RATIONALISM IN EUROPE 
 
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 WORKS BY WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY. 
 
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 HISTORY of the RISE and INFLUENCE of 
 
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 HISTOEY 
 
 OP 
 
 THE RISE AND INFLUENCE 
 
 OF THE SPIRIT OP 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM EDWAED HAETPOLE LECKY 
 
 \ V 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 AND BOMBAY 
 
 1897
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 DUEING the fierce theological controversies that 
 accompanied and followed the Reformation, while 
 a judicial spirit was as yet unknown, while each 
 party imagined itself the representative of abso- 
 lute and necessary truth in opposition to absolute 
 and fatal error, and while the fluctuations of 
 belief were usually attributed to direct miracu- 
 lous agency, it was natural that all the causes of 
 theological changes should have been sought ex- 
 clusively within the circle of theology. Each 
 theologian imagined that the existence of the 
 opinions he denounced was fully accounted for 
 by the exertions of certain evil-minded men, who 
 had triumphed by means of sophistical arguments, 
 aided by a judicial blindness that had been cast 
 upon the deluded. His own opinions, on the 
 other hand, had been sustained or revived by 
 apostles raised for the purpose, illuminated by 
 special inspiration, and triumphing by the force 
 of theological arguments. As long as this point 
 oview continued, the positions of the theologian
 
 Vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and of the ecclesiastical historian were nearly the 
 same. Each was confined to a single province, 
 and each recognising a primitive faith as his ideal, 
 had to indicate the successive innovations upon 
 its purity. But when towards the close of the 
 eighteenth century the decline of theological 
 passions enabled men to discuss these matters 
 in a calmer spirit, and when increased knowledge 
 produced more comprehensive views, the his- 
 torical standing-point was materially altered. 
 It was observed that every great change of belief 
 had been preceded by a great change in the in- 
 tellectual condition of Europe, that the success 
 of any opinion depended much less upon the 
 force of its arguments, or upon the ability of its 
 advocates, than upon the predisposition of society 
 to receive it, and that that predisposition resulted 
 from the intellectual type of the age. As men 
 advance from an imperfect to a higher civilisa- 
 tion, they gradually sublimate and refine their 
 creed. Their imaginations insensibly detach 
 themselves from those grosser conceptions and 
 doctrines that were formerly most powerful, and 
 they sooner or later reduce all their opinions into 
 conformity with the moral and intellectual stan- 
 dards which the new civilisation produces. Thus, 
 long before the Reformation, the tendencies of 
 the Reformation were manifest. The revival 
 of Grecian learning, the developement of art, 
 the reaction against the schoolmen, had raised
 
 INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 society to an elevation in which a more refined 
 and less oppressive creed was absolutely essential 
 to its well-being. Luther and Calvin only re- 
 presented the prevailing wants, and embodied 
 them in a definite form. The pressure of the 
 general intellectual influences of the time deter- 
 mines the predispositions which ultimately regu- 
 late the details of belief; and though all men do 
 not yield to that pressure with the same facility 
 all large bodies are at last controlled. A change 
 of speculative opinions does not imply an increase 
 of the data upon which those opinions rest, but a 
 change of the habits of thought and mind which 
 they reflect. Definite arguments are the symp- 
 toms and pretexts, but seldom the causes, of the 
 change. Their chief merit is to accelerate the 
 inevitable crisis. They derive their force and 
 efficacy from their conformity with the mental 
 habits of those to whom they are addressed. 
 Reasoning which in one age would make no im- 
 pression whatever, in the next age is received 
 with enthusiastic applause. It is one thing to 
 understand its nature, but quite another to ap- 
 preciate its force. 
 
 And this standard of belief, this tone and 
 habit of thought, which is the supreme arbiter of 
 the opinions of successive periods, is created, not 
 by the influences arising out of any one depart- 
 ment of intellect, but by the combination of all 
 the intellectual and even social tendencies of the
 
 V1U INTRODUCTION. 
 
 age. Those who contribute most largely to its 
 formation are, I believe, the philosophers. Men 
 like Bacon, Descartes, and Locke have probably 
 done more than any others to set the current 
 of their age. They have formed a certain cast 
 and tone of mind. They have introduced pe- 
 culiar habits of thought, new modes of reasoning, 
 new tendencies of enquiry. The impulse they 
 have given to the higher literature, has been by 
 that literature communicated to the more popular 
 writers ; and the impress of these master-minds 
 is clearly visible in the writings of multitudes 
 who are totally unacquainted with their works. 
 J3ut philosophical methods, great and unquestion- 
 able as is their power, form but one of the many 
 influences that contribute to the mental habits 
 of society. Thus the discoveries of physical 
 science, entrenching upon the domain of the 
 anomalous and the incomprehensible, enlarging 
 our conceptions of the range of law, and reveal- 
 ing the connection of phenomena that had for- 
 merly appeared altogether isolated, form a habit 
 of mind which is carried far beyond the limits of 
 physics. Thus the astronomical discovery, that 
 our world is not the centre and axis of the 
 material universe, but is an inconsiderable planet 
 occupying to all appearance an altogether insig- 
 nificant and subordinate position, and revolving 
 with many others around a sun which is itself 
 but an infinitesimal point in creation, in as far as
 
 INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 it is realised by the imagination, has a vast and 
 palpable influence upon our theological concep- 
 tions. Thus the commercial or municipal spirit 
 exhibits certain habits of thought, certain modes 
 of reasoning, certain repugnances and attractions, 
 which make it invariably tend to one class of 
 opinions. To encourage the occupations that 
 produce this spirit, is to encourage the opinions 
 that are most congenial to it. It is impossible 
 to lay down a railway without creating an intel- 
 lectual influence. It is probable that Watt and 
 Stephenson will eventually modify the opinions 
 of mankind almost as profoundly as Luther or 
 Voltaire. 
 
 If these views be correct, they establish at once 
 a broad distinction between the province of the 
 theologian and that of the historian of opinions. 
 The first confines his attention to the question 
 of the truth or falsehood of particular doctrines, 
 which he ascertains by examining the arguments 
 upon which they rest; the second should en- 
 deavour to trace the causes of the rise and fall 
 of those doctrines which are to be found in the 
 general intellectual condition of the age. The 
 first is restricted to a single department of men- 
 tal phenomena, and to those logical connec- 
 tions which determine the opinions of the severe 
 reasoner; the second is obliged to take a wide 
 survey of the intellectual influences of the period 
 he is describing, and to trace that connection of
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 congruity which has a much greater influence 
 upon the sequence of opinions than logical argu- 
 ments. 
 
 Although in the present work we are con- 
 cerned only with the last of these two points of 
 view, it will be necessary to consider briefly the 
 possibility of their coexistence ; for this question 
 involves one of the most important problems in 
 history the position reserved for the individual 
 will and the individual judgment in the great 
 current of general causes. 
 
 It was a saying of Locke, that we should not 
 ask whether our will is free, but whether WE are 
 free ; for our conception of freedom is the power 
 of acting according to our will, or, in other words, 
 the consciousness, when pursuing a certain course 
 of action, that we might, if we had chosen, have 
 pursued a different one. If, however, pushing 
 our analysis still further, we ask what it is that 
 determines our volition, I conceive that the 
 highest principles of liberty we are capable of 
 attaining are to be found in the two facts, that 
 our will is a faculty distinct from our desires, 
 and that it is not a mere passive thing, the direc- 
 tion and intensity of which are necessarily deter- 
 mined by the attraction and repulsion of pleasure 
 and pain. We are conscious that we are capable 
 of pursuing a course which is extremely distaste- 
 ful, rather than another course which would be 
 extremely agreeable ; that in doing so we are
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 making a continual and painful effort ; that every 
 relaxation of that effort produces the most lively 
 pleasure ; and that it is at least possible that the 
 motive which induces us to pursue the path of 
 self-abnegation, may be a sense of right altogether 
 uninfluenced by prospects of future reward. We 
 are also conscious that if our desires act power- 
 fully upon our will, our will can in its turn act 
 upon our desires. We can strengthen the natural 
 powers of our will by steadily exerting it. We 
 can diminish the intensity of our desires by 
 habitually repressing them ; we can alter, by a 
 process of mental discipline, the whole symmetry 
 of our passions, deliberately selecting one class 
 for gratification and for developement, and crush- 
 ing and subduing the others. These considera- 
 tions do not, of course, dispel the mystery which 
 perhaps necessarily rests upon the subject of 
 free-will. They do not solve the questions, 
 whether the will can ever act without a motive, 
 or what are its relations to its motives, or whether 
 the desires may not sometimes be too strong 
 for its most developed powers ; but they form a 
 theory of human liberty which I believe to be 
 the highest we can attain. He who has realised, 
 on the one hand, his power of acting according 
 to his will, and, on the other hand, the power of 
 his will to emancipate itself from the empire of 
 pain and pleasure, and to modify and control the 
 current of the emotions, has probably touched 
 the limits of his freedom.
 
 xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The struggle of the will for a right motive 
 against the pressure of the desires, is oue of the 
 chief forms of virtue ; and the relative position of 
 these two influences, one of the chief measures 
 of the moral standing of each individual. Some 
 times, in the conflict between the will and a par- 
 ticular desire, the former, either through its own 
 natural strength, or through the natural weak- 
 ness of its opponent, or through the process of 
 mental discipline I have described, has obtained 
 a supreme ascendency which is seldom or never 
 seriously disturbed. Sometimes, through causes 
 that are innate, and perhaps more frequently 
 through causes for which we are responsible, the 
 two powers exhibit almost an equipoise, and each 
 often succumbs to the other. Between these two 
 positions there are numerous gradations ; so that 
 every cause that in any degree intensifies the 
 desires, gives them in some cases a triumph over 
 the will. 
 
 The application of these principles to those 
 constantly-recurring figures which moral statis- 
 tics present is not difficult. The statistician, for 
 example, shows that a certain condition of tem- 
 perature increases the force of a passion or, in 
 other words, the temptation to a particular vice ; 
 and he then proceeds to argue, that the whole 
 history of that vice is strictly regulated by at- 
 mospheric changes. The vice rises into promi- 
 nence with the rising temperature ; it is sustained
 
 mTEODUCTION. Xlll 
 
 during its continuance, it declines with its de- 
 cline. Year after year, the same figures and the 
 same variations are nearly reproduced. Investi- 
 gations in the most dissimilar nations only 
 strengthen the proof; and the evidence is so 
 ample, that it enables us, within certain limits, 
 even to predict the future. The rivers that rise 
 and fall with the winter torrents or the summer 
 drought ; the insect life that is called into being 
 by the genial spring and destroyed by the return- 
 ing frost ; the aspect of vegetation, which pur- 
 sues its appointed changes through the recurring 
 seasons : these do not reflect more faithfully or 
 obey more implicitly external influences, than do 
 gome great departments of the acts of man. 
 
 This is the fact which statistical tables prove, 
 but what is the inference to be deduced from 
 them ? Not, surely, that there is no such thing 
 as free-will, but, what -we should have regarded 
 as antecedently probable, that the degree of 
 energy with which it is exerted is in different 
 periods nearly the same. As long as the resis- 
 tance is unaltered, the fluctuations of our desires 
 determine the fluctuations of our actions. In 
 this there is nothing extraordinary. It would 
 be strange indeed if it were otherwise strange 
 if, the average of virtue remaining the same, or 
 nearly the same, an equal amount of solicitation 
 did not at different periods produce the same, or 
 nearly the same, amount of compliance. The
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 fact, therefore, that there is an order and se- 
 quence in the history of vice, and that influences 
 altogether independent of human control con- 
 tribute largely to its course, in no degree destroys 
 the freedom of will, and the conclusion of the 
 historian is perfectly reconcilable with the prin- 
 ciples of the moralist. From this spectacle of 
 regularity, we simply infer that the changes in 
 the moral condition of mankind are very slow ; 
 that there are periods when, certain desires being 
 strengthened by natural causes, the task of the 
 will in opposing them is peculiarly aiduous; and 
 that any attempt to write a history of vice with- 
 out taking into consideration external influences, 
 would be miserably deficient. 
 
 Again, if we turn to a different class of phe- 
 nomena, nothing can be more certain to an at- 
 tentive observer than that the great majority 
 even of those who reason much about their 
 opinions have arrived at their conclusions by a 
 process quite distinct from reasoning. They 
 may be perfectly unconscious of the fact, but the 
 ascendency of old associations is upon them ; and, 
 in the overwhelming majority of cases, men of 
 the most various creeds conclude their investi- 
 gations by simply acquiescing in the opinions 
 they have been taught. They insensibly judge 
 all questions by a mental standard derived from 
 education ; they proportion their attention and 
 sympathy to the degree in which the facts or
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 arguments presented to them support their fore- 
 gone conclusions ; and they thus speedily con- 
 vince themselves that the arguments in behalf of 
 their hereditary opinions are irresistibly cogent, 
 and the arguments against them exceedingly 
 absurd. Nor are those who have diverged from 
 the opinions they have been taught necessarily 
 more independent of illegitimate influences. The 
 love of singularity, the ambition to be thought 
 intellectually superior to others, the bias of taste, 
 the attraction of vice, the influence of friendship, 
 the magnetism of genius, these, and countless 
 other influences into which it is needless to enter, 
 all determine conclusions. The number of per- 
 sons who have a rational basis for their belief is 
 probably infinitesimal ; for illegitimate influences 
 not only determine the convictions of those who 
 do not examine, but usually give a dominating 
 bias to the reasonings of those who do. But it 
 would be manifestly absurd to conclude from 
 this, that reason has no part or function in the 
 formation of opinions. No mind, it is true, was 
 ever altogether free from distorting influences ; 
 but in the struggle between the reason and 
 the affections which leads to truth, as in the 
 struggle between the will and the desires 
 which leads to virtue, every effort is crowned 
 with a measure of success, and innumerable 
 gradations of progress are manifested. All 
 that we can rightly infer is, that the process of
 
 Xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 reasoning is much more difficult than is commonly 
 supposed ; and that to those who would investi- 
 gate the causes of existing opinions, the study of 
 predispositions is much more important than the 
 study of arguments. 
 
 The doctrine, that the opinions of a given 
 period are mainly determined by the intellectual 
 condition of society, and that every great change 
 of opinion is the consequence of general causes, 
 simply implies that there exists a strong bias 
 which acts upon all large masses of men, and 
 eventually triumphs over every obstacle. The 
 inequalities of civilisation, the distorting influ- 
 ences arising out of special circumstances, the 
 force of conservatism, and the efforts of individual 
 genius, produce innumerable diversities ; but a 
 careful examination shows that these are but the 
 eddies of an advancing stream, that the various 
 systems are being all gradually modified in a 
 given direction, and that a certain class of ten- 
 dencies appears with more and more prominence 
 in all departments of intellect. Individuals 
 may resist the stream; and this power supplies 
 a firm and legitimate standing-point to the 
 theologian: but these efforts are too rare and 
 feeble to have much influence upon the general 
 course. 
 
 To this last proposition there is, however, an 
 important exception to be made in favour of men 
 of genius, who are commonly at once represents-
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV11 
 
 tive and creative. They embody and reflect the 
 tendencies of their time, but they also frequently 
 materially modify them, and their ideas become 
 the subject or the basis of the succeeding de- 
 velopemcnts. To trace in every great movement 
 the part which belongs to the individual and the 
 part which belongs to general causes, without 
 exaggerating either side, is one of the most 
 delicate tasks of the historian. 
 
 What I have written will, I trust, be sufficient 
 to show the distinction between the sphere of the 
 historian and the sphere of the theologian. It 
 must, however, be acknowledged that they have 
 some points of contact; for it is impossible to 
 reveal the causes that called an opinion into being 
 without throwing some light upon its intrinsic 
 value. It must be acknowledged, also, that there 
 is a theory or method of research which would 
 amalgamate the two spheres, or, to speak more 
 coiTectly, would entirely subordinate the theo- 
 logian to the historian. Those who have appre- 
 ciated the extremely small influence of definite 
 arguments in determining the opinions either of 
 an individual or of a nation who have perceived 
 how invariably an increase of civilisation implies 
 a modification of belief, and how completely the 
 controversialists of successive ages are the pup- 
 pets and the unconscious exponents of the deep 
 under-current of their time, will feel an intense 
 distrust of their unassisted reason, and will natu- 
 
 VOL. i. a
 
 XVlil INTRODUCTION". 
 
 rally look for some guide to direct their judg- 
 ment. I think it must be admitted that the 
 general and increasing tendency, in the present 
 day, is to seek such a guide in the collective 
 wisdom of mankind as it is displayed in the de- 
 velopements of history. In other words, the way 
 in which our leading thinkers, consciously or un- 
 consciously, form their opinions, is by endeavour- 
 ing to ascertain what are the laws that govern 
 the successive modifications of belief; in what 
 directions, towards what conceptions, the intellect 
 of man advances with the advance of civilisation ; 
 what are the leading characteristics that mark 
 the belief of civilised asres and nations as com- 
 
 O 
 
 pared with barbarous ones, and of the most edu- 
 cated as compared with the most illiterate classes. 
 This mode of reasoning may be said to resolve it- 
 self into three problems. It is necessary, in the 
 first place, to ascertain what are the general intel- 
 lectual tendencies of civilisation. It is then 
 necessary to ascertain how far those tendencies 
 are connected, or, in other words, how far the 
 existence of one depends upon and implies the 
 existence of the others, and it is necessary, in the 
 last place, to ascertain whether they have been 
 accompanied by an increase or diminution of 
 happiness, of virtue, and of humanity. 
 
 My object in the present work has been, to 
 trace the history of the spirit of Rationalism : by 
 which I understand, not any class of definite
 
 INTRODUCTION. XIX 
 
 doctrines or criticisms, but rather a certain cast 
 of thought, or bias of reasoning, which has during 
 the last three centuries gained a marked ascen- 
 dency in Europe. The nature of this bias will 
 be exhibited in detail in the ensuing pages, when 
 we examine its influence upon the various forms 
 of moral and intellectual developement. At 
 present it will be sufficient to say, that it leads 
 men on all occasions to subordinate dogmatic 
 theology to the dictates of reason and of con- 
 science, and, as a necessary consequence, greatly 
 to restrict its influence upon life. It predisposes 
 men, in history, to attribute all kinds of phe- 
 nomena to natural rather than miraculous causes; 
 in theology, to esteem succeeding systems the 
 expressions of the wants and aspirations of that 
 religious sentiment which is planted in all men ; 
 and, in ethics, to regard as duties only those 
 which conscience reveals to be such. 
 
 It is manifest that, in attempting to write the 
 history of a mental tendency, some difficulties 
 have to be encountered quite distinct from those 
 which attend a simple relation of facts. No one 
 can be truly said to understand any great system 
 of belief, if he has not in some degree realised 
 the point of view from which its arguments 
 assume an appearance of plausibility and of co- 
 gency, the habit of thought which makes its 
 various doctrines appear probable, harmonious, 
 and consistent. Yet, even in the great contro- 
 a2
 
 XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 versies of the present day even in the disputes 
 between the Catholic and the Protestant, it is 
 evident that very few controversialists ever suc- 
 ceed in arriving at this appreciation of the opin- 
 ions they are combating. But the difficulty be- 
 comes far greater when our research extends over 
 forms of belief of which there are no livino- 
 
 C 
 
 representatives, and when we have not merely to 
 estimate the different measures of probability 
 subsisting in different societies, but have also to 
 indicate their causes and their changes. To re- 
 construct the modes of thought which produced 
 superstitions that have long since vanished from 
 among us ; to trace through the obscurity of the 
 distant past that hidden bias of the imagination 
 which deeper than any strife of arguments, 
 deeper than any change of creed determines in 
 each succeeding age the realised belief ; to grasp 
 the principle of analogy or congruity according 
 to which the conceptions of a given period were 
 grouped and harmonised, and then to show how 
 the discoveries of science, or the revolutions in 
 philosophy, or the developements of industrial 
 or political life, introduced new centres of attrac- 
 tion, and made the force of analogy act in new 
 directions ; to follow out the process till the period 
 when conclusions the reason had once naturally 
 and almost instinctively adopted seem incongru- 
 ous and grotesque, and till the whole current of 
 intellectual tendencies is changed : this is the
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXI 
 
 task which devolves upon every one who, not 
 content with relating the fluctuations of opinions, 
 seeks to throw some light upon the laws that 
 govern them. 
 
 Probably, the greatest difficulty of such a pro- 
 cess of investigation ai'ises from the wide diffe- 
 rence between professed and realised belief. 
 When an opinion that is opposed to the age is 
 incapable of modification and is an obstacle to 
 progress, it will at last be openly repudiated ; 
 and if it is identified with any existing interests, 
 or associated with some eternal truth, its rejection 
 will be accompanied by paroxysms of painful 
 agitation. But much more frequently civilisation 
 makes opinions that are opposed to it simply ob- 
 solete. They perish by indifference, not by con- 
 troversy. They are relegated to the dim twilight 
 land that surrounds every living faith ; the land, 
 not of death, but of the shadow of death ; the 
 land of the unrealised and the inoperative. 
 Sometimes, too, we find the phraseology, the 
 ceremonies, the formularies, the external aspect 
 of some phase of belief that has long since 
 perished, connected with a system that has been 
 created by the wants and is thrilling with the life 
 of modern civilisation. They resemble those 
 images of departed ancestors, which, it is said, 
 the ancient Ethiopians were accustomed to paint 
 upon their bodies, as if to preserve the pleasing 
 illusion that those could not be really dead whose
 
 XX11 INTKODUCTIOrf. 
 
 lineaments were still visible among them, and 
 were still associated with life. In order to appre- 
 ciate the change, we must translate these opin- 
 ions into action, must examine what would be 
 their effects if fully realised, and ascertain how 
 far those effects are actually produced. It is 
 necessary, therefore, not merely to examine suc- 
 cessive creeds, but also to study the types of 
 character of successive ages. 
 
 It only remains for me, before drawing this 
 introduction to a close, to describe the method I 
 have employed in tracing the influence of the 
 rationalistic spirit upon opinions. In the first 
 place, I have examined the history and the 
 causes of that decline of the sense of the mi- 
 raculous, which is so manifest a fruit of civilisa- 
 tion. But it soon becomes evident that this 
 movement cannot be considered by itself; for 
 the predisposition in favour of miracles grows 
 out of, and can only be adequately explained by. 
 certain conceptions of the nature of the Supreme 
 Being, and of the habitual government of the 
 universe, which invariably accompany the earlier, 
 or, as it may be termed, the anthropomorphic 
 stage of intellectual developement. Of the 
 nature of this stage we have some important 
 evidence in the history of art, which is then 
 probably the most accurate expression of religious 
 realisations, while the history of the encroach- 
 ments of physical science, upon our first notions
 
 INTRODUCTION. XX111 
 
 of the system of the world, goes far to explain 
 its decay. Together with the intellectual move- 
 ment, we have to consider a moral movement 
 that has accompanied it, which has had the effect 
 of diminishing the influence of fear as the motive 
 of duty, of destroying the overwhelming import- 
 ance of dogmatic teaching, and of establishing 
 the supremacy of conscience. This progress in- 
 volves many important consequences ; but the 
 most remarkable of all is the decay of persecu- 
 tion, which, I have endeavoured to show, is in- 
 dissolubly connected with a profound change in 
 theological realisations. I have, in the last place, 
 sought to gather fresh evidence of the operations 
 of the rationalistic spirit in the great fields of 
 politics and of industry. In the first, I have 
 shown how the movement of secularisation has 
 passed through every department of political 
 life, how the progress of democracy has influenced 
 and been influenced by theological tendencies, 
 and how political pursuits contribute to the for- 
 mation of habits of thought, which affect the 
 whole circle of our judgments. In the second, 
 I have traced the rise of the industrial spirit in 
 Europe ; its collisions with the Church ; the pro- 
 found moral and intellectual changes it effected ; 
 and the tendency of the great science of political 
 economy, which is its expression. 
 
 I am deeply conscious that the present work 
 can furnish at best but a meagre sketch of these
 
 XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 subjects, and that to treat them as they deserve 
 would require an amount both of learning and 
 of ability to which I can make no pretension. 
 I shall be content if I have succeeded in detect- 
 ing some forgotten link in the great chain of 
 causes, or in casting a ray of light on some of 
 the obscurer pages of the history of opinions.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Mai 
 INTRODUCTION v 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DECLINING SENSE OF THE MIRACULOUS. 
 
 ON MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 The Belief in Satanic Miracles, having been universal among 
 Protestants and Roman Catholics, passed away by a silent 
 and unreasoning process under the influence of Civilisa- 
 tion Witchcraft arose from a vivid Realisation of Satanic 
 Presence acting on the Imagination and afterwards on 
 the Reason Its Existence and Importance among Savages 
 -The Christians attributed to Magic the Pagan Miraclea 
 Constantine and Constantius attempted to subvert Pa- 
 ganism by persecuting Magic Magical Character soon 
 attributed to Christian Rites Miracle of St. Hilarion 
 Persecution suspended under Julian and Jovian, but 
 afterwards renewed Not entirely due to Ecclesiastical 
 Influence Compromise between Christianity and Pa- 
 ganism Prohibited Pagan Rites continue to be practised 
 as Magic From the Sixth to the Twelfth Century, ex- 
 treme Superstition with little Terrorism, and, conse- 
 quently, little Sorcery Effecta of Eclipses, Comets, and
 
 CONTEXTS OF 
 
 Pestilence, on the Superstition The Gu 1 >alists Psellus 
 
 The Revival of Literature in the Twelfth Century pro- 
 duced a Spirit of Rebellion which was encountered by 
 Terrorism which acting on the popular Creed, produced 
 a bias towards Witchcraft The Black Death Influence 
 of the Reformation in stimulating Witchcraft Luther 
 The Inquisitors The Theology of Witchcraft First 
 Evidence of a Rationalistic Spirit in Europe Wier 
 nnwered by Bodin Rationalistic Spirit fully manifested 
 in Montaigne Charron Rapid and silent Decadence of 
 the Belief in Witches Opinions and Influence of La 
 Bruyere, Bayle, Descartes, Malebranche, and Voltaire 
 Gradual Cessation of the Persecut ion in France In Eng- 
 land, the First Law against Witchcraft was made under 
 Henry VIII. Repealed in the following Reign, but re- 
 r.ewed under Elizabeth Cranmer and Jewel Reginald 
 Scott pronounced Witchcraft a Delusion The Law of 
 James I. Opinions of Coke, Bacon, Shakespeare, Brown, 
 and Selden English Witchcraft reached its climax in the 
 Commonwealth Declined immediately after the Restora- 
 tion The Three Causes were, the Reaction against 
 Puritanism, the Influence of Hobbes, and the Baconian 
 Philosophy as represented by the Royal Society Charge 
 of Sir Matthew Hale Glanvil undertakes the Defence 
 of the Belief Supported by Henry More, Cud worth, 
 Casaubon, &c. Opposed by Webster and Wagstaafe 
 Baxter vainly tries to revive the Belief by Accounts of 
 Witch Trials in America Rapid Progress of the Scepticism 
 
 Trial of Jane Wenham Repeal of the Laws against 
 Witchcraft Wesley's Summary of the History of the 
 Movement Great Moderation of the English Church as 
 compared with Puritanism Extreme Atrocity of the 
 Witch Persecution in Scotland, and its Causes Slow 
 Decline of the Belief in Scotland Conclusion . .
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. XXV11 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 T1IE DECLINING SENSE OF THE MIRACULOUS. 
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Miracles related by the Fathers and Mediaeval Writers as 
 ordinary and undoubted Occurrences Rapid Growth of 
 Scepticism on the Subject since the Reformation The 
 Sceptical Habit of Mind acts more powerfully on Contem- 
 porary than on Historical Narrations Among the early 
 Protestants, the Cessation of Miracles supposed to have 
 taken place when the Fathers passed away Persecution 
 regarded by some English Divines as a Substitute for 
 Miracles Opinions of Locke and Newton on the Subject 
 Tendencies of the Eighteenth Century adverse to the 
 Miraculous Middloton Discussion of his Principles by 
 Church, Dodwell, Gibbon, Hume, Farmer, Warburton, 
 and Douglas General Abandonment of the Patristic 
 Miracles Eise of Tractarianism Small place Catholic 
 Miracles occupied in the Discussion it evoked Weakness 
 of the common Arguments against the continuance of 
 Miracles Developement of Continental Protestantism 
 into Rationalism Rationalistic Tendencies in Roman 
 Catholic Countries Origin and Decline of the Evidential 
 School in England Modification of the Conception of 
 Miracles Reasonableness of the Doctrine of Interference 
 Summary of the Stages of Rationalism in its relation 
 to the Miraculous Its Causes Its Influence on Chris- 
 tianity 139 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ESTHETIC, SCIENTIFIC, AND MORAL DEVELOPEMENTS OF 
 RATIONALISM. 
 
 The Expectation of Miracles grows out of the Religious 
 Conceptions of an early Stage of Civilisation, and its 
 Decline implies a general Modification of Religious 
 Opinions Fetishism probably the First Stage of Jle-
 
 CONTENTS OF 
 
 ligious Belief Examples of Fetish Notions in the 
 Early Church Patristic Opinions concerning the Cross 
 and the Water of Baptism Anthropomorphism the next 
 Stage Men then ascribe the Government of the Universe 
 to Beings like themselves; but, being unable to concen- 
 trate their Attention on the Invisible, they fall into 
 Idolatry Idolatry a Sign sometimes of Progress, and 
 sometimes of Retrogression During its continuance, Art 
 is the most faithful Expression of Religious Realisation 
 
 Influence of the National Religions on the Art of 
 Persia, Egypt, India, and Greece The Art of the Cata- 
 combs altogether removed from Idolatry Its Freedom 
 from Terrorism Its Symbolism Progress of Anthropo- 
 morphism Position of the First Person of the Trinity 
 in Art Growing Worship of the Virgin Strengthened 
 by Gnosticism by Dogmatic Definitions by Painting, 
 Celibacy, and the Crusades Its Moral Consequences 
 
 Growth of Idolatrous Conceptions Stages of the Vene- 
 ration of Relics Tendency towards the Miraculous invests 
 Images with peculiar Sanctity The Portrait of Edessa 
 
 The Image at Paneas Conversion of the Barbarians 
 makes Idolatry general Decree of Illiberis The Icono- 
 clasts The Second Council of Nice St. Agobard 
 Mahometanism the sole Example of a great Religion re- 
 straining Semi-barbarians from Idolatry Three Causes 
 of its Success Low Condition of Art during the Period 
 of Mediaeval Idolatry Difference between the Religious 
 and Esthetic Sentiment Aversion to Innovation Con- 
 trast between tlie Pagan and Christian Estimate of the 
 Body Greek Idolatry faded into Art Its Four Stages 
 A corresponding Transition takes place in Christendom 
 Greek Influence on Art Iconoclasm Tradition of the 
 Deformity of Christ The Byzantine Style Broken by a 
 Study of Ancient Sculpture renewed by Nicolas of Pisa 
 Christian School of Giotto and FraAngelico Corresponded 
 with the Intellectual Character of the Time Influence of 
 Dante Apocalyptic Subjects Progress of Terrorism in 
 Art Increase of Scepticism Religious Paintings re- 
 garded simply as Studies of the Beautiful Influence of 
 Venetian Sensuality Sensuality favourable to Art Pa- 
 rallel of Titian and Praxiteles Influence of the Pagan
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. XXIX 
 
 Sculpture History of Greek Statues after the rise of Chris- 
 tianity Reaction in favour of Spiritualism led by Savo- 
 narola Complete Secularisation of Art by Michael Angelo 
 Cycle of Painting completed A corresponding Transi 
 ti on took place in Architecture Fluctuations in the Esti- 
 mate in which it has been held represent Fluctuations of 
 Religious Sentiments Decline of Gothic Architecture 
 Brunelleschi St. Peter's Intellectual Importance of 
 the History of Art The Euthanasia of Opinions Con- 
 tinued Revolt against Anthropomorphism Results from 
 the Totality of the Influences of Civilisation, but es- 
 pecially from the Encroachments of Physical Science on 
 the old Conceptions of the Government of the Universe 
 In the Early Church, Sconce was subordinated to Systems 
 of Scriptural Interpretation Allegorical School of Origen 
 St. Augustine de Genesi Literal School Controversy 
 about the Antipodes Cosmas Virgilius Rise of the 
 Copernicun System Condemnation of Foscarini and of 
 Galileo Influence of Theology on the Progress of Science 
 Opinion of Bacon Astronomy displaces the Ancient 
 Notion of Man's Position in the Universe Philosophical 
 Importance of Astrology Refutation by Geology of the 
 Doctrine of the Penal Nature of Death Increasing Sense 
 of Law Reasons why apparently Capricious Phenomena 
 were especially associated with Religious Ideas On Lots 
 Irreligious Character attributed to Scientific Explanations 
 Difference between the Conception of the Divinity in a 
 Scientific and Unscientific Age Growth of Astronomy 
 Comets Influence of Paracelsus, Bayle, and Halley 
 Rise of Scientific Academies Ascendency of the Belief 
 in Law Harsher Features of Theology thereby corrected 
 The Morphological Theory of the Universe Its In- 
 fluence on History Illegitimate Effects of Science In- 
 fluence on Biblical Interpretation La Peyrere Spinoza 
 Kant Lessing Moral Developement accompanies the 
 Intellectual Movement Illustrations of its Nature 
 Moral Genius Relations of Theology to Morals Com- 
 plete Separation in Antiquity Originality of the Moral 
 Type of Christianity Conceptions of the Divinity Evan- 
 escence of Duties unconnected with our Moral Nature 
 History of Religious Terrorism Patristic Conception of
 
 XXX CONTEXTS OF 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hell Origen and Gregory of Nyssa Faint Notions 
 of the Jews and Heathens on the Subject Doctrine of 
 Purgatory- Scotus Erigena Extreme Terrorism of the 
 Fourteenth Century Destruction of Natural Religion by 
 the conception of Hell Its Effect in habituating Men to 
 contemplate the Sufferings of others with complacency 
 Illustration of this from Tertullian and from the History 
 of Persecution and from that of Torture Abolition of 
 Torture in France, Spain, Prussia, Italy, and Russia 
 Relations between the prevailing Sense of the Enormity 
 of Sin and the Severity of the Penal Code Decline of the 
 Mediaeval Notions of Hell due partly to the Progress of 
 Moral Philosophy, and partly to that of Psychology 
 Apparitions and the Belief in Hell the Corner-stones of 
 the Psychology of the Fathers Repudiation of Platonism 
 Two Schools of Materialism Materialism of the 
 Middle Ages Impulse given to Psychology by Averroes 
 and by the Mystics of the Fourteenth Century Des- 
 cartes Swinden, Whiston, Horberry Change in the 
 Ecclesiastical Type of Character Part taken by Theo- 
 logians in ameliorating the English Penal Code First 
 Impulse due to Voltaire and Beccaiia Bentham Elimi- 
 nation of the Doctrine of future Torture from Religious 
 Realisations . . . . . . . . .188 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON PERSECUTIOX. 
 PART I. 
 
 THE ANTECEDENTS OF PERSECUTION. 
 
 Persecution is the result, not of the personal Character of 
 the Persecutors, but of the Principles they profess 
 Foundations of all Religious Systems are the Sense of 
 Virtue and the Sense of Sin Political and Intellectual 
 Circumstances determine in each System their relative 
 Importance These Sentiments gradually converted into 
 Dogmas, under the Names of Justification by Works and 
 Justification by Faith Dogmas unfaithful Expressions
 
 THE FIRST VOLUME. XXXI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 of Moral Sentiments The Conception of Hereditary 
 Guilt Theories to account for it The Progress of De- 
 mocratic Habits destroys it Its dogmatic Expression 
 the Doctrine that all Men are by Nature doomed to Dam- 
 nation Unanimity of the Fathers concerning the Non- 
 salvability of unbaptised Infants Divergence concerning 
 their Fate The Greek Fathers believed in a Limbo 
 The Latin Fathers denied this Augustine, Fulgentius 
 Origen associates the Doctrine with that of Pre-existence 
 Pseudo-baptisms of the Middle Ages The Reformation 
 produced conflicting Tendencies on the subject, diminish- 
 ing the Sense of the Efficacy of Ceremonies, increasing 
 that of imputed Guilt The Lutherans and Calvinists 
 held a Doctrine that was less superstitious but more re- 
 volting than that of Catholicism Jonathan E<lwards 
 Dogmatic Character of early Protestantism Rationalism 
 appeared with Socinus Antecedents of Italian Rational- 
 ism Socimis rejects Original Sin as also does Zuin- 
 glins Rationalistic Tendencies of this Reformer Rapid 
 Progress of his View of Baptism The Scope of the 
 Doctrine of the Condemnation of all Men extends to 
 Adults Sentiments of the Fathers on the Damnation of 
 the Heathon Great Use of this Doctrine of Exclusive 
 Salvation in consolidating the Power of the Church and 
 in abbreviating the Paroxysms of the Reformation The 
 Protestants almost all accepted it Protest of Zuinglius 
 Opposition between Dogmatic and Natural Religion re- 
 sulting from the Doctrine Influence on Predestinarian- 
 ism Augustine Luther, de Servo Arbitrio Calvin and 
 Beza Injurious Influence of the Doctrine of Exclusive 
 Salvation on Morals and on the Sense of Truth Pious 
 Frauds Total Destruction in the Middle Ages of the 
 Sense of Truth resulting from the Influence of Theology 
 The Classes who were most addicted to Falsehood 
 proclaimed Credulity a Virtue Doctrine of Probabilitiea 
 of Pascal and Craig Revival of the Sense of Truth due 
 to Secular Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century 
 Causes of the Influence of Bacon, Descartes, and Locke 
 The Decline of Theological Belief a necessary Antecedent 
 of their Success 352
 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON THE DECLINING SENSE OF THE MIRACULOUS. 
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 THERE is certainly no change in the history of the 
 last 300 years more striking, or suggestive of more 
 curious enquiries, than that which has taken place 
 in the estimate of the miraculous. At present nearly 
 all educated men receive an account of a miracle 
 taking place in their own day, with an absolute and 
 even derisive incredulity which dispenses with all 
 examination of the evidence. Although they may be 
 entirely unable to give a satisfactory explanation of 
 some phenomena that have taken place, they never 
 on that account dream of ascribing them to super- 
 natural agency, such, an hypothesis being, as they 
 believe, altogether beyond the range of reasonable 
 discussion. Yet, a few centuries ago, there was no 
 solution to which the mind of man turned more 
 readily in every perplexity. A miraculous account 
 was then universally accepted as perfectly credible, 
 probable, and ordinary. There was scarcely a village 
 or a church that had not, at some time, been the 
 scene of supernatural interposition. The powers of 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 RATIONALISM IX EUROPE. 
 
 light and the powers of darkness were regarded as 
 visibly struggling for the mastery. Saintly miracles, 
 supernatural cures, startling judgments, visions, 
 prophecies, and prodigies of every order, attested the 
 activity of the one ; while witchcraft and magic, with 
 all their attendant horrors, were the visible manifes- 
 tations of the other. 
 
 I propose in the present chapter to examine that 
 vast department of miracles, which is comprised under 
 the several names of witchcraft, magic, and sorcery. 
 It is a subject which has, I think, scarcely obtained 
 the position it deserves in the history of opinions, 
 having been too generally treated in the spirit of the 
 antiquarian, as if it belonged entirely to the past, and 
 could have no voice or bearing upon the controversies 
 of the present. Yet, for more than fifteen hundred 
 years, it was universally believed that the Bible es- 
 tablished, in the clearest manner, the reality of the 
 crime, and that an amount of evidence, so varied and 
 so ample as to preclude the very possibility of doubt, 
 attested its continuance and its prevalence. The 
 clergy denounced it with all the emphasis of authority. 
 The legislators of almost every land enacted laws for 
 its punishment. Acute judges, whose lives were 
 spent in sifting evidence, investigated the question 
 on countless occasions, and condemned the accused. 
 Tens of thousands of victims perished by the most 
 agonising and protracted torments, without exciting 
 the faintest compassion ; and, as they were for the 
 most part extremely ignorant and extremely poor, 
 sectarianism and avarice had but little influence on 
 the subject. 1 Nations that were completely separated 
 
 1 The general truth of this be questioned, though there are, 
 statement can scarcely, I thiuk, nnduwbtedly, a few remarkable
 
 MAGIC ASD WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 "by position, by interests, and by character, on this 
 one question were united. In almost every province 
 of Germany, but especially in those where clerical 
 influence predominated, the persecution raged with a 
 fearful intensity. Seven thousand victims are said 
 to have been burned at Treves, six hundred by a 
 single bishop in Bamberg, and nine hundred in a 
 single year in the bishopric of Wurtzburg. 1 In 
 France, decrees were passed on the subject by the 
 Parliaments of Paris, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Rheims, 
 Rouen, Dijon, and Rennes, and they were all followed 
 
 exceptions. Tims, the Templars 
 were accused of sorcery, when 
 Philip the Beautiful wished to 
 confiscate their property ; and 
 the heretical opinions of the 
 Vfindois may possibly have had 
 something to say to the trials 
 at Arras, in 1459 ; and, indeed, 
 the name Vauderie was at one 
 time given to sorcery. There 
 were, moreover, a few cases of 
 obnoxious politicians and noble- 
 men being destroyed on the ac- 
 cusation ; and during the Com- 
 monwealth there were one or 
 two professional witch-finders 
 in England. We have also to 
 take into account some cases of 
 Convent scandals, such as those 
 of Gauflfridi, Grandier, and La 
 Cadiere ; but, when all these 
 deductions have been made, the 
 prosecutions for witchcraft will 
 represent the action of undi- 
 luted superstition more faith- 
 fully than probably any others 
 that could be named. The over- 
 whelming majority of witches 
 were extremely poor they were 
 condemned by the highest and 
 purest tribunals (ecclesiastical 
 and lay) of the time ; and as 
 
 heretics were then burnt with- 
 out difficulty for their opinions, 
 there was little temptation to 
 accuse them of witchcraft, and 
 besides all parties joined cor- 
 dially in the persecution. Gril- 
 landus, an Italian inquisitor of 
 the fifteenth century, says- - 
 ' Isti sortilegi, magici, iiecro- 
 mantici, et similes sunt caeteris 
 Christi tidelibus pauperiores, 
 sorclidiores, viliores, et con- 
 temptibiliores, in hoc mundo 
 Deo permittente ealamitosam 
 vitam communiter pcragunt, 
 Deum verum infelici morte 
 perdunt et seterni ignis incen- 
 dio cruciantur.' (Dc Sortilegiis, 
 cap. iii.) We shall see here- 
 after'that witchcraft and heresy 
 represent the working of the 
 same spirit on different classes, 
 and therefore usually accom- 
 panied each other. 
 
 1 See the original letter 
 published at Bamberg in 1657, 
 quoted in Cannaert, Proces dcs 
 Sorrier es, p. 145 ; see, too, 
 Wright's Sorcery, vol. i. p. 
 186 ; Michelel, La Sorcierc, 
 p. 10. 
 
 B2
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 by a harvest of blood. At Toulouse, the eeat of the 
 Inquisition, four hundred persons perished for sorcery 
 at a single execution, and fifty at Douay in a single 
 year. Remy, a judge of Nancy, boasted that he had 
 put to death eight hundred witches in sixteen years. 
 The executions that took place at Paris in a few 
 months, were, in the emphatic words of an old writer, 
 ' almost infinite:' l The fugitives who escaped to 
 
 1 On French Witchcraft, see 
 Thiers' Traite des Superstitions, 
 torn. i. pp. 134-136 ; Madden' s 
 History of Phantasmata, vol. i. 
 pp. 306-310 ; Garinet, Histoire 
 de la Magie en France (passim), 
 but especially the Remonstrance 
 of the Parliament of Rouen, in 
 1670, against the pardon of 
 witches, p. 337. Bodin's De- 
 monomanic des Sorciers. The 
 persecution raged with extreme 
 violence all through the south 
 of France. It was a brilliant 
 suggestion of De Lancre, that 
 the witchcraft about Bordeaux 
 might be connected with the 
 number of orchards the Devil 
 being well known to have an 
 especial power over apples. 
 (See the passage quoted in 
 Garinet, p. 176.) We have a 
 fearful illustration of the tena- 
 city of the belief in tlie fact 
 that the superstition still con- 
 tinues, and that blood has in 
 consequence been shed during 
 the present century in the pro- 
 vinces that border on the Pyre- 
 nees. In 1807, a beggar was 
 seized, tortured, and burned 
 alive for sorcery by the inhabi- 
 tants of Mayenne. In IS/iO, 
 the Civil Tribunal of Tarbes 
 tried a man and woman named 
 Soubervie, for having caused 
 the death of a woman named 
 
 Bedouret. They believed that 
 she was a witch, and declared 
 that the priest had told them 
 that she was the cause of an 
 illness under which the woman 
 Soubervie was suffering. They 
 accordingly drew Bedouret into 
 a private room, held her down 
 upon some burning straw, and 
 placed a red-hot iron across her 
 mouth. The unhappy woman 
 soon died in extreme agony. 
 The Soubervies confessed, and 
 indeed exulted in their act. 
 At their trials they obtained 
 the highest possible characters. 
 It was shown that they had 
 been actuated solely by super- 
 stition, and it was urged that 
 they only followed the highest 
 ecclesiastical precedents. The 
 jury recommended them to 
 mercy ; and they were only 
 sentenced to pay twenty-five 
 francs a year to the husband 
 of the victim, and to be im- 
 prisoned for four months. (Cor- 
 dier, Legendes des Hautes Pyre- 
 nees. Lourdes, 1855, pp. 79- 
 88.) In the Rituel Ausciiain, 
 now used in the diocese of 
 Tarbes, it is said ' On doit 
 reconnaitre que non-seulement 
 il peut y avoir ma : s qu'il y a 
 meme quelquefois des personnes 
 qui sontveritablementpossedees 
 des esprits malins.' (Ib. p. 90.)
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 5 
 
 Spain were there seized and burned by the Inquisi- 
 tion. In that country the persecution spread to the 
 smallest towns, and the belief was so deeply rooted 
 in the popular mind, that a sorcerer was burnt as 
 late as 1780. Torquemada devoted himself to the 
 extirpation of witchcraft as zealously as to the extir- 
 pation of heresy, and he wrote a book upon the 
 enormity of the crime. 1 In Flanders the persecution 
 of witches raged through the whole of the sixteenth 
 and the greater part of the seventeenth centuries, and 
 every variety of torture was employed in detecting 
 the criminals. 2 In Italy a thousand persons were 
 executed in a single year in the province of Como ; 
 and in other parts of the country, the severity of the 
 inquisitors at last created an absolute rebellion. 3 
 The same scenes were enacted in the wild valleys of 
 Switzerland and of Savoy. In Geneva, which was 
 then ruled by a bishop, five hundred alleged witches 
 were executed in three months ; forty-eight were 
 
 1 Llorento, History of the ApologiepourlcsGrandsHommcs 
 
 Inquisition (English Transla- soupfonnez de Magie (Paris, 
 
 tion), pp. 129-142. Amongst 1625), pp. 81, 82. See also 
 
 other cases, more than thirty Buckle's History of Civilisation t 
 
 women were burnt at Calha- vol.i.p. 334, note, and Simaricas, 
 
 horra, in 1507. A Spanish De Catholicis Institutionibiis, 
 
 monk, named Castanaga, seems pp. 463-468. 
 to have ventured to qiiestion 2 See a curious collection of 
 
 the justice of the executions as documents on the subject by 
 
 early as 1529 (p. 131). See Cannaert, Froces des Rorcieres 
 
 also Garinet, p. 176; Madden, en Eeffliqne (Gand, 1847). 
 vol. i. pp. 311-315. Toledo 8 Spina, De Strigilms (\b11\ 
 
 was supposed to be the head- cap. xii.; Thiers, vol. i. p. 138; 
 
 quarters of the magicians Madden, vol. i. 305. Peter the 
 
 probably because, in the twelfth Martyr, whom Titian has im- 
 
 and thirteenth centuries, mathe- mortalised, seems to have been 
 
 matics, which were constantly one of the most strenuous of 
 
 confounded with magic, flou- the parsecutors. Spina, Afd. 
 
 rished there more than in any c. ix. 
 other part in Europe. Naud6,
 
 6 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 burnt at Constance or Ravensburg, and eighty in the 
 little town of Valery, in Savoy. 1 In 1670, seventy 
 persons were condemned in Sweden, 2 and a large 
 proportion of them were burnt. And these are only 
 a few of the more salient events in that long seriea 
 of persecutions which extended over almost every 
 country, and continued for centuries with unabated 
 fury. The Church of Rome proclaimed in every way 
 that was in her power the reality and the continued 
 existence of the crime. She strained every nerve to 
 stimulate the persecution. She taught by all her 
 organs that to spare a witch was a direct insult to 
 the Almighty, and to her ceaseless exertions is to be 
 attributed by far the greater proportion of the blood 
 that was shed. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII. issued 
 a bull, which gave a fearful impetus to the persecu- 
 tion, and he it was who commissioned the Inquisitor 
 Sprenger, whose book was long the recognised manual 
 ou the subject, and who is said to have condemned 
 hundreds to death every year. Similar bulls were 
 issued by Julius II. in 1504, and by Adrian VI. in 
 1523. A long series of Provincial Councils asserted 
 the existence of sorcery, and anathematised those 
 
 1 Madden, vol. i. pp. 303, 304. a little village called Morzines 
 
 Michelet, La Sorciere, p. 206. will be found in the Relation 
 
 Sprenger ascribes Tell's shot sur une Epidemic d'Hystero- 
 
 to the assistance of the devil. Dcmonopathie en 1861, par le 
 
 Mall. Mai. (Pars ii. c. xvi.) Docteur A. Constans (Paris, 
 
 Bavoy has always been espe- 1863). Two French writers, 
 
 daily subject to those epi- Allan Kardec and Mirville, 
 
 demies of madness which were have maintained this epidemic 
 
 once ascribed to witches, and to be supernatural. 
 
 Boguet noticed that the prin- 2 Compare Plancey, Diet. 
 
 cipal wizards he had burnt infernal, article Blokula ; 
 
 were from that country. An Hutchinson on Witchcraft, p. 
 
 Extremely curious account of a 55; Madden, vol. i. p. 364. 
 recent epidemic of this kind in
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 7 
 
 who resorted to it. ' The universal practice of the 
 Church was to place magic and sorcery among the 
 reserved cases, and at Prones, to declare magicians 
 and sorcerers excommunicated;' 1 and a form of exor- 
 cism was solemnly inserted in the ritual. Almost all 
 the great works that were written in favour of the 
 executions were written by ecclesiastics. Almost all 
 the lay works on the same side were dedicated to and 
 sanctioned by ecclesiastical dignitaries. Ecclesias- 
 tical tribunals condemned thousands to death, and 
 countless bishops exerted all their influence to mul- 
 tiply the victims. In a word, for many centuries it 
 was universally believed, that the continued existence 
 of witchcraft formed an integral part of the teaching 
 of the Church, and that the persecution that raged 
 through Europe was supported by the whole stress 
 of her infallibility. 3 
 
 Such was the attitude of the Church of Rome with 
 
 1 Thiers, Supirst. vol. i. signification) sans contredire 
 p. 142. visiblement les saintes lettres, 
 
 2 For ample evidence of the la tradition sacree et profane, 
 teaching of Catholicism on the los lois canoniques et civiles et 
 subject, see Maddeu's History 1' experience de tons les sieeles, 
 of Phant. vol. i. pp. 231-248; et suns rejeter avec impudence 
 DCS Monsseaux, Pratiques des 1'autorite irrefragable et infail- 
 Drmons (Paris, 1854), p. 174- lible de 1'Eglise qui lance si 
 177; Thiers' Superat. torn. i. sou vent les foudres de 1'excom- 
 pp. 138-163. The two last- munication contr' eux dans sea 
 mentioned writers were ardent Prones ' (p. 132). So also 
 Catholics. Thiers, who wrote Garinet ' Tons les conciles, 
 in 1678 (I have used the Paris tons les synodes, qui so tinrent 
 edition of 1741), was a very dans^les seize premiers siecles 
 learned and moderate theo- de 1'Eglise, s'elevent centre les 
 logian, and wrote under the sorciers ; tons les ecrivains ec- 
 approbatiou of 'the doctors in clesiastiqiies les condamnent 
 the faculty of Paris :' he says avec plus ou moins do sererite' 
 ' On ne stjauroit nier qn'il y (p. 26). The bull of Innocent 
 ait desmagiciensou des sorciers VIII. is prefixed to the 
 
 (car ces deux mots se preiim-nt 
 ordinaire men t dans la meuie
 
 8 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 reference to this subject, but on this ground the 
 Reformers had no conflict with their opponents. The 
 credulity which Luther manifested on all matters 
 connected with diabolical intervention, was amazing, 
 even for his age ; and, when speaking of witchcraft, 
 his language was emphatic and unhesitating. ' I 
 would have no compassion on these witches,' he ex- 
 claimed, ' I would burn them all ! ' ' In England the 
 establishment of the Reformation was the signal for 
 an immediate outburst of the superstition ; and there, 
 as elsewhere, its decline was represented by the clergy 
 as the direct consequence and the exact measure of 
 the progress of religious scepticism. In Scotland, 
 where the Reformed ministers exercised greater in- 
 fluence than in any other country, and where the 
 witch trials fell almost entirely into their hands, the 
 persecution was proportionately atrocious. Probably 
 the ablest defender of the belief was Glanvil, a clergy- 
 man of the English Establishment ; and one of the 
 most influential was Baxter, the greatest of the Puri- 
 tans. It spread, with Puritanism, into the New World ; 
 and the executions in Massachusetts form one of the 
 darkest pages in the history of America. The greatest 
 religious leader of the last century 2 was among the 
 latest of its supporters. 
 
 If we ask why it is that the world has rejected 
 what was once so universally and so intensely be- 
 lieved, why a narrative of au old woman who had 
 been seen riding on a broom-stick, or who was proved 
 to have transformed herself into a wolf, and to have 
 
 1 ColJoquia de fascinationi- 126, 127. Calvin, also, when 
 
 bus. For the notions of Me- remodelling the laws of Genera, 
 
 lancthon on these subjects, see left those on witchcraft intact. 
 Baxter's World of Spirits, pp. * Wesley.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 9 
 
 devoured the flocks of her neighbours, is deemed so 
 entirely incredible, most persons would probably be 
 unable to give a very definite answer to the question. 
 It is not because we have examined the evidence and 
 found it insufficient, for the disbelief always pre- 
 cedes, when it does not prevent, examination. It is 
 rather because the idea of absurdity is so strongly 
 attached to such narratives, that it is difficult even 
 to consider them with gravity. Yet at one time no 
 Buch improbability was felt, and hundreds of persons 
 have been burnt simply on the two grounds I have 
 mentioned. 
 
 When so complete a change takes place in -public 
 opinion, it may be ascribed to one or other of two 
 causes. It may be the result of a controversy which 
 has conclusively settled the question, establishing to 
 tha satisfaction of all parties a clear preponderance 
 of argument or fact in favour of one opinion, and 
 making that opinion a truism which is accepted by 
 all enlightened men, even though they have not 
 themselves examined the evidence on which it rests. 
 Thus, if any one in a company of ordinarily educated 
 persons were to deny the motion of the eai'th, or the 
 circulation of the blood, his statement would bo 
 received with derision, though it is probable that 
 some of his aiidience would be unable to demonstrate 
 the first truth, and that very few of them could give 
 sufficient reasons for the second. They may not 
 themselves be able to defend their position ; but they 
 are aware that, at certain known periods of history, 
 controversies on those subjects took place, and that 
 known writers then brought forward some definite 
 arguments or experiments, which were ultimately 
 accepted by the whole learned world as rigid and
 
 10 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 conclusive demonstrations. It is possible, also, for 
 as complete a change to be effected by what is called 
 the spirit of the age. The general intellectual ten- 
 dencies pervading the literature of a century pro- 
 foundry modify the character of the public mind. 
 They form a ne'vv tone and habit of thought. They 
 alter the measure of probability. They create new 
 attractions and new antipathies, and they eventually 
 cause as absolute a rejection of certain old opinions 
 as could be produced by the most cogent and 
 definite arguments. 
 
 That the disbelief in witchcraft is to be attributed 
 to this second class of influences ; that it is the 
 result, not of any series of definite arguments, or of 
 new discoveries, but of a gradual, insensible, yet 
 profound modification of the habits of thought pre- 
 vailing in Europe ; that it is, thus, a direct conse- 
 quence of the progress of civilisation, and of ita 
 influence upon opinions ; must be evident to any one 
 who impartially investigates the question. If we 
 ask what new arguments were discovered during the 
 decadence of the belief, we must admit that they 
 vvei-e quite inadequate to account for the change. 
 All that we can say of the unsatisfactory nature of 
 confessions under torture, of the instances of impos- 
 ture that were occasionally discuvei^ed, of the ma., 
 licious motives that may have actuated some of the 
 accusers, might have been said during the darkest 
 periods of the middle ages. The multiplication of 
 books and the increase of knowledge can have added 
 nothing to these obvious arguments. Those who 
 lived when the evidences of witchcraft existed in 
 profusion, and attracted the attention of all classes, 
 aud of all grades of intellect, must surely have beeii
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 11 
 
 as competent judges as ourselves, if tlie question -was 
 merely a question of evidence. The gradual cessa- 
 tion of the accusations was the consequence, and not 
 the cause, of the scepticism. The progress of medi- 
 cal knowledge may have had considerable influence 
 011 the private opinions of some writers on the sub- 
 ject, but it was never influential upon the public 
 rnind, or made the battle ground of the controversy. 
 Indeed, the philosophy of madness is mainly due to 
 Pinel, who wrote long after the superstition had 
 vanished ; and even if witchcraft had been treated as 
 a disease, this would not have destroyed the belief 
 that it was Satanic, in an age when all the more 
 startling diseases were deemed supernatural, and 
 when theologians maintained that Satan frequently 
 acted by the employment of natural laws. One dis- 
 covery, it is true, was made during the discussion, 
 which attracted great attention, and was much in- 
 sisted on by the opponents of the laws against 
 sorcery. It was, that the word translated ' witch ' 
 in the Levitical condemnation may be translated 
 'poisoner.' 1 This discovery in itself is, however, 
 obviously insufficient to account for the change. It 
 does not affect the enormous mass of evidence of the 
 workings of witchcraft, which was once supposed to 
 have placed the belief above the possibility of doubt. 
 It does not affect such passages as the history of the 
 witch of Endor, or of the demoniacs in the !NeAv 
 Testament, to which the believers in witchcraft 
 triumphantly appealed. Assuming the existence of 
 witches assuming that there were really certain 
 
 1 This was first, I believe, other side of the question \va9 
 
 asserted by Wier. In England supported on the Continent by 
 
 it was much maintained during Budin. and in England by 
 
 the reign of Charles IL The Glanvil, More, Casaubon, &o.
 
 12 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 persons who were constantly engaged in inflicting, 
 by diabolical agency, every form of evil on their 
 neighbours, and whose machinations destroyed count- 
 less lives there can be no doubt that these persons 
 should be punished with death, altogether irrespec- 
 tively of any distinct command. The truth is, that 
 the existence of witchcraft was disbelieved before 
 the scriptural evidence of it was questioned. A dis- 
 belief in ghosts and witches was one of the most 
 prominent characteristics of scepticism in the seven- 
 teenth century. At first it was nearly confined to 
 men who were avowedly freethinkers, but gradually 
 it spread over a wider circle, and included almost all 
 the educated, with the exception of a large proper, 
 tion of the clergy. This progress, however, was not 
 effected by any active propagandism. It is not 
 identified with any great book or with any famous 
 writer. It was not the triumph of one scries of 
 arguments over another. On the contrary, no facts 
 are more clearly established in the liteiature of 
 witchcraft than that the movement was mainly 
 silent, unargumentative, and insensible ; that men 
 came gradually to disbelieve in witchcraft, because 
 they came gradually to look upon it as absurd ; and 
 that this new tone of thought appeared, first of all, 
 in those who were least subject to theological in- 
 fluences, and soon spread through the educated laity, 
 and last of all took possession of the clergy. 
 
 It may be stated, I believe, as an invariable truth, 
 that, whenever a religion which rests in a great mea- 
 sure on a system of terrorism, and which paints in 
 dark and forcible colours the misery of men and the 
 power of evil spirits, is intensely realised, it will en- 
 gender the belief in witchcraft or magic. The panic
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 13 
 
 which its teachings will create, will overbalance the 
 faculties of multitudes. The awful images of evil 
 spirits of superhuman power, and of untiring malig- 
 nity, will continually haunt the imagination. They will 
 blend with the illusions of age or sorrow or sickness, 
 and will appear with an especial vividness in the 
 more alarming and unexplained phenomena of nature. 
 This consideration will account for the origin of the 
 conception of magic in those ages when belief is 
 almost exclusively the work of the imagination. At 
 a much later period, the same vivid realisation of 
 diabolical presence will operate powerfully on the 
 conclusions of the reason. We have now passed so 
 completely out of the modes of thought which pre- 
 dominated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
 and we are so firmly convinced of the unreality of 
 witchcraft, that it is only \>y a strong effort of the 
 imagination that we can realise the position of the 
 defenders of the belief. Yet it is, I think, difficult 
 to examine the subject with impartiality, without 
 coming to the conclusion that the historical evidence 
 establishing the reality of witchcraft is so vast and 
 so varied, that nothing but our overwhelming sense 
 of its antecedent improbability and our modern ex- 
 perience of the manner in which it has faded away 
 under the influence of civilisation can justify us in 
 despising it. The defenders of the belief, who were 
 often men of great and distinguished talent, main- 
 tained that there was no fact in all history more fully 
 attested, and that to reject it would be to strike at 
 the root of all historical evidence of the miraculous. 
 The belief implied the continual occurrence of acts of 
 the most extraordinary and impressive character, and 
 of such a nature as to fall strictly within human cog-
 
 14 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 nisance. The subject, as we have seen, was examined 
 in tens of thousands of cases, in almost every country 
 in Europe, by tribunals which included the acutest 
 lawyers and ecclesiastics of the age, on the scene and 
 at the time when the alleged acts had taken place, 
 and with the assistance of innumerable sworn wit- 
 nesses. The judges had no motive whatever to de- 
 sire the condemnation of the accused ; and, as con- 
 viction would be followed by a fearful death, they 
 had the strongest motives to exercise their power 
 with caution and deliberation. The whole force of 
 public opinion was directed constantly and earnestly 
 to the question for many centuries ; and, although 
 there was some controversy concerning the details of 
 witchcraft, the fact of its existence was long consi- 
 dered undoubted. The evidence is essentially cumu- 
 lative. Some cases may be explained by monomania, 
 others by imposture, others by chance coincidences, 
 and others by optical delusions ; but, when we con- 
 sider the multitudes of strange statements that were 
 sworn and registered in legal documents, it is very 
 difficult to frame a general rationalistic explanation 
 which will not involve an extreme improbability. In 
 our own day, it may be said with confidence, that it 
 would be altogether impossible for such an amount 
 of evidence to accumulate round a conception which 
 had no substantial basis in fact. The ages in which 
 witchcraft flourished were, it is true, grossly credu- 
 lous ; and to this fact we attribute the belief, yet we 
 do not reject their testimony on all matters of secular 
 history. If we considered witchcraft probable, a 
 hundredth part of the evidence we possess would 
 have placed it beyond the region of doubt. If it 
 were a natural but a very improbable fact, our reluct-
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 15 
 
 ance to believe it would Lave been completely stifled 
 by the multiplicity of the proofs. 
 
 Now, it is evident that the degree of improbability 
 we attach to histories of witches, will depend, in a 
 great measure, upon our doctrine concerning evil 
 spirits, and upon the degree in which that doctrine is 
 realised. If men believe that invisible beings, of 
 superhuman power, restless activity, and intense 
 malignity, are perpetually haunting the world, and 
 directing all their energies to the temptation and the 
 persecution of mankind ; if they believe that, in past 
 ages, these spirits have actually governed the bodily 
 functions of men, worked miracles, and foi^etold fu- 
 ture events, if all this is believed, not with the dull 
 and languid assent of custom, but with an intensely 
 realised, living, and operative assurance ; if it pre- 
 sents itself to the mind and imagination as a vivid 
 truth, exercising that influence over the reason, and 
 occupying that prominence in the thoughts of men, 
 which its importance would demand, the antecedent 
 improbability of witchcraft would appear far less 
 than if this doctrine was rejected or was unrealised. 
 When, therefore, we find a growing disposition to re- 
 ject every history which involves diabolical interven- 
 tion as intrinsically absurd, independently of any 
 examination of the evidence on which it rests, we 
 may infer from this fact the declining realisation of 
 the doctrine of evil spirits. 
 
 These two considerations will serve, I think, to 
 explain the history of witchcraft, and also to show 
 its great significance and importance as an index of 
 the com*se of civilisation. To follow out the subject 
 into details would require a far greater space than I 
 can assign to it, but I hope to be able to show, suffi-
 
 18 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 ciently, what have been the leading phases through 
 which the belief has passed. 
 
 In the ruder forms of savage life, we find the belief 
 in witchcraft universal ; ' and accompanied, in most 
 instances, by featui-es of peculiar atrocity. The rea- 
 son of this is obvious. Terror is everywhere the be- 
 ginning of religion. The phenomena which impress 
 themselves most forcibly on the mind of the savage 
 are not those which enter manifestly into the se- 
 quence of natural laws and which are productive of 
 most beneficial effects, but those which are disastrous 
 and apparently abnormal. Gratitude is less vivid than 
 fear, and the smallest apparent infraction of a natural 
 law produces a deeper impression than the most sub- 
 lime of its ordinary operations. When, therefore, the 
 more startling and terrible aspects of nature are pre- 
 sented to his mind ; when the more deadly forms of 
 disease or natural convulsion desolate his land, the 
 savage derives from these things an intensely realised 
 perception of diabolical presence. In the darkness of 
 the night ; amid the yawning chasms and the wild 
 echoes of the mountain gorge ; under the blaze of 
 the comet, or the solemn gloom of the eclipse ; when 
 famine has blasted the land ; when the earthquake 
 and the pestilence have slaughtered their thousands ; 
 in every form of disease which refracts and distorts 
 the reason ; in all that is strange, portentous, and 
 deadly, he feels and cowers before the supernatural. 
 Completely exposed to all the influences of nature, 
 and completely ignorant of the chain of sequence 
 that unites its various parts, he lives in continual 
 dread of what he deems the direct and isolated acts 
 
 J On the universality of the of History, b. viii. c. 2 ; Manry, 
 belief, see Herder, Philosophy Histoire de la Magie passim
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 17 
 
 of evil spirits. Feeling them continually near him, 
 he will naturally endeavour to enter into communion 
 with them. He will strive to propitiate them with 
 gifts. If some great calamity has fallen upon him, 
 or if some vengeful passion has mastered his reason, 
 he will attempt to invest himself with their authority; 
 and his excited imagination will soon persuade him 
 that he has succeeded in his dosire. If his abilities 
 and his ambition place him above the common level, 
 he will find in this belief the most ready path to 
 power. By professing to hold communion with and 
 to control supernatural beings, he can exercise an 
 almost boundless influence over those about him ; and, 
 among men who are intensely predisposed to believe 
 in the supernatural, a very little dexterity or ac- 
 quaintance with natural laws will support his preten- 
 sions. By converting the terror which some great 
 calamity has produced into anger against an alleged 
 sorcerer, he can at the same time take a signal ven- 
 geance upon those who have offended him, and in- 
 crease the sense of his own importance. Those whose 
 habits, or appearance, or knowledge, separate them 
 from the multitude, will be naturally suspected of 
 communicating with evil spirits ; and this suspicion 
 will soon become a certainty, if any mental disease 
 should aggravate their peculiarities. In this manner 
 the influences of ignorance, imagination, and impos- 
 ture will blend and co-operate in creating a belief in 
 witchcraft, and in exciting a hatred against those 
 who are suspected of its practice, commensurate with 
 the terror they inspire. 
 
 In a more advanced stage of civilisation, the fear 
 of witches will naturally fade, as the habits of arti- 
 ficial life remove men from those influences which act 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 upon the imagination, and as increasing knowledge 
 explains pome of the more alarming phenomena of 
 nature. The belief, however, that it is possible, by 
 supernatural agency, to inflict evil upon mankind, 
 was general in ancient Greece and Rome ; and St. 
 Augustine assures us that all the sects of philosophers 
 admitted it, with the exception of the Epicureans, 
 who denied the existence of evil spirits. The Decem- 
 virs passed a law condemning magicians to death. 
 A similar law was early enacted in Greece ; and, in 
 the days of Demosthenes, a sorceress named Lamia 
 was actually executed. 1 The philosophy of Plato, by 
 greatly aggrandising the sphere of the spiritual, did 
 much to foster the belief; and we find that when- 
 ever, either before or after the Christian era, that 
 philosophy has been in the ascendant, it has been 
 accompanied by a tendency to magic. Besides this, 
 the ancient civilisations were never directed earnestly 
 to the investigation of natural phenomena ; and the 
 progress made in this respect was, in consequence, 
 very small. On the whole, however, the persecution 
 seems to have been, in those countries, almost en- 
 tirely free from religious fanaticism. The magician 
 was punished because he injured man, and not be- 
 cause he offended God. 
 
 In one respect, during the later period of Pagan 
 Rome, the laws against magic seem to have revived, 
 and to have taken a somewhat different form, with- 
 out, however, representing any phase of a religious 
 movement, but simply a political requirement. 
 Under the head of magic were comprised some astro- 
 logical and other methods of foretelling the future ; 
 and it was found that these practices had a strong 
 
 1 Pausuuias.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 19 
 
 tendency to foster conspiracies against the emperors. 
 The soothsayer often assured persons that they were 
 destined to assume the purple, and in that way 
 stimulated them to rebellion. By casting the horo- 
 scope of the reigning emperor, he had ascertained, 
 according to the popular belief, the period in which 
 the government might be assailed with most prospect 
 of success ; and had thus proved a constant cause of 
 agitation. Some of the forms of magic had also 
 been lately imported into the empire from Greece, 
 and were therefore repugnant to the conservative 
 spirit that was dominant. Several of the emperors, 
 in consequence, passed edicts against the magicians, 
 which were executed with considerable though some- 
 what spasmodic energy. 1 But although magicians 
 were occasionally persecuted, it is not to be inferred 
 from this that everything that was comprised under 
 the name of magic was considered morally wrong. 
 On tha contrary, many of the systems of divination 
 formed an integral part of religion. Some of the 
 more public modes of foretelling the future, such as 
 the oracles of the gods, were still retained and 
 honoured ; and a law, which made divination con- 
 cerning the future of the emperor high treason, shows 
 clearly the spirit in which the others were sup- 
 pressed. The emperors desired to monopolise the 
 knowledge of the future, and consequently drew 
 many astrologers to their courts, while they banished 
 them from other parts of the kingdom. 2 They were 
 so far from attaching the idea of saci^ilege to prac- 
 
 1 This very obscure branch learr.ed and able work, from 
 of the subject has been most which I have derived great 
 admirably treated by Maury, assistance, 
 Histoire de la Magie (Paris, 2 Maury, ch. iv. 
 I860), pp. 78-85. An extremely 
 
 C2
 
 20 RATIONALISM 3N EUROPE. 
 
 tices which enabled them to foretell coming events, 
 that Marcus Aurelius and -Julian, -who were both 
 passionately attached to their religion, and who were 
 among the best men who have ever sat upon a 
 throne, were among the most ardent of the patrons 
 of the magicians. 
 
 Such was the somewhat anomalous position of the 
 magicians in the last days of Pagan Rome, and it 
 acquires a great interest from its bearing on the 
 policy of the Christian emperors. 
 
 When the Christians were first scattered through 
 the Roman empire, they naturally looked upon this 
 question with a very different spirit from that of the 
 heathen. Inspired by an intense religious enthu- 
 siasm, which they were nobly sealing with their 
 bbod, they thought much less of the civil than of 
 the religious consequences of magic, and sacrilege 
 seemed nrach more terrible in their eyes than anar- 
 chy. Their position, acting upon some of their dis- 
 tinctive doctrines, had filled them with a sense of 
 Satanic presence, which must have shadowed every 
 portion of their belief, and have predisposed them to 
 discover diabolical influence in every movement of the 
 pagan. The fearful conception of eternal punish- 
 ment, adopted in its most material form, had flashed 
 with its full intensity upon their minds. They 
 believed that this was the destiny of all who were 
 beyond the narrow circle of their Church, and that 
 their persecutors were doomed to agonies of especial 
 poignancy. The whole world was divided between 
 the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. 
 The persecuted Church represented the first, the 
 persecuting world the second. In every scoff that 
 was directed against their creed, in every edict that
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 21 
 
 menaced their persons, in every interest that opposed 
 their progress, they perceived the direct and imme- 
 diate action of the devil. They found a great and 
 ancient religion subsisting around them. Its gor- 
 geous rites, its traditions, its priests, and its miracles, 
 had pre-occupied the public mind, and presented 
 what seemed at first an insuperable barrier to their 
 mission. In this religion they saw the especial 
 workmanship of the devil, and their strong predis- 
 position to interpret every event by a miraculous 
 standard persuaded them that all its boasted prodi- 
 gies were real. Nor did they find any difficulty in 
 explaining them. The world they belieA'ed to be full 
 of malignant demons, who had in all ages persecxited 
 and deluded ' mankind. From the magicians of 
 Egypt to the demoniacs of the New Testament, their 
 power had been continually manifested. In the 
 chosen land they could only persecute and afflict ; 
 but, among the heathen, they possessed supreme 
 power, and were universally worshipped as divine. 
 
 This doctrine, which was the natural consequence 
 of the intellectual condition of the age, acting upon 
 the belief in evil spirits, and upon the scriptural 
 accounts of diabolical intervention, had been still 
 further strengthened by those Platonic theories which, 
 in their Alexandrian form, had so profoundly influ- 
 enced the early teachings of the Church. 1 According 
 to these theories, the immediate objects of the de- 
 votions of the pagan world were subsidiary spirits of 
 finite power and imperfect morality angels, or, as 
 
 1 On the doctrine of the on the Platonic theory, which 
 
 demons, in its relation to occupies the greater part of the 
 
 heathen worship, see the chap- eighth book of the De Civitate 
 
 ter on Neo-Platonism in Maury, Dei. 
 and the curious argument based
 
 22 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 they were then called, demons who acted the part 
 of mediators ; and who, by the permission of the 
 supreme and inaccessible Deity, regulated the religious 
 government of mankind. In this manner a compro- 
 misewas effected between monotheism and polytheism 
 The religion of the state was true a-nd lawful, but it 
 was not irreconcilable with pure theism. The Chris- 
 tians had adopted this conception of subsidiary spirits ; 
 but they maintained them to be not the willing 
 agents, bat the adversaries, of the Deity ; and the 
 word demon, which, among the pagans, signified 
 only a spirit below the level of a Divinity, among 
 the Christians signified a devil. 
 
 This notion seems to have existed in the very 
 earliest period of Christianity ; and, in the second 
 century, we find it elaborated with most minute and 
 detailed care. Tertullian, who wrote in that century, 
 assures us that the world was full of these evil spirits, 
 whose influence might be descried in every portion 
 of the pagan creed. Some of them belonged to that 
 band of rebels who had been precipitated with Satan 
 into the abyss. Others were the angels who, in the 
 antediluvian world, had become attached to the 
 daughters of men ; and who, having taught them to 
 dye wool, and to commit the still more fearful offence 
 of painting their faces, had been justly doomed to 
 eternal suffering. 1 These were now seeking in every 
 
 1 DeCttltu Foeminarum, lib. i. were attached to the antedilu- 
 
 c. 2. This curious notion is vians were possibly devils 
 
 given on the authority of the incubi, as they were called 
 
 prophecy of Enoch, which was and that the word angel in the 
 
 thought by some and Tertul- writings attributed to Enoch, 
 
 Han seems to have inclined to and in all parts of Scripture, 
 
 their opinion to be authorita- signifying only messenger, may 
 
 five Scripture. St. Augustine be applied to any spirit, good 
 
 suggests that tho ' angels ' who or bad (De Civ. Dei, lib, xv.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 23 
 
 way to thwart the purposes of the Almighty, and 
 their especial delight was to attract to themselves the 
 worship which was due to Him alone. Not only the 
 more immoral deities of heathenism, not only such 
 divinities as Venus, or Mars, or Mercury, or Pluto, but 
 also those who appeared the most pure, were literally 
 and undoubtedly diabolical. Minerva, the personifi- 
 cation of wisdom, was a devil, and so was Diana, the 
 type of chastity, and so was Jupiter, the heathen 
 conception of the Most High. The spirits who were 
 worshipped under the names of departed heroes, arid 
 who were supposed to have achieved so many acts of 
 splendid and philanthropic heroism, were all devils 
 who had assumed the names of the dead. The same 
 condemnation was passed upon those bright creations 
 of a poetic fancy, the progenitors of the mediaeval 
 fairies, the nymphs and dryads who peopled every 
 grove and hallowed every stream. 1 The air was filled 
 with unholy legions, 2 and the traditions of every land 
 were replete with their exploi ts. The immortal lamp, 
 which burnt with an unfading splendour in the tem- 
 ple of Venus ; the household gods that were trans- 
 ported by invisible hands through the air ; the miracles 
 which clustered so thickly around the vestal virgins, 
 the oracular shrines, and the centres of Roman power, 
 
 cap. 23). This rule of inter- Poissy, for the preservation 
 
 pretation had, as we shall see, of the nuns from their power 
 
 an important influence on the (I)es Monsseaux, Pratiques des 
 
 later theology of witchcraft. Demons, p. 81). 
 
 1 Much the same notions '- One sect of heretics of the 
 were long after held about fourth century the Messalians 
 the fairies. A modern French went so far as to make spit- 
 writer states, that till near the ting a religious exercise, in 
 middle of the eighteenth cen- V>pes of thus casting- out the 
 tury, a muss was annually dovils they inhaled. (Maury, 
 celebrated iu the Abbey of p. 317.)
 
 24 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 were all attestations of tlieir presence. Under the 
 names of Sylvans and Fauns, and Dusii, they had not 
 only frequently appeared among mankind, but had 
 made innumerable women the objects of their passion. 
 This fact was so amply attested, that it appears im- 
 pudence to deny it.' Persons possessed with devils 
 
 1 'Hoc negare impudentiae 
 videatur ' (St. Aug. l)v Civ. Dei, 
 lib. xv. cap. 23). The Saint, 
 however, proceeds to say, ' Non 
 hie aliquid audeo temere defi- 
 nire.' See also Justin Martyr, 
 A p. c. v. The same notion was 
 perpetuated through the suc- 
 ceeding ages, and marriage 
 with devils was long one of 
 the most ordinary accusations 
 iu the witch trials. The devils 
 who appeared in the female 
 form were generally called 
 succubi ; those who appeared 
 like men, incubi (though this 
 distinction was not always pre- 
 served). The former were com- 
 paratively rare, but Bodin 
 mentions a priest who had 
 commerce with one for more 
 than forty years, and another 
 priest who found a faithful 
 mistress in a devil for half a 
 century : they were both burnt 
 alive (Demonomanie des Sor- 
 cif.rs, p. 107). Luther was a 
 firm believer in this intercourse 
 (Ibid). The incubi were much 
 more common ; and hundreds, 
 perhaps thousands, of women 
 have been burnt on account 
 of the belief in them. It 
 was observed that th*-.y had a 
 peculiar attachment to women 
 with beautiful hair; and it was 
 an old Catholic belief that 
 St. Paul alluded to this in 
 that somewhat curious passage, 
 
 in which he exhorts women 
 to cover their heads because 
 of the ' angels ' (Sprenger, 
 Mall. Mai. Pars i. Qusest. 4 ; 
 and Pars ii. Quaest. 2). The 
 incubi generally h.id no children, 
 but there were some excep- 
 tions to this rule, for Nider 
 the inquisitor assures us that 
 the island of Cyprus was en- 
 tirely peopled by their sons 
 (Mall. Maliji. p. 522), and a 
 similar p irentage was ascribed 
 to the Huns. The ordinary 
 phenomenon of nightmare, as 
 the name imports, was asso- 
 ciated with this belief (see a 
 curious passage in Bodin, p. 
 109). The Dusii, whose ex- 
 ploits St. Augustine mentions, 
 were Celtic spirits, and are the 
 origin of our ' Deuce ' (Maury, 
 p. 189). For the much more 
 cheerful views of th Cabalisr?, 
 and other secret societies of 
 the middle ages, concerning 
 the intercourse of philosophers 
 with sylphs, salamanders, &c., 
 see that very curious and 
 amusing book, Le Comte de 
 Gabalis, ou F.ntretuns sur ha 
 Sciences secretes (Paris, 1671). 
 Lilith, the first wife of Adam, 
 concerning whom the llabbini- 
 cal traditions are so full, who 
 was said to suck the blood of 
 infants, and from whose name 
 the word lullaby (Lili AbO is 
 supposed by some to have been
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 25 
 
 were constantly liberated by tlie Christians, and 
 tombs of the exorcists have been discovered in the 
 catacombs. If a Christian in any respect deviated 
 from the path of duty, a visible manifestation of the 
 devil sometimes appeared to terrify him. A Christian 
 lady, in a fit of thoughtless dissipation, went to the 
 theatre, and at the theatre she became possessed 
 with a devil. The exorcist remonstrated with the 
 evil spirit on the presumption of its act. The devil 
 replied apologetically, that it had found the woman 
 in its house. 1 The rites of paganism had in some 
 degree pervaded all departments of life, and all were 
 therefore tainted with diabolical influence. In the 
 theatre, in the circus, in the market-place, in all the 
 public festivals, there wan something which manifested 
 their presence. A Christian soldier, oiione occasion, 
 refused even to wear a festal crown, because laurels 
 had been originally dedicated to Bacchus and Venus; 
 and endured severe punishment rather than comply 
 with the custom. Much discussion was elicited by 
 the transaction, but Tertullian wrote a treatise 2 
 maintaining that the martyr had only complied with 
 his strict duty. 
 
 derived, was long regarded as ears. To pass to a much later 
 
 the queen of the succubi (Plan- period, St. Gregory the Great, 
 
 cey, Diet, inf., art. LttitK). in the sixth century, mentions 
 
 The Greeks believed that night- a nun who, when walking in a, 
 
 mare resulted from the presence garden, began to eat without 
 
 of a demon named Ephialtes. making the sign of the cross. 
 
 1 Tertuliian, De Spectaculis, She had bitter cause to repent 
 
 cap. xxvi. Another woman, of her indecent haste, for she 
 
 this writer assures us, having immediately swallowed a devil 
 
 gone to see, an actor, dreamed in a lettuce (Dialogi, lib. i. c. 4). 
 
 all the following night of a The whole passage, which is 
 
 winding-sheet, and heard tlie rather long for quotation, is ex- 
 
 at-tor's name ringing, with t.ivmely curious, 
 
 frightful reproaches, in her 2 Ite Coroii&.
 
 26 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 The terror which such a doctrine must have spread 
 among the early Christians may be easily conceived. 
 They seemed to breathe an atmosphere of miracles. 
 Wherever they turned they were surrounded and be- 
 leaguered by malicious spirits, who were perpetually 
 manifesting their presence by supernatural acts. 
 Watchful fiends stood beside every altar ; they min- 
 gled with every avocation of life, and the Christians 
 were the special objects of their hatred. All this was 
 universally believed ; and it was realised with an 
 intensity which, in this secular age, we can scarcely 
 conceive. It was realised as men realise religious 
 doctrines, when they have devoted to them the un- 
 divided energies of their lives, and when their faith 
 has been intensified in the furnace of persecution. 
 
 The bearing of this view upon the conception of 
 magic is very obvious. Among the more civilised 
 pagans, as we have seen, magic was mainly a civil, 
 and in the last days of the empire, mainly apolitical, 
 crime. In periods of great political insecmity it as- 
 sumed considerable importance ; at other periods it 
 fell completely into the background. Its relation to 
 the prevailing religion was exceedingly indeterminate, 
 and it comprised many rites that were not regarded 
 as in any degree immoral. In the early Church, on 
 the other hand, it was esteemed the most horrible 
 form of sacrilege effected by the direct agency of evil 
 spirits. It included the whole system of paganism, 
 explained all its prodigies, and gave a fearful signifi- 
 cance to all its legends. It assumed, inconsequence, 
 an extraordinary importance in the patristic teaching; 
 and acted strongly and continually on the imagina- 
 tions of the people. 
 
 When the Church obtained the direction of the
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 27 
 
 civil power, she soon modified or abandoned the 
 tolerant maxims she had formerly inculcated ; and, in 
 the course of a few years, restrictive laws were en- 
 acted, both against the Jews and against the heretics. 
 It appears, however, that the multitude of pagans, in 
 the time of Constantine, was still so great, and the 
 zeal of the emperor so languid, that he at first shrank 
 from directing his laws openly and avowedly against 
 the old faith, and an ingenious expedient was devised 
 for sapping it at its base, under the semblance of the 
 ancient legislation. Magic, as I have said, among 
 the Romans, included, not only those appeals to evil 
 spirits, and those modes of inflicting evil on others, 
 which had always been denounced as sacrilegious, but 
 also certain methods of foretelling the future, which 
 Avere not regarded as morally wrong, but only as 
 politically dangerous. This latter department formed 
 an offshoot of the established religion, and had never 
 been separated from it with precision. The laws had 
 been devised for the purpose of preventing rebellions 
 or imposition, and they had been executed in that 
 spirit. The Christian emperors revived these laws, 
 and enforced them with extreme severity, but directed 
 them against the religion of the pagans l At first, 
 that secret magic which the decemvirs had prohibited, 
 but which had afterwards come into general use, was 
 alone condemned ; but, in the course of a few reigns, 
 the circle of legislation expanded, till it included the 
 whole system of paganism. 
 
 Almost immediately after his conversion, Constan- 
 tine enacted an extremely severe law against secret 
 
 1 The history of this move- Sv.r la Magie, and also by 
 ment has been traced with Beugnof, Destruction du Pagan- 
 masterly ability b'y Maury, isme dans I' Occident.
 
 28 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 magic. He decreed that any aruspex who entered 
 into the house of a citizen, for the purpose of cele- 
 brating his rites, should be burnt alive, the property 
 of his employers confiscated, and the accuser re- 
 warded. 1 Two years later, however, a proclamation 
 was issued which considerably attenuated the force 
 of this enactment, for it declared that it was not the 
 intention of the Emperor to prohibit magical rites, 
 which were designed to discover remedies for diseases, 
 or to protect the harvests from hail, snow, or tempests. 2 
 This partial tolerance continued till the death of 
 Constantine, but completely passed away under his 
 successor. Constantius appeal's to have been governed 
 by far stronger convictions than his father. He had 
 embraced the Arian heresy, and is said to have been 
 much influenced by the Arian priests ; and he directed 
 his laws with a stern and almost passionate eagerness 
 against the forms of magic which verged most closely 
 upon the pagan worship. At the beginning of one 
 of these laws, he complained that many had been 
 producing tempests, and destroying the lives of their 
 enemies by the assistance of the demons, and he pro- 
 ceeded to prohibit in the sternest manner, and under 
 pain of the severest penalties, every kind of magic. 
 All who attempted to foretell the future the augurs, 
 as well as the more irregular diviners were em- 
 phatically condemned. Magicians who were cap- 
 tured in Rome were to be thrown to the wild beasts ; 
 
 1 Codex Theodosianus, lib. ix. tempt on the art of foretelling' 
 tit. xvi. c. 1, 2. The pagan his- (lib. ii. c. 29); and Eusebius 
 torian Zosimus observes, that classifies his prohibition of 
 when Constantine had aban- prophecy with the measures 
 doned his country's gods, ' he directed openly against pagan- 
 made this beginning of im- ism ( Vita Const, lib. i. c. 16). 
 piety, that he looked with cou- * Cod. Th. lib. ix t. xvi. 1. 3.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 29 
 
 nnd those who were seized in the provinces to be put 
 to excruciating torments, and at last crucified. If 
 they persisted in denying their crime, their flesh was 
 to be torn from their bcnes with hooks of iron. 1 
 These fearful penalties were directed against those 
 who practised rites which had long been universal ; 
 and which, if they were not regarded as among the 
 obligations, were, at least, among the highest privi- 
 leges of paganism. It has been observed as a significant 
 fact, that in this reign the title ' enemies of the 
 human race,' which the old pagan laws had applied 
 to the Christians, and which proved so effectual in 
 exasperating the popular mind, was transferred to the 
 magicians. 2 
 
 The task of the Christian emperors in combating 
 magic was, in truth, one of the most difficult that 
 can be conceived ; and all the penalties that Roman 
 
 1 Cod. Th. lib. ix. t. xvi. 1. 4, the nature of the punishments 
 5, 6. The language is curious that were employed, compare 
 and very peremptory thus, we the Commentary on the law, in 
 read in law 4: 'Nemo harus- Hitter's edition (Leipsic, 1738), 
 picem cosnulat, aut mathemati- and Beugnot, torn. i. p. 143. 
 cum, nemo hariolum. Augurum * Beugnot, torn. i. p. 148. 
 et vat urn prava confe?sio conti- On these laws, M. Maury well 
 cescat. Chaldsei ar, magi et says : 'Dela sorte se trouvaient 
 ceteri quos maleficos ob faciuo- atteints les ministres du poly- 
 rum magnitudinem vulgus ap- theisme les plus en credit, les 
 pellat, nee ad hanc p-rtem pratiques qui inspiraierit a la 
 aliquid moliantur. Sileat om- superstition le plus deconfiance 
 nibus perpetuo divinandi curio- .... Bien des gens ne s 
 sitas: etenim supplicium,capitis soiioiaient plus de rendre aux 
 feret gladio ultore prostratus dieux le culte legal et conacre ; 
 quieunque juyisis obsequium mais les oracles, les augures, 
 denegaverit.' Another law (6) les presages, presque tons les 
 concludes : ' Si convictus ad pai'ens y recouraient avec con- 
 proprium facinus detegentibus fiance, et leur en enlever la 
 repugnaverit pernegando sit pos-.sibilite c'etait les depouil- 
 eculeo deditus, ungulisque sul- lev de ce qui faisait leur con- 
 cantibus latera perferat poenas solation et leur joie ' (pp. 117, 
 proprio dignas facinore.' On 118).
 
 30 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 barbarity could devise, were unable to destroy pric- 
 tices which were the natural consequence of the pre- 
 vailing credulity. As long as men believed that they 
 could easily ascertain the future, it was quite certain 
 that curiosity would at length overpower fear. As 
 long as they believed that a few simple rites could 
 baffle their enemies, and enable them to achieve their 
 most cherished desires, they would most unquestion- 
 ably continue to practise them. Priests might 
 fulminate their anathemas, and emperors multiply 
 their penalties ; but scepticism, and not terrorism, 
 was the one corrective for the evil. This scepticism 
 was nowhere to be found. The populace never 
 questioned for a moment the efficacy of magic. The 
 pagan philosophers were all infatuated by the dreams 
 of Neo-Platonism, and were writing long books on the 
 mysteries of Egypt, the hierarchy of spirits, and their 
 intercourse with men. The Fathers, it is true, vehe- 
 mently denounced magic, but they never seem to 
 have had the faintest suspicion that it was a delusion. 
 If Christianity had nothing to oppose to the fascina- 
 tion of these forbidden rites, it would have been im- 
 possible to prevent the immense majority of the 
 people from reverting to them ; but, by a very natural 
 process, a series of conceptions were rapidly intro- 
 duced into theology, which formed what may be 
 termed a rival system of magic, in which the talis- 
 manic virtues of holy water, and of Christian cere- 
 monies, became a kind of counterpoise to the virtue 
 of unlawful charms. It is very remarkable, however, 
 that, while these sacred talismans were indefinitely 
 multiplied, the other great fascination of magic, the 
 power of predicting the future, was never claimed by 
 the Christian clergy. II' the theory of the writers of
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 31 
 
 the eighteenth century had been correct ; if the 
 superstitious that culminated in medievalism had 
 been simply the result of the knavery of the clergy ; 
 this would most certainly not have been the case. 
 The Christian priests, like all other priests, would 
 have pandered to the curiosity which was universal, 
 and something analegous to the ancient oracles o.r 
 auguries would have been incorporated into the 
 Church. Nothing of this kind took place, because 
 the change which passed over theology was the result, 
 not of imposture, but of a normal development. No 
 part of Christianity had a tendency to develope into 
 an oracular system : and had such a system arisen, 
 it would have been the result of deliberate fraud. On 
 the other hand, there were many conceptions con- 
 nected with the faith, especially concerning the effi- 
 cacy of baptismal water, which, under the pressure of 
 a materialising age, passed, by an easy and natural, 
 if not legitimate transition, into a kind of fetishism, 
 assimilating with the magical notions that were so 
 universally diffused. 
 
 St. Jerome, in his life of St. Hilarion, relates a 
 miracle of that saint which refers to a period a few 
 years after the death of Constantius, and which 
 shows clearly the position that Christian ceremonies 
 began to occupy with reference to magic. It appears 
 that a Christian, named Italicus, was accustomed to 
 race horses against the pagan duumvir of Gaza, and 
 that this latter personage invariably gained the vic- 
 tory, by means of magical rites, which stimulated his 
 own horses, and paralysed those of his opponent. 
 The Christian, in despair, had recourse to St. Hilariou. 
 The saint appears to have been, at first, somewhat 
 startled at the application, aud rather shiuiik from
 
 32 EATIOXALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 participating actively in horse-racing ; but Italicoaat 
 last persuaded him that the cause was worthy of hi8 
 intervention, and obtained a bowl of water which 
 Hilarion himself had consecrated, and which was 
 therefore endowed with a peculiar virtue. At length 
 the day of the races arrived. The chariots were 
 placed side by side, and the spectators thronged the 
 circus. As the signal for the start was given, Italicus 
 sprinkled his horses with the holy water. Imme- 
 diately the chariot of the Christian flew with a 
 supernatural rapidity to the goal ; while the horses 
 of his adversary faltered and staggered, as if they 
 had been struck by an invisible hand. The circus 
 rang with wild cries of wonder, of joy, or of anger. 
 Some called for the death of the Christian magician, 
 but many others abandoned paganism in consequence 
 of the miracle. 1 
 
 The persecution which Constantius directed against 
 the magicians was of course suspended under Julian, 
 whose spirit of toleration, when we consider the age 
 he lived in, the provocations he endured, and the in- 
 tense religious zeal he manifested, is one of the most 
 remarkable facts in history. He was passionately 
 devoted to those forms of magic which the pagan 
 religion admitted, and his palace was always thronged 
 with magicians. The consultation of the entrails, 
 which Constantius had forbidden, was renewed at the 
 coronation of Julian ; and it was reported among the 
 Christians, that they presented, on that occasion, the 
 
 1 Vita Sancti HVanoms. This hundred persons in a little more 
 
 miracle is related by Beugnot. than a month, driving away 
 
 The whole life of St. Hilarion serpents, &c., we find the saint 
 
 is crowded with prodigies that producing rain with the same 
 
 illustrate the view taken in the facility as the later witches, 
 text. Besides curing about two
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 33 
 
 form of a cross, surmounted by a crown.. 1 During 
 the short reign of Jovian, the same tolerance seems 
 to have continued ; but Yalentinian renewed the per- 
 secution, and made another law against ' impious 
 prayers and midnight sacrifices,' which were still 
 offered. 2 This law excited so much discontent in 
 Greece, where it w r as directly opposed to the esta- 
 blished religion, that Valentinian consented to its 
 remaining inoperative in that province ; but, in other 
 portions of the Empire, fearful scenes of suffering 
 and persecution were everywhere witnessed. 3 In 
 the East, Valens was persecuting, with impartial 
 zeal, all who did not adopt the tenets of the Arian 
 heresy. 'The very name of philosopher,' as it has 
 been said, became ' a title of proscription ;' and the 
 most trivial offences were visited with death. One 
 philosopher was executed, because, in a private letter, 
 he had exhorted his wife not to forget tc crown the 
 portal of the door. An old woman perished, because 
 she endeavoured to allay the paroxysms of a fever by 
 magical songs. A young man, who imagined that he 
 could cure an attack of diarrhoea by touching alter- 
 nately a marble pillar and his body, while he re- 
 peated the vowels, expiated this not very alarming 
 superstition by torture and by death. 4 
 
 In reviewing these persecutions, which were di- 
 rected by the orthodox and by the Arians against 
 magicians, we must carefully guard against some 
 natural exaggerations. It would be very unfair to 
 attribute directly to the leaders of the Church the 
 
 1 St. Gregory Nazianzen (3rd s Maury, pp. 118, 119. 
 Oration against Julian). 4 Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. 
 
