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HISTOEY
OP
THE RISE AND INFLUENCE
OF THE SPIRIT OP
RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
BT
WILLIAM EDWARD HAETPOLE LECKY, M.A.
SI2CTOH: EX5ITIO2T.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. L
LONDON:
LONGMANS. GREEN, AND CO.
1873.
INTKODUCTION.
DURING 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
of view 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
INTBODTJCTION. 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
VU1 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.
But 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
I INTBODUCTION.
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
INTEODUCTION. 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.
Xll INTRODUCTION.
The struggle of the will for a right motive
against the pressure of the desires, is one 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
INTEODUCTION. 3111
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
some 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 arduous ; 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 ef 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 INTEODUCTIOBT.
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 representa-
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-
velopements. 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
correctly, 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
INTEODUOTIOTT.
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 ages and nations as com-
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. XII
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-
XT INTRODUCTION.
vcrsics 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 living
representatives, and when we have not merely to
estimate the different measures of probability
subsisting in different societies, but have also to
O
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 arises 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
INTRODUCTION.
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
INTEODUCTION.
subjects, and that to treat them as they deserve
would require an amount both of learning and
of ability to which I can m.-ikr 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
THE FIRST VOLUME.
INTRODUCTION v
CHAPTER I.
THE DECLINING SENSE OP THE MIKACULOUS.
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 Miracles
Constantino 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 Effects of Eclipses, Comets, and
XXVI CONTENTS OP
PAOK
Pestilence, on the Superstition The Cabalists 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
answered 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 Persecution in France In Eng-
land, the First Law against Witchcraft was made under
Henry VIII. Repealed in the following Reign, but re-
newed 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 RapidProgress 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 . . 1
THE FIRST VOLUME. XXV11
CHAPTER II.
THE DECLINING SENSE OF THE MIRACULOUS.
THE MIRACLES OF THE CHTJBCH.
PAGK
Miracles related by the Fathers and Mediaeval Writers as
ordinary and undoubted Occurrences Eapid Growth of
Scepticism on the Subject since the Keformation 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 Middleton 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 Eationalism Eationalistic Tendencies in Eoman
Catholic Countries Origin and Decline of the Evidential
School in England Modification of the Conception of
Miracles Eeasonableness of the Doctrine of Interference
Summary of the Stages of Eationalism in its relation
to the Miraculous Its Causes Its Influence on Chris-
tianity . . .., 139
CHAPTER m.
AESTHETIC, SCIENTIFIC, AND MORAL DEVELOPEMENTS OF
EATIONALISM.
The Expectation of Miracles grows out of the Eeligious
Conceptions of an early Stage of Civilisation, and its
Decline implies a general Modification of Eeligious
Opinions Fetishism probably the First Stage of He-
TXviii CONTENTS OP
Hgiou8 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 the 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 Fra Angelico 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-
tion 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, Science 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
Copernican 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 CONTENTS OP
MM
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 Beccaria Bentham Elimi-
nation of the Doctrine of future Torture from Religious
Realisations . .188
CHAPTER IV.
ON PERSECUTION.
PART I.
THE ANTECEDENTS OF PEHSECTJTIOK.
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
PAQB
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 Edwards
Dogmatic Character of early Protestantism Rationalism
appeared with Socinus Antecedents of Italian Rational-
ism Socinus rejects Original Sin as also does Zuin-
glius 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 Heathen 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 Probabilities
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
EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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
a EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 think, undoubtedly, a few remarkable
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT.
by position, by interests, and by character, on this
one question were united. In almost every province
of Germany, b^t 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, Bourdeaux, Kheims,
Rouen, Dijon, and Rennes, and they were all followed
exceptions. Thus, the Templars
were accused of sorcery, when
Philip the Beautiful wished to
confiscate their property; and
the heretical opinions of the
Vaudois may possibly have had
something to say to the trials
at Arras, in 1459 ; and, indeed,
the same 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 Gauffridi, 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, necro-
mantici, et similes sunt cseteris
Christ! tidelibus pauperiores,
sordidiores, viliores, et con-
temptibiliores, in hoc mundo
Deo permittente calamitosani
vitam communiter peragunt,
Deum verum infelici morte
perdunt et aeterni ignis incen-
dio cruciantur.' (De 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, Procbs des
Sorcieres, p. 145 ; see, too,
Wright's Sorcery, vol. i. p.
186 ; Michelet, La Borders,
p. 10.
EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
by a harvest of blood. At Toulouse, the seat 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-
inonomanic des Sorcurs. The
persecution raged wita extreme
violence all through the south
of France. It was a brilliant
suggestion of De Lancre, that
the witchcraft about Bourdeaux
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 the 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 1850,
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 Auscitain,
now used in the diocese of
Tarbes, it is said ' On doit
reconnaitre quo non-seulement
il peut y avoir mais qu'il y a
meme quelquefois des personnes
qui sontveritablement posset ecs
des esprits malins." (Ib. p. 90.)
MAGIC AND WITCHCKAFT. 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 Llorente, History of the ApologiepourlesGrandsHommes
Inquisition (English Transla- soupqonnez de Magie (Paris,
tion), pp. 129-142. Amongst 1625), pp. 81, 82. See also
other cases, more than thirty Buckle's History of Civilisation,
women were burnt at Calha- vol.i.p. 334, note, and Simancas,
horra, in 1507. A Spanish l)e Catholicis Institutionibus,
monk, named Castanaga, seems pp. 463-468.
to have ventured to question 2 See a curious collection of
the justice of the executions as documents on the subject by
early as 1529 (p. 131). See Cannaert, Proces des Sorcieres
also Garinet, p. 176 ; Madden, en Belgique (Gand, 1847).
vol. i. pp. 311-315. Toledo s Spina, De Strigibus (1511),
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-
andthirteenthcenturies.mathe- mortalised, seems to have been
matics, which were constantly one of the most strenuous of
confounded with magic, flou- the persecutors. Spina, Apol.
rished there more than in any c. ix.
other part in Europe. Naudl,
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 series
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
on 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 Moraines
Michelet, La Sorciere, p. 206. will be found in the Relation
.Sprenger ascribes Toll's shot sur vne Epidemic d'Hystero-
to the assistance of the devil. Demonopathie en 1861, par le
Mall. Mai. (Pars ii. c. xvi.) Docteur A. Constans (Paris,
Savoy has always been espe- 1863). Two French writers,
cially 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- * Compare Plancey, Diet.
cipal wizards he had burnt infernal, article Blokida :
were from that country. An Hutchinson on Witchcraft, p.
extremely curious account of a 55 ; Madden, vol. i. p. 3o4.
recent epidemic of this kind in
MAGIC AND WITCHCEAFT. 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; ' l 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. 2
Such was the attitude of the Church of Rome with
1 Thiers, Superst. 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 les lois canoniques et civiles et
subject, see Madden's History 1' experience de tons les siecles,
of Pliant, vol. i. pp. 23t-248 ; et sans rejeter avec impudence
Des Mousseaux, Pratiques des 1'autorite irrefragable et infail-
Demons (Paris, 1854), p. 174- lible de 1'Eglise qui lance si
177 ; Thiers' Superst. torn. i. souvent les foudres de 1'excom-
pp. 138-163. The two last- munication contr' eux dans see
mentioned writers were ardent Prones ' (p. 132). So also
Catholics. Thiers, who wrote Garinet ' Tous les conciles,
in 1678 (I have used the Paris tous les syuodes, qui se tinrent
edition of 1741), was a very dans^les seize premiers siecles
learned and moderate theo- de 1'Eglise s'eleVent contre les
logian, and wrote under the sorciers ; tous les 4crivains ec-
approbation of 'the doctors in clesiastiques les condamnent
the faculty of Paris : ' he says avec plus ou moins de severite'
' On ne scauroit nier qu'il y (p. 26). The bull of Innocent
ait des magiciens ou des sorciers VIII. is prefixed to the Malleus
(car ces deux mots se prennent Malificaritm.
ordinairement dans la meme
8 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 an old woman who had
been seen riding on a broomstick, or who was proved
to have transformed herself into a wolf, and to have
1 Colloquia de fascinationi- 126, 127. Calvin, also, when
bus. For the notions of Me- remodelling the laws of Geneva,
lancthon on these subjects, see left those on witchcraft intact.
Baxter's World of Spirits, pp. * Wesljey.
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
such 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
the 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 earth, or the
circulation of the blood, his statement would be
received with derision, though it is probable that
some of his, audience 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 EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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-
foundly modify the character of the public mind.
They form a new 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 its
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
were 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 discovered, 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,
and of all grades of intellect, must surely have been
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 11
as competent judges as ourselves, if the 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
on the private opinions of some writers on the sub-
ject, but it was never influential upon the public
mind, 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 New
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 was
asserted by Wier. In England supported on the Continent by
it was much maintained during Bodin, and in England by
the reign of Charles II. The Glanvil, More, Casaubon, &c.
IS EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 propor-
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 series of
arguments over another. On the contrary, no facts
are more clearly established in the literature 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 WITCHCKAFT. 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 by a strong effort of the
imagination that we can realise the position of the
defenders of the belief. Tet 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 BATIONALI8M IN ETJBOPE.
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. IS
ance to believe it would have 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 foretold 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 course 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-
1 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
ciently, what have been the leading phases through
which the belief has passed.
lu the ruder forms of savage life, we find the belief
in witchcraft universal ; ' and accompanied, in most
instances, by features 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 ; tinder 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
1 On the universality of the of History, b. viii. c. 2 ; Mauiy,
belief, see Herder, Philosophy Histoire de 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 desire. 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 EUEOPE.
upon the imagination, and as increasing knowledge
explains some 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
Borne, 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 tke future ;
and it was found that these practices had a strong
1 Garinet, pp. 13, 14.
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 the 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 sacrilege to prac-
1 This very obscure branch learned 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.
1860), pp. 78-85. An extremely
c2
20 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
ticea which enabled them to foretell coming events,
that Marcus Aurelius and Julian, who were both
possionately 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 Borne, 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
blood, they thought much less of the civil than of
the religious consequences of magic, and sacrilege
seemed much 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 believed to be full
of malignant demons, who had in all ages persecuted
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 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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-
mise was effected between mono theism and polytheism.
The religion of the state was true and 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, but 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 De Cidtu 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,
lian seems to have inclined to and in all parts of Scripture,
their opinion to be authorita- signifying only messenger, may
tive Scripture. St. Augustine be applied to any spirit, good
suggests that the ' angels ' who or bad (De Civ, Dei, lib. xv.
MAGIC AND WITCHCEAFT. 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, and
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 exploits. The immortal lamp,
which burnt with an unfading splendour in the tem-
ple of Yenus ; 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 (Des Mousseaux, Pratiquts des
later theology of witchcraft. Demons, p. 81).
1 Much the same notions 2 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- hopes of thus casting out the
tury, a mass was annually devils they inhaled. (Maury,
celebrated in the Abbey of p. 317.)
24
BATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
were all attestations of their 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. 1 Persons possessed with devils
1 'Hoc nogare impudentiae
videatur ' (St. Aug. De Civ. Dei,
lib. xv. cap. 23). The Saint,
however, proceeds to say, ' Non
hie aliquid audeo temere defi-
nire.' See also Justin Martyr,
Ap. c. v. The same notion was
perpetuated through the suc-
ceeding ages, and marriage
with devils was long one of
the most ordinary accusations
in 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 Bor-
ders, 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 they 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 ' angejs ' (Sprenger,
Mall. Mai. Pars i. Quaest. 4 ;
and Pars ii. Quaest. 2). The
incubigenerallyhadnochildren,
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. Malift. p. 522), and a
similar parentage 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 the Cabalists,
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 Entretiens sur les
Sciences secretes (Paris, 1671).
Lilith, the first wife of Adam,
concerning whom the Rabbini-
cal traditions are so full, who
was said to suck the blood of
infants, and from whose name
the word lullaby (Lili Abi) is
supposed by some to have been
MAGIC AND WITCHCBAFT. 25
were constantly liberated by the 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 was something which manifested
their presence. A Christian soldier, on one occasion,
refused even to wear a festal crown, because laurels
had been originally dedicated to Bacchus and Yenus ;
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. Lilith). 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.
J Tertullian, 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 (^io/og'*, lib. i. c. 4).
all the following night of a The whole passage, which is
winding-sheet, and heard the rather long for quotation, is ex-
actor's name ringing, with tremely curious,
frightful reproaches, in her * De Coron&.
6 EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 a political,
crime. In periods of great political insecurity 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, in consequence,
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 WITCHCEAPT. 2^
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 Constantino, 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
were 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. 1 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- Sur la Magie, and also by
ment has been traced with Beugnot, Destruction du Pagan-
masterly ability by Maury, isme dans I' Occident.
S8 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 appears 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 con- 2 Cod. Th. lib. ix. t. xvi. 1. 3.
MAGIC AND -WITCHCKAFT. 29
and 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 bones 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- Eitter's edition (Leipsic, 1738),
picem cosnulat, aut mathemati- and Beugnot, torn. i. p. 143.
cum, nemo hariolum. Augurum 2 Beugnot, torn. i. p. 148.
et vatum prava confessio conti- On these laws, M. Maury well
cescat. Chaldsei ac magi et says : ' De la sorte se trouvaient
ceteri quos maleficos ob facino- atteints les ministres du poly-
rum magnitudinem vulgus ap- theisme les plus en credit, les
pellat, nee ad hanc partem pratiqiies qui inspiraient a la
aliquid moliantur. Sileat om- superstition le plus de confiance
nibus perpetuo divinandi curio- .... Bien des gens ne s
fiitas: etenim supplicium,capitis souciaient plus de rendre aux
feret gladio ultore prostratus dieux le culte legal et consacre ;
quicunque jussis obsequium mais les oracles, les augures,
denegaverit.' Another law (6) les presages, presque tous les
concludes : ' Si convictus ad pai'ens y recouraient avec con-
proprium facinus detegentibus fiance, et leur en enlever la
repugnaverit pernegando sit potsibilite c'etait leur depouil-
eculeo deditus, ungulisque sul- ler de ce qui faisait leur con-
cantibus latera perferat pcenas solation et leur joie'(pp. 117,
proprio dignas facinore." On 118).
