looks out upon its object, are called 
 sciences, and embrace respectively larger or smaller 
 portions of the field of knowledge ; sometimes extend- 
 ing far and wide, but superficially, sometimes with 
 exactness over particular departments, sometimes 
 occupied together on one and the same portion, some- 
 times holding one part in common, and then ranging 
 on this side or that in absolute divergence one from the 
 other. Thus Optics has for its subject the whole 
 visible creation, so far forth as it is simply visible ; 
 Mental Philosophy has a narrower province, but a 
 richer one. Astronomy, plane and physical, each has 
 the same subject-matter, but views it or treats it differ- 
 ently ; lastly, Geology and Comparative Anatomy 
 have subject-matters partly the same, partly distinct 
 Now these views or sciences, as being abstractions, 
 have far more to do with the relations of things than 
 with things themselves. They tell us what things are, 
 only or principally by telling us their relations, or as- 
 signing predicates to subjects ; and therefore they never 
 tell us all that can be said about a thing, even when 
 they tell something, nor do they bring it before us, as 
 the senses do. They arrange and classify facts ; they 
 reduce separate phenomena under a common law ; they 
 trace effects to a cause. Thus they serve to transfer 
 our knowledge from the custody of memory to the 
 surer and more abiding protection of philosophy, thereby 
 providing both for its spread and its advance : f^, 
 inasmuch as sciences are forms of knowledge, they 
 enable the intellect to master and increase it ; and, 
 37 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 inasmuch as they are instruments, to communicate it 
 readily to others. Still, after all, they proceed on the 
 principle of a division of labour, even though that 
 division is an abstraction, not a literal separation into 
 parts ; and, as the maker of a bridle or an epaulet has 
 not, on that account, any idea of the science of tactics 
 or strategy, so in a parallel way, it is not every science 
 which equally, nor any one which fully, enlightens the 
 mind in the knowledge of things, as they are, or brings 
 home to it the external object on which it wishes to 
 gaze. Thus they differ in importance ; and according 
 to their importance will be their influence, not only on 
 the mass ot knowledge to which they all converge and 
 contribute, but on each other. 
 
 Since then sciences are the results of mental pro- 
 cesses about one and the same subject-matter, viewed 
 under its various aspects, and are true results, as far as 
 they go, yet at the same time separate and partial, it 
 follows that on the one hand they need external assist- 
 ance, one by one, by reason of their incompleteness, 
 and on the other that they are able to afford it to each 
 other, by reason, first, of their independence in them- 
 selves, and then of their connection in their subject- 
 matter. Viewed altogether, they approximate to a 
 representation or subjective reflection of the objective 
 truth, as nearly as is possible to the human mind, which 
 advances towards the accurate apprehension of that 
 object, in proportion to the number of sciences which 
 it has mastered ; and which, when certain sciences are 
 away, in such a case has but a defective apprehension, 
 in proportion to the value of the sciences which are 
 thus wanting, and the importance of the field on which 
 they are employed. 
 
 Let us take, for instance, man himself as our object 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 of contemplation ; then at once we shall find we can 
 view him in a variety of relations ; and according to 
 those relations are the sciences of which he is the 
 subject-matter, and according to our acquaintance 
 with them is our possession of a true knowledge of 
 him. We may view him in relation to the material 
 elements of his body, or to his mental constitution, or 
 to his household and family, or to the community in 
 which he lives, or to the Being who made him ; and 
 in consequence we treat of him respectively as physio- 
 logists, or as moral philosophers, or as writers of 
 economics, or of politics, or as theologians. When 
 we think of him in all these relations together, or as 
 the subject at once of all the sciences I have named, 
 then we may be said to reach unto and rest in the 
 idea of man as an object or external fact, similar to 
 that which the eye takes of his outward form. On 
 the other hand, according as we are only physiologists, 
 or only politicians, or only moralists, so is our idea of 
 man more or less unreal ; we do not take in the whole 
 of him, and the defect is greater or less, in proportion 
 as the relation is, or is not, important, which is omitted, 
 whether his relation to God, or to his king, or to his 
 children, or to his own component parts. And if 
 there be one relation, about which we know nothing 
 at all except that it exists, then is our knowledge of 
 him, confessedly and to our own consciousness, deficient 
 and partial, and that, I repeat, in proportion to the 
 importance of the relation. 
 
 That therefore is true of sciences in general which 
 
 we are apt to think applies only to pure mathematics, 
 
 though to pure mathematics it applies especially, viz., 
 
 that they cannot be considered as simple representa- 
 
 39 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 tions or informants of things as they are. We are 
 accustomed to say, and say truly, that the conclusions 
 of pure mathematics are applied, corrected, and adapted, 
 by mixed ; but so too the conclusions of Anatomy, 
 Chemistry, Dynamics, and other sciences, are revised 
 and completed by each other. Those several con- 
 clusions do not represent whole and substantive things, 
 but views, true, so far as they go ; and in order to 
 ascertain how far they do go, that is, how far they 
 correspond to the object to which they belong, we 
 must compare them with the views taken out of that 
 object by other sciences. Did we proceed upon the 
 abstract theory of forces, we should assign a much 
 more ample range to a projectile than in fact the 
 resistance of the air allows it to accomplish. Let, 
 however, that resistance be made the subject of scien- 
 tific analysis, and then we shall have a new science, 
 assisting, and to a certain point completing, for the 
 benefit of questions of fact, the science of projection. 
 On the other hand, the science of projection itself, 
 considered as belonging to the forces it contemplates, 
 is not more perfect, as such, by this supplementary 
 investigation. And in like manner, as regards the 
 whole circle of sciences, one corrects another for 
 purposes of fact, and one without the other cannot 
 dogmatise, except hypothetically and upon its own 
 abstract principles. For instance, the Newtonian 
 philosophy requires the admission of certain meta- 
 physical postulates, if it is to be more than a theory 
 or an hypothesis ; as, for instance, that what happened 
 yesterday will happen to-morrow ; that there is such 
 a thing as matter, that our senses are trustworthy, 
 that there is a logic of induction, and so on. Now 
 to Newton metaphysicians grant all that he asks ; 
 40 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 but, if so be, they may not prove equally accommo- 
 dating to another who asks something else, and then 
 all his most logical conclusions in the science of 
 physics would remain hopelessly on the stocks, though 
 finished, and never could be launched into the sphere 
 of fact. 
 
 Again, did I know nothing about the passage of 
 bodies, except what the theory of gravitation supplies, 
 were I simply absorbed in that theory so as to make 
 it measure all motion on earth and in the sky, I should 
 indeed come to many right conclusions, I should hit 
 off many important facts, ascertain many existing 
 relations, and correct many popular errors : I should 
 scout and ridicule with great success the old notion, 
 that light bodies flew up and heavy bodies fell 
 down ; but I should go on with equal confidence to 
 deny the phenomenon of capillary attraction. Here 
 I should be wrong, but only because I carried out 
 my science irrespectively of other sciences. In like 
 manner, did I simply give myself to the investigation 
 of the external action of body upon body, I might 
 scoff at the very idea of chemical affinities and com- 
 binations, and reject it as simply unintelligible. Were 
 I a mere chemist, I should deny the influence of 
 mind upon bodily health : and so on, as regards the 
 devotees of any science, or family of sciences, to the 
 exclusion of others ; they necessarily become bigots 
 and quacks, scorning all principles and reported facts 
 which do not belong to their own pursuit, and thinking 
 to effect everything without aid from any other quarter. 
 Thus, before now, chemistry has been substituted for 
 medicine ; and again, political economy, or intellectual 
 enlightenment, or the reading of the Scriptures, has 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 been cried up as a panacea against vice, malevolence, 
 and misery. 
 
 "p Summing up, gentlemen, what I have said, I lay it 
 down that all knowledge forms one whole, because its 
 ^ubject-matter is one ; for the universe in its length and 
 breadth is so intimately knit together, that we cannot 
 separate off portion from portion, and operation from 
 operation, except by a mental abstraction ; and then 
 again, as to its Creator, though He of course in His 
 own Being is infinitely separate from it, yet He has 
 so implicated Himself with it, and taken it into His 
 very bosom, by His presence in it, His providence 
 over it, His impressions upon it, and His influences 
 through it, that we cannot truly or fully contemplate 
 it without contemplating Him. Next, sciences are 
 the results of that mental abstraction which I have 
 spoken of, being the logical record of this or that 
 aspect of the whole subject-matter of knowledge. 
 As they all belong to one and the same circle of 
 objects, they are one and all connected together ; 
 as they are but aspects of things, they are severally 
 incomplete in their relation to the things themselves, 
 though complete in their own idea and for their own 
 respective purposes ; on both accounts they at once 
 need and subserve each other. And further, the 
 comprehension of the bearings of one science on 
 another, and the use of each to each, and the loca- 
 tion and limitation and adjustment and due appreciation 
 of them all, one with another, this belongs, I conceive, 
 to a sort of science distinct from all of them, and in 
 some sense a science of sciences, which is my own 
 conception of what is meant by Philosophy, in the 
 true sense of the word, and of a philosophical habit 
 42 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 of mind, and which in these Discourses I shall call 
 by that name. This is what I have to say about 
 knowledge and philosophical knowledge generally; 
 and now I proceed to apply it to the particular 
 science which has led me to draw it out. 
 
 I say, then, that the systematic omission of any one 
 science from the catalogue prejudices the accuracy and 
 completeness of our knowledge altogether, and that, 
 in proportion to its importance. Not even Theology 
 itself, though it comes from heaven, though its truths 
 were given once for all at the first, though they are 
 more certain on account of the Giver than those of 
 mathematics, not even Theology, do I exclude from 
 the law to which every mental exercise is subject, 
 viz., from that imperfection, which ever must attend 
 the abstract, when it would determine the concrete. 
 Nor do I speak only of Natural Religion ; for even 
 the teaching of the Catholic Church is variously in- 
 fluenced by the other sciences. Not to insist on the 
 introduction of the Aristotelic philosophy into its 
 phraseology, its interpretations of prophecy are directly 
 affected by the issues of history ; its comments upon 
 Scripture by the conclusions of the astronomer and the 
 geologist ; and its casuistical decisions by the various 
 experience, political, social, and psychological, with 
 which times and places are ever supplying it. 
 
 What Theology gives, it has a right to take ; or 
 rather, the interests of Truth oblige it to take. If 
 we would not be beguiled by dreams, if we would 
 ascertain facts as they are, then, granting Theology 
 is a real science, we cannot exclude it, and still call 
 ourselves philosophers. I have asserted nothing as 
 43 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 yet as to the pre-eminent dignity of Religious Truth; 
 I only say, if there be Religious Truth at all, we 
 cannot shut our eyes to it without prejudice to truth 
 of every kind, physical, metaphysical, historical, and 
 moral ; for it bears upon all truth. And thus I 
 answer the objection with which I opened this Dis- 
 course. I supposed the question put to me by a 
 philosopher of the day, "Why cannot you go your 
 way, and let us go ours ? " I answer, in the name 
 of Theology, " When Newton can dispense with the 
 metaphysician, then may you dispense with us." So 
 much at first sight ; now I am going on to claim a 
 little more for Theology, by classing it with branches 
 of knowledge which may with greater decency be com- 
 pared to it. 
 
 Let us see, then, how this supercilious treatment of 
 so momentous a science, for momentous it must be, if 
 there be a God, runs in a somewhat parallel case. 
 The great philosopher of antiquity, when he would 
 enumerate the causes of the things that take place in 
 the world, after making mention of those which he 
 considered to be physical and material, adds, " and 
 the mind and everything which is by means of man." l 
 Certainly ; it would have been a preposterous course, 
 when he would trace the effects he saw around him 
 to their respective sources, had he directed his exclu- 
 sive attention upon some one class or order of origi- 
 nating principles, and ascribed to these everything 
 which happened anywhere, pit would indeed have 
 been unworthy a genius so curious, so penetrating, so 
 fertile, so analytical as Aristotle's, to have laid it down 
 
 * Arist. Ethic. Nicom,, iii. 3, 
 44 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 that everything on the face of the earth could be ac- 
 counted for by the material sciences, without the 
 hypothesis of moral agents. It is incredible that in the 
 investigation of physical results he could ignore so in- 
 fluential a being as man, or forget that, not only brute 
 force and elemental movement, but knowledge also is 
 power. And this so much the more, inasmuch as 
 moral and spiritual agents belong to another, not to 
 say a higher, order than physical ; so that the omission 
 supposed would not have been merely an oversight in 
 matters of detail, but a philosophical error, and a fault 
 in division. 
 
 However, we live in an age of the world when the 
 career of science and literature is little affected by what 
 was done, or would have been done, by this venerable 
 authority ; so, we will suppose, in England or Ire- 
 land, in the middle of the nineteenth century, a set 
 of persons of name and celebrity to meet together, 
 in spite of Aristotle, to adopt a line of proceeding 
 which they conceive the circumstances of the time 
 render imperative. We will suppose that a difficulty 
 just now besets the enunciation and discussion of all 
 matters of science, in consequence of the extreme sen- 
 sitiveness of large classes of the community, ministers 
 and laymen, on the subjects of necessity, responsibility, 
 the standard of morals, and the nature of virtue. 
 Parties run so high, that the only way of avoiding 
 constant quarrelling in defence of this or that side of 
 the question is, in the judgment of the persons I am 
 supposing, to shut up the subject of anthropology 
 altogether. This is accordingly done. Henceforth 
 man is to be as if he were not, in the general course 
 of Education ; the moral and mental sciences are to 
 have no professorial chairs, and the treatment of them 
 45 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 is to be simply left as a matter of private judgment, which 
 each individual may carry out as he will. I can just 
 fancy such a prohibition abstractedly possible ; but one 
 thing I cannot fancy possible, viz., that the parties in 
 question, after this sweeping act of exclusion, should 
 forthwith send out proposals on the basis of such ex- 
 clusion for publishing an Encyclopaedia,;; or erecting 
 a National University. It is necessary, however, 
 gentlemen, for the sake of the illustration which I am 
 setting before you, to imagine what cannot be. I say, 
 let us imagine a project for organising a system of 
 scientific teaching, in which the agency of man in the 
 material world cannot allowably be recognised, and 
 may allowably be denied. Physical and mechanical 
 causes are exclusively to be treated of; volition is a 
 forbidden subject. A prospectus is put out, with a 
 list of sciences, we will say, Astronomy, Optics, Hy- 
 drostatics, Galvanism, Pneumatics, Statics, Dynamics, 
 Pure Mathematics, Geology, Botany, Physiology, 
 Anatomy, and so forth ; but not a word about the 
 mind and its powers, except what is said in explana- 
 tion of the omission. That explanation is to the 
 effect that the parties concerned in the undertaking 
 have given long and anxious thought to the subject, 
 and have been reluctantly driven to the conclusion that 
 it is simply impracticable to include in the list of Uni- 
 versity Lectures the Philosophy of Mind. What 
 relieves, however, their regret is the reflection, that 
 domestic feelings and polished manners are best culti- 
 vated in the family circle and in good society, in the 
 observance of the sacred ties which unite father, 
 mother, and child, in the correlative claims and duties 
 of citizenship, in the exercise of disinterested loyalty 
 and enlightened patriotism. With this apology, such 
 46 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 as it is, they pass over the consideration of the human 
 mind and its powers and works, " in solemn silence," 
 in their scheme of University Education. 
 
 Let a charter be obtained for it; let professors be 
 appointed, lectures given, examinations passed, degrees 
 awarded : what sort of exactness or trustworthiness, 
 what philosophical largeness, will attach to views formed 
 in an intellectual atmosphere thus deprived of some of 
 the constituent elements of daylight ? What judgment 
 will foreign countries and future times pass on the 
 labours of the most acute and accomplished of the 
 philosoi hers who have been parties to so portentous an 
 unreality? Here are professors gravely lecturing on 
 medicine, or history, or political economy, who, so far 
 from being bound to acknowledge, are free to scoff at 
 the action of mind upon matter, or of mind upon mind, 
 or the claims of mutual justice and charity. Common 
 sense indeed and public opinion set bounds at first to 
 so intolerable a license ; yet, as time goes on, an 
 omission which was originally but a matter of expe- 
 dience, commends itst-lf to the reason ; and at length a 
 professor is found, more hardy than his brethren, still 
 however, as he himself maintains, with sincere respect 
 for domestic feelings and good manners, who takes on 
 him to deny psychology in toto, to pronounce the in- 
 fluence of mind in the visible world a superstition, and 
 to account for every effect which is found in the world 
 by the operation of physical causes. Hitherto intelli- 
 gence and volition were accounted real powers ; the 
 muscles act, and their action cannot be represented by 
 any scientific expression ; a stone flies out of the hand 
 and the propulsive force of the muscle resides in the 
 will ; but there has been a revolution, or at least a new 
 theory in philosophy, and our Professor, I say, after 
 47 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 speaking with the highest admiration of the human in- 
 tellect, limits its independent action to the region of 
 speculation, and denies that it can be a motive prin- 
 ciple, or can exercise a special interference, in the 
 material world. He ascribes every work, or ex- 
 ternal act of man, to the innate force or soul of the 
 physical universe. He observes that spiritual agents 
 are so mysterious and unintelligible, so uncertain in 
 their laws, so vague in their operation, so sheltered 
 from experience, that a wise man will have nothing 
 to say to them. They belong to a different order of 
 causes, which he leaves to those whose profession it 
 is to investigate them, and he confines himself to the 
 tangible and sure. Human exploits, human devices, 
 human deeds, human productions, all that comes under 
 the scholastic terms of "genius" and "art," and 
 the metaphysical ideas of "duty/* "right," and 
 "heroism," it is his office to contemplate all these 
 merely in their place in the eternal system of physical 
 cause and effect. At length he undertakes to show 
 how the whole fabric of material civilisation has arisen 
 from the constructive powers of physical elements and 
 physical laws. He descants upon palaces, castles, 
 temples, exchanges, bridges, causeways, and shows 
 that they never could have grown into the imposing 
 dimensions which they present to us, but for the laws 
 of gravitation and the cohesion of part with part. The 
 pillar would come down, the loftier the more speedily, 
 did not the centre of gravity fall within its base ; and 
 the most admired dome of Palladio or Sir Chris- 
 topher would give way, were it not for the happy 
 principle of the arch. He surveys the complicated 
 machinery of a single day's arrangements in a private 
 family ; our dress, our furniture, our hospitable board ; 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 \vhat would become of them, he asks, but for the laws 
 of physical nature? Firm stitches have a natural power, 
 in proportion to the toughness of the material adopted, 
 to keep together separate portions of cloth ; sofas and 
 chairs could not turn upside down, even if they would ; 
 and it is a property of caloric to relax the fibres of 
 animal matter, acting through water in one way, through 
 oil in another, and this is the whole mystery of the 
 most elaborate cuisine : but I should be tedious if I 
 continued the illustration. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, pray understand how it is to be 
 here applied. I am not supposing that the principles 
 of Theology and Psychology are the same, or arguing 
 from the works of man to the works of God, which 
 Paley has done, which Hume has protested against. 
 I am not busying myself to prove the existence and 
 attributes of God, by means of the Argument from 
 design. I am not proving anything at all about the 
 Supreme Being. On the contrary, I am assuming His 
 existence, and I do but say this : that, man existing, 
 no University Professor, who had suppressed in physi- 
 cal lectures the idea of volition, who did not take 
 volition for granted, could escape a one-sided, a radi- 
 cally false view of the things which he discussed ; not 
 indeed that his own definitions, principles, and laws 
 would be wrong, or his abstract statements, but his 
 considering his own study to be the key of everything 
 that takes place on the face of the earth, and his pass- 
 ing over anthropology, this would be his error. I say, 
 it would not be his science which was untrue, but his 
 so-called knowledge which was unreal. He would be 
 deciding on facts by means of theories. The various 
 busy world, spread out before our eyes, is physical, 
 
 49 D 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 but it is more than physical ; and, in making its actual 
 system identical with his scientific analysis, formed on 
 a particular aspect, such a Professor as I have imagined 
 was betraying a want of philosophical depth, and an 
 ignorance of what an University Education ought to be. 
 He was no longer a teacher of liberal knowledge, but 
 a narrow-minded bigot. While his doctrines professed 
 to be conclusions formed upon an hypothesis or partial 
 truth, they were undeniable ; not, if they professed to 
 give results in fact which he could grasp and take 
 possession of. Granting, indeed, that a man's arm is 
 moved by a simple physical cause, then of course we 
 may dispute about the various external influences which, 
 when it changes its position, sway it to and fro, like 
 a scarecrow in a garden ; but to assert that the motive 
 cause if physical, this is an assumption in a case, when 
 our question is about a matter of fact, not about the 
 logical consequences of an assumed premiss. And, 
 in like manner, if a people prays, and the wind changes, 
 the rain ceases, the sun shines, and the harvest is safely 
 housed, when no one expected it, our Professor may, 
 if he will, consult the barometer, discourse about the 
 atmosphere, and throw what has happened into an 
 equation, ingenious, though it be not true ; but, should 
 he proceed to rest the phenomenon, in matter of 
 fact, simply upon a physical cause, to the exclusion 
 of a divine, and to say that the given case actually 
 belongs to his science because other like cases do, I 
 must tell him, Ne sutor ultra crepidam : he is making 
 his particular craft usurp and occupy the universe. 
 This then is the drift of my illustration. Our ex- 
 cluding volition from our range of ideas is a denial 
 of the soul, and our ignoring Divine Agency is a 
 virtual denial of God. Moreover, supposing man can 
 
 5 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 will and act of himself in spite of physics, to shut up 
 this great truth, though one, is to put our whole ency- 
 clopaedia of knowledge out of joint ; and supposing 
 God can will and act of Himself in this world which 
 He has made, and we deny or slur it over, then we 
 are throwing the circle of universal science into a 
 like, or a far worse confusion. 
 
 Worse incomparably, for the idea of God, if there 
 be a God, is infinitely higher than the idea of man, 
 if there be man. If to plot out man's agency is to 
 deface the book of knowledge, on the supposition of 
 that agency existing, what must it be, supposing it 
 exists, to blot out the agency of God ? See, gentle- 
 men, I have now run beyond the first portion of the 
 argument to which this Discourse is devoted. I have 
 hitherto been engaged in showing that all the sciences 
 come to us as one, that they all relate to one and the 
 same integral subject-matter, that each separately is 
 more or less an abstraction, wholly true as an hypo- 
 thesis, but not wholly trustworthy in the concrete, 
 conversant with relations more than with facts, with 
 principles more than with agents, needing the support 
 and guarantee of its sister sciences, and giving in turn 
 while it takes : from which it follows, that none 
 can safely be omitted, if we would obtain the exactest 
 knowledge possible of things as they are, and that the 
 omission is more or less important, in proportion to 
 the field which each covers, and the depth to which 
 it penetrates, and the order to which it belongs ; for 
 its loss is a positive privation of an influence which 
 exerts itself in the correction and completion of the 
 rest. This general statement is the first branch of my 
 argument, and now comes my second, which is its 
 application, and will not occupy us so long. I say, 
 5' 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 the second question simply regards the Science of 
 God, or Theology, viz., what, in matter of fact, are 
 its pretensions, what its importance, what its influence 
 upon other branches of knowledge, supposing there be 
 a God, which it would not become me to set about 
 proving ? Has it vast dimensions, or does it He in a 
 nutshell ? Will its omission be imperceptible, or will 
 it destroy the equilibrium of the whole system of 
 Knowledge? This is the inquiry to which I proceed. 
 Now what is Theology ? First, I will tell you 
 what it is not. And here, in the first place (though 
 of course I speak on the subject as a Catholic), ob- 
 serve that, strictly speaking, I am not assuming that 
 Catholicism is true, while I make myself the champion 
 of Theology. Catholicism has not formally entered 
 into my argument hitherto, nor shall I just now assume 
 any principle peculiar to it, for reasons which will 
 appear in the sequel, though of course I shall use 
 Catholic language. Neither, secondly, will I fall into 
 the fashion of the day, of identifying Natural Theo- 
 logy with Physical ; which said Physical Theo- 
 logy is a most jejune study, considered as a science, 
 and really is no science at all, for it is ordinarily 
 nothing more than a series of pious or polemical 
 remarks upon the physical world viewed religiously, 
 whereas the word "Natural" really comprehends 
 man and society, and all that is involved therein, as 
 the great Protestant writer, Dr. Butler, shows us. 
 Nor, in the third place, do I mean by Theology pole- 
 mics of any kind ; for instance, what are called " the 
 Evidences of Religion/' or "the Christian Evidences; " 
 for, though these constitute a science supplemental to 
 Theology and are necessary in their place, they are 
 not Theology itself, unless an army is synonymous 
 S 2 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 with the body politic. Nor, fourthly, do I mean by 
 Theology that vague thing called "Christianity," or 
 "our common Christianity," or "Christianity the law 
 of the land," if there is any man alive who can tell 
 what it is. I discard it, for the very reason that it 
 cannot throw itself into a proposition. Lastly, I do 
 not understand by Theology, acquaintance with the 
 Scriptures ; for, though no person of religious feelings 
 can read Scripture but he will find those feelings 
 roused, and gain much knowledge of history into the 
 bargain, yet historical reading and religious feeling are 
 not science. I mean none of these things by Theo- 
 logy, I simply mean the Science of God, or the truths 
 
 _jve know about God put into system ; just as we have 
 a science of the stars, and call it astronomy, or of the 
 crust of the earth, and call it geology. 
 
 i For instance^ I mean, for this is the main point, 
 that* as in the human irame' there Is a living principle, 
 
 acting upon it and through Jt by n^aris of volition, so, 
 the veil of the visibly universe, mere is jan 
 
 invisible, intelligent Being, acting on ancL through it, 
 
 as and when lie will* Further, I mean that this 
 
 invisible Agent is in no sense a soul of the world, 
 after the analogy of human nature, but, on the con- 
 trary, is absolutely distinct from the world, as being 
 its Creator, Upholder, Governor, and Sovereign Lord. 
 Here we are at once brought into the circle of doc- 
 trines which the idea of God embodies. I mean 
 then by the Supreme Being, one who is simply self- 
 dependent, and the only Being who is such ; more- 
 over, that He is without beginning or Eternal, and 
 the only Eternal ; that in consequence He has lived 
 a whole eternity by Himself; and hence that He is 
 all-sufficient, sufficient for His own blessedness, and 
 
 S3 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 all-blessed, and ever-blessed. Further, I mean a 
 Being, who, having these prerogatives, has the Supreme 
 Good, or rather is the Supreme Good, or has all the 
 attributes of Good in infinite intenseness ; all wisdom, 
 all truth, all justice, all love, all holiness, all beautiful- 
 ness ; who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent ; 
 ineffably one, absolutely perfect ; and such, that what 
 we do not know and cannot even imagine of Him, 
 is far more wonderful than what we do and can. 
 I mean One who is sovereign over His own will 
 and actions, though always according to the eternal 
 Rule of right and wrong, which is Himself. I mean, 
 moreover, that He created all things out of nothing, 
 and preserves them every moment, and could destroy 
 them as easily as He made them ; and that, in con- 
 sequence, He is separated from them by an abyss, 
 and is incommunicable in all His attributes. And 
 further, He has stamped upon all things, in the hour 
 of their creation, their respective natures, and has 
 given them their work and mission and their length 
 of days, greater or less, in their appointed place. 
 I mean, too, that He is ever present with His works, 
 one by one, and confronts everything He has made by 
 His particular and most loving Providence, and mani- 
 fests Himself to each according to its needs ; and has 
 on rational beings imprinted the moral law, and given 
 them power to obey it, imposing on them the duty 
 of worship and service, searching and scanning them 
 through and through with His omniscient eye, and put- 
 ting before them a present trial and a judgment to come. 
 Such is what Theology teaches about God, a 
 doctrine, as the very idea of its subject-matter pre- 
 supposes, so mysterious as in its fulness to lie beyond 
 any system, and to seem in parts even to be irre- 
 54 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 concilable with itself, the imagination being unable to 
 embrace what the reason determines. It teaches of a 
 Being infinite, yet personal ; all-blessed, yet ever opera- 
 tive ; absolutely separate from the creature, yet in every 
 part of the creation at every moment ; above all things, 
 yet under everything. It teaches of a Being who, 
 though the highest, yet in the work of creation, con- 
 servation, government, retribution, makes Himself, as 
 it were, the minister and servant of all ; who, though 
 inhabiting eternity, allows Himself to take an interest, 
 and to feel a sympathy, in the matters of space and 
 time. His are all beings, visible and invisible, the 
 noblest and the vilest of them. His are the substance, 
 and the operation, and the results of that system of 
 physical nature into which we are born. His, too, 
 are the powers and achievements of the intellectual 
 essences, on which He has bestowed an independent 
 action and the gift of origination. The laws of the 
 universe, the principles of truth, the relation of one 
 thing to another, their qualities and virtues, the order 
 and harmony of the whole, all that exists, is from 
 Him ; and, if evil is not from Him, as assuredly it 
 is not, this is because evil has no substance of its 
 own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or 
 corruption of that which has. All we see, hear, 
 and touch, the remote sidereal firmament, as well as 
 our own sea and land, and the elements which com- 
 pose them, and the ordinances they obey, are His. 
 The primary atoms of matter, their properties, their 
 mutual action, their disposition and collocation, elec- 
 tricity, magnetism, gravitation, light, and whatever 
 other subtle principles or operations the wit of man 
 is detecting or shall detect, are the work of His 
 hands. From Him has been every movement which 
 55 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 has convulsed and re-fashioned the surface of the 
 earth. The most insignificant or unsightly insect is 
 from Him, and good in its kind ; the ever-teeming, 
 inexhaustible swarms of animal culae, the myriads of 
 living motes invisible to the naked eye, the restless 
 ever-spreading vegetation which creeps like a garment 
 over the whole earth, the lofty cedar, the umbrageous 
 banana, are His. His are the tribes and families of 
 birds and beasts, their graceful forms, .their wild 
 gestures, and their passionate cries. 
 
 And so in the intellectual, moral, social, and 
 political world. Man, with his motives and works, 
 his languages, his propagation, his diffusion, is from 
 Him. Agriculture, medicine, and the arts of life, 
 are His gifts. Society, laws, government, He is 
 their sanction. The pageant of earthly royalty has 
 the semblance and the benediction of the Eternal 
 King. Peace and civilisation, commerce and adven- 
 ture, wars when just, conquest when humane and 
 necessary, have His co-operation, and His blessing 
 upon them. The course of events, the revolution of 
 empires, the rise and fall of states, the periods and 
 eras, the progresses and the retrogressions of the 
 world's history, not indeed the incidental sin, over- 
 abundant as it is, but the great outlines and the results 
 of human affairs, are from His disposition. The 
 elements and types and seminal principles and con- 
 structive powers of the moral world, in ruins though 
 it be, are to be referred to Him. He " enlighteneth 
 every man that cometh into this world." His are 
 the dictates of the moral sense, and the retributive 
 reproaches of conscience. To Him must be ascribed 
 the rich endowments of the intellect, the radiation 
 of genius, the imagination of the poet, the sagacity of 
 
 56 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 the politician, the wisdom (as Scripture calls it) which 
 now rears and decorates the Temple, now manifests 
 itself in proverb or in parable. The old saws ot 
 nations, the majestic precepts of philosophy, the 
 luminous maxims of law, the oracles of individual 
 wisdom, the traditionary rules of truth, justice, and 
 religion, even though imbedded in the corruption, or 
 alloyed with the pride, of the world, betoken His 
 original agency, and His long-suffering presence. 
 Even where there is habitual rebellion against Him, 
 or profound far-spreading social depravity, still the 
 undercurrent, or the heroic outburst, of natural virtue, 
 as well as the yearnings of the heart after what it has 
 not, and its presentiment of its true remedies, are to 
 be ascribed to the Author of all good. Anticipations 
 or reminiscences of His glory haunt the mind of the 
 self-sufficient sage, and of the pagan devotee ; His 
 writing is upon the wall, whether of the Indian fane, 
 or of the porticoes of Greece. He introduces Him- 
 self, He all but concurs, according to His good 
 pleasure, and in His selected season, in the issues 
 of unbelief, superstition, and false worship, and 
 changes the character of acts by His overruling 
 operation. He condescends, though He gives no 
 sanction, to the altars and shrines of imposture, and 
 He makes His own fiat the substitute for its sorceries. 
 He speaks amid the incantations of Balaam, raises 
 Samuel's spirit in the witch's cavern, prophesies of 
 the Messias by the tongue of the Sybil, forces Python 
 to recognise His ministers, and baptizes by the hand 
 of the misbeliever. He is with the heathen dramatist 
 in his denunciations of injustice and tyranny, and his 
 auguries of divine vengeance upon crime. Even on 
 the unseemly legends of a popular mythology He 
 57 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 casts His shadow, and is dimly discerned in the ode 
 or the epic, as in troubled water or in fantastic dreams 
 All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful, 
 all that is beneficent, be it great or small, be it perfect 
 or fragmentary, natural as well as supernatural, moral 
 as well as material, comes from Him. 
 P If this be a sketch, accurate in substance and as far 
 as it goes, of the doctrines proper to Theology, and 
 especially of the doctrine of a particular Providence, 
 which is the portion of it most on a level with human 
 sciences, I cannot understand at all how, supposing it 
 to be true, it can fail, considered as knowledge, to 
 exert a powerful influence on philosophy, literature, and 
 every intellectual creation or discovery whatever, I 
 cannot understand how it is possible, as the phrase 
 goes, to blink the question of its truth or falsehood. 
 It meets us with a profession and a proffer of the 
 highest truths of which the human mind is capable ; it 
 embraces a range of subjects the most diversified and 
 distant from each other. What science will not find 
 one part or other of its province traversed by its path ? 
 What results of philosophic speculation are unquestion- 
 able, if they have been gained without inquiry as to 
 what Theology had to say to them ? Does it cast no 
 light upon history ? has it no influence upon the prin- 
 ciples of ethics ? is it without any sort of bearing on 
 physics, metaphysics, and political science ? Can we 
 drop it out of the circle of knowledge, without allow- 
 ing, either that that circle is thereby mutilated, or on 
 the other hand, that Theology is no science ? 
 
 And this dilemma is the more inevitable, because 
 Theology is so precise and consistent in its intellectual 
 structure. When I speak of Theism or Monotheism, 
 I am not throwing together discordant doctrines ; I am 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 not merging belief, opinion, persuasion, of whatever 
 kind, into a shapeless aggregate, by the help of ambigu- 
 ous words, and dignifying this medley by the name of 
 Theology. I speak of one idea unfolded in its just 
 proportions, carried out upon an intelligible method, and 
 issuing in necessary and immutable results ; understood 
 indeed at one time and place better than at another, held 
 here and there with more or less of inconsistency, but 
 still, after all, in all times and places, where it is found, 
 the evolution, not of two ideas, but of one. 
 
 And here I am led, gentlemen, to another and most 
 important point in the argument for the doctrine, I mean 
 its wide reception. Theology, as I have described it, is 
 no accident of particular minds, as are certain systems, 
 for instance, of prophetical interpretation. It is not the 
 sudden birth of a crisis, as the Lutheran or Wesleyan 
 doctrine. It is not the splendid development of some 
 uprising philosophy, as the Cartesian or Platonic. It 
 is not the fashion of a season, as certain medical treat- 
 ments may be considered. It has had a place, if not 
 possession, in the intellectual world from time im- 
 memorial ; it has been received by minds the most 
 various, and in systems of religion the most hostile to 
 each other. It has primd facie claims upon us, so 
 strong, that it can only be rejected on the ground of 
 those claims being nothing more than imposing, that 
 is, false. As to our own countries, it occupies our 
 language, it meets us at every turn in our literature, it 
 is the secret assumption, too axiomatic to be distinctly 
 professed, of all our writers ; nor can we help assuming 
 it ourselves, without the most unnatural vigilance. 
 Whoever philosophizes, starts with it, and introduces 
 it, when he will, without any apology. Bacon, 
 Hooker, Taylor, Cud worth, Locke, Newton, Clarke, 
 59 
 
BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON 
 
 Berkeley, Butler, and it would be as easy to find 
 more, as difficult to find greater names among English 
 authors, inculcate or comment upon it. Men the most 
 opposed, in creed or cast of mind, Addison and John- 
 son, Shakespeare and Milton, Lord Herbert and 
 Baxter, herald it forth. Nor is it an English or a 
 Protestant notion only; you track it across the Conti- 
 nent, you pursue it into former ages. When was the 
 world without it ? Have the systems of Atheism or 
 Pantheism, as sciences, prevailed in the literature of 
 nations, or received a formation or attained a complete- 
 ness such as Monotheism ? We find it in old Greece, 
 and even in Rome, as well as in Judea and the East. 
 We find it in popular literature, in philosophy, in 
 poetry, as a positive and settled teaching, differing not 
 at all in the appearance it presents, whether in Pro- 
 testant England, or in schismatical Russia, or in the 
 Mahometan populations, or in the Catfeolic Church. 
 If ever there was a subject of thought, which had 
 earned by prescription to be received among the studies 
 of a University, and which could not be rejected ex- 
 cept on the score of convicted imposture, as astrology 
 or alchemy ; if there be a science anywhere, which at 
 least could claim not to be ignored, but to be enter- 
 tained, and either distinctly accepted or distinctly re- 
 probated, or rather, which cannot be passed over in a 
 scheme of universal instruction, without involving a 
 positive denial of its truth, it is this ancient, this far- 
 spreading philosophy. 
 
 And BOW, gentlemen, I may bring a somewhat 
 tedious discussion to a close. It will not take many 
 words to sum up what I have been urging. I say 
 then, if the various branches of knowledge, which are 
 the matter of teaching in a University, so hang together, 
 60 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 that none can be neglected without prejudice to the 
 perfection of the rest, and if Theology be a branch of 
 knowledge, of wide reception, of philosophical struc- 
 ture, of unutterable importance, and of supreme in- 
 fluence, to what conclusion are we brought from these 
 two premisses but this ? that to withdraw Theology 
 from the public schools is to impair the completeness 
 and to invalidate the trustworthiness of all that is 
 actually taught in them. 
 
 But I have been insisting simply on Natural Theo- 
 logy, and that, because I wished to carry along with 
 me those who were not Catholics, and, again, as being 
 confident that no one can really set himself to master 
 and to teach the doctrine of an intelligent Creator in 
 its fulness, without going on a great deal further than 
 he at present dreams. I ask, then, secondly : if this 
 Science, even as human reason may attain to it, has 
 such claims on the regard, and enters so variously into 
 the objects, of the Professor of Universal Knowledge, 
 how can any Catholic imagine that it is possible for 
 him to cultivate Philosophy and Science with due 
 attention to their ultimate end, which is Truth, sup- 
 posing that system of revealed facts and principles, 
 which constitutes the Catholic Faith, which goes so far 
 beyond nature, and which he knows to be most true, 
 be omitted from among the subjects of his teaching ? 
 
 In a word, Religious Truth is not only a portion, 
 but a condition of general knowledge. To blot it out 
 is nothing short, if I may so speak, of unravelling the 
 web of University Education It is, according to the 
 Greek proverb, to take the Spring from out of the 
 year ; it is to imitate the preposterous proceeding of 
 those tragedians who represented a drama with the 
 omission of its principal part. 
 61 
 
DISCOURSE III 
 
 BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOW- 
 LEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 i OTHING is more common in the world at 
 large than to consider the resistance, made 
 on the part of religious men, especially 
 Catholics, to the separation of Secular Education from 
 Religion, as a plain token that there is some real con- 
 trariety between human science and Revelation. It 
 matters not to the multitude who draw this inference, 
 whether the protesting parties avow their belief in this 
 contrariety or not; it is borne in upon the many, so to 
 say, as self-evident, that religious men would not thus 
 be jealous and alarmed about Science, did they not feel 
 instinctively, though they may not recognise it, that 
 knowledge is their born enemy, and that its progress 
 will be certain to destroy, if it is not arrested, all that 
 they hold venerable and dear. It looks to the world 
 like a misgiving on our part similar to that which is 
 imputed to our refusal to educate by means of the 
 Bible only ; why should you dread it, men say, if 
 it be not against you ? And in like manner, why 
 should you dread secular education, except that it is 
 against you ? Why impede the circulation of books 
 which take religious views opposite to your own ? 
 Why forbid your children and scholars the free 
 perusal of poems, or tales, or essays, or other light 
 62 
 
OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 literature which you fear would unsettle their minds ? 
 Why oblige them to know these persons and to shun 
 those, if you think that your friends have reason on 
 their side as fully as your opponents ? J^^J^Jj^bo^ 
 and unsuspicious j want .of self-reliance ^ y^tKe^mar k of 
 
 Now, as far as this objection relates to any supposed 
 opposition between secular science and divine, which is 
 the subject on which I am at present engaged, I made 
 a sufficient answer to it in my foregoing Discourse. 
 In it I said, that, in order to have possession of truth 
 at all, we must have the whole truth ; that no one 
 science, no two sciences, no one family of sciences, 
 nay, not even all secular science, is the whole truth ; 
 that revealed truth enters to a very great extent into 
 the province of science, philosophy, and literature, and 
 that to put it on one side, in compliment to secular 
 science, is simply, under colour of a compliment, to do 
 science a great damage. <pl do not say that every 
 science will be equally affected by the omission ; pure 
 mathematics will not suffer at all ; chemistry will 
 suffer less than politics, politics than history, ethics, or 
 metaphysics ; still, that the various branches of science 
 are intimately connected with each other, and form 
 one whole, which whole is impaired, and to an extent 
 which it is difficult to limit, by any considerable 
 omission of knowledge, of whatever kind, and that 
 revealed knowledge is very far indeed from an in- 
 considerable department of knowledge, this I consider 
 undeniable. As the written and unwritten word of 
 God make up revelation as a whole, and the written, 
 taken by itself, is but a part of that whole, so in turn 
 Revelation itself may be viewed as one of the con- 
 stituent parts of human knowledge, considered as a 
 
 63 
 
BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 whole, and its omission is the omission of one of those 
 constituent parts. Revealed Religion furnishes facts to 
 the other sciences, which those sciences, left to them- 
 selves, would never reach ; and it invalidates apparent 
 facts, which, left to themselves, they would imagine. 
 Thus, in the science of history, the preservation of 
 our race in Noah's ark is an historical fact, which 
 history never would arrive at without Revelation; 
 and, in the sciences of physiology and moral philo- 
 sophy, our race's progress and perfectibility is a dream, 
 because Revelation contradicts it, whatever may be 
 plausibly argued in its behalf by scientific inquirers. 
 It is not then that Catholics are afraid of human 
 knowledge, but that they are proud of divine know- 
 ledge, and that they think the omission of any kind of 
 knowledge whatever, human or divine, to be, as far as 
 it goes, not knowledge, but ignorance. 
 
 Thus I anticipated the objection in question last 
 week : now I am going to make it the introduction to 
 a further view of the relation of secular knowledge to 
 divine. I observe, then, that, if you drop any science 
 out of the circle of knowledge, you cannot keep its 
 place vacant for it ; that science is forgotten ; the 
 other sciences close up, or, in other words, they ex- 
 ceed their proper bounds, and intrude where they have 
 no ri^ht. For instance, I suppose, if ethics were sent 
 into banishment, its territory would soon disappear, 
 under a treaty of partition, as it may be called, between 
 law, political economy, and physiology ; what, again, 
 would become of the province of experimental science, 
 if made over to the Antiquarian Society ; or of history, 
 if surrendered out and out to Metaphysicians ? The 
 case is the same with the subject-matter of Theology ; 
 it would be the prey of a dozen various sciences, if 
 
OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 Theology were put out of possession ; and not only 
 so, but those sciences would be plainly exceeding their 
 rights and their capacities in seizing upon it. They 
 would be sure to teach wrongly, where they had no 
 mission to teach at all. The enemies of Catholicism 
 ought to be the last to deny this : for they have never 
 been blind to a like usurpation, as they have called it, 
 on the part of theologians ; those who accuse us of 
 wishing, in accordance with Scripture language, to make 
 the sun go round the earth, are not the men to deny 
 that a science which exceeds its limits falls into error. 
 