 8 Cod. Th. lib. ix. t. xvi. 1. 7, xxix. c. 1, 2. 
 &c. 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 edicts that produced them. It would be still more 
 unfair to attribute to them the spii-it in which those 
 edicts were executed. Much allowance must be 
 made for the personal barbarity of certain emperors 
 and prefects ; for the rapacity that made them seek 
 for pretexts by which they might confiscate the pro- 
 perty of the wealthy ; and for the alarm that was 
 created by every attempt to discover the successor to 
 the throne. We have positive evidence that one or 
 other of these three causes was connected with most 
 of the worst outbursts of persecution ; and we know, 
 from earlier history, that persecutions for magic had 
 taken place on political as well as on religious 
 grounds, long before Christianity had triumphed. 
 We must not, again, measure the severity of the per- 
 secution by the precise language of the laws. If we 
 looked simply at the written enactments, we should 
 conclude that a considerable portion of the pagan 
 worship was, at an early period, absolutely and uni- 
 versally suppressed. In practice, however, the law 
 was constantly broken. A general laxity of adminis- 
 tration had pervaded all parts of the empire, to an 
 extent which the weakest modern governments have 
 seldom exhibited. Popular prejudice ran counter to 
 many of the enactments ; and the rulers frequently 
 connived at their infraction. We find, therefore, 
 that the application of the penalties that were decreed 
 was irregular, fitful, and uncertain. Sometimes they 
 were enforced with extreme severity. Sometimes 
 the forbidden rites were practised without disguise. 
 Very frequently, in one part of the empire, perse- 
 cution raged fiercely, while in another part it was 
 nnknown. When, however, all these qualifying cir- 
 cumstances have been admitted, it remains clear that
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCKAFT. 35 
 
 a series of laws were directed against rites which 
 were entirely innocuous, and which had been long 
 universally practised, as parts of the pagan worship, 
 for the purpose of sapping the religion from which 
 they sprang. It is also clear that the ecclesiastical 
 leaders all believed in the reality of magic ; and that 
 they had vastly increased the popular sense of its 
 enormity, by attributing to all the pagan rites a 
 magical character. Under Theodosius, this phase of 
 the history of magic terminated. In the beginning 
 of his reign, that emperor contented himself with re- 
 iterating the proclamations of his predecessors ; but 
 he soon cast off all disguise, and prohibited, under 
 the severest penalties, every portion of the pagan 
 worship. 
 
 Such was the policy pursued by the early Church 
 towards the magicians. It exercised ia some respects 
 a very important influence upon later history. In 
 the first place, a mass of tradition was formed which, 
 in later ages, placed the reality of the crime above 
 the possibility of doubt. In the second place, the 
 nucleus of fact, around which the fables of the inqui- 
 sitors were accumulated, was considerably enlarged. 
 By a curious, but very natural transition, a great 
 portion of the old pagan worship passed from the 
 sphere of religion into that of magic. The country 
 people continued, in secrecy and danger, to practise 
 the rites of their forefathers. They were told that, 
 by those rites, they were appealing to powerful and 
 malicious spirits ; and, after several generations, 
 they came to believe what they were told ; without, 
 however, abandoning the practices that were con- 
 demned. It is easier for superstitious men, in a 
 superstitious age, to change all the notions that are 
 D2
 
 36 RATIONALISM IN KUROPE. 
 
 associated with their rites, than to free their minds 
 from their influence. Religions never trnly perish, 
 except by a natural decay. In the towns, paganism 
 had arrived at the last stage of decrepitude, when 
 Christianity arose ; and, therefore, in the towns, the 
 victory of Christianity was prompt and decisive ; but, 
 in the country, paganism still retained its vigour, 
 and defied all the efforts of priests and magistrates to 
 eradicate it. The invasion of the barbarians still 
 further strengthened the pagan element, and at last 
 n kind of compromise was effected. Paganism, as a 
 distinct system, was annihilated, but its different 
 elements continued to exist in a transfigured form, 
 and under new names. Many portions of the system 
 were absorbed by the new faith. They coalesced 
 with the doctrines to which they bore most resem- 
 blance, gave those doctrines an extraordinary pro- 
 minence in the Christian system, and rendered them 
 peculiarly acceptable and influential. Antiquarians 
 have long since shown that, in almost every part of 
 the Roman Catholic faith, the traces of this amalga- 
 mation may be detected. Another portion of pagan- 
 ism became a kind of excrescence upon recognised 
 Christianity. It assumed the form of innumerable 
 superstitious rites, which occupied an equivocal posi- 
 tion, sometimes countenanced, and sometimes con- 
 demned, hovering upon the verge of the faith, asso- 
 ciated and intertwined with authorised religious prac- 
 tices, occasionally censured by councils, and habitually 
 encouraged by the more ignorant ecclesiastics, and 
 frequently attracting n more intense devotion than 
 the regular ceremonies with which they were allied. 1 
 
 1 Many hundreds of these are given in Scott's Discover/, 
 superstitions are examined by of Witchcraft. 
 Thiers. A great number also
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 37 
 
 A third portion continued in the form of magical 
 rites, which were practised in defiance of persecution 
 and anathemas, and which continued, after the nomi- 
 nal suppression of Paganism, for nearly eight cen- 
 turies. 1 These rites, ot course, only form one element, 
 and perhaps not a very prominent one, in the system 
 of witchcraft ; but any analysis which omitted to 
 notice them would bo imperfect. All those grotesque 
 ceremonies which Shakspeare portrayed in Macbeth 
 were taken from the old paganism. In numbers of 
 the description of the witches' sabbath, Diana and 
 Herodias are mentioned together, as the two most 
 prominent figures ; and among the articles of accu- 
 sation brought against witches, we find enumerated 
 many of the old practices of the augurs. 
 
 In the sixth century, the victory of Christianity 
 over paganism, considered as an external system, and 
 the corruption of Christianity itself, were both com- 
 plete ; and what are justly termed the dark ages may 
 be said to have begun. It seems, at first sight, a 
 somwhat strange and anomalous fact that, during 
 the period which elapsed between the sixth and tho 
 thirteenth centuries, when superstitions were most 
 numerous, and credulity most universal, the execu- 
 tions for sorcery should have been comparatively 
 rare. There never had been a time in which th 
 minds of men were more completely imbued and 
 moulded by supernatural conceptions, or in which 
 the sense of Satanic power and Satanic presence was 
 more profound and universal. Many thousands of 
 cases of possession, exorcisms, miracles, and appari- 
 tions of the Evil One were recorded. They were 
 
 1 Michelet (La Sorctire, p. 36, note). See also Maury
 
 3S RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 accepted without the faintest doubt, and had become 
 the habitual field upon which the imagination ex- 
 patiated. There was scarcely a great saint who had 
 not, on some occasion, encountered a visible mani- 
 festation of an evil spirit. Sometimes the devil 
 appeared as a grotesque and hideous animal, some- 
 times as a black man, sometimes as a beautiful 
 woman, sometimes as a priest haranguing in the 
 pulpit, sometimes as an angel of light, and sometimes 
 in a still holier form. 1 Yet, strange as it may now 
 appear, these conceptions, though intensely believed 
 and intensely realised, did not create any great de- 
 gree of terrorism. The very multiplication of super- 
 stitions had proved their corrective. It was firmly 
 believed that the arch-fiend was for ever hovering 
 about the Christian ; but it was also believed, that the 
 sign of the cross, or a few drops of holy water, or the 
 name of Mary, could put him to an immediate and 
 ignominious flight. The lives of the saints were 
 crowded with his devices, but they represented him 
 as uniformly vanquished, humbled, and contemned. 
 Satan himself, at the command of Cyprian, had again 
 and again assailed an unarmed and ignorant maiden, 
 who had devoted herself to religion. He had exhausted 
 all the powers of sophistry, in obscuring the virtue of 
 virginity ; and all the resources of archangelic elo- 
 quence, in favour of a young and noble pagan who 
 aspired to the maiden's hand ; but the simple sign of 
 the cross exposed every sophism, quenched every 
 emotion of terrestrial love, and drove back the fiend, 
 
 1 On the appearances of the and elso Ignatius Lupus, in 
 
 devil in the form of Christ, see Edict. S. Inquisitionis (1603), 
 
 the tract by Gerson in the p. 185. 
 Malleus Malef. (vol. ii. p. 77) ;
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 39 
 
 baffled and dismayed, to the magician who had sent 
 him. 1 Legions of devils, drawn up in ghastly array, 
 surrounded the church towards which St. Maur was 
 moving, and obstructed, with menacing gestures, 
 the progress of the saint ; but a few words of exorcism 
 scattered them in a moment through the air. A 
 ponderous stone was long shown, in the church of 
 St. Sabina at Borne, which the devil, in a moment of 
 despairing passion, had flung at St. Dominick, vainly 
 hoping to crush a head that was sheltered by the 
 guardian angel. The Gospel of St. John suspended 
 around the neck, a rosary, a relic of Christ or of a 
 saint, any one of the thousand talismans that were 
 distributed among the faithful, sufficed to baffle the 
 utmost efforts of diabolical malice. The consequence 
 of this teaching was a condition of thought, which is 
 so far removed from that which exists in the present 
 day, that it is only by a strong exertion of the imagi- 
 nation that we can conceive it. What may be called 
 the intellectual basis of witchcraft, existed to the 
 fullest extent. All those conceptions of diabolical 
 presence : all that predisposition towards the miracu- 
 lous, which acted so fearfully upon the imaginations 
 of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, existed ; but 
 the implicit faith, the boundless and triumphant cre- 
 dulity with which the virtue of ecclesiastical rites 
 was accepted, rendered them comparatively innocu- 
 ous. If men had been a little less superstitious, the 
 effects of their superstition would have been much 
 more terrible. It was firmly believed that any one 
 
 1 See this story very amus- (Treves, 1591), pp. 465-467. 
 
 ingly told, on the authority St. Gregory Nazianzen men- 
 
 of Nicephorus, in Binsfeldius tions (Oration xnii.) that St. 
 
 De C'onfessionibus Malefaorum Cypriun had been a magician.
 
 40 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 who deviated from the strict line of orthodoxy must 
 soon succumb beneath the power of Satan ; but 
 as there was no spirit of rebellion or of doubt, 
 this persuasion did not produce any extraordinary 
 terrorism. 
 
 Amid all this strange teaching, there ran, however, 
 one vein of a darker character. The more terrible 
 phenomena of nature were entirely unmoved by ex- 
 orcisms and sprinklings, and they were invariably 
 attributed to supernatural interposition. In every 
 nation it has been believed, at an early period, that 
 pestilences, famines, comets, rainbows, eclipses, and 
 other rare and startling phenomena, were effected, 
 not by the ordinary sequence of natural laws, but by 
 the direct intervention of spirits. In this manner, 
 the predisposition towards the miraculous, which is 
 the characteristic of all semi- civilised nations, has 
 been perpetuated, and the clergy have also frequently 
 identified these phenomena with acts of rebellion 
 against themselves. The old Catholic priests were 
 consummate masters of these arts, and every rare 
 natural event was, in the middle ages, an occasion 
 for the most intense terrorism. Thus, in the eighth 
 century, a fearful famine afflicted France, and was 
 generally represented as a consequence of the repug- 
 nance which the French people manifested to the 
 payment of tithes. 1 In the ninth century a total 
 eclipse of the sun struck terror through Europe, and 
 is said to have been one of the causes of the death of 
 a French king. 8 In the tenth century a similar phe- 
 nomenon put to flight an entire army. 3 More than 
 
 1 Garinet, p. 38. note, where an immense amount 
 
 ' Ibid. p. 12. of evidence on the subject is 
 
 8 Buckle's Hist. vol. i. p. 345, given.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 41 
 
 once, the apparition of a comet filled Em-ope -with an 
 almost maddening terror ; and, whenever a noted 
 person was struck down by sudden illness, the death 
 was attributed to sorcery. 
 
 The natural result, I think, of such modes of 
 thought would be, that the notion of sorcery should 
 be very common, but that the fear of it should not 
 pass into an absolute mania. Credulity was habitual 
 and universal, bat religious terrorism was fitful and 
 transient. We need not, therefore, be surprised that 
 sorcery, though very familiar to the minds of men, 
 did not, at the period I am referring to, occupy that 
 prominent position which it afterwards assumed. 
 The idea of a formal compact with the devil had not 
 yet been formed ; but most of the crimes of witch- 
 craft were recognised, anathematised, and punished. 
 Thus, towards the end of the sixth century, a son of 
 Freclegonde died after a short illness ; and numbers 
 of women were put to the most prolonged and ex- 
 cruciating torments, and at last burnt or broken on 
 the wheel, for having caused, by incantations, the 
 death of the prince. 1 In Germany, the Codex de 
 Matliematicis et Maleficiis * long continued in force, 
 ns did the old Salic law on the same subject in 
 France. Charlemagne enacted new and very strin- 
 gent laws, condemning sorcerers to death, and great 
 numbers seem to have perished in his reign. 3 Hail 
 and thunder storms were almost universally attributed 
 to their devices, though one great ecclesiastic of the 
 
 1 Garinet, pp. 14, 15. geometrise disci atque exerceri 
 
 2 This was the title of the publice interest. Ars autem 
 Roman code I have reviewed, mathematica damnabilis est et 
 Mathematicus was the name interdicta omnino.' 
 
 gi?en to astrologers: as a law * Garinet, p. 39. 
 of Diocletian put it, ' artem
 
 42 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 ninth century Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons had 
 the rare merit of opposing the popular belief. 1 
 
 There existed, too, all through the middle ages, 
 and even as late as the seventeenth century, the sect 
 of the Cabalists, who were especially persecuted as 
 magicians. It is not easy to obtain any very clear 
 notion of their mystic doctrines, which long exer- 
 cised an extraordinary fascination over many minds, 
 and which captivated the powerful and daring intel- 
 lects of Cardan, Agrippa, and Paracelsus. They 
 seem to have comprised many traditions that had 
 been long current among the Jews, mixed with much 
 of the old Platonic doctrine of demons, and with a 
 large measure of pure naturalism. With a degree of 
 credulity, which, in our age, would be deemed barely 
 compatible with sanity, but which was then per- 
 fectly natural, was combined some singularly bold 
 scepticism ; and, probably, a greater amount was 
 veiled under the form of allegories than was actually 
 avowed. The Cabalists believed in the existence of 
 spirits of nature, embodiments or representatives of 
 the four elements, sylphs, salamanders, gnomes, and 
 ondines, beings of far more than human excellence, 
 but mortal, and not untinctured by human frailty. 
 To rise to intercourse with these elemental spirits 
 of nature was the highest aim of the philosopher. 
 He who would do so, must sever himself from the 
 common course of life. He must purify his soul by 
 fasting and celibacy, by patient and unwearied study, 
 by deep communion with nature and with nature's 
 laws. He must learn, above all, to look down with 
 contempt upon the angry quarrels of opposing creeds ; 
 to see in each religion an aspect of a continuous law, 
 
 1 Garuiet, p. 45. He also saved the lives of some Cabalists.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. - 43 
 
 a new phase and manifestation of the action of the 
 spirits of nature upon mankind. 
 
 It is not difficult to detect the conception which 
 underlies this teaching. As, however, no religious 
 doctrine can resist the conditions of the age, these 
 simple notions were soon encrusted and defaced by 
 so many of those grotesque and material details, 
 which invariably resulted from mediaeval habits of 
 thought, that it is only by a careful examination that 
 their outlines can be traced. It was believed that it 
 was possible for philosophers to obtain these spirits 
 in literal marriage ; and that such a union was the 
 most passionate desire of the spirit-world. It was 
 not only highly gratifying for both parties in this 
 world, but greatly improved their prospects for the 
 next. The sylph, though she lived for many cen- 
 turies, was mortal, and had in herself no hope of 
 a future life, but her human husband imparted to 
 her his own immortality, unless he was one of the 
 reprobate, in which case he was saved from the 
 pangs of hell by participating in the mortality of his 
 bride. This general conception was elaborated in 
 great detail, and was applied to the history of the 
 Fall, and to the mythology of paganism, on both of 
 which subjects the orthodox tenets were indignantly 
 spurned. Scarcely any one seems to have doubted 
 the reality of these spirits, or that they were accus- 
 tomed to reveal themselves to mankind; and the 
 coruscations of the Aurora are said to have been 
 attributed to the flashings of their wings. 1 The only 
 question was, concerning their nature. According to 
 
 1 Garinet, p. 35. This, how- believe the Aurora to be formed 
 ever, is doubtful. Herder men- by spirits dancing and playing 
 tioiis that the Greenlauders ball.
 
 44 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 the Cabalists, they were pure and virtuous. Accord- 
 ing to the orthodox, they were the incubi who were 
 spoken of by St. Augustine ; and all who had com- 
 merce with them were deservedly burnt. 1 
 
 The history of the Cabalists furnishes, I think, a 
 striking instance of the aberrations of a spirit of 
 free- thinking in an age which was not yet ripe for 
 its reception. When the very opponents of the 
 Church were so completely carried away by the tide, 
 and were engrossed with a mythological system as 
 absurd as the wildest legends of the hagiology ; it is 
 not at all surprising that the philosophers who arose 
 in the ranks of orthodoxy should have been ex. 
 tremely credulous, and that their conceptions should 
 have been characterised by the coarsest materialism. 
 Among the very few men who, in some slight degree, 
 cultivated profane literature during the period I am 
 referring to, a prominent place must be assigned to 
 Michael Psellus. This voluminous author, though 
 he is now, I imagine, very little read, still retains 
 a certain position in literary history, as almost the 
 only Byzantine writer of reputation who appeared 
 for some centuries. Towards the close of the 
 eleventh century he wrote his dialogue on ' The 
 
 1 On the Hebrew Cabala, the sylph for his wife, and the 
 
 see the learned work of M. story of the apple was allegori- 
 
 Franck, and on the notions in cal, &c. This last notion ap- 
 
 the middle agrs, and in the pears to have been a relic of 
 
 sixteenth and seventeenth cen- Manichseism, and was very 
 
 times, Le Comte de Gabalis. common among the heretics of 
 
 Plancey, Diet, infernal, art. the tenth and eleventh cen- 
 
 Cabale. All the heathen gods turies (Matter, Hist, du Gnos- 
 
 were supposed to be sylphs or ticisme, torn. iii. pp. 259, 260). 
 
 other aerial spirits. Vesta was Paracelsus was one of the priu- 
 
 the wife of Noah Zoroaster, cipal asserters of the existence 
 
 hsr son, otherwise called Japhet. of the sylphs, &c. 
 The sin of Adain was deserting
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 45 
 
 Operation of Demons;' which is, in a great measnre, 
 an exposition of the old Neo- Platonic doctrine of the 
 hierarchy of spirits, but which also throws con- 
 siderable light on the modes of thought prevailing in 
 his time. He assures us that the world was full 01 
 demons, who were very frequently appearing among 
 his countrymen, and who manifested their presence 
 in many different ways. He had himself never seen 
 one, but he was well acquainted with persons who 
 had actual intercourse with them. His pi-incipal 
 authority was a Grecian, named Marcus, who had at 
 one time disbelieved in apparitions ; but who, having 
 adopted a perfectly solitary life, had been surrounded 
 by spirits whose habits and appearance he most 
 minutely described. Having thus amassed consider- 
 able information on the subject, Psellus proceeded to 
 digest it into a philosophical system, connecting it 
 with the teachings of the past, and unfolding tho 
 laws and operations of the spirit world. He lays it 
 down as a fundamental position that all demons have 
 bodies. This, he says, is the necessary infert nee 
 from the orthodox doctrine that they endure the 
 torment of fire. 1 Their bodies, however, are not, 
 like those of men and animals, cast into an un- 
 changeable mould. They are rather like the clouds, 
 refined and subtle matter, capable of assuming any 
 form, and penetrating into any orifice. The horrible 
 tortures they endure in their place of punishment 
 have rendered them extremely sensitive to suffering ; 
 and they continually seek a temperate and somewhat 
 moist warmth in order to allay their pangs. It is 
 
 1 This was a very old notion, -worth's Int. System, vol. ii. 
 St. Basil seems to have main- p. 648. 
 tained it very strongly. Cud-
 
 46 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 for this reason that they so frequently enter into 
 men and animals. Possession appears to have been 
 quite frequent, and madness was generally regarded 
 as one of its results. Psellus, however, mentions 
 that some physicians formed an exception to the 
 prevailing opinions, attributing to physical what was 
 generally attributed to spiritual causes, an aberration 
 which he could only account for by the materialism 
 which was so general in their profession. He men- 
 tions incidentally the exploits of incubi as not un- 
 known, and enters into a long disquisition about a 
 devil who was said to be acquainted with Armenian. 
 We find theu, that, all through the middle ages, 
 most of the crimes that were afterwards collected by 
 the inquisitors in the treatises on witchcraft were 
 known ; and that many of them were not unfre- 
 quently punished. At the same time the executions, 
 during six centuries, were probably not as numerous 
 as those which often took place during a single de- 
 cade of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In the 
 twelfth century, however, the subject passed into an 
 entirely new phase. The conception of a witch, as 
 we now conceive it that is to say, of a woman who 
 had entered into a deliberate compact with Satan, 
 who was endowed with the power of working mira- 
 cles whenever she pleased, and who was continually 
 transported through the air to the Sabbath, where 
 she paid her homage to the Evil One first ap- 
 peared. 1 The panic created by the belief advanced 
 at first slowly, but after a time with a fearfully 
 accelerated rapidity. Thousands of victims were 
 sometimes burnt alive in a few years. Every country 
 in Europe was stricken with the wildest panic. 
 
 1 Maury, p. 186.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 47 
 
 Hundreds of the ablest judges were selected for the 
 extirpation of the crime. A vast literature was 
 created on the subject, and it was not until a con- 
 siderable portion of the eighteenth century had 
 passed away, that the executions finally ceased. 1 
 
 I shall now endeavour to trace the general causes 
 which produced this outburst of superstition. Wo 
 shall find, I think, that in this, as in its earlier 
 phases, sorcery was closely connected with the pre- 
 vailing modes of thought on religious subjects ; and 
 that its history is one of the most faithful indications 
 of the laws of religious belief in their relation to the 
 progress of civilisation. 
 
 The more carefully the history of the centuries 
 prior to the Reformation is studied, the more evident 
 it becomes that the twelfth century forms the great 
 turning point of the European intellect. Owing to 
 many complicated causes, which it would be tedious 
 and difficult to trace, a general revival of Latin 
 literature had then taken place, which profoundly 
 modified the intellectual condition of Europe, and 
 which, therefore, implied and necessitated a modifi- 
 cation of the popular belief. For the first time for 
 many centuries, we find a feeble spirit of doubt 
 combating the spirit of credulity ; a curiosity for 
 purely secular knowledge replacing, in some small 
 degree, the passion for theology ; and, as a consequence 
 of these things, a diminution of the contemptuous 
 hatred with which all who were external to Chris- 
 tianity had been regarded. In every department of 
 thought and of knowledge, there was manifested a 
 
 1 The last judicial execution Sorciere, p. 415), the last law on 
 in Europe was, 1 believe, in the subject, the Irish Statute, 
 Switzerland, in 1 782 (Michelet's whichwas notrepcaled till 1821.
 
 48 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 vague disquietude, a spirit of restless and feverish 
 anxiety, that contrasted strangely with the preceding 
 torpor. The long slumber of untroubled orthodoxy 
 was broken by many heresies, which, though often 
 repressed, seemed in each succeeding century to ac- 
 quire new force and consistency. Manichaeism, which 
 Lad for some time been smouldering in the church, 
 burst into a fierce flame among the Albigenses, and. 
 was only quenched by that fearful massacre in which 
 tens of thousands were murdered at the instigation 
 of the priests. Then it was that the standard of an 
 impartial philosophy was first planted by Abelard in 
 Europe, and the minds of the learned were distracted 
 by subtle and perplexing doubts concerning the 
 leading doctrines of the faith. Then, too, the teach- 
 ings of a stern and uncompromising infidelity flashed 
 forth from Seville and from Cordova ; and the form 
 of Averroes began to assume those gigantic propor- 
 tions, which, at a later period, overshadowed the 
 whole intellect of Europe, and almost persuaded some 
 of the ablest men that the reign of Antichrist had 
 begun. 1 At the same time, the passion for astrology 
 and for the fatalism it implied revived with the 
 revival of pagan learning, and penetrated into the 
 
 1 For the history of tins very and, for two or three centuries, 
 remarkable movement, see the most of the great works in 
 able essay of Kenan on Averroes. Christendom bore some marks 
 Among the Mahomedans, the of Averroes. M. Kenan has 
 panic was so great, that the collected some curious evidence 
 theologians pronounced logic from the Italian painters of the 
 and philosophy to be the two fourteenth century, of the pro- 
 great enemies of their profes- miuence Averroes had assumed 
 sion, and ordered all books on in the popular mind. The three 
 those dangerous subjects to be principal figures in Orgagna's 
 burnt. Among the Christians, picture of Hell, in the Campo 
 St. Thomas Aquinas devoted Santo, at Pisa, are Mahomet, 
 his genius to the controversy ; Antichrist, and Averroes.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 49 
 
 halls of nobles and the palaces of kings. Every 
 doubt, every impulse of rebellion against ecclesiastical 
 authority, above all, every heretical opinion, was 
 regarded as the direct instigation of Satan, and their 
 increase as the measure of his triumph. Yet these 
 things were now gathering darkly all around. 
 Europe was beginning to enter into that inexpressibly 
 painful period in which men have learned to doubt, 
 but have not yet learned to regard doubt as innocent ; 
 in which the new mental activity produces a variety 
 of opinions, while the old credulity persuades them 
 that all but one class of opinions are the suggestions 
 of the devil. The spirit of rationalism was yet un- 
 born ; or if some faint traces of it may be discovered 
 in the teachings of Abelard, it was at least far too 
 weak to allay the panic. There was no independent 
 enquiry ; no confidence in an honest research ; no 
 disposition to rise above dogmatic systems or tra- 
 ditional teaching ; no capacity for enduring the 
 sufferings of a suspended judgment. The Church 
 had cursed the human intellect by cursing the doubts 
 that are the necessary consequence of its exercise. 
 She had cursed even the moral faculty by asserting 
 the guilt of honest error. 
 
 It is easy to perceive that, in such a state of thought, 
 the conception of Satanic presence must have as- 
 sumed a peculiar prominence, and have created a 
 peculiar terror. Multitudes were distracted by doubts, 
 which they sought in vain to repress, and which they 
 firmly believed to be the suggestions of the devil. 
 Their horror of pagans and Mahomedans diminished 
 more and more as they acquired a relish for the 
 philosophy of which the first, or the physical sciences 
 of which the second, were the repositories. Every 
 
 VOL I.
 
 60 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 step in knowledge increased their repugnance to the 
 coarse materialism which was prevalent, and every 
 generation rendered the general intellectual tendencies 
 moi-e manifestly hostile to the Church. On the other 
 hand, that Church presented an aspect of the sternest 
 inflexibility. Rebellion and doubt were, in her eyes, 
 the greatest of all crimes : and her doctrine of evil 
 spirits and of the future world supplied her with 
 engines of terrorism which she was prepared to em- 
 ploy to the uttermost. Accordingly we find that 
 about the twelfth century the popular teaching began 
 to assume a sterner and more solemn cast ; and the 
 devotions of the people to be more deeply tinctured 
 by fanaticism. The old confidence which had almost 
 toyed with Satan, and in the very exuberance of an 
 unfaltering faith had mocked at his devices, was ex- 
 changed for a harsh and gloomy asceticism. The 
 aspect of Satan became more formidable, and the 
 aspect of Christ became less engaging. Till the close 
 of the tenth century, the central figure of Christian 
 art had been usually represented as a very young 
 man, with an expression of untroubled gentleness and 
 calm resting on his countenance, and engaged in 
 miracles of mercy. The parable of the Good Shepherd, 
 which adorns almost every chapel in the Catar-ombs, 
 was still the favourite subject of the painter ; and the 
 sterner representations of Christianity were compara- 
 tively rare. In the eleventh century all this began 
 to change. The Good Shepherd entirely disappeared, 
 the miracles of mercy became less frequent, and were 
 replaced by the details of the Passion and the terrors 
 of the Last Judgment. The countenance of Christ 
 became sterner, older, and more mournful. About 
 the twelfth century, this change became almost uni-
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 51 
 
 versal. From this period, writes one of the most 
 learned of modern archaeologists, 'Christ appears more 
 and more melancholy, and often truly terrible. It is, 
 indeed, the rex tremenda3 majestatis of oar Dies ira?. 
 It is almost the God of the Jews making fear the 
 beginning of wisdom.' 1 In the same age we find the 
 scourgings and the ' minutio moiiachi ' the practice 
 of constant bleedings rising into general use in the 
 monasteries ; 2 and, soon after, the Flagellants arose, 
 whose stern discipline and passionate laments over 
 prevailing iniquity directed the thoughts of multitudes 
 to subjects that were well calculated to inflame their 
 imaginations. Almost at the same time, religious 
 persecution, which had been for many centuries nearly 
 vinknown, amid the calm of orthodoxy, was revived 
 and stimulated. In the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century, Innocent III. instituted the Inquisition, and 
 issued the first appeal to princes to employ their 
 power for the suppression of heresy; and, in the course 
 of the following century, the new tribunal was intro- 
 duced; or, at least, executions for heresy had taken 
 place in sevei*al great countries in Europe. 
 
 The terrorism which was thus created by the con- 
 
 1 Didron, Iconographic chre- it becomes that, before the in- 
 
 tienne, Histoire de Dieu (Paris, vention of printing, painting 
 
 1843), p. 262. See, however, was the most faithful mirror of 
 
 for the whole history of this the popular mind ; and that 
 
 very remarkable transition, pp. there was scarcely an intel- 
 
 255-273. To this I may add, lectual movement that it did 
 
 that about the thirteenth cen- not reflect. On the general 
 
 tury, the representations of terrorism of this period, see 
 
 Satan underwent a correspond- Michelet, Histoire de France, 
 
 ing change, and became both . torn. vii. pp. 140, 141. 
 
 more terrible and more gro- 2 Madden, vol. i. pp. 359- 
 
 tesque (Maury, Legendes pieuses, 395; Cabanis, Rapports phy- 
 
 p. 136). The more the subject siqties et moraux, torn. ii. pp. 
 
 is examined, the more evident 77-79. 
 
 E2
 
 52 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 flict between an immutable Church and an age in 
 which there was some slight progress, and a real, 
 though faint spirit of rebellion, gradually filtered down 
 to those who were far too ignorant to become heretics. 
 The priest in the pulpit or in the confessional ; the 
 monk in his intercourse with the peasant ; the Flagel- 
 lant, by his mournful hymns, and by the spectacle of 
 his macerations ; above all, the inquisitor, by hia 
 judgments, communicated to the lower classes a sense 
 of Satanic presence and triumph, which they naturally 
 applied to the order of ideas with which they were 
 most conversant. In an age which was still grossly 
 ignorant and credulous, the popular faith was neces- 
 sarily full of grotesque superstitions, which faithfully 
 reflected the general tone and colouring of religious 
 teaching, though they often went far beyond its limits. 
 These superstitions had once consisted, for the most 
 part, in wild legends of fairies, mermaids, giants, and 
 dragons : of miracles of saints, conflicts in which the 
 devil took a prominent part, but was invariably de- 
 feated, or illustrations of the boundless efficacy of 
 some charm or relic. About the twelfth century 
 they began to assume a darker hue, and the imagina- 
 tions of the people revelled in the details of the 
 witches' Sabbath, and in the awful power of the 
 ministers of Satan. The inquisitors traversed Europe, 
 proclaiming that the devil was operating actively on 
 all sides ; and among their very first victims, were 
 persons who were accused of sorcery, and who were 
 of course condemned. 1 Such condemnations could 
 not make the belief in the reality of the crime more 
 unhesitating than it had been, but they had a direct 
 tendency to multiply the accusations. The imagina- 
 1 Garinet. p. 75.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 53 
 
 tions of the people were riveted upon the subject. 
 A contagious terror was engendered. Some, whose 
 minds were thoroughly diseased, persuaded them- 
 selves that they were in communion with Satan ; 
 all had an increasing predisposition to see Satanic 
 agency around them. 
 
 To these things should be added a long series of 
 social and political events, into which it is needless 
 to enter, for they have very lately been painted with 
 matchless vividness by an illustrious living writer.' 
 A sense of insecurity and wretchedness, often rising 
 to absolute despair, had been diffused among the 
 people, and had engendered the dark imaginations, 
 and the wild and rebellious passions, which, in a 
 superstitious age, are their necessary concomitants. 
 It has always been observed by the inquisitors that a 
 large proportion of those who were condemned to the 
 flames were women, whose lives had been clouded by 
 some great sorrow ; and that music, which soothes 
 the passions, and allays the bitterness of regret, had 
 an extraordinary power over the possessed. 2 
 
 Under the influences which I have attempted to 
 trace, the notion of witchcraft was reduced to a more 
 definite form, and acquired an increasing prominence 
 in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Most of the 
 causes that produced it, advanced by their very 
 nature with an accelerating force, and the popular 
 imagination became more and more fascinated by 
 the subject. In the fourteenth century, an event 
 occurred which was well calculated to give a fearful 
 impulse to the terrorism ; and which may, indeed, be 
 justly regarded as one of the most appalling in the 
 history of humanity. I allude, of course, to the 
 
 1 Michelet, La Sordere. " Binsfeldius, p. 165.
 
 54 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 black death. A great German physician has lately 
 investigated, with much skill and learning, the his- 
 tory of that time ; and he has recorded his opinion 
 that, putting aside all exaggerated accounts, the 
 number of those who died of the pestilence during 
 the six years of its continuance may be estimated, 
 by a very moderate computation, at twenty-five mil- 
 lions, or a fourth part of the inhabitants of Europe. 1 
 Many great towns lost far more than half their 
 population ; many country districts were almost de- 
 populated. 
 
 It would be scarcely possible to conceive an event 
 fitted to act with a more terrific force upon the ima- 
 ginations of men. Even in our own day, we know 
 how great a degree of religious terror is inspired by 
 a pestilence ; but, in an age when the supernatural 
 character of disease was universally believed, an 
 affliction of such unexampled magnitude produced a 
 consternation which almost amounted to madness. 
 One of its first effects was an enormous increase of 
 the wealth of the clergy by the legacies of the terror- 
 stricken victims. The sect of the Flagellants, which 
 had been for a century unknown, reappeared in 
 tenfold numbers, and almost every part of Europe 
 resounded with their hymns. Then, too, arose the 
 dancing mania of Flanders and Germany, when 
 thousands assembled with strange cries and gestures, 
 overawing by their multitudes all authority, and 
 proclaiming, amid their wild dances and with shrieks 
 of terror, the power and the triumph of Satan. 2 It 
 
 1 Hecker's Epidemics of the often imagined themselves to 
 
 Middle Ages, p. 29. Bocaccio be immersed in a stream of 
 
 witnessed and described this blood. They were habitually 
 
 pestilence. exorcised. 
 
 * Hecker, p. 82. The dancers
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 55 
 
 has been observed that this form of madness raged 
 with an especial violence in the dioceses of Cologne 
 and Treves, in which witchcraft was afterwards most 
 prevalent. 1 In Switzerland and in some parts of 
 Germany the plague was ascribed to the poison of 
 the Jews ; and though the Pope made a noble effort 
 to dispel the illusion, immense numbers of that un- 
 happy race were put to death. Some thousands are 
 said to have perished in Mayence alone. More gene- 
 rally, it was regarded as a divine chastisement, or as 
 an evidence of Satanic power ; and the most gro- 
 tesque explanations were hazarded. Boots with 
 pointed toes had been lately introduced, and were 
 supposed by many to have been peculiarly offensive 
 to the Almighty. 2 What, however, we have especially 
 to obsorve is, that the trials for witchcraft multiplied 
 with a fearful rapidity. 3 
 
 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they may 
 be said to have reached their climax. The aspect 
 which Europe then presented was that of universal 
 anarchy and universal terrorism. The intellectual 
 influences which had been long corroding the pillars 
 of the Church had done their work, and a fearful 
 moral retrogression, aggravated by the newly-ac- 
 
 1 There is still an annual which represented an imagina- 
 festival near Treves in com- tive bias of such a wild and 
 memoration of the epidemic, morbid power, began in the 
 Madden, vol. i. p. 420. fourteenth century (Peignot,Sr 
 
 2 Hecker, p. 82. les Danses des Moris, pp. 26- 
 8 Ennemoser, Hist, of Magic, 31). The second is, that in 
 
 vol. ii. p. 150. this same century the bas- 
 
 I may here notice, by way of reliefs on cathedrals frequently 
 
 illustration, two facts in the represent men kneeling down 
 
 history of art. The first is, before the devil, and devoting 
 
 that those ghastly pictures of themselves to him as his 
 
 the dance of death, which were servants A (Martonne, Pieti du 
 
 afterwards so popular, and Moyen Age, p. 137).
 
 56 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE. 
 
 quired ecclesiastical wealth, accompanied the intellec- 
 tual advance. Yet, over all this chaos, there was 
 one gi-eat conception dominating unchanged. It was 
 the sense of sin and Satan ; of the absolute necessity 
 of a correct dogmatic system to save men from the 
 agonies of hell. The Church, which had long been 
 all in all to Christendom, was heaving in what seemed 
 the last throes of dissolution. The boundaries of re- 
 ligious thought were all obscured. Conflicting ten- 
 dencies and passions were raging with a tempestuous 
 violence, among men who were absolutely incapable 
 of enduring an intellectual suspense, and each of the 
 opposing sects proclaimed its distinctive doctrines 
 essential to salvation. Doubt was almost universally 
 regarded as criminal and error as damnable ; yet the 
 first was the necessary condition, and the second the 
 probable consequence, of enquiry. Totally unaccus- 
 tomed to independent reasoning, bewildered by the 
 vast and undefined fields of thought, from which the 
 opposing arguments were drawn ; with a profound 
 sense of the absolute necessity of a correct creed, and 
 of the constant action of Satan upon the fluctua- 
 tions of the will and of the judgment ; distracted 
 and convulsed by opposing sentiments, which an 
 unenlightened psychology attributed to spiritual in- 
 spiration, and, above all, parched with a burning 
 longing for certainty ; the minds of men drifted 
 to and fro under the influence of the wildest terror. 
 None could escape the movement. It filled all 
 Europe with alarm, permeated with its influence all 
 forms of thought and action, absorbed every element 
 of national life into its ever- widening vortex. 
 
 There certainly never has been a movement which, 
 in its ultimate results, has contributed so largely to
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 57 
 
 the emancipation of the human mind from all super- 
 stitious terrors as the Reformation. It formed a 
 multitude of churches, in which the spirit of qualified 
 and partial scepticism that had long been a source of 
 anarchy, might expatiate with freedom, and be allied 
 with the spirit of order. It rejected an immense 
 proportion of the dogmatic and ritualistic conceptions 
 that had almost covered the whole field of religion, 
 and rendered possible that steady movement by which 
 theology has since then been gravitating towards 
 the moral faculty. It, above all, diminished the pro- 
 minence of clergy ; and thus prepared the way for 
 that general secularisation of the European intellect, 
 which is such a marked characteristic of modern 
 civilisation. Yet, inappreciably great as are these 
 blessings, it would be idle to deny that, for a time, 
 the Reformation aggravated the very evils it was 
 intended to correct. It was, for a time, merely an 
 exchange of masters. The Protestant asserted the 
 necessity and the certainty of his distinctive doctrines, 
 as dogmatically and authoritatively as the Catholic. 
 He believed in his own infallibility quite as firmly as 
 his opponent believed in the infallibility of the Pope. 
 It is only by a very slow process that the human 
 mind can emerge from a system of error ; and the 
 virtue of dogmas had been so ingrained in all 
 religious thought, by the teaching of more than 
 twelve centuries, that it required a long and pain- 
 ful discipline to weaken what is not yet destroyed. 
 The nature of truth, the limits of human faculties, 
 the laws of probabilities, and the conditions that are 
 essential for an impartial research, were subjects 
 with which even the most advanced minds were then 
 entirely unfamiliar. There was, indeed, much culti-
 
 58 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 vation of logic, considered in its most narrow sense ; 
 but there was no such thing as a comprehensive view 
 of the whole field of mental science, of the laws and 
 limits of the reason. There was also no conviction 
 that the reason should be applied to every depart- 
 ment of theology, with the same unflinching severity 
 as to any other form of speculation. Faith always 
 presented to the mind the idea of an abnormal intel- 
 lectual condition, of the subversion or suspension of 
 the critical faculties. It sometimes comprised more 
 than this, but it always included this. It was the 
 opposite of doubt and of the spirit of doubt. What 
 irreverent men called credulity, reverent men called 
 faith ; and although one word was more respectful 
 than the other, yet the two words were with most 
 men strictly synonymous. Some of the Protestants 
 added other and moral ideas to the word, but they 
 firmly retained the intellectual idea. As long as 
 such a conception existed, a period of religious con- 
 vulsion was necessarily a period of extreme suffering 
 and terror ; and there can be little doubt that the 
 Reformation was, in consequence, the most painful of 
 all the transitions through which the human intellect 
 has passed. 
 
 If the reader has seized the spirit of the foregoing 
 remarks, he will already have perceived their appli- 
 cation to the history of witchcraft. In order that 
 men should believe in witches, their intellects nmst 
 have been familiarised with the conceptions of Satanic 
 power and Satanic presence, and they must regard 
 these things with an unfaltering belief. In order 
 that witchcraft should be prominent, the imagina- 
 tions of men must have been so forcibly directed to 
 these articles of belief, as to tinge and govern the
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 69 
 
 habitual current of their thoughts, and to produce a 
 strong disposition to see Satanic agency around them. 
 A long train of circumstances, which culminated in 
 the Reformation, had diffused through Christendom 
 a religious terror which gradually overcast the ho- 
 rizon of thought, creating a general uneasiness as 
 to the future of the Church, and an intense and vivid 
 sense of Satanic presence. These influences were, it 
 is true, primarily connected with abstruse points of 
 speculative belief, but they acted in a twofold manner 
 upon the grosser superstitions of the people. Al- 
 though the illiterate cannot follow the more intricate 
 speculations of their teachers, they can, as I have 
 said, catch the general tone and character of thought 
 which these speculations produce, and they readily 
 apply them to their own sphere of thought. Besides 
 this, the upper classes, being filled with a sense of 
 Satanic presence, will be disposed to believe in the 
 reality of any history of witchcraft. They will, there- 
 fore, prosecute the witches, and, as a necessary con- 
 sequence, stimulate the delusion. When the belief 
 is confined to the lower class, its existence will be 
 languishing and unprogressive. But when legislators 
 denounce it in their laws, and popes in their bulls ; 
 when priests inveigh against it in their pulpits, and 
 inquisitors burn thousands at the stake, the imagina- 
 tions of men will be inflamed, the terror will prove con- 
 tagious, and the consequent delusions be multiplied. 
 Now, popes and legislators, priests and inquisitors, 
 will do these things just in proportion to the firmness 
 of their belief in the conceptions I have noticed, and to 
 the intensity with which their imaginations have been 
 directed to those conceptions by religious terrorism. 
 We have a striking illustration of the influence
 
 60 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 upon witchcraft, of the modes of thought which the 
 Reformation for a time sustained in the life of Luther. 
 No single feature was more clearly marked in his 
 character than an intense and passionate sense of 
 sin. He himself often described, in the most graphic 
 language, how, in the seclusion of his monastery at 
 Wittenberg, he had passed under the very shadow of 
 death, how the gates of hell seemed to open beneath 
 his feet, and the seuse of hopeless wretchedness, to 
 make life itself a burden. While oppressed by the 
 keenest sense of moral unworthiness, he was dis- 
 tracted by intellectual doubt. He only arrived at 
 the doctrines of Protestantism after a long and diffi- 
 cult enquiry, struggling slowly through successive 
 phases of belief, uncheered for many years by ono 
 word of sympathy, and oscillating painfully between 
 opposing conclusions. Like all men of vivid imagi- 
 nation who are so circumstanced, a theological 
 atmosphere was formed about his mind, and became 
 the medium through which every event was contem- 
 plated. He was subject to numerous strange hal- 
 lucinations and vibrations of judgment, which he 
 invariably attributed to the direct action of Satan. 
 Satan became, in consequence, the dominating con- 
 ception of his life. In every critical event, in every 
 mental perturbation, he recognised Satanic power. 
 In the monastery of Wittenberg, he constantly heard 
 the Devil making a noise in the cloisters ; and be- 
 came at last so accustomed to the fact, that he related 
 that, on one occasion, having been awakened by the 
 sound, he perceived that it was only the Devil, and 
 accordingly went to sleep again. The black stain in 
 the castle of Wartburg still marks the place where 
 he flung an ink-bottle at the Devil. In the midst of
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 61 
 
 his long and painful hesitation on the subject of 
 transubstantiation, the Devil appeared to him, and 
 suggested a new argument. In such a state of mind 
 he naturally accepted, with implicit faith, every 
 anecdote of Satanic miracles. He told how an aged 
 minister had been interrupted, in the midst of his 
 devotions, by a devil who was grunting behind him 
 like a pig. At Torgau, the Devil broke pots and 
 basins, and flung them at the minister's head, and at 
 last drove the minister's wife and servants half crazy 
 out of the house. On another occasion, the Devil 
 appeared in the law courts, in the character of a 
 leading barrister, whose place he is said to have 
 filled with the utmost propriety. JFools, deformed 
 persons, the blind and the dumb, were possessed by 
 devils. Physicians, indeed, attempted to explain 
 these infirmities by natural causes ; but those phy- 
 sicians were ignorant men ; they did not know all 
 the power of Satan. Every form of disease might 
 be produced by Satan, or by his agents, the witches ; 
 and none of the infirmities to which Luther was 
 liable were natural, but his ear-ache was peculiarly 
 diabolical. Hail, thunder, and plagues are all the 
 direct consequences of the intervention of spirits. 
 Many of those persons who were supposed to have 
 committed suicide, had in reality been seized by the 
 Devil and strangled by him, as the traveller is 
 strangled by the robber. The Devil could transport 
 men at his will through the air. He could beget 
 children, and Luther had himself come in contact 
 with one of them. An intense love of children was 
 one of the most amiable characteristics of the great 
 Reformer ; but, on this occasion, he most earnestly 
 recommended the reputed relatives to throw the child
 
 62 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 into a river, in order to free their house from the 
 presence of a devil. As a natural consequence of 
 these modes of thought, witchcraft did not present 
 the slightest improbability to his mind. In strict 
 accordance with the spirit of his age, he continually 
 asserted the existence and the frequency of the 
 crime, and emphatically proclaimed the duty of 
 burning the witches. 1 
 
 I know, indeed, few stranger, and at the same time 
 more terrible pictures, than are furnished by the 
 history of witchcraft during the century that pre- 
 ceded and the century that followed the Reforma- 
 tion. Wherever the conflict of opinions was raging 
 among the educated, witchcraft, like an attendant 
 shadow, pursued its course among the ignorant ; 2 and 
 Protestants and Catholics vied with each other in 
 the zeal with which they prosecuted it. Never was 
 the power of imagination that strange faculty which 
 casts the shadow of its images over the whole crea- 
 tion, and combines all the phenomena of life accord- 
 ing to its own archetypes, more strikingly evinced. 
 Superstitious and terror-stricken, the minds of men. 
 were impelled irresistibly towards the miraculous 
 and the Satanic, and they found them upon every 
 side. The elements of imposture blended so curiously 
 with the elements of delusion, that it is now im- 
 possible to separate them. Sometimes an ambitious 
 woman, braving the dangers of her act, boldly claimed 
 supernatural power, and the haughtiest and the most 
 
 1 CoUoquia Mensalia. Eras- Naude (Apologie, -p^. 110, 111) 
 
 mus was an equally firm believer observes, that nearly all the 
 
 in witchcraft (Stewart's Dis- heresies previous to the Refor- 
 
 sertation, p. 57). mation had been also accom- 
 
 * This co-existence has been panied by an outburst of sor- 
 
 not reed by many writers; and eery.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 63 
 
 courageous cowed humbly in her presence. Some- 
 times a husband attempted, in the witch courts, to 
 cut the tie which his church had pronounced indis- 
 soluble ; and numbers of wives have, in consequence, 
 perished at the stake. Sometimes a dexterous cri- 
 minal availed himself of the panic ; and, directing a 
 charge of witchcraft against his accuser, escaped 
 himself with impunity. Sometimes, 'too, a personal 
 grudge was avenged by the accusation, or a real 
 crime was attributed to sorcery ; or a hail-storm, or 
 a strange disease, suggested the presence of a witch. 
 But, for the most part, the trials represent pure and 
 unmingled delusions. The defenders of the belief 
 were able to maintain that multitudes had voluntarily 
 confessed themselves guilty of commerce with the 
 Evil One, and had persisted in their confessions till 
 death. Madness is always peculiarly frequent during 
 great religious or political revolutions ; l and, in the 
 sixteenth century, all its forms were absorbed in the 
 system of witchcraft, and caught the colour of the 
 prevailing predisposition. 2 Occasionally, too, we find 
 old and half-doting women, at first convinced of their 
 innocence, but soon faltering before the majesty of 
 justice, asking timidly, whether it is possible to be in 
 connection with the Devil without being conscious of 
 the fact, and at last almost persuading themselves 
 that they had done what was alleged. Very often, 
 the terror of the trial, the prospect of the most ago- 
 nising of deaths, and the frightful tortures that were 
 applied to the weak frame of an old and feeble 
 woman, 3 overpowered her understanding ; her brain 
 
 1 Buckle's Hist., rol. i. p. 424, * For a frightful catalogue of 
 note. the tortures that were employed 
 
 2 Calmeil. in these cases, see Scott's Dis-
 
 64 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 reeled beneath the accumulated suffering, the con- 
 sciousness of innocence disappeared, and the wretched 
 victim wont raving to the flames, convinced that she 
 was about to sink for ever into perdition. The 
 zeal of the ecclesiastics in stimulating the persecu- 
 tion was unflagging. It was displayed alike in 
 Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Flanders, Sweden, 
 England, and Scotland. An old writer who cordially 
 approved of the rigour tells us that, in the province 
 of Como alone, eight or ten inquisitors were con- 
 stantly employed ; and he adds that, in one year, the 
 number of persons they condemned amounted to a 
 thousand ; and that during several of the succeeding 
 years, the victims seldom fell below one hundred. 1 
 
 It was natural that a body of learned men like the 
 inquisitors, whose habits of thought were eminently 
 retrospective, should have formed some general theo- 
 ries connecting the phenomena of sorcery with past 
 events, and reducing them to a systematic form. We 
 accordingly find that, in the course of about three 
 centuries, a vast literature was formed upon the 
 subject. The different forms of witchcraft were all 
 carefully classified and associated with particular 
 doctrines ; the whole philosophy of the Satanic was 
 minutely investigated, and the prevailing mode of 
 thought embodied in countless treatises, which were 
 once regarded as masterpieces of orthodox theology. 
 
 It is very difficult for us in the present day to do 
 
 cowry of Witchcraft (London, center qusestionatus ' (Pars iii. 
 
 1665), pp. 11, 12. All the old Qusest. 11, 15). The tortures 
 
 treatises are full of the subject, were all the more horrible, 
 
 Sprenger recommends the tor- because it was generally be- 
 
 tures to be continued two or lieved that the witches had 
 
 three days, till the prisoner charms to deaden their effect, 
 was, as he expresses it, ' de- ' Spiua, cap. xii.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 65 
 
 justice to these works, or to realise the points of view 
 from which they were written. A profound scepti- 
 cism on all subjects connected with the Devil under- 
 lies the opinions of almost every educated man, and 
 renders it difficult even to conceive a condition of 
 thought, in which that spirit was the object of an 
 intense and realised belief. An anecdote which in- 
 volves the personal intervention of Satan is now re- 
 garded as quite as intrinsically absurd, and unworthy 
 of serious attention, as an anecdote of a fairy or of a 
 sylph. When, therefore, a modern reader turnsover 
 the pages of an old treatise on witchcraft, and finds 
 hundreds of such anecdotes related with the gravest 
 assurance, he is often inclined to depreciate very 
 unduly the intellect of an author who represents a 
 condition of thought so unlike his own. The cold 
 indifference to human suffering which these writers 
 display gives an additional bias to his reason ; while 
 their extraordinary pedantry, their execrable Latin, 
 and their gross scientific blunders, furnish ample 
 materials for his ridicule. Besides this, Sprenger, 
 who is at once the most celebrated, and, perhaps, the 
 most credulous member of his class, unfortunately for 
 his reputation, made some ambitious excursions into 
 another field, and immortalised himself by a series of 
 etymological blunders, which have been the delight 
 of all succeeding scholars. 1 
 
 1 'Foemina,' he assures us, is quia duo occidit, scilicet corpus 
 
 derived from Fe and minus, et animam. Et secunclum ety- 
 
 because women have less faith mologiam, licet Grsece, inter- 
 
 than men (p. 65). Maleficiendo pretetur diabolus clausus er- 
 
 is from male de fide sentiendo. gastulo : et hoc sibi convenit 
 
 For diabolus we have a choice cum non permittitursibi noeere 
 
 of most instructive derivations, quantum vellet. Vel diabolus 
 
 It comes 'a dia quod est duo, quasi deflueus, quia defluxit, id 
 
 et bolus quod est mcrsellus, est corruit, et specialiter et lo- 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 60 RATIONALISM IX EUROPE. 
 
 But when all these qualifications have been made 
 and, with the exception of the last, they would all 
 apply to any other writings of the same period it 
 is, I think, impossible to deny that the books in de- 
 fence of the belief are not only far more numerous 
 than the later works against it, but that they alno 
 represent far more learning, dialectic skill, and even 
 general ability. For many centuries the ablest men 
 were not merely unwilling to repudiate the supersti- 
 tion ; they often pressed forward earnestly, and with 
 the most intense conviction, to defend it. Indeed, 
 during the period when witchcraft was most preva- 
 lent, there were few writers of real eminence who 
 did not, on some occasion, take especial pains to 
 throw the weight of their authority into the scale. 
 Thomas Aquinas was probably the ablest writer of 
 the thirteenth century, and he assures us that diseases 
 and tempests are often the direct acts of the Devil ; 
 that the Devil can transport men at his pleasure 
 through the air; and that he can transform them 
 into any shape. Gerson, the Chancellor of the Uni- 
 versity of Paris, and, as many think, the author of 
 ' The Imitation,' is justly regarded as one of the 
 master-intellects of his age ; and he, too, wrote in 
 defence of the belief. Bodin was unquestionably the 
 most original political philosopher who had arisen 
 since Machiavelli, and he devoted all his learning 
 and acuteness to crushing the rising scepticism on the 
 subject of witches. The truth is, that, in those ages, 
 ability was no guarantee against error ; because the 
 single employment of the reason was to develope and 
 
 ealiter* (p. 41). If the reader instance of verbal criticism, 
 is curione in these matters, he which I do not venture to 
 well find another astounding quote, in Bodin, Demon, p. 40.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 67 
 
 expand premises that were furnished by the Church. 
 There was no such thing as an uncompromising and 
 unreserved criticism of the first principles of teach, 
 ing ; there was no such thing as a revolt of the rea- 
 son against conclusions that were strictly drawn from 
 the premises of authority. In our age, and in every 
 other age of half belief, principles are often adopted 
 without being fully developed. If a conclusion is 
 drawn from them, men enquire, not merely whether 
 the deduction is correct, but also whether its result 
 seems intrinsically probable ; and if it does not ap- 
 pear so, they will reject the conclusion, without 
 absolutely rejecting the premise. In the ages of 
 witchcraft an inexorable logic prevailed. Men were 
 so firmly convinced of the truth of the doctrines they 
 were taught, that those doctrines became to them the 
 measure of probability, and no event that seemed to 
 harmonise with them presented the slightest difficulty 
 to the mind. They governed the imagination, while 
 they subdued the reason, and secular considerations 
 never intervened to damp their assm*ance. The 
 ablest men were not unfrequently the most credu- 
 lous ; because their ability was chiefly employed in 
 discovering analogies between every startling narra- 
 tive and the principles of their faith, and their success 
 was a measure of their ingenuity. 
 
 It is these considerations that give the writings of 
 the period I am referring to so great an importance 
 in the history of opinions, and which also make it so 
 difficult for us to appreciate their force. I shall en- 
 deavour to lay before the reader, in as concise a form 
 as I am able, some of the leading principles they em. 
 bodied ; which, acting on the imagination, contributed 
 to produce the phenomena of witchcraft ; and, action 
 
 F2
 
 68 BATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 on the reason, persuaded men that the narratives of 
 witches were antecedently probable. 1 
 
 It was universally taught that innumerable evil 
 spirits were ranging over the world, seeking the 
 present unhappiness and the future ruin of man- 
 kind ; that these spirits were fallen angels, who had 
 retained many, if not all, the angelic capacities ; and 
 that they, at all events, possessed a power and wis- 
 dom far transcending the limits of human faculties. 
 From these conceptions many important consequences 
 were evolved. If these spirits are for ever hovering 
 around us, it was said, it is surely not improbable 
 that we should meet some signs of their presence. 
 If they delight in the smallest misfortune that can 
 befall mankind, and possess far more than human 
 capacities for inflicting suffering, it is not surpris- 
 ing that they should direct against men the ener- 
 gies of superhuman malice. If their highest object 
 is to secure the ultimate ruin of man, we need not 
 wonder that they should offer their services to those 
 who would bribe them by the surrender of their 
 hopes. That such a compact can be made that it 
 is possible for men to direct the energies of evil 
 spirits was established by the clearest authority. 
 ' Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,' was the so- 
 lemn injunction which had been more than once 
 repeated in the Levitical code ; and the history of 
 
 1 The principal authority on Sprenger, Nider, Basin, Mo- 
 
 these matters is a large collec- litor, Gerson, Murner, Spina, 
 
 tion of Latin works (in great Laurentius, Bernardus, Vigni- 
 
 part written by inquisitors), tus, Grillaudus, &c. I have 
 
 extending over about two cen- noticed a great many other 
 
 turies, and published under the works in their places, and the 
 
 title of Malleus Maleficarum reader may find reviews of 
 
 (the title of Sprenger's book), many others in Madden and 
 
 It comprises the works of Plancey.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 69 
 
 the witch of Endor furnishes a detailed description 
 of the circumstances of the crime. The Fathers had 
 denounced magic with a unanimous and unvarying 
 voice, and the writings of every nation bear traces of 
 the universality of the belief. In an age which was 
 essentially retrospective, it was impossible to name a 
 tenet which could seem more probable, for there was 
 none which was more closely connected with anti- 
 quity, both ecclesiastical and profane. 
 
 The popular belief, however, not only asserted the 
 possibility and continued existence of witchcraft, it 
 also entered into many of what we should now deem 
 the most extravagant and grotesque details. In the 
 first place, one of the most ordinary operations of the 
 witch, or of the Devil acting at her command, was to 
 cause tempests, which it was said frequently desolated 
 the fields of a single person, leaving the rest of the 
 country entirely untouched. If any one ventured to 
 deny that Satan possessed, or was likely to exercise 
 this power, he was speedily silenced by a scriptural 
 precedent. We read in the Old Testament that the 
 Devil, by the Divine permission, afflicted Job ; and 
 that among the means which he employed was a 
 tempest which destroyed the house in which the sons 
 of the patriarch were eating. The description, in 
 the book of Revelation, of the four angels who held 
 the four winds, and to whom it was given to afflict 
 the earth, was also generally associated with this 
 belief; for, as St. Augustine tells us, the word angel 
 is equally applicable to good or bad spirits. Besides 
 this, the Devil was always spoken of as the prince of 
 the air. His immense knowledge and his immense 
 power would place the immediate causes of atmo- 
 spheric disturbances at his disposal ; and the sadden
 
 TO RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 tempest would, therefore, be no violation of natural 
 laws, but simply an instance of their application by 
 superhuman power. These considerations were, it 
 was thought, sufficient to remove all sense of the 
 antecedent improbability of the facts which wero 
 alleged ; but every uncertainty was dispelled by the 
 uniform teaching of the Church. At all times, the 
 Fathers and the mediaeval saints had taught, like the 
 teachers of every other religion in the same early 
 stage of civilisation, that all the more remarkable 
 atmospheric changes resulted from the direct inter- 
 vention of spirits. 1 Rain seems to have been com- 
 monly associated, as it still is in the Church of 
 England, with the intervention of the Deity ; but 
 wind and hail were peculiarly identified with the 
 Devil. If the Devil could originate a tempest, it 
 followed, as a necessary consequence, that witches 
 who had entered into compact with him had the 
 same power. 
 
 The same principles of argument applied to disease. 
 The Devil had afflicted Job with horrible diseases, 
 and might therefore afflict others. Great pestilences 
 were constantly described in the Old Testament as 
 the acts of the angels ; and the Devil, by the per- 
 mission of the Deity and by virtue of his angelic 
 capacities, might therefore easily produce them. The 
 history of the demoniacs proves that devils could 
 master and derange the bodily functions ; and, there- 
 fore, to deny that they could produce disease, would 
 be to impugn the veracity of these narratives ; and 
 the later ecclesiastical testimony on the subject, if 
 not unanimous, was, at least, extremely strong. As, 
 
 1 On the universality of this civilisation, see Buckle's Hia- 
 belief, iu an early stage of tory, vol. i. p. 346.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 therefore, the more striking atmospheric disturbances 
 were ascribed generally to the Devil ; and, when the 
 injury was spread over a small area, to witches ; so, 
 the pestilences which desolated nations were deemed 
 supernatural ; and all strange and unaccountable 
 diseases that fell upon an individual, a result of the 
 malice of a sorcerer. If the witch could produce dis- 
 ease by her incantations, there was no difficulty in 
 believing that she could also remove it. 1 
 
 These propositions were unanimously and firmly 
 believed. They were illustrated by anecdotes, the 
 countless numbers of which can only be appreciated 
 by those who have studied the literature at its source. 
 They were indelibly graven on the minds of men by 
 hundreds of trials and of executions, and they were 
 admitted by almost all the ablest men in Christendom. 
 
 There were other details, however, which excited 
 considerable discussion. One of the most striking 
 
 1 There can be little doubt 
 that a considerable amount of 
 poisoning was mixed up with 
 the witch cases. la ages when 
 medical knowledge was scanty, 
 and post-mortem examination 
 unknown, this crime was pecu- 
 liarly dreaded, and appeared 
 peculiarly mysterious. On the 
 other hand, it is equally certain 
 that the witches constantly em- 
 ployed their knowledge of the 
 property of herbs for the pur- 
 pose of curing disease, and that 
 they attained, in this respect, a 
 skill which was hardly equalled 
 by the regular practitioners. To 
 the evidence which Michelet 
 has collected on this matter, 
 I may add a striking passage 
 from Griilandus: ' Quaiidoque 
 
 rero provenit febris, tussis, 
 dementia, phthisis, hydropsis, 
 aut aliqua tumefactio carnis in 
 corpore, sive apostema extrinse- 
 cus apparens : quandoque vero 
 intrinsece apud intestina ali- 
 quod apostema sit adeo terribile 
 et incurabile quod nulla pars 
 medicorum id sauare et remo- 
 vere potest, nisi accedat alius 
 maleficus, sive sortilegus, qui 
 contrariis medelis et remediis 
 segritudinem ipsam maleticam 
 tollat, quam facile et brevi 
 tempore removere potest, cseteri 
 verc medici qui artem ipsius 
 medicinse profitentur nihil va- 
 lent et nesciunt afferre reme- 
 dium ' (Mall. Mai. vol. ii. 
 pp. 393, 394).
 
 72 RATIONALISM IX EUROPE. 
 
 of these was the transportation of witches through 
 the air. That an old woman could be carried some 
 hundreds of miles in a few minutes on a broomstick 
 or a goat, or in any other way the Devil might select, 
 would, in the present day, be regarded as so essen- 
 tially and grotesquely absurd, that it is probable that 
 no conceivable amount of testimony would convince 
 men of its reality. At the period of which I arn 
 v/riting, this rationalistic spirit did undoubtedly exist 
 in a few minds ; for it is noticed, though with ex- 
 treme contempt, by some of the writers on the sub- 
 ject, who treated it as a manifest mental aberration, 
 but it had not yet assumed any importance. The 
 measure of probability was still essentially theo- 
 logical ; and the only question that was asked was, 
 how far the narratives conformed with the theological 
 conception of a spirit. On this point there seemed, 
 at first sight, much difficulty, and considerable in- 
 genuity was applied to elucidating it. Satan, it was 
 remembered, had borne Christ through the air, and 
 placed him on a pinnacle of the temple ; and there- 
 fore, said St. Thomas Aquinas, if he could do this to 
 one body he could do it to all. The prophet Habak- 
 kuk had been transported by a spirit from Judea to 
 Babylon, and Philip the Evangelist had been the 
 object of a similar miracle. St. Paul had likewise 
 been carried, perhaps in the body, into the third 
 heaven. 
 
 This evidence was ample and conclusive ; but other 
 perplexing difficulties arose. Nothing in the witch 
 trials was more minutely described than the witches' 
 Sabbath, and many hundreds of women had been 
 burnt alive for attending it. Occasionally, however, 
 it happened that, when a woman had been condemned
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 73 
 
 on this charge by her own confession, or by the 
 evidence of other witches, her husband came forward 
 and swore that his wife had not left his side during 
 the night in question. The testimony of so near a 
 relative might, perhaps, be explained by perjury ; 
 but other evidence was adduced which it was more 
 difficult to evade. It was stated that women were 
 ofti'n found lying in a state of trance, insensible to 
 pain, and without the smallest sign of life ; that, after 
 a time, their consciousness returned ; and that they 
 then confessed that they had been at the witches' 
 Sabbath. These statements soon attracted the atten- 
 tion of theologians, who were much divided in their 
 judgments. Some were of opinion that the witch 
 was labouring under a delusion of the Devil ; but 
 they often added that, as the delusion originated in 
 a compact, she should, notwithstanding, be burned. 
 Others suggested a bolder and very startling expla- 
 nation. That the same portion of matter cannot be 
 in two places at once, is a proposition which rests 
 entirely on the laws of nature ; but those laws have 
 no existence for the miraculous; and the miracle of 
 tran substantiation seems to destroy all the improba- 
 bility of the pluri-presence of a human body. At all 
 events, the Devil might furnish, for the occasion, a 
 duplicate body ; in order to baffle the ministers of 
 justice. This latter opinion became extremely popxi- 
 lar among theologians ; and two famous Catholic 
 miracles were triumphantly quoted in its support. 
 St. Ambrose was, on one occasion, celebrating mass 
 in a church at Milan, when he suddenly paused in 
 the midst of the service. His head sank upon the 
 altar, and he remained motionless, as in a trance, for 
 the space of three hours. The congregation waited
 
 74 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 silently for the benediction. At last, tlie conscious- 
 ness of the saint returned, and he assured his hearers 
 that he had been officiating at Tours at the burial of 
 St. Martin, a statement which was, of course, in a 
 few days, verified. A similar miracle was related of 
 St. Clement. This early saint, in the midst of a mass 
 at Rome, was called away to consecrate a church at 
 Pisa. His body, or an angel who had assumed its 
 form, remained at Rome ; but the saint was at the 
 same time present at Pisa, where he left some drops 
 of blood upon the marble for a memorial of the 
 miracle. 1 On the whole, the most general opinion 
 seems to have been, that the witches were sometimes 
 transported to the Sabbath in body, and sometimes 
 in spirit ; and that devils occasionally assumed their 
 forms in order to baffle the sagacity of the judges. 2 
 
 Another important and much discussed depart- 
 ment, was the connection between evil spirits and 
 animals. That the Devil could assume the form of 
 any animal 8 he pleased, seems to have been generally 
 
 1 Spina, De Strigibus (1522), supposed to be in especial con- 
 cap, xi. nection with spirits. Delrio 
 
 * All the phenomena of som- mentions that the ancient Irish 
 
 nambulism were mixed up with had such a veneration for 
 
 the question. See e.g., Spiua, wolves that they were accus- 
 
 cap. x. and xi., where it is tomed to pray for their salva- 
 
 t'ully discussed. Many curious tion, and to choose them as 
 
 notions were held about som- godfathers for their children 
 
 nambulism. One (.pinion was, (Thiers' Sitperst. vol. ii. p. 198). 
 
 that the somnambulists had Beelzebub, as is well known, 
 
 never been baptised, or had was god of flies, ' par ce qu'il 
 
 bt-en baptised by a drunken n'y avoit pas une mouche en 
 
 priest. son temple, commit on dictqu'au 
 
 1 This belief was probably Palais de Venise il n'y a pas 
 
 sustained by the great use une seule mouche et au Palais 
 
 made of animals in Christian de Toledo qu'il n'y en a qu'une, 
 
 symbolism as representatives qui n'est p.-is chose estrange ou 
 
 of moral qualities. Indifferent nouvelle, car nous lisous qua 
 
 districts different animals were los Cyrenaiques, apres avoir
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 75 
 
 admitted ; and it presented no difficulty to those who 
 remembered ihat the first appearance of that person- 
 age on earth was as a serpent, and that on one occasion 
 a legion of devils had entered into a herd of swine. 
 St. Jerome also assures us that, in the desert, St. 
 Antony had met a centaur and a faun a little man 
 with horns growing from his forehead who were 
 possibly devils ; l and at all events, at a later period, 
 the lives of the saints represent evil spirits in the 
 form of animals as not unfrequent. Lycauthropy, 
 however, or the transformation of witches into 
 wolves, presented more difficulty. The history of 
 Nebuchadnezzar, and the conversion of Lot's wife, 
 were, it is true, eagerly alleged in support of its 
 possibility ; but it was impossible to forget that 
 St. Augustine appeared to regard lycanthropy as a 
 fable, and that a canon of the council of Ancyra had 
 emphatically condemned the belief. On the other 
 hand, that belief had been very widely diffused among 
 the ancients. It had been accepted by many of the 
 
 sacrifi6 au dievi Acaron, dieu fellowship can there be between 
 
 des monehes, et les Grecs a Christ and Belial ' (Wier, DC 
 
 Jupiter, surnomme Myiodes, Freest. Dtem. p. 557). The 
 
 c'est a dire mouchard, toutes ascription of intelligence to 
 
 les mouches s'envolaient en animals was general through 
 
 tine nuee, comme nous lisons the middle ages, but it was 
 
 en Pausanias In Arcadic's et most prominent in the Celtic 
 
 en Pline au livre xxix. cap. 6 ' race. See a curious chapter 
 
 (Bodin, Demon, p. 15). Dancing on mystic animals in Dalyell's 
 
 bears and other intelligent ani- Superstitions of Scotland, and 
 
 mals seem to have been also also the essay of fienan on 
 
 connected with the Devil ; and Celtic Poetry. Muratori (Antiq. 
 
 an old council anathematised Ital. Diss. xxix.) quotes an 
 
 at once magicians who have amusing passage from a writer 
 
 abandoned their Creator, for- of the eleventh century, con- 
 
 tur.e-tellers, and those ' qui corning a dog which in that 
 
 ursas aut similes bestias ad century was ' moved by the 
 
 ludum et perniciem simplicio- spirit of Pytho.' 
 
 rum circumferunt ' ' for what * Vita S. Pauli.
 
 76 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 greatest and most orthodox theologians, by the in- 
 quisitors who were commissioned by the popes, and 
 by the law courts of most countries. The evidence 
 on which it rested was very curious and definite. If 
 the witch was wounded in the form of an animal, she 
 retained that wound in her human form, and hun- 
 dreds of such cases were alleged before the tribunals. 
 Sometimes the hunter, having severed the paw of hia 
 assailant, retained it as a trophy ; but when he 
 opened his bag, he discovered in it only a bleeding 
 hand, which he recognised as the hand of his wife. 1 
 
 1 L' existence des lonps- 
 garous est attestee par Vir- 
 gile, Solin, Strabou, Pomponius 
 Mela, Dionysius Afer, Varron, 
 fit par tous les Jurisconsultes 
 et demouomanes des derniers 
 siecles. A peine commenc,ait- 
 on a en douter sous Louis XIV ' 
 (Plancey, Diet, infernal, Ly- 
 canthropie). Bodin, in his chap- 
 ter on Lyeanthropy, and in our 
 own daj', Madden (vol. i. pp. 
 334-358), have collected many 
 additional authorities. St. Au- 
 gustine notices the subject with 
 considerable hesitation, but on 
 the whole inclines, as I have 
 said, towards incredulity (Civ. 
 Dei, lib. xviii. c. 17, 18). He 
 also tells us that in his time 
 there were some innkeepers, 
 who were said to give their 
 guests drugs in cheese, and 
 thus to turn them into animals 
 (Ibid). In the Salic laws of 
 the fifth century there is a 
 curious enactment ' that any 
 sorceress who has devoured a 
 man should on conviction be 
 fin-d 200 sous ' (Garinet, p. 6). 
 To come down to a later period, 
 
 we find, according to Bodin, 
 Paracelsus and Fernel, the 
 chief physician of Henry IV., 
 holding the belief in lyean- 
 thropy. There is probably no 
 country in Europe perhaps no 
 country in the world in which 
 some form of this superstition 
 has not existed. It raged, how- 
 ever, especially where wolves 
 abounded among the Jura, in 
 Norway, Russia, Ireland (where 
 the inhabitant! of Ossory, ac- 
 cording to Camden, were said 
 to become wolves once every 
 seven years), in the Pyrenees 
 and Greece. The Italian women 
 usually became cats. In the 
 East (as the Arabian Nights 
 show) many forms were as- 
 sumed. A French judge named 
 Boguet, at the end of the six- 
 teenth century, devoted himself 
 especially to the subject, burnt 
 multitudes of lycanthropes, 
 wrote a book about them, and 
 drew up a code in which he 
 permitted ordinary witches to 
 be strangled before they were 
 burnt, but excepted lycan- 
 thropes, who were to be burnt
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 77 
 
 The last class of anecdotes I sliall notice is that 
 which appears to have grown out of the Catholic 
 conception of celibacy. I mean the accounts of the 
 influence of witchcraft upon the passions. 
 
 It is not difficult to conceive the order of ideas 
 that produced that passionate horror of the fair sex 
 which is such a striking characteristic of old Catholic 
 theology. Celibacy was universally regarded as the 
 highest form of virtue, and in order to make it ac- 
 ceptable, theologians exhausted all the resources of 
 their eloquence in describing the iniquity of those 
 whose charms had rendered it so rare. Hence, the 
 long and fiery disquisitions on the unparalleled ma- 
 lignity, the inconceivable subtlety, the frivolity, the 
 unfaithfulness, the unconquerably evil propensities 
 of women, which were the terror of one age, and 
 which became the amusement of the next. It is not 
 very easy to read these diatribes with perfect 
 gravity ; but they acquire a certain melancholy sig- 
 nificance, from the fact that the teaching they repre- 
 sent had probably a considerable influence in pre- 
 disposing men to believe in witches ; and also in 
 producing the extreme callousness with which the 
 Bufferings of the victims were contemplated. The 
 question why the immense majority of those who 
 
 alive (Garinet, pp. 298-302). instance of the development 
 In the controversy about the of the miraculous. See also 
 reality of the transformation, Bourquelot, La Lycanthropie. 
 Bodin supported the affirma- Among the many mad notions 
 tive, and Binsfeldiup the nega- of the Abyssinians, perhaps the 
 tive side. There is a form of maddest is their belief that 
 monomania under which men blacksmiths and potters can 
 believe themselves to be ani- change themselves into hyaenas, 
 mals, which is doubtless the and ought therefore to bo ex- 
 nucleus around which the sys- eluded from the sacrament 
 tern was formed a striking (Hccker, EJJ'U! p. 120)
 
 78 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 were accused of sorcery should be women, early 
 attracted attention ; and it was generally answered, 
 not by the sensibility of their nervous constitution, 
 and by their consequent liability to religious mono- 
 mania and epidemics, but by the inherent wicked- 
 ness of the sex. There was no subject on which the 
 old writers expatiated with more indignant elo- 
 quence, or with more copious illustration. 1 Cato, 
 they said, had declared that 'if the world were only 
 free from women, men would not be without the 
 converse of the gods.' Cicero had said, that ' many 
 motives will urge men to one crime, but that one 
 passion will impel women to all crimes.' Solomon, 
 whose means of observation had in this respect been 
 exceedingly extensive, had summed up his experience 
 in a long series of the most crushing apophthegms. 
 Chiysostom only interpreted the general sentiment 
 of the Fathers, when he pronounced woman to be ' a 
 necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable 
 calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and 
 a painted ill.' Doctor after doctor echoed the same 
 lugubrious strain, ransacked the pages of history for 
 illustrations of the enormities of the sex, and mar- 
 shalled the ecclesiastical testimonies on the subject 
 with the most imperturbable earnestness and solem- 
 nity. Men who had most seriously formed this 
 estimate of the great majority of women ; who es- 
 teemed celibacy the highest of virtues, and every 
 temptation to abandon it the direct consequence of 
 Satanic presence ; came, by a very natural process, 
 to regard all the ' phenomena of love ' as most 
 especially under the influence of the Devil. Hence, 
 
 1 See especially the long strange chapter on the subject in 
 Sprenger.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 79 
 
 those wild gleams of strange and grotesque romance 
 which, from time to time, light up the literature of 
 witchcraft. Incubi and Succubi were for ever wan- 
 dering among mankind, alluring by more than 
 human charms the unwary to their destruction, and 
 laying plots which were but too often successful 
 against the virtue of the saints. Sometimes, the 
 witches kindled in the monastic breast a more ter- 
 restrial fire ; and men told, with bated breath, how, 
 under the spell of a vindictive woman, four succes- 
 sive abbots in a German monastery had been wasted 
 away by an unholy flame. 1 Occasionally, with a 
 still more refined malice, the Evil One assumed the 
 appearance of some noted divine, in order to bring 
 discredit upon his character ; and an astonished 
 maiden saw, prostrate at her feet, the form of one 
 whom she knew to be a bishop, and whom she 
 believed to be a saint ! 2 Nor was it only among 
 those who were bound to celibacy that the deadly 
 influences were exercised. The witches were con- 
 tinually disturbing, by their machinations, the joys 
 of wedlock ; and none can tell how many hundreds 
 have died in agonies for afflicting with barrenness the 
 marriage bed. 3 
 
 1 Sprenger, Pars I. Qua?st. addresses to a lady, but when 
 
 vii. At the request of St. Sere- discovered, crept under a bed, 
 
 nus and St. Equitius the angels suffered himself to be dragged 
 
 performed on those saints a out, and declared that he was 
 
 counteracting surgical opera- the veritable bishop. Happily, 
 
 *ion (Nider, Formic de Mai., after a time, a miracle was 
 
 c. v.). wrought which cleared the 
 
 '* See the curious story of St. reputation of the calumniated 
 
 Sylvanus, Bishop of Nazareth, prelate. 
 
 in Sprenger (Pars II. Qusest. 1, 3 As few people realise the 
 
 cap. xi.). The Devil not only degree in which these supersti- 
 
 assumed the appearance of this tions were encouraged by the 
 
 holy man, in order to pay his Church which claims iiifalli-
 
 80 
 
 RATIONALISM IX EUROPE. 
 
 I make no apology for having dwelt so long on a 
 series of doctrines and arguments which the reader 
 will probably deem very puerile, because their im- 
 portance depends, not on their intrinsic value, but 
 upon their relation to the history of opinions. The 
 follies of the past, when they were adopted by the 
 wisest men, are well worthy of study ; and, in the 
 case before us, they furnish, I think, an invaluable 
 clue to the laws of intellectual development. It is 
 often and truly said, that past ages were pre-emi- 
 nently credulous, as compared with our own ; yet 
 the difference is not so much in the amount of the 
 credulity, as in the direction which it takes. Men 
 
 bility, I may mention that the 
 reality of this particular crime 
 was implied, and its perpetra- 
 tors anathematised by the pro- 
 vincial councils or synods of 
 Troyes, Lyons, Milan, Tours, 
 Bourges, Narbonne, Ferrara, 
 St. Malo, MontCassin, Orleans, 
 and Grenoble, by the Rituals 
 of Autun, Chartres, Perigueux, 
 Atun, Evreux, Paris, Angers, 
 Arras, Chalons, Bologna, 
 Troyes, Bourges, Alet, Beau- 
 vais, Meaux, Itheims, &c., and 
 by the decrees of a long series 
 of bishops (Thiers, Sup. pop., 
 torn. iv. ch. vii.). It was held, 
 as far as I know, without a 
 single exception, by all the 
 inquisitors who presided at 
 the witch-courts, and Sprenger 
 gives a long account of the 
 methods which were generally 
 employed in convicting those 
 who were accused of the crime. 
 Montaigne appears to have been 
 the first who openly denied it, 
 ascribing to the imagination 
 
 what the orthodox ascribed to 
 the Devil ; and this opinion 
 seems soon to have become a 
 characteristic of free-thinkers 
 in France; for Thiers (who 
 wrote in 1678) complains that 
 ' Les esprits forts et leslibertins 
 qui donnent tout a la nature, 
 et qui ne jugent des choses que 
 par la raison, ne veulent pas 
 se persuader que de nouveaux- 
 maries puissent par 1'artifice et 
 la malice du demon estre em- 
 peches de se rendre le devoir 
 conjugal' (p. 567) a very 
 wicked incredulity ' puisque 
 1'Eglise, qui est conduite par le 
 Saint -Esprit, et qui par conse- 
 quent ne peut errer, reconnoit 
 qu'il se fait par 1'operation du 
 demon' (p. 573). The same 
 writer shows that the belief 
 existed in the Church in the 
 time of Theodosius (p. 568). 
 The last sorcerer who was 
 burnt in France perished on 
 this charge (Garinet, p. 2J6).
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 81 
 
 are always prepared to accept, on very slight evi- 
 dence, what they believe to be exceedingly probable. 
 Their measure of probability ultimately determines 
 the details of their creed, and it is itself perpetually 
 changing under the influence of civilisation. In the 
 middle ages, and in the sixteenth, and the beginning 
 of the seventeenth centuries, the measure of proba- 
 bility was essentially theological. Men seemed to 
 breathe an atmosphere that was entirely unsecular. 
 Their intellectual and imaginative conceptions were 
 all coloured by theological associations ; and they 
 accepted with cheerful alacrity, any anecdote which 
 harmonised with their habitual meditations. The 
 predisposition to believe in the miraculous was so 
 great, that it constructed, out of a few natural facts, 
 this vast and complicated system of witchcraft ; 
 accumulated around it an immense mass of the most 
 varied and circumstantial evidence ; persuaded all 
 the ablest men for many centuries that it was in- 
 contestably true ; conducted it unshaken through the 
 scrutiny of the law-courts of every European nation ; 
 and consigned tens of thousands of victims to a 
 fearful and unlamented death. There was not the 
 smallest desire to explain away or soften down 
 miraculous accounts, in order to make them harmo- 
 nise with experience, because the minds of men were 
 completely imbued with an order of ideas that had 
 no connection with experience. If we could per- 
 ceive evil spirits, untrammelled by the laws of 
 matter, actually hovering around us ; if we could 
 observe them watching every action with a deadly 
 malignity, seeking with all the energies of super- 
 human power the misery of mankind ; and darkening 
 with their awful aspect every sphere in which we 
 
 VOL. T. G
 
 fi2 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 move ; if we could see the angel of destruction 
 brandishing the sword of death over the Assyrian 
 hosts, or over the streets of Jerusalem ; and could 
 behold Satan transporting Christ through the air, or 
 the demoniacs foaming in agony beneath his grasp, 
 we should probably reason on these matters in much 
 the same spirit as the theologians of the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries. Our minds would be so 
 pervaded by these awful images, that they would 
 form a measure of probability entirely different from 
 that which is formed by the ordinary experience of 
 life ; a nervous consciousness of the continual pre- 
 sence of evil spirits would accompany us for ever ; 
 and would for ever predispose us to discover mani- 
 festations of their power. 
 
 The foregoing pages will, I trwst, be sufficient to 
 elucidate the leading causes upon which witchcraft 
 depended. They will show that it resulted, not from 
 accidental circumstances, individual eccentricities, or 
 even scientific ignorance, but from a general predis- 
 position to see Satanic agency in life. It grew from, 
 and it reflected, the prevailing modes of religious 
 thought ; and it declined only when those modes 
 were weakened or destroyed. In almost every period 
 of the middle ages, there had been a few men who 
 in some degree dissented from the common super- 
 stitions ; but their opinions were deemed entirely 
 incomprehensible, and they exercised no appreciable 
 influence upon their contemporaries. Indeed, their 
 doctrines being generally veiled in the mystical form, 
 were so perverted and materialised, that they not un- 
 frequently increased the prevailing gloom. As long 
 as the general credulity continued, as long as the 
 minds of men were directed towards the miraculous
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 83 
 
 and the Satanic, no efforts could eradicate the super- 
 stition. In such a condition of thought, men would 
 always be more inclined to accept than to reject the 
 evidence. They would refuse to scrutinise it with 
 jealous suspicion ; and, though they might admit the 
 existence of some imposture, they would never ques- 
 tion the substantial justice of the belief. Not until 
 the predisposition was changed ; not until men began 
 to recoil from these narratives, as palpably and grossly 
 improbable ; not until the sense of their improbability 
 BO overpowered the reverence for authority, as to 
 make them seek in every way to evade the evidence, 
 and to make them disbelieve it, even when they were 
 unable to disprove it, could this deadly superstition be 
 rolled away. Its decline marks the rise, and its de- 
 struction the first triumph, of the spirit of rational- 
 ism in Europe. 
 
 We frequently find, in the writings of the inquisi- 
 tors, language which implies that a certain amount 
 of scepticism was, even in their time, smouldering in 
 some minds. It was not, indeed, sufficient to make 
 any deep impression on public opinion. It is iden- 
 tified with no great name, 1 and produced no great 
 
 1 1 should, perhaps, make one was a disciple of Averroes 
 exception to this statement perhaps the founder of Aver- 
 Peter of Abano, a very famous roism, in Italy and seems to 
 physician and philosopher of have formed a school at Padua. 
 Padua, who died in 1305. He When he was about eighty, he 
 appears to have entirely denied was accused of magic. It was 
 the existence of demons and of said that he had acquired a 
 miracles; and to have attempted, knowledge of the seven liberal 
 by the assistance of astrology, arts by seven familiar spirits 
 to construct a general philoso- whom he kept confined in & 
 phy of religion, casting the crystal ; but he died before the 
 horoscope of each faith, and trial was concluded, so the in- 
 ascribing its rise and destiny to quisitors were obliged to con- 
 the influence of the stars. He tent themselves by burning his 
 02
 
 84 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 book ; but it was yet sufficiently evident to elicit the 
 anxiety of some theologians. ' Those men,' wrote 
 Gerson, ' should be treated with scorn, and, indeed, 
 sternly corrected, who ridicule theologians whenever 
 they speak of demons, or attribute to demons any 
 effects, as if these things were entirely fabulous. This 
 error has arisen among some learned men, partly 
 through want of faith, and partly through weakness 
 and imperfection of intellect .... for, as 
 Plato says, to refer everything to the senses, and to 
 be incapable of turning away from them, is the great- 
 est impediment to truth.' ' Sprenger also, in a long 
 chapter, instructed theologians how to meet a spirit 
 of vague scepticism which had arisen among certain 
 laymen ; ' who had, indeed, no fixed method of rea- 
 soning, but were blindly groping in the dark, touch- 
 ing now on one point, and now on another.' An 
 assembly of doctors of the University of Cologne, 1 
 which was held in 1487, lamented, and severely and 
 authoritatively condemned, a still more startling in- 
 stance of rebellion, arising from a quarter in which 
 it was least to be expected. When the panic was 
 raging most fiercely in the diocese of Cologne, some 
 priests had attempted to allay the alarm by question- 
 ing the reality of the crime. About thirty years 
 later, Spina mentions 3 that, in some places, the in- 
 numerable executions had aroused a spirit of most 
 acrimonious opposition. Indeed, in the north of 
 Italy, a positive rebellion had broken out, accom- 
 panied by a tone of incredulity which that theologian 
 
 image. He was regarded as one 258,259). 
 
 of the greatest of magicians. * Mall. Mai. vol. ii. p. 253. 
 
 Compare Naud6, Apol. (pp. 380- 2 Ibid. vol. i. pp. 460-468. 
 
 391) j Kanan, Averroes (pp. Vol. ii. pp. 191, 299, 300.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 85 
 
 piteously laments. ' Most imprudent, most undevout, 
 arid most unfaithful men will not believe the things 
 they ought to believe ; and what is still more la- 
 mentable, they exert all their influence to obstruct 
 those who are destroying the enemies of Christ.' 
 Such a. conduct, Spina justly observes, was full of 
 danger for those who were guilty of it, as they might 
 themselves be justly punished for conniving at the 
 crime ; and it was a distinct reflection upon the 
 Church which was represented by the inquisitors ; 
 and upon the Pope, by whom the inquisitors were 
 commissioned. We find, too, the clergy claiming, in 
 a very peremptory tone, the supreme jurisdiction 
 of these cases ; and occasionally alleging the mis- 
 conduct of lay judges who had suffered witches to 
 depart unharmed. All this scepticism, however, ap- 
 pears to have been latent and undefined ; and it was 
 not till 1563 that it was thrown into a systematic 
 form by John Wier, in his treatise, ' De Praestigiis 
 Dasmonum.' 
 
 Wier was a learned and able Physician of Cleves. 
 He was convinced as a doctor -that many of the 
 victims were simply lunatics ; and, being a very 
 humane man, was greatly shocked at the sufferings 
 they endured. He was a Protestant ; and therefore, 
 perhaps, not quite as much trammelled by tradition 
 as some of his contemporaries ; though in the present 
 day his reverence for authority would be regarded as 
 an absolute infatuation. He had not the slightest 
 wish to revolt against any of the first principles of 
 the popular teaching, or even to free himself from the 
 prevailing modes of thought. He was quite con- 
 vinced that the world was peopled by crowds of 
 demons, who were constantly working miracles among
 
 85 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 mankind ; and his only object was to reconcile his 
 sense of their ubiquity with his persuasion that some 
 of the phenomena that were deemed supernatural, 
 arose from disease. He was of opinion that all the 
 witches were labouring under the delusions of the 
 Devil. They did not make an unholy compact, or 
 ride through the air, or arouse tempests, or produce 
 disease, or become the concubines of Satan ; but the 
 Devil had entered into them, and persuaded them that 
 they had done these things. The idea of possession was 
 thus so enlarged as to absorb the idea of witchcraft. 
 The bewitched person was truly afflicted by the Devil, 
 but the Devil had done this directly, and not by the 
 intervention of a witch, and had then thrown sus- 
 picion upon some old woman, in order that the great- 
 est possible amount of suffering might be produced. 
 Persons, he said, were especially liable to diabolical 
 possession, when their faculties were impaired by 
 disease, and their tempers acidulated by suffering. 
 In an eloquent and learned chapter on ' the credulity 
 and fragility of the female sex,' he showed, by the 
 authority of the Fathers and the Greek philosophers, 
 that women were peculiarly subject to evil influences. 
 He also showed that the witches, in mental and moral 
 infirmities, were pre-eminent among their sex. He 
 argued that the word translated witch, in the Levi- 
 tioal law, may be translated poisoner ; and that the 
 patristic notion of the intercourse between angels and 
 the antediluvian women, was inadmissible. The 
 gross improbabilities of some parts of the popular 
 belief were clearly exhibited, and illustrated with 
 much unnecessary learning, and the treatise was 
 prefaced by an earnest appeal to the princes of Europe 
 to arrest the effusion of innocent blood.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 87 
 
 The scepticism of this work cannot be regarded as 
 audacious. In fact, Wier stands alone in the history 
 of witchcraft ; and differs essentially from all the 
 later writers on the subject. He forms a link con- 
 necting two periods ; he was as fully pervaded by tlie 
 sense of the miraculous as his opponents, and lie 
 never dreamed of restricting the sphere of the super- 
 natural. Such as it was, however, this book was 
 the first attack of any importance on the received 
 opinions, and excited among learned men considerable 
 attention. Three editions were published, in a few 
 years, at Basle and Amsterdam, which were then 
 the centres of independent thought. It was trans- 
 lated into French in 1569. It was followed by a 
 treatise, ' De Lamiis,' and by a very curious cata- 
 logue of the leaders, and description of the organisa- 
 tion, of hell. 1 Shortly after the publication of these 
 last works, a book appeared in 1'eply, from the pen of 
 Bodin, the famous author of the ' Republic,' and one 
 of the most distinguished philosophers in Europe. 
 
 Bodin was esteemed, by many of his contempo- 
 raries, the ablest man who had then arisen in France ; 
 and the verdict has been but little qualified by later 
 writers. 1 * Amid all the distractions of a dissipated 
 
 1 ' Psoudomonarchia Deemo- Jean Bodin, qui apres avoir par 
 num' one of the principal une merveilleuse vivacite d'es- 
 eources of information about prit accoinp;igneed'unjugement 
 this subject. He gives the solide traicte toutes les choses 
 names of seventy-two princes, divinps, naturelles et civiles, 
 and estimates their subjects at se fust pent estre mescogneu 
 7,405,926 devils. Itisnotquite pour homme, et eust este pris 
 clear how much he believed on iufailliblement de nous pour 
 the subject. quelque intelligence s'il n'eust 
 
 2 A very old critic and oppo- laisse des marques et restigi'S 
 nent of his views on witchcraft do son humanite dans cette de- 
 quaintly speaks of him as' Ce monomanie.' (Naude, Apo/., 
 premier homme de la France, 127 (162/>). Bayle (Diet. Phil.)
 