80 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
barbarity could devise, were unable to destroy prac-
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. If the theory of the writers of
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. a I
the eighteenth century had been correct ; if the
superstitions 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 analogous to the ancient oracles or
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. Hilarion.
The saint appears to have been, at first, somewhat
startled at the application, and rather shrank from
32 BATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
participating actively in horse-racing ; but Italicus at
last persuaded him that the cause was worthy of his
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 Htiarionis. 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 Valentinian 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 was 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 te 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 airainst Julian). 4 Ammianus Marcellinus, lib.
2 Cod. Th. lib. ix. t. xvi. 1. 7, xxix. c. 1, 2.
&c.
VOL. I. D
84 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
edicts that produced them. It would be still more
unfair to attribute to them the spirit 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
unknown. When, however, all these qualifying cir-
cumstances have been admitted, it remains clear that
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 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 BATIONALI8M IN EUEOPE.
associated with their rites, than to free their minds
from their influence. Religions never truly 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
a 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 a more intense devotion than
the regular ceremonies with which they were allied. 1
1 Many hundreds of these are given in Scott's Discovery
superstitions are examined by of Witchcraft.
Tkiers. 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, of 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 be 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 the
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 the
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 Sorcttre, p. 36, note). See also Mavuy.
38 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 also Ignatius Lupus, in
devil in the form of Christ, see Edict. S. Inquisitiowis (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 xviii.) that St.
De Confessionibus Maleficorum Cyprian 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. 2 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. 42. of evidence on the subject ia
* Buckle's Hist. vol. i. p. 345, given.
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 41
once, the apparition of a comet filled Europe 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, but 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
Fredegonde 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
Mathematicis et Maleficiis 2 long continued in force,
as 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.'
given 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 natui'e 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 Garinet, p. 45. He also saved the lives of some Cabalists.
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 48
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
tions that the Greenlanders ball.
4+ RATIONALISM IN EUBOPE.
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 ages, and in the pears to have been a relic of
sixteenth and seventeenth cen- Manichaeism, and was very
tunes, 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 prin-
the wife of Noah Zoroaster, cipal asserters of the existence
her son, otherwise called Japhet. of the sylphs, &c.
The sin of Adam was deserting
MAGIC AND WITCHCBAFT. 45
Operation of Demons; ' which is, in a great measure,
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 principal
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 the
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 inference
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-
40 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 then, 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 Mauiy, p. 185.
MAGIC AND WITCHCEAFT. 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. We
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 dep'artment of
thought and of knowledge, there was manifested a
1 The last judicial execution Sorciere, p. 41 5), the last law on
in Europe was, I believe, in the subject, the Irish Statute,
Switzerland, in 1 "82 (Michelet's whichwas not repealed till 1821.
48 KATIONALISM IN EUBOPE.
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
had 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 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 this 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- minence 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 Arerroes.
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. B
50 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
step in knowledge increased their repugnance to the
coarse materialism which was prevalent, and every
generation rendered the general intellectual tendencies
more 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 Catacombs,
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 tremendse majestatis of our Dies irae.
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 monachi ' 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
unknown, 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 several great countries in Europe.
The terrorism which was thus created by the con-
1 Didron, Iconographie 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-
tesqne(N.2MTy,Legendespieuses, 395; Cabanis, Rapports phy-
p. 136). The more the subject siques et moratix, torn. ii. pp.
is examined, the more evident 77-79.
B 2
52 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 WITCHCKAFT. 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. 1
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 Sorciere. z Binsfeldius, p. 15n.
54 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 onr 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. 1 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 wore habitually
pestilence. exorcised.
2 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 observe 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 (Peigaot,8ur
2 Hecker, p. 82. les Danses des Marts, pp. 26-
3 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, Piet& du
afterwards so popular, and Mm/en Age, p. 137).
56 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
quired ecclesiastical wealth, accompanied the intellec-
tual advance. Yet, over all this chaos, there was
one great 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 WITCHCEAFT. 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
inind 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.
ration 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. Ah 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 must
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. 59
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 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 sense 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 a
the doctrines of Protestantism after a long and diffi-
cult enquiry, struggling slowly through successive
phases of belief, uncheered for many years by one
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 hare
filled with the utmost propriety. Fools, 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 EUEOPE.
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 Colloquia Mensalia. Eras- Naud6 (Apologle, pp. 110, 111)
mus was an equally firm believer observes, that nearly all the
in witchcraft (Stewart's Die- heresies previous to the Eefor-
sertation, p. 57). mation had been also accom-
* This co-existence has been panied by an outburst of sor-
noticed by many writers ; and eery.
MAGIC AND TVITCHCKAFT. 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., vol. i. p. 424, * For a frightful catalogue of
note. the tortures that were employed
2 Calmeil. in these cases, see Scott's i>w-
G4 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
reeled beneath the accumulated suffering, the con-
sciousness of innocence disappeared, and the wretched
victim went 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
covery of Witchcraft (London, center qusestionatus ' (Pare iii.
1665), pp. 11, 12. All the old Quaest. 14, 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- ' Spina, cap. xii.
MAGIC AND W1TCHCEAFT. 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 turns over
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 ' Fcemina,' he assures us, is quia duo occidit, scilicet corpus
derived from Fe and minus, et animam. Et sccundum ety-
because women have less faith mologiam, licet Greece, 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 permittitur sibi nocere
of most instructive derivations, quantum vellet. Vel diabolus
It comes ' a dia quod est duo, quasi defluens, quia defluxit, id
et bolus quod est morsellus, est corruit, et specialiter et lo-
VOJ,. I. f
66 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 also
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. Grerson, 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 Maehiavelli, 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
aliter* (p. 41). If the reader instance of verbal criticism,
is curious in these matters, he which I do not venture to
will find another astounding quote, in Bodin, Demon, p. 40.
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. ?
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 assurance. 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, acting
F2
68 RATIONALISM 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 Laurent! us, Bernardus, Vigni-
part written by inquisitors), tus, Grillandus, &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'g 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 sudden
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 were
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 flit-
belief, in an early atage of tony, vol. L p. 346.
MAGIO AND WITCHCBAFT. 71
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 every strange and unaccountable
disease 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 vero provenit febris, tussis,
that a considerable amount of dementia, phthisis, hydropsis,
poisoning was mixed up with aut aliqua tumefactio carnis in
the witch cases. In ages when corpore, sive apostema extrinse-
medical knowledge was scanty, cus apparens : quandoque vero
and post-mortem examinations intrinsece apud intestina ali-
unknown, this crime was pecu- quod apostema sit adeo terribile
liarly dreaded, and appeared et incurabile quod nulla para
peculiarly mysterious. On the medicorum id sanare et remo-
other hand, it is equally certain vere potest, nisi accedat alius
that the witches constantly em- maleficus, sive sortilegus, qui
ployed their knowledge of the contrariis medelis et remediis
property of herbs for the pur- segritudinem ipsam maleficam
pose of curing disease, and that tollat, quam facile et brevi
they attained, in this respect, a tempore removere potest, cseteri
skill which was hardly equalled vero medici qui artem ipsius
by the regular practitioners. To medicinae profitentur nihil va-
the evidence which Michelet lent et nesciunt afferre reme-
has collected on this matter, dium ' (Mall. Mai. vol. ii.
I may add a striking passage pp. 393, 394).
from Grill and us: "Quandoque
72 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 am
writing, 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 WITCHCEAFT. 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
dimcult to evade. It was stated that women were
ofton 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 popu-
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 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
silently for the benediction. At last, the 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 Borne ; 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 the 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 3 he pleased, seems to have been generally
1 Spina, De Strigibus (1622), supposed to be in especial con-
cap, xi. nection with spirits. Delrio
2 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., Spina, wolves that they were accus-
cap. x. and xi., where it is tomed to pray for their salva-
fully discussed. Many curious tion, and to choose them as
notions were held about som- godfathers for their children
nambulism. One opinion was, (Thiers' Superst. 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
been baptised by a drunken n'y avoit pas une mouche en
priest. son temple, comme on diet qu'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 pas chose estrange ou
of moral qualities. In different nouvelle, car nous lisons que
districts different animals were les Cyrena'iques, apres avoir
MAGIC AND WITCHCBAFT. 75
admitted ; and it presented no difficulty to those who
remembered that 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 j 1 and at all events, at a later period,
the lives of the saints represent evil spirits in the
form of animals as not unfrequent. Lycanthropy,
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
sacrifie au dieu Acaron, dieu fellowship can there be between
des mouches, et les Grecs a Christ and Belial ' (Wier, De
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
une nuee, comme nous lisons the middle ages, but it was
en Pausanias In Arcadicis 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
mills seem to have been also also the essay of Renan 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-
tune-tellers, and those ' qui cerning 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.
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 his
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 loups-
garous est attestee par Vir-
gile, Solin, Strabon, Pomponiua
Mela, Dionysius Afer, Varron,
et par tous les Jurisconsultes
et demonomanes des derniers
siecles. A peine commen<jait-
on a en douter sous Louis XIV '
(Plancey, Diet, infernal, Ly-
canthropie). Bodin, in his chap-
ter on Lycanthropy, and in our
own day, 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
3nis to turn them into animals
(Ibid). In the Salic laws of
the fifth century there is a
curious enactment ' that any
Borceress who has devoured a
man should on conviction be
fined 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 lycan-
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 inhabitants 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 WITCHCEAFT. 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 $he 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
sufferings 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 Lycanthropw.
Bodin supported the affirma- Among the many mad notions
tive, and Binsfeldius 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 be ex-
nucleus around which the sys- eluded from the sacrament
tern was formed a striking (Hecker, Epid. p. 120).
73 RATIONALISM Iff EUEOPE.
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.
Chrysostom 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
Sprengep.
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 fcaints. 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. Quaest. 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,
tion (Nider, Formic de Mai., after a time, a miracle was
c. v.). wrought which cleared the
2 See the curious story of St. reputation of the calumniated
Sylvanus, Bishop of Nazareth, prelate.
in Sprenger (Pars II. Qusest. 1, * 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 infalli-
80
RATIONALISM IN 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
npon 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, Mont Cassin, Orleans,
and Grenoble, by the .Rituals
of Autun, Chartres, Prigueux,
Atun, Evreux, Paris, Angers,
Arras, Chalons, Bologna,
Troyes, Bourges, Alet, Beau-
rais, Meaux, Kheims, &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 les libertins
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'artiflce et
la malice du demon estre em-
peches de se rendre le devoir
conjugal' (p. 667) 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'ope'ration 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. 256).
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 whieh
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
TOL. i. a
82 EATIONALISM IN EUBOPE.
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 trust, 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 WITCHCEAFT. 88
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
so 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 mo 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 1 305. 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 a
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
I
84 EATIONALISM IN EUBOPE.
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.' l 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, 2
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 Naudd.^poZ. (pp. 380- * Ibid. vol. i. pp. 460-468.
391); Renan, Aoerroes (pp. * VoL ii. pp. 191, 299, 300.
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 85
piteously laments. ' Most imprudent, most undevout,
and 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
Dsemonum.'
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
8 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 tinder 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-
tical 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 the
Sense of the miraculous as his opponents, and he
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 reply, 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. 2 Amid all the distractions of a dissipated
1 ' Pseudomonarchia Daemo- Jean Bodin, qui apres avoir par
num' one of the principal une merveilleuse vivacite d'es-
sources of information about pritaccompagneed'unjugement
this subject. He gives the solide traicte toutes les choses
names of seventy-two princes, divines, naturelles et civiles,
and estimates their subjects at se fust pout estre mescogneu
7,405,926 devils. It is not quite pour homme, et eust este pris
clear how much he believed on infailliblement de nous pour
the subject. quelque intelligence s'il n'eust
2 A very old critic and oppo- laissS des marques et vestiges
nent of his views on witchcraft de son humanite dans cette d6-
quaintly speaks of him as ' Ce monomanie.' (Naude, Apol.,
premier homme de la France, 127 (162,5). Bayle (Diet. Phil.)
M RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
and an intriguing court, and all the labours of a
judicial position, he had amassed an amount 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 ; and 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 ' Demonomanie 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, perhaps, more
p. 299) has placed him as an original, more independent and
historian above Comiues, and fearless in his enquiries two
on a level with Machiavelli ; men alone, indeed, could be
and Hallam, speaking of the compared with him Aristotle
Republic, says, 'Bodin pos- and Machiavel.' (Hist, of Lit.
sessed a highly philosophical vol. ii. p. 68.) Dugnld Stewart
mind, united with the most is equally encomiastic (Disscr-
ample stores of history and tation, pp. 52-54).
jurisprudence. No former writer
MAGIC AND WITCHCEAPT. 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 through 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 at 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. x 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 EUEOPE.
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,
and 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
outraged the majesty of Heaven. They had virtually
repudiated the Divine law, and pestilence and famine
by his efforts to prevent prose- prisoned for a year at Brussels
cutions for witchcraft, and by on the charge of magic, and
saving the life of a peasant ceaselessly calumniated after
woman whom Savin the inqui- his death. Before Wier, pro-
sitor 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 Infem. art. Agrippa, andThiers'
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 bis 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 I)e
knowledge of the laws of nature Scandalis, treats him as one of
a conclusion which he tried the chief contemners of the
to enforce in a book on the Gospel,
vanity of science. He was im-
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 91
would inevitably desolate their dominions. 1 One
fatal example there had been, of a king tampering
with 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 no 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.
