大学的理念：英文(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

作者：（英）纽曼（Newman,J. H.）

出版社：中国人民大学出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

大学的理念：英文试读：

出版说明

对于古今学问、中西思想的会通之难，王国维先生的感悟最为深切：“如执近世之哲学，以述古人之说，谓之弥缝古人之说则可，谓之忠于古人则恐未也……欲求其贯串统一，势不能不用语意更广之语；然语意愈广者，其语愈虚，于是古人之说之特质渐不可见，所存者其肤廓耳。译古书之难，全在于是。”今人之于古人的“以意逆志”尚且如此，又遑论国人之于西人？于是王国维先生认为“外国语中之无我国‘天’字之相当字，与我国语中之无God之相当字无以异”；经典之妙，“无论何人，不能精密译之”。

译事之难如是，中国人研读西学经典却不能不借助译本。译本或如业师，指点迷津、功不可没，然入门之后能否一窥堂奥，阡陌纵横如何辨知虚实，则不能不溯本求源。因而阅读原典、溯本求源、汲取学养为会通中西之要素之一。

在本书编委会专家、学者们的指导下，我们精选了西方历代名家经典著作的权威版本，辅之以中文

导读

本文库内容涵盖哲学、文学、历史学、法学、政治学、经济学、社会学、心理学、人类学等，力求满足相关领域专家、学者的学术需求，力求帮助学生开阔视野、涵养通识，同时也特别为外语教师、外语类大学生、外语学习者和外语爱好者提供便捷实用的参考资料。

世界之大，在于和而不同；学问之大，在于海纳百川；心灵之大，在于兼容并蓄。我们相信，“世界大师原典文库（中文导读插图版）”会成为各界读者阅读、研究和收藏的精神大餐。杨慧林 教授 （中国人民大学副校长、博士生导师）金莉 教授（北京外国语大学副校长、博士生导师）2012年9月导读郭英剑《大学的理念》（The Idea of a University）是一部阐释教育哲学思想的演讲集，更是一部语言优美且言简意赅、思想深刻又发人深省、影响深远而令人难忘的经典演讲录。

有人把The Idea of a University翻译作“大学的理想”，这没有错，作者在这里所使用的“idea”一词，的确是有“ideal”（理想）的意思。但就我个人理解而言，更倾向于使用“大学的理念”，也认为这个翻译更为合适一些，因为它确实是在讨论理想的大学应该具有怎样的教育理念与措施。《大学的理念》的作者是英国著名的牧师、神学家、文人、思想家、教育家约翰 亨利 纽曼（John Henry Newman）。纽曼在宗教、哲学等领域的建树和成就我们忽略不谈，主要来考察一下他在大学教育上有着怎样的思路和理念，又是如何影响当今高等教育的。

除了教会组织外，大学算得上是在纽曼一生当中与其关系最为密切的机构了。他1801年2月21日出生于英国的伦敦。16岁进入牛津大学（Oxford University），19岁毕业。他后来一直在为教会工作，即便是在大学期间也不例外，后成为宗教领袖，有红衣主教的身份。

1851年，对纽曼来说是个重要的年份。因为在这一年的11月12日，也就是他50岁的时候，他被爱尔兰主教任命为爱尔兰天主教大学（Catholic University of Ireland）——也就是现在的都柏林大学学院（University College,Dublin）——的创校校长（founding rector）。

3年之后的1854年11月，爱尔兰天主教大学正式创建。正是在这期间，纽曼做了很多有关高等教育特别是大学教育的演讲。后来，他将这些演讲结集出版，于是就有了《大学的理念》。

但令人遗憾的是，在该校建校整整4年后的1858年11月12日，由于对宗教领袖干涉大学事务的不满，纽曼辞去了该校校长一职。1890年8月11日，纽曼在英国伯明翰去世。

在今天的高等教育研究中，纽曼及其对大学的思考是个绕不过的门槛。那么，一本已经超过150年历史的演讲集，要有怎样闪光的思想光芒才能使其依旧照耀在今天的大学上空呢？

可以说，《大学的理念》几乎涵盖了纽曼所有有关大学的哲学思考，其中提出了很多在当时的欧洲高等教育中所面临的重大问题，比如宗教在大学中的地位、大学中的道德观、人文教育与职业教育的冲突、学术社区的特征、文学的文化作用以及宗教与科学的关系等等。但就历史背景而言，纽曼及其大学教育观的出现不是偶然的。

纽曼处于欧洲高等教育历史转折点上。当时，有多种思潮和现实的力量交织在一起，迫使高等教育面临着前所未有的危机和挑战。政治革命所带来的政治自由逐渐兴盛，宗教的影响力日渐减弱，科学技术的地位扶摇直上，而这些都对大学及其教育产生了重大影响。在这种变化面前，一方面是传统的大学（如牛津和剑桥）固守传统只重智性的培养而排斥科学，而另一方面新型大学则以市场为导向唯职业教育为马首抛弃了知识的整体性。

恰在这样的历史关头，作为人文主义者的纽曼，以其渊博的知识、丰富的经验和深刻的洞察力，全面阐述了大学教育中所面临的种种问题，给出了详实的答案。

那么，纽曼在书中所阐述的大学教育理念甚多，难以一一道来。但我们可以试着追问的是：就其整体思想而言，哪些是纽曼理念中最重要最根本的观念？而这些最重要、最根本的观念，与当今的高等教育有着怎样的联系？特别在顶尖的世界大学中又发挥着怎样的作用？

在我看来，就其最现代的意义而言，《大学的理念》所具有的永恒的价值，主要体现在纽曼的三个最基本的问题以及他所提供的答案上，即：大学是个什么地方；为什么要学习知识；大学应该提供什么样的教育。

纽曼所提出的“大学是个什么地方”这样一个看似简单的问题，无疑直指大学的核心问题。

纽曼问道，大学是个什么地方呢？他（在“序言”中）对此的回答是，大学“是一个传授普遍知识的地方”（a University…is a place of teaching universal knowledge.）。他在进一步的阐释中说，最重要的是，大学是学者、教师和学生共同追求真理的社区。而为了强调这一点，纽曼甚至强调指出，所有的大学都是教学机构（teaching organisations），讲究的是“知识的传播与延伸而非发展”。在他看来，“在教学与研究之间”没有必然的关联。发现（discovery）与教学（teaching）各有自己的功能，两者属于不同的天赋才能，不大容易统一在一个人的身上。