 88 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 and an intriguing court, and all the labours of a 
 judicial position, he had amassed au amour t of learn- 
 ing so vast and so various, as to place him in the very 
 first rank of the scholars of his nation. He has also 
 the far higher merit of being one of the chief founders 
 of political philosophy and political history ; aud of 
 having anticipated on these subjects many of the con- 
 clusions of our own day. In his judicial capacity 
 he had presided at some trials of witchcraft. He had 
 brought all the resources of his scholarship to bear 
 upon the subject ; and he had written a great part of 
 his ' Demonoraanie des Sorciers ' before the appear- 
 ance of the last work of Wier. 
 
 The ' Demonomanie des Sorciers ' is chiefly an ap- 
 peal to authority, which the author deemed on this 
 subject so unanimous and so conclusive, that it was 
 scarcely possible for any sane man to resist it. He 
 appealed to the popular belief in all countries, in all 
 ages, and in all religions. He cited the opinions of 
 an immense multitude of the greatest writers of 
 pagan antiquity, and of the most illustrious of the 
 Fathers. He showed how the laws of all nations 
 recognised the existence of witchcraft; and he col- 
 lected hundreds of cases which had been investigated 
 
 pronounced Bodin to have been on political philosophy had been 
 
 'one of the chief advocates of either so comprehensive in his 
 
 liberty of conscience of his time.' scheme, or so copious in his 
 
 In our own day, Buckle (vol. i. knowledge; none, per haps, more 
 
 p. 299) has placed him as an original, more independent and 
 
 historian above Comines, and fearless in his enquiries two 
 
 on a level with Machiavelli ; men alone, indeed, could be 
 
 and H;<llam, speaking of the compared with him Aristotle 
 
 Republic, says, 'Bodin pos- and Machiavel.' (Hist, of Lit. 
 
 sessed a highly philosophical vol. ii. p. 68.) Dtigald Stewart 
 
 mind, united with the most is equally encomiastic (DlssLT' 
 
 ample stores of history and tation, pp. 52-54). 
 jurisprudence. No former writer
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 89 
 
 before the tribunals of his own or of other countries. 
 He relates with the most minute and circumstantial 
 detail, and with the most unfaltering confidence, all 
 the proceedings of the witches' Sabbath, the methods 
 which the witches employed in transporting them- 
 selves thro.ugh the air, their transformations, their 
 carnal intercourse with the Devil, their various means 
 of injuring their enemies, the signs that lead to their 
 detection, their confessions when condemned, and 
 their demeanour a 1 ; the stake. As for the treatise of 
 Wier, he could scarcely find words to express the 
 astonishment and the indignation with which he had 
 perused it. That a puny doctor should have dared 
 to oppose himself to the authority of all ages ; that 
 he should have such a boundless confidence in his 
 own opinions, and such a supreme contempt for the 
 wisest of mankind, as to carp and cavil in a sceptical 
 spirit at the evidence of one of the most notorious of 
 existing facts : this was, in truth, the very climax of 
 human arrogance, the very acme of human absurdity. 
 But, extreme as was the audacity thus displayed, the 
 impiety was still greater. Wier ' had armed himself 
 against God.' His book was a tissue of ' horrible 
 blasphemies.' ' No one who is ever so little touched 
 with the honour of God, could read such blasphemies 
 without a righteous anger.' Not only had he dared 
 to impugn the sentences of so many upright judges ; 
 not only had he attempted to save those whom Scrip- 
 ture and the voice of the Church had branded as the 
 worst of criminals ; he had even ventured to publish 
 to the world the spells and incantations he had learned 
 from a notorious sorcerer. ' Who could reflect 
 
 1 Cornelius Agrippa, who had was Advocate-general at Metz, 
 been the master of Wier. He and had distinguished himself
 
 90 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 without consternation on the future of Christen- 
 dom after such fearful disclosures ? Who could ques- 
 tion that the knowledge thus disseminated would 
 multiply to an incalculable extent the number of 
 witches, would vastly increase the power of Satan, 
 arid would be productive of countless sufferings to 
 the innocent ? Under these circumstances, so far 
 from relaxing the prosecutions for witchcraft and 
 sorcery, it was necessary to continue them with a 
 redoubled energy ; and surely, no one could be the 
 object of a more just suspicion than a man who had 
 written so impious a book, and who had shown such 
 acquaintance with the secrets of so impious a profes- 
 sion. To pardon those whom the law of God con- 
 demned to death, was indeed beyond the province of 
 princes. Those who were guilty of such an act had 
 outi'aged the majesty of Heaven. They had virtually 
 repudiated the Divine law, and pestilence and famine 
 
 by his efforts to prevent prose- prisoned for a yoar at Brussels 
 cutions for witchcraft, and by on the charge of magic, and 
 saving the life of a peasant ceaf-eleesly calumniated after 
 woman whom Savin the inqui- his death. Before Wier, pro- 
 si tor wished to burn. He was, bably no one had done so much 
 consequently, generally thought to combat the persecution, and 
 to be in league with the Devil; his reputation was sacrificed in 
 and it is related that, on his the cause. (See Plancey's Diet. 
 death-bed, he drew off from his Infern. art. Agrippa, and Thiers' 
 neck a black dog, which was a Superst. vol. i. pp. 142, 143.) 
 demon, exclaiming that it was Naude has also devoted a long 
 the cause of his perdition (Gari- chapter to Agrippa. Agrippa 
 net. pp. 121, 122). In his early had not the good fortune to 
 days he had studied magic, and please any class of theologians, 
 had apparently come to the Among the Catholics he was 
 conclusion that it rested either regarded with extreme horror ; 
 on imposture or on a superior and Calvin, in his work De 
 knowledge of the laws of nature Scandatis, treats him as one of 
 a conclusion which he tried the chief contemnoi-s of the 
 to enforce in a book on the Gospel. 
 vanity of science. He was iai-
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 91 
 
 would inevitably desolate their dominions. 1 One 
 ftital example there had been, of a king tampering 
 v. ith his duty in this respect. Charles IX. had spared 
 the life of the famous sorcerer, Trois Echelles, on 
 the condition of his informing against his colleagues ; 
 and it is to this grievous sin that the early death of 
 the king is most probably to be ascribed : ' For the 
 word of God is very certain, that he who suffers a 
 man worthy of death to escape, draws the punishment 
 upon himself, as the prophet said to King Ahab, that 
 he should die for having pardoned a man worthy of 
 death. For 110 one had ever heard of pardon being 
 accorded to sorcerers.' 2 
 
 Such were the opinions which were promulgated, 
 towards the close of the sixteenth century, by one of 
 the most advanced intellects of one of the leading 
 nations of Europe ; promulgated, too, with a tone of 
 confidence and of triumph that shows how fully the 
 writer could count upon the sympathies of his readers. 
 The ' Demonomanie des Sorciers ' appeared in 1581. 
 Only seven years afterwards, Montaigne published 
 the first great sceptical work in the French language ; 
 and, among the many subjects on which his scepti- 
 cism wsa turned, witchcraft occupied a prominent 
 place. It would be scarcely possible to conceive a 
 more striking contrast, than his treatment of it pre- 
 sents to the works of Bodin and of Wier. The vast 
 mass of authority which those writers loved to array, 
 and by which they shaped the whole course of their 
 reasoning, is calmly and unhesitatingly discarded. 
 The passion for the miraculous, the absorbing sense of 
 diabolical capacities, have all vanished like a dream t 
 
 J Pp. 217, 228. P. 152.
 
 02 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 The old theological measure of probability has com- 
 pletely disappeared, and is replaced by a shrewd 
 secular common sense. The statements of the 
 witches were pronounced intrinsically incredible. 
 The dreams of a disordered imagination, or the 
 terrors of the rack, would account for many of them ; 
 but even when it is impossible to explain away the 
 evidence, it is quite unnecessary to believe it. ' There 
 are,' he said, ' proofs and arguments that are founded 
 on experience and facts. I do not pretend to unravel 
 ihem. I often cut them, as Alexander did the knot. 
 After all, it is setting a high value upon our opinions, 
 to roast men alive on account of them.' We may not 
 be able to discover an adequate solution of somo 
 statements on the subject, but we should consider 
 and he here anticipated a mode of argument which 
 was destined long afterwards to assume a most pro- 
 minent place in theological controversy that it is 
 far more probable that our senses should deceive 
 us, than that an old woman should be carried up a 
 chimney on a broomstick ; and that it is far less 
 astonishing that witnesses should lie, than that 
 witches should perform the acts that were alleged. 1 
 
 It has been justly remarked by Malebranche, that 
 Montaigne is an example of a writer who had no pre- 
 tensions to be a great reasoner ; but who nevertheless 
 exercised a most profound and general influence upon 
 the opinions of mankind. It is not, I think, difficult 
 to discover the explanation of the fact. In an age 
 which was still spell-bound by the fascinations of the 
 past he applied to every question a judgment entirely 
 unclouded by the imaginations of theologians, and 
 unshackled by the dictates of authority. His origi- 
 1 Liv. iii. c. 11.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFf. 93 
 
 nality consists, not so much in his definite opinions or 
 in his arguments, as in the general tone and character 
 of his mind. He was the first French author who 
 had entirely emancipated himself from the retro- 
 spective habits of thought that had so long been 
 universal ; who ventured to judge all questions by a 
 secular standard, by <he light of common sense, by 
 the measure of probability which is furnished by 
 daily experience. He was, no doubt, perfectly 
 aware that ' the laws of Plato, of the twelve tables, 
 of the consuls, of the emperors, and of all nations 
 and legislators Persian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, 
 German, Fi-ench, Italian, Spanish, English had de- 
 creed capital penalties against sorcerers ;' he knew 
 that ' prophets, theologians, doctors, judges, and 
 magistrates, had elucidated the reality of the crime 
 by many thousand violent presumptions, accusations, 
 testimonies, convictions, repentances, and voluntary 
 confessions, persisted in to death ; ' l but he was also 
 sensible of the extreme fallibility of the human judg- 
 ment ; of the facility with which the mind discovers, 
 in the phenomena of history, a reflection of its pre- 
 conceived notions ; and of the rapidity with which 
 systems of fiction are formed in a credulous and un- 
 discnminating age. While Catholics, Protestants, 
 and Deists were vying with each other in their ado- 
 ration of the past ; while the ambition of every 
 scholar and of every theologian was to form around 
 his mind an atmosphere of thought that bore no re- 
 lation to the world that was about him ; while know- 
 ledge was made the bond-slave of credulity, and 
 those whose intellects were most shackled by preju- 
 dice were regarded as the wisest of mankind, it was 
 1 Bodin, p. 252.
 
 94 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 the merit of Montaigne to rise, by the force of his 
 masculine genius, into the clear world of reality ; 
 to judge the opinions of his age, with an intellect 
 that was invigorated but not enslaved by knowledge ; 
 and to contemplate the systems of the past, without 
 being dazzled by the reverence that had surrounded 
 them. He looked down upon the broad field of his- 
 tory, upon its clashing enthusiasms, its discordant 
 systems, the ebb and flow of its ever-changing belief, 
 and he drew from the contemplation a lesson widely 
 different from his contemporaries. He did not, it is 
 true, fully recognise those moral principles which 
 shine with an unchanging splendour above the fluc- 
 tuations of speculative opinions ; he did not discover 
 the great laws of eternal development, which preside 
 over and direct the progress of belief, infuse order 
 into the seeming chaos, and reveal in every apparent 
 aberration a purpose and a meaning ; but he, a.t least, 
 obiained an intense and realised perception of the 
 fallibility of the human intellect ; a keen sense of the 
 absurdity of an absolute deference to the past ; and 
 of the danger of punishing men with death on 
 account of opinions concerning which we can have 
 BO little assurance. These things led him to suspect 
 that witchcraft might be a delusion. The bent and 
 character of his mind led him to believe that witch- 
 craft was grossly improbable. He was the first great 
 representative of the modern secular and rationalistic 
 spirit. By extricating his mind from the trammels of 
 the past, he had learned to judge the narratives of 
 diabolical intervention by a standard and with a 
 spirit that had been long unknown. The predisposi- 
 tion of the old theologians had been to believe that 
 the phenomena of witchcraft were all produced by the
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 95 
 
 Devil ; and when some manifest signs of madness 01 
 of imposture were exhibited, they attempted to ac- 
 commodate them to their supernatural theory. The 
 strong predisposition of Montaigne was to regard 
 witchcraft as the result of natural causes ; and, there- 
 fore, though he did not attempt to explain all the 
 Statements which he had heard, he was convinced 
 that no conceivable improbability could be as great 
 as that which would be involved in their reception. 
 This was not the happy guess of ignorance. It wad 
 the direct result of a mode of thought which he 
 applied to all theological questions. Fifty years 
 earlier, a book embodying such conceptions would 
 have appeared entirely incomprehensible, and its 
 author would perhaps have been burnt. At the close 
 of the sixteenth century, the minds of men were pre- 
 pared for its reception, and it flashed like a revelation 
 upon France. From the publication of the essays of 
 Montaigne, we may date the influence of that gifted 
 and ever enlai-ging rationalistic school, which gradu- 
 ally effected the destruction of the belief in witch- 
 craft, not by refuting or explaining its evidence, but 
 simply by making men more and more sensible of its 
 inti-iiisic absurdity. 
 
 Thirteen years after Montaigne, Charron wrote 
 his famous treatise on ' Wisdom.' In this work he 
 systematised many of the opinions of Montaigne ; 
 but exhibited far less genius and originality than his 
 predecessor. Like Montaigne he looked with aver- 
 sion on the miraculous ; but, like Montaigne, his 
 scepticism arose, not from any formal examination of 
 evidence, but from a deep sense of the antecedent 
 improbability. That which Montaigne had thrown 
 into the form of strong doubt, Charrou. almost threw
 
 96 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 into the form of a denial. All through the seven- 
 teenth century, the same modes of thought continued, 
 slowly but steadily sapping tho old belief; but, though 
 the industry of modern antiquaries has exhumed 
 two or three obscure works that were published on 
 the subject, 1 those works never seem to have at- 
 tracted any serious attention, or to have had any ap- 
 preciable influence in accelerating the movement. It 
 presents a spectacle, not of argument or of conflict, 
 but of a silent evanescence and decay. The priests 
 continued to exorcise the possessed, to prosecute 
 witches, and to anathematise as infidels all who 
 questioned the crime. Many of the lawyers, revert- 
 ing to the innumerable enactments in the law-books, 
 and to the countless occasions on which the subject 
 Lad been investigated by the tribunals, maintained 
 the belief with equal pertinacity ; but outside these 
 retrospective classes, the sense of the improbability 
 of witchcraft became continually stronger, till any 
 anecdote which involved the intervention of the 
 Devil, was on that account generally ridiculed. This 
 spiiit was exhibited specially among those whose 
 habits of thought were most secular, and whose 
 
 1 Maury, pp. 221, 222. The considerable part. Buyle (Pew- 
 principal of those writers was seen Diverscs, cexli.), calls him 
 Naucle, whose Apoloyie j,our Ics 'L'homme do France qui avoit 
 Grands Homines Souj-fonncz de le plus de lecture.' He is said 
 Magic, contains much curious to have reconstructed some of 
 historical information in an ex- the dances of the ancients, and 
 tremely tiresome form. Naude to have executed them in per- 
 ulso wrote an exposure of the son before Queen Christina, in 
 Rosicrucians, and a political Sweden (Magnin, Origines du 
 work on Coups d?Etat, embody- Theatre, torn. i. p. 113). The 
 ing the principles of Machia- Apologw was answered by a 
 velli. He was the first librarian Capucin named D'Autun, in a 
 of the Mazarine library, in the ponderous work called L'lncre- 
 fjundation of which he had a dulite Sfavaute.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 97 
 
 minds were least governed by authority. 1 Some 
 great scholars and writers who were fully sensible of 
 the improbability of the belief, at the same time re- 
 garded the evidence as irresistible, and looked upon 
 the subject with a perplexed and timid suspension of 
 judgment. La Bruyere said that the principles on 
 which magic rests seem vague, uncertain, and vision- 
 ary ; but that many embarrassing facts have been 
 attested by credible eye-witnesses ; that it appeared 
 equally rash to admit or to deny them, and that it was 
 better to take a central position between the credu- 
 lous who admitted all, and the freethinkers who re- 
 jected all.- Even Bayle seems to have looked upon 
 it in a similar spirit. 3 Descartes, though he did not, 
 as far as I am aware, ever refer directly to the sub- 
 ject, probably exercised a considerable influence upon 
 it, for the tendency of his teaching was to emancipate 
 the mind from the power of tradition, to secularise 
 philosophy, and, to destroy the material notions that 
 had long been associated with spirits. Malebranche 
 mentions that in his time some of the parliaments 
 had ceased to burn witches, and that within their 
 jurisdiction the number of witches had declined. He 
 inferred from this, that the contagious power of ima- 
 gination had created many of the phenomena. He 
 analysed, with much acuteness, the process of thought 
 
 "Cefurentlesesprits fortsdn passer soi-meme pour un affide 
 
 commencement du dix-septieme du diable, ou ce que ne valait 
 
 siecie qui s'efforcerent les pre- pas mieux, pour un incredule. 
 
 miers de combattre le prejuge Les libres penseurs, les libertina 
 
 regnant, de defendre de mal- comme on les appelait alors, 
 
 houreux fous ou d'indiscrets n'avaient que peu de credit.' 
 
 chercheurs eontre lestribunaux. (Maury, p. 221.) 
 
 II fallait pour cela du courage, 2 See the passage in Maury, 
 
 car on risquait, en cherchant a p. 219. 
 
 sauver la tete du prevenu, de 8 Ibid. p. 220. 
 
 TOL. I. H
 
 98 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 which produced lycanthropy ; but, being a priest, he 
 found it necessary to add, that real sorcerers should 
 undoubtedly be put to death. 1 Voltaire treated the 
 whole subject with a scornful ridicule ; observed that 
 ?ince there had been philosophers in France, witches 
 had become pi-oportionately rare, and summed up 
 the ecclesiastical authorities for the belief as em- 
 phatically as Sprenger or Spina, but with, a very 
 different object. 2 
 
 In the first half of the seventeenth century, the 
 civil power uniformly exerted its energies for the 
 destruction of witches. It was between the publi- 
 cation of the works of Montaigne and of Charron, 
 that Boguet was presiding at the tribunal of St. 
 Claude, where lie is said to have burnt 600 persons, 
 chiefly for lycanthropy. A few years later, the fifty 
 executions at Douay, which I have already mentioned, 
 took place ; and, in 1642, Cardinal Mazarin wrote a 
 letter to the Bishop of Evreux, congratulating him 
 warmly on the successful zeal he had manifested on 
 the subject. 3 Towards the middle of the century, 
 however, the growing incredulity had reached those 
 in power ; the prosecutions for witchcraft became 
 more rare and languid ; and, in 1672, Colbert di- 
 rected the magistrates to receive no accusations of 
 sorcery ; and commuted in many cases the capital 
 punishment for the crime into a sentence of banish- 
 
 1 Recherche de la Verite, liv. des hommes qui etaient re- 
 
 ii. p. 3, c. 6. ellement en commerce avec les 
 
 '-' He said : ' Tous les peres diables.' (Diet. Phil. art. Su 
 
 de 1'Eglise sans exception cru- pe.ntt.ition.') This I believe to 
 
 rout au pouvoir de la magie. be quite true, but it was a 
 
 L'Eglise condamna toujours la striking sign of the times, that 
 
 magie, mais elle y crut tou- an opponent of magic could say 
 
 jours. EHen'oxcomiminia point so, without ruining his cause, 
 les sorciers comme des fous, qui s Garinet, p. 328. 
 ouik'iit trompes inais comme
 
 MAGIC AND W1TCHCKAFT. 99 
 
 meut. It was when some of these commutations had 
 been made, that the Parliament of Rouen drew up an 
 extremely remarkable address to the king, protesting, 
 in a strain of high religious fervour, against the in- 
 diilgence as directly contrary to the Word of God, to 
 all the precedents of French law, and to all the tra- 
 ditions of the Christian religion. 1 After this time 
 but few trials for sorcery took place that of the 
 Marshal of Luxembourg, in 1681, was, perhaps, the 
 most remarkable for the scepticism on the subject 
 had already become very marked, and in the last 
 twenty years of the seventeenth century, only seven 
 sorcerers seem to have been burnt in France. Still 
 later, in 1718, the Parliament of Bordeaux burnt a 
 man upon this charge. After this period there were, 
 indeed, one or two trials, but the prisoners were ac- 
 quitted ; the star of Voltaire had arisen above the 
 horizon, and the unsparing ridicule which his follow- 
 ers cast upon every anecdote of witches, intimidated 
 those who did not share in the incredulity. The 
 formularies for exorcism still continued as they con- 
 tinue to the present day in Roman Catholic rituals, 
 and they were frequently employed all through the 
 eighteenth century ; but the more educated members 
 of the clergy for the most part allowed the subject 
 to fall into neglect, and discouraged the attempts of 
 some of the order to revive it. Those who still clung 
 to the traditions of the past must have found much 
 difficulty in accounting for the progress of the move- 
 ment. That Satan should occupy such an extremely 
 small place in the minds of men was very lamentable, 
 but that the miraculous signs of his presence should 
 have so completely disappeared, was exceedingly 
 
 1 Garinet, pp. 337, 344. 
 9
 
 100 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 perplexing. At the beginning of the present century, 
 the A.bb Fiard published a work designed to explain 
 the difficulty. He showed that the philosophers and 
 revolutionists of the last century were the represen- 
 tatives of the old sorcerers, that they acted under the 
 direct inspiration of Satan, and that their success was 
 entirely due to Satanic power. Lest, however, it 
 should be said that this represented rather the moral 
 than the miraculous influence of the Evil One, he 
 added that many great and startling miracles had 
 accompanied the philosophic movement, and that 
 these miracles had not even yet ceased. The cures 
 of Mesmer and the prophecies of Cagliostro should 
 both be ascribed to supernatural agency ; but the 
 most startling of all the signs of diabolical presence 
 was the ever-increasing popularity of ventriloquism. 
 On this last subject, we are happily not left to our 
 own unassisted conjectures, for some learned divines 
 of the fourteenth century had solemnly determined 
 that man was designed to speak by his mouth ; and 
 that, whenever he spoke in any other way, he did so 
 by the assistance of the Devil. 1 
 
 The history of witchcraft in Protestant countries 
 differs so little from its history in Catholic ones that 
 it is not necessary to dwell upon it at much length. 
 In both cases, a tendency towards the miraculous was 
 the cause of the belief ; and the degree of religious 
 terrorism regulated the intensity of the persecution. 
 In both cases, too, the rise and progress of a ration- 
 alistic spirit were the origin and the measure of its 
 decline. In England, there appears to have been no 
 law against sorcery till 1541, when the nation was 
 convulsed by the first paroxysins of the lieformation. 
 
 1 Garinet, p. 280.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 101 
 
 The crime had indeed been known at an earlier 
 period, and a few executions had taken place, but 
 they were very rare ; and, in producing them, other 
 motives seem to have been generally mixed with su- 
 perstition. Joan of Arc, the noblest of all the victims 
 of the belief, perished by English hands, though on 
 French soil, and under the sentence of a French 
 Bishop. Some years after, the Duchess of Gloucester 
 having been accused by the Cardinal of Beaufort of 
 attempting the king's life by sorcery, was compelled 
 to do penance, while two of her servants were exe- 
 cuted. A few other cases have come down to us ; 
 but, although the extreme imperfection of the old 
 criminal registers renders it very probable that there 
 were others which are forgotten, there can be little 
 doubt that the superstition was much less prominent 
 in England than on the Continent. 1 Owing partly 
 to its insular position, and partly to the intense po- 
 litical life that from the earliest period animated the 
 people, there was formed in England a fearless and 
 
 1 Themostcompleteauthority those who were sentenced to 
 
 on this subject is the chronolo other than capital punishments, 
 
 gical table of facts in Hutchin- All the other writers I have 
 
 son's Essay on Witchcraft seen, place the English execu- 
 
 (1718). Hutchinson, who was tions far higher ; and it seems, 
 
 a very scrupulous writer, re- I think, certain that some exe- 
 
 etricted himself for the most cutions escaped the notice of 
 
 part to cases of which he had Hutchinson, whose estimate is, 
 
 learnt precise particulars, and however, probably much nearer 
 
 he carefully gives his authori- the truth than those of most 
 
 .ties. The number of executions writers. See also Wright's 
 
 he recounts as having taken Scrcery ; and an article from the 
 
 place in 250 years, amounts to Foreign Review in ' A Collection 
 
 many thousands. Of these only of Curious Tracts on Wiu-h- 
 
 about 140 were in England., craft,' reprinted in 1838. It is 
 
 This, of course, excludes those quite impossible to ar?i\v at 
 
 who were drowned or mobbed anything like precision on this 
 
 to death during the trial, and subject.
 
 102 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 self-reliant type of character essentially distinct 
 from that which was common in Europe, eminently 
 free from morbid and superstitious terrors, and averse 
 to the more depressing aspects of Religion. It was 
 natural, however, that amid the conflicts of the 
 Reformation, some of the darker superstitions should 
 arise ; and we accordingly find Cranmer, in one of 
 his articles of visitation, directing his clergy to seek 
 for 'any that use charms, sorcery, enchantments, 
 witchcraft, soothsaying, or any like craft invented by 
 the Devil.' It is remarkable that the law of 
 Henry VIII. against witchcraft was repealed in the 
 following reign, and there was no fresh legislation 
 about it till alter the accession of Elizabeth. 1 A new- 
 law was then made, which was executed with severity ; 
 !ind Jewell, when preaching before the queen, advert- 
 ing to the increase of witches, expressfd a hope that 
 the penalties might be still more rigidly enforced. 
 ' May it please your grace,' he added, 'to understand 
 that witches and sorcerers within these few years aie 
 marvellously increased within your grace's realm. 
 Your grace's subjects pine away even nnto the death ; 
 their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech 
 is benumbed, their senses are bereft. ... I pray 
 God they never practise further than upon the sub- 
 ject.' 2 On the whole, however, these laws were far 
 
 1 The repeal was probably nals of the Kef. vol. i. p. 11). 
 owing to the fact that witch- The multitude of witches at the 
 craft, and pulling down crosses, beginning of the reign of Eliza- 
 were combined together; and beth (which Strype notices) was 
 the law had, therefore, aPopish the obvious consequence of the 
 appearance. terrorism of the preceding reign, 
 
 2 Sermons (Parker Society), and of the religious changes 
 p. 1028. Strype ascribes to acting in the way I have already 
 this sermon the law which was described. 
 
 passed the following year (An-
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 103 
 
 milder than those on the Continent. For the first 
 conviction, witches who had not destroyed others 
 by incantations or invoked evil spirits were only 
 punished by the pillory and by imprisonment, while 
 those who were condemned to death perished by the 
 gallows instead of the stake. Besides this, torture, 
 which had done so much to multiply the evidence, 
 had always been illegal, though it has occasionally 
 been made use of, in England, and the witch-finders 
 were compelled to content themselves with pricking 
 their victims all over in hopes of discovering the 
 insensible spot, 1 with throwing them into the water 
 to ascertain whether they would sink or swim, and 
 with keeping them during several successive nights 
 without sleep, in order to compel them io confess. 
 These three methods were habitually employed with 
 signal success ; many women were in consequence 
 condemned, and a considerable proportion of them 
 were hung. 
 
 But such scenes did not take place without one 
 noble protest. A layman named Reginald Scott 
 published, in 1584, his ' Discovery of Witchcraft,' 
 in which he unmasked the imposture and the delu- 
 sion of the system with a boldness that no previous 
 writer had approached, and with an ability which 
 few subsequent writers have equalled. Keenly, elo- 
 quently, and unflinchingly, he exposed the atrocious 
 torments by which confessions were extorted, the 
 
 1 It is worthy of notice that enfoncer cette epingle sous lea 
 
 anesthesia is a recognised symp- ongles ou de toute sa longueur 
 
 toin of some of the epidemic dans le.s bras, IPS jambes ou aur 
 
 forms of madness. Speaking of toute autre partie, sans provo- 
 
 that of Morzines, Dr. Coustans querl'apparenced'unesenbation 
 
 says: 'L'anesthesione fait janiais douloureuse.' (Epidemic d'Hys- 
 
 defaut. J'ai pu pincer, piquer tero-Demonvpathie en 1861, p. 
 
 avec une epiiigle ies mulades, 63.)
 
 104 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 laxity and injustice of the manner in which evidence 
 was collected, the egregious absurdities that tilled the 
 writings of the inquisitors, the juggling tricks that 
 were ascribed to the devil, and the childish folly of 
 the magical charms. He also availed himself in a 
 very dexterous manner of the strong Protestant 
 feeling, in order to discredit statements that emanated 
 from the Inquisition. If the question was to be 
 determined by argument, if it depended simply or 
 mainly upon the ability or learning of the conti*o- 
 versialists, the treatise of Scott would have had a 
 powerful effect ; for it was by far the ablest attack 
 on the prevailing superstition that had ever appeared, 
 and it was written in the most popular style. Asa 
 matter of fact it exercised no appreciable influence. 
 Witchcraft depended upon general causes, and repre- 
 sented the prevailing modes of religious thought. 
 It was therefore entirely unaffected by the attempted 
 refutation ; and when James I. mounted the throne, 
 hn found the nation perfectly prepared to second 
 him in his zeal against the witches. 
 
 James, although he hated the Puritans, had caught 
 in Scotland much of the tone of thought concerning 
 Satanic power which the Puritans had always en- 
 couraged, and which was exhibited to the highest 
 perfection in the Scottish mind. He was continually 
 haunted by the subject. He had himself written a 
 dialogue upon it ; he had confidently ascribed his 
 stormy passage on his return from Denmark to the 
 machinations of the witches, 1 and he boasted that 
 
 1 This storm was the origin wind, and a confession was 
 
 of one of the most horrible of wrung from him by torture, 
 
 the many horrible Scotch trials which, however, he almost im- 
 
 on record. One Dr. Fian was mediately afterwards retracted. 
 
 suspected of having aroused the Every form of torture was in
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 105 
 
 the devil regarded him as the most formidable of 
 opponents. Soon after his accession to the throne 
 of England, a law was enacted which subjected 
 witches to death on the first conviction, even though 
 they should have inflicted no injury upon their 
 neighbours. This law was passed when Coke was 
 Attorney- General, and Bacon a member of Parlia- 
 ment ; and twelve bishops sat upon the Commission 
 to which it was referred. 1 The prosecutions were 
 rapidly multiplied throughout the country, but es- 
 pecially in Lancashire ; and at the same time the 
 general tone of literature was strongly tinged with 
 the superstition. Sir Thomas Browne declared that 
 those who denied the existence of witchcraft were 
 not only infidels, but also, by implication, atheists. 2 
 Shakspeare, like most of the other dramatists of his 
 time, again and again referred to the belief ; and we 
 owe to it that melancholy picture of Joan of Arc, 
 
 vain employed to vanquish his this, ' so deeply had the devil 
 
 obduracy. The bones of his entered into his heart, that hee 
 
 legs were broken into small utterly denied all that which he 
 
 pieces in the boot All the before avouched,' and he was 
 
 torments that Scottish law knew burnt iinconfessod. (See a rare 
 
 of were successively applied, black letter tract, reprinted in 
 
 At last, the king (who person- Pitcairn's Criminal Trials of 
 
 ally presided over the tortures) Scotland, vol. i. part ii. pp. 213> 
 
 suggested a new and more hor- 223.) 
 
 rible device. The prisoner, who ' Madden' s Phant. vol. i. p. 
 
 had been removed during the 447. 
 
 deliberation, was brought in, * ' I have ever believed, and 
 
 and (I quote the contemporary do now know, that there are 
 
 narrative) ' his nailes \ipon all witches ; they that, doubt them 
 
 his fingers were riven and pulled do not only deny them but 
 
 off with an instrument, called spirits, and are obliquely and 
 
 in Scottish, a turkas, which in upon consequence a sort, net of 
 
 England wee call a payre of infidels, but of atheists.' (lleli- 
 
 pincers, and under everie nayle gio Medici, p. 24. ed. 1G72.) 
 
 there was thrust in two needels Sir T. Browne did not, however, 
 
 over, even up to the heads.' believe in incubi, or in lycan- 
 
 However, notwithstanding all thropy.
 
 106 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 which is, perhaps, the darkest blot upon his genius. 1 
 Bacon continually inveighed against the follies shown 
 by magicians in their researches into nature ; yet in 
 one of his most important works he pronounced the 
 three ' declinations from religion ' to be ' heresies, 
 idolatry, and witchcraft.' 2 Selden took up a some- 
 what peculiar and characteristic position. He main- 
 tained that the law condemning women to death for 
 witchcraft was perfectly just, but that it was quite 
 unnecessary to ascertain whether witchcraft was a 
 possibility. A woman might not be able to destroy 
 the life of her neighboiar by her incantations ; but if 
 she intended to do so, it was right that she should 
 be hung. 3 
 
 But, great as were the exertions made by James to 
 extirpate witchcraft, they completely sink into insig- 
 nificance before those which were made during the 
 Commonwealth. As soon as Puritanism gained an 
 ascendency in the country, as soon as its ministers 
 succeeded in imparting their gloomy tenets to the 
 
 1 On the extent to which the of his most highly educated and 
 belief was reflected in the dra- gifted contemporaries, believed 
 matic literature of Elizabeth with an unfaltering faith in the 
 and James I., see Wright's reality of witchcraft Shak- 
 Sorcery, vol. i. pp. 286, 296. It speare was, therefore, perfectly 
 was afterwards the custom of justified in introducing into his 
 Voltaire, when decrying the plays personages who were, of 
 genius of Shakspeare, to dwell all others, mostfitted to enhance 
 constantly on such characters the grandeur and the solemn' ty 
 as the witches in Macbeth. But of tragedy, when they faith- 
 such scenes, though in modern fully reflected the belief of the 
 times they may have an unreal audience, 
 and grotesque appearance, did * Advancement of Learning, 
 not present the slightest im- xxv. 22. It is true that this 
 probability at the time they book was dedicated to the king, 
 were written. It is probable whose writings on the subject 
 that Shakspeare, it is certain were commended, 
 that the immense majority even * Table-Talk.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 107 
 
 governing classes, the superstition assumed a gi- 
 gantic magnitude. During the few years of the 
 Commonwealth, there is reason to believe that more 
 alleged witches perished in England than in the 
 whole period before and after. 1 Nor is this to be 
 ascribed entirely to the judges or the legislators, for 
 the judges in former reigns never shrank from con- 
 demning witches, and Cromwell was in most respects 
 far superior to his predecessors. It was simply the 
 natural result of Puritanical teaching acting on the 
 mind, predisposing men to see Satanic influence in 
 life, and consequently eliciting the phenomena of 
 witchcraft. A panic on the subject spread through 
 the country ; and anecdotes of Satanic power soon 
 crowded in from every side. The county of Suffolk 
 was especially agitated, and the famous witch- finder, 
 Matthew Hopkins, pronounced it to be infested with 
 witches. A commission was accordingly issued, and 
 two distinguished Presbyterian divines were selected 
 by the Parliament to accompany it. It would have 
 been impossible to take any measure more calculated 
 to stinmlate the prosecution, and we accordingly find 
 that in Suffolk sixty persons' were hung for witch- 
 craft in a single year.' 2 Among others, an Anglican 
 clergyman, named Lowes, who was now verging on 
 eighty, and who for fifty years had been an irre- 
 proachable minister of his church, fell under the 
 suspicion. The unhappy old man was kept awake 
 for several successive nights, and persecxtted ' till he 
 
 1 Hutchinson, p, 68. Fully empowered to treat about 
 
 2 This is alluded to in Hudi- Finding revolted witches out ? 
 bras : And has not he within a year 
 
 ' Hath not this present Parlia- Hanged threescore of them in 
 
 ment one shire,' &c. 
 
 A ledger to the devil sent Second part, Canto iii.
 
 108 NATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 was weary of his life, and was scarce sensible of 
 what he said or did.' He was then thrown into the 
 water, condemned, and hung. According to the 
 story which circulated among the members of the 
 Established Church, he maintained his innocence 
 manfully to the end. If we believe the Puritanical 
 account, it would appear that his brain gave way 
 under the trial, and that his accusers extorted from 
 him a wild romance, which was afterwards, with 
 many others, reproduced by Baxter ' for the conver- 
 sion of the Sadducee and the infidel.' l 
 
 We have seen that the conception of witchcraft, 
 which had existed in England from the earliest 
 period, assumed for the first time a certain prominence 
 amid the religious terrorism of the Reformation ; 
 that its importance gradually increased as the trials 
 and executions directed public attention to the 
 subject ; and that it, at last, reached its climax under 
 the gloomy theology of the Puritans. It now only 
 remains for me to trace the history of its decline. 
 
 In pursuing this task, I must repeat that it is 
 impossible to follow the general intellectual ten- 
 dencies of a nation with the degree of precision with 
 which we may review the events or the arguments 
 they produced. We have ample evidence that, at a 
 cartain period of English history, there was mani- 
 fested in some classes a strong disposition to regard 
 witch stories as absurd ; but we cannot say precisely 
 
 1 Baxter relates the whole and (being near the sea) as he 
 
 story with evident pleasure, saw a ship under sail, it moved 
 
 He says, ' Among the rest, an him to send him to sink the 
 
 old reading parson namedLowis, ship, and he consented, and 
 
 not far from Framlingham, was saw the ship sink before him.' 
 
 one that was hanged, who con- ( World of Spirits, p. 53.) For 
 
 lessee! that he had two imps, and the other view of the case, see 
 
 that one of them was always Hutchinson, pp. 88-90. 
 putting him on doing mischief,
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 1C9 
 
 when the idea of grotesqueness was first attached to 
 the belief, nor can we map out with exactness the 
 stages of its progress. Speaking generally, however, 
 there can be no doubt that it first became prominent 
 in that great sceptical movement which followed the 
 Restoration. The reaction against the austere rigidity 
 of the last Government, had produced among the 
 gayer classes a sudden outburst of the most derisive 
 incredulity. From mocking the solemn gait, the 
 nasal twang, and the affected phraseology of the 
 Puritans, they naturally proceeded to ridicule their 
 doctrines : and having soon discovered in witchcraft 
 abundant materials for their satire, they made dis- 
 belief in it one of the tests of fashion. At the same 
 time the higher intellectual influences were tending 
 strongly to produce a similar movement among the 
 learned. Hobbes, who was the most distinguished 
 of living philosophers, had directed all the energies 
 of his scepticism against incorporeal substances, had 
 treated with unsparing ridicule the conceptions of 
 demons and of apparitions, and had created in his 
 disciples a predisposition to regard them as below 
 contempt. 1 A similar predisposition was formed by 
 the philosophy of Bacon, which had then acquired an 
 immense popularity. The Royal Society 2 had been 
 just established; a passion for natural philosophy. much 
 resembling that which preceded the French Revolu- 
 tion, had become general ; and the whole force of the 
 English intellect was directed to the study of natural 
 
 1 On the opinions of Hobbes the Royal Society on this sub- 
 on this subject, and on his great ject is noticed by Hutchinson, 
 influence in discrediting these and indeed most of the writers 
 superstitions, see Cudworth's on witchcraft. See Casaubon 
 Intellectual System, vol. i. p. 1 16. On Credulity, p. 191. 
 
 2 The (indirect) influence of
 
 110 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 phenomena, and to the discovery of natural laws. In 
 this manner there was formed a general disposition to 
 attribute to every event a natural cause, which was 
 soon followed by a conviction of the absurdity of ex- 
 plaining phenomena by a supernatural hypothesis, 
 and which rapidly discredited the anecdotes of witches. 
 There does not appear to have been any very careful 
 ecrutiny of their details, yet there was a growing 
 indisposition to believe them, as they were discordant 
 with the modes of thought which the experimental 
 philosophy had produced. 
 
 By the combination of these three influences a 
 pro found change was soon effected in the manner 
 in which witchcraft was regarded. The sense of its 
 improbability became for the first time general among 
 educated laymen, and the number of the trials 
 speedily diminished. In 1664, however, two women 
 were hung in Suffolk, under a sentence of Sir Matthew 
 Hale, who took the opportunity of declaring that the 
 reality of witchcraft was unquestionable ; ' for first, 
 the Scriptures had affirmed so much ; and secondly, 
 the wisdom of all nations had provided laws against 
 such persons, which is an argument of their con- 
 fidence of such a crime.' Sir Thomas Browne, who 
 was a great physician as well as a great writer, was 
 called as a witness, and swore ' that he was clearly 
 of opinion that the persons were bewitched.' l 
 
 Seventeen years later, the defence of the dying 
 belief was taken up by Joseph Glanvil, a divine, who 
 in his own day was very famous, and who, I venture 
 to think, has been surpassed in genius by few of his 
 
 1 The report of this trial is letting to Witchcraft (London, 
 re printed in A Collection of 1838). 
 Rare and Curious Tracts re-
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. Ill 
 
 successors. Among his contemporaries he was espe- 
 cially praised as an able scholar and dialectician, and 
 as a writer whose style, though not uutinctured by 
 the pedantry of his age, often furnishes the noblest 
 examples of that glorious eloquence, so rich in varied 
 and majestic harmonies, of which Milton, Sir Thomas 
 Browne, and the early Anglican divines were the 
 greatest masters. To us, however, who look upon 
 his career from the vantage ground of experience, it 
 assumes a still higher interest, for it occupies a most 
 important position in the history of that experimental 
 philosophy which has become the great guiding in- 
 fluence of the English mind. As the works of 
 Glanvil are far less known than they should be, and 
 as his dffence of witchcraft was intimately connected 
 with his earlier literary enterprises, I shall make no 
 apology for giving a genet al outline of his opinions. 
 To those who only know him as the defender of 
 witchcraft, it may appear a somewhat startling para- 
 dox to say, that the predominating characteristic of 
 the mind of Glanvil was an intense scepticism. He 
 has even been termed by a modern critic ' the first 
 English writer who had thrown scepticism into a 
 definite form ; ' and if we regard this expression as 
 simply implying a profound distrust of human facul- 
 ties, and not at all the rejection of any distinct 
 dogmatic system, the judgment can hardly be dis- 
 puted. And certainly, it would be difficult to find a 
 work displaying less of the credulity and superstition 
 that are commonly attributed to the believers in. 
 witchcraft than the treatise on ' The Vanity of 
 Dogmatising or Confidence of Opinions,' 2 in which 
 
 1 Biographic Universe'le an cyclopedia Britannica. 
 article which is also in the En~ 2 There is a good review of
 
 112 KATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 Glanvil expounded his philosophical views. Develop, 
 ing a few scattered hints of Bacon, he undertook to 
 make a comprehensive survey of the human faculties, 
 to analyse the distorting influences that corrode or 
 pervert our judgments, to reveal the weakness and 
 fallibility of the most powerful intellect, and to 
 estimate the infinity of darkness that encircles our 
 scanty knowledge. Not only did he trace, with the 
 most vivid and unfaltering pen, the proneness to error 
 that accompanies the human intellect in the moments 
 of its greatest confidence ; not only did he paint in 
 the darkest colours the tenacity and the inveteracy of 
 prejudice ; he even accepted to the fullest extent the 
 consequence of his doctrine, and, with Descartes, en- 
 joined a total abnegation of the opinions that have 
 been received by education as the first condition of 
 enquiry. He showed himself perfectly acquainted 
 with the diversities of intellectual tone, or as he very 
 happily termed them, the ' climates of opinion ' that 
 belong to different ages ; and he devoted an entire 
 chapter l to the deceptions of the imagination, a 
 faculty which he treated with as much severity as 
 Butler. 
 
 this book in Hallam's Hist of having, it is said (I do not 
 
 Lit., vol. iii. pp. 358-362. It know on what authority), been 
 
 is, I think, by far the best destroyed in the fire of London, 
 
 thing Glanvil -wrote, and he It was answered by Thomas 
 
 evidently took extraordinary White, a once famous Roman 
 
 pains in bringing it to perfec- Catholic controversialist. Ican- 
 
 tion. It first appeared aa a not but think that Paley was 
 
 ehort essay; it was then ex- acquainted with the works of 
 
 panded into a regular treatise; Glanvil, for their mode of 
 
 and still later, recast and pub- treating many subjects is strik- 
 
 lished anew under the title of ingly similar. Paley's watch 
 
 ' Scepsis Scientifca.' This last simile is fully developed by 
 
 edition is somewhat rare, the Glanvil, in chap v. 
 greater part of the impression ' Chap. xi.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 113 
 
 On the publication of this treatise Glanvil had been 
 elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and became 
 one of the most distinguished of the small but able 
 minority of the clergy who cordially embraced the 
 inductive philosophy. To combat the strong anti- 
 pathy with which this philosophy was regarded in the 
 Church, and to bring theology into harmony with its 
 principles, was the task to which he devoted the 
 remainder of his life. Spratt, and, in a less degree, 
 one or two other divines, were employed in the same 
 noble cause ; but the manner in which Glanvil con- 
 ducted his enterprise separates him, I think, clearly 
 fi'om his fellow-labourers. For, while his contem- 
 poraries seem to have expected as the extreme conse- 
 quences of the philosophy, on the one hand a period 
 of passing disturbance, ai'ising from the discovery of 
 apparent discrepancies between science and the Bible, 
 and on the other hand increased evidence of the faith, 
 arising from the solution of those difficulties and from 
 the increased perception of superintending wisdom 
 exhibited in ' the wheel work of creation,' Glanvil 
 perceived very clearly that a far deeper and more 
 general modification was at hand. He saw that the 
 theological system existing in a nation is intimately 
 connected with the prevailing modes of thought or 
 intellectual condition ; that the new philosophy was 
 about to change that condition ; and that the Church 
 must either adapt herself to the altered tone, or lose 
 her influence over the English mind. He saw that a 
 theology which rested ultimately on authority, which 
 branded doubt as criminal, and which discouraged in 
 the strongest manner every impartial investigation, 
 could not long co- exist with a philosophy that encou- 
 raged the opposite habits of thought as the very 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 beginning of wisdom. He saw that while men main- 
 tained every strange phenomenon to be miraculous as 
 long as it was unexplained, each advance of physical 
 science must necessarily be hostile to theology, and 
 that the passionate adoration of Aristotle ; the blind 
 pedantic reverence, which accounted the simplest 
 assertions of dead men decisive authorities ; the re- 
 trospective habits of thought the universities steadily 
 laboured to encourage ; were all incompatible with 
 the new tendencies which Bacon represented. 1 In 
 an essay on ' Anti-fanatical Religion and Free Philo- 
 sophy,' which was designed to be a continuation of 
 the New Atlantis of Bacon, he drew a noble sketch 
 of an ideal church constructed to meet the wants of 
 an intellectual and a critical age. Its creed was to 
 be framed on the most latitudinarian principles, be- 
 cause the doctrines that could be defended with 
 legitimate assurance were but few and simple. Its 
 ministers were to be much less anxious to accumulate 
 the traditions of the past than to acquire 'the felicity 
 of clear and distinct thinking,' and ' a large compass 
 in their thoughts.' They were to regard faith not as 
 the opposite of reason, but as one of its manifestations. 
 Penetrated by the sense of human weakness, they 
 
 1 He compares the leading Oxford in particular, to be al- 
 
 scholars of his day to the mari- most worthless. The indigna- 
 
 ner who returned laden with tion such sentiments created at 
 
 common pebbles from the In- Oxford is very amusingly shown 
 
 dies, imagining that that must in Wood's Athcnce, arts. Gl anvil 
 
 necessarily be rare that came and Crosse. Crosse was a Fellow 
 
 from afar, and he accused them of Oxford (a D.I).), who at first 
 
 of asserting, on the authority vehemently assailed ulanvil in 
 
 of Beza, that women have no prose, but at last changed his 
 
 beards, and on that of St. An- mode of attack, and wrote comic 
 
 gustiue, that peace is a blessing, ballads, which Wood assures us 
 
 He pronounced university edu- ' made Glanvil and his Society 
 
 cation in general, and that of ridiculous.'
 
 MAGTC AND WITCHCRAFT. 115 
 
 were to rebuke the spirit of dogmatic confidence and 
 assertion, and were to teach men that, so far from 
 doubt being criminal, it was the duty of every man 
 ' to suspend his full and resolved assent to the doc- 
 trines he had been taught, till he had impartially 
 considered and examined them for himself.' 
 
 A religious system which is thus divested of the 
 support of authority, may be upheld upon two 
 grounds. It may be defended on the rationalistic 
 ground, as according with conscience, representing 
 and reflecting the light that is in mankind, and being 
 thus its own justification ; or it may be defended as 
 a distinct dogmatic system by a train of evidential 
 reasoning. The character of his own mind, and the 
 very low ebb to which moral feeling had sunk in his 
 age, induced Glanvil to prefer the logical to the 
 moral proof, and he believed that the field on which 
 the battle must first be fought, was witchcraft, which 
 furnished an example of miracles that were contem- 
 porary and easy to test. ' For things remote or long 
 past ' (he said) ' are either not believed or forgotten 
 whereas these being fresh and new, and attended 
 with all the circumstances of credibility, it may be 
 expected they should have most success upon the 
 obstinacy of unbelievers.' l 
 
 The ' Sadducismus Triumphatus,' which is pro- 
 bably the ablest book ever published in defence of 
 the superstition, opens with a striking picture of 
 the rapid progress of the scepticism in England. 2 
 
 1 Preface to the Sadducismus, there are spirits or witches, 
 
 2 ' Atheism is begun in Sad- which sort of infidels, though 
 rlncism, and those that dare not they are not ordinary among 
 bluntly say there is no God, the mere vulgar, yet are they 
 coxitent themselves (for a fair numerous in a little higher rank 
 Btep and introduction) to deny of understandings. And those 
 
 i 2
 
 116 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 Everywhere, a disbelief in witchcraft was becoming 
 fashionable in the upper classes ; but it was a dis- 
 belief that arose entirely from a strong sense of its 
 antecedent improbability. All who were opposed to 
 the orthodox faith united in discrediting witchcraft. 
 They laughed at it, as palpably absurd, as involving 
 the most grotesque and ludicrous conceptions, as so 
 essentially incredible that it would be a waste of time 
 to examine it. This spirit had arisen since the Re- 
 storation, although the laws were still in force, and 
 although little or no direct reasoning had been 
 brought to bear upon the subject. In order to com- 
 bat it, Glanvil proceeded to examine the general 
 question of the credibility of the miraculous. He 
 saw that the reason why witchcraft was ridiculed 
 was, because it was a phase of the miraculous and 
 the work of the devil ; that the scepticism was chiefly 
 due to those who disbelieved in miracles and the 
 devil ; and that the instances of witchcraft or posses- 
 sion in the Bible, were invariably placed on a level 
 with those that were tried in the law-courts of Eng- 
 land. That the evidence of the belief was over- 
 whelming, he firmly believed ; * and this, indeed, was 
 
 that know anything of the ' See a striking passage, pp. 
 world, know that most of the 3, 4: ' I must premise that 
 looser gentry and the small this, being matter of fact, is 
 pretenders to philosophy and only capable of the evidence of 
 wit, are generally deriders of authority and of sense, and by 
 the belief of witches and ap- both these the being of witches 
 paritions." I need hardly say and diabolical contracts is most 
 that the word Atheism was, in abundantly confirmed. All his- 
 the time of Glanvil, used in tories are full of i he exploits of 
 the very loosest sense : indeed, those instruments of darkness, 
 Dugald Stewart shows, that at and the testimony of all ages, 
 one time the disbelievers in not only of the rude and bar- 
 apostolical succession were barous, but of the most civilized 
 commonly denounced as Athe- and polished world, brings 
 ists. {Dissert, p. 378.) tidings of their strange per-
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 117 
 
 scarcely disputed ; but, until the sense of a priori im- 
 probability was removed, no possible accumulation of 
 facts would cause men to believe it. To that task he 
 accordingly addressed himself. Anticipating the idea 
 and almost the words of modern controversialists, he 
 urged that there was such a thing as a credulity of 
 unbelief; and that fchose who believed so strange a 
 concurrence of delusions, as was necessary on the 
 supposition of the unreality of witchcraft, were far 
 more credulous than those who accepted the belief. 1 
 He made his very scepticism his principal weapon; 
 
 formances. We have the at- 
 testation of thousands of eye 
 and ear witnesses, and those 
 not of the easily deceivable 
 vulgar only, but of wise and 
 grave discern ers, and that when 
 no interest could oblige them to 
 agree together in a common lie ; 
 I say we have the light of all 
 these circumstances to confirm 
 us in the belief of things done 
 by persons of despicable power 
 and knowledge, beyond the 
 reach of art and ordinary na- 
 ture. Standing public records 
 have been kept of these well- 
 attested relations, and epochas 
 made of these unwonted events. 
 Laws, in many nations, have 
 been enacted against those vile 
 practices ; those among the Jews 
 and our own are notorious. 
 Such cases have been often de- 
 termined with us, by wise and 
 reveredjudges, upon clear and 
 constructive evidence ; and 
 thousands in our own nation 
 have suffered death for their 
 vile compacts with apostate 
 spirits. All this I might largely 
 prove in their particular in- 
 
 stances, but that it is not need' 
 ful ; since those that deny the 
 being of witches do it, not out 
 of ignorance of tho^e heads of 
 argument which, probably, they 
 have heard a thousand times ; 
 but from an apprehension that 
 such a belief is absurd, and the 
 things impossible.' 
 
 1 ' I think those that can be- 
 lieve all histories are romances ; 
 that all the wise could have 
 agreed to juggle mankind into 
 a common belief of ungrounded 
 fables ; that the sound senses 
 of multitudes together may de- 
 ceive them, and laws are built 
 upon chimeras ; that the gravest 
 and wisest judges have been 
 murderers, and the sagest per- 
 sons fools or designing im- 
 postors ; I say those that can 
 believe this heap of absurdities, 
 are either more credulous than 
 those whose credulity they re- 
 prehend, or else have some ex- 
 traordinary evidence of their 
 persuasion, viz., that it is ab- 
 surd or impossible there should 
 be a witch or apparition ' (p. 4).
 
 118 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 and, analysing with much acuteness the a priori 
 objections, he showed that they rested upon an 
 unwarrantable confidence in our knowledge of the 
 laws of the spirit world ; that they implied the ex- 
 istence of some strict analogy between the faculties 
 of men and of spirits ; and that, as such analogy 
 most probably did not exist, no reasoning based on 
 the supposition could dispense men from examining 
 the evidence. He concluded with a large collection 
 of cases, the evidence of which was, as he thought, 
 incontestible. 
 
 The ' Sadducismus Triumphatus ' had an extra- 
 ordinary success. Numerous editions were issued, 
 and several very able men came forward to support 
 its views. Henry More, the famous philosopher, 
 wrote a warm eulogium to Glanvil, and drew up a 
 long argument in the same spirit, in which he related 
 several additional witch cases, and pronounced the 
 opponents of the belief to be mere ' buffoons, puffed 
 up with nothing but ignorance, vanity, and stupid 
 infidelity.' 1 Casaubon, the learned Dean of Canter- 
 bury, wrote to the same effect, but in more moderate 
 language. 2 The illustrious Boyle, while noticing the 
 weakness of the evidence of many witch stories and 
 the necessity of great caution in collecting them, wrote 
 to Glanvil expressing his firm belief in the story of 
 the demon of Mascon. 3 Cudworth, perhaps the most 
 profound of all the great scholars who have adorned 
 the English Church, pronounced the scepticism on 
 the subject of witches to be chiefly a consequence of 
 
 1 His letters on the subject of the great Grefk scholar, 
 are prefixed to the Sadducismvs. 3 See his letter to Glanvil 
 
 * On Credulity and Inert- (Feb. 10, 16?) in Boyle's 
 
 dulity. This Casaubon was son Works, vol. vi. p. 69.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 119 
 
 the influence of Hobbes ; and he added, that those 
 who partook of that scepticism might be justly sus- 
 pected of atheism. 1 Several other divines pressed 
 forward in the same spirit ; arid they made witchcraft, 
 for a time, one of the chief subjects of controversy 
 in England. On the other side, the discussion was 
 extremely languid. No writer, comparable in ability 
 or influence to Glanvil, More, Cudworth, or even 
 Casaubon, appeared to challenge the belief ; nor did 
 any of the writings on that side obtain any success 
 at all equal to that of the ' Sadducismus.' The 
 principal writer was a surgeon named Webster, 
 whose work is remarkable as one of the earliest in- 
 stances of the systematic application of a rationalistic 
 interpretation to the magical miracles in the Bible. 
 According to him, the magicians in Egypt were 
 ordinary jugglers, the witch of Endor had dressed up 
 an accomplice to personate Samuel, the word witch 
 iu Leviticus only signified poisoner, the demoniacs 
 were chiefly lunatics, and the Magdalene had been 
 freed from seven vices. 2 An unknown scholar, named 
 Wagstaafe, at Oxford, also wrote two short works on 
 the subject ; 3 and one or two others appeared anony- 
 mously. The scepticism steadily increased. 
 
 1 'As for wizards and ma- ing towards atheism. 1 (Int. 
 
 gicians, persons who associate SysL, vol. ii. p. 650.) See also 
 
 and confederate themselves with vol. i. p. 116. 
 
 these evil spirits for the gratifi- 2 Webster, On Witches. The 
 
 cation of their own revenge, identification of the Scripture 
 
 lust, amliition, and other pas- demoniacs with lunatics had 
 
 sions ; besides the Scriptures, been made by Hobbes also, 
 
 there hath been so full an at- 3 Wagstaafe was a deformed 
 
 testation given to them by per- dwarfish scholar at Oxford, and 
 
 sons unconcerned in all ages, was the special butt of the 
 
 that those our so confident ex- Oxonian wit (which in the 
 
 ploders of them in this present seventeenth century does not 
 
 age can hardly escape the sus- appear to have been extremely 
 
 picion of having some kaiiker- brilliant). Poor V\ agstaafa
 
 120 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 A few years afterwards, a new and strenuous 
 attempt was made to arrest it by accounts of fresh 
 cases of witchcraft in America. The Pilgrim Fathers 
 had brought to that country the seeds of the super- 
 stition ; and, at the time when it was rapidly fading 
 in England, it flourished with fearful vigour in Mas- 
 sachusetts. Two Puritan ministers, named Cotton 
 Mather and Parris, proclaimed the frequency of the 
 crime ; and being warmly supported by their brother 
 divines, they succeeded in creating a panic through 
 the whole country. A commission was issued. A 
 judge named Stoughton, who appears to have been 
 a perfect creature of the clergy, conducted the trials : 
 scourgings and tortures were added to the terrorism 
 of the pulpit, and many confessions were obtained. 
 The few who ventured to oppose the prosecutions 
 were denounced as Sadducees and infidels. Multi- 
 tudes were thrown into prison, others fled from the 
 country abandoning their property, and twenty-seven 
 persons were executed. An old man of eighty was 
 pressed to death a horrible sentence, which was 
 never afterwards executed in America. The ministers 
 of Boston and Charleston drew up an address, warmly 
 thanking the commissioners for their zea,l, and ex- 
 pressing their hope that it would never be relaxed. 1 
 
 In the first year of this prosecution, Cotton Mather 
 wrote a history of the earliest of the trials. This 
 history was introduced to the English public by 
 Richard Baxter, who declared in his preface that 
 ' that man must be a very obdurate Sadducee who 
 would not believe it.' Not content with having 
 
 consoled himself by drinking ' Bancroft, History of the 
 
 whisky-punch ; and having United States. ch.xix. Huti'hin- 
 
 drunk loo much, lie died, son, pp. 95-119. 
 (Wood's Ath^ncB}.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 121 
 
 thus given the weight of his great name to the super- 
 stition, Baxter in the following year published his 
 treatise on ' The Certainty of the World of Spirits ; ' 
 in which he collected, with great industry, an im- 
 mense number of witch-cases ; reverted in extremely 
 laudatory terms to Cotton Mather and his crusade ; 
 and denounced, in unmeasured language, all who were 
 sceptical upon the subject. This work appeared in 
 1691, when the panic in America had not yet reached 
 its height ; and, being widely circulated beyond the 
 Atlantic, is said to have contributed mnch to stimu- 
 late the prosecutions. 1 In England it produced 
 little effect. The scepticism that was already per- 
 vading all classes was steadily and silently increasing, 
 under the influence of an intellectual movement that 
 \vas too general and too powerful for any individual 
 genius to arrest. At the time of the Restoration the 
 belief had been common among the most educated. 
 In 1718, when Hutchinsou wrote, it scarcely existed, 
 except among the ignorant and a small section of the 
 clergy. 2 Yet, in the interval, the vast preponderance 
 of controversial literature had unquestionably beeu 
 on the conservative side. During that period no less 
 than twenty-five works 3 are known to have appeared 
 in England in defence of the belief; and among their 
 authors we have seen some of the ablest men in 
 
 1 Hutchinson, pp. 95-119. witchcraft, and in 1688 tho 
 
 2 Mr. Buckle places the seep- majority disbelieved it.' (Vol. i. 
 ticism a little earlier. He says: p. 333.) By 1718, however, 
 ' This important revolution in the minority had become insig- 
 our opinion was effected, so far nificant. 
 
 us the educated classes are con- 3 Some of them, of course, 
 
 cerned, bet ween the Restoration "were mere pamphlets, but a 
 
 and Revolution ; that is to large proportion elaborate 
 
 say, in 1660 the majority of works. The catalogue is given 
 
 educated men still believed in bv Hutchinson.
 
 122 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 England. The work of Baxter, notwithstanding the 
 weight of his great name, and the very definite 
 character of his statements, appears to have remained 
 entirely unanswered till ifc was reviewed by Hutchin- 
 son twenty-six years after its publication. Yet it 
 could do no more to arrest, than the work of Scott 
 had done to produce, the scepticism. Three witches 
 had been executed in 1682 ; and others, it is said, 
 endured the same fate in 1712 ; but these were the 
 last who judicially perished in England. 1 The last 
 trial, at least of any notoriety, was that of Jane 
 Wenham, who was prosecuted in 1712 by some 
 Hertfordshire clergymen. The judge entirely dis- 
 believed in witches, and accordingly charged the jury 
 strongly in favour of the accused, and even treated 
 with great disrespect the rector of the parish, who 
 declared ' on his faith as a clergyman ' that he be- 
 lieved the woman to be a witch. The jury, being 
 ignorant and obstinate, convicted the prisoner : but 
 the judge had no difficulty in obtaining a remission 
 of her sentence. A long war of pamphlets ensued, 
 and the clergy who had been engaged in the prose- 
 cution drew up a document strongly asserting their 
 belief in the guilt of the accused, animadverting 
 severely upon the conduct of the judge, and con- 
 cluding with the solemn words, ' Liberavimus animus 
 nostras.' 2 
 
 It is probable that this was an instance of some- 
 what exceptional fanaticism ; and that Hutchinson, 
 who was himself a clergyman, represented the 
 
 1 Compare Hutchinson, p. 57, mobbed to death in the county 
 
 and Buckle, vol. i. p. 334. I of Essex as a wizard. 
 B;iy jud'u-iallt,', for in the Times * Hutchinson, pp. 163-171. 
 
 of Sept. 24, 1863, there is an Some noble and liberal remarks, 
 account of an old man who was
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 123 
 
 opinions of most of the more educated of his pro- 
 fession, when a few years later he described witch- 
 craft as a delusion. 1 In 1736 the laws on the sub- 
 ject were repealed, without difficulty or agitation ; 
 and there are very few instances of educated men re- 
 gretting them. In 1768, however, John Wesley pre- 
 faced an account of an apparition that had been 
 related by a girl named Elizabeth Hobson, by some 
 extremely remarkable sentences on the subject : ' It 
 is true likewise,' he wrote, ' that the English in 
 general, and indeed most of the men of learning in 
 Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and 
 apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am 
 sorry for it, and I willingly take this opportunity of 
 entering my solemn protest against this violent com- 
 pliment which so many that believe the Bible pay to 
 those who do not believe it. I owe them no such 
 service. I take knowledge that these are at the bot- 
 tom of the outcry which has been raised, and with 
 such insolence spread through the land in direct op- 
 position, not only to the Bible, but to the suffrage of 
 the wisest and best of men in all ages and nations. 
 
 1 An Irish clergyman named gionists are witches and ma- 
 Maxwell (who was chaplain to gicians, whose existence has 
 Lord Carteret, and a writer of been so well attested by ex- 
 considerable ability), in an es- perience and by persons of un- 
 say on heathen morality, pre- questionable veracity, so ac- 
 fixed to a translation of Cum- knowleclged by heathens, by all 
 berland's Laws of Nature, which wise laws and governments, and 
 appeared in 1727, has the fol- by the Holy Scriptures, is of 
 lowing passage on witchcraft : theory so unexceptionably ra- 
 ' Almost the whole world of tional, and theobjections against 
 mankind were sometime under it so inconsiderable, that not- 
 Satan's domination and power withstanding the many impos- 
 by way of criminal religious tures and fa'se stories of this 
 subjection as being the reli- kiml, he that would reject them 
 gionists of his institution. One all must be a superlative be- 
 fcort of these diabolical reli- liever' (p. clix.).
 
 124 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 They well know (whether Christians know ifc or not) 
 that the giving up witchcraft is in effect giving up 
 the Bible." 
 
 In reviewing the history of witchcraft in England, 
 it is impossible to avoid observing the singularly 
 favourable contrast which the Anglican Church pre- 
 sents, both to Continental Catholicism and to Puri- 
 tanism. It is indeed true that her bishops contributed 
 much to the enactments of the laws against witch- 
 craft, that the immense majority of the clergy firmly 
 believed in the reality of the crime, and that they 
 continued to assert arid to defend it when the great 
 bulk of educated laymen had abandoned it. It is 
 also true that the scepticism on the subject of witches 
 arose among those who were least governed by the 
 Church, advanced with the decline of the influence 
 of the clergy, and was commonly branded as a phase 
 and manifestation of infidelity. Yet, on the other 
 hand, it is impossible to deny that the general mode- 
 ration of the higher clergy was beyond all praise, and 
 that even those who were most credulous were sin- 
 gularly free from that thirst for blood which was 
 elsewhere so common. On the Continent, every 
 attempt to substitute a lighter punishment for death 
 was fiercely denounced as a direct violation of the 
 Divine law. Indeed, some persons went so far as to 
 question the lawfulness of strangling the witch before 
 she was burnt. Her crime, they said, was treason 
 against the Almighty, and therefore to punish it by 
 any but the most agonising of deaths was an act of 
 disrespect to Him. Besides this, the penalty in the 
 
 'Journal, 1768. Dr. Johnson reality of witchcraft (Boswell, 
 spoke with a characteristic in- August 16, 1773). 
 decision ou the subject of the
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 125 
 
 Levitical code was stoning, and stoning had been 
 pronounced by the Jewish theologians to be a still 
 more painful death than the stake. 1 Nothing of this 
 kind was found in England. There is, as far as I 
 am aware, not a single instance of the English clergy 
 complaining of the leniency of the laws upon the 
 subject, or attempting to introduce torture into the 
 trials. Their zeal in stimulating the persecution, by 
 exorcisms and fanatical preaching, was also com. 
 paratively languid. As early as the reign of James I., 
 the Convocation made a canon prohibiting any clergy- 
 man from exorcising a possessed person, without a 
 license from his bishop, and such licenses were 
 scarcely ever granted. 2 Dr. Morton, a Bishop of 
 Lichfield, in 1620, employed himself with great, and 
 at last successful, zeal in detecting a case of imposture 
 in a witch-story which was believed by a Catholic 
 priest, 3 and he succeeded in saving the life of the 
 accused. At a still earlier period, Dr. Harsenet, who 
 was afterwards Archbishop of York, in an attack 
 upon ' Popish impostures,' boldly enumerated among 
 them most of the forms of witchcraft, 4 and appears to 
 have been entirely incredulous on the subject. He 
 was undoubtedly wrong in ascribing witchcraft to 
 Catholicism, for it nourished at least as vigorously 
 under the shadow of Puritanism ; yet the expression 
 of so bold an opinion is well worthy of notice, and 
 was, I believe, at the time it was written, a unique 
 phenomenon among the English clergy. 5 Hutchin- 
 
 1 Bodin, p. 217- able to find any other case; 
 
 * Hutchinson. Dedication. but Sir Kenelm Digby, in his 
 
 * Ibid. annotation to the passage from 
 4 Ibid. Sir Thomas Browne, which I 
 
 * I, at laet, have not been have before quoted, says of the
 
 126 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 son himself wrote his history before the belief was 
 entirely extinct. 
 
 But that which shows most strikingly the modera- 
 tion of the Anglican clergy, is the comparatively 
 small amount of delusion which the history of English 
 witchcraft presents. On the Continent there was 
 undoubtedly much imposition ; but, for the most part, 
 the subject presents rather the aspect of an epidemic 
 or a mania. The religious terrorism acted on diseased 
 imaginations, coloured every form of madness, and 
 predisposed the minds of men to solve every difficulty 
 by a supernatural hypothesis. In England, on the 
 other hand, imposture appears the general charac- 
 teristic. The books on the subject are full of cases 
 of jugglers' tricks ; l and, with the exception of the 
 period when the Puritans were in the ascendant, it 
 never seems to have assumed the appearance of a 
 great and general panic. Indeed, in most of its 
 worst manifestations, the fanaticism of Puritanism 
 was manifested. 8 
 
 In England that fanaticism was bridled and re- 
 pressed. There was one country, however, in which 
 it obtained an absolute ascendency. There was one 
 country in which the Puritan ministers succeeded in 
 
 belief:' There are divines of on English witchcraft ; anil, in 
 great note, and far from any comparing the different sections 
 suspicion of being irreligious, of the Church, he says : 'On the 
 that do not oppose it.' The whole, the Calvinists, generally 
 book of Dr. Harsenet is, I be- speaking, were, of all the con- 
 lieve, rare ; I only know it by tending sects, the most sus- 
 the copious extracts in Hutchin- picious of sorcery, the most un- 
 son. There is a notice of its doubting believers in its ex- 
 author in Neal's Hist, of the istence, and the most eager to 
 Puritans. follow it up with what they 
 
 1 See Scott's Discovery, pas- conceived to be the due pun- 
 
 sim. ishment of the most fi-arful 
 
 * Sir W. Scott has well no- of crimes.' (Demonology and 
 
 ticed this influence cf Puritanism Wiichcraft, Letter 8.)
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 127 
 
 moulding alike the character and the habits of the 
 nation, and in disseminating their harsh and gloomy 
 tenets through every section of society. While Eng- 
 land was breaking loose from her most ancient super- 
 stitions, and advancing with gigantic strides along 
 the paths of knowledge, Scotland still cowered with 
 a willing submission before her clergy. Never was 
 a mental servitude more complete, and never was a 
 tyranny maintained with more inexorable barbarity. 
 Supported by public opinion, the Scottish ministers 
 sticceeded in overawing all opposition, in prohibiting 
 the faintest expression of adverse opinions, in prying 
 into and controlling the most private concerns of 
 domestic life ; in compelling everyone to conform 
 ab.-jolutely to all the ecclesiastical regulations they 
 enjoined ; and in, at last, directing the w r hole scope 
 and current of legislation. They maintained their 
 ascendency over the popular mind by a system of 
 religious terrorism, which we can now barely con- 
 ceive. The misery of man, the anger of the Almighty, 
 the fearful power and continual presence of Satan, 
 the agonies of hell, were the constant subjects of their 
 preaching. All the most ghastly forms of human 
 siiffering were accumulated as faint images of the 
 eternal doom of the immense majority of mankind. 
 Countless miiacles were represented as taking place 
 within the land, but they were almost all of them 
 miracles of terror. Disease, storm, famine, every 
 awful calamity that fell upon mankind, or blasted 
 the produce of the soil, was attributed to the direct 
 intervention of spirits ; and Satan himself was re- 
 presented as constantly appearing in a visible form 
 upon the earth. 1 Such teaching produced its natural 
 
 1 I need hardly refer to the Kirk in Buckle's History a 
 noble description of the Scotch description the substantial jus-
 
 128 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 effects. In a land where credulity was universal, in 
 a land where the intellect was numbed and palsied 
 by these awful contemplations, where almost every 
 form of amusement was suppressed, and where the 
 thoughts of men were concentrated with an undi- 
 vided energy on theological conceptions, such teach- 
 ing necessarily created the superstition of witchcraft. 
 Witchcraft was but one form of the panic it produced ; 
 it was but the rejection by a diseased imagination 
 of the popular theology. We accordingly find that 
 it assumed the most frightful proportions, and the 
 darkest character. In other lands the superstition 
 was at least mixed with much of imposture ; in Scot- 
 land it appears to have been entirely undiluted. 1 It 
 was produced by the teaching of the clergy, and it was 
 everywhere fostered by their persecution. Eagerly, 
 passionately, with a thirst for blood that knew no 
 mercy, with a zeal that never tired, did they accom- 
 plish their task. Assembled in solemn synod, the 
 College of Aberdeen, in 1003, enjoined every minister 
 to take two of the elders of his parish to make ' a 
 subtle and privy inquisition,' and to question all the 
 parishioners upon oath as to their knowledge of 
 witches. 2 Boxes were placed in the churches for the 
 expi-ess purpose of receiving the accusations. 3 When 
 a woman had fallen under suspicion, the minister 
 from the pulpit denounced her by name, exhorted 
 
 tice of which will be questioned that no cases of imposture have 
 
 by no one who is acquainted been detected in Scotch witch- 
 
 \vith the history of Scotch trials, is noted by Buckle (vol. 
 
 witchcraft. On the multitude ii. pp. 189, 190). 
 
 of miracles and apparitions of * Dalyell, Darker Supersti- 
 
 t;aton that were believed, see tions of Scotland, p. 624. 
 
 pp. 349-369. Ibid. p. 623. 
 1 The very remarkable fact,
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 129 
 
 his parishioners to give evidence against her, and 
 prohibited anyone from sheltering her. 1 In the same 
 spirit he exerted the power which was given him. by 
 a parochial organisation, elaborated perhaps more 
 skilfully than any other in Europe. Under these 
 circumstances, the witch-cases seem to have fallen 
 almost entirely into the hands of the clergy. They 
 were the leading commissioners. Before them the 
 confessions were taken. They were the acquiescing 
 witnesses, or the directors of the tortures by which 
 those confessions were elicited. 2 
 
 And when we read the nature of these tortures, 
 which were worthy of an oriental imagination ; when 
 we remember that they were inflicted, for the most 
 part, on old and feeble and half-doting women, it is 
 difficult to repress a feeling of the deepest abhor- 
 rence for those men who caused and who encouraged 
 thorn. If the witch was obdurate, the first, and it 
 was said the most effectual, method of obtaining con- 
 fession was by what was termed ' waking her.' An 
 iron bridle or hoop was bound across her face with 
 four prongs, which were thrust into her mouth. It 
 was fastened behind to the wall by a chain, in such a 
 manner that the victim was unable to lie down ; and 
 in this position she was sometimes kept for several 
 days, while men were constantly with her to prevent 
 her from closing her eyes for a moment in sleep. 3 
 
 1 Dalyell, Darker Supersti- taken before presbyteries, or 
 tions of Scotland, p. 624, &c. certain special commissioners, 
 
 2 See on this subjectPitcairn's who usually ranked among their 
 Criminal Trials cjf Scotland, a number the leading clergy of 
 vast repository of original do- those districts where their hap- 
 cuments on the subject. Pit- less victims resided ' (vol. iii. 
 cairn gives numbers of these p. 598). 
 
 confessions. He adds : ' The s One of the most powerful 
 confessions were commonly incentives to confession was 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 Partly in order to effect this object, and partly to 
 discover the insensible mark which was the siire sign 
 of a witch, long pins were thrust into her body. 1 At 
 the same time, as it was a saying in Scotland that a 
 witch would never confess while she could drink, ex- 
 cessive thirst was often added to her tortures. 2 Some 
 prisoners have been waked for five nights ; one, it is 
 said, even for nine. 3 
 
 The physical and mental suffering of such a process 
 was sufficient to overcome the resolution of many, 
 and to distract the understanding of not a few. But 
 other and perhaps worse tortures were in reserve. 
 The three principal that were habitually applied, 
 were the pennywinkis, the boots, and the caschiel- 
 awis. The first was a kind of thumb-screw ; the 
 
 systematically to deprive the 
 suspected witch of the refresh- 
 ment of her natural sleep. . . . 
 Iron collars, or witches' bridles, 
 are still preserved in various 
 parts of Scotland which had 
 been used for such iniquitous 
 purposes. These instruments 
 were so constructed that, by 
 means of a hoop which passed 
 over the head, a piece of iron 
 having four points or prongs 
 was forcibly thrust into the 
 mouth, two of these being di- 
 rected to the tongue and palate, 
 the others pointing outwards to 
 
 few days of such discipline, 
 maddened by the misery of her 
 forlorn and helpless state, would 
 be rendered fit for confessing 
 anything, in order to be rid of 
 the dregs of her wretched life. 
 At intervals fresh examinations 
 took place, and these were re- 
 peated from time to time until 
 her " contumacy," as it was 
 termed, was subdued. The 
 clergy and kirk sessions appear 
 to have been the unwearied in- 
 struments of "purging the land 
 of witchcraft;" and to them, in 
 the first instance, all the com- 
 
 each cheek. This infernal ma- p'ah/ts and informations were 
 
 chine was secured by a padlock, made.' (Pitcairn, vol. i. part ii. 
 
 At the back of the collar was 
 
 fixed a ring by which to attach 
 
 the witcli to a staple in the wa'l 
 
 of her cell. Thus equipped, 
 
 nnd night and day waked and 
 
 watched by some skilful person 
 
 appointed by her inquisitors, 
 
 the unhappy creature, after a 
 
 . 50.) 
 
 1 Dalyell, p. 645. The 'prick- 
 ers ' formed a regular profession 
 in Scotland. 
 
 Burt's Letters from the 
 North of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 
 227-234. 
 
 8 Dalyell, p. 645.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 131 
 
 second was a frame in which the leg was inserted, 
 and in which it was broken by wedges, driven in by 
 a. hammer ; the third was also an iron frame for the 
 leg, which was from time to time heated over a 
 brazier. 1 Fire-matches were sometimes applied to 
 the body of the victim. 2 We read in a contempo- 
 rary legal register, of one man who was kept for 
 forty-eight hours in ' vehement tort our ' in the cas- 
 chielawis ; and of another who remained in the same 
 frightful machine for eleven days and eleven nights, 
 whose legs were broken daily for fourteen days in. 
 the boots, and who was so scourged that the whole 
 skin was torn from his body. 3 This was, it is true, 
 censured as an extreme case, but it was only an ex- 
 cessive application of the common torture. 
 
 How many confessions were extorted, and how 
 many victims perished by these means, it is now im- 
 possible to say. A vast number of depositions and 
 confessions are preserved, but they were only taken 
 before a single court, and many others took cogni- 
 sance of the crime. We know that in 1662, more 
 than 150 persons were accused of witchcraft ; 4 and 
 that in the preceding year no less than fourteen 
 commissions had been issued for the trials. 5 After 
 these facts, it is scarcely necessary to mention, how 
 one traveller casually notices having seen nine women 
 burning together at Leith in 1664, or how, in 1678, 
 nine others were condemned in a single day. 6 The 
 charges were, indeed, of the most comprehensive 
 order, and the wildest fancies of Sprenger and Nider 
 
 1 Pitcairn. the same trial in 1596. 
 
 2 Dalyell, p. 657. 4 Dalyell, p. 669. 
 
 3 Pitcairn, vol. i. part ii. p. s Piteairn, vol. iii. p. 597. 
 376. The two cases were in 6 Dalyell, pp. 669, 6JO. 
 
 K2
 
 132 EATIONALISM IS EUROPE. 
 
 were defended by the Presbyterian divines. ' In most 
 Catholic countries, it was a grievance of the clergy 
 that the civil power refused to execute those who 
 only employed their power in curing disease. In 
 Scotland such persons were unscrupulously put to 
 death. 2 The witches were commonly strangled be- 
 fore they were burnt, but this merciful provision was 
 very frequently omitted. An Earl of Mar (who ap- 
 pears to have been the only person sensible of the 
 inhumanity of the proceedings) tells how, with a 
 piercing yell, some women once broke half-burnt 
 from the slow fire that consumed them, struggled 
 for a few moments with despairing energy among 
 the spectators, but soon with shrieks of blasphemy 
 and wild protestations of innocence sank writhing in 
 agony amid the flames. 3 
 
 The contemplation of such scenes as these is one 
 of the most painful duties that can devolve upon the 
 
 1 For a curicms instance of one man succeeded in cutting 
 
 this, see that strange book, off the leg of a cat who attack l 
 
 The Secret Commonwealth} him, that the leg immediately 
 
 published in 1691, by Robert turned into that of an old wo- 
 
 Kirlc, Minister of Aberfoil. He man, and that four ministers 
 
 represents evil spirits in human signed a certificate attesting the 
 
 form as habitually living among fact (vol. i. pp. 271-277). One 
 
 the Highlanders. Succubi, or, of the principal Scotch writers 
 
 RS the Scotch called them, Lean- on these matters was Sinclair, 
 
 nain Sith, seem to have been who was Professor of Moral 
 
 especially common ; and Mr. Philosophy at Glasgow. 
 
 Kirk ('who identifies them with ' 2 Wright's Sorcery, vol. i. 
 
 the 'Familiar Spirits' of Deu- pp. 165, 166. Even to consult 
 
 teronomy) complains very sadly with witches was made capital, 
 
 of the affection of many young ' Pitcairn, vol. iii. p. 598. 
 
 Scotchmen for the 'fair ladies Another Earl of Mar had been 
 
 of this aerial order' (p. 35). himself bled to death for hav- 
 
 Captain Burt relates a long ing, as was alleged, consulted 
 
 discussion he had with a mi- with witches how to shorten 
 
 nister on the subject of old the life of James III. (Scott's 
 
 women turning themselves into Demonology, let. ix.) 
 cats. The minister said that
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 133 
 
 historian, but it is one from which he must not shrink, 
 if he would form a just estimate of the past. There 
 are opinions that may be traced from age to age by 
 footsteps of blood ; and the intensity of the suffering 
 they caused is a measure of the intensity with which 
 they were realised. Scotch witchcraft was but the 
 result of Scotch Puritanism, and it faithfully reflected 
 the character of its parent. It is true that, before 
 the Reformation, the people had been grossly ignorant 
 and superstitious ; but it is also true, that witchcraft 
 in its darker forms was so rare that no law was made 
 on the subject till 1563 ; that the law was not carried 
 to its full severity till 1590 ; that the delusion in- 
 variably accompanied the religious terrorism which 
 the Scotch clergy so zealously maintained ; and that 
 those clergy, all over Scotland, applauded and stimu- 
 lated the persecution. 1 The ascendency they had 
 obtained was boundless, and in this respect their 
 power was entirely undisputed. One word from them 
 might have arrested the tortures, but that word was 
 never spoken. Their conduct implies not merely a 
 mental aberration, but also a callousness of feeling 
 which has rarely been attained in a long career of 
 vice. Yet these were men who had often shown, in 
 the most trying circumstances, the highest and the 
 most heroic virtues. They were men whose courage 
 
 1 Sir Walter Scott seems to had.^his one bond of union with 
 think that the first great out- the ministers ; and, as Sir W. 
 burst of persecution began when S. says, 'during the halcyon 
 James VI. went to Denmark to period of union between kirk 
 fetch his bride. Before his de- and king, their hearty agree- 
 parture he exhorted the clergy ment on the subject of witch- 
 to assist the magistrates, which craft failed not to heat the fires 
 they did, and most especially against all persons suspected of 
 in matters of witchcraft. The such iniquity.' (Dcmunoloyy, 
 king was himself perfectly in- Letter ix.) See also Lintoii s 
 fatuated with the subject, and Witch Stories, p. 5.
 
 134 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 had never flinched when persecution was raging 
 around ; men who had never paltered with their con- 
 sciences to attain the favours of a king ; men whose 
 8elf-devotion and zeal in their sacred calling had 
 seldom been surpassed ; men who, in all the private 
 relations of life, were doubtless amiable and affection- 
 ate. It is not on them that our blame should fall ; it 
 is on the system that made them what they were. 
 They were but illustrations of the great truth, that 
 when men have come to regard a certain class of 
 their fellow -creatures as doomed by the Almighty to 
 eternal and excruciating agonies, and when their 
 theology directs their minds with intense and realis- 
 ing earnestness to the contemplation of such agonies, 
 the result will be an indifference to the suffering of 
 those whom they deem the enemies of their God, as 
 absolute as it is perhaps possible for human nature to 
 attain. 
 
 In Scotland the character of theology was even 
 more hard and unpitying than in other countries 
 where Puritanism existed, on account of a special 
 circumstance which in some respects reflects great 
 credit on its teachers. The Scotch Kirk was the 
 result of a democratic movement, and for some time, 
 almost alone in Europe, it was the unflinching cham- 
 pion of political liberty. It was a Scotchman, 
 Buchanan, who first brought liberal principles into 
 clear relief. It was the Scotch clergy who upheld 
 them with a courage that can hardly be overrated. 
 Their circumstances made them liberals, and they 
 naturally sought to clothe their liberalism in a theo- 
 logical garb. They soon, discovered precedents for 
 their rebellions in the history of the Judges and 
 Captains of the Jews ; and accordingly the union of
 
 MAGIC AND \YITCHCRAFT. 135 
 
 an intense theological and an intense liberal feeling 
 made them revert to the scenes of the Old Testa- 
 ment, to the sufferings and also the conquests of 
 the Jews, with a peculiar affection. Their whole 
 theology took an Old Testament cast. Their modes 
 of thought, their very phraseology, were derived 
 from that source ; and the constant contemplation of 
 the massacres of Canaan, and of the provisions of the 
 Levitical code, produced its natural effect upon their 
 minds. 1 
 
 It is scarcely possible to write a history of the 
 decline of witchcraft in Scotland, for the change of 
 opinions was almost entirely unmarked by incidents 
 on which we can dwell. At one period we find 
 everyone predisposed to believe in witches. At a 
 later period we find that this predisposition has 
 silently passed away.' 2 Two things only can, I think, 
 be asserted on the subject with confidence that the 
 sceptical movement advanced much more slowly in 
 Scotland than in England, and that the ministers 
 were among the latest to yield to it. Until the close 
 of the seventeenth century, the trials were suf- 
 ficiently common, but after this time they became 
 rare. It is generally said that the last execution was 
 in 1722 ; but Captain Burt, who visited the country 
 in 1730, speaks of a woman who was burnt as late 
 as 1727. 3 The same very keen observer was greatly 
 
 1 It is ratherremarkable that racter of the decline of Scotch 
 Bodin had also formed his the- witchcraft has been noticed by 
 ology almost exclusively from Dugald Stewart, Dissert, p. 508. 
 the Old Testament, his rev'er- 3 Burt's Letters from the 
 ence for which was so great North of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 
 that some (Grotius and Hallam 227-234 and 271-277. I BUS- 
 among others) have questioned pectBurt has misdated the exe- 
 whether he believed the New. cution that took place in 1722, 
 
 2 The silent unreasoning 2ha- placing it in 1727.
 
 136 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 struck by the extent to which the belief still con- 
 tinued in Scotland, at a time when it was quite 
 abandoned by the educated classes in England ; and 
 he found its most ardent supporters among the Pres- 
 byterian ministers. As late as 1736, ' the divines of 
 the Associated Presbytery ' passed a resolution de- 
 claring their belief in witchcraft, and deploring the 
 scepticism that was general. 1 
 
 I have now completed my review of the history of 
 witchcraft, in its relation to the theologies of Rome, 
 of England, and of Geneva. I have shown that the 
 causes of the changes it presents must be sought, 
 not within any narrow circle of special doctrines, 
 but in the general intellectual and religious con- 
 dition of the time. I have shown, in other words, 
 that witchcraft resulted, not from isolated circum- 
 stances, but from modes of thought ; that it grew 
 out of a certain intellectual temperature acting on 
 certain theological tenets, and reflected with almost 
 startling vividness each great intellectual change. 
 Arising amid the ignorance of an early civilisation, 
 it was quickened into an intenser life by a theolo- 
 gical struggle which allied terrorism with credulity, 
 and it declined under the influence of that great 
 rationalistic movement which, since the seventeenth 
 century, has been on all sides encroaching on theo- 
 logy. I have dwelt upon the decadence of the 
 superstition at considerable length ; for it was at 
 once one of the earliest and one of the most im- 
 portant conquests of the spirit of Rationalism. 
 There are very few examples of a change of belief 
 that was so strictly normal, so little accelerated by 
 sectarian passions or individual genius, and there- 
 
 1 Biirton, Hist, of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 331.
 
 MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 137 
 
 fore so well suited to illustrate the laws of intellec- 
 tual development. Besides this, the fact that the 
 belief when realised was always followed by persecu- 
 tion, enables us to trace its successive stages with 
 more than common accuracy, while the period that 
 has elapsed since its destruction has, in a great 
 measure, removed the subject from the turbid atmo- 
 sphere of controversy. 
 
 It is impossible to leave the history of witchcraft 
 without reflecting how vast an amount of suffering 
 has, in at least this respect, been removed by the 
 progress of a rationalistic civilisation. I know that 
 when we remember the frightful calamities that have 
 from time to time flowed from theological divisions ; 
 when we consider the countless martyrs who have 
 perished in the dungeon or at the stake, the millions 
 who have fallen in the religious wars, the elements 
 of almost undying dissension that have been planted 
 in so many noble nations and have paralysed so 
 many glorious enterprises, the fate of a few thousand 
 innocent persons who were burnt alive seems to sink 
 into comparative insignificance. Yet it is probable 
 that no class of victims endured sufferings so un- 
 alloyed and so intense. Not for them, the wild 
 fanaticism that nerves the soul against danger, and 
 almost steels the body against torments. Not for 
 them the assurance of a glorious eternity, that has 
 made the martyr look with exultation on the rising 
 flame as on the Elijah's chariot that is to bear his 
 soul to heaven. Not for them the solace of lament- 
 ing friends, or the consciousness that their memories 
 would be cherished and honoured by posterity. They 
 died alone, hated and unpitied. They were deemed 
 by all mankind the worst of criminals. Their very
 
 138 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 kinsmen shrank from them as tainted and accursed. 
 The superstitions they had imbibed in childhood, 
 blending with the illusions of age, and with the 
 horrors of their position, persuaded them in many 
 cases that they were indeed the bondslaves of Satan, 
 and were about to exchange their torments upon 
 earth for an agony that was as excruciating, and was 
 eternal. And, besides all this, we have to consider 
 the terrors which the belief must have spread through 
 the people at large ; we have to picture the anguish 
 of the mother, as she imagined that it was in the 
 power of one whom she had offended, to blast in a 
 moment every object of her affection : we have to 
 conceive, above all, the awful shadow that the dread 
 of accusation must have thrown on the enfeebled 
 faculties of age, and the bitterness it must have 
 added to desertion and to solitude. All these suffer- 
 ings were the result of a single superstition, which 
 the spirit of Rationalism has destroyed.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 ON THE DECLINING SENSE OF THE MIRACULOUS. 
 
 THE MIRACLES OP THE CHTJKOH. 
 
 THE same habits of mind which induced men at first 
 to recoil from the belief in witchcraft with an in- 
 stinctive and involuntary repugnance as intrinsically 
 incredible, and afterwards openly to repudiate it, 
 have operated in a very similar manner, and with 
 very similar effects, upon the belief in modern mira- 
 cles. The triumph, however, has not been in this 
 case so complete, for the Church of Rome still main- 
 tains the continuance of miraculous powers ; nor has 
 the decay been so strictly normal, for the fact that 
 most of the Roman Catholic miracles are associated 
 with distinctively Roman Catholic doctrines has in- 
 troduced much miscellaneous controversy into the 
 question. But, notwithstanding these considera- 
 tions, the general outlines of the movement are 
 clearly visible, and they are well deserving of a brief 
 notice. 
 