1 Pp. 217, 228. * P. 152.
92 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
The old theological measure of probability has com-
pletely disappeared, aiid is replaced by a shrewd
secular common sense. The statements of tho
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
them. 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. Hia origi-
1 Liv. iii. c. 11.
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 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 the 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, French, 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 ; ' 1 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-
discriminating 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, at least,
obtained 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
so 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 or
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 was
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 enlarging 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
intrinsic 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, Charron almost threw
96 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
into the form of a denial. All through the seven-
teenth century, the same modes of thought continued,
slowly but steadily sapping the old belief ; but, though
the industry of modern antiquarians has exhumed
two or tliree 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 acclerating 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
Tvitches, 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
had 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
spirit was exhibited specially among those whose
habits of thought were most secular, and whose
1 Maury, pp. 221, 222. The considerable part. Bayle (Pew-
principal of those writers was sees Diverges, ccxli.), calls him
Kaude, whose Apologie pour les 'L'homme de France qui avoit
Grands Homines Soupconnez de le plus de lecture.' He is said
Magie, contains much curious to have reconstructed some of
historical information in an ex- the dances of the ancients, and
tremely tiresome form. Naud6 to have executed them in per-
also wrote an exposure of the son before Queen Christina, in
Rosicrucians, and a political Sweden (Magnin, Origines dv
work on Coups d"Etat, embody- Theatre, torn. i. p. 113). The
ing the principles of Machia- Apologie 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'lncri-
foundation of which he had a dulite Sfavante.
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 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. 2 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 forts du passer soi-m^me pour un affide
commencement du dix-septieme du. diable, ou ce que ne valait
siecle qui s'efforcerent les pre- pas mieux, pour un incredule.
miers de combattre le prejuge Les libres penseurs, les libertins
regnant, de d&fendre de mal- comme on les appelait alors,
houreux fous ou d'indiscrets n'avaient que peu de credit.'
chercheurs contre les tribunaux. (Maury, p. 221.)
II fallait pour cela du courage, 2 See the passage in Maury,
car on risquait, en cherchant a p. 219.
sauver k t6te du prevenu, de 8 Ibid. p. 220.
VOL. I. H
98 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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
since there had been philosophers in France, witches
had become proportionately 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 he 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. 8 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 eases 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
2 He said : ' Tous les peres diables.' (Diet. Phil. art. Su-
de 1'Eglise sans exception cru- perstition.) This I believe to
rent au pouvoir de la magic, 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. Elle n'excommunia point so, without ruining his cause.
le sorcierscomme des fous, qui * Garinet, p. 328.
4taieut trompes, mais com me
MAGIC AND WITCHCRAFT. 99
ment. 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-
dulgence 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.
100 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
perplexing. At the beginning of the present century,
the Abb 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 was no regular enact-
ment against sorcery till 1541, when the nation was
convulsed by the first paroxysms of the Reformation.
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 aud
1 The most complete authority those who were sentenced to
on this sulject is the chronolo- other than capital punishments,
gical table of facts in Hutchiu- 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 Witch-
about 140 were in England, craft,' reprinted in 1838. It is
This, of course, excludes those quite impossible to arrive at
who were drowned or mobbed anything like precision on this
to death during the trial, and subject.
102 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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.' "We find also a very few executions under
Henry VIII. ; but in the following reign the law on
the subject was repealed, and was not renewed till
the accession of Elizabeth. 1 New laws were then
made, which were executed with severity ; and Jew-
ell, when preaching before the qneen, adverting to
the increase of witches, expressed 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 are
marvellously increased within your grace's realm.
Your grace's subjects pine away even unto 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 Bef. 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, a Popish the obvious consequence of the
appearance. terrorism of the preceding reign,
* 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 -WITCHCEAFT. 103
milder than those on the Continent. For the first
conviction, witches who were not shown to have
destroyed others by their incantations 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 to 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 B/eginald 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 6pingle sous lea
anesthesia is a recognised symp- ongles ou de toute sa longure
torn of some of the epidemic dans les bras, les jambes ou sur
forms of madness. Speaking of toute autre partie, sans provo-
that of Morzines, Dr. Constans querl'apparenced'une sensation
says: 'L' anesthetic ne fait jamais douleureuse.' (Epidemic d Hya-
defaut. J'ai pu pincer, piquer tero-Demonopathie en 1861, p.
avec une epingle les malades, 63.)
104 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
laxity and injustice of tKe manner in which evidence
was collected, the egregious absurdities that filled 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 contro-
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. As a
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,
he 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 WHS
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 Mm 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 unconfessed. (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, 2 ' I have ever believed, and
and (I quote the contemporary do now know, that there are
narrative) ' his nailes upon 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, not of
England wee call a payre of infidels, but of atheists.' (Beli-
pincers, and under everie nayle gio Medici, p. 24. ed. 1672.)
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 BATIONALISM IN EUBOPE.
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 neighbour 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, most fitted to enhance
constantly on such characters the grandeur and the solemnity
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 stimulate 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 perseciited ' 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 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 appenr 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
certain 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 saya, ' Among the rest, an him to send him to sink the
old reading parson namcdLowis, 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
feesed that he had two imps, and the other view of the case, see
that one of them was always Hutchiuson, pp. 88-90.
putting him on doing mischief,
MAGIC AND WITCHCBAFT. 109
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 Eoyal 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. 116. On Credulity, p. 191.
2 The (indirect) influence of
110 BATIONALISM 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
scrutiny 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
profound 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.' !
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 lating to Witchcraft (London,
reprinted in A Collection of 1838).
Bare and Curious Tracts re-
MAGIC AND WITCHCEAFT. Ill
successors. Among his contemporaries he was espe-
cially praised as an able scholar and dialectician, and
as a writer whose style, though not untinctured 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
GHanvil are far less known than they should be, and
as his defence of witchcraft was intimately connected
with his earlier literary enterprises, I shall make no
apology for giving a general 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 ; l 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 Bwgraphie UniverseHe an cyclopedia Britannica.
article which is also in the En- 2 There is a good review of
112 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 know on what authority) been
Lit.,\o\. iii.pp. 358-362. It is, destroyed in the fire of London.
I think, by fur the best thing It was answered by Thomas
Glanvil wrote, and he evidently White, a once famous Roman
took extraordinary pains in Catholic controversialist. lean-
bringing it to perfection. It not but think that Paley was
first appeared as a short essay; acquainted with the works of
it was then expanded into a Glanvil, for their mode of
regular treatise ; and still later, treating many subject* is strik-
recast and published anew under ingly similar, Paley's watch
the title of ' Scepsis Scientifica.' simile is fully developed by
This last edition is very rare, Glanvil, in chap. v.
the greater part of the impres- ' Chap. xi.
sion having, it is said (I do not
MAGIC AND WITCHCBAFT. 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
from 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, arising 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. 1 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 Athena, arts. Glanvil
necessarily be rare that came and Crosse. Crosse was a Fellow
from afar, and h accused them of Oxford (a D.D.), who at first
of asserting, on, the authority vehemently assailed Glanvil 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
gustine, that peace is a blessing, ballads, which Wood assures us
He pronounced university edu- ' made G-lanvil and his Society
cation in general, and that of ridiculous.'
MAGIC AND WITCHCEAFT. 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 Grlanvil 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
ducism, and those that dare not they are not ordinary among
bluntly say there is no God, the mere vulgar, yet are they
content themselves (for a fair numerous in a little higher rank
step and introduction) to deny of understandings. And those
i 2
116 BATIONALISM IN EUBOPE.
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 ; l 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 the 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
ista. (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 those 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 discerners, and that when
no interest could oblige thm 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
revered judges, 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 those 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 pay 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 theif
persuasion, viz., that it is ab-
surd or impossible there should
be a witch or apparition ' (p. 4).
118 KATIONALISM IN EUBOPE.
and, analysing with much acuteness the d prion
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. 8 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 Greek scholar,
are prefixed to the Sadducismus. * See his letter to Glanvil
2 On Credulity and Inert- (Feb. 10, 167$) in Boyle's
dulity. This Casaubon was son Works, vol. vi. p. 59.
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 ; and 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
in 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.' (Int.
gicians, persons who associate Syst., 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, ambition, 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 hanker- brilliant). Poor Wagstaafe
120 EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 zeal, 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. xut. Hutchin-
drunk too much, he died, son, pp. 95-119.
(Wood's Athena).
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 much 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
was 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 Hutchinson 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 been
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 the
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.
as the educated classes are eon- 3 Some of them, of course,
cerned, between the Kestoration -were mere pamphlets, but a
and Revolution ; that is to large proportion elaborate
eay, in 1660 the majority of works. The catalogue is given
educated men still behoved in by Hutchinson.
122 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 it 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 animas
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,
eay judicially, 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 WTCHCKAFT. 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- knowledged 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.andtheobjectionsagainst
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 false stories of this
subjection as being the reli- kind, he that would reject them
gionists of his institution. One all must be a superlative be-
sort of these diabolical reli- liever' (p. clix.).
12 1 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
They well know (whether Christians know it or not)
that the giving up witchcraft is in effect giving up
the Bible.' 1
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 and 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 on the subject of the
MAGIC AND WITCHCEAPT. 1T5
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 flourished 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 least, have not been have before quoted, says of the
126 BATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
eon 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 ; * 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. 2
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 ; and, 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 fearful
* Sir W. Scott has well no- of crimes.' (Demonology and
ticed this influence of Puritanism Witchcraft, 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
succeeded 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
absolutely to all the ecclesiastical regulations they
enjoined ; and in, at last, directing the whole 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
suffering were accumulated as faint images of the
eternal doom of the immense majority of mankind.
Countless miracles 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 EUEOPE.
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 reflection 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 1603, 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
express 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-
with the history of Scotch trials, is noted by Buckle (vol.
witchcraft. On the multitude ii. pp. 189, 190).
of miracles and apparitions of 2 Dalyell, Darker Supersti-
Saten that were believed, see tions of Scotland, p. 624.
pp. 349-369. Ibid. p. 623.
1 The very remarkable feet,
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- do ting women, it is
difficult to repress a feeling of the deepest abhor-
rence for those men who caused and who encouraged
them. 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 subject Pitcairn's who usually ranked among their
Criminal Trials of 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 * One of the most powerful
confessions were commonly incentives to confession was
VOL. I. K
ISO
RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
Partly in order to effect this object, and partly to
discover the insensible mark which was the sure 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 procesg
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
each cheek. This infernal ma-
chine was secured by a padlock.
At the back of the collar was
fixed a ring by which to attach
the witch to a staple in the wall
of her cell. Thus equipped,
and night and day waked and
watched by some skilful person
appointed by her inquisitors,
the unhappy creature, after a
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-
plaints and informations were
made' (Pitcairn, vol. i. part ii.
p. 50.)
1 Dalyell,p.645. The 'prick-
ers' formed a regular profession
in Scotland.
2 Burt's Letters from the
North of Scotland, vol. i. pp.
227-234.
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 tortour ' 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.
* Dalyell, p. 657. * Dalyell, p. 669.
* Pitcairn, vol. i. part ii. p. * Pitcairn, vol. iii. p. 597.
376. The two cases were in Dalyell, pp. 669, 670.
1.12 BATIONALI8M IN EUROPE.
were defended by the Presbyterian divines. l 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 curious instance of one man succeeded in cutting
this, see that strange book, off the leg of a cat who attacked
' The Secret Commonwealth,' him, that the leg immediately
published in 1691, by Robert turned into that of an old wo-
Kirk, 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
as 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 * 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 WITCHCEAFT. 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 this 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.' (Demonology,
king was himself perfectly in- Letter ix.) See also Linton a
fatuated with the subject, aud Witch Stories, p. 5.
134 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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
self- 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 un pitying 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 WITCHCRAFT. 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 Bnrt, 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 rather remarkable 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 rever- 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 sus-
among others) have questioned pectBurt has misdated the exe-
whether he believed the New. cation that took place in 1722,
* The silent unreasoning cha- placing it in 1727.
138 EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 1773, ' 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 Macaulay, Hist. vol. iii. p. 706.
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 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 beh'ef 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.
139
CHAPTER n.
ON THE DECLINING SENSE OF THE MIRACULOUS.
THE MIEACLES OP THE CHURCH.
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 which was always to
HO EATIONALISM 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 issued 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 monk 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. iv. c.
tor of Paul -was St. Antony, 23).
THE MIRACLES OF THE CHURCH. 141
admitted 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,
we 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 for 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 that 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 this subject in Maury, Saragossa, opposite the image.
Legendes 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, Antiquities 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.
14a BATIONALISM 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. 1 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 Civilisation, Lec.on to the calendar. Fifty-five large
XVII. The Bollandist Collec- folio volumes have been pub-
tion was begun at Antwerp by lished, but they only extend to
a Jesuit named Bolland, in the end of October. See a very
1643, was stopped for a time beautiful essay on the subject
by the French Revolution, but by Kenan, Etudes Religieuses.
renewed under the patronage M. Kenan says : ' II me semble
of the Belgian Chambers. It que pour un vrai philosophe un
was intended to contain a com- prison cellulaire avec ces cin-
plete collection of all the origi- quante cinq volumes in-folio,
nal documents on the subject, serait un vrai paradis.'
The saints are placed according
THE MIRACLES OF THE CHUECH. 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
the contrary, it will, I think, be admitted that these
alleged miracles are commonly rejected with an as-
144 EATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
surance that is as peremptory and unreasoning aa
that with which they would have 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-
ceivable 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
onenquiring 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-
latives 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 necessary 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, both 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 MIEACLES OP THE CHUECH. 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
servable 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
14 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
fqr 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 MIEACLES OF THE CHURCH. 147
even that there is an increasing repugnance to an
unscrutinising 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
surrounded 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 EATIONALI8M 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
very 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
Christianity 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 as 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 EUBOPE.
State being instituted, Christianity had arrived at its
normal and final position, and exceptional assistance
had 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.' a 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 FEglise.