当然，后来他的这一观点，在洪堡所倡导的大学教育一统欧洲江山的时候，以及到了美国19世纪中期的时候，很快就显得“落伍”了，也被新型的大学教育观念所取代——新型的大学都强调教学与研究之间的紧密关系，但很显然，纽曼所强调的教学本身是大学的第一功能，仍然是强大的和行之有效的。

而必须看到的是，他所提出的“大学是个什么地方”，到如今，依旧是世界范围内的大学在前进的道路上所必须面对的问题。2007年10月，新任哈佛大学校长德鲁 福斯特（Drew Faust）在就职演讲中也对“大学是个什么地方”做出了思考。她说，大学是一个“思想共同体”。应当首先明确一所大学的精神所在，然后就应该知道大学是做什么的了。她提出的观点是，大学要对历史和未来负责——而不单单或者仅仅对现在负责，大学是要对永恒做出承诺。而在此基础上，她进一步指出，作为人类，我们要去寻找意义，这就是所有学问的真谛。

像哈佛大学这样已经办了370多年的大学还在思考纽曼所提出的问题，而且就其根本意义而言，所得出的答案并未出其右者，已经足见纽曼的远见卓识了。

纽曼对“为什么要学习知识”的回答干脆而简洁。他认为，在大学教育中，知识本身就是目的，追求知识不是为了别的，就是为了知识本身。换句话说，学习就是为了追求知识本身的力量，而不是为了其他实用的和功利主义的目的和价值。

但我们需要明确说明的是，他所以这么说，并不是为了纯粹的研究，而是为了人的个性发展。他认为，追求真理是教育理想的一部分，而这种教育理想能够对一个有教养的人的性格培养产生影响，而这与道德教育和宗教教育很难完全分得开。因此，大学是“教育而非教学的场所”，大学的根本意图是在智性（intelligence）与教育。

那么，如何才能做到让学生安心于知识本身的学习呢？他为此提供了具体的方案，即课程设置要以人文学科为主，要提供“人文教育”（liberal education），因为“人文教育”代表着一种最高境界。

纽曼在其演讲中，把“人文教育”与“职业教育”（commercial or professional education）分得一清二楚。他认为大学是传授“普遍知识”的地方，专业性的培训尽管有其实用的地方，但也应该让位于更广阔的人文教育。

据此而言，在这样的大学中，学生该怎样看待大学？又该怎么做呢？纽曼认为，对于大学生来说，大学不是一个单纯传播信息或是专门知识的地方，而是一个小社会，是学生要在其中去汲取和收获诸如优雅与辉煌这样具有更高生命形态的地方。在大学之中，追逐知识与意义，是属于更广阔的文化中的一部分。一个人不仅要“了解”（know）事物，还要接受这事物背后的一切。

纽曼的这些理想，后来被诸如马修 阿诺德（Matthew Arnold）发扬光大，也成为后来英国大学教育的重要特征，即教育应该是培养通才，而非狭隘的专业性人才。那些非职业性的看似无用的科目——如艺术的或是纯科学的——则能对培养人的心智有益，并能使之适应更广泛的工作。

应该说，在提倡“人文教育”传统的问题上，纽曼既继承了欧洲高等教育文化的精髓，也成为纽曼的教育理念与当代高等教育对接的重要支柱。

我们都知道，西方现代意义上高等教育的功用，除了宗教的因素外，最初就是缘起于人文学科的功能，而所谓人文学科，就是注重学习和研究文学、哲学、历史与艺术等这些看似无用的科目。这样的教育理念，在欧洲已经沿袭了上百年甚至数百年。

然而，随着现代科学技术的迅猛发展，人文学科在大学中的地位乃至人文教育的作用，不断受到来自大学内外的人士的质疑，因为现在的人们，越来越多地使用是否“实用”来衡量一切。因此，在是否要坚持人文教育的问题上，呈现的就是两种不同的教育理念。

那么，当代世界一流大学是如何承继了纽曼的思想呢？我们不妨来看看在外人看来特别讲求实用的美国大学是怎样看待这个问题的。加州大学伯克利分校（UC Berkeley）文理学院在阐释“为什么学习人文？”的问题时，是这么说的，“大学所授予的学位是某一特定领域的，但生活却是不分专业的。无论我们的社会多么发达，我们都必需反省人生，甄别善恶，区分正义与非正义，从有用之中辨别出高贵与美。”因此，“人文教育为学生未来迎接现实生活的挑战所做的准备，是那些职业学院常常无法提供的。”哈佛大学校长德鲁 福斯特对此有更加明确的阐释。她说，教育不是一个把各种事实（facts）塞满大脑的过程，对于大学教育来说，冲破头脑中现实的束缚至关重要。不能忘记的是，教育，特别是高等教育，对人的教育与影响应该是深远的。应该说，这样的理念与纽曼在演讲中所阐述的观点有一脉相承的关系。

当然，对纽曼所提出的三个问题的讨论，从纽曼时代一直持续到今天为止，也还没有（应该也不会有）一个统一的定论。但从这些问题的讨论中，无论支持者还是反对者都至少会承认纽曼及其《大学的理念》的当代性和经典意义。

在阅读《大学的理念》时，还有一点不能不提，那就是这本演讲集的文学价值。应该承认，虽然《大学的理念》的当代性与经典意义备受关注，但所以为时人和后人津津乐道，其文学价值也功不可没。

可能并不是所有人都知道，纽曼还是一位著名的文学家，创作有自传《生命之歌》（Apologia Pro Vita Sua，1865—1866），诗歌《哲朗提斯之梦》（The Dream of Gerontius，1865）等优秀的文学作品。就《大学的理念》而言，纽曼最大的特征是文笔极好（或者说是口才极佳），堪称非常出色的散文家（或者演说家）。

下面，我摘录两小段原文，从它们所讨论的有关大学是个什么地方、大学教师应该对学生产生何种影响的文字中，我们可以体味到，作为一名教育家，纽曼丰富而深刻的思想是怎样从他优雅的表达和漂亮的文笔中自然而然地流露出来的：

The view taken of a University in these Discourses is the following.— That it is a place of teaching universal knowledge.This implies that its object is,on the one hand,intellectual,not moral;and,on the other,that it is the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than the advancement.If its object were scientific and philosophical discovery,I do not see why a University should have students;if religious training,I do not see how it can be the seat of literature and science.（见“序言”）

An academical system without the personal influence of teachers upon pupils,is an arctic winter;it will create an ice-bound,petrified,cast-iron University,and nothing else.（见“大学的兴起与进展”）

像这样散落着真知灼见的优美的文字和词句，在《大学的理念》中可以说随处可见。作为一名教育家，在阐述自己思想的时候，能够用如此优美的散文表达出来，或许只有纽曼可以做得到。

或许，这就是纽曼何以伟大、《大学的理念》何以成为当代教育家谁也绕不过去的大学读本的原因所在。2012年9月郭英剑，男，英语语言文学博士，美国宾夕法尼亚大学比较文学博士后，现任中央民族大学外语学院院长、教授、博士生导师。郭英剑教授主要从事英美文学、文学翻译、 英语教学、比较文学研究和高等教育研究。

Preface

The view taken of a University in these Discourses is the following: —That it is a place of teaching universal knowledge.This implies that its object is,on the one hand,intellectual,not moral;and,on the other,that it is the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than the advancement.If its object were scientific and philosophical discovery,I do not see why a University should have students;if religious training,I do not see how it can be the seat of literature and science.