 I neither then am able nor care to deny, rather I 
 assert the fact, and to-day I am going on to account 
 for it, that any secular science, cultivated exclusively, 
 may become dangerous to Religion ; and I account for 
 it on this broad principle, that no science whatever, 
 however comprehensive it may be, but will fall largely 
 into error, if it be constituted the sole exponent of all 
 things in heaven and earth, and that, for the simple 
 reason that it is encroaching on territory not its own, 
 and undertaking problems which it has no instruments 
 to solve. And I set off thus : 
 
 One of the first acts of the human mind is to take 
 hold of and appropriate what meets the senses, and 
 herein lies a chief distinction between man's and a 
 brute's use of them. Brutes gaze on sights, they are 
 arrested by sounds; and what they see and what 
 they hear are sights and sounds only. The intellect 
 of man, on the contrary, energises as well as his eye 
 or ear, and perceives in sights and sounds something 
 beyond them. It seizes and unites what the senses 
 present to it; it grasps and forms what need not be 
 seen or heard except in detail. It discerns in lines 
 and colours, or in tones, what is beautiful and what: 
 
BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 is not. It gives them a meaning, and invests them 
 with an idea. It gathers up a succession of notes, 
 as it were, into a point of time, and calls it a melody; 
 it has a keen sensibility towards angles and curves, 
 lights and shadows, tints and contours. It distinguishes 
 between rule and exception, between accident and de- 
 sign. It assigns phenomena to a general law, qualities 
 to a subject, acts to a principle, and effects to a cause. 
 In a word, it philosophises ; for I suppose Science and 
 Philosophy, in their elementary idea, are nothing else 
 but this habit of viewing, as it may be called, the 
 objects which sense conveys to the mind, of throwing 
 them into system, and uniting and stamping them with 
 one form. 
 
 This method is so natural to us, as I have said, as 
 to be almost spontaneous ; and we are impatient when 
 we cannot exercise it, and in consequence we do not 
 always wait to have the means of exercising it aright, 
 but we often put up with insufficient or absurd views 
 or interpretations of what we meet with, rather than 
 have none at all. We refer the various matters which 
 are brought home to us, material or moral, to causes 
 which we happen to know of, or to such as are simply 
 imaginary, sooner than refer them to nothing ; and 
 according to the activity of our intellect do we feel a 
 pain and begin to fret, if we are not able to do so. 
 Here we have an explanation of the multitude of ofF- 
 hand sayings, flippant judgments, and shallow gene- 
 ralisations, with which the world abounds. Not from 
 self-will only, nor from malevolence, but from the 
 irritation which suspense occasions, is the mind forced 
 on to pronounce, without sufficient data for pronounc- 
 ing. Who does not form some view or other, for 
 instance, of any public man, or any public event, nay, 
 66 
 
OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 CTen so far in some cases as to reach the mental 
 delineation of his appearance or of its scene ? yet how 
 few have a right to form any view. Hence the mis- 
 conceptions of character, hence the false impressions 
 and reports of words or deeds, which are the rule, 
 rather than the exception, in the world at large ; 
 hence the extravagances of undisciplined talent, and 
 the narrowness of conceited ignorance ; because, 
 though it is no easy matter to view things correctly, 
 yet the busy mind will ever be viewing. We cannot 
 do without a view, and we put up with an illusion, 
 when we cannot get a true one. 
 
 p Now, observe how this impatience acts in matters 
 of research and speculation. What happens to the 
 ignorant and hotheaded, will take place in the case of 
 every person whose education or pursuits are con- 
 tracted, whether they be merely professional, merely 
 scientific, or of whatever other peculiar complexion. 
 ^ Men, whose life lies in the cultivation of one science, 
 or the exercise of one method of thought, have no 
 more right, though they have often more ambition, to 
 generalise upon the basis of their own pursuit yet be- 
 yond its range, than the schoolboy or the ploughman 
 to judge of a Prime Minister. /< But they must have 
 something to say on every subject ; habit, fashion, the 
 public require it of them : and, if so, they can only 
 give sentence according to their knowledge. You 
 might think this ought to make such a person modest 
 in his enunciations ; not so : too often it happens 
 that, in proportion as his knowledge is narrow, is, 
 not his distrust of it, but the deep hold it has upon 
 him, his absolute conviction of his own conclusions, 
 and his positiveness in maintaining them. He has the 
 obstinacy of the bigot, whom he scorns, without the 
 
BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 bigot's apology, that he has been taught, as he thinks, 
 his doctrine from heaven. Thus he becomes, what is 
 commonly called, a man of one idea ; which properly 
 means a man of one science, and of the view, partly 
 true, but subordinate, partly false, which is all that 
 can proceed out of anything so partial. Hence it is 
 that we have the principles of utility, of combination, 
 of progress, of philanthropy, or, in material sciences, 
 comparative anatomy, phrenology, electricity, exalted 
 into leading ideas, and keys, if not of all knowledge, 
 at least of many things more than belong to them 
 principles, all of them true to a certain point, yet all 
 degenerating into error and quackery, because they 
 are carried to excess, at a point where they require 
 interpretation and restraint from other quarters, and 
 because they are employed to do what is simply too 
 much for them, inasmuch as a little science is not deep 
 philosophy. J 
 
 Lord Bacon has set down the abuse, of which I 
 am speaking, among the impediments to the Advance- 
 ment of the Sciences, when he observes that " men have 
 used to infect their meditations, opinions, and doctrines, 
 with some conceits which they have most admired, or 
 some Sciences 'which they have most applied , and give all 
 things else a tincture according to them utterly untrue 
 and Improper. ... So have the alchemists made a 
 philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace ; 
 and Gilbertus, our countryman, hath made a philosophy 
 out of the observations of a lodestone. So Cicero, 
 when, reciting the several opinions of the nature of the 
 soul, he found a musician that held the soul was but a 
 harmony, saith pleasantly, * hie ab arte sua non recessit,' 
 * he was true to his art/ But of these conceits Aris- 
 totle speaketh seriously and wisely when he saith, * Qui 
 68 
 
OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 respiciunt ad pauca, de facili pronunciant/ * they who 
 contemplate a few things have no difficulty in 
 deciding/ ' 
 
 And now I have said enough to explain the incon- 
 venience which I conceive necessarily to result from 
 a refusal to recogmse ^Heological truth ln~a course 
 of Universal Knowledge ; jt is not only the loss of 
 Theology,_itis the perversion orotEeF~Bciences. - 
 What it unjustly forfeits, others unjustly seizer They 
 have their own department, and, in going out of it, 
 attempt to do what they really cannot do ; and that 
 the more mischievously, because they do teach what 
 in its place is true, though when out of its place, per- 
 verted or carried to excess, it is not true. And, as 
 every man has not the capacity of separating truth from 
 falsehood, they persuade the world of what is false by 
 urging upon them what is true. Nor is it open enemies 
 alone who encounter us here, sometimes it is friends, 
 sometimes persons who, if not friends, at least have no 
 wish to oppose Religion, and are not conscious they 
 are doing so ; and it will carry out my meaning more 
 fully if I give some illustrations of it. 
 
 As to friends, I may take as an instance the cultiva- 
 tion of the Fine Arts, Painting, Sculpture, Archi- 
 tecture, to which I may add Music. These high 
 ministers of the Beautiful and the Noble are, it is 
 plain, special attendants and handmaids of Religion ; 
 but it is equally plain that they are apt to forget 
 their place, and, unless restrained with a firm hand, 
 instead of being servants, will aim at becoming 
 principals. Here lies the advantage, in an ecclesi- 
 astical point of view, of their more rudimental state, 
 I mean of the ancient style of architecture, of Gothic 
 sculpture and painting, and of what is called Gregorian 
 
BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 music, that these inchoate sciences have so little innate 
 vigour and life in them, that they are in no danger of 
 going out of their place, and giving the law to Religion. 
 But the case is very different when genius has breathed 
 upon their natural elements, and has developed them 
 into what I may call intellectual powers. When 
 Painting, for example, grows into the fulness of its 
 function as a simply imitative art, it at once ceases to 
 be a dependant on the Church. It has an end of its 
 own, and that of earth : Nature is its pattern, and the 
 object it pursues is the beauty of Nature, even till it 
 becomes an ideal beauty, but a natural beauty still. It 
 cannot imitate that beauty of Angels and Saints which 
 it has never seen. At first, indeed, by outlines and 
 emblems it shadowed out the Invisible, and its want of 
 skill became the instrument of reverence and modesty ; 
 but as time went on and it attained its full dimensions 
 as an art, it rather subjected Religion to its own 
 ends than ministered to the ends of Religion, and in 
 its long galleries and stately chambers, adorable figures 
 and sacred histories did but mingle amid the train of 
 earthly, not to say unseemly forms, which it created, 
 borrowing withal a colouring and a character from 
 that bad company. Not content with neutral ground 
 for its development, it was attracted by the sublimity 
 of divine subjects to ambitious and hazardous essays. 
 Without my saying a word more, you will clearly 
 understand, gentlemen, that under these circumstances 
 Religion was bound to exert itself, that the world 
 might not gain an advantage over it. Put out of sight 
 the severe teaching of Catholicism in the schools of 
 Painting, as men now would put it aside in their philo- 
 sophical studies, and in no long time you would have 
 had the hierarchy of the Church, the Anchorite and 
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OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 Virgin-martyr, the Confessor and the Doctor, the 
 Angelic Hosts, the Mother of God, the Crucifix, 
 the Eternal Trinity, supplanted by a sort of pagan 
 mythology in the guise of sacred names, by a creation 
 indeed of high genius, of intense, and dazzling, and 
 soul-absorbing beauty, in which, however, there was 
 nothing which subserved the cause of Religion, 
 nothing on the other hand which did not directly 
 or indirectly minister to corrupt nature and the powers 
 of darkness. 
 
 The art of Painting, however, is peculiar : Music 
 and Architecture are more ideal, and their respective 
 archetypes, even if not supernatural, at least are ab- 
 stract and unearthly ; and yet what I have been 
 observing about Painting, holds, I suppose, analogously, 
 in the marvellous development which Musical Science 
 has undergone in the last century. Doubtless here too 
 the highest genius may be made subservient to Religion ; 
 here too, still more simply than in the case of Painting, 
 the Science has a field of its own, perfectly innocent, 
 into which Religion does not and need not enter ; on 
 the other hand here also, in the case of Music as of 
 Painting, it is certain that Religion must be alive and 
 on the defensive, for, if its servants sleep, a potent 
 enchantment will steal over it.ffi MUSIC, I suppose, 
 though this is not the place to enlarge upon it, has 
 an object of its own ; as mathematical science also, it 
 is the expression of ideas greater and more profound 
 than any in the visible world, ideas, which centre 
 indeed in Him whom Catholicism manifests, who is 
 the seat of all beauty, order, and perfection whatever, 
 still ideas after all which are not those on which 
 Revelation directly and principally fixes our gaze. 
 If then a great master in this mysterious science (if I 
 
BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 may speak of matters which seem to lie out of my 
 own province) throws himself on his own gift, trusts 
 its inspirations, and absorbs himself in those thoughts 
 which, though they come to him in the way of nature, 
 belong to things above nature, it is obvious he will 
 neglect everything else. Rising in his strength, he 
 will break through the trammels of words, he will 
 scatter human voices, even the sweetest, to the winds ; 
 he will be borne upon nothing less than the fullest 
 flood of sounds which art has enabled him to draw 
 from mechanical contrivances; he will go forth as 
 a giant, as far as ever his instruments can reach, start- 
 ing from their secret depths fresh and fresh elements 
 of beauty and grandeur as he goes, and pouring them 
 together into still more marvellous and rapturous com- 
 binations ; and well indeed and lawfully, while he 
 keeps to that line which is his own ; but, should 
 he happen to be attracted, as he well may, by the 
 sublimity, so congenial to him, of the Catholic doctrine 
 and ritual, should he engage in sacred themes, should 
 he resolve to do honour to the Mass, or the Divine 
 Office (he cannot have a more pious, a better purpose, 
 and Religion will gracefully accept what he gracefully 
 offers ; but) is it not certain, from the circumstances 
 of the case, that he will rather use Religion than 
 minister to it, unless Religion is strong on its own 
 ground, and reminds him that, if he would do honour 
 to the highest of subjects, he must make himself its 
 scholar, must humbly follow the thoughts given him, 
 and must aim at the glory, not of his own gift, but of 
 the Great Giver ? 
 
 As to Architecture, it is a remark, if I recollect 
 aright, both of F&idlon and Berkeley, men so different, 
 
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OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 that it carries more with it even than the names of 
 those celebrated men, that the Gothic style is not as 
 simple as ecclesiastical structures demand. I under- 
 stand this to be a similar judgment to that which I have 
 been passing on the cultivation of Painting and Music. 
 For myself, certainly I think that that style which, 
 whatever be its origin, is called Gothic, is endowed 
 with a profound and a commanding beauty, such as no 
 other style possesses with which we are acquainted, 
 and which probably the Church will not see surpassed 
 till it attain to the Celestial City. No other archi- 
 tecture, now used for sacred purposes, seems to have 
 an idea in it, whereas the Gothic style is as har- 
 monious and as intellectual as it is graceful. But 
 this feeling should not blind us, rather it should 
 awaken us, to the danger lest what is really a divine 
 gift be incautiously used as an end rather than as a 
 means. It is surely quite within the bounds of possi- 
 bility, that, as the renaissance three centuries ago 
 ^carried away its own day, in spite of the Church, into 
 excesses in literature and art, so that revival of an 
 almost forgotten architecture, which is at present 
 taking place in our own countries, in France, and in 
 Germany, may in some way or other run away with us 
 into this or that error, unless we keep a watch over its 
 course. I am not speaking of Ireland ; but to English 
 Catholics at least it would be a serious evil, if it came 
 as the emblem and advocate of a past ceremonial or 
 an extinct nationalism. We are not living in an age 
 of wealth and loyalty, of pomp and s tat eli ness, of 
 time-honoured establishments, of pilgrimage and pen- 
 ance, of hermitages and convents in the wild, and of 
 fervent populations supplying the want of education by 
 love, and apprehending in form and symbol what they 
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BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 cannot read in books. Our rules and our rubrics have 
 been altered now to meet the times, and hence an 
 obsolete discipline may be a present heresy. 
 
 I have been pointing out to you, gentlemen, how the 
 Fine Arts may prejudice Religion, by laying down the 
 law in cases where they should be subservient. The 
 illustration is analogous rather than strictly proper to my 
 subject, yet I think it is to the point. If then the most 
 loyal and dutiful children of the Church must deny 
 themselves, and do deny themselves, when they would 
 sanctify to a heavenly purpose sciences as sublime and 
 as divine as any which are cultivated by fallen man, 
 it is not wonderful, when we turn to sciences of a 
 different character, of which the object is tangible and 
 material, and the principles belong to the Reason, not 
 the Imagination, that we should find their disciples, 
 if disinclined to the Catholic Faith, acting the part of 
 opponents to it, and that, as may often happen, even 
 against their will and intention. Many men there are, 
 who, devoted to one particular subject of thought, 
 and making its principles the measure of all things, 
 become enemies to Revealed Religion before they 
 know it, and, only as time proceeds, are aware of 
 their state of mind. These, if they are writers or 
 lecturers, while in this state of unconscious or semi- 
 conscious unbelief, scatter infidel principles under the 
 garb and colour of Christianity; and this, simply 
 because they have made their own science, whatever 
 it is, Political Economy, or Geology, or Astronomy, 
 not Theology, the centre of all truth, and view every 
 part or the chief parts of knowledge as if developed 
 from it, and to be tested and determined by its prin- 
 ciples. Others, though conscious to themselves of 
 their anti- Christian opinions, have too much good feel- 
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OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 ing and good taste to wish to obtrude them upon the 
 world. They neither wish to shock people, nor to 
 earn for themselves a confessorship which brings with 
 it no gain. They know the strength of prejudice, 
 and the penalty of innovation ; they wish to go through 
 life quietly ; they scorn polemics ; they shrink, as from 
 a real humiliation, from being mixed up in religious 
 controversy ; they are ashamed of the very name. 
 However, they have had occasion at some time to 
 publish on some literary or scientific subject ; they 
 have wished to give no offence ; but after all, to their 
 great annoyance, they find when they least expect it, 
 or when they have taken considerable pains to avoid 
 it, that they have roused by their publication what 
 they would style the bigoted and bitter hostility of a 
 party. This misfortune is easily conceivable, and has 
 befallen many a man. Before he knows where he is, 
 a cry is raised on all sides of him ; and so little does 
 he know what we may call the Re of the land, that his 
 attempts at apology perhaps only make matters worse. 
 In other words, an exclusive line of study has led him, 
 whether he will or no, to run counter to the principles 
 of Religion ; which principles he has never made his 
 landmarks, and which, whatever might be their effect 
 upon himself, at least would have warned him against 
 practising upon the faith of others, had they been 
 authoritatively held up before him. 
 
 Instances of this kind are far from uncommon. 
 Men who are old enough will remember the trouble 
 which came upon a person, eminent as a professional 
 man in London even at that distant day, and still 
 more eminent since, in consequence of his publishing a 
 book in which he so treated the subject of Comparative 
 Anatomy as to seem to deny the immateriality of the 
 
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BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 soul. I speak here neither as excusing nor reprobat- 
 ing sentiments about which I have not the means of 
 forming a judgment ; all indeed I have heard of him 
 makes me mention him with interest and respect ; 
 anyhow of this I am sure, that if there be a calling 
 which feels its position and its dignity to lie in abstain- 
 ing from controversy and cultivating kindly feelings 
 with men of all opinions, it is the medical profession, 
 and I cannot believe that the person in question would 
 purposely have raised the indignation and incurred the 
 censure of the religious public. What then must have 
 been his fault or mistake, but that he unsuspiciously 
 threw himself upon his own particular science, which 
 is of a material character, and allowed it to carry him 
 forward into a subject-matter, where it had no right 
 to give the law, viz., that of spiritual beings, which 
 directly belongs to the science of Theology ? 
 
 Another instance occurred at a later date. A living 
 dignitary of the Established Church wrote a History 
 of the Jews ; in which, with what I consider at least 
 bad judgment, he took an external view of it, and 
 hence was led to assimilate it as nearly as possible to 
 secular history. A great sensation was the consequence 
 among the members of his own communion, from which 
 he still suffers. Arguing from the dislike and con- 
 tempt of polemical demonstrations which that accom- 
 plished writer has ever shown, I must conclude that he 
 was simply betrayed into a false step by the treacherous 
 fascination of what is called the Philosophy of History, 
 which is good in its place, but can scarcely be applied 
 in cases where the Almighty has superseded the natural 
 laws of society and history. From this he would 
 have been saved had he been a Catholic ; but in the 
 Establishment he knew of no teaching, to which he 
 
OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 was bound to defer, which ruled that to be false which 
 attracted him by its speciousness. 
 
 I will now take an instance from another science. 
 Political economy is the science, I suppose, of wealth 
 a science simply lawful and useful, for it is no sin to 
 make money, any more than it is a sin to seek honour ; 
 a science at the same time dangerous and leading to 
 occasions of sin, as is the pursuit of honour too ; and 
 in consequence, if studied by itself, and apart from the 
 control of Revealed Truth, sure to conduct a speculator 
 to unchristian conclusions. Holy Scripture tells us dis- 
 tinctly, that " covetousness," or more literally the love 
 of money, " is the root of all evils ; " and that " they 
 that would become rich fall into temptation ; " and 
 that " hardly shall they that have riches enter into the 
 kingdom of God ; " and after drawing the picture of 
 a wealthy and flourishing people, it adds, " They have 
 called the people happy that hath these things ; but 
 happy is that people whose God is the Lord : " 
 while on the other hand it says with equal distinctness, 
 " If any will not work, neither let him eat ; " and, 
 " If any man have not care of his own, and especially 
 of those of his house, he hath denied the faith, and is 
 worse than an infidel." These opposite injunctions 
 are summed up in the wise man's prayer, who says, 
 " Give me neither beggary nor riches, give me only 
 the necessaries of life.'* With this most precise view 
 of a Christian's duty, viz., to labour indeed, but to 
 labour for a competency for himself and his, and to be 
 jealous of wealth, whether personal or national, the 
 holy Fathers are, as might be expected, in simple 
 accordance. " Judas," says St. Chrysostom, "was 
 with Him who knew not where to lay His head, yet 
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BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 could not restrain himself; and how canst thou hope 
 to escape the contagion without anxious effort?" 
 " It is ridiculous," says St. Jerome, " to call it 
 idolatry to offer to the creature the grains of incense 
 that are due to God, and not to call it so, to offer the 
 whole service of one's life to the creature." " There 
 is not a trace of justice in that heart," says St. Leo, 
 " in which the love of gain has made itself a dwell- 
 ing." The same thing is emphatically taught us 
 by the counsels of perfection, and by every holy 
 monk and nun anywhere, who has ever embraced 
 them ; but it is needless to collect when Scripture is 
 so clear. 
 
 Now observe, gentlemen, my drift in setting Scrip- 
 ture and the Fathers over against Political Economy. 
 Of course if there is a science of wealth, it must give 
 rules for gaining wealth and disposing of wealth, and 
 can do nothing more ; it cannot itself declare that it is 
 a subordinate science, that its end is not the ultimate 
 end of all things, and that its conclusions are only 
 hypothetical, depending on its premisses, and liable to 
 be overruled by a higher teaching. I do not then 
 blame the Political Economist for anything which 
 follows from the very idea of his science, from the 
 very moment that it is recognised as a science. He 
 must of course direct his inquiries towards his end ; 
 but then at the same time it must be recollected, that 
 so far he is not practical, but only pursues an ab- 
 stract study, and is busy himself in establishing 
 logical conclusions from indisputable premisses. Given 
 that wealth is to be sought, this and that is the method 
 of gaining it. This is the extent to which a Political 
 Economist has a right to go ; he has no right to de- 
 termine that wealth is at any rate to be sought, or that 
 
OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 it is the way to be virtuous and the price of happiness ; 
 I say, this is to pass the bounds of his science, inde- 
 pendent of the question whether he be right or wrong 
 in so determining, for he is only concerned with an 
 hypothesis. 
 
 To take a parallel case. A physician may tell you, 
 that if you are to preserve your health, you must give 
 up your employment and retire to the country. He 
 distinctly says "if" ; that is all in which he is con- 
 cerned, he is no judge whether there are objects dearer 
 to you, more urgent upon you, than the preservation 
 of your health ; he does not enter into your circum- 
 stances, your duties, your liabilities, the persons de- 
 pendent on you ; he knows nothing about what is 
 advisable or what is not ; he only says, " I speak as a 
 physician ; if you would be well, give up your profes- 
 sion, your trade, your office, whatever it is." How- 
 ever he may wish it, it would be impertinent to him to 
 say more, unless indeed he spoke not as a physician but 
 as a friend ; and it would be extravagant, if he asserted 
 that bodily health was the summum bonum, and that no 
 one could be virtuous whose animal system was not in 
 good order. 
 
 But now let us turn to the teaching of the Poli- 
 tical Economist, a fashionable philosopher just now. 
 I will take a very favourable instance of him ; he shall 
 be represented by a gentleman of high character whose 
 religious views are sufficiently guaranteed to us, by 
 his being the special choice, in this department of 
 science, of a University removed more than any other 
 Protestant body of the day from sordid or unchristian 
 principles on the subject of money-making. I say, if 
 there be a place where Political Economy would be 
 kept in order, and would not be suffered to leave the 
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BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 high-road and ride across the pastures and the gardens 
 dedicated to other studies, it is the University of Ox- 
 ford. And if a man could anywhere be found who 
 would have too much good taste to offend the religious 
 feeling of the place, or to say anything which he 
 would himself allow to be inconsistent with Revela- 
 tion, I conceive it is the person whose temperate and 
 well-considered composition, as it would be generally 
 accounted, I am going to offer to your notice. Nor did 
 it occasion any excitement whatever on the part of the 
 academical or the religious public, as did the instances 
 which I have hitherto been adducing. I am repre- 
 senting then the science of Political Economy, in its 
 independent or unbridled action, to great advantage, 
 when I select, as its specimen, the Inaugural Lecture 
 upon it, delivered in the University in question, by its 
 first Professor. Yet with all these circumstances in its 
 favour, you will soon see, gentlemen, into what ex- 
 travagance, for so I must call it, a grave lawyer is led in 
 praise of his chosen science, merely from the circum- 
 stance that he has fixed his mind upon it, till he has 
 forgotten there are subjects of thought higher and more 
 heavenly than it. You will find beyond mistake, 
 that it is his object to recommend the science of 
 wealth, by claiming for it an ethical quality, viz., by 
 extolling it as the road to virtue and happiness, 
 whatever Scripture and holy men may say to the 
 contrary. 
 
 He begins by predicting of Political Economy, that 
 in the course of a very few years, " it will rank in 
 public estimation among the first of moral sciences 
 in interest and in utility." Then he explains most 
 lucidly its objects and duties, considered as "the 
 science which teaches in what wealth consists, by 
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OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 what agents it is produced, and according to what 
 laws it is distributed, and what are the institutions and 
 customs by which production may be facilitated and 
 distribution regulated, so as to give the largest possible 
 amount of wealth to each individual." And he dwells 
 upon the interest which attaches to the inquiry, 
 " whether England has run her full career of wealth 
 and improvement, but stands safe where she is, or 
 whether to remain stationary is impossible." After 
 this he notices a certain objection, which I shall set 
 before you in his own words, as they will furnish me 
 with the illustration I propose. 
 
 This objection, he says, is, that, " as the pursuit of 
 wealth is one of the humblest of human occupations, 
 far inferior to the pursuit of virtue, or of knowledge, or 
 even of reputation, and as the possession of wealth is 
 not necessarily joined perhaps it will be said, is not 
 conducive to happiness, a science, of which the only 
 subject is wealth, cannot claim to rank as the first, or 
 nearly the first, of moral sciences." l Certainly, to 
 an enthusiast in behalf of any science whatever, the 
 temptation is great to meet an objection urged against 
 its dignity and worth ; however, from the very form 
 of it, such an objection cannot receive a satisfactory 
 answer by means of the science itself. It is an objec- 
 tion external to the science, and reminds us of the 
 truth of Lord Bacon's remark, " No perfect discovery 
 can be made upon a flat or a level ; neither is it pos- 
 sible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of 
 any science, if you stand upon the level of the science, 
 and ascend not to a higher science." 2 The objection 
 that Political Economy is inferior to the science of 
 
 1 Introd. Lecture on Pol. Econ., pp. n, 12. 
 a "Advancement of Learning." 
 
 81 F 
 
BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 virtue, or does not conduce to happiness, is an ethical 
 or theological objection ; the question of its " rank " 
 belongs to that Architectonic Science or Philosophy, 
 whatever it be, which is itself the arbiter of all truth, 
 and which disposes of the claims and arranges the 
 places of all the departments of knowledge which 
 man is able to master. I say, when an opponent of 
 a particular science asserts that it does not conduce to 
 happiness, and much more when its champion con- 
 tends in reply that it certainly does conduce to virtue, 
 as this author proceeds to contend, the obvious ques- 
 tion which occurs to one to ask is, what does Religion, 
 what does Revelation, say on the point? Political 
 Economy must not be allowed to give judgment in its 
 own favour, but must come before a higher tribunal. 
 The objection is an appeal to the Theologian ; how- 
 ever, the Professor does not so view the matter ; he 
 does not consider it a question for Philosophy ; nor 
 indeed on the other hand a question for Political 
 Economy ; not a question for Science at all ; but for 
 Private Judgment, so he answers it himself, and as 
 follows : 
 
 " My answer," he says, " is, first, that the pursuit 
 of wealth, that is, the endeavour to accumulate the 
 means of future subsistence and enjoyment, is, to the 
 mass of mankind, the great source of moral improve- 
 ment." Now observe, gentlemen, how exactly this 
 bears out what I have been saying. It is just so far 
 true, as to be able to instil what is false, far as the 
 author was from any such design. I grant then, that 
 beggary is not the means of moral improvement ; 
 and that the orderly habits which attend upon the 
 hot pursuit of gain, not only may effect an external 
 decency, but may at least shelter the soul from the 
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OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 temptations of vice. Moreover, these habits of good 
 order guarantee regularity in a family or household, 
 and thus are accidentally the means of good ; more- 
 over, they lead to the education of its younger branches, 
 and they thus accidentally provide the rising generation 
 with a virtue or a truth which the present has not : 
 but without going into these considerations, further 
 than to allow them generally, and under circumstances, 
 let us rather contemplate what the author's direct 
 assertion is. He says, "the endeavour to accumulate" 
 the words should be weighed, and for what ? " for 
 enjoyment ; " " to accumulate the means of future 
 subsistence and enjoyment, is, to the mass of man- 
 kind, the great source," not merely a source, but the 
 great source, and of what ? of social and political pro- 
 gress ? such an answer would have been more within 
 the limits of his art no, but of something individual 
 and personal, " of moral improvement" The soul, to 
 speak of the " mass of mankind/' improves in moral 
 excellence from this more than anything else, viz., from 
 heaping up the means of enjoying this world in time to 
 come ! I really should on every account be sorry, 
 gentlemen, to exaggerate, but indeed one is taken by 
 surprise on meeting with so very categorical a con- 
 tradiction of our Lord, St. Paul, St. Chrysostom, St. 
 Leo, and all Saints. 
 
 " No institution," he continues, " could be more 
 beneficial to the morals of the lower orders, that is, to 
 at least nine-tenths of the whole body of any people, 
 than one which should increase their power and their 
 wish to accumulate ; none more mischievous than one 
 which should diminish their motives and means to 
 save." No institution more beneficial than one which 
 should increase the wish to accumulate ! then Chris- 
 
 83 
 
BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 tianity is not one of such beneficial institutions, for it 
 expressly says, " Lay not up to yourselves treasures on 
 earth ... for where thy treasure is, there is thy heart 
 also ; " no institution more mischievous than one 
 which should diminish the motives to save! then 
 Christianity is one of such mischiefs, for the inspired 
 text proceeds, " Lay up to yourselves treasures in 
 heaven, 'where neither the rust nor the moth doth 
 consume, and where thieves do not dig through nor 
 steal." 
 
 But it is not enough that morals and happiness are 
 made to depend on gain and accumulation : the prac- 
 tice of Religion is ascribed to these causes also, and in 
 the following way. Wealth depends upon the pursuit 
 of wealth ; education depends upon wealth ; know- 
 ledge depends on education, and Religion depends on 
 knowledge ; therefore Religion depends on the pursuit 
 of wealth. He says, after speaking of a poor and 
 savage people, " Such a population must be grossly 
 ignorant. The desire of knowledge is one of the last 
 results of refinement; it requires in general to have 
 been implanted in the mind during childhood ; and it 
 is absurd to suppose that persons thus situated would 
 have the power or the will to devote much to the 
 education of their children. A further consequence 
 is the absence of all real religion ; for the religion of 
 the grossly ignorant, if they have any, scarcely ever 
 amounts to more than a debasing superstition." * The 
 pursuit of gain then is the basis of virtue, religion, 
 happiness; though it is all the while, as a Christian 
 knows, the " root of all evils," and the " poor on 
 the contrary arc blessed, for theirs is the kingdom 
 of God." ' 
 
 i Ibid., p. 16. 
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OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 As to the argument contained in the logical Sorites 
 which I have been drawing out, I anticipated just now 
 what I should say to it in reply. I repeat, doubtless 
 " beggary," as the wise man says, is not desirable ; 
 doubtless, if men will not work, they should not eat ; 
 there is doubtless a sense in which it may be said that 
 mere social or political virtue tends to moral and 
 religious excellence ; but the sense needs to be defined 
 and the statement to be kept within bounds. This is 
 the very point on which I am all along insisting. I 
 am not denying, I am granting, I am assuming, that 
 there is reason and truth in the "leading ideas," as 
 they are called, and " large views " of scientific men ; 
 I only say that, though they speak truth, they do not 
 speak the whole truth ; that they speak a narrow 
 truth, and think it a broad truth ; that their deductions 
 must be compared with other truths, which are ac- 
 knowledged as such, in order to verify, complete, 
 and correct them. They say what is true, exccptis 
 exclplendis ; what is true, but requires guarding ; true, 
 but must not be ridden too hard, or made what is 
 called a hobby; true, but not the measure of all things ; 
 true, but if thus inordinately, extravagantly, ruinously 
 carried out, in spite of other sciences, in spite of 
 Theology, sure to become but a great bubble, and to 
 burst. 
 
 I am getting to the end of this Discourse, before 
 I have noticed one-tenth part of the instances with 
 which I might illustrate the subject of it. Else I 
 should have wished especially to have dwelt upon the 
 not unfrequent perversion which occurs of antiquarian 
 and historical research, to the prejudice of Theology. 
 It is undeniable that the records of former ages are of 
 primary importance in determining Religious Truth ; 
 
 85 
 
BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 it is undeniable also that there is a silence or a con- 
 trariety abstractedly conceivable in those records, as 
 to an alleged portion of that truth, sufficient to invali- 
 date its claims ; but it is quite as undeniable that the 
 existing documentary evidences of Catholicism and 
 Christianity may be so unduly exalted as to be made 
 the absolute measure of Revelation, as if no part of 
 theological teaching were true which cannot bring its 
 express text, as it is called, from Scripture, and autho- 
 rities from the Fathers or profane writers whereas 
 there are numberless facts in past times which we cannot 
 deny, for they are indisputable, though history is silent 
 about them. I suppose, on this score, we ought to 
 deny that the round towers of this country had any 
 origin, because history does not disclose it; or that 
 any individual came from Adam who cannot produce 
 the table of his ancestry. Yet Gibbon argues against 
 the darkness at the Passion, from the accident that it 
 is not mentioned by Pagan historians : as well might 
 he argue against the existence of Christianity itself in 
 the first century, because Seneca, Pliny, Plutarch, the 
 Jewish Mishna, and other authorities are silent about 
 it. In a parallel way Protestants argue against Tran- 
 substantiation, and Arians against our Lord's Divinity, 
 viz., because extant writings of certain Fathers do 
 not witness those doctrines to their satisfaction : 
 as well might they say that Christianity was not spread 
 by the Twelve Apostles, because we know so little 
 of their labours. The evidence of History, I say, 
 is invaluable in its place ; but, if it assumes to be 
 the sole means of gaining Religious Truth, it goes 
 beyond its place. We are putting it to a larger office 
 than it can undertake, if we countenance the usurpa- 
 tion ; and we are turning a true guide and blessing into 
 86 
 
OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 a source of inexplicable difficulty and interminable 
 doubt. 
 
 And so of other sciences : just as Comparative 
 Anatomy, Political Economy, the Philosophy of 
 History, and the Science of Antiquities may be and 
 are turned against Religion, by being taken by them- 
 selves, as I have been showing, so a like mistake may 
 befall any other. Grammar, for instance, at first 
 sight does not appear to admit of a perversion ; yet 
 Home Tooke made it the vehicle of his peculiar 
 scepticism. Law would seem to have enough to do 
 with its own clients, and their affairs ; and yet Mr. 
 Bentiam made a treatise on Judicial Proofs a covert 
 attack upon the miracles of Revelation. And in like 
 manner Physiology may deny moral evil and human 
 responsibility; Geology may deny Moses; and Logic 
 may deny the Holy Trinity ; 1 and other sciences, now 
 rising into notice, are or will be victims of a similar abuse. 
 
 And now to sum up what I have been saying in a 
 few words. My object, it is plain, has been not to 
 show that Secular Science in its various departments 
 may take up a position hostile to Theology ;-^-this is 
 rather the basis of the objection with which I opened 
 this Discourse; but to point out the cause of an_ 
 hostility to which all parties will bear witness. l"have~~ 
 been insisting then on this, that the hostility in question, 
 when it occurs, is coincident with an evident deflection 
 or exorbitance of Science from its proper course ; and 
 that this exorbitance is sure to take place, almost from 
 the necessity of the case, if Theology be not present to 
 defend its own boundaries and to hinder the encroach- 
 ment. The human mind cannot keep from speculating 
 
 Vid. Abelard, for instance. 
 
BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES 
 
 and systematising ; and if Theology is not allowed 
 to occupy its own territory, adjacent sciences, nay, 
 sciences which are quite foreign to Theology, will 
 take possession of it. And it is proved to be a 
 usurpation by this circumstance, that those sciences 
 will assume certain principles as true, and act upon 
 them, which they neither have authority to lay down 
 themselves, nor appeal to any other higher science to 
 lay down for them. For example, it is a mere un- 
 warranted assumption to say with the Antiquarian, 
 " Nothing has ever taken place but is to be found in his- 
 torical documents ; " or with the Philosophic Historian, 
 "There is nothing in Judaism different from other 
 political institutions ; " or with the Anatomist, " There 
 is no soul beyond the brain ; " or with the Political 
 Economist, " Easy circumstances make men virtuous." 
 These are enunciations, not of Science, but of Private 
 Judgment; and it is Private Judgment that infects 
 every science which it touches with a hostility to 
 Theology, a hostility which properly attaches to no 
 science in itself whatever. 
 
 If then, gentlemen, I now resist such a course of 
 acting as unphilosophical, what is this but to do as men 
 of Science do when the interests of their own respective 
 pursuits are at stake ? If they certainly would resist 
 the divine who determined the orbit of Jupiter by the 
 Pentateuch, why am I to be accused of cowardice or 
 illiberality, because I will not tolerate their attempt 
 in turn to theologise by means of Science ? And if 
 experimentalists would be sure to cry out, did I attempt 
 to install the Thomist philosophy in the schools of 
 astronomy and medicine, why may not I, when Divine 
 Science is ostracised, and La Place, or Buffon, or 
 Humboldt, sits down in its chair, why may not I 
 88 
 
OF KNOWLEDGE ON THEOLOGY 
 
 fairly protest against their exclusiveness, and demand 
 the emancipation of Theology ? 
 
 And now I consider I have said enough in proof of 
 the first point, which I undertook to maintain, viz., 
 the claim of Theology to be represented among the 
 Chairs of a University. I have shown, I think, that 
 exclusiveness really attaches, not to those who support 
 that claim, but to those who dispute it. I have argued 
 in its behalf, first, from the consideration that, whereas 
 it is the very profession of a University to teach all 
 sciences, on this account it cannot exclude Theology 
 without being untrue to its profession. Next, I have 
 said that, all sciences being connected together, and 
 having bearings one on another, it is impossible to teach 
 them all thoroughly, unless they all are taken into ac- 
 count, and Theology among them. Moreover, I have 
 insisted on the important influence, which Theology in 
 matter of fact does and must exercise over a great 
 variety of sciences, completing and correcting them ; 
 so that, granting it to be a real science occupied upon 
 truth, it cannot be omitted without great prejudice to 
 the teaching of the rest. And lastly, I have urged 
 that, supposing Theology be not taught, its province 
 will not simply be neglected, but will be actually 
 usurped by other sciences, which will teach, without 
 warrant, conclusions of their own in a subject-matter 
 which needs its own proper principles for its due 
 formation and disposition. 
 
 Abstract statements are always unsatisfactory ; these, 
 as I have already observed, could be illustrated at far 
 greater length than the time allotted to me for the pur- 
 pose has allowed. Let me hope that I have said enough 
 upon the subject to suggest thoughts, which those who 
 take an interest in it may pursue for themselves. 
 
DISCOURSE IV 
 
 LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE ITS OWN END 
 
 UNIVERSITY may be considered with re- 
 ference either to its Students or to its Studies ; 
 and the principle, that all Knowledge is a 
 whole and the separate Sciences parts of one, which I 
 have hitherto been using in behalf of its studies, is 
 equally important when we direct our attention to its 
 students. Now then I turn to the students, and shall 
 consider the education which, by virtue of this prin- 
 ciple, a University will give them ; and thus I shall 
 be introduced, gentlemen, to the second question, 
 which I proposed to discuss, viz., whether and in 
 what sense its teaching, viewed relatively to the taught, 
 carries the attribute of Utility along with it. 
 
 I have said that all branches of knowledge are con- 
 nected together, because the subject-matter of know- 
 ledge is intimately united in itself, as being the 
 great Creator and His work. Hence it is that the 
 Sciences, into which our knowledge may be said to be 
 cast, have multiplied bearings one on another, and an 
 internal sympathy, and admit, or rather demand, com- 
 parison and adjustment. They complete, correct, 
 balance each other. This consideration, if well- 
 founded, must be taken into account, not only as 
 regards the attainment of truth, which is their common 
 end, but as regards the influence which they exercise 
 9 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 upon those whose education consists in the study of 
 them. I have said already, that to give undue pro- 
 minence to one is to be unjust to another ; to neglect or 
 supersede these is to divert those from their proper 
 object. It is to unsettle the boundary lines between 
 science and science, to disturb their action, to destroy 
 the harmony which binds them together. Such a pro- 
 ceeding will have a corresponding effect when intro- 
 ^duced into a place of education. There is no science 
 but tells a different tale, when viewed as a portion of a 
 ) whole, from what it is likely to suggest when taken 
 f by itself, without the safeguard, as I may call it, of 
 others. 
 
 Let me make use of an illustration. In the com- 
 bination of colours, very different effects are produced 
 by a difference in their selection and juxtaposition ; 
 red, green, and white change their shades, according 
 to the contrast to which they are submitted. And, in. 
 like manner, the drift and meaning of a branch of 
 knowledge varies with the company in which it is 
 introduced to the student. If his reading is confined 
 simply to one subject, however such division of labour 
 may favour the advancement of a particular pursuit, a 
 point into which I do not here enter, certainly it has 
 a tendency to contract his mind. If it is incorporated 
 with others, it depends on those others as to the kind 
 of influence which it exerts upon him. Thus the 
 Classics, which in England are the means of refining 
 the taste, have in France subserved the spread of re- 
 volutionary and deistical doctrines. In Metaphysics, 
 again, Butler's " Analogy of Religion," which has had 
 so much to do with the conversion of members 
 of the University of Oxford, appeared to Pitt and 
 others, who had received a different training, to 
 9 1 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 operate only in the direction of infidelity. And so 
 again, Watson, Bishop of LlandafF, as I think he 
 tells us in the narrative of his life, felt the science 
 of Mathematics to indispose the mind to religious 
 belief, while others see in its investigations the best 
 defence of the Christian Mysteries. In like manner, 
 I suppose, Arcesilas would not have handled logic as 
 Aristotle, nor Aristotle have criticised poets as Plato ; 
 yet reasoning and poetry are subject to scientific rules. 
 It is a great point then to enlarge the range of 
 studies which a University professes, even for the sake 
 of the students ; and, though they cannot pursue 
 every subject which is open to them, they will be the 
 gainers by living among those and under those who 
 represent the whole circle. This I conceive to be the 
 advantage of a seat of universal learning, considered as 
 a place of education. An assemblage of learned men, 
 zealous for their own sciences, and rivals of each other, 
 are brought, by familiar intercourse and for the sake of 
 intellectual peace, to adjust together the claims and 
 relations of their reepective subjects of investigation. 
 They learn to respect, to consult, to aid each other. 
 Thus is created a pure and clear atmosphere of thought, 
 which the student also breathes, though in his own 
 case he only pursues a few sciences out of the multi- 
 tude. He profits by an intellectual tradition, which is 
 independent of particular teachers, which guides him 
 in his choice of subjects, and duly interprets for him 
 those which he chooses. He apprehends the great 
 outlines of knowledge, the principles on which it rests, 
 the scale of its parts, its lights and its shades, its great 
 points and its little, as he otherwise cannot appre- 
 hend them. Hence it is that his education is called 
 " Liberal." A habit of mind is formed which lasts 
 92 
 
ITS OWN END 
 
 through life, of which the attributes are, freedom, \ 
 cquitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom ; or \ 
 what in a former Discourse I have ventured to call a 
 philosophical habit. This then I would assign as the / 
 sjieqial fruit of the education furnished at a University, j 
 as contrasted with other places of teaching or modes of / 
 teaching. This is the main purpose of a University in / 
 its treatment of its students. 
 