 If we would realise the modes of thought on this 
 subject prior to the Reformation, we must quite dis- 
 miss from our minds the ordinary Protestant notion 
 that miracles were very rare and exceptional phe- 
 nomena, the primary object of wliioh was always to
 
 140 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 accredit the teacher of some divine truth that could 
 not otherwise be established. In the writings of the 
 Fathers, and especially of those of the fourth and fifth 
 centuries, we find them not only spoken of as exist- 
 ing in profusion, but as being directed to the most 
 various ends. They were a kind of celestial charity, 
 alleviating the sorrows, healing the diseases, and 
 supplying the wants of the faithful. They were 
 frequent incitements to piety, stimulating the devo- 
 tions of the languid, and rewarding the patience of 
 the fervent. They were the signs of great and 
 saintly virtue, securing universal respect for those 
 who had attained a high degree of sanctity, or assist- 
 ing them in the performance of their more austere 
 devotions. Thus, one saint having retired into the 
 desert to lead a life of mortification, the birds daily 
 brought him a supply of food, which was just 
 sufficient for his wants ; and when a kindred spirit 
 visited him in his retirement, they doubled the sup- 
 ply ; and when he died, two lions "ssued from the 
 desert to dig his grave, uttered a long howl of 
 mourning over his body, and knelt down to beg a 
 blessing from the survivor. 1 Thus, another saint, 
 who was of opinion that a rnonk should never see 
 himself naked, stood one day in despair upon the 
 banks of a bridgeless stream, when an angel de- 
 scended to assist him, and transported him in safety 
 across the dreaded element. 2 Besides this, the 
 power of magic was, as we have seen, fully recog- 
 nised, both by Christians and Pagans, and each 
 
 1 Paul the Hermit. See his the first of the hermits. 
 Life by St. Jerome. The visi- 2 Ammon (_Socrates, lib. ir. c. 
 tor of Paul was Su Antony, 23).
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 141 
 
 ttdinitted the reality of the miracles of the other, 
 though ascribing them to the agency of demons. 1 
 
 If we pass from the Fathers into the middle ages, 
 \ve find ourselves in an atmosphere that was dense 
 and charged with the supernatural. The demand for 
 miracles was almost boundless, and. the supply was 
 equal to the demand. Men of extraordinary sanctity 
 seemed naturally and habitually to obtain the power 
 of performing them, and their lives are crowded with 
 their achievements, which were attested by the high- 
 est sanction of the Church. Nothing could be more 
 common than fcr a holy man to be lifted up from the 
 floor in the midst of his devotions, or to be visited by 
 the Virgin or by an angel. There was scarcely a 
 town that could not show some relic that had cured 
 the sick, or some image tl:at had opened and shut its 
 eyes, or bowed its head to an earnest worshipper. It 
 was somewhat more extraordinary, but not in the 
 least incredible, that the fish should have thronged 
 to the shore to hear St. Antony preach, or that it 
 should be necessary to cut the hair of the crucifix at 
 Burgos once a month, or that the Virgin of the 
 Pillar, at Saragossa, should, at the prayer of one of 
 her worshippers, have restored a leg that had been 
 amputated. 2 Men who were afflicted with apparently 
 hopeless disease, started in a moment into perfect 
 health when brought into contact with a relic of 
 
 1 See some admirable re- miracle in the cathedral of 
 marks on tin's subject in Maury, Sarago.ssa, opposite the image. 
 Legcndes Pieuses, pp. 240-244 ; It is one about which a vast 
 also Farmer, On Demoniacs, amount has been written, and 
 Middleton. Free Enquiry, pp. which the Spanish theologians 
 85-87. Bingham, Antiquitii s are said to regard as peculiarly 
 of the Christian Church, book well established. Hume has 
 iii. c. 4. noticed it in his Essay on 
 
 2 There is a picture of the Miracles.
 
 142 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 Christ or of the Virgin. The virtue of such relics ra- 
 diated in blessings all around them. Glorious visions 
 heralded their discovery, and. angels have transported 
 them through the air. If a missionary went abroad 
 among the heathen, supernatural signs confounded 
 his opponents, and made the powers of darkness fly 
 before his steps. If a Christian prince unsheathed 
 his sword in an ecclesiastical cause, apostles had been 
 known to combat with his army, and avenging mira- 
 cles to scatter his enemies. If an unjust suspicion 
 attached to an innocent man, he had immediately 
 recourse to an ordeal which cleared his character 
 and condemned his accusers. All this was going on 
 habitually in every part of Europe without exciting 
 the smallest astonishment or scepticism. Those who 
 know how thoroughly the supernatural element per- 
 vades the old lives of the saints, may form some 
 notion of the multitude of miracles that were related 
 and generally believed from the fact that M. Guizot 
 has estimated the number of these lives, accumulated 
 in the Bollandist Collection, at about 25,000.' Yet 
 this was but one department of miracles. It does not 
 include the thousands of miraculous images and 
 pictures that were operating throughout Christendom, 
 and the countless apparitions and miscellaneous pro- 
 
 1 Hist, de la diviUsation, Le- placed according to the calen- 
 
 9011 XVII. The Bollandist dar. Fifty-five large folio 
 
 Collection was begun at Ant- volumes have been published, 
 
 werp by a Jesuit mimed Bol- but they only extend to the end 
 
 1-ind, in 1643, was stopped for of October. See a very beauti- 
 
 a time by the French Revo- ful essay on the subject by 
 
 lution, but renewed under the Kenan, Eludes Rcliguuses. M. 
 
 patronage of the Belgian Cham- Kenan says : ' 11 me semble que 
 
 bers. It was intended to con- pour un vrai philosophe une 
 
 tain a complete collection of prison cellulaire avec ces c ; n- 
 
 all the original documents on quante cinq volumes in-folio, 
 
 the subject. The saints are serait uu vrai paradis.'
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 143 
 
 digies that were taking place in every country, and 
 on all occasions. Whenever a saint was canonised, it 
 was necessary to prove that he had worked miracles ; 
 but except on those occasions miraculous accounts 
 seem never to have been questioned. The most 
 educated, as well as the most ignorant, habitually re- 
 sorted to the supernatural as the simplest explana- 
 tion of every difficulty. 
 
 All this has now passed away. It has passed away 
 not only in lands where Protestantism is triumphant, 
 but also in those where the Roman Catholic faith is 
 still acknowledged, and where the mediaeval saints 
 are still venerated. St. Januarius, it is true, con- 
 tinues to liquefy at Naples, and the pastorals of 
 French bishops occasionally relate apparitions of the 
 Virgin among very ignorant and superstitious pea- 
 sants ; but the implicit, undiscriminating acquiescence 
 with which such narratives were once received, has 
 long since been replaced by a derisive incredulity. 
 Those who know the tone that is habitually adopted 
 on these subjects by the educated in Roman Catholic 
 countries will admit that, so far from being a subject 
 for triumphant exultation, the very few modern 
 miracles which are related are everywhere regarded 
 as a scandal, a stumbling-block, and a difficulty. 
 Most educated persons speak of them with undis- 
 guised scorn and incredulity ; some attempt to evade 
 or explain them away by a natural hypothesis ; a 
 very few faintly and apologetically defend them. Nor 
 can it be said that what is manifested is merely a 
 desire for a more minute and accurate examination 
 of the evidence by which they are supported. On 
 tho contrary, it will, I think, be admitted that these 
 alleged miracles are commonly rejected with an as-
 
 144 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 purance that is as peremptory and unreasoning as 
 that with which they would ha.ve been once received. 
 Nothing can be more rare than a serious examination, 
 by those who disbelieve them, of the testimony on 
 which they rest. They are repudiated, not because 
 they are unsupported, but because they are miracu- 
 lous. Men are prepared to admit almost any con- 
 reivable concurrence of natural improbabilities rather 
 than resort to the hypothesis of supernatural inter- 
 ference and this spirit is exhibited not merely by 
 open sceptics, but by men who are sincere though 
 perhaps not very fervent believers in their Church. 
 It is the prevailing characteristic of that vast body 
 of educated persons, whose lives are chiefly spent in 
 secular pursuits, and who, while they receive with 
 unenquiring faith the great doctrines of Catholicism, 
 and duly perform its leading duties, derive their 
 mental tone and colouring from the general spirit of 
 their age. If you speak to them on the subject, they 
 will reply with a shrug and with a smile ; they will 
 tell you that it is indeed melancholy that such nar- 
 ratives should be narrated in the middle of the 
 nineteenth century ; they will treat them as palpable 
 anachronisms, as obviously and intrinsically incre- 
 dible ; but they will add that it is not rect-ssary for 
 all Roman Catholics to believe them, and that it is 
 unfair to judge the enlightened members of the 
 Church by the measure of the superstitions of the 
 ignorant. 
 
 That this is the general tone adopted by the great 
 majority of educated Roman Catholics, botli in their 
 writings and in their conversation, will scarcely be a 
 matter of dispute. It is also very manifest that it is 
 the direct product and measure of civilisation. The
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 145 
 
 districts where an account of a modern miracle is 
 received with least derision, are precisely those which 
 are most torpid and most isolated. The classes 
 whose habits of thought are least shocked by such 
 an account, are those which are least educated and 
 least influenced by the broad current of civilisation. 
 If we put aside the clergy and those who are most 
 immediately under their influence, we find that this 
 habit of mind is the invariable concomitant of educa- 
 tion, and is the especial characteristic of those persons 
 whose intellectual sympathies are most extended, 
 and who therefore represent most faithfully the 
 various intellectual influences of their time. If you 
 connect a nation which has long been insulated and 
 superstitious with the general movement of European 
 civilisation by means of railways, or a free press, or 
 the removal of protecting laws, you will most in- 
 fallibly inoculate it with this spirit. 
 
 It is further evident that this habit of thought is 
 not a merely ephemeral movement, produced by some 
 exceptional event, or by some transient literary 
 fashion peculiar to our own century. All history 
 shows that, in exact proportion to the intellectual 
 progress of nations, the accounts of miracles taking 
 place among them become rarer and rarer, until at 
 last they entirely cease. 1 In this fact we have a clear 
 indication of the decline of the old habits of thought ; 
 
 1 This has been noticed in when natural knowledge pre- 
 
 an extremely ingenious fashion vailed: for He knew there was 
 
 by Bishop Spratt : ' God never not so much need to make use 
 
 yet left Himself without a wit- of extraordinary signs when 
 
 ness in the world ; and it is ob- men were diligent in the works 
 
 eervable that He has commonly of His hands and attentive to 
 
 chosen the dark and ignorant the impressions of His footsteps 
 
 ages wherein to work miracles, in His creatures.' (Hist, of 
 
 but seldom or never the times Royal Society, p. 350.) 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 for those who regard these miracles as real, ascribe 
 their disappearance to the progress of incredulity, 
 while those who disbelieve them maintain that they 
 were the results of a particular direction given to the 
 imagination, and of a particular form of imposition 
 created and suggested by the mediaeval habits of 
 thought. In other words, the old spirit, according 
 to one class, is the condition, and, according to the 
 other class, the cause of the miracles ; and, therefore, 
 the cessation of miraculous narratives, when unac- 
 companied by an avowed change of creed, implies 
 the decay of that spirit. 
 
 If these propositions be true and I scarcely think 
 that any candid person who seriously examines the 
 subject can question them they lead irresistibly to a 
 very important general conclusion. They show that 
 the repugnance of men to believe miraculous narra- 
 tives is in direct proportion to the progress of civili- 
 sation and the diffusion of knowledge. It is not 
 simply that science explains some things which were 
 formerly deemed supernatural, such as comets or 
 eclipses. We find the same incredulity manifested 
 in Roman Catholic countries towards alleged miracles 
 by saints, or relics, or images, on which science can 
 throw no direct light, and which contain no element 
 of improbability, except that they are miraculous. 
 It is not simply that civilisation strengthens Protest^ 
 antism at the expense of the Church of Rome. We 
 find this spirit displayed by Roman Catholics them- 
 selves, though the uniform tendency of their theology 
 is to destroy all notion of the antecedent improbability 
 of modern miracles ; and though the fact that these 
 miracles are only alleged in their own church should 
 invest them with a peculiar attraction. It is not
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 14? 
 
 even that there is an increasing repugnance to an 
 uuscrutinising and blindfold faith. Alleged miracles 
 are rejected with immediate unreasoning incredulity 
 by the members of a church which has done every- 
 thing in its power to prepare the mind for their 
 reception. The plain fact is, that the progress of 
 civilisation produces invariably a certain tone and 
 habit of thought, which makes men recoil from 
 miraculous narratives with an instinctive and imme- 
 diate repugnance, as though they were essentially 
 incredible, independently of any definite arguments, 
 and in spite of dogmatic teaching. Whether this 
 habit of mind is good or evil, I do not now discuss ; 
 that it exists wherever civilisation advances, is, I 
 conceive, incontestable. 
 
 We may observe, however, that it acts with much 
 greater force against contemporary than against his- 
 torical miracles. Roman Catholics who will reject 
 with immediate ridicule an account of a miracle taking 
 place in their own day, will speak with considerable 
 respect of a precisely similar miracle that is attributed 
 to a mediaeval saint. Nor is it at all difficult to 
 discover the reason of this distinction. Events that 
 took place in a distant past are not realised with the 
 same intense vividness as those which take place 
 among ourselves. They do not press upon us with 
 the same keen reality, and are not judged by the same 
 measure. They come down to us invested with a 
 legendary garb, obscured by the haze of years, and 
 Burrounded by circumstances that are so unlike our 
 own that they refract the imagination, and cloud and 
 distort its pictures. Besides this, many of these 
 narratives are entwined with the earliest associations 
 of the Roman Catholic child ; the belief in them is 
 L 2
 
 148 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 infused into his yet undeveloped mind, and they are 
 thus at no period brought in contact with a matured 
 and unbiassed judgment. We find, therefore, that 
 although these general habits of thought do, un- 
 doubtedly, exercise a retrospective influence, that is 
 not their first or their most powerful effect. 
 
 In Protestant countries there has not been as com- 
 plete a change as that which we have been consider- 
 ing, for Protestantism was only called into existence 
 when the old habits of thought had greatly declined. 
 The Reformation was created and pervaded by the 
 modern spirit ; and its leaders were compelled, by 
 the exigencies of their position, to repudiate the 
 miraculous accounts of their time. They could not 
 with any consistency admit that the Almighty had 
 selected as the peculiar channels of His grace, and 
 had glorified by countless miracles, devotions which 
 they stigmatised as blasphemous, idolatrous, and 
 superstitious. We find, accordingly, that from the 
 fery beginning. Protestantism looked upon modern 
 miracles (except those which were comprised under 
 the head of witchcraft) with an aversion and distrust 
 that contrast remarkably with the unhesitating cre- 
 dulity of its opponents. The history of its sects 
 exhibits, indeed, some alleged miracles, which were, 
 apparently, the result of ignorance or enthusiasm, 
 and a very few which were obvious impositions. 
 Such, for example, was the famous voice from the 
 wall in the reign of Queen Mary, which proclaimed 
 the mass to be idolatrous, just as the crucifix in 
 Christ Church, at Dublin, shed tears of blood in the 
 following reign, because the Protestant service was 
 introduced into Ireland. On the whole, however, 
 the new faith proved remarkably free from these
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 149 
 
 forms of deception ; and its leaders generally con- 
 curred in the belief, that miracles had ceased when 
 Chiistianity had gained a definite ascendency in the 
 world. The Patristic writings are full of miraculous 
 accounts ; and most of the reformers, and especially 
 those in England, treated Patristic authority with 
 great respect ; so that the line of demarcation between 
 the miraculous and the non-miraculous age, was 
 generally drawn at about the period when the most 
 eminent of the Fathers passed away. As this was 
 not very long after Christianity had obtained a com- 
 plete command of the civil power, many plausible 
 arguments could be urged in support of the view, 
 which appears, in England at least, to have been 
 universal. 
 
 When Locke was writing his famous Letters on 
 Toleration, he was led to a consideration of the 
 Patristic miracles by an argument which seems then 
 to have been deemed very forcible, but which, as it 
 belongs to a different ' climate of opinion ' from our 
 own, would now be regarded us both futile and ir- 
 reverent. It was absolutely necessary, it was con- 
 tended, under ordinary circumstances, for the well- 
 being of Christianity, that it should be supported by 
 persecution ; that is to say, that the civil power should 
 suppress its opponents. When Christianity was still 
 unrecognised by government, it existed in an abnormal 
 condition ; the laws of nature were suspended in its 
 favour, and continual miracles ensured its triumph. 
 When, however, the conversion of Constantine placed 
 the civil power at its disposal, the era of the super- 
 natural was closed. The power of persecuting was 
 obtained; and, therefore, the power of working miracles 
 was withdrawn. The alliance between Church and
 
 150 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 State being instituted, Christianity had arrived at its 
 normal and final position, and exceptional assistance 
 tad become unnecessary. 1 This argument, the work 
 of the theologians of Oxford, was not likely to stagger 
 Locke ; but the historical question which it opened 
 was well calculated to arrest that keen and fearless 
 intellect, so little accustomed to bow before unsup- 
 ported authority, and at the very time engaged in 
 the defence of toleration against the entire weight 
 of ecclesiastical tradition. He appears to have con- 
 sulted Sir Isaac Newton ; for, in one of Newton's 
 letters, we find a somewhat hesitating passage upon 
 the subject : ' Miracles,' Newton wrote, ' of good 
 credit continued in the Church for about two or three 
 hundred years. Gregorius Thaumaturgus had his 
 name from thence, and was one of the latest who was 
 eminent for that gift ; but of their number and fre- 
 quency I am not able to give you a just account. 
 The history of those ages is very imperfect.' 8 Locke 
 does not appear to have adopted this view. In reply 
 to the Oxford argument, he wrote a very remarkable 
 passage, which did not, apparently, attract at the time 
 the attention it deserved, but which, long afterwards, 
 obtained an extremely conspicuous place in the dis- 
 cussion. ' This, I think,' he said, ' is evident, that 
 
 1 This argument, in a modified tise by a translation in the fifth 
 
 form, has been reproduced by volume of Henrion. Histoire 
 
 Muzarelli (a Roman theologian de FF.glise. 
 of some note), in his Treatise 2 Brewster's Life of Newton, 
 
 on the Inquisition. He cites the p. 275. There is another letter 
 
 destruction of Ananias and Snp- from Newton to Locke on the 
 
 pliira, and of Simon Magus, subject, in King's Life of Locke, 
 
 This class of miracles, he says, vol. i. p. 415 ; but it is little 
 
 h;is ceased ; and the Inquisition more than a catalogue of autho- 
 
 is, in consequence, required. I rities. 
 know this very remarkable trsa-
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 151 
 
 lie who will build his faith or reasonings upon miracles 
 delivered by Church historians, will find cause to go 
 ri o further than the Apostles' time, or else not to stop 
 at Constantino's, since the writers after that period, 
 whose word we readily take as unquestionable in 
 other things, speak of miracles in their time, with no 
 less assurance than the Fathers before the fourth 
 century ; and a great part of the miracles of the 
 second and third centuries stand upon the credit of 
 the writers of the fourth.' 1 
 
 After this time, the subject of the miracles of the 
 Fathers seems to have slept until public attention was 
 called to it by the well-known work of Middleton. 
 That the ' Free Inquiry ' was a book of extraordinary 
 merit that it displayed great eloquence, great bold- 
 ness, and great controversial dexterity, and met with 
 no opposition at all equal to its abilities, will scarcely 
 be denied. But, in order to appreciate its success, 
 we should consider, besides these things, the general 
 character of the age in which it appeared. During 
 the half century that elapsed between Locke and 
 Middleton, many influences that it would be tedious 
 to examine, but to which Locke himself by his philo- 
 sophy most largely contributed, had profoundly modi- 
 fied the theology of England. The charm and fasci- 
 nation which the early Fathers exercised upon the 
 divines of the previous century had quite passed away. 
 The Patristic works fell rapidly into neglect, and the 
 very few who continued to study them were but little 
 imbued with their spirit. Nothing, indeed, could be 
 more unlike the tone of the Fathers than the cold, 
 passionless, and prudential theology of the eighteenth 
 century, a theology which regarded Christianity as 
 1 Third letter on Toleration, p. 269.
 
 152 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 an admirable auxiliary to the police force, and a 
 principle of decorum and of cohesion in society, but 
 which carefully banished from it all enthusiasm, veiled 
 or attenuated all its mysteries, and virtually reduced 
 it to sin authoritative system of moral philosophy. 
 There never had been a time when divines had such a 
 keen dread of anything that appeared absurd or gro- 
 tesque. The spirit that, in the previous century, had 
 destroyed the belief in witchcraft, passed in its full 
 intensity into their works. Common sense was the 
 dominating characteristic of all they wrote. Generous 
 sentiments, disinterested virtue, reverential faith, sub- 
 lime speculations, had passed away. Every preacher 
 was employed in showing that Christianity was in all 
 respects perfectly in accordance with human reason, 
 in eliminating or obscuring whatever coiild shock the 
 feelings or offend the judgment, in representing reli- 
 gion as intended to refine and harmonise society, to 
 embellish all the relations of life, to give a higher 
 sanction to the dictates of human prudence, and to 
 extend the horizon of that prudence beyond the grave. 
 As a consequence of this state of mind, there was an 
 increasing indisposition to accept miracles like those 
 of the Fathers, which were not included in the evi- 
 dences of Christianity, and a decreasing reverence for 
 the writers on whose testimony they rest. 
 
 It was in the midst of this movement of thought, 
 that Middleton published his great attack upon the 
 Patristic miracles, and brought into clear relief both 
 the difficulties and the importance of the subject. 
 The writings of the Fathers contain numerous accounts 
 of miracles which they alleged to have taken place in 
 their own day and under their own notice, and which 
 are of such a nature, and are related in such a
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 153 
 
 manner, that it seems scarcely possible to avoid the 
 conclusion that they had really taken place, or else 
 that the Fathers deliberately palmed them off upon 
 the credulity of their readers. The works of the 
 first century that have come down to us are extremely 
 scanty, and consist almost entirely of short epistles 
 written without any historical or controversial pur- 
 pose, for the encouragement or edification of be- 
 lievers ; but, even in this century, the martyrdom of 
 St. Polycarp supplies an account which is clearly 
 miraculous. Justin Martyr, who wrote very early 
 in the second centiiry, and it is said not more than 
 fifty years after the death of St. John, distinctly 
 asserts the continuance of miracles in his time, and 
 from this date the evidence is ample and unbroken. 
 The Protestant theory is, that miracles became 
 gradually fewer and fewer, till they at last entirely 
 disappeared. The historical fact is, that generation 
 after generation, the miraculous accounts became more 
 numerous, more universal, and more extraordinary. 
 ' As far as the Church historians can illustrate or 
 throw light upon anything, there is not a single point 
 in all history so constantly, explicitly, and unani- 
 mously affirmed by them all, as the continual succes- 
 sion of those powers through all ages, from the 
 earliest Father who first mentions them down to the 
 time of the Reformation.' l If, then, we gave even 
 a general credence to the historical evidence upon 
 the subject, we should be carried down, without 
 pause or chasm, into the depths of the middle ages ; 
 and we should be compelled to admit that what Pro- 
 testants regard as the worst superstitions of the 
 Church of tiome, were for centuries the habitual and 
 1 Preface to the Free Enquiry.
 
 154 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 special channels of supernatural favour. If again, in 
 defiance of all the ordinary rules of historical criti- 
 cism, we believed the assertions of the writers of the 
 fourth century, but refused to credit the equally 
 positive testimony of the writers of the ninth cen- 
 tury, we should still be met by the same difficulty, 
 though in a modified form. It may be contended, 
 that the Fathers of the fourth century were not 
 Roman Catholics ; but it is quite certain that they 
 were not, in the ordinary sense of the word, Pro- 
 testants. It is quite certain that there existed among 
 them many practices, forms of devotion, and doctrinal 
 tendencies, which may not have been actually Roman 
 Catholic, but which, at least, hung upon the extreme 
 verge of Catholicism which inevitably gravitated to 
 it, and which were the germs and the embryos of 
 mediaeval theology. Now, it is precisely in con- 
 nection with this department of their theology that 
 the miraculous accounts are most numerous. 
 
 Such was the great difficulty of the question, re- 
 garded from the Protestant point of view. Middleton 
 met it by an attack upon the veracity of the Fathers, 
 which was so eloquent, so uncompromising, and so 
 admirably directed, that all England soon rang with 
 the controversy. He contended that the religious 
 leaders of the fourth century had admitted, eulogised, 
 and habitually acted upon principles that were dia- 
 metrically opposed not simply to the aspirations of 
 a transcendent sanctity, but to the dictates of the 
 most common honesty. He showed that they had 
 applauded falsehood, that they had practised the 
 most wholesale forgery, that they had habitually and 
 grossly falsified history, that they had adopted to the 
 fullest extent the system of pious frauds, and that
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 155 
 
 they continually employed them to stimulate the 
 devotion of the people. These were the charges 
 which he brought against men, ai'ound whose brows 
 the saintly aureole had sparkled for centuries with an 
 unfading splendour ; against those great Fathers who 
 had formed the theological systems of Europe ; who 
 had been the arbitrators of so many controversies, 
 and the objects of the homage of so many creeds. 
 The evidence he adduced was pointed directly at the 
 writers of the fourth century ; but he carried his 
 argument back to a still earlier period. ' When we 
 reflect,' he says, ' on that surprising confidence and 
 security with which the principal Fathers of this 
 fourth century have affirmed as true what they them- 
 selves had either forged, or what they knew at least 
 to be forged, it is natural to suspect that so bold a 
 defiance of sacred truth could not be acquired or 
 become general at once, but must have been carried 
 gradually to that height by custom and the example of 
 former times, and a long experience of what the cre- 
 dulity and superstition of the multitude would bear.' 1 
 It is manifest that an attack of this kind opened 
 out questions of the gravest and widest character. 
 It shook the estimate of the Fathers which had been 
 general, not only in the Church of Rome, but in a 
 great degree among the ablest of the Reformers. In 
 the Church of England especially, the Patristic autho- 
 rity had been virtually regarded as almost equal in 
 authority to that of the inspired writers. The first 
 great theological work of the English Reformation 
 was ' The Apology,' in which Jewel justified the 
 Reformers, by pointing out the deviations of the 
 Church of Rome from the Patristic sentiments. It 
 1 Introductory Chapter.
 
 156 RATIONAIISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 had ever been the pride of the great divines of the 
 seventeenth century that they were the most profound 
 students of the Patristic writings, the most faithful 
 representatives of their spirit, and the most loyal 
 respecters of their authority. The unsupported asser- 
 tion of a Father had always been regarded as a most 
 weighty, if not a decisive, argument in controversy. 
 But surely this tone was idle and worse than idle, 
 if the estimate of Middleton was correct. If the 
 Fathers were in truth men of the most unbounded 
 credulity and of the laxest veracity ; if the sense of 
 the importance of dogmas had, in their minds, com- 
 pletely superseded the sense of rectitude, it was 
 absurd to invest them with this extraordinary vene- 
 ration. They might still be reverenced as men of 
 undoubted sincerity, and of the noblest heroism. 
 They might still be cited as witnesses to the belief of 
 their time, and as representing the tendencies of its 
 intellect ; but their pre-eminent authority had passed 
 away. But beyond all this, there were other and, 
 perhaps, graver questions suggested. Under what 
 circumstances was it permitted to reject the unani- 
 mous and explicit testimony of all ecclesiastical 
 historians ? What was the measure of their credulity 
 and of their veracity ? What again was the degree 
 of the antecedent improbability of miracles, the 
 criterion separating the true from the false, the 
 amount of testimony required to substantiate them ? 
 These were the great questions which were evoked 
 in 1748, by this Doctor of Divinity, and they were 
 sufficient for many years to attract the attention of 
 the ablest enquirers in England. Among the laity, 
 the work of Middleton seems to have met with 
 great acceptance. Among the clergy, its impetuous,
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 157 
 
 uncompromising, and sceptical tone, naturally excited 
 much alarm, and the University of Oxford signalised 
 itself in the opposition ; but it is a remarkable sign 
 of the times that the Fathers found no abler defenders 
 than Church and Dodwell. Gibbon, who was then a 
 very young man, and already entangled in the argu- 
 ments of Bossuet, lost his remaining faith in Protest- 
 aiitism during the discussion. He could not, he said, 
 bring himself at that time to adopt the conclusions of 
 Middleton, and he could not resist the evidence that 
 miracles of good credit had continued in the Church 
 after the leading doctrines of Catholicism had been 
 introduced. He accordingly embraced those doctrines, 
 and left the University without taking his degree. 
 Hume investigated the subject from a philosophical 
 point of view ; he endeavoured to frame a general 
 doctrine, determining the relation between miracu- 
 lous narratives and historical testimony, the compara- 
 tive improbability of the reality of miracles and of the 
 unveracity of historians ; and the result Avas his Essay 
 on Miracles. 1 Farmer, reproducing an old notion of 
 
 1 Hume's Essay was avow- harder,' he says, ' to believe 
 edly an application (right or that God should alter or put 
 wrong) of Tillotson's famous out of its ordinary course some 
 argument against transubstan- phenomenon of the great world 
 tiation. It is not so generally for once, and make things act 
 known that his method of rea- contrary to their ordinary rule 
 Boning had been also antici- purposely, that the mind of 
 pa ted by Locke, who in a very men might do so always after, 
 remarkable passage in his Com- than that this is some fallacy 
 rnon-place Book, contends that or natural effect of which he 
 men should not. believe any pro- knows not the cause, let it look 
 position that is contrary to rea- ever so strange ' (King, Life, oj 
 Bon, on the authority either of Locke, vol. i. pp. 230, 231). See, 
 inspiration or of miracle, for too, the chapter on Reason and 
 the reality of the inspiration or Faith, in the Essay on the Hu- 
 rt the miracle can only be ea- man Understanding. 
 tablished by reason. ' It is
 
 158 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 Lightfoot, Webster, and Semler, and anticipating in 
 this respect the current of German rationalism, 
 attempted to explain the diabolical possessions of 
 Scripture by the ordinary phenomena of epilepsy.' 
 Warburton and Douglas, with probably most of the 
 ablest of the clergy, abandoning the Patristic miracles, 
 proceeded to establish the peculiar character and 
 evidence of the miracles recorded by the Evangelists ; 
 and the general adoption of this tone may be said to 
 have ushered in a new phase in the history of 
 miracles. 
 
 It has been often remarked as a singular fact, that 
 almost every great step which has been made by the 
 English intellect, in connection with theology, has 
 been made in spite of the earnest and persistent 
 opposition of the University of Oxford. The attitude 
 which that University preserved during the Middle- 
 tonian controversy was precisely the same as that 
 which it had exhibited towards the two great ques- 
 tions of the previous century. The advocates of the 
 theory of civil liberty, in opposition to the theory of 
 passive obedience, and the advocates of toleration as 
 opposed to persecution, had found at Oxford their 
 most unflinching and their most able adversaries. In 
 our own century, when the secularisation of politics 
 was forced upon the public mind by the discussions 
 on the Test Act and on Catholic Emancipation, and 
 when it had become evident to all attentive observers 
 that this question was destined to be the battle-field 
 of the contest between the modern spirit and tradition, 
 
 1 Farmer, who was a dissent- both truth and error. He at- 
 
 ing minister, desired to destroy tempted to show that there were 
 
 the difficulty arising from the no such things as diabolical 
 
 fact that miracles were gene- miracles of any kind, 
 rally represented as attesting
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 1-59 
 
 the University of Oxford showed clearly that its old 
 spirit had lost none of its intensity, though it had 
 lost much of its influence. Still later, in 1833, a great 
 reactionary movement emanated from, the same quar- 
 ter, and was directed avowedly against the habits of 
 religious thought which modern civilisation had 
 everywhere produced. Its supporters denounced 
 these habits as essentially and fundamentally false. 
 They described the history of English theology for a 
 century and a half as a history of uninterrupted 
 decadence. They believed, in the emphatic words of 
 their great leader, that ' the nation was on its way to 
 give up revealed truth.' 1 After a time, the movement 
 tended to Catholicism with a force and rapidity that 
 it was impossible to mistake. It produced a defection 
 which was quite unparalleled in magnitude since that 
 which had taken place under the Stuarts ; and which, 
 unlike the former movement, was altogether un- 
 influenced by sordid considerations. The point which 
 I desire to notice in connection with this defection, as 
 illustrating the tendency I am tracing in the present 
 chapter, is the extremely small place which the sub- 
 ject of Roman Catholic miracles occupied in the 
 controversy. 
 
 If we ask, what are the grounds on which the 
 cessation of miracles is commonly maintained, they 
 may, I suppose, be summed up much as follows : 
 
 Miracles, it is said, are the Divine credentials of an 
 inspired messenger announcing doctrines which could 
 not otherwise be established. They prove that he 
 is neither an impostor nor an enthusiast ; that his 
 teaching is neither the work of a designing intellect 
 nor of an over-heated imagination. From the nature 
 * Newman's Anglican Difficulties, p. 54.
 
 160 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 of the case, this could not be proved in any other 
 \vny. If the Almighty designed to reveal to mankind 
 a system of religion distinct from that which is re- 
 flected in the works of nature, and written on the 
 consciences of men, He must do so by the instru- 
 mentality of an inspired messenger. If a teacher 
 claims to be the special organ of a Divine communi- 
 cation revealing supernatural truths, he may be justly 
 expected to authenticate his mission in the only way 
 in which it can be authenticated by the performance 
 of supernatural acts. Miracles are, therefore, no 
 more improbable than a revelation ; for a revelation 
 would be ineffectual without miracles. But, while 
 this consideration destroys the common objections to 
 the Gospel miracles, it separates them clearly from 
 these of the Church of Rome. The former were 
 avowedly exceptional ; they were absolutely neces- 
 sary ; they were designed to introduce a new religion, 
 and to establish a supernatural message. The latter 
 were simply means of edification ; they were directed 
 to no object that could not otherwise be attained ; and 
 they were represented as taking place in a dispensa- 
 tion that was intended to be not of sight but of 
 faith. Besides this, miracles should be regarded as 
 the most awful and impressive manifestations ot 
 Divine power. To make them habitual and com- 
 monplace would be to degrade if not to destroy their 
 character, which would be still further abased if wo 
 admitted those which appeared trivial and puerile. 
 The miracles of the New Testament were always 
 characterised by dignity and solemnity ; they always 
 conveyed some spiritual lesson, and conferred some 
 actual benefit, besides attesting the character of the 
 worker. The mediaeval miracles, on the contrary,
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 16', 
 
 were frequently trivial, purposeless, and unimpres- 
 sive ; constantly verging on the grotesque, and not 
 unfrequently passing the border. 
 
 Such is, I think, a fair epitome of the common 
 arguments in favour of the cessation of miracles; and 
 they are undoubtedly very plausible and very cogent ; 
 but, after all, what do they prove ? Not that miracles 
 have ceased ; but that, SUPPOSING them to have ceased, 
 tbere is nothing surprising or alarming in tbe fact. 
 A man who has convinced himself of the falseness of 
 the ecclesiastical miracles, may very fairly adduce 
 these considerations to prove that his conclusion 
 does not impugn the Biblical narratives, or introduce 
 confusion or incoherence into the system of Provi- 
 dence ; but this is the full extent to which they can 
 be legitimately carried. As an d, priori proof, they 
 are far too weak to withstand any serious amount of 
 positive testimony. Miracles, it is said, are intended 
 exclusively to accredit an inspired messenger. But, 
 after all, what proof is there of this ? It is simply 
 an hypothesis plausible and consistent it may be, 
 but entirely unsupported by positive testimony. In- 
 deed, we may go further, and say that it is distinctly 
 opposed to your own facts. You may repudiate the 
 unanimous belief of the early Christians that miracles 
 were ordinary and commonplace events among all 
 nations. You may resist the strong arguments that 
 may be drawn from the unsurprised reception of the 
 Christian miracles, and from the existence of the 
 demoniacs and of the exorcists, but at least you 
 must admit that the Old Testament relates many 
 miracles which will not fall under your canon. TLe 
 creation was a miracle, and so was the deluge, and 
 so was the destruction of the cities of the plain. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 The Old Testament miracles are, in many respects, 
 unlike those of the New Testament : is it impossible 
 that there should be another class different from 
 either ? But the ecclesiastical miracles, it is said, 
 are often grotesque ; they appear primd facie absurd, 
 and excite an irresistible repugnance. A sufficiently 
 dangerous test in an age in which men find it more 
 and more difficult to believe any miracles whatever ! A 
 sufficiently dangerous test for those who know the tone 
 that has been long adopted, over an immense part of 
 Europe, towards such narratives as the deluge, or the 
 exploits of Samson, the speaking ass, or the possessed 
 pigs ! Besides this, a great proportion of the ecclesias- 
 tical miracles are simply reproductions of those which 
 are recorded in the Bible ; and if there are mingled 
 with them some that appear manifest impostures, this 
 may be a very good reason for treating these nar- 
 ratives with a more jealous scrutiny, but is certainly 
 no reason for maintaining that they are all below 
 contempt. The Bible neither asserts nor implies, the 
 revocation of supernatural gifts ; and if the general 
 promise that these gifts should be conferred may 
 have been intended to apply only to the Apostles, it 
 is at least as susceptible of a different interpretation. 
 If these miracles were actually continued, it is surely 
 not difficult to discover the beneficial purpose that 
 they would fulfil. They would stimulate a languid 
 piety ; they would prove invaluable auxiliaries to 
 missionaries labouring among barbarous and un- 
 reasoning savages, who, from their circumstances 
 and habits of mind, are utterly incapable of forming 
 any just estimate of the evidences of the religion 
 they are expected to embrace. Even in Europe the 
 results of the controversies of the last 300 years 
 have not been so entirely satisfactory as to leave no
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 163 
 
 room for some more decisive proofs than the ambi- 
 guous utterances of a remote antiquity. To say that 
 these miracles are false because they are Roman 
 Catholic is to assume the very question at issue. 
 The controversy between Protestantism and Catho- 
 licism comprises an immense mass of complicated 
 and heterogeneous arguments. Thousands of minds 
 have traversed these arguments, and have found at 
 each step their faith in Protestantism confirmed. 
 Thousands of minds have pursued the same course 
 with results that were diametrically opposite. The 
 question is, whether an examination of the alleged 
 miracles of Catholicism would not furnish a decisive 
 criterion, or at least one of the most powerful argu- 
 ments, for determining the controversy. What evi- 
 dence of the truth of Catholicism could be stronger 
 than that its distinctive doctrines had been crowned 
 by tens of thousands of miracles, that a supernatural 
 halo had encircled it wherever it appeared, and had 
 cast a glory upon all its triumphs ? l What proof of 
 
 1 E. g., one of the questions would be required to relate them 
 of dispute is the veneration of all. In that catalogue we find 
 relics. Now St. Augustine, the no less than five cases of resto- 
 ablest and most clear-headed of ration of life to the dead (De 
 all the Fathers, and a man of Civ. Dei, lib. xxii. c. 8). This 
 undoubted piety, solemnly as- statement is well known to 
 Berts that in his own diocese of readers of Gibbon and Middle- 
 Hippo, in the space of two ton ; but, as far as I know, the 
 years, no less than seventy mi- only High Churchman who has 
 racles bad been wrought by the referred to it is Mr. Ward (Ideal 
 body of St. Stephen, and that of a Christian Church, pp, 138- 
 in the neighbouring province of 140), who notices it merely to 
 Calama, where the relic had pre- lament the very different tone 
 viously been, the number was with which we now speak of 
 incomparably greater. He gives the miraculous. This aspect 
 a catalogue of what he deems of the Patristic writings has 
 undoubted miracles, which he been very clearly and honestly 
 says he had selwted from a brought out in Isaac Taylor's 
 multitude eo great, that volumes Ancient Christianity. 
 It 2
 
 164 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 the falsehood of Catholicism conld be more decisive 
 than that it was unable to establish any of the im- 
 mense mass of miracles which it had asserted, that 
 all these were resolved and dissipated before a search- 
 ing criticism, that saints had been canonised, forms 
 of worship established, countless bulls and pastorals 
 issued, innumerable rejoicings, pageantries, proces- 
 sions, and pilgrimages authoritatively instituted, 
 public opinion all through Christendom violently 
 and continuously agitated on account of alleged 
 events which had either no existence, or which were 
 altogether misunderstood ? Making every allowance 
 for the errors of the most extreme fallibility, the 
 history of Catholicism would on this hypothesis 
 represent an amount of imposture probably un- 
 equalled in the annals of the human race. If, again, 
 you say that you have formed a definite and unhesi- 
 tating opinion on the subject from other arguments, 
 T reply that, putting aside all other considerations 
 this answer might suggest, it does not apply to the 
 Tractarian movement we are considering. The tran- 
 sition from the Church of England to the Church of 
 Rome, which was made by so many in consequence 
 of that movement, was not abrupt or unwavering. 
 It was, on the contrary, slow, painful, hesitating, 
 and dubious. Some of those who made it have 
 described themselves as trembling for months, and 
 evon years, between the opposing creeds, their minds 
 vibrating and oscillating to and fro : countless diffi- 
 culties, colliding principles, modes of reasoning the 
 most various, blending and neutralising sentiments 
 of every hue, torturing their minds with doubt, and 
 sometimes almost destroying by their conflict the 
 very faculty of judgment. Surely one might have
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 165 
 
 imagined that men in such a position would have 
 gladly exchanged those shifting speculations that so 
 constantly elude the grasp and bewilder the mind, 
 and catch their colour from each changing mode 
 of thought, for the comparatively firm and definite 
 ground of historical criticism ! The men were 
 admirably fitted for such criticism. They were 
 pre-eminently scholars and antiquarians, and in ita 
 intellectual aspect the movement was essentially a 
 resuscitation of the past. Nor did the age seem at 
 first sight less suited for the enterprise. At the 
 time of the Reformers the study of evidences, and 
 indeed all searching investigation into the facts of 
 the past, were unknown. When, however, Tracta- 
 rianism arose, the laws of historical criticism were 
 developed to great perfection, and they were attract- 
 ing an immense proportion of the talent of Europe. 
 In English theology, especially, they had become 
 supreme. The attacks which Woolston and his 
 followers had made upon the scriptural miracles had 
 been repelled by Lardner and Paley with such unex- 
 pected vigour, with such undoubted ability, and, as 
 it was long thought, with such unanswerable success, 
 that all theological reasoning had been directed to 
 this channel. Yet in the Tractarian movement the 
 subject of modern miracles can scarcely be said to 
 havo exercised a perceptible influence. Gibbon, as 
 we have seen, had gone over to Rome chiefly 
 through a persuasion of their reality. Chillingworth 
 still earlier had declared that the same reason had 
 been one of those which had induced him to take 
 the same step. Pascal had based his defence of 
 Jansenism in a great me isure upon the miracle of 
 the Holy Thorn ; but at Oxford these narratives
 
 166 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 hardly excited a serious attention What little in- 
 fluence they had was chiefly an influence of repulsion ; 
 what little was v > written in their favour was written 
 for the most part in the tone of an apology, as if to 
 attenuate a difficulty rather than to establish a creed. 1 
 
 This was surely a very remarkable characteristic 
 of the Tractarian movement, when we remember the 
 circumstances and attainments of its leaders, and the 
 great prominence which miraculous evidence had 
 long occupied in England. It was especially remark- 
 able when we recollect that one of the great com- 
 plaints which the Tractarian party were making 
 against modern theology was, that the conception 
 of the supernatural had become faint and dim, and 
 that its manifestations were either explained away 
 or confined to a distant past. It would seem as if 
 those who were most conscious of the character of 
 their age were unable, in the very midst of their 
 opposition, to free themselves from its tendencies. 
 
 If we look beyond the Tractarian movement, we 
 find a still more startling illustration of the prevail- 
 ing feeling in the extraordinary strides which pro- 
 fessed and systematised Rationalism has made in 
 most Protestant countries. The extent to which 
 Continental Protestantism has gravitated towards 
 it has been recognised on all sides, and has excited 
 the greatest hopes in some and the greatest alarm in 
 others. It is worthy, too, of remark, that the move- 
 ment has been most manifest in those countries 
 where the leading Churches are not connected with 
 
 1 Dr. Newman's very able es- lish saints, about which we 
 
 eay (prefixed to Fleury's ffis- have lately heard so much, 
 
 t"ry) is essentially an apology never seem to have been re- 
 
 for the ecclesiastical miracles ; garded as evidential. 
 aud the miracles of the Eng-
 
 THE MIKACLES OF THE CHURCH. 167 
 
 very elaborate creeds or with liturgical services, and 
 where the reason, being least shackled by tradition, 
 is most free to follow the natural sequence of its 
 developments. It is true that the word Rationalism 
 is somewhat vague, and comprises many different 
 modifications of belief. This consideration has con- 
 stantly been urged by those who are termed ortho- 
 dox Protestants in a tone of the most contemptuous 
 scorn, but with a complete forgetfulness of the fact 
 that for 300 years Protestantism itself was invari- 
 ably assailed by the very same objection, and was 
 invariably defended on the twofold ground that 
 variations of belief are the necessary consequence 
 of honest enquiry, and that amid its innumerable 
 diversities of detail there were certain radical con- 
 ceptions which gave a substantial unity to the dis- 
 cordant sects. Much the same general unity may be 
 found among the various modifications of Protestant 
 Rationalism. Its central conception is the elevation 
 of conscience into a position of supreme authority as 
 the religious organ, a verifying faculty discriminating 
 between truth and error. It regards Christianity as 
 designed to preside over the moral progress of man- 
 kind, as a conception which was to become more and 
 more sublimated and spiritualised as the human 
 mind passed into new phases, and was able to bear 
 the splendour of a more unclouded light. Religion 
 it believes to be no exception to the general law of 
 progress, but rather the highest form of its manifes- 
 tation, and its earlier systems but the necessary steps 
 of an imperfect development. In its eyes the moral 
 element of Christianity is as the sun in heaven, and 
 dogmatic systems are as the clouds that intercept 
 and temper the exceeding brightness of its ray.
 
 1C8 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 The insect wliose existence is but for a moment 
 might well imagine that these were indeed eternal, 
 that their majestic columns could never fail, and 
 that their luminous folds were the very source and 
 centre of light. And yet they shift and vary with 
 each changing breeze ; they blend and separate ; they 
 assume new forms and exhibit new dimensions ; as 
 the sun that is above them waxes more glorious iu 
 its power, they are permeated and at last absorbed 
 by its increasing splendour ; they recede, and wither, 
 and disappear, and the eye ranges far beyond the 
 sphere they had occupied into the infinity of glory 
 that is above them. 
 
 This is not the place to enter into a critical exami- 
 nation of the faults and merits of Rationalism. A 
 system which would unite in one sublime synthesis 
 all the past forms of human belief, which accepts 
 with triumphant alacrity each new development of 
 science, having no stereotyped standard to defend, 
 and which represents the human mind as pursuing 
 on the highest subjects a path of continual progress 
 towards the fullest and most transcendent knowledge 
 
 O 
 
 of the Deity, can never fall to exercise a powerful 
 intellectual attraction. A system which makes tho 
 moral faculty of man the measure and arbiter of faith 
 must always act powerfully on those in whom that 
 faculty is most developed. This idea of continued 
 and uninterrupted development is one that seems 
 absolutely to override our age. It is scarcely possible 
 to open any really able book on any subject without 
 encountering it in some form. It is stirring all 
 science to itR very depths; it is revolutionising all 
 historical literature. Its prominence in theology is 
 so great that there is scarcely any school that is al-
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 169 
 
 together exempt from its influence. We have seen 
 in our own day the Church of Rome itself defended 
 in ' An Essay on Development,' and by a strange 
 application of the laws of progress. 
 
 These elements of attraction do much to explain 
 the extraordinary rapidity with which Rationalism 
 has advanced in the present century, in spite of the 
 vagueness and obscurity it often exhibits, and tho 
 many paradoxes it has engendered. But it is well 
 worthy of notice that the very first direction which 
 these speculations invariably take the very sign and 
 characteristic of their action is an attempt to explain 
 away the miracles of Scripture. This is so emphati- 
 cally the distinctive mark of Rationalism that with 
 most persons it is the only conception the word 
 conveys. Wherever it appears, it represents and 
 interprets the prevailing disinclination to accept 
 miraculous narratives, 1 and will resort to every arti- 
 tice of interpretation in order to evade their force. 
 Its prevalence, therefore, clearly indicates the extent 
 to which this aversion to the miraculous exists in 
 Protestant countries, and the rapidity with which it 
 has of late years increased. 
 
 Everyone who has paid any attention to these 
 subjects has a natural inclination to attribute the 
 conclusions he has arrived at to the efforts of his own 
 reason, acting under the influence of an unbiassed 
 will, rather than to a general predisposition arising 
 
 1 A large section of German narratives of angels and de- 
 theologians, as is well known, mons, and the like, as simply 
 even regard the impossibility, impossible aad irreconcilable 
 or at all events tho unreality, with the known and universal 
 of miraculous accounts as axio- laws which govern the course 
 matic. Thus Strauss calmly of events.' Introduction to l he 
 remarks: 'We may summarily Life of Jesus, 
 itject all miracles, prophecies,
 
 170 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 out of the character of his age. It is probable, there- 
 fore, that the membors of the rationalistic school 
 would very generally deny being influenced by any 
 other considerations than those which they allege in 
 their defence, and would point to that system of 
 minute and critical Biblical investigation which 
 Germany has produced as the true source of their 
 opinions. I cannot but think that it is much less 
 the cause than the result, and that we have a clear 
 indication of this in the fact that a precisely similar 
 tendency of opinions is shown in another quarter 
 where this criticism has never been pursued. I 
 allude to the freethinkers, who are scattered in such 
 profusion through Roman Catholic countries. Any- 
 one who has attentively examined that great school, 
 which exercises so vast an influence over the litera- 
 ture and policy of our age, must have perceived that 
 it is in many respects widely removed from the old 
 Voltairian spirit. It is no longer exclusively negativo 
 and destructive, but is, on the contrary, intensely 
 positive, and in its moral aspect intensely Christian. 
 It clusters around a series of essentially Christian 
 conceptions equality, fraternity, the suppression of 
 war, the elevation of the poor, the love of truth, and 
 the diffusion of liberty. It revolves around the ideal 
 of Christianity, and represents its spirit without its 
 dogmatic system and its supernatural narratives. 
 From both of these it unhesitatingly recoils, while 
 deriving all its strength and nourishment from Chris- 
 tian ethics. 
 
 Such are, I conceive, the general outlines of this 
 movement, which bears an obvious relationship to 
 Protestant Rationalism, and which has been advanc- 
 ing through Europe with still more rapid and trium-
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 171 
 
 pliant strides. He must indeed be wilfully blind to 
 the course of history who does not perceive that 
 during the last hundred yearn these schools have 
 completely superseded the dogmatic forms of Pro- 
 testantism as the efficient antagonists of the Church 
 of Rome, as the centres towards which those who 
 arc repelled from Catholicism are naturally attracted. 
 In the sixteenth and to a certain degree in the seven- 
 teenth century Protestantism exercised a command- 
 ing and controlling inflnence over the affairs of 
 Europe. Almost all the great questions that agitated 
 the minds of men were more or less connected with 
 its progress. It exhibited, indeed, many unseemly 
 dissensions and many grotesque extravagances ; but 
 each of its sects had a rigid and definite dogmatic 
 system, and exercised a powerful influence on those 
 who were around it. Whoever was dissatisfied with 
 the teaching of the Church of Rome was almost im- 
 mediately attracted and absorbed by one of these 
 systems, and threw himself into the new dogmatism 
 with as much zeal as he had exhibited in the old one. 
 During the last century all this has changed. Of 
 the many hundreds of great thinkers and writers, in 
 every department, who have separated from the 
 teachings and practices of Catholicism, it would be 
 difficult to name three men of real eminence and uru 
 questionable sincerity who have attached themselves 
 permanently to any of the more conservative forms 
 of Protestantism. Amid all those great semi-religious 
 revolutions which have unhinged the faith of thou- 
 sands, and have so profoundly altered the relations 
 of Catholicism and society, Protestant Churches have 
 made no advance and have exercised no perceptible 
 ii_nuence. It has long been a mere truism to say
 
 172 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 that we are passing through a state of chaos, of 
 anarchy, and of transition. During the past century 
 the elements of dissolution have been multiplying all 
 around us. Scarcely ever before had so large a pro- 
 portion of the literature of Europe exhibited an open 
 hostility or a contemptuous indifference towards 
 Catholicism. Entire nations have defied its cen- 
 sures, and confiscated its property, and wrested every 
 department of politics from its conti'ol. But while 
 Catholicism has been thus convulsed and agitated to 
 its very basis ; while the signs of its disintegration 
 are crowding upon us on every side ; while the lan- 
 guor and feebleness it exhibits . furnish a ready 
 theme for every moralist and a problem for every 
 philosopher, the Protestant sects have gained nothing 
 by the decay of their ancient rival. They have still 
 retained their ecclesiastical organisations and their 
 ancient formularies, but the magnetism they once 
 possessed has wholly vanished. Of all the innumer- 
 able forms into which the spirit of dogmatism crys- 
 tallised after the Reformation, not one steins to have 
 retained the power of attracting those beyond its 
 border. Whatever is lost by Catholicism is gained 
 by Rationalism ; l wherever the spirit of Rationalism 
 recedes, the spirit of Catholicism advances. Towards 
 the close of the last century, France threw off her 
 allegiance to Christianity, endeavoured to efface all 
 the traditions of her past, and proclaimed a new era 
 
 1 Italy since the late poli- compared with those of Free- 
 tical changes, and as a conse- thinking, and it is said that 
 quence of the direction given among Protestants the Ply- 
 to the national sympathies by mouth Brethren, who are among 
 those changes, furnishes, per- the least dogmatic, have also 
 haps, a slight exception ; hut been among the most success- 
 even there the conquests of Pro- ful. 
 teetantism are insignificant aa
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 173 
 
 in the- religious history of mankind. She soon re- 
 pented of her temerity, and retired from a position 
 which she had found untenable. Half the nation 
 became ultramontane Roman Catholics ; the other 
 half became indifferent or Rationalist. 1 The great 
 majority of Continental writers have repudiated the 
 doctrines of Catholicism, and pursue their specula- 
 tions without paying the smallest deference to its 
 authority. In the sixteenth century all such persons 
 would have attached themselves to some definite form 
 of Protestantism ; they now assume a position which 
 was then entirely unexampled, and would have ap- 
 peared entirely inexplicable. The age of heresiarchs 
 hns past. 2 Among very ignorant people new dog- 
 matic systems, as Mormonism has shown, may still 
 be successful, but among the educated classes they 
 seem to have lost all their attraction and power. 
 The immense missionary organisations of England 
 succeed indeed in occasionally attracting a few 
 isolated individuals in Roman Catholic countries to 
 Protestantism ; but we look in vain for the natural 
 flow and current of thought which in former times 
 impelled vast portions of society to its communion, 
 and imparted an influence to all the great questions in 
 Europe. The only movements which in the faintest 
 
 1 I need hardly remind the siarch making so little impres 
 reader how forcibly and elo- sion by his defection from the 
 quently this point has been Church, and failing so corn- 
 brought, out by Mncaulay, in pletely to become the nucleus 
 his Essay on Kan fee' H History. of a sect. After all, however, 
 
 2 M. dcMoutalembert, in his this was quite natural. The 
 L'feof Lacordaire, has observed course which Lamennais pur- 
 of Lamennais, that there is sued stimulated a great intel- 
 probably no instance in history lectual movement; but it was 
 of a man possessing so emi- not, and was never intended to 
 nently the gifts of a great here- be, in the direction of a sect.
 
 174 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 degree reproduce the fascination of the sects of the 
 sixteenth century are democratic and philanthropic 
 efforts, like those of St. Simon or Maz/ini. All the 
 great intellectual problems that convulse Europe are 
 connected with the rights of nationalities, the pro- 
 gress of democracy, or the dignity of labour. These 
 have now taken the place of those dogmatic ques- 
 tions which in the sixteenth century formed the 
 mainsprings of the policy of Christendom, and which 
 in the nineteenth century have become almost un- 
 influential. 
 
 This is, undoubtedly, an extremely remarkable 
 and an extremely significant contrast. Honest men 
 will hardly deny its existence. Wise men will not 
 shut their eyes to the fact, or refuse to look steadily 
 at its consequences. Coupled with the rationalistic 
 movement that has taken place within Protestantism, 
 it has inclined very many writers to conclude that 
 the earlier forms of Protestantism were merely tran- 
 sitional ; that their continued existence depends, not 
 on any life that is in them, but on the force of habit 
 and of tradition ; that perpetual progress in the do- 
 main of belief is the natural destiny and the inevit- 
 able law of Protestantism ; and that the fate of Lot's 
 wife is reserved for those Churches wlvch look back 
 on the city of dogmatism from which they fled. To 
 assume, however, that religious life has been extir- 
 pated in Protestant Churches, because they appear to 
 have lost the power of influencing those who are 
 around them, is to look for it in only one form. But 
 one conclusion we may most certainly and most 
 safely draw from the movement we are considering. 
 It is that the general bias of the intellect of the age 
 is in the direction of Rationalism ; in other words,
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 175 
 
 that there is a strong predisposition to value the 
 spirit and moral element of Christianity, but to reject 
 dogmatic systems, and more especially miraculous 
 narratives. 
 
 We have seen that this tendency was not unin- 
 nuential in Tractarianism itself, although that system 
 was organised as a protest and a bulwark against the 
 tendencies of the age. Among those who are usually 
 called orthodox Protestants, it has been clearly shown, 
 in the rapid decline of the evidential school. The 
 pre-eminence that school obtained in England during 
 the last century is certainly not to be attributed to 
 any general tendency towards the miraculous. Lard- 
 ner and Paley and their followers acted stricdy on 
 the defensive, and were therefore compelled to meet 
 their assailants on the ground which those assailants 
 had selected. The spirit of scepticism, which at the 
 Reformation extended only to the authority of par- 
 ticular Churches or to the justice of particular inter- 
 pretations of Scripture, had gradually expanded till 
 it included the whole domain of theology, and had 
 produced a series of violent attacks upon the miracles. 
 It was to repel these attacks that the evidential school 
 arose, and the annals of religious controversy narrate 
 few more complete victories than they achieved. Of 
 all the English deistical works of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, the influence of two and only two survived the 
 controversy. Hume's Essay on Miracles, though cer- 
 tainly not unquestioned and unassailcd, cannot be 
 looked upon as obsolete or uninfluential. Gibbon 
 remains the almost undisputed master of his own 
 field, but his great work does not directly involve 
 though it undoubtedly trenches on the subject of 
 Christian evidences. But if we except these two, it
 
 176 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 would be difficult to conceive a more complete eclipse 
 than the English deists have undergone. Woolsion 
 and Tindal, Collins and Chubb, have long since passed 
 into the region of shadows, and their works have 
 mouldered in the obscurity of forgetfulness. Boling- 
 broke is now little more than a brilliant name, and 
 all the beauties of his matchless s^.yle have been 
 unable to preserve his philosophy from oblivion. 
 Shaftesbury retains a certain place as one of the few 
 disciples of idealism who resisted the influence of 
 Locke ; but his importance is purely historical. His 
 cold and monotonous though exquisitely polished 
 dissertations have fallen into general neglect, and 
 find few readers and exercise no influence. The 
 shadow of the tomb rests upon them all ; a deep 
 unbroken silence, the chill of death surrounds them. 
 They have long ceased to wake any interest, or to 
 suggest any enquiries, or to impart any impulse to 
 the intellect of England. This was the result of 
 the English controversies of the eighteenth century, 
 which on the conservative side consisted mainly of a 
 discussion of miraculous evidence. It is undoubtedly 
 very remarkable in itself, but much more so when we 
 contrast it with what was taking place in Roman 
 Catholic countries. Voltaire and Rousseau not only 
 succeeded in holding their ground, but they met with 
 no opponent whom the wildest enthusiasm could place 
 upon their level. Their works elicited not a single 
 7-efutation, I might almost say not a single argument 
 or criticism, that has come down with any authority 
 to our own day. Diderot, Raynal, and several other 
 members of the party, have taken a place in French 
 literature which is probably permanent, and is cer- 
 tainly far higher than was obtained by any of their 
 opponents.
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 177 
 
 One might have supposed from, this contrast that 
 the evidential school, which had been crowned with 
 such marked success, would have enjoyed a great and 
 permanent popularity ; but this expectation has not 
 been realised. In Germany, Kant from the beginning 
 pronounced this mode of reasoning to be unphilo- 
 sophical ; * in England, Coleridge succeeded in bring- 
 ing it into complete disrepute ; and every year the 
 disinclination to stake the truth of Christianity on 
 the proof of miracles becomes more manifest. A 
 small body of theologians continue, indeed, to per- 
 severe in the old plan, and no one will speak of their 
 labours with disrespect ; yet they are themselves 
 witnesses to the generality of the movement, for they 
 complain bitterly that they fire labouring in a wilder- 
 ness, and that the old method has been on all sides 
 abandoned and neglected. 2 We find, everywhere, 
 that the prevailing feeling is to look upon the defence 
 of Christianity as a matter not external to but part of 
 religion. Belief is regarded, not as the result of an 
 historical puz/le, the solution of an extremely com- 
 plicated intellectual problem which presents fewest 
 difficulties and contradictions, but as the recognition 
 by conscience of moral truth. In other words, reli- 
 gion in its proofs as in its essence is deemed a thing 
 belonging rather to the moral than the intellectual 
 portion of human nature. Faith and not reason is 
 its basis ; and this faith is a species of moral percep- 
 tion. Each dogma is the embodiment and inadequate 
 expression of a moral truth, and is worthless except 
 
 1 On Kant's influence on 2 See, for example, the first 
 German Rationalism, see Rose and second Essays in Aids to 
 On Protestantism in Germany, Faith. 
 pp. 183- 190. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 as it is vivified by that truth. The progress of criti- 
 cism may shift and vary the circumstances of an 
 historical faith, the advent of new modes of thought 
 may make ancient creeds lifeless and inoperative, but 
 the spirit that underlies them is eternal. The ideal 
 and type of character will require new fascination 
 when detached from the material conceptions of an 
 early civilisation. The idolatry of dogmas will pass 
 away ; Christianity, being rescued from the secta- 
 rianism and intolerance that have defaced it, will 
 shine by its own moral splendour, and, sublimated 
 above all the sphere of controversy, will resume its 
 rightful position as an ideal and not a system, as a 
 person and not a creed. 
 
 We find also, even among the supporters of the 
 evidential school, a strong tendency to meet the 
 Rationalists, as it were, halfway to maintain that 
 miracles are valid proofs, but that they do not neces- 
 sarily imply the notion of a violation- of natural law 
 with which they had been so long associated. They 
 are, it is said, performed simply by the application of 
 natural means guided by supernatui-al knowledge. 
 The idea of interference (it is argued) can present 
 no difficulty to anyone who admits human liberty ; l 
 for those who acknowledge that liberty must hold 
 that man has a certain power of guiding and con- 
 trolling the laws of matter, that he can of his own 
 free will produce effects which would not have been 
 produced without his intervention, and that in pro- 
 portion as his knowledge of the laws of nature ad- 
 vances, his power of adapting them to his purposes 
 is increased. That mind can influence matter is itsolf 
 one of the laws of nature. That a being of supernatural 
 knowledge and power could, by the normal exercise 
 1 See Mausers ' Essay on Miracles,' in the Aids to Faith.
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 179 
 
 of his capacities, produce effects transcending both 
 our comprehension and our capabilities, is a proposi- 
 tion that is eminently rational. To adapt and modify 
 general laws to special purposes is the occupation and 
 the characteristic of every intelligence, and to deny 
 this power to Divine intelligence seems but little re- 
 moved from atheism. It is to make the Deity tho 
 only torpid mind in the universe. There is, there- 
 fore, it is said, nothing improbable in the belief that 
 Omniscience, by the selection of natural laws of which 
 we are ignorant, could accomplish all those acts which 
 we call miraculous. 1 According to this notion, a 
 miracle would not differ, genetically, from a human 
 
 1 For an exposition of this 
 view I cannot do better than 
 refer to an article on ' The 
 Supernatural ' in the Edin- 
 burgh Review for October 1862, 
 written by the Duke of Argyle, 
 and since republished by him 
 in his Reign of Law. I select 
 a few sentences, which con- 
 tain the substance of the ar- 
 gument : ' The reign of law 
 in nature is indeed, HS far 
 as we can observe, universal. 
 But the common idea of the 
 supernatural is that which is 
 at variance with natural law, 
 above it or in violation of 
 it. . . . Hence it would 
 appear to follow that, to a 
 man thoroughly possessed of 
 the idea of natural law us uni- 
 versal, nothing ever could be 
 admitted as supernatural. . . 
 But then we must understand 
 nature as including every agency 
 which we see entering, or can 
 conceive from analogy capable 
 of entering, into the causation 
 of the world. . . The power 
 of men in respect of physical 
 
 laws extends only, first, to their 
 discovery and ascertainment, 
 and th; n to their use. 
 A complete knowledge of all 
 natural laws would give, if 
 not complete power, at least 
 degrees of power immensely 
 greater than those which we 
 now possess. . . . The re- 
 lation in which God stands to 
 those rules of His government 
 which are called laws is, of 
 course, an inscrutable mystery ; 
 but those who believe that His 
 will does govern the world must 
 believe that, ordinarily at least, 
 He does govern it by the choice 
 and use of means : nor have we 
 any certain reason to believe 
 that He ever acts otherwise. 
 Signs and wonders may be 
 wrought, for aught we know, 
 by similar instrumentality by 
 the selection and use of laws of 
 which men knew nothing.' That 
 miracles were performed simply 
 by the employment of unknown 
 natural laws was maintained 
 long since by Malebranche, and 
 nleo, I think, by Butler.
 
 180 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 act, though it would still be strictly available for 
 evidential purposes. Miracles would thus be sepa- 
 rated from a conception with which almost all the 
 controversialists of the last century had identified 
 them, and which is peculiarly repugnant to the ten- 
 dencies of our age. 
 
 We have now taken a sufficiently extensive survey 
 of the history of Miracles to enable us to arrive at a 
 general conclusion. We have seen that ever since 
 that revival of learning which preceded the Reforma- 
 tion, and dispelled the torpor and ignorance in which 
 Europe had been for centuries immersed, the human 
 mind has been pursuing on this subject a uniform and 
 an unvarying course. The degrees in which different 
 nations and churches have participated in the move- 
 ment have been very various, but there is no part of 
 Europe which has been uninfluenced by its progress. 
 .Reactionary parties have themselves reflected its 
 character, and have at last been swept away by the 
 advancing stream. All the weight of tradition and 
 of learning, all the energies of conservatism of every 
 kind, have been opposed to its progress, and all have 
 been opposed in vain. Generation after generation 
 the province of the miraculous has contracted, and 
 the circle of scepticism has expanded. Of the two 
 great divisions of these events, one has completely 
 perished. Witchcraft and diabolical possession and 
 diabolical disease have long since passed into the 
 region of fables. To disbelieve them was at first the 
 eccentricity of a few isolated thinkers ; it was then 
 the distinction of the educated classes in the most 
 advanced nations ; it is now the common sentiment of 
 all classes in all countries in Europe. The countless 
 miracles that were once associated with every holy
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 181 
 
 relic and with every village shrine have rapidly and 
 silently disappeared. Year by year the incredulity 
 became more manifest even where the theological 
 profession was unchanged. Their numbers continu- 
 ally lessened until they at last almost ceased ; and 
 any attempt to revive them has been treated with a 
 general and undisguised contempt. The miracles of 
 the Fathers are passed over with an incredulous scorn, 
 or with a significant silence. The rationalistic spirit 
 has even attempted to explain away those which are 
 recorded in Scripture, and it has materially altered 
 their position in the systems of theology. In all 
 countries, in all churches, in all parties, among men. 
 of every variety of character and opinion, we have 
 found the tendency existing. In each nation its 
 development has been a measure of intellectual acti- 
 vity, and has passed in regular course through the 
 different strata of society. During the last century 
 it has advanced with a vastly accelerated rapidity; 
 the old lines of demarcation have been everywhere 
 obscured, and the spirit of Rationalism has become 
 the great centre to which the intellect of Europe is 
 manifestly tending. If we trace the progress of the 
 movement from its origin to the present day, we find 
 that it has completely altered the whole aspect and 
 complexion of religion. When it began, Christianity 
 was regarded as a system entirely beyond the range 
 and scope of human reason : it was impious to ques- 
 tion ; it was impious to examine ; it was impious to 
 discriminate. On the other hand, it was visibly in- 
 stinct with the supernatural. Miracles of every order 
 and degree of magnitude were flashing forth inces- 
 santly from all its parts. They excited no scepticism 
 and no surprise. The miraculous element pervaded
 
 182 RATIONALISM IX EUROPE. 
 
 all literature, explained all difficulties, consecrated all 
 doctrines. Every unusual phenomenon was imme- 
 diately referred to a supernatural agency, not because 
 there was a passion for the improbable, but because 
 such an explanation seemed far more simple and easy 
 of belief than the obscure theories of science. In 
 the present day Christianity is regarded as a system 
 which courts the strictest investigation, and which, 
 among many other functions, was designed to vivify 
 and stimulate all the energies of man. The idea of 
 the miraculous, which a superficial observer might 
 have once deemed its most prominent characteristic, 
 has been driven from almost all its entrenchments, 
 and now quivers faintly and feebly through the mists 
 of eighteen hundred years. 
 
 The causes of this great movement are very vari* 
 cms. It may be attributed to the success of physical 
 science in explaining phenomena that were long 
 deemed supernatural, and in substituting the concep- 
 tion of connected and unbroken law for that of 
 capricious and isolated interference. It may be at- 
 tributed, also, in a great measure to the increased 
 severity of proof demanded under the influence of 
 the modern critical spirit, and to the important in- 
 vestigations that have recently been made into the 
 mythologies of different nations, and into the manner 
 in which they are generated. But in addition to 
 these, which may be regarded as the legitimate causes 
 of the change, there is one of a somewhat different 
 kind. The decline of the influence and realisation of 
 dogmatic theology which characterises a secular age 
 brings with it an instinctive repugnance to the 
 miraculous, by diverting the mind from the class of 
 subjects with which the miraculous is connected.
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 183 
 
 When theology occupies an exceedingly prominent 
 place in the affairs of life, and is the subject towards 
 which the thoughts of men are naturally and violently 
 directed, the mind will at last take a theological cast, 
 and will judge all secular matters by a theological 
 standard. In a period, therefore, when theology is 
 almost co-extensive with intellectual exertion, when 
 the whole scope of literature, policy, and art is to 
 oubserve theological interests, and when the im- 
 aginations of men are habitually inflamed by the 
 subject of their continual meditations, it is not at 
 all surprising that belief in existing miracles should 
 be universal. Such miracles are perfectly conge- 
 nial with the mental tone and atmosphere that is 
 general. The imagination is constantly directed to- 
 wards miraculous events, and readily forces its con- 
 ceptions upon the reason. When, however, the 
 terrestrial has been aggrandised at the expense of the 
 theological ; when, in the progress of civilisation, art 
 and literature and government become in a great 
 measure secularised ; when the mind is withdrawn by 
 ten thousand intellectual influences from dogmatic 
 considerations, and when the traces of these conside- 
 rations become confused and unrealised, a new habit 
 of thought is gradually acquired. A secular atmo- 
 sphere is formed about the mind. The measure of 
 probability is altered. Men formerly expected in 
 every event of life something analogous to the theo- 
 logical notions on which they were continually medi- 
 tating : they now judge everything by a secular 
 standard. Formerly their natural impulse was to 
 explain all phenomena by miracle ; it is now to 
 explain them by science. This is simply the result 
 of a general law of the human mind, which is exempli-
 
 184 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 fied on countless occasions in the intercourse of 
 society. The soldier, the lawyer, and the scholar will 
 each obtain from his special pursuit a certain cast 
 and character of thought which he will display on all 
 subjects, even those most remote from his immediate 
 province. Just so an age that is immersed in 
 theology will judge everything by a theological, that, 
 is to say a miraculous standard, and an age that is 
 essentially secular will judge everything by a secular, 
 that is to say a rationalistic standard. It is there- 
 fore, I conceive, no chance coincidence that the de- 
 cline of the sense of the miraculous has everywhere 
 accompanied that movement of thought which has 
 banished dogmatic influence from so many depart- 
 ments of life, and so greatly restricted it in others. 
 In the present day this tendency has become so 
 powerful that its influence extends to every earnest 
 thinker, even though he does not as an individual 
 participate in the indifference to dogma from which 
 it sprang. Whoever succeeds in emancipating him- 
 self from the special influences of education and 
 associations by which his opinions are in the first 
 instance determined will find the general course and 
 current of contemporary literature the most power- 
 ful attraction to his mind. There are, it is true, a few 
 exceptions to this rule. There are some intellects of 
 such a repellent character that the simple fact that 
 one class of opinions or tendencies is dominant in 
 their neighbourhood will be sufficient to induce them 
 to adopt the opposite. These, however, are the ex- 
 ceptions. With most persons who really endeavour 
 to form their opinions by independent thought, con- 
 temporary literature exercises an attracting and con- 
 trolling influence which is extremely powerful if it is
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 185 
 
 not irresistible. Owing to circumstances which I 
 shall not pause to examine, it flashes upon them with 
 a force and directness which is not possessed by the 
 literature of any earlier period. The general tone of 
 thought pervading it colours all their reasonings, 
 influences and, if they are unconscious of its action, 
 determines all their conclusions. In the present day 
 tliis influence is essentially rationalistic. 
 
 There is one other subject of great importance 
 which is naturally suggested by the movement we 
 have been considering. We have seen how pro- 
 foundly it has altered the character of Christian 
 Churches. It has changed not only the outward 
 form and manifestations, but the habits of thought, 
 the religious atmosphere which was the medium 
 through which all events were contemplated, and by 
 which all reasonings were refracted. No one can 
 doubt that if the modes of thought now prevailing 
 on these subjects, even in Roman Catholic countries, 
 could have been presented to the mind of a Christian 
 of the twelfth century, he would have said that so 
 complete an alteration would involve the absolute 
 destruction of Christianity. As a matter of fact, 
 most of these modifications were forced upon the re- 
 luctant Church by the pressure from without, and 
 were specially resisted and denounced by the bulk 
 of the clergy. They were represented as subversive 
 of Christianity. The doctrine that religion could be 
 destined to pass through successive phases of de- 
 velopment was pronounced to be emphatically un- 
 christian. The ideal church was always in the past ; 
 and immutability, if not retrogression, was deemed 
 the condition of life. We can now judge this resist- 
 ance by the clear light of experience. Dogmatic
 
 186 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 systems have, it is true, been materially weakened ; 
 they no longer exercise a controlling influence over 
 the current of affairs. Persecution, religious wars, 
 absorbing controversies, sacred art, and theological 
 literature, which once indicated a passionate interest 
 in dogmatic questions, have passed away or become 
 comparatively uninfluential. Ecclesiastical power 
 throughout Europe has been everywhere weakened, 
 and weakened in each nation in proportion to its 
 intellectual progress. If we were to judge the pre- 
 sent position of Christianity by the tests of ecclesias- 
 tical history, if we were to measure it by the orthodox 
 zeal of the great doctors of the past, we might well 
 look upon its prospects with the deepest despondency 
 and alarm. The spirit of the Fathers has incontest- 
 ably faded. The days of Athanasius and Augustine 
 have passed away never to return. The whole course 
 of thought is flowing in another direction. The con- 
 troversies of bygone centuries ring with a strange 
 hollowness on the ear. But if, turning from eccle- 
 siastical historians, we apply the exclusively moral 
 tests which the New Testament so invariably and so 
 emphatically enforces, if we ask whether Christianity 
 has ceased to produce the living fruits of love and 
 charity and zeal for truth, the conclusion we should 
 arrive at would be very different. If it be true 
 Christianity to dive with a passionate charity into 
 the darkest recesses of misery and of vice, to irrigate 
 every quarter of the earth with the fertilising stream 
 of an almost boundless benevolence, and to include 
 all the sections of humanity in the circle of an intense 
 and efficacious sympathy ; if it be true Christianity 
 to destroy or weaken the barriers which had separated 
 class from class and nation from nation, to free war
 
 THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 187 
 
 from its harshest elements, and to make a conscious- 
 ness of essential equality and of a genuine fraternity 
 dominate over all accidental differences ; if it be, 
 above all, true Christianity to cultivate a love of 
 truth for its own sake, a spirit of candour and of 
 tolerance towards those with whom we differ if 
 these be the marks of a true and healthy Christianity, 
 then never since the days of the Apostles has it been 
 so vigorous as at present, and the decline of dogmatic 
 pystems and of clerical influence has been a measure 
 if not a cause of its advance.
 
 188 RATIONALISM IN EUROFE. 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 ESTHETIC, SCIENTIFIC, AND MORAL DEVELOPE- 
 MENTS OP RATIONALISM. 
 
 THE preceding chapters will, I trust, have sufficiently 
 eliown that during the last three centuries the sense 
 of the miraculous has been steadily declining in 
 Europe, that the movement has been so universal 
 that no church or class of miracles has altogether 
 escaped its influence, and that its causes are to be 
 sought much less in special arguments bearing 
 directly upon the question than in the general in- 
 tellectual condition of society. In this, as in all 
 other great historical developdnents, we have two 
 classes of influences to consider. There are certain 
 tendencies or predispositions resulting from causes 
 that are deeply imbedded in the civilisation of the 
 ago which create the movement, direct the stream of 
 opinions with irresistible force in a given direction, 
 and, if we consider only great bodies of men and long 
 periods of time, exercise an almost absolute authority, 
 There is also the action of special circumstances and 
 individual genius upon this general progress, retard- 
 ing or accelerating its advance, giving it in different 
 countries and in different spheres of society a pecu- 
 liar character, and for a time associating it with 
 movements Avith which it has no na.tural connection. 
 1 have endeavoured to show that while numerous 
 circumstances growing out of the complications of
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 189 
 
 society have more or less influenced the history of the 
 decline of the miraculous, there are two causes which 
 dominate over all others, and are themselves very 
 closely connected. One of these is the increasing 
 sense of law, produced by physical sciences, which 
 predisposes men more and more to attribute all the 
 phenomena that meet them in actual life or in history 
 to normal rather than to abnormal agencies ; the 
 other is the diminution of the influence of theology, 
 partly from causes that He within itself, and partly 
 from the great increase of other subjects, which in- 
 clines men to judge all matters by a secular rather 
 than by a theological standard. 
 
 But, as we have already in some degree perceived, 
 and as we shall hereafter see more clearly, this his- 
 tory of the miraculous is but a single part or aspect 
 of a much wider movement, which in its modern 
 phases is usually designated by the name of Rational- 
 ism. The process of thought, that makes men recoil 
 from the miraculous, makes them modify their views 
 on many other questions. The expectation of miracles 
 grows out of a certain conception of the habitual 
 government of the world, of the nature of the Su- 
 preme Being, and of the manifestations of His power, 
 which are all more or less changed by advancing 
 civilisation. Sometimes this change is displayed by 
 an open rejection of old beliefs. Sometimes it ap- 
 pears only in a change of interpretation or of reali- 
 sation ; that is to say, men generally annex new 
 ideas to old words, or they permit old opinions to 
 become virtually obsolete. Each different phase of 
 civilisation has its peculiar and congenial views of the 
 system and government of the universe to which 
 the men of that time will gravitate; and although
 
 190 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 a revelation or a great effort of human genius may 
 for a time emancipate some of them from the con- 
 ditions of the age, the pressure of surrounding in- 
 fluences will soon reassert its sway, and the truths 
 that are unsuited to the time will remain inoperative 
 till their appropriate civilisation has dawned. 
 
 I shall endeavour in the present chapter to trace 
 the different phases of this developement to show 
 how the conceptions both of the nature of the Deity 
 and of the government of the universe are steadily 
 modified before advancing knowledge, and to analyse 
 the causes upon which those modifications depend. 
 
 It has been conjectured by a very high authority, 
 that fetishism is the religion which men who are 
 altogether uncivilised would naturally embrace ; and 
 there certainly appears strong reason to believe that 
 the general characteristic of the earlier stages of 
 religious belief is to concentrate reverence upon 
 matter, and to attribute to it an intrinsic efficacy. 
 This fetishism, which in its rudest form consists of 
 the worship of a certain portion of matter as matter, 
 is shown also, though in a modified and less revolt- 
 ing manner, in the supposition that certain sacred 
 talismans or signs possess an inherent efficacy al- 
 together irrespective of the dispositions of men. Of 
 this nature was the system of pagan magic, which 
 attributed a supernatural power to particular herbs, 
 or ceremonies, or words, and also the many rival 
 bnt corresponding superstitions that were speedily 
 introduced into Christianity. The sign of the cross 
 was perhaps the earliest of these. It was adopted 
 not simply as a form of recognition or as a holy 
 recollection, or even as a mark of reverence, but as a 
 weapon of miraculous power ; and the writings of
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 191 
 
 tlic Fathers are crowded with the prodigies it per- 
 formed, and also with the many types aud images 
 that adumbrated its glory. Thus we are reminded 
 by a writer in the beginning of the second century, 
 the sea could not be traversed without a mast, which 
 is in the form of a cross. The earth becomes fertile 
 only when it has been dug by a spade, which is a 
 cross. The body of man is itself in the same holy 
 form. So also is his face, for the eyes and nose 
 together form a cross ; a fact to which Jeremiah pro- 
 bably alluded when he said, ' The breath of our 
 nostrils is the anointed of the Lord.' 1 
 
 Speculations no less strange and far-fetched were 
 directed to the baptismal water. The efficacy of in- 
 fant baptism, which had been introduced, if not in 
 the Apostolic age, at least immediately after, was 
 regarded as quite independent of any moral virtues 
 either in the recipient or those about him, and in the 
 opinion of some a spiritual change was effected by 
 the water itself, without any immediate co-operation 
 of the Deity, by a power that had been conferred 
 upon the element at the period of the creation. 2 The 
 
 1 Justin Martyr, Apol. i. frequently represented richly 
 Augustine thought the wooden ornamented with gems or flow- 
 ark floating on the Deluge a ers. As St. Fortunatus writes : 
 type of the cross consecrating ' Arbor decora et fulgida 
 the baptismal waters; and Bede Ornata regis purpura, 
 found a similar type in the rod Electa digno stipite 
 of Moses stretched ovr the Red Tain sancta membra tangere.' 
 Sea. Another wise commenta- The letter Tail, as representing 
 tor suggested that Isaac had the cross, was specially reve; 1 - 
 been saved from death, because, enced as opposed to Theta, the 
 when ascending the mountain, unlucky letter the initial of 
 he bore the ' wood of sacrifice ' Bdvaros. 
 
 on his shoulder The cross, 2 See the curious argument 
 
 however, seldom or never ap- in Tertullian, De Uapt. cc. 6, 8, 
 
 pears in art before the vision 7, 8. 
 of Oonstantine. At first it was
 
 192 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 incomparable grandeur of its position in the universe 
 was a theme of the most rapturous eloquence. When 
 the earth was still buried in the night of chaos, 
 before the lights of heaven had been called into 
 being or any living creature had tenanted the eternal 
 solitude, water existed in all the plenitude of its per- 
 fection, veiling the unshapen earth, and glorified and 
 sanctified for ever as the chosen throne of the Deiiy. 
 By water Grod separated the heavens from the earth. 
 Water became instinct with life when the earth was 
 still barren and uninhabited. In the creation of man 
 it might appear at first sight as if its position was 
 ignored, but even here a more mature reflection dis- 
 pelled the difficulty. For in order that the Almighty 
 should mould the earth into the human form, it was 
 obviously necessary that it should have retained 
 something of its former moisture ; in other words, 
 that it should have been mixed with water. 1 
 
 1 ' Non enim ipsius quoque ing a stream. Among the an- 
 
 hominis figurandi opus socian- cient philosophers, Thales had 
 
 tibus aquis absolutum est ; de esteemed water the origin of 
 
 terra materia convenil, non ta- all things, which more than 
 
 men haLilis niai humecta et one father regarded as a kind 
 
 suecida, quam scilicet ante of inspiration. Thus Minucius 
 
 quartum diem segregate aquae Felix: ' Milesi us Thales rerum 
 
 in stationem suam superstite initium aquam dixit : Deum 
 
 buniore, limo temperant.' (Ter- autem earn meutem quae ex 
 
 tullian, De Baptifmo, c. iii.) aqua cuncta formaverit. Vides 
 
 From this notion of the sancticy philosophi principalis nobis- 
 
 of water grew the custom of cum penitus opinionem conso- 
 
 Bwimming witches for it was nare.' (Octavius, c. xix.) The 
 
 believed that everything un- belief in the expiatory power 
 
 holy was repelled by it, and of water was forcibly rebuked 
 
 unable to sink into its depths by Ovid : 
 
 (Binsfeldius, De Confess. Mai. ' Ah ! nimium faciles, qui tristia 
 
 p. 315) and also probably crimina caedis 
 
 the many legends of trans- Fluminea tolli posse putatis 
 
 formed men restored to their aqu& ! ' 
 
 natural condition by cross- (Fast. lib. ii.)
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 193 
 
 Such was the direction in which the human mind 
 drifted, with an ever-increasing rapidity, as the igno- 
 rance and intellectual torpor became more general. 
 The same habit of thought was soon displayed in 
 every department of theology, and countless charms 
 and amulets came into use, the simple possession of 
 which was supposed to guarantee the owner against 
 all evils, both spiritual and temporal. Indeed, it 
 may be questioned whether this form of fetishism 
 was ever more prominent in paganism than in me- 
 diaeval Christianity. 
 
 When men pass from a state of pure fetishism, the 
 next conception they form of the Divine nature is 
 anthropomorphism, which is in some respects very 
 closely connected with the preceding, and which, 
 like it, is diffused in a more or less modified form 
 over the belief of almost all uncivilised nations. 
 Those who have ceased to attribute power and virtue 
 to inert matter, regard the universe as the sphere of 
 the operations of spiritual beings of a nature strictly 
 analogous to their own. They consider every unusual 
 phenomenon the direct and isolated act of an unseen 
 agent, pointed to some isolated object and resulting 
 from some passing emotion. The thunder, the famine, 
 and the pestilence, are the results of an ebullition of 
 spiritual anger ; great and rapid prosperity is the 
 sign of spiritual satisfaction. But at the same time 
 the feebleness of imagination which in this stage 
 makes men unable to picture the Deity other than 
 us an unseen man, makes it also impossible for them 
 to concentrate their thoughts and emotions upon 
 that conception without a visible representation. 
 For while it is a matter of controversy whether or not 
 the innate faculties of the civilised man transcend 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 those of the savage, it is at least certain that the 
 intellectual atmosphere of each period tells so soon 
 and so powerfully upon all men, that long before 
 matured age the two classes are almost as different 
 in their capacities as in their acquirements. The 
 civilised man not only knows more than the savage ; 
 he possesses an intellectual strength, a power of sus- 
 tained and patient thought, of concentrating his 
 mind steadily upon the unseen, of disengaging his 
 conceptions from the images of the senses, which the 
 other is unable even to imagine. Present to the 
 savage the conception of an unseen Being, to be 
 adored without the assistance of any representation, 
 and he will be unable to grasp it. It will have no 
 force or palpable reality to his mind, and can there- 
 fore exercise no influence over his life. Idolatry is 
 the common religion of the savage, simply because 
 it is the only one of which his intellectual condition 
 will admit, and, in one form or another, it must con- 
 tinue until that condition has been changed. 
 
 Idolatry may be of two kinds. It is sometimes 
 a sign of progress. When men are beginning to 
 emerge from the pure fetishism which is probably 
 their first stage, they carve matter into the form of 
 an intelligent being ; and it is only when it is en- 
 dowed with that form, that they attribute to it a 
 Divine character. They are still worshipping matter, 
 but their fetishism is fading into anthropomorphism. 
 Sometimes, again, men who have once risen to a con- 
 ception of a pure and spiritual being, sink, in conse- 
 quence of some convulsion of society, into a lower 
 level of civilisation. They will then endeavour to 
 assist their imaginations by representations of the 
 objects of their worship, and they will very soon
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 195 
 
 attribute to those representations an intrinsic effi- 
 cacy. 
 
 It will appear from the foregoing principles that, 
 in the early anthropomorphic stages of society, visible 
 images form the channels of religious devotions, and, 
 therefore, as long as those stages continue, the true 
 history of theology, or at least of the emotional and 
 realised parts of theology, is to be found in the 
 history of art. Even outside the pale of Christianity, 
 there is scarcely any instance in which the national 
 religion has not exercised a great and dominating in- 
 fluence over the national art. Thus, for example, the 
 two ancient nations in which the {esthetic develope- 
 ment failed most remarkably to keep pace with the 
 general civilisation were the Persians and the Egyp- 
 tians. The fire that was worshipped by the first, 
 formed a fetish, at once so simple and so sublime, 
 that it rendered useless the productions of the chisel ; 
 while the artistic genius of Egypt was paralysed by 
 a religion which branded all innovation as a crime, 
 made the profession of an artist compulsory and 
 hereditary, rendered the knowledge of anatomy im- 
 possible by its prohibition of dissection, and taught 
 men by its elaborate symbolism to look at every 
 natural object, not for its own sake, but as the re- 
 presentative of something else. Thus, again, among 
 the nations that were especially distinguished for 
 their keen sense of the beautiful, India and Greece 
 are preeminent ; but there is this important differ- 
 ence between them. The Indian religion ever soared 
 to the terrible, the unnatural, and the prodigious, and 
 consequently Indian art was so completely turned 
 away from nature, that all faculty of accurately 
 copying it seems to have vanished, and the simplest 
 o2
 
 196 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 subject was interwoven with grotesque and fanciful 
 inventions. The Greek religion, on the other hand, 
 was an almost pure naturalism, and therefore Greek 
 art was simply nature idealised, and as such has 
 become the universal model. 1 
 
 But it is with Christian art that we are now espe- 
 cially concerned, and it is also Christian art which 
 most faithfully reflects the different stages of reli- 
 gious developement, enabling us to trace, not merely 
 successive phases of belief, but, what is much more 
 important for my present purpose, successive phases 
 of I'eligious realisation. 
 
 The constant fall of the early Jews into idolatry, 
 in spite of the most repeated commands and the most 
 awful punishments, while it shows clearly how irre- 
 sistible is this tendency in an early stage of society, 
 furnished a warning which was at first not altogether 
 lost upon the Christian Church. It is indeed true that 
 art had so long been associated with paganism its 
 subjects, its symbolism, and its very tone of beauty, 
 were so derived from the old mythology that the 
 Christian artists, who had probably in many cases 
 been formerly pagan artists, introduced a consider- 
 able number of the ancient conceptions into their 
 new sphere. Bat, although this fact is perfectly in- 
 
 1 See Winckelmann, Hist, of subjects ; but this was itself a 
 
 Art ; Raoul Bichette, Cours consequence of the small en- 
 
 d'Archeologie ; and the Lectures couragement religion gave to 
 
 of Barry and Fuseli. This art. On the great difference of 
 
 particular characteristic of In- the ideal of beauty in different 
 
 dian art has been forcibly no- nations, which has also exer- 
 
 ticed by Mr. Euskin in one of cised a great influence on the 
 
 his Edinbuigh lectures. Less- developement of art, see some 
 
 ing ascribes the imperfections curious evidence collected by 
 
 of Persian art to its almost ex- Ch. Comte, Traite de 
 
 elusive employment for military tion, liv. iii. ch. 4.
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 197 
 
 contestable, and although the readiness with which 
 pagan imagery was admitted into the symbolism of 
 the Church forms an extremely curious and instruc- 
 tive contrast to the tone which most of the Fathers 
 adopted towards the pagan deities, nearly all thest; 
 instances of appropriation were singularly judicious, 
 and the general desire to avoid anything that might 
 lead to idolatrous worship was very manifest. 
 
 The most important and the most beneficial effect 
 of pagan traditions upon Christian art was displayed 
 in its general character. It had always been a strict 
 rule among the Greeks and Romans to exclude from 
 sepulchral decorations every image of sadness. The 
 funerals of the ancients were, indeed, accompanied by 
 great displays of exaggerated and artificial lamenta- 
 tion ; but once the ashes were laid in the tomb, it 
 was the business of the artist to employ all his skill 
 in depriving death of its terror. Wreaths of flowers, 
 Bacchic dances, hunts, or battles, all the exuberance 
 of the most buoyant life, all the images of passion or 
 of revelry, were sculptured around the tomb, while 
 the genii of the seasons indicated the inevitable march 
 of time, and the masks that adorned the corners 
 showed that life was but a player's part, to be borne 
 for a few years with honour, and cast aside without 
 regret. 
 
 The influence of this tradition was shown in a very 
 remarkable way in Christianity. At first all Chris- 
 tian art was sepulchral art. The places that were 
 decorated were the Catacombs ; the chapels were all 
 surrounded by the dead ; the altar upon which the 
 sacred mysteries were celebrated was the tomb of a 
 martyr. 1 According to mediaeval or even to modern 
 
 1 This is the origin of the custom in the Catholic Church
 
 198 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 ideas, we should have imagined that an art growing 
 up under such circumstances would have assumed 
 a singularly sombre and severe tone, and this expec- 
 tation would be greatly heightened if we remembered 
 the occasional violence of the persecution. The very 
 filtar-tomb around which the Christian painter scat- 
 tered his ornaments with most profusion was often 
 associated with the memory of sufferings of the most 
 horrible and varied character, and at the same time 
 with displays of heroic constancy that might well 
 have invited the talents of the artist. Passions, too, 
 were often roused to the highest point, and it would 
 8eem but natural that the great and terrible scenes of 
 Christian vengeance should be depicted. Yet nothing 
 of this kind appears in the Catacombs. With two 
 doubtful exceptions, one at least being of the very 
 latest period, there are no representations of martyr- 
 doms. 1 Daniel unharmed amid the lions, the unac- 
 complished sacrifice of Isaac, the three children 
 unscathed amid the flames, and St. Peter led to 
 prison, are the only images that reveal the horrible 
 persecution that was raging. There was no disposi- 
 
 of placing relics of the mar- sitive representation of a mar- 
 tyrs beneath the altars of the tyrdom that of the Virgin 
 churches. It was also con- Salome, and this is of a very 
 nected with the passage in the late period of decadence (Tableau 
 Apocalypse about the souls that dcs Catacomhes, p. 187). The 
 were beneath the altar of God. same writer has collected (pp. 
 In most early churches there 191, 192) a few instances from 
 was a subterranean chapel be- the Fathers in which represen- 
 . low the high altar, as a memo- tations of martyrdoms in the 
 rial of the Catacombs. A de- early basilicas are mentioned ; 
 cree of the Second Council of but they are very few, and there 
 Nice (A.D. 787) forbade the con- can be no doubt whatever of 
 eecration of any church with- the broad contrast early Chris- 
 out relics. t.ian art in this respect bears to 
 1 M. Raoul Rochette thinks that of the tenth and following 
 that there is but one direct po- centuries.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF EATIONALISM. 199 
 
 tion to perpetuate forms of suffering, no ebullition of 
 bitterness or complaint, no thirsting for vengeance. 
 Neither the Crucifixion, nor any of the scenes of the 
 Passion, were ever represented ; nor was the clay of 
 judgment, nor were the sufferings of the lost. The 
 wreaths of flowers in which paganism delighted, and 
 even some of the most joyous images of the pagan 
 mythology, were still retained, and were mingled 
 with all the most beautiful emblems of Christian 
 hopes, and with representations of many of the 
 miracles of mercy. 
 
 This systematic exclusion of all images of sorrow, 
 Buffering, and vengeance, at a time that seemed beyond 
 all others most calculated to produce them, reveals 
 the Early Church in an aspect that is singularly 
 touching, and it may, I think, be added, singularly 
 sublime. The fact is also one of extreme importance 
 in ecclesiastical history. For, as we shall hereafter 
 have occasion to see, there existed among some of the 
 theologians of the Early Church a tendency that was 
 diametrically opposite to this ; a tendency to dilate 
 upon such subjects as the torments of hell, the ven- 
 geance of the day of judgment, and, in a word, all 
 the sterner portions of Christianity, which at last be- 
 came dominant in the Church, and which exercised 
 an extremely injurious influence over the affections 
 of men. But whatever might have been the case 
 with educated theologians, it was quite impossible 
 for this tendency to be very general as long as art, 
 \vhich was then the expression of popular realisations, 
 took a different direction. The change in art was 
 not fully shown till late in the tenth century. I have 
 already had occasion to notice the popiilarity which 
 representations of the Passion and of the day of
 
 200 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 judgment then for the first time assumed ; and it 
 may be added that, from this period, one of the main 
 objects ol the artists was the invention of new and 
 horrible tortures, which were presented to the con- 
 stant contemplation of the faithful in countless pic- 
 tures of the sufferings of the martyrs on earth, or of 
 the lost in hell. 1 
 
 The next point which especially strikes us in the 
 art of the Catacombs is the great love of symbolism 
 it evinced. There are, it is true, a few isolated pic- 
 tures of Christ and of the Virgin ; but by far the 
 greater number of representations were obviously 
 symbolical, and were designed exclusively as means 
 of instruction. Of these symbols many were taken 
 Avithout hesitation from paganism. Thus, one of the 
 most common is the peacock, which in the Church, 
 as among the heathen, was selected as the emblem of 
 immortality. Partly, perhaps, on account of its 
 surpassing beauty, and partly from a belief that its 
 flesh never decayed, 51 it had been adopted by the 
 ancients as the nearest realisation of their conception 
 of the phoenix, and at the funeral of an empress the 
 bird was sometimes let loose from among the ashes 
 of the deceased. 3 Orpheus drawing all men to him 
 by his music, symbolised the attractive power of 
 
 1 See Eaoul Eochette, Ta- numenta, pars i. p. 115; and 
 
 bleau des Catacombes, pp. 192- Maitland, On the Catacombs. 
 