Such is a University in its essence,and independently of its relation to the Church.But,practically speaking,it cannot fulfil its object duly,such as I have described it,without the Church’s assistance;or,to use the theological term,the Church is necessary for its integrity.Not that its main characters are changed by this incorporation: it still has the office of intellectual education;but the Church steadies it in the performance of that office.

Such are the main principles of the Discourses which follow;though it would be unreasonable for me to expect that I have treated so large and important a field of thought with the fulness and precision necessary to secure me from incidental misconceptions of my meaning on the part of the reader.It is true,there is nothing novel or singular in the argument which I have been pursuing,but this does not protect me from such misconceptions;for the very circumstance that the views I have been delineating are not original with me may lead to false notions as to my relations in opinion towards those from whom I happened in the first instance to learn them,and may cause me to be interpreted by the objects or sentiments of schools to which I should be simply opposed.

For instance,some persons may be tempted to complain,that I have servilely followed the English idea of a University,to the disparagement of that Knowledge which I profess to be so strenuously upholding;and they may anticipate that an academical system,formed upon my model,will result in nothing better or higher than in the production of that antiquated variety of human nature and remnant of feudalism,as they consider it,called“a gentleman.”Now,I have anticipated this charge in various parts of my discussion;if,however,any Catholic is found to prefer it (and to Catholics of course this Volume is primarily addressed),I would have him first of all ask himself the previous question,what he conceives to be the reason contemplated by the Holy See in recommending just now to the Irish Hierarchy the establishment of a Catholic University? Has the Supreme Pontiff recommended it for the sake of the Sciences,which are to be the matter,and not rather of the Students,who are to be the subjects,of its teaching? Has he any obligation or duty at all towards secular knowledge as such? Would it become his Apostolical Ministry,and his descent from the Fisherman,to have a zeal for the Baconian or other philosophy of man for its own sake? Is the Vicar of Christ bound by office or by vow to be the preacher of the theory of gravitation,or a martyr for electro-magnetism? Would he be acquitting himself of the dispensation committed to him if he were smitten with an abstract love of these matters,however true,or beautiful,or ingenious,or useful? Or rather,does he not contemplate such achievements of the intellect,as far as he contemplates them,solely and simply in their relation to the interests of Revealed Truth? Surely,what he does he does for the sake of Religion;if he looks with satisfaction on strong temporal governments,which promise perpetuity,it is for the sake of Religion;and if he encourages and patronizes art and science,it is for the sake of Religion.He rejoices in the widest and most philosophical systems of intellectual education,from an intimate conviction that Truth is his real ally,as it is his profession;and that Knowledge and Reason are sure ministers to Faith.

This being undeniable,it is plain that,when he suggests to the Irish Hierarchy the establishment of a University,his first and chief and direct object is,not science,art,professional skill,literature,the discovery of knowledge,but some benefit or other,to accrue,by means of literature and science,to his own children;not indeed their formation on any narrow or fantastic type,as,for instance,that of an“English Gentleman”may be called,but their exercise and growth in certain habits,moral or intellectual.Nothing short of this can be his aim,if,as becomes the Successor of the Apostles,he is to be able to say with St.Paul,“Non judicavi me scire aliquid inter vos,nisi Jesum Christum,et hunc crucifixum.”Just as a commander wishes to have tall and well-formed and vigorous soldiers,not from any abstract devotion to the military standard of height or age,but for the purposes of war,and no one thinks it any thing but natural and praiseworthy in him to be contemplating,not abstract qualities,but his own living and breathing men;so,in like manner,when the Church founds a University,she is not cherishing talent,genius,or knowledge,for their own sake,but for the sake of her children,with a view to their spiritual welfare and their religious influence and usefulness,with the object of training them to fill their respective posts in life better,and of making them more intelligent,capable,active members of society.

Nor can it justly be said that in thus acting she sacrifices Science,and,under a pretence of fulfilling the duties of her mission,perverts a University to ends not its own,as soon as it is taken into account that there are other institutions far more suited to act as instruments of stimulating philosophical inquiry,and extending the boundaries of our knowledge,than a University.Such,for instance,are the literary and scientific“Academies,”which are so celebrated in Italy and France,and which have frequently been connected with Universities,as committees,or,as it were,congregations or delegacies subordinate to them.Thus the present Royal Society originated in Charles the Second’s time,in Oxford;such just now are the Ashmolean and Architectural Societies in the same seat of learning,which have risen in our own time.Such,too,is the British Association,a migratory body,which at least at times is found in the halls of the Protestant Universities of the United Kingdom,and the faults of which lie,not in its exclusive devotion to science,but in graver matters which it is irrelevant here to enter upon.Such again is the Antiquarian Society,the Royal Academy for the Fine Arts,and others which might be mentioned.This,then,is the sort of institution,which primarily contemplates Science itself,and not students;and,in thus speaking,I am saying nothing of my own,being supported by no less an authority than Cardinal Gerdil.“Ce n’est pas,”he says,“qu’il y ait aucune véritable opposition entre l’esprit des Académies et celui des Universités;ce sont seulement des vues differéntes.Les Universités sont établies pour enseigner les sciences aux élèves qui veulent s’y former;les Académies se proposent de nouvelles recherches à faire dans la carrière des sciences.Les Universités d’Italie ont fourni des sujets qui ont fait honneur aux Académies;et celles-ci ont donné aux Universités des Professeurs,qui ont rempli les chaires avec la plus grande distinction.”