 And now the question is asked me, What is the use 
 of it ? and my answer will constitute the main subject 
 of the Discourses which are to follow. 
 
 Cautious and practical thinkers, I say, will ask of 
 me, what, after all, is the gain of this Philosophy, of 
 which I make such account, and from which I promise 
 so much. Even supposing it to enable us to give the 
 degree of confidence exactly due to every science re- 
 spectively, and to estimate precisely the value of every 
 truth which is anywhere to be found, how are we 
 better for this master view of things which I have 
 been extolling ? Does it not reverse the principle of 
 the division of labour ? will practical objects be ob- 
 tained better or worse by its cultivation ? to what then 
 does it lead ? where does it end ? what does it do ? 
 how does it profit ? what does it promise ? Particular 
 sciences are respectively the basis of definite arts, which 
 carry on to results tangible and beneficial the truths 
 which are the subjects of the knowledge attained ; 
 what is the Art of this science of sciences ? what is 
 the fruit of such a Philosophy ? what are we proposing 
 to effect, what inducements do we hold out to the 
 Catholic community, when we set about the enterprise 
 of founding a University ? 
 
 I am asked what is the end of University Educa- 
 tion, and of the Liberal or Philosophical Knowledge 
 93 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 which I conceive it to impart : I answer, that what I 
 have already said has been sufficient to show that it has 
 a very tangible, real, and sufficient end, though the end 
 cannot be divided from that knowledge itself. JSLnow^ 
 ledge is capable of^jbemg^ its own end. Such is the 
 constitution of the human mind, that any kind of 
 knowledge, if it be really such, is its own reward. 
 And if this is true of all knowledge, it is true also of 
 that special Philosophy, which I have made to consist 
 in a comprehensive view of truth in all its branches, of 
 the relations of science to science, of their mutual 
 bearings, and their respective values. What the worth 
 of such an acquirement is, compared with other objects 
 which we seek wealth or power or honour or the 
 conveniences and comforts of life, I do not profess 
 here to discuss ; but I would maintain, and mean to 
 show, that it is an object, in its own nature so really 
 and undeniably good, as to be the compensation of a 
 great deal of thought in the compassing, and a great 
 deal of trouble in the attaining. 
 
 Now, when I say that Knowledge is, not merely a 
 means to something beyond it, or the preliminary of 
 certain arts into which it naturally resolves, but an end 
 sufficient to rest in and to pursue for its own sake, 
 surely I am uttering no paradox, for I am stating 
 what is both intelligible in itself, and has ever been 
 the common judgment of philosophers and the ordinary 
 feeling of mankind. I am saying what at least the 
 public opinion of this day ought to be slow to deny, 
 considering how much we have heard of late years, 
 in opposition to Religion, of entertaining, curious, 
 and various knowledge. I am but, saying what 
 whole volumes have been written to illustrate, by a 
 " selection from the records of Philosophy, Litera- 
 94 
 
ITS OWN END 
 
 ture, and Art, in all ages and countries, of a body 
 of examples, to show how the most unpropitious 
 circumstances have been unable to conquer an ardent 
 desire for the acquisition of knowledge/' L That 
 further advantages accrue to us and redound to others 
 by its possession, over and above what it is in itself, 
 I am very far indeed from denying ; but, independent 
 of these, we are satisfying a direct need of our nature 
 in its very acquisition ; and, whereas our nature, un- 
 like that of the inferior creation, does not at once 
 reach its perfection, but depends, in order to, it, on a 
 number of external aids and appliances, Knowledge, 
 as one of the principal gifts or accessories by which 
 it is completed, is valuable for what its very presence 
 in us does for us by a sort of opus operatum^ even 
 though it be turned to no further account, nor subserve 
 any direct end. 
 
 Hence it is that Cicero, in enumerating the various 
 heads of mental excellence, lays down the pursuit of 
 Knowledge for its own sake, as the first of them. 
 "This pertains most of all to human nature," he 
 says, " for we are all of us drawn to the pursuit of 
 Knowledge ; in which to excel we consider excellent, 
 whereas to mistake, to err, to be ignorant, to be 
 deceived, is both an evil and a disgrace." 2 And he 
 considers Knowledge the very first object to which 
 we are attracted, after the supply of our physical 
 wants. After the calls and duties of our animal 
 existence, as they may be termed, as regards our- 
 selves, our family, and our neighbours, follows, he 
 tells us, " the search after truth. Accordingly, as 
 soon as we escape from the pressure of necessary 
 
 1 Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties." Introd. 
 
 2 Cicer. Offic. init. 
 
 95 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 cares, forthwith we desire to see, to hear, to learn ; 
 and consider the knowledge of what is hidden or is 
 wonderful a condition of our happiness." 
 
 This passage, though it is but one of many similar 
 passages in a multitude of authors, I take for the very 
 reason that it is so familiarly known to us; and I 
 wish you to observe, gentlemen, how distinctly it 
 separates the pursuit of Knowledge from those ulterior 
 objects to which certainly it can be made to conduce, 
 and which are, I suppose, solely contemplated by the 
 persons who would ask of me the use of a University 
 or Liberal Education. So far from dreaming of the 
 cultivation of Knowledge directly and mainly in order 
 to our physical comfort and enjoyment, for the sake 
 of life and person, of health, of the conjugal and family 
 /*union, of the social tie and civil security, the great 
 / Orator implies, that it is only after our physical and 
 / political needs are supplied, and when we are " free 
 | from necessary duties and cares," that we are in a 
 condition for " desiring to see, to hear, and to learn." 
 \ Nor does he contemplate in the least degree the reflex 
 \ or subsequent action of Knowledge, when acquired, 
 \upon those material goods which we set out by secur- 
 ing before we seek it ; on the contrary, he expressly 
 denies its bearing upon social life altogether, strange 
 as such a procedure is to those who live after the rise 
 of the Baconian philosophy, and he cautions us against 
 / '~such a cultivation of it asVill interfere with our duties 
 to our fellow- creatures. "All these methods," he 
 says, " are engaged in the investigation of truth ; by 
 the pursuit of which to be carried off from public 
 occupations is a transgression of duty. For the praise 
 of virtue lies altogether in action ; yet intermissions 
 often occur, and then we recur to such pursuits ; tfoT 
 96 
 
ITS OWN END 
 
 to say that the incessant activity of the mind is rigor- 
 ous enough to carry us on in the pursuit of knowledge, 
 even without any exertion of our own." The idea 
 of benefiting society by means of "the pursuit of 
 science and knowledge " did not enter at all into the 
 motives which he would assign for their cultivation. 
 
 This was the ground of the opposition which the 
 elder Cato made to the introduction of Greek Philo- 
 sophy among his countrymen, when Carneades and his 
 companions, on occasion of their embassy, were charm- 
 ing the Roman youth with their eloquent expositions 
 of it. The fit representative of a practical people, 
 Cato estimated everything by what it produced; 
 whereas the Pursuit of Knowledge promised nothing 
 beyond Knowledge itself. He despised that refine- 
 ment or enlargement of mind of which he had no 
 experience. 
 
 Things, which can bear to be cut off from every- 
 thing else and yet persist in living, must have life in 
 themselves ; pursuits, which issue in nothing, and still 
 maintain their ground for ages, which are regarded as 
 admirable, though they have not as yet proved them- 
 selves to be useful, must have their sufficient end in 
 themselves, whatever it turn out to be. And we are 
 brought to the same conclusion by considering the 
 force of the epithet, by which the knowledge under 
 consideration is popularly designated. It is common 
 to speak of " fi^ciZipowledge," of the "liberal arts 
 and studies," and of a "liberal education," as the 
 especial characteristic or property of a University and 
 of a gentleman ; what is really meant by the word ? 
 Now, first, jn its grammatical sense it is opposed to 
 servile ; and by " servile work" is understood, as our 
 catechisms inform us, bodily labour, mechanical em- 
 97 G 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 ployment, and the like, in which the mind has 
 little or no part. Parallel to such works are those 
 arts, if they deserve the name, of which the poet 
 speaks, 1 which owe their origin and their method to 
 hazard, not to skill ; as, for instance, the practice and 
 operations of an^ empiric. As far as this contrast m 
 be considered asa guide into the meaning of the 
 word, liberal knowledge and liberal pursuits are such , 
 as belong to the mind, not to the body. 
 
 But we want something more for its explanation, 
 for there are bodily exercises which are liberal, and 
 mental exercises which are not so. For instance, in 
 ancient times the practitioners in medicine were com- 
 monly slaves ; yet it was an art as intellectual in its 
 nature, in spite of the pretence, fraud, and quackery 
 with which it might then, as now, be debased, as it 
 was heavenly in its aim. And so in like manner, we 
 contrast a liberal education with a commercial educa- 
 tion or a professional ; yet no one can deny that com- 
 merce and the professions afford scope for the highest 
 and most diversified powers of mind. There is then 
 a great variety of intellectual exercises, which are 
 not technically called " liberal " ; on the other hand, 
 I say, there are exercises of the body which do 
 /^receive that appellation. Such, for instance, was the 
 palaestra, in ancient times ; such the Olympic games, 
 I in which strength and dexterity of body as well as of 
 mind gained the prize. In Xenophon we read of the 
 young Persian nobility being taught to ride on horse- 
 back and to speak the truth ; both being among the 
 accomplishments of a gentleman. War, too, however 
 rough a profession, has ever been accounted liberal, 
 
 Vid. Arist. Nic. Ethic, vi. 
 
ITS OWN END 
 
 unless in cases when it becomes heroic, which would 
 introduce us to another subject. 
 
 Now comparing these instances together, we shall 
 have no difficulty in determining the principle of this 
 apparent variation in the application of the term which 
 I am examining. Manly games, or games of skill, or 
 military prowess, though bodily, are, it seems, accounted 
 liberal ; on the other hand, what is merely professional, 
 though highly intellectual, nay, though liberal in com- 
 parison of trade and manual labour, is not simply called 
 liberal, and mercantile occupations are not liberal at 
 all. Why this distinction ? because that alone is 
 liberal knowledge, which stands on its own pretensions, 
 which is independent of sequel, expects no comple- 
 ment, refuses to be informed (as it is called) by any 
 end, or absorbed into any art, in order duly to present 
 itself to our contemplation. The most ordinary pur- 
 suits have this specific character, if they are self- 
 sufficient and complete ; the highest lose it, when they 
 minister to something beyond them. It is absurd to 
 balance, in point of worth and importance, a treatise 
 on reducing fractures with a game of cricket or a fox- 
 chase; yet of the two the bodily exercise has that 
 quality which we call "liberal," and the intellectual 
 has it not. And so of the learned professions al- 
 together, considered merely as professions ; although 
 one of them be the most popularly beneficial, and 
 another the most politically important, and the third 
 the most intimately divine of all human pursuits, yet 
 the very greatness of their end, the health of the body, 
 or of the commonwealth, or of the soul, diminishes, 
 not increases, their claim to the appellation in question, 
 and that still more, if they are cut down to the strict 
 exigencies of that end. If, for instance, Theology, 
 99 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 instead of being cultivated as a contemplation, be 
 limited to the purposes of the pulpit or be represented 
 by the catechism, it loses not its usefulness, not its 
 divine character, not its meritoriousness (rather it 
 increases these qualities by such charitable condescen- 
 sion) but it does lose the particular attribute which I 
 am illustrating ; just as a face worn by tears and fast- 
 ing loses its beauty, or a labourer's hand loses its 
 delicateness ; for Theology thus exercised is not 
 simple knowledge, but rather is an art or a business 
 making use of Theology. And thus it appears that 
 even what is supernatural need not be liberal, nor need 
 a hero be a gentleman, for the plain reason that one 
 idea is not another idea. And in like manner the 
 Baconian Philosophy, by using its physical sciences for 
 the purpose of fruit, does thereby transfer them from 
 the order of Liberal Pursuits to, I do not say the 
 inferior, but the distinct class of the Useful. And, to 
 take a different instance, hence again, as is evident, 
 whenever personal gain is the motive, still more dis- 
 tinctive an effect has it upon the character of a given 
 pursuit ; thus racing, which was a liberal exercise in 
 Greece, forfeits its rank in times like these, so far as it 
 is made the occasion of gambling. 
 
 All that I have been now saying is summed up in 
 a few characteristic words of the great Philosopher. 
 " Of possessions," he says, " those rather are useful, 
 which bear fruit ; those liberal, which tend to enjoyment. 
 By fruitful, I mean, which yield revenue ; by enjoy- 
 able, where nothing accrues of consequence beyond the 
 ute." l 
 
 Do not suppose, gentlemen, that in thus appealing to 
 
 1 Aristot. Rhet. i. 5. 
 IOO 
 
t - AlTS, 
 
 SLv (W Q^yJ^/ 
 
 ancients, I am thro 
 
 END 
 
 the ancients, I am throwing back the world two thousand 
 years, and fettering Philosophy with the reasonings of 
 paganism. While the world lasts, will Aristotle's 
 doctrine on these matters last, for he is the oracle of 
 nature and of truth. While we are men, we cannot 
 help, to a great extent, being Aristotelians, for the 
 great Master does but analyse the thoughts, feelings, 
 views, and opinions of human kind. He has told us 
 the meaning of our own words and ideas, before we 
 were born. In many subject-matters, to think cor- 
 rectly, is to think like Aristotle ; and we are his 
 disciples whether we will or no, though we may not 
 know it. Now, as to the particular instance before 
 us, the word " liberal " as applied to Knowledge and 
 Education, expresses a specific idea, which ever has 
 been, and ever will be, while the nature of man is the 
 same, just as the idea of the Beautiful is specific, or of 
 the Sublime, or of the Ridiculous, or of the Sordid. 
 It is in the world now, it was in the world then ; and, 
 as in the case of the dogmas of faith, it is illustrated 
 by a continuous historical tradition, and never was out 
 of the world, from the time it came into it. There 
 have indeed been differences of opinion from time to 
 time, as to what pursuits and what arts came under 
 that idea, but such differences are but an additional 
 evidence of its reality. That idea must have a sub- 
 stance in it, which has maintained its ground amid 
 these conflicts and changes, which has ever served as 
 a standard to measure things withal, which has passed 
 from mind to mind unchanged, when there was so 
 much to colour, so much to influence any notion or 
 thought whatever, which was not founded in our very 
 nature. Were it a mere generalisation, it would have 
 varied with the subjects from which it was generalised ; 
 101 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 but though its subjects vary with the age, it varies not 
 itself. The palaestra may seem a liberal exercise to 
 Lycurgus, and illiberal to Seneca ; coach-driving and 
 prize-fighting may be recognised in El is, and be con- 
 demned in England ; music may be despicable in the 
 eyes of certain moderns, and be in the highest place 
 with Aristotle and Plato (and the case is the same in 
 the particular application of the idea of Beauty, or of 
 Goodness, or of Moral Virtue, there is a difference of 
 tastes, a difference of judgments) still these variations 
 imply, instead of discrediting, the archetypal idea, 
 which is but a previous hypothesis or condition, by 
 means of which issue is joined between contending 
 opinions, and without which there would be nothing 
 to dispute about. 
 
 I consider, then, that I am chargeable with no para- 
 dox, when I speak of a Knowledge which is its own 
 end, when I call it liberal^knowledge, or a gentleman's 
 IfnowJedge, when I educate for it, ancT make it the 
 scope of a University. And still less am I incurring 
 such a charge, when I make this acquisition consist, 
 not in Knowledge in a vague and ordinary sense, but 
 in that Knowledge which I have especially called 
 Philosophy or, in an extended sense of the word, 
 Science ; for whatever claims Knowledge has to be 
 considered as a good, these it has in a higher degree 
 when it is viewed not vaguely, not popularly, but pre- 
 cisely and transcendently as Philosophy. Knowledge, 
 I say, is then especially liberal, or sufficient for 
 itself, apart from every external and ulterior object, 
 when and so far as it is philosophical, and this I 
 proceed to show. 
 
 Now bear with me, gentlemen, if what I am about 
 to say, has at first sight a fanciful appearance. Philo- 
 102 
 
ITS OWN END 
 
 sophy, then, or Science, is related to Knowledge in 
 this way : Knowledge is called by the name of 
 Science or Philosophy, when it is acted upon, in- 
 formed, or if I may use a strong figure, impregnated 
 by Reason. Reason is the principle of that_intrinsic 
 fecundity of Knowledge, which, to those who possess 
 it, is its especial value, and which dispenses with the 
 necessity of their looking abroad for any end to rest 
 upon external to itself. Knowledge, indeed, when 
 thus exalted into a scientific form, is also power ; not 
 only is it excellent in itself, but whatever such ex- 
 cellence may be, it is something more, it has a result 
 beyond itself. Doubtless ; but that is a further con- 
 sideration, with which I am not concerned. I only 
 say that, prior to its being a power, it is a good ; that 
 it is, not only an instrument, but an end. I know well 
 it may resolve itself into an art, and terminate in a / 
 mechanical process, and in tangible fruit ; but it also > 
 may fall back upon Reason, and resolve itself into^ 
 Philosophy. In one case it is called Useful Know- 
 ledge, in the other Liberal. The same person may 
 cultivate it in both ways at once ; but this again is 
 a matter foreign to my subject ; here I do but say 
 that there are two ways of using Knowledge, and in 
 matter of fact those who use it in one way are not 
 likely to use it in the other, or at least in a very limited 
 measure. You see, then, gentlemen, here are two 
 methods of Education ; the one aspires to be philoso- 
 phical, the other to be mechanical ; the one rises 
 towards ideas, the other is exhausted upon what is 
 particular and external. Let me not be thought to 
 deny the necessity, or to decry the benefit, of such 
 attention to what is particular and practical, the useful 
 or mechanical arts ; life could not go on without 
 103 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 them ; we owe our daily welfare to them ; their 
 exercise is the duty of the many, and we owe to~ 
 the many a debt of gratitude for fulfilling it. I ) 
 only say that Knowledge, in proportion as it tends 
 , more and more to be particular, ceases to be Know- 
 / ledge. It is a question whether Knowledge can in 
 ^ any proper sense be predicated of the brute creation ; 
 without pretending to metaphysical exactness of phrase- 
 ology, which would be unsuitable to an occasion like 
 this, I say, it seems to me improper to call that passive 
 sensation, or perception of things, which brutes seem to 
 possess, by the name of Knowledge. When I speak 
 of Knowledge, I mean something intellectual, some- 
 thing which grasps what it perceives through the 
 senses ; something which takes a view of things ; 
 which sees more than the senses convey ; which 
 
 ? reasons upon what it sees, and while it sees; which 
 invests it with an idea. It expresses itself, not in a 
 mere enunciation, but by an enthyjrieme : it is of the 
 
 / nature of science from the first," and in this consists its 
 dignity. The principle of real dignity in Knowledge, 
 its worth, its desirableness, considered irrespectively of 
 its results, is this germ within it of a scientific or a 
 philosophical process. This is how it comes to be an 
 end in itself; this is why it admits of being called 
 Liberal. Not to know the relative disposition of 
 things is the state of slaves or children ; to have 
 mapped out the Universe is the boast of Philosophy. 
 Moreover, such knowledge is not a mere extrinsic 
 or accidental advantage, which is ours to-day and 
 another's to-morrow, which may be got up from a 
 book, and easily forgotten again, which we can com- 
 mand or communicate at our pleasure, which we can 
 borrow for the occasion, carry about in our hand, and 
 104 
 
ITS OWN END 
 
 take into the market ; it is an acquired illumination, it 
 is a habit, a personal possession, and an inward endow- 
 ment. And this is the reason, why it- is more correct, 
 jis well as more usual, to speak of a University as a 
 ^place of education, than of instruction, though, when 
 knowledge is concerned, instruction would at first sight 
 have seemed the more appropriate word. We are 
 instructed, for instance, in manual exercises, in the 
 fine and useful arts, in trades, and in ways of business ; 
 for these are methods, which have little or no effect 
 upon the mind itself, are contained in rules committed 
 to memory, to tradition, or to use, and bear upon 
 an end external to themselves. But education is a 
 higher word ; it implies an action upon our mental 
 nature, and the formation of a character ; it is some- 
 thing individual and permanent, and is commonly 
 spoken of in connection with religion and virtue. 
 When, then, we speak of the communication of Know- 
 ledge as being Education, we thereby really imply 
 that that Knowledge is a state or condition of mind ; 
 and since cultivation of mind is surely worth seeking 
 for its own sake, we are thus brought once more to the 
 conclusion, which the word " Liberal " and the word 
 " Philosophy " have already suggested, that there is a 
 Knowledge, which is desirable, though nothing come 
 of it, as being of itself a treasure, and a sufficient 
 remuneration of years of labour. 
 
 This, then, is the answer which I am prepared to 
 give to the question with which I opened this Dis- 
 course. Before going on to speak of the object of the 
 Church in taking up Philosophy, and the uses to which 
 she puts it, I am prepared to maintain that Philosophy 
 is its own end, and, as I conceive, I have now begun 
 proving it. I am prepared to maintain that there 
 105 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 is a knowledge worth possessing for what it is, and 
 not merely for what it does ; and what minutes remain 
 to me to-day I shall devote to the removal of some 
 portion of the indistinctness and confusion with which 
 the subject may in some minds be surrounded. 
 
 It may be objected then, that, when we profess to 
 seek Knowledge for some end or other beyond itself, 
 whatever it be, we speak intelligibly ; but that, what- 
 ever men may have said, however obstinately the idea 
 may have kept its ground from age to/ age, still it is 
 simply unmeaning to say that we seek (Knowledge for 
 its own sake, and for nothing else ; for that it ever leads 
 to something beyond itself, which therefore is its end, 
 and the cause why it is desirable ; moreover, that this 
 end is twofold, either of this world or of the next ; 
 that all knowledge is cultivated either for secular 
 objects or for eternal ; that if it is directed to secular ^ 
 objects, it is called Useful Knowledge, if to eternal^/ 
 Religious or Christian Knowledge ; in consequence^ 
 that if, as I have allowed, this Liberal Knowledge 
 does not benefit the body or estate, it ought to benefit 
 the soul ; but if the fact be really so, that it is neither 
 /-*. physical or a secular good on the one hand, nor ] 
 / a moral good on the other, it cannot be a good at all, I 
 
 I and is not worth the trouble which is necessary for its/ 
 
 f acquisition. 
 
 And then I may be reminded that the professors of 
 this Liberal or Philosophical Knowledge have them- 
 selves, in every age, recognised this exposition of the 
 matter, and have submitted to the issue in which it 
 terminates ; for they have ever been attempting to 
 make men virtuous ; or, if not, at least have assumed 
 that refinement of mind was virtue, and that they them- 
 selves were the virtuous portion of mankind. This they 
 1 06 
 
ITS OWN END 
 
 have professed on the one hand ; and on the other, 
 they have utterly failed in their professions, so as ever 
 to make themselves a proverb among men, and a 
 laughing-stock both to the grave and the dissipated 
 portion of mankind, in consequence of them. Thus 
 they have furnished against themselves both the ground 
 and the means of their own exposure, without any 
 trouble at all to any one else. In a word, from the \ 
 time that Athens was the University of the world, j 
 what has Philosophy taught men, but to promise with- / 
 out practising, and to aspire without attaining ? Whay 
 has the deep and lofty thought of its disciples ended in 
 but eloquent words ? Nay, what has its teaching ever 
 meditated, when it was boldest in its remedies for 
 human ill, beyond charming us to sleep by its lessons, 
 that we might feel nothing at all ? like some melodious 
 air, or rather like those strong and transporting per- 
 fumes, which at first spread their sweetness over every- 
 thing they touch, but in a little while do but offend in 
 proportion as they once pleased us. Did Philosophy 
 support Cicero under the disfavour of the fickle popu- 
 lace, or nerve Seneca to oppose an imperial tyrant? 
 It abandoned Brutus, as he sorrowfully confessed, in 
 his greatest need, and it forced Cato, as his panegyrist 
 strangely boasts, into the false position of defying 
 heaven. How few can be counted among its pro- 
 fessors, who, like Polemo, were thereby converted 
 from a profligate course, or like Anaxagoras, thought 
 the world well lost in exchange for its possession ? 
 The philosopher in Rasselas taught a superhuman 
 doctrine, and then succumbed without an effort to a 
 trial of human affection. 
 
 " He discoursed,'* we are told, " with great energy 
 on the government of the passions. His look was 
 107 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 venerable, his action graceful, his pronunciation clear, 
 and his diction elegant. He showed, with great 
 strength of sentiment and variety of illustration, that 
 human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower 
 faculties predominate over the higher. He com- 
 municated the various precepts given, from time to 
 time, for the conquest of passion, and displayed the 
 happiness of those who had obtained the important 
 victory, after which man is no longer the slave of fear, 
 nor the fool of hope. . . . He enumerated many 
 examples of heroes immovable by pain or pleasure, 
 who looked with indifference on those modes or ac- 
 cidents to which the vulgar give the names of good 
 and evil." 
 
 Rasselas in a few days found the philosopher in a 
 room half darkened, with his eyes misty, and his face 
 pale. " Sir/' said he, " you have come at a time 
 when all human friendship is useless ; what I suffer 
 cannot be remedied, what I have lost cannot be 
 supplied. My daughter, my only daughter, from 
 whose tenderness I expected all the comforts of my 
 age, died last night of a fever." " Sir," said the 
 prince, " mortality is an event by which a wise man 
 can never be surprised ; we know that death is always 
 near, and it should therefore always be expected. " 
 " Young man," answered the philosopher, " you speak 
 like one who has never felt the pangs of separation." 
 "Have you, then, forgot the precept," said Rasselas, 
 " \vhich you so powerfully enforced ? . . . consider 
 that external things are naturally variable, but truth 
 and reason are always the same." " What comfort," 
 said the mourner, " can truth and reason afford me ? 
 Of what effect are they now, but to tell me that my 
 daughter will not be restored ? " 
 1 08 
 
ITS OWN END 
 
 Better, far better, to make no professions, you will 
 say, than to cheat others with what we are not, and to 
 scandalise them with what we are. The sensualist, or 
 the man of the world, at any rate is not the victim of 
 fine words, but pursues a reality and gains it. The 
 Philosophy of Utility, you will say^ gentlemen, has 
 at least done its work ; it aimed low, but it has ful- 
 frlled~7ts aim. If that man of great intellect whc 
 has been its Prophet in the conduct of life playe 
 false to his own professions, he was not bound by( 
 his philosophy to be true to his friend or faithful in 
 his trust. Moral virtue was not the line in which he 
 undertook to instruct men ; and though, as the poet 
 calls him, he were the " meanest " of mankind, he was 
 so in what may be called his private capacity, and 
 without any prejudice to the theory of induction. He 
 had a right to be so, if he chose, for anything that 
 the Idols of the den or the theatre had to say to the 
 contrary. His mission was the increase of physical 
 enjoyment and social comfort ; l and most wonderfully, 
 most awfully has he fulfilled his conception and his 
 design. Almost day by day have we fresh and fresh 
 shoots, and buds, and blossoms, which are to ripen 
 into fruit, on that magical tree of Knowledge which 
 he planted, and to which none of us perhaps, except 
 the very poor, but owes, if not his present life, at least 
 his daily food, his health, and general well-being. 
 He was the divinely provided minister of temporal 
 benefits to all of us so great, that, whatever I am 
 forced to think of him as a man, I have not the heart, 
 from mere gratitude, to speak of him severely. And, 
 
 * It will be seen that on the whole I agree with Lord 
 Macaulay in his Essay on Bacon's Philosophy. I do not 
 know whether he would agree with me. 
 109 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 in spite of the tendencies of his philosophy, which are, 
 as we see at this day, to depreciate, or to trample on 
 Theology, he has himself, in his writings, gone out of 
 his way, as if with a prophetic misgiving of those 
 tendencies, to insist on it as the instrument of that 
 beneficent Father, 1 who, when He came on earth in 
 visible form, took on Him first and most prominently 
 the office of assuaging the bodily wounds of human 
 nature. And truly, like the old mediciner in the tale, 
 "he sat diligently at his work, and hummed, with 
 cheerful countenance, a pious song ; " and then in turn 
 "went out singing into the meadows so gaily, that 
 those who had seen him from afar might well have 
 thought it was a youth gathering flowers for his 
 beloved, instead of an old physician gathering healing 
 herbs in the morning dew." 2 
 
 Alas, that men, in the action of life or in their heart 
 of hearts, are not what they seem to be in their 
 moments of excitement, or in their trances or intoxica- 
 tions of genius so good, so noble, so serene ! Alas, 
 L that Bacon too 3 in his own way should after all be but 
 J I the fellow of those heathen philosophers who in their 
 | | disadvantages had some excuse for their inconsistency, 
 
 1 De Augment, iv. 2, vid. Macaulay's Essay; vid. also 
 " In principio operis ad Deum Patrem, Deum Verbum, 
 Deum Spiritum,preces fundimus humillimas et ardentissimas, 
 ut humani generis zrumnarum memores, et peregrinationis 
 istius vitae, in qua dies paucos et malos terimus, novit suis 
 eleemosynis 9 per manus nostras, familiam humanam dotare 
 dignentur. Atque illud insuper supplices rogamus, ne 
 hi'.mana divinis officiant; neve ex reseratione *vtarum scnsus, et 
 accensione majore luminis naturalis, aliquid incredulitatis et 
 noctis, animis nostris erga divina mysteria oboriatur," &c. 
 Praf. Instaur. Magn. 
 
 2 Fouque's " Unknown Patient." 
 
 3 Te maris et terras, &c. Hor. Od. i. 28. 
 
 110 
 
ITS OWN END 
 
 and who surprise us rather in what they did say than 
 in what they did not do ! Alas, that he too, like 
 Socrates or Seneca, must be stripped of his holy-day 
 coat, which looks so fair, and should be but a mockery 
 amid his most majestic gravity of phrase ; and, for all 
 his vast abilities, should, in the littleness of his own 
 moral being, but typify the intellectual narrowness of 
 his school ! However, granting all this, heroism after 
 all was not his philosophy : I cannot deny he has 
 abundantly achieved what he proposed. His is simply 
 a Method whereby bodily discomforts and temporal 
 wants are to be most effectually removed from the 
 greatest number ; and already, before it has shown any 
 signs of exhaustion, the gifts of nature, in their most 
 artificial shapes and luxurious profusion and diversity, 
 from all quarters of the earth, are, it is undeniable, by 
 its means brought even to our doors, and we rejoice in 
 them. 
 
 Useful Knowledge then certainly has done its 
 work ; and Liberal Knowledge as certainly has not 
 done its work supposing, that is, as the objectors 
 assume, its direct end, like Religious Knowledge, y 
 is to make men better ; but this I will not for an \ 
 instant allow. For all its friends, or its enemies, J 
 may say, I insist upon it, that it is as real a mistake to / 
 burden it with virtue or religion as with the mechanical 
 arts. Its direct Business is not to steel the soul Against 
 temptation, or to console it in affliction, any more than to 
 set the loom in motion, or to direct the steam carriage ; 
 be it ever so much the means or the condition of both 
 material and moral advancement ; still, taken by and in 
 itself, it as little mends our hearts as it improves our 
 temporal circumstances. And if its eulogists claim for 
 it such a power, they commit the very same kind of 
 in 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 encroachment on a province not their own as the 
 political economist who should maintain that his science 
 educated him for casuistry or diplomacy. Knowledge 
 V is one thing, virtue is another ; good sense is not con- 
 science, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and 
 justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlight- 
 ened, however profound, gives no command over the 
 passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. 
 Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the 
 Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentle- 
 /man, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate 
 / taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble 
 : and courteous bearing in the conduct of life ; these 
 are the con-natural qualities of a large knowledge ; they 
 are the objects of a University; I am advocating, I 
 shall illustrate and insist upon them ; but still, I repeat, 
 they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for con- 
 scientiousness, they may attach to the man of the 
 world, to the profligate, to the heartless pleasant, 
 alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in 
 them. Taken by themselves, they do but seem to be 
 what they are not ; they look like virtue at a distance, 
 but they are detected by close observers, and on the 
 long run ; and hence it is that they are popularly 
 accused of pretence and hypocrisy, not, I repeat, from 
 their own fault, but because their professors and their 
 admirers persist in taking them for what they are not, 
 and are officious in arrogating for them a praise to 
 which they have no claim. Quarry the granite rock\ 
 with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk ; 1 
 then may you hope with such keen and delicate instru- 1 
 ments as human knowledge and human reason to con- 
 tend against these giants, the passion and the pride of 
 man. 
 
 112 
 
ITS OWN END 
 
 Surely we are not driven to theories of this kind in 
 order to vindicate the value and dignity of Liberal 
 Knowledge. Surely the real grounds on which its 
 pretensions rest are not so very subtle or abstruse, so 
 very strange or improbable. Surely it is very intel- 
 ligible to say, and that is what I say here, that Liberal 
 Education, viewed in itself, is simply the cultivation of 
 the intellect as such, and its object is nothing more or 
 less than intellectual excellence. Every thing has its 
 own perfection, be it higher or lower in the scale of 
 things ; and the perfection of one is not the perfection 
 of another. Things animate, inanimate, visible, in- 
 visible, all are good in their kind, and have a lest of 
 themselves, which is an object of pursuit. Why do 
 you take such pains with your garden or your park ? 
 You see to your walks and turf and shrubberies ; to 
 your trees and drives ; not as if you meant to make an 
 orchard of the one, or corn or pasture land of the 
 other, but because there is a special beauty in all that 
 is goodly in wood, water, plain, and slope, brought 
 all together by art into one shape, and grouped into 
 I one whole. Your cities are beautiful, your palaces, 
 your public buildings, your territorial mansions, your 
 churches ; and their beauty leads to nothing beyond 
 itself. There is a physical beauty and a moral : there 
 is a beauty of person, there is a beauty of our moral 
 beinjg^ which is natural virtue ; and in like manner 
 there is a~Eeauty, there is a perfection, of the intellect. 
 There is an ideal perfection in these various subject- 
 matters, towards which individual instances are seen to 
 rise, and which are the standards for all instances 
 whatever. The Greek divinities and demigods, as 
 the statuary has moulded them, with their symmetry 
 of figure, and their high forehead and their regular 
 113 H 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 features, are the perfection of physical beauty. The 
 heroes, of whom history tells, Alexander, or Caesar, or 
 Scipio, or Saladin, are the representatives of that mag- 
 nanimity or self-mastery which is the greatness of 
 human nature. Christianity too has its heroes, and in 
 the supernatural order, and we call them Saints. JThe 
 artist puts before him beauty of feature and form; the 
 poet, beauty of mind; the preacher, the beauty of 
 grace : then intellect too, I repeat, has its beauty, 
 and it has those who aim at it. To open the mind, 
 to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to know, and to 
 digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to giye it 
 power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, 
 method, critical exactness, sagacity, resource, address, 
 eloquent expression, is an object as intelligible (for 
 here we are inquiring, not what the object of a. Liberal 
 Education is worth, nor what use the Church makes of 
 it, but what it is in itself), I say, an object as intel- 
 ligible as the cultivation of virtue, while, at the same 
 time, it is absolutely distinct from it. 
 
 This indeed is but a temporal object, and a transi- 
 tory possession : but so are other things in themselves 
 which we make much of and pursue. The moralist 
 will tell us that man, in all his functions, is but a flower 
 which blossoms and fades, except so far as a higher 
 principle breathes upon him, and makes him and what 
 he is immortal. Body and mind are carried on into an 
 eternal state of being by the gifts of Divine Muni- 
 ficence ; but at first they do but fail in a failing world ; 
 and if the powers of intellect decay, the powers of the 
 body have decayed before them, and, as an Hospital or 
 an Almshouse, though its end be ephemeral, may be 
 sanctified to the service of religion, so surely may a 
 University, even were it nothing more than I have as 
 114 
 
ITS OWN END 
 
 _ _ _ 
 
 yet described it. We attain to heaven by using thi |i 
 world well, though it is to pass away ; we perfect our '* 
 nature, not by undoing it, but by adding to it what is 
 more than nature, and directing it towards aims higher 
 
 than its own. 
 
DISCOURSE V 
 
 LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION 
 TO LEARNING 
 
 were well if the English, like the Greek 
 language, possessed some definite word to 
 express, simply and generally, intellectual pro- 
 ficiency or perfection, such as " health," as used with 
 reference to the animal frame, and " virtue," with re- 
 ference to our moral nature. I am not able to find 
 such a term; talent, ability, genius, belong distinctly 
 to the raw material, which is the subject-matter, not 
 to that excellence which is the result of exercise and 
 training. When we turn, indeed, to the particular kinds 
 of intellectual perfection, words are forthcoming for 
 our purpose, as, for instance, judgment, taste, and 
 skill ; yet even these belong, for the most part, to 
 powers or habits bearing upon practice or upon art, and 
 not to any perfect condition of the intellect, considered 
 in itself. Wisdom, again, which is a more compre- 
 hensive word than any other, certainly has a direct 
 relation to conduct and to human life. Knowledge, 
 indeed, and Science express purely intellectual ideas,/ 
 but still not a state or habit of the intellect; for 
 knowledge, in its ordinary sense, is but one of its cir- 
 cumstances, denoting a possession or a faculty ; and 
 science has been appropriated to the subject-matter of 
 the intellect, instead of belonging at present, as it ought 
 116 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 to do, to the intellect itself. The consequence is that, j 
 on an occasion like this, many words are necessary, in 
 order, first, to bring out and convey what surely is no 
 difficult idea in itself that of the cultivation of the 
 jntellect as an end ; next, in order to recommend what 
 Turely isTno unreasonable object ; and lastly, to describe 
 and make the mind realise the particular perfection in 
 which that object consists. Every one knows practi- 
 cally what are the constituents of health or of virtue ; 
 and every one recognises health and virtue as ends to 
 be pursued ; it is otherwise with intellectual excellence, 
 and this must be my excuse, if I seem to any one to be 
 bestowing a good deal of labour, on a preliminary 
 matter, 
 
 In default of a recognised term, I have called the 
 perfection or virtue of the intellect by the name of 
 philosophy, philosophical knowledge, enlargement of 
 mind^ or illumination ; terms which are not un- 
 commonly given to it by writers of this day : but, what-i 
 ever name we bestow on it, it is, I believe, as a matter! 
 of history, the business of a University to make this in-l 
 tellecmal culture its direct scope^ or to employ itself in 1 
 the education of the intellect just as the work of a \ 
 Hospital lies in healing the sick or wounded ; of a 
 Riding or Fencing School, or of a Gymnasium, in 
 exercising the limbs ; of an Almshouse, in aiding and 
 solacing the old ; of an Orphanage, in protecting inno- 
 cence ; of a Penitentiary, in restoring the guilty. I say 
 a University, taken in its bare idea, and before we view 
 it as an instrument of the Church, has this object and 
 this mission ; it contemplates neither moral impressionj 
 nor mechanical production ; it professes to exercise thel 
 mind neither in art nor in duty ; |ts function is in-J 
 tellectual culture : here it may leave ItTscTiblars, and itj 
 117 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 has done its work when it has done as much as this. 
 \\ Itjeducates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to 
 \\reach out towards truth, and to grasp it. 
 
 This, I said in my foregoing Discourse, was the 
 object of a University, viewed in itself, and apart from 
 the Catholic Church, or from the State, or from any 
 other power which may use it ; and I illustrated this in 
 various ways. I said that the intellect must have an 
 excellence of its own, for there was nothing which had 
 not its specific good ; that the word " educate " would 
 not be used of intellectual culture, as it is used, had not 
 the intellect had an end of its own ; that, had it not 
 such an end, there would be no meaning in calling 
 certain intellectual exercises "liberal," in contrast with 
 " useful," as is commonly done ; that the very notion 
 of a philosophical temper implied it, for it threw us 
 back upon research and system as ends in themselves, 
 distinct from effects and works of any kind ; that a 
 philosophical scheme of knowledge, or system of 
 sciences, could not, from the nature of the case, issue 
 in any one definite art or pursuit, as its end ; and that, 
 on the other hand, the discovery and contemplation of 
 truth, to which research and systematising led, were 
 surely sufficient ends, though nothing beyond them 
 were added, and that they had ever been accounted 
 sufficient by mankind. 
 
 J f. Here then I take up the subject ; and having deter- 
 ' j mined that the cultivation of the intellect is an end 
 distinct and sufficient in itself, and that, so far as words 
 \ go it is an enlargement or illumination^ I proceed to in- 
 quire what this mental^eadtn, or power, or light, or 
 philosophy consists in. A Hospital heals a broken 
 limb or cures a fever ; what does an Institution effect, 
 which professes the health, not of the body, not of the 
 118 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 soul, but of the intellect ? What is this good, which 
 in former times, as well as our own, has been found 
 worth the notice, the appropriation, of the Catholic 
 Church ? 
 
 I have then to investigate, in the Discourses which 
 follow, those qualities and characteristics of the intel- 
 lect in which its cultivation issues or rather consists ; 
 and, with a view of assisting myself in this under- 
 taking, I shall recur to certain questions which have 
 already been touched upon. These questions are 
 three: viz. the relation of intellectual culture, first, 
 to mere knowledge ; secondly, to professional know- 
 ledge ; and thirdly, to religious knowledge. In other 
 words, are acquirements and attainments the scope of 
 a University Education ? or expertness in particular 
 arts and pursuits ? or moral and religious proficiency ? / 
 or something besides these three ? These questions 
 I shall examine in succession, with the purpose I have 
 mentioned ; and I hope to be excused if, in this 
 anxious undertaking, I am led to repeat what, either 
 in these Discourses or elsewhere, 1 I have already 
 put upon paper. And first, of Mere Knowledge, or 
 Learning, and its connection with intellectual illu- 
 mination or Philosophy. 
 