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 Sap- from Newton to Locke on the
phira, 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
has ceased ; and the Inquisition more than a catalogue of autho-
is.in consequence, required. I rities.
know this very remarkable trea-
THE MIEACLES OF THE CHUECH. 151
he who will build his faith or reasonings upon miracles
delivered by Church historians, will find cause to go
no further than the Apostles' time, or else not to stop
at Constantine'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 EATIONALI8M IN EUEOPE.
an admirable auxiliary to the police force, and a
principle of decorum and of cohesion in society, bat
which carefully banished from it all enthusiasm, veiled
or attenuated all its mysteries, and virtually reduced
it to an 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 could 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 OP THE CHUECH. 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 century, 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 Rome, 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 fornu. 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 CHUECH. 155
they continually employed them to stimulate the
devotion of the people. These were the charges
which he brought against men, around 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 RATIONALISM 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
criteria separating the true from the false, and 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, natually 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-
antism 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 was 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
soning had been also antici- purposely, that the mind of
pated by Locke, who in a very men might do so always after,
remarkable passage in his Com- than that this is some fallacy
mon-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 of
son, 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-
of the. miracle can only be es- man Understanding.
tablished by reason. ' It ia
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. 1
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 aa attesting
THE MIRACLES OF THE CHUECH. 159
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.' ' 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
1 Newman's Anglican Difficulties, p. 54.
160 EATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
of the case, this could not be proved in any other
way. 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
chums 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
those of the Church of Home. 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 of
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 we
admitted those which appeared trivia] 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 MIKACLES OF THE CHUBCH. 161
were frequently trivial, purposeless, and unimpres-
sive ; constantly verging on the grotesque, and not
tmfrequently 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,
there is nothing surprising or alarming in the 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 a 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. The
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 suoh 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 OP THE CHUECH. 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
serts 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 had 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 selected from a brought out in Isaac Taylor's
multitude so groat, that volumes Ancient Christianity.
M 2
164 EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
the falsehood of Catholicism could 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,
I 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
Borne, 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
even 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 OP THE CHUECH. 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 its
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
have 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 measure upon the miracle of
the Holy Thorn ; but at Oxford these narratives
l(i BATIOXALISM IN EUEOPE.
hardly excited a serious attention. What little in-
Huence they had was chiefly an influence of repulsion ;
what little was 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 iDustration 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
say (prefixed to Fleury*8 His- have lately heard so much,
tory) is essentially an apology never seem to have been re-
for the ecclesiastical miracles ; garded as evidential,
and the miracles of the Eng-
THE MIRACLES 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.
168 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
The insect whose existence is but for a moment
might well imagine that these were indeed eternal,
that their majestic columns conld 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 in
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
of the Deity, can never fail to exercise a powerful
intellectual attraction. A system which makes the
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 its 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 the
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-
fice 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, mous, and the like, as simply
even regard the impossibility, impossible and irreconcilable
or at all events the unreality, with the known and universal
of miraculous accounts as axio- laws which govern the course
matic. Thus Strauss calmly of events.' Introduction to the
remarks: ' We may summarily Life of Jesus.
reject all miracles, prophecies,
170 EATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
out of the character of his age. It is probable, there-
fore, that the members 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-
oue 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 negative
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 MIKACLES OF THE CHUECH. 171
pliant strides. He must indeed be wilfully blind to
the course of history who does not perceive that
during the last hundred years these schools have
completely superseded the dogmatic forms of Pro-
testantism as the efficient antagonists of the Church
of Borne, as the centres towards which those who
are 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 influence 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 un-
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
influence. It has long been a mere truism to say
172 EATIONALISM 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 control. 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 seems 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 ; but been among the most success-
even there the conquests of Pro- ful.
testantism are insignificant as
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
has 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 Macaulay, in pletely to become the nucleus
his Essay on Bankers History. of a sect. After all, however,
3 M. doMontalembert, in his this was quite natural. The
lAfeofLaeordaire, has observed course which Lammenais pur-
of Lammenais, 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 Mazzini. 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 nn-
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 which 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 MIEAOLES OP 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-
fluential 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 strictly 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 unassailed, 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 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
would be difficult to conceive a more complete eclipse
than the English deists have undergone. Woolslon
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 style 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
refutation, 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 CHUECH. 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 are 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 puzzle, 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. 1 83- 190.
VOL. I. X
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 supernatural knowledge.
The idea of interference (it is argued) can present
no difficulty to anyone who admits human liberty ; '
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 itself
one of the laws of nature. That a being of supernatural
knowledge and power could, by the normal exercise
1 See Hansel's ' Essay on Miracles,' in the Aids to Faith.
THE MIEACLES OP 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 the
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, generically, 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, as 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 as 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
y
laws extends only, first, to their
discovery and ascertainment,
and then 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
also, I think, by Butler.
t
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
fhe 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 OP THE CHURCH. 181
relic and with every village shrine have rapidly and
silently disappeared. Tear 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 rationah'stic 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 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
all literature, explained all difficulties, consecrated all
doctrines. Every unusual phenomenon was imme-
diately referred to a supernatural agency, not because
there w.is 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-
ous. 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 MIEACLES OP THE CHUECH. 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
subserve 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 phenompna 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 EUEOPE.
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 characteT 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
this 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 EUEOPE.
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 MIEACLES OP 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
systems and of clerical influence has been a measure
if not a cause of its advance.
188 EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
CHAPTER HI.
J38THETIC, SCIENTIFIC, AND MOEAL DEVELOPE-
MENTS OF EATIONALISM.
THE preceding chapters will, I trust, have sufficiently
shown 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 developements, 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
age 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 with which it has no natural connection.
1 have endeavoured to show that while numerous
circumstances growing out of the complications of
DEVELOPEMENTS 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 lie 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 EUKOPE.
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
but 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 OP EATIONALISM. . 191
the Fathers are crowded with the prodigies it per-
formed, and also with the many types and 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; andBede Ornata regis purpura,
found a similar type in the rod Electa, digno stipite
of Moses stretched over the Red Tarn sancta membra tangere.'
Sea. Another wise commenta- The letter Tau, as representing
tor suggested that Isaac had the cross, was specially rever-
been saved from death, because, enced as opposed to Theta, the
when ascending the mountain, unlucky letter the initial of
ho bore the ' wood of sacrifice ' Bdvaros.
on his shoulder. The cross, 2 See the curious argument
however, seldom or never ap- in Tertullian, De Bapt. cc. 5, 6,
pears in art before the vision 7, 8.
of Coustantine. At first it was
192 KATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 Deity.
By water God 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-
homiiiis figurandi opus socian- cient philosophers, Thales had
tibus aquis absolutum est ; de esteemed water the origin of
terra materia convenit, non ta- all things, which more than
men habilis nisi humecta et one Father regarded as a kind
succida, quam scilicet ante of inspiration. Thus Minucius
quartum diem segregate aquae Felix : ' Milesius Thales rerum
in stationem suam superstite initium aqnam dixit : Deum
humore, limo temperant.' (Ter- autem earn mentem quae ex
tullian, De Saptismo, c. iii.) aqua cuncta formaverit. Vides
From this notion of the sanctity philosophi principalis nobis-
of water grew the custom of cum penitus opinionem conso-
swimming witches for it was nare.' (Octavius, c. xix.) The
believed that everything nn- 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, quitristia
p. 315) and also probably crimina caedis
the many legends of trans- Fluminea tolli posse putatia
formed men restored to their aqua ! '
natural condition by cross- ( Fast. lib. ii.)
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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 iu
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
as 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.
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
DEVELOPEMENTS OF EATIONALISM. 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 aesthetic 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 nnnatural, 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
196 EATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
subject was interwoven with grotesque and fanciful
inventions. The Greek religion, on the other hand,
was an almosfcpure 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 religious 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
Chrittian artists, who had probably in many cases
been formerly pagan artists, introduced a consider-
able number of the ancient conceptions into their
new sphere. But, although this fact is perfectly in-
1 See Winckelmann, Hist, of subjects ; but this was itself a
Art ; Eaoul Rochette, Cours consequence of the small en-
(FArch&ologie; 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 Edinburgh lectures. Less- developement of art, ace some
ing ascribes the imperfections curious evidence collected by
of Persian art to ite almost ex- Ch. Comte, Traitl de Legisla-
employment for military tion, liv. iii. ch. 4.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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 these
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 fhe Catholic Church
198 BATIONALISM 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
altar-tomb around which the Christian painter scat-
tered his ornaments with most profusion was often
sissociated 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
seem 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
Revelation about the souls that des Catacombes, 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
secration of any church with- the broad contrast early Chris-
out relics. tian 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 RATIONALISM. 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 day 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,
suffering, 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,
which 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 popularity 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 ot 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 o
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 ^ind 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
without 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, 2 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. 5 Orpheus drawing all men to him
by his music, symbolised the attractive power of
1 See Raoul Eochette, Ta- numenta, pars i. p. 115; and
bleau des Catacombes, pp. 192- Maitland, On the Catacombs.
195; Didron, Iconographie chrk- 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
ment to be a fact, and which he then generally of apotheosis,
seemed to regard as a miracle, the peacock having been the
(De Civ. Dei, lib. xxi. c. 4). bird of Juno, the empress of
* See Ciampini, Vetera Mo- heaven.
DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM.
201
Christianity. 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 Boldetti, Osser-
vazionisopra i Ciiniterl de' Santi
Martyri(Rom&, 1720), torn. i.
pp. 27-29. M. Rio (Art chre-
tien, Introd. 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-
chetto supposes to represent
Mercury leading the souls of
the dead to judgment (Tab. des
Cat. 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, Marangoni,
Dclle Cose GentUesche e Profane
trasportate ad uso dette Chiese
(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 Lion
to the advantages Egypt derives
from these signs, through which
the sun passes at the period of
the inundation of the Nile (Cay-
lus, Recueil (FAntiquite, torn. i.
p. 45).
2 Marangoni, Dette Cose Gen-
tilesche, 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.
Even 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. 8 Several subjects from the Bible of a sym-
1 All this is folly discussed The dolphin was especially Be-
in Harangoni. lected because of its tenderness
2 Ibid. p. 45 ; Raoul Eo- to its young.
chette, Tab. des Cat. * ' NOB pisciculi secundnm
1 'Ix^y. 'iTjtroCy Xpurrbs 0eoS '\xOvv nostrum Jesom Christum
Tibs JwT-fjp. The initial letters in aqua nascimur. 1 (Tertullian,
of the prophetic verses of the De Baptisms, c. i.)
Sibyl of Erythra (St. Aug. De * Maury, Ugendes pitus s,
Civ. Dei, lib. xviii. cap. 20). pp. 173-178. See, too, Pliuy,
DEVELOPEMENTS OP RATIONALISM. 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 Mdificiis
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. Roma Subterranea, 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 elated 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 EUEOPE.
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 T Art most important contributions
du Christianisme (1834), p. 7 ; ever made to Christian archse-
and by Maury, Legendes pi- ology. See, too. Etneric David,
euses ; but the full examination Hist, de la Peinture au Moyen
of it was reserved for M. Did- Aye, pp. 19-21.
ron, in his great work, Icono- DiJron, pp. 177-182.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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 npon 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 Prom 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, Discoura Jsus-Christ perd sa force d'as-
sur les Types de fArt chretien, similation iconographique et
p. 71. Be laisse vaincre par son Pere.
* Didron, pp. 227-230. C'est au tour du Fils a se revS-
* See this fact worked out in tir de traits du Pere, a yieillir
detail in Didron. et rider comme lui. . . Knfin,
4 ' On peut done relativement depuis les premiers siecles du
a Dieu le Pere partager le moy- Christianisme jusqu'a nos jours
en age en deux piriodes. Dans nous voyons le Pere croitre
la premiere, qui est antirieure en importance. Son portrait,
au XIV* siecle, la figure du d'abord interdit par les Gno-
Pere se confond avec celle du stiques, se montre timidement
Fils ; c'est le Fils qui est tout- ensuite et comme dguise sous
puissant et qui fait son Pere la figure de son Fils. Puis il
a son image et ressemblance. rejette tout accoutrement e'tran-
Dans la seconde periode apres ger et prend une figure sp-
le XIII* siecle, jusqu'au XVI*, ciale ; puis par Raphael et en-
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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-
montane 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-
rable physionomie qui n'appar- nseus, Epiphanius, and several
tient qu'4 lui.' (Didron, p. other Fathers, notice the wor-
226.) ship of Helena. According to
1 See on this subject Franck, them, Simon proclaimed that
Stir la Kabbale ; Maury, Croy- the angels in heaven made wnr
ances et Legendes d'AntiquM on account of her beauty, and
(1863), p. 338; and especially that the Evil One had made
Beausobre, Hist, du Maniche- her prisoner to prevent her
208
RATIONALISM 1* 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, this Sophia
return to heaven, from which
ehe had strayed. 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 system. 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 -SSsculapius 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 Lfyendes,
art. Veronica ; and on the So-
phia generally, Matter, Hist,
du Gnoslicisme, torn. i. pp. 275
278. M. Franck says (La Kab-
bale, p. 43) that some of the
Gnostics painted the Holy Ghost
as a woman ; but this, I sup-
pose, only refers to the Sophia.
DEVELOPMENTS OP RATIONALISM. 209
was simply the human soul, which was originally an
emanation or child of the Deity, but which 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 (Eon, 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 rather 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 EUEOPE.
doctrines into the very heart of Syrian orthodoxy,
and cast such a spell over the minds of the people
that, in spite of all prohibitions, they continued to be
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. 8 Besides this, Gnosticism formed the highest
1 Matter, Hist, du Gnosti-
cisme, torn. i. pp. 360-362.
* Didron, pp. 197, 198. The
apocryphal gospel, however,
which exercised most influence
over Art was probably that 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
same 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 I Art, 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. Gennadius,
DEVELOPEMENTS 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 things,
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 Dominicae 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, quaecumque
was no authentic portrait of erat.' (De Trinitate, lib. viii.
Christ, and that the type of c. 4, 5.) The type, however,
features were 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 Gnosticismc, torn. i. pp. 88,
(Christus) facie nos penitus ig- 89-98.