The nature of the case and the history of philosophy combine to recommend to us this division of intellectual labour between Academies and Universities.To discover and to teach are distinct functions;they are also distinct gifts,and are not commonly found united in the same person.He,too,who spends his day in dispensing his existing knowledge to all comers is unlikely to have either leisure or energy to acquire new.The common sense of mankind has associated the search after truth with seclusion and quiet.The greatest thinkers have been too intent on their subject to admit of interruption;they have been men of absent minds and idosyncratic habits,and have,more or less,shunned the lecture room and the public school.Pythagoras,the light of Magna Græcia,lived for a time in a cave.Thales,the light of Ionia,lived unmarried and in private,and refused the invitations of princes.Plato withdrew from Athens to the groves of Academus.Aristotle gave twenty years to a studious discipleship under him.Friar Bacon lived in his tower upon the Isis.Newton indulged in an intense severity of meditation which almost shook his reason.The great discoveries in chemistry and electricity were not made in Universities.Observatories are more frequently out of Universities than in them,and even when within their bounds need have no moral connexion with them.Porson had no classes;Elmsley lived good part of his life in the country.I do not say that there are not great examples the other way,perhaps Socrates,certainly Lord Bacon;still I think it must be allowed on the whole that,while teaching involves external engagements,the natural home for experiment and speculation is retirement.伟大的思想家都曾或多或少逃避过课堂或公校。柏拉图（公元前427—公元前347，希腊伟大哲学家）离开雅典，退隐到了阿卡德摩。

Returning,then,to the consideration of the question,from which I may seem to have digressed,thus much I think I have made good,—that,whether or no a Catholic University should put before it,as its great object,to make its students“gentlemen,”still to make them something or other is its great object,and not simply to protect the interests and advance the dominion of Science.If,then,this may be taken for granted,as I think it may,the only point which remains to be settled is,whether I have formed a probable conception of the sort of benefit which the Holy See has intended to confer on Catholics who speak the English tongue by recommending to the Irish Hierarchy the establishment of a University;and this I now proceed to consider.古希腊数学家、哲学家毕达哥拉斯（公元前572—公元前497）曾经隐居在山洞中一段时间。泰勒斯（约公元前624—约公元前547）一直安静地过自己的生活，甚至一度拒绝了王子的邀请。

Here,then,it is natural to ask those who are interested in the question,whether any better interpretation of the recommendation of the Holy See can be given than that which I have suggested in this Volume.Certainly it does not seem to me rash to pronounce that,whereas Protestants have great advantages of education in the Schools,Colleges,and Universities of the United Kingdom,our ecclesiastical rulers have it in purpose that Catholics should enjoy the like advantages,whatever they are,to the full.I conceive they view it as prejudicial to the interests of Religion that there should be any cultivation of mind bestowed upon Protestants which is not given to their own youth also.As they wish their schools for the poorer and middle classes to be at least on a par with those of Protestants,they contemplate the same object also as regards that higher education which is given to comparatively the few.Protestant youths,who can spare the time,continue their studies till the age of twentyone or twenty-two;thus they employ a time of life all-important and especially favourable to mental culture.I conceive that our Prelates are impressed with the fact and its consequences,that a youth who ends his education at seventeen is no match (cæteris paribus) for one who ends it at twenty-two.

All classes indeed of the community are impressed with a fact so obvious as this.The consequence is,that Catholics who aspire to be on a level with Protestants in discipline and refinement of intellect have recourse to Protestant Universities to obtain what they cannot find at home.Assuming (as the Rescripts from Propaganda allow me to do) that Protestant education is inexpedient for our youth,—we see here an additional reason why those advantages,whatever they are,which Protestant communities dispense through the medium of Protestantism should be accessible to Catholics in a Catholic form.

What are these advantages? I repeat,they are in one word the culture of the intellect.Robbed,oppressed,and thrust aside,Catholics in these islands have not been in a condition for centuries to attempt the sort of education which is necessary for the man of the world,the statesman,the landholder,or the opulent gentleman.Their legitimate stations,duties,employments,have been taken from them,and the qualifications withal,social and intellectual,which are necessary both for reversing the forfeiture and for availing themselves of the reversal.The time is come when this moral disability must be removed.Our desideratum is,not the manners and habits of gentlemen;—these can be,and are,acquired in various other ways,by good society,by foreign travel,by the innate grace and dignity of the Catholic mind;—but the force,the steadiness,the comprehensiveness and the versatility of intellect,the command over our own powers,the instinctive just estimate of things as they pass before us,which sometimes indeed is a natural gift,but commonly is not gained without much effort and the exercise of years.

This is real cultivation of mind;and I do not deny that the characteristic excellences of a gentleman are included in it.Nor need we be ashamed that they should be,since the poet long ago wrote,that“Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores.”Certainly a liberal education does manifest itself in a courtesy,propriety,and polish of word and action,which is beautiful in itself,and acceptable to others;but it does much more.It brings the mind into form,—for the mind is like the body.Boys outgrow their shape and their strength;their limbs have to be knit together,and their constitution needs tone.Mistaking animal spirits for vigour,and over-confident in their health,ignorant what they can bear and how to manage themselves,they are immoderate and extravagant;and fall into sharp sicknesses.This is an emblem of their minds;at first they have no principles laid down within them as a foundation for the intellect to build upon: they have no discriminating convictions,and no grasp of consequences.And therefore they talk at random,if they talk much,and cannot help being flippant,or what is emphatically called“young.”They are merely dazzled by phenomena,instead of perceiving things as they are.

It were well if none remained boys all their lives;but what is more common than the sight of grown men,talking on political or moral or religious subjects,in that offhand,idle way,which we signify by the word unreal?“That they simply do not know what they are talking about”is the spontaneous silent remark of any man of sense who hears them.Hence such persons have no difficulty in contradicting themselves in successive sentences,without being conscious of it.Hence others,whose defect in intellectual training is more latent,have their most unfortunate crotchets,as they are called,or hobbies,which deprive them of the influence which their estimable qualities would otherwise secure.Hence others can never look straight before them,never see the point,and have no difficulties in the most difficult subjects.Others are hopelessly obstinate and prejudiced,and,after they have been driven from their opinions,return to them the next moment without even an attempt to explain why.Others are so intemperate and intractable that there is no greater calamity for a good cause than that they should get hold of it.It is very plain from the very particulars I have mentioned that,in this delineation of intellectual infirmities,I am drawing,not from Catholics,but from the world at large;I am referring to an evil which is forced upon us in every railway carriage,in every coffee-room or table-d’hôte,in every mixed company,an evil,however,to which Catholics are not less exposed than the rest of mankind.