 1 95 ; Didron, Iconographie chre- Raoul Rochette, however, seems 
 
 tienne. to regard the peacock rather as 
 
 * Which St. Augustine said the symbol, first of all, of the 
 he had ascertained by experi- apotheosis of an empress, and 
 msnt to be a fact, and which he then generally of apotheosis, 
 seemed to regard as a miracle, the peacock having been the 
 (l)e Civ. Dei, lib. xxi c. 4). bird of Juno, the empress of 
 
 * See Ciampini, Vetera Mo- heaven
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 201 
 
 Cliristianity. 1 The masks of paganism, and especially 
 the masks of the sun and moon, which the pagans 
 adopted as emblems of the lapse of life, continued to 
 adorn the Christian sarcophagi, the last being probably 
 regarded as emblems of the resurrection. The same 
 thing may be said of the genii of the seasons. 2 Nor 
 was this by any means the only form under which 
 the genii were represented. The ancients regarded 
 them as presiding over every department of nature, 
 and many thought that a separate genius watched 
 
 1 Orpheus is spoken of by 
 Eusebius as in this respect sym- 
 bolising Christ. The reverence 
 that attached to him probably 
 resulted in a great measure 
 from the fact that among the 
 many apocryphal prophecies of 
 Christ that circulated in the 
 Church, some of the most con- 
 spicuous were ascribed to Or- 
 pheus. See on this symbol, 
 Maitland, On the Catacombs, 
 p. 1 10 ; Raoul Rochette, Tab. des 
 Cat. p. 138 ; and, for a full ex- 
 amination of the subject, the 
 great work of Boldftti, Oaser- 
 vazionisopra i Cimiteri de' Santi 
 Martyri (Ronue, 1720), torn. i. 
 pp. 2*7-29. M. Rio (Art chre- 
 tien, lutrod. p. 36), I think 
 rather fancifully, connects it 
 with the descent of Orpheus to 
 hell to save a soul. As other 
 examples of the introduction 
 of pagan gods into Christian 
 art, I may mention that there 
 is an obscure picture in one of 
 the catacombs, which R. Ro- 
 chette supposes to represent 
 Mercury leading the souls of 
 the dead to judgment (Tab. des 
 Cut. pp. 148-151); and also 
 
 that Hercules, though never, I 
 believe, represented in the Cata- 
 combs, appears more than once 
 in the old churches, St. Augus- 
 tine having identified him with 
 Samson. (See on this repre- 
 sentation, and generally on the 
 connection between pagan and 
 Christian art, that very curious 
 and learned work, Maraugoni, 
 D lie Cose Gentilesche e Profane 
 trasportate ad uso delle Chiete 
 (Romse, 1744), pp.50, 51.) The 
 sphinx also was believed by 
 some of the early Christians 
 (e. g. Clement of Alexandria) 
 to be in some degree connected 
 with their faith ; for they sup- 
 posed it to be copied from the 
 Jewish image of the Cherubim, 
 but they never reproduced it. 
 Some later antiquaries have at- 
 tributed this curious combina- 
 tion of the Virgin and the Lioa 
 to the advantages Egypt derives 
 from these signs, through which 
 the sun passes at the period of 
 the inundation of the Nile (Cay- 
 lus, Kecueil d'Antiquitc, torn, i, 
 p. 45). 
 
 * Marangoni, Delle Cone Gen- 
 tilescfo, p. 45.
 
 202 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 over the destiny of each man. This conception very 
 naturally coalesced with that of guardian angels, 1 
 and the pagan representation of the genii as young 
 winged boys, naked, and with gentle and joyous 
 countenances, became very common in early Chris- 
 tian art, and passed from it into the art of later days. 
 p]ven now from the summit of the baldachino of St. 
 Peter's, the genii of paganism look down on the 
 proudest ceremonies of Catholicism. Once or twice 
 on the Christian sarcophagi Christ is represented in 
 triumph with the sky, or perhaps, more correctly, 
 ' the waters above the firmament,' beneath his feet, 
 in the form of a man extending a veil above his 
 head, the habitual pagan representation of an aquatic 
 deity. 8 
 
 In addition to these symbols, which were mani- 
 festly taken from paganism, there were others mainly 
 or exclusively produced by the Church itself. Thus, 
 the fish was the usual emblem of Christ, chosen be- 
 cause the Greek word forms the initials of His name 
 and titles, 3 and also because Christians are born by 
 baptism in water. 4 Sometimes, but much more 
 rarely, the stag is employed for the same purpose, 
 because it bears the cross on its forehead, and from 
 an old notion that it was the irreconcilable enemy 
 of serpents, which it was supposed to hunt out and 
 destroy. 5 Several subjects from the Bible of a sym- 
 
 1 All this is fully discussed The dolphin WHS especially ue- 
 in Marangoni. lected because of its tenderness 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 45 ; Raoul Eo- to its young. 
 
 chette, Tab. des Cat. * 'Nos pisciculi secundum 
 
 3 'IxOvs. 'iTjcroDs Xpiffrbs 0eoO 'l^Ovy nostrum Jesuni Christum 
 Tibs 2eoT7;p. The initial letters in aqua nascimur.' (Tertullian, 
 of the prophetic verses of the DC JBnptismo, c. i.) 
 
 Sibyl of Erythra (St. Aug. De 5 Maury, Legendes pieus/g, 
 Civ Jki, lib. xviii. cap. 20). pp. 173-178. See, too, Pliny,
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF EATIONALISM. 203 
 
 bolical character were constantly repeated. Such 
 were Noah in the attitude of prayer receiving the 
 dove into his breast, Jonah rescued from the fish's 
 mouth, Moses striking the rock, St. Peter with the 
 wand of power, the three children, Daniel in the lions' 
 den, the Good Shepherd, the dove of peace, the 
 anchor of hope, the crown of martyrdom, the palm 
 of victory, the ship struggling through the waves to 
 a distant haven, the horse bounding onwards to the 
 goal. All of these were manifestly symbolical, and 
 were in no degree the objects of reverence or 
 worship. 
 
 When, however, the first purity of the Christian 
 Church was dimmed, and when the decomposition of 
 the Roman Empire and the invasion of the barbarians 
 overcast the civilisation of Europe, the character of 
 art was speedily changed, and though many of the 
 symbolical representations still continued, there was 
 manifested by the artists a constantly increasing ten- 
 dency to represent directly the object of their wor- 
 ship, and by the people to attach a peculiar sanctity 
 to the image. 
 
 Of all the forms of anthropomorphism that are 
 displayed in Catholic art, there is probably none 
 
 Hist. Nat. viii. 50 ; Josephus, of prophetic power. See also 
 Antiq. ii. 10. There is a bas- Ciampini, De Sacris &d\ficiis 
 relief in the Vatican which (Romse), p. 44 ; and the very 
 seems to represent a stag in curious chapter in Arringhi, 
 the act of attacking a serpent. Boma 8ubtcrranea, torn. ii. pp. 
 The passage in the Psalms, 602-606. The stag was sup- 
 about ' the hart panting for the posed to dread the thunder so 
 waters,' (which the neophyte much, that through terror it 
 was accustomed to sing as he often brought forth its young 
 descended into the baptismal prematurely, and this was asso- 
 water,*) was mixed up with this ciated with the passage, ' The 
 symbol. In the middle ages, voice of thy thunder has made 
 stags were invested with a kind me afraid.'
 
 204 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 which a Protestant deems so repulsive as the portraits 
 of the First Person of the Trinity, that are now so 
 common. It is, however, a very remarkable fact, 
 which has been established chiefly by the researches 
 of some French archaeologists in the present century, 
 that these portraits are all comparatively modern, and 
 that the period in which the superstition of Europe 
 was most profound, was precisely that in which they 
 had no existence. 1 In an age when the religious 
 realisations of Christendom were habitually expressed 
 by visible representations when the nature of a 
 spirit was so inadequately conceived that artists never 
 for a moment shrank from representing purely 
 spiritual beings and when that instinctive reverence 
 which makes men recoil from certain subjects, as too 
 solemn and sublime to be treated, was almost abso- 
 lutely unknown we do not find the smallest tendency 
 to represent God the Father. Scenes indeed in which 
 He acted were frequently depicted, but the First 
 Person of the Trinity was invariably superseded by 
 the Second. Christ, in the dress and with the features 
 appropriated to Him in the representations of scenes 
 from the New Testament, and often with the mono- 
 gram underneath his figure, is represented creating 
 man, condemning Adam and Eve to labour, speaking 
 with Noah, arresting the arm of Abraham, or giving 
 the law to Moses. 2 With the exception of a hand 
 sometimes extended from the cloud, and occasionally 
 
 1 This subject has been graphic chretienne, Hist, de 
 
 briefly noticed by Raoul Ro- Dieu (Paris, 1843), one of the 
 
 chette in his Discours sur FArt most important contributions 
 
 dw Christianlsme (1834), p. 7; ever made to Christian irchse- 
 
 and by Maury, Legendes pi- ology. See, too, Emeric David, 
 
 euses ; but the full examination Hist, de la Peinture au Moyen 
 
 of it was reserved for M. Did- Age, pp. 19-21. 
 
 ton, in his great work, Icuno- * Didron, pp. 177-182,
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 205 
 
 encircled with a nimbus, we find in this period no 
 traces in art of the Creator. At first we can easily 
 imagine that a purely spiritual conception of the 
 Deity, and also the hatred that was inspired by the 
 type of Jupiter, would have discouraged artists from 
 attempting such a subject, and Gnosticism, which 
 exercised a very great influence over Christian art, 
 and which emphatically denied the divinity of the 
 God of the Old Testament, tended in the same di- 
 rection ; but it is very unlikely that these reasons 
 can have had any weight between the sixth and 
 the twelfth centuries. For the more those centu- 
 ries are studied, the more evident it becomes that 
 the universal and irresistible tendency was then to 
 materialise every spiritual conception, to form a pal- 
 pable image of everything that was reverenced, to 
 reduce all subjects within the domain of the senses. 
 This tendency, unchecked by any sense of grotesque- 
 ness or irreverence, was shown with equal force in 
 sculpture, painting, and legends ; and all the old 
 landmarks and distinctions that had been made be- 
 tween the orthodox uses of pictures and idolatry had 
 been virtually swept away by the resistless desire to 
 form an image of everything that was worshipped, 
 and to attach to that image something of the sanctity 
 of its object. Yet amid all this no one thought of 
 representing the Supreme Being. In that condition 
 of society men desired a human god, and they con- 
 sequently concentrated their attention exclusively 
 upon the Second Person of the Trinity or upon the 
 Saints, and suffered the great conception of the 
 Father to become practically obsolete. It continued 
 of course in creeds and in theological treatises, 
 but it was a void and sterile abstraction, which 
 had no place among the realisations and no
 
 206 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 influence on the emotions of mankind. If men 
 turned away from the Second Person of the Trinity, 
 it was only to bestow their devotions upon saints 
 or martyrs. With the exception, I believe, of one 
 or two representations of the Trinity on early 
 sarcophagi and of a single manuscript of the 
 ninth century, 1 there exists no portrait of the 
 Father earlier than the twelfth century ; and it was 
 only in the fourteenth century, when the revival of 
 learning had become marked, that these portraits 
 became common. 2 From that time to the age of 
 Raphael the steady tendency of Art is to give an 
 ever-increasing preeminence to the Father. At first 
 His position in painting and sculpture had been a 
 subordinate one, and He was only represented in the 
 least attractive occupations, 3 and commonly, through 
 a desire to represent the coeternity of the Persons 
 of the Trinity, of the same age as His Son. Gradu- 
 ally however, after the fourteenth century, we find 
 the Father represented in every painting as older, 
 more venerable, and more prominent, until at last He 
 became the central and commanding figure, 4 exciting 
 
 1 Raoul Rochette, Discours J6sus-Christ perd sa force d'as- 
 swr les Types de I' Art chretien, similation iconographique et 
 p. 71- se laisse vaincre par son Pere. 
 
 2 Didron, pp. 227-230. C'est au tour du Fils a se rere- 
 
 3 See this fact worked out in tin- de traits du Pere, a vieillir 
 detail in Didron. et rider comme lui. . . Enfin, 
 
 4 ' Onpeutdoncrelativement depuis les premiers siecles du 
 a Dieu le Pere partager le moy- Christianisme jusqu'a uos jours 
 en age en deux peViodes. Dans nous voyons le Pere croitre 
 la premiere, qui est anteVieure en importance. Son portrait, 
 au XI V e sieele, la figure du d'abord interdit par les Gno- 
 Pere se confond avec celle du stiqut-s, se montre timidement 
 Fils ; c'est le Fils qui est tout- ensuite et comme deguise sous 
 puissant et qui tait son Pere la figure de son Fils. Puis il 
 a son image et ressemblance. rejette tout accoutrement etran- 
 Daiis la seconde periode apres ger et prend une figure spe 
 1 XIU* siecle, iusqu'au XVI% ciale ; puis par Raphael et en-
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 207 
 
 the highest degree of reverence, and commonly re- 
 presented in different countries according to their 
 ideal of greatness. In Italy, Spain, and the ultra.- 
 moutane monasteries of France, He was usually 
 represented as a Pope ; in Germany, as an Emperor ; 
 in England, and, for the most part, in France, as 
 a King. 
 
 In a, condition of thought in which the Deity was 
 only realised in the form of man it was extremely 
 natural that the number of divinities should be multi- 
 plied. The chasm between the two natures was en- 
 tirely unfelt, and something of the Divine character 
 was naturally reflected upon those who were most 
 eminent in the Church. The most remarkable instance 
 of this polytheistic tendency was displayed in the 
 deification of the Virgin. 
 
 A conception of a divine person or manifestation 
 of the female sex had been one of the notions of the 
 old Jewish Cabalists ; and in the first century Simon 
 Magus had led about with him a woman named 
 Helena, who, according to the Catholics, was simply 
 his mistress, but whom he proclaimed to be the incar- 
 nation of the Divine Thought. 1 This notion, under 
 a great many different forms, was diffused through 
 almost all the sects of the Gnostics. The Supreme 
 Being, whom they very jealously distinguished 
 
 fin par 1'Anglais Martin, il isme (1734), torn. i. pp. 35-37. 
 gagne une grave et une admi- Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Ire- 
 ruble physionomie qui n'ap- nseus. Epiphanius, and several 
 partient qu'a lui.' (Didron, other Fathers, notice the wor- 
 P- 226.) ship of Helena. According to 
 1 See on this subject Franck, them, Simon proclaimed that 
 Sur la Kabbule; Maury, Groy- the angels in heaven made \vnr 
 nnces et Lcgendes de F Antiqvite on account of her beauty, and 
 (1863), p. 338; and especially that the Evil One had* made 
 Beausobre, Hist, du Manicld- her prisoner to prevent her
 
 208 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 from and usually opposed to the God of the Jews, 1 
 they termed ' The Unknown Father,' and they re- 
 garded Him as directly inaccessible to human know- 
 ledge, but as revealed in part by certain (Eons or 
 emanations, of whom the two principal were Christ, 
 and a female spirit termed the Divine Sophia or 
 Ennoia, and sometimes known by the strange name 
 of ' Prounice.' 2 According to some sects, tin's Sophia 
 
 return to heaven, from which 
 she had straj'ed. There is some 
 reason to think that all this 
 was an allegory of the soul. 
 
 1 Most of the Gnostics re- 
 garded the God of the Jews or 
 the Demiurge as an imperfect 
 spirit presiding over an imper- 
 fect moral s^ stem. Many, how- 
 ever, regarded the Jewish reli- 
 gion as the work of the principle 
 of Evil the God of matter; 
 and the Cainites made everyone 
 who had opposed it the object 
 of reverence, while the Ophites 
 actually worshipped the serpent. 
 We have, perhaps, a partial ex- 
 planation of the reverence many 
 of the Gnostics had for the ser- 
 pent in the fact that this ani- 
 mal, which in Christianity re- 
 presents the principle of Evil, 
 had a very different position in 
 ancient symbolism. It was the 
 general emblem of healing (be- 
 cause it changes its skin), and 
 as such appears in the statues 
 of JEsculapius and Isis, and it 
 was also constantly adopted as 
 a representative animal. Thus 
 in the Mithraic groups, that 
 are so common in later Roman 
 sculpture, the serpent and the 
 dog represent all living crea- 
 tures. A serpent with a hawk's 
 
 head was an old Egyptian sym- 
 bol of a good genius. 
 
 * Prounice properly signifies 
 lasciviousness. It seems to have 
 been applied to the Sophia con 
 sidered in her fallen condition, 
 as imprisoned in matter; but 
 there is an extreme obscurity, 
 which has, I think, never been 
 cleared up, hanging upon the 
 subject. Prounice seems to 
 have been confounded with 
 Berenice, the name which a 
 very early Christian tradition 
 gave to the woman who had 
 been healed of an issue of 
 blood. This woman formed one 
 of the principal types among 
 the Gnostics. According to the 
 Valentinians, the twelve years 
 of her affliction represented the 
 twelve (Eons, while the flowing 
 blood was the force of the So- 
 phia passing to the inferior 
 world. See on this subject, 
 Maury, Croyances et Legcndes, 
 art. Veronica ; and on the So- 
 phia generally, Matter, Hist, 
 du Giiosticisme, torn. i. pp. 275 
 278. M. Franck says (La Kab- 
 ba'e, p. 43) that some of the 
 Gnostics painted the Holy Ghost 
 as a woman; but this, I sup- 
 pose, only refers to the Sophia.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 209 
 
 was simply the human soul, wliich was originally an 
 emanation or child of the Deity, but wliich had wan- 
 dered from its parent-source, had become enamoured 
 of and at last imprisoned by matter, and was now 
 struggling, by the assistance of the unfallen (Eon 
 Christ, towards its pristine purity. More commonly, 
 however, she was deemed a personification of a Divine 
 attribute, an individual CEon, the sister or (accord- 
 ing to others) the mother of Christ, and entitled to 
 equal or almost equal reverence. 
 
 In this way, long before Catholic Mariolatry had 
 acquired its full proportions, a very large section 
 of the Christian world had been 'accustomed to con- 
 centrate much attention upon a female ideal as one 
 of the two central figures of devotion. This fact 
 alone would in some degree prepare the way for the 
 subsequent elevation of the Virgin ; and it should be 
 added that Gnosticism exercised a very great and 
 special influence over the modes of thought of the 
 orthodox. As its most learned historian has forcibly 
 contended, it should not be regarded as a Christian 
 heresy, but ratbsr as an independent system of 
 eclectic philosophy in which Christian ideas occupied 
 a prominent place. Nearly all heresies have aroused 
 among the orthodox a spirit of repulsion which has 
 produced views the extreme opposite of those of the 
 heretic. Gnosticism, on the other hand, exercised 
 an absorbing and attractive influence of the strongest 
 kind. That Neoplatonic philosophy which so deeply 
 tinctured early theology passed, for the most part, 
 through a Gnostic medium. No sect, too, appears 
 to have estimated more highly or employed more 
 skilfully aesthetic aids. The sweet songs of Bar- 
 desanes and Harmonius carried their distinctive 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 doctrines into the vrry heart of Syrian orthodoxy, 
 and cast such a spell over the minds of the people 
 that, in spite of all prohibitions, they continued to bo 
 sung in the Syrian churches till the Catholic poet 
 St. Ephrem wedded orthodox verses to the Gnostic 
 metres. 1 The apocryphal gospels, which were for 
 the most part of Gnostic origin, long continued to 
 furnish subjects for painters in orthodox churches. 8 
 There is even much reason to believe that the con- 
 ventional cast of features ascribed to Christ, which 
 for so many centuries formed the real object of the 
 worship of Christendom, is derived from the Gnostic 
 artists.* Besides this, Gnosticism formed the highest 
 
 1 Matter, Hist, du Gnosti- 
 cisme, torn. i. pp. 360-362. 
 
 2 Didron, pp. 197, 198. The 
 apocryphal gospel, however, 
 which exercised most influence 
 over Art was probably tha' of 
 Nicodemus, which is apparently 
 of orthodox origin, and was 
 probably written (or at least 
 the second part of it) against 
 the Apollinarians. We owe to 
 it the pictures of the Descent 
 into Limbo that are so common 
 in early Byzantine art. The 
 game subject, derived from the 
 same source, was also prominent 
 in the mediaeval sacred plays 
 (Malone, History of the English 
 Stage, p. 19). 
 
 * For a full discussion of 
 this point, see Raoul Rochette's 
 Types de TArt, pp. 9-26, and his 
 Tableau des Catacombes, p. 265. 
 The opinion that the type of 
 Christ is derived from the 
 Gnostics (which Raoul Ro- 
 chette says has been embraced 
 by most of the Roman antiqua- 
 
 ries) rests chiefly on the follow- 
 ing positions : 1. That in the 
 earliest stage of Christianity 
 all painting and sculpture were 
 looked upon with great aversion 
 in the Church, and that as late 
 as the time of Constantino por- 
 traits of Christ were very rare. 
 2. That the Gnostics from the 
 beginning cultivated art, and 
 that small images of Christ 
 were among the most common 
 objects of their reverence. 3. 
 That the Gnostics were very 
 numerous at Rome. 4. That 
 Gnosticism exercised a great 
 influence upon the Church, and 
 especially upon her aesthetic 
 developement. It may be added 
 that the Christians carefully ab- 
 stained from deriving from pa- 
 ganism the cast of features they 
 ascribed to Christ ; and Theo- 
 doret relates that a painter hav- 
 ing taken Jupiter as a model in 
 a portrait of Christ, his hand 
 was withered, but was restored 
 miraculously by St. Geuuadius,
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 211 
 
 representation of a process of transformation or uni- 
 fication of religious ideas which occupied a very pro- 
 minent place among the organising influences of the 
 Church. Christianity had become the central intel- 
 lectual power in the world, but it triumphed not so 
 much by superseding rival faiths as by absorbing 
 and transforming them. Old systems, old rites, old 
 images were grafted into the new belief, retaining 
 much of their ancient, character, but assuming new 
 names and a new complexion. Thus in the sym- 
 bolism of the Gnostics innumerable conceptions 
 culled from the different beliefs of paganism were 
 clustered around the Divine Sophia, and at least 
 some of them passed through paintings or traditional 
 allegories to the Virgin. The old Egyptian con- 
 ception of Night the mother of day and of all tilings, 
 with the diadem of stars, Isis the sister of Osiris or 
 the Saviour, Latona the mother of Apollo, Flora the 
 bright goddess of returning spring, to whom was 
 once dedicated the month of May, which is now dedi- 
 cated to the Virgin ; Cybele the mother of the gods, 
 whose feast was celebrated on what is now Lady- Day, 
 were all more or less connected with the new ideal. 1 
 But while Gnosticism may be regarded as the pio- 
 neer or precursor of Catholic Mariolatry, the direct 
 
 Archbishop of Constantinople, noramus .... Nam et ipsius 
 At a later period pagan statues Dominicse facies carnis innu- 
 were frequently turned into merabilium cogitationum diver- 
 saints. St. Augustine men- sitate variatur et fingitur, quse 
 tions that in his time there tamen una erat, qusecumque 
 was no authentic portrait of erat.' (De Trinitate, lib. viii. 
 Christ, and that the type of c. 4, 5.) The type, however, 
 features was still undeter- was soon after formed. 
 mined, so that we have abso- ' On the relation of this to 
 lutely no knowledge of His Gnosticism, see Matter, Hist. 
 appearance. ' Qua fuerit ille du Gnosticlsme, torn. i. pp. 88, 
 (Christus) facie nos penitus ig- 89-98. 
 P2
 
 212 RATIONALISM IN EUROFE. 
 
 eauses arc to be found within the circle of the Church. 
 If the first two or three centuries were essentially 
 the ages of moral appreciation, the fourth and fifth 
 were essentially those of dogmatic definitions, which 
 were especially applied to the nature of the divinity 
 of Christ, and which naturally and indeed necessarily 
 tended to the continued exaltation of one who was 
 soon regarded as, very literally, the Bride of God. 
 During the Nestorian controversy the discussions on 
 the subject assumed an almost physiological cha- 
 racter, 1 and the emphasis with which the Church 
 condemned the doctrines of Nestorius, who was sup- 
 posed to have unduly depreciated the dignity of 
 Mary, impelled the orthodox enthusiasm in the oppo- 
 site direction. The Council of Ephesus, in A.D. 431, 
 defined the manner in which the Virgin should be 
 represented by artists ; 2 and the ever-increasing im- 
 
 1 The strong desire natural lary ' Verbum patris per aurein . 
 
 to the middle ages to give a benedictse intravit.' St. Agohard 
 
 palpable form to the mystery says, 'Descendite ccelis missus 
 
 of the Incarnation was shown ab aree Patris, introivit per an- 
 
 curiously in the notion of a rem Virginia in regionem nos- 
 
 conception by the ear. In a tram.' Similar expressions had 
 
 hymn, ascribed to St. Thomas been employed in the Early 
 
 li Becket, occur the lines Church by St. Augustine and 
 
 Gaude Virgo, mater Christi, St ' E P^ m ; Th i s of -TT Wa " 
 Quse per aurem concepisti, suggested by the title Logos. 
 Gabriele nnntio ; ' { L ^9des pzeuses, pp. 
 
 and in an old glass window, now, 2 St. Augustine notices (De 
 
 I believe, in one of the museums Trinit ate) that in his time there 
 
 of Paris, the Holy Ghost is rep- was no authentic portrait of 
 
 resented hovering over the Vir- Mary. The Council of Ephesus 
 
 gin in the form of a dove, while wished her to be painted with 
 
 a ray of light passes from his the Infant Child, and this was 
 
 beak to her ear, along which the general representation in 
 
 ray an infant Christ is descend- the Early Church. Some of 
 
 iug. Langlois, Peinture sur the Byzantine pictures are said 
 
 Verre, p. 147. In the breviary to have been influenced by the 
 
 of the Maronites is the formu- favourite Egyptian represeuta-
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 213 
 
 portance of painting and sculpture as the organs of 
 religious realisations brought into clearer and more 
 vivid relief the charms of a female ideal, which ac- 
 quired an irresistible fascination in the monastic life 
 of celibacy and solitary meditation, and in the strange 
 mixture of gallantry and devotion that accompanied 
 the Crusades. It was in this last period that the 
 doctrine of the Immaculate Conception rose to pro- 
 minence. 1 The lily, as the symbol of purity, was 
 soon associated with pictures of the Virgin ; and a 
 notion having grown up that women by eating it 
 became pregnant without the touch of man, a vase 
 wreathed with lilies became the emblem of her 
 maternity. 
 
 The world is governed by its ideals, and seldom or 
 never has there been one which has exercised a more 
 profound and, on the whole, a more salutary in- 
 fluence than the mediaeval conception of the Virgin. 
 For the first time woman was elevated to her rightful 
 
 tions of Isis giving suck, to sades, pp. 204, 205. However, 
 Horns. It has been observed St. Augustine says : 'Exeepta 
 that in the case of Mary, as in itaque Sancta Virgine Maria, 
 the ease of Christ, suffering and de qua, propter honorem Do- 
 deep melancholy became more mini, nullatn prorsus cum de 
 and more the prevailing expres- peccatis agitur habere volo 
 sion as the dark ages rolled on, qusestionem: Unde enim sci- 
 which was still further increased mus, quid ei plus gratise colla- 
 Ly the black tint the mediaeval turn fuerit ad rincendum omni 
 artists frequently gave her, in ex parte peccatum, quse conci- 
 allusion to the description in pere ac parere meruit eum quern 
 the Song of Solomon. The first constat nullum habuisse pecca- 
 notice in writing of the resem- turn.' (De Saturd d Gratia.') 
 blance of Christ to His mother Gibbon notices that the notion 
 is, I believe, in Nicephorus. acquired consistency among the 
 See Raoul Eochette, Types de Mabommedans some centuries 
 FArt chretien, pp. 30-39 ; Pas- before it was adopted by the 
 cal, Institutions de I Art chre- Christians. St. Bernard re- 
 tien. jected it as a novelty. (Decline 
 1 Heeren, Influences des Croi- and Fall, ch. 1. note.)
 
 2H RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 position, and the sanctity of weakness was recognised 
 as well as the sanctity of sorrow. No longer the slave 
 or toy of man, no longer associated only with ideas 
 of degradation and of sensuality, woman rose, in the 
 person of the Virgin Mother, into a new sphere, and 
 became the object of a reverential homage of which 
 antiquity bad had no conception. Love was idealised. 
 The moral charm and beauty of female excellence were 
 fully felt. A new type of character was called into 
 being : a new kind of admiration was fostered. Into 
 a harsh and ignorant and benighted age this ideal 
 type infused a conception of gentleness and of purity 
 unknown to the proudest civilisations of the past. 
 Tn the pages of living tenderness which many a 
 monkish writer has left in honour of his celestial 
 patron, in the millions who, in many lands and in 
 many ages, have sought with no barren desire to 
 mould their characters into her image, in those holy 
 maidens who, for the love of Mary, have separated 
 themselves from all the glories and pleasures of the 
 world, to seek in fastings and vigils and humble 
 charity to render themselves worthy of her bene- 
 diction, in the new sense of honour, in the chival- 
 rous respect, in the softening of manners, in the 
 refinement of tastes displayed in all the walks of 
 society : in these and in many other ways we detect 
 its influence. All that was best in Europe clustered 
 around it, and it is the origin of many of the purest 
 elements of our civilisation. 
 
 But the price, and perhaps the necessary price, of 
 this was the exaltation of the Virgin as an omnipre- 
 sent deity of infinite power as well as infinite con- 
 descension. The legends represented her as per- 
 forming every kind of prodigy, saving men from the
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF EATIONALISM. 215 
 
 lowest abysses of wretchedness or of vice, and proving 
 at all times the most powerful and the most ready 
 refuge of the afflicted. The painters depicted her 
 invested with the divine aureole, judging man on 
 equal terms with her Son, or even retaining her 
 ascendency over Him in heaven. In the devotions 
 of the people she was addressed in terms identical 
 with those employed to the Almighty. 1 A reverence 
 similar in kind but less in degree was soon bestowed 
 upon the other saints, who speedily assumed the po- 
 sition of the minor deities of paganism, and who, 
 though worshipped, like them, as if ubiquitous, like 
 them had their special spheres of patronage. 
 
 While Christendom was thus reviving the poly- 
 theism which its intellectual condition required, the 
 tendency to idolatry that always accompanies that 
 condition was no less forcibly displayed. In theory, 
 indeed, images were employed exclusively as aids to 
 worship ; but in practice, and with the general assent 
 of the highest ecclesiastical authorities, they very soon, 
 became the objects. When men employ visible repre- 
 sentations simply for the purpose of giving an in- 
 creased vividness to their sense of the presence of the 
 
 1 Even at the present day similar examples. An old bishop 
 
 the Psalter of St. Bonaventura named Gilbert Massius had his 
 
 an edition of the Psalms own portrait painted between 
 
 adapted to the worship of the the Virgin giving suck to Christ 
 
 Virgin, chiefly by the substitn- and a Crucifixion. Underneath 
 
 tion of the word domina for the were the lines 
 
 word dominus is a popular ' Ilinc lactor ab ubere, 
 
 book of devotion at Rome. In Hinc pascor a vulnere, 
 
 a famous fresco of Orcagna, at Positus in medio. 
 
 Pisa, the Virgin is represented, Quo me vortam i.escio, 
 
 with precisely the same dignity In hoc dulci dubio 
 
 as Christ, judging mankind ; Dulcis est collatio.' 
 
 and everyone who is acquainted Pascal, Art chretkn, torn. i. p. 
 
 with mediaeval art has met with 250.
 
 216 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 person who is addressed, and when the only distinc- 
 tion they make between different representations 
 arises from the degree of fidelity or force with, which 
 they assist the imagination, these persons are cer- 
 tainly not committing idolatry. But when they 
 proceed to attach the idea of intrinsic virtue to a 
 particular image, when one image is said to work 
 miracles and confer spiritual benefits that separate it 
 from every other, when it becomes the object of long 
 pilgrimages, and is supposed by its mere presence to 
 defend a besieged city or to ward off pestilence and 
 famine, the difference between this conception and 
 idolatry is inappreciable. Everything is done to cast 
 the devotion of the worshipper upon the image itself, 
 to distinguish it from every other, and to attribute 
 to it an intrinsic efficacy. 
 
 In this as in the former case the change was 
 effected by a general tendency resulting from the 
 intellectual condition of society assisted by the con- 
 currence of special circumstances. At a very early 
 period the persecuted Christians were accustomed to 
 collect the relics of the martyrs, which they regarded 
 with much affection and not a little reverence, partly 
 perhaps from the popular notion that the souls of the 
 dead lingered fondly around their tombs, and partly 
 from the very natural and praiseworthy feeling which 
 attaches us to the remains of the good. 1 A similar 
 reverence was speedily transferred to pictures, which 
 
 1 Thus the Council of Illi- Contr. Vigilant. 8. To be hurled 
 
 beris in its 34th canon forbade near the tomb of a martyr was 
 
 men to light candles by day in one of the most coveted privi- 
 
 the cemeteries, for fear ' of dis- leges. See Le Blant, luscrip. 
 
 quieting the souls of the saints.' chretiennes de Gaule, torn, ii. 
 
 See, too, a curious passage of pp. 219-229. 
 Vigilantius cited by St. Jerome,
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 217 
 
 as memorials of the dead were closely connected with 
 relics ; and the tendency to the miraculous that was 
 then so powerful having soon associated some of them 
 with supernatural occurrences, this was regarded as 
 a Divine attestation of their sanctity. Two of these 
 representations were especially prominent in the early 
 controversies. The first was a portrait which, ac- 
 cording to tradition, Christ had sent to Abgarus, king 
 of Edessa, 1 and which, besides several other miracles, 
 had once destroyed all the besieging engines of a 
 Persian army that had invested Edessa. Still more 
 famous was a statue of Christ, said to have been 
 erected in a small town in Phoenicia by the woman 
 who had been healed of an issue of blood. A new 
 kind of herb had grown up beneath it, increased till 
 it touched the hem of the garment of the statue, and 
 then acquired the power of healing all disease. This 
 Btatue, it was added, had been broken in pieces by 
 Julian, who placed his own image on the pedestal, 
 from which it was speedily hurled by a thunderbolt. 3 
 
 1 With a letter, which was 239 ; a book which, though 
 
 accepted without hesitation by ostensibly simply a history ot 
 
 Eusebius, and which Addison, the Acheropita, or sacred imnge 
 
 in his work on Christian Evi- at the Lateran, contains a fuller 
 
 deuces, quoted as genuine. Of account of the history of the 
 
 course it is now generally ad- early miraculous p'dures of 
 
 mitted to be apocryphal. This Christ than any other I have 
 
 portrait was supposed to be mi- met with. 
 
 raculously impressed (like that 2 On these representations, 
 obtained by St. Veronica) on a the miracles they wrought, and 
 handkerchief. It was for a long the great importance they as- 
 time at Constantinople, but was snmed in the Iconoclastic con- 
 broughtto Borne probably about troversies, see Maimbfnirg, His- 
 A.D. 1198, and deposited in the to/re dcs Iconodastes (1686), pp. 
 Church of St. Sylvester in Ca 44-47 ; and on other early mi- 
 pite, where it now is. See racles attributed to imnges, 
 Marangoni, Istoria del/a Cap- Spanheim, Historia Imagiintm 
 pella di Sancta Sanctorum di (1686), pp. 417-420. The first 
 Roma (Eomfle, 1747), pp. 23o- of these books is Catholic, and
 
 218 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 In the midst of this bias the irruption and, soon 
 after, the conversion of the barbarians were effected. 
 Vast tribes of savages who had always been idolaters, 
 who were perfectly incapable, from their low state 
 of civilisation, of forming any but anthropomorphic 
 conceptions of the Deity, or of concentrating their 
 attention steadily on any invisible object, and who for 
 the most part were converted, not by individual per- 
 suasion, but by the commands of their chiefs, embraced 
 Christianity in such multitudes that their habits of 
 mind soon became the dominating habits of the 
 Church. From this time the tendency to idolatry 
 was irresistible. The old images were worshipped 
 under new names, and one of the most prominent 
 aspects of the Apostolical teaching was in practice 
 ignored. 
 
 All this, however, did not pass without protest. 
 During the period of the persecution, when the dread 
 of idolatry was still powerful, everything that tended 
 in that direction was scrupulously avoided ; and a few 
 years before the First Council of Nice, a council held 
 at Illiberis in Spain, in a canon which has been very 
 frequently cited, condemned altogether the introduc- 
 tion of pictures into the churches, ' lest that which is 
 worshipped should be painted upon the walls.' 1 The 
 Greeks, among whom the last faint rays of civilisation 
 still flickered, were in this respect somewhat superior 
 to the Latins, for they usually discouraged the vene- 
 ration of images, though admitting that of pictures. 2 
 
 the second the Protestant re- The Catholics maintain that 
 
 ply. See, too, Marangoni, &mcta this was a decree elicited by the 
 
 Sanctorum ; and Arringhi, Ro- persecution, and that its object 
 
 ma Subterranea, torn. ii. pp. was to prevent the profanation 
 
 452-460. of Christian images by the 
 
 1 ' Ne quod colitur et adora- pagans, 
 
 tur in parietibus depingatur.' * Probably because there ia
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 219 
 
 Early in the eighth century, when image- worship had 
 become general, the sect of the Iconoclasts arose, 
 whose long struggle against the prevailing evil, 
 though stained with great tyranny and great cruelty, 
 represents the fierce though unavailing attempts to 
 resist the anthropomorphism of the age ; and when 
 the Second Council of Nice, which the Catholics now 
 regard as oecumenical, censured this heresy and car- 
 ried the veneration of images considerably further 
 than had before been authorised, its authority was 
 denied and its decrees contemptuously stigmatised 
 by Charlemagne and the Gallican Church. 1 Two or 
 three illustrious Frenchmen also made isolated efforts 
 in the same direction. 2 
 
 Of these efforts there is one upon which I may 
 delay for a moment, because it is at once extremely 
 remarkable and extremely little known, and also 
 because it brings us in contact with one of the most 
 rationalistic intellects of the middle ages. In describ- 
 ing the persecution that was endured by the Cabalista 
 in the ninth century, I had occasion to observe that 
 they found a distinguished defender in the person of 
 an archbishop of Lyons, named St. Agobard. The 
 very name of this prelate has now sunk into general 
 oblivion, 3 or if it is at all remembered, it is only in 
 
 no reason to believe that pic- for terming the sacred images 
 tures had ever been employed ' dolls ;' but Mahnbourg con- 
 as idols by the ancient Greeks tends (Introduction to the Hist. 
 or Komans. des Iconocl.) that the expres- 
 
 1 On the discussions con- sion is not to be found in any 
 
 nected with this Council, see of the works of Hinckmar. 
 
 IS'atalis Alexander, Hisloria 3 There is an edition of his 
 
 Eccl. Sciculi, viii. works in one volume (Paris, 
 
 8 The most celebrated being 1605), and another in two 
 
 Hinckmar, Archbishop of volumes (Paris, 161 G). I have 
 
 Rheims. Baronius inveighed quoted from the former. 
 rioltnUy against this prelate
 
 220 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 connection with the most discreditable act of his life 
 the part which he took in the deposition of Lewis 
 the Mild. Yet I question whether in the whole 
 compass of the middle ages with, perhaps, the single 
 exception of Scotus Erigena it would be possible to 
 find another man within the Christian Church who 
 applied himself so zealously, so constantly, and so 
 ably to dispelling the superstitions that surrounded 
 him. To those who have appreciated the character 
 of the ninth century, but few words will be required 
 to show the intellectual eminence of an ecclesiastic 
 who, in tha.t century, devoted one work to displaying 
 the folly of those who attributed hail and thunder to 
 spiritual agencies, a second to in at least some degree 
 attenuating the popular notions concerning epilepsy 
 and other strange diseases, a third to exposing the 
 absurdities of ordeals, and a fourth to denouncing the 
 idolatry of image worship. 
 
 At the beginning of this last work Agobard col- 
 lected a long series of passages from the Fathers and 
 early Councils on the legitimate use of images. As 
 long as they were employed simply as memorials, they 
 were unobjectionable. But the popular devotion had 
 long since transgressed this limit. Idolatry and 
 anthropomorphism had everywhere revived, and de- 
 votion being concentrated on visible representation?!, 
 all faith in the invisible was declining. Men, with a 
 sacrilegious folly, ventured to apply the epithet holy 
 to certain images, 1 offering to the work of their own 
 
 1 ' Multo autem his deteriora solum sacrilegi ex eo quod 
 
 esse quee humaua et carnalis divinum cultum operibus ma- 
 
 praesumptio fingit, etiam stulti nuum suarum exhibent, sed et 
 
 consentiunt. In quo genere insipientes sanctitatem eis qua 
 
 istse quoque inveniuntur quas sine anima sunt imaginibus 
 
 Banctas appellant imagines, non tribuendo.' p. 233.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 221 
 
 hands the honour which should be reserved for the 
 Deity, and attributing sanctity to what was destitute 
 even of life. Nor was it any justification of this 
 practice that the worshippers sometimes disclaimed 
 the belief that a divine sanctity resided in the imago 
 itself, 1 and asserted that they reverenced in it only 
 the person who was represented ; for if the image 
 was not divine, it should not be venerated. Thi.s 
 excuse was only one of the devices of Satan, 2 who 
 was ever seeking, under the pretext of honour to the 
 saints, to draw men back to the idols they had left. 
 No image could be entitled to the reverence of those 
 who, as the temples of the Holy Ghost, were supe- 
 rior to every image, who were themselves the true 
 images of the Deity. A picture is helpless and in- 
 animate. It can confer no benefit and inflict no evil. 
 Its only value is as a representation of that which is 
 least in man of his body, and not his mind. Its 
 only use is as a memorial to keep alive the affection 
 for the dead; if it is regarded as anything more, it 
 becomes an idol, and as such should be destroyed. 
 Very rightly then did Hezekiah grind to powder the 
 bra/en serpent in spite of its sacred associations, 
 because it had become an object of worship. Very 
 rightly too did the Council of Illiberis and the 
 Christians of Alexandria 8 forbid the introduction of 
 
 1 ' Dicit forsitan aliquis non inimicus, ut, sub praetextu 
 
 se putare imagini quam adorat honoris sanctorum, rursus idola 
 
 aliquid inesse Divinum, sed tan- introducat, rursus per di versus 
 
 tummodo pro honore ejus cujus effigies adorfitur.' p. 252. 
 
 effigies est, tali earn veneratione 3 Speaking of the conduct of 
 
 donare. Cui facile respondetur, some Alexandrian Christians, 
 
 quia si imago quam adorat who only admitted the sign of 
 
 Deus non est nequaquam vene- the cross into their churches, he 
 
 randa est.' p. 237. says: '0 quam sincrra re- 
 
 2 'Agit hoc nimirum versu- ligio ! crucis vexillum ubique 
 
 tus et callidus huraani generis pingebatur non aliqua vultus
 
 222 RATIONALISM IX EUROPE. 
 
 representations into the churches, for they foi-esaw 
 that such representations would at last become the 
 objects of worship, and that a change of faith would 
 only be a change of idols ; nor could the saints them- 
 selves be more duly honoured than by destroying 
 ignominiously their portraits when those portraits 
 had become the objects of superstitious reverence. 1 
 
 It will, I think, be admitted that these sentiments 
 are exceedingly remarkable when we consider the age 
 in which they were expressed, and the position of the 
 person who expressed them. No Protestant fresh 
 from the shrines of Loretto or Saragossa ever de- 
 nounced the idolatry practised under the shadow of 
 Catholicism with a keener or more incisive eloquence 
 than did this mediaeval saint. But although it is ex- 
 tremely interesting to detect the isolated efforts of 
 illustrious individuals to rise above the general con- 
 ditions of their age, such efforts have usually but 
 little result. Idolatry was so intimately connected 
 with the modes of thought of the middle ages, it was 
 
 humani similitude). (Deoscili- more idolorum indignantissime 
 
 cet hsec mirabiliter etiam ipsis ferunt) omni genere conterendae 
 
 forsitan nescientibus dispo- et usque ad pulverem sunt era- 
 
 nente) si enim sanctorum dendse ; prsesertim cum non 
 
 imagines hi qui dsemonum cul- illas fieri Dous jusserit, scd 
 
 turn reliquerant venerari jube- humanus sensus exeogitaverit.' 
 
 rentur, puto quod videretur eis p. 243. ' Nee iterum ad sua 
 
 non tarn idola reliquisse quam latibula fraudulenta. recurrat 
 
 simulachra mutasse.' p. 237. astutia, ut dicat se non imagines 
 
 1 ' Qnia si serpentem aeneum sanctorum adorare sed sanctos ; 
 
 quern Deus fieri praecepit, quo- clamat enim Deus, '-Gloriam 
 
 niam errans populus tanquam meam alteri non dabo. nee lau- 
 
 idolum colere coepit, Ezechias dem meam sculptilibus."' pp. 
 
 religiosuf rex, cum magna pie- 254, 2.55. See too the noble 
 
 tatis laudeaontrivit: multo re- concluding passage on the 
 
 ligiosius sanctorum imagines exclusive worship of Christ, 
 
 (ipsis quoque^anctisfaventibus, breathing a spirit of the purest 
 
 qui ob sui honorem cum divinse Protestantism, 
 religionis contemptu eas adorari
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 223 
 
 BO congruous with the prevailing conception of thp 
 government of the universe, and with the materialis- 
 ing habits that were displayed upon all subjects, that 
 no process of direct reasoning could overthrow it, and 
 it was only by a fundamental change in the intel- 
 lectual condition of society that it was at last sub- 
 verted. 
 
 It must, however, be acknowledged that there is 
 one example of a great religion, reigning for the most 
 part over men who had not yet emerged from the 
 twilight of an early civilisation, which has never- 
 theless succeeded in restraining its votaries from 
 idolatry. This phenomenon, which is the preemi- 
 nent glory of Mahometanism, and the most remark- 
 able evidence of the genius of its founder, appears so 
 much at variance with the general laws of historic 
 developement, that it may be well to examine for a 
 moment its causes. In the first place, then, it must 
 be observed that the enthusiasm by which Mahome- 
 tanism conquered the world, was mainly a military 
 enthusiasm. Men were drawn to it at once, and 
 without conditions, by the splendour of the achieve- 
 ments of its disciples, and it declared an absolute war 
 against all the religions it encountered. Its history 
 therefore exhibits nothing of the process of gradual 
 absorption, persuasion, compromise, and assimilation, 
 that was exhibited in the dealings of Christianity 
 with the barbarians. In the next place, one of the 
 great characteristics of the Koran is the extreme care 
 and skill with which it labours to assist men in 
 realising the unseen. Descriptions the most minutely 
 detailed, and at the same time the most vivid, are 
 mingled with powerful appeals to those sensual pas- 
 sions by which the imagination in all countries, but
 
 224 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 especially in those in which Mahometanism has taken 
 root, is most forcibly influenced. In no other re- 
 ligion that prohibits idols is the strain upon the 
 imagination so slight. 1 
 
 In the last place, the prohibition of idols was ex- 
 tended to every representation of men and animals, no 
 matter how completely unconnected they might be 
 with religion. 2 Mahomet perceived very clearly that 
 in order to prevent his disciples from worshipping 
 images, it was absolutely necessary to prevent them 
 from making any ; and he did this by commands 
 which were at once so stringent and so precise, that 
 it was scarcely possible to evade them. In this way 
 he preserved his religion from idolatry ; but he made 
 it the deadly enemy of art. How much art has lost 
 by the antagonism it is impossible to say. Certainly 
 the wonderful proficiency attained by the Spanish 
 
 1 It is quite true, as Sale there was a legend that St. 
 contends, that Mahomet did not John ouce found his own por- 
 introduce polygamy, and there- trait in the house of a Chris- 
 fore that the fact of his permit- tian, that he thought at first it 
 ting it could not have been one was an idol, and, even when 
 of the motives urging Asiatics told its true character, severely 
 to embrace the new religion ; blamed the painter. (Beau- 
 but it is also true that Maho- sobre, Hist, du Manicheisme.) 
 met and his disciples, more A passage in the invective of 
 skilfully than any other re- Tertullian against Hermogenes 
 ligionists, blended sensual pas- has been quoted as to the same 
 eions with religion, associated effect : ' Pingit illicite, ixiliit 
 them with future rewards, and assidue, legemDei in libidinem 
 converted them into stimulants defendit, in artem contemnit, 
 of devotion. bis falsarius et cauterio et 
 
 * Some of the early Chris- Stylo.' Clemens Alexandrinus 
 tians appear to have wished to was of opinion that ladies 
 adopt this course, which would broke the second command- 
 have been the only effectual ment by using looking-glasses, 
 means of repressing idolatry, as they thereby made images 
 In an apocryphal work, called of themselves. Barbeyrac,3/o- 
 The Voyages of St. John, which rale des Peres, c. v. IS. 
 was circulated in the Church,
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 225 
 
 Moors in architecture, which was the only form of 
 art that was open to them, and, above all, the orna- 
 mentation of the Alhambra, and the Alcazar of 
 Seville, in which, while the representations of animal 
 life are carefully excluded, plants and flowers and 
 texts from the Koran and geometrical figures are 
 woven together in a tracery of the most exquisite 
 beauty, 1 seem to imply the possession of aesthetic 
 powers that have seldom been surpassed. 
 
 Mabometanism sacrificed art, but it cannot be said 
 that Christianity during the middle ages was alto- 
 gether favourable to it. The very period when repre- 
 sentations of Christ, or the saints, were regarded as 
 most sacred, was precisely that in which there was 
 no art in the highest sense of the word, or at least 
 none applied to the direct objects of worship. The 
 middle ages occasionally, indeed, produced churches 
 of great beauty ; mosaic work for their adornment 
 was cultivated with considerable zeal ; and in the fifth 
 century, and again, after the establishment in the 
 eleventh century of a school of Greek artists at Monte 
 Cassiuo, with considerable success ; 2 similar skill was 
 
 1 See on this subject a strik- earliest specimen of Christian 
 
 ing passage from Owen Jones, mosaic work is a portrait of 
 
 quoted in Ford's Spain, vol. i. Christ, preserved in the Church 
 
 p. 304. It is remarkable that, of St. Praxede of Rome, which 
 
 while the ornamentation de- St. Peter is said to have worn 
 
 rived from the vegetable world round his neck, and to have 
 
 in the Alhambra is unrivalled given at Rome to Pudens, his 
 
 in beauty, the lions which up- host, the father of St. Praxede. 
 
 port one of the fountains, and The finest specimens of the 
 
 which form, I believe, the mosaics of the fifth and sixth 
 
 solitary instance of a deviation centuries are at Ravenna, es- 
 
 from the command of the Pro- pecially in the church of St. 
 
 phet, might rank with the worst Vitale, which was built by the 
 
 productions of the time of Greeks, who were the great 
 
 Nicolas of Pisa. masters of this art. Ciampini, 
 
 1 According to tradition, the who is the chief authority on 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 shown in gold church ornaments. 1 and in the illumi- 
 nation of manuscripts ; 2 bat the habitual veneration 
 of images, pictures, and talismans was far from giv- 
 ing a general impulse to art. And this fact, which 
 may at first sight appear perplexing, was in truth per- 
 fectly natural. For the aesthetic sentiment and a 
 devotional feeling are so entirely different, that it is 
 impossible for both to be at the same moment pre- 
 
 this subject, thinks (Vctera 
 Monumenta, pars i. (Itomse, 
 1690, p. 84) that the art was 
 wholly forgotten in Rome for 
 the three hundred years pre- 
 ceding the establishment of 
 the Monte Cassino school in 
 1066; but Marangoni assigns 
 a few wretched mosaics to that 
 period (1st. Sanct. pp. 180- 
 182). A descriptive catalogue 
 Df those at Koine has lately 
 been published by Barbet de 
 Jouy, and a singularly inter- 
 esting examination of r their 
 history by M. Vitet (Etudes 
 snr FHistoire de I 'Art, torn. i.). 
 For a general view of the de- 
 cline of art, see the great his- 
 tory of D'Agincourt. 
 
 1 The art of delicate carving 
 on gold and silver was chiefly 
 preserved in the middle ages 
 by the reverence for relics, for 
 which the most beautiful works 
 were designed. Rouen was 
 long famed for its manufacture 
 of church ornaments, but these 
 were plundered, and for the 
 most part destroyed, by the 
 Protestants, when they cap- 
 tured the city in 1562. The 
 luxurious habits of the Italian 
 states were favourable to the 
 goldsmiths, and those of Venice 
 were very celebrated. A large 
 
 proportion of them are said to 
 have been Jews. Francia, Ver- 
 rocchio. Perugino, Donatello, 
 Brunelleschi,andGhiberti were 
 all originally goldsmiths. M. 
 Didron has published a manual 
 of this art. The goldsmiths 
 of Limoges had the honour of 
 producing a saint, St. Eloi, who 
 became the patron of the art, 
 Carved ivory diptychs were 
 also very common through the 
 middle ages, and especially 
 after the eighth century. 
 
 2 Much curious information 
 on the history of illumination 
 and miniature painting is given 
 in Cibrario, Economia Polilica 
 del Media Evo, vol. ii. pp. 
 337-346. Peignot says that 
 from the fifth to the tenth 
 century the miniatures in 
 manuscripts exhibited an ex- 
 tremely high perfection, both 
 in drawing and iu colouring, 
 and that from the tenth to the 
 fourteenth the drawing dete- 
 riorated, but revived with the 
 revival of painting (7ssai sur 
 FHistoire du Parchemin. p. 76). 
 Glass painting and miniatiire 
 painting were both common 
 long before Cimabue, and pro- 
 bably exercised a great influ- 
 ence over the early artists.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 227 
 
 dominating over the mind, and very unusual for both 
 to be concentrated upon the same object. The sen- 
 sation produced by a picture gallery is not that of 
 religious reverence, and the favourite idols have in 
 no religion been those which approve themselves 
 most fully to the taste. 1 They have rather been 
 pictures that are venerable from their extreme an- 
 tiquity, or from the legends attached to them, or else 
 representations of the most coarsely realistic cha- 
 racter. Painted wooden statues the size of life have 
 usually been the favourite idols, but these are so 
 opposed to the genius of true art, that with the ex- 
 ception of Spain, where religious feeling has do- 
 minated over every other consideration, and where 
 three sculptors of very great ability, named Jnni, 
 Hernandez, and Montanes, have devoted themselves 
 to their formation they have scarcely ever exhibited 
 any high artistic merit, and never the very highest. 
 The mere fact, therefore, of pictures or images being 
 destined for worship, is likely to be rather prejudicial 
 than otherwise to art. Besides this, in an idolatrous 
 period the popular reverence speedily attaches to a 
 particular type of countenance, and even to particular 
 gestures or dresses ; and all innovation, and therefore 
 all improvement, is resisted. 
 
 These reasons apply to the art of the middle ages 
 
 1 See on this subject, and As Marangoni says : ' Anzi 
 
 generally on the influence of ella e cosa degna di osserva- 
 
 mediaeval modes of thought zione che 1' Altissimo per ordi- 
 
 upon art, Raoul Eochette, nario opera molto piu prodigi 
 
 Cours (PArcheologie, one of the nelle Immagini sagre nolle 
 
 very best books ever written quali non spicca 1' eccellenza 
 
 on art. (It has been translated dell' arte o alcuna cosa supe- 
 
 by Mr. Westropp.) The his- riore all' umana.' Istoria delta 
 
 tory of miracles strikingly con- Cappdla di Sancta Sanctorum. 
 
 firms the position in the text. p. 77. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 in common with that of all other periods of virtual 
 or avowed idolatry. There was, however, another 
 consideration, acting in the same direction, which 
 was peculiar to Christianity. I mean the low esti- 
 mate of physical beauty that characterised the mo- 
 nastic type of religion. Among the Greeks, beauty 
 of every order * was the highest object of worship. 
 In art especially no subject was tolerated in which 
 deformity of any kind was manifested. Even suffer- 
 ing was habitually idealised. The traces of mental 
 anguish upon the countenance were exhibited with 
 exquisite skill, but they were never permitted so to 
 contort the features as to disturb the prevailing 
 beauty of the whole. 2 The glory of the human body 
 
 1 Even animal beauty. It 
 is one of the most subtle, and, 
 at the same time, most pro- 
 foundly just, criticisms of 
 Winckelmann, that it was the 
 custom of the Greeks to en- 
 hance the perfection of their 
 ideal faces by transfusing into 
 them some of the higher forms 
 of animal beauty. This was 
 especially the case with Jupiter, 
 the upper part of whose coun- 
 tenance is manifestly taken 
 from that of a lion, while the 
 hair is almost always so ar- 
 ranged as to increase the re- 
 semblance. There are many 
 busts of Jupiter, which, if all 
 but the forehead and hair were 
 covered, would be unhesitat- 
 ingly pronounced to be images 
 of lions. Something of the 
 bull appears in like manner in 
 Hercules ; while in Pan (though 
 not so much with a view to 
 beauty as to harmony) the 
 
 human features always ap- 
 proach as near as human 
 features can to the charac- 
 teristics of the brute. As M. 
 Raoul Rochette has well ob- 
 strved, this is one of the great 
 distinctive marks of Greek 
 sculpture. The Egyptians often 
 joined the head of an animal 
 to the body of a man without 
 making any effort to soften the 
 incongruity ; but beauty being 
 the main object of the Greeks, 
 in all their composite statues 
 Pan, Centaurs, hermaphrodites 
 the two natures that are 
 conjoined are fused and blended 
 into one harmonious whole. 
 
 2 See the Laocoon of Lea- 
 sing. It is to this that Lessing 
 ascribes the famous device of 
 Timanthes in his sacrifice of 
 Iphigenia- -drawing the veil 
 over the face of Agamemnon 
 which Pliny so poetically 
 explains.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 229 
 
 was the central conception of art, and nakedness was 
 associated rather with dignity than with shame. 
 God, it was emphatically said, was naked. 1 To re- 
 present an emperor naked, was deemed the highest 
 form of flattery, because it was to represent his 
 apotheosis. The athletic games which occupied so 
 large a place in ancient life, contributed greatly to 
 foster the admiration of physical strength, and to 
 furnish the most admirable models to the sculptors. 2 
 It is easy to perceive how favourable such a state 
 of feeling must have been to the developement of 
 art, and no less easy to see how contrary it was to the 
 spirit of a religion which for many centuries madp 
 the suppression of all bodily passions the central 
 notion of sanctity. In this respect philosophers, 
 heretics, and saints were unanimous. Plotinus, one 
 of the most eminent of the Neo-Platonic philosophers, 
 was so ashamed of the possession of a body, that he 
 refused to have his portrait taken on the ground that 
 it would be to perpetuate his degradation. Gnosti- 
 cism and Manicheism, which in their various modifica- 
 tions obtained a deeper and more permanent hold in 
 the Church than any other heretical systems, main- 
 tained as their cardinal tenet the essential evil of 
 matter ; and some of the Cathari, who were among 
 the latest Gnostics, are said to have even starved 
 themselves to death in their efforts to subdue the 
 propensities of the body. 3 Of the orthodox saints, 
 some made it their especial boast that for many years 
 they had never seen their own bodies, others mutilated 
 
 1 ' Deus nudus eet.' Seneca, also Fortoul, Etudes cFArckeo- 
 
 Ep. xxxi. loffie. 
 
 * Raoul Rochette, Cours * Matter, Hist, du Gnoeti- 
 
 & Archeologie, pp.269. 270. See ds'me, torn. iii. p. 264.
 
 230 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 themselves in order more completely to restrain their 
 passions, others laboured with the same object by 
 Bcourgings and fastings, and horrible penances. All 
 regarded the body as an unmingled evil, its passions 
 and its beauty as the most deadly of temptations. 
 Art, while governed by such sentiments, could not 
 possibly arrive at perfection, 1 and the passion for 
 representations of the Crucifixion, or the deaths of 
 the martyrs, or the sufferings of the lost, impelled it 
 tilill further from the beautiful. 
 
 It appears, then, that, in addition to the generally 
 low intellectual condition of the middle ages, the 
 special form of religious feeling that was then domi- 
 nant, exercised an exceedingly unfavourable influence 
 upon art. This fact becomes very important when we 
 examine the course that was taken by the European 
 mind after the revival of learning. 
 
 Idolatry, as I have said, is the natural form of 
 worship in an early stage of civilisation ; and a gra- 
 dual emancipation from material conceptions one of 
 the most invariable results ,of intellectual progress. 
 It appears therefore natural, that when nations havo 
 attained a certain point, they should discard their 
 images ; and this is what has usually occurred. 
 
 1 The period in which the ing the art of the middle ages, 
 
 ascetic ideal of ugliness was besides the works that have 
 
 most supreme in art was be- come down to us, we have a 
 
 tween the sixth and twelfth good deal of evidence in a book 
 
 centuries. Many of the Roman by a bishop of the thirteenth 
 
 mosaics during that period ex- century, named Durauduis 
 
 hibit a hideousuess which the called Rationale Dii'i-nomm 
 
 inexpertness of the artists was Ojficiornm. A great deal of 
 
 quite insufficient to account for, curious learning on mediaeval 
 
 and which was evidently imi- art is collected by the Abbe 
 
 tated from the emaciation of Pascal in his Institutions de 
 
 extreme asceticism. See Vitet, I' Art chretun ; but, above all, 
 
 tudes sur FRisto'ire de I'Art, in the Iconographie chretienne 
 
 torn. i. pp. 268-279. Concerii- of Didron.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 231 
 
 Twice, however, in the history of the luiman mind, a 
 different course has been adopted. Twice the weak- 
 ening of the anthropomorphic conceptions has been 
 accompanied by an extraordinary progress in the 
 images that were their representatives, and the aesthe- 
 tic feeling having dominated over the religious feel- 
 ing, superstition has faded into art. 
 
 The first of these movements occurred in ancient 
 Greece. The information we possess concerning the 
 {esthetic history of that nation is so ample, that we 
 can trace very clearly the successive phases of its de- 
 velopement. 1 Putting aside those changes that are 
 interesting only in an artistic point of view, and 
 confining ourselves to those which reflect the changes 
 of religious realisation, Greek idolatry may be divided 
 into four distinct stages. The first was a period of 
 fetishism, in which shapeless stones, which were 
 possibly aerolites, and were, at all events, said to 
 have fallen from heaven, were worshipped. In the 
 second, painted wooden idols dressed in real clothes 
 became common. 2 After this, a higher art which 
 was popularly ascribed to Daedalus arose, but, like 
 the Egyptian and later Byzantine art, it was at first 
 strictly religious, and characterised by an intense 
 aversion to innovation. Then came the period in 
 
 1 See an extremely clever the custom of painting those in 
 sketch of the movement in marble and bronze. Heyne, 
 Raoul Rochette, Cours d'Arche- who has devoted a very learned 
 a'ogie ; and Winckelmann, Hist, essay to Greek sculpture, thinks 
 of Art. the statues of Daedalus were in 
 
 2 According to Winckel- -wood (OpusculaAcademica, torn. 
 mann, wooden statues with v. p. 339) ; but this appears 
 marble heads, called a.Kp6\i6oi, very doubtful. Pausanias says 
 continued as late as the time of he saw a statue ascribed to 
 Phidias. From the painted Daedalus which was of stone, 
 wooden statues was derived
 
 232 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 which increasing intellectual culture, and the preva- 
 lence of philosophical speculations, began to tell upon 
 the nation, in which the religious reverence was 
 displaced, and concentrated rather on the philosophi- 
 cal conception of the Deity than upon the idols in the 
 temples, and in which the keen sense of beauty, 
 evoked by a matured civilisation, gave a new tone 
 and aspect to all parts of religion. 1 The images were 
 not then broken, but they were gradually regarded 
 simply as the embodiments of the beautiful. They 
 began to exhibit little or no religious feeling, no spirit 
 of reverence or self-abasement, but a sense of har- 
 mony and gracefulness, a conception of ideal per- 
 fection which has perhaps never been equalled in 
 other lauds. The statue that had once been the 
 object of earnest prayer was viewed with the glance 
 of the artist or the critic. The temple was still full 
 of gods, and those gods had never been so beautiful 
 and so grand ; but they were beautiful only through 
 the skill of the artist, and the devotion that once 
 hallowed them had passed away. All was allegory, 
 poetry, and imagination. Sensual beauty was typi- 
 fied by naked Venus. Unconscious loveliness, and 
 untried or natural chastity, by Diana. Miuerva, 
 with her downcast eyes and somewhat stern features, 
 represented female modesty and self-control. Ceres, 
 with her flowing robes and her golden sheaf, was the 
 type of the genial summer ; or, occasionally with di- 
 shevelled hair, and a countenance still troubled with 
 the thought of Proserpine, was the emblem of mater- 
 nal love. Each cast of beauty after a brief period of 
 unmingled grandeur, even each form, of sensual frailty 
 
 1 According to Pliny (Hist. Myron first departed from the 
 Rat. xxxiv. 19), the sculptor ancient types.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 233 
 
 was transported into the unseen world. Bacchus 
 nurtured by a girl, and with the soft delicate limba 
 of a woman, was the type of a disgraceful effeminacy. 
 Apollo the god of music, and Adonis the lover of 
 Diana, represented that male beauty softened into 
 something of female loveliness by the sense of music 
 or the first chaste love of youth, which the Christian 
 painters long afterwards represented in St. Sebastian 
 or St. John. Hercules was the chosen type of the 
 dignity of labour. Sometimes he appears in the midst 
 of his toils for man, with every nerve strained, and all 
 the signs of intense exertion upon his countenance. 
 Sometimes he appears as a demigod in the Assembly 
 of Olympus, and then his muscles are rounded and 
 subdued, and his colossal frame softened and har- 
 monised as the emblem at once of strength and of 
 repose. In very few instances do we find any con- 
 ceptions that can be regarded as purely religions, 
 and even those are of a somewhat Epicurean charac- 
 ter. Thus Jupiter, Pluto, and Minos are represented 
 with the same cast of countenance, and the difference 
 is chiefly in their expression. The countenance of 
 Pluto is shadowed by the passions of a demon, the 
 brow of Minos is bent with the inexorable sternness 
 of a judge. Jupiter alone presents an aspect of un- 
 clouded calm : no care can darken, and no passion 
 ruffle, the serenity of the king of heaven. 1 
 
 It was in this manner that the Greek mythology 
 passed gradually into the realm of poetry, and that 
 the transition was effected or facilitated by the visible 
 representations that were in the first instance the 
 objects of worship. A somewhat similar change was 
 effected in Christian art at the period of the revival 
 1 See Winckelmann and Ottfried Miiller.
 
 234 EATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 of learning, and as an almost immediate result of the 
 substitution of Italian for Byzantine art. 
 
 There are few more striking contrasts than are 
 comprised in the history of the influence of Grecian 
 intellect upon art. In the early period of her history 
 Greece had arrived at the highest point of aesthetic 
 perfection to which the human intellect has yet at- 
 tained. She bequeathed to us those forms of almo&t 
 passionate beauty which have been the wonder and 
 the delight of all succeeding ages, and which the 
 sculptors of every land have recognised as the ideal 
 of their efforts. At laot, however, the fountain of 
 genius became dry. Not only creative power, but 
 even the very perception and love of the beautiful, 
 seem to have died out, and for many centuries the 
 Greek Church, the Greek empire, and the Greek 
 artists proved the most formidable obstacles to aesthe- 
 tic developement. 1 It was from this quarter that the 
 Iconoclasts issued forth to wage their fierce warfare 
 against Christian sculpture. It was in the Greek 
 Church that was most fostered the tradition of the 
 deformity of Christ, which \vas as fatal to religious 
 art as it was offensive to religious feeling. 2 It was 
 
 1 This influence in well tion, and the commercial rela- 
 noticed by M. Rio, in a book tions of Venice, Pisa, and 
 called The Poetry of the Chris- Genoa, account for the constant 
 tian Art. An exception, how- action of Greece on Italy 
 ever, should be made in favour through the middle ages. I 
 of Greek architects, to whom have already noticed the skill 
 Italy owed its first great eccle- of the Byzantine artists in 
 eiastical structure, the church mosaic work, 
 of St. Vitale at Ravenna 2 Of which Justin Martyr, 
 (which Charlemagne copied at Tertullian, and Cyril of Alex- 
 Aix-la-Chapelle), and at a later andria, were the principal ad- 
 period St. Mark's at Venice, and vocates. The last declared that 
 Beveral other beautiful edifices. Christ had been ' the ugliest of 
 The exile of the Greek artists the sons of men.' This theory 
 during the Iconoclast pereecu- furnished Celsus with onn of
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 235 
 
 in Greece too that arose that essentially vicious, con- 
 ventional, and unprogressive style of painting which 
 was universal in Europe for many centuries, which 
 trammelled even the powerful genius of Cimabue, 
 and which it was reserved for Giotto and Massacio 
 
 his arguments against Chris- 
 tianity. The opposite view 
 was taken by Jerome, Am- 
 brose, Chrysostom, and John 
 Damascene. With a view of 
 supporting the latter opinion, 
 there was forged a singularly 
 beautiful letter, alleged to have 
 been written to the Roman 
 Senate by Lentulus, who was 
 proconsul in Jndsea before 
 Herod, and in which the fol- 
 lowing passage occurs : ' At 
 this time there appeared a 
 man, who is still living a 
 man endowed with wonderful 
 power his name is Jesus 
 Christ. Men say that He is a 
 mighty prophet; but his dis- 
 ciples call Him the Son of God. 
 He calls the dead to life, and 
 frees the sick from every form 
 of disease. He is tall of 
 stature, and his aspect is sweet 
 and full of power, so that they 
 who look upon Him may at 
 once love and fear Him. The 
 hair of his head is of the 
 colour of wine ; as far as the 
 ears it is straight and without 
 glitter, from the ears to the 
 shoulders it is curled and 
 glossy, and from the shoulders 
 it descends over the back, di- 
 vided into two parts after the 
 manner of the Nazarenes. His 
 brow is pure and even; his 
 countenance without a spot, 
 but adorned with a gentle 
 glow ; his expression bland and 
 
 open ; his nose and mouth are 
 of perfect beauty ; his beard is 
 copious, forked, and of the 
 colour of his hair ; his eyus 
 are blue and very bright. In 
 reproving and threatening, He 
 is terrible; in teaching and 
 exhorting, gentle and loving. 
 The grace and majesty of his 
 appearance are marvellous. No 
 one had ever seen Him laugh, 
 but rather weeping. His car- 
 riage is erect ; his hands well 
 formed and straight; his arms 
 of passing beauty. Weighty 
 and grave in speech, He is 
 sparing of words. He is the 
 most beautiful of the sons of 
 men.' Nearly all archaeolo- 
 gists have inferred from the 
 representations of the fourth 
 century that this description 
 was then in existence. Dean 
 Milman, however, nrffues from 
 the silence of St. John Dama- 
 scene, and of the disputants at 
 the Second Council of Nice, 
 that it is of a much later date. 
 See on this whole subject, 
 Emeric David, Hint, de la Pein- 
 ture, pp. 24-26 ; and Didron 
 Iwnographie chretienne, pp. 
 251-276. I may add, that as 
 late as 1649 a curious book 
 (De Forma Christi) was pub- 
 lished on this subject at Paris 
 by a Jesuit, named Vavassor, 
 which represents the contro- 
 versy as still continuing.
 
 236 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 to overthrow. This was the uniform tendency of 
 modern Greece. It was the extreme opposite of that 
 which had once been dominant, and it is a most 
 remarkable fact that it was at last corrected mainly 
 by the masterpieces of Greek antiquity. It is now 
 very generally admitted that the proximate cause of 
 that ever-increasing course of progress which was 
 pursued by Italian art from Cimabue to Raphael, is 
 chiefly to be fouud in the renewed study of ancient 
 sculpture begun by Nicolas of Pisa towards the close 
 of the twelfth century, and afterwards sustained by 
 the discoveries at Rome. 
 
 The Church of Rome, with the sagacity that has 
 usually characterised her, adopted and fostered the 
 first efforts of revived art, and for a time she made it 
 essentially Christian. It is impossible to look upon 
 the pictures of Giotto and his early successors without 
 perceiving that a religious feeling pervades and sanc- 
 tifies them. They exhibit, indeed, a keen sense of 
 beauty ; but this is always subservient to the religions 
 idea ; it is always subdued and chastened and ideal- 
 ised. Nor does this arise simply from the character 
 of the artists. Christian art had, indeed, in the angelic 
 friar of Fiesole, one gaint who may be compared with 
 any in the hagiology. That gentle monk, who was 
 never known to utter a word of anger or of bitterness, 
 who refused without a pang the rich mitre of Florence, 
 who had been seen with tears streaming from his eyes 
 as he painted his crucified Lord, and who never began 
 a picture without consecrating it by a prayer, 7 forms 
 one of the most attractive pictures in the whole range 
 
 1 The same thing is related painterJuannes. Ford'sSpflin, 
 of the Spanish sculptor Her- vol. ii. p. 271. 
 nandez, and of the Spanish
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 237 
 
 of ecclesiastical biography. The limpid purity of his 
 character was reflected in his works, and he trans- 
 mitted to his disciple Gozzoli something of his spirit, 
 with (I venture to think) the full measure of his 
 genius. 
 
 But in this, as on all other occasions, even the 
 higher forms of genius were ultimately regulated by 
 the law of supply and demand. There was a certain 
 religious conception abroad in the world. That con- 
 ception required a visible representation, and the 
 painter appeared to supply the want. The revival of 
 learning had bix>ken upon Europe. The study of the 
 classics had given an impulse to every department of 
 intellect, but it had not yet so altered the condition 
 of society as to shake the old belief. The profound 
 ignorance that reigned until the twelfth century had 
 been indeed dispelled. The grossness of taste, and 
 the incapacity for appreciating true beauty, which 
 accompanied that ignorance, had been corrected ; but 
 the developement of the imagination preceded, as it 
 always does precede, the developement of the reason. 
 Men were entranced with the chaste beauty of Greek 
 literature before they were imbued with the spirit 
 of abstraction, of free criticism, and of elevated philo- 
 sophy, which it breathes. They learned to admire a 
 pure style or a graceful picture before they learned 
 to appreciate a refined creed or an untrammelled philo- 
 sophy. All through Europe, the first effect of the 
 revival of learning was to produce a general efflores- 
 cence of the beautiful. A general discontent with 
 the existing forms of belief was not produced till 
 much later. A material, sensuous, and anthropo- 
 morphic faith was still adapted to the intellectual 
 condition, of the age, and therefore painting was still
 
 238 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 the special organ of religious emotions. All the 
 painters of that period were strictly religious, that 
 is to say, they invariably subordinated considerations 
 of art to considerations of religion. The form of 
 beauty they depicted was always religious beauty, 
 and they never hesitated to disfigure their works 
 with loathsome or painful images if they could in 
 that manner add to their religious effect. 
 
 To these general considerations we should add the 
 important influence of Dante, who may be regarded 
 as the most faithful representative of that brief 
 moment in which the renewed study of the pagan 
 writings served only to ennoble and refine, and not 
 yet to weaken, the conceptions of theology. No 
 other European poet realised so fully the sacred cha- 
 racter antiquity attributed to the bard. In tho 
 great poems of Greece and Rome, human figures 
 occupied the foreground, and even when supernatural 
 machinery was introduced, it served only to enhance 
 the power or evoke the moral grandeur of mortals. 
 Hilton, indeed, soared far beyond the range of earth ; 
 but when he wrote, religious conceptions no longer 
 took the form of palpable and material imagery, and 
 even the grandest representations of spiritual beings 
 under human aspects appeared incongruous and 
 unreal. But the poem of Dante was the last apoca- 
 lypse. It exercised a supreme ascendency over tho 
 imagination at a time when religious imagery was 
 not so much the adjunct as the essence of belief, when 
 the natural impulse of every man was to convert in- 
 tellectual conceptions into palpable forms, and when 
 painting was in the strictest sense the normal expres- 
 sion of faith. Scarcely any other single influence 
 contributed so much, by purifying and feeding the
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 239 
 
 imagination, to give Christian art a grandeur and a 
 religious perfection, and at the same time a sombre 
 and appalling aspect. ' Dipped in the gloom of earth- 
 quake and eclipse,' the pencil of the great poet loved 
 to accumulate images of terror and of suffering, 
 which speedily passed into the works of the artists, 
 enthralled and fascinated the imaginations of the 
 people, and completed a transformation that had 
 long been in progress. At first, after the period of 
 the Catacombs, the painters expatiated for the most 
 part upon scenes drawn from the Book of Revelation, 
 but usually selected in such a manner as to inspire 
 any sentiment rather than terror. The lamb, which, 
 having been for some centuries the favourite symbol 
 of Christ, was at last condemned by a council in 
 692, ' the mystic roll with its seven seals, the New 
 Jerusalem with its jewelled battlements, or Bethlehem 
 transfigured in its image, constantly recurred. But 
 many circumstances, of which the panic produced 
 by the belief that the world must end with the 
 tenth century, and the increased influence of as- 
 ceticism arising from the permission accorded to 
 the monks of establishing their communities in 
 
 1 The object of this council mer ascendency in art : but 
 
 (which was held at Constant!- after Constantino they for 
 
 nople, and is known under the nearly three centuries h;td su- 
 
 title ' In Trullo') was to repress perseded every other symbol. 
 
 the love of allegory that was (Bio Art chreticn, Intro, p. 49.) 
 
 general; and a very learned Ciampiui says that the council 
 
 historian of art thinks that it which condemned them was a 
 
 first produced pictures of the pseudo-council not sanctioned 
 
 Crucifixion. (Emeric David, by the Pope. ( Tetera Monu- 
 
 Hist. dcla Peinfure, pp. 59-61.) menta, pars i. p. 28. See, too, 
 
 Its decree was after wards either Marangoni, Jstoria del/a Cap- 
 
 withdrawn or neglected, for pella di Sancta Sanctorum, p, 
 
 lambs soon reappeared, though 159.) 
 they never regained their for-
 
 240 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 the cities, 1 were probably the chief, contributed to 
 effect a profound change. The churches, in their 
 ornaments, in their general aspect, and even in their 
 forms, 2 became the images of death, and painting 
 was tending rapidly in the same direction, when the 
 Inferno of Dante opened a new abyss of terrors to the 
 imaginations of the artists, and became the representa- 
 tive, and in a measure the source, of an art that was 
 at once singularly beautiful, purely religious, and 
 deeply imbued with terrorism and with asceticism. 
 
 These were the characteristics of the first period 
 of revived art, and they harmonised well with the 
 intellectual condition of the day. After a time, 
 however, the renewed energies of the European mind 
 began to produce effects that were far more im- 
 portan b. A spirit of unshackled criticism, a capacity 
 for refined abstractions, a dislike to materialism in 
 faith, and to asceticism in practice, a disposition to 
 treat with unceremonious ridicule imposture and 
 ignorance in high places, an impatience of the count- 
 less ceremonies and trivial superstitions that were 
 universal, and a growing sense of human dignity, 
 were manifested on all sides, and they adumbrated 
 clearly a coming change. The movement was shown 
 in the whole tone of literature, and in the repeated 
 
 1 At first they were strictly * That is, by the introduc- 
 forbidden to remain in the tion of the cross, which was the 
 towns. Even the priest-ridden first innovation on the old ba- 
 Theodosius made a law (which silica architecture, and in many 
 however he afterwards revoked) of the churches by a slight in- 
 commanding all who had em- clination of the extremity from 
 braced the profession of monks the straight line, it is said, to 
 to betake themselves to ' vast represent, the verse, ' Jesus 
 solitudes ' and ' desert j laces.' bowed his head and gave up the 
 (Cod. Theod. lib. xvi tit. 3, ghost.' 
 
 0.1.)
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 241 
 
 and passionate efforts to attain a more spiritual creed 
 that were made by the precursors of the Reformation. 
 It was shown at least as forcibly in the rapid corrup- 
 tion of every organ of the old religion. They no 
 longer could attract religious fervour ; and as their 
 life was gone, they degenerated and decayed. The 
 monasteries, once the scenes of the most marvellous 
 displays of ascetic piety, became the seats of revelry, 
 of licentiousness, and of avarice. The sacred relics, 
 and the miraculous images that had so long thrilled 
 the hearts of multitudes, were made a source of 
 unholy traffic, or of unblushing imposition. The 
 indulgences, which were intended to assuage the 
 agonies of a despairing conscience, or to lend an 
 additional charm to the devotions of the pious, be- 
 came a substitute for all real religion. The Papal See 
 itself was stained with the most degrading vice, and 
 the Vatican exhibited the spectacle of a pagan court 
 without the redeeming virtue of pagan sincerity. 
 Wherever the eye was turned, it encountered the 
 signs of disorganisation, of corruption, and of decay. 
 For the long night of medievalism was now drawing 
 to a close, and the chaos that precedes resurrection 
 was supreme. The spirit of ancient Greece had 
 arisen from the tomb, and the fabric of superstition 
 crumbled and tottered at her touch. The human 
 mind, starting beneath her influence from the dust 
 of ages, cast aside the bonds that had enchained it, 
 and, radiant in the light of recovered liberty, re- 
 moulded the structure of its faith. The love of 
 truth, the passion for freedom, the sense of human 
 dignity, which the great thinkers of antiquity had 
 inspired, vivified a torpid and down-trodden people, 
 blended with those Bublime moral doctrines and 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 with those conceptions of enlarged benevolence 
 which are at once the glory and the essence of 
 Christianity, introduced a new era of human pro- 
 gress, with new aspirations, habits of thought, and 
 conditions of vitality, and, withdrawing religious life 
 from the shattered edifices of the past, created a 
 purer faith, and became the promise of an eternal 
 developement. 
 
 This was the tendency of the human intellect, and 
 it was faithfully reflected in the history of art. As 
 the old Catholic modes of thought began to fade, the 
 religious idea disappeared from the paintings, and 
 they became purely secular, if not sensual, in their 
 tone. Religion, which was once the mistress, was 
 now the servant, of art. Formerly the painter em- 
 ployed his skill simply in embellishing and enhancing 
 a religious idea. He now employed a religious 
 subject as the pretext for the exhibition of mere 
 worldly beauty. He commonly painted his mistress 
 us the Virgin. He arrayed her in the richest attire, 
 and surrounded her with all the circumstances of 
 splendour. He crowded his pictures with nude 
 figures, with countenances of sensual loveliness, with 
 every form and attitude that could act upon the 
 passions, and not unfrequently with images drawn 
 from the pagan mythology. The creation of beauty 
 became the single object of his art. His work was 
 a secular work, to be judged by a secular standard. 
 
 There can be no doubt that this secularisation of 
 art was due to the general tone of thought that had 
 been produced in Europe. The artist seeks to re- 
 present the conceptions of his time, and his popu- 
 larity is the proof of his success. In an age in which 
 strong religious belief was general, and in which it
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 243 
 
 turned to painting as to the natural organ of its ex- 
 pression, such a style would have been impossible. 
 The profanity of the painter would have excited uni- 
 versal execration, and all the genius of Titian or 
 Michael Angelo would have been unable to save 
 their works from condemnation. The style became 
 popular, because educated men ceased to look for 
 religion in pictures ; or in other words, because the 
 habits of thought that made them demand material 
 representations of the objects of their belief had 
 declined. 
 
 This was the ultimate cause of the entire move- 
 ment. There were, however, two minor causes of 
 great importance, which contributed largely to the 
 altered tone of art, while they at the same time 
 immeasurably increased its perfection one of them 
 relating especially to colour, and the other to form. 
 
 The first of these causes is to be found in the 
 moral condition of Italian society. The age was 
 that of Bianca di Cappello, and of the Borgias. All 
 Italian literature and a 1 ! Italian manners were of the 
 laxest character, and the fact was neither concealed 
 nor deplored. But that which especially distinguished 
 Italian immorality is, that growing up in the midst 
 of all the forms of loveliness, it assumed from the 
 first an esthetic character, united with the most 
 passionate and yet refined sense of the beautiful, and 
 made art the special vehicle of its expression. This 
 is one of the peculiar characteristics of later Italian 
 painting, 1 and it is one of the chief causes of its 
 
 1 German pictures are often der Werff is ivory as painted 
 indecent, but never sensual, by Titian or Correggio, it is 
 It is all the difference between life. Spanish art tried much 
 Swift and Don Juan. The to be religious and respectable ; 
 nude figure as painted b.y Van and, like the Vergognosa at 
 B 2 .
 
 244 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 artistic perfection. For sensuality has always been 
 extremely favourable to painting, 1 the main object 
 of the artist being to exhibit to the highest possible 
 degree the beauty and the attractive power of the 
 human body. Twice in the history of art national 
 sensuality has thrown itself into national art, and in 
 each case with the same result. The first occasion 
 was in ancient Greece, at the time when Apelles 
 derived a new inspiration from the voluptuous love- 
 liness of Lais, and when the goddess of beauty, 
 glowing with the fresh charms of Phryne or Theo- 
 
 Pisa, put her hands before her 
 eyes iu the midst of the wicked- 
 ness that surrounded her. But 
 I am afraid she sometimes 
 looked through her lingers. 
 This aspect of Italian art has 
 been most vividly exhibited in 
 the writings of Stendhal (H. 
 Beyle). 
 
 1 It is perhaps true, as mo- 
 dern critics say, that the transi- 
 tion of Greek art from Phidias 
 to Praxiteles was a decline. It 
 is certainly true that that 
 transition was from the repre- 
 sentation of manly strength, 
 and the form of beauty that is 
 most allied to it, to the repre- 
 sentation of beauty of a sen- 
 sual cast from an art of which 
 Minerva was the central figure, 
 to an art of which Venus was 
 the type or (as the German 
 critics say) from the ascendency 
 of the Doric to the ascendency 
 of the Ionic element. But this 
 decadence, if it really took 
 place, is not, I think, incon- 
 sistent with what I have stated 
 in the text ; for sculpture and 
 painting hare each their special 
 
 perfections, and the success of 
 the artist will in a great degree 
 depend upon his appreciation 
 of the peculiar genius of the art 
 he pursues. Now sculpture is 
 as far superior to painting iu 
 its capacity for expressing 
 strength and masculine beauty, 
 as painting is superior to sculp- 
 ture in expressing warmth and 
 passionate beauty. All the 
 efforts of a Grecian chisel 
 never equalled the voluptuous 
 power of the brush of Titian ; 
 and, on the other hand, paint- 
 ing has tried in vain to rival 
 the majesty and the force of 
 sculpture. If there be an ex- 
 ception to this last proposition, 
 it is one which proves the rule, 
 for it is furnished by Michael 
 Angelo, the greatest modern 
 sculptor, in the most sculpture- 
 like frescoes in the world. It 
 should be added, however, that 
 landscape painting is in no 
 sense the creature of sensuality, 
 and Mr. Ruskin has with soiao 
 force claimed it as a special 
 fruit of Christianity.
 
 DEVELOPEMEXTS OF RATIONALISM. 245 
 
 dota, kindled a transport of no religious fervour in 
 the Athenian mind. The second occasion was in the 
 Italian art of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The rapid progress of a sensual tone in most of the 
 schools of Italian art is a fact which is too manifest 
 to be questioned or overlooked ; but there is one 
 school which maybe regarded especially as its source 
 and representative. This school was that of the 
 Venetian painters, and it reflected very visibly the 
 character of its cradle. Never perhaps was any other 
 city so plainly formed to be the home at once of 
 passion and of art. Sleeping like Venus of old upon 
 her parent wave, Venice, at least in the period of her 
 glory, comprised Avithin herself all the influences 
 that could raise to the highest point the aesthetic 
 sentiment, and all that could lull the moral sentiment 
 to repose. Wherever the eye was turned, it was 
 met by forms of strange and varied and entrancing 
 beauty, while every sound that broke upon the ear 
 was mellowed by the waters that were below. The 
 thousand lights that glittered around the gilded 
 domes of St. Mark, the palaces of matchless archi- 
 tecture resting on their own soft shadows in the 
 wave, the long paths of murmuring water, where 
 the gondola sways to the lover's song, and where 
 dark eyes lustrous with passion gleam from the 
 overhanging balconies, the harmony of blending 
 beauties, and the languid and voluptuous charm that 
 pervades the whole, had all told deeply and fatally 
 on the character of the people. At every period of 
 their history, but never more so than in 'the great 
 period of Venetian art, they had been distinguished 
 at once for their intenae appreciation of beauty 
 and for their universal, unbridled, and undisguised
 
 246 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 licentiousness. 1 In the midst of such a society it was 
 very natural that a great school of sensual art should 
 arise, and many circumstances conspired in the same 
 direction. Venice was so far removed from the dis- 
 coveries of the ancient statues, that it was never 
 influenced by what may be termed the learned school 
 of art, which eventually sacrificed all sense of beauty 
 to anatomical studies ; at the same time, the simul- 
 taneous appearance of a constellation of artists of the 
 very highest order, the luxurious habits that provided 
 these artists with abundant patrons, the discovery of 
 oil painting, 2 which attained its highest perfection 
 under the skill of the Venetian colourists, perhaps 
 even the rich merchandise of the East, accustoming 
 the eye to the most gorgeous hues, 3 had all in different 
 ways their favourable influence upon art. The study 
 of the nude figure, which had been the mainspring 
 of Greek art, and which Christianity had so long 
 
 1 On the amazing vice of they began t,o pour into France, 
 Venice, and on the violent but the ornamentation, and es- 
 unsuccessful efforts of the ma- pecially the tracery, of the 
 gistrates to arrest it, see much windows of many of the French 
 curious evidence in Sabatier, cathedrals are said to have 
 Hist, de la Legislation sur les been copied accurately from 
 Femmes publiques (Paris, 1828). these patterns. See a very cu- 
 
 2 It is generally said to have rious essay on painted glnss by 
 been invented in the beginning Thevenot (Paris, 1837). I may 
 of the fifteenth century by Van add that, at the time of Augus- 
 Eyck, who died in 1440; but tus, the importation of Indian 
 the claim of Van Eyck is not dresses had told powerfully on 
 undisputed. It was introduced Roman art, producing the 
 into Italy about 1452 by a paintings known as arabesque, 
 Sicilian painter named Anto- and (as Vitruvius complains) 
 nello. (Rio, Art chretien, torn, diverting the artists from the 
 i. p. 354.) study of the Greek model. In 
 
 * At an earlier period, orien- the middle ages both Venice 
 
 tal robes exercised an influence and Florence were famous for 
 
 of a different kind upon art. their dyers. 
 In the thirteenth century, when
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 247 
 
 suppressed, rose again, and a school of painting was 
 formed, which for subtle sensuality of colouring had 
 never been equalled, and, except Toy Correggio, has 
 scarcely been approached. Titian ii) this as in other 
 respects was the leader of the school, and he bears to 
 modern much the same relation as Praxiteles bears to 
 ancient art. Both the sculptor and the painter pre- 
 cipitated art into sensuality, both of them destroyed 
 its religious character, both of them raised it to high 
 aesthetic perfection, but in both cases that perfection 
 was followed by a speedy decline. 1 Even in Venice 
 there was one great representative of the early 
 religious school, but his influence was unable to stay 
 the stream. The Virgin of Bellini was soon ex- 
 changed for the Virgin of Titian the ideal of female 
 piety for the ideal of female beauty. 
 
 A second influence which contributed to the secu- 
 larisation, and at the same time to the perfection, of 
 art, was the discovery of many of the great works 
 of pagan sculpture. The complete disappearance of 
 these during the preceding centuries may be easily 
 explained by the religious and intellectual changes 
 that had either accompanied or speedily followed the 
 triumph of Christianity. The priests, and especially 
 the monks, being firmly convinced that pagan idols 
 
 1 Praxiteles is said to have death, was absolved on ac- 
 definitively given the character count of her exceeding loveli- 
 of sensuality to Venus, who had ness was his mistress. Hi9 
 previously floated between contemporary Polycles greatly 
 several ideals of beauty, and strengthened the sensual move- 
 also to have been the especial mer.t by introducing into art 
 author of the effeminate type the hermaphrodite. See Rio, 
 of Apollo. Phryne, who was Art chritlcn, Introd. pp. 17-21; 
 then the great model of vo- 0. Miiller, Manuel dArchto- 
 luptuoiis beauty she who, logic, torn. i. pp. 156-157. 
 having been condemned to
 
 248 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 were all tenanted by demons, for some time made it 
 one of their principal objects to break them in pieces, 
 and cupidity proved scarcely less destructive than 
 fanaticism. Among the ancient Greeks, as is well 
 known, marble had never obtained the same ascend- 
 ency in sculpture as among ourselves. Great num- 
 bers of statues were made of bronze, and a large 
 proportion of the master-pieces of the most illustrious 
 artists were of ivory or of gold. No features are 
 more wonderful iu the history of the Greek slates 
 than the immense sums they consented to withdraw 
 from all other objects, to expend upon the cultiva- 
 tion of beauty, and the religious care with which 
 these precious objects were preserved unharmed amid 
 all the .vicissitudes of national fortune, amid war, 
 rebellion, and conquest. This preservation was in 
 part due to the intense aesthetic feeling that was so 
 general in antiquity, but in part also to the catho- 
 licity of spirit that usually accompanied polytheism, 
 which made men regard with reverence the objects 
 and ceremonies even of worships that were not their 
 own, and which was especially manifested by the 
 Romans, who in all their conquests respected the 
 temples of the vanquished as representing under 
 many forms the aspiration of man to his Creator. 
 Both of these sentiments were blotted out by Chris- 
 tianity. For about 1,500 years the conception that 
 there could be anything deserving of reverence or 
 respect, or even of tolerance, in the religions that 
 were external to the Church, was absolutely unknown 
 in Christendom, and at the same time the ascetic 
 theories I have noticed destroyed all perception of 
 beauty, or at least of that type of beauty which 
 sculpture represented. The bronze statues were con-
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 249 
 
 verted into coinage, the precious metals were plun- 
 dered, 1 the marble was turned into lime, mutilated or 
 forgotten. When Christianity-arose, the colossal statue 
 of Jupiter, in gold and ivory, which was deemed the 
 masterpiece of Phidias, and the greatest of all the 
 achievements of art, still existed at Olympia. Our 
 last notice of it is during the reign of Julian. At 
 Rome, the invasion of the barbarians, the absolute 
 decadence of taste that followed their ascendency, and 
 those great conflagrations which more than once re- 
 duced vast districts to ruin, completed the destruction 
 of the old traditions, while most of the statues that 
 had been transported to Constantinople, and had 
 survived the fury of the monks, were destroyed by 
 the Iconoclasts, the Crusaders, or the Mahometans. 
 