 I suppose the prima facie view which the public 
 at large would take of a University, considered as 
 a place of Education, is nothing more or less than 
 a place for acquiring a great deal of knowledge on 
 a great many subjects. Memory is one of the first 
 developed of the mental faculties ; a boy's business 
 when he goes to school is to learn, that is, to store 
 up things in his memory. For some years his intel- 
 
 1 Vid. the Author's University (Oxford) Sermons. 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 lect is little more than an instrument for taking in 
 facts, or a receptacle for storing them ; he welcomes 
 them as fast as they come to him ; he lives on what 
 is without ; he has his eyes ever about him ; he has 
 a lively susceptibility of impressions; he imbibes 
 information of every kind; and little does he make 
 his own in a true sense of the word, living rather 
 upon his neighbours all around him. He has opinions, 
 religious, political, and literary, and, for a boy, is very 
 positive in them and sure about them ; but he gets 
 them from his schoolfellows, or his masters, or his 
 parents, as the case may be. Such as he is in his 
 other relations, such also is he in his school exercises ; 
 his mind is observant, sharp, ready, retentive ; he is 
 almost passive in the acquisition of knowledge. I say 
 this in no disparagement of the idea of a clever boy. 
 Geography, chronology, history, language, natural 
 history, he heaps up the matter of these studies as 
 treasures for a future day. It is the seven years of 
 plenty with him : he gathers in by handf uls, like the 
 /Egyptians, without counting ; and though, as time 
 I goes on, there is exercise for his argumentative powers 
 \ in the Elements of Mathematics, and for his taste in 
 'the Poets and Orators, still, while at school, or at 
 least, till quite the last years of his time, he acquires, 
 and little more ; and when he is leaving for the Uni- 
 versity, he is mainly the creature of foreign influences 
 and circumstances, and made up of accidents, homo- 
 geneous or not, as the case may be. Moreover, the 
 moral habits, which are a boy's praise, encourage and 
 assist this result ; that is, diligence, assiduity, regular- 
 ity, despatch, persevering application ; for these are 
 the direct conditions of acquisition, and naturally lead 
 to it. Acquirements, again, are emphatically pro- 
 120 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 ducible, and at a moment ; they are a something to 
 show, both for master and scholar ; an audience, even 
 though ignorant themselves of the subjects of an 
 examination, can comprehend when questions are 
 answered and when they are not. Here again is 
 a reason why mental culture should in the minds of 
 men be identified with the acquisition of knowledge. 
 
 The same notion possesses the public mind, when 
 it passes on from the thought of a school to that of 
 a University : and with the best of reasons so far as 
 this, that there is no true culture without acquirements, 
 and that philosophy presupposes knowledge. It re- 
 quires a great deal of reading, or a wide range of 
 information, to warrant us in putting forth our opinions 
 on any serious subject ; and without such learning the 
 most original mind may be able indeed to dazzle, to 
 amuse, to refute, to perplex, but not to come to any 
 useful result or any trustworthy conclusion. There 
 are indeed persons who profess a different view of the 
 matter, and even act upon it. Every now and then 
 you will find a person of vigorous or fertile mind, 
 who relies upon his own resources, despises all former 
 authors, and gives the world, with the utmost fearless- 
 ness, his views upon religion, or history, or any other 
 popular subject. And his works may sell for a while; 
 he may get a name in his day ; but this will be all. 
 His readers are sure to find in the long run that his 
 doctrines are mere theories, and not the expression of 
 facts, that they are chaff instead of bread, and then his 
 popularity drops as suddenly as it rose. 
 
 Knowledge, then, is the indispensable condition of 
 
 expansion of mind, and the instrument of attaining to 
 
 it ; this cannot be denied, it is ever to be insisted on ; 
 
 I bep'r with it as a first principle; however, the very 
 
 121 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 truth of it carries men too far, and confirms to 
 them the notion that it is the whole of it. A 
 narrow mind is thought to be that which contains 
 little knowledge ; and an enlarged mind, that which 
 holds a deal ; and what seems to put the matter 
 beyond dispute is, the fact of the number of studies 
 which are pursued in a University, by its very 
 profession. Lectures are given on every kind of 
 subject ; examinations are held ; prizes awarded. 
 There are moral, metaphysical, physical Professors ; 
 Professors of languages, of history, of mathematics, 
 of experimental science. Lists of questions are pub- 
 lished, wonderful for their range and depth, variety 
 and difficulty ; treatises are written, which carry upon 
 their very face the evidence of extensive reading or 
 multifarious information ; what then is wanted for l 
 mental culture to a person of large reading and 
 scientific attainments ? what is grasp of mind but 
 acquirement ? where shall philosophical repose be 
 found, but in the consciousness and enjoyment of 
 large intellectual possessions ? 
 
 And yet this notion is, I conceive, a mistake, and 
 my present business is to show that it is one, and that 
 (the end of a Liberal Education is not mere knowledge, 
 lor knowledge considered in its matter ; and I shall 
 best attain my object by actually setting down some 
 cases, which will be generally granted to be instances 
 of the process of enlightenment or enlargement of 
 mind, and others which are not, and thus, by the 
 comparison, you will be able to judge for yourselves, 
 gentlemen, whether Knowledge, that is, acquirement, 
 is after all the real principle of the enlargement, or 
 whether that principle is not rather something be-, 
 yond it. 
 
 122 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 For instance, let a person, whose experience has 
 hitherto been confined to the more calm and unpre- 
 tending scenery of these islands, whether here or in 
 England, go for the first time into parts where physical 
 nature puts on her wilder and more awful forms, 
 whether at home or abroad, as into mountainous dis- 
 tricts; or let one, who has ever lived in a quiet 
 village, go for the first time to a great metropolis 
 then I suppose he will have a sensation which perhaps 
 he never had before. He has a feeling not in addition 
 or increase of former feelings, but of something dif- 
 ferent in its nature. He will perhaps be borne forward, 
 and find for a time that he has lost his bearings. He 
 has made a certain progress, and he has a consciousness 
 of mental enlargement ; he does not stand where he 
 did, he has a new centre, and a range of thoughts to 
 which he was before a stranger. 
 
 Again, the view of the heavens which the telescope 
 opens upon us, if allowed to fill and possess the mind, 
 may almost whirl it round and make it dizzy. It brings 
 in a flood of ideas, and is rightly called an intellectual 
 enlargement, whatever is meant by the term. 
 
 And so again, the sight of beasts of prey and other 
 foreign animals, their strangeness, the originality (if I 
 may use the term) of their forms and gestures and 
 habits and their variety and independence of each other, 
 throw us out of ourselves into another creation, and as 
 if under another Creator, if I may so express the 
 temptation which may come on the mind. X We seem 
 to have new faculties, or a new exercise for our facul- 
 ties, by this addition to our knowledge ; like a prisoner 
 who, having been accustomed to wear manacles or 
 fetters, suddenly finds his arms and legs free. 
 
 Hence Physical Science generally, in all its depart- 
 123 
 
<>.v> 
 5y I 
 * 
 
 LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 raents, as bringing before us the exuberant riches and 
 resources, yet the orderly course, of the Universe, 
 elevates and excites the student, and at first, I may 
 say, almost takes away his breath, while in time it 
 exercises a tranquillising influence upon him. 
 
 Again, the study of history is said to enlarge and 
 enlighten the mind, and why ? because, as I conceive, 
 it gives it a power of judging of passing events, and of 
 all events, and a conscious superiority over them, which 
 before it did not possess. 
 
 And in like manner, what is called seeing the world, 
 entering into active life, going into society, travelling, 
 gaining acquaintance with the various classes of the 
 community, coming into contact with the principles 
 and modes of thought of various parties, interests, and 
 races, their views, aims, habits and manners, their reli- 
 gious creeds and forms of worship gaining experience 
 how various yet how alike men are, how low-minded, 
 how bad, how opposed, yet how confident in their 
 opinions ; all this exerts a perceptible influence upon 
 the mind, which it is impossible to mistake, be it good 
 or be it bad, and is popularly called its enlargement. 
 
 And then again, the first time tjxejniind come__acrGs.s 
 the arguments and speculations of unbelievers, and feels 
 what a noveTTigrit they casfTipon wrlaTiieTias hitherto 
 accounted sacred ; and still more, if it gives in to 
 them and embraces them, and throws off as so much 
 prejudice what it has hitherto held, and, as if waking 
 from a dream, begins to realise to its imagination that 
 there is now no such thing as law and the transgression 
 of law, that sin is a phantom, and punishment a bug- 
 bear, that it is free to sin, free to enjoy the world and 
 the flesh ; and still further, when it does enjoy them, 
 and reflects that it may think and hold just what it 
 124 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 will, that " the world is all before it where to choose," 
 and what system to build up as its own private persua- 
 sion ; when this torrent of bad thoughts rushes over 
 and inundates it, who will deny that the fruit of the 
 tree of knowledge, or what the mind takes for know- 
 ledge, has made it one of the gods, with a sense of 
 expansion and elevation an intoxication in reality, 
 still, so far as the subjective state of the mind goes, an 
 illumination ? Hence the fanaticism of individuals or 
 nations, who suddenly cast off their Maker. Their eyes 
 are opened, and, like the judgment-stricken king in the 
 Tragedy^ they see two suns, and a magic universe, out 
 of which they look back upon their former state of 
 faith and innocence with a sort of contempt and indig- 
 nation, as if they were then but fools, and the dupes of 
 imposture. 
 
 IOn the other hand, Religion has its own enlarge- 
 ment, and an enlargement, not of tumult, but of peace. 
 It is often remarked of uneducated persons, who have 
 hitherto thought little of the unseen world, that, on 
 their turning to God, looking into themselves, regulating 
 their hearts, reforming their conduct, and meditating on 
 death and judgment, heaven and hell, they seem to be- 
 come, in point of intellect, different beings from what 
 they were. Before, they took things as they came, and 
 thought no more of one thing than another. But now 
 every event has a meaning ; they have their own esti- 
 mate of whatever happens to them ; they are mindful 
 of times and seasons, and compare the present with 
 the past ; and the world, no longer dull, monotonous, 
 unprofitable, and hopeless, is a various and complicated 
 drama, with parts and an object, and an awful moral. 
 
 Now from these instances, to which many more 
 might be added, it is plain, first, that the communica- 
 125 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 tion of knowledge certainly is either a condition or the 
 means of that sense of enlargement or enlightenment, 
 of which at this day we hear so much in certain 
 quarters : this cannot be denied ; but next, it is equallyX. 
 plain, that such communication is not the whole of the 
 process.^ Xhe/ enlargement consists, not merely in the 
 passive reception Into the mincT of a number of ideas 
 hitherto unknown to it, but in the mind's energeticl 
 and simultaneous action upon and towards and among! 
 those new ideas, which are rushing in upon it. It is J 
 the action of a Jormatirejower, reducing to order and 
 meaning the matter of our acquirements ; it is a making 
 the objects of our knowledge subjectively our own^pr, 
 to use a familiar word, it is a digestion of what we 
 receive, into the substance of our previous state of 
 thought ; and without this no enlargement is said to x 
 follow,^ There is no enlargement, unless there be a \ 
 comparison of ideas one with another, as they come 1 
 before the mind, and a systematising of them. We 
 feel our minds to be growing and expanding then y 
 when we not only learn, but refer what we learn to 
 what we know already. It is not a mere addition 
 to our knowledge which is the illumination ; but the 
 locomotion, the movement onwards, of that mental 
 centre, to which both what we know and what we 
 are learning, the accumulating mass of our require- 
 ments, gravitates. And therefore a truly great intel4 
 lect, and recognised to be such by the common opinion! 
 of mankind, such as the intellect of Aristotle, or of St. 
 Thomas, or of Newton, or of Goethe (I purposely 
 take instances within and without the Catholic pale, 
 when I would speak of the intellect as such }j is one 
 which takes a connected view of old and new, past I 
 and present, far and near, and which has an insight | 
 126 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 into the influence of all these one on another ; without 
 which there is no whole, and no centre. It possesses 
 the knowledge, not only of things, but also of their mutual 
 and true relations ; knowledge, not merely considered 
 as acquirement, but as philosophy. 
 
 Accordingly, when this analytical, distributive, har- 
 monising process is away, the mind experiences no 
 enlargement, and is not reckoned as enlightened or 
 comprehensive, whatever it may add to its knowledge. 
 For instance a great memory, as I have already said, \ 
 does not make a philosopher, any more than a diction- I 
 ary can be called a grammar. There are men who 
 embrace in their minds a vast multitude of ideas, but 
 with little sensibility about their real relations towards 
 each other. These may be antiquarians, annalists, 
 naturalists ; they may be learned in the law ; they may 
 be versed in statistics; they are most useful in their 
 own place ; I should shrink from speaking disrespect- 
 fully of them ; still, there is nothing in such attain- 
 ments to guarantee the absence of narrowness of mind. 
 If they are nothing more than well-read men, or men 
 of information, they have not what specially deserves 
 the name of culture of mind, or fulfils the type of 
 Liberal Education. 
 
 In like manner we sometimes fall in with persons 
 who have seen much of the world, and of the men 
 who, in their day, have played a conspicuous part in it, 
 but who generalise nothing, and have no observation, 
 in the true sense of the word. They abound in infor- 
 mation in detail, curious and entertaining, about men 
 and things ; and, having lived under the influence of no 
 very clear or settled principles, religious or political, 
 they speak of every one and everything, only as so 
 many phenomena, which are complete in themselves, 
 127 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 and lead to nothing, not discussing them, or teaching 
 any truth, or instructing the hearer, but simply talking. 
 
 (No one would say that these persons, well informed as 
 they are, had attained to any great culture of intellect 
 or to philosophy. 
 
 The case is the same still more strikingly where the 
 persons in question are beyond dispute men of inferior 
 powers and deficient education. Perhaps they have 
 been much in foreign countries, and they receive, in a 
 passive, otiose, unfruitful way, the various facts which 
 are forced upon them there. Seafaring men, for ex- 
 ample, range from one end of the earth to the other ; 
 but the multiplicity of external objects which they have 
 encountered forms no symmetrical and consistent pic- 
 ture upon their imagination ; they see the tapestry of 
 human life as it were on the wrong side, and it tells 
 no story. They sleep, and they rise up, and they find 
 themselves now in Europe, now in Asia ; they see 
 visions of great cities and wild regions ; they are in the 
 marts of commerce or amid the islands of the South ; 
 they gaze on Pompey's Pillar or on the Andes ; and 
 nothing which meets them carries them forward or 
 backward to any idea beyond itself. Nothing has a 
 drift or relation ; nothing has a history or a promise. 
 Everything stands by itself, and comes and goes in its 
 turn, like the shifting scenes of a show, which leave 
 the spectator where he was. Perhaps you are near 
 such a man on a particular occasion, and expect him to 
 be shocked or perplexed at something which occurs ; 
 but one thing is much the same to him as another, or, 
 if he is perplexed, it is as not knowing what to say, 
 whether it is right to admire, or to ridicule, or to dis- 
 approve, while conscious that some expression of 
 opinion is expected from him ; for in fact he has no 
 128 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 standard of judgment at all, and no landmarks to guide 
 him to a conclusion. Such is mere acquisition, and, I 
 repeat, no one would dream of calling it philosophy. 
 
 Instances such as these confirm, by the contrast, 
 the conclusion I have already drawn from those which* 
 preceded them. That only is true enlargement of 
 mind which is the power of viewing many things at 
 once as one whole, of referring them severally to their\ 
 true place in the universal system, of understanding ) 
 their respective values, and determining their mutuaj/ 
 dependence. Thus is that form of Universal Know- 
 ledge, of which I have on a former occasion spoken, 
 set up in the individual intellect, and constitutes its 
 perfection. Possessed of this real illumination, the 
 mind never views any part of the extended subject- 
 matter of Knowledge without recollecting that it is but 
 a part, or without the associations which spring from 
 this recollection. It makes everything in some sort 
 lead to everything else ; it would communicate the 
 image of the whole to every separate portion, till that 
 whole becomes in imagination like a spirit, everywhere 
 pervading and penetrating its component parts, and 
 giving them one definite meaning. Just as our bodily 
 organs, when mentioned, recall their function in the 
 body, as the word " creation " suggests the Creator, 
 and " subjects " a sovereign, so, in the mind of the 
 Philosopher, as we are abstractedly conceiving of him, 
 the elements of the physical and moral world, sciences, 
 arts, pursuits, ranks, offices, events, opinions, individu- 
 alities, are all viewed as one, with correlative functions, 
 and as gradually by successive combinations converg- 
 ing, one and all, to the true centre. 
 
 To have even a portion of this illuminative reason 
 and true philosophy is the highest state to which nature 
 129 i 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 can aspire, in the way of intellect ; it puts the mind 
 above the influences of chance and necessity, above 
 anxiety, suspense, tumult, and superstition, which are 
 the portion of the many. Men, whose minds are pos- 
 sessed with some one object, take exaggerated views 
 of its importance, are feverish in the pursuit of it, make 
 it the measure of things which are utterly foreign to it, 
 and are startled and despond if it happens to fail them. 
 They are ever in alarm or in transport. Those on the 
 other hand who have no object or principle whatever to 
 hold by, lose their way, every step they take. They 
 are thrown out, and do not know what to think or say, 
 at every fresh juncture ; they have no view of persons, 
 or occurrences, or facts, which come suddenly upon 
 them, and they hang upon the opinion of others, for 
 want of internal resources. But the intellect, which 
 has been disciplined to the perfection of its powers, 
 which knows, and thinks while it knows, which has 
 learned to leaven the dense mass of facts and events 
 with the elastic force of reason, such an intellect can- 
 not be partial, cannot be exclusive, cannot be impetu- 
 ous, cannot be at a loss, cannot but be patient, collected, 
 and majestically calm, because it discerns the end in 
 every beginning, the origin in every end, the law in 
 every interruption, the limit in each delay ; bt cause it 
 ever knows where it stands, and how its path lies from 
 one point to another. It is the Ter/oaywi/os of the 
 Peripatetic, and has the "nil admirari" of the Stoic 
 
 Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 
 Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fa f um 
 Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari 
 
 There are men who, when in difficulties, originate 
 
 at the moment vast ideas or dazzling projects ; who, 
 
 130 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 under the influence of excitement, are able to cast a 
 light, almost as if from inspiration, on a subject or 
 course of action which comes before them ; who have 
 a sudden presence of mind equal to any emergency, 
 rising with the occasion, and an undaunted magnani- 
 mous bearing, and an energy and keenness which is but 
 made intense by opposition. This is genius, this is 
 heroism ; it is the exhibition of a natural gift, which 
 no culture can teach, at which no Institution can aim ; 
 here, on the contrary, we are concerned, not with mere 
 nature, but with training and teaching. That perfec- 
 tion of the Intellect, which is the result of Education, 
 and its beau ideal \ to be imparted to individuals in their 
 respective measures, is the clear, calm, accurate vision 
 and comprehenvsion of all things, as far as the finite mind 
 can embrace them, each in its place, and with its own 
 characteristics upon it. It is almost prophetic from 
 its knowledge of history ; it is almost heart-searching 
 from its knowledge of human nature ; it has almost 
 supernatural charity from its freedom from littleness 
 and prejudice ; it has almost the repose of faith, be- 
 cause nothing can startle it; it has almost the beauty 
 and harmony of heavenly contemplation, so intimate is 
 it with the eternal order of things and the music of the 
 spheres. 
 
 And now, if I may take for granted that the true 
 and adequate end of intellectual training and of a Uni- 
 versity is not Learning or Acquirement, but rather, is 
 Thought or Reason exercised upon Knowledge, or 
 what may be called Philosophy, I shall be in a position 
 to explain the various mistakes which at ihe present 
 day beset the subject of University Education. 
 
 I say then, if we would improve the intellect, first 
 of all, we must ascend: we cannot gain real knowledge 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 on a level ; we must generalise, we must reduce to 
 method, we must have a grasp of principles, and group 
 and shape our acquisitions by them. It matters not 
 whether our field of operation be wide or limited ; in 
 every case, to command it, is to mount above it. 
 Who has not felt the irritation of mind and impatience 
 created by a deep, rich country, visited for the first 
 time, with winding lanes, and high hedges, and green 
 steeps, and tangled woods, and everything smiling 
 indeed, but in a maze ? The same feeling comes upon 
 us in a strange city, when we have no map of its streets. 
 Hence you hear of practised travellers, when they first 
 come into a place, mounting some high hill or church 
 tower, by way of reconnoitring its neighbourhood. 
 In like manner you must be above your knowledge, 
 gentlemen, not under it, or it will oppress you ; and 
 the more you have of it the greater will be the load. 
 The learning of a Salmasius or a Burman, unless you 
 are its master, will be your tyrant. " Imperat aut 
 servit ; " if you can wield it with a strong arm, it is a 
 great weapon ; otherwise, 
 
 Vis consili expers 
 Mole ruit sua. 
 
 / You will be overwhelmed, like Tarpeia, by the heavy 
 ' wealth which you have exacted from tributary 
 generations. 
 
 Instances abound; there are authors who are as 
 pointless as they are inexhaustible in their literary re- 
 A sources. They measure knowledge by bulk, as it lies 
 / in the rude block, without symmetry, without design. 
 
 How many commentators are there on the Classics, how 
 many on Holy Scripture, from whom we rise up, won- 
 dering at the learning which has passed before us, and 
 132 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 wondering why it passed ! How many writers are 
 there of Ecclesiastical History, such as Mosheim or 
 Du Pin, who, breaking up their subject into details, 
 destroy its life, and defraud us of the whole by their 
 anxiety about the parts ! The sermons, again, of the 
 English Divines in the seventeenth century, how often 
 are they mere repertories of miscellaneous and officious 
 learning ! Of course Catholics also may read v/ithout 
 thinking ; and in their case, equally as with Protes- 
 tants, it holds good, that that knowledge of theirs is 
 unworthy of the name, knowledge which they have not" 
 thought through, and thought out. Such readers are 
 only possessed by their knowledge, not possessed of it ; 
 nay, in matter of fact they are often even carried away 
 by it, without any volition of their own. Recollect, 
 the Memory can tyrannise as well as the Imagination. 
 Derangement, I believe, has been considered as a loss 
 of control over the sequence of ideas. The mind, once\ 
 set in motion, is henceforth deprived of the power of 
 initiation, and becomes the victim of a train of associa- \ 
 tions, one thought suggesting another, in the way of cause \ 
 and effect, as if by a mechanical process, or some physical 
 necessity. No one, who has had experience of men of 
 studious habits, but must recognise the existence of a 
 parallel phenomenon in the case of those who have 
 over- stimulated the Memory. In such persons Reason 
 acts almost as feebly and as impotently as in the mad- 
 man ; once fairly started on any subject whatever, they 
 have no power of self-control ; they passively endure 
 the succession of impulses which are evolved out of the 
 original exciting cause ; they are passed on from one 
 idea to another and go steadily forward, plodding along 
 one line of thought in spite of the amplest concessions 
 of the hearer, or wandering from it in endless digres- 
 
 '33 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 sion in spite of his remonstrances. Now, if, as is very 
 certain, no one would envy the madman the glow and 
 originality of his conceptions, why must we extol the 
 cultivation of that intellect, which is the prey, not in- 
 deed of barren fancies but of barren facts, of random 
 intrusions from without, though not of morbid imagina- 
 tions from within ? And in thus speaking, I am not 
 denying that a strong and ready memory is in itself a 
 real treasure ; I am not disparaging a well -stored mind, 
 though it be nothing besides, provided it be sober, any 
 more than I would despise a bookseller's shop : it is 
 of great value to others, even when not so to the owner. 
 Nor am I banishing, far from it, the possessors of deep 
 and multifarious learning from my ideal University ; 
 they adore it in the eyes of men ; I do but say that 
 they constitute no type of the results at which it aims ; 
 that it is no great gain to the intellect to have enlarged 
 the memory at the expense of faculties which are in- 
 disputably higher. 
 
 Nor indeed am I supposing that there is any great 
 danger, at least in this day, of over-education ; the 
 danger is on the other side. I will tell you, gentlemen, 
 what has been the practical error of the last twenty 
 years not to load the memory of the student with a 
 mass of undigested knowledge, but to attempt so much 
 that nothing has been really effected, to teach so many 
 things, that nothing has properly been learned at all~ 
 It has been the error of distracting and enfeebling the \ 
 mind by an unmeaning profusion of subjects ; of im- I 
 plying that a smattering in a dozen branches of study / 
 was not shallowness, which it really is, but enlargement;/ 
 of considering an acquaintance with the learned names 
 of things and persons, and the possession of clever 
 duodecimos, and attendance on eloquent lecturers, and 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 membership with scientific institutions, and the sight of 
 the experiments of a platform and the specimens of a 
 museum, that all this was not dissipation of mind, but 
 progress. All things now are to be learned at once, 
 not first one thing, then another, not one well but many 
 badly. Learning is to be without exertion, without 
 attention, without toil ; without grounding, without ad- 
 vance, without finishing. There is to be nothing 
 Individual in it ; and this, forsooth, is the wonder of 
 the age. What the steam-engine does with matter, the 
 printing-press is to do with mind ; it is to act mechani- 
 cally, and the population is to be passively, almost 
 \ unconsciously enlightened, by the mere multiplication 
 and dissemination of volumes. Whether it be the 
 schoolboy, or the schoolgirl, or the youth at college, 
 or the mechanic in the town, or the politician in the 
 senate, all have been the victims in one way or other 
 of this most preposterous and pernicious of delusions. 
 Wise men have lifted up their voices in vain ; and at 
 length, lest their own institutions should be outshone 
 and should disappear in the folly of the hour, they have 
 been obliged, as far as was conscientiously possible, to 
 humour a spirit which they could not withstand, and 
 make temporising concessions at which they could not 
 but inwardly smile. 
 
 Now I must guard, gentlemen, against any pos- 
 sible misconception of my meaning. Let me frankly 
 declare then, that I have no fear at all of the education 
 of the people : the more education they have the 
 better, so that it is really education. Next, as to the 
 cheap publication of scientific and literary works, 
 which is now in vogue, I consider it a great ad- 
 vantage, v convenience, and gain ; that is, to those to 
 whom education has given a capacity for using them. 
 '35 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 Further, I consider such innocent recreations as 
 science and literature are able to furnish will be a 
 very fit occupation of the thoughts and the leisure 
 of young persons, and may be made the means of 
 keeping them from bad employments and bad com- 
 panions; /Moreover, as to that superficial acquaintance 
 with chemistry, and geology, and astronomy, and 
 political economy, and modern history, and biography, 
 and other branches of knowledge, which periodical 
 literature and occasional lectures and scientific institu- 
 tions diffuse through the community, I think it a 
 graceful accomplishment, and a suitable, nay, in this 
 day a necessary accomplishment, in the case of edu- 
 cated men. Ncr, lastly, am I disparaging or discourag- 
 ing the thorough acquisition of any one of these 
 studies, or denying that, as far as it goes, such 
 thorough acquisition is a real education of the mindJ 
 All I say is, call things by their right names, and do 
 not confuse together ideas which are essentially dif- 
 ferent. A thorough knowledge of one science and 
 a superficial acquaintance with many, are not the same 
 thing ; a smattering of a hundred things or a memory 
 for detail, is not a philosophical or comprehensive 
 view. Recreations are not education ; accomplish- 
 ments are not education. Do not say, the people 
 must be educated, when, after all, you only mean 
 amused, refreshed, soothed, put into good spirits and 
 good humour, or kept from vicious excesses. I do not 
 say that such amusements, such occupations of mind, 
 are not a great gain ; but they are not education. 
 You may as well call drawing and fencing education, 
 as a general knowledge of botany or conchology. 
 Stuffing birds or playing stringed instruments is an 
 elegant pastime, and a resource to the idle, but it is 
 136 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 not education ; it does not form or cultivate the 
 intellect. Education is a high word; it is the pre- 
 paration for knowledge, and it is the imparting of 
 knowledge in proportion to that preparation. We 
 require intellectual eyes to know withal, as bodily 
 eyes for sight. We need both objects and organs 
 intellectual ; we cannot gain them without setting 
 about it ; we cannot gain them in our sleep or by 
 haphazard. The best telescope does not dispense 
 with eyes ; the printing-press or the lecture room will 
 assist us greatly, but we must be true to ourselves, 
 we must be parties in the work. A University is, 
 according to the usual designation, an Alma Mater, 
 knowing her children one by one, not a foundry, or 
 a mint, or a treadmill. 
 
 I protest to you, gentlemen, that if I had to choose 
 between a so-called University which dispensed with 
 residence and tutorial superintendence, and gave its 
 degrees to any person who passed an examination in 
 a wide range of subjects, and a University which had 
 no professors or examinations at all, but merely brought 
 a number of young men together for three or four 
 years, and then sent them away as the University of 
 Oxford is said to have done some sixty years since, 
 if I were asked which of these two methods was the 
 better discipline of the intellect mind, I do not say 
 which is morally the better, for it is plain that com- 
 pulsory study must be a good and idleness an intoler- 
 able mischief but if I must determine which of the 
 two courses was the more successful in training, 
 moulding, enlarging the mind, which sent out men 
 the more fitted for their secular duties, which produced 
 better public men, men of the world, men whose names 
 would descend to posterity, I have no hesitation in 
 137 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 giving the preference to that University which did 
 nothing, over that which exacted of its members an 
 acquaintance with every science under the sun. And, 
 paradox as this may seem, still if results be the test 
 of systems, the influence of the public schools and 
 colleges of England, in the course of the last century, 
 at least will bear out one side of the contrast as I have 
 drawn it. What would come, on the other hand, of 
 the ideal systems of education which have fascinated 
 the imagination of this age, could they ever take effect, 
 and whether they would not produce a generation 
 frivolous, narrow-minded, and resourceless, intellec- 
 tually considered, is a fair subject for debate ; but so 
 far is certain, that the Universities and scholastic 
 establishments to which I refer, and which did little 
 more than bring together first boys and then youths 
 in large numbers, these institutions, with miserable 
 deformities on the side of morals, with a hollow pro- 
 fession of Christianity, and a heathen code of ethics 
 I say, at least they can boast of a succession of 
 heroes and statesmen, of literary men and philosophers, 
 of men conspicuous for great natural virtues, for habits 
 of business, for knowledge of life, for practical judg- 
 ment, for cultivated tastes, for accomplishments, who 
 have made England what it is able to subdue the 
 earth, able to domineer over Catholics. 
 
 How is this to be explained ? I suppose as follows: 
 When a multitude of young persons, keen, open-hearted, 
 sympathetic, and observant, as young persons are, come 
 together and freely mix with each other, they are sure 
 to learn one from another, even if there be no one to 
 teach them; the conversation of all is a series of lectures 
 to each, and they gain for themselves new ideas and 
 views, fresh matter of thought, and distinct principles 
 
 138 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 for judging and acting, day by day. An infant has to 
 learn the meaning of the information which its senses 
 convey to it, and this seems to be its employment. It 
 fancies all that the eye presents to it to be close to it, 
 till it actually learns the contrary, and thus by practice 
 does it ascertain the relations and uses of those first 
 elements of knowledge which are necessary for its 
 animal existence. A parallel teaching is necessary for 
 our social being, and it is secured by a large school or 
 a college ; and this effect may be fairly called in its 
 own department an enlargement of mind. It is seeing 
 the world on a small field with little trouble ; for the 
 pupils or students come from very different places, and 
 with widely different notions, and there is much to 
 generalise, much to adjust, much to eliminate, there 
 are inter-relations to be defined, and conventional rules 
 to be established, in the process, by which the whole 
 assemblage is moulded together, and gains one tone 
 and one character. Let it be clearly understood, I 
 repeat it, that I am not taking into account moral OF 
 religious considerations ; I am but saying that that 
 youthful community will constitute a whole, it will 
 embody a specific idea, it will represent a doctrine, it 
 will administer a code of conduct, and it will furnish 
 principles of thought and action. It will give birth to 
 a living teaching, which in course of time will take the 
 shape of a self-perpetuating tradition, or a genius loci, 
 as it is sometimes called ; which haunts the home 
 where it has been born, and which imbues and forms, 
 more or less, and one by one, every individual who is 
 successively brought under its shadow. Thus it is 
 that, independent of direct instruction on the part of 
 Superiors, there is a sort of self- education in the 
 academic institutions of Protestant England ; a charac- 
 '39 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 teristic tone of thought, a recognised standard of 
 judgment is found in them, which, as developed in 
 the individual who is submitted to it, becomes a two- 
 fold source of strength to him, both from the distinct 
 stamp it impresses on his mind, and from the bond of 
 union which it creates between him and others 
 effects which are shared by the authorities of the 
 place, for they themselves have been educated in it, 
 and at all times are exposed to the influence of its 
 moral atmosphere. Here then is a real teaching, 
 whatever be its standards and principles, true or false ; 
 and it at least tends towards cultivation of the intellect ; 
 it at least recognises that knowledge is something more 
 than a sort of passive reception of scraps and details ; 
 it is a something, and it does a something, which never 
 will issue from the most strenuous efforts of a set of 
 teachers, with no mutual sympathies and no inter- 
 communion, of a set of examiners with no opinions 
 which they dare profess, and with no common prin- 
 ciples, who are teaching or questioning a set of youths 
 who do not know them, and do not know each other, 
 on a large number of subjects, different in kind, and 
 connected by no wide philosophy, three times a week, 
 or three times a year, or once in three years, in chill 
 lecture-rooms or on a pompous anniversary. 
 
 Nay, self-education in any shape, in the most re- 
 
 i stricted sense, is preferable to a system of teaching 
 which, professing so much, really does so little for the 
 
 I mind. Shut your College gates against the votary of 
 knowledge, throw him back upon the searchings and 
 the efforts of his own mind; he will gain by being 
 spared an entrance into your Babel. Few indeed 
 there are who can dispense with the stimulus and 
 support of instructors, or will do anything at all, if 
 140 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 left to themselves. And fewer still (though such 
 great minds are to be found) who will not, from such 
 unassisted attempts, contract a self-reliance and a self- 
 esteem, which are not only moral evils, but serious 
 hindrances to the attainment of truth. And next to 
 none, perhaps, or none, who will not be reminded from 
 time to time of the disadvantage under which they lie, 
 by their imperfect grounding, by the breaks, defi- 
 ciencies, and irregularities of their knowledge, by the 
 eccentricity of opinion and the confusion of principle 
 which they exhibit. They will be too often ignorant 
 of what every one knows and takes for granted, of 
 that multitude of small truths which fall upon the 
 mind like dust, impalpable and ever accumulating ; 
 they may be unable to converse, they may argue 
 perversely, they may pride themselves on their worst 
 paradoxes or their grossest truisms, they may be full of 
 their own mode of viewing things, unwilling to be put 
 out of their way, slow to enter into the minds of others ; 
 but, with these and whatever other liabilities upon 
 their heads, Ithey are likely to have more thought, more 
 mind, more philosophy, more true enlargement, than 
 those earnest but ill-used persons who are forced to, 
 load their minds with a score of subjects against an 
 examination, who have too much on their hands to 
 indulge themselves in thinking or investigation, who 
 devour premiss and conclusion together with indiscri- 
 minate greediness, who hold whole sciences on faith, 
 and commit demonstrations to memory, and who too 
 often, as might be expected, when their period of 
 education is passed, throw up all they have learned in 
 disgust, having gained nothing really by their anxious 
 labours, except perhaps the habit of application. 
 
 Yet such is the better specimen of the fruit of that 
 141 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 ambitious system which has of late years been making 
 way among us : for its result on ordinary minds, and 
 on the common run of students, is less satisfactory still ; 
 they leave their place of education simply dissipated 
 and relaxed by the multiplicity of subjects, which they 
 have never really mastered, and so shallow as not even 
 to know their shallowness. How much better, I say, 
 is it for the active and thoughtful intellect, where such 
 is to be found, to eschew the College and the Uni- 
 versity altogether, than to submit to a drudgery so 
 ignoble, a mockery so contumelious ! How much 
 more profitable for the independent mind, after the 
 mere rudiments of education, to range through a library 
 at random, taking down books as they meet him, and 
 pursuing the trains of thought which his mother wit 
 suggests ! How much healthier to wander into the 
 fields, and there with the exiled Prince to find 
 " tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks ! " 
 How much more genuine an education is that of the 
 poor boy in the Poem l a Poem, whether in concep- 
 tion or in execution, one of the most touching in our 
 language who,, not in the wide world, but ranging 
 day by day around his widowed mother's home, '* a 
 dexterous gleaner " in a narrow field, and with only- 
 such slender outfit 
 
 " as the village school and books a few 
 Supplied," 
 
 1 Crabbe's Tales of the Hall. This Poem, let me say, I 
 read on its first publication, above thirty years ago, with 
 extreme delight, and have never lost my love of it ; and on 
 taking it up lately found I was even more touched by 
 it than heretofore. A work which can please in youth 
 and age seems to fulfil (in logical language) the accidental 
 definition of a Classic. 
 
 142 
 
IN RELATION TO LEARNING 
 
 contrived from the beach, and the quay, and the fisher's 
 boat, and the inn's fireside, and the tradesman's shop, 
 and the shepherd's walk, and the smuggler's hut, and 
 the mossy moor, and the screaming gulls, and the rest- 
 less waves, to fashion for himself a philosophy and a 
 poetry of his own ! 
 
 But in a large subject I am exceeding my necessary 
 limits. Gentlemen, I must conclude abruptly ; and 
 postpone any summing up of my argument, should 
 that be necessary, to another day. 
 
 '43 
 
DISCOURSE VI 
 
 LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION 
 TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 HAVE been insisting, in my two preceding 
 Discourses, first, on the cultivation of the in- 
 tellect, as^n^jeod which may reasonably be 
 be pursued for Jte^fiSOLflakfi ; and next, on the nature 
 of that cultivation, or what that cultivation consists in. 
 Truth of whatever kind is the proper object of the 
 intellect ; its cultivation then lies in fitting it to appre- 
 hend and contemplate truth. Now the intellect in its 
 present state, with exceptions which need not here 
 be specified, does not discern truth intuitively, or as a 
 whole. We know, not by a direct and simple vision, 
 not at a glance, but, as it were, by piecemeal and 
 accumulation, by a mental process, by going round an 
 object, by the comparison, the combination, the mutual 
 correction, the continual adaptation, of many partial 
 notions, by the joint application and concentration upon 
 it of many faculties and exercises of mind. Such a 
 union and concert of the intellectual powers, such 
 an enlargement and development, such a comprehen- 
 siveness, is necessarily a matter of training. And 
 again, such a training is a matter of rule ; it is not 
 mere application, however exemplary, which intro- 
 duces the mind to truth, nor the reading many books, 
 nor the getting up many subjects, nor the witnessing 
 144 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 many experiments, nor the attending many lectures. 
 All this is short of enough ; a man may have done 
 it all, yet be lingering in the vestibule of knowledge : 
 he may not realise what his mouth utters ; he may 
 not see with his mental eye what confronts him ; he 
 may have no grasp of things as they are ; or at least 
 he may have no power at all of advancing one step 
 forward of himself, in consequence of what he has 
 already acquired, no power of discriminating between 
 truth and falsehood, of sifting out the grains of truth 
 from the mass, of arranging things according to their 
 real value, and, if I may use the phrase, of building 
 up ideas. Such a power is the result of a scientific 
 formation of mind ; it is an acquired faculty of judg- 
 ment, of clear-sightedness, of sagacity, of wisdom, 
 of philosophical reach of mind, and of intellectual 
 self-possession and repose qualities which do not 
 come of mere acquirement. The bodily eye, the 
 organ for apprehending material objects, is provided 
 by nature ; the eye of the mind, of which the object 
 is truth, is the work of discipline and habit. / 
 
 This process of training, by which the intellect, 
 instead of being formed or sacrificed to some particular 
 or accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, 
 or study or science, is disciplined for its own sake, for 
 the perception of its own proper object, and for its 
 own highest culture, is called Liberal Education ; and 
 though there is no one in whom it is carried as far as 
 is conceivable, or whose intellect would be a pattern 
 of what intellects should be made, yet there is scarcely 
 any one but may gain an idea of what real training is, 
 and at least look towards it, and make its true scope 
 and result, not something else, his standard of excel- 
 lence ; and numbers there are who may submit 
 
 145 K 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 selves to it, and secure it to themselves in good 
 measure. And to set forth the right standard, and 
 to train according to it, and to help forward all 
 students towards it according to their various capaci- 
 ties, this I conceive to be the business of a University. 
 
 Now this is what some great men are very slow to 
 allow ; they insist that Education should be confined 
 to some particular and narrow end, and should issue 
 in some definite work, which can be weighed and 
 measured. They argue as if everything, as well as 
 every person, had its price ; and that where there has 
 been a great outlay, they have a right to expect a 
 return in kind. This they call making Education and 
 Instruction "useful," and "Utility" becomes their 
 watchword. With a fundamental principle of this 
 nature, they very naturally go on to ask, what there 
 is to show for the expense of a University ; what is 
 the real worth in the market of the article called 
 "a Liberal Education," on the supposition that it 
 does not teach us definitely how to advance our manu- 
 factures, or to improve our lands, or to better our civil 
 economy ; or again, if it does not at once make this 
 man a lawyer, that an engineer, and that a surgeon ; 
 or at least if it does not lead to discoveries in chemis- 
 try, astronomy, geology, magnetism, and science of 
 every kind. 
 
 This question, as might have been expected, has 
 been keenly debated in the present age, and formed 
 one main subject of the controversy, to which I re- 
 ferred in the Introduction to the present Discourses, 
 as having been sustained in the first decade of this 
 century by a celebrated Northern Review on the one 
 hand, and defenders of the University of Oxford on 
 the other. Hardly had the authorities of that ancient 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 scat of learning, waking from their long neglect, set 
 on foot a plan for the education of the youth com- 
 mitted to them, than the representatives of science 
 and literature in the city, which has sometimes been 
 called the Northern Athens, remonstrated with their 
 gravest arguments and their most brilliant satire, against 
 the direction and shape which the reform was taking. 
 Nothing would content them, but that the University 
 should be set to rights on the basis of the philosophy 
 of Utility ; a philosophy, as they seem to have thought, 
 which needed but to be proclaimed in order to be 
 embraced. In truth, they were little aware of the 
 depth and force of the principles on which the autho- 
 rities academical were proceeding, and, this being so, 
 it was not to be expected that they would be allowed 
 to walk at leisure over the field of controversy which 
 they had selected. Accordingly they were encountered 
 in behalf of the University by two men of great name 
 and influence in their day, of very different minds, but 
 united, as by Collegiate ties, so in the clear-sighted 
 and large view which they took of the whole subject 
 of Liberal Education; and the defence thus provided 
 for the Oxford studies has kept its ground to this day. 
 Let me be allowed to devote a few words to the 
 memory of distinguished persons, under the shadow 
 of whose name I once lived, and by whose doctrine 
 I am now profiting. In the heart of Oxford there is 
 a small plot of ground, hemmed in by public thorough- 
 fares, which has been the possession and the home ol 
 one Society for above five hundred years. In the old 
 time of Boniface the Eighth and John the Twenty- 
 second, in the age of Scotus and Occam and Dante, 
 before Wiclif or Huss had kindled those miserable 
 fires which are still raging to the ruin of the highest 
 147 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 interests of man, an unfortunate king of England, 
 Edward the Second, flying from the field of Bannock- 
 burn, is said to have made a vow to the Blessed Virgin 
 to found a religious house in her honour, if he got 
 back in safety. Prompted and aided by his Almoner, 
 he decided on placing this house in the city of Alfred; 
 and the Image of our Lady, which is opposite its 
 entrance-gate, is the token of the vow and its ful- 
 filment to this day. King and Almoner have long 
 been in the dust, and strangers have entered into their 
 inheritance, and their creed has been forgotten, and 
 their holy rites disowned ; but day by day a memento 
 is still made in the holy Sacrifice by at least one 
 Catholic Priest, once a member of that College, for 
 the souls of those Catholic benefactors who fed him 
 there for so many years. The visitor, whose curiosity 
 has been excited by its present fame, gazes perhaps 
 with something of disappointment on a collection of 
 buildings which have with them so few of tne circum- 
 stances of dignity or wealth. Broad quadrangles, high 
 halls and chambers, ornamented cloisters, stately walks, 
 or umbrageous gardens, a throng of students, ample 
 revenues, or a glorious history, none of these things 
 were the portion of that old Catholic foundation ; 
 nothing in short which to the common eye sixty years 
 ago would have given tokens of what it was to be. 
 But it had at that time a spirit working within it* 
 which enabled its inmates to do, amid its seeming 
 insignificance, what no other body in the place could 
 equal ; not a very abstruse gift or extraordinary boast, 
 but a rare one, the honest purpose to administer the 
 trust committed to them in such a way as their con- 
 science pointed out as best. So, whereas the Colleges 
 of Oxford are self-electing bodies, the fellows in each 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 perpetually filling up for themselves the vacancies which 
 occur in their number, the members of this foundation 
 determined, at a time when, either from evil custom 
 or from ancient statute, such a thing was not known 
 elsewhere, to throw open their fellowships to the 
 competition of all comers, and, in the choice of asso- 
 ciates henceforth, to cast to the winds every personal 
 motive and feeling, family connection, and friendship, 
 and patronage, and political interest, and local claim, 
 and prejudice, and party jealousy, and to elect solely 
 on public and patriotic grounds. Nay, with a remark- 
 able independence of mind, they resolved that even 
 the table of honours, awarded to literary merit by 
 the University in its new system of examination for 
 degrees, should not fetter their judgment as electors ; 
 but that at all risks, and whatever criticism it might 
 cause, and whatever odium they might incur, they 
 would select the men, whoever they were, to be 
 children of their Founder, whom they thought in 
 their consciences to be most likely from their in- 
 tellectual and moral qualities to please him, if (as 
 they expressed it) he were still upon earth, most 
 likely to do honour to his College, most likely to 
 promote the objects which they believed he had at 
 heart. Such persons did not promise to be the 
 disciples of a low Utilitarianism ; and consequently, 
 as their collegiate reform synchronised with that re- 
 form of the Academical body, in which they bore 
 a principal part, it was not unnatural that, when the 
 storm broke upon the University from the North, their 
 Alma Mater, whom they loved, should have found 
 her first defenders within the walls of that small 
 College, which had first put itself into a condition to 
 be her champion. 
 