When the intellect has once been properly trained and formed to have a connected view or grasp of things,it will display its powers with more or less effect according to its particular quality and capacity in the individual.In the case of most men it makes itself felt in the good sense,sobriety of thought,reasonableness,candour,self-command,and steadiness of view,which characterize it.In some it will have developed habits of business,power of influencing others,and sagacity.In others it will elicit the talent of philosophical speculation,and lead the mind forward to eminence in this or that intellectual department.In all it will be a faculty of entering with comparative ease into any subject of thought,and of taking up with aptitude any science or profession.All this it will be and will do in a measure,even when the mental formation be made after a model but partially true;for,as far as effectiveness goes,even false views of things have more influence and inspire more respect than no views at all.Men who fancy they see what is not are more energetic,and make their way better,than those who see nothing;and so the undoubting infidel,the fanatic,the heresiarch,are able to do much,while the mere hereditary Christian,who has never realized the truths which he holds,is unable to do any thing.But,if consistency of view can add so much strength even to error,what may it not be expected to furnish to the dignity,the energy,and the influence of Truth!

Some one,however,will perhaps object that I am but advocating that spurious philosophism,which shows itself in what,for want of a word,I may call“viewiness,”when I speak so much of the formation,and consequent grasp,of the intellect.It may be said that the theory of University Education,which I have been delineating,if acted upon,would teach youths nothing soundly or thoroughly,and would dismiss them with nothing better than brilliant general views about all things whatever.

This indeed,if well founded,would be a most serious objection to what I have advanced in this Volume,and would demand my immediate attention,had I any reason to think that I could not remove it at once,by a simple explanation of what I consider the true mode of educating,were this the place to do so.But these Discourses are directed simply to the consideration of the aims and principles of Education.Suffice it,then,to say here,that I hold very strongly that the first step in intellectual training is to impress upon a boy’s mind the idea of science,method,order,principle,and system;of rule and exception,of richness and harmony.This is commonly and excellently done by making him begin with Grammar;nor can too great accuracy,or minuteness and subtlety of teaching be used towards him,as his faculties expand,with this simple purpose.Hence it is that critical scholarship is so important a discipline for him when he is leaving school for the University.A second science is the Mathematics: this should follow Grammar,still with the same object,viz.,to give him a conception of development and arrangement from and around a common centre.Hence it is that Chronology and Geography are so necessary for him,when he reads History,which is otherwise little better than a story-book.Hence,too,Metrical Composition,when he reads Poetry;in order to stimulate his powers into action in every practicable way,and to prevent a merely passive reception of images and ideas which in that case are likely to pass out of the mind as soon as they have entered it.Let him once gain this habit of method,of starting from fixed points,of making his ground good as he goes,of distinguishing what he knows from what he does not know,and I conceive he will be gradually initiated into the largest and truest philosophical views,and will feel nothing but impatience and disgust at the random theories and imposing sophistries and dashing paradoxes,which carry away half-formed and superficial intellects.

Such parti-coloured ingenuities are indeed one of the chief evils of the day,and men of real talent are not slow to minister to them.An intellectual man,as the world now conceives of him,is one who is full of“views”on all subjects of philosophy,on all matters of the day.It is almost thought a disgrace not to have a view at a moment’s notice on any question from the Personal Advent to the Cholera or Mesmerism.This is owing in great measure to the necessities of periodical literature,now so much in request.Every quarter of a year,every month,every day,there must be a supply,for the gratification of the public,of new and luminous theories on the subjects of religion,foreign politics,home politics,civil economy,finance,trade,agriculture,emigration,and the colonies.Slavery,the gold fields,German philosophy,the French Empire,Wellington,Peel,Ireland,must all be practised on,day after day,by what are called original thinkers.As the great man’s guest must produce his good stories or songs at the evening banquet,as the platform orator exhibits his telling facts at mid-day,so the journalist lies under the stern obligation of extemporizing his lucid views,leading ideas,and nutshell truths for the breakfast table.The very nature of periodical literature,broken into small wholes,and demanded punctually to an hour,involves the habit of this extempore philosophy.“Almost all the Ramblers,”says Boswell of Johnson,“were written just as they were wanted for the press;he sent a certain portion of the copy of an essay,and wrote the remainder while the former part of it was printing.”Few men have the gifts of Johnson,who to great vigour and resource of intellect,when it was fairly roused,united a rare common-sense and a conscientious regard for veracity,which preserved him from flippancy or extravagance in writing.Few men are Johnsons;yet how many men at this day are assailed by incessant demands on their mental powers,which only a productiveness like his could suitably supply! There is a demand for a reckless originality of thought,and a sparkling plausibility of argument,which he would have despised,even if he could have displayed;a demand for crude theory and unsound philosophy,rather than none at all.It is a sort of repetition of the“Quid novi?”of the Areopagus,and it must have an answer.Men must be found who can treat,where it is necessary,like the Athenian sophist,de omni scibili,

“Gram m aticus,Rhetor,Geom etres,Pictor,Aliptes,

Augur,Schœnobates,Medicus,Magus,om nia novit.”

I am speaking of such writers with a feeling of real sympathy for men who are under the rod of a cruel slavery.I have never indeed been in such circumstances myself,nor in the temptations which they involve;but most men who have had to do with composition must know the distress which at times it occasions them to have to write—a distress sometimes so keen and so specific that it resembles nothing else than bodily pain.That pain is the token of the wear and tear of mind;and,if works done comparatively at leisure involve such mental fatigue and exhaustion,what must be the toil of those whose intellects are to be flaunted daily before the public in full dress,and that dress ever new and varied,and spun,like the silkworm’s,out of themselves! Still whatever true sympathy we may feel for the ministers of this dearly purchased luxury,and whatever sense we may have of the great intellectual power which the literature in question displays,we cannot honestly close our eyes to its direct evil.

One other remark suggests itself,which is the last I shall think it necessary to make.The authority,which in former times was lodged in Universities,now resides in very great measure in that literary world,as it is called,to which I have been referring.This is not satisfactory,if,as no one can deny,its teaching be so offhand,so ambitious,so changeable.It increases the seriousness of the mischief,that so very large a portion of its writers are anonymous,for irresponsible power never can be any thing but a great evil;and,moreover,that,even when they are known,they can give no better guarantee for the philosophical truth of their principles than their popularity at the moment,and their happy conformity in ethical character to the age which admires them.Protestants,however,may do as they will: it is a matter for their own consideration;but at least it concerns us that our own literary tribunals and oracles of moral duty should bear a graver character.At least it is a matter of deep solicitude to Catholic Prelates that their people should be taught a wisdom,safe from the excesses and vagaries of individuals,embodied in institutions which have stood the trial and received the sanction of ages,and administered by men who have no need to be anonymous,as being supported by their consistency with their predecessors and with each other.