 Towards the close of the twelfth century, as we 
 have already seen, Nicolas of Pisa for the first time 
 broke the slumber of mediaeval art by the skill he 
 had derived from the works of antiquity. There 
 was then, however, no ancient mcdel of the highest 
 class known, and the principal subject of his 
 study is said to have been a pagan sarcophagus 
 of third or fourth rate merit, which had been em- 
 ployed for the burial of the mother of the famous 
 Countess Matilda, and which was then in the Ca- 
 thedral, and is now in the Campo Santo, of Pisa. 
 Giotto, Massacio, and their contemporaries, all pur- 
 sued their triumphs without the assistance of any 
 great ancient model. Poggio, who wrote at the 
 beginning of the fifteenth- century, was only able to 
 enumerate six statues within the walls of Rome. 
 Rienzi and Petrarch gave some slight impulse to 
 
 1 Constantine himself set the admiring remarks of Eusebiup, 
 example in this respect. See the Vita Const, lib. iii. caps. 5, 6.
 
 250 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 archaeological collections, and during the latter half 
 of the fifteenth century the exertions of the Medici, 
 and of a long series of popes, sustained by the passion- 
 ate admiration for antiquity that followed the revival 
 of learning, produced vast works of excavation, which 
 were rewarded by the discovery of numerous statues. 1 
 Art immediately rose to an unparalleled perfection, 
 and an unbounded and almost universal enthusiasm 
 was created. Paul II. indeed, in 1468, directed a 
 fierce persecution against the artists at Rome, 2 but 
 as a general rule his successors were warm patrons of 
 art, and Julius II. and Leo X. may even be regarded 
 as the most munificent of their munificent age. All 
 the artists of Borne and Florence made the remains 
 of pagan antiquity their models. Michael Angelo 
 himself proclaimed the Torso Belvedere his true 
 master. 3 The distinctive type and tone of Christi- 
 anity was thus almost banished from art, and replaced 
 by the types of paganism. 
 
 Such was the movement which was general in 
 Italian art, but it did not pass unchallenged, and it 
 was retarded by one most remarkable reaction. Un- 
 der the very palace of the Medici, and in the midst of 
 the noblest collections of pagan art, a great preacher 
 arose who perceived clearly the dangerous tendency, 
 
 1 When this impulse had gularly unfortunate in catching 
 ceased in Italy, it was still in the moral expression of Sorip- 
 Bome degree continued by the ture subjects. His Moses 
 explorations of the French in half prize-fighter, half Jupiter 
 Greece, where a French consu- Tonans is certainly the ex- 
 late was formed about 1630. treme antithesis to 'the meek- 
 See Vitet, fitudes sur VHistoire est man in all the world.' His co- 
 de FArt, torn. i. p. 94. lossal statue of David after his 
 
 2 See the description in victory over Goliath (it would 
 Plntina. be as rational to make a co- 
 
 * And was accordingly in losfal statue of a Lilliputian) 
 sculpture (as in painting) sin- would be perfect as an Achilles.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 251 
 
 and who employed the full force of a transcendent 
 genius fco arrest it. The influence of Savonarola upon 
 painting has been so lately and so fully described by 
 an able living historian of art, 1 that it is not necessary 
 to dwell upon it at length. It is sufficient to say^that 
 during the last few years of the fifteenth century a 
 complete religious revival took place in Tuscany, and 
 thak Savonarola, who was much more than a brilliant 
 orator, perceived very clearly that in order to make it 
 permanent it was necessary to ally it with the tenden- 
 cies of the age. He accordingly, like all successful 
 religious revivalists of ancient and modern times, 
 proceeded to identify religion with liberty and with 
 democracy, by his denunciations of the tyranny of the 
 Medici and by the creation of great lending societies, 
 for the purpose of checking the oppressive usury that 
 had become general. He endeavoured to secure the 
 ascendency of his opinions over the coming genera- 
 tion by guiding the education of the children, and by 
 making them the special objects of his preaching. 
 He attempted above all to purify the very soui-ces of 
 Italian life, by regenerating the sacred music, and 
 by restoring painting to its pristine purity. Week 
 after week ho launched from the pulpit the most 
 scathing invectives against the artists who had 
 painted prostitutes in the character of the Virgin, 
 who under the pretext of religious art had pandered 
 to the licentiousness of their age, and who had entirely 
 forgotten their dignity as the teachers of mankind. 
 As these invectives were not inspired by the fanati- 
 cism of the old Iconoclasts, but proceeded from one 
 who possessed to the highest degree the Tuscan per- 
 ception of the beautiful, they produced an impression 
 1 Rio I think the best part of his book.
 
 252 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 that was altogether unparalleled. Almost all the 
 leading painters of Italy were collected at Florence, 
 and almost all, under the influence of Savonarola, 
 attempted to revive the religious character of art. 
 The change was immediately exhibited in the paint- 
 ing of Italy, and the impression Savonarola made 
 upon the artists was shown by the conduct of many 
 of them when the great reformer had perished in the 
 flames. Botticelli cast aside his pencil for ever. 
 Baccio della Porta 1 retired broken-hearted into a 
 monastery. Perugino (perhaps the greatest of all 
 the purely religious painters of Catholicism) glided 
 rapidly into scepticism, and on his death-bed refused 
 disdainfully the assistance of a confessor. Raphael, 
 who had derived all the religious sentiment of his 
 early paintings from Perugino, was the first to vindi- 
 cate the orthodoxy of Savonarola by inserting his 
 portrait among those of the doctors of the Church, 
 in the fresco of the Dispute of the Sacrament. 
 
 After the death of Savonarola the secularisation of 
 art was portentously rapid. Even Raphael, who ex- 
 hibits the tendency less than his contemporaries, 
 never shrank from destroying the religious character 
 of his later works by the introduction of incongruous 
 images. Michael Angelo, that great worshipper of 
 physical force, probably represented the influence to 
 the highest degree. Austere, pure, and majestic as 
 he undoubtedly was, no great artist was ever more 
 destitute of the peculiar tenderness of Christian sen- 
 timent, and it was also reserved for him to destroy 
 the most fearful of all the conceptions by which the 
 early painters had thrilled the people. By making 
 the last Judgment a study of naked figures, by the 
 introduction of Charon and his boat, and by the 
 
 1 Better known as Fra BartolomeOi
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 253 
 
 essentially pagan character of his Christ, he most 
 effectually destroyed all sense of the reality of the 
 scene, and reduced it to the province of artistic criti- 
 cism. This fresco may be regarded as the culmina- 
 tion of the movement. There were of course at a> 
 later period some great pictures, and even some 
 religious painters, but painting never again assumed 
 its -old position as the normal and habitual expression 
 of the religious sentiments of the educated. In the 
 first period of medijevali'sm it had been exclusively 
 religious, and aesthetic considerations were almost 
 forgotten. In the second period the two elements 
 coexisted. In the last period the religious senti- 
 ment disappeared, and the conception of beauty 
 reigned alone. Art had then completed its cycle. 
 It never afterwards assumed a prominent or com- 
 manding influence over the minds of men. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that a transition very 
 similar to that we have traced in painting took place 
 about the same time in architecture. The architect, 
 it is true, does not supply actual objects of worship, 
 and in this respect his art is less closely connected 
 than that of the painter with the history of anthropo- 
 morphism ; but on the other hand the period in which 
 men require a visible material object of worship, is 
 also that in which their religious tone and sentiment 
 are most dependent upon imposing sensuous displays. 
 Christianity has created three things which religious 
 poetry has ever recognised as the special types and 
 expressions of its religious sentiment. These are the 
 church bell, the organ, and the Gothic cathedral. The 
 first is said to have been invented by Paulinus, a 
 bishop of Nola in Campania, about the year 400. * 
 
 1 Anderson, Hist, of Com- a very curious collection of 
 merce, vol. ii. p. 36. There is passages from the Acts of the
 
 254 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 The second appears to have been first used in the 
 Greek Church, and to have passed into the Western 
 Empire in the seventh or eighth century. 1 The third 
 arose under the revived sense of beauty of the twelfth 
 century, and preceded by a little the resurrection of 
 painting. The new pictures and the new churches 
 were both the occasions of ebullitions of the most pas- 
 sionate devotion. When Cimabue painted one of his 
 famous Virgins, the people of Florence gathered 
 around it as to a religious festival, they transported it 
 with prayers and thanksgivings to the Church, and 
 filled the streets with hymns of joy, because a 
 higher realisation of a religious conception had flashed 
 upon them. Just so those majestic cathedrals that 
 arose almost simultaneously throughout Europe be- 
 came at once the channel of the enthusiasm of Chris- 
 tendom ; the noblest efforts of self-sacrifice were made 
 to erect them, and they were universally regarded as 
 the purest expression of the religious feeling of the 
 age. That this estimate was correct, that no other 
 buildings the world has seen are so admirably cal- 
 culated to produce a sensation of blended awe and 
 tranquillity, to harmonise or assuage the qualms of 
 
 Saints, in -which bells are seems to have been almost 
 
 alluded to (but none of them exactly the same as a Scotch 
 
 apparently earlier than the be- bagpipe. I am sorry to say 
 
 ginning of the seventh century) Julian had the bad taste to 
 
 in an out-of-the-way quarter, praise it in one of his epigrams. 
 
 (Suarez, De Fide, lib. ii c. 16.) (See Burney, Hist, of Mueic, 
 
 See, too, Colgan's Acta Sancto- vol. ii. pp. 65-67.) There is a 
 
 rum Hibernia, torn. i. p. 149. curious series of papers on the 
 
 1 Anderson, vol. i. p. 30. musical instruments in the 
 
 Tliere had before been known middle ages, by Coussemaker, 
 
 a water organ, called an hy- in the Annales archeologiquea 
 
 draulicon. There was also a (edited by Didron), torn. iv. 
 
 wind instrument which pome They have since, I believe, been 
 
 have placed among the antece- published separately, 
 dents of 'he organ, but which
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 255 
 
 passion, to lull to sleep the rebellious energies of the 
 intellect, to create around the mind an artificial, un- 
 worldly, but most impressive atmosphere, to repre- 
 sent a Church which acts upon the imagination by 
 obscurity and terrorism, and by images of solemn and 
 entrancing beauty, will be admitted by all who have 
 any perception of the character, or any knowledge of 
 the history of art. Whenever these modes of feeling 
 have been very general, Gothic architecture has been 
 the object of rapturous admiration. Whenever these 
 modes of feeling were very rare, Gothic architecture 
 has sunk into neglect and disfavour. 1 
 
 1 Wo have a very striking 
 example of this in both the 
 buildings and the criticisms of 
 the eighteenth century. What 
 (e.g.) should we now say to an 
 imaginative writer who, speak- 
 ing of York Minster, assured 
 us, as Smollett does, ' that the 
 external appearance of an old 
 cathedral cannot but be dis- 
 pleasing to the eye of every 
 man who has any idea of pro- 
 priety and proportion ; ' who 
 could only describe Durham. 
 Cathedral as ' a huge gloomy 
 pile ; ' and who acknowledged 
 that he associated the idea of a 
 church with a spire especially 
 with that of a man impaled (see 
 Humphrey Clinker) ? Thus too 
 Hutcheson, in one of the ablest. 
 English works on the philoso- 
 phy of the beautiful, applies 
 himself elaborately to proving 
 that the ancient preference of 
 Gothic to Roman architecture 
 is not inconsistent with the uni- 
 versality of the sense of beauty, 
 but is only an aberration 
 caused by historical associa- 
 
 tions. ' Education may make 
 an inattentive Goth imagine 
 that his countrymen have at- 
 tained the perrection of archi- 
 tecture, and an aversion to their 
 enemies the Romans may have 
 joined some disagreeable ideas 
 to their very buildings and ex- 
 cited them to their demolition.' 
 (An Enquiry concerning Beauty, 
 sees. vi. vii.) Everyone, I 
 should think, who was well 
 acquainted with the literature 
 of the eighteenth century, must 
 have been struck with the con- 
 tempt for Gothic architecture 
 pervading it; but the extent to 
 which this was carried was 
 never fully shown till the publi- 
 cation, a few years ago, of an 
 exceedingly curious book by the 
 Abbe Corblet, called L" Archi- 
 tecture du Moyen Agejugeepar 
 les ecrivains des deux demurs 
 Siecles (Paris, 1859). This 
 learned antiquary has shown 
 that, during the last half of the 
 seventeenth century, and du- 
 ring the whole of the eighteenth 
 century, there was scarcely a
 
 256 
 
 RATIONALISM IX EUROPE. 
 
 I do not intend to follow at length the vicissitudes 
 of architecture, or to trace the successive phases of 
 its secularisation. It is sufficient to observe, that 
 about the time when the dense ignorance that had 
 overspread Europe was dispelled, there arose a form 
 of architecture which was exclusively and emphati- 
 cally Christian, which has been universally admitted 
 to be beyond all others the most accordant witli the 
 spirit of mediaeval religion, and in which the highest 
 sense of beauty was subordinated to the religious 
 sentiment. At the time when the moral and intellec- 
 tual chaos that preceded the Reformation was uni- 
 versal, and when painting had been secularised and 
 had passed entirely into the worship of beauty, archi- 
 tecture exhibited a corresponding decadence. The 
 old Gothic style was everywhere discarded, and it was 
 
 single writer, no matter what tation of Greek architecture, 
 may have been his religious Many of the criticisms were 
 opinions, who did not speak of very curious. Thus, Dupuis 
 Gothic architecture not merely 
 without appreciation, but with 
 
 the most supreme and unquali- 
 
 thought the zodiacs on the 
 cathedrals were a remnant of 
 the worship of Mithra. Another 
 
 fied contempt. The list in- critic found a connection be- 
 cludes, among others, Fenelon, tween the shape of the ogive 
 Bossuet, Moliere, Fleury, Rol- and the eggs of Isis. A third, 
 lin, Montesquieu, La Bruyere, named Montluisant, explained 
 Helvetius, Rousseau, Mengs, all the sculptures on the front 
 and Voltaire. Goethe at one of Notre Dame de Paris by the 
 time opposed, but afterwards science of the philosopher's 
 yielded to, the stream. Milan stone : God the Father, holding 
 Cathedral was the special ob- an angel in each hand, is the 
 ject of ridicule. Gothic archi- Deity, calling into existence 
 tecture was then almost uni- the incombustible sulphur and 
 versallv ascribed to the Goths the mercury of life. The flying 
 
 dragon biting its tail is the 
 philosopher's stone, composed 
 of the fixed and the volatile 
 
 of the fifth century, and Bishop 
 Warburton suggested that they 
 had derived the idea from the 
 overarching boughs of their 
 native forests. Some, however, 
 and among others Barry, re- 
 
 substances, the former of which 
 devours the latter, &c. &c. 
 (OEuvres de St.-Foix, torn. iii. 
 
 garded it as an imperfect imi- pp. 245, 246.) It is to the
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 257 
 
 supplanted under tho influence of Brunelleschi ! by a 
 style wliicli some persons may deem more beautiful, 
 but which is universally admitted to be entirely 
 devoid of a religious character. The gorgeous, gay, 
 and beautifully proportioned edifices that then rose 
 to fashion were, in fact, avowedly formed from the 
 modL'l of the great temples of antiquity, and the 
 beauty to which they aspired was purely classic. 
 Cologne Cathedral, the last of the great mediaeval 
 works, remained unfinished while the whole energies 
 of Europe were concentrated upon the church of St. 
 Peter at Rome. The design of this great work was 
 confided to Michael Angelo, who had been the chief 
 agent in the secularisation of painting, and the spirit 
 in which he undertook it was clearly expressed in his 
 famous exclamation, that he would suspend the Pan- 
 theon in the air. 
 
 Of all the edifices that have been raised by the 
 hand of man, there is perhaps none that presents to 
 the historian of the human mind a deeper interest 
 than St. Peter's, and there is certainly none that tells 
 a sadder tale of the frustration of human efforts and 
 the i'utility of human hopes. It owes its greatest 
 splendour to a worldly and ambitious pontiff, 2 who 
 has not even obtained an epitaph beneath its dome. 
 It was designed to be the eternal monument of the 
 
 Catholic revival of the present signed by Nicolas of Pisa, is 
 
 century that we mainly owe the perhaps the best specimen of 
 
 revival of Gothic architecture. purely Italian origin, for Milan 
 
 1 It is true that the Greek Cathedral is said to be due to 
 
 traditions had always lingered German architects ; but this 
 
 in Italy, and that pure Gothic fact, while it accounts for Italy 
 
 never succeeded in gaining an having been the great assailant 
 
 ascendency there as in other of the Gothic, did not prevent 
 
 countries. The exterior of the its influence from being cosmo- 
 
 little church of Sta. Maria della politan. 
 
 Spina, at Pisa, which was de- * Julius II. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 glory and the universality of Catholicism, and ii has 
 become the most impressive memorial of its decay. 
 The most sublime associations that could appeal to 
 the intellect or the religious sentiment cluster thickly 
 around it, but an association of which none had 
 dreamed has consecrated it, and will abide with it for 
 ever. The most sacred relics of the Catholic faith 
 are assembled within its vsalls. The genius of Michael 
 Angelo, Raphael, Bramante. Cellini, Thorwaldsen, 
 and Canova, have adorned it. Mosaics of matchless 
 beauty reproduce the greatest triumphs of Christian 
 painting, and mingle their varied hues with those 
 gorgeous marbles that might have absorbed the re- 
 venues of a kingdom. Beneath that majestic dome, 
 which stands like the emblem of eternity, and dwarfs 
 the proudest monuments below, rest the remains of 
 those who were long deemed the greatest of the sons 
 of men. There lie those mediaeval pontiffs who had 
 borne aloft the lamp of knowledge in an evil and be- 
 nighted age, who had guided and controlled the 
 march of nations, and had been almost worshipped as 
 the representatives of the Almighty. There too the 
 English traveller pauses amid many more splendid 
 objects at the sculptured slab which bears the names 
 of the last scions of a royal race, that for good cr for 
 ill had deeply influenced the destiny of his land. 
 But inexpressibly great as are these associations, in 
 the eyes of the theologian the recollection of Luther, 
 and the indulgences, and the Reformation, will tower 
 above them all ; while to the philosophic historian St. 
 Peter's possesses an interest of a still higher order. 
 For it represents the conclusion of that impulse, grow- 
 ing out of the anthropomorphic habits of an early 
 civilisation, which had led men for so many centuries
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 2-59 
 
 to express their religious feelings by sensuous images 
 of grandeur, of obscurity, and of terrorism. It re- 
 presents the absorption of the religious by the 
 resthetic element, which was the sure sign that the 
 religious function of architecture had terminated. 
 The age of the cathedrals had passed. The age of 
 the printing press had begun. 
 
 I have dwelt at considerable length upon this as- 
 pect of the history of art, both because it is, I think, 
 singularly fascinating in itself, and because it reflects 
 with striking fidelity the religious developements of 
 the time. When the organs of a belief are entirely 
 changed, it may be assumed that there is some corre- 
 sponding change in the modes of thought of which 
 they are the expression, and it cannot be too often 
 repeated, that before printing was invented, and 
 while all conceptions were grossly anthropomorphic, 
 the true course of ecclesiastical history is to be sought 
 much more in the works of the artists than of the 
 theologians. It is now admitted by most competent 
 judges, that the true causes of the Reformation are to 
 be found in the deep change effected in the intellec- 
 tual habits of Europe by that revival of learning 
 which began about the twelfth century in the renewed 
 study of the Latin classics, and reached its climax 
 after the fall of Constantinople in the diffusion of the 
 knowledge of Greek and of the philosophy of Plato 
 by the Greek exiles. This revival ultimately pro- 
 duced a condition of religious feeling which found its 
 expression in some countries in Protestantism, and in 
 other countries in the prevalence among the educated 
 classes of a diluted and rationalistic Catholicism 
 entirely different from the gross and absorbing super- 
 stition of the middle ages. Which of these two 
 
 B 2
 
 260 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 forms was adopted in any particular country de- 
 pended upon many special political or social, or even 
 geographical considerations; but, wherever the intel- 
 lectual movement was strongly felt, one or other 
 appeared. It is surely a remarkable coincidence, 
 that while the literature of antiquity was thus on a 
 large scale modifying the mediaeval modes of thought, 
 the ancient sculptures should on a smaller scale have 
 exercised a corresponding influence upon the art that 
 was their expression. And, although the aesthetic 
 movement was necessarily confined to the upper 
 classes and to the countries in which civilisation was 
 most prominent, it represented faithfully a tendency 
 that in different forms was still more widely displayed. 
 It represented the gradual destruction of the ascen- 
 dency which the Church had once exercised over 
 every department of intellect, the growing difference 
 in realised belief between the educated and the igno- 
 rant, and the gradual disappearance of anthropomor- 
 phic or idolatrous conceptions among the former. 
 
 The aspect, however, of the subject which is pecu- 
 liarly significant, is, I think, to be found in the nature 
 of the transition which religious art underwent. 
 The sense of beauty gradually encroached upon and 
 absorbed the feeling of reverence. This is a form of 
 religious decay which is very far from being confined 
 to the history of art. The religion of one age is often 
 the poetry of the next. Around every living and 
 operative faith there lies a region of allegory and of 
 imagination into which opinions frequently pass, and 
 in which they long retain a transfigured and idealised 
 existence after their natural life has died away. 
 They are, as it were, deflected. They no longer tell 
 directly and forcibly upon human actions. They no
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 261 
 
 longer produce terror, inspire hopes, awake passions, 
 or mould the characters of men, yet they still exercise 
 a kind of reflex influence, and form part of the orna- 
 mental culture of the age. They are turned into 
 allegories. They are interpreted in a non-natural 
 sense. They are invested with a fanciful, poetic, but 
 most attractive garb. They follow instead of con- 
 trolling the current of thought, and being transformed 
 by far-fetched and ingenious explanations, they become 
 the embellishments of systems of belief that are wholly 
 irreconcilable with their original tendencies. The 
 gods of heathenism were thus translated from the 
 sphere of religion to the sphere of poetry. The 
 grotesque legends and the harsh doctrines of a super- 
 stitious faith are so explained away, that they appear 
 graceful myths foreshadowing and illustrating the con- 
 ceptions of a brighter day. For a time they flicker 
 upon the horizon with a softly beautiful light that 
 enchants the poet, and lends a charm to the new 
 system with which they are made to blend ; but at 
 last this too fades away. Religious ideas die like the 
 sun; their last rays, possessing little heat, are ex- 
 pended in creating beauty. 
 
 There can be no question that the steady tendency 
 of the European mind, not merely in the period that 
 elapsed between the revival of learning in the twelfth 
 century and the Reformation, but also in that between 
 the Reformation and our own day, has been to disen- 
 gage itself more and more from all the conceptions 
 which are connected either with fetichism or with 
 anthropomorphism. The evidence of this meets us 
 on all sides. We find it among the Catholics, in the 
 steady increase in Catholic countries of a purely 
 rationalistic public opinion, in the vast multiplication
 
 262 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 of rationalistic writings, and also in the profound 
 difference in the degree of reverence attached even 
 by fervent Catholics to images and talismans, in cities 
 like Paris, which are in the centre of the intellectual 
 movement of the age, and in cities like Seville or 
 Naples, which have long been excluded from it. 
 Among the Protestants the same tendency is displayed 
 with equal force in the rapid destruction of what is 
 termed the sacramentarian principle. This is manifest 
 in the steady and almost silent evanescence of that 
 doctrine of consubstantiation which was once asserted 
 with such extreme emphasis as the distinctive mark 
 of the great Lutheran sect, but which is now scarcely 
 held, or if held is scarcely insisted on; 1 in the decadence 
 of the High Church party, which in the seventeenth 
 century comprised the overwhelming majority of tha 
 Anglican clergy, but which in the nineteenth century, 
 notwithstanding a concurrence of favourable circum- 
 stances and the exertions of a leader of extraordinary 
 genius, never included more than a minority; 2 in the 
 
 1 Indeed in Prussia, and * The principles of parties 
 some other parts of Germany, change so much more than 
 the Calvinists and Lutherans their names, that it is not 
 have actually coalesced. The easy to get an accurate notion 
 tendency to assimilation ap- of their strength at different 
 pears to have been strongly periods. Shortly after the ac- 
 felt as early as the middle of cession of William III., the 
 the seventeenth century, and Low Church clergy, according 
 Bishop Bedell exerted himself to Macaulay (History of Eng- 
 Btrongly to promote it. (See land, vol. iii. p. 711) scarcely 
 some interesting particulars in numbered a tenth part of the 
 his Life, by Usher.) On the priesthood. On their strength 
 recent amalgamation of the in the present controversy, see 
 Lutherans and Calvinists in some curious statistics in Cory- 
 Germany, and on its relation beare's Essay on Church Par- 
 to rationalism, there are some tics. The tailure of the move- 
 remarks worth reading in ment was very candidly coii- 
 Amand Saintes' Hist, du Ea- fessed by the leader, iu his 
 tionalisme in Allemagne. Anglican Difficulties.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 263 
 
 constant alteration of the proportion Bel ween Angli- 
 cans and Dissenters, to the detriment of the former ; 
 and in the rapid developement of continental Pro- 
 testantism into rationalism. 
 
 The dominating cause of this movement is, as I 
 have said, to be found mainly in that process of 
 education which is effected by the totality of in- 
 tellectual influences, and which produces both a 
 capacity and a disposition to rise above material 
 conceptions, and to sublimate all portions of belief. 
 There is, however, one separate branch of knowledge 
 which has exercised such a deep, and at the same time 
 such a distinct, influence upon it, that it requires a 
 separate notice. I mean the progress of physical 
 science modifying our notions of the government of 
 the universe. 
 
 In the early Church the interests of theology were 
 too absorbing to leave any room for purely secular 
 studies. If scientific theories were ever discussed, it 
 was simply with a view to elucidating some theological 
 question, and the controversy was entirely governed 
 by the existing notions of inspiration. On this subject 
 two doctrines prevailed, which did not by any means 
 exclude each other, but were both somewhat different 
 from those that are now professed one of them being 
 allegorical, the other intensely literal. The first, which 
 had been extremely popular among the Jewish com- 
 mentators, rested upon the belief, that besides the 
 dii'ect and manifest meaning of a scriptural narrative, 
 which was to be ascertained by the ordinary modes of 
 exegesis, there was an occult meaning, which could be 
 discovered only by the eye of faith, or at all events by 
 human ingenuity, guided by the denned doctrines of 
 the Church. Thus, while the historian was apparently
 
 264 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 relating a very simple narrative, or enforcing a very 
 simple truth, his real and primary object might bo 
 to unfold some Christian mystery, of which all the 
 natural objects he mentioned wr-re symbols. 
 
 This notion, which in modern times has been sys- 
 tematised and developed with great ingenuity by 
 Swedenborg in his ' Doctrine of Correspondences/ 
 was the origin of many of those extremely far-fetched, 
 and, as they would now appear, absuid, interpretations 
 of Scripture that are so numerous in the Fathers, and 
 several of which I have already had occasion to notice. 
 Supposing it to be true, a very important question 
 arose concerning the comparative authority of the 
 historical and the spiritual meanings. 
 
 Origen, as is well known, made the principle of 
 allegorical interpretation the basis of a system of free- 
 thinking, sometimes of the boldest character. Mani- 
 chaeism having violently assailed the Mosaic Cosmo- 
 gony, he cordially accepted the assault as far as it was 
 directed against the literal interpretation, turned into 
 absolute ridicule, as palpable fables, the stories of the 
 serpent and the trees of life and of knowledge, and 
 contended that they could only be justified as alle- 
 gories representing spiritual truths. l Origen, however, 
 
 1 See Beansobre, Hist, du Claw's of St. Melito, who was 
 
 Manicheisme, torn. i. pp. 286- bishop of Sardis, it is said, in 
 
 288. Barbeyrac, Morale des the beginning of the second 
 
 Ptres, ch. vii., has collected a century, and consists of a cata- 
 
 number of wonderful extrava- logue of many hundreds of 
 
 gances of interpretation into birds, beasts, plants, and 
 
 which the love of allegory led minerals, that were symbolical 
 
 Origen. One of the most cu- of Christian virtues, doctrines, 
 
 rious writings of the ancient and personages. 
 
 Church bearing on this subject A modern High Churchman 
 
 has been lately printed in the writes : ' I believe that a geo- 
 
 Spicilegium Salesmen se(c\\rnntQ logist deeply impressed with 
 
 Lorn. J. B. Pitra). It is the the myi-tery of baptism that
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 265 
 
 verged far too closely upon heresy to be regarded as 
 a representative of the Church ; and the prevailing 
 though not very clearly defined opinion among the 
 orthodox seems to have been, that the literal and the 
 allegorical interpretations should be both retained. 
 
 Perhaps the clearest illustration of this doctrine is 
 to be found in a short treatise of St. Augustine in 
 defence of Genesis against the Manichaaans, which is 
 very remarkable when we remember that its author 
 was not more distinguished for his great abilities than 
 for the precision and logical character of his mind. 
 In this work, St. Augustine reviews and answers at 
 length the objections which the Manichaeans had 
 brought against each separate portion of the s'x days' 
 work. Having done this, he proceeds to lay down 
 the principle, that besides the literal meaning, there 
 was a spiritual meaning which was veiled in the form 
 of allegory. Thus the record of the six days' creation 
 contained, not merely a description of the first forma- 
 tion of the material world, but also a prophetic sketch 
 of the epochs into which the history of mankind was 
 to be divided ; the sixth day being the Christian dis- 
 pensation, in which the man and woman, or Christ and 
 the Church, were to appear upon earth. 1 Nor did it 
 foreshadow less clearly the successive stage* of the 
 Christian life. First of all the light of faith streams 
 
 mystery by which a new cre<a- truth lay in the union of both.' 
 
 ture is formed by means of Sewell, Christian Morals, p. 
 
 water and fire would never 323. 
 
 have fallen into the absurdities ' The Church being wedded 
 
 of accounting for the formation to Christ, ' Bone of his bone, 
 
 of the globe solely by water or and flesh of his flesh,' that is to 
 
 solely by fire. He would not say, participating alike of his 
 
 have maintained a Vulcanian strength and of his purity. (Dt 
 
 or a Neptunian theory. He Genesi, contra Menicktsos, lib. 
 
 would have suspected that the i. c. 23.)
 
 266 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 upon the mind which is still immersed in the waves of 
 sin ; then the firmament of discipline divides things 
 carnal from things spiritual ; then the regenerated soul 
 is raised above the things of earth, and prepared for 
 the production of virtue; spiritual intelligences rise 
 like the planets in their various orders in the firma- 
 ment of discipline, good works spring from the waves 
 of trial as the fish from the sea, the purified mind 
 itself produces its own graces, till sanctified thought 
 being wedded to sanctified action, as Eve to Adam, 
 the soul is prepared for its coming rest. 1 In the 
 same way, when the serpent was condemned to creep 
 along the earth, this meant that temptation comes 
 commonly by pride and sensuality. 2 When it was 
 condemned to eat earth, this probably signified the 
 vice of curiosity, plunging into the unseen. When it 
 is related that there was a time when no rain fell upon 
 the earth, but that a mist, rising from the ground, 
 watered its face, we should understand that prophets 
 and apostles were once unnecessary, for every man 
 bore the spring of revelation in his own breast. The 
 literal narrative was true, and so was the spiritual sig- 
 nification ; but if in the first anything was found 
 which could not be literally interpreted in a manner 
 consonant either with the doctrines of the Church, or 
 with the dignity of the Creator, the passage was to be 
 treated as an enigma, and its true purport was to be 
 sought in the spiritual meaning. 3 Some touches of 
 description were inserted solely with a view to that 
 meaning. Thus, when in the summary of the creation 
 
 1 Lib. v. cap. 25. This no- in a book on Conjugal Affec- 
 tion of marriage representing tion. 
 
 the union of the two main ele- 2 The chest signifying pride, 
 
 nients of lif j , is very beauti- and the stomach sensuality, 
 
 fully developed by Swedenborg, * Lib. ii. cap. 2.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 267 
 
 that is said to have been effected in one day which 
 was really effected in six, and when the 'green herbs' 
 are specially singled out among created things, these 
 expressions, which, taken literally, would be pointless 
 or inaccurate, are intended merely to direct the mind 
 to particular portions of the allegory. 
 
 Together with the method of interpretation laid 
 down in this and in other works of the early Church, 
 there was another different, though, as I have said, 
 not necessarily antagonistic one, of an intensely literal 
 character. Theologians were accustomed to single 
 out any incidental expressions that might be applied 
 in any way to scientific theories, even though they 
 were simply the metaphors of poetry or rhetoric, or 
 the ordinary phrases of common conversation, and to 
 interpret them as authoritative declarations, super- 
 seding all the deductions of mere worldly science. 
 The best known example of this is to be found in 
 those who condemned the opinions of Galileo, because 
 it had been said that the ' sun runneth about from 
 one end of heaven to the other,' and that ' the ftmnda- 
 tions of the earth are so firmly fixed that they cannot 
 be moved.' It may be well, however, to give an 
 illustration of an earlier date of the extent to which 
 this mode of interpretation was carried. 
 
 Among the very few scientific questions which 
 occupied a considerable amount of attention in the 
 early Church, one of the most remarkable was that 
 concei'ning the existence of the Antipodes. The 
 Manichteans had chanced to stumble on the correct 
 doctrine, 1 and consequently the Fathers opposed it. 
 Although, however, the leaders of the Church were 
 apparently unanimous in denying the existence of the 
 1 Beausobre, Hist, du Manicheisme, torn. i. p. 246.
 
 268 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 Antipodes, it appears that the contrary opinion had 
 spread to a considerable extent among the less noted 
 Christians, and some fear was entertained lest it should 
 prove a new heresy. 
 
 About the year A.D. 535, in the reign of Justinian, 
 there was living in a monastery of Alexandria an old 
 monk named Cosmas, to whom the eyes of many were 
 then turned. He had been in his youth a merchant, 
 and in that profession had travelled much, expecially 
 in the regions of India and of Ethiopia. He was also 
 noticed for his keen arid inquisitive mind, and for his 
 scientific attainments, and since he had embraced a 
 religious life he had devoted himself zealously to the 
 relations between Scripture and science. At the 
 earnest request of some of the theologians of his time, 
 he determined, though now somewhat broken in 
 health, and suffering especially, as he tells us, from 'a 
 certain dryness both of the eyes and of the stomach,' 
 to employ the remainder of his life in the composition 
 of a great work, which was not only to refute the 'anile 
 fable ' of the Antipodes, but was to form a complete 
 system of the universe, based upon the teaching of 
 Revelation. 
 
 This book is called the ' Topographia Christiana,' or 
 'Christian Opinion concerning the World.' ' Inde- 
 pendently of its main interest, as probably the most 
 elaborate work on the connection between science and 
 the Bible which the early Church has bequeathed us, 
 it is extremely curious on account of its many digres- 
 sions concerning life and manners in the different 
 
 1 This work is published in In his preface, Montfaucon has 
 the Benedictine edition of the collected a long chain of pas- 
 Greek Fathers (Paris, 1706), sages from the Fathers denying 
 torn. ii. I have quoted the the existence of the Antipodes. 
 Benedictine Latin translation.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 269 
 
 nations Cosmas had visited. It opens in a tone of 
 great confidence. It is 'a Christian topography of 
 the universe, established by demonstrations from Di- 
 vine Scripture, concerning which it is not lawful for 
 a Christian to doubt.' l In a similar strain the writer 
 proceeds to censure with great severity those weak- 
 minded Christians who had allowed the subtleties of 
 Greek fables, or the deceitful glitter of mere human 
 science, to lead them astray, forgetting that Scripture 
 contained intimations of the nature of the universe of 
 far higher value and authority than any to which 
 unassisted man could attain, and seeking to frame 
 their conceptions simply by the deductions of their 
 reason. Such, Cosmas assures us, is not the course 
 he would pursue. ' To the law and to the testimony ' 
 was his appeal, and he doubted not that he could evolve 
 from their pages a system far more correct than any 
 that pagan wisdom could attain. 
 
 The system of the universe of which remarks to 
 this effect form the prelude may be briefly stated. 
 According to Cosmas, the world is a flat parallelogram. 
 Its length, which should be measured from east to 
 west, is the double of its breadth, which should be 
 measured from north to south. In the centre is the 
 earth we inhabit, which is surrounded by the ocean, 
 and this again is encircled by another earth, in which 
 men lived before the deluge, and from which Noah 
 was transported in the ark. To the north of the 
 world is a high conical mountain, around which the 
 sun and moon continually revolve. When the sun is 
 hid behind the mountain, it is night ; when it is on 
 our side of the mountain, it is day. To the edges of 
 the outer earth the sky is glued. It consists of four 
 1 Lib. i. prologus 2.
 
 270 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 high walls rising to a great height and then meeting 
 in a vast concave roof, thus forming an immense 
 edifice of which our world is the floor. This edifice 
 is divided into two stories by the firmament which is 
 placed between the earth and the roof of the sky. 
 A great ocean is inserted in the side of the firma- 
 ment remote from the earth. This is what is signified 
 by the waters that are above the firmament. The 
 space from these waters to the roof of the sky is al- 
 lotted to the blest ; that from the firmament to our 
 earth to the angels, in their character of ministering 
 spirits. 
 
 The reader will probably not regard these opinions 
 as prodigies of scientific wisdom ; but the point with 
 which we are especially concerned is the manner they 
 were arrived at. In order to show this, it will be 
 necessary to give a few samples of the arguments of 
 Cosinas. 
 
 In the account of the six days' creation, it will be 
 remembered the whole work is summed up in a single 
 sentence, ' This is the book of the generation of the 
 heaven and the earth.' These expressions are evi- 
 dently intended to comprise everything that is con- 
 tained in the heaven and the earth. But, as Cosmas 
 contended, if the doctrine of the Antipodes were 
 correct, the sky would surround and consequently 
 contain the earth, and therefore it would only be said, 
 ' this is the book of the generation of the sky.' 1 This 
 very simple argument was capable of great extension, 
 
 1 ' Ait, " Hie est liber genera- coelum tantummodo universa 
 
 tionis cceli et terrse," quasi contineat, terrain cum coelo non 
 
 omnia iis contineantur, et uni- nominasset, sed dixisset " Hie 
 
 versa quae in eis sunt cum illis est liber geuerationis cceli." ' 
 
 siguificentur. Nam si secun- (P. 126.,) 
 duni fucatos illos Ukristianos
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 271 
 
 for Hi ere was scarcely any sacred writer who had not 
 employed the phrase ' the heaven and the earth ' to 
 include the whole creation, and who had not thus 
 implied that one of them did not include the other. 
 Abraham, David, Hosea, Isaiah, Zechariah, and 
 many others, were cited. Even Melchisedec had 
 thus uttered his testimony against the Antipodes. 
 If we examine the subject a little further, we are told 
 that the earth is fixed firmly upon its foundations, 
 from which we may at least infer that it is not sus- 
 pended in the air ; and we are told by St. Paul, that 
 all nen are made to live upon the ' face of the earth,' 
 from which it clearly follows that they do not live upon 
 more faces than one, or upon the back. With such a 
 passage before his eyes, a Christian, we are told, should 
 not ' even speak of the Antipodes.' 
 
 Such arguments might be considered a conclusive 
 demonstration of the falseness of the Manichaean 
 doctrine. It remained to frame a correct theory to 
 fill its place. The first great point of illumination 
 that meets us in this task, consists in the fact that St. 
 Paul more than once speaks of the earth as a taber- 
 nacle. 1 From this comparison some theologians, and 
 Cosmas among the number, inferred that the taber- 
 nacle of Moses was an exact image of our world. 
 This being admitted, the paths of science were greatly 
 simplified. The tabernacle was a parallelogram twice 
 as long from east to west, as from north to south, 
 and covered over as a room. Two remarkable pas- 
 sages, mistranslated in the Septuagint, in one of which 
 Isaiah is made to compare the heavens to a vault, 
 and in the other of which Job speaks of the sky as 
 
 1 Cosmas inferred this from fanciful interpretations of Heb. 
 viii. 1, 2; ix. 1, 2, 11, 12, 24.
 
 272 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 glued to the earth, completed the argument, 1 and 
 enabled the writer to state it almost with the autho- 
 rity of an article of faith. 2 
 
 It is easy to perceive how fatal such systems of in- 
 terpretation must have been to scientific progress. It 
 is indeed true that Cosmas belongs to a period when 
 the intellectual decadence had already begun, that lie 
 was himself a writer of no very great abilities, and 
 that some of the more eminent Fathers had treated the 
 subject of the Antipodes with considerable good sense, 
 contending that it was not a matter connected with 
 salvation. 3 But still, from the very beginning, the 
 principles of which this book forms an extreme ex- 
 ample were floating through the Church. The dis- 
 tinction between theology and science was entirely 
 unfelt. The broad truth which repeated experience 
 has now impressed on almost every unprejudiced 
 student, that it is perfectly idle to quote a passage 
 from the Bible as a refutation of any discovery of 
 scientific men, or to go to the Bible for information on 
 any scientific subject, was altogether undreamed of, 4 
 
 1 These were Isaiah xl. 22, didicerimus terrain magis 
 and Job xxxviii. 38. The first quoad longitudinem extend!, 
 was translated & ari\(Tas rbv id nos quod fatemur gnari, 
 ovpavbv us Kafj.dpav. The second, scilicet Scripturse divinse cre- 
 oupavbv 5 eisyyv tic\lv, Kt-xyrai dendum.' (P. 129.) 
 
 5i lia-irep yr\ Kovla, K/c<S\A7)/ca 3 This very liberal opinion 
 5i avrbf Siffirep \idif KV&OV. had been expressed by Basil 
 
 2 'Sic igitur et nos quemad- and Ambrose. 
 
 modum Hesaias figuram primi 4 This doctrine began to dawn 
 
 cceli prima die conditi cum upon a few minds during the 
 
 terra facti, cum terra universum Copernican controversy. Those 
 
 compleetentis ad fornicis figu- who desire to trace its history 
 
 ram adornati statuimus esse. may read with interest some 
 
 Ac qufmadmodum in Job die- opinions on the subject that 
 
 tnm est coelum conglutinatum were collected and answered 
 
 esse terrse, ita quoquo nos dici- by a contemporary writer on 
 
 miifl. Itemque cum ex Moyse the question betwen Galileo
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 273 
 
 and in exact proportion to the increase of European 
 superstition did the doctrine of inspiration dilate till 
 it crushed every department of the human intellect. 
 Thus, when in the middle of the eighth century au 
 Irish saint, named St. Virgilius, who was one of the 
 very few men who then cultivated profane sciences, 
 ventured in Bavaria to assert the existence of the Anti- 
 podes, the whole religious world was thrown into a 
 paroxysm of indignation, St. Boniface heading the 
 attack, and Pope Zachary, at least for a time, encourag- 
 ing it. At last men sailed to the Antipodes, and they 
 then modified their theological opinions on the sub- 
 ject. But a precisely similar contest recurred when 
 the Copernican system was promulgated. Although 
 the discovery of Copernicus was at first uncensured, 
 and his book which was published in 1543 dedi- 
 cated to Pope Paul III., as soon a& its views had ac- 
 quired some weight among the learned, the suspicions 
 of the Roman theologians were aroused, and the 
 opinion of the motion of the earth was authoritatively 
 censured, first of all in the person of Copernicus, and 
 
 and the Church (Libertus Fro- a superstitious man, except on 
 mundus, Vesta, sive Antl-Aris- the subject of comets, of the 
 tarchi Vindcx: Antverpiae, prophetic character of which he 
 1634). As I shall have occa- was, I believe, a strenuous ad- 
 sion again to quote Fromundus, vocate. He wrote, in conjunc- 
 I may mention that he was a tion with a theologian named 
 professor and doctor of theo- Fieni, a book about comets, 
 logy at Louvain ; that he was which I have never been fortu- 
 the author of a work on meteor- nate enough to meet with. He 
 ology, in which he combated was one of the principal de- 
 very forcibly the notion that fenders of the immobility of the 
 atmospheric changes were the earth, and his works are full 
 results of spiritual interven- of curious information on the 
 tion, which Bodin had lately theological aspect of the sub- 
 been defending; and that he ject. He died in 1653. 
 was on the whole by no means 
 VOL. L T
 
 274 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 two of his disciples, 1 and seventeen years later by 
 the condemnation and the imprisonment of Galileo. 
 
 It is, indeed, marvellous that science should ever 
 have revived amid the fearful obstacles theologians 
 cast in her way. Together with a system of biblical 
 interpretation so stringent, and at the same time so 
 capricious, that it infallibly came into collision with 
 every discovery that was not in accordance with the 
 unaided judgments of the senses, and therefore with 
 the familiar expressions of the Jewish writers, every- 
 thing was done to cultivate a habit of thought the 
 direct opposite of the habits of science. The constant 
 exaltation of blind faith, the countless miracles, the 
 childish legends, all produced a condition of besotted 
 ignorance, of grovelling and trembling credulity that 
 
 1 The first condemnation was 
 in 1616, and was provoked by 
 the book of a Carmelite, named 
 Fosearini, in defence of the 
 Copernican view. The cardi- 
 nals of the Congregation of the 
 Index, whose function it is to 
 pronounce authoritatively in 
 the name of the Church on the 
 orthodoxy of new books, then 
 issued a decree, of which the 
 following is the principal part: 
 ' Quia ad notitiam Sanctse 
 Congregationis pervenit falsam 
 ilia m doetrihan Pythagoricam, 
 di vinseque Scripturwomnino ad- 
 versantem, de mobilitate terrae 
 et immobilitate soils, quam 
 Nicolaus Copernicus Revolu- 
 tioni/ms orbium c<sle.tium, et 
 DicUicus Astunica in Job, etiam 
 decent, jam divulgari et multis 
 recipi, sicuti videre est ex qua- 
 
 Foscarini sopra FOpinione del 
 Pythagorici e del Copcrnico, &(>., 
 in qua dictus pater ostendere 
 conatur praefatam doctrinam 
 de immoliilitate soils in centro 
 mundi et mobilitate terrae cou- 
 sonam esse veritati, et non ad- 
 versari Sacrae Scripturae: ideo, 
 ne ulterius hujusmodi opinioin 
 porniciem Catholic* veritatia 
 serpat, censuit dictos hie Coper- 
 nicum de Remlut. Orbium et 
 Didacum Astunicam in Job 
 suspendendos esse donee corri- 
 gantur. Librum vero P. Paulli 
 Fosearini Carmelitae omnino 
 prohibendum, atone omnes alios 
 librospariterideimiocentes pro- 
 hibendos.' Fromundus, An'.i- 
 Arixtarchus, sivt Oi'bis Terra 
 immobUis. In quo Decretun 
 8. Cotic/regationut S. R. E. Car- 
 dinal. 1616 ad versus Pyt/ta- 
 
 dam epistola impressa cujus- gorico-Copcrnicanos editum de- 
 dam P. Carmelitai, cujus titulus fendltur (Antverpiae, IfiiJl), p. 
 Letera del R. P. Maestro Paolo 18.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 27; 
 
 can scarcely be paralleled except among the most 
 degraded barbarians. Innovation of every kind was 
 regarded as a crime ; superior knowledge excited only 
 terror and suspicion. If it was shown in speculation, 
 it was called heresy. If it was shown in the study of 
 nature, it was called magic. The dignity of the 
 Popedom was unable to save Gerbert from the repu- 
 tation of a magician, 1 and the magnificent labours of 
 Roger Bacon were repaid by fourteen years' im- 
 prisonment, and many others of less severe but un- 
 remitting persecution. Added to all this, the over- 
 whelming importance attached to theology diverted 
 to it all those intellects which in another condition of 
 society would have been employed in the investiga- 
 tions of science. When Lord Bacon was drawing his 
 great chart of the field of knowledge, his attention 
 
 1 Sylvester II. He was the 
 first Frenchman who sat on the 
 throne of Peter, the reputed 
 author of Galilean opinions, 
 and it is said the ablest mathe- 
 matician and mechanician of his 
 time. He died in 1003. Among 
 other things, he invented a 
 kind of clock. He had also a 
 statue, like that of Roger 
 Bacon, which answered all his 
 questions. According to the 
 popular legend, he was in com- 
 munion with the devil, who 
 raised him successively to the 
 8*>es of Kheims, Ravenna, and 
 Home ; and promised that he 
 should never die till he had 
 been at Jerusalem, which Ger- 
 bert construed as a promise of 
 immortality. But, like that 
 made to Henry IV. of England, 
 it proved to be a cheat, and the 
 Pope felt the hand of death 
 
 upon him while officiating in 
 the Chapel of Jerusalem, in 
 the Basilica of St. Croce. The 
 legend goes on to say that, 
 struck by remorse, he ordered 
 his body to be cut in pieces, to 
 be placed on a car driven by 
 oxen, and to be buried wherever 
 they stopped of themselves, he 
 being unworthy to rest in the 
 church of God. But, to show 
 that pardon may be extended 
 even to the most guilty, the 
 oxen stopped at the door of the 
 Lateran. Whenever, it is said, 
 a pope is about to die, the tomb 
 of Sylvester grows moist, and 
 the bones of the old magician 
 clatter below. (See Gregoro- 
 vius, On the Tombs of the 
 Popes; and the original ac- 
 count in Matthew of Westmin- 
 ster, anno 998.)
 
 278 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 was forcibly drawn to the torpor of the middle ages. 
 That the mind of man should so long have remained 
 tranced and numbed seemed, at first sight, an objection 
 to his theories, a contradiction to his high estimate of 
 human faculties. But his answer was prompt and 
 decisive. A theological system had lain like an in- 
 cubus upon Christendom, and to its influence, more 
 than to any other single cause, the universal paralysis 
 is to be ascribed. 1 
 
 At last the revival of learning came, the regenera- 
 tion of physical science speedily followed it, and it 
 soon effected a series of most important revolutions 
 in our conceptions. 
 
 The first of these was to shake the old view of tho 
 position of man in the universe. To an uncivilised 
 man, no proposition appears more self-evident than 
 that our world is the great central object of the 
 universe. Around it the sun and moon appear alike 
 to revolve, and the stars seem but inconsiderable 
 lights destined to garnish its firmament. From this 
 conception there naturally followed a crowd of super- 
 stitions which occupy a conspicuous place in the 
 belief of every early civilisation. Man being the 
 centre of all things, every startling phenomenon has 
 some bearing upon his acts. The eclipse, the comet, 
 the meteor, and the tempest, are all intended for him. 
 The whole history of the universe centres upon him, 
 and all the dislocations and perturbations it exhibits 
 are connected with his history.* 
 
 The science which especially corrects these notions 
 
 1 Novum Organon. rum, cap. v.). On the effects of 
 
 2 Even the sxin and stars man's sin on the vegetable 
 were supposed to shine with a world, see St. Augustine, De 
 feebler light since the Fall (St. Genesi, lib. i. cap. 13. 
 Isidore, De Ordine Creatura~
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 277 
 
 is astronomy, but for a considerable period it rather 
 aggravated them, for it was at first inseparably 
 blended with astrology. It is an extremely ingenious 
 and, at least as far as the period of the revival of learn- 
 ing is concerned, an extremely just observation of 
 M. Comte. that this last study marks the first syste- 
 matic effort to frame a philosophy of history by re- 
 ducing the apparently capricious phenomena of human 
 actions within the domain of law. 1 It may, however, 
 perhaps, be also regarded as one of the last struggles 
 of human egotism against the depressing sense of 
 insignificance which the immensity of the universe 
 must produce. And certainly it would be difficult to 
 conceive any conception more calculated to exalt the 
 dignity of man than one which represents the career 
 of each individual as linked with the march of worlds, 
 the focus towards which the influences of the most 
 Bublime of created things continually converge. 2 But, 
 notwithstanding this temporary aberration, there can 
 be no doubt of the ultimate tendency of a science 
 which proves that our world is but an infinitesimal 
 fraction in creation, and which, by demonstrating its 
 
 1 I have already mentioned Pomponazzi) ; and Bodin, in 
 the bold attempt of Peter of the very greatest political work 
 Abano, in the beginning of the of the sixteenth century, having 
 fourteenth century, to construct, raised the question whether it 
 by the aid of astrology, a phi- is possible to discover any 
 losophy of religions. Cardan, principle of order presiding over 
 too, cast the horoscope of the developement of societies, 
 Christ, and declared that all the maintains that nuch a principle 
 fortunes of Christianity were can only be revealed by astro- 
 predicted by the stars. Vanini logy. (Republique, liv. iv. c. 2.) 
 adopted a somewhat similar 
 
 view. (Durand, Vie de Vanini, As a P oet ^presses it : 
 
 pp. 93-99.) Pomponazzi at- ' The warrior's fate is blazoned 
 
 tempted to explain the pheno- in the skies ; 
 
 mena of magic by the influence A world is darkened when a 
 
 of the stars (Eiog. univ. art. hero dies."
 
 278 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 motion, shows that it is as undistinguished by ita 
 position as by its magnitude. The mental importance 
 of such a discovery can hardly be overrated. Those 
 who regard our earth as the centre of the material 
 universe will always attribute to it a similar position 
 in the moral scheme, and when the falsehood of the 
 first position is demonstrated, the second appears 
 incongruous or a difficulty. 1 
 
 It has been reserved for the present century and 
 for a new science to add to the discovery of Co- 
 pernicus and Galileo another which has not yet been 
 fully realised, but is no doubt destined to exercise a 
 similar and a commanding influence over all future 
 systems of belief: I mean the discoveries of geology 
 relating to the preadamite history of the globe. To 
 those who regard the indefinite as the highest con- 
 ception of the infinite, the revelation of eternity is 
 written on the rocks as the revelation of immensity 
 upon the stars. But to more scientific minds the 
 most important effect of geology has not been that it 
 throws back to an incalculable distance the horizon 
 of creation, nor yet that it has renovated and trans- 
 
 1 Whatever may be thought astronomy itself furnishes a 
 
 of its justice, there cannot be striking illustration of the dan- 
 
 tvro opinions about theexquisite ger of trusting too implicitly 
 
 beauty of the suggestion by to our notions of the fitness of 
 
 which Dr. Chalmers sought to things. The ancient astroiio- 
 
 meet this difficulty that the mers unanimously maintained 
 
 parable of the shepherd leaving that the motions of thf celestial 
 
 the ninety-nine sheep to seek bodies must necessarily be 
 
 that which had gone astray, is circular and uniform, because 
 
 but a description of the act of they regarded that as the most 
 
 the Deity seeking to reclaim perfect kind of movement ; and 
 
 the single world that had re- the persistence with which this 
 
 volted against Him, as though notion was held, till it was 
 
 it were of more importance overthrown by Kepler, was one 
 
 than all that had remained of the chief obstacles to astro- 
 
 i'aithful. It may be added that nomical progress.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 279 
 
 formed all the early interpretations of the Mosaic 
 cosmogony ; but that it has conclusively disproved 
 what was once the universal belief concerning the 
 origin of death. That this fearful calamity appeared 
 in. the universe on account of the transgression of 
 man, that every pang that convulses the frame of any 
 created being, every passion or instinct or necessity 
 that contributes to the infliction of suffering, is but 
 the fruit of the disobedience in Paradise, was long 
 believed with unfaltering assurance, and is even now 
 held by many who cannot be regarded as altogether 
 uneducated. And this general proposition became a 
 great archetype, a centre around which countless 
 congenial beliefs were formed, a first principle or 
 measure of probability guiding the predispositions of 
 men in all their enquiries. If all death and all pain 
 resulted from the sin of Adam, it was natural to give 
 every particular instance of death or pain a special 
 signification ; and if these the greatest of terrestrial 
 imperfections were connected with the history of man, 
 it was natural to believe that all minor evils were no 
 less so. But geology has now proved decisively that 
 a profound error lurks in these conclusions. It has 
 proved that countless ages before man trod this earth 
 d^ath raged and revelled among its occupants, that it 
 so entered into the original constitution of things that 
 the agony and the infirmity it implies were known 
 as at present when the mastodon and the dinotherium 
 were the rulers of the world. To deny this is now 
 impossible : to admit it is to abandon one of the 
 root-doctrines of the past. 
 
 A second kind of influence which scientific dis- 
 coveries have exercised upon belief has been the 
 gradual substitution of the conception of law for that
 
 280 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 of supernatural intervention. This substitution I 
 have already had occasion to refer to more than once, 
 but I trust the reader will pardon me for reverting 
 to it for a moment, in order to show with more preci- 
 sion than I have hitherto done the extent and nature 
 of the change. It is the especial characteristic of 
 uncivilised men that their curiosity and, still more, 
 their religious sentiments, are very rarely excited by 
 those phenomena which fall obviously within the 
 range of natural laws, while they are keenly affected 
 by all that appear abnormal. It is indeed true that 
 this expression 'natural law' has to the uncivilised 
 man only a very vague and faint signification, that 
 he has no conception of the close connection subsisting 
 between different classes of phenomena, and that he 
 frequently attributes each department even of those 
 which are most regular to the action of special 
 presiding spirits ; yet still certain phenomena are 
 recognised as taking place in regular sequences, while 
 others appear capricious, and the latter are associated 
 especially with Divine intervention. Thus comets, 
 meteors, and atmospheric phenomena were connected 
 with religious ideas long after the sun and the stars. 
 Thus, too, games of chance were from a very early 
 period prohibited, not simply on account of the many 
 evils that result from them, but as a species of blas- 
 phemy, being an appeal on trivial matters to the 
 adjudication of the Deity. 1 Man being unable to 
 
 1 See n, clear view of the old by purely natural, laws was an 
 
 opinions on this subject in Bar- English Puritan minister named 
 
 beyrac, De la Nature du Sort Gataker, in a work On the 
 
 (Amsterdam, 1714), who BUB- Nature and Use <J Different 
 
 tained an ardent controversy on Kinds of Lots (London, 1619) 
 
 thesubject with a Dutch divine. a well-reasoned and curious 
 
 The first writer, I believe, who book, teeming with quaint 
 
 clearly and systematically main- learning. 
 tained that lots were governed
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 281 
 
 calculate how the die will fall, it was believed that 
 this is determined by a divine interposition, and 
 accordingly the casting of lots became one of the 
 favourite means of approaching the Deity. 1 
 
 From this habit of associating religious feelings 
 chiefly with the abnormal, two very important conse- 
 quences ensued, one of them relating to science and 
 the other to theology. In the first place, as long as 
 abnormal and capricious phenomena are deemed the 
 direct acts of the Deity, all attempts to explain them 
 by science will be discouraged ; for such attempts 
 must appear an irreverent prying into the Divine 
 acts, and, if successful, they diminish the sources of 
 religious emotion. 2 In the second place, it is evident 
 that the conception of the Deity in an early period of 
 civilisation must be materially different from that in 
 a later period. The consciousness of the Divine 
 presence in an unscientific age is identified with the 
 idea of abnormal and capricious action ; in a scientific 
 age it is consistent with that of regular and unbroken 
 law. The forms of religious emotion being very 
 different, the conceptions of the Deity around which 
 they centre musi be equally so. The one conception 
 
 1 Hence the term 'sortes' (Soirees de St. -Peter sbourg, 
 was applied to oracles. Hence, 5me entretien.) This is the 
 too, such words as ' sortilegi,' true spirit cf superstition. 
 ' sorcerers.' Speaking of earthquakes, Cos- 
 
 2 Thus De Maistre, speaking mas says : ' Quod vero terra 
 of the ancients, says : ' Leur moveatur id non a vento fieri 
 physique est a peu pres nulle. dicimus ; non enim fabulas corn- 
 Car non-seulement ils n'at- miniscimur ut illi, sed illud 
 tachaient aucun prix aux expe- jussu Dei fieri pronuntiamus, 
 riences physiques, mais ils les nee curiose rem perquirimus, 
 mepripaient, et merne ils y at- ait quippe Scriptura per Davi- 
 tachaientjenesaisquellelegere dem, "Qui respicit lerram et 
 idee d'impiete ; et ce sentiment facit eam tremere," &c.' p. 
 confus venait de bien haut.' 115.
 
 282 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 consists mainly of the ideas of interference, of miracle, 
 of cliange, and of caprice ; the other of regularity, of 
 immutability, of prescience, and of moral perfection. 
 The first science that rose to perfection at the 
 period I am referring to was astronomy, which early 
 attained a great prominence on account of the revival 
 of astrology that had been produced in the fourteenth 
 century by the renewed study of the works of pagan 
 antiquity, and perhaps still more by the profound in- 
 fluence the Arabian intellect then exercised on Chris- 
 tendom. The great work of Copernicus, the almost 
 simultaneous appearance of Kepler, Galileo, and Tycho 
 Brahe, and the invention and rapid improvement of 
 the telescope, soon introduced the conception of na- 
 tural law into what had long been the special realm 
 of superstition. The Theory of Vortices of Descartes, 
 although it is now known to have no scientific value, 
 had, as has been truly said, a mental value of the very 
 highest order, for it was the first attempt to form a 
 system of the universe by natural law and without 
 the intervention of spiritual agents. 1 Previously the 
 different motions of the heavenly bodies had been for 
 the most part looked upon as isolated, and the popular 
 belief was that they as well as all atmospheric changes 
 were effected by angels. 2 In the Talmud a special 
 angel was assigned to every star and to every element, 
 and similar notions were general throughout the 
 middle ages. 3 The belief in the existence of a multi- 
 
 1 This was originally a re- 1 7 ; St. Isidore, De Or dine Crea- 
 
 mark of St. Simon, but it has turarum. 
 
 been adopted and made great 8 Maury, Lkgcndcs pieuses, 
 use of by M. Comte and some pp. 17-18. Angels were some- 
 of his disciples. See that very times represented in old Chris- 
 able book, Littre, Vic dc Comte. tian painting and sculpture 
 
 * Itoccamora, De Comet is, p. bearing along the stirs (and
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 283 
 
 tilde of isolated and capricious phenomena naturally 
 suggested the belief in angels to account for them, 
 and on the other hand the association of angels with 
 phenomena that obtruded themselves constantly on 
 the attention produced a vivid sense of angelic pre- 
 sence which was shown in countless legends of angelic 
 manifestations. All this passed away before the genius 
 of Descartes and of Newton. The reign of law was 
 recognised as supreme, and the conceptions that grew 
 out of the earlier notion of the celestial system waned 
 and vanished. 
 
 For a long time, however, comets continued to be 
 the refuge of the dying superstition. Their rarity, the 
 eccentricity of their course, the difficulty of ascertain- 
 ing their nature, and the grandeur and terror of their 
 aspect, had all contributed to impress men with an 
 extraordinary sense of their supernatural character. 
 From the earliest ages they had been regarded as tho 
 precursors of calamity, and men being accustomed to 
 regard them, in that light, a vast mass of evidence was 
 soon accumulated in support of the belief. It was 
 shown that comets had preceded the death of such 
 rulers as Ceesar, or Constantine the Great, or Charles V. 
 Comets were known to have appeared before the in- 
 vasion of Greece by Xerxes, before the Peloponnesian 
 war, before the civil wars of Caesar and Pompey, 
 before the fall of Jerusalem, before the invasion of 
 Attila, and before a vast number of the greatest fa- 
 mines and pestilences that have afflicted mankind. 1 
 
 especially the Star of Bethle- the evidence of the prophetic 
 
 hem) in their hands. See, character of comets I have met 
 
 e. g., a very curious old has- with, is in Raxo, De Cometit 
 
 relief round the choir of Notre (l/>78). The author was a 
 
 Dame at Paris. Spanish physician. 
 1 The fullest statement of
 
 284 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 Many hundreds of cases of this kind were collected, 
 and they furnished an amount of evidence which was 
 quite sufficient to convince even somewhat sceptical 
 minds, at a time when the supernatural character of 
 comets harmonising with the prevailing notions of 
 the government of the universe appeared antecedently 
 probable. Some theologians indeed, while fully ac- 
 knowledging the ominous character of these appari- 
 tions, attempted to explain them in a somewhat 
 rationalistic manner. According to their view, comets 
 were masses of noxious vapour exhaled some said 
 from the earth, and others from the sky, which by 
 tainting the atmosphere produced pestilence. Kings 
 were indeed especially liable to succumb beneath this 
 influence, but this was only because their labours and 
 their luxurious habits rendered them weaker than 
 other men. 1 Usually, however, comets were simply 
 regarded aa supernatural warnings sent to prognosti- 
 cate calamity. Two or three great men made vain 
 efforts to shake the belief. Thus, during one of the 
 panics occasioned by a great comet, Paracelsus wrote 
 forcibly against the popular notions, 2 which he assailed 
 on theological grounds as forming a species of fatalism, 
 and as being inconsistent with the belief in Providence. 
 In the midst of a similar panic in 1680, Bayle made a 
 similar effort, but, in obedience to the spirit of the 
 age, he adopted not a theological but a philosophical 
 point of view. He displayed with consummate skill 
 the weakness of a process of reasoning which rested 
 on an arbitrary selection of chance coincidences, and 
 he made the subject the text for an admirable book 
 on the gradual consolidation of superstitions. 3 But 
 
 - Roccamora, De Cometis * In a letter to Zuinglius. 
 (Romae, 1670), pp. 238-239. * And, flying ofi' at a tan-
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 285 
 
 theology and philosophy were alike impotent till 
 science appeared to assist them. Halley predicted 
 the revolution of comets, and they were at once 
 removed to the domain of law, and one of the most 
 ancient of human superstitions was destroyed. 
 
 The process which took place in astronomy fur- 
 nishes but a single though perhaps an extreme 
 example of that which, in the seventeenth century, 
 took place in every field of science. Everywhere the 
 rapid conquests of the new spirit were substituting 
 the idea of natural law for that of supernatural inter- 
 ference, and persuading men that there must be a 
 natural solution even where they were unable to 
 discover it. The writings of Bacon, although their 
 influence has, I think, been considerably exaggerated, 
 partly through national pride, and partly because men 
 have accepted too readily the very unfair judgments 
 Bacon expressed of his contemporaries, 1 probably 
 
 gent from his main subject, On the contrary, -when we re- 
 
 for an admirable dissertation member that it was the age of 
 
 on tho relation between re- Copernicus, Galileo, Tycho 
 
 ligion and morals. With the Brahe, Kepler, and Gilbert, it 
 
 greatest possible admiration for would be difficult to name one 
 
 the Critical Dictionary, which that was more distinguished, 
 
 will be always regarded as one A large portion of tho scientific 
 
 of the most stupendous monu- revival in Europe m.iy be justly 
 
 ments of erudition and of criti- ascribed to these great men ; 
 
 cal acumen ever bequeathed by and the only apology that can 
 
 a single scholar, I cannot but be offered for the representa- 
 
 think that the original genius tions of Bacon is that, notwith- 
 
 of Bayle shines still more standing his great genius, he 
 
 brightly in the Contrains-les was totally unable to grasp 
 
 d? Entrer, in some of the P< nsees their discoveries. The Coper- 
 
 diverses sur les Cometes, and in nican system the greatest dis- 
 
 two or three of his Nouvelles coveryofthe age he rejected 
 
 Lettres. to the last. The important 
 
 1 The age of Bacon was cer- discoveries of Gilbert about 
 
 tainly not as benighted and the magnet he treated not only 
 
 ignorant on scientific matters with incredulity but with the 
 
 ae he always represented it. most arrogant contempt. la
 
 286 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 contributed more than any other single cause to guide 
 the movement, and have, in England at least, become 
 almost supreme. Chemistry disengaged itself from 
 alchemy, as astronomy had done from astrology. The 
 Academy del Cimento was established in Tuscany in 
 1657, the Royal Society in London in 1660, and the 
 Academy of Sciences at Paris in 1666. The many 
 different sciences that were simultaneously cultivated 
 not merely rescued many distinct departments of 
 nature from superstition, but also by their continual 
 convergence produced the conception of one all- 
 embracing scheme of law, taught men habitually 
 to associate the Divine presence with order rather 
 than with miracle, and accustomed them to con- 
 template with admiring reverence the evidence of 
 design displayed in the minutest animalcule and in 
 the most shortlived ephemera, and also the evidence 
 of that superintending care which adapts a sphere 
 of happiness for the weakest of created beings. 
 
 A very important consequence of this change was 
 that theological systems lost much of their harsh and 
 
 measuring his influence, we omnipotent, two of the very 
 have to remember that it was greatest men stood apart from 
 certainly not dominant outside his disciples. The whole me- 
 England till that union between thod and mental character of 
 the English and French intel- Newton was opposed to that of 
 lects that immediately preceded Bacon, and, as his biographer, 
 the French Revolution. Then, Sir David Brewster, very forci- 
 indeed, his philosophy exercised bly contends, there is not the 
 an immense and salutary influ- slightest reason to believe that 
 ence upon the Continent ; but Newton owed anything to his 
 Europe had not been sleeping predecessor; while Harvey 
 till then. In Great Britain it- avowedly owed his great die- 
 self Bacon produced no per- covery to that doctrine of final 
 ceptible effoct upon the great causes which Bacon stigmatised 
 school of literature and science as ' barren, like a virgin con- 
 that grew up beyond the secrated to God that can tear 
 Tweed ; and oven in England, no fruit.' 
 where he had been almost
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 237 
 
 gloomy character. As long as men drew their notions 
 of the Deity from what they regarded as 'he abnormal, 
 their attention was chiefly concentrated upon disasters, 
 for these are for the most part exceptional, while the 
 principal sources of happiness are those whicli are 
 most common. Besides, it is one of the most Tin- 
 amiable characteristics of human nature that it is 
 always more impressed by terror than by gratitude. 
 Accordingly the devotion of our ancestors was chiefly 
 connected with storms and pestilences and famine and 
 death, which were regarded as penal inflictions, and 
 which consequently created an almost maddening ter- 
 ror. All parts of belief assumed a congenial hue till 
 the miserable condition of man and the frightful future 
 that awaited him became the central ideas of theo- 
 logy. But this, which in an early phase of civili- 
 sation was perfectly natural, soon passed away when 
 modern science acquired an ascendency over theolo- 
 gical developements : for the attention of men was then 
 directed chiefly to those multitudinous contrivances 
 which are designed for the wellbeing of all created 
 things, while the terrorism once produced by the 
 calamities of life was at least greatly diminished when 
 they were shown to be the result of general laws 
 interwoven with the whole system of the globe, and 
 many of which had been in operation before the 
 creation of man. 
 
 Another branch of scientific progress which I may 
 notice on account of its influence upon speculative 
 opinions is the rapid growth of a morphological con- 
 ception of the universe. According to the great 
 philosophers of the seventeenth century, our world 
 was a vast and complicated mechanism called into 
 existence and elaborated instantaneously in all its
 
 288 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 parts by the creative fiat of the Deity. In the last 
 century, however, and still more in the present 
 century, the progress of chemistry, the doctrine of 
 the interchange and indestructibility of forces, and 
 the discoveries of geology, have greatly altered this 
 conception. Without entering into such questions as 
 that of the mutability of species, which is still pend- 
 ing, and which the present writer would be altogether 
 incompetent to discuss, it will be admitted that in at 
 least a large proportion of the departments of science, 
 the notion of constant transformation, constant pro- 
 gress under the influence of natural law from simple 
 to elaborate forms, has become dominant. The world 
 itself, there is much reason to believe, was once merely 
 a vapour, which was gradually condensed and consoli- 
 dated, and its present condition represents the suc- 
 cessive evolutions of countless ages. This conception, 
 which exhibits the universe rather as an organism 
 than a mechanism, and regards the complexities and 
 adaptations it displays rather as the results of gradual 
 developemeut from within than of an interference from 
 without, is so novel, and at first sight so startling, 
 that many are now shrinking from it with alarm, 
 under the impression that it destroys the argument 
 from design, and almost amounts to the negation of a 
 Supreme Intelligence. But there can, I think, be 
 little doubt that such fears are, for the most part, 
 unfounded. 1 That matter is governed by mind, 
 that the contrivances and elaborations of the universe 
 are the products of intelligence, are propositions 
 which are quite unshaken, whether we regard these 
 
 1 See the remarks on the of final causes in Whewell's 
 consistence of morphological History of Scientific Ideas, 
 conceptions with the doctrine
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 289 
 
 contrivances as the results of a single momentary 
 exercise of will, or of a slow, consistent, and regulated 
 evolution. The proofs of a, pervading and developing 
 intelligence and the proofs of a co-ordinating and 
 combining intelligence, are both untouched, nor can 
 any conceivable progress of science in this direction 
 destroy them. If the famous suggestion, that all 
 animal and vegetable life is produced by a natural 
 process of evolution from a single vital germ, were a 
 demonstrated truth, we should still be able to point 
 to the evidences of intelligence displayed in the mea- 
 sured and progressive developement, in those exquisite 
 forms so different from what blind chance could pro- 
 duce, and in the manifest adaptation of surrounding 
 circumstances to the living creature, and of the living 
 creature to surrounding circumstances. The argu- 
 ment from design would indeed be changed; it would 
 require to be stated in a new form, but it would be 
 fully as cogent as before. Indeed it is, perhaps, not 
 too much to say, that the more fully this conception 
 of universal evolution is grasped, the more firmly a 
 scientific doctrine of Providence will be established, 
 and the stronger will be the presumption of a future 
 progress. 
 
 The effects of this process which physical science 
 is now undergoing are manifested very clearly in the 
 adjacent field of history in what may be termed the 
 morphological conception of opinions that is to say, 
 in the belief that there is a law of orderly and pro- 
 gressive transformation to which our speculative 
 opinions are subject, and the causes of which are 
 to be sought in the general intellectual condition of 
 society. As the main object of this whole book is 
 to illustrate the nature and progress of this conception, 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 290 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 it is not necessary to dwell upon it at present, and I 
 advert to it simply for the purpose of showing its 
 connection with the discoveries of science. 
 
 It will be remarked, that in this as in most other 
 cases the influence physical sciences have exercised 
 over speculative opinions has not been of the nature 
 of a direct logical proof displacing an old belief, but 
 rather the attracting influence of a new analogy. As 
 1 have already had occasion to observe, an impartial 
 examination of great transitions of opinions will 
 show that they have usually been effected not by the 
 force of direct arguments, not by such reasons as those 
 which are alleged by controversialists and recorded 
 in creeds, but by a sense of the incongruity or dis- 
 cordance of the old doctrines with other parts of 
 our knowledge. Each man assimilates the different 
 orders of his ideas. There must always be a certain 
 keeping or congruity or analogy between them. The 
 general measure of probability determines belief, and 
 it is derived from many departments of knowledge. 
 Hence it is that whenever the progress of enquiry 
 introduces a new series of conceptions into physical 
 science which represents one aspect of the relations 
 of the Deity to man, these conceptions, or at least 
 something like them, are speedily transferred to 
 theology, which represents another. 
 
 It must, however, be acknowledged, that there are 
 some influences resulting from physical science which 
 are deeply to be deplored, for they spring neither from 
 logical arguments nor from legitimate analogies, but 
 from misconceptions that are profoundly imbedded 
 in our belief, or from fallacies into which our minds 
 are too easily betrayed. The increased evidence of 
 natural religion furnished by the innumerable marks
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 291 
 
 of creative and co-ordinating wisdom which science 
 reveals, can hardly be overestimated, 1 nor can it he 
 reasonably questioned that a world governed in all 
 its parts by the interaction of fixed natural laws 
 implies a higher degree of designing skill than a chaos 
 of fortuitous influences irradiated from time to time 
 by isolated acts of spiritual intervention. Yet still so 
 generally is the idea of Divine action restricted to that 
 of miracle, that every discovery assigning strange 
 phenomena their place in the symmetry of nature has 
 to many minds an irreligious appearance, which is still 
 further strengthened by the fact, that while physical 
 science acquiesces in the study of laws as the limit 
 of its research, even scientific men sometimes forget 
 that the discovery of law is not an adequate solu- 
 tion of the problem of causes. When all the motions 
 of the heavenly bodies have been reduced to the 
 dominion of gravitation, gravitation itself still re- 
 mains an insoluble problem. Why it is that matter 
 attracts matter, we do not know we perhaps never 
 shall know. Science can throw much light upon 
 the laws that preside over the developement of life ; 
 but what life is, and what is its ultimate cause, we 
 are utterly unable to say. The mind of man, which 
 can track the course of the comet and measure the 
 velocity of light, has hitherto proved incapable of 
 
 1 Laplace, who has done terms : ' Des phenomenes aussi 
 more than anyone else to sys- extraordinaires ne sont point 
 tematise arguments from pro- dus a des causes irre"gulieres. 
 bability, and who will certainly En soumettant au calcul leur 
 not be accused of any desire to probability on trouve qu'il y a 
 subordinate science to theology, plus de deux cents mille mil- 
 states the argument for design liards a parier centre nn qu'ils 
 derived from the motions of ne sont point 1'effet du hasard.' 
 the planetary bodies in the Systeme du Monde, liv. v, 
 following almost bewildering e. 6.
 
 292 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 explaining the existence of tlie minutest insect or the 
 growth of the most humble plant. In grouping 
 phenomena, in ascertaining their sequences and their 
 analogies, its achievements have been marvellous; in 
 discovering ultimate causes it has absolutely failed. 
 An impenetrable mystery lies at the root of every 
 existing thing. The first principle, the dynamic 
 force, the vivifying power, the efficient causes of those 
 successions which we term natural laws, elude the 
 utmost efforts of our research. The scalpel of the 
 anatomist and the analysis of the chemist are here 
 at fault. The microscope, which reveals the traces 
 of all-pervading, all-ordaining intelligence in the 
 minutest globule, and displays a world of organised 
 and living beings in a grain of dust, supplies no solu- 
 tion of the problem. We know nothing or next to 
 nothing of the relations of mind to matter, either in 
 our own persons or in the world that is around us ; 
 und to suppose that the progress of natural science 
 eliminates the conception of a tirbt cause from creation, 
 by supplying natural explanations, is completely to 
 ignore the sphere and limits to which it is confined. 
 
 It must be acknowledged also, that as the increas- 
 ing sense of law appears to many the negation of 
 the reality or at all events of the continuity of the 
 Divine action, so an increased sense of the multiplicity 
 of the effects of matter not unfrequently leads to a 
 negation of the existence of mind. The mathema- 
 tician so often cited, who maintained that the soul 
 must be extension, and the fiddler who was con- 
 vinced that it must be harmony, are scarcely exag- 
 gerated representatives of the tendency manifested 
 by almost everyone who is much addicted to a single 
 fctudj to explain by it all the phenomena of existence.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 293 
 
 Nearly every science when it has first arisen has had 
 to contend with two great obstacles with the un- 
 reasoning incredulity of those who regard novelty as 
 necessarily a synonyme for falsehood, and with the 
 unrestrained enthusiasm of those who, perceiving 
 vaguely and dimly a new series of yet undefined 
 discoveries opening upon mankind, imagine that 
 they will prove a universal solvent. It is said that 
 when, after long years of obstinate disbelief, the 
 reality of the great discovery of Harvey dawned 
 upon the medical world, the first result was e, school 
 of medicine which regarded man simply as an 
 h} r draulic machine, and found the principle of every 
 malady in imperfections of circulation. 1 The same 
 history has been continually reproduced. That love 
 of symmetry which makes men impatient to reduce 
 all phenomena to a single cause, has been the parent 
 of some of the noblest discoveries, but it has also, 
 by the imperfect classifications it "has produced, 
 been one of the most prolific sources of huwan error. 
 In the present day, when the study of the laws of 
 matter has assumed an extraordinary developement, 
 and when the relations between the mind and the 
 body are chiefly investigated with a primary view to 
 the functions of the latter, it is neither surprising 
 nor alarming that a strong movement towards ma- 
 terialism should be the consequence. 
 
 But putting aside these illegitimate consequences, 
 it appears that in addition to the general effects of 
 intellectual advancement upon theological opinions in 
 enabling men more readily to conceive the invisible, 
 and thus rescuing them from idolatry, and in enabling 
 them to spiritualise and elevate their ideal, and thus 
 1 Lemoine, Le Vitalisine de StaU, p. 6.
 
 294 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 emancipating them from anthropomorphism, that 
 particular branch of intellectual progress which is 
 comprised under the name of physical science has 
 exercised a distinct and special influence, which has 
 been partly logical but more generally the assimilating 
 influence of analogy. It has displaced man's early 
 conception of the position of his world in the universe, 
 and of the relation of the catastrophes it exhibits to 
 his history. It has substituted a sense of law for a 
 predisposition to the miraculous, and taught men to 
 associate the Deity with the normal rather than with 
 the abnormal. It has in a great degree divested 
 calamity of its penal character, multiplied to an 
 incalculable extent the evidences of the Divine bene- 
 ficence, and at the same time fostered a notion of 
 ordered growth which has extended from the world 
 of matter to the world of mind. 
 
 These have ^been its chief effects upon belief. It 
 has also exercised a considerable influence upon the 
 systems of Biblical interpretation by which that 
 belief is expressed. The first great impulse to Ra- 
 tionalistic Biblical criticism was probably given by the 
 antagonism that was manifested between the discovery 
 of Galileo and Scripture as it was interpreted by the 
 host of theologians who argued after the fashion of 
 Cosmas. New facts were discovered and therefore a 
 new system of interpretation was required, and men 
 began to apply their critical powers to the sacred 
 writings for the purpose of bringing them into con- 
 formity with opinions that had been arrived at inde- 
 pendently by the reason. Each new discovery of 
 science that bore upon any Scriptural question, each 
 new order of tendencies evoked by the advance of 
 civilisation, produced a repetition of the same process. 
 
 Probably the earliest very elaborate example of this
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 295 
 
 kind of interpretation was furnished by a French 
 Protestant, named La Peyrere, in a book which was 
 published in 1655. ' The author, who fully admitted 
 though he endeavoured to restrict the sphere of the 
 miraculous, had been struck by some difficulties con- 
 nected with the ordinary doctrine of Original Sin, 
 and by some points in which science seemed to clash 
 with the assertions of the Old Testament ; and he 
 endeavoured to meet them by altogether isolating the 
 Biblical history from the general current of human 
 affairs. Adam, he maintained, was not the father of 
 the human race but simply the progenitor of the 
 Jews, and the whole antediluvian history is only that 
 of a single people. Thus the antiquity which the 
 Eastern nations claimed might be admitted, and the 
 principal difficulties attending the Deluge were dis- 
 solved. It was altogether a mistake to suppose that 
 death and sickness and suffering were the conse- 
 quences of the transgression. Adam had by this act 
 simply incurred spiritual penalties, which descended 
 tipon the Jews. ' In the day thou eatest thou shalt 
 die ' could not have been meant literally, because it 
 was not literally fulfilled ; nor can the curse upon the 
 serpent, because the motion of the serpent along the 
 ground is precisely that which its conformation implies. 
 The existence of men who were not of the family of 
 Adam is shadowed obscurely in many passages, but 
 appears decisively in the history of Cain, who feared 
 to wander forth lest men should kill him, and who 
 built a city at a time when, according to the common 
 view, he was almost alone in the world.' The 
 
 1 Systema Theologicum ex - Some of La Peyrero's argu- 
 
 Pr<e Adamitaruih Hypothvsi, ments on this point are cu- 
 
 pars i. The second part never riously far-fetched. Thus he 
 
 appeared. asks why Abel should ha^e
 
 296 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 mingling of the sons of God and the daughters of 
 men means the intermarriage between the two races. 
 The Deluge is an absolute impossibility if regarded 
 as universal, but not at all surprising if regarded as 
 a partial inundation. 
 
 Proceeding to the history of a later period, La 
 Peyrere in the first place denies the Mosaic author- 
 ship of the Pentateuch. In defence of this position 
 he urges the account of the death of Moses, and 
 he anticipates several of those minute criticisms 
 which in our own day have acquired so great a 
 prominence. The phrase ' These are the words 
 which Moses spake beyond Jordan,' the notice of 
 the city which is called ' Jair to the present day,' 
 the iron bedstead of Og still shown in Rabbath, the 
 difficulties about the conquest of the Tdumeans, and 
 a few other passages, seem to show that the com- 
 pilation of these books was long posterior to the 
 time of Moses, while certain signs of chronological 
 confusion which they evince render it probable that 
 they are not homogeneous, but are formed by the 
 fusion of several distinct documents. It should 
 be observed, too, that they employ a language of 
 metaphor and of hyperbole which has occasionally 
 given rise to misapprehensions, special instances of 
 Providential guidance being interpreted as absolute 
 miracles. Thus, for example, the wool of the Jewish 
 
 kept sheep if there were no her of the Irish Parliament 
 robbers to be feared, and where named Dobbs, in a very strange 
 Cain got the weapon with book called A Short View of 
 which he killed his brother. Prophecy. It has also been ad- 
 The existence of a race of men vocated in America, with a view 
 not descended from Adam was to the defence of Negro Sla- 
 very strenuously maintained, very. Mr. Dobbs thought there 
 towards the close of the last was a race resulting from an. 
 Century, by an eccentric mem- intrigue of Eve with the Devil.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 297 
 
 flocks was quite sufficient to furnish materials for 
 clothing in the desert ; and the assertion that the 
 clothes of the Jews waxed not old is simply an 
 emphatic expression of that extraordinary providence 
 which preserved them from all want for forty years ' 
 in the wilderness. At the same time, La Peyrere 
 does not deny that the Jewish history is full of 
 miracles, but he maintains very strongly that these 
 were only local, and that the general course of the 
 universe was never disturbed to effect them. The 
 prolongation of the day at the command of Joshua was 
 not produced by any alteration in the course of the 
 earth or sun, but was simply an atmospheric phe- 
 nomenon such as is sometimes exhibited in the Arctic 
 regions. The darkness at the Crucifixion was also 
 local ; the retrogression of the shadow on the sun- 
 dial in the reign of Hezekiah did not result from 
 a disturbance of the order of the heavenly bodies ; 
 the light that stood over the cradle of Christ was a 
 meteor, for a star could not possibly mark out with 
 precision a house. 
 
 The author of this curious book soon after its pub- 
 lication became a Roman Catholic, and in consequence 
 recanted his opinions, but the school of Biblical 
 interpretation of which he was perhaps the first 
 founder continues actively to the present day. To 
 trace its history in detail does not fall within the plan 
 of the present work. It will be sufficient to say that 
 there are two natural theories by which men have 
 endeavoured to explain the rise of religions, and that 
 each of these theories has in particular ages or coun- 
 tries or conditions of thought exercised a supreme 
 ascei; dency . l The first method, which attributes 
 See Denis, Hist, des Idees morales dans I Antiquite.
 
 298 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 religions to special and isolated causes, found its 
 principal ancient representative in Euhemerus, who 
 maintained that the pagan gods were originally 
 illustrious kings, deified after death either by the 
 spontaneous reverence of the people or by the cunning 
 of the rulers, 1 and whose work, being translated by 
 Ennius, is said to have contributed largely to that 
 diffusion of scepticism in Rome which preceded the 
 rise of Christianity. To this class of criticism belong 
 also all attempts to explain miracles by imposture, or 
 by optical delusions, or by the misconception of some 
 natural phenomenon, or by any other isolated circum- 
 stance. The other method, which is called mythical, 
 and which was adopted among the ancients by the 
 Pythagoreans, the Neo-Platonists, and the Gnostics, 
 regards different dogmatic systems as embodying re- 
 ligious sentiments or great moral conceptions that are 
 generally diffused among mankind, or as giving a 
 palpable and (so to speak) material form to the aspi- 
 rations of the societies in which they spring. Thus, 
 while fully admitting that special circumstances have 
 an important influence over the rise of opinions, the 
 interpreters of this school seek the true efficient cause 
 in the general intellectual atmosphere that is prevalent. 
 They do not pretend to explain in detail how different 
 miracles came to be believed, but they assert that in 
 a certain intellectual condition phenomena which are 
 deemed miraculous will always appear, and that the 
 general character of those phenomena will be deter- 
 mined by the prevailing predisposition. The first of 
 these schools of interpretation was general in the 
 
 1 Locke, in his Treatise on the origin of the pagan di- 
 Goveniient, adopts very fully vinities. 
 the theory of Euhemerus about
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 299 
 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and has been 
 especially favoured by nations like the ancient Romans, 
 or like the modern English and French, who are dis- 
 tinguished for a love of precise and definite conclu- 
 sions; while the second has been most prominent in 
 the present century, and in Germany. 
 
 It must, however, be admitted that the energy 
 displayed in framing natural explanations of mira- 
 culous phenomena bears no proportion to that which 
 has been exhibited in a criticism that is purely dis- 
 integrating and destructive. Spinoza, whose pro- 
 found knowledge not only of the Hebrew language 
 but also of Rabbinical traditions and of Jewish 
 modes of thought and expression made him pecu- 
 liarly competent for the task, set the example in his 
 'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,' 1 and Germany soon 
 after plunged with great energy into the same career. 
 But the fact which must, I think, especially strike the 
 impartial observer is that these criticisms, in at least 
 the great majority of cases, are carried on with a 
 scarcely disguised purpose of wresting the Bible into 
 conformity with notions that have been independently 
 formed. The two writers who have done most to 
 supply the principles of the movement are Lessing 
 and Kant. The first emphatically asserts that no 
 doctrine should be accepted as part of Scripture which 
 
 1 Spinoza was, as far as I University. Some of the re- 
 know, the first writer who marks of Spinoza about the 
 dwelt much on the possible or Jewish habit of speaking of 
 probable falsification of some the. suggestions of their own 
 portions of the Old Testament minds as inspiration are still 
 by the insertion of wrongvowel- worth reading, but with these 
 points, a subject which was a exceptions the value of the 
 few years since investigated in Tractatus Theologico-Politicus 
 a work on Hebrew Interpola- seems to me to be chiefly his 
 tiont, by Dr. Wall, of Dublin torical.
 
 300 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 is not in accordance with ' reason,' an expression which 
 in the writings of modern German critics may be not 
 unfairly regarded as equivalent to the general scope 
 and tendency of modern thought. 1 The doctrine of 
 Kant is still more explicit. According to him, 2 every 
 dogmatic system, or, as he expresses it, every ' eccle- 
 siastical belief,' should be regarded as the vehicle or 
 envelope of 'pure religion,' or, in other words, of those 
 modes of feeling which constitute natural religion. 
 The ecclesiastical belief is necessary, because most 
 men are unable to accept a purely moral belief unless 
 it is as it were materialised and embodied by grosser 
 conceptions. But the ecclesiastical belief being 
 entirely subordinate to pure religion, it followed that 
 it sbould be interpreted simply with a view to the 
 latter that is to say, all doctrines and all passages of 
 Scripture should be regarded as intended to convey 
 some moral lesson, and no interpretation, however 
 natural, should be accepted as correct which collides 
 with our sense of right. 
 
 The statement of this doctrine of Kant may remind 
 the reader that in tracing the laws of the religious 
 progress of societies I have hitherto dwelt only on 
 one aspect of the subject. I have examined several 
 important intellectual agencies which have effected 
 intellectual changes, but have as yet altogether 
 omitted the laws of moral developement. In en- 
 deavouring to supply this omission, we are at first 
 
 1 See, on Lessing's views, a ner in which he there treats 
 
 clear statement in Anmnd the subject of miracles illus- 
 
 Sainte's Hist, critique du trates very clearly the wide use 
 
 Kationalisme en Allemagne. made of the term ' reason ' in 
 
 Strauss, in the Introduction to German criticism, 
 his Life of Jesus, gives a vivid 2 See his Religion within the 
 
 sketch of the progress of Ger- Limits of the Reason. 
 man Rationalism, and the mail-
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 301 
 
 met by a school which admits, indeed, that the true 
 essence of all religion is moral, but at the same time 
 denies that there can be in this respect any principle 
 of progress. Nothing, it is said, is so immutable as 
 morals. The difference between right and wrong 
 was always known, and on this subject our concep- 
 tions can never be enlarged. But if in the term 
 moral be included not simply the broad difference 
 between acts which are positively virtuous and those 
 which are positively vicious, but also the prevailing 
 ideal or standard of excellence, it is quite certain that 
 morals exhibit as constant a progress as intellect, 
 and it is probable that this progress has exercised as 
 important an influence upon society. It is one of 
 the most familiar facts that there are certain virtues 
 that are higher than others, and that many of these 
 belong exclusively to a highly developed civilisation. 1 
 Thus, that the love of truth is a virtue is a proposi- 
 tion which, stated simply, would have been probably 
 accepted with equal alacrity in any age, but if we 
 examine the extent to which it is realised we find 
 a profound difference. We find that in an early 
 period, while all the virtues of an uncompromising 
 partisan are cordially recognised, the higher virtue, 
 which binds men through a love of conscientious 
 .enquiry to endeavour to pursue an eclectic course 
 when party and sectarian passions rage fiercely 
 around them, is not only entirely unappreciated but 
 is alrnost impossible ; that it is even now only recog- 
 nised by a very few who occupy the eminences of 
 thought ; and that it must therefore be recognised 
 by the multitude in proportion as they approach the 
 
 1 This fact has been well of Archbishop Whately. 
 noticed in some of the writings
 
 302 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 condition of those few. Thus, the pursuit of virtue 
 for its own sake is undoubtedly a higher excellence 
 than the pursuit of virtue for the sake of attaining 
 reward or avoiding punishment ; yet the notion of 
 d : sinterested virtue belongs almost exclusively to the 
 higher ranks of the most civilised ages, and exactly 
 in proportion as we descend the intellectual scale is it 
 necessary to elaborate the system of rewards and 
 punishments. 
 