 149 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 These defenders, gentlemen, I have said, were two, of 
 whom the more distinguished was the late Dr. Copleston, 
 then a Fellow of the College, successively its Provost, 
 and Protestant Bishop of Llandaff. In that Society, 
 which owes so much to him, his name lives, and ever 
 will live, for the distinction which his talents bestowed 
 on it, for the academical importance to which he raised 
 it, for the generosity of spirit, the liberality of senti- 
 ment, and the kindness of heart, with which he 
 adorned it, and which even those who had least 
 sympathy with some aspects of his mind and char- 
 acter could not but admire and love. Men come to 
 their meridian at various periods of their lives ; the 
 last years of the eminent person I am speaking of 
 were given to duties which, I am told, have been the 
 means of endearing him to numbers, but which afforded 
 no scope for that peculiar vigour and keenness of mind 
 which enabled him, when a young man, single-handed, 
 with easy gallantry, to encounter and overthrow the 
 charge of three giants of the North combined against 
 him. I believe I am right in saying that, in the pro- 
 gress of the controversy, the most scientific, the most 
 critical, and the most witty, of that literary company, 
 all of them now, as he himself, removed from this 
 visible scene, Professor Play fair, Lord Jeffrey, and 
 the Rev. Sydney Smith, threw together their several 
 efforts into one article of their Review, in order to 
 crush and pound to dust the audacious controvertist 
 who had come out against them in defence of his own 
 Institutions. To have even contended with such men 
 was a sufficient voucher for his ability, even before we 
 open his pamphlets, and have actual evidence of the 
 good sense, the spirit, the scholar-like taste, and the 
 purity of style, by which they are distinguished. 
 150 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 He was supported in the controversy, on the same 
 general principles, but with more of method and dis- 
 tinctness, and, I will add, with greater force and 
 beauty and perfection, both of thought and of language, 
 by the other distinguished writer, to whom I have 
 already referred, Mr. Davison ; who, though not so 
 well known to the world in his day, has left more 
 behind him than the Provost of Oriel, to make his 
 name remembered by posterity. This thoughtful man, 
 who was the admired and intimate friend of a very 
 remarkable person, whom, whether he wish it or not, 
 numbers revere and love as the first author of the 
 subsequent movement in the Protestant Church towards 
 Catholicism, 1 this grave and philosophical writer, whose 
 works I can never look into without sighing that such 
 a man was lost to the Catholic Church, as Dr. Butler 
 before him, by some early bias or some fault of self- 
 education he, in a review of a work by Mr. Edge- 
 worth on Professional Education, which attracted 
 a good deal of attention in its day, goes leisurely 
 over the same ground, which had already been rapidly 
 traversed by I)r. Copleston, and, though professedly 
 employed upon Mr. Edgeworth, is really replying to 
 the northern critic who had brought that writer's 
 work into notice, and to a far greater author than 
 either of them, who in a past age had argued on the 
 same side. 
 
 The author to whom I allude is no other than 
 Locke. That celebrated philosopher has preceded 
 the Edinburgh Reviewers in condemning the ordinary 
 subjects in which boys are instructed at school, on the 
 ground that they are not needed by them in after life ; 
 
 1 Mr. Keble, Vicar of Hursley, late Fellow of Oriel, and 
 Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 and before quoting what his disciples have said in the 
 present century, I will refer to a few passages of the 
 master. "'Tis matter of astonishment," he says in 
 his work on Education, "that men of quality and 
 parts should suffer themselves to be so far misled by 
 custom and implicit faith. Reason, if consulted with, 
 would advise, that their children's time should be 
 spent in acquiring what might be useful to them, when 
 they come to be men, rather than that their heads 
 should be stuffed with a deal of trash, a great part 
 whereof they usually never do ('tis certain they never 
 need to) think on again as long as they live ; and so 
 much of it as does stick by them they are only the 
 worse for." 
 
 And so again, speaking of verse-making, he says : 
 '* I know not what reason a father can have to wish 
 his son a poet, who does not desire him to bid defiance 
 to a/I other callings and business ; which is not yet the 
 worst of the case ; for, if he proves a buccessful 
 rhymer, and gets once the reputation of a wit, I desire 
 it to be considered, what company and places he is 
 likely to spend his time in, nay, and estate too ; for 
 it is very seldom seen that any one discovers mines oj 
 gold or silver in Parnassus. 'Tisa pleasant air but a 
 barren soil." 
 
 In another passage he distinctly limits utility in 
 education to its bearing on the future profession or 
 trade of the pupil, that is, he scorns the idea of any 
 education of the intellect, simply as such. "Can 
 there be anything more ridiculous," he asks, " than that 
 a father should waste his own money, and his son's 
 time, in setting him to learn the Roman language, when 
 at the same time he designs him for a trade^ wherein 
 he, having no use of Latin, fails not to forget that 
 152 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 little which he brought from school, and which 'tis 
 ten to one he abhors for the ill-usage it procured him ? 
 Could it be believed, unless we have everywhere 
 amongst us examples of it, that a child should be 
 forced to learn the rudiments of a language, which he 
 is never to use in the course of life that he is designed to, 
 and neglect all the while the writing a good hand, and 
 casting accounts, which are of great advantage in all 
 conditions of life, and to most trades indispensably 
 necessary ? " Nothing of course can be more absurd 
 ' than to neglect in education those matters which are 
 necessary for a boy's future calling ; but the tone of 
 Locke's remarks evidently implies more than this, and 
 is condemnatory of any teaching which tends to the 
 general cultivation of the mind. 
 
 Now to turn to his modern disciples. The study 
 of the Classics has been made the basis of the Oxford 
 education, in the reforms which I have spoken of, 
 and the Edinburgh Reviewers protested, after the 
 manner of Locke, that no good could come of a 
 system which was not based upon the principle of 
 Utility. 
 
 " Classical Literature," they said, " is the great 
 object at Oxford. Many minds, so employed, have 
 produced many works and much fame in that depart- 
 ment ; but if all liberal arts and sciences, useful to 
 human life, had been taught there, if some had dedicated 
 themselves to chemistry, some to mathematics, tome to 
 experimental philosophy, and if every attainment had 
 been honoured in the mixt ratio of its difficulty and 
 utility, the system of such a University would have 
 been much more valuable, but the splendour of its 
 name something less." 
 
 Utility may be made the end of education, in two 
 'S3 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 respects : either as regards the individual educated, or 
 the community at large. In which light do these 
 writers regard it? in the latter. So far they differ 
 from Locke, for they consider the advancement of 
 science as the supreme and real end of a University. 
 This is brought into view in the sentences which 
 follow. 
 
 " When a University has been doing useless things 
 for a long time, it appears at first degrading to them 
 to be useful. A set of Lectures on Political Economy 
 would be discouraged in Oxford, probably despised, 
 probably not permitted. To discuss the inclosure of 
 commons, and to dwell upon imports and exports, 
 to come so near to common life, would seem to be 
 undignified and contemptible. In the same manner, 
 the Parr or the Bentley of the day would be scandalised, 
 in a University, to be put on a level with the discoverer 
 of a neutral salt ; and yet, what other measure is there 
 of dignity in intellectual labour but usefulness ? And 
 what ought the term University to mean, but a place 
 where every science is taught which is liberal, and at 
 the same time useful to mankind ? Nothing would so 
 much tend to bring classical literature within proper 
 bounds as a steady and invariable appeal to utility in our 
 appreciation of all human knowledge. . . . Looking 
 always to real utility as our guide, we should see, with 
 equal pleasure, a studious and inquisitive mind arranging 
 the productions of nature, investigating the qualities of 
 bodies, or mastering the difficulties of the learned 
 languages. We should not care whether he was 
 chemist, naturalist, or scholar, because we know it to 
 be as necessary that matter should be studied and 
 subdued to the use of man, as that taste should be 
 gratified, and imagination inflamed." 
 154 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 Such then is the enunciation, as far as words go, of 
 the theory of Utility in Education ; and both on its 
 own account, and for the sake of the able men who 
 have advocated it, it has a claim on the attention of 
 those whose principles I am here representing. Cer- 
 tainly it is specious to contend that nothing is worth 
 pursuing but what is useful ; and that life is not long 
 enough to expend upon interesting, or curious, or 
 brilliant trifles. Nay, in one sense, I will grant it is 
 more than specious, it is true ; but, if so, how do I pro- 
 pose directly to meet the objection ? Why, gentle- 
 men, I have really met it already, viz., in laying down, 
 that intellectual culture is its own end ; for what has 
 its end in itself, has its use in itself also. I say, 
 if a Liberal Education consists in the culture of the 
 t intellect, and if that culture be in itself a good, here, 
 ' without going further, is an answer to Locke's ques- 
 tion ; for if a healthy body is a good in itself, why is 
 not a healthy intellect ? and if a College of Physicians 
 is a useful institution, because it contemplates bodily 
 health, why is not an Academical Body, though it 
 were simply and solely engaged in imparting vigour 
 and beauty and grasp to the intellectual portion of 
 our nature ? * And the Reviewers I am quoting seem 
 to allow this in their better moments, in a passage 
 which, putting aside the question of its justice in 
 fact, is sound and true in the principles to which 
 it appeals : 
 
 " The present state of classical education/ 7 they 
 say, u cultivates the imagination a great deal too much, 
 and other habits of mind a great deal too little, and 
 trains up many young men in a style of elegant 
 imbecility, utterly unworthy of the talents with which 
 nature has endowed them. . . . The matter of fact is, 
 155 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 that a classical scholar of twenty-three or twenty-four 
 is a man principally conversant with works of imagina- 
 tion. His feelings are quick, his fancy lively, and his 
 taste good. Talents for speculation and original inquiry 
 he has none, nor has he formed the invaluable habit of 
 pushing things up to their Jirst principles, or of collect- 
 ing dry and unamusing facts as the materials for 
 reasoning. All the solid and masculine parts of his 
 understanding are left wholly without cultivation ; he 
 hates the pain of thinking, and suspects every man 
 whose boldness and originality call upon him to defend 
 his opinions and prove his assertions." 
 
 Now, I am not at present concerned with the specific 
 question of classical education ; else I might reason- 
 ably question the justice of calling an intellectual 
 discipline, which embraces the study of Aristotle, 
 Thucydides, and Tacitus, which involves Scholarship 
 and Antiquities, imaginative ; still so far I readily 
 grant, that the cultivation of the " understanding," of 
 a "talent for speculation and original inquiry/' and 
 of "the habit of pushing things up to their first 
 principles," is a principal portion of a good or liberal 
 education. If then the Reviewers consider such culti- 
 vation the characteristic of a useful education, as they 
 seem to do in the foregoing passage, it follows, that 
 what they mean by " useful " is just what I mean by 
 "good" or "liberal": and Locke's question be- 
 comes a verbal one. Whether youths are to be 
 taught Latin or verse-making will depend on the 
 fact, whether these studies tend to mental culture; 
 but, however this is determined, so far is clear, that 
 in that mental culture consists what I have called a 
 liberal or non-professional, and what the Reviewers 
 call a useful education. 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 This is the obvious answer which may be made to 
 those who urge upon us the claims of Utility in our 
 plans of Education ; but I am not going to leave the 
 subject here : I mean to take a wider view of it. Let 
 us take " useful," as Locke takes it, in its proper and 
 popular sense, and then we enter upon a large field of 
 thought, to which I cannot do justice in one Discourse, 
 though to-day's is all the space that I can give to it. 
 I say, let us take "useful" to mean, not what is 
 simply good, but what tends to good, or is the instru- 
 ment of good ; and in this sense also, gentlemen, I will 
 show you how a liberal education is truly and fully 
 a useful, though it be not a professional education. 
 "Good" indeed means one thing, and "useful" 
 means another ; but I lay it down as a principle, which 
 will save us a great deal of anxiety, that, though the 
 useful is not always good, the good is always useful. 
 Good is not only good, but reproductive of good ; 
 this is one of its attributes; nothing is excellent, 
 beautiful, perfect, desirable for its own sake, but it 
 overflows, and spreads the likeness of itself all around 
 itself. Good is prolific ; it is not only good to the eye, 
 but to the taste ; it not only attracts us, but it com- 
 municates itself; it excites first our admiration and 
 love, then our desire and our gratitude, and that, in 
 proportion to its intenseness and fulness in particular 
 instances. A great good will impart great good. 
 If then the intellect is so excellent a portion of us, 
 and its cultivation so excellent, it is not only beautiful, 
 perfect, admirable, and noble in itself, but in a true 
 and high sense it must be useful to the possessor and 
 to all around him ; not useful in any low, mechanical, 
 mercantile sense, but as diffusing good, or as a blessing, 
 or a gift, or power, or a treasure, first to the owner, 
 T 57 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 then through him to the world. I say then, if a 
 liberal education be good, it must necessarily be useful 
 too. 
 
 You will see what I mean by the parallel of bodily 
 health. Health is a good in itself, though nothing 
 came of it, and is especially worth seeking and cherish- 
 ing; yet, after all, the blessings which attend its 
 presence are so great, while they are so close to it 
 and so redound back upon it and encircle it, that we 
 never think of it except as useful as well as good, and 
 praise and prize it for what it does, as well as for what it 
 is, though at the same time we cannot point out any 
 definite and distinct work or production which it can 
 be said to effect. And so as regards intellectual 
 culture, I am far from denying utility in this large 
 sense as the end of education, when I lay it down, 
 that the culture of the intellect is a good in itself and 
 its own end; I do not exclude from the idea of 
 intellectual culture what it cannot but be, from the 
 very nature of things ; I only deny that we must be 
 able to point out, before we have any right to call it 
 useful, some art, or business, or profession, or trade, or 
 work as resulting from it, and as its real and complete 
 end. The parallel is exact : As the body may be 
 sacrificed to some manual or other toil, whether mode- 
 rate or oppressive, so may the intellect be devoted to 
 some specific profession; and I do not call this the 
 culture of the intellect. Again, as some member or 
 organ of the body may be inordinately used and 
 developed, so may memory, or imagination, or the 
 reasoning faculty ; and this again is not intellectual 
 culture. On the other hand, as the body may be 
 tended, cherished, and exercised with a simple view 
 to its general health, so may the intellect also be gene- 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 rally exercised in order to its perfect state ; and this 
 is its cultivation. 
 
 Again, as health ought to precede labour of the body, 
 and as a man in health can do what an unhealthy man 
 cannot do, and as of this health the properties are 
 strength, energy, agility, graceful carriage and action, 
 manual dexterity, and endurance of fatigue, so in like 
 manner general culture of mind is the best aid to 
 professional and scientific study, and educated men 
 can do what illiterate cannot ; and the man who has 
 learned to think and to reason and to compare and 
 to discriminate and to analyse, who has refined his 
 taste, and formed his judgment, and sharpened his 
 mental vision, will not indeed at once be a lawyer, or 
 a pleader, or an orator, or a statesman, or a physician, 
 or a good landlord, or a man of business, or a soldier, 
 or an engineer, or a chemist, or a geologist, or an 
 antiquarian, but he will be placed in that state of 
 intellect in which he can take up any one of the sciences 
 or callings I have referred to, or any other for which 
 he has a taste or special talent, with an ease, a grace, 
 a versatility, and a success, to which another is a 
 stranger. In this sense then, and as yet I have said 
 but a very few words on a large subject, mental culture 
 is emphatically useful. 
 
 If then I am arguing, and shall argue, against Pro- 
 fessional or Scientific knowledge as the sufficient end 
 of a University Education, let me not be supposed, 
 gentlemen, to be disrespectful towards particular 
 studies, or arts, or vocations, and those who are 
 engaged in them. In saying that Law or Medicine 
 is not the end of a University course, I do not mean 
 to imply that the University does not teach Law or 
 Medicine. What indeed can it teach at all, if it does 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 .not teach something particular ? It teaches all know- 
 ledge by teaching all branches of knowledge, and in no 
 /other way. I do but say that there will be this 
 distinction as regards a Professor of Law, or of 
 /Medicine, or of Geology, or of Political Economy, 
 I in a University and out of it, that out of a University 
 / he is in danger of being absorbed and narrowed by his 
 ; pursuit, and of giving Lectures which are the Lectures 
 j of nothing more than a lawyer, physician, geologist, 
 or political economist ; whereas in a University he will 
 just know where he and his science stand, he has come 
 to it, as it were, from a height, he has taken a survey 
 x>f all knowledge, he is kept from extravagance by the 
 very rivalry of other studies, he has gained from them 
 a special illumination and largeness of mind and 
 freedom and self-possession, and he treats his own 
 in consequence with a philosophy and a resource, 
 which belongs not to the study itself, but to his liberal 
 education. 
 
 This then is how I should solve the fallacy, for so 
 I must call it, by which Locke and his disciples would 
 frighten us from cultivating the intellect, under the 
 notion that no education is useful which does not teach 
 us some temporal calling, or some mechanical art, or 
 some physical secret. I say that a cultivated intellect, 
 because it is a good in itself, brings with it a power 
 and a grace to every work and occupation which it 
 undertakes, and enables us to be more useful, and to 
 a greater number. There is a duty we owe to human 
 society as such, to the state to which we belong, to 
 the sphere in which we move, to the individuals to- 
 wards whom we are variously related, and whom we 
 successively encounter in life ; and that philosophical 
 or liberal education, as I have called it, which is the 
 1 60 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 proper function of a University, if it refuses the fore- 
 most place to professional interests, does but postpone 
 them to the formation of the citizen, and while it 
 subserves the larger interests of philanthropy, prepares 
 also for the successful prosecution of those merely 
 personal objects which at first sight it seems to 
 disparage. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, I wish to be allowed to enforce 
 in detail what I have been saying by some extracts 
 from the writings to which I have already alluded, and 
 to which I am so greatly indebted. 
 
 " It is an undisputed maxim in Political Economy," 
 says Dr. Copleston, " that the separation of professions 
 and the division of labour tend to the perfection of 
 every art, to the wealth of nations, to the general 
 comfort and well-being of the community. This prin- 
 ciple of division is in some instances pursued so far as 
 to excite the wonder of people to whose notice it is 
 for the first time pointed out. There is no saying to 
 what extent it may not be carried ; and the more the 
 powers of each individual are concentrated in one 
 employment, the greater skill and quickness will he 
 naturally display in performing it. But, while he thus 
 contributes more effectually to the accumulation of 
 national wealth, he becomes himself more and more 
 degraded as a rational being. In proportion as his 
 sphere of action is narrowed his mental powers and 
 habits become contracted; and he resembles a sub- 
 ordinate part of some powerful machinery, useful in 
 its place, but insignificant and worthless out of it. If 
 it be necessary, as it is beyond all question necessary, 
 that society should be split into divisions and sub- 
 divisions, in order that its several duties may be well 
 performed, yet we must be careful not to yield up 
 161 L 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 ourselves wholly and exclusively to the guidance of 
 this system ; we must observe what its evils are, and we 
 should modify and restrain it, by bringing into action 
 other principles, which may serve as a check and 
 counterpoise to the main force. 
 
 " There can be no doubt that every art is improved 
 by confining the professor of it to that single study. 
 But, although the art itself is advanced by this concentra- 
 tion of mind in its service, the individual who is confined 
 to it goes back. The advantage of the community is 
 nearly in an inverse ratio with his own. 
 
 " Society itself requires some other contribution from 
 each individual, besides the particular duties of his 
 profession. And, if no such liberal intercourse be 
 established, it is the common failing of human nature, 
 to be engrossed with petty views and interests, to 
 underrate the importance of all in which we are not 
 concerned, and to carry our partial notions into cases 
 where they are inapplicable, to act, in short, as so 
 many unconnected units, displacing and repelling one 
 another. 
 
 " In the cultivation of literature is found that common 
 link, which, among the higher and middling depart- 
 ments of life, unites the jarring sects and subdivisions 
 into one interest, which supplies common topics, and 
 ..kindles common feelings, unmixed with those narrow 
 prejudices with which all professions are more or less 
 infected. The knowledge, too, which is thus acquired, 
 expands and enlarges the mind, excites its faculties, 
 and calls those limbs and muscles into freer exercise 
 which, by too constant use in one direction, not only 
 acquire an illiberal air, but are apt also to lose some- 
 what of their native play and energy. And thus, 
 without directly qualifying a man for any of the 
 162 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 employments of life, it enriches and ennobles all. 
 Without teaching him the peculiar business of any 
 one office or calling, it enables him to act his part in 
 each of them with better grace and more elevated 
 carriage ; and, if happily planned and conducted, is a 
 main ingredient in that complete and generous educa- 
 tion which fits a man 'to perform justly, skilfully, 
 and magnanimously, all the offices, both private and 
 public, of peace and war.' " l 
 
 The view of Liberal Education, advocated in these 
 extracts, is expanded by Mr. Davison in the Essay to 
 which I have already referred. He lays more stress 
 on the " usefulness " of Liberal Education in the larger 
 sense of the word than his predecessor in the con- 
 troversy. Instead of arguing that the Utility of 
 knowledge to the individual varies inversely with its 
 Utility to the public, he chiefly employs himself on 
 the suggestions contained in Dr. Copleston's last 
 sentences. He shows, first, that a Liberal Education 
 is something far higher, even in the scale of Utility, 
 than what is commonly called a Useful Education, 
 and next, that it is necessary or useful for the purposes 
 even of that Professional Education which commonly 
 engrosses the title of Useful. The former of these 
 two theses he recommends to us in an argument from 
 which the following passages are selected : 
 
 " It is to take a very contracted view of life/' he 
 says, " to think with great anxiety how persons may 
 be educated to superior skill in their department, com- 
 paratively neglecting or excluding the more liberal and 
 enlarged cultivation. In his (Mr. Edge worth's) 
 system, the value of every attainment is to be measured 
 
 1 Vid. Milton on Education. 
 163 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 by its subserviency to a calling. The specific duties 
 of that calling are exalted at the cost of those free and 
 independent tastes and virtues which come in to sustain 
 the common relations of society, and raise the indi- 
 vidual in them. In short, a man is to be usurped by 
 his profession. He is to be clothed in its garb from 
 head to foot. His virtues, his science, and his ideas 
 are all to be put into a gown or uniform, and the whole 
 man to be shaped, pressed, and stiffened, in the exact 
 mould of his technical character. Any interloping 
 accomplishments, or a faculty which cannot be taken 
 into public pay, if they are to be indulged in him at 
 all, must creep along under the cloak of his more 
 serviceable privileged merits. Such is the state of 
 perfection to which the spirit and general tendency 
 of this system would lead us. 
 
 " But the professional character is not the only one 
 which a person engaged in a profession has to support. 
 He is not always upon duty. There are services he 
 owes, which are neither parochial, nor forensic, nor 
 military, nor to be described by any such epithet of 
 civil regulation, and yet are in nowise inferior to 
 those that bear these authoritative titles ; inferior 
 neither in their intrinsic value, nor their moral import, 
 nor their impression upon society. As a friend, as a 
 companion, as a citizen at large ; in the connections of 
 domestic life ; in the improvement and embellishment 
 of his leisure, he has a sphere of action, revolving, if 
 you please, within the sphere of his profession, but not 
 clashing with it ; in which if he can show none of the 
 advantages of an improved understanding, whatever 
 may be his skill or proficiency in the other, he is no 
 more than an ill-educated man. 
 
 " There is a certain faculty in which all nations of 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 any refinement are great practitioners. It is not taught 
 at school or college as a distinct science ; though it 
 deserves that what is taught there should be made to 
 have some reference to it ; nor is it endowed at all by 
 the public ; everybody being obliged to exercise it for 
 himself in person, which he does to the best of his 
 skill. But in nothing is there a greater difference 
 than in the manner of doing it. The advocates of 
 professional learning will smile when we tell them that 
 this same faculty which we would have encouraged, is 
 simply that of speaking good sense in English, without 
 fee or reward, in common conversation. They will 
 smile when we lay some stress upon it ; but in reality 
 it is no such trifle as they imagine. Look into the 
 huts of savages, and see, for there is nothing to listen 
 to, the dismal blank of their stupid hours of silence ; 
 their professional avocations of war and hunting are 
 over ; and, having nothing to do, they have nothing 
 to say. Turn to improved life, and you find conver- 
 sation in all its forms the medium of something more 
 than an idle pleasure ; indeed, a very active agent in 
 circulating and forming the opinions, tastes, and feel- 
 ings of a whole people. It makes of itself a con- 
 siderable affair. Its topics are the most promiscuous 
 all those which do not belong to any particular pro- 
 vince. As for its power and influence, we may fairly 
 say that it is of just the same consequence to a man's 
 immediate society, how he talks, as how he acts. 
 Now of all those who furnish their share to rational 
 conversation, a mere adept in his own art is universally 
 admitted to be the worst. The sterility and unin- 
 structiveness of such a person's social hours are quite 
 proverbial. Or if he escape being dull, it is only by 
 launching into ill-timed, learned loquacity. We do 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 not desire of him lectures or speeches ; and he has no- 
 thing else to give. Among benches he may be powerful ; 
 but seated on a chair he is quite another person. On 
 the other hand, we may affirm, that one of the best 
 companions is a man who, to the accuracy and research 
 of a profession, has joined a free excursive acquaint- 
 ance with various learning, and caught from it the 
 spirit of general observation." 
 
 Having thus shown that a liberal education is a real 
 benefit to the subjects of it, as members of society, in 
 (J.the various duties and circumstances and accidents of 
 life, he goes on, in the next place, to show that, over 
 and above those direct services which might fairly be 
 expected of it, it actually subserves the discharge of 
 those particular functions, and the pursuit of those 
 particular advantages, which are connected with pro- 
 fessional exertion, and to which Professional Educa- 
 tion is directed. 
 
 "We admit/' he observes, "that when a person 
 makes a business of one pursuit, he is in the right way 
 to eminence in it ; and that divided attention will 
 rarely give excellence in many. But our assent will 
 go no further. For, to think that the way to prepare 
 a person for excelling in any one pursuit (and that is 
 the only point in hand), is to fetter his early studies, 
 and cramp the first development of his mind, by a 
 reference to the exigencies of that pursuit barely, is a 
 very different, notion, and one which, we apprehend, 
 deserves to be exploded rather than received. Possibly 
 a few of the abstract, insulated kinds of learning might 
 be approached in that way. The exceptions to be 
 made are very few, and need not be recited. But for 
 the acquisition of professional and practical ability such 
 maxims are death to it. The main ingredients of that 
 1 66 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 ability are requisite knowledge and cultivated faculties ; 
 but, of the two, the latter is by far the chief. A man 
 of well-improved faculties has the command of another's 
 knowledge. A man without them, has not the com- 
 mand of his own. 
 
 " Of the intellectual powers, the judgment is that 
 which takes the foremost lead in life. How to form 
 it to the two habits it ought to possess, of exactness 
 and vigour, is the problem. It would be ignorant 
 presumption so much as to hint at any routine of 
 method by which these qualities may with certainty 
 be imparted to every or any understanding. Still, 
 however, we may safely lay it down that they are not 
 to be got by a gatherer of simples,' but are the com- 
 bined essence and extracts of many different things, 
 drawn from much varied reading and discipline, first, 
 and observation afterwards. For if there be a single 
 intelligible point on this head, it is that a man who 
 has been trained to think upon one subject or for one 
 subject only, will never be a good judge even in that 
 one : whereas the enlargement of his circle gives him 
 increased knowledge and power in a rapidly increasing 
 ratio. So much do ideas act, not as solitary units, but 
 by grouping and combination ; and so clearly do all 
 the things that fall within the proper province of the 
 same faculty of the mind, intertwine with and support 
 each other. Judgment lives as it were by comparison 
 and discrimination. Can it be doubted, then, whether 
 the range and extent of that assemblage of things upon 
 which it is practised in its first essays are of use to its 
 power ? 
 
 " To open our way a little further on this matter, 
 we will define what we mean by the power of judg- 
 ment ; and then try to ascertain among what kind 
 167 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 of studies the improvement of it may be expected 
 at all. 
 
 "Judgment does not stand here for a certain 
 homely, useful quality of intellect, that guards a per- 
 son from committing mistakes to the injury of his 
 fortunes or common reputation ; but for that master- 
 principle of business, literature, and talent, which 
 gives him strength in any subject he chooses to 
 grapple with, and enables him to seize the strong point 
 in it. Whether this definition be metaphysically 
 correct or not, it comes home to the substance of our 
 inquiry. It describes the power that every one desires 
 to possess when he comes to act in a profession, or 
 elsewhere; and corresponds with our best idea of a 
 cultivated mind. 
 
 " Next, it will not be denied, that in order to do 
 any good to the judgment, the mind must be employed 
 upon such subjects as come within the cognisance of 
 that faculty, and give some real exercise to its percep- 
 tions. Here we have a rule of selection by which the 
 different parts of learning may be classed for our pur- 
 pose. Those which belong to the province of the 
 judgment are religion (in its evidences and interpreta- 
 tion), ethics, history, eloquence, poetry, theories of 
 general speculation, the fine arts, and works of wit. 
 Great as the variety of these large divisions of learn- 
 ing may appear, they are all held in union by two 
 capital principles of connection. First, they are all 
 quarried out of one and the same great subject of 
 man's moral, social, and feeling nature. And secondly, 
 they are all under the control (more or less strict) of 
 the same power of moral reason." 
 
 If these studies, he continues, "be such as give 
 a direct play and exercise to the faculty of the judg- 
 168 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 ment, then they are the true basis of education for the 
 active and inventive powers, whether destined for a 
 profession or any other use. Miscellaneous as the 
 assemblage may appear, of history, eloquence, poetry, 
 ethics, &c., blended together, they will all conspire in 
 an union of effect. They are necessary mutually to 
 explain and interpret each other. The knowledge 
 derived from them all will amalgamate, and the habits 
 of a mind versed and practised in them by turns will 
 join to produce a richer vein of thought and of more 
 general and practical application than could be obtained 
 of any single one, as the fusion of the metals into 
 Corinthian brass gave the artist his most ductile and 
 perfect material. Might we venture to imitate an 
 author (whom indeed it is much safer to take as an 
 authority than to attempt to copy), Lord Bacon, in 
 some of his concise illustrations of the comparative 
 utility of the different studies, we should say that 
 history would give fulness, moral philosophy strength, 
 and poetry elevation to the understanding. Such in 
 reality is the natural force and tendency of the studies ; 
 but there are few minds susceptible enough to derive 
 from them any sort of virtue adequate to those high 
 expressions. We must be contented therefore to 
 lower our panegyric to this, that a person cannot avoid 
 receiving some infusion and tincture, at least, of those 
 several qualities, from that course of diversified read- 
 ing. One thing is unquestionable, that the elements of 
 general reason are not to be found fully and truly 
 expressed in any one kind of study ; and that he 
 who would wish to know her idiom, must read it 
 in many books. 
 
 " If different studies are useful for aiding, they are 
 still more useful for correcting each other ; for as they 
 169 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 have their particular merits severally, so they have 
 their defects, and the most extensive acquaintance with 
 one can produce only an intellect either too flashy or 
 too jejune, or infected with some other fault of con- 
 fined reading. History, for example, shows things 
 as they are, that is, the morals and interests of men 
 disfigured and perverted by all their imperfections of 
 passion, folly, and ambition ; philosophy strips the 
 picture too much ; poetry adorns it too much ; the 
 concentrated lights of the three correct the false 
 peculiar colouring of each, and show us the truth. 
 The right mode of thinking upon it is to be had from 
 them taken all together, as every one must know who 
 has seen their united contributions of thought and 
 feeling expressed in the masculine sentiment of our 
 immortal statesman, Mr. Burke, whose eloquence is 
 inferior only to his more admirable wisdom. If any 
 mind improved like his, is to be our instructor, we 
 must go to the fountain head of things as ne .did, and 
 study not his works but his method ; by the one we 
 may become feeble imitators, by the other arrive at 
 some ability of our own. But, as all biography assures 
 us, he, and every other able thinker, has been formed, 
 not by a parsimonious admeasurement of studies to 
 some definite future object (which is Mr. Edge worth's 
 maxim), but by taking a wide and liberal compass, 
 and thinking a great deal on many subjects with no 
 better end in view than because the exercise was 
 one which made them more rational and intelligent 
 beings." 
 
 But I must bring these extracts to an end. To-day 
 
 I have confined myself to saying that that training of 
 
 the intellect, which is best for the individual himself, 
 
 best enables him to discharge his duties to society. 
 
 170 
 
IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 
 The Philosopher, indeed, and the man of the world 
 differ in their very notion, but the methods by which 
 they are respectively formed are pretty much the 
 same. The Philosopher has the same command of 
 matters of thought, which the true citizen and gentle- 
 man has of matters of business and conduct. If then 
 a practical end must be assigned to a University course, 
 I say it is that of training good members of society- 
 Its art is the art of social life, and its end is fitness for 
 the world. It neither confines its views to particular 
 professions on the one hand, nor creates heroes or in- 
 spires genius on the other. Works indeed of genius 
 fall under no art ; heroic minds come under no rule ; 
 a University is not a birthplace of poets or of immortal 
 authors, of founders of schools, leaders of colonies, or 
 conquerors of nations. It does not promise a genera- 
 tion of Aristotles or Newtons, of Napoleons or Wash- 
 ingtons, of Raphaels or Shakespeares, though such 
 miracles of nature it has before now contained within 
 its precincts. Nor is it content on the other hand with 
 forming the critic or the experimentalist, the economist 
 or the o^ineer, though such too it includes within its 
 scope. fVBut a University training is the great ordinary 
 means to a great but ordinary end ; it aims at raising 
 the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public 
 mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying true 
 principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to 
 popular aspiration, at giving enlargement and sobriety 
 to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of 
 po'itical power, and refining the intercourse of private 
 Jife. It is the education which gives a man a clear 
 conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a 
 truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing 
 them, and a force in urging them. It teaches him to 
 171 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 see things as they are, to go right to the point, to 
 disentangle a skein of thought, to detect what is 
 sophistical, and to discard what is irrelevant. It 
 prepares him to fill any post with credit, and to 
 master any subject with facility. It shows him how 
 to accommodate himself to others, how to throw him- 
 self into their state of mind, how to bring before them 
 his own, how to influence them, how to come to an 
 understanding with them, how to bear with them. He 
 is at home in any society, he has common ground with 
 every class ; he knows when to speak and when to be 
 silent ; he is able to converse, he is able to listen ; 
 he can ask a question pertinently, and gain a lesson 
 seasonably, when he has nothing to impart himself ; he 
 is ever ready, yet never in the way ; he is a pleasant 
 companion, and a comrade you can depend upon ; he 
 knows when to be serious and when to trifle, and he 
 has a sure tact which enables him to trifle with grace- 
 fulness and to be serioudMfcrith effect. He has the 
 repose of a mind which lives in itself, while it lives in 
 the world, and which has resources for its happiness at 
 home when it cannot go abroad. He has a gift which 
 serves him in public, and supports him in retirement, 
 without which good fortune is but vulgar, and with 
 which failure and disappointment have a charm. 
 The art which tends to make a man all this, is in the 
 object which it pursues as useful as the art of wealth 
 or the art of health, though it is less susceptible of 
 method, and less tangible, less certain, less complete 
 in its result. 
 
 172 
 
DISCOURSE VII 
 
 LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION 
 TO RELIGION 
 
 shall be brought, gentlemen, to-day, 
 to the termination of the investigation 
 which I commenced three Discourses 
 back, and which, I was well aware, from its length, 
 if for no other reason, would make demands upon the 
 patience even of indulgent hearers. 
 
 First I employed myself in establishing the principle 
 that Knowledge is its own reward ; and I showed that, 
 when considered in this light, it is called Liberal 
 Knowledge, and is the scope of Academical Insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 Next, I examined what is meant by Knowledge, 
 when it is said to be pursued for its own sake ; and I 
 showed that, in order satisfactorily to fulfil this idea, 
 Philosophy must be its form ; or, in other words, that 
 its matter must not be admitted into the mind passively, 
 as so much acquirement, but must be mastered and 
 appropriated as a system consisting of parts, related 
 one to the other, and interpretative of one another in 
 the unity of a whole. 
 
 Further, I showed that such a philosophical con- 
 templation of the field of Knowledge as a whole, 
 leading, as it did, to an understanding of its separate 
 departments, and an appreciation of them respectively, 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 might in consequence be rightly called an illumination ; 
 also, it was rightly called an enlargement of mind, 
 because it was a distinct location of things one with 
 another, as if in space ; while it was moreover its 
 proper cultivation and its best condition, both because 
 it secured to the intellect the sight of things as they 
 are, or of truth, in opposition to fancy, opinion, and 
 theory ; and again, because it pre-supposed and involved 
 the perfection of its various powers. 
 
 Such, I said, was that Knowledge, which deserves 
 to be sought for its own sake, even though it promised 
 no ulterior advantage. But, when I had got as far as 
 this, I went farther, and observed that, from the nature 
 of the case, what was so good in itself could not but 
 have a number of external uses, though it did not 
 promise them, simply because it 'was good ; and that 
 it was necessarily the source of benefits to society, 
 great and diversified in proportion to its own intrinsic 
 excellence. Just as in morals, honesty Is the best 
 policy, as being profitable in a secular aspect, though 
 such profit is not the measure of its worth, so too as 
 regards what may be called the virtues of the Intellect, 
 their very possession indeed is a substantial good, and 
 is enough, yet still that substance has a shadow, in- 
 separable from it, viz., its social and political useful- 
 ness. And this was the subject to which I devoted 
 the preceding Discourse. 
 
 One portion of the subject remains : this intel- 
 lectual culture, which is so exalted in itself, not only 
 has a bearing upon social and active duties, but upon 
 Religion also. The educated mind may be said to be 
 in a certain sense religious ; that is, it has what may 
 be considered a religion of its own, independent of 
 Catholicism, partly co-operating with it, partly thwart- 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 ing it; at once a defence yet a disturbance to the 
 Church in Catholic countries, and in countries beyond 
 her pale, at one time in open warfare with her, at 
 another in defensive alliance. The history of Schools 
 and Academies, and of Literature and Science gene- 
 rally, will, I think, justify me in thus speaking. Since, 
 then, my aim in these Discourses is to ascertain the 
 function and the action of a University, viewed in 
 itself, and its relations to the various instruments of 
 teaching and training which are round about it, my 
 survey of it would not be complete unless I attempted, 
 as I now propose to do, to exhibit its general bearings 
 upon Religion. 
 
 Right Reason, that is, Reason rightly exercised, 
 leads the mind to the Catholic Faith, and plants it 
 there, and teaches it in all its religious speculations to 
 act under its guidance. But Reason, considered as 
 a real agent in the world, and as an operative principle 
 in man's nature, with an historical course and with 
 definite results, is far from taking so straight and satis- 
 factory a direction. It considers itself from first to 
 last independent and supreme ; it requires no external 
 authority ; it makes a religion for itself. Even though 
 it accepts Catholicism, it does not go to sleep ; it has 
 an action and development of its own, as the passions 
 have, or the moral sentiments, or the principle of 
 self-interest. Divine grace, to use the language of 
 Theology, does not by its presence supersede nature ; 
 nor is nature at once brought into simple concurrence 
 and coalition with grace. Nature pursues its course, 
 now coincident with that of grace, now parallel to it, 
 now across, now divergent, now counter, in proportion 
 to its own imperfection and to the attraction and in- 
 fluence which grace exerts over it. And what takes 
 175 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 place as regards other principles of our nature and their 
 developments is found also as regards the Reason. 
 There is, we know, a Religion of enthusiasm, of 
 superstitious ignorance of statecraft ; and each has that 
 in it which resembles Catholicism, and that again 
 which contradicts Catholicism. There is the Religion 
 of a warlike people, and of a pastoral people ; there 
 is a Religion of rude times, and in like manner there is 
 a Religion of civilised times, of the cultivated intellect, 
 of the philosopher, scholar, and gentleman. This is 
 that Religion of Reason of which I speak. Viewed 
 in itself, however near it comes to Catholicism, it is 
 of course simply distinct from it ; for Catholicism is 
 one whole, and admits of no compromise or modifica- 
 tion. Yet this is to view it in the abstract ; in matter of 
 fact, and in reference to individuals, we can have no 
 difficulty in conceiving this philosophical Religion 
 present in a Catholic country, as a spirit influencing men 
 to a certain extent, for good or for bad or for both, a 
 spirit of the age, which again may be found, as among 
 Catholics, so with still greater sway and success in a 
 country not Catholic, yet specifically the same in such 
 ,a country as it exists in a Catholic community. The 
 problem then before us to-day is to set down some 
 portions of the outline, if we can ascertain them, of 
 the Religion of Civilisation, and to determine how 
 they lie relatively to those principles, doctrines, and 
 rules, which Heaven has given us in the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 And here again, when I speak of Revealed Truth, 
 it is scarcely necessary to say that I am not referring 
 to the main articles and prominent points of faith, as 
 contained in the Creed. Had I undertaken to de- 
 lineate a philosophy, which directly interfered with the 
 176 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 Creed, I could not have spoken of it as compatible 
 with the profession of Catholicism. The philosophy 
 I speak of, whether it be viewed within or outside the 
 Church, does not necessarily take cognizance of the 
 Creed. Where the country is Catholic, the educated 
 mind takes its articles for granted, by a sort of implicit 
 faith ; where it is not, it simply ignores them and the 
 whole subject-matter to which they relate, as not 
 affecting social and political interests. Truths about 
 God's Nature, about His dealings towards the human 
 race, about the Economy of Redemption in the one 
 case it humbly accepts them, and passes on ; in the 
 other it passes them over, as matters of simple opinion, 
 which never can be decided, and which can have no 
 power over us to make us morally better or worse. 
 I am not speaking then of belief in the great objects of 
 faith, when I speak of Catholicism, but I am con- 
 templating Catholicism chiefly as a system of pastoral 
 instruction and moral duty ; and I have to do with its 
 doctrines mainly as they are subservient to its direction 
 of the conscience and the conduct. I speak of it, for 
 instance, as teaching the ruined state of man ; his utter 
 inability to gain Heaven by anything he can do him- 
 self; the moral certainty of his losing his soul if left 
 to himself ; the simple absence of all rights and claims 
 on the part of the creature in the presence of the 
 Creator ; the illimitable claims of the Creator on the 
 service of the creature ; the imperative and obligatory 
 force of the voice of conscience ; and the inconceivable 
 evil of sensuality. I speak of it as teaching, that no 
 one gains Heaven except by the free grace of God, or 
 without a regeneration of nature ; that no one can 
 please Him without faith ; that the heart is the seat 
 both of sin and of obedience ; that charity is the ful- 
 177 M 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 filling of the Law ; and that incorporation into the 
 Catholic Church is the ordinary instrument of salvation. 
 These are the lessons which distinguish Catholicism as 
 a popular religion, and these are the subjects to which 
 the cultivated intellect will practically be turned : I 
 have to compare and contrast, not the doctrinal, but 
 the moral and social teaching of Philosophy on the one 
 hand, and Catholicism on the other. 
 