November 21.1852.约翰 亨利 纽曼（1801—1890）



University Teaching

DiscourseⅠIntroductory

In addressing myself,Gentlemen,to the consideration of a question which has excited so much interest,and elicited so much discussion at the present day,as that of University Education,I feel some explanation is due from me for supposing,after such high ability and wide experience have been brought to bear upon it,that any field remains for the additional labours either of a disputant or of an inquirer.If,nevertheless,I still venture to ask permission to continue the discussion,already so protracted,it is because the subject of Liberal Education,and of the principles on which it must be conducted,has ever had a hold upon my own mind;and because I have lived the greater part of my life in a place which has all that time been occupied in a series of controversies both domestic and with strangers,and of measures,experimental or definitive,bearing upon it.About fifty years since,the English University,of which I was so long a member,after a century of inactivity,at length was roused,at a time when (as I may say) it was giving no education at all to the youth committed to its keeping,to a sense of the responsibilities which its profession and its station involved,and it presents to us the singular example of an heterogeneous and an independent body of men,setting about a work of self-reformation,not from any pressure of public opinion,but because it was fitting and right to undertake it.Its initial efforts,begun and carried on amid many obstacles,were met from without,as often happens in such cases,by ungenerous and jealous criticisms,which,at the very moment that they were urged,were beginning to be unjust.Controversy did but bring out more clearly to its own apprehension the views on which its reformation was proceeding,and throw them into a philosophical form.The course of beneficial change made progress,and what was at first but the result of individual energy and an act of the academical corporation,gradually became popular,and was taken up and carried out by the separate collegiate bodies,of which the University is composed.This was the first stage of the controversy.Years passed away,and then political adversaries arose against it,and the system of education which it had established was a second time assailed;but still,since that contest was conducted for the most part through the medium,not of political acts,but of treatises and pamphlets,it happened as before that the threatened dangers,in the course of their repulse,did but afford fuller development and more exact delineation to the principles of which the University was the representative.

In the former of these two controversies the charge brought against its studies was their remoteness from the occupations and duties of life,to which they are the formal introduction,or,in other words,their inutility;in the latter,it was their connexion with a particular form of belief,or,in other words,their religious exclusiveness.

Living then so long as a witness,though hardly as an actor,in these scenes of intellectual conflict,I am able to bear witness to views of University Education,without authority indeed in themselves,but not without value to a Catholic,and less familiar to him,as I conceive,than they deserve to be.And,while an argument originating in the controversies to which I have referred,may be serviceable at this season to that great cause in which we are here so especially interested,to me personally it will afford satisfaction of a peculiar kind;for,though it has been my lot for many years to take a prominent,sometimes a presumptuous,part in theological discussions,yet the natural turn of my mind carries me off to trains of thought like those which I am now about to open,which,important though they be for Catholic objects,and admitting of a Catholic treatment,are sheltered from the extreme delicacy and peril which attach to disputations directly bearing on the subject-matter of Divine Revelation.2.

There are several reasons why I should open the discussion with a reference to the lessons with which past years have supplied me.One reason is this: It would concern me,Gentlemen,were I supposed to have got up my opinions for the occasion.This,indeed,would have been no reflection on me personally,supposing I were persuaded of their truth,when at length addressing myself to the inquiry;but it would have destroyed,of course,the force of my testimony,and deprived such arguments,as I might adduce,of that moral persuasiveness which attends on tried and sustained conviction.It would have made me seem the advocate,rather than the cordial and deliberate maintainer and witness,of the doctrines which I was to support;and,though it might be said to evidence the faith I reposed in the practical judgment of the Church,and the intimate concurrence of my own reason with the course she had authoritatively sanctioned,and the devotion with which I could promptly put myself at her disposal,it would have cast suspicion on the validity of reasonings and conclusions which rested on no independent inquiry,and appealed to no past experience.In that case it might have been plausibly objected by opponents that I was the serviceable expedient of an emergency,and never,after all,could be more than ingenious and adroit in the management of an argument which was not my own,and which I was sure to forget again as readily as I had mastered it.But this is not so.The views to which I have referred have grown into my whole system of thought,and are,as it were,part of myself.Many changes has my mind gone through: here it has known no variation or vacillation of opinion,and though this by itself is no proof of the truth of my principles,it puts a seal upon conviction,and is a justification of earnestness and zeal.Those principles,which I am now to set forth under the sanction of the Catholic Church,were my profession at that early period of my life,when religion was to me more a matter of feeling and experience than of faith.They did but take greater hold upon me,as I was introduced to the records of Christian Antiquity,and approached in sentiment and desire to Catholicism;and my sense of their correctness has been increased with the events of every year since I have been brought within its pale.

And here I am brought to a second and more important reason for referring,on this occasion,to the conclusions at which Protestants have arrived on the subject of Liberal Education;and it is as follows: Let it be observed,then,that the principles on which I would conduct the inquiry are attainable,as I have already implied,by the mere experience of life.They do not come simply of theology;they imply no supernatural discernment;they have no special connexion with Revelation;they almost arise out of the nature of the case;they are dictated even by human prudence and wisdom,though a divine illumination be absent,and they are recognized by common sense,even where self-interest is not present to quicken it;and,therefore,though true,and just,and good in themselves,they imply nothing whatever as to the religious profession of those who maintain them.They may be held by Protestants as well as by Catholics;nay,there is reason to anticipate that in certain times and places they will be more thoroughly investigated,and better understood,and held more firmly by Protestants than by ourselves.

It is natural to expect this from the very circumstance that the philosophy of Education is founded on truths in the natural order.Where the sun shines bright,in the warm climate of the south,the natives of the place know little of safeguards against cold and wet.They have,indeed,bleak and piercing blasts;they have chill and pouring rain,but only now and then,for a day or a week;they bear the inconvenience as they best may,but they have not made it an art to repel it;it is not worth their while;the science of calefaction and ventilation is reserved for the north.It is in this way that Catholics stand relatively to Protestants in the science of Education;Protestants depending on human means mainly,are led to make the most of them: their sole resource is to use what they have;“Knowledge is”their“power”and nothing else;they are the anxious cultivators of a rugged soil.It is otherwise with us;“funes ceciderunt mihi in prœclaris.”We have a goodly inheritance.This is apt to cause us—I do not mean to rely too much on prayer,and the Divine Blessing,for that is impossible;but we sometimes forget that we shall please Him best,and get most from Him,when,according to the Fable,we“put our shoulder to the wheel,”when we use what we have by nature to the utmost,at the same time that we look out for what is beyond nature in the confidence of faith and hope.However,we are sometimes tempted to let things take their course,as if they would in one way or another turn up right at last for certain;and so we go on,living from hand to mouth,getting into difficulties and getting out of them,succeeding certainly on the whole,but with failure in detail which might be avoided,and with much of imperfection or inferiority in our appointments and plans,and much disappointment,discouragement,and collision of opinion in consequence.If this be in any measure the state of the case,there is certainly so far a reason for availing ourselves of the investigations and experience of those who are not Catholics,when we have to address ourselves to the subject of Liberal Education.