 Humanity again, in theory, appears to be an un- 
 changeable virtue, but if we examine its applications 
 we find it constantly changing. Bull-baiting and bear- 
 baiting and cock-fighting, and countless amusements 
 of a similar kind, were once the favourite pastimes 
 of Europe, were pursued by all classes even the most 
 refined and the most humane, and were universally 
 regarded as perfectly legitimate. 1 Men of the most 
 distinguished excellence are known to have delighted 
 in them. Had anyone challenged them as barbarous, 
 his sentiments would have been regarded not simply 
 as absurd, but as incomprehensible. There was, no 
 doubt, no controversy upon the subject. 8 Gradually, 
 
 1 For a full view of the ex- bull-baiting, it was not because 
 tent to which these amusements it gave pain to the bull, but 
 were carried on and diversified because it gave pleasure to the 
 iu England, see Strutt's Sports spectators.' The long unsuc- 
 and Pastimes of the English oessful warfare waged by the 
 People. Sir Thomas More was Popes against Spanish bull- 
 accustomed to boast of his skill fighting forms a very curious 
 in throwing the 'cock stele;' episode in ecclesiastical his- 
 and, to the very last, bull-bait- tory ; but its origin is to be 
 ing was defended warmly by found in the number of men 
 Canning, and with an almost who had been killed. An old 
 passionate earnestness by theologian mentions that, in 
 Windham. the town of Concha, a bull that 
 
 2 As Macaulay, with cha- had killed seven men became 
 racteristic antithesis, says : the object of the highest rever- 
 'If the Puritans suppressed ence, and the people were BO
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 303 
 
 however, by the silent pressure of civilisation, a pro- 
 foand change passed over public opinion. It was 
 effected, not by any increase of knowledge or by any 
 process of definite reasoning, but simply by the 
 gradual elevation or the moral standard. Amuse- 
 ments that were once universal passed from the 
 women to the men, from the upper to the lower 
 classes, from the virtuous to the vicious, till at last 
 the Legislature interposed to suppress them, and a 
 thrill of indignation is felt whenever it is discovered 
 that any of them have been practised. The history of 
 
 gratified that a painting re- 
 presenting the achievement 
 was immediately executed for 
 the public square (Concina, 
 De Spcctaculits, p. 283). The 
 writers who denounced Spanish 
 bull-fighting contrasted it spe- 
 cially with that of Italy, in 
 which the bull was bound by a 
 rope, and which was therefore 
 innocent (Ibid. p. 28-5). Bull- 
 fighting was prohibited under 
 pain of excommunication by 
 Pius V., in 1567. In 1575, 
 Gregory XIII. removed the 
 prohibition except as regards 
 ecclesiastics, who were still for- 
 bidden to frequent biill-fights, 
 and as regards festal days, on 
 which they were not to be cele- 
 brated. Some Spanish theo- 
 logians having agitated much 
 on this subject, Sixtiv V., in 
 1586, confirmed the preceding 
 bull. At last, in 1596, Clement 
 VIII., moved by the remon- 
 strance of the Spanish king 
 and the discontent of the 
 Spanish people, removed all 
 prohibitions (in Spain) except 
 those which rested on the 
 
 monks, only enjoining caution. 
 At present bull-fights are 
 usually performed on festal 
 days, and form part of most 
 great religious festivals, es- 
 pecially those in honour of the 
 Virgin ! Ou this carious sub- 
 ject full details are given in 
 Thesauro, De Paenis Ecclesias- 
 ticis (Eomae, 1640), and in 
 Concina, De Spcctaculis (Romse, 
 1752). Among the Spanish 
 opponents of bull-fighting was 
 the great Jesuit Mariana. It 
 is curious enough that perhaps 
 the most sanguinary of all bull- 
 fights was in the Coliseum of 
 Rome, in 1333, when the 
 Roman nobles descended into 
 the arena and eighteen wore 
 killed (Cibrario, Economia Po- 
 litica, vol. i. pp. 196-197); 
 but the Pope was then at 
 Avignon. Michelet has no- 
 ticed that while bull-fighting 
 was long extremely popular 
 in Rome, the Romagna, and 
 Spoleto, it never took root iu 
 Naples, notwithstanding the 
 long domination of tha 
 Spaniards.
 
 304 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 the abolition of torture, the history of punishments, 
 the history of the treatment of the conquered in war, 
 the history of slavery ail present us with examples 
 of practices which in one age were accepted as per- 
 fectly right and natural, and which in another age 
 were repudiated as palpably and atrociously inhuman. 
 lu each case the change was effected much less by 
 any intellectual process than by a certain quickening 
 df the emotions, and consequently of the moral judg- 
 ments ; and if in any country we find practices at all 
 resembling those which existed in England a century 
 ago, we infer with certainty that that country has not 
 received the full amount of civilisation. The code of 
 honour which first represents and afterwards reacts 
 upon the moral standard of each age is profoundly 
 different. The whole type of virtue in a rude warlike 
 people is distinct from that of a refined and peaceful 
 people, and the character which the latter would 
 admire the former would despise. So true is this, 
 that each successive stratum of civilisation brings 
 with it a distinctive variation of the moral type. In 
 the words of an illustrious historian, ' if the archaeo- 
 logist can determine the date of a monument by the 
 form of its capital, with much greater certainty can 
 the psychological historian assign to a specific period 
 a moral fact, a predominating passion, or a mode of 
 thought, and can pronounce it to have been impossible 
 in the ages that preceded or that followed. In the 
 chronology of art the same forms have sometimes 
 been reproduced, but in the moral life such a recur- 
 rence is impossible : its conceptions are fixed in their 
 eternal place in the fatality of time.' * 
 
 There is, however, one striking exception to this 
 1 Michelet.
 
 DEVELOFE.VIENTS OF RATIONALISM. 305 
 
 law in the occasional appearance of a phenomenon 
 which may be termed moral genius. There arise 
 from time to time men who bear to the moral con- 
 dition of their age much the same relations as men 
 of genius bear to its intellectual condition. They 
 anticipate the moral standard of a later age, cast 
 abroad conceptions of disinterested virtue, of philan- 
 thropy, or of self-denial that seem to bear no relation 
 to the spirit of their time, inculcate duties and sug- 
 gest motives of action that appear to most men alto- 
 gether chimerical. Yet the magnetism of their perfec- 
 tions tells powerfully upon their contemporaries. An 
 enthusiasm is kindled, a group of adherents is formed, 
 and many are emancipated from the moral condition of 
 their age. Yet the full effects of such a movement 
 are but transient. The first enthusiasm dies away, 
 surrounding circumstances resume their ascendency, 
 the pure faith is materialised, encrusted with con- 
 ceptions that are alien to its nature, dislocated, and 
 distorted till its first features have almost disappeared. 
 The moral teaching, being unsuited to the time, be- 
 comes inoperative until its appropriate civilisation has 
 dawned, or at most it faintly and imperfectly filters 
 through an accumulation of dogmas, and thus accele- 
 rates in some measure the arrival of the condition 
 it requires. 
 
 From the foregoing considerations it i.s not difficult 
 to infer the relations of dogmatic systems to moral 
 principles. In a semi- barbarous period, when the 
 moral faculty or the sense of right is far too weak to 
 be a guide of conduct, dogmatic systems interpose 
 and supply men with motives of action that are suited 
 to their condition, and are sufficient to sustain among 
 them a rectitude of conduct that would otherwise be 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 unknown. But the formation of a moral philosophy 
 is usually the first step of thy decadence of religions. 
 Theology then ceasing to be the groundwork of 
 morals, sinks into a secondary position, and the main 
 source of its power is destroyed. In the religions 
 of Greece and Rome this separation between the two 
 parts of religious systems was carried so far that 
 the inculcation of morality at last devolved avowedly 
 and exclusively upon the philosophers, while the 
 priests were wholly occupied with soothsaying and 
 expiations. 
 
 In the next place, any historical faith, as it is 
 interpreted by fallible men, will contain some legends 
 or doctrines that are contrary to our sense of right. 
 For our highest conception of the Deity is moral 
 excellence, and consequently men always embody 
 their standard of perfection in their religious doc- 
 trines ; and as that standard is at first extremely im- 
 perfect and confused, the early doctrines will exhibit 
 a corresponding imperfection. These doctrines being 
 stereotyped in received formularies for a time seri- 
 ously obstruct the moral developement of society, but 
 at last the opposition to them becomes so strong that 
 they must give way : they are then either violently 
 subverted or permitted to become gradually obsolete. 
 
 There is but one example of a religion which is 
 not necessarily subverted by civilisation, and that 
 example is Christianity. In all other cases the decay 
 of dogmatic conceptions is tantamount to a com- 
 plete annihilation of the religion, for although there 
 may be imperishable elements of moral truth mingled 
 with those conceptions, they have nothing distinctive 
 or peculiar. The moral truths coalesce with new sys- 
 tems, the men who uttered them take their place with
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 307 
 
 many others in the great pantheon of history, and the 
 religion having discharged its functions is spent and 
 withered. But the great characteristic of Chris- 
 tianity, and the great moral proof of its divinity, is 
 that it has been the main source of the moral de- 
 \elopement of Europe, and that it has discharged 
 this office not so much by the inculcation of a system, 
 of ethics, however pure, as by the assimilating and 
 attractive influence of a perfect ideal. The moral 
 progress of mankind can never cease to be distinc- 
 tively and intensely Christian as long as it consists 
 of a gradual approximation to the character of the 
 Christian Founder. There is, indeed, nothing more 
 wonderful in the history of the human race, than the 
 way in which that ideal has traversed the lapse of 
 ages, acquiring a new strength and beauty with each 
 advance of civilisation, arid infusing its beneficent 
 influence into every sphere of thought and action. 
 At first men sought to grasp by minute dogmatic 
 definitions the divinity they felt. The controversies 
 of the Homoousians or Monophysites or Nestorians 
 or Patripassians, and many others whose very names 
 now sound strange and remote, then filled the Church. 
 Then came the period of visible representations. The 
 handkerchief of Veronica, the portrait of Edessa, the 
 crucifix of Nicodemus, the paintings of St. Luke, 1 
 the image traced by an angel's hand, which is still 
 
 1 As Lami and Lanzi have all by the same hand, or of 
 
 shown, this legend probably exactly the same age, though 
 
 resulted from a confusion of evidently copied from the same 
 
 names; a Florentine monk, type. Others think they are 
 
 named Luca, of the eleventh 13yzantine pictures brought to 
 
 century, being, there is much Italy during the time of the 
 
 reason to believe, the chief an- Iconoclasts and of the Cru- 
 
 thor of the ' portraits by St. sades. 
 Luke. 1 They are not, however, 
 
 x2
 
 308 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 venerated at the Lateran, the countless visions 
 narrated by the saints, show the eagerness with 
 which men sought to realise as a palpable and 
 living image their ideal. This age was followed 
 by that of historical evidences, the age of Se- 
 bonde and his followers. Yet more and more 
 with advancing years, the moral ideal stood out 
 from all dogmatic conceptions, and it is no exag- 
 geration to say, that at no former period was it 
 so powerful, or so universally acknowledged, as at 
 present. This is a phenomenon altogether unique 
 in history ; and to those who recognise in the 
 highest type of excellence the highest revelation 
 of the Deity, its importance is too manifest to be 
 overlooked. 
 
 I trust the reader will pardon the tedious length 
 to which this examination, which I would gladly 
 have abridged, has extended. For the history of 
 rationalism is quite as much a history of moral as of 
 intellectual developement, and any conception of it 
 that ignores the former must necessarily be munlated 
 and false. Nothing, too, can, as 1 conceive, be more 
 erroneous or superficial than the reasonings of those 
 who maintain that the moral element of Christianity 
 has in it nothing distinctive or peculiar. The method 
 of this school, of which Bolingbroke may be regarded 
 as the type, is to collect from the writings of different 
 heathen writers certain isolated passages embodying 
 precepts that were inculcated by Christianity ; and 
 when the collection had become very large, the task 
 was supposed to be accomplished. But the truo 
 originality of a system of moral teaching depends not 
 so much upon the elements of which it is composed, 
 as upon the manner in which they are fused into a
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 80S 
 
 symmetrical whole, upon the proportionate value that 
 is attached to different qualities, or, to state the same 
 thing by a single word, upon the type of character 
 that is formed. Now it is quite certain that the 
 Christian type differs not only in degree, but in kind, 
 from the Pagan one. 
 
 In applying the foregoing principles to the history 
 of Christian transformations, we should naturally 
 expect three distinct classes of change. The first is 
 the gradual evanescence of doctrines that clash with 
 our moral sense. The second is the decline of the 
 influence of those ceremonies, or purely speculative 
 doctrines, which, without being opposed to con- 
 science, are at least wholly beyond its sphere. The 
 third is the substitution of the nense of right for the 
 fear of punishment as the main motive to virtue. 
 
 I reserve the consideration of the first of these 
 three changes- for the ensuing chapter, in which I 
 shall examine the causes of religious pei-secution, and 
 shall endeavour to trace the history of a long series 
 of moral anomalies in speculation which prepared the 
 way for that great moral anomaly in practice. The 
 second change is so evident, that it is not necessary 
 to dwell upon it. No candid person who is acquainted 
 with history can fail to perceive the difference between 
 the amount of reverence bestowed in the present day, 
 by the great majority of men, upon mere speculative 
 doctrines or ritualistic observances, and that which 
 was once general. If we examine the Church in the 
 fourth and fifth centuries, we find it almost exclu- 
 sively occupied with minute questions concerning 
 the manner of the co-existence of the two natures in 
 Christ. If we examine it in the middle ages, we find 
 it absorbed in ritualism and pilgrimages. If we
 
 310 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 examine it at the Reformation, we find it just emerging 
 beneath the pressure of civilisation from this con- 
 dition ; yet still the main speculative test was the 
 doctrine concerning the Sacrament, which had no 
 relation to morals ; and the main practical test, on 
 the Continent at least, was the eating of meat on 
 Fridays. 1 In the present day, with the great body 
 of laymen, such matters appear simply puerile, be- 
 cause they have no relation to morals. 
 
 The third change is one which requires more atten- 
 tion, for it involves the history of religious terrorism 
 a history of the deepest but most painful interest to 
 
 1 In France especially the 
 persecution on this ground was 
 frightful. Thus, Bodin tells 
 us that in 1539 the magistrates 
 of Angers burnt alive those 
 who were proved to have eaten 
 meat on Friday if they remained 
 impenitent, and hung them if 
 they repented. (Demon, des 
 Sorciers, p. 216.) In England 
 the subject was regarded in a 
 very peculiar light. Partly be- 
 cause Anglicanism clung closely 
 to the Fathers, and partly be- 
 cause England was a maritime 
 country, fasting was not only 
 encouraged, but strictly en- 
 joined; and a long series of 
 laws and proclamations were 
 accordingly issued between 
 1548 and the Restoration, en- 
 joining abstinence on Wednes- 
 days and Fridays, and through- 
 out Lent ; ' considering that 
 due and godly abstinence is a 
 mean to virtue, and to subdue 
 men's bodies of their souls 
 and spirits ; and considering, 
 also, especially that fishers, and 
 
 men using the trade of fishing 
 in the sea, may thereby the 
 rather be set on work.' See a 
 list of these laws in Hallam's 
 Const. Hist. vol. i. A homily 
 also enjoins fasting on the same 
 complex ground. There are 
 some very good remarks on 
 the tendency of theologians to 
 condemn more severely error 
 than immorality, and in con- 
 demning different errors to 
 dwell most severely on those 
 which are purely speculative, 
 in Bayle, Pmsees diverses, 
 cxcix. He says : ' Si un docteur 
 de Sorbonne avoit la hardiesse 
 de chanceler taut soil peu sur 
 le mystere de 1'Incarnation 
 . . . il couroit risque du feu 
 de la Greve ; mais s'il se con- 
 tentoit d'avancer quelques pro- 
 positions de morale relachee, 
 comme le fameux Escobar, on 
 se contenteroit de dire qua 
 cela nVst pas bien, et peut-etre 
 on verroit la censure de son 
 livre.'
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 311 
 
 all who study the intellectual and moral progress of 
 Europe. 
 
 It would be difficult, and perhaps not altogether 
 desirable, to attain in the present day to any realised 
 conception of the doctrine of future punishment as it 
 was taught by the early Fathers, and elaborated and 
 developed by the mediaeval priests. That doctrine 
 has now been thrown so much into the background, 
 it has been so modified and softened and explained 
 away, that it scarcely retains a shadow of its ancient 
 repulsiveness. It is sufficient to say, that it was 
 generally maintained that eternal damnation was the 
 lot which the Almighty had reserved for an immense 
 proportion of his creatures ; and that that damnation 
 consisted not simply of the privation of certain ex- 
 traordinary blessings, but also of the endurance of the 
 most excruciating agonies. Perhaps the most acute 
 pain the human body can undergo is that of fire ; 
 and this, the early Fathers assure us, is the eternal 
 destiny of the mass of mankind. The doctrine was 
 stated with the utmost literalism and precision. In. 
 the two first apologies for the Christian faith it was 
 distinctly asserted. Philosophy, it was said, had 
 sometimes enabled men to look with contempt upon 
 torments, as upon a transient evil ; but Christianity 
 presented a prospect before which the stoutest heart 
 must quail, for its punishments were as eternal as 
 they were excruciating. 1 Origen, it is true, and his 
 
 1 ' Sic et Epicurus omnom que seternam ab eo pcenam pro- 
 
 cruciatum doloremquedepretiat videmus merito soli innoeentise 
 
 modicum quidem contempt!- occurrimuset pro scientist pleni- 
 
 bilem prommtiando magnum tudine et pro magnitudme cru- 
 
 vero non diutunmm. Enim- ciatus non diuturni verum 
 
 vero not- qiu suo Deo omnium sempiterni.' (Tertullian, Apol. 
 
 speculatore dispungimur, qui- cap. xlv.)
 
 312 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 disciple Gregory of Nyssa, in a somewhat hesitating 
 manner, diverged from the prevailing opinion, and 
 strongly inclined to a figurative interpretation, and 
 to the belief in the ultimate salvation of all ; ' but 
 they were alone in their opinion. With these two 
 exceptions, all the Fathers proclaimed the eternity of 
 torments, and all defined those torments as the action 
 of a literal fire upon a sensitive body. 2 "When the 
 pagans argued that a body could not remain for ever 
 unconsumed in a material flame, they were answered 
 by the analogies of the salamander, the asbestus, and 
 the volcano ; and by appeals to the Divine Omnipo- 
 tence, which was supposed to be continually exerted 
 to prolong the tortures of the dead. 3 
 
 We may be quite sure that neither in the early 
 Church, nor in any other period, was this doctrine 
 universally realised. There must have been thousands 
 who, believing, or at least professing, that there was 
 no salvation except in the Church, and that to be 
 
 1 The opinions of this last the same subject in a somewhat 
 Father on the subject, which ferocious passage : ' Ipse rex 
 are very little known, are clearly Jupiter per torrentes ripas et 
 stated in that learned book, atram voraginem jurat religi- 
 DalLeus, De Paenis et Satisfac- ose : destinatam enim sibi oum 
 tionibus (Amsterdam, 1649), suis cultoribus pcenam presents 
 lib. iv. c. 7. For Origen's well- perhorrescit : nee tormentis aut 
 known opinions, see Ibid. lib. modus ullus aut terminus. 
 iv. C. 6. Illic sapiens ignis membra urit 
 
 2 A long chain of quotations et reficit: carpit et nutrit sicut 
 establishing this will be found ignes fulminum corpora tangunt 
 in Swinden, On the Fire of nee absumunt: sicut ignes 
 Hell (London, 1727); and in ^Etnse et Vesuvii et ardentium 
 Horberry's Enquiry concerning ubique terrarum flagrant nee 
 Future Punishment (London, erogantur : ita pcenale illud 
 1744). incendium non damnis arden- 
 
 8 See the long argument tium pascitur sed inexesa cor- 
 
 tiased on these grounds in St. porum laceratione nutritur.' 
 
 Aug. De Civ. Dei, lib. xxi. PC. (Octavius, cap. xxxv.) 
 1-9. Minutius Felix treats
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 313 
 
 excluded from salvation meant to be precipitated into 
 an abyss of flames, looked back nevertheless to the 
 memory of a pagan mother, who had passed away, if 
 not with a feeling of vague hope, at least without the 
 poignancy of despair. There must have been thou- 
 sands who, though they would perhaps have admitted 
 with a father that the noblest actions of the heathen 
 were but ' splendid vices,' read nevertheless the pages 
 of the great historians of their country with emotions 
 that were very little in conformity with such a theory. 
 Nor, it may be added, were these persons tho^e whose 
 moral perceptions had been least developed by con- 
 templating the gentle and tolei'ant character of the 
 Christian Founder Yet still the doctrine was 
 stamped upon the theology of the age, and though 
 it had not yet been introduced into art, it was 
 realised to a degree Avhich we at least can never 
 reproduce ; for it was taught in the midst of perse- 
 cution and conflict, and it flashed upon the mind 
 with all the vividness of novelty. Judaism had had 
 nothing like it. It seems now to be generally ad- 
 mitted that the doctrine of a future life, which is 
 often spoken of as a central conception of religion, 
 was not included in the Levitical revelation, or at 
 least was so faintly intimated that the people were 
 unable to perceive it. 1 During the captivity, indeed, 
 
 1 This fact had been noticed it contained no revelation of 
 
 by several early English divines a future world. Archbishop 
 
 (Barrow and Berkeley among Whately, who strongly took up 
 
 the number) ; but it was brought the view of Warburton concern- 
 
 into especial relief by Warbur- ing the fact, has, in one of his 
 
 ton, who, as is well known, in Essays on the Peculiarities of 
 
 his Divine Legation, based a the. Christian Religion, applied 
 
 curious argument in favour of it very skilfully to establishing 
 
 the divine origin of the Leviti- the divine origin, not indeed of 
 
 cal religion upon the fact that Judaism, but of Christianity,
 
 314 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 the Jews obtained from their masters some notions 
 on the subject, but even these were very vague, and 
 the Sadducees, who rejected the new doctiine as an 
 innovation, were entirely uncondemned. Indeed, it 
 is probable that the chosen people had less clear and 
 correct knowledge of a future Wv>rld than any other 
 tolerably civilised nation of antiquity. Among the 
 early popular traditions of the pagans, there were, it 
 is true, some faint traces of a doctrine of hell, which 
 are said to have been elaborated by Pythagoras, 1 and 
 especially by Plato, who did more than any other 
 ancient philosopher to develope the notion of expia- 
 tion; 2 but these, at the period of the rise of Chris- 
 tianity, had little or no influence upon the minds of 
 men ; nor had they ever presented the same charac- 
 teristics as the doctrine of the Church. For among 
 the pagans future torture was supposed to be reserved 
 exclusively for guilt, and for guilt of the most extreme 
 and exceptional character. It was such culprits as 
 Tantalus, or Sisyphus, or Ixion, that were selected 
 as examples, and, excepting in the mysteries, 3 the 
 subject never seems to have been brought very pro- 
 minently forward. It was the distinctive doctrine 
 of the Christian theologians, that sufferings more 
 excruciating than any the imagination could conceive 
 
 because Christianity does con- see Maekay's Religious Deve- 
 
 tiiin a revelation of the future lopement of the Greeks and 
 
 world. Both these writers con- Hebrews, vol. ii. pp. 286-297. 
 
 tend that the well-known pas- ' Denis, Hist/tire des Idces 
 
 Kage in Job does not refer to morales dans PAntiqiiite, torn, 
 
 the resurrection. The subject i. pp. 18, 19. 
 
 lias been dwelt on from another * I/iid. pp. 104-106. 
 
 point of view by Chubb, Vol- * On the place representa- 
 
 taire, Strauss, and several tions of Tartarus had in the 
 
 other writers. On the growth mysteries, see Magnin, Oru/ines 
 
 of the doctrine among the Jews, du, Theatre, torn. i. pp. 81-84.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 315 
 
 were reserved for millions, and might be the lot of 
 the most benevolent and heroic of mankind. That 
 religious error was itself the worst of crimes, was 
 before the Reformation the universal teaching of the 
 Christian Church. Can we wonder that there were 
 some who refused to regard it as an Evangel ? 
 
 If we pursue this painful subject into the middle 
 ages, we find the conception of punishment by literal 
 fire elaborated with more detail. The doctrine, too, 
 of a purgatory even for the saved had grown up. 
 Without examining at length the origin of this last 
 tenet, it may be sufficient to say that it was a natural 
 continuation of the doctrine of penance ; that the 
 pagan poets had had a somewhat similar conception, 
 which Virgil introduced into his famous description 
 of the regions of the dead ; that the Manichaeana 
 looked forward to a strange process of purification 
 after death ; ' and that some of the Fathers appear 
 to have held that at the day of judgment all men 
 must pass through a fire, though apparently rather 
 for trial than for purification, as the virtuous and 
 orthodox were to pass unscathed, while bad people 
 and people with erroneous theological opinions were 
 to be burnt.' 2 Besides this, the doctrine perhaps 
 
 1 The Manichseans are said of the ancients had a notion 
 to have believed that the about fire being the portal of 
 souls of the dead were puri- the unseen world. Herodotus 
 fied in the sun ; that they (lib. v. c. 92) tells a curious 
 were then borno in the moon story about Periauder, a tyrant 
 to the angels ; and that the of Corinth, who invoked the 
 phases of the moon were caused shade of his wife ; but she re- 
 by the increase or diminution fused to answer his questions, 
 of the freight. (Beausobro, alleging that she was too cold ; 
 Hist, critique du Manicheisme, for though dresses had been 
 torn. i. pp. 243-244.) placed in her tomb, they wore 
 
 2 Dallxus, De Pcenis et Satis- of no use to her, as they had 
 factionibus, lib. iv. c. 9. Some not been burnt.
 
 316 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 softened a little the terrorism of eternal punishment, 
 by diminishing the number of those who were to en- 
 dure it ; though, on the other hand, it represented 
 extreme suffering as reserved for almost all men after 
 death. It may be added, that its financial advan- 
 tages are obvious and undeniable. 
 
 There was in the tenth century one striking 
 example of a theologian following in the traces of 
 Origen, and, as far as I know, alone in the middle 
 ages, maintaining the figurative interpretation of the 
 fire of hell. This was John Scotus Erigena, a very 
 remarkable man, who, as his name imports, 1 and as 
 his contemporaries inform us, was an Irishman, and 
 who appears to have led, for the most part, that life 
 of a wandering scholar for which his countrymen 
 have always been famous. His keen wit, his great 
 and varied genius, and his knowledge of Greek, soon 
 gained him an immense reputation. This last ac- 
 quirement was then extremely rare, but it had been 
 kept up in the Irish monasteries some time after it 
 had disappeared from the other seminaries of Europe. 
 Scotus threw himself with such ardour into both of 
 the great systems of Greek philosophy, that some 
 have regarded him principally as the last represen- 
 tative of Neoplatonism, and others as the founder of 
 Scholasticism. 2 He displayed on all questions a sin- 
 gular disdain for authority, and a spirit of the boldest 
 free thought, which, like Origen, with whose works 
 
 1 Scoti was at first the name Westminster (nn. 880). 
 
 of the Irish; it was afterwards z He is regarded in the first 
 
 shared and finally monopolised light by M. Guizot in his His- 
 
 by the inhabitants of Scotland, tory of Civilisation ; and in the 
 
 Erigena means, born in Erin second by M. St.-Rene Taillan- 
 
 the distinctive name of Ireland, dier, in his able and learned 
 
 There is an amusing notice of treatise on Scotus. 
 Scotus Erigena in Matthew of
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 317 
 
 lie was probably much imbued, he defended by a 
 lavish employment of allegories. Among the doc- 
 trines he disbelieved, and therefore treated as alle- 
 gorical, was that of the fire of hell. 1 
 
 Scotus, however, was not of his age. The ma- 
 terial conceptions of medievalism harmonised admir- 
 ably with the material docti ine : and after the reli- 
 gious terrorism that followed the twelfth century, 
 that doctrine attained its full elaboration. The 
 agonies of hell seemed then the central fact of re- 
 ligion, and the perpetual subject of the thoughts of 
 men. The whole intellect of Europe was employed 
 in illustrating them. All literature, all painting, all 
 eloquence, was concentrated upon the same dreadful 
 theme. By the pen of Dante and by the pencil of 
 Orgagna, by the pictures that crowded every church, 
 and the sermons that rang from every pulpit, the 
 maddening terror was sustained. The saint was 
 often permitted in visions to behold the agonies of 
 the lost, and to recount the spectacle he had wit- 
 nessed. He loved to tell how by the lurid glare of 
 the eternal flames he had seen millions writhing in 
 every form of ghastly suffering, their eyeballs rolling 
 with unspeakable anguish, their limbs gashed and 
 mutilated and quivering with pain, tortured by pangs 
 that seemed ever keener by the recurrence, find 
 shrieking in vain for mercy to an unpitying heaven. 
 Hideous beings of dreadful aspect and of fantastic 
 forms hovered around, mocking them amid their 
 torments, casting them into cauldrons of boiling 
 
 1 On the doctrines of Scotus, torn. iii. p. 95 ; Alexandri Hist. 
 
 and especially on that about Eccles. torn. vi. pp. 361-363. 
 
 hell, see Tailland'er, Scot. Eri- According to this last writer, 
 
 gene, pp. 176-180; Ampere, Scotus admitted literal tormenta 
 
 Hist. liUeraire de la France, for the devil, but not for man.
 
 318 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 brimstone, or inventing new tortures more subtle 
 and more refined. Amid all this a sulphur stream 
 was ever seething, feeding and intensifying the waves 
 of fire. There was no respite, no alleviation, no hope. 
 The tortures were ever varied in their character, and 
 they never palled for a moment upon the sense. 
 Sometimes, it was said, the flames while retaining 
 their intensity withheld their light. A shroud of 
 darkness covered the scene, but a ceaseless shriek of 
 anguish attested the agonies that were below. 1 
 
 It is useless to follow the subject into detail. We 
 may reproduce the ghastly imagery that is accumu- 
 lated in the sermons and in the legends of the age. 
 We may estimate the untiring assiduity with which 
 the Catholic priests sought in the worst acts of human 
 tyranny, and in the dark recesses of their own ima- 
 ginations, new forms of torture, to ascribe them to 
 the Creator. We can never conceive the intense 
 vividness with which these conceptions were realised, 
 or the madness and the misery they produced. For 
 those were ages of implicit and unfaltering credulity : 
 thev were ages when none of the distractions of the 
 
 / 
 
 present day divided the intellect, and when theology 
 was the single focus upon which the imagination was 
 concentrated. They were ages, too, when the modern 
 tendency to soften or avoid repulsive images was 
 altogether unknown, and when, in the general para- 
 lysis of the reason, every influence was exerted to 
 stimulate the imagination. Wherever the worshipper 
 
 1 The details of many of has noticed this passion for de- 
 
 these visions are given in their tailed pictures of hell (which 
 
 full force in Swlnden ; and in seems to date from St. Gregory 
 
 Plancey, Dictionnaire infernal, the Great) with his usual force 
 
 art. Enfer. Dean Milman, in and justice, 
 his Hist, of Latin Christianity,
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 319 
 
 turned, lie was met by new forms of torture, elaborated 
 with such, minute detail, and enforced with such a 
 vigour and distinctness, that they must have clung 
 for ever to the mind, and chilled every natural im- 
 pulse towards the Creator. How, indeed, coiild it be 
 otherwise ? Men were told that the Almighty, by 
 the fiat of his uncontrolled power, had called into 
 being countless millions whom He knew to be destined 
 to eternal, excruciating, unspeakable agony ; that He 
 had placed millions in such a position that such agony 
 was inevitable ; that He had prepared their place of 
 torment, and had kindled its undying flame ; and 
 that, prolonging their lives for ever, in order that 
 they might be for ever wretched, He would make the 
 contemplation of their suflferirgs one of the elements 
 of the happiness of the redeemed. ] No other religious 
 teachers had ever proclaimed such tenets, and as long 
 as they were realised intensely, the benevolent pre- 
 cepts and the mild and gentle ideal of the New 
 Testament could not possibly be influential. The 
 two things were hopelessly incongruous. The sense 
 of the Divine goodness being destroyed, the whole 
 fabric of natural religion crumbled in the dust. From 
 that time religion was necessarily diverted from the 
 moral to the dogmatic, and became an artificial thing 
 of relics and ceremonies, of credulity and persecution, 
 of asceticism and terrorism. It centred entirely upon 
 the priests, who supported it mainly by intimidation. 
 I have already, when examining the phenomena of 
 witchcraft, noticed the influence of this doctrine upon 
 the imagination, which it has probably done more to 
 
 1 St. Thomas Aquinus says, datur eis ut pcenam impiorum 
 
 ' Ut beatitude sanctorum eis perfecte vidcant.' (Summa, 
 
 magis complaeeat et de ea Suppl., qusest. xciv. art. 1.) 
 uberiores gi alias Deo agant,
 
 320 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 disease than almost all other moral and intellectual 
 agencies combined. I shall hereafter touch upon its 
 effects, upon the intellectual history of Europe, upon 
 the timidity and disingeiiuousness of enquiry the 
 distrust, and even hatred, of intellectual honesty it 
 encouraged. There is, however, a still more painful 
 effect to be noticed. That the constant contemplation 
 of suffering, especially when that contemplation is 
 devoid of passion, has a tendency to blunt the affec- 
 tions, and thus destroy the emotional part of humanity, 
 is one of the most familiar facts of common observa- 
 tion. The law holds good even in men, like surgical 
 operators, who contemplate pain solely for the benefit 
 of others. The first repulsion is soon exchanged for 
 indifference, the indifference speedily becomes interest, 
 and the interest is occasionally heightened to positive 
 enjoyment. Hence the anecdotes related of surgeons 
 who have derived the most exquisite pleasure from 
 the operations of their profession, and of persons who, 
 being unable to suppress a morbid delight in the con- 
 templation of suffering, have determined to utilise 
 their defect, and have become the most unflinching 
 operators in the hospitals. Now it is sufficiently 
 manifest that upon this emotional part of humanity 
 depends by far the greater number of kind acts that 
 are done in the world, and especially the prevailing 
 ideal and standard of humanity. There are, no doubt, 
 persons who are exceedingly benevolent through a 
 sense of duty, while their temperament remains 
 entirely callous. There are even cases in which the 
 callousness of temperament increases in proportion 
 to the active benevolence, for it is acquired in con- 
 templating suffering for the purpose of relieving it, 
 and, as Bishop Butler reminds us, * active habits are
 
 DEVELOFEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 321 
 
 strengthened, while passive impressions are weakened 
 by repetition.' But the overwhelming majority are 
 in tbese matters governed by their emotions. Their 
 standard and their acts depend upon the liveliness of 
 their feelings. If this be so, it is easy to conceive 
 what must have been the result of the contemplations 
 of medievalism. There is a fresco in the great 
 monastery of Pavia which might be regarded as the 
 emblem of the age. It represents a monk with clasped 
 hands, and an expression of agonising terror upon his 
 countenance, straining over the valley of vision where 
 the sufferings of the lost were displayed, while the 
 inscription above reveals his one harrowing thought, 
 ' Quis sustinebit ne descendam rnoriens ? ' 
 
 In such a state of thought, we should naturally 
 expect that the direct and powerful tendency of this 
 doctrine would be to produce a general indifference 
 to human sufferings, or even a bias towards acts of 
 barbarity. Yet this only gives an inadequate con- 
 ception of its effects. For not only were men con- 
 stantly expatiating on these ghastly pictures, they 
 were also constantly associating them with gratitude 
 and with joy. They believed that the truth of 
 Christianity implied the eternal torture of a vast 
 proportion of their fellow-creatures, and they believed 
 that it would be a gross impiety to wish that Chris- 
 tianity was untrue. They had collected with such 
 assiduity, and had interpreted with such a revolting 
 Literalism, every rhetorical passage in the Bible that 
 could be associated with their doctrine, that they had 
 firmly persuaded themselves that a material and 
 eternal fire formed a central truth of their faith, and 
 that, in the words of an Anglican clergyman, ' the 
 hell described in the Gospel is not with the same 
 
 VOL. T. Y
 
 322 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 particularity to be met. with in any other religion 
 that is or hath been in the whole world.' l Habitually 
 treating the language of parable as if it was the lan- 
 guage of history, they came to regard it as very truly 
 their ideal of happiness, to rest forever on Abraham's 
 bosom, and to contemplate for ever the torments of 
 their brother in hell. They felt with St. Augustine 
 that ' the end of religion is to become like the object 
 of worship, 1 and they represented the Deity as con- 
 fining his affection to a small section of his creatures, 
 and inflicting on all others the most horrible and 
 eternal suffering 
 
 Now it is undoubtedly true, that when doctrines of 
 this kind are intensely realised, they will prove most 
 efficacious in dispelling the apathy on religious sub- 
 jects which is the common condition of mankind. 
 They will produce great earnestness, great self-sacri- 
 fica, great singleness of purpose. Loyola, who had 
 studied with profound sagacity the springs of enthu- 
 siasm, assigned in his spiritual exercises an entire day 
 to be spent in meditating upon eternal damnation, and 
 in most great religious revivals the doctrine has 
 occupied a prominent place. It is also undoubtedly 
 true, that in a few splendid instances the effect of this 
 realisation has been to raise up missionary teachers of 
 such heroic and disinterested zeal, that their lives are 
 among the grandest pages in the whole range of bio- 
 graphy. But although this may be its effect upon 
 some singularly noble natures, there can be little 
 question that in the vast majority of cases its tendency 
 will be to indurate the character, to diffuse abroad a 
 callousness and insensibility to the suffering of others 
 
 1 Swinden, p. 129.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 323 
 
 that will profoundly debase humanity. If yon make 
 the detailed and exquisite tortures of multitudes the 
 habitual object of the thoughts and imaginations of 
 men, you will necessarily produce in most of them a 
 gradual indifference to human suffering, and in some 
 of them a disposition to regard it with positive delight. 
 If you further assure men that these sufferings form 
 an integral part of a revelation which they are bound 
 to regard as a message of good tidings, you will 
 induce them to stifle every feeling of pity, and almost 
 to encourage their insensibility as a virtue. If you 
 end your teaching by telling them that the Being who 
 is the ideal of their lives, confines his affection to the 
 members of a single Church, that He will torture for 
 ever all who are not found within its pale, and that 
 his children will for ever contemplate those tortures 
 in a state of unalloyed felicity, you will prepare the 
 way for every form of persecution that can be directed 
 against those who are without. He who most fully 
 realised these doctrines, would be the most unhappy 
 or the most unfeeling of mankind. No possible 
 prospect of individual bliss could reconcile a truly 
 humane man who followed the impulse of his hu- 
 manity, to the thought that those who were external 
 to his faith were destined to eternal fire. No truly 
 humane man could avoid wishing, that rather than 
 this should be the case, he and all others should sleep 
 the sleep of annihilation. When the doctrine was in- 
 tensely realised and implicitly believed, it must, there- 
 fore, have had one or other of two effects. It must 
 have produced an intensity of compassion that would 
 involve extreme unhappiness and would stimulate to 
 extreme heroism, or it must have produced an abso- 
 lute callousness and a positive inclination to inflict 
 ill
 
 324 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 suffering upon the heretic. It does not require much 
 knowledge of human nature to perceive that the spirit 
 of Torquemada must be more common than that of 
 Xavier. 
 
 That this was actually the case must be evident to 
 anyone who is not wilfully blind to the history of 
 Christendom. I have mentioned that writer who in 
 the second century dilated most emphatically on the 
 doctrine of eternal punishment by fire as a means of 
 intimidation. In another of his works he showed 
 very clearly the influence it exercised upon his own 
 character. He had written a treatise dissuading the 
 Christians of his day from frequenting the public 
 spectacles. He had collected on the subject many 
 arguments, some of them very powerful, and others 
 extremely grotesque ; but he perceived that to make 
 his exhortations forcible to the majority of his readers, 
 he must point them to some counter-attraction. He 
 accordingly proceeded and his style assumed a richer 
 glow and a more impetuous eloquence as he rose to 
 the congenial theme to tell them that a spectacle 
 was reserved for them, so fascinating and so attrac- 
 tive that the most joyous festivals of earth faded 
 into insignificance by the comparison. That spectacle 
 was the agonies of their fellow-countrymen, as they 
 writhe amid the torments of hell. ' What,' he ex- 
 claimed, ' shall be the magnitude of that scene ? 
 How shall I wonder ? How shall I laugh ? How 
 shall I rejoice ? How shall I triumph when I behold 
 so many and such illustrious kings, who were said 
 to have mounted, into heaven, groaning with Jupiter 
 their god in the lowest darkness of hell ! Then shall 
 the soldiers who had persecuted the name of Christ 
 burn in more cruel fire than any they had kindled for
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 325 
 
 the saints. . . . Then shall the tragedians pour forth 
 in their own misfortune more piteous cries than those 
 with which they had made the theatre to resound, 
 while the comedian's powers shall be better seen as 
 he becomes more flexible by the heat. Then shall 
 the driver of the circus stand forth to view all blush- 
 ing in his flaming chariot, and the gladiators pierced, 
 not by spears, but by darts of fire. . . . Compared 
 with such spectacles, with such subjects of triumph 
 as these, what can prsetor or consul, quaastor or pontiff, 
 afford ? and even now faith can bring them near, 
 imagination can depict them as present.' l 
 
 I have quoted this very painful passage not so 
 
 1 ' Quse tune spectaculi lati- 
 tude ? Quid admirer ? Quid 
 rideam ? ubi gaudeam ? ubi ex- 
 ultem, spectans tot et tantos 
 reges, qui in coelum recepti 
 nuntiabantur cum ipso Jove et 
 ipsis suis testibus in imis fene- 
 bris congemescentes ! Item 
 prsesides persecutors dominici 
 nominis ssevioribus quam ipsi 
 flammis ssevieruntinsultantibus 
 contra Christianos liquescentes ! 
 quos praeierea sapientes illos 
 philosopbos coram discipulis 
 suis una conflagrationibus eru- 
 bescentes, quibus nihil ad Deum 
 pertinere suadebant, quibus 
 animas aut nullas aut non in 
 pristina corpora redituras af- 
 tirmabant! Etiam poetas non 
 ad Rhadamanthi nee ad Minois 
 sed ad inopinatiChristi tribunal 
 palpitantes. Tune magis tra- 
 goedi audiendi magis scilicet 
 vocales in sua propria ca'atni- 
 tate. Tune histriones cogno- 
 Bcendi solutiores multo per 
 ignem. Tune spectandus auriga 
 in flamniea rota totus rubens ; 
 
 tune xystici contemplandi non 
 in gymnasiis sed in igne jacu- 
 lati ; nisi quod ne tune quidem 
 illos Vflim visos, ut qui malim 
 ad eos potius conspectum in- 
 satiabilem conferre qui in do- 
 minum dessevierunt. Hie est 
 ille dicam fabri aut qupestuariae 
 filius, eabbati destructor, Sama- 
 rites et djemonium habens. 
 Hie est quern a Juda redemistis, 
 hie est ille arundine et colaphis 
 diverberatus, sputamentis de- 
 decoratus, felle et aceto po- 
 tatus. Hie est quern clam 
 diseentes subripuerunt ut r- 
 surrexisse dicatur, vel hortu- 
 lanus detraxit ne lactucse suse 
 t'requentia commeantium Itede- 
 rentur. Ut talia spectes, ut 
 talibus exultes, quis tibi praetor, 
 aut consul, aut quaestor, aut 
 sacerdos de sua liberalitate 
 praestabit? Et tamen haec jam 
 quodammodo habemus per 
 ftdem, epiritu imaginante re- 
 prsesentata.' (Tertullian, De 
 Spectac. cap. xxx.)
 
 326 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 much as an instance of the excesses of a morbid dis- 
 position embittered by persecution, as because it fur- 
 nishes a striking illustration of the influence of a 
 certain class of realisations on the affections. For in 
 tracing what may be called the psychological history 
 of Europe, we are constantly met by a great contra- 
 diction, which can only be explained by such con- 
 siderations. By the confession of all parties, the 
 Christian religion was designed to be a religion of 
 philanthropy, and love was represented as the dis- 
 tinctive test, or characteristic of its true members. 
 As a matter of fact, it has probably done more to 
 quicken the affections of mankind, to promote pity, 
 to create a pure and merciful ideal, than any other 
 influence that has ever acted on the world. But 
 while the marvellous influence of Christianity in this 
 respect has been acknowledged by all who have mas- 
 tered the teachings of history, while the religious 
 minds of every land and of every opinion have re- 
 cognised in its Founder the highest conceivable ideal 
 and embodiment of compassion as of purity, it is a 
 no less incontestable truth that for many centuries 
 the Christian priesthood pursued a policy, at least 
 towards those who differed from their opinions, im- 
 plying a callousness and absence of the emotional 
 part of humanity which has seldom been paralleled, 
 and perhaps never surpassed. From Julian, who ob- 
 served that no wild beasts were so ferocious as angry 
 theologians, to Montesquieu, who discussed as a 
 psychological phenomenon the inhumanity of monks, 
 the fact has been constantly recognised. The monks, 
 the Inquisitors, and in general the mediaeval clergy, 
 present a type that is singularly well defined, and is 
 in many respects exceedingly noble, but which is
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 327 
 
 continually marked by a total absence of mere natural 
 affection. In zeal, in courage, in perseverance, in 
 self-sacrifice, they towered far above the average of 
 mankind ; but they were always as ready to inflict 
 as to endure suffering. These were the men who 
 chanted their Te Deums over the massacre of the 
 Albigenses or of St. Bartholomew, who fanned and 
 stimulated the Crusades and the religious wars, who 
 exulted over the carnage, and strained every nerve 
 to prolong the struggle, and, when the zeal of the 
 warrior had begun to flag, mourned over the languor 
 of faith, and contemplated the sufferings they had 
 caused with a satisfaction that was as pitiless as it 
 was unselfish. These were the men who were at 
 once the instigators and the agents of that hoirible 
 detailed persecution that stained almost every pro- 
 vince of Europe with the blood of Jews and heretics, 
 and which exhibits an amount of cold, passionless, 
 studied and deliberate barbarity unrivalled in the 
 history of mankind. 1 
 
 Now, when a tendency of this kind is habitually 
 exhibited among men who are unquestionably ac- 
 tuated by the strongest sense of duty, it may be 
 assumed that it is connected with some principle 
 
 1 We shall have ample evi- environ seize ans que je vis 
 
 deuce of this in the next chap- brusler nn Jacobin qui fermoit 
 
 ter. At present it is sufficient la bouche aux Papistes : on le 
 
 to say that the use of the slow degrada et on le brusla a petit 
 
 fire in burning heretics was in feu, le liant avec des cordes 
 
 many districts habitual. In mouillees par les aisselles pres 
 
 that curious book, the Scalige- la potence, et la on mettoit le 
 
 rana (a record of the conversa- feu dessous tellement qu'il 
 
 tion of Joseph Scaliger, by an estoit demy consume avaut qu'il 
 
 intimate friend who lived in fut mort.' (Art. Heretici. See, 
 
 his house), we have a horrible too, art. Sorciers, and Cousin's 
 
 description of one of these exe- account of the execution of 
 
 cutious in Guienne : ' J'avois Vauini.)
 
 328 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 they have adopted, or with the moral atmosphere 
 they breathe. It must have an intellectual or logical 
 antecedent, and it must have what may be termed 
 an emotional antecedent. By the first I understand 
 certain principles or trains of reasoning which induce 
 men to believe that it is their duty to persecute. By 
 the second, ] understand a tendency or disposition of 
 feeling that harmonises with persecution, removes 
 the natural reluctance on the subject, and predisposes 
 men to accept any reasoning of which persecution is 
 the conclusion. The logical antecedents of perse- 
 cution I shall examine in the next chapter. The 
 most important emotional antecedent is, I believe, to 
 be found in the teaching concerning the future world. 
 It was the natural result of that teaching, that men 
 whose lives present in many respects examples of 
 the noblest virtue, were nevertheless conspicuous for 
 ages as prodigies of barbarity, and proved absolutely 
 indifferent to the sufferings of all who dissented from 
 their doctrines. Nor was it only towards the heretic 
 that this inhumanity was displayed ; it was reflected 
 more or less in the whole penal system of the time. 
 We have a striking example of this in the history of 
 torture. In ancient Greece, torture was never em- 
 ployed except in cases of treason. In the best days 
 of ancient Rome, notwithstanding the notorious in- 
 humanity of the people, it was exclusively confined 
 to the slaves. In mediaeval Christendom it was made 
 use of to an extent that was probably unexampled 
 in any earlier period, and in cases that fell under the 
 cognisance of the clergy it was applied to every class 
 of the community. 1 And what strikes us most in 
 
 1 In cases of heresy and trea- one of the old authorities on 
 son, but the first were of course the subject says: 'In crimine 
 by far the most common. As hseresis onmes illi torqucndi
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 329 
 
 considering the mediaeval tortures, is not so much 
 their diabolical barbarity, which it is indeed impos- 
 sible to exaggerate, as the extraordinary variety, and 
 what may be termed the artistic skill, they displayed. 
 They represent a condition of thought in which men 
 had pondered long and carefully on all the forms of 
 suffering, had compared and combined the different 
 kinds of torture, till they had become the most con- 
 summate masters of their art, had expended on the 
 subject all the resources of the utmost ingenuity, and 
 had pursued it with the ardour of a passion. The 
 system was matured under the mediaeval habit of 
 thought, it was adopted by the Inquisitors, and it 
 received its finishing touches from their ingenuity. 1 
 
 Bunt qui in crimine liesse ma- 
 jcstatis humanae torqueri pos- 
 sunt ; quia longe gravius est 
 divinum quam temporal em 
 laedere majestatem, ac proinde 
 nobiles, milites, decuriones, 
 doctores, et omnes qui quanta- 
 libet prserogativa prsefulgent 
 in crimine hseresis et in crimine 
 Ifesse majestatis humanse tor- 
 queri possunt . . . quo fit 
 quod ruinores viginti quinque 
 annis propter suspicionem 
 h^resis et Isesse majestatis tor- 
 queri possunt, minores etiam 
 quatuordecim annis terreri et 
 habena vel ferula csedi.' (Suarez 
 de Paz, Praxis Ecclesiastica et 
 Sicilians [1619], p. 158.) 
 
 1 The extraordinary ingenu- 
 ity of the mediaeval tortures, 
 and the extent to which they 
 were elaborated by the clergy, 
 is well i-hown in an article on 
 torture by Villegille, in Lacroix, 
 le Moyen Age et la Renaissance 
 (Paris, 1848), torn. iii. The 
 original works on the subject 
 
 are very numerous, and possess 
 a great but painful interest. 
 Perhaps the fullest is Marsilius' 
 (a lawyer of Bologna) Tract atus 
 de Qutestionibus (1529 and 
 1.537 both editions in black 
 letter). Marsilius boasted that 
 he was the inventor of the 
 torture that consisted of de- 
 priving the prisoner of all sleep 
 a torture which was especially 
 used hi the States of the Church : 
 ' In Statu Ecclesiastico hi duo 
 modi magis in usu sunt, ut et 
 tormentum taxillorum, et vigiliae 
 per somni subtractionem, quern 
 modum invenisse asserit Mar- 
 silius.' (Chartaria, Praxis In- 
 terrogandorum Keorum [Romse, 
 1618], p. 198.) Besides these 
 works, there are full accounts 
 of the nature of the tortures 
 in Simancas' De Catliolicis In- 
 stituti^nibus, Eymericus' I)i- 
 rcctorium Inquisitorum, and 
 many other works to which 
 they refer.
 
 330 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 In every prison the crucifix and the rack stood side 
 by side, and in almost every country the abolition of 
 torture was at last effected by a movement which the 
 Church opposed, and by men whom she had cursed. 
 In England, it is true, torture had always been il- 
 legal, though it had often been employed, especially 
 in ecclesiastical cases ; 1 but almost every other coun- 
 try illustrates the position I have stated. In France, 
 probably the first illustrious opponent of torture was 
 Montaigne, the first of the French sceptics ; the cause 
 was soon afterwards taken up by Charron and by 
 Bayle ; it was then adopted by Voltaire, Montesquieu, 
 and the Encyclopaedists ; and it finally triumphed 
 when the Church had been shattered by the Revo- 
 lution. 2 In Spain, torture began to fall into disuse 
 under Charles III., on one of the few occasions when 
 the Government was in direct opposition to the 
 Church. 3 In Italy the great opponent of torture was 
 
 1 On the extent to which it was one of the measures of 
 was employed by the Catholics, reform conceded to the revo- 
 under Mary, in the trials of lutionary party. All torture, 
 Protestants, see Strutt's Man- however, was not abolished till 
 tiers of the English People, the Revolution was actually 
 vol. iii. p. 46 ; and on the ex- triumphant, and the abolition 
 tent to which it was employed was one of the first acts of 
 by Protestants in the trials of the democrats. (See Loise- 
 Catholic priests, see Hallam, leur, 8ur les Peines.) Besides 
 Const. Hist. (ed. 1827), vol. i. the essays of Montaigne, tor- 
 p. 159 ; and the evidence col- ture was denounced in the Sa- 
 lected in Milner's Letters to a gesse of Charron, in the Con- 
 Prebendary. Bishops Grindal tra/ns-lcstfEntrerof Bayle, and 
 and Coxe suggested the appli- in many parts of the writings 
 oat ion of torture to the Catholic of Voltaire (see, e.g., art. 
 priests. Froude, Hist., vol. vii. Torture, in Phil. Diet.) and his 
 pp. 418, 419. See, too, Bar- contemporaries, 
 rington On tJie Statutes, pp. 80, 3 Buckle's Hist., vol. ii. p. 
 and 440, 441. 140, note. Luis Vives, a rather 
 
 * The suppression of one de- famous Spanish philosopher, 
 
 partment of torture was effected in his Annotations to St. Au- 
 
 iu France as early as 1780, and gustine, had protested against
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 331 
 
 Beccaria, the friend of Helvetius and of Holbach, 
 and the avowed exponent of the principles of Rous- 
 seau. 1 Translated by Morellet, commented on by 
 Voltaire and Diderot, and supported by the whole 
 weight of the French philosophers, the work of Bec- 
 caria flew triumphantly over Europe, and vastly ac- 
 celerated the movement that produced it. Under the 
 influence of that movement, the Empress of Russia 
 abolished torture in her dominions, and accompanied 
 the abolition by an edict of toleration. Under the 
 game influence, Frederick of Prussia, whose adherence 
 to the philosophical principles was notorious, took 
 the same step, and his example was speedily followed 
 by Duke Leopold of Tuscany. Nor is there, upon 
 reflection, anything surprising in this. The move- 
 ment that destroyed torture was much less an intel- 
 lectual than an emotional movement. It represented 
 much less a discovery of the reason than an increased 
 intensity of sympathy. If we asked what positive 
 arguments can be adduced on the subject, it would 
 be difficult to cite any that was not perfectly familiar 
 
 torture as early as the first half very vivid description of dif- 
 
 of the sixteenth century. His ferent modes of torture the In- 
 
 opinions on this subject were quisitors employed in their 
 
 vehemently denounced by a dealings with heretics (pp. 297- 
 
 bishop named Simancas, in a 309). Seealso, on this horrible 
 
 very remarkable book called subject, Lloreute, Hist, of In- 
 
 De Catholicis Intititutionibus quisition. Simancas notices 
 
 ad prcecavendas et extirpan- that, in other countries, cri- 
 
 das Htereses (1569), to which I minals were in his day tortured 
 
 shall have occasion hereafter to in public, but in Spain in secret 
 
 refer. Simancas observes that (p. 305). 
 
 ' Inquisi tores Apostolici ssepis- ' On the influence of Bee- 
 si me reos torquere solent ;' he caria, see Loiseleur, pp. 335- 
 defends the practice with great 338. Morellet's translation 
 energy, on the authority of passed through seven editions 
 theologians ; and he gives a in six mouths.
 
 332 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 to all classes at every period of the middle ages. 1 
 That brave criminals sometimes escaped, and that 
 timid persons sometimes falsely declared themselves 
 guilty ; that the guiltless frequently underwent a 
 horrible punishment, and that the moral influence of 
 legal decisions was seriously weakened ; 2 these argu- 
 ments, and such as these, were as much truisms in 
 the eleventh and twelfth centuries as they are at pre- 
 sent. Nor was it by such means that the change was 
 effected. Torture was abolished because in the pro- 
 gress of civilisation the sympathies of men became 
 more expansive, their perceptions of the sufferings of 
 others more acute, their judgments more indulgent, 
 their actions more gentle. To subject even a guilty 
 man to the horrors of the rack, seemed atrocious and 
 barbarous, and therefore the rack was destroyed. 
 It was part of the great movement which abolished 
 barbarous amusements, mitigated the asperities and 
 refined the manners of all classes. Now it is quite 
 certain that those who seriously regarded eternal suf- 
 fering as the just punishment of the fretfulness of a 
 child, could not possibly look upon torture with the 
 same degree and kind of repulsion as their less ortho- 
 dox neighbours. It is also certain, that a period in 
 which religion, by dwelling incessantly on the legends 
 of the martyrs, or on the agonies of the lost, made 
 
 1 There is, perhaps, one ex- clearly the evil of torture, and 
 
 ception to this. Beccaria stated the case against it with 
 
 grounded much of his reasoning his usual force and terseness: 
 
 on the doctrine of the social '(Jumquseriturutrum sitnocens 
 
 compact. I cannot, however, cruciatur et innocens luit pro 
 
 think that this argument had iucerto scelere certissimas 
 
 much influence in producing pcenas.' (De Civ. Dei, lib. xix. 
 
 the change. cap. 6) ; but he concluded that 
 
 - It is worthy of notice that it was necessary. 
 St. Augustine perceived very
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. S33 
 
 the combination of new and horrible forms of suffer- 
 ing the habitual employment of the imagination, wa3 
 of all others that in which the system of torture was 
 likely to be most atrocious. It may be added, that 
 the very frame of mind that made men assail the 
 practice of torture, made them also assail the mediae- 
 val doctrine of future punishment. The two things 
 grew out of the same condition of society. They 
 flourished together, and they declined together. 
 
 The truth is, that in every age the penal code will 
 in a great degree vary with the popular estimate of 
 guilt. Philosophers have written much on the purely 
 preventive character of legal punishments ; but it 
 requires but little knowledge of history, or even of 
 human nature, to show that a code constructed 
 altogether on such a principle is impossible. It is 
 indeed true, that all acts morality condemns do not 
 fall within the province of the legislator, and that this 
 fact is more fully appreciated as civilisation advances. 1 
 It is true, too, that, in an early stage, the severity of 
 punishments results in a great measure from the pre- 
 vailing indifference to the infliction of suffering. It 
 is even true that the especial prominence or danger 
 of some crime will cause men to visit it for a time 
 with penalties that seem to bear no proportion to its 
 moral enormity. Yet it is, I think, impossible to 
 examine penal systems without perceiving that they 
 can only be efficient during a long period of time, 
 when they accord substantially with the popular 
 
 1 The tendency of all penal is well known. As a modern 
 ays-terns constructed under the instance of this, Sweden is 
 influence of the clergy to make perhaps the most remarkable, 
 the legal code coextensive with See the striking book of Mr. 
 the moral code, and to make Laing, \ipon its present con- 
 punishments as much as pos- dition. 
 cible of the nature of expiation,
 
 334 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 estimate of the enormity of guilt. Every system, "by 
 admitting extenuating circumstances and graduated 
 punishments, implies this, and every judgment that 
 is passed by the public is virtually an appeal to an 
 ideal standard. When a punishment is pronounced 
 excessive, it is meant that it is greater than was 
 deserved. When it is pronounced inadequate, it is 
 meant that it is less than was deserved. Even re- 
 garding the law simply as a preventive measure, it 
 is necessary that it should thus reflect the prevailing 
 estimate of guilt, for otherwise it would come into 
 collision with that public opinion which is essential 
 to its operation. Thus, towards the close of the 
 last century, both murder and horse-stealing were 
 punished by death. In the first case, juries readily 
 brought in verdicts, the public sanctioned those ver- 
 dicts, and the law was efficacious. In the second 
 case the criminals were almost usually acquitted ; and 
 when they were executed, public opinion was shocked 
 and scandalised. The reason of this was, that men 
 looked upon death as a punishment not incommen- 
 surate with the guilt of murder, but exceedingly dis- 
 proportionate to that of theft. In the advance of 
 civilisation, there is a constant tendency to mitigate 
 the severity of penal codes, for men learn to realise 
 more intensely the suffering they are inflicting ; and 
 they at the same time become more sensible of the 
 palliations of guilt. When, however, such a doctrine 
 concerning the just reward of crime as I have noticed 
 is believed and realised, it must inevitably have the 
 effect of retarding the progress. 
 
 Such, then, were the natural effects of the popular 
 teaching on the subject of future punishment which 
 was universal during the middle ages, and during the
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM . 335 
 
 sixteenth and the greater part of the seventeenth 
 century. How completely that teaching has passed 
 away must be evident to anyone who will take the 
 pains of comparing old theological literature with 
 modern teaching. The hideous pictures of mateiial 
 fire and of endless torture which were once so 
 carefully elaborated and so constantly enforced, have 
 been replaced by a few vague sentences on the subject 
 of ' perdition,' or by the general assertion of a future 
 adjustment of the inequalities of life ; and a doctrine 
 which grows out of the moral faculty, and is an 
 element in every truly moral religion, has been thus 
 silently substituted for a doctrine which was the 
 greatest of all moral difficulties. The eternity of 
 punishment is, indeed, still strenuously defended by 
 many ; but the nature of that punishment, which had 
 been one of the most prominent points in every pre- 
 vious discussion on the subject, has now completely 
 disappeared i'rom controversy. The ablest theologians 
 once regarded their doctrine as one that might be 
 defended, but could not possibly be so stated as not 
 at first sight to shock the feelings. Leibnitz argued 
 that offences against an Infinite Being acquired an 
 infinite guilt, and therefore deserved an infinite 
 punishment. Butler argued that the analogy of 
 nature gave much reason to suspect that the punish- 
 ment of crimes may be out of all proportion with our 
 conceptions of their guilt. Both, by their very de- 
 fences, implied that the doctrine was a grievous diffi- 
 culty. As, however, it is commonly stated at present, 
 the doctrine is so far from being a difficulty, that any 
 system that was without it would be manifestlv im- 
 perfect, and it has accordingly long since taken its 
 place as one of the moral evidences of Christianity.
 
 336 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 This gradual and silent transformation of the 
 popular conceptions is doubtless chiefly due to the 
 habit of educing moral and intellectual truths from 
 our own sense of right, rather than from traditional 
 teaching, which has accompanied the decline of dog- 
 matic theology, and which first became conspicuous 
 in the seventeenth century. Descartes, who was the 
 chief reviver of moral philosophy, may be regarded 
 as its leading originator ; for the method which he 
 applied to metaphysical enquiries was soon applied 
 (consciously or unconsciously) to moral subjects. 
 Men, when seeking for just ideas of right and wrong, 
 began to interrogate their moral sense much more 
 than the books of theologians, and they soon pro- 
 ceeded to make that sense or faculty a supreme 
 arbiter, and to mould all theology into conformity 
 with its dictates. At the same time the great in- 
 crease of secular influences, and the rapid succession 
 of innovations, made theologians yield with com- 
 parative facility to the pressure of their age. 
 
 But besides this general rationalistic movement, 
 there was another tendency which exercised, I think, 
 a real though minor influence on the movement, and 
 which is also associated with the name of Descartes. 
 1 mean the developc-ment of a purely spiritual con- 
 ception of the soul. The different effects which a 
 spiritual or a material philosophy has exercised on 
 all departments of speculation, form one of the most 
 interesting pages in history. The ancients at least 
 the most spiritual schools seem to have generally 
 regarded the essence of the soul as an extremely 
 subtle fluid, or substance quite distinct from the 
 body ; and, according to their view, and according 
 to the views that were long afterwards prevalent,
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 337 
 
 tliis excessive subtlety of essence constituted im- 
 materiality. For the soul was supposed to be of a 
 nature totally different from surrounding objects, 
 simple, incapable of disintegration, and emancipated 
 from the conditions of matter. Some of the Plato- 
 nists verged very closely upon, and perhaps attained, 
 the modern idea of a soul, whose essence is purely 
 intellectual, but the general opinion was, I think, that 
 winch I have described. The distinct and, as it was 
 called, immaterial nature of the soul was insisted on 
 by the ancients with great emphasis as the chief 
 proof of its immortality. If mind be but a function 
 of matter, if thought be but ' a material product of 
 the brain,' it seems natural that the dissolution of the 
 body should be the annihilation of the individual. 
 There is, indeed, an instinct in man pointing to a 
 future sphere, where the injustices of life shall be 
 rectified, and where the chain of love that death has 
 severed shall be linked anew, which is so closely con- 
 nected with our moral nature that it would perhaps 
 survive the rudest shocks of a material philosophy ; 
 but to minds in which the logical element is most 
 prominent, the psychological argument will always 
 appear the most satisfactory. That there exists in 
 man an indivisible being connected with, but essen- 
 tially distinct from, the body, was the position which 
 Socrates dwelt upon as one of the chief foundations 
 of his hopes in the last hours of his life, and Cicero 
 in tho shadow of age ; and the whole moral system 
 of the school of Plato was based upon the distinction. 
 Man, in their noble imagery, is the horizon line where 
 the world of spirit and the world of matter touch. It 
 is in his power to rise by the wings of the soul to com- 
 munion with the gods, or to sink by the gravitation 
 
 VOL. I. Z
 
 338 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 of the body to the level of the brute. It is the destiny 
 of the soul to pass from state to state ; all its know- 
 ledge is but remembrance, and its future condition 
 must be determined by its present tendency. The 
 soul of that man who aspires only to virtue, and who 
 despises the luxury and the passions of earth, will 
 be emancipated at last from the thraldom of matter, 
 and invisible and unshackled will drink in perfect 
 bliss in the full fruition of wisdom. The soul of that 
 man who seeks his chief gratification in the body, 
 will after death be imprisoned in a new body, will be 
 punished by physical suffering, or, visible to the human 
 eye, will appear upon earth in the form of a ghost 
 to scare the survivors amid their pleasures. 1 
 
 Such were the opinions that were held by the 
 school of Plato, the most spiritual of all the philo- 
 sophers of antiquity. When Christianity appeared in 
 the world, its first tendency was very favourable to 
 these conceptions, for it is the effect of every great 
 moral enthusiasm to raise men above the appetites of 
 the body, to present to the mind a supersensual ideal, 
 and to accentuate strongly the antagonism by which 
 human nature is convulsed. We accordingly find 
 that in its earlier and better days the Church assimi- 
 lated especially with the philosophy of Plato, while 
 in the middle ages Aristotle was supreme ; and we 
 also find that the revival of Platonism accompanied 
 the spiritualising movement that preceded the Refor- 
 mation. Yet there were two doctrines that produced 
 an opposite tendency. The pagans asserted the im- 
 materiality of the soul, because they believed that 
 
 1 This theory is developed dead, and consequently a strong 
 in the Ph&don. The Greeks predisposition to see ghosts, 
 had an extreme fear of the
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 
 
 339 
 
 the body must perish for ever ; and some of the 
 Christians, in denying this latter position, were in- 
 clined to reject the distinction that was based upon 
 it. But above all, the firm belief in punishment by 
 fire, and the great prominence the doctrine soon ob- 
 tained, became the foundation of the material view. 
 The Fathers were early divided upon the subject. 1 
 One section, comprising the ablest and the best, 
 maintained that there existed in man an immaterial 
 soul, but that that soul was invariably associated with 
 a thin, flexible, but sensitive body, visible to the eye. 
 Origen added that the Deity alone could exist as a 
 pure spirit unallied with matter. 2 The other school, 
 of which Tertullian may be regarded as the chief, 
 utterly denied the existence in man of any incorporeal 
 
 1 ' Not one of them (the early subtle body. But the others, 
 
 Fathers) entertained the same who keep far aloof from Plato, 
 
 opinion as the majority of and consider his philosophy to 
 
 Christians do at the present be prejudicial to Christian prin- 
 day, that the soul is perfectly 
 
 eimple, and entirely destitute 
 of all body, figure, form, and 
 extension. On the contrary, 
 they all acknowledge it to con- 
 tain something corporeal, al- 
 though of a different kind and 
 nature from the bodies of this 
 mortal sphere. But yet they 
 are divided into two opinions. 
 For some contend that there 
 are two things in the soul 
 spirit, and a very thin and 
 subtle body in which this spirit 
 is clothed. . . . Those who 
 follow Plato and the Pla- 
 tonists (i.e. Clement, Origen, 
 and their disciples), adopt the 
 Platonic doctrine respecting 
 the soul also, and pronounce 
 it to be most simple in itself, 
 but yet always invested with a 
 
 z2 
 
 ciples, repudiate this doctrine 
 of his as well, and maintain 
 that the soul altogether is no- 
 thing more than a most subtle 
 body. . . . They very fre- 
 quently assail the Platomsts 
 with bitter invectives, for in- 
 culcating that the soul is of a 
 nature most simple, and devoid 
 of all concretion.' Note by 
 Mosheim to Cudworth's Intell. 
 System (Harrison's ed.), vol. iii. 
 p. 325. Mr. Hallam says : "The 
 Fathers, with the exception, 
 perhaps the single one, of Au- 
 gustine, had taught the corpo- 
 reity of the thinking substance.' 
 (Hist, of Lit.} 
 
 2 dad worth, vol. iii. p. 318. 
 The same Father based his doc- 
 trine of the soul in agreat mea- 
 sure on apparitions. (Ibid.p.330.)
 
 340 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 element, maintained that the soul was simply a 
 becond body, and based this doctrine chiefly on the 
 conception of future punishment. 1 Apparitions were 
 at that time regarded as frequent. Tertullian mentions 
 a woman who had seen a soul, which she described 
 as ' a transparent and lucid figure in the perfect 
 form of a man.' 2 St. Antony saw the soul of Amrnon 
 carried up to heaven. The soul of a Libyan hermit 
 named Marc was borne to heaven in a napkin. Angels 
 also were not unfrequently seen, and were univer- 
 sally believed to have cohabited with the daughters 
 of the antediluvians. 
 
 Under the influence of medieval habits of thought 
 every spiritual conception was materialised, and 
 what at an earlier and a later period was deemed 
 the language of metaphor, was generally regarded 
 as the language of fact. The realisations of the 
 people were all derived from painting, sculpture, or 
 ceremonies that appealed to the senses, and all sub- 
 jects were therefore reduced to palpable images. 3 
 The angel in the Last Judgment was constantly re- 
 presented weighing the souls in a literal balance, 
 while devils clinging to the scales endeavoured to 
 disturb the equilibrium. Sometimes the soul was 
 portrayed as a sexless child, rising out of the mouth 
 of the corpse. 4 But above all, the doctrine of purga- 
 
 1 ' Corporalitas animse in written after Tertullian had 
 
 ipso evangelic relucebit. Dolet become a Montanist, but there 
 
 apud inferos anima cujusdam, is no reason to believe that 
 
 et punitur in flamma et cru- this had anything to say to his 
 
 ciatur in lingua et de digito psychology, 
 
 animse felicioris implorat sola- * See on this subject Maury, 
 
 tium roris.' Tertullian, De Legendes pieuses, pp. 125-127. 
 
 Animn, cap. vii. 4 Maury, Legcndcs pieuses, 
 
 * Ibid. cap. ix. I should p. 124. There is an example of 
 
 mention that this book was this in the Triumph of Death,
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 341 
 
 tory arrested and enchained the imagination. Every 
 church was crowded with pictures representing the 
 souls of those who had just died as literal bodies 
 writhing with horrible contortions in a literal fire. 
 The two doctrines were strictly congruous, and each 
 supported the other. Men who believed in a ' phy- 
 sical soul,' readily believed in a physical punishment. 
 Men who materialised their view of the punishment, 
 materialised their view of the sufferers. 
 
 We find, however, some time before the Refor- 
 mation, evident signs of a desire on the part of a few 
 writers to rise to a purer conception of the soul. The 
 pantheistic writings that flowed from the school of 
 Averroes, reviving the old Stoical notion of a soul of 
 nature, directed attention to the great problem of the 
 connection between the worlds of matter and of mind. 
 The conception of an all- pervading spirit, which 
 ' sleeps in the stone, dreams in the animal, and 
 wakes in the man ; ' l the belief that the hidden vital 
 principle which produces the varied forms of orga- 
 nisation, is but the thrill of the Divine essence that 
 is present in them all this belief, which had occupied 
 BO noble a place among the speculations of antiquity, 
 reappeared ; and was, perhaps, strengthened by the 
 rapid progress of mysticism, which may be regarded 
 as the Christian form of pantheism. Coalescing at 
 first with some lingering traditions of Gnosticism, 
 mysticism appeared in the thirteenth century in the 
 sect of the Begards, and especially in the teaching of 
 Dav!d de Dianant, Ortlieb, and Amaury de Bene ; 
 and in the following century, under the guidance of 
 
 by Orgagna, at Pisa. In the in the mighty hand of God. 
 
 Greek churches the souls of the (Didron, Icnnographie, p. 216.) 
 blest were sometimes repre- ' Schelling. 
 seated as little children clasped
 
 342 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 Eckart, Tauler, Suso, and Ruysbroek, it acquired in 
 Germany an extraordinary popularity, to which the 
 strong religious feeling elicited by the black death, 
 and the reaction that had begun against the exces- 
 sive aridity of scholasticism, both contributed. 1 The 
 writings ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, which 
 have always been the Bible of mysticism, and which 
 had been in part translated by Scotus Erigena, and 
 also some of the works of Scotus himself, rose to 
 sudden favour, and a new tone was given to almost 
 all classes of theological reasoners. As the philo- 
 sophical aspect of this tone of thought, an order of 
 investigation was produced, which was shown in 
 curious enquiries about how life is first generated in 
 matter. The theory of spontaneous generation, 
 which Lucretius had made the basis of a great portion 
 of his system, and on which the philosophers of tho 
 eighteenth century laid so great stress, was strongly 
 asserted,- and all the mysteries of generation treated 
 with a confidence that elicits a smile, 3 not unmixed 
 
 1 See Schmidt, Etudes sur bent proereationem, ut mure* ; 
 le Mysticisms allemand du nam eorum alii ex sordibus 
 XIV' siecle, in the Memoircs sine concubitu, alii ex coneu- 
 des Sci<nces morales etpolitiques bitu proveniunt.' (De Anima, 
 de Ulnstitut de France, torn. ii. lib. i.) Van Helmont, as is well 
 
 2 The following passage from known, gave a receipt for pro- 
 Vives is interesting both as ducing mice. St. Augustine, 
 giving a concise view of the after taking great pains to solve 
 notions prevailing about spon- different objections to the good- 
 tan eous generation, and on ness of Providence, oddly enough 
 account of the very curious selects the existence of mice as 
 notion in it about mice: ' De an impenetrable one which faith 
 viventibus alia generationem alone can grasp : ' Ego vero 
 habent spontaneum, ut muscse, fateor me nescire mures et ranse 
 culices, formicse, apes : quae quare creati sunt, aut mnscte, 
 nee sexum ullum habent. Alia aut vermiculae.' (De Genesi con- 
 ex, commixtione sexuum prod- tra Manick<eos, c. xvi.) 
 
 eunt, ut homo, equus, canis, s Thus, Melanchthon deals, 
 leo. Sunt quse ambiguam ha- in a tone of the most absolute
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF KATIONALISM. 343 
 
 with melancholy when we think how completely 
 these great questions of the nature and origin of life, 
 which may be almost said to form the basis of all 
 real knowledge, have eluded our investigations, and 
 how absolutely the fair promise of the last century has 
 in this respect been unfulfilled. From enquiries 
 about the genesis of the soul, it was natural to pro- 
 ceed to examine its nature. Such enquiries were 
 accordingly earnestly pursued, with the assistance 
 of the pagan writers ; and the conclusions arrived 
 at on this point by different schools exercised, as is 
 always the case, a very wide influence upon their 
 theological conceptions. I cannot doubt, that when 
 at last Descartes maintained that thought is the 
 essence of the soul, and that the thinking substance 
 is therefore so wholly and generically different from 
 the body, that none of the forms or properties of 
 matter can afford the faintest image of its nature, he 
 contributed much to that frame of mind which made 
 men naturally turn with contempt from ghosts, 
 visible demons, and purgatorial fires. 1 It is true 
 
 assurance, with the great ques- stood. Thought, he contended, 
 tion of the cause of the dif- is the essence of the soul, and 
 ference of sex : ' Mares uas- all that is not thought (as life 
 euntur magis in dextra parte and sensibility) is of the body, 
 matricis, et a semine quod In denying that brutes had 
 magis a dextro testiculo oritur. souls, he denied them the power 
 Fcemellse in sinistra, matricis of thought, but left them all 
 parte nascuntur.' (Melanch- besides. This distinction in 
 thon, De Anima, p. 420.) This its full rigidity would now ba 
 theory originated, I believe, maintained by very few ; and 
 with Aristotle, and was after- Stahl gave psychology an 5m- 
 wards repeated by numerous pulse in quite another direction 
 writers. by his doctrine (which was that 
 1 The sharp line Descartes of Aristotle), that the soul in- 
 tried to draw between the eludes the vital principle all 
 body and the soul explains his that separates living from dead 
 doctrine of animals, which has bodies. He thus founded the 
 often been grossly misunder- psychology of animals, and in
 
 S44 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 that the Cartesian doctrine was soon in a measure 
 eclipsed, but it at least destroyed for ever the old 
 notion of an inner body. ' 
 
 From the time of Descartes, the doctrine of a 
 material fire may indeed be said to have steadily 
 declined. 2 The sceptics of the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries treated it with great contempt, 
 and in England, at least, the last great controversy 
 on the subject in the Church, seems to have taken 
 place during the first half of the eighteenth century. 
 Swinden, Whiston, Horberry, Dodwell, and in 
 America Jonathan Edwards, discussed it from dif- 
 ferent points of view, 3 and attested the rapid progress 
 
 a great measure fused psycho- 
 logy and medicine. There 
 is a clear statement on this 
 point in Maine de Biran, Nou- 
 veaitx Rapports physiques ct 
 moraux. There is at present 
 a remarkable revival of the 
 doctrine of Stahl in France, in 
 the writings of Tissot, Boullier, 
 Charles, and Lemoine. 
 
 1 A doctrine, however, some- 
 thing like that of the old 
 Fathers, but applied to the 
 bodies of the blest, has been 
 lately advocated in two very 
 ingenious American books 
 Hitchcock's Bdiyion of Geology, 
 and Lectures on the Seasons. 
 The author has availed himself 
 of Reich enbach's theories of 
 ' odic light,' &c. 
 
 2 Descartes himself gives 
 us the opinion of his contem- 
 poraries on the subject: 'Bien 
 que la commune opinion des 
 theologiens soit que les damnes 
 sont tourmentes par le feu des 
 enfers, ndanmoius leur senti- 
 ment n'est pas pour cela qu'ils 
 
 sont dc,us par une fausse idee 
 que Dieu leur a imprimee, d'uu 
 feu qui les consume, mais 
 plutot qu'ils sont veritablement 
 tourmentes par le feu ; parce que 
 " comme 1'esprit d'un horame 
 vivant, bien qu'il ne soit pas 
 corporel, est neanmoins detenu 
 dans le corps, ainsi Dieu par 
 sa totite-puissance pent aise- 
 ment faire qu'il souffre les 
 atteintes du feu corporel apres 
 la mort." ' (Rcponscs aux 
 six Objections.') 
 
 * This was, as fur as I know, 
 the last of the great contro- 
 versies concerning the locality 
 of hell a question which had 
 once excited great attention. 
 The common opinion which St. 
 Thomas had sanctioned was 
 that it was in the centre of the 
 earth. Winston, however, who 
 denied the eternity of punish- 
 ment, contended that it was 
 the tail of a comet ; while 
 Swinden (whose book seems to 
 have made a considerable sensa- 
 tion, and was translated into
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 345 
 
 of the scepticism. Towards the close of the century 
 the doctrine had passed away ; for though there was 
 no formal recantation or change of dogmas, it was 
 virtually excluded from the popular teaching, though 
 it even now lingers among the least educated Dis- 
 senters, and in the Roman Catholic manuals for the 
 poor. 
 
 I have dwelt at length upon this very revolting 
 doctrine, because it exercised, I believe, an extremely 
 important influence on the modes of thought and 
 types of character of the past. I have endeavoured 
 to show how its necessary effect was to chill and 
 deaden the sympathies, to predispose men to inflict 
 Buffering, and seriously to retard the march of civili- 
 sation. It has now virtually passed away, and with 
 it the type of character that it did so much to form. 
 Instead of the old stern Inquisitor, so unflinching in 
 his asceticism, so heroic in his enterprises, so remorse- 
 less in his peisecution instead of the men who mul- 
 tiplied and elaborated the most hideous tortures, who 
 wrote long cold treatises on their application, who 
 stimulated and embittered the most ferocious wars, 
 and who watered every land with the blood of the 
 innocent. instead of this ecclesiastical type of cha- 
 racter, we meet with an almost feminine sensibility, 
 and an almost morbid indisposition to inflict punish- 
 ment. The preeminent characteristic of modern 
 Christianity is the boundless philanthropy it displays. 
 Philanthropy is to our age what asceticism was to 
 the middle ages, and what polemical discussion was 
 
 French) strenuously contended not only held this, but ex- 
 
 that it was the sun. According plained the spots in the sun 
 
 to Plancey (Diet, infernal, art. Ly the multitude of the souls. 
 Eiifer), some early theologians
 
 346 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The emo- 
 tional part of humanity, the humanity of impulse, wag 
 never so developed, and its developement, in Protest- 
 antism at least, where the movement has been most 
 strikingly evinced, has always been guided and repre- 
 sented by the clergy. Indeed, this fact is recognised 
 quite as much by their opponents as by their admirers. 
 A certain weak and effeminate sentimentality, both 
 intellectual and moral, is the quality which every 
 satirist of the clergy dwells upon as the most pro- 
 minent feature of their character. Whether this 
 quality, when duly analysed, is as despicable as is 
 sometimes supposed, may be questioned ; at all events, 
 no one would think of ascribing it to the ecclesi- 
 astics of the school of Torquemada, of Calvin, or of 
 Knox. 
 
 The changes that take place from age to age in the 
 types of character in different professions, though they 
 are often very evident, and though they form one of 
 the most suggestive branches of history, are of course 
 not susceptible of direct logical proof. A writer can 
 only lay the general impressions he has derived from 
 the study of the two periods before the judgments of 
 those whose studies have resembled his own. It is 
 more, therefore, as an illustration than as a proof, 
 that I may notice, in conclusion, the striking contrast 
 which the history of punishments exhibits in the two 
 periods of theological developement. We have seen 
 that the popular estimate of the adequacy of the 
 penalties that are affixed to different crimes must in 
 a great measure vary with the popular realisations of 
 guilt. We have seen, too, that the abolition of torture 
 was a movement almost entirely due to the opponents 
 of the Church, and that it was effected much less by
 
 DEVELOPMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 347 
 
 any process of reasoning than by the influence of 
 certain modes of feeling which civilisation produced. 
 Soon, however, we find that the impulse which was 
 communicated by Voltaire, Beccaria, and the Revo- 
 lution, passed on to the orthodox, and it was only 
 then it acquired its full intensity. The doctrine of a 
 literal fire having almost ceased to be a realised con- 
 ception, a growing sense of the undue severity of 
 punishments was everywhere manifested ; and in most 
 countries, but more especially in England, there was 
 no single subject on which more earnestness was 
 shown. The first step was taken by Howard. Nowhere 
 perhaps in the annals of philanthropy do we meet a 
 picture of more unsullied and fruitful beneficence than 
 is presented by the life of that great Dissenter, who, 
 having travelled over more than 40,000 miles in works 
 of mercy, at last died 011 a foreign soil a martyr to his 
 cause. Not only in England, but over the whole of 
 Europe, his exertions directed public opinion to the 
 condition of prisons, and effected a revolution the re- 
 sults of which can never be estimated. Soon after 
 followed the mitigation of the penal code. In England 
 the severity of that code had long been unexampled ; 
 and as crimes of violence were especially numerous, 
 the number of executions was probably quite un- 
 paralleled in Europe. Indeed, Fortescue, who was 
 chief justice under Henry VI., notices the fact with 
 carious complacency, as a plain proof of the superiority 
 of his countrymen. ' More men,' he tells us, ' are 
 hanged in Englonde in one year than in Fraunce in 
 seven, because the English have better hartes. The 
 Scotchmenne, likewise, never dare rob, but only 
 commit larcenies.' l In the reign of Henry VIII., 
 1 Harrington, On the Statutes (London, 1769), p. 461,
 
 348 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 when an attempt was made to convert the greater 
 part of England into pasture land, 1 and when the 
 suppression of the monasteries had destroyed the 
 main source of charity, and had cast multitudes help- 
 lessly upon the world, Holingshed estimates the exe- 
 cutions at the amazing number of 72,000, or 2,000 a 
 year. 8 This estimate is utterly incredible, but even 
 at the end of the reign of Elizabeth, and notwith- 
 standing the poor-law which had been enacted, the 
 annual executions are said to have been about 400. 3 In 
 the middle of the eighteenth century, however, though 
 the population had greatly increased, they had fallen 
 to less than one hundred. 4 A little before this time 
 Bishop Berkeley, following in the steps that had been 
 traced by More in his ' Utopia,' and by Cromwell in 
 one of his speeches, raised his voice in favour of sub- 
 stituting other punishments for death. 5 But all 
 through the reign of George III. the code was aggra- 
 vated, and its severity was carried to such a point, 
 that when Romilly began his career, the number of 
 capital offences was no less than 230. 6 It was only 
 at the close of the last and in the beginning of tho 
 present century, that this state of things was changed. 
 The reform in England, as over the rest of Europe, 
 
 1 Sir Thomas More, in his was in 1766. 
 
 Utopia (book, i.), gives alright- s He asks ' whether we may 
 
 nil description of the misery not, as well as other nations, 
 
 and the crimes resulting from contrive employment for our 
 
 the ejectments necessitated by criminals ; and whether servi- 
 
 this change. He speaks of tude, chains, and hard labour 
 
 twenty men hung on one gibbet, for a term of years, would 
 
 2 Harrington, pp. 461, 462. not be a more discouraging 
 It should be added that Mr. as well as a more adequate 
 Froude utterly rejects this esti- punishment for felons than 
 mate. even death itself.' (Querist, 
 
 8 Ibid. No. 54.) 
 
 4 Barrington says this was 6 See Romilly's Life for many 
 the case when he wrote, which statistics on the subject.
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 349 
 
 may be ultimately traced to that Voltairian school of 
 which Beccaria was the representative, for the impulse 
 created by the treatise ' On Crimes and Punishments' 
 was universal, and it was the first great effort to 
 infuse a spirit of philanthropy into the penal code, 
 making it a main object of legislation to inflict the 
 smallest possible amount of suffering. Beccaria is 
 especially identified with the cause of the abo- 
 lition of capital punishment, which is slowly but 
 steadily advancing towards its inevitable triumph. 
 In England, the philosophical element of the move- 
 ment was nobly represented by Bentham, who in 
 genius was certainly superior to Beccaria, and whose 
 influence, though perhaps not so great, was also 
 European. But while conceding the fullest merit to 
 these great thinkers, there can be little doubt that 
 the enthusiasm and the support that enabled Romilly, 
 Mackintosh, Wilberforce, and Brougham, to carry 
 their long series of reforms through Parliament, was 
 in a very great degree owing to the untiring exertions 
 of the Evangelicals, who with a benevolence that no 
 disappointment could damp, and with an indulgence 
 towards crime that sometimes amounted even to a 
 fault, cast their whole weight into the cause of phil- 
 anthropy. The contrast between the position of 
 these religionists in the destruction of the worst 
 features of the ancient codes, and the precisely opposite 
 position of the medieval clergy, is very remarkable. 
 Sectarians will only see in it the difference between 
 rival churches, but the candid historian will, I think, 
 be able to detect the changed types of character that 
 civilisation has produced ; while in the difference that 
 does undoubtedly in this respect exist, between Pro- 
 testantism and Catholicism, he will find one of the 
 results of the very different degrees of intensity with
 
 350 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 which those religions direct the mind to the debasing 
 and indurating conceptions I have reviewed. 
 
 It has been said that the tendency of religious 
 thought in the present day ' is all in one direction 
 towards the identification of the Bible and conscience.' 
 It is a movement that may be deplored, but can 
 scarcely be overlooked or denied. Generation after 
 generation the power of the moral faculty becomes 
 more absolute, the doctrines that oppose it wane and 
 vanish, and the various elements of theology are 
 absorbed and recast by its influence. The indifference 
 of most men to dogmatic theology is now so marked, 
 and the fear of tampering with formularies that are no 
 longer based on general conviction is with some men 
 so intense, that general revisions of creeds have be- 
 come extremely rare ; but the change of belief is not 
 the less profound. The old words are indeed retained, 
 but they no longer present the old images to the 
 mind, or exercise the old influence upon life. The 
 modes of thought and the types of character which 
 those modes produce are essentially and universally 
 transformed. Th.3 whole intellectual atmosphere, the 
 whole tenor of life, the prevailing enthusiasms, the 
 conceptions of the imagination, are all changed. The 
 intellect of man moves onward under the influence of 
 regular laws in a given direction, and the opinions 
 that in any age are realised and operative, are those 
 which harmonise with its intellectual condition. I 
 have endeavoured in the present chapter to exhibit 
 the nature of some of these laws, the direction in 
 which some of these successive modifications are 
 tending. If the prospect of constant change such an 
 enquiry exhibits should appear to some minds to re- 
 move all the landmarks of the past, there is one eon-
 
 DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 351 
 
 sideratiou that may serve in a measure to reassure 
 them. That Christianity was designed to produce 
 benevolence, affection, and sympathy, being a fact of 
 universal admission, is indefinitely more certain than 
 that any particular dogma is essential to it ; and in 
 the increase of these moral qualities we have there- 
 fore the strongest evidence of the triumph of the 
 conceptions of its Founder.
 
 352 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A- PERSECUTION. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE ANTECEDENTS OF PERSECUTION. 
 
 WIIKN it is remembered that the Founder of Chris- 
 tianity' summed up human duties in the two precepts 
 of love to God and love to man, and illustrated the 
 second precept by a parable representing the senti- 
 ment of a common humanity destroying all the ani- 
 mosities of sectarianism, the history of persecution in 
 the Christian Church appears as startling as it is 
 painful. In the eighteenth century, when the minds 
 of men were for the first time very sensible of the 
 contrast, it was commonly explained by imputing 
 interested motives to the clergy, and in all the 
 writings of Voltaire and his school hypocrisy was 
 represented as the usual concomitant of persecution. 
 This notion may now be said to have quite passed 
 away. While it is undoubtedly true that some perse- 
 cutions, and even some that were very atrocious, have 
 sprung from purely selfish motives, it is almost uni- 
 versally admitted that these are far from furnishing 
 any adequate explanation of the facts. The burn- 
 ings, the tortures, the imprisonments, the confisca-
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 353 
 
 tions, the disabilities, the long wars and still longer 
 animosities that for so many centuries marked the 
 conflicts of great theological bodies, are chiefly due to 
 men whose lives were spent in absolute devotion to 
 what they believed to be true, and whose characters 
 have passed unscathed through the most hostile and 
 searching criticism. In their worst acts the persecu- 
 tors were but the exponents and representatives of the 
 wishes of a large section of the community, and that 
 section was commonly the most earnest and the most 
 unselfish. It has been observed too, since the sub- 
 ject has been investigated with a passionless judg- 
 ment, that persecution invariably accompanied the 
 realisation of a particular class of doctrines, fluctu- 
 ated with their fluctuations, and may therefore be 
 fairly presumed to represent their action upon life. 
 
 In the last chapter I have, I trust, done something 
 towards the solution of the difficulty. I have shown 
 that the normal effect of a certain class of realisations 
 upon the character would be to produce an absolute 
 indifference to the sufferings of those who were ex- 
 ternal to the Church, and consequently to remove 
 that reluctance to inflict pain which is one of the 
 chief preservatives of society. I have now to trace 
 the order of ideas which persuaded men that it was 
 their duty to persecute, and to show the process by 
 which those ideas passed away. The task is a painful 
 one, for the doctrines I must refer to are those which 
 are most repugnant to our moral sense, and in an age 
 in which they are not realised or believed the bare 
 statement of them is sufficient to shock the feelings 
 of many : at the same time, a clear view of their 
 nature and influence is absolutely essential to an 
 understanding of the past. 
 
 VOL I. A A
 
 354 NATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 There are two moral sentiments which seem uni- 
 versally diffused through the human race, and which 
 may be regarded as the nuclei around which all re- 
 ligious systems are formed. They are the sense of 
 virtue, leading men to attach the idea of merit to 
 certain actions which they may perform ; and the 
 sense of sin, teaching meu that their relation to the 
 Deity is not that of claimants but of suppliants. Al- 
 though in some degree antagonistic, there probably 
 never was a religious mind in which they did not 
 coexist, and they may be traced as prominent ele- 
 ments in the moral developement of every age and 
 creed, but at the same time their relative importance 
 is far from being the same. There are certain ages 
 in which the sense of virtue has been the mainspring 
 of religion ; there are other ages in which this position 
 is occupied by the sense of sin. This may be partly 
 owing to the diffei'ences in the original constitutions 
 of different races, or to those influences of surrounding 
 nature which act so early upon the mind that it is 
 scarcely possible to distinguish them from natural 
 tendencies, but it is certainly in a great measure due 
 to the political and intellectual circumstances that are 
 dominant. When prosperity and victory and dominion 
 have long continued to elate, and when the virtues 
 that contribute most to political greatness, such as 
 fortitude and self-reliance, are cultivated, the sense of 
 human dignity will become the chief moral principle, 
 and every system that opposes it will be distasteful. 
 But when, on the other hand, a religious system 
 emanates from a suffering people, or from a people 
 that is eminently endowed with religious sentiment, 
 its character will be entirely different. It will reflect 
 something of the circumstances that gave it birth ; it
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 355 
 
 will be full of pathos, of humility, of emotion ; it will 
 lead men to aspire to a lofty ideal, to interrogate 
 their conscience with nervous anxiety, to study with 
 scrupulous care the motives that actuate them, to 
 distrust their own powers, and to throw themselves 
 upon external help. 
 
 Now, of all systems the world has ever seen, the 
 philosophies of ancient Greece and Rome appealed 
 most strongly to the sense of virtue, and Christianity 
 to the sense of sin. The ideal of the first was the 
 majesty of self-relying humanity ; the ideal of the 
 other was the absorption of the manhood into God. 
 It is impossible to look \ipon the awful beauty of a 
 Greek statue, or to read a page of Plutarch, without 
 perceiving how completely the idea of excellence was 
 blended with that of pride. It is equally impossible 
 to examine the life of a Christian saint, or the paint- 
 ing of an early Christian artist, without perceiving 
 that the dominant conception was self-abnegation and 
 self- distrust. In the earliest and purest days of the 
 Church this was chiefly manifested in the devotional 
 frame of mind which was habitual, and in the higher 
 and more delicate moral perception that accompanied 
 it. Christianity then consisted much more of modes 
 of emotion than of intellectual propositions. It was 
 not till about the third century that the moral senti- 
 ments which at first constituted it were congealed into 
 an elaborate theology, and were in consequence neces- 
 sarily perverted. I say necessarily perverted, because 
 a dogma cannot be an adequate or faithful represen- 
 tative of a mode of feeling. Thus while the sense of 
 virtue and the sense of sin have always coexisted, 
 though in different degrees, in every religious mind, 
 when expressed in a dogmatic form, under the names 
 
 AA.2
 
 356 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 of Justification by Faith and Justification by Works, 
 they became directly opposed to one another ; and 
 while each doctrine grew in the first instance out of 
 the moral faculty, each was at last developed to con- 
 sequences from which that faculty indignantly re- 
 volts. As the result of one doctrine, men constructed 
 a theory in which the whole scheme of religion was 
 turned into a system of elaborate barter, while the 
 attitude of self-distrust and humility produced by the 
 sensitiveness of an awakened conscience was soon 
 transformed into a doctrine according to which all 
 the virtues and all the piety of the heathen contained 
 nothing that was pleasing to the Almighty, or that 
 could ward off the sentence of eternal damnation. 
 