 Now, on opening the subject, we see at once a 
 momentous benefit which the philosopher is likely 
 to confer on the pastors of the Church. It is obvious 
 that the first step which they have to effect in the con- 
 version of man and the renovation of his nature, is his 
 rescue from that fearful subjection to sense which is 
 his ordinary state. To be able to break through the 
 meshes of that thraldom, and to disentangle and to 
 disengage its ten thousand holds upon the heart, is to 
 bring it, I might almost say, half-way to Heaven. 
 Here, even divine grace, to speak of things according 
 to their appearances, is ordinarily baffled, and retires, 
 without expedient or resource, before this giant fas- 
 cination. Religion seems too high and unearthly 
 to be able to exert a continued influence upon us : its 
 effort to rouse the soul, and the soul's effort to co- 
 operate, are too violent to last. It is like holding out 
 the arm at full length, or supporting some great weight, 
 which we manage to do for a time, but soon are 
 exhausted and succumb. Nothing can act beyond its 
 own nature ; when then we are called to what is 
 supernatural, though those extraordinary aids from 
 Heaven are given us, with which obedience becomes 
 possible, yet even with them it is of transcendent 
 difficulty. We are drawn down to earth every moment 
 with the ease and certainty of a natural gravitation, and 
 
 178 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 it is only by sudden impulses and, as it were, forcible 
 plunges that we attempt to mount upwards. Religion 
 indeed enlightens, terrifies, subdues ; it gives faith, it 
 inflicts remorse, it inspires resolutions, it draws tears, 
 it inflames devotion, but only for the occasion. I 
 repeat, it imparts an inward power which ought to 
 effect more than this ; I am not forgetting either 
 the real sufficiency of its aids, nor the responsibility of 
 those in whom they fail. I am not discussing theolo- 
 gical questions at all, I am looking at phenomena as 
 they lie before me, and I say that, in matter of fact, 
 the sinful spirit repents, and protests it will never sin 
 again, and for a while is protected by disgust and 
 abhorrence from the malice of its foe. But that foe 
 knows too well that such seasons of repentance are 
 wont to have their end : he patiently waits, till nature 
 faints with the effort of resistance, and lies passive and 
 hopeless under the next access of temptation. What 
 we need then is some expedient or instrument, which 
 at least will obstruct and stave off the approach of our 
 spiritual enemy, and which is sufficiently congenial and 
 level with our nature to maintain as firm a hold upon 
 us as the inducements of sensual gratification. It will 
 be our wisdom to employ nature against itself. Thus 
 sorrow, sickness, and care are providential antagonists 
 to our inward disorders ; they come upon us as years 
 pass on, and generally produce their natural effects on 
 us, in proportion as we are subjected to their influence. 
 These, however, are God's instruments, not ours ; we 
 need a similar remedy, which we can make our own, 
 the object of some legitimate faculty, or the aim of 
 some natural affection, which is capable of resting on 
 the mind, and taking up its familiar lodging with it, 
 and engrossing it, and which thus becomes a match for 
 179 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 the besetting power of sensuality, and a sort of homoeo- 
 pathic medicine for the disease. Here then I think is 
 the important aid which intellectual cultivation fur- 
 nishes to us in rescuing the victims of passion and 
 self-will. It does not supply religious motives ; it is 
 not the cause or proper antecedent of anything super- 
 natural ; it is not meritorious of heavenly aid or reward ; 
 but it does a work, at least materially good (as theolo- 
 gians speak), whatever be its real and formal character. 
 It expels the excitements of sense by the introduction 
 of those of the intellect. 
 
 This then is the prlmd facie advantage of the pursuit 
 of Knowledge ; it is the drawing the mind off from 
 things which will harm it to subjects which are worthy 
 a rational being ; and, though it does not raise it above 
 nature, nor has any tendency to make us pleasing to 
 our Maker, yet is it nothing to substitute what is in 
 itself harmless for what is, to say the least, inexpressi- 
 bly dangerous ? is it a little thing to exchange a circle 
 of ideas which are certainly sinful, for others which 
 are certainly not so ? You will say, perhaps, in the 
 words of the Apostle, " Knowledge puffeth up : " and 
 doubtless this mental cultivation, even when it is suc- 
 cessful for the purpose for which I am applying it, 
 may be from the first nothing more than the substitution 
 of pride for sensuality. I grant it, I think I shall 
 have something to say on this point presently ; but 
 this is not a necessary result, it is but an incidental 
 evil, a danger which may be realised or may be 
 averted, whereas we may in most cases predicate guilt, 
 and guilt of a heinous kind, where the mind is suffered 
 to run wild and indulge its thoughts without training 
 or law of any kind; and surely to turn away a soul 
 from mortal sin is a good and a gain so far, whatever 
 1 80 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 comes of it. And therefore, if a friend in need is 
 twice a friend, I conceive that intellectual employ- 
 ments, though they do no more than occupy the mind 
 with objects naturally noble or innocent, have a special 
 claim upon our consideration and gratitude. 
 
 Nor is this all : Knowledge, the discipline by which 
 it is gained, and the tastes which it forms, have a 
 natural tendency to refine the mind, and to give it an 
 indisposition, simply natural, yet real, nay, more than 
 this, a disgust and abhorrence, towards excesses and 
 enormities of evil, which are often or ordinarily 
 reached at length by those who are not careful from 
 the first to set themselves against what is vicious and 
 criminal. It generates within the mind a fastidious- 
 ness analogous to the delicacy or daintiness which 
 good nurture or a sickly habit induces in respect of 
 food ; and this fastidiousness, though arguing no high 
 principle, though no protection in the case of violent 
 temptation, nor sure in its operation, yet will often or 
 generally be lively enough to create an absolute loath- 
 ing of certain offences, or a detestation and scorn of 
 them as ungentlemanlike, to which ruder natures, nay, 
 such as have far more of real religion in them, are 
 tempted, or even committed. Scarcely can we exag- 
 gerate the value, in its place, of a safeguard such as 
 this, as regards those multitudes who are thrown upon 
 the open field of the world, or are withdrawn from its 
 eye and from the restraint of public opinion. In 
 many cases, where it exists, sins, familiar to those 
 who are otherwise circumstanced, will not even occur 
 to the mind: in others, the sense of shame and the 
 quickened apprehension of detection will act as a 
 sufficient obstacle to them, when they do present 
 themselves before it. Then, again, the fastidiousness 
 181 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 I am speaking of will create a simple hatred of that 
 miserable tone of conversation which, obtaining as it 
 does in the world, is a constant fuel of evil, heaped up 
 round about the soul: moreover, it will create an 
 irresolution and indecision in doing wrong, which will 
 act as a remora till the danger is past away. And 
 though it has no tendency, I repeat, to mend the heart, 
 or to secure it from the dominion in other shapes of 
 those very evils which it repels in the particular modes 
 of approach by which they prevail over others, yet 
 cases may occur when it gives birth, after sins have 
 been committed, to so keen a remorse and so intense a 
 self-hatred, as are even sufficient to cure the particular 
 moral disorder, and to prevent its accesses ever after- 
 wards ; as the spendthrift in the story, who, after 
 gazing on his lost acres from the summit of an emi- 
 nence, came down a miser, and remained a miser to 
 the end of his days. 
 
 And all this holds good in a special way, in an age 
 such as ours, when, although pain of body and mind 
 may be rife as heretofore, yet other counteractions of 
 evii, of a penal character, which at other times are 
 present, are away. In rude and semi-barbarous periods, 
 at least in a climate such as our own, it is the daily, 
 nay, the principal business of the senses, to convey 
 feelings of discomfort to the mind, as far as they con- 
 vey feelings at all. Exposure to the elements, social 
 disorder and lawlessness, the tyranny of the powerful, 
 and the inroads of enemies, are a stern discipline, 
 allowing brief intervals, or awarding a sharp penance, 
 to sloth and sensuality. The rude food, the scanty 
 clothing, the violent exercise, the vagrant life, the 
 military constraint, the imperfect pharmacy, which 
 DOW are the trials of only particular classes of the 
 182 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 community, were once the lot more or less of all. In 
 the deep woods or the wild solitudes of the mediaeval 
 era, feelings of religion or superstition were naturally 
 present to the population, which in various ways co- 
 operated with the missionary or pastor, in retaining it 
 in a noble simplicity of manners. But, when in the 
 advancement of society men congregate in towns, and 
 multiply in contracted spaces, and law gives them 
 security, and art gives them comforts, and good 
 government robs them of courage and manliness, and 
 monotony of life throws them back upon themselves, 
 who does not see that diversion or protection from evil 
 they have none, that vice is the mere reaction of un- 
 healthy toil, and sensual excess the holyday of resource- 
 less ignorance ? This is so well understood by the 
 practical benevolence of the day, that it has especially 
 busied itself in plans for supplying the masses of our 
 town population with intellectual and honourable re- 
 creations. Cheap literature, libraries of useful and en- 
 tertaining knowledge, scientific lectureships, museums, 
 zoological collections, buildings and gardens to please 
 the eye and to give repose to the feelings, external 
 objects of whatever kind, which may take the mind 
 off itself, and expand and elevate it in liberal contem- 
 plations, these are the human means, wisely suggested, 
 and good as far as they go, for at least parrying the 
 assaults of moral evil, and keeping at bay the enemies, 
 not only of the individual soul, but of society at 
 large. 
 
 Such are the instruments by which an age of ad- 
 vanced civilisation combats those moral disorders, 
 which Reason as well as Revelation denounces ; and 
 I have not been backward to express my sense of 
 their serviceableness to Religion. Moreover, they 
 
 '83 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 are but the foremost of a series of influences, which 
 intellectual culture exerts upon our moral nature, and 
 all upon the type of Christianity, manifesting them- 
 selves in veracity, probity, equity, fairness, gentleness, 
 benevolence, and amiableness ; so much so, that a 
 character more noble to look at, more beautiful, more 
 winning, in the various relations of life and in personal 
 duties, is hardly conceivable, than may, or might be, 
 its result, when that culture is bestowed upon a soil 
 naturally adapted to virtue. If you would obtain a 
 picture for contemplation which may seem to fulfil the 
 ideal, which the Apostle has delineated under the name 
 of charity, in its sweetness and harmony, its generosity, 
 its courtesy to others, and its depreciation of self, you 
 could not have recourse to a better furnished studio 
 than that of Philosophy, or to the specimens of it, 
 which with greater or less exactness are scattered 
 through society in a civilised age. It is enough to 
 refer you, gentlemen, to the various Biographies and 
 Remains of contemporaries and others, which from 
 time to time issue from the press, to see how striking 
 is the action of our intellectual upon our moral nature, 
 where the moral material is rich, and the intellectual 
 cast is perfect. Individuals will occur to all of us, 
 who deservedly attract our love and admiration, and 
 whom the world almost worships as the work of its 
 own hands. Religious principle, indeed that is, 
 faith is, to all appearance, simply away ; the work 
 is as certainly not supernatural as it is certainly noble 
 and beautiful. This must be insisted on, that the 
 Intellect may have its due ; but it also must be 
 insisted on for the sake of conclusions to which I 
 wish to conduct our investigation. The radical 
 difference indeed of this mental refinement from 
 184 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 genuine religion, in spite of its seeming relationship, is 
 the very cardinal point on whjch my present discussion 
 turns ; yet, on the other hand, such refinement may 
 readily be assigned to a Christian origin by hasty 
 or .distant observers, or those who view it in a 
 particular light. And as this is the case, I think it 
 advisable, before proceeding with the delineation of 
 its characteristic features, to point out to you dis- 
 tinctly the elementary principles on which its morality 
 is based. 
 
 You will bear in mind then, gentlemen, that I spoke 
 just now of the scorn and hatred which a cultivated 
 mind feels for some kinds of vice, and the utter disgust 
 and profound humiliation which may come over it, if 
 it should happen in any degree to be betrayed into 
 them. Now this feeling may have its root in faith 
 and love, but it may not ; there is nothing really reli- 
 gious in it, considered by itself. Conscience indeed is 
 implanted in the breast by nature, but it inflicts upon us 
 fear as well as shame ; when the mind is simply angry 
 with itself and nothing more, surely the true import of 
 the voice of nature and the depth of its intimations 
 have been forgotten, and a false philosophy has misin- 
 terpreted emotions which ought to lead to God. Fear 
 implies the transgression of a law, and a law implies 
 a lawgiver and judge; but the tendency of intellectual 
 culture is to swallow up the fear in the self-reproach, 
 and self-reproach is directed and limited to our mere 
 sense of what is fitting and becoming. Fear carries 
 us out of ourselves, shame confines us within the 
 round of our own thoughts. Such, I say, is the 
 danger which awaits a civilised age ; such is its 
 besetting sin (not inevitable, God forbid ! or we must 
 abanchn the use of God's own gifts), but still the 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 ordinary sin of the Intellect ; conscience becomes 
 what is called a moral sense ; the command of duty is 
 a sort of taste ; sin is not an offence against God, but 
 against human nature. 
 
 The less amiable specimens of this spurious religion 
 are those which we meet not unfrequently in my own 
 country. I can use with all my heart the poet's words, 
 
 " England, with all thy faults, I love thee still ; " 
 
 but to those faults no Catholic can be blind. We 
 find there men possessed of many virtues, but proud, 
 bashful, fastidious, and reserved. Why is this ? it is 
 because they think and act as if there were really 
 nothing objective in their religion ; it is because con- 
 science to them is not the word of a lawgiver, as it 
 ought to be, but the dictate of their own minds and 
 nothing more ; it is because they do not look out of 
 themselves, because they do not look through and be- 
 yond their own minds to their Maker, but are engrossed 
 in notions of what is due to themselves, to their own 
 dignity and their own consistency. Their conscience 
 has become a mere self-respect. Instead of doing one 
 thing and then another, as each is called for, in faith 
 and obedience, careless of what may be called the 
 keeping of deed with deed, and leaving Him who gives 
 the command to blend the portions of their conduct 
 into a whole, their one object, however unconscious to 
 themselves, is to paint a smooth and perfect surface, 
 and to be able to say to themselves that they have done 
 their duty. When they do wrong, they feel, not con- 
 trition, of which God is the object, but remorse, and a 
 sense of degradation. They call themselves fools, not 
 sinners ; they are angry and impatient, not humble. 
 They shut themselves up in themselves ; it is misery 
 186 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 to them to think or to speak of their own feelings ; it 
 is misery to suppose that others see them, and their 
 shyness and sensitiveness often become morbid. As to 
 confession, which is so natural to the Catholic, to them 
 it is impossible ; unless indeed, in cases where they 
 have been guilty, an apology is due to their own char- 
 acter, is expected of them, and will be satisfactory to 
 look back upon. They are victims of an intense self- 
 contemplation. 
 
 There are, however, far more pleasing and interest- 
 ing forms of this moral malady than that which I have 
 been depicting : I have spoken of the effect of intel- 
 lectual culture on proud natures ; but it will show to 
 greater advantage, yet with as little approximation to 
 religious faith, in amiable and unaffected minds. Ob- 
 serve, gentlemen, the heresy, as it may be called, of 
 which I speak, is the substitution of a moral sense or 
 taste for conscience in the true sense of the word ; 
 now this error may be the foundation of a character 
 of far more elasticity and grace than ever adorned the 
 persons whom I have been describing. It is especially 
 congenial to men of an imaginative and poetical cast of 
 mind, who will readily accept the notion that virtue is 
 nothing more than the graceful in conduct. Such per- 
 sons, far from tolerating fear, as a principle, in their 
 apprehension of religious and moral truth, will not be 
 slow to call it simply gloom and superstition. Rather 
 a philosopher's, a gentleman's religion, is of a liberal 
 and generous character ; it is based upon honour ; vice 
 is evil, because it is unworthy, despicable, and odious. 
 This was the quarrel of the ancient heathen with 
 Christianity, that, instead of simply fixing the mind on 
 the fair and the pleasant, it intermingled other ideas 
 with them of a sad and painful nature ; that it spoke of 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 tears before joy, a cross before a crown ; that it laid 
 the foundation of heroism in penance ; that it made the 
 soul tremble with the news of Purgatory and Hell ; 
 that it insisted on views and a worship of the Deity, 
 which to their minds was nothing else than mean, 
 servile, and cowardly. The notion of an All-perfect, 
 Ever-present God, in whose sight we are less than 
 atoms, and who, while He deigns to visit us, can punish 
 as well as bless, was abhorrent to them ; they made 
 their own minds their sanctuary, their own ideas their 
 oracle, and conscience in morals was but parallel to 
 genius in art, and wisdom in philosophy. 
 
 Had I room for all that might be said upon the 
 subject, I might illustrate this intellectual religion from 
 the history of the Emperor Julian, the apostate from 
 Christian Truth, the foe of Christian education. He, 
 in whom every Catholic sees the shadow of the future 
 Anti-Christ, was all but the pattern-man of philo- 
 sophical virtue. Weak points in his character he had, 
 it is true, even in a merely poetical standard ; but, 
 take him all in all, and I can but recognise in him a 
 specious beauty and nobleness of moral deportment, 
 which combines in it the rude greatness of Fabricius 
 cr Regulus with the accomplishments of Pliny or An- 
 toninus. His simplicity of manners, his frugality, his 
 austerity of life, his singular disdain of sensual pleasure, 
 his military heroism, his application to business, his 
 literary diligence, his modesty, his clemency, his ac- 
 complishments, as I view them, go to make him one of 
 the most eminent specimens of pagan virtue which the 
 world has ever seen. 1 Yet how shallow, how meagre, 
 
 i I do not consider I have said above anything inconsistent 
 with the following passage from Cardinal Gerdil, though 
 I have enlarged on the favourable side of Julian's character : 
 J88 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 nay, how unamiable is that virtue after all, when 
 brought upon its critical trial by his sudden summons 
 into the presence of his Judge ! His last hours form 
 a unique passage in history, both as illustrating the 
 helplessness of philosophy under the stern realities of 
 our being, and as being reported to us on the evidence 
 of an eye-witness. " Friends and fellow-soldiers/' he 
 aid, to use the words of a writer, well fitted, both 
 from his literary tastes and from his hatred of Chris- 
 tianity, to be his panegyrist, " the seasonable period of 
 my departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the 
 cheerfulness of a ready debtor, the demands of nature. 
 ... I die without remorse, as I have lived without 
 guilt. I am pleased to reflect on the innocence of my 
 private life ; and I can affirm with confidence that the 
 supreme authority, that emanation of the Divine Power, 
 has been preserved in my hands pure and immaculate. 
 ... I now offer my tribute of gratitude to the Eternal 
 Being, who has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty 
 of a tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by 
 the slow tortures of lingering disease. He has given 
 me, in the midst of an honourable career, a splendid 
 and glorious departure from this world, and I hold it 
 equally absurd, equally base, to solicit, or to decline, the 
 stroke of fate. . . . 
 
 "Du ge*nie, des connaissances, de Phabilite dans le metier de 
 la guerre, du courage et du de'sinte'ressement dans le com- 
 mandement des armees, des actions plutdt que des qualites 
 estimables, mais le plus souvent gatees par la vanite* qui en 
 tait le principe, la superstition jointe a Phypocrisie ; un 
 esprit fe*cond en ressources eclaire, mais susceptible de peti- 
 tesse ; des fautes essentielles dans le gouvernement ; des in- 
 nocens sacrifies a la vengeance ; une haine envenime'e contre 
 le Christianisme, qu'il avait abandonne ; un attachement pas- 
 sionne* aux folies de la Tht'urgie ; tels 6taient les traits sons 
 If squels on nous peignait Julien. " 
 189 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 " He reproved the immoderate grief of the specta- 
 tors, and conjured them not to disgrace, by unmanly 
 tears, the fate of a prince who in a few moments would 
 be united with Heaven and with the stars. The 
 spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a 
 metaphysical argument with the philosophers Priscus 
 and Maximus on the nature of the soul. The efforts 
 which he made, of mind as well as body, most proba- 
 bly hastened his death. His wound began to bleed 
 with great violence ; his respiration was embarrassed 
 by the swelling of the veins ; he called for a draught 
 of cold water, and as soon as he had drank it expired 
 without pain, about the hour of midnight." 1 Such, 
 gentlemen, is the final exhibition of the Religion of 
 Reason : in the insensibility of conscience, in the 
 ignorance of the very idea of sin, in the contemplation 
 of his own moral consistency, in the simple absence of 
 fear, in the cloudless self-confidence, in the serene 
 self-possession, in the cold self-satisfaction, we recog- 
 nise the Philosopher. 
 
 Gibbon paints with pleasure what, conformably with 
 the sentiments of a godless intellectualism, was an his- 
 torical fulfilment of his own idea of moral perfection ; 
 Lord Shaftesbury had already drawn out that idea 
 in a theoretical form, in his celebrated collection of 
 Treatises which he has called " Characteristics of men, 
 manners, opinions, views ; " and it will be a further 
 illustration of the subject before us if you will allow 
 me, gentlemen, to make some extracts from this work. 
 
 One of his first attacks is directed against the 
 doctrine of reward and punishment, as if it introduced 
 a notion into religion inconsistent with the true appre- 
 
 1 Gibbon, Hist., ch. 24. 
 190 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 hension of the beauty of virtue, and with the liberality 
 and nobleness of spirit in which it should be pursued. 
 " Men have not been content," he says, " to show the 
 natural advantages of honesty and virtue. They have 
 rather lessened these, the better, as they thought, 
 to advance another foundation. They have made 
 virtue so mercenary a thing, and have talked so 
 much of its rewards, that one can hardly tell what 
 there is in it, after all, which can be worth rewarding. 
 For to be bribed only or terrified into an honest 
 practice, bespeaks little of real honesty or worth." 
 " If," he says elsewhere, insinuating what he dare not 
 speak out, " if through hope merely of reward, or fear 
 of punishment, the creature be inclined to do the good 
 he hates, or restrained from doing the ill to which he 
 is not otherwise in the least degree averse, there is in 
 this case no virtue or goodness whatever. There is no 
 more of rectitude, piety, or sanctity, in a creature thus 
 reformed, than there is meekness or gentleness in a 
 tiger strongly chained, or innocence and sobriety in a 
 monkey under the discipline of the whip. . . . While 
 the will is neither gained, nor the inclination wrought 
 upon, but awe alone prevails and forces obedience, the 
 obedience is servile, and all which is done through it 
 merely servile." That is, he says that Christianity is 
 the enemy of moral virtue, as influencing the mind by 
 fear of God, not by love of good. 
 
 The motives then of hope and fear being, to say the 
 least, put far into the background, and nothing being 
 morally good but what springs simply or mainly from 
 a love of virtue for its own sake, this love-inspiring 
 quality in virtue is its beauty, while a bad conscience is 
 not much more than the sort of feeling which makes us 
 shrink from an instrument out of tune. " Some by 
 191 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 mere nature," he says, "others by art and practice, 
 are masters of an ear in music, an eye in painting, a 
 fancy in the ordinary things of ornament and grace, a 
 judgment in proportions of all kinds, and a general 
 good taste in most of those subjects which make the 
 amusement and delight of the ingenious people of the 
 world. Let such gentlemen as these be as extravagant 
 as they please, or as irregular in their morals, they 
 must at the same time discover their inconsistency, live 
 at variance with themselves, and in contradiction to that 
 principle on which they ground their highest pleasure 
 and entertainment. Of all other beauties which 
 virtuosos pursue, poets celebrate, musicians sing, and 
 architects or artistes of whatever kind describe or form, 
 the most delightful, the most engaging and pathetic, is 
 that which is drawn from real life and from the 
 passions. Nothing affects the heart like that which is 
 purely from itself, and of its own nature : such as the 
 beauty of sentiments, the grace of actions, the turn of 
 characters, and the proportions and features of a human 
 mind. This lesson of philosophy, even a romance, a 
 poem, or a play may teach us. ... Let poets or the 
 men of harmony deny, if they can, this force of nature, 
 or withstand this moral magic. . . . Every one is a 
 virtuoso of a higher or lower degree ; every one pursues 
 a grace ... of one kind or other. The venustum, 
 the honestum, the decorum of things will force its way. 
 . . . The most natural beauty in the world is honesty 
 and moral truth ; for all beauty is truth." 
 
 Accordingly, virtue being only one kind of beauty, 
 the principle which determines what is virtuous is, not 
 conscience, but taste. " Could we once convince our- 
 selves," he says, " of what is in itself so evident, viz., 
 that in the very nature of things there must of necessity 
 192 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 be the foundation of a right and wrong taste, as well in 
 respect of inward character of features as of outward 
 person, behaviour, and action, we should be far more 
 ashamed of ignorance and wrong judgment in the 
 former than in the latter of these subjects. . . . One 
 who aspires to the character of a man of breeding and 
 politeness is careful to form his judgment of arts and 
 sciences upon right models of perfection. . . . He 
 takes particular care to turn his eye from everything 
 which is gaudy, luscious, and of false taste. Nor is he 
 less careful to turn his ear from every sort of music, 
 besides that which is of the best manner and truest 
 harmony. 'Twere to be wished we had the same 
 regard to a right taste in life and manners. ... If 
 civility and humanity be a taste ; if brutality, insolence, 
 riot, be in the same manner a taste, . . . who 
 would not endeavour to force nature as well in this 
 respect as in what relates to a taste or judgment in 
 other arts and sciences ? " 
 
 Sometimes he distinctly contrasts this taste with 
 principle and conscience, and gives it the preference 
 over them. "After all," he says, "'tis not merely 
 what <we call principle, but a taste, which governs men. 
 They may think for certain, * This is right/ or * that 
 wrong ; ' they may believe * this is a virtue,' or ( that a 
 sin ; ' * this is punishable by man,' or ' that by God ; * 
 yet if the savour of things lies cross to honesty, if the 
 fancy be florid, and the appetite high towards the sub- 
 altern beauties and lower orders of worldly symmetries 
 and proportions, the conduct will infallibly turn this 
 latter way." Thus, somewhat like a Jansenist, he 
 makes the superior pleasure infallibly conquer, and 
 implies that, neglecting principle, we have but to train 
 the taste to a kind of beauty higher than sensual. He 
 193 N 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 adds: "Even conscience, I fear, such as is owing to 
 religious discipline, will make but a slight figure, when 
 this taste is set amiss." 
 
 And hence the well-known doctrine of this author, 
 that ridicule is the test of truth ; for truth and virtue 
 being beauty, and falsehood and vice deformity, and the 
 feeling inspired by deformity being that of derision, as 
 that inspired by beauty is admiration, it follows that 
 vice is not a thing to weep about, but to laugh at. 
 *' Nothing is ridiculous," he says, " but what is de- 
 formed ; nor is anything proof against raillery but 
 what is handsome and just. And therefore 'tis the 
 hardest thing in the world to deny fair honesty the 
 use of this weapon, which can never bear an edge 
 against herself, and bears against everything con- 
 trary." 
 
 And hence again, conscience, which intimates a 
 Lawgiver, being superseded by a moral taste or senti- 
 ment, which has no sanction beyond the constitution of 
 our nature, it follows that our great rule is to con- 
 template ourselves, if we would gain a standard of life 
 and morals. Thus he has entitled one of his Treatises 
 a " Soliloquy," with the motto, " Nee te quaesiveris 
 extra ; " and he observes : " The chief interest of ambi- 
 tion, avarice, corruption, and every sly insinuating vice, 
 is to prevent this interview and familiarity of discourse, 
 which is consequent upon close retirement and inward 
 recess. 'Tis the grand artifice of villainy and lewd- 
 ness, as 'well as of superstition and bigotry, to put us 
 upon terms of greater distance and formality with our- 
 selves, and evade our proving method of soliloquy. . . . 
 A passionate lover, whatever solitude he may affect, 
 can never be truly by himself. . . . 'Tis the same 
 reason which keeps the imaginary saint or mystic from 
 194 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 being capable of this entertainment. Instead of look- 
 ing narrowly into his own nature and mind, that he 
 may be no longer a mystery to himself, he is taken up 
 with the contemplation of other mysterious natures, which 
 he never can explain or comprehend." 
 
 Taking these passages as specimens of what I call 
 the Religion of Philosophy, it is obvious to observe 
 that there is no doctrine contained in them which is 
 not in a certain sense true; yet, on the other hand, 
 that almost every statement is perverted and made 
 false, because it is not the whole truth. They are 
 exhibitions of truth under one aspect, and therefore 
 insufficient ; conscience is most certainly a moral sense, 
 but it is more; vice again is a deformity, but it is 
 worse. Lord Shaftesbury may insist, if he will, that 
 simple and solitary fear cannot effect a moral conver- 
 sion, and we are not concerned to answer him ; but he 
 will have a difficulty in proving that any real conversion 
 follows from a doctrine which makes virtue a mere 
 point of good taste, and vice vulgar and ungentleman- 
 like. 
 
 Such a doctrine is essentially superficial, and such 
 will be its effects. It has no better measure of right 
 and wrong than that of visible beauty and tangible fit- 
 ness. Conscience indeed inflicts an acute pang, but 
 that pang, forsooth, is irrational, and to reverence it is 
 an illiberal superstition. But, if we will make light of 
 what is deepest within us, nothing is left but to pay 
 homage to what is more upon the surface. To seem 
 becomes to be ; what looks fair will be good, what 
 causes offence will be evil ; virtue will be what pleases, 
 vice what pains. As well may we measure virtue by 
 utility as by such a rule. Nor is this an imaginary 
 apprehension; we all must recollect the celebrated 
 '95 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 sentiment into which a great and wise man was be- 
 trayed, in the glowing eloquence of his valediction to 
 the spirit of chivalry. " It is gone," cries Mr. Burke ; 
 " that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, 
 which felt a stain like a wound ; which inspired 
 courage, while it mitigated ferocity ; which ennobled 
 whatever it touched, and under which vice lost half its 
 evil by losing all its grossness." In the last clause of 
 this beautiful sentence we have too apt an illustration of 
 the ethical temperament of a civilised age. It is detec- 
 tion, not the sin, which is the crime; private life is 
 sacred, and inquiry into it is intolerable ; and decency 
 is virtue. Scandals, vulgarities, whatever shocks, what- 
 ever disgusts, are offences of the first order. Drinking 
 and swearing, squalid poverty, improvidence, laziness, 
 slovenly disorder, make up the idea of profligacy : 
 poets may say anything, however wicked, with im- 
 punity ; works of genius may be read without danger 
 or shame, whatever their principles ; fashion, celebrity, 
 the beautiful, the heroic, will suffice to force any evil 
 upon the community. The splendours of a court, and 
 the charms of good society, wit, imagination, taste, and 
 high breeding, the prestige of rank, and the resources of 
 wealth, are a screen, an instrument, and an apology for 
 vice and irreligion. And thus at length we find, sur- 
 prising as the change may be, that that very refinement 
 of Intellectualism, which began by repelling sensuality, 
 ends by excusing it. Under the shadow indeed of the 
 Church, and in its due development, Philosophy does 
 service to the cause of morality ; but, when it is strong 
 enough to have a will of its own, and is lifted up with 
 an idea of its own importance, and attempts to form a 
 theory, and to lay down a principle, and to carry out a 
 system of ethics, and undertakes the moral education of 
 196 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 the man, then it does but abet evils to which at first it 
 seemed instinctively opposed. True Religion is slow 
 in growth, and, when once planted, is difficult of dis- 
 lodgement ; but its intellectual counterfeit has no root 
 in itself: it springs up suddenly, it suddenly withers. 
 It appeals to what is in nature, and it falls under the 
 dominion of the old Adam. Then, like dethroned 
 princes, it keeps up a state and majesty, when it has 
 lost the real power. Deformity is its abhorrence; 
 accordingly, since it cannot dissuade men from vice, 
 therefore in order to escape the sight of its deformity, 
 it embellishes it. It "skins and films the ulcerous 
 place/' which it cannot probe or heal, 
 
 " Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, 
 Infects unseen." 
 
 And from this shallowness of philosophical Religion 
 it comes to pass that it seems able to fulfil certain 
 precepts of Christianity more readily and exactly 
 than Christians themselves. St. Paul, as I have said, 
 gives us a pattern of evangelical perfection ; he draws 
 the Christian character in its most graceful form, and 
 its most beautiful hues. He discourses of that charity 
 which is patient and meek, humble and single-minded, 
 disinterested, contented, and persevering. He tells us 
 to prefer each other before ourselves, to give way to 
 each other, to abstain from rude words and evil speech, 
 to avoid self-conceit, to be calm and grave, to be 
 cheerful and happy, to observe peace with all men, 
 truth and justice, courtesy and gentleness, all that is 
 modest, amiable, virtuous, and of good repute. Such 
 is St. Paul's exemplar of the Christian in his external 
 relations ; and, I repeat, the school of the world seems 
 to send out living copies of this typical excellence 
 197 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 with greater success than the Church. At this day 
 the " gentleman " is the creation, not of Christianity, 
 but of civilisation. But the reason is obvious. The 
 world is content with setting right the surface of 
 things; the Church aims at regenerating the rery 
 depths of the heart. She ever begins with the be- 
 ginning ; and, as regards the multitude of her children, 
 is never able to get beyond the beginning, but is con- 
 tinually employed in laying the foundation. She is 
 engaged with what is essential, as previous and as 
 introductory to the ornamental and the attractive. 
 She is curing men and keeping them clear of mortal 
 sin ; she is " treating of justice and chastity, and the 
 judgment to come : " she is insisting on faith and 
 hope, and devotion, and honesty, and the elements of 
 chanty ; and has so much to do with precept, that she 
 almost leaves it to inspirations from Heaven to suggest 
 what is of counsel and perfection. She aims at what 
 is necessary rather than at what is desirable. She 
 is for the many as well as for the few. She is putting 
 souls in the way of salvation, that they may then be in 
 a condition, if they shall be called upon, to aspire to 
 the heroic, and to attain the substance, as well as the 
 semblance, of the beautiful. 
 
 Such is the method, or the policy (so to call it), of 
 the Church ; but Philosophy looks at the matter from 
 a very different point of view : what have Philosophers 
 to do with the terror of judgment or the saving of the 
 soul ? Lord Shaftesbury calls the former a sort of 
 " panic fear." Of the latter he scoffingly complains 
 that " the saving of souls is now the heroic passion of 
 exalted spirits." Of course he is at liberty, on his 
 principles, to pick and choose out of Christianity what 
 he will ; he discards the theological, the mysterious, 
 198 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 the spiritual; he makes selection of the morally or 
 esthetically beautiful. To him it matters not at all 
 that he begins his teaching where he should end it ; it 
 matters not that, instead of planting the tree, he merely 
 crops its flowers for his banquet ; he only aims at the 
 present life, his philosophy dies with him ; if his 
 flowers do but last to the end of his revel, he has 
 nothing more to seek. When night comes, the 
 withered leaves may be mingled with his own ashes ; 
 he and they will have done their work, he and they 
 will be no more. Certainly, it costs little to make 
 men virtuous on conditions such as these ; it is like 
 teaching them a language or an accomplishment, to 
 write Latin or to play on an instrument the pro- 
 fession of an artist, not the commission of an Apostle. 
 This embellishment of the exterior is almost the 
 beginning and the end of philosophical morality. This 
 is why it aims at being modest rather than humble; 
 this is how it can be proud at the very time that it is 
 unassuming. To humility indeed it does not even 
 aspire ; humility is one of the most difficult of virtues 
 both to attain and to ascertain. It lies close upon the 
 heart itself, and itg tests are exceedingly delicate and 
 subtle. Its counterfeits abound ; however, we are 
 little concerned with them here, for, I repeat, it is 
 hardly professed even by name in the code of ethics 
 which we are reviewing. As has been often observed, 
 ancient civilisation had not the idea, and had no word 
 to express it : or rather, it had the idea, and con- 
 sidered it a defect of mind, not a virtue, so that the 
 word which denoted it conveyed a reproach. As to 
 the modern world, you may gather its ignorance of it 
 by its perversion of the somewhat parallel term u con- 
 descension." Humility or condescension, viewed as a 
 199 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 virtue of conduct, may be said to consist, as in other 
 things, so in our placing ourselves in our thoughts on a 
 level with our inferiors ; it is not only a voluntary 
 relinquishment of the privileges of our own station, 
 but an actual participation or assumption of the con- 
 dition of those to whom we stoop. This is true 
 humility, to feel and to behave as if we were low ; not, 
 to cherish a notion of our importance, while we affect 
 a low position. Such was St. Paul's humility, when 
 he called himself " the least of the saints ; " such the 
 humility of those many holy men who have considered 
 themselves the greatest of sinners. It is an abdication, 
 as far as their own thoughts are concerned, of those 
 prerogatives or privileges to which others deem them 
 entitled. Now it is not a little instructive to contrast 
 with this idea, gentlemen with this theological 
 meaning of the word "condescension" its proper 
 English sense ; put them in juxtaposition, and you 
 will at once see the difference between the world's 
 humility and the humility of the Gospel. As the 
 world uses the word, " condescension " is a stooping 
 indeed of the person, but a bending forward, un- 
 attended with any the slightest effort to leave by a 
 single inch the seat in which it is so firmly established. 
 It is the act of a superior, who protests to himself, 
 while he commits it, that he is superior still, and that 
 he is doing nothing else but an act of grace towards 
 those on whose level, in theory, he is placing himself. 
 And this is the nearest idea which the philosopher can 
 form of the virtue of self-abasement ; to do more than 
 this is to his mind a meanness or an hypocrisy, and at 
 once excites his suspicion and disgust. What the 
 world is, such it has ever been ; we know the contempt 
 which the educated pagans had for the martyrs and 
 200 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 confessors of the Church ; and it is shared by the anti- 
 Catholic bodies of this day. 
 
 Such are the ethics of Philosophy, when faithfully 
 represented ; but an age like this, not pagan, but 
 professedly Christian, cannot venture to reprobate 
 humility in set terms, or to make a boast of pride. 
 Accordingly, it looks out for some expedient by which 
 it may blind itself to the real state of the case. 
 Humility, with its grave and self-denying attributes, it 
 cannot love; but what is more beautiful, what more 
 winning, than modesty ? what virtue, at first sight, 
 simulates humility so well ? though what in fact is 
 more radically distinct from it ? In truth, great as is 
 its charm, modesty is not the deepest or the most 
 religious of virtues. Rather it is the advanced guard 
 or sentinel of the soul militant, and watches con- 
 tinually over its nascent intercourse with the world 
 about it. It goes the round of the senses ; it mounts 
 up into the countenance ; it protects the eye and ear ; 
 it reigns in the voice and gesture. Its province is the 
 outward deportment, as other virtues have relation 
 to matters theological, others to society, and others 
 to the mind itself. And being more superficial than 
 other virtues, it is more easily disjoined from their 
 company ; it admits of being associated with principles 
 or qualities naturally foreign to it, and is often made 
 the cloak of feelings or ends for which it was never 
 given to us. So little is it the necessary index of 
 humility, that it is even compatible with pride. The 
 better for the purpose of Philosophy ; humble it can- 
 not be, so forthwith modesty becomes its humility. 
 
 Pride, under such training, instead of running to 
 waste in the education of the mind, is turned to 
 account ; it gets a new name ; it is called self-respect ; 
 20 T 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 and ceases to be the disagreeable, uncompanionable 
 quality which it is in itself. Though it be the motive 
 principle of the soul, it seldom comes to view ; and 
 when it shows itself, then delicacy and gentleness are 
 its attire, and good sense and sense of honour direct its 
 motions. It is no longer a restless agent, without 
 definite aim ; it has a large field of exertion assigned to 
 it, and it subserves those social interests which it would 
 naturally trouble. It is directed into the channel of 
 industry, frugality, honesty, and obedience; and it 
 becomes the very staple of the religion and morality 
 held in honour in a day like our own. It becomes the 
 safeguard of chastity, the guarantee of veracity, in high 
 and low ; it is the very household god of society, as at 
 present constituted, inspiring neatness and decency in the 
 servant girl, propriety of carriage and refined manners 
 in her mistress, uprightness, manliness, and generosity 
 in the head of the family. It diffuses a light over 
 town and country ; it covers the soil with handsome 
 edifices and smiling gardens ; it tills the field, it stocks 
 and embellishes the shop. It is the stimulating principle 
 of providence on the one hand, and of free expenditure 
 on the other ; of an honourable ambition, and of elegant 
 enjoyment. It breathes upon the face of the com- 
 munity, and the hollow sepulchre is forthwith beautiful 
 to look upon. 
 
 Refined by the civilisation which has brought it 
 into activity, this self-respect infuses into the mind an 
 intense horror of exposure, and a keen sensitiveness of 
 notoriety and ridicule. It becomes the enemy of ex- 
 travagances of any kind; it shrinks from what are 
 called scenes ; it has no mercy on the mock-heroic, 
 on pretence or egotism, on verbosity in language, or 
 what is called prosiness in manner. It detests gross 
 
 202 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 adulation ; not that it tends at all to the eradication of 
 the appetite to which the flatterer ministers, but it sees 
 the absurdity of indulging it, it understands the annoy- 
 ance thereby given to others, and if a tribute must be 
 paid to the wealthy or the powerful, it demands greater 
 subtlety and art in the preparation. Thus vanity is 
 changed into a more dangerous self-conceit, as being 
 checked in its natural eruption. It teaches men to 
 suppress their feelings, and to control their tempers, 
 and to mitigate both the severity and the tone of their 
 judgments. As Lord Shaftesbury would desire, it 
 prefers playful wit and satire in putting down what is 
 objectionable, as a more refined and good-natured, as 
 well as a more effectual method, than the expedient 
 which is natural to uneducated minds. It is from this 
 impatience of the tragic and the bombastic that it is now 
 quietly but energetically opposing itself to the unchristian 
 practice of duelling, which it brands as simply out of 
 taste, and as the remnant of a barbarous age ; and cer- 
 tainly it seems likely to effect what Religion has aimed 
 at abolishing in vain^^ 
 
 Hence it is that/it is almost a definition of a gentle- 
 man to say he is one who never inflicts pain. This 
 description is both refined and, as far as it goes, ac- 
 curate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the 
 obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed 
 action of those about him ; and he concurs with their 
 movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His 
 benefits may be considered as parallel to what are 
 called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a 
 personal nature: like an easy chair or a good fire, 
 which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, 
 though nature provides both means of rest and animal 
 heat without them. The true gentleman in like manner 
 203 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE VIEWED 
 
 carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in 
 the minds of those with whom he is cast ; all clash- 
 ing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or 
 suspicion, or gloom, or resentment ; his great concern 
 being to make every one at their ease and at home. 
 He has his eyes on all his company ; he is tender to- 
 wards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and 
 merciful towards the absurd ; he can recollect to 
 whom he is speaking ; he guards against unseasonable 
 allusions, or topics which may irritate ; he is seldom 
 prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He 
 makes light of favours while he does them, and seems 
 to be receiving when he is conferring. He never 
 speaks of himself except when compelled, never de- 
 fends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for 
 lander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to 
 those who interfere with him, and interprets every- 
 thing for the best. He is never mean or little in his 
 disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes 
 personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or in- 
 sinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a 
 long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the 
 ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves 
 towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our 
 friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted 
 at insults, he is too well employed to remember 
 injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is 
 patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical 
 principles ; he submits to pain, because it is inevitable, 
 to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, 
 because it is his destiny. If he engages in controversy 
 of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him 
 from the blundering discourtesy of better, though 
 Jess educated minds ; who, like blunt weapons, tear 
 204 
 
IN RELATION TO RELIGION 
 
 and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake the 
 point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, mis- 
 conceive their adversary, and leave the question more 
 involved than they find it. He may be right or wrong 
 in his opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust ; 
 he is as simple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is 
 decisive. Nowhere shall we find greater candour, 
 consideration, indulgence : he throws himself into the 
 minds of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. 
 He knows the weakness of human reason as well as its 
 strength, its province and its limits. If he be an un- 
 believer, he will be too profound and large-minded to 
 ridicule religion or to act against it ; he is too wise to 
 be a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity. He respects 
 piety and devotion ; he even supports institutions as 
 venerable, beautiful, or useful, to which he does not 
 assent ; he honours the ministers of religion, and he 
 is contented to decline its mysteries without assail- 
 ing or denouncing them. He is a friend of religious 
 toleration, and that, not only because his philosophy 
 has taught him to look on all forms of faith with 
 an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and 
 effeminacy of feeling, which is the attendant on 
 civilisation. 
 
 Not that he may not hold a religion too, in his own 
 way, even when he is not a Christian. In that case 
 his religion is one of imagination and sentiment ; it is 
 the embodiment of those ideas of the sublime, majestic, 
 and beautiful, without which there can be no large 
 philosophy. Sometimes he acknowledges the being 
 of God, sometimes he invests an unknown principle or 
 quality with the attributes of perfection. And this 
 deduction of his reason, or creation of his fancy, he 
 makes the occasion of such excellent thoughts, and 
 205 
 
LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 the starting-point of so varied and systematic a teach- 
 ing, that he even seems like a disciple of Christianity 
 itself. From the very accuracy and steadiness of his 
 logical powers, he is able to see what sentiments 
 are consistent in those who hold any religious doc- 
 trine at all, and he appears to others to feel and to 
 hold a whole circle of theological truths which exist 
 in his mind no otherwise than as a number of de- 
 ductions. 
 
 Such are some of the lineaments of the ethical 
 character, which the cultivated intellect will form, 
 apart from religious principle. They are seen within 
 the pale of the Church and without it, in holy men 
 and in profligate ; they form the beau ideal of the 
 world ; they partly assist and partly distort the de- 
 velopment of the Catholic. They may subserve the 
 education of a St. Francis de Sales or a Cardinal 
 Pole ; they may be the limits of the virtue of a 
 Shafteibury or a Gibbon. Basil and Julian were 
 fellow-students at the schools of Athens ; and one 
 became the Saint and Doctor of the Church, the other 
 her scoffing and relentless foe. 
 
 206 
 
DISCOURSE VIII 
 
 DUTIES OF THE CHURCH TOWARDS 
 LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 HAVE to congratulate myself, gentlemen, that 
 at length I have accomplished, with whatever 
 success, the difficult and anxious undertaking 
 to which I have been immediately addressing myself. 
 Difficult and anxious it has been in truth, though the 
 main subject of University Education has been so often 
 and so ably discussed already ; for I have attempted to 
 follow out a line of thought more familiar to Protes- 
 tants just now than to Catholics, upon Catholic 
 grounds. I declared my intention, when I opened 
 the subject, of treating it as a philosophical and 
 practical, rather than as a theological question, with an 
 appeal to common sense, not to ecclesiastical rules; 
 and for this very reason, while my argument has been 
 less ambitious, it has been deprived of the lights and 
 supports which another mode of handling it would 
 have secured. 
 
 No anxiety, no effort of mind is more severe than 
 his, who in a difficult matter has it seriously at heart 
 to investigate without error and to instruct without 
 obscurity ; as to myself, if the past discussion has at 
 any time tried the patience of the kind persons who 
 have given it their attention, I can assure them that on 
 no one can it have inflicted so great labour and fatigue 
 207 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 as on myself. Happy they who are engaged in pro- 
 vinces of thought, so familiarly traversed and so 
 thoroughly explored, that they see everywhere the 
 footprints, the paths, the landmarks, and the remains of 
 former travellers, and can never step wrong ; but. for 
 myself, gentlemen, I have felt like a navigator on a 
 strange sea, who is out of sight of land, is surprised by 
 night, and has to trust mainly to the rules and instru- 
 ments of his science for reaching the port. The 
 everlasting mountains, the high majestic cliffs, of the 
 opposite coast, radiant in the sunlight, which are our 
 ordinary guides, fail us in an excursion such as this ; 
 the lessons of antiquity, the determinations of authority, 
 are here rather the needle, chart, and plummet, than 
 great objects, with distinct and continuous outline and 
 completed details, which stand up and confront and 
 occupy our gaze, and relieve us from the tension and 
 suspense of our personal observation. And thus, in 
 spite of the pains we may take to consult others and 
 avoid mistakes, it is not till the morning comes and 
 the shore greets us, and we see our vessel making 
 straight for harbour, that we relax our jealous watch, 
 and consider anxiety irrational. Such in a measure 
 has been my feeling in the foregoing inquiry ; in which 
 indeed I have been in want neither of authoritative 
 principles nor distinct precedents, but of treatises in 
 extenso on the subject on which I have written the 
 finished work of writers, who, by their acknowledged 
 judgment and erudition, might furnish me for my 
 private guidance with a running instruction on each 
 point which successively came under review. 
 
 I have spoken of the arduousness of my "im- 
 mediate" undertaking, because what I have been 
 attempting has been of a preliminary nature, not con- 
 208 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 templating the duties of the Church towards a Uni- 
 versity, nor the characteristics of a University which 
 is Catholic, but inquiring what a University is, what 
 is its aim, what its nature, what its bearings. I have 
 accordingly laid down first, that all branches of 
 knowledge are, at least implicitly, the subject-matter 
 of its teaching; that these branches are not isolated 
 and independent one of another, but form together 
 a whole or system ; that they run into each other, 
 and complete each other, and that, in proportion to 
 our view of them as a whole, is the exactness and 
 trustworthiness of the knowledge which they separately 
 convey; that the process of imparting knowledge 
 to the intellect in this philosophical way is its true 
 culture ; that such culture is a good in itself; that the 
 knowledge which is both its instrument and result is 
 called Liberal Knowledge ; that such culture, together 
 with the knowledge which effects it, may fitly be 
 sought for its own sake; that it is, however, in ad- 
 dition, of great secular utility, as constituting the best 
 and highest formation of the intellect for social and 
 political life ; and lastly, that, considered in a religious 
 aspect, it concurs with Christianity a certain way, and 
 then diverges from it ; and consequently proves in the 
 event, sometimes its serviceable ally, sometimes, from 
 ks very resemblance to it, an insidious and dangerous 
 foe. 
 
 Though, however, these Discourses have only pro- 
 fessed to be preliminary, being directed to the investi- 
 gation of the object and nature of the Education which 
 a University professes to impart, at the same time I do 
 not like to conclude without making some remarks 
 upon the duties of the Church towards it, or rather on 
 the ground of those duties. If the Catholic Faith 
 209 o 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 is true, a University cannot exist externally to the 
 Catholic pale, for it cannot teach Universal Know- 
 ledge if it does not teach Catholic theology. This is 
 certain ; but still, though it had ever so many theolo- 
 gical Chairs, that would not suffice to make it a 
 Catholic University ; for theology would be included 
 in its teaching only as a branch of knowledge, only as 
 one out of many constituent portions, however im- 
 portant a one, of what I have called Philosophy. 
 Hence a direct and active jurisdiction of the Church 
 over it and in it is necessary, lest it should become the 
 rival of the Church with the community at large in 
 those theological matters which to the Church are 
 exclusively committed, acting as the representative of 
 the intellect, as the Church is the representative of the 
 religious principle. The illustration of this proposition 
 shall be the subject of my concluding Discourse. 
 
 I say then, that, even though the case could be so 
 that the whole system of Catholicism was recognised 
 and professed, without the direct presence of the 
 Church, still this would not at once make such a Uni- 
 versity a Catholic Institution, nor be sufficient to 
 secure the due weight of religious considerations in its 
 philosophical studies. For it may easily happen that 
 a particular bias or drift may characterise an Institu- 
 tion, which no rules can reach, nor officers remedy, 
 nor professions or promises counteract. We have an 
 instance of such a case in the Spanish Inquisition ; 
 here was a purely Catholic establishment, devoted to the 
 maintenance, or rather the ascendancy of Catholicism, 
 keenly zealous for theological truth, the stern foe of 
 every and- Catholic idea, and administered by Catholic 
 theologians ; yet it in no proper sense belonged to the 
 Church. It was simply and entirely a state institu- 
 210 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 tion, it was an expression of that rcry Church-and- 
 King spirit which has prevailed in these islands ; nay, 
 it was an instrument of the state, according to the 
 confession of the acutest Protestant historians, in its 
 warfare against the Holy See. Considered "materi- 
 ally," it was nothing but Catholic ; but its spirit and 
 form were earthly and secular, in spite of whatever 
 faith and zeal and sanctity and charity were to be 
 found in the individuals who from time to time had a 
 share in its administration. And in like manner, it is 
 no sufficient security for the Catholicity of a Univer- 
 sity, even that the whole of Catholic theology should 
 be professed in it, unless the Church breathes her own 
 pure and unearthly spirit into it, and fashions and 
 moulds its organisation, and watches over its teach- 
 ing, and knits together its pupils, and superintends its 
 action. The Spanish Inquisition came into collision 
 with the supreme Catholic authority, from the circum- 
 stance that its immediate end was of a secular char- 
 acter ; and for the same reason, whereas Academical 
 Institutions (as I have been so long engaged in show- 
 ing) are in their very nature directed to social, national, 
 temporal objects in the first instance, and since they are 
 living and energising bodies, if they deserve the name 
 of University at all, and of necessity have some one 
 formal and definite ethical character, good or bad, and 
 do of a certainty imprint that character on the indi- 
 viduals who direct and who frequent them, it cannot 
 but be that, if left to themselves, they will, in spite of 
 their profession of Catholic Truth, work out results 
 more or less prejudicial to its interests. 
 
 Nor is this all : such Institutions may become hostile 
 to Revealed Truth, in consequence of the circum- 
 stances of their teaching as well as of their end. They 
 211 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 are employed in the pursuit of Liberal Knowledge, 
 and Liberal Knowledge has a special tendency, not 
 necessary or rightful, but a tendency in fact, when 
 cultivated by beings such as we are, to impress us with 
 a mere philosophical theory of life and conduct, in the 
 place of Revelation. I have said much on this subject 
 already. Truth has two attributes beauty and power ; 
 and while Useful Knowledge is the possession of truth 
 as powerful, Liberal Knowledge is the apprehension of 
 it as beautiful. Pursue it, either as beauty or as power, 
 to its furthest extent and its true limit, and you are led 
 by either road to the Eternal and Infinite, to the inti- 
 mations of conscience and the announcements of the 
 Church. Satisfy yourself with what is only visibly 
 or intelligibly excellent, as you are likely to do, and 
 you will make present utility and natural beauty the 
 practical test of truth, and the sufficient object of the in- 
 tellect. It is not that you will at once reject Catholicism, 
 but you will measure and proportion it by an earthly 
 standard. You will throw its highest and most mo- 
 mentous disclosures into the background, you will deny 
 its principles, explain away its doctrines, rearrange its 
 precepts, and make light of its practices, even while 
 you profess it. Knowledge, viewed as Knowledge, 
 exerts a subtle influence in throwing us back on our- 
 selves, and making us our own centre, and our minds 
 the measure of all things. This then is the tendency 
 of that Liberal Education, of which a University is 
 the school, viz., to view Revealed Religion from an 
 aspect of its own to fuse and recast it to tune it, as 
 it were, to a different key, and to reset its harmonies 
 to circumscribe it by a circle which unwarrantably 
 amputates here, and unduly develops there ; and all 
 under the notion, conscious or unconscious, that the 
 212 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 human intellect, self-educated and self- supported, is 
 more true and perfect in its ideas and judgments than 
 that of Prophets and Apostles, to whom the sights and 
 sounds of Heaven were immediately conveyed. A 
 sense of propriety, order, consistency, and com- 
 pleteness gives birth to a rebellious stirring against 
 miracle and mystery, against the severe and the 
 terrible. 
 
 First and chiefly this Intellectualism comes into 
 collision with precept, then with doctrine, then with 
 the very principle of dogmatism. A perception of the 
 Beautiful becomes the substitute for faith. In a country 
 which does not profess the faith, it at once runs, if 
 allowed, into scepticism or infidelity ; but even within 
 the pale of the Church, and with the most unqualified 
 profession of her Creed, it acts, if left to itself, as an 
 element of corruption and debility. Catholicism, as it 
 has come down to us from the first, seems to be mean 
 and illiberal ; it is a mere popular religion ; it is the 
 religion of illiterate ages or servile populations or bar- 
 barian warriors ; it must be treated with discrimination 
 and delicacy, corrected, softened, improved, if it is to 
 satisfy an enlightened generation. It must be stereo- 
 typed as the patron of arts, or the pupil of speculation, 
 or the protege of science; it must play the literary 
 academician, or the empirical philanthropist, or the 
 political partisan ; it must keep up with the age ; some 
 or other expedient it must devise, in order to explain 
 away, or to hide, tenets under which the intellect 
 labours and of which it is ashamed its doctrine, for 
 instance, of grace, its mystery of the Godhead, its 
 preaching of the Cross, its devotion to the Queen of 
 Saints, or its loyalty to the Apostolic See. Let this 
 spirit be freely evolved out of that philosophical condi- 
 213 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 tion of mind, which in former Discourses I have so 
 highly, so justly extolled, and it is impossible but, first 
 indifference, then laxity of belief, then even heresy will 
 be the successive results. 
 
 Here then are two injuries which Revelation is 
 likely to sustain at the hands of the Masters of human 
 reason unless the Church, as in duty bound, protects 
 the sacred treasure which is in jeopardy. The first 
 is a simple ignoring of Theological Truth altogether, 
 under the pretence of not recognising differences of 
 religious opinion ; which will only take place in 
 countries or under governments which have abjured 
 Catholicism. The second, which is of a more subtle 
 character, is a recognition indeed of Catholicism, but 
 (as if in pretended mercy to it) an adulteration of its 
 spirit. I will now proceed to describe the dangers I 
 speak of more distinctly, by a reference to the general 
 subject-matter of instruction which a University under- 
 takes. 
 
 There are three great subjects on which Human 
 Reason employs itself: God, Nature, and Man : 
 and theology being put aside in the present argument, 
 the physical and social worlds remain. These, when 
 respectively subjected to Human Reason, form two 
 books : the book of Nature is called Science, the 
 book of man is called Literature. Literature and 
 Science, thus considered, nearly constitute the subject- 
 matter of Liberal Education; and while Science is 
 made to subserve the former of the two injuries, 
 which Revealed Truth sustains its exclusion, Litera- 
 ture subserves the latter its corruption. Let us 
 consider the influence of each upon Religion separately. 
 
 i. As to Physical Science, of course there can be 
 no real collision between it and Catholicism. Nature 
 214 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 and Grace, Reason and Revelation, come from the 
 same Divine Author, whose works cannot contradict 
 each other. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that, 
 in matter of fact, there always has been a sort of 
 jealousy and hostility between Religion and physical 
 philosophers. The name of Galileo reminds us of it 
 at once. Not content with investigating and reason- 
 ing in his own province, he went out of his way 
 directly to insult the received interpretation of Scrip- 
 ture ; theologians repelled an attack which was wanton 
 and arrogant ; and Science, affronted in her minister, 
 has taken its full revenge upon Theology since. A 
 vast multitude of its teachers, I fear it must be said, 
 have been either unbelievers or sceptics, or at least 
 have denied to Christianity any teaching, distinctive or 
 special, over the Religion of Nature. There have 
 indeed been most illustrious exceptions ; some men 
 protected by their greatness of mind, some by their 
 religious profession, some by the fear of public opinion; 
 but I suppose the run of experimentalists, external to 
 the Catholic Church, have more or less inherited the 
 positive or negative unbelief of Laplace, Buffo n, 
 Franklin, Priestley, Cuvier, and Humboldt. I do not 
 of course mean to say that there need be in every case 
 a resentful and virulent opposition made to Religion 
 on the part of scientific men ; but their emphatic 
 silence or phlegmatic inadvertence as to its claims 
 have implied, more eloquently than any words, that 
 in their opinion it had no voice at all in the subject- 
 matter, which they had appropriated to themselves. 
 The same antagonism shows itself in the middle ages. 
 Friar Bacon was popularly regarded with suspicion as 
 a dealer in unlawful arts ; Pope Sylvester the Second 
 has been accused of magic for his knowledge of natural 
 215 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 secrets ; and the geographical ideas of St. Virgil, 
 Bishop of Saltzburgh, were regarded with anxiety by 
 the great St. Boniface, the glory of England, the 
 Martyr- Apostle of Germaay. I suppose, in matter 
 of fact, magical superstition and physical knowledge 
 did commonly go together in those ages : however, 
 the hostility between experimental science and theology 
 is far older than Christianity. Lord Bacon traces it 
 to an era prior to Socrates ; he tells us that, among 
 the Greeks, the atheistic was the philosophy most 
 favourable to physical discoveries, and he does not 
 hesitate to imply that the rise of the religious schools 
 was the ruin of science. 1 
 
 Nowj if we would investigate the reason of this 
 opposition between Theology and Physics, I suppose 
 we must first take into account Lord Bacon's own 
 explanation of it. It is common in judicial inquiries 
 to caution the parties on whom the verdict depends to 
 put out of their minds whatever they have heard out 
 of court on the subject to which their attention is to 
 be directed. They are to judge by the evidence ; and 
 this is a rule which holds in other investigations as far 
 as this, that nothing of an adventitious nature ought 
 to be introduced into the process. In like manner, 
 from religious investigations, as such, physics must be 
 excluded, and from physical, as such, religion; and 
 if we mix them, we shall spoil both. The theologian, 
 speaking of Divine Omnipotence, for the time simply 
 ignores the laws of nature as existing restraints upon 
 its exercise; and the physical philosopher, on the 
 other hand, in his experiments upon natural phenomena, 
 is simply ascertaining those laws, putting aside the ques- 
 
 * Vid. Hallam's Literature of Europe, Macaulay's Essay, 
 and the Author's Oxford University Sermons, IX. 
 2l6 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 tion of that Omnipotence. If the theologian, in tracing 
 the ways of Providence, were stopped with objections 
 grounded on the impossibility of physical miracles, he 
 would justly protest against the interruption ; and were 
 the philosopher, who was determining the motion of 
 the heavenly bodies, to be questioned about their Final 
 or their First Cause, he too would suffer an illogical 
 interruption. The latter asks the cause of volcanoes, 
 and is impatient at being told it is " the divine ven- 
 geance ; " the former asks the cause of the overthrow 
 of the guilty cities, and is preposterously referred to 
 the volcanic action still visible in their neighbourhood. 
 The inquiry into final causes for the moment passes 
 over the existence of established laws; the inquiry 
 into physical, passes over for the moment the existence 
 of God. In other words, physical science is in a 
 certain sense atheistic, for the very reason it is not 
 theology. 
 
 This is Lord Bacon's justification, and an intelligible 
 one, for considering that the fall of atheistic philosophy 
 in ancient times was a blight upon the hopes of physical 
 science. " Aristotle," he says, " Galen, and others, 
 frequently introduce such causes as these : the hairs 
 of the eyelids are for a fence to the sight ; the bones 
 for pillars whence to build the bodies of animals ; the 
 leaves of trees are to defend the fruit from the sun and 
 wind ; the clouds are designed for watering the earth. 
 All which are properly alleged in metaphysics ; but in 
 physics, are impertinent, and as remoras to the ship, 
 that hinder the sciences from holding on their course 
 of improvement, and introducing a neglect of search- 
 ing after physical causes." 1 Here then is one reason 
 
 1 In Augment., 5. 
 217 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 for the prejudice of physical philosophers against 
 Theology : on the one hand, their deep satisfaction 
 in the laws of nature indisposes them towards the 
 thought of a Moral Governor, and makes them 
 sceptical of His interposition ; on the other hand, the 
 occasional interference of religious writers in a pro- 
 vince not religious, has made them sore, suspicious, 
 and resentful. 
 
 Another reason of a kindred nature is to be found in 
 the difference of method by which truths are gained 
 in theology and in physical science. Induction is the 
 instrument of Physics, and deduction only is the instru- 
 ment of Theology. There the simple question is, 
 What is revealed ? all doctrinal knowledge flows from 
 one fountain head. If we are able to enlarge our 
 view and multiply our propositions, it must be merely 
 by the comparison and adjustment of existing truths ; 
 if we would solve new questions, it must be .by 
 consulting old answers. The notion of doctrinal 
 knowledge absolutely novel, and of simple addition 
 from without, is intolerable to our ears, and never was 
 entertained by any one who was even approaching to 
 an understanding of our creed. Revelation is all in 
 all in doctrine ; the Apostles its sole depository, the 
 inferential method its sole instrument, and ecclesiastical 
 authority its sole sanction. The Divine Voice has 
 spoken once for all, and the only question is about its 
 meaning. Now this process, as far as it was reason- 
 ing, was the very mode of reasoning which, as regards 
 physical knowledge, the school of Bacon has super- 
 seded by the inductive method: no wonder, then, 
 that that school should be irritated and indignant to 
 find that a subject-matter remains still, in which their 
 favourite instrument has no office ; no wonder that 
 218 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 they rise up against this memorial of an antiquated 
 system, as an eyesore and an insult ; and no wonder 
 that the very force and dazzling success} of their own 
 method in its own departments should sway or bias 
 unduly the religious sentiments of any persons who 
 come under its influence. They assert that no new 
 truth can be gained by deduction; Catholics assent, 
 but add that, as regards religious truth, they have not 
 to seek at all, for they have it already. Christian 
 Truth is purely of revelation ; that revelation we can 
 but explain, we cannot increase, except relatively to 
 our own apprehensions ; without it we should have 
 known nothing of its contents, with it we know just 
 as much as its contents, and nothing more. And, as 
 it was a divine act independent of man, so will 
 it remain in spite of man. Niebuhr may revolu- 
 tionise history, Lavoisier chemistry, Newton astro- 
 nomy ; but God Himself is the author as well as the 
 subject of theology. When Truth can change, its 
 Revelation can change ; when human reason can 
 outreason the Omniscient, then may it supersede His 
 work. 
 
 Avowals such as these fall strange upon the ear of 
 men whose first principle is the search after truth, and 
 whose starting-points of search are things material 
 and sensible. They scorn any process of inquiry not 
 founded on experiment ; the Mathematics indeed they 
 endure, because that science deals with ideas, not with 
 facts, and leads to conclusions hypothetical rather than 
 real ; " Metaphysics " they even use as a by-word of 
 reproach ; and Ethics they admit only on condition 
 that it gives up conscience as its scientific ground, and 
 bases itself on tangible utility ; but as to Theology, 
 they cannot deal with it, they cannot master it, and so 
 219 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 they simply outlaw it and ignore it. Catholicism, for- 
 sooth, " confines the intellect," because it holds that 
 God's intellect is greater than theirs, and that what 
 He has done, man cannot improve. And what in 
 some sort justifies them to themselves in this extrava- 
 gance is the circumstance that there is a religion close 
 at their doors which, discarding so severe a tone, has 
 actually adopted their own principle of inquiry. Pro- 
 testantism treats Scripture just as they deal with 
 Nature ; it takes the sacred text as a large collection 
 of phenomena, from which, by an inductive process, 
 each individual Christian may arrive at just those 
 religious conclusions which approve themselves to his 
 own judgment. It considers faith a mere modifica- 
 tion of reason, as being an acquiescence in certain 
 probable conclusions till better are found. Sym- 
 pathy, then, if no other reason, throws experimental 
 philosophers into alliance with the enemies -of 
 Catholicism. 
 
 I have another consideration to add, not less 
 important than any I have hitherto adduced. The 
 physical sciences, Astronomy, Chemistry, and the 
 rest, are doubtless engaged upon divine works, and 
 cannot issue in untrue religious conclusions. But at 
 the same time it must be recollected that Revelation 
 has reference to circumstances which did not arise till 
 after the heavens and the earth were made. They 
 were made before the introduction of moral evil into 
 the world : whereas the Catholic Church is the in- 
 strument of a remedial dispensation to meet that intro- 
 duction. No wonder then that her teaching is simply 
 distinct, though not divergent, from the theology which 
 Physical Science suggests to its followers. She sets 
 before us a number of attributes and acts on the part 
 220 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 of the Divine Being, for which the material and 
 animal creation gives no scope ; power, wisdom, 
 goodness are the burden of the physical world, but it 
 does not and could not speak of mercy, long-suffering, 
 and the economy of human redemption, and but par- 
 tially of the moral law and moral goodness. " Sacred 
 Theology," says Lord Bacon, * must be drawn from 
 the words and the oracles of God : not from the light 
 of nature or the dictates of reason. It is written, that 
 4 the Heavens declare the glory of God ; ' but we 
 nowhere find it that the Heavens declare the will of 
 God ; which is pronounced a law and a testimony, 
 that men should do according to it. Nor does this 
 hold only in the great mysteries of the Godhead, of 
 the creation, of the redemption. . . . We cannot 
 doubt that a large part of the moral law is too sublime 
 to be attained by the light of nature ; though it is still 
 certain that men, even with the light and law of nature, 
 have some notions of virtue, vice, justice, wrong, good, 
 and evil." l That the new and further manifestations 
 of the Almighty, made by Revelation, are in perfect 
 harmony with the teaching of the natural world, 
 forms indeed one subject of the profound work of the 
 Protestant Bishop Butler ; but they cannot in any sense 
 be gathered from nature, and the silence of nature 
 concerning them may easily seduce the imagination, 
 though it has no force to persuade the reason, to 
 revolt from doctrines which have not been authenticated 
 by facts, but are enforced by authority. In a scientific 
 age, then, there will naturally be a parade of what is 
 called Natural Theology, a widespread profession of 
 the Unitarian creed, an impatience of mystery, and a 
 scepticism about miracles. 
 
 1 De Augm., 28. 
 221 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 And to all this must be added the ample opportunity 
 which physical science gives to the indulgence of those 
 sentiments of beauty, order, and congruity, of which I 
 have said so much as the ensigns and colours (as they 
 may be called) of a civilised age in its warfare against 
 Catholicism. 
 
 It being considered, then, that Catholicism differs 
 from physical science, in drift, in method of proof, 
 and in subject-matter, how can it fail to meet with 
 unfair usage from the philosophers of any Institution 
 in which there is no one to take its part? That 
 Physical Science itself will be ultimately the loser by 
 such ill-treatment of Theology, I have insisted on at 
 great length in the first three of these Discourses ; for 
 to depress unduly, to encroach upon any science, and 
 much more on an important one, is to do an injury to 
 all. However, this is not the concern of the Church ; 
 the Church has no call to watch over and protect 
 Science ; but towards Theology she has a distinct 
 duty : it is one of the special trusts committed to her 
 keeping. Where Theology is, there she must be ; 
 and if a University cannot fulfil its name and office 
 without the recognition of Revealed Truth, she must 
 be there to see that it is a bonajide recognition, sincerely 
 made and consistently acted on. 
 
 2. And if the interposition of the Church is neces- 
 sary in the Schools of Science, still more imperatively 
 is it demanded in the other main constituent portion of 
 the subject-matter of Liberal Education Literature. 
 Literature stands related to Man as Science stands to 
 Nature ; it is his history. Man is composed of body 
 and soul ; he thinks and he acts ; he has appetites, 
 passions, affections, motives, designs ; he has within 
 him the lifelong struggle of duty with inclination ; he 
 222 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 has an intellect fertile and capacious ; he is formed for 
 society, and society multiplies and diversifies in endless 
 combinations his personal characteristics, moral and 
 intellectual. All this constitutes his life ; of all this 
 Literature is the expression ; so that Literature is to 
 man in some sort what autobiography is to the indi- 
 vidual ; it is his Life and Remains. Moreover, he is 
 this sentient, intelligent, creative, and operative being, 
 quite independent of any extraordinary aid from 
 Heaven, or any definite religious Belief; and as such, 
 as he is in himself, does Literature represent him ; it 
 is the Life and Remains of the natural man, or man m 
 purd naturd. I do not mean to say that it is impossible 
 in its very notion that Literature should be tinctured 
 by a religious spirit ; Hebrew Literature, as far as it 
 can be called Literature, certainly is simply theological, 
 and has a character imprinted on it which is above 
 nature ; but I am speaking of what is to be expected 
 without any extraordinary dispensation; and I say 
 that, in matter of fact, as Science is the reflection of 
 Nature, so is Literature also the one, of Nature 
 physical, the other, of Nature moral and social. Cir- 
 cumstances, such as locality, period, language, seem to 
 make little or no difference in the character of Litera- 
 ture, as such ; on the whole, all Literatures are one ; 
 they are the voices of the natural man. 
 
 I wish this were all that had to be said to the dis- 
 advantage of Literature; but while Nature physical 
 remains fixed in its own laws, Nature moral and social 
 has a will of its own, is self- governed, and never re- 
 mains any long while in that state from which it started 
 into action. Man will never continue in a mere state of 
 innocence ; he is sure to sin, and his literature will be 
 the expression of his sin, and this whether he be 
 223 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 heathen or Christian. Christianity has thrown gleams 
 of light on him and his literature; but as it has not 
 converted him, but only certain choice specimens of 
 him, so it has not changed the characters of his mind 
 or of his history ; his literature is either what it was, 
 or worse than what it was, in proportion as there has 
 been an abuse of knowledge granted and a rejection of 
 truth. On the whole, then, I think it will be found, 
 and ever found, as a matter of course, that Literature, 
 as such, no matter of what nation, is the science or 
 history, partly and at best of the natural man, partly of 
 man fallen. 
 
 Here then, I say, you are involved in a difficulty, 
 greater than that which besets the cultivation of 
 Science; for, if Physical Science be dangerous, I 
 have said it is dangerous, because it necessarily ignores 
 the idea of moral evil ; but Literature is open to the 
 more grievous imputation of recognising and under- 
 standing it too well. Some one will say to me 
 perhaps : " Our youth shall not be corrupted. We 
 will dispense with all general or national Literature 
 whatever, if it be so exceptionable; we will have 
 a Christian Literature of our own, as pure, as true, as 
 the Jewish." You cannot have it : I do not say you 
 cannot form a select literature for the young, or for 
 the middle or lower classes; this is another matter 
 altogether: I am speaking of University Education, 
 which implies an extended range of reading, which has 
 to deal with standard works of genius, or what are 
 called the classics of a language : and I say, from the 
 nature of the case, if Literature is to be made a study 
 of human nature, you cannot have a Christian Litera- 
 ture. It is a contradiction in terms to attempt a sinless 
 Literature of sinful man. You may gather together 
 224 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 something very great and high, something higher than 
 any Literature ever was ; and when you have done so, 
 you will find that it is not Literature at all. You will 
 have simply left the delineation of man, as such, and 
 have substituted for it, as far as you have had any- 
 thing to substitute, that of man, as he is or might be, 
 under certain special advantages. Give up the study 
 of man, as such, if so it must be ; but say you do so. 
 Do not say you are studying him, his history, his mind 
 and his heart, when you are studying something else. 
 /Man is a being of genius, passion, intellect, conscience, 
 power. He exercises these various gifts in various 
 ways, in great deeds, in great thoughts, in heroic acts, 
 in hateful crimes. He founds states, he fights battles, 
 he builds cities, he ploughs the forest, he subdues the 
 elements, he rules his kind. He creates vast ideas, 
 and influences many generations. He takes a thousand 
 shapes, and undergoes a thousand fortunes. Literature 
 records them all to the life, 
 
 Quicquid agunt homines, votum. timor, ira, voluptas, 
 Gaudia, discursus. 
 
 He pours out his fervid soul in poetry ; he sways to 
 and fro, he soars, he dives, in his restless speculations ; 
 his lips drop eloquence ; he touches the canvas, and it 
 glows with beauty ; he sweeps the strings, and they 
 thrill with an ecstatic meaning. He looks back into 
 himself, and he reads his own thoughts, and notes 
 them down ; he looks out into the universe, and tells 
 over and celebrates the elements and principles of 
 which it is the product. 
 
 Such is man : put him aside, keep him before you ; 
 but, whatever you do, do not take him for what he is 
 not, for something more divine and sacred, for man re- 
 225 p 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 generate. Nay, beware of showing God's grace and 
 its work at such disadvantage as to make the few whom 
 it has thoroughly influenced compete in intellect with 
 the vast multitude who either have it not, or use it ill. 
 The elect are few to choore out of, and the world is 
 inexhaustible. From the first, label and Tubalcain, 
 Nimrod "the stout hunter," the learning of the 
 Pharaohs, and the wisdom of the East country, are of 
 the world. Every now and then they are rivalled by 
 a Solomon or a Beseleel, but the habitat of natural 
 gifts is the natural man. The Church may use them, 
 she cannot at her will originate them. Not till the 
 whole human race is regenerate will its literature be 
 pure and true. Possible of course it is in idea, for 
 nature, inspired by heavenly grace, to exhibit itself on 
 a large scale, in an originality of thought or action, even 
 far beyond what the world's literature has recorded or 
 exemplified ; but, if you would in fact have a literature 
 of saints, first of all have a nation of them. 
 
 What is a clearer proof of the truth of all this than 
 the structure of the Inspired Word itself? It is un- 
 deniably not the reflection or picture of the many, but 
 of the few ; it is no picture of life, but an anticipation 
 of death and judgment. Human literature is about 
 all things, grave or gay, painful or pleasant ; but the 
 Inspired Word views them only in one aspect, and as 
 they tend to one scope. It gives us little insight 
 into the fertile developments of mind ; it has no 
 terms in its vocabulary to express with exactness the 
 intellect and its separate faculties : it knows nothing 
 of genius, fancy, wit, invention, presence of mind, 
 resource. It does not discourse of empire, com- 
 merce, enterprise, learning, philosophy, or the fine 
 arts. Slightly too does it touch on the more simple 
 226 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 and innocent courses of nature and their reward. 
 Little does it say l of those temporal blessings which 
 rest upon our worldly occupations, and make them 
 easy ; of the blessings which we derive from the sun- 
 shine day and the serene night, from the succession of 
 the seasons, and the produce of the earth. Little 
 about our recreations and our daily domestic comforts ; 
 little about the ordinary occasions of festivity and 
 mirth, which sweeten human life ; and nothing at all 
 about various pursuits or amusements, which it would 
 be going too much into detail to mention. We read 
 indeed of the feast when Isaac was weaned, and of 
 Jacob's courtship, and of the religious merry-makings 
 of holy Job; but exceptions, such as these, do but 
 remind us what might be in Scripture, and is not. 
 If then by Literature is meant the manifestation of 
 human nature in human language, you will seek for it 
 in vain except in the world. Put up with it, as it is, 
 or do not pretend to cultivate it ; take things as they 
 are, not as you could wish them. 
 
 Nay, I am obliged to go further still ; even if we 
 could, still we should be shrinking from our plain 
 duty, gentlemen, did we leave out Literature from 
 Education. For why do we educate, except to 
 prepare for the world? Why do we cultivate the 
 intellect of the many beyond the first elements of 
 knowledge, except for this world ? Will it be much 
 matter in the world to come whether our bodily 
 health or whether our intellectual strength was more 
 or less, except of course as this world is in all its 
 circumstances a trial for the next ? If then a Univer- 
 sity is a direct preparation for this world, let it be 
 
 1 Vid. the Author's Oxford Sermons, vol. i. 
 227 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 what it professes. It is not a Convent, it is not a 
 Seminary ; it is a place to fit men of the world for 
 the world. We cannot possibly keep them from 
 plunging into the world, with all its ways and princi- 
 ples and maxims, when their time comes ; but we can 
 prepare them against what is inevitable ; and it is not 
 the way to learn to swim in troubled waters, never to 
 have gone into them. Proscribe (I do not merely 
 say particular authors, particular works, particular 
 passages), but Secular Literature as such; cut out 
 from your class books all broad manifestations of the 
 natural man ; and those manifestations are waiting 
 for your pupil's benefit at the very doors of your 
 lecture room in living and breathing substance. They 
 will meet him there in all the charm of novelty, and 
 all the fascination of genius or of amiableness. To- 
 day a pupil, to-morrow a member of the great world : 
 to-day confined to the Lives of the Saints, to-morrow 
 thrown upon Babel ; thrown on Babel, without the 
 honest indulgence of wit and humour and imagination 
 ever permitted to him, without any fastidiousness 
 of taste wrought into him, without any rule given 
 him for discriminating " the precious from the vile," 
 beauty from sin, the truth from the sophistry of 
 nature, what is innocent from what is poison. You 
 have refused him the masters of human thought, who 
 would in some sense have educated him because of 
 their incidental corruption: you have shut up from 
 him those whose thoughts strike home to our hearts, 
 whose words are proverbs, whose names are indi- 
 genous to all the world, the standard of their mother 
 tongue, and the pride and boast of their countrymen, 
 Homer, Ariosto, Cervantes, Shakespeare, because the 
 old Adam smelt rank in them ; and for what have 
 228 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 you reserved him ? You have given him " a liberty 
 unto " the multitudinous blasphemy of his day ; you 
 have made him free of its newspapers, its reviews, its 
 magazines, its novels, its controversial pamphlets, of 
 its Parliamentary debates, its law proceedings, its 
 platform speeches, its songs, its drama, its theatre, 
 of its enveloping, stifling atmosphere of death. You 
 have succeeded but in this in making the world his 
 University. 
 
 Difficult then as the question may be, and much as 
 it may try the judgments and even divide the opinions 
 of zealous and religious Catholics, I cannot feel any 
 doubt myself, gentlemen, that the Church's true 
 policy is not to aim at the exclusion of Literature 
 rrom Secular Schools, but her own admission into 
 them. Let her do for Literature in one way what 
 she does for Science in another ; each has its imper- 
 fection, and she supplies it for each. She fears no 
 knowledge, but she purifies all ; she represses no 
 element of our nature, but cultivates the whole. 
 Science is grave, methodical, logical ; with Science 
 then she argues, and opposes reason to reason. Litera- 
 ture does not argue, but declaims and insinuates; it 
 is multiform and versatile : it persuades instead of 
 convincing, it seduces, it carries captive ; it appeals to 
 the sense of honour, or to the imagination, or to the 
 stimulus of curiosity; it makes its way by means of 
 gaiety, satire, romance, the beautiful, the pleasurable. 
 Is it wonderful that with an agent like this the 
 Church should claim to deal with a vigour corre- 
 sponding to its restlessness, to interfere in its pro- 
 ceedings with a higher hand, and to wield an authority 
 in the choice of its studies and of its books which 
 would be tyrannical, if reason and fact were the only 
 229 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 instruments of its conclusions ? But, anyhow, her 
 principle is one and the same throughout : not to 
 prohibit truth of any kind, but to see that no doctrines 
 pass under the name of Truth but those which claim 
 it rightfully. 
 
 Such at least is the lesson which I am taught by all 
 the thought which I have been able to bestow upon 
 the subject : such is the lesson which I have gained 
 from the history of my own special Father and 
 Patron, St. Philip Neri. He lived in an age as 
 traitorous to the interests of Catholicism as any that 
 preceded it, or can follow it. He lived at a time 
 when pride mounted high, and the senses held rule ; 
 a time when kings and nobles never had more of state 
 and homage, and never less of personal responsibility 
 and peril ; when mediaeval winter was receding, and 
 the summer sun of civilisation was bringing into leaf 
 and flower a thousand forms of luxurious enjoyment ; 
 when a new world of thought and beauty had opened 
 upon the human mind, in the discovery of the treasures 
 of classic literature and art. He saw the great and 
 the gifted, dazzled by the Enchantress, and drinking 
 in the magic of her song ; he saw the high and the 
 wise, the student and the artist, painting, and poetry, 
 and sculpture, and music, and architecture, drawn 
 within her range, and circling round the abyss: he 
 saw heathen forms mounting thence, and forming in 
 the thick air : all this he saw, and he perceived that 
 the mischief was to be met, not with argument, not 
 with science, not with protests and warnings, not by 
 the recluse or the preacher, but by means of the great 
 counter-fascination of purity and truth. He was 
 raised up to do a work almost peculiar in the Church, 
 not to be a Jerome Savonarola, though Philip had 
 230 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 a true devotion towards him and a tender memory of 
 his Florentine house ; not to be a St. Carlo, though 
 in his beaming countenance Philip had recognised the 
 aureol of a saint; not to be a St. Ignatius, wrestling 
 with the foe, though Philip was termed the Society's 
 bell of call, so many subjects did he send to it ; not 
 to be a St. Francis Xavier, though Philip had longed 
 to shed his blood for Christ in India with him ; not 
 to be a St. Caietan, or hunter of souls, for Philip 
 preferred, as he expressed it, tranquilly to cast in his 
 net to gain them ; he preferred to yield to the stream, 
 and direct the current which he could not stop, of 
 science, literature, art, and fashion, and to sweeten and 
 to sanctify what God had made very good and man 
 had spoilt. 
 
 And so he contemplated as the idea of his mission, 
 not the propagation of the faith, nor the exposition of 
 doctrine, nor the catechetical schools ; whatever was 
 exact and systematic pleased him not ; he put from 
 him monastic rule and authoritative speech, as David 
 refused the armour of his king. No ; he would be 
 but an ordinary individual priest as others : and his 
 weapons should be but unaffected humility and unpre- 
 tending love. All he did was to be done by the 
 light, and fervour, and convincing eloquence of his 
 personal character and his easy conversation. He 
 came to the Eternal City and he sat himself down 
 there, and his home and his family gradually grew up 
 around him, by the spontaneous accession of materials 
 from without. He did not so much seek his own as 
 draw them to him. He sat in his small room, and 
 they in their gay worldly dresses, the rich and the 
 wellborn, as well as the simple and the illiterate, 
 crowded into it. In the mid-heats of summer, in the 
 231 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 frosts of winter, still was he in that low and narrow 
 cell at San Girolamo, reading the hearts of those who 
 came to him, and curing their souls' maladies by the 
 very touch of his hand. It was a vision of the Magi 
 worshipping the infant Saviour, so pure and innocent, 
 so sweet and be|utiful was he ; and so loyal and so 
 dear to the gracious Virgin Mother. And they who 
 came remained gazing and listening, till at length, first 
 one and then another threw off their bravery, and took 
 his poor cassock and girdle instead : or, if they kept 
 it, it was to put haircloth under it, or to take on 
 them a rule of life, while to the world they looked 
 as before. 
 