212 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
causes are 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 aurem
to the middle ages to give a benedictee intravit.' St. Agobard
palpable form to the mystery says, ' Descendit e ccelis missus
of the Incarnation was shown ab arce Patris, introivit per au-
curiously in the notion of a rem Virginis in regionem nos-
conception by the ear. In a tram.' Similar expressions had
hymn, ascribed to St. Thomas been employed in the Early
a Becket, occur the lines Church by St. Augustine and
Gaude Virgo, mater Christi, St - E P^ m " s {. ? ur ! e Tas
Qu* per aurem concepisti, Bested by the title Logos.
Gabriele nuntio ; ' ffi^fZk fti"** ]neuse8 ' ^
and in an old glass window, now, 2 St. Augustine notices (De
I believe, in one of the museums Trinifate)ih&t 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
ing. 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 represeiita-
DEVELOPEMEKTS OF KATIONALISM. 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,
Horus. It has been observed St. Augustine says : ' Excepta
that in the case of Mary, as in itaque Sancta Virgine Maria,
the case of Christ, suffering and de qua, propter honorem Do-
deep melancholy became more mini, nullam- prorsus cum de
and more the prevailing expres- peccatis agitur habere volo
sion as the dark ages rolled on, quaestionem: Unde enim sci-
which was still further increased mus, quid ei plus gratise colla-
by the black tint the mediaeval turn fuerit ad vincendum 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. 1 (De Naturd et Gratia.')
blance of Christ to His mother Gibbon notices that the notion
is, I believe, in Nieephorus. acquired consistency among the
See Raoul Eochette, Types de Mahommedans some centuries
TArt chretien, pp. 30-39 ; Pas- before it -was adopted by the
cal, Institutions de HArt chre- Christians. St. Bernard re-
tien. jected it as a novelty. (Decline
1 Heeren, Influences des Croi- and Fall, ch. 1. note.)
214 EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 had 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.
In 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 KATIONALISM. "211
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 substitu- and a Crucifixion. Underneath
tion of the word domino, for the were the lines
word dominus is a popular ' Hinc 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 vertam nescio,
with precisely the same dignity In hoc dulci dubio
as Christ, judging mankind ; Dulcis est collatio.'
and everyone who is acquainted Pascal, Art chretitn, torn. i. p.
with mediaeval art has met with 250.
216 EATIOXALISJI 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.%. To be buried
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, Inscrip.
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,
DEVELOPE5IENTS 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
statue, 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 of
Eusebius, and which Addison, the Acheropita, or sacred image
in his work on Christian Evi- at the Lateran, contains a fuller
dences, quoted as genuine. Of account of the history of the
course it is now generally ad- early miraculous pictures 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 sumed in the Iconoclastic con-
broughttoRome probablyabout troversies, see Maimbourg, His-
A.D. 1198, and deposited in the toire des Iconoclastes (1686), pp.
Church of St. Sylvester in Ca 44-47 ; and on other early mi-
pite, where it now is. See racles attributed to images,
Marangoni, Istoria detta Cap- Spanheim, Historia Imagimtm
pel/a di Sancta Sanctorum di (1686), pp. 417-420. The first
Jtama (Romse, 1747), pp. 235- of these books is Catholic, uud
218 EATIONALISM Ilf 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
tinder 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.Sawcta this was a decree elicited by the
Sanctorum ; and Arringhi, So- 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 is
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 1 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 Cabalists
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 Maimbourg con-
as idols by the ancient Greeks tends (Introduction to the Hist.
or Romans. 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.
Natalis Alexander, Historia a There'is an edition of his
Eccl. &eculi, viii. works in one volume (Paris,
* The most celebrated being 1605), and another in two
Hinckmar, Archbishop of volumes (Paris, 1616). I have
Rlieims. Baronius inveighed quoted from the forme*
violently against this prelate
220 EATIONALISM 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 that 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 representations,
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 sohim sacrilegi ex eo quod
ease quse humana et carnalis divinum cultura operibus ma-
prsesumptio fingit, etiam stulti nuum suarum exhibent, sed et
consentiunt. In quo genere insipientes sanctitatem eis quse
istee quoque inveniuntur quas sine anima sunt imaginibus
sanctas appellant imagines, non tribuendo.' p. 233.
DEVELOPEMENTS OF KATIOXALISM. 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 image
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. This
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
brazen 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 3 forbid the introduction of
1 ' Dicit forsitan aliquis non inimicus, ut, sub prsetextu
se putare imagini quam adorat honoris sanctorum, rursus idola
aliquid inesse Divinum, sed tan- introducat, rursns per diversas
tummodo pro honore ejus eujus effigies adoretur.' p. 252.
effigies est, tali earn venerations * 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 : ' quam sincera re-
2 ' Agit hoc nimirum versu- ligio ! crucis vexillum ubique
tus et callidus human! generis pingebatur non aliqua vultus
W2 KATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
representations into the churches, for they foresaw
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. (Deo scili- more idolorum indignantissime
cet haec mirabiliter etiam ipsis ferunt) omni genere conterendae
forsitan nescientibus dispo- et usque ad pulverem sunt era-
nente) si enim sanctorum dendae ; praesertim cum non
imagines hi qui dsemonum cul- illas fieri Deus jusserit, sed
turn reliquerant venerari jube- humanus sensus excogitaverit.'
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 ' Quia si serpentem seneum sanctorum adorare sed sanctos ;
quern Deus fieri praecepit, quo- clamat enim Deus, "Gluriam
niam errans populus tanquam meam alteri non dabo, nee lau-
idolum colere coepit, Ezechias dcm meam sculptilibus." ' pp.
religiosus rex, cum magna pie- 254, 255. See too the noble
tatis laude contrivit : multo re- concluding passage on the
ligiosius sanctorum imagines exclusive worship of Christ,
(ipsisquoquesanctisfaventibus, breathing a spirit of the purest
qui ob sui honorem cum divinae Protestantism,
icligionis contemptu eas adorari
DEVELOPEMENT8 OF RATIONALISM. 223
so congruous with the prevailing conception of the
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 Mahometanisni 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 once 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- eobre, Hist, du Manicheisme.)
met and his disciples, more A passage in the invective of
skilfully than any other re- Tertullian against Hennogenes
ligkmists, blended sensual pas- has been quoted as to the same
sions with religion, associated effect: ' Pingit illicite, nubit
them with future rewards, and assidue, legem Dei in libidinem
converted them into stimulants defendit, in artem contemnit,
of devotion. bis falsarius et cauterio et
2 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. Barbeyriic,A/b-
The Voyages of St. John, which rale dcs Peres, c. v. 18.
was circulated in the Church,
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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.
Mahometanism 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
Cassino, with considerable success ; a 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 sup- 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, whicn was built by the
productions of the time of Greeks, who were the great
Nicolas of Pisa. masters of this art. Ciampini,
2 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 but 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 (Vetera
Monumenta, pars i. (Romse,
1690, p. 8i) that the art was
wholly forgotten in Home 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
of those at Rome has lately
been published by Barbet de
Jouy, and a singularly inter-
esting examination of their
history by M. Vitet (Etudes
sur FHistoire de tArt, 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,
Verochio, 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.
* Much curious information
on the history of illumination
and miniature painting is given
in Cibrario, Economia Politica
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 in colouring,
and that from the tenth to the
fourteenth the drawing dete-
riorated, but revived with the
revival of painting (Essai sur
FHistoire du Parchemin, p. 76).
Glass painting and miniature
painting were both common
long before Cimabue, and pro-
bably exercised a great influ-
ence over the early artists.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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 Juni,
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, ILioul Rochette, nario opera molto piu prodigi
Cours (FArckeologie, one of the nelle Immagini sagre nelle
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.' Istoriadella
tory of miracles strikingly con- Cappella di Sancta Sanctorum,
firms the position in the text. p. 77.
228
RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
in common with that of all other periods of virtual
or avowed idolatry. There was, however, another
consideration, acting in the Bame 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.
Eaoul Rochette has well ob-
served, 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 Les-
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 OP EATIONALISM. 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 made
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 est.' Seneca, also Fortoul, Etudes cFArchto*
Ep. xxxi. logic.
3 Eaoul Rochette, Cours 3 Matter, Hist, du Gnosti-
dArcheologie, pp. 269, 270. See cisme, torn. iii. p. 264.
230 BATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
themselves in order more completely to restrain their
passions, others laboured with the same object by
scourgings 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
still 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 have
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 Durandus,
hibit a hideousness which the called Rationale Dieinorum
inexpertness of the artists was OJficiorum. 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, TArt chrctu n ; but, above all,
Etudes sur FHistoire de fArt, in the Iconographie chrktienne
torn. i. pp. 268-279. Concern- of Didron.
DEVELOPEMENTS OF KATIONALISM. .. 231
Twice, however, in the history of the human 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
ffisthetic 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 Dsedalus 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
ologie ; 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 EUEOPE.
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 lands. 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. Minerva,
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
Nat. xxxiv. 19), the sculptor ancient types.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP RATIONALISM. 233
was transported into the unseen world. Bacchus
nurtured by a girl, and with the soft delicate limbs
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 religious,
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 almost
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 last, 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 {esthe-
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 was as fatal to religious
art as it was offensive to religious feeling. 2 It was
1 This influence is 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
siastical structure, the church mosaic work.
of St. Vitale at Ravenna * 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
several other beautiful edifices. Christ had been ' the ugliest of
The exile of the Greek artists the sons of men.' This theory
during the Iconoclast persecu- furnished Celsus with one of
DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM.
23ft
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 Judsea 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 eyes
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 ; bis 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, argues 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, Hist, de la Pein-
ture, pp. 24-26 ; and Didron
Iconograpkie 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 reprenents the contro-
versy as still continuing.
236 EATIONALISM IN ETTEOPE.
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
remarkahle 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 iu 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 Borne.
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 religious
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 saint 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, 1 forms
one of the most attractive pictures in the whole range
1 The same thing is related painterJuannes. Ford'eSpain,
of the Spanish sculptor Her- vol. ii. p. 271.
aandez, and of the Spanish
DEVELOPEMENTS OP EATIONALISM. 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 broken 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 BATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
the special organ of religious emotions. All the
painters of that period were strictly religions, 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 the
great poems of Greece and Borne, 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.
Milton, 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 the
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 OP 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, l 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 Constanti- after Constantino they for
nople, and is known under the nearly three centuries had su-
title ' In Trullo') was to repress perseded every other symbol,
the love of allegory that was (Kio, Art chretien, Intro, p. 49.)
general; and a very learned Ciampini 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. ( Vetera Monu-
Hist. de la Peinture, pp. 59-61.) menta, pars i. p. 28. See, too,
Its decree was afterwards either Marangoni, Istoria della Cop-
withdrawn or neglected, for petta di Sancta Sanctorum, p.
lambs soon reappeared, though 159.)
they never regained their for-
S40 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
tho 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, 8 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-
portant. 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-
forbiduen 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 places.' bowed his head and gave up the
(Cod. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. 3, ghost.'
c.1.)
DEVELOPEMENTS OP KATIONALISM. 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 mediaevalism 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 sublime moral doctrines and
VOL. i. B
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 religions
subject as the pretext for the exhibition of mere
worldly beauty. He commonly painted his mistress
as 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 OP 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 all 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 tip in the midst
of all the forms of loveliness, it assumed from the
first an aesthetic 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 by Van and, like the Vergognosa at
B2
944
RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 in the midst of the wicked-
ness that surrounded her. But
I am afraid she sometimes
looked through her fingers.
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 have 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 in
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. Kuskin has with some
force claimed it as a special
fruit of Christianity.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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 may be 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 within 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 intense 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, 8 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 to 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-
1 It is generally said to have rious essay on painted glass 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 chritien, 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 exeroised 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 by Correggio, has
scarcely been approached. Titian in 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 Raid to hare death, was absolved on ac-
definitively given the character count of her exceeding loveli-
of sensuality to Venus, who had ness was his mistress. His
previously floated between contemporary Polycles greatly
several ideals of beauty, and strengthened the sensual move-
also to have been the especial ment by introducing into art
author of the effeminate type the hermaphrodite. See Rio,
of Apollo. Phryne, who was Art chretien, Introd. pp. 17-21;
then the great model of vo- 0. Miiller, Manuel cFArcheo-
luptuous beauty she who, logie, torn. i. pp. 156-157.
having been condemned to
248 .RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 in the history of the Greek states
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 medieeval 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 Constantino himself set the admiring remarks of Eusebius,
example in this respect See the Vita Const, lib. iii. caps. 5, 6.
250 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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,* 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 Rome 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 Scrip-
some 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, Etudes sur FHistoire est man in all the world.' His eo-
de PArt, torn. i. p. 94. lossal statue of David after his
2 See the description in victory over Goliath (it would
Platina. be as rational to make a co-
* And was accordingly in lossal statue of a Lilliputian)
eculptxire (as in painting) sin- would be perfect as an Achilles.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP RATIONALISM. 251
and who employed the full force of a transcendent
genius to 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
that 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 sources of
Italian life, by regenerating the sacred music, and
by restoring painting to its pristine purity. Week
after week he 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.
A.s 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 Eio I think the best part of his book.
*- r >2 EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 Bartolomeo.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP BATIONALISM. 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 mediasvali'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 tli at 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. l
1 Anderson, Hist, of Com- a very curious collection of
merce, vol. ii. p. 36. There is passages from the Acts of the
284 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- bappipe. 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 Mtific,
See, too, Colgan's Acta Sancto- vol. ii. pp. 65-67.) There is ;i
rum Hibernia, torn. i. p. 149. curious series of papers on the
1 Anderson, vol. i. p. 30. musical instruments in the
There had before been known middle ages, by Coussemaker,
a water organ, called an hy- in the Annales archtologiques
draulicon. There was also a (edited by Didron), torn. iv.
wind instrument which some They have since, I believe, been
have placed among the antece- published separately,
denta of the 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 We have a very striking
example of this in both the
buildings and the criticisms of
the eighteenth century. What
(c.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 perfection 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 May en Agejugeepar
les ecrivains des deux derniers
Siecles (Paris, 1859). This
learned antiquarian 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 IN EUEOPE.