 In considering, however, the attitude which man- 
 kind occupied towards the Almighty in the early 
 theology of the Church, we have another import- 
 ant element to examine : I mean the conception of 
 hereditary guilt. To a civilised man, who regards 
 the question abstractedly, no proposition can appear 
 more self-evident than that a man can only be guilty 
 of acts in the performance of which he has himself 
 had some share. The misfortune of one man may 
 fall upon another, but guiit appears to be entirely 
 personal. Yet, on the other hand, there is nothing 
 more certain than that the conceptions both of here- 
 ditary guilt and of hereditary merit pervade the 
 belief and the institutions of all nations, and have 
 under the most varied circumstances clung to the 
 mind with a tenacity which is even now but beginning 
 to relax. We find them in every system of early 
 punishment which involved children in the destruc- 
 tion of a guilty parent, in every account of curses 
 transmitted through particular families or particular
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 357 
 
 nations, in every hereditary aristocracy, and in every 
 legend of an early fall. All these rest upon the 
 idea that there is something in the merit or demerit 
 of one man that may be reflected upon his successors 
 altogether irrespectively of their own acts. It would 
 perhaps be rash to draw with much confidence any 
 law concerning the relations of this idea to different 
 conditions of society from the history of Christendom, 
 but, as far as we may judge, it seems to be strongest 
 in ages when civilisation is very low, and on the whole 
 to decline, but not by any means steadily and con- 
 tinuously, with the intellectual advance. There seems 
 to be a period in the history of every nation when 
 punishments involving the innocent child with the 
 guilty parent are acquiesced in as perfectly natural, 
 and another period when they are repudiated as 
 manifestly unjust. We find, however, that in a por- 
 tion of the middle ages when the night of barbarism 
 was in part dispelled, a vast aristocrat! cal system was 
 organised which has probably contributed more than 
 any other single cause to consolidate the doctrine of 
 hereditary merit. For the essence of an aristocracy 
 is to transfer the source of honour from the living to 
 the dead, to make the merits of living men depend not 
 BO much upon their own character and actions as upon 
 the actions and position of their ancestors ; and as a 
 great aristocracy is never insulated, as its ramifica- 
 tions penetrate into many spheres, and its social in- 
 fluence modifies all the relations of society, the minds 
 of men become insensibly habituated to a standard of 
 judgment from which they would otherwise have 
 recoiled. If in the sphere of religion the rational- 
 istic doctrine of personal merit and demerit should 
 ever completely supersede the theological doctrine of
 
 858 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 hereditary merit or demerit, the change will, I believe, 
 be largely influenced by the triumph of democratic 
 principles in the sphere of politics. 
 
 The origin of this widely diffused habit of judging 
 men by the deeds of their ancestors is one of the 
 most obscure and contested points in philosophy. 
 Some have seen in it a dim and distorted tradition of 
 the Fall ; others have attributed it to that confusion of 
 misfortune with guilt which is so prominent in ancient 
 beliefs. Partly in consequence of the universal con- 
 viction that guilt deserves punishment, and partly 
 from the notion that the events which befall mankind 
 are the results not of general laws but of isolated 
 acts directed to special purposes, men imagined that 
 whenever they saw suffering they might infer guilt. 
 They saw that the effects of an unrighteous war will 
 continue long after those who provoked it have passed 
 away ; that the virtue or vice, the wisdom or folly, of 
 the parent will often determine the fortunes of the 
 children, and that each generation has probably 
 more power over the destiny of that which succeeds 
 it than over its own. They saw that there was such 
 a thing as transmitted suffering, and they therefore 
 concluded that there must be such a thing as trans- 
 mitted guilt. Besides this, patriotism and Church 
 feeling, and every influence that combines men in a 
 corporate existence, makes them live to a certain de- 
 gree in the past, and identify themselves with the 
 actions of the dead. The patriot feels a pride or 
 shame in the deeds of his forefathers very similar to 
 that which springs from his own. Connected with 
 this, it has been observed that men have a constant 
 tendency, in speaking of the human race, to forget 
 that they are employing the language of metaphor,
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 359 
 
 and to attribute to it a real objective existence dis- 
 tinct from the existence of living men. It may be 
 added, too, that that retrospective imagination which 
 is so strong in some nations, and which is more or less 
 exhibited in all, leads men to invest the past with all 
 the fascination of poetry, to represent it as a golden 
 age incomparably superior to their own, and to 
 imagine that some great catastrophe must have 
 occurred to obscure it. 
 
 These considerations, and such as these, have often 
 been urged by those who have written on the genesis 
 of the notion of hereditary guilt. Fortunately, how- 
 ever, their examination is unnecessary for my present 
 pui'pose, which is simply to ascertain the expression 
 of this general conception in dogmatic teaching, and 
 to trace its influence upon practice. The expression 
 is both manifest and emphatic. According to the 
 unanimous belief of the Early Church, all who were 
 external to Christianity were doomed to eternal 
 damnation, not only on account of their own trans- 
 gression, but also on account of the transmitted guilt 
 of Adam, and therefore even the newborn infant was 
 subject to the condemnation until baptism had united 
 it to the Church. 
 
 The opinion which was so graphically expressed by 
 the theologian who said ' he doubted not there were 
 infants not a span long crawling about the floor of 
 bell ' is not one of those on which it is pleasing to 
 dilate. It was one, however, which was held with 
 great confidence in the Early Church, and if in times 
 of tranquillity it became in a measure unrealised, 
 whenever any heretic ventured to impugn it it was 
 most unequivocally enforced. At a period which is so 
 early that it is impossible to define it, infant baptism
 
 360 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 was introduced into the Church ; it was adopted by 
 all the heretics as well as by the orthodox ; it was 
 universally said to be for ' the remission of sins ;' and 
 the whole body of the Fathers, without exception or 
 hesitation, pronounced that all infants who died uu- 
 baptised were excluded from heaven. In the case of 
 uiibaptised adults a few exceptions were admitted, 1 
 but the sentence on infants was inexorable. The 
 learned English historian of Infant Baptism states 
 that, with the exception of a contemporary of St. 
 Augustine named Vincentius, who speedily recanted 
 his opinion as heretical, he has been unable to dis- 
 cover a single instance of an orthodox member of the 
 Church expressing the opposite opinion before Hinck- 
 mar, who was Archbishop of Rheims in the ninth 
 century.' 2 In the time of this prelate, a bishop who 
 had quarrelled with his clergy and people ventured to 
 prohibit baptism in his diocese ; and Hinckmar, while 
 severely condemning the act, expressed a hope that 
 it would not be visited on the infants who died when 
 the interdict was in force. With this exception the 
 unanimity seems to have been unbroken. Some of 
 the Greek Fathers, indeed, imagined that there was a 
 special place assigned to infants where there was 
 neither suffering nor enjoyment, while the Latins in- 
 
 1 Martyrdom or, as it was thought by some to be saved, 
 
 termed, the baptism of blood See Lamet et Fromageau, DicL 
 
 being the chief. Some, how- des Cos de Conscience, torn. i. 
 
 ever, relying on the case of the p. 208. 
 
 penitent thief, admitted a ' bap- 2 Wall's History of Infant 
 
 tism of perfect love,' when a Baptism, vol. ii. p. 211. St. 
 
 baptism by water could not be Thomas Aquinas afterwards 
 
 obtained. This consisted, of suggested the possibility of the 
 
 course, of extraordinary exer- infant being saved who died 
 
 cises of faith. Catfchumens jwithin the womb : ' God may 
 
 also, who died during the pre- have ways of saving it for 
 
 paration for baptism, were aught we know."
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 361 
 
 ferred from the hereditary guilt that they must de- 
 scend into a place of torment ; but both agreed that 
 they could not be saved. The doctrine was so firmly 
 rooted in the Church, that even Pelagius, who was one 
 of the most rationalistic intellects of his age, and who 
 entirely denie'd the reality of hereditary guilt, retained 
 infant baptism, acknowledged that it was for the re- 
 mission of sins, and did not venture to deny its neces- 
 sity. It was on this point that he was most severely 
 pressed by his opponents, and St. Augustine says that 
 he was driven to the somewhat desperate resource of 
 maintaining that baptism was necessary to wash away 
 the guilt of the pettishness of the child ! * Once, 
 when severely pressed as to the consequences of the 
 doctrine, St. Augustine was compelled to acknow- 
 ledge that he was not prepared to assert dogmatically 
 that it would have been better for these children not 
 to have been born, but at the same time he denied 
 emphatically that a separate place was assigned them, 
 and in one of his sermons against the Pelagians he 
 distinctly declared that they descended into ' ever- 
 lasting fire.' 2 Origen and many of the Egyptians 
 explained the doctrine by the theory of pre-existence. 8 
 Augustine associated it with that of imputed righte- 
 ousness, maintaining that guilt and virtue might be 
 alike imputed ; 4 and this view seems to have been 
 generally adopted. Among the writings of the 
 Fathers there are few which long possessed a greater 
 authority than a short treatise ' De Fide,' which is one 
 
 1 Wall, vol. i. pp. 282, 283. damnation. 
 
 It is gratifying to know that . 2 Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 192-206, 
 
 St. Auguscine, in answering a full view of St. Augustine's 
 
 this argument, distinctly de- sentiments on the subject. 
 
 clared that the crying of a 3 Hieronym. Epist. lib. ii. 
 
 baby is not sinful, and there- ep. 18. 
 
 fore does not deserve eternal * Epist. 28.
 
 362 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 of the clearest and most forcible extant epitomes of 
 the Patristic faith, and which till the time of Eras- 
 mus was generally ascribed to St. Augustine, though 
 it is now known to have been written, in the begin- 
 ning of the sixth century, by St. Fulgentius. 1 In 
 this treatise we find the following very "distinct state- 
 ment of the doctrine : ' Be assured,' writes the 
 saint, ' and doubt not, that not only men who have 
 obtained the use of their reason, but also little chil. 
 dren who have begun to live in their mothers' womb 
 and have there died, or who, having been just born, 
 have passed away from the world without the sacra- 
 ment of holy baptism, administered in the name of 
 the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, must be punished 
 by the eternal torture of undying fire ; for although 
 they have committed no sin by their own will, they 
 have nevertheless drawn with them the condemnation 
 of original sin, by their carnal conception and nati- 
 vity.' 2 It will be remembered that these saints, while 
 
 1 He was born about A.D. reatu luunt in inferno nuper 
 
 467. (Biog. Univ.] nati infantuli poenas, si reno- 
 
 * ' Firmissime tene, et nulla- vati per lavacrum non fuerint.' 
 
 tenus dubites, non solum ho- (De Sentent. lib. i. c. 22.) St. 
 
 mines jam ratione utentes, ve- Avitus, being of a poetical turn 
 
 rum ctiam parvulos, qui, sive of mind, put the doctrine into 
 
 in uteris matrum vivere in- verse : 
 cipiunt et ibi moriuntur, sive 
 
 jam de matribus nati sine ' Omnibus id vero gravius, si 
 
 sacramento sancti baptismatis fonte lavacri 
 
 quod datur in nomine Patris et Diviniexpcrtemtenerum more 
 
 Filii et Spiritus Sancti de hoc invida natum 
 
 sseculo transeunt, ignis aeterni Prsecipitat, dura generatum 
 
 sempiterno supplicio punien- sorto, gehennae, 
 
 dos ; quia etsi peccatum pro- Qui mox ut matris cessarit 
 
 priae actionis nullum habue- films esse 
 
 runt, originalis tamen peccati Perditionis erit : tristes tune 
 
 damnationem carnali concep- edita nolunt 
 
 tioiie et nativitate traxerunt.' Qu?e flammis tantum genue- 
 
 De Fide, 70. So also St. runt pisrnora mat res.' 
 
 Isidore : ' Pro soli original! Ad Fusdnam Sororem.
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 363 
 
 maintaining that infants whose existence was but for 
 a moment descended into eternal fire on account of 
 an apple that was eaten four thousand years before 
 they were born, maintained also that the creation 
 and the death of those infants were the direct, per- 
 sonal, and uncontrolled acts of the Deity. 
 
 All through the middle ages we trace the influence 
 of this doctrine in the innumerable superstitious rites 
 which were devised as substitutes for regular baptism. 
 Nothing indeed can be more curious, nothing can be 
 more deeply pathetic, than the record of the many 
 ways by which the terror-stricken mothers attempted 
 to evade the awful sentence of their Church. Some- 
 times the baptismal water was sprinkled upon the 
 womb ; sometimes the stillborn child was baptised, 
 in hopes that the Almighty would antedate the cere- 
 mony ; sometimes the mother invoked the Holy Spirit 
 to purify by His immediate power the infant that was 
 to be born ; sometimes she received the Host or 
 obtained absolution, and applied them to the benefit 
 of her child. These and many similar practices l 
 
 For several other testimonies two subjects much discussed in 
 of the later Fathers to the same the early Church which tended 
 effect, see Natalis Alexander, to produce an order of realisa- 
 Historia Ecclesiastica (Paris, tions to which we are not ac- 
 1699), torn. v. pp. 130-131. customed. Some of the early 
 1 For a very full account of writers, and especially the Nes- 
 these curious superstitions, see torians, had agitated questions 
 the chapter on 'Baptism' in concerning the time when the 
 Thiers' Superstitions, and also divinity of Christ was united 
 R striking memoir in the first to the fetus in the womb, that 
 volume of Le Moyen Aye, par had filled the Church with 
 Lacroix. We can now hardly curious physiological specula- 
 realise a condition of thought tions. Besides this, one of the 
 in which the mind was con- earliest struggles of the Church 
 centratecl so strongly upon the was for the suppression of the 
 unborn ftetus ; but we should custom of destroying the off- 
 remember that, besides the spring in the womb, which \vas 
 doctrine of baptism, there were extremely common among the
 
 364 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 continued all through the middle ages in spite of every 
 effort to extirpate them, rnd the severest censures 
 were unable to persuade the people that they were 
 entirely ineffectual. For the doctrine of the Church 
 had wrung the mother's heart with an agony .that 
 was too poignant even for that submissive age to 
 bear. Weak and superstitious women, who never 
 dreamed of rebelling against the teaching of their 
 clergy, could not acquiesce in the perdition of their 
 offspring, and they vainly attempted to escape from 
 the dilemma by multiplying superstitious practices, 
 or by attributing to them a more than orthodox effi- 
 cacy. But the vigilance of the theologians was un- 
 tiring. All the methods by which these unhappy 
 moth jrs endeavoured to persuxde themselves that 
 their children might have been saved are preserved 
 in the decrees of the Councils that anathematised 
 them. 
 
 At last the Reformation came. In estimating the 
 character of that great movement we must carefully 
 distinguish its immediate objects from its ultimate 
 effects. The impulse of which it was in part the 
 
 pagaus, and which they do not but perhaps the most curious 
 seem to have regarded as at all example was in a great epide- 
 a crime. Tertullian (Apol. c. mic attack of St. Vitus's dance, 
 9) and the author of the Epistle which appeared in the Nether- 
 ascribed to St. Barnabas appear lands in 1375. The common 
 to have been among the first to people then believed that the 
 denounce this pagan practice, disease resulted from unchaste 
 Another illustration of the es- priests having baptised the 
 timate in which baptism was children, and their fury was so 
 held is furnished by the notion great that it was with difficulty 
 that bodily distempers followed that the lives of the ecclesias- 
 irregular baptism. I have al- tics were saved. (Hecker, 
 ready referred to the belief Epidemics of the Middle Ayci,, 
 that somnambulists had been pp. 153, 154.) 
 baptised by a drunken priest ;
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 365 
 
 cause, and in parfc the consequence, at last issued in 
 a diffusion of a rationalistic spirit which no Church, 
 however retrograde or dogmatic, has been able to ex- 
 elude. The essence of that spirit is to interpret the 
 articles of special creeds by the principles of universal 
 religion by the wants, the aspirations, and the moral 
 sentiments which seem inherent in human nature. It 
 leads men, in other words, to judge what is true and 
 what is good, not by the teachings of tradition, but 
 by the light of reason and of conscience, and where 
 it has not produced an avowed change of creed it has 
 at least produced a change of realisations. Doctrines 
 which shock our sense of right have been allowed 
 gradually to become obsolete, or if they are brought 
 forward they are stated in language which is so colour- 
 less and ambiguous, and with so many qualifications 
 and exceptions, that their original force is almost lost. 
 This, however, was the ultimate not the immediate 
 effect of the Reformation, and most of the Reform- 
 ers were far from anticipating it. They designed to 
 construct a religious system which should be as essen- 
 tially dogmatic, distinct, and exclusive as that which 
 they assailed, but which should represent more faith- 
 fully the teachings of the first four centuries. The 
 Anabaptist movement was accompanied by so many 
 excesses and degenerated so constantly into anarchy 
 that it can scarcely be regarded as a school of religious 
 thought, but it had at least the effect of directing the 
 minds of theologians to the subject of infant baptism. 
 The Council of Trent enunciated very clearly the 
 doctrine of Rome. It declared the absolute necessity 
 of baptism for salvation ; it added, to guard against 
 every cavil, that baptism must be by literal water, 1 
 1 A great deal of controversy had been excited in the middle
 
 366 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE, 
 
 and it concluded with the usual formulary of a curse. 
 Among the Protestants two opposite tendencies were 
 manifest. One of the first objects of the Reformers 
 was to oppose or restrict the doctrine that ceremonies 
 possessed an intrinsic merit independently of the dis- 
 position of the worshipper, and it was not difficult 
 to perceive that this doctrine had been favoured by 
 infant baptism more than by any other single cause. 
 On the other hand, the Protestant taught even more 
 clearly than the Catholic the doctrine of imputed 
 righteousness, and was therefore more disposed to 
 dwell upon the doctrine of imputed guilt. The 
 Lutherans, in the Confession of Augsburg, asserted 
 the absolute necessity of baptism quite as emphati- 
 cally as the Tridentine theologians, 1 and in one re- 
 spect many of the Protestants went beyond the Roman 
 Catholics ; for they taught explicitly that the penalty 
 due to original sin was ' eternal fire,' whereas the 
 Church of Rome had never formally condemned the 
 notion of a third place which the Greek Fathers had 
 originated, which some of the schoolmen had revived, 
 and which about the time of the Reformation was 
 very general among the Catholics. 2 Calvin was in some 
 
 ages about a Jew, who, being dentine Fathers at one time 
 converted to Christianity in a hesitated whether they should 
 desert, where there was no not condemn as heretical the 
 water, and being as was sup- Lutheran proposition that im- 
 posed in a dying state, was baptised infants went into 
 baptised with sand. There ' eternal fire.' We find Pascal, 
 were also some cases of women however, stating the doctrine 
 baptising their children with in a very repulsive form : ' Qu'y 
 wine. For full details about a-t-il de plus contraire aux 
 these, see Thiers' Tralte des regies de notre miserable jus- 
 Superstitions, tice que de damner ^ternellc- 
 1 Arts. ii. and ix. ment un enfant incapable de 
 * Wall. The notion of a volonte pour un peche ou il 
 limbo had been so widely dif- paroit avoir eu si peu de part 
 fused that Sarpi says the Tri- qu'il est commis six mille aus
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 367 
 
 respects more favourable to unbaptised infants than 
 the disciples of Luther, for he taught that the children 
 of believers were undoubtedly saved, that the inten- 
 tion to baptise was as efficacious as the ceremony, and 
 that, although infant baptism should be retained, the 
 passage in the discourse to Nicodemus, which had 
 previously been universally applied to it, was suscep- 
 tible of a different interpretation. 1 But these doctrines 
 arose simply from the reluctance of Calvin and his 
 followers to admit the extraordinary efficacy of a 
 ceremony, and not at all from any moral repugnance 
 to the doctrine of transmitted guilt. No school de- 
 clared more constantly and more emphatically the 
 utter depravity of human nature, the sentence of 
 perdition attaching to the mere possession of such 
 a nature, and the eternal damnation of the great 
 majority of infants. A few of the enthusiastic ad- 
 vocates of the doctrine of reprobation even denied the 
 universal salvation of baptised infants, maintaining 
 that the Almighty might have predestinated some cf 
 them to destruction. All of them maintained that 
 
 avant qu'il fut en etre ? Cer- was the very first theologian 
 
 tainement rieu ne nous heurte who denied that, the passage, 
 
 plus rudement que cette doc- ' Except a man be born of 
 
 trine, et cepondant sans ce water and of the spirit,' &c., 
 
 mystere ie plus incomprehen- applied to baptism. (Vol. ii. 
 
 sible de tons nous sommes in- p. 180.) Jeremy Taylor strongly 
 
 coniprehensiblesanous-memes.' supported Calvin's view : 'The 
 
 (Pensees, cap. iii. 8.) I have water and the spirit in this 
 
 little doiibt, however, that the place signify the same thing ; 
 
 more revolting aspect of the and by water is meant the 
 
 doctrine was nearly obsolete in effect of the spirit cleansirg 
 
 the Church at the time of the and purifying the soul, as ap- 
 
 Keformation. In the. twelfth pears in its parallel place of 
 
 century St. Bernard had said : Christ baptising with the spirit 
 
 ' Nihil ardet in inferno nisi and with fire.' (Liberty of 
 
 propria voluntas.' Prophesying, 18.) 
 1 According to Wall, Calvin
 
 868 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 the infants who were saved were saved on account of 
 their connection with Christianity, and not on account 
 of their own innocence. All of them declared that 
 the infant came into the world steeped in guilt, and 
 under the sentence of eternal condemnation. Jona- 
 than Edwards, who was probably the ablest as he was 
 one of the most unflinching of the defenders of Cal- 
 vinism, has devoted to this subject all the resources 
 of his great ingenuity. ~No previous writer developed, 
 more clearly the arguments which St. Augustine had 
 derived from the death of infants, and from the pangs 
 that accompany it ; but his chief illustrations of the 
 relations of the Deity to His creatures are drawn 
 from those scenes of massacre when the streets of 
 Canaan were choked with the multitude of the slain, 
 and when the sword of the Israelite was for ever 
 bathed in the infant's blood. 1 
 
 So far, then, the Reformation seems to have made 
 little or no change. The doctrine of Catholicism, 
 harsh and repulsive as it appears, does not contrast at 
 all unfavourably with those of the two great founders 
 of dogmatic and conservative Protestantism. At a 
 period when passions ran high, and when there was 
 every disposition to deepen the chasm between Catho- 
 licity and the Reformed Churches at a period there- 
 fore when any tendency to rebel against the Catholic 
 doctrine of transmitted guilt would have been clearly 
 manifested, that doctrine was in all essentials fully 
 accepted. Questions concerning the nature of the 
 eacraments, the forms of Church government, the 
 meaning of particular passages of Scripture, the due 
 
 1 See Jonathan Edwards on proceeded from the pen of 
 Original Sm one of the most man. 
 revolting books that have ever
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 369 
 
 order and subordination of different poi'tions of theo- 
 logical systems, were discussed with the most untiring 
 and acrimonious zeal. All Europe was convulsed with, 
 controversy, and the most passionate enthusiasm was 
 evoked. But the whole stress and energy of this 
 enthusiasm flowed in a dogmatic channel. It was 
 not the revolt of the reason claiming a supreme 
 authority in the domain of thought ; it was not the 
 rebellion of the moral faculty against doctrines that 
 collided with its teaching : or if such elements existed 
 they were latent and unavowed, and their position in 
 the first ebullitions of Protestantism was entirely sub- 
 ordinate. The germ of Rationalism had indeed been 
 cast abroad, bat more than a century was required to 
 develope it. There was no subtlety of interpretation 
 connected with the eucharistic formularies that did 
 not excite incomparably more interest than the broad 
 questions of morality. Conscience was the last tri- 
 bunal to which men would have referred as the 
 supreme authority of their creed. There was much 
 doubt as to what historical authorities were most 
 valuable, but there was no doubt that the ultimate 
 basis of theology must be historical. 
 
 To this statement there are, however, two eminent 
 exceptions. Two theologians, who differed widely in 
 their opinions and in their circumstances, were never- 
 theless actuated by the same rationalistic spirit, were 
 accustomed to form their notions of truth and goodness 
 by the decisions of their own reason and conscience, 
 and, disregarding all the interpretations of tradition, 
 to mould and adapt their creed to their ideal. These 
 theologians were Socinus and Zuinglius, who may be 
 regarded as the representatives of Rationalism in the 
 first period of Protestantism. 
 
 VOL. I. B B
 
 370 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 The school of thought which Lselius Socinus con- 
 tributed to plant at Vicenza, and which his more illus- 
 trious nephew, in conjunction with other Italians, 
 spread through the greater part of Europe, was the 
 natural result of a long train of circumstances that 
 had been acting for centuries in Italy. The great 
 wealth of the Italian republics, their commercial re- 
 lations with men of all nations and of all creeds, the 
 innumerable memorials of paganism that are scattered 
 over the land, and the high aesthetic developement that 
 was general, had all in different ways and degrees 
 contributed to produce in Italy a very unusual love 
 of intellectual pursuits and a very unusual facility 
 for cultivating them. Upon the fall of Constanti- 
 nople, when the Greek scholars were driven into 
 exile, bearing with them the seeds of an intellectual 
 renovation, Italy was more than any other country 
 the centre to which they were attracted. In the 
 Italian princes they found the most munificent and 
 discerning patrons, and in the Italian universities the 
 most congenial asylums. Padua and Bologna were 
 then the great centres of free-thought. A series of 
 professors, of whom Pomponatius appears to have 
 been the most eminent, had pursued in these univer- 
 sities speculations as daring as those of the eighteenth 
 century, and had habituated a small but able circle of 
 scholars to examine theological questions with the 
 most fearless scrutiny. They maintained that there 
 were two spheres of thought, the sphere ol reason 
 and the sphere of faith, and that these spheres were 
 entirely distinct. As philosophers, and under the 
 guidance of reason, they elaborated theories of the 
 boldest and most unflinching scepticism; as Catho- 
 lics, and under the impulse of faith, they acquiesced
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 
 
 in all the doctrines of their Church. 1 The fact of 
 their accepting certain doctrines as a matter of faith 
 did not at all prevent them from repudiating them on 
 the ground of reason ; and the complete separation 
 of the two orders of ideas enabled them to pursue 
 their intellectual speculations by a method which was 
 purely secular, and with a courage that was elsewhere 
 unknown. Even in Catholicism a dualism of this kind 
 could not long continue, but it was manifestly incom- 
 patible with Protestantism, which at least professed 
 to make private judgment the foundation of belief. 
 Faith considered as an unreasoning acquiescence dis- 
 appeared from theology, and the order of ideas which 
 
 1 See, on the career of Pom- 
 ponatius, Matter, Histoirc des 
 Doctrines morales des trois 
 derniers Siecles, torn. i. pp. 
 51-67 Pomponatius was born 
 at Mantua in 1462, and died 
 in 1524. His principal work 
 
 reason could establish even the 
 outlines of morals. Huet, the 
 great Bishop of Avranches, de- 
 fended the same position in his 
 posthumous Traite phttoso- 
 phique de lafoiblesse de F esprit 
 humain. Bayle, in his Ee- 
 
 is on The Immortality of the ponscs au Provincial ; and Leib- 
 Soul. He was protected by nitz, in his La Foi et la liaison, 
 
 Leo X. (Eiog. unto.) Vanini 
 said that the soul of Averroes 
 had passed into Pomponatius. 
 The seventeenth century fur- 
 nishes some striking examples 
 of this separation of the philo- 
 sophical and theological points 
 of view. Tims Charron, who 
 as a philosopher wrote one of 
 the most sceptical books of his 
 age, was a priest, and author 
 of a treatise on Christian Evi- 
 dences. Pascal, too, while de- 
 voting his life to the defence of 
 religion, accepted with delight 
 the Pyrrhonism of Montaigne, 
 maintained in the most em- 
 phatic language the utter vanity 
 f philosophy, and denied that 
 
 BB 2 
 
 have collected much informa- 
 tion about this school of thought, 
 See, too, Cousin's work on Pas- 
 cal. In our own day, similar 
 views have been maintained by 
 Lammenais, in his Essai sur 
 Flndijference, and in a less de- 
 gree by Dr. Newman. Luther 
 himself had maintained that a 
 proposition may be true in 
 theology and false in philoso- 
 phy an opinion which the Sor- 
 bonne condemned: 'Sorbona 
 pessime definivit idem esse ve- 
 rum in philosophia et theo- 
 logia, impieque damnavit eos 
 qui contrarium docuerint.' 
 (Amand Saintes, Hist, du Ha- 
 tionalisme en Attemagne, p. 29.)
 
 372 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 reason had established remained alone. As a conse- 
 quence of all this, the Reformation in Italy was almost 
 confined to a small group of scholars, who pushed its 
 principles to their extreme limits, with an unflinching 
 logic, with a disregard for both tradition and conse- 
 quences, and above all with a secular spirit that was 
 elsewhere unequalled. With the peculiar tenets con- 
 nected with the name of Socinus we are not now 
 concerned, for the question of theological method is 
 distinct from that of theological doctrines. It is, 
 however, sufficiently manifest that although Socinus 
 laid a far greater stress on the authority of Revelation 
 than his followers, the prevailing sentiment which 
 actuated him was a desire to subordinate traditional 
 tenets to the dictates of reason and of conscience, and 
 that his entire system of interpretation was due to 
 this desire. It is also evident that it was this spirit 
 that induced him to discard with unqualified severity 
 the orthodox doctrines of the sinfulness of error and 
 of the transmission of guilt. 1 
 
 It may appear at first sight a strange paradox to 
 represent the career of Zuinglius as in any degree 
 parallel to that of Socinus. Certainly the bold and 
 simple-minded pastor of Zurich, who bore with such 
 an unflinching calm the blaze of popularity and the 
 storms of controversy, and perished at last upon the 
 battle-field, forms in most respects a glaring contrast 
 to the timid Italian who spent his life in passing from 
 court to court, and from university to university, 
 shrinking with nervous alarm from all opposition and 
 notoriety, and instilling almost furtively into the 
 minds of a few friends whom his gentle manners had 
 eaptivated the great principles of religious toleration. 
 1 Neander, Hist, of Dogmas, vol. ii. pp. 657. 658.
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 373 
 
 Certainly, too, nothing could be further from the mind 
 of Zuinglius than the doctrines which are known as 
 Socinianism, nor did the antecedents of the two 
 Reformers bear any resemblance. Yet there can, I 
 think, be no doubt that the dominant predisposition 
 of Zuinglius also was to interpret all tenets accord- 
 ing to the a priori conceptions of reason and con- 
 science. Though a man of much more than common 
 ability he had but slight pretensions to learning, and 
 this, in an age when men are endeavouring to break 
 loose from tradition, has sometimes proved a positive 
 and a most important advantage. The tendency of 
 his mind was early shown in the position he assumed 
 on the eucharistic controversy. There was no single* 
 subject in which the leading Reformers wavered so 
 much, none on which they found so great a difficulty 
 in divesting themselves of their old belief. The voice 
 of reason was clearly on one side, the weight of tra- 
 dition inclined to the other, and the language of 
 Scripture was susceptible of either interpretation. 
 Luther never advanced beyond consubstantiation ; 
 Calvin only arrived at his final views after a long 
 series of oscillations ; the English Reformers can 
 scarcely be said to have ever arrived at any definite 
 conclusions. Zuinglius alone, from the very begin- 
 ning, maintained with perfect confidence the only 
 doctrine which accords with the evidence of the 
 senses, stated it in language of transparent precision, 
 and clung to it with unwavering tenacity. The same 
 tendency was shown still more clearly in his decisions 
 on those points in which tradition clashes with con- 
 science. It is surely a most remarkable fact that in 
 the age of such men as Luther and Calvin, as Melanch- 
 thon and Erasmus, Zuinglius, who in intellectual
 
 374 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 power was far inferior to several of his contemporaries, 
 should almost alone have anticipated the rational- 
 istic doctrine of the seventeenth century concerning 
 the innocence of error, and the tolerance that should 
 be accorded to it. On the subject of original sin he 
 separated himself with equal boldness from the other 
 leaders of the Reformation, maintaining that it was 
 nothing more than a malady or evil tendency, and 
 that it did not in any degree involve guilt. 1 
 
 It was thus that two of the leaders of the Refor- 
 mation were induced by the rationalistic character of 
 their minds to abandon the notion of transmitted 
 guilt, and the doctrine concerning unbaptised infants 
 which was connected with it. If the current of 
 
 1 Neander, Hist, of Dogmas, 
 vol. ii. pp. 658, 659. Bossuet 
 made a violent attack upon this 
 notion of Zuinglius, which he 
 regarded with extreme horror, 
 because, as he plaintively ob- 
 serves, supposing it to be true, 
 then ' le pch6 originel ne 
 damne porsonne, pas meme les 
 eufants des pai'ens.' ( Varia- 
 tions protestantes, liv. ii. c. 21.) 
 The remarks of Bossuet are 
 especially worthy of attention 
 on account of the great clear- 
 ness with, which he maintains 
 the universality of the belief 
 in the damnable nature of 
 original sin in all sections of 
 the Christian Church. He has, 
 however, slightly overstated 
 the doctrine of Zuinglius. The 
 Reformer distinctly declared 
 original sin to be simply a 
 disease, and not properly a sin. 
 From his language in his Trea- 
 tise on Baptism, it was inferred 
 that he asserted the salvation 
 
 of pagan infants. However, 
 in 1526, he wrote a short trea- 
 tise On Original Sin, in which 
 he said that his former work 
 had been misrepresented ; that 
 he maintained indeed that the 
 word ' sin ' was only applied to 
 our original malady by a figure 
 of speech ; that he was quite 
 sure that that malady never in 
 itself damned Christian chil- 
 dren, but that he was not 
 equally sure that it never 
 damned pagan children. He 
 inclined, however, strongly to 
 the belief that it did not. ; ' De 
 Christianorum natis certi su- 
 mus eos peccato originali non 
 damnari. de aliorum non iti- 
 dem ; quamvis, ut ingenue 
 fateor, nobis probabilior vide- 
 tur sententia quam docuimus, 
 non temere pronunciandum 
 esse de gentilium quoquc natis 
 et eis qui opus legis faciunt ex 
 lege intus digito Dei scripta.' 
 (P. 28.)
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 37* 
 
 .Opinions has since then been flowing in the same 
 direction, this is entirely due to the increased diffu- 
 sion of a rationalistic spirit, and not at all to any 
 active propagandism or to any definite arguments. 
 Men have come instinctively and almost unconsciously 
 to judge all doctrines by their intuitive sense of right, 
 and to reject or explain away or throw into the back- 
 ground those that will not bear the test, no matter 
 how imposing may be the authority that authenticates 
 them. This method of judgment, which was once 
 very rare, has now become very general. Every 
 generation its triumph is more manifest, and entire 
 departments of theology have receded or brightened 
 beneath its influence. 1 How great a change has 
 been effected in the doctrine concerning unbaptised 
 children must be manifest to anyone who considers 
 how completely the old doctrine has disappeared from 
 popular teaching, and what a general and intense 
 repugnance is excited by its simple statement. It 
 was once deemed a mere truism ; it would now be 
 viewed with horror and indignation : and if we de- 
 sired any further proof of the extent of this change 
 we should find it in the position which the Quakers 
 and the Baptists have assumed in Christendom. It 
 is scarcely possible to conceive any sects which in the 
 Early Church would have been regarded with more 
 unmingled abhorrence, or would have been deemed 
 more unquestionably outside the pale of salvation. 
 
 1 Chillingworth treated the not n.uch regard it.' (Bcligion 
 subject with his usual admira- of Protestants, chap, vii.) 
 ble good sense : ' This is cer- Jeremy Taylor strongly re- 
 tain, that God will not deal jected both original sin, in the 
 unjustly with unbaptised in- sense of transmitted guilt, and 
 fants ; but how in particular the damnation of infants that 
 He will deal with them con- was inferred from it. 
 cerus not us, and so we need
 
 376 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE 
 
 It is no exaggeration to say that tbe feeling of repug- 
 nance with which men now look upon the polygamy 
 of the Mormons presents but a very faint image of 
 that which the Fathers would have manifested to- 
 wards those who systematically withheld from their 
 children that baptism which was unanimously pro- 
 nounced to be essential to their salvation. Yet the 
 Quakers and the Baptists have now obtained a place 
 among the most respected sections of the Church, 
 and in the eyes of very many Protestants the pecu- 
 liarities of the second, at least, are not sufficiently 
 serious to justify any feeling of repulsion or to pre- 
 vent the most cordial co-operation. For a great change 
 has silently swept over Christendom : without con- 
 troversy and without disturbance an old doctrine lias 
 passed away from among the realisations of mankind. 
 But the scope of the doctrine we are considering 
 was not confined to unbaptised children ; it extended 
 also to all adults who were external to the Church. 
 If the whole human race existed under a sentence of 
 condemnation which could only be removed by con- 
 nection with Clmstianity, and if this sentence was so 
 stringent that even the infant was not exempt from 
 its effects, it was natural that the adult heathen who 
 added his personal transgressions to the guilt of 
 Adam should be doomed at last to perdition. Nor 
 did the Fathers who constructed the early systems of 
 theology at all shrink from the consequence. At a 
 time when the Christian Church formed but an infi- 
 nitesimal fraction of the community, at a time when 
 almost all the members who composed it were them- 
 selves converts from paganism, and reckoned among 
 the pagans those who were bound to them by the 
 closest ties of gratitude and affection, the great ma-
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 377 
 
 jority of the Fathers deliberately taught that the entire 
 pagan world was doomed to that state of punishment 
 which they invariably described as literal and undying 
 fire. In. any age and under any circumstances such 
 a doctrine must seem inexpressibly shocking, but it 
 appears most peculiarly so when we consider that the 
 convert who accepted it, and who with a view to his 
 own felicity proclaimed the system of which he be- 
 lieved it to form a part to be a message of good 
 tidings, must have acquiesced in the eternal perdition 
 of the mother who had borne him, of the father upon 
 whose knees he had played, of the friends who were 
 associated with the happy years of childhood and 
 early manhood, of the immense mass of his fellow- 
 countrymen, and of all those heroes and sages who 
 by their lives or precepts had first kindled a moral 
 enthusiasm within his breast. All these were doomed 
 by one sweeping sentence. Nor were they alone in 
 their condemnation. The heretics, no matter how 
 trivial may have been their error, were reserved for 
 the same fearful fate. The Church, according to the 
 favourite image of the Fathers, was a solitary ark 
 floating upon a boundless sea of ruin. Within its 
 pale there was salvation ; without it salvation was 
 impossible. ' If anyone out of Noah's ark could es- 
 cape the deluge,' wrote St. Cyprian, ' he who is out 
 of the Church may also escape.' ' Without this 
 house,' said Origen, ' that is without the Church, 110 
 one is saved.' ' No one,' said St. Augustine, ' cometh 
 to salvation and eternal life except he who hath Christ 
 for his head, but 110 one can have Christ for his head 
 except he that is in His body the Church.' ' ' Hold 
 
 1 I take these references from pp. 11-13, 3rd od.), where 
 Palmer On the Church (vol. i. there is much evidence ou the
 
 378 
 
 RATIONALISM IX EUROPE. 
 
 most firmly,' added St. Fulgentius, ' and doubt not 
 that not only all pagans but also all Jews, heretics, 
 and schismatics who depart from this present life 
 outside the Catholic Church are about to go into 
 eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.' 1 
 So prominent and so unquestionable was this doctrine 
 deemed, that the Council of Carthage, in the fourth 
 century, made it one of the test- questions put to 
 every bishop before ordination. 2 
 
 This doctrine has had a greater influence than per- 
 haps any other speculative opinion upon the history 
 of mankind. How different it is from the concep- 
 tions to which the great teachers of antiquity had 
 arrived must be evident to anyone who knows how 
 fondly they cherished the doctrine of the immortality 
 of the soul, how calmly they contemplated the ap- 
 
 subject collected. Mr. Palmer tholicae uon tenet unitatem, 
 
 contends that the Fathers are neque baptismus neque elee- 
 
 unanimous on the subject, but mosyna quamlibet copiosn, 
 
 Barbeyrac shows that at least neque mors pro nomine Christi 
 
 two, and those of the earliest suscepta proficere poterit ad 
 
 (Justin Martyr and Clemens salutem, quamdiu eo vel hsere- 
 
 Alexandrinus), admitted the tica vel schisnmtica pravitas 
 
 possible salvation of the pagans perseverat quae ducit ad mor- 
 
 (Morale d<s Peres, ch.xi. 1 1), tern.' _( 22.) 
 
 and that the first expressly 
 said that Socrates and Herac- 
 litus in the sight of God were 
 Christians. See, too, Tenne- 
 mann, Manud de CHistoire de 
 
 2 Palmer, On the Church, 
 vol. i. p. 13. And again the 
 Synod of Zerta in A..D. 412: 
 ' Whosoever is separated from 
 the Catholic Church, however 
 
 la Philosophic, torn. i. pp. 314, innocently he may think he 
 
 315. I am afraid, however, lives, for this crime alone that 
 
 there is no doubt that the great he is separated from the unity 
 
 majority of the Fathers took of Christ will not have life, but 
 the other view. Minucius Fe- 
 lix thought the daemon of So- 
 
 erates was a devil. (Octavius, 
 ch. xxvi.) 
 
 the wrath of God remaineth on 
 him.' This statement is said 
 to have been drawn up by St. 
 See Hawarden's 
 
 Augustine. 
 
 De Fide, 81 ; and again. Charity and Truth, pp. 39-40 
 still more explicitly: 'Omni (Dublin, 1809). 
 eniin homini qui Ecclesise Ca-
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 379 
 
 proach of death, 1 and how hopefully they looked for- 
 ward to the future. Never cau men forget that noble 
 Greek who, struck down by an unrighteous sentence; 
 Bummoned around him his dearest disciples, and hav- 
 ing reasoned with them on the immortality of the soul 
 and the rewards of virtue and the goodness of the 
 gods, took with a gentle smile the cup of death, and 
 passed away thanking the god of healing who had 
 cured him of the disease of life. That ' the just man 
 should take confidence in death,' 2 that he who has 
 earnestly, though no doubt imperfectly, tried to do 
 his duty has nothing to fear beyond the grave, had 
 been the consoling faith of all the best minds of 
 antiquity. That the bold, unshackled, and impartial 
 search for truth is among the noblest and, therefore, 
 among the most innocent employments of mankind, 
 was the belief which inspired all the philosophies of 
 the past. Nor was it merely or mainly in the 
 
 ' I know nothing in the la societe pa'ienne, toute coin- 
 world sadder than one of the posee du sensualisme et de 
 sayings of Luther on this mat- licence, on se gardait bien de 
 ter. I quote it from that reprsenter la mort comme 
 beautiful old translation of quelque chose de hideux ; il lie 
 The Table Talk by Bell : ' It parait meme point que le sque- 
 were a light and an easy mat- lette ait ete alors le symbole 
 ter for a Christian to suffer de 1'impitoyable divinite. Mais 
 and overcome death if he knew quand le christianisme eut 
 not that it were God's wrath ; conquis le monde, quand une 
 the same title maketh death eternit^ malheureuse dut etre 
 bitter to us. But an heathen la punition des fautes commiseb 
 dieth securely away ; he neither ici-bas, la mort qui avait 
 seeth nor feelrth that it is semb!6 si indifferent? aux an- 
 God's wrath, but meaneth it is ciens devint une chose dont les 
 the end of nature and is natu- consequences furent si terriblos 
 ral. The epicurean says it is pour le chretien qu'il fallut les 
 but to endure one evil hour.' lui rapporter a chaque instant 
 A distinguished living anti- en frappant ses yeux des images 
 quarian, comparing the heathen funebres.' (Jubinal, Sur let 
 and the mediaeval representa- Danses des Moris, p. 8.) 
 tions of death, observes : ' Dans 2 Plato.
 
 380 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 groves of Athens that this spirit was manifested. It 
 should never be forgotten that the rationalist has 
 always found the highest expression of his belief in 
 the language of the prophet, who declared that the 
 only service the Almighty required was a life of 
 justice, of mercy, and of humility ; of the wise man, 
 who summed up the whole duty of man in the fear 
 of God and the observance of His commandments ; 
 of the apostle, who described true religion as consist- 
 ing of charity and of purity ; and of that still greater 
 Teacher, who proclaimed true worship to be alto- 
 gether spiritual, and who described the final adjudi- 
 cation as the separation of mankind according to their 
 acts and not according to their opinions. 
 
 But, however this may be, the doctrine of salvation 
 in the Church alone was unanimously adopted when 
 Christianity passed from its moral to its first dog- 
 matic stage, and on two occasions it conferred an 
 inestimable benefit upon mankind. At a time when 
 Christianity was struggling against the most horrible 
 persecutions, and also against the gross conceptions 
 of an age that could obtain bat a very partial idea of 
 its elevated purity, the terrorism of this doctrine 
 became an auxiliary little in harmony indeed with 
 the spirit of a philanthropic religion, but admirably 
 suited to the time, and powerful enough to nerve the 
 martyr with an unflinching courage, and to drive the 
 doubter speedily into the Church. Again, when the 
 ascendency of the new faith had become manifest, it 
 seemed for a time as if its administrative and or- 
 ganising function would have been destroyed by the 
 countless sects that divided it. The passion for al- 
 legory and the spirit of eclecticism that characterised 
 the Eastern converts, the natural subtlety of the
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 381 
 
 Greek mind, and still more the disputatious philo- 
 sophy of Aristotle, which the Greek heretics intro- 
 duced into the Church, and which Nestorianisin 
 planted in the great school of Edessa, 1 had produced 
 so many and such virulent controversies that the 
 whole ecclesiastical fabric seemed dislocated, and in- 
 tellectual anarchy was imminent. The conception 
 of an authoritative Church was not yet fully formed, 
 though men were keenly sensible of the importance of 
 dogma. It is computed that there were about ninety 
 heresies in three centuries. 2 Such questions as the 
 double procession of the Holy Ghost, the proper day 
 for celebrating Easter, the nature of the light upon 
 Mount Tabor, or the existence in Christ of two inde- 
 pendent but perfectly coincident wills, were discussed 
 with a ferocity that seems almost to countenance the 
 suggestion of Butler, that communities like, indi- 
 viduals may be insane. But here again the doctrine 
 of exclusive salvation exercised a decisive influence. 
 As long as it was held and realised, the diversities of 
 private judgment must have waged a most unequal 
 warfare with the unity of authority. Men could not 
 long rest amid the conflict of opposing arguments ; 
 they could not endure that measure of doubt which 
 is the necessary accompaniment of controversy. All 
 the fractions of Christianity soon gravitated to one 
 
 1 It is remarkable that Aris- exception, unequivocally de- 
 
 totle, whom the schoolmen noimced it. See much curious 
 
 placed almost on a level with evidence of this in Allemand- 
 
 the Fathers, owes his position Lavigerie, Ecole chretienne (F 
 
 entirely to the early heretics ; Edesse. (These presentee a la 
 
 that the introduction of his Faculte des Lettres de Paris, 
 
 philosophy was at first in- 1850.) 
 
 variably accompanied by an 2 Middleton's Free Enquiry, 
 
 increase of heresy ; and that Introd. p. 86. 
 the Fathers, with scarcely an
 
 382 EATIONALISM IX EUROPE. 
 
 or two great centres, and a spiritual despotism was 
 consolidated which alone could control and temper 
 the turbulent elements of mediaeval society, could 
 impose a moral yoke upon the most ferocious tyrants, 
 could accomplish the great work of the abolition of 
 slavery in Europe, and could infuse into Christendom 
 such a measure of pure and spiritual truth as to pre- 
 pare men for the better phase that was to follow it. 
 
 All this was done by the doctrine of exclusive sal- 
 vation. At the Reformation, when the old Church 
 no longer harmonised with the intellectual condition 
 of Europe, and when the spirit of revolt was mani- 
 fested on all subjects and in all countries, the doc- 
 trine was for the most part unchallenged; and although 
 it undoubtedly produced an inconceivable amount of 
 mental suffering, it had at least the effect of terminat- 
 ing rapidly the anarchy of transition. The tenacity 
 with which it was retained by the Reformers is ot 
 course partly due to the difficulty of extricating the 
 mind from old theological modes of thought ; but it 
 was, I think, still more the result of that early ten- 
 dency to depreciate the nature and the works of man 
 which threw them naturally upon dogmatic systems. 
 There were, indeed, few subjects on which they were 
 so unanimous. ' The doctrine of salvation in the 
 Church,' writes a learned living author, ' was held by 
 all the Lutherans and Reformed, and by the sects 
 which separated from them, as well as by the Romish 
 and other Churches. Luther teaches that remission 
 of sins and sanctification are only obtained in it ; and 
 Calvin says, " Beyond the bosom of the Church, no 
 i-emission of sins is to be hoped for, nor any salva- 
 tion." The Saxon Confession, presented to the Synod 
 of Trent A.D. 1551, the Helvetic Confession, the Bel-
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 383 
 
 gic, the Scottish all avow that salvation is only to 
 be had in the Church. The Presbyterian divines as- 
 sembled at Westminster, A. D. 1647, in their " Humble 
 Advice concerning a Confession of Faith " (c. 25), 
 declare that " the visible Chuvch, which is also Catho 
 lique and universal under the Gospel (not confined 
 to one nation, as before under the Law), consists of 
 all those throughout the world that profess the true 
 religion . . . out of which there is no ordinary pos- 
 sibility of salvation." The Independents admitted the 
 same.' l Nor was the position of the Anglican Church 
 at all different. The Athanasian Creed was given 
 an honoured place among her formularies, and tho 
 doctrine which that creed distinctly asserts was im- 
 plied in several of the services of the Church, and 
 was strongly maintained by a long succession of her 
 divines. 2 Among the leading Reformers, Zuinglius, 
 and Zuinglius alone, openly and unequivocally re- 
 pudiated it. In a Confession of Faith which he wrote 
 just before his death, and which marks an important 
 epoch in the history of the human mind, he described 
 in magnificent language that future ' assembly of all 
 the saintly, the heroic, the faithful, and the virtuous,' 
 when Abel and Enoch, Noah and Abraham, Isaac 
 arid Jacob, will mingle with ' Socrates, Aristides, and 
 Antigonus, with Numa and Camillus, Hercules and 
 Theseup, the Scipios and the Catos,' and when every 
 upright and holy man who has ever lived will be 
 present with his God. 3 In our age, when the doc- 
 trine of exclusive salvation seldom excites more than 
 
 1 Palmer, On the Church, full by Bossuet, Variation* 
 vol. i. p. 13. protestautes, liv. ii. c. 19. Tho 
 
 2 See a great deal of evi- original confession was pub- 
 dence of this in Palmer, lished by Bullinger, in 1536, 
 
 ' This passage is given in with a. very laudatory preface.
 
 384 RATIONALISM IX EUROPE. 
 
 a smile, such language appears but natural, bui when 
 it was first written it excited on all sides amaze- 
 ment and indignation. Luther on reading it said 
 he despaired of the salvation of Zuinglius : Bossuet 
 quotes the passage as a climax to his charges against 
 the Swiss Reformer, and quotes it as if it required 
 no comment, but was in itself sufficient to hand 
 down its author to the contempt and indignation of 
 posterity. 
 
 I shall now proceed to examine the more remote 
 consequences of the doctrine of exclusive salvatk.il, 
 in order to trace the connection between its decline 
 and some other remarkable features of the rationalis- 
 tic movement. In the first place, it is manifest that 
 the conceptions I have reviewed are so directly op- 
 posed to our natural sense of what is right and just, 
 to all the conclusions at which those great teachers 
 arrived who evolved their doctrines from their own 
 moral nature, that they must establish a permanent 
 opposition between dogmatic theology and natural 
 religion. When the peace of the Church has long 
 been undisturbed, and when the minds of men are 
 not directed with very strong interest to dogmatic 
 questions, conscience will act insensibly upon the 
 belief, obscuring or effacing its true character. Men 
 will instinctively endeavour to explain it away, or 
 to dilute its force, or to diminish its prominence. 
 But when the agitation of controversy has brought 
 the doctrine vividly before the mind, and when the 
 enthusiasm of the contest has silenced the revolt of 
 conscience, theology will be developed more and more 
 in the same direction, till the very outlines of natural 
 religion are obliterated. Thus we find that those 
 predestinarian theories which are commonly iden-
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 38,'i 
 
 tified with Calvin, though they seem to have been 
 substantially held by St. Augustine, owe their recep- 
 tion mainly to the previous action of the doctrine of 
 exclusive salvation upon the mind. For the one ob- 
 jection to the metaphysical and other arguments the 
 Calvinist can urge, which will always appear conclu- 
 sive to the great majority of mankind, is the moral 
 objection. It is this objection, and this alone, which 
 enables men to cut through that entangling maze of 
 arguments concerning freewill, foreknowledge, and 
 predetermination, in which the greatest intellects 
 both of antiquity and of modern days have been 
 hopelessly involved, and which the ablest meta- 
 physicians have pronounced inextricable. Take away 
 the moral argument : persuade men that when as- 
 cribing to the Deity justice and mercy they are 
 speaking of qualities generically distinct from those 
 which exist among mankind qualities which we are 
 altogether unable to conceive, and which may be com- 
 patible with acts that men would term grossly unjust 
 and unmerciful : tell them that guilt may be entirely 
 unconnected with a personal act, that millions of 
 infants may be called into existence for a moment to 
 be precipitated into a place of torment, that vast. 
 nations may live and die, and then be raised again to 
 endure a never-ending punishment, because they did 
 not believe in a religion of which they had never 
 heard, or because a crime was committed thousands 
 of years before they were in existence : convince 
 them that all this is part of a transceudeutly 
 perfect and righteous moral scheme, and there is no 
 imaginable abyss to which such a doctrine will not 
 lead. You will have blotted out those fundamental 
 notions of right and wrong which the Creator has 
 VOL. L C C
 
 S86 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 engraven upon every heart ; you will have extin- 
 guished the lamp of conscience ; you will have taught 
 men to stifle the inner voice as a lying witness, and 
 to esteem it virtuous to disobey it. Bat even this 
 does not represent the full extent of the evil. The 
 doctrine of exclusive salvation not only destroys the 
 moral objection to that ghastly system of religious 
 fatalism which Augustine and Calvin constructed , 
 it directly leads to it by teaching that the ultimate 
 destiny of the immense majority of mankind is de- 
 termined entirely irrespectively of their will. Millions 
 die in infancy ; millions live and die in heathen lands ; 
 millions exist in ranks of society where they have no 
 opportunities for engaging in theological research ; 
 millions are so encumbered by the prejudices of edu- 
 cation that no mental effort can emancipate them 
 from the chain. We accordingly find that pre- 
 destinarianism was in the first instance little more 
 than a developement of the doctrine of exclusive sal- 
 vation. St. Augustine illustrated it by the case of 
 a mother who had two infants. Each of these is but 
 'a lump of perdition ; ' neither has ever performed a 
 moral act. The mother overlies one, and it perishes 
 unbaptised ; the other is baptised, and is saved. 
 
 But the doctrine of Augustine and Ambrose never 
 seems to have been pushed in the Early Church to 
 the same extremes, or to have been stated with the 
 same precision as it afterwards was by the Reform- 
 ers. 1 The mild and sagacious Erasmus soon perceived 
 
 1 The doctrine of double pre- spirit of a theologian, and by 
 
 destination was, however, main- Scotus Erigena in the spirit of 
 
 tainod in the ninth century by a freethinker. For an account 
 
 a monk named Gotteschalk, of this once-famous controversy 
 
 who was opposed by Hinckrnar, see the learned work of M. St.- 
 
 A-rchbishojp of Kheims, in the lien^ Taillandier, Scot Erigem
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 387 
 
 in tlii s one of the principal evils of the Reformation, 
 and he wrote a treatise in defence of freewill, which 
 elicited from Luther one of the most unequivocal, 
 and certainly one of the most revoltir.g declarations 
 of fatalism in the whole compass of theology. ' The 
 human will,' said Luther, ' is like a beast of burden. 
 If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God wills ; if 
 Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan wills. 
 Nor can it choose the rider it would prefer, or betake 
 itself to v him, but it is the riders who contend for its 
 possession.' * ' This is the acme of faith, to believe 
 that He is merciful who saves so few and who con- 
 demns so many ; that He is just who at His own 
 pleasure has made us necessarily doomed to dam- 
 nation; so that, as Erasmus says, He seems to 
 delight in the tortures of the wretched, and to bo 
 more deserving of hatred than of love. If by any 
 effort of reason I could conceive how God could be 
 merciful and just who shows so much anger and 
 iniquity, there would be no need for faith.' a 'God 
 
 et la Philosophie scholastique prisoned, and to be scourged. 
 
 (Strasbourg, 1843), pp. 51-58; (Llorente, Hist. del' Inquisition, 
 
 and for a contemporary view torn. i. p. 20.) 
 
 of the opinions of Gotteschalk, ' ' Sic humana voluntas in 
 
 see a letter by Amulo, Arch- medio posita estceu jumentum, 
 
 bishop of Lyons (the immediate si insedorit Deus vult et vadit 
 
 successor of Agobard), printed quo vult Deus, ut Psalmus 
 
 with the works of Agobard dicit : " Factus sum sicut ju- 
 
 (Paris, 1666). According to mentum et ego semper tecuni." 
 
 Amulo, Uotteschalk not only Si insederit Satan vult et vadit 
 
 held the doctrines of reproba- quo vult Satan ; nee est in ejus 
 
 tion and particular redemption, arbitrio ad utrum sessorem 
 
 but even declared that the Al- currere aut eum quserere, sed 
 
 mighty rejoiced and exulted ipsi sessores certant ob ipsum 
 
 over the destruction of those obtinendum et possidendum.' 
 
 who were predestinated to dam- (De Servo Arbitrio, pars i. see. 
 
 nation. Gottp-schalk was con- 24.) 
 
 demned to be degraded from 2 'Hie est fidei sumrnus gra- 
 
 the priesthood, to be im- dus, credere ilium ease clomen- 
 
 cc 2
 
 388 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 foreknows nothing subject to contingencies, but He 
 foresees, foreordains, and accomplishes all things by 
 an unchanging, eternal, and efficacious will. By this 
 thunderbolt freewill sinks shattered in the dust.' ' 
 
 Such were the opinions of the greatest of the Re- 
 formers. The doctrine of Calvin and his school was 
 equally explicit. According to them, the Fall, with 
 all its consequences, was predetermined ages before 
 the Creation, and was the necessary consequence of 
 that predetermination. The Almighty, they taught, 
 irrevocably decided the fate of each individual long 
 before He called him into existence, and has pre- 
 destinated millions to his hatred and to eternal damna- 
 tion. With that object He gave them being with 
 that object He withholds from them the assistance 
 that alone can correct the perversity of the nature 
 with which He created them. He will hate them 
 during life, and after death He will cast them into 
 
 tern qui tarn paucos salvat tarn teritur penitus liberum arbi- 
 
 multos damnat, credere jnstum trium.' (Sec. 10.) I give these 
 
 qui sua voluntate nos neeessario sections according to Vaughan's 
 
 dumnabiles facit, ut videatur, translation (1823), for in the 
 
 referente Erasmo, delectari original edition (1526) there 
 
 cruciatibus miserorum, et odio are no divisions and the pages 
 
 potius quam amore dignus. Si are not numbered. Melanch- 
 
 igitur possem ulla ratione com- thon, in the first edition of his 
 
 prehendere quomodo is Deus Commonplaces, expressed ex- 
 
 misericors et Justus, qui tan- treme predestinarian views, 
 
 tarn iram et iniquitatem osten- but omitted them in later edi- 
 
 dit, non esset opus fide.' (Ibid, tions. Luther, in his old age, 
 
 Bee. 23.) said he could not review with 
 
 1 ' Est itaque et hoc im- perfect satisfaction any of his 
 
 primis necessarium et salutare works except, perhaps, his 
 
 Christiano nosse, quod Deus Catechism and his De Servo 
 
 nihil praescit contingiter, sed Arbitrio (Vaughan's Preface, 
 
 quod omnia incommutabilia et p. 57). There is a full notice 
 
 jeterna, infallibilique voluntate of this book in one of Sir W. 
 
 et praevidetet praeponitet facit. Hamilton's essays. 
 Hoc fulmine sternitur et con-
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 
 
 the excruciating torments of undying fire, and will 
 watch their agonies without compassion through, the 
 countless ages of eternity. 1 
 
 It is needless to comment upon such teaching as 
 this. That it makes the Deity the direct author of 
 sin, 2 that it subverts all our notions of justice and of 
 
 1 On Calvin's views, see es- 
 pecially his De JEterna Dei 
 Prcedcstinatione, and his In- 
 stitut. Christ, lib. iii. c. 21-23. 
 But perhaps their clearest and 
 most emphatic statement is in 
 a work of Beza, De JEterna 
 Dei Pr<edestinatione contra 
 Sclastianum CastcUwnem ( pub- 
 lished in the Opuscula of Beza, 
 Genevae, 1658). The pointed 
 objections on the score of moral 
 rectitude of his rationalistic 
 opponent brought the enormi- 
 ties of the Calvinistic doctrine 
 into the fullest relief. There is 
 a curious old translation of 
 this work, under the title of 
 Beta's Display of Popish Prac- 
 tices, or Patched Pelagianism, 
 transl ited by W. Hopkinson 
 (London, 1578). Beza especi- 
 ally insists on the unfairness 
 of accusing Calvinists of assert- 
 ing that God so hated some 
 men that He predestinated 
 them to destruction ; the truth 
 being that God of His free 
 sovereignty predestinated them 
 to destruction, and therefore to 
 His hatred ; so that ' God is 
 not moved with the hatred of 
 any that He should drive him 
 to destruction, but He hath 
 hated whom He hath predes- 
 tinated to destruction.' Another 
 point on which Jonathan Ed- 
 wards especially has insisted 
 
 (in his Freedom of Will) is that 
 there can be no injustice in 
 punishing voluntary transgres- 
 sion, and that the transgres- 
 sions of the reprobate are 
 voluntary ; men having been 
 since Adam created with wills 
 so hopelessly corrupt that 
 without Divine assistance they 
 must inevitably be damned, and 
 God having in the majority of 
 cases resolved to withhold that 
 assistance. The fatality, there- 
 fore, does not consist in man 
 being compelled to do certain 
 things whether he wishes it or 
 not, but in his being brought 
 into the world with such a 
 nature that his wishes neces- 
 sarily tend in a given direc- 
 tion. 
 
 2 Calvinists, indeed, often 
 protest against this conclusion ; 
 but it is almost self-evident, 
 and the ablest writer of the 
 school admits it in a sense 
 which is quite sufficiently large 
 for his opponents : ' If by the 
 author of sin is meant the per- 
 mitter or not hinderer of sin, 
 and at the same time a disposer 
 of the state of events in such a 
 manner for wise, holy, and 
 most excellent ends and pur- 
 poses that sin, if it be per- 
 mitted or not hindered, will 
 most certainly and infallibly 
 follow; I say, if this be all
 
 390 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 mercy, that the simple statement of it is inexpressibly 
 shocking and revolting, can hardly be denied by its 
 warmest supporters. Indeed, when we combine this 
 teaching with the other doctrines I have considered 
 in the present chapter, the whole may be regarded as 
 unequalled in the religious history of mankind. In 
 our age such tenets have retired from the blaze of 
 day ; they are found only in the obscure writings of 
 obscure men. Since Jonathan Edwards they have 
 had no exponent of undoubted genius, and no dis- 
 tinguished writer could venture without a serious loas 
 of reputation openly to profess them. Such language 
 as was employed on this subject by men like Luther, 
 Calvin, and Beza, while in the zenith of their popu- 
 larity, would not now be tolerated for a moment out- 
 side a small and uninfluential circle. The rationalistic 
 spirit has so pervaded all our habits of thought, that 
 every doctrine which is repugnant to our moral sense 
 excites an intense and ever-increasing aversion ; and 
 as the doctrine of exclusive salvation, which prepared 
 the mind for the doctrine of reprobation, is no longer 
 realised, the latter appears peculiarly revolting. 
 
 Another very important subject upon which the 
 doctrine of exclusive salvation has exercised great 
 influence, is the relation between dogmas and morals. 
 The older theologians invariably attributed to dogmas 
 an intrinsic efficacy which was entirely independent 
 of their effect upon life. Thus we have already had 
 occasion to observe, that in the Early Church no con- 
 troversies were deemed so important as those which 
 Concerned the connection between the two natures 
 
 that is meant, I do not deny tination of the fall of Adam, 
 
 that God is the author of sin.' whose will was not hopelessly 
 
 (Jonathan Edwards, Freedom corrupt, has of course its own 
 
 of Will, p. 369.) The predes- peculiar difficulties.
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 391 
 
 in Christ, and that at the Reformation the accept- 
 ance or rejection of transubstantiation was made the 
 habitual test of orthodoxy. On the other hand, the 
 politician, in a secular age, is inclined to value religious 
 systems solely according to their influence upon the 
 acts of mankind. He sees that religious controversies 
 have often dislocated the social system, have presented 
 an insuperable obstacle to the fusion of the different 
 elements of a nation, have produced long and sangui- 
 nary wars, and have diverted a large proportion of 
 intellect and energy from enterprises that are con- 
 ducive to the welfare of society. These he considers 
 the evils of theology, which are compensated for by 
 the control that it exercises over the passions of man- 
 kind, by the high sense of duty it diffuses, by the 
 consolations it affords in age, in suffering, and in 
 sorrow, and by the intensity of the philanthropy it 
 inspires. His object therefore is to encourage a 
 system in which the moral restraint shall be as great 
 as possible, and the dogmatic elements shall be few 
 and torpid. The rationalist occupies a central posi- 
 tion between the two. Like the early theologian, he 
 denies that the measure of theological excellence is 
 entirely utilitarian ; like the politician, he denies that 
 dogmas possess an intrinsic efficacy. He believes that 
 they are intended to act upon and develope the 
 affective or emotional side of human nature, that they 
 are the vehicles by which certain principles are 
 conveyed into the mind which would otherwise never 
 be received, and that when they have discharged 
 their functions they must lose their importance. In 
 the earlier phases of society men have never succeeded 
 in forming a purely spiritual and moral conception 
 of the Deity, and they therefore ma^e an image
 
 392 RATIONALISM IN EUROrE. 
 
 which they worship. By this means the conception 
 of the Deity is falsified and debased, but the moral 
 influence of worship is retained : a great evil is the 
 price of an inestimable benefit. As, however, men 
 obtain with increasing civilisation a capacity for 
 forming purer and more moral conceptions, idolatry 
 becomes an unmingled evil, and is in consequence at 
 last abandoned. Just in the same way a purely moral 
 religion, appealing to a disinterested sense of duty 
 and perception of excellence, can never be efficacious 
 in an early condition of society. It is consequently 
 materialised, associated with innumerable ceremonies, 
 with elaborate creeds, with duties that bear no rela- 
 tion to moral sentiments, with an ecclesiastical frame- 
 work, and with a copious legendary. Through all 
 this extraneous matter the moral essence filters down 
 to the people, preparing them for the higher phases 
 of developement. Gradually the ceremonies drop 
 away, the number of doctrines is reduced, the eccle- 
 siastical ideal of life and character is exchanged for 
 the moral ideal ; dogmatic conceptions manifest an 
 increased flexibility, and the religion is at last trans- 
 figured and regenerated, radiant in all its parts with 
 the pure spirit that had created it. 
 
 It is manifest that according to this view there 
 exists a certain antagonism between the dogmatic and 
 the moral elements of a religious system, and that 
 their relative influence will depend mainly on the 
 degree of civilisation ; an amount of dogmatic pressure 
 which is a great blessing in one age being a great 
 evil in another. Now, one of the most obvious con- 
 sequences of the doctrine of exclusive salvation is 
 that it places the moral in permanent subordination 
 to the dogmatic side of religion. If there be a Catholic
 
 ON PERSECUTION. S93 
 
 faith ' which except a man believe he cannot he saved,' 
 it is quite natural that men should deem it ' before 
 all things ' necessary to hold it. Tf the purest moral 
 life cannot atone for error, while a true religion has 
 many means of effacing guilt, the mind will n turally 
 turn to the doctrinal rather than to the practical side. 
 The extent to which this tendency has been mani- 
 fested in the Church of Rome is well known. Pro- 
 testant controversialists have often drawn up long 
 and. perfectly authentic lists of celebrated characters 
 who were stained with every crime, and who have 
 nevertheless been among the favourites of the Church, 
 who have clung to her ordinances with full orthodox 
 tenacity, who have assuaged by her absolution every 
 qualm of conscience, and who have at last, bv 
 endowing a monastery or undergoing a penance or 
 directing a persecution against heretics, persuaded 
 themselves that they had effaced all the crimes of 
 their lives. In Protestantism this combination of 
 devotion and immorality, which is not to be con- 
 founded with hypocrisy, appears more rare. Lives 
 like that of Benvenuto Cellini, in which the most 
 atrocious crimes alternate with ecstasies of the most 
 rapturous and triumphant piety, are scarcely ever to 
 be met with, yet it would be rash to say that tho 
 evil is unknown. The tenacity with which Pro- 
 testant nations cling to the orthodox tenets of the 
 Reformation can scarcely, I think, be said to bear any 
 fixed proportion to the national morality, and Sweden, 
 which of all Protestant countries has been most con- 
 spicuous for its prolonged legislation against hetero- 
 doxy, is said to be equally conspicuous for the scan- 
 dalous amount of illegitimacy among the people. 1 
 1 See Laing's Sweden, pp. 108-141, where this question
 
 894 
 
 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 These are the contradictions that result from the 
 doctrine of exclusive salvation among those who do 
 not belong to a high order of sanctity, and who gladly 
 purchase a license for the indulgence of their passions 
 by an assiduous cultivation of what they deem the 
 more important side of their faith. A very much 
 more general tendency, and one which has exercised 
 a far more pernicious influence upon the history of 
 mankind, is displayed by those whose zeal is entirely 
 unselfish. Being convinced that no misfortune can 
 be so great as heresy, and that the heretic is doomed 
 to eternal misery, they have habitually supported 
 their creed by imposture and falsehood. That they 
 should do this is quite natural. Whatever may be 
 the foundation of the moral law, it is certain that in 
 the eyes of the immense majority of mankind there 
 
 is minutely examined. This and comfort ; yet at the bottom 
 
 of the scale for religious feel- 
 ing, observances, or knowledge, 
 especially in the Protestant 
 cantons, in which prosperity, 
 wellbeing, and morality seem 
 to be, as compared to the 
 Catholic cantons, in an inverse 
 ratio to the influence of religion 
 on the people. . . . It is a very 
 remarkable social state, similar, 
 perhaps, to that of the ancient 
 Romans, in whom morality and 
 
 is a mere question of figures. 
 The following passage from 
 another work of the same writer 
 is less susceptible of decisive 
 proof, and is, I am inclined to 
 think, somewhat overstated, 
 but is nevertheless very sug- 
 gestive : ' The Swiss people 
 present to the political philoso- 
 pher the unexpected and most 
 remarkable social phenomenon 
 of a people eminently moral in 
 conduct yet eminently irre- 
 ligious : at the head of the 
 moral state in Europe, not 
 merely for absence of numerous 
 or great crimes, or of disregard 
 of right, but for ready obe- 
 dience to law, for honesty, 
 fidelity to their engagements, 
 for fair-dealing, sobriety, in- 
 dustry, orderly conduct, for 
 good government, useful public 
 institutions, general wellbeing, 
 
 social virtue were also sus- 
 tained without the aid of re- 
 ligious influences.' (Laing's 
 Notes of a Traveller, pp. 146- 
 147.) Dr. Arnold said, I think 
 truly, that the popular notion 
 about the superior prosperity 
 of the Protestant over the 
 Catholic cantons is greatly ex- 
 aggerated : it exists in some 
 cases and not in others.
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 395 
 
 are some overwhelming considerations that will justify 
 a breach of its provisions. If some great misfortune 
 were to befall a man who lay on a sick bed, trembling 
 between life and death ; if the physician declared that 
 the knowledge of that misfortune would be certain 
 death to the patient, and if concealment were only 
 possible by a falsehood, there are very few moralists 
 who would condemn that falsehood. If the most 
 ardent denouncer of ' pious frauds ' were to meet 
 an assassin in pursuit of an innocent man, and 
 were able by misdirecting the pursuer to save the 
 fugitive, it may be safely predicted that the lie would 
 be unscrupulously uttered. It is not very easy to 
 justify these things by argument, or to draw a clear 
 line between criminal and innocent falsehood ; but 
 that there are circumstances which justify untruth has 
 always been admitted by the common sentiment of 
 mankind, and has been distinctly laid down by the 
 most eminent moralists. 1 When therefore a man 
 believes that those who adopt an erroneous opinion 
 will be consigned to perdition, when he not only 
 believes this but realises it as a living and operative 
 truth, and when he perceives that it is possible either 
 by direct falsehood or by the suppression or distortion 
 of truth to strengthen the evidences of his faith, he 
 usually finds the temptation irresistible. But there 
 are two very important distinctions between the hypo- 
 thetical cases I have mentioned and the pious frauds 
 of theologians. The first are the results of isolated 
 moral judgments, while the latter are systematised 
 and raised to the dignity of a regular doctrine. The 
 
 1 Thus, not to quote Roman tium, lib. iii. c. 2. lays down 
 Catholic authorities, J eremy several cases of justifiable false- 
 Taylor, in the Ductor Dubitan- hood.
 
 396 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 first, again, spring from circumstances that are so 
 extremely rare and exceptional that they can scarcely 
 have any perceptible influence upon the general 
 veracity of the person who utters them, while the 
 second induce a habit of continual falsehood. The 
 Fathers laid down as a distinct proposition that pious 
 frauds were justifiable and even laudable, 1 and if they 
 had not laid this down they would nevertheless have 
 practised them as a necessary consequence of their 
 doctrine of exclusive salvation. Immediately all 
 ecclesiastical literature became tainted with a spirit 
 of the most unblushing mendacity. Heathenism waa 
 to be combated, and therefore prophecies of Christ by 
 Orpheus and the Sibyls were forged, lying wonders 
 were multiplied, and ceaseless calumnies poured upon 
 those who, like Julian, opposed the faith. Heretics 
 were to be convinced, and therefore interpolations of 
 old writings or complete forgeries were habitually op- 
 posed to the forged Gospels. The veneration of relics 
 
 1 See on this subject the the secrets of that sect. The 
 evidence collected in Middle- most revolting aspect of this 
 ton's Fres Enquiry ; the curious subject is the notion that here- 
 panegyric on the habit of tell- tics are so intensely criminal 
 ing lies in St. Chrysostom On as to have no moral rights a 
 the Priesthood ; the remarks of favourite doctrine in Catholic 
 Coleridge in The Friend, and countries where no Protestant 
 of Maury (Croyances et Le- or sceptical public opinion ex- 
 aendcs, p. 268). St. Augustine, ists. Thus the Spanish Bishop 
 however, is in this respect an Simancas ' Ad pcenam quoque 
 exception. In his treatise Con- pertinet et hsereticorum odium, 
 tra Mi ndacimn he strongly de- quod fides illis data servanda 
 nounced the tendency, an.l es- non est. Nam si tyrannis, pi- 
 pecially condemns the Pris- ratis, et caeteris prsedonibus 
 cillianists, among whom it quia corpus occidunt fides ser- 
 appears to have been very com- vanda non est, longe minus 
 mon, and also certain Catholics hsereticis pertinacibus qui occi- 
 who thought it justifiable to dunt animas.' (De Catholicia 
 pretend to be Priscillianists Institutionibus, p. 365.) 
 for the purpose of discovering
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 397 
 
 and the monastic system were introduced, and there- 
 fore innumerable miracles were attributed to the 
 boiies of saints or to the prayers of hermits, and were 
 solemnly asserted by the most eminent of the Fathers. 1 
 The tendency was not confined to those Eastern na- 
 tions which had been always almost destitute of the 
 sense of truth ; it triumphed wherever the supreme 
 importance of dogmas was held. Generation after 
 generation it became more universal ; it continued 
 till the very sense of truth and the very love of truth 
 seemed blotted out from the minds of men. 
 
 That this is no exaggerated picture of the con- 
 dition at which tlie middle ages arrived, is known to 
 all who have any acquaintance with its literature ; 
 for during that gloomy period the only scholars in 
 Europe were priests and monks, who conscientiously 
 believed that no amount of falsehood was reprehen- 
 sible which conduced to the edification of the people. 
 Not only did they pursue with the grossest calumny 
 every enemy to their faith, not only did they encircle 
 every saint with a halo of palpable fiction, not only 
 did they invent tens of thousands of miracles for 
 the purpose of stimulating devotion they also very 
 
 1 Since the last note was rightly interpreted or not, is 
 
 written, this subject lias been the doctor of the great and 
 
 discussed at some length by common view that all untruths 
 
 Dr. Newman, in his Apoloyia are lies, and that there can be 
 
 pro Vita sua. I do not, how- no just cause of untruth .... 
 
 ever, find anything to alter in Now, as to the just cause, the 
 
 what I have stated. Dr. New- Greek Fathers make them such 
 
 man says (Appendix, p. 77): as these self-defence, charity, 
 
 liie Greek Fathers thought zeal for God"s honour, and the 
 
 that, when there was a junta like.' It is plain enough that 
 
 causa, an untruth need not be this last would include all of 
 
 a lie. St. Augustine took what are commonly termed 
 
 another view, though with great pious frauds, 
 misgiving, and, whether he is
 
 338 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 naturally carried into all other subjects the indiffer- 
 ence to truth they had acquired in theology. All their 
 writings, and more especially their histories, became 
 tissues of the wildest fables, so grotesque and at the 
 same time so audacious, that they were the wonder 
 of succeeding ages. And the very men who scat- 
 tered these fictions broadcast over Christendom, 
 taught at the same time that credulity was a virtue 
 and scepticism a crime. As long as the doctrine of 
 exclusive salvation was believed and realised, it was 
 necessary for the peace of mankind that they should 
 be absolutely certain of the truth of what they be- 
 lieved ; in order to be so certain, it was necessary to 
 suppress adverse arguments ; and in order to effect 
 this object, it was necessary that there should be no 
 critical or sceptical spirit in Europe. A habit of 
 boundless credulity was therefore a natural conse- 
 quence of the doctrine of exclusive salvation ; and 
 not only did this habit naturally produce a luxuriant 
 crop of falsehood, it was itself the negation of the 
 spirit of truth. For the man who really loves truth 
 cannot possibly subside into a condition of contented 
 credulity. He will pause long before accepting any 
 doubtful assertion, he will carefully balance opposing 
 arguments, he will probe every anecdote with scru- 
 pulous care, he will endeavour to divest himself of 
 every prejudice, he will cautiously abstain from at- 
 tributing to probabilities the authority of certainties. 
 These are the essential characteristics of the spirit of 
 truth, and by their encouragement or suppression we 
 can judge how far a system of doctrine coincides with 
 that spirit. 
 
 We have seen that there were three ways in which 
 the indissoluble association of salvation with a par-
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 399 
 
 ticular form of belief produced or promoted the 
 absolute indifference to truth and the boundless 
 credulity that characterised the ages in which theo- 
 logy was supreme. It multiplied to an enormous 
 extent pious frauds, which were perpetrated without 
 scruple because they were supposed to produce in- 
 estimable benefits to mankind. It rendered universal 
 that species of falsehood which is termed misrepre- 
 sentation, and which consists mainly of the suppres- 
 sion of all opposing facts ; and it crushed that earnest- 
 ness of enquiry which is at once the essential charac- 
 teristic of the love of truth, and the sole bulwark 
 against the encroachments of error. There was, 
 however, yet another way, which, though very closely 
 connected with the foregoing, is sufficiently distinct 
 to claim, a separate consideration. 
 
 A love of truth, by the very definition of the terms, 
 implies a resolution under all circumstances to ap- 
 proach as nearly as possible to its attainment, or in 
 other words, when demonstration is impossible, to 
 adopt the belief which seems most probable. In this 
 respect there is an important difference between 
 speculative and practical life. He who is seeking 
 for truth is bound always to follow what appears to 
 his mind to be the stress of probabilities ; but in 
 action it is sometimes wise to shape our course with 
 a view to the least probable contingency ; because we 
 have to consider riot merely the comparative proba- 
 bilities of success afforded by different courses, but 
 also the magnitude of the results that would ensue. 
 Thus, a man is justly regarded as prudent who in- 
 sures his house against fire, though an absolute and 
 unrequited loss is the most probable consecmence of 
 his act ; because the loss he would suffer in the more
 
 400 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 probable contingency is inconsiderable, and the ad- 
 vantage lie would derive from the insurance in the 
 less probable contingency is very great. From this 
 consideration Pascal who with Fermat was the 
 founder of what may be termed the scientific treat- 
 ment of probabilities derived a very ingenious argu- 
 ment in defence of his theological opinions, which 
 was afterwards adopted by an English mathematician 
 named Craig. 1 They contended, that when a re- 
 ligious system promises infinite rewards and threat- 
 ens infinite punishments, it is the part of a wise man 
 to saciifice the present to embrace it, not merely if 
 he believes the probabilities to preponderate in its 
 favour, but even if he regards its truth as extremely 
 improbable, provided the probabilities against it are 
 not infinite. Now, as long as such an argument is 
 urged simply with a view of inducing men to adopt 
 a certain course of action, it has no necessary con- 
 nection with morals, and should be judged upon 
 prudential grounds. 2 But the case becomes widely 
 different when to adopt the least probable course 
 means to acknowledge a Church which demands as 
 the first condition of allegiance an absolute and 
 heartfelt belief in the truth of what it teaches. When 
 this is the case the argument of Pascal means, and 
 only can mean, that men should by the force of will 
 compel themselves to believe what they do not be- 
 lieve by the force of reason ; that they should exert 
 
 1 In a very curious book ProbabUitis It is manifest 
 called Theologize Christiana that, if correct, obedience would 
 Principia Mathematica. (Lon- be due to any impostor who 
 diui, 1699.) said he dreamed that he was a 
 
 2 The reader may find a re- Divine messenger, provided he 
 view of it made on those put his promises and threaten- 
 grouuds in Laplace, Theorie des ings sufficiently high.
 
 ON FERSECUTION. 401 
 
 all their efforts, by withdrawing their attention from 
 one side and concentrating it upon the other, and by 
 the employment of the distorting influences of the 
 affections, to disturb the results of their judgment. 
 Nor is this merely the speculation of some isolated 
 mathematicians ; it is a principle that is constantly 
 acted on in every society which is governed by the 
 doctrine we are considering. 1 Mere sophisms or 
 imperfect reasoning have a comparatively small 
 place in the history of human error ; the intervention 
 of the will has always been the chief cause of delusion. 
 Under the best circumstances we can but imperfectly 
 guard against its influence ; but wherever the doc- 
 trine of exclusive salvation is held, it is reduced to a 
 system and regarded as a virtue. 
 
 Certainly, whatever opinion may be held concern- 
 ing the general tendencies of the last three centuries, 
 it is impossible to deny the extraordinary diffusion of 
 a truthful spirit, as manifested both in the increased 
 intolerance of what is false and in the increased 
 
 1 Thus in the seventeenth was addressed, it may probably 
 
 century the following was a be esteemed as thoroughly base 
 
 popular Catholic argument, and demoralising as any that 
 
 Protestants admit that Catho- it is even possible for the 
 
 lies may be saved, but Catho- imagination to conceive. Yet 
 
 lies deny that Protestants can ; it w"as no doubt very effective, 
 
 therefore it is better to become and was perfectly in harmony 
 
 a Catholic. Considering that with the doctrine we are con- 
 
 this argument was designed, sidering. Selden asked, ' IB 
 
 by playing on superstitious their Church better than ours, 
 
 terrors, and by obscuring the because it has less charity ? ' 
 
 s^nse of the Divine goodness, and Bedell, in a passage which 
 
 to induce men to tamper with Coleridge justly pronounced 
 
 their sense of truth, and con- one of the most beautiful in 
 
 sidering too that its success English prose, compared the 
 
 depended mainly on the ti- two churches in this respect to 
 
 midity, self-distrust, and mo- the rival mothers before Solo 
 
 desty of the person to whom it mon. 
 
 VOL I. I) D
 
 402 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 suspicion of what is doubtful. This has been one of 
 the general results of advancing civilisation to which 
 all intellectual influences have converged, but the im- 
 provement may be said to date more especially from 
 the writings of the great secular philosophers of the 
 seventeenth century. These philosophers destroyed 
 the old modes of thought, not by the force of direct 
 polemical discussion, but by introducing a method of 
 enquiry and a standard of excellence incompatible 
 with them. They taught men to esteem credulity 
 discreditable, to wage an unsparing war against their 
 prejudices, to distrust the verdicts of the past, and 
 to analyse with cautious scrutiny the foundation of 
 their belief. They taught them, above all, to cul- 
 tivate that love of truth for its own sake which 
 is perhaps the highest attribute of humanity ; 
 which alone can emancipate the mind from the 
 countless influences that enthral it, and guide the 
 steps through the labyrinth of human systems ; 
 which shrinks from the sacrifice of no cherished 
 doctrine, and of no ancient tie ; and which, recognis- 
 ing in itself the reflex of the Deity, finds in itself its 
 own reward. 
 
 The conspicuous place which Bacon, Descartes, 
 and Locke have obtained in the history of the human 
 mind, depends much less on the originality of their 
 doctrines or their methods than on the skill with 
 which they developed and diffused them. Long 
 btfore Descartes, St. Augustine had anticipated the 
 ' cogito ergo sum ; ' but that which St. Augustine 
 had thrown out as a mere truism, or, at best, as a 
 passing suggestion, Descartes converted into the 
 basis of a great philosophy. Half a century before 
 Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci had exhibited the superi-
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 403 
 
 ority of the inductive method, and had clearly stated 
 its principles ; but even if Leonardo had published 
 his work, it may be safely asserted that the mag- 
 nificent developernent of Bacon was necessary to make 
 that method supreme in science. Each of these great 
 men attacked with vast ability and marvellous success 
 some intellectual vice which lay at the very root of 
 the old habits of thought. Descartes taught that 
 the beginning of all knowledge was the rejection of 
 every early prejudice, and a firm resolution to bring 
 every opinion to the test of individual judgment. 
 Locke taught the necessity of mapping out the limits 
 of human faculties, and by his doctrine concerning 
 innate ideas, and above all by his masterly analysis 
 of Enthusiasm, he gave the deathblow to the opinions 
 of those who would remove a certain class of mental 
 phenomena altogether from the jurisdiction of the 
 reason. 1 Bacon, whose gigantic intellect made ex- 
 cursions into every field, was pre-eminently noted for 
 his classification of the idola or distorting influences 
 that act on the mind, and for his constant injunction, 
 to correct theory by confronting it with facts. Des- 
 cartes also, in addition to the vast intrinsic value of 
 his works, had the immense merit of doing more 
 than any previous writer to divorce philosophy from 
 
 1 It has been observed by a a son distracted between his 
 
 very able French critic (M. duty to his dead father and to 
 
 Littre) that the increasing ten- his living mother ; but while 
 
 dency, as civilisation advances, the Greek found it necessary 
 
 to substitute purely psycho- to bring the Furies upon the 
 
 logical for miraculous solutions scene to account for the mental 
 
 is strikingly illustrated by a paroxysms of Orestes, the Eng- 
 
 comparison of Orestes wilh lishman deemed the natural 
 
 Hamlet. The subject of both play and conflict of the emotions 
 
 pieces is essentially the same amply sufficient to account for 
 
 a murdered king, a guilty wife, the sufferings of Hamlet.
 
 404 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 erudition, and to make it an appeal to the reasoning 
 powers of ordinary men. The schoolmen, though 
 they had carried philosophical definition almost to 
 the highest conceivable point of perfection, had intro- 
 duced a style of disquisition so pedantic and mono- 
 tonous, so full of subtle distinctions and endless 
 repetitions, that all but the most patient students 
 were repelled by their works ; while their constant 
 appeal to authority, and the fact that they wrote only 
 in Latin, excluded those who were but little learned 
 from the discussion. The great prominence academic 
 prelections obtained about the time of the Reforma- 
 tion contributed, I imagine, largely to introduce a 
 simpler and more popular style. Rather more than 
 sixty years before ' The Method ' of Descartes, Ramus, 
 in his ' Dialectics,' had set the example of publishing 
 a philosophical work in French, and Bruno had 
 thrown some of his dreamy speculations into Italian ; 
 but neither of these men were sufficiently able to 
 form a new epoch in the history of philosophy, and 
 their ends were not calculated to encourage imitators 
 the first having been murdered by the Catholics on 
 the night of St. Bartholomew, and the second burnt 
 alive at Rome by the Pope. Descartes more than 
 anyone else was the author of what may be called 
 the democratic character of philosophy, and this is 
 not the least of his merits. The influence of Locke 
 and Bacon, again, Was especially powerful as a cor- 
 rective of the old tendency to fictiun, on account of a 
 certain unimaginative character that was exhibited 
 by the philosophies of both a character that was 
 perfectly congenial to tiie intellect of Locke, but very 
 remarkable in the case of Bacon, among whose great 
 faculties imagination occupied au almost dispropor-
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 405 
 
 iionate prominence. That this feature of the Baconian 
 philosophy is at present exercising a decidedly preju- 
 dicial influence on the English intellect, by producing 
 an excessive distaste for the higher generalisations, 
 and for all speculations that do not lead directly to 
 practical results, has been maintained by many Con- 
 tinental writers, and by at least three of the most 
 eminent English ones. 1 It is, indeed, quite true that 
 Bacon never went in this respect so far as some of 
 his disciples. He certainly never made utility the 
 sole object of science, or at least never restricted 
 utility to material advantages. He asserted in the 
 noblest language the superiority of abstract truth to 
 all the fruits of invention, 2 and would never have 
 called those speculations useless which form the in- 
 tellectual character of an age. Yet, on the other 
 hand, it must be acknowledged that the general tone 
 of his writings, the extraordinary emphasis which he 
 laid upon the value of experiments, and above all 
 upon the bearing of his philosophy on material com- 
 forts, represents a tendency which was very naturally 
 developed into the narrowest utilitarianism. Those 
 who regarded natural science simply as the minister to 
 the material comforts of mankind were the disciples 
 of Bacon, in much the same sense as Condillac and 
 his followers were the disciples of Locke : they did 
 
 1 Coleridge, Buckle, and and beautiful than the manifold 
 Mill. uses of it ; so, assuredly, the 
 
 2 'And yet (to speak the very contemplation of things 
 whole truth), just as we are as they are, without supersti- 
 cteeply indebted to light be- tion or imposture, without 
 cause it enables us to enter on error or confusion, is in itself 
 our way, to exercise arts, to more worthy than all the pro- 
 read, to distinguish one another, duce of discoveries." (Novum 
 and nevertheless the sight of Organon.) 
 
 light is itself more excellent
 
 406 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 not accurately represent the doctrines of their master, 
 but they represented the general tendency of his 
 teaching. 
 
 But, whatever may be thought of the influence 
 which the inductive philosophy now exercises on the 
 English mind, there can be no doubt that both that 
 philosophy and the essay of Locke were peculiarly 
 fatal to the mediaeval modes of thought on account 
 of the somewhat plodding character they displayed. 
 By enlarging the domain of the senses, by making 
 experience the final test of truth, and by greatly 
 discouraging the excursions of theorists, they checked 
 the exuberance of the European imagination, im- 
 parted an air of grotesqueness to the wild fictions 
 that had so long been received, and taught men to 
 apply tests both to their traditions and to their emo- 
 tions which divested them of much of their apparent 
 mystery. It was from the writings of Locke and 
 Bacon that Voltaire and his followers drew the prin- 
 ciples that shattered the proudest ecclesiastical fabrics 
 of Europe, and it is against these philosophers that 
 the ablest defenders of mediaeval theology have ex- 
 hibited the most bitter animosity. 1 
 
 1 Thus De Maistre, the great terms ' un charlatan,' and, 
 
 apostle of modern Ultramou- speaking of his greatest works, 
 
 tamsm, assures us that 'dans says: ' Le livre De la Lignite et 
 
 I'etude de la philosophie, le de PAccroissemeni des Scieiicea 
 
 ruepris de Locke est le com- est done un otivrage parfaito- 
 
 mencement de la sagesse ; ' and ment nul et meprisablo. . . . 
 
 that TEssaisur I'Entendement Quant au Novum Organon,\\ 
 
 humain est tres-certainement, est bien plus condamnable 
 
 et soit qu'on le nie ou qu'on en encore, puisque, independam- 
 
 convienue, tout ce que le defaut ment des erreurs particuiieres 
 
 absolu de genie et de style peut dont il fourmille, le but general 
 
 enfanter de plus assommant.' de 1'ouvrage le rend digue d'un 
 
 (Scirees de St.-Petersbourg, 6 m * Bedlam.' (ExamendelaPhiluno- 
 
 Entretien.) Bacon, he calmly phis de Bacon.) In the same
 
 ON PERSECUTION. 407 
 
 It was thus that the great teachers of the seven- 
 teenth century, who were themselves but the highest 
 representatives of the tendencies of their age, dis- 
 ciplined the minds of men for impartial enquiry, and 
 having broken the spell that so long had bound them, 
 produced a passionate love of truth which has revo- 
 lutionised all departments of knowledge. It is to the 
 impulse which was then communicated that may be 
 traced the great critical movement which has reno- 
 vated all history, all science, all theology which has 
 penetrated into the obscurest recesses, destroying old 
 prejudices, dispelling illusions, rearranging the vari- 
 ous parts of our knowledge, and altering the whole 
 scope and character of our sympathies. But all this 
 would have been impossible but for the diffusion of 
 a rationalistic spirit obscuring or destroying the no- 
 tion of the guilt of error. For, as we have seen, 
 whenever the doctrine of exclusive salvation is gene- 
 rally believed and realised, habits of thought will be 
 formed around it that are diametrically opposed to 
 the spirit of enquiry and absolutely incompatible 
 with human progress. An indifference to truth, a 
 spirit of blind and at the same time wilful credulity 
 will bo encouraged, which will multiply fictions of 
 every kind, will associate enquiry with the ideas of 
 danger and of guilt, will make men esteem that im- 
 partiality of judgment and study which is the very 
 soul of truth an unholy thing, and will so emascu- 
 late their faculties as to produce a general torpor 
 on every subject. For the different elements of our 
 
 way, though in very different version), hare been ceaselessly 
 
 language, the Tractarian party, carping at the psychology of 
 
 and especially Dr. Newman Locke and the inductive phi- 
 
 (both before and after his con- losophy of Bacon.
 
 408 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 
 
 knowledge are so closely united that it is impossible 
 to divide them into separate compartments, and to 
 make a spirit of credulity preside over one compart- 
 ment while a spirit of enquiry is animating the others. 
 In the middle ages theology was supreme, and the 
 spii-it of that theology was absolute credulity, and 
 the same spirit was speedily diffused through all forms 
 of thought. In the seventeenth century the pre- 
 eminence of theology was no longer decisive, and the 
 great secular writers introduced a love of impartiality 
 and of free research which rapidly passed from natural 
 science and metaphysics into theology, and destroyed 
 or weakened all those doctrines which were repug- 
 nant to it. It was between the writings of Bacon 
 and Locke that Chillingworth taught, for the first or 
 almost for the first time in England, the absolute 
 innocence of honest error. It was between the 
 writings of Bacon and Locke that that latitudinarian 
 school was formed which was irradiated by the genius 
 of Taylor, Glanvil, and Hales, and which became the 
 very centre and seedplot of religious liberty. It was 
 between the same writings that the writ De Rceretico 
 comburendo was expunged from the Statute Book, and 
 the soil of England for the last time stained with the 
 misbeliever's blood ! 
 
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