Nor is there surely any thing derogatory to the position of a Catholic in such a proceeding.The Church has ever appealed and deferred to witnesses and authorities external to herself,in those matters in which she thought they had means of forming a judgment: and that on the principle,Cuique in arte sua credendum.She has even used unbelievers and pagans in evidence of her truth,as far as their testimony went.She avails herself of scholars,critics,and antiquarians,who are not of her communion.She has worded her theological teaching in the phraseology of Aristotle;Aquila,Symmachus,Theodotion,Origen,Eusebius,and Apollinaris,all more or less heterodox,have supplied materials for primitive exegetics.St.Cyprian called Tertullian his master;St.Augustin refers to Ticonius;Bossuet,in modern times,complimented the labours of the Anglican Bull;the Benedictine editors of the Fathers are familiar with the labours of Fell,Ussher,Pearson,and Beveridge.Pope Benedict ⅩⅣ.cites according to the occasion the works of Protestants without reserve,and the late French collection of Christian Apologists contains the writings of Locke,Burnet,Tillotson,and Paley.If,then,I come forward in any degree as borrowing the views of certain Protestant schools on the point which is to be discussed,I do so,Gentlemen,as believing,first,that the Catholic Church has ever,in the plenitude of her divine illumination,made use of whatever truth or wisdom she has found in their teaching or their measures;and next,that in particular places or times her children are likely to profit from external suggestions or lessons,which have not been provided for them by herself.3.

And here I may mention a third reason for appealing at the outset to the proceedings of Protestant bodies in regard to Liberal Education.It will serve to intimate the mode in which I propose to handle my subject altogether.Observe then,Gentlemen,I have no intention,in any thing I shall say,of bringing into the argument the authority of the Church,or any authority at all;but I shall consider the question simply on the grounds of human reason and human wisdom.I am investigating in the abstract,and am determining what is in itself right and true.For the moment I know nothing,so to say,of history.I take things as I find them;I have no concern with the past;I find myself here;I set myself to the duties I find here;I set myself to further,by every means in my power,doctrines and views,true in themselves,recognized by Catholics as such,familiar to my own mind;and to do this quite apart from the consideration of questions which have been determined without me and before me.I am here the advocate and the minister of a certain great principle;yet not merely advocate and minister,else had I not been here at all.It has been my previous keen sense and hearty reception of that principle,that has been at once the reason,as I must suppose,of my being selected for this office,and is the cause of my accepting it.I am told on authority that a principle is expedient,which I have ever felt to be true.And I argue in its behalf on its own merits,the authority,which brings me here,being my opportunity for arguing,but not the ground of my argument itself.

And a fourth reason is here suggested for consulting the history of Protestant institutions,when I am going to speak of the object and nature of University Education.It will serve to remind you,Gentlemen,that I am concerned with questions,not simply of immutable truth,but of practice and expedience.It would ill have become me to undertake a subject,on which points of dispute have arisen among persons so far above me in authority and name,in relation to a state of society,about which I have so much to learn,if it involved an appeal to sacred truths,or the determination of some imperative rule of conduct.It would have been presumptuous in me so to have acted,nor am I so acting.Even the question of the union of Theology with the secular Sciences,which is its religious side,simple as it is of solution in the abstract,has,according to difference of circumstances,been at different times differently decided.Necessity has no law,and expedience is often one form of necessity.It is no principle with sensible men,of whatever cast of opinion,to do always what is abstractedly best.Where no direct duty forbids,we may be obliged to do,as being best under circumstances,what we murmur and rise against,while we do it.We see that to attempt more is to effect less;that we must accept so much,or gain nothing;and so perforce we reconcile ourselves to what we would have far otherwise,if we could.Thus a system of what is called secular Education,in which Theology and the Sciences are taught separately,may,in a particular place or time,be the least of evils;it may be of long standing;it may be dangerous to meddle with;it may be professedly a temporary arrangement;it may be under a process of improvement;its disadvantages may be neutralized by the persons by whom,or the provisions under which,it is administered.

Hence it was,that in the early ages the Church allowed her children to attend the heathen schools for the acquisition of secular accomplishments,where,as no one can doubt,evils existed,at least as great as can attend on Mixed Education now.The gravest Fathers recommended for Christian youth the use of Pagan masters;the most saintly Bishops and most authoritative Doctors had been sent in their adolescence by Christian parents to Pagan lecture halls.And,not to take other instances,at this very time,and in this very country,as regards at least the poorer classes of the community,whose secular acquirements ever must be limited,it has seemed best to the Irish Bishops,under the circumstances,to suffer the introduction into the country of a system of Mixed Education in the schools called National.Such a state of things,however,is passing away;as regards University education at least,the highest authority has now decided that the plan,which is abstractedly best,is in this time and country also most expedient.4.

And here I have an opportunity of recognizing once for all that higher view of approaching the subject of these Discourses,which,after this formal recognition,I mean to dispense with.Ecclesiastical authority,not argument,is the supreme rule and the appropriate guide for Catholics in matters of religion.It has always the right to interpose,and sometimes,in the conflict of parties and opinions,it is called on to exercise that right.It has lately exercised it in our own instance: it has interposed in favour of a pure University system for Catholic youth,forbidding compromise or accommodation of any kind.Of course its decision must be heartily accepted and obeyed,and that the more,because the decision proceeds,not simply from the Bishops of Ireland,great as their authority is,but the highest authority on earth,from the Chair of St.Peter.

Moreover,such a decision not only demands our submission,but has a claim upon our trust.It not only acts as a prohibition of any measures,but as an ipso facto confutation of any reasonings,inconsistent with it.It carries with it an earnest and an augury of its own expediency.For instance,I can fancy,Gentlemen,there may be some,among those who hear me,disposed to say that they are ready to acquit the principles of Education,which I am to advocate,of all fault whatever,except that of being impracticable.I can fancy them granting to me,that those principles are most correct and most obvious,simply irresistible on paper,but maintaining,nevertheless,that after all,they are nothing more than the dreams of men who live out of the world,and who do not see the difficulty of keeping Catholicism anyhow afloat on the bosom of this wonderful nineteenth century.Proved,indeed,those principles are,to demonstration,but they will not work.Nay,it was my own admission just now,that,in a particular instance,it might easily happen,that what is only second best is best practically,because what is actually best is out of the question.