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 with 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
opinions, who did not speak of
Gothic architecture not merely
without appreciation, but with
the most supreme and unquali-
fied contempt. The list in-
cludes, among others, Fenelon,
Bossuet, Moliere, Fleury, Eol-
lin, Montesquieu, La Bruyere,
Helvetius, Eousseau, Mengs,
and Votlaire. Goethe at one
time opposed, but afterwards
yielded to, the stream. Milan
Cathedral was the special ob-
ject of ridicule. Gothic archi-
tecture was then almost uni-
versally ascribed to the Goths
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-
garded it as an imperfect imi-
Many of the criticisms were
very curious. Thus, Dupuis
thought the zodiacs on the
cathedrals were a remnant of
the worship ofMithra. Another
critic found a connection be-
tween the shape of the ogive
and the eggs of Isis. A third,
named Montluisant, explained
all the sculptures on the front
of Notre Dame de Paris by the
science of the philosopher's
stone : God the Father, holding
an angel in each hand, is the
Deity, calling into existence
the incombustible sulphur and
the mercury of life. The flying
dragon biting its tail is the
philosopher's stone, composed
of the fixed and the volatile
substances, the former of which
devours the latter, &c. &c.
(GEuvres de St.-Foix, torn. iii.
pp. 245, 246.) It is to the
DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 257
Supplanted under the influence of Brunelleschi l by a
style which, 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
model 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 futility 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 interior of the its influence from being cosmo-
little church of Sta. Maria della politan.
Spina, at Pisa, which was de- 2 Julius II.
VOL. I. 8
258 BATIONALISM IN EUBOPE.
glory and the universality of Catholicism, and it 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 walls. 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 or 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 OP EATIONALISM. 259
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
testhetic 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
s 2
260 BATIONALI8M 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
DEVELOPEMENTS OP EATIONALISM. 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 the
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-
strongly to promote it. (See land, vol. iii. p. 741) 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 Cony-
Germdny, and on its relation beare's Essay on Church Par-
to rationalism, there are some ties. The failure of the move-
remarks worth reading in ment was very candidly con-
Amand Saiutes' Hist, de Sa- fessed by the leader, in his
tionalisme en Allemagne. Anglican Difficulties.
DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 263
constant alteration of the proportion between 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
direct 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 defined 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 be
to unfold some Christian mystery, of which all the
natural objects he mentioned were 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, absurd, 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-
chseism 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. 1 Origen, however,
1 See Beansobre, Hist, du Clavis of St. Melito, who was
Manichkisme, torn. i. pp. 286- bishop of Sardis, it is said, in
288. Barbeyrac, Morale des the beginning of the second
Peres, 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 Solesmense (curante legist deeply impressed with
Pom. J. B. Pitra). It is the the mystery of baptism that
DEVELOPEMENTS OP EATIONALISM. 265
verged far too closely upon heresy to be regarded as
a representative of the Church ; and the prevailing
though not very clearly denned 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 Manichaeans, 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 afc
length the objections which the Manicha?ans had
brought against each separate portion of the six 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 stages of the
Christian life. First of all the light of faith streams
mystery by which a new crea- 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. (De
or a Neptunian theory. He Genesi, contra Manichceos, lib.
would have sxispected that the i. c. 23.)
tb BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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
game 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
Bought 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 twn.
the union of the two main ele- 2 The chest signifying pride,
ments of life, 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 founda-
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
concerning the existence of the Antipodes. The
Manicheeans 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 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 and 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.' l 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 OP BATIONALISM. 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 BATIONALISM 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 hy 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
Cosmas.
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 coeli et terras," quasi contineat, terrain cum coelo non
omnia iis contineantur, et uni- nominasset, sed dizisset " Hie
versa quae in eis sunt cum illis est liber generationis coeli." '
significentur. Nam si secun- (P. 126.)
dum fucatos illos Christianos
DEVELOPEMENTS OP EATIONALISM. 271
for there 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 men 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.
Yiii. 1, 2; ix. 1, 2, 11, 12, 24.
872 BATIONALISM 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. 3
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 he
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. 8 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 t> a-rfiaas rbv id DOS quod fatemur gnari,
ovpavbv ds Ka.na.pav. The second, scilicet Scripturse divinse cre-
ovpa.vbv 5* (isyrivtK\lyt, xtxvrat dendum.' (P. 129.)
5 So"irp yf) Kovia, KecdAAi)Ka 8 This very liberal opinion
8 aiirbv &<rirfp \iO<p xtf/Soy. had been expressed by Basil
2 'Sic igitur et nos quemad- and Ambrose.
modum Hesaias figuram primi 4 This doctrine began to dawn
coeli prima die couditi cum upon a few minds during the
terra facti, cum terra uuiversum Copernican controversy. Those
complectentis ad furnicis figu- who desire to trace its history
ram adornati statuimus esse. may read with interest some
Ac quemadmodum in Job die- opinions on the subject that
turn est coelum couglutinatuin were collected and answered
es.se terrae, ita quoquo nos dici- by a contemporary writer on
mus. Iteniquo cum ex Moyse the question between 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 an
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 as 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 superstitioxis man, except on
mundus, Vesta, sive Anti-Aris- the subject of comets, of the
tarchi Vindex: Antverpise, 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 Bod in 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
174
BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
two of Ms disciples, 1 and seventeen years later id
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
Foscarini, 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
illam doctrinam Pythagoricam,
divinseque Scripturaeomnino ad-
versantem, de mobilitate terrse
et immobilitate soli*, quaiu
Nicolaus Copernicus Revolu-
tionibus orbium caHestium, et
Didacus Astunica in Job, etiam
decent, jam divnlgari et multis
recipi, sicuti videre est ex qua-
darn epistola impressa cujus-
dam P. Carmelitee, cujus titulus
Letera del B. P. Maestro Paolo
Foscarini sopra rOpinionedei
Pythagorici e del Copernico, &c.,
in qua dictus pater ostendere
conatur prafatam doctrinam
de immobilitate solis in centro
mundi et mobilitate terrae con-
sonam esse veritati, et non ad-
versari Sacra Scripturse: ideo,
ne ulterius hujusmodi opinio in
perniciem Catholicae veritatis
serpat, censuit dictos hie Coper-
nicum de Eevolut. Orbium et
Didacum Astunicam in Job
suspendendos esse donee corri-
gantur. Librum vero P. Paulli
Foscarini Carmelitse omnino
prohibendum, atque omnes alios
libros pariter idem docentes pro-
hibendos.' Fromundus, Anti-
Aristarchus, sive Orbis Terra
immob'dis. In quo Decretum
S. Congregationis 8. R. E. Car-
dinal. 1616 ad versus Pytha-
gorico-Copernicanos editum de-
jcnditur (Antverpi*, 1631), p.
18.
DEVELOPEMENTS OF EATIONALISM.
275
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
sees of Rheims, Ravenna, and
Rome ; 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.)
T2
276 EATIONALISM IN ETTBOPE.
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 the
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. 2
The science which especially corrects these notions
1 Novum Organon. rum, cap. v.). On the effects of
* Even the sun 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 OP 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
sublime 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 such 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 (Biog. univ. art. hero dies.'
278 KATIONALISM IN ETTBOPE.
motion, shows that it is as undistinguished by its
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 giobe. ' 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-
two opinions about the exquisite 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 astrono-
meet this difficulty that the mers unanimously maintained
parable of the shepherd leaving that the motions of tfap 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-
faithful. It may be added that nomical progress.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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
death 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
2SO EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 a 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 sus- Nature and Use cf Different
tained an ardent controversy on Kinds of Lots (London, 1619)
the subject 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
DEVELOPEMENT8 OP BATIONALISM. 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 must be equally so. The one conception
1 Hence the term 'sortes' (Soirees de St.-Petersbourg,
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 rent perguirimus,
meprisaient, et memo ils at- ait quippe Scriptura per Davi-
tachaientjene sais quelle legere dem, "Qui respicit terram et
ide d'impit6 ; et ce sentiment facit earn tremere," &c.' p.
confus venait de bien haut.' 115.
28* BATIONALISM IN ETJEOPE.
consists mainly of the ideas of interference, of miracle,
of change, 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- 17; St. Isidore, DeOrdine Crea-
mark of St. Simon, but it has turarum.
been adopted and made great * Maury, Llgendes pieuses,
use of by M. Comte and some pp. 1 7-1 8. Angels were some-
of his disciples. See that very times represented in old Chris-
nble book, Littre, Vie dc Comte. tian painting and sculpture
2 Eoccamora, De Cometis, p. bearing along the stars (and
DEVELOPMENTS OF BATIONALISM. 283
tude of isolated and capricious phenomena naturally
suggested the helief 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 the
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 Caesar, 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 greatesi 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 Kaxo, De Cometia
relief round the choir of Notre (1578). The author was a
Dame at Paris. Spanish physician.
1 The fullest statement of
284 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 as 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
1 Roccamora, De Cometia * In a letter to Zuinglius.
(Romae, 1670), pp. 238-239. * And, flying off at a tan-
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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 the 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 the scientific
of the most stupendous monu- revival in Europe may 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
(fEntrer, in some of the Pcnsees their discoveries. The Coper-
diverses sur les Cometes, and in nican system the greatest dis-
two or three of his Nouvelles covery of the 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
as he always represented it. most arrogant contempt. In
286 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
contributed more than any other single cause to guido
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 tis 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 dis-
self Bacon produced no per- covery to that doctrine of final
ceptible effect 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 bear
Tweed ; and even in England, no fruit.'
where he had been almost
DEVELOPEMENTS OF EATIONALISM. 287
gloomy character. As long as men drew their notions
of the Deity from what they regarded as the abnormal,
their attention was chiefly concentrated upon disasters,
for these are for the most part exceptional, while the
principal sources of happiness are those which are
most common. Besides, it is one of the most un-
amiable characteristics of human 1 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
388 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
developement 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'a
consistence of morphologu-al Histoi-y of Scitntijic Ideas.
conceptions with the doctrine
DEVELOPEMENTS OP KATIONALISM. 2*9
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
I 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 OP RATIONALISM. 291
of creative and co-ordinating wisdom which science
reveals, can hardly be overestimated, 1 nor can it be
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 irregulieres.
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 un 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 c. 6.
292 EATIONALISM 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 tc
nothing of the relations of mind to matter, either in
our own persons or in the world that is around us ;
and to suppose that the progress of natural science
eliminates the conception of a first 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;
study to explain by it all the phenomena of existence.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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 a school
of medicine which regarded man simply as an
hydraulic 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 human 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 Vitalisme de Siahl, p. 6.
294 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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
upon 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. 2 The
1 Systema Theologicum ex 2 Some of La Peyrere's argu-
Prce-Adamitarum Hypothesi, ments on this point are cu-
pars i. The second jpart never riously far-fetched. Thus he
appeared. asks why Abel should have
296 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 Babbath, the
difficulties about the conquest of the Idumeans, 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 ber 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
ascendency. 1 The first method, which attributes
1 See Denis, Hist, des Idles morales dans FAntiguite,
298 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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-
Government, adopts very fully vinities.
the theory of Euhemerus about
DEVELOPEMENTS OF EATIONALISM. 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
"Tractates 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 wrong vowel- 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 Helrrew Interpola- seems to me to be chiefly his-
tions, by Dr. Wall, of Dublin torical.
300 BATIONALISM IN EUBOPE.
is not in accordance with c 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 should 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 Amand the subject of miracles illus-
Sainte's IRst, Critique du trates very clearly the wide use
Itationalisme 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 Eeligion itrithin the
sketch of the progress of Ger- Limits of the Reason.
man .Rationalism, and the man-
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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 almost 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 has been well noticed think in his Annotations to
by Archbishop Whately I Bacon.
302 BATIONALISM 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. 2 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
in England, see Strntt's Sports spectators.' The long unsuc-
and Pastimes of the English cessful 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- lory ; 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
3 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 so
DEVELOPEMENTS OP RATIONALISM.
303
however, by the silent pressure of civilisation, a pro-
found 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 of 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
gratified that a painting re-
presenting the achievement
was immediately executed for
the public square (Concina,
De Spectaculis, 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. 285). 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 bull-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, Sixtus 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 ! On this curious sub-
ject full details are given in
Thesauro, De Pcenis Ecclesias-
ticis (Komse, 1640), and in
Concina, De Spectaculis (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 were
killed (Cibrario, Economia Po-
litico,, 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 the
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 all present us with examples
of practices which in one ago 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
of 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 pyschological 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.' l
There is, however, one striking exception to this
1 Michelet.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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
theii 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 is 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 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
unknown. But the formation of a moral philosophy
is usually the first step of the 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 IB
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
i-eligion 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-
velopement 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, and 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 Mcodemus, 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 Byzantine pictures brought to
century, being, there is much Italy during the time of the
reason to believe, the chief au- Iconoclasts and of the Cru-
thor of the ' portraits by St sades.
Luke.' 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 mutilated
and false. Nothing, too, can, as I 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 true
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 OP EATIONALISM. 309
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 Rense 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 persecution, 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
Borders, 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 Eestoration, 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, Pensees diverges,
cxcix. He says : ' Si un docteur
de Sorbonne avoit la hardiesse
de chanceler tant soil peu sur
le mystere de 1'Incarnation
. . . il couroit risque du feu
de la Greve ; mais s'il se con-
ten toit d'avancer quelques pro-
positions de morale relachee,
comme le fameuz Escobar, on
ee contenteroit de dire que
cela n'est pas bien, et peut-etre
on verroit la censure de sou
livre. 1
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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 etemal as
they were excruciating. 1 Origen, it is true, and his
1 ' Sic et Epicurus omnem que seternam ab eo pcenam pro-
cruciatum doloremque depretiat videmus merito soli innocentise
modicum quidem contempti- occurrimusetproscientisepleni-
bilem pronuntiando magnum tudine et pro magnitudine cru-
varo nou diuturnum. Enim- ciatus non diuturni verum
vero nos qui sub Doo omnium sempiterni.' (Tertullian, Apol,
epeculatore dispungimur, qui- cap. xlv.)