 In the words of his biographer, "he was all things 
 to all men. He suited himself to noble and ignoble, 
 young and old, subjects and prelates, learned and 
 ignorant ; and received those who were strangers to 
 him with singular benignity, and embraced them with 
 as much love and charity as if he had been a long 
 while expecting them. When he was called upon to 
 be merry he was so ; if there was a demand upon his 
 sympathy he was equally ready. He gave the same 
 welcome to all : caressing the poor equally with the 
 rich, and wearying himself to assist all to the utmost 
 limits of his power. In consequence of his being so 
 accessible and willing to receive all comers, many went 
 to him every day, and some continued for the space 
 of thirty, nay forty years to visit him very often both 
 morning and evening, so that his room went by the 
 agreeable nickname of the Home of Christian mirth. 
 Nay, people came to him, not only from all parts of 
 Italy, but from France, Spain, Germany, and all 
 Christendom ; and even the infidels and Jews, who 
 had ever any communication with him, revered him 
 232 
 
TOWARDS LIBERAL KNOWLEDGE 
 
 as a holy man." 1 The first families of Rome, the 
 Massimi, the Aldobrandini, the Colonna, the Altieri, 
 the Vitelleschi, were his friends and his penitents. 
 Nobles of Poland, Grandees of Spain, Knights of 
 Malta, could not leave Rome without coming to him. 
 Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bishoys were his inti- 
 mates ; Federigo Borromeo haunted his room and got 
 the name of " Father Philip's soul." The Cardinal- 
 Archbishops of Verona and Bologna wrote books in 
 his honour. Pope Pius the Fourth died in his arms. 
 Lawyers, painters, musicians, physicians, it was the 
 same too with them. Baronius, Zazzara, and Ricci, 
 left the law at his bidding, and joined his congrega- 
 tion, to do its work, to write the annals of the Church, 
 and to die in the odour of sanctity. Palestrina had 
 Father Philip's ministrations in his last moments. 
 Animuccia hung about him during life, sent him a 
 message after death, and was conducted by him 
 through Purgatory to Heaven. And who was he, 
 I say, all the while, but an humble priest, a stranger 
 in Rome, with no distinction of family or letters, no 
 claim of station or of office, great simply in the attrac- 
 tion with which a Divine Power had gifted him? 
 and yet thus humble, thus unennobled, thus empty- 
 handed, he has achieved the glorious title of Apostle 
 of Rome. 
 
 Well were it for his clients and children, gentlemen, 
 if they could promise themselves the very shadow of 
 his special power, or could hope to do a miserable 
 fraction of the sort of work in which he was pre- 
 eminently skilled. But so far at least they may at- 
 tempt to take his position, and to use his method, and 
 
 1 Bacci, rol. i. p. 192, ii. p. 98 
 
 233 
 
DUTIES OF THE CHURCH 
 
 to cultivate the arts of which he was so bright a 
 pattern. For me, if it be God's blessed will that in 
 the years now coming I am to have a share in the 
 great undertaking, which has been the occasion and 
 the subject of these Discourses, so far I can say for 
 certain that, whether or not I can do anything at all 
 in St. Philip's way, at least I can do nothing in any 
 other. Neither by my habits of life, nor by vigour 
 of age, am I fitted for the task of authority, or of rule, 
 or of initiation. I do but aspire, if strength is given 
 me, to be your minister in a tyork which must employ 
 younger minds and stronger lives than mine. I am 
 but fit to bear my witness, to proffer my suggestions, to 
 express my sentiments, as has in fact been my occupa- 
 tion in these discussions ; to throw such light upon 
 general questions, upon the choice of objects, upon the 
 import of principles, upon the tendency of measures, as 
 past reflection and experience enable me to contribute. 
 I shall have to make appeals to your consideration, your 
 friendliness, your confidence, of which I have had so 
 many instances, on which I so tranquilly repose ; and 
 after all, neither you nor I must ever be surprised, 
 should it so happen that the Hand of Him, with whom 
 are the springs of life and death, weighs heavy on me, 
 and makes me unequal to anticipations in which you 
 have been too kind, and to hopes in which I may have 
 been too sanguine. 
 
 234 
 
CHRISTIANITY 
 AND SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 A LECTURE 1 
 
 THIS is a time, Gentlemen, when not only the Classics, 
 but much more the Sciences, in the largest sense of the 
 word, are looked upon with anxiety, not altogether 
 ungrounded, by religious men, and, whereas, a Uni- 
 versity such as ours professes to embrace all depart- 
 ments and exercises of the intellect, and since I for my 
 part wish to stand on good terms with all kinds of 
 knowledge, and have no intention of quarrelling with 
 any, and would open my heart, if not my intellect (for 
 that is beyond me) to the whole circle of truth, and 
 would tender at least a recognition and hospitality 
 even to those studies which are strangers to me, and 
 would speed them on their way; therefore, as I have 
 already been making overtures of reconciliation, first 
 between Polite Literature and Religion, and next 
 between Physics and Theology, so I would now say a 
 word by way of deprecating and protesting against 
 the needless antagonism, which sometimes exists in 
 fact, between divines and the cultivators of the Sciences 
 generally. 
 
 1 This Lecture, which was never delivered, was addressed 
 to the School of Science. 
 
 235 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 Here I am led at once to expatiate on the grandeur 
 of an institution which is comprehensive enough to 
 admit the discussion of a subject such as this. Among 
 the objects of human enterprise, I may say it surely 
 without extravagance, Gentlemen, none higher or 
 nobler can be named, than that which is contemplated 
 in the erection of a University. To set on foot and to 
 maintain in life and vigour a real University, is con- 
 fessedly, as soon as the word " University " is under- 
 stood, one of those greatest works, great in their 
 difficulty and their importance, on which are deservedly 
 expended the rarest intellects and the most varied 
 endowments. For, first of all, it professes to teach 
 whatever has to be taught in any whatever department 
 of human knowledge, and it embraces in its scope the 
 loftiest subjects of human thought, and the richest 
 fields of human inquiry. Nothing is too vast, nothing 
 to subtle, nothing too distant, nothing too minute, 
 nothing too discursive, nothing too exact, to engage 
 its attention. 
 
 This, however, is not why I claim for it so sovereign 
 a position; for, to bring schools of all knowledge under 
 one name, and call them a University, may be fairly 
 said to be a mere generalisation ; and to proclaim that 
 the prosecution of all kinds of knowledge to their ut- 
 most limits demands the fullest reach and range of our 
 intellectual faculties, is but a truism. My reason for 
 speaking of a University in the terms on which I have 
 ventured, is, not that it occupies the whole territory 
 of knowledge merely, but that it is the very realm; 
 that it professes much more than to take in and to 
 lodge as in a caravanserai, all art and science, all 
 history and philosophy. In truth, it professes to assign 
 236 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 to each study, which it receives, its own proper place 
 and its just boundaries; to define the rights, to estab- 
 lish the mutual relations, and to effect the inter- 
 communion of one and all ; to keep in check the ambi- 
 tious and encroaching, and to succour and maintain 
 those which from time to time are succumbing under 
 the more popular or the more fortunately circum- 
 stanced; to keep the peace between them all, and to 
 convert their mutual differences and contrarieties into 
 the common good. This, Gentlemen, is why I say that 
 to erect a University is at once so arduous and bene- 
 ficial an undertaking, viz., because it is pledged to 
 admit without fear, without prejudice, without com- 
 promise, all comers, if they come in the name of Truth; 
 to adjust views, and experiences, and habits of mind 
 the most independent and dissimilar; and to give full 
 play to thought and erudition in their most original 
 forms, and their most intense expressions, and in their 
 most ample circuit. Thus to draw many things into 
 one, is its special function; and it learns to do it, not 
 by rules reducible to writing, but by sagacity, wisdom, 
 and forbearance, acting upon a profound insight 
 into the subject-matter of knowledge, and a vigilant 
 repression of aggression or bigotry in any quarter. 
 
 We count it a great thing, and justly so, to plan and 
 carry out a wide political organisation. To bring under 
 one yoke, after the manner of old Rome, a hundred 
 discordant peoples; to maintain each of them in its 
 own privileges within its legitimate range of action ; to 
 allow them severally the indulgence of national feelings, 
 and the stimulus of rival interests; and yet withal to 
 blend them into one great social establishment, and to 
 pledge them to the perpetuity of the one imperial 
 237 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 power; this is an achievement which carries with it 
 the unequivocal token of genius in the race which 
 effects it. 
 
 " Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento." 
 This was the special boast, as the poet considered it, 
 of the Roman; a boast as high in its own line, as that 
 other boast, proper to the Greek nation, of literary 
 pre-eminence, of exuberance of thought, and of skill 
 and refinement in expressing it. 
 
 What an empire is in political history, such is a 
 University in the sphere of philosophy and science. It 
 is, as I have said, the high protecting power of all 
 knowledge and science, of fact and principle, of inquiry 
 and discovery, of experiment and speculation; it 
 maps out the territory of the intellect, and sees that 
 the boundaries of each provinces are religiously re- 
 spected, and that there is neither encroachment nor 
 surrender on any side. It acts as umpire between 
 truth and truth, and, taking into account the nature 
 and importance of each, assigns to all their due order 
 and precedence. It maintains no one department 
 of thought exclusively, however ample and noble; 
 and it sacrifices none. It is deferential and loyal, 
 according to their respective weight, to the claims of 
 literature, of physical research, of history, of meta- 
 physics, of theological science. It is impartial towards 
 them all, and promotes each in its own place and for 
 its own object. It is ancillary, certainly, and of neces- 
 sity, to the Catholic Church ; but in the same way that 
 one of the Queen's judges is an officer of the Queen's, 
 and nevertheless determines certain legal proceedings 
 between the Queen and her subjects. It is ministrative 
 to the Catholic Church, first, because truth of any kind 
 
 238 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 can but minister to truth; and next, still more, because 
 Nature ever will pay homage to Grace, and Reason 
 cannot but illustrate and defend Revelation; and 
 thirdly, because the Church has a sovereign authority, 
 and when she speaks ex cathedra, must be obeyed. But 
 this is the remote end of a University; its immediate 
 end (with which alone we have here to do) is to secure 
 the due disposition, according to one sovereign order t 
 and the cultivation in that order, of all the provinces 
 and methods of thought which the human intellect has 
 created. 
 
 * In this point of view, its several professors are like 
 the representatives of various political powers at one 
 court or conference. They represent their respective 
 sciences, and attend to their private interests respec- 
 tively; and, should dispute arise between those 
 sciences, they are the persons to talk over and arrange 
 it, without risk of extravagant pretensions on any side^ 
 of angry collision, or of popular commotion. A liberal 
 philosophy becomes the habit of minds thus exercised; 
 a spaciousness of thought, in which lines, seemingly 
 parallel, may converge at leisure, and principles, recog- 
 nised as incommeasurable, may be safely antagonistic. 
 And here, Gentlemen, we recognise the special 
 character of the Philosophy I am speaking of, if 
 Philosophy it is to be called, in contrast with the 
 method of a strict science or system. Its teaching is 
 not founded on one idea, or reducible to certain 
 formulae. Newton might discover the great law of 
 motion in the physical world, and the key to ten 
 thousand phenomena; and a similar resolution of 
 complex facts into simple principles may be possible 
 in other departments of nature; but the great Universe 
 239 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 itself, moral and material, sensible and supernatural, 
 cannot be gauged and meted by even the greatest of 
 human intellects, and its constituent parts admit 
 indeed of comparison and adjustment, but not of 
 fusion. This is the point which bears directly on the 
 subject which I set before me when I began, and 
 towards which I am moving in all I have said or shall 
 be saying. I observe then, and ask you, Gentlemen, to 
 bear in mind, that the philosophy of an imperial 
 intellect, for such I am considering a University to be, 
 is based, not so much on simplification, as on dis- 
 crimination. Its true representative defines, rather 
 than analyses. He aims at no complete catalogue or 
 interpretation of the subjects of knowledge, but at 
 following out, as far as man can, what in its fulness is 
 mysterious and unfathomable. Taking into its charge 
 1 all sciences, methods, collections of facts, principles, 
 doctrines, truths, which are the reflexions of the 
 universe upon the human intellect, he admits them all, 
 he disregards none, and, as disregarding none, he 
 allows none to exceed or encroach. His watchword is, 
 Live and let live. He takes things as they are; he 
 submits to them all, as far as they go; he recognises 
 the insuperable lines of demarcation which run between 
 subject and subject; he observes how separate truths 
 lie relatively to each other, where they concur, where 
 they part company, and where, being carried too far, 
 they cease to be truths at all. It is his office to deter- 
 mine how much can be known in each province of 
 thought; when we must be contented not to know; 
 in what direction inquiry is hopeless, or on the other 
 hand full of promise; where it gathers into coils 
 insoluble by reason, where it is absorbed hi mysteries, 
 240 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 or runs into the abyss. It will be his care to be familiar 
 with the signs of real and apparent difficulties, with the 
 methods proper to particular subject-matters, what in 
 each particular case are the limits of a rational sceptic- 
 ism, and what the claims of a peremptory faith. If he 
 has one cardinal maxim in his philosophy, it is, that 
 truth cannot be contrary to truth; if he has a second, 
 it is, that truth often seems contrary to truth; and, if 
 a third, it is the practical conclusion, that we must be 
 patient with such appearances, and not be hasty to 
 pronounce them to be really of a more formidable 
 character. 
 
 It is the very immensity of the system of things, 
 the human record of which he has in charge, which is 
 the reason of this patience and caution; for that 
 immensity suggests to him, that the contrarities and 
 mysteries, which meet him in the various sciences, 
 may be simply the consequence of our necessarily 
 defective comprehension. There is but one thought 
 greater than the universe, and that is the thought of 
 its Maker. If, Gentlemen, for one single instant, 
 leaving my proper train of thought, I allude to our 
 knowledge of the Supreme Being, it is in order to 
 deduce an illustration bearing upon it. He, though 
 One, is a sort of world of worlds in Himself, giving 
 birth in our minds to an indefinite number of distinct 
 truths, each ineffably more mysterious than anything 
 that is found in this universe of space and time. Any 
 one of His attributes, considered by itself, is the object 
 of an inexhaustible science; and the attempt to recon- 
 cile any two or three of them together, love, power, 
 justice, sanctity, truth, wisdom, affords matter for 
 an everlasting controversy. We are able to apprehend 
 241 Q 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 and receive each divine attribute in its elementary 
 form, but still we are not able to accept them in their 
 infinity, either in themselves or in union with each 
 other. Yet we do not deny the first, because it cannot 
 be perfectly reconciled with the second, nor the second, 
 because it is in apparent contrariety with the first and 
 the third. The case is the same in its degree with His 
 creation, material and moral. It is the highest wisdom 
 to accept truth of whatever kind, wherever it is clearly 
 ascertained to be such, though there be difficulty in 
 adjusting it with other known truth. 
 
 Instances are easily producible of that extreme 
 contrariety of ideas, which the contemplation of the 
 Universe inflicts upon us, such, as to make it clear 
 to us that there is nothing irrational in submitting to 
 apparent incompatibilities in that teaching which we 
 have no thought on that account of denying, Such, 
 for instance, is the contemplation of Space; the exist- 
 ence of which we cannot deny, though its idea is able, in 
 no sort of posture, to seat itself (if I may so speak) in 
 our minds; for we find it impossible to say that it 
 comes to a stop anywhere; and it is incomprehensible 
 to say that it runs out infinitely; and it seems to be 
 unmeaning, if we say, that it does not exist till bodies 
 come into it, and thus is enlarged according to the 
 accident. 
 
 And so again in the instance of Time. We cannot 
 place a beginning to it without asking ourselves what 
 was before it; yet that there should be no beginning 
 at all, put it as far off as we will, is simply incomprehen- 
 sible. Here again, as in the case of Space, we never 
 dream of denying the existence of what we have no 
 means of understanding. 
 
 242 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 And, passing from this high region of thought 
 (which, high as it may be, is the subject even of a child's 
 contemplations) when we come to consider the mutual 
 action of soul and body, we are specially perplexed 
 by incompatibilities which we can neither reject nor 
 explain. How it is that the will can act on the muscles, 
 is a question of which even a child may feel the force, 
 but which no experimentalist can answer. 
 
 Further, when we contrast the physical with the 
 social laws under which man finds himself here below, 
 we must grant that Physiology and Social Science are 
 in collision. Man is both a physical and a social being; 
 yet he cannot at once pursue to the full his physical 
 end and his social end, his physical duties (if I may so 
 speak) and his social duties, but is forced to sacrifice in 
 part one or the other. If we were wild enough to fancy 
 that there were two creators, one of whom was the 
 author of our animal frames, the other of society, then 
 indeed we might understand how it comes to pass that 
 labour of mind and body, the useful arts, the duties of 
 a statesman, government, and the like, which are 
 required by the social system, are so destructive of 
 health, enjoyment, and life. That is, in other words, 
 we cannot adequately account for existing and undeni- 
 able truths except on the hypothesis of what we feel 
 to be an absurdity. 
 
 And so in Mathematical Science, as has been often 
 insisted on, the philosopher has patiently to endure 
 the presence of truths, which are not the less true for 
 being irreconcilable with each other. He is told of the 
 existence of an infinite number of curves, which are 
 able to divide a space, into which no straight line, 
 though it be length without breadth, can even enter. 
 243 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 He is told too of certain lines, which approach to each 
 other continually, with a finite distance between them, 
 yet never meet; and these apparent contrarieties he 
 must bear as he best can, without attempting to deny 
 the existence of the truths which constitute them in 
 the Science in question. 
 
 Now, let me call your attention, Gentlemen, to what 
 I would infer from these familiar facts. It is, to urge 
 you with an argument d fortiori : viz., that, as you 
 exercise so much exemplary patience hi the case of 
 the inexplicable truths which surround so many 
 departments of knowledge, human and divine, viewed 
 in themselves; as you are not at once indignant, 
 censorious, suspicious, difficult of belief, on finding 
 that in the secular sciences one truth is incompatible 
 (according to our human intellect) with another or 
 inconsistent with itself; so you should not think it 
 very hard to be told that there exists, here and there, 
 not an inextricable difficulty, not an astounding 
 contrariety, not (much less) a contradiction as to 
 clear facts, between Revelation and Nature; but a 
 hitch, an obscurity, a divergence of tendency, a 
 temporary antagonism, a difference of tone between 
 the two, that is, between Catholic opinion on the 
 one hand, and astronomy, or geology, or physiology, 
 or ethnology, or political economy, or history, or 
 antiquities, on the other. I say, that, as we admit, 
 because we are Catholics, that the Divine Unity con- 
 tains in it attributes, which, to our finite minds, appear 
 in partial contrariety with each other; as we admit 
 that, in His revealed Nature, are things, which, though 
 not opposed to Reason, are infinitely strange to the 
 Imagination; as in His works we can neither reject 
 244 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 nor admit the ideas of space, and of time, and the 
 necessary properties of lines, without intellectual 
 distress; really, Gentlemen, I am making no outrage- 
 ous request, when, in the name of a University, I ask 
 religious writers, jurists, economists, physiologists, 
 chemists, geologists, and historians, to go on quietly, 
 and in a neighbourly way, in their own respective lines 
 of speculation, research, and experiment, with full 
 faith in the consistency of that multiform truth, which 
 they share between them, in a generous confidence 
 that they will be consistent, one and all, in their 
 combined results, though there may be momentary 
 collisions, awkward appearances, and many fore- 
 bodings and prophecies of contrariety, and at all 
 times things hard to the Imagination, though not, I 
 repeat, to the Reason. It surely needs no great bold- 
 ness to beg of them, since they are forced to admit 
 mysteries, even in the actual issue itself, in the truths 
 of Revelation, taken by themselves, and in the truths 
 of Reason, taken by themselves, to beg of them, I 
 say, to keep the peace, to live in good will, and to 
 exercise equanimity, if, when Nature and Revelation 
 are compared with each other, there be, as I have 
 said, discrepancies, not in the issue, but in the reason- 
 ings, the circumstances, the associations, the anticipa- 
 tions, the accidents, proper to their respective teachings. 
 It is most necessary to insist seriously and energetic- 
 ally on this point, for the sake of Protestants, for they 
 have very strange notions about us. In spite of the 
 testimony of history the other way, they think that 
 the Church has no other method of putting down error 
 than the arm of force or the prohibition of inquiry. 
 They defy us to set up and carry on a School of Science. 
 245 9 2 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 For their sake, then, I am led to enlarge upon the 
 subject here. I say then, he who believes Revelation 
 with that absolute faith which is the prerogative of a 
 Catholic, is not the nervous creature who startles at 
 every sudden sound, and is fluttered by every strange 
 or frightful appearance which meets his eyes. He has 
 no sort of apprehension, he laughs at the idea, that 
 anything can be discovered by any other scientific 
 method, which can contradict any one of the dogmas 
 of his religion. He knows full well, that there is no 
 science, but, in the course of its extension, runs the 
 risk of infringing, without any meaning of offence on 
 its own part, the path of other sciences: and he knows 
 also, that, if there be any one science which, from 
 its sovereign and unassailable position, can calmly 
 
 (bear such unintentional collisions on the part of the 
 children of earth, it is Theology. He is sure, and nothing 
 shall make him doubt, that, if anything seems to be 
 proved by astronomer, or geologist, or chronologist, 
 or antiquarian, or ethnologist, in contradiction to the 
 dogmas of faith, that point will eventually turn out, 
 first, not to be proved, or, secondly, not contradictory, 
 or thirdly, not contradictory to anything really revealed, 
 but to something which has been confused with 
 Revelation. And if, at the moment, it appears to be 
 contradictory, then he is content to wait, knowing 
 that error is like other delinquints ; give it rope enough, 
 and it will be found to have a strong suicidal propen- 
 sity. I do not mean to say he will not take his part in 
 encouraging, in helping forward the prospective suicide; 
 he will not only give the error rope enough, but show 
 it how to handle and adjust the rope; he will commit 
 the matter to reason, reflection, sober judgment, 
 246 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 common sense; to Time, the great interpreter of so 
 many secrets. Instead of being irritated at the momen- 
 tary triumph of the foes of Revelation, if such a feeling 
 of triumph there be, and of hurrying on a forcible 
 solution of the difficulty, which may in the event only 
 reduce the inquiry to an inextricable tangle, he will 
 recollect that, in the order of Providence, our seeming 
 dangers are often our greatest gains; that in the words 
 of the Protestant poet, 
 
 The clouds you so much dread 
 Are big with mercy, and shall break 
 In blessings on your head. 
 
 To one notorious instance indeed it is obvious to 
 allude here. When the Copernician system first made 
 progress, what religious man would not have been 
 tempted to uneasiness, or at least fear of scandal, from 
 the seeming contradiction which it involved to some 
 authoritative tradition of the Church and the declara- 
 tion of Scripture ? It was generally received, as if the 
 Apostles had expressly delivered it both orally and in 
 writing, that the earth was stationary, and that the 
 sun was fixed in a solid firmament which whirled round 
 the earth. After a little time, however, and on full 
 consideration, it was found that the Church had 
 decided next to nothing on questions such as these, 
 and that Physical Science might range in this sphere 
 of thought almost at will, without fear of encountering 
 the decisions of ecclesiastical authority. Now, besides 
 the relief which it afforded to Catholics to find that 
 they were to be spared this addition, on the side of 
 Cosmology, to their many controversies already exist- 
 ing, there is something of an argument in this circum- 
 stance in behalf of the divinity of their Religion. For 
 247 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 it surely is a very remarkable fact, considering how 
 widely and how long one certain interpretation of 
 these physical statements in Scripture had been received 
 by Catholics, that the Church should not have formally 
 acknowledged it. Looking at the matter in a human 
 point of view, it was inevitable that she should have 
 made that opinion her own. But now we find, on 
 ascertaining where we stand, in the face of the new 
 sciences of these latter times, that, in spite of the 
 bountiful comments which from the first she has ever 
 been making on the sacred text, as it is her duty and 
 her right to do, nevertheless she has never been led 
 formally to explain the texts in question, or to give 
 them an authoritative sense which modern science 
 may question. 
 
 Nor was this escape a mere accident, or what will 
 more religiously be called a providential event, as is 
 shown by a passage of history in the dark age itself. 
 When the glorious St. Boniface, Apostle of Germany, 
 great in sanctity, though not in secular knowledge, 
 complained to the Holy See that St. Virgilius taught 
 the existence of the Antipodes, the Holy See apparently 
 evaded the question, not indeed siding with the Irish 
 philosopher, which would have been going out of its 
 place, but passing over, in a matter not revealed, a 
 philosophical opinion. 
 
 Time went on; a new state of things, intellectual 
 and social, came in ; the Church was girt with temporal 
 power; the preachers of St. Dominic were in the 
 ascendant: now at length we may ask with curious 
 interest, did the Church alter her ancient rule of action, 
 and proscribe intellectual activity ? Just the contrary ; 
 this is the very age of Universities; it is the classical 
 248 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 period of the schoolmen ; it is the splendid and palmary 
 instance of the wise policy and large liberality of the 
 Church; as regards philosophical inquiry. If there 
 ever was a time when the intellect went wild, and had 
 a licentious revel, it was at the date I speak of. When 
 was there ever a more curious, more meddling, bolder, 
 keener, more penetrating, more rationalistic exercise 
 of the reason than at that time ? What class of ques- 
 tions did that subtle, metaphysical spirit not scrutin-. 
 ise ? What premiss was allowed without examination ? 
 What principle was not traced to its first origin, and 
 exhibited in its most naked shape? What whole was 
 not analysed ? What complex idea was not elaborately 
 traced out, and, as it were, finely painted for the con- 
 templation of the mind, till it was spread out in all its 
 minutest portions as perfectly and delicately as a frog's 
 foot shows under the intense scrutiny of the micro- 
 scope ? Well, I repeat, here was something which came 
 somewhat nearer to Theology than physical research 
 comes; Aristotle was a somewhat more serious foe 
 then, beyond all mistake, than Bacon has been since. 
 Did the Church take a high hand with philosophy then ? 
 No, not though it was metaphysical. It was a time 
 when she had temporal power, and could have exter- 
 minated the spirit of inquiry with fire and sword; but 
 she determined to put it down by argument ; she said: 
 " Two can play at that, and my argument is the better." 
 She sent her controversialists into the philosophical 
 arena. It was the Dominican and Franciscan doctors, 
 the greatest of them being St. Thomas, who in those 
 mediaeval Universities fought the battle of Revelation 
 with the weapons of heathenism. It was no matter 
 whose the weapon was; truth was truth all the world 
 249 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 over. With the jawbone of an ass, with the skeleton 
 philosophy of pagan Greece, did the Samson of the 
 schools put to flight his thousand Philistines. 
 
 Here, Gentlemen, observe the contrast exhibited by 
 the Church herself, who has the gift of wisdom, and 
 even the ablest, or wisest, or holiest of her children. 
 As St. Boniface had been jealous of physical specula- 
 tions, so had the early Fathers shown an extreme aver- 
 sion to the great heathen philosopher whom I just now 
 named, Aristotle. I do not know who of them could 
 endure him; and, when there arose those in the middle 
 age who would take his part, especially since their 
 intentions were of a suspicious character, a strenuous 
 effort was made to banish him out of Christendom. 
 The Church the while had kept silence; she had as 
 little denounced heathen philosophy in the mass, as 
 she had pronounced upon the meaning of certain texts 
 of Scripture of a cosmological character. From Ter- 
 tullian and Caius to the two Gregories of Cappadocia, 
 from them to Anastasius Sinaita, from him to the 
 school of Paris, Aristotle was a word of offence; at 
 length St. Thomas made him a hewer of wood and 
 drawer of water to the Church. A strong slave he 
 is; and the Church herself has given her sanction 
 to the use in Theology of the ideas and terms of his 
 philosophy. 
 
 Now, while this free discussion is, to say the least, 
 BO safe for Religion, or rather so expedient, it is on the 
 other hand simply necessary for progress in Science; 
 and I shall now go on to insist on this side of the sub- 
 ject. I say, then, that it is a matter of primary import- 
 ance in the cultivation of those sciences, in which truth 
 is discoverable by the human intellect, that the 
 250 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 investigator should be free, independent, unshackled 
 in his movements; that he should be allowed and 
 enabled, without impediment, to fix his mind intently, 
 nay exclusively, on his special object, without the risk 
 of being distracted every other minute in the process 
 and progress of his inquiry, by charges of temerarious- 
 ness, or by warnings against extravagance or scandal. 
 But in thus speaking, I must premise several explana- 
 tions, lest I be mistaken. 
 
 First, then, Gentlemen, as to the fundamental 
 principles of religion and morals, and again as to the 
 fundamental principles of Christianity, or what are 
 called the dogmas of faith, as to this double creed, 
 natural and revealed, we, none of us, should say that 
 it is any shackle at all upon the intellect to maintain 
 these inviolate. Indeed, a Catholic cannot help having 
 regard to them; and they as little impede the move- 
 ments of his intellect, as the laws of physics impede 
 his bodily movements. The habitual apprehension of 
 them has become a second nature with him, as the 
 laws of optics, hydrostatics, motion, dynamics, are 
 latent conditions which he takes for granted in the 
 use of his corporeal organs. I am not supposing any 
 collision with dogma, I am but speaking of opinions 
 of divines, or of the multitude, parallel to those in 
 former times of the sun going round the earth, or of 
 the last day being close at hand, or of St. Dionysius 
 the Areopagite being the author of the works which 
 bear his name. 
 
 Nor, secondly, even as regards such opinions, am I 
 supposing any direct intrusion into the province of 
 religion, or of a teacher of Science actually laying 
 down the law in a matter of Religion ; but of such unin- 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 tentional collisions as are incidental to a discussion 
 pursued on some subject of his own. It would be a 
 great mistake in such a one to propose his philosophical 
 or historical conclusions as the formal interpretation 
 of the sacred text, as Galileo is said to have done, 
 instead of being content to hold his doctrine of the 
 motion of the earth as a scientific conclusion, and 
 leaving it to those whom it really concerned to 
 compare it with Scripture. And, it must be confessed, 
 Gentlemen, not a few instances occur of this mistake 
 at the present day, on the part, not indeed of men of 
 science, but of religious men, who, from a nervous 
 impatience lest Scripture should for one moment seem 
 inconsistent with the results of some speculation of 
 the hour, are ever proposing geological or ethnological 
 comments upon it, which they have to alter or obliter- 
 ate before the ink is well dry, from changes in the 
 progressive science, which they have so officiously 
 brought to its aid. 
 
 And thirdly, I observe, that, when I advocate the 
 independence of philosophical thought, I am not 
 speaking of any formal teaching at all, but of investiga- 
 tions, speculations, and discussions. I am far indeed 
 from allowing, in any matter which even borders on 
 religion, what an eminent Protestant divine has 
 advocated on the most sacred subjects: I mean " the 
 liberty of Prophesying." I have no wish to degrade 
 the professors of Science, who ought to be Prophets 
 of the Truth, into mere advertisers of crude fancies 
 or notorious absurdities. I am not pleading that they 
 should at random shower down upon their hearers 
 ingenuities and novelties; or that they should teach 
 even what has a basis of truth in it, in a brilliant, off- 
 252 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 hand way, to a collection of youths, who may not 
 perhaps hear them for six consecutive lectures, and 
 who will carry away with them into the country a 
 misty idea of the half-created theories of some am- 
 bitious intellect. 
 
 Once more, as the last sentence suggests, there must 
 be great care taken to avoid scandal, or of shocking the 
 popular mind, or of unsettling the weak; the associa- 
 tion between truth and error being so strong in particu- 
 lar minds, that it is impossible to weed them of the 
 error, without rooting up the wheat with it. If then 
 there is the chance of any current religious opinion 
 being in any way compromised in the course of a 
 scientific investigation, this would be a reason for 
 conducting it, not in light ephemeral publications, 
 which come into the hands of the careless or ignorant, 
 but in works of a grave and business-like character, 
 answering to the mediaeval schools of philosophical 
 disputation, which, removed as they were from the 
 region of popular thought and feeling, have, by their 
 vigorous restlessness of inquiry, in spite of their 
 extravagances, done so much for theological precision. 
 
 I am not then supposing the scientific investigator 
 to be coming into collision with dogma ; nor venturing, 
 by means of his investigations, upon any interpretation 
 of Scripture or upon other conclusion in the matter of 
 religion ; nor teaching even in his own science, instead 
 of investigating; nor to be careless of scandalising the 
 weak ; but, these explanations being made, I still say, 
 that a scientific speculator or inquirer is not bound, in 
 the course of his researches, to be every moment 
 adjusting his course by the maxims of the schools or 
 by popular traditions, or by those of any other science 
 253 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 distinct from his own, or to be ever narrowly watching 
 what those external sciences have to say to him; being 
 confident, from a generous faith, that, however his 
 line of investigation may swerve now and then, and 
 vary to and fro hi its course, or threaten momentary 
 collision or embarrassment with any other department 
 of knowledge, theological or not, yet, if he lets it alone, 
 it will be sure to come home, because truth never can 
 really be contrary to truth, and because often what at 
 first sight is an exceptio, in the event most emphatically 
 probat regiUam. 
 
 This is a point of serious importance to him. Unless 
 he is at liberty to investigate on the basis, and accord- 
 ing to the peculiarities, of his science, he cannot investi- 
 gate at all. It is the very law of the human mind in its 
 inquiry after and acquisition of truth, to make its 
 advances by a process which consists of many stages, 
 and is circuitous. There are no short cuts' to know- 
 ledge; nor does the road to it always lie in the direction 
 in which it terminates, nor are we able to see the end 
 on starting. It may often seem to be diverging from 
 a goal into which it will soon run without effort, if we 
 are but patient and resolute in following it out; and, 
 as we are told in ethics to gain the mean merely by 
 receding from both extremes, so in scientific researches 
 error may be said, without a paradox, to be in eome 
 instances the way to truth and the only way. More- 
 over, it is not often the fortune of any one man to live 
 through an investigation; the process is one of not 
 only many stages, but of many minds. What one 
 begins, another finishes; and a true conclusion is at 
 length worked out by the co-operation of independent 
 schools and the perseverance of successive generations. 
 254 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 This being the case, we are obliged, under circum- 
 stances, to bear for a while with what we feel to be 
 error, in consideration of the truth in which it is 
 eventually to issue. 
 
 The analogy of locomotion is most pertinent here. 
 No one can go straight up a mountain; no sailing 
 vessel makes for its port without tacking. And so, 
 applying the illustration, we can indeed, if we will, 
 refuse to allow of investigation or research altogether ; 
 but, if we invite reason to take its place in our schools, 
 we must let reason have fair and full play. If we reason, 
 we must submit to the conditions of reason. We cannot 
 use it by halves; we must use it as proceeding from 
 Him who has also given us Revelation; and to be 
 ever interrupting its processes, and diverting its atten- 
 tion by objections brought from a higher knowledge, 
 is parallel to a landsman's dismay at the changes in 
 the course of a vessel on which he has deliberately 
 embarked, and argues surely some distrust either in 
 the powers of Reason on the one hand, or the certainty 
 of Revealed Truth on the other. The passenger should 
 not have embarked at all, if he did not reckon on the 
 chance of a rough sea, of currents, of wind and tide, 
 of rocks and shoals; and we should act more wisely 
 in discountenancing altogether the exercise of Reason, 
 than in being alarmed and impatient under the suspense, 
 delay, and anxiety which, from the nature of the case, 
 may be found to attach to it. Let us eschew secular 
 history, and science, and philosophy for good and all, 
 if we are not allowed to be sure that Revelation is 
 so true, that the altercations and perplexities of human 
 opinion cannot really or eventually injure its authority. 
 That is no intellectual triumph of any truth of Religion, 
 255 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 which has not been preceded by a full statement of 
 what can be said against it; it is but the ego vapulando f 
 ille verbcrando, of the Comedy. 
 
 Great minds need elbow-room, not indeed in the 
 domain of faith, but of thought. And so indeed do 
 lesser minds, and all minds. There are many persons 
 iu the world, who are called, and with a great deal of 
 truth, geniuses. They had been gifted by nature with 
 some particular faculty or capacity; and, while vehe- 
 mently excited and imperiously ruled by it, they are 
 blind to everything else. They are enthusiasts in their 
 own line, and are simply dead to the beauty of any 
 line except their own. Accordingly, they think their 
 own line the only line in the whole world worth pursu- 
 ing, and they feel a sort of contempt for such studies 
 as move upon any other line. Now, these men may be, 
 and often are, very good Catholics, and have not a 
 dream of anything but affection and deference towards 
 Catholicity, nay perhaps are zealous in its interests. 
 Yet, if you insist, that in their speculations, researches, 
 or conclusions in their particular science, it is not 
 enough that they should submit to the Church gener^ 
 ally, and acknowledge its dogmas, but that they must 
 get up all that divines have said, or the multitude 
 believed upon religious matters, you simply crush and 
 .stamp out the flame within them, and they can do 
 nothing at all. 
 
 This is the case of men of genius: now one word on 
 the contrary in behalf of master minds, gifted with a 
 broad philosophical view of things, and a creative 
 power, and a versatility capable of accommodating 
 itself to various provinces of thought. These persons, 
 perhaps, like those I have already spoken of, take up 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 some idea and are intent upon it; some deep, prolific, 
 eventful idea, which grows upon them, till they develop 
 it into a great system. Now, if any such thinker starts 
 from radically unsound principles, or aims at directly 
 false conclusions, if he be a Hobbes, or a Shaftesbury, 
 or a Hume, or a Bentham, then, of course, there is an 
 end of the whole matter. He is an opponent of Revealed 
 Truth, and he means to be so; nothing more need be 
 said. But perhaps it is not so; perhaps his errors are 
 those which are inseparable accidents of his system 
 or of his mind, and are spontaneously evolved, not 
 pertinaciously defended. Every human system, every 
 human writer, is open to just criticism. Make him shut 
 up his portfolio; good! and then perhaps you lose 
 what, on the whole and in spite of incidental mistakes, 
 would have been one of the ablest defences of Revealed 
 Truth (directly or indirectly, according to his subject) 
 ever given to the world. 
 
 This is how I should account for a circumstance, 
 which has sometimes caused surprise, that so many 
 great Catholic thinkers have in some points or other 
 incurred the criticism or animadversion of theologians 
 or of ecclesiastical authority. It must be so in the 
 nature of things; there is indeed an animadversion 
 which implies a condemnation of the author; but there 
 is another which means not much more tkan the pit 
 legendum written against passages in the Fathers. The 
 author may not be to blame; yet the ecclesiastical 
 authority would be to blame, if it did not give notice 
 of his imperfections. I do not know what Catholic 
 would not hold the name of Malebranche in veneration ; 
 but he may have accidentally come into collision with 
 theologians, or made temerarious assertions, notwith- 
 257 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND 
 
 standing. The practical question is, whether he had 
 not much better have written as he has written, than 
 not have written at all. And so fully is the Holy See 
 accustomed to enter into this view of the matter, that 
 it has allowed of its application, not only to philosophi- 
 cal, but even to theological and ecclesiastical authors, 
 who do not come within the range of these remarks. 
 I believe I am right in saying, that, in the case of three 
 great names, in various departments of learning, 
 Cardinal Noris, Bossuet, and Muratori, while not con- 
 cealing its sense of their each having propounded 
 what might have been said better, nevertheless it has 
 considered that their services to Religion were on the 
 whole far too important to allow of their being molested 
 by critical observation in detail. 
 
 And now, Gentlemen, I bring these remarks. to a 
 conclusion. What I would urge upon every one, what- 
 ever may be his particular line of research, what I 
 would urge upon men of Science hi their thoughts of 
 Theology, what I would venture to recommend to 
 theologians, when their attention is drawn to the 
 subject of scientific investigations, is a great and 
 firm belief in the sovereignty of Truth. Error may 
 flourish for a time, but Truth will prevail in the end. 
 The only effect of error ultimately is to promote Truth. 
 Theories, speculations, hypotheses, are started; per- 
 haps they are to die, still not before they have sug- 
 gested ideas better than themselves. These better 
 ideas are taken up in turn by other men, and, if they 
 do not yet lead to truth, nevertheless they lead to 
 what is still nearer to truth than themselves; and thus 
 knowledge on the whole makes progress. The errors 
 J of some minds in scientific investigation are more 
 
 258 
 
SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION 
 
 fruitful than the truths of others. A Science seems 
 making no progress, but to abound in failures, yet 
 imperceptibly all the time it is advancing, and it is of 
 course a gain to truth, even to have learned what is not 
 true, if nothing more. 
 
 On the other hand, it must be of course remembered, 
 Gentlemen, that I am supposing all along good faith, 
 honest intentions, a loyal Catholic spirit, and a deep 
 sense of responsibility. I am supposing, in the scientific 
 inquirer, a due fear of giving scandal, of seeming to 
 countenance views which he does not really counten- 
 ance and of siding with parties from whom he heartily 
 differs. I am supposing that he is fully alive to the 
 existence and the power of the infidelity of the age; 
 that he keeps in mind the moral weakness and the 
 intellectual confusion of the majority of men; and that 
 he has no wish at all that any one soul should get harm 
 from certain speculations to-day, though he may have 
 the satisfaction of being sure that those speculations 
 will, as far as they are erroneous or misunderstood, 
 be corrected in the course of the next half century. 
 
 259 
 
A LIST OF DATES IN CARDINAL 
 NEWMAN'S LIFE 
 
 1801. Born in London. 
 
 1816. Entered at Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 1822. Elected Fellow of Oriel College. 
 
 1824. Ordained Deacon in the Anglican Church. 
 
 1825. Ordained Priest. 
 
 1827. Publication of Keble's Christian Tear. 
 
 1828. Instituted to the Vicarage of S. Mary the Virgin, 
 
 Oxford. 
 1833. Keble's " Assize " sermon, the beginning of the Oxford 
 
 Movement. 
 
 1841. Publication of Tract 90. 
 1843. Resigned the living of S. Mary's. 
 
 1845. Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Received 
 
 into the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 1846. Ordained Priest at Rome and given the degree of 
 
 Doctor of Divinity. 
 
 1847. Established in England an Oratory of the Brotherhood 
 
 of S. Philip Neri. 
 
 1852. The Achilli libel trial. This is the " great anxiety" 
 to which he refers in the Dedication of the Dis- 
 courses. He was found guilty and fined ;ioo. 
 The heavy expenses of the trial were met by a 
 public subscription. 
 
 1854. Invited to become Rector of the new Catholic Univer- 
 sity in Dublin. 
 
 1859. Established the Edgbaston School. 
 
 1864. Apologia pro vita sua. 
 
 18656. The Dream of Gerontius. 
 
 1877. Elected Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 1879. Created Cardinal Deacon of the Holy Roman Church. 
 
 1890. Died. He is buried at Rednal. 
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