This,I hear you say to yourselves,is the state of things at present.You recount in detail the numberless impediments,great and small,formidable or only vexatious,which at every step embarrass the attempt to carry out ever so poorly a principle in itself so true and ecclesiastical.You appeal in your defence to wise and sagacious intellects,who are far from enemies to Catholicism,or to the Irish Hierarchy,and you have no hope,or rather you absolutely disbelieve,that Education can possibly be conducted,here and now,on a theological principle,or that youths of different religions can,under the circumstances of the country,be educated apart from each other.The more you think over the state of politics,the position of parties,the feelings of classes,and the experience of the past,the more chimerical does it seem to you to aim at a University,of which Catholicity is the fundamental principle.Nay,even if the attempt could accidentally succeed,would not the mischief exceed the benefit of it? How great the sacrifices,in how many ways,by which it would be preceded and followed! How many wounds,open and secret,would it inflict upon the body politic! And,if it fails,which is to be expected,then a double mischief will ensue from its recognition of evils which it has been unable to remedy.These are your deep misgivings;and,in proportion to the force with which they come to you,is the concern and anxiety which you feel,that there should be those whom you love,whom you revere,who from one cause or other refuse to enter into them.5.

This,I repeat,is what some good Catholics will say to me,and more than this.They will express themselves better than I can speak for them in their behalf,—with more earnestness and point,with more force of argument and fulness of detail;and I will frankly and at once acknowledge,that I shall insist on the high theological view of a University without attempting to give a direct answer to their arguments against its present practicability.I do not say an answer cannot be given;on the contrary,I have a confident expectation that,in proportion as those objections are looked in the face,they will fade away.But,however this may be,it would not become me to argue the matter with those who understand the circumstances of the problem so much better than myself.What do I know of the state of things in Ireland,that I should presume to put ideas of mine,which could not be right except by accident,by the side of theirs,who speak in the country of their birth and their home? No,Gentlemen,you are natural judges of the difficulties which beset us,and they are doubtless greater than I can even fancy or forbode.Let me,for the sake of argument,admit all you say against our enterprise,and a great deal more.Your proof of its intrinsic impossibility shall be to me as cogent as my own of its theological advisableness.Why,then,should I be so rash and perverse as to involve myself in trouble not properly mine? Why go out of my own place? Why so headstrong and reckless as to lay up for myself miscarriage and disappointment,as though I were not sure to have enough of personal trial anyhow without going about to seek for it?

Reflections such as these would be decisive even with the boldest and most capable minds,but for one consideration.In the midst of our difficulties I have one ground of hope,just one stay,but,as I think,a sufficient one,which serves me in the stead of all other argument whatever,which hardens me against criticism,which supports me if I begin to despond,and to which I ever come round,when the question of the possible and the expedient is brought into discussion.It is the decision of the Holy See;St.Peter has spoken,it is he who has enjoined that which seems to us so unpromising.He has spoken,and has a claim on us to trust him.He is no recluse,no solitary student,no dreamer about the past,no doter upon the dead and gone,no projector of the visionary.He for eighteen hundred years has lived in the world;he has seen all fortunes,he has encountered all adversaries,he has shaped himself for all emergencies.If ever there was a power on earth who had an eye for the times,who has confined himself to the practicable,and has been happy in his anticipations,whose words have been facts,and whose commands prophecies,such is he in the history of ages,who sits from generation to generation in the Chair of the Apostles,as the Vicar of Christ,and the Doctor of His Church.6.

These are not the words of rhetoric,Gentlemen,but of history.All who take part with the Apostle,are on the winning side.He has long since given warrants for the confidence which he claims.From the first he has looked through the wide world,of which he has the burden;and,according to the need of the day,and the inspirations of his Lord,he has set himself now to one thing,now to another;but to all in season,and to nothing in vain.He came first upon an age of refinement and luxury like our own,and,in spite of the persecutor,fertile in the resources of his cruelty,he soon gathered,out of all classes of society,the slave,the soldier,the high-born lady,and the sophist,materials enough to form a people to his Master’s honour.The savage hordes come down in torrents from the north,and Peter went out to meet them,and by his very eye he sobered them,and backed them in their full career.They turned aside and flooded the whole earth,but only to be more surely civilized by him,and to be made ten times more his children even than the older populations which they had overwhelmed.Lawless kings arose,sagacious as the Roman,passionate as the Hun,yet in him they found their match,and were shattered,and he lived on.The gates of the earth were opened to the east and west,and men poured out to take possession;but he went with them by his missionaries,to China,to Mexico,carried along by zeal and charity,as far as those children of men were led by enterprise,covetousness,or ambition.Has he failed in his successes up to this hour? Did he,in our fathers’day,fail in his struggle with Joseph of Germany and his confederates,with Napoleon,a greater name,and his dependent kings,that,though in another kind of fight,he should fail in ours? What grey hairs are on the head of Judah,whose youth is renewed like the eagle’s,whose feet are like the feet of harts,and underneath the Everlasting arms?

In the first centuries of the Church all this practical sagacity of Holy Church was mere matter of faith,but every age,as it has come,has confirmed faith by actual sight;and shame on us,if,with the accumulated testimony of eighteen centuries,our eyes are too gross to see those victories which the Saints have ever seen by anticipation.Least of all can we,the Catholics of islands which have in the cultivation and diffusion of Knowledge heretofore been so singularly united under the auspices of the Apostolic See,least of all can we be the men to distrust its wisdom and to predict its failure,when it sends us on a similar mission now.I cannot forget that,at a time when Celt and Saxon were alike savage,it was the See of Peter that gave both of them,first faith,then civilization;and then again bound them together in one by the seal of a joint commission to convert and illuminate in their turn the pagan continent.I cannot forget how it was from Rome that the glorious St.Patrick was sent to Ireland,and did a work so great that he could not have a successor in it,the sanctity and learning and zeal and charity which followed on his death being but the result of the one impulse which he gave.I cannot forget how,in no long time,under the fostering breath of the Vicar of Christ,a country of heathen superstitions became the very wonder and asylum of all people,—the wonder by reason of its knowledge,sacred and profane,and the asylum of religion,literature and science,when chased away from the continent by the barbarian invaders.I recollect its hospitality,freely accorded to the pilgrim;its volumes munificently presented to the foreign student