312 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
disciple Gregory of Nyssa, in a somewhat hesitating 1
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 denned 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-
Dallseus, De Pcenis et Satisfac- ose : destinatam enim sibi cum
tionibus (Amsterdam, 1649), suis cultoribus poenam preescius
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 ardent! um
Horberry's Enquiry concerning ubique terrarum flagrant nee
Future Punishment (London, erogantur : ita poenale illud
1744). incendium non damnis arden-
8 See the long argument tium pascitur sed inexesa cor-
based on these grounds in St. porum laceratione nutritur.'
Aug. De Civ. Dei, lib. xxi. cc. (Octavius, cap. xxxv.)
1-9. Minutius Felix treats
DEVELOPEMENTS OF EATIONALISM. 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 those whose
moral perceptions had been least developed by con"
templating the gentle and tolerant 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 which 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 EATIONALISM 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 doctrine as an
innovation, were entirely uncondemned. Indeed, it
is probable that the chosen people had less clear and
correct knowledge of a future world 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 ;* 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 Mackay's Eeligious Deve-
tain 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, Histoire des Idees
sage in Job does not refer to morales dans lAntiquite, torn,
the resurrection. The subject i. pp. 18, 19.
has been dwelt on from another * Ibid. pp. 104-106.
point of view by Chubb, VQ]- On the place representa-
taire, Strauss, and several tions of Tartarus had in the
other writers. On the growth mysteries, see Magnin, Originet
of the doctrine among the Jews, du Theatre, torn. i. pp. 81-84.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP RATIONALISM. 815
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 Manichseans
looked forward to a strange process of purification
after death ; 1 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 borne in the moon story about Periander, 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. (Beausobre, 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 were
2 Dallaeus, De Pcenis et Satis- of no use to her, as they had
factionibus, lib. iv. c. 9. Some not been burnt.
918 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. 8 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 (an. 880).
of the Irish ; it was afterwards 2 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 OP RATIONALISM. 317
he 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 doctrine : 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, and
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 Taillandier, Scot. Eri- According to this last writer,
gene, pp. 176-180; Ampere, Scotus admitted literal torments
Hist, litter air e de la France, for the devil, but not for man.
818 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 ;
they 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 Swinden ; and in seems to date from St. Gregory
Plancey, Dictionnaire infernal, the Great) with his usual fore*
art. Enfer. Dean Milman, in and justice,
his Hist, of Latin Christianity,
DEVELOPMENTS OP BATIOE ALISM. 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, could 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 sufferings one of the elements
of the happiness of the redeemed. 1 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 Aquinas says, BEATITTTDO iixis MAGIS COM-
' Beati in regno coelesti vide- PLACEAT.' (Summa Suppl.,
bunt pcenas damnatorum, UT qusest. xciv. art. 1.)
820 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
disease than almost all oilier moral and intellectual
agencies combined. I shall hereafter touch upon its
effects, upon the intellectual history of Europe, upon
the timidity and disingenuousness 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
DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 327
strengthened, while passive impressions are weakened
by repetition.' But the overwhelming majority are
in these 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 moriens ? '
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. I. I
322 RATIONALISM IN EUBOPE.
particularity to be met with in any other religion
that is or hath been in the whole world.' ' 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 for ever 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,' 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-
fice, 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 OP EATIONALISM. 323
tliat will profoundly debase humanity. If you 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
y 2
324 EATIONALI8M IN EUBOPE.
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 praetor or consul, quaestor 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-
tudo ? Quid admirer ? Quid
rideam ? ubi gaudeam ? ubi ex-
ultem, spectans tot et tantos
reges, qui in ecelum recepti
nuntiabantur cum ipso Jove et
ipsis suis testibus in imis tene-
bris oongemescentes ! Item
prsesides persecutors dominici
nominis saevioribus quam ipsi
flammis saeviemntinsultantibus
contra Christianos liquescentes !
quos prseterea sapientes illos
philosophos coram discipulis
suis una conflagrationibus eru-
bescentes, quibusnihil ad Deum
pertinere suadebant, quibus
animas aut mil las ant non in
pristina corpora redituras af-
firmabant ! Etiam poetas non
ad Rhadamanthi nee ad Minois
sed ad inopinati Christi tribunal
palpitantes. Tune magis tra-
goedi audiendi magis scilicet
Vocales in sua propria calami-
tate. Tune histriones cogno-
ecendi eolutiores multo per
ignem. Tune spectandus auriga
In flammea rota tofue rubens ;
tune xystici contemplandi non
in gymnasiis sed in igne jacu-
lati ; nisi quod na tune quidem
illos velim visos, ut qui malim
ad eos potius conspectum in-
satiabilem conferre qui in do-
minum desaevierunt. Hie est
ille dieain tabri aut qusestuariae
filius, sabbati destructor, Sama-
rites et dsemonium habens.
Hie est quern a Juda redemistis,
hie est ille arundine et eolaphis
diverberatus, sputamentis de-
decoratus, felle et aceto po-
tatus. Hie est quern clam
discentes subripuerunt ut re-
eurrexisse dicatur, Tel hortu-
lamis detraxit ne lactucse suae
frequentia commeantium laede-
rentur. Ut talia spectes, ut
talibus exultes, quis tibi praetor,
aut consul, aut quaestor, aut
sacerdos de sua liberalitate
prsestabit? Et tamen haec jam
quodammodo habemus per
fidem, spiritu imagiHante re-
pra3sentata.' (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 BO 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 EATIONALISM. 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 horrible
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
dence of this in the next chap- brusler un 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^ avant 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
cutions in Guienne : ' J'avois Vanini.)
328 BATIONALI8M IN EUBOPE.
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, I 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
eon, but the first were of course the subject says : ' In crimine
by far the most common. As haeresis omnes illi torquendi
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
sunt qui in crimine Isesae ma-
jestatis humanae torqueri pos-
sunt; quia longe gravius est
divinum quam temporalem
Isedere majestatem, ac proinde
nobiles, milites, deeuriones,
doctores, et omnes qui quanta-
libet praerogativa praefulgent
in crimine hseresis et in crimine
Isesge majestatis humanse tor-
queri poesunt . . . quo fit
quod minores viginti quinque
annis propter suspicionem
hseresis et laesse majestatis tor-
queri possunt, minores etiam
quatuordecim annis terreri et
habena vel ferula csedi.' (Suarez
de Paz, Praxis Ecclesiastica et
Scecularti [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 shown 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) Tractatus
de Qucestionibus (1529 and
1537 both editions in black
letter). Mareilius 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 in the States of the Church :
' In Statu Ecclesiastico hi duo
modi magis in usu sunt, ut et
tormentum taxillorum, et vigilise
per somni subtractionem, quern
modum invenisse asserit Mar-
silius.' (Chartaria, Praxis In-
terrogandorum Eeorum [Eomae,
1618], p. 198.) Besides these
works, there are full accounts
of the nature of the tortures
in Simancas' De Catholids In-
stitutionibus, Eymericus' Di-
rectorium 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 ; ' 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
ners 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, Sur 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 Se-
lected in Milner's Letters to a gesse of Charron, in the Con-
Prebendary. Bishops Grindal trains-lesdtEntrerof Bayle, and
and Coxe suggested the appli- in many parts of the writings
cation 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 the Statutes, pp. 80, s 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-
111 France as early as 1780, and gustine, had protested against
DEVELOPEMENTS OF RATIONALISM. 331
Beccaria, the friend of Helve tins 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
same 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). See also, on this horrible
very remarkable book called subject, Llorente, Hist, of In-
De Catholicis Institutionibus quisition. Simancas notices
ad pr<ecavendas et extirpan- that, in other countries, cri-
das H&reses (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).
' Inquisitores Apostolici ssepis- ' On the influence of Bee-
Bime 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.
832 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 ; 8 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 'CumquaeriturutrumHitnocens
compact. I cannot, however, cruciatur et innocens luit pro
think that this argument had incerto 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. 333
the combination of new and horrible forms of suffer-
ing the habitual employment of the imagination, was
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
nourished 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
systems 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, upon its present con-
punishments as much as pos- dition.
eible 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 OP RATIONALISM. 335
sixteenth and the greater part of the seventeenth
centuries. 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 material
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 from 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 manifestly im-
perfect, and it has accordingly long since taken its
place as one of the moral evidences of Christianity.
336 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 bo 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.
I mean the developement 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
this 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
which 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 pyschological 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 the 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
S38 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 jnost 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 Pfusdon. The Greeks predisposition to see ghosts,
had an extreme fear of the
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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
Fathers) entertained the same
opinion as the majority of
Christians do at the present
day, that the soul is perfectly
simple, and entirely destitute
of all body, figure, form, and
extension. On the contrary,
they all acknowledge it to con-
tain something corporeal, ul-
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
subtle body. But the others,
who keep far aloof from Plato,
and consider his philosophy to
be prejudicial to Christian prin-
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 Platonists
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.'
(Hut. of Lit.)
2 Cudworth, vol. iii. p. 318.
The same Father based his doc-
trine of the soul in a great mea-
sureouapparitioiis.(Ibid.p.330.)
340 EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
element, maintained that the soul was simply a
second 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.' s St. Antony saw the soul of Ammon
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 mediaeval 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,
animae felicioris implorat sola- * See on this subject Maury,
tium roris.' Tertullian, De Legendes pieuses, pp. 125-127.
Anima, cap. vii. 4 Maury, Llgendes piettset,
* Ibid. cap. ix. I should p. 124. There is an example of
mention that this book was this in the Triumph of Death,
DEVELOPEMENTS OP EATIONALISM. 841
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
so 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
David 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, Iconographie, p. 216.)
blest were sometimes repre- ' Schelling.
sented as little children clasped
342 RATIONALISM IN ETJEOPE.
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 the
eighteenth century laid so great stress, was strongly
asserted, 2 and all the mysteries of generation treated
with a confidence that elicits a smile, 3 not unmixed
1 See Schmidt, fyudcs sur bent procreationem, ut mure* ;
le Mysticisme allemond du nam eorum alii ex sordibua
XIV' sticle, in the Me/noires sine concubitu, alii ex concu-
des Sciences morales et politiques bitu proveniunt.' (De Anima,
de rinstitttt de France, torn. ii. lib. i.) Van Helmont, aa is well
* 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-
taneous 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 muscae, fateor me nescire mur> s et rniue
culices, formicse, apes: quae quare creati sunt. aut muscse,
nee sexum ullura habent. Aha aut vermiculae.' (De Genes* con-
ex cominixtioue sexuum prod- tra Manicheeos, c. xvi.)
emit, ut homo, equus, canis, * Thus, Melanchtlion deals,
leo. Sunt quae ambiguam ha- in a tone of the most absolute
DEVELOPEMENTS OP BATJONALISM. 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 nas- all that is not thought (as life
cuntur magis in dextr& 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
Foemellae 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 be
theory originated, I believe, maintained by very few ; and
with Aristotle, and was after- Stahl gave psychology an im-
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
344
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. 1
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- sont dec.us par une fausse idee
logy and medicine. There quo Dieu leur a imprimee, d'uu
is a clear statement on this
point in Maine de Biran, Nou-
veaux Rapports physiques et
morales. There is at present
& 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 Religion of Geology,
and Lectures on the Seasons.
Ths 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 tourmentis par le feu des
enfers, neanmoins leur senti-
ment n'est pas pour cela qu'ils
feu qui les consume, mats
plutot qu'ils sont veritablement
tourment^spar le feu ; parce que
"comme 1'esprit d'un homme
vivant, bien qu'il ne soit pas
corporel, est neanmoins detenu
dans le corps, ainsi Dieu par
sa toute-puissance peut aisi-
ment faire qu'il souffre les
atteintes du feu corporel apres
la mort."' (Reponsea aux
six Objections.)
* This was, as far 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. Whiston, 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
DEVELOPEMENTS OP RATIONALISM. 3-15
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
suffering, 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 persecution 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. by the multitude of the souls.
Enfer), some early theologians
346 EATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The emo-
tional part of humanity, the humanity of impulse, was
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
DEVELOPEMENTS OP EATIONALI8M. 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 on 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 j
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
curious 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 Barriugton, On the Statutes (London, 1769), p. 461.
3*8 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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. 8 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 the
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. \.), gives a fright- * He asks ' whether we may
ful 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 Barrington, 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,
Ibid. No. 54.)
4 Barrington says this was See Komi lly's Life for many
the case when he wrote, which statistics on the subject.
DEVELOPEMENTS OP 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 bo little doubt that
the enthusiasm and the support that enabled Bomilly,
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 mediaeval 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 EATIONALI8M IN EUEOPE.
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. Th3 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 con-
DEVELOPEMENTS OP RATIONALISM. 351
sideration 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 EUBOPE.
CHAPTER IV.
ON PERSECUTION.
PART I.
THE ANTECEDENTS OP PEBSECUTION.
WHEN 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 mi ads
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 PEKSECUTION. 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 BATJONALISM 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 men 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 differences 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 id,eal, 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 Borne appealed
most strongly to the sense of virtue, and Christianity
to the eense 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 upon 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
A A 2
5.-5G 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 guilt 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. 3; 57
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 aristocratical 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
so 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
358 EATIONALISM 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
purpose, 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
hell ' 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 RATIOAALI8M 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 un-
baptised were excluded from heaven. In the case of
unbaptised 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, Diet.
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- * 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. Catechumens within the womb : ' God may
also, who died during the pro- have ways of saving it for
paration for baptism, were aught we know.'
ON PEBSECUTION. 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 denied 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 ! l 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. 3
Augustine associated it with that of imputed righte-
ousness, maintaining that guilt and virtue might be
ah'ke 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. Augustine, 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 4 Epist. 28.
362 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
of the clearest and most forcible extant ej itomes 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 pcenas, si reno-
2 ' Firmissime tene, et nulla- vati per lavacrum non fuerint.'
tenus dubites, non soluin ho- (De Sentent. lib. i. c. 22.) St.
mines jam ratione utentes, ve- Avitus, being of a poetical turn
rum etiam 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 rero gravius, si
sacramento sancti baptismatis fonte lavacri
quod datur in nomine Patris et Divini expertem tenernm more
Filii et Sjiiritus Sancti de hoc invida natum
sseculo transeunt, ignis seterni Praeeipitat, dura generatum
sempiterno supplicio punieu- sorto, gehennse,
dos ; quia etsi peccatum pro- Qui mox nt matris cessarit
prise actionis nullum habue- filius esse
runt, originalis tamen peccati Perditionis erit : tristes tune
damnationem carnali concep- edita nolunt
tione et nativitate traxerunt.' Quae flammis tantum genue-
De Fide, 70. So also St. runt pignora matres.'
Isidore : ' Pro soli original! Ad Fuscinam 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
a striking memoir in the first to the foetus in the womb, that
volume of Le Moyen Age, 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
centrated so strongly upon the was for the suppression of the
unborn foetus ; but we should custom of destroying the off-
remember that, besides the spring in the womb, which was
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, and 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
mothers endeavoured to persuade 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
pagans, 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-
ir regular baptism. I have al- tics were saved. (Hecker,
ready referred to the belief Epidemics of t/ie Middle Ages,
that somnambulists had been pp. 153, 154.)
baptised by a drunken priest ;
ON PEESECUTION. 365
cause, and in part the consequence, at last issued in
a diffusion of a rationalistic spirit which no Church,
however retrograde or dogmatic, has been able to ex-
clude. 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
866 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 Cathoh'c 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. 8 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 un-
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' Traitk des regies de notre miserable jus-
Superstitions, tice que de damner elernelle-
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'U est commie six mille am
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 iu 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 &re ? Cer- was the very first theologian
tainement rien ne nous heurte who denied that, the passage,
plus rudement que cette doc- ' Except a man be born of
trine, et cependant sans ce water and of the spirit,' &c.,
mystere le plus incomprehen- applied to baptism. (Vol. ii.
sible de tons nous sommes in- p. 180.) Jeremy Taylor strongly
comprehensiblesanous-memes.' supported Calvin's view : 'The
(Pensees, cap. iii. 8.) I have water and the spirit in this
little doubt, 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 cleansing
the Church at the time of the and purifying the soul, as ap-
Eeformation. 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 EUEOPE.
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
tinder 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
sacraments, 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 Sin one of the most man.
revolting books that have ever
ON PEESEUUTION. 36
order and subordination of different portions 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, but 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
S70 .RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
The school of thought which Loelius 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 of 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 PEKSECUTION.
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, Histoire des
Doctrines morales des trois
demiers Siecles, torn. i. pp.
51-67. Pomponatius was born
at Mantua in 1462, and died
in 1524. His principal work
is on The Immortality of .the
Soul. He was protected by
Leo X. (Biog. unin) 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. Thus 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
of philosophy, and denied that
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 Be-
ponses au Provincial ; and Leib-
nitz, in his La Foi et la liaison,
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
I 'Indifference, 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 Ra-
tionalisme en Allemagne, p. 29.)
2
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 Socinns. 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
captivated the great principles of religious toleration.
1 Neander, Hist, of Dogmas, vol. ii. pp. 657. 658.
ON PEESECUTION. 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 d. 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 EUEOPE.
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 chaiticter 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 pechi originel ne
damne po.rsonne, pas meme les
enfants 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 eerti su-
mus eos peccato original! non
damnari, de aliorum non iti-
dem ; quamvre, irt ingenue
fateor, nobis probabilior vide-
tur sententia quam docuimus,
non temere pronunciandum
esse de gentilinm quoque natis
et eis qui opus legis faciunt ex
lege intus digito Dei scripta.'
(P. 28.)
ON PERSECUTION. 375
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 propagandise! 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 much regard it.' (Beligion
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.
cerns not us, and so we need
376 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
It is no exaggeration to say that the 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 has
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. Christianity, 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, no
one is saved.' ' No one,' said St. Augustine, ' cometh
to salvation and eternal life except he who hath Christ
for his head, but no one can have Christ for his head
except he that is in His body the Church.' l ' Hold
1 I take these references from pp. 11-13, 3rd ed.), where
Palmer On the Church (vol. i. there is much evidence on the
378
EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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. 8
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-
eubject collected. Mr. Palmer tholicse non tenet unitatem,
contends that the Fathers are
unanimous on the subject, but
Barbeyrac shows that at least
two, and those of the earliest
(Justin Martyr and Clemens
Alexandrinus), admitted the
possible salvation of the pagans
(Morale dcs Peres, ch. xi. 1 1),
and that the first expressly
said that Socrates and Herac-
litus in the sight of God were
Christians. See, too, Tenne-
mann, Manuel de FHistoire de
la Philosophic, torn. i. pp. 314,
315. I am afraid, however,
there is no doubt that the great
majority of the Fathers took
the other view. Minucius Fe-
lix thought the daemon of So-
crates was a devil. (Octavius,
ch. xxvi.)
1 De Fide, 81 ; and again,
still more explicitly : ' Omni
enim homini qui Ecclesise Ca-
non tenet
neque baptismus neque elee-
mosyna quamlibet copiosa,
neque mors pro nomine Christ!
suscepta proficere poterit ad
salutem, quamdiu eo vel haere-
tica vel schismatica pravitas
perseverat qua ducit ad mor-
tem.' (22.)
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
innocently he may think he
lives, for this crime alone that
he is separated from the unity
of Christ will not have life, but
the wrath of God remaineth on
him.' This statement is said
to have been drawn up by St.
Augustine. See Hawarden's
Charity and Truth, pp. 39-40
(Dublin, 1809).
ON PEBSECUTION. 379
proach of death, 1 and how hopefully they looked for-
ward to the future. Never can men forget that noble
Greek who, struck down by an unrighteous sentence,
summoned 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
1 I know nothing in the la soci6t6 pai'enne, toute corn-
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 repr^senter la mort comme
beautiful old translation of quelque chose de hideux ; il ne
The Table Talk by Bell : ' It parait mcme point quo le sque-
were a light and an easy mat- lette ait ete alors le symbol&
ter for a Christian to suffer de 1'irupitoyable divinite. Mais
and overcome death if he knew quand le christianisme cut
not that it were God's wrath ; conquis le monde, quand uae
the same title maketh death eternite malheureuse dut etre
bitter to us. But an heathen la punition des fautes commises
dieth securely away ; he neither iei-bas, la mort qui avait
seeth nor feeleth that it is sembl6 si indifferente 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 terribles
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 funebrea." (Jubinal, Sur lea
and the mediaeval representa- Danses des Marts, p. 8.)
tions of death, observes : ' Dans * Plato,
380 RATIONALISM IN EUBOPE.
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 tip 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 but 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 Nestorianism
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 nounced it. See much curious
placed almost on a level with evidence of this in Allemand-
the Fathers, owes his position Lavigerie, ficole chretienne cF
entirely to the early heretics ; fidesse. (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 RATIONALISM IN 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 aH 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 of
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 sanctifi cation are only obtained in it ; and
Calvin says, " Beyond the bosom of the Church, no
remission 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 Church, 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 the
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
and Jacob, will mingle with ' Socrates, Aristides, and
Antigonus, with Numa and Camillus, Hercules and
Theseus, the Seipios 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, Variations
vol. i. p. 13. protestantes, liv. ii. c. 19. The
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 IN EUROPE.
a smile, such language appears but natural, but 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 salvation,
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 PEBSECTJTION. 385
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 transcendently
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. I. CO
386 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
engraven npon eveiy heart ; yon 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. But 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
f'ai ali si ii 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
tained in the ninth century by a freethinker. For an account
a monk named Gotteechalk, of this once-famous controversy
who was opposed by Hinckmar, see the learned work of M. St.-
Archbishop of Kheims, in the Ren6 Taillandier, Scot tangent
ON PEBSECUTION. 387
in this 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 revolting 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 him, but it is the riders who contend for its
possession.' l ' 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 ow
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 be
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.' 2 ' God
et la Philosophic scholastique prisoned, and to be scourged.
(Strasbourg, 1843), pp. 51-58; (Llorente, Hist. del 1 Inquisition,
and for a contemporary view torn. i. p. 20.)
ot the opinions of Gotteschalk, ' ' Sic humana voluntas in
see a letter by Amulo, Arch- medio posita est ceu jumentum,
bishop of Lyons (the immediate si insederit Deus vult et vadit
successor of Agobard), printed quo vult Deus, ut Psalmus
with the works of Agobard dicit : " Factus sum sieut ju-
(Paris, 1666). According to mentum et ego semper tecum."
Amulo, Gotteschalk 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 quaerere, 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. sec.
nation. Gotteschalk was con- 24.)
demned to be degraded from 2 ' Hie est fidei summus gra-
the priesthood, to be im- dus, credere ilium esse clemen-
cc 2
388 RATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 justurn trium.' (Sec. 10.) I give these
qui sua voluntate nos necessario sections according to Vaughan's
damnabiles 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,
sec. 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, Bed Arbitrio (Vaughan's Preface,
quod omnia incommutabilia et p. 57). There is a full notice
aeterna, infallibilique voluntate of this book in one of Sir W.
<>t prsevidet et praeponit et facit. Hamilton's essays.
Hoc fulmine sternitur et con-
ON PERSECUTION.
389
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
(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
1 On Calvin's views, see es-
pecially his De JEtema Dei
Preedestinatione, 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 Mterna
Dei Preedestinatione contra
Sebastianum Castellionem ( pub-
lished in the Opuscula of Beza,
Genevse, 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
'Beza's Display of Popish Prac-
tices, or Patched Pelagianism,
translated 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
390 EATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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 loss
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 ova
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 make an image
392 BATIONALISM IN EUEOPE.
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. 393
faith ' which except a man believe he cannot be saved,'
it is quite natural that men should deem it ' before
all things ' necessary to hold it. If the purest moral
life cannot atone for error, while a true religion has
many means of effacing guilt, the mind will naturally
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, by
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 the
evil is unknown. The tenacity with which Pro-
testant nations cling to the orthodox tenets of the
He formation 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
394
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
Eomans, 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
Note* 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
J Thus, not to quote Eoman tium, lib. iii. c. 2, lays down
Catholic authorities, Jeremy several cases of justifiable false-
Taylor, in the Ductor Dubitan- hood.
396 EATIONALI8M IN EUROPE.
first, again, spring from circumstances that are BO
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^aould 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 was
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 Free 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-
gendes, p. 268). St. Augustine, ists. Thus the Spanish Bishop
however, is iu this respect an Simancas ' Ad poenam quoque
exception. In his treatise Con- pertinet et haereticorum odium,
tra Mendacium he strongly do- quod fides illis data servanda
rounced the tendency, and es- non est. Nam si tyrannis, pi-
pocially condemns the Pris- ratis, et caeteris pwedonibus
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 haereticis pertinacibus qui occi-
who thought it justifiable to dunt animas.' (De Catholicit
pretend to be Priscillianists Itutitutionibus, 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
bones 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 the 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 has been the doctor of the great and
discussed at some length by common view that all untruths
Dr. Newman, in his Apologia 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,
'The Greek Fathers thought zeal for God's honour, and the
that, when there was a jueta 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
398 BATIONALI8M IN EUEOPE.
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 PEESECUTION. 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 not 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 consequence of
his act ; because the loss he would suffer in the more
400 RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.
probable contingency is inconsiderable, and the ad-
vantage he would derive from the insurance in the
less probable contingency is very great. From this
consideration Pascal who with Format 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 threafc-
ens infinite punishments, it is the part of a wise man
to sacrifice 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 Probabilitis It is manifest
called Theoloyia Christiana that, if correct, obedience would
Principia Mathematica. (Lon- be due to any impostor who
dini, 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-
grounds in Laplace, Theorie des ings sufficiently high.
ON PEESECUTION. 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 was 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, ' Is
by playing on superstitious their Church better than ours,
terrors, and by obscuring the because it has less charity ? *
sense 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. D D
4* 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
before 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 PEESECUTION. 408
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 developement 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
Littr6) that the increasing ten- his living mother ; but while
deney, 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 Eug-
comparison of Orestes with 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 EUEOPE.
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
preelections 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 fiction, on account of a
certain unimaginative character that was exhibited
by the philosophies of both a character that was
perfectly congenial to the intellect of Locke, but very
remarkable in the case of Bacon, among whose great
faculties imagination occupied an almost dispropor-
ON PEBSECUTION. 405
tionate 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-
deeply 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 EATIONALISM IN EUKOPE.
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 medimval 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 Ultramon- speaking of his greatest works,
tanism, assures us that ' dans says : ' Le livre De la Dignite et
l'6tude de la philosophic, le de I ' Accroissement des Sciences
mepris de Locke est le com- est done un ouvrage parfaite-
mencement de la sagesse ; ' and ment nul et meprisable. . . .
that ' FEssai swr FEntendement Quant au Novum Organon, il
humain est tres-certainement, est bien plus condamnable
et soit qu'on le nie ou qu'on en encore, puisque, independam-
convienne, tout ce que le defaut ment des erreurs particulieres
absolu de genie et de style peut dont il fourmille, le but general
enfanter de plus assommant.' de 1'ouvrage le rend digne d'un
(Soirees de St.- Peter sbourg, 6 m Bedlam.' (ExamendelaPhiloso-
Eutretien.) Bacon, he calmly phie de Bacon.) In the same
ON PEESECUTION. 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 be 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), have been ceaselessly
language, tJie 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 BATIONALISM IN EUKOPE.
knowledge are BO 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
spirit 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 Hceretico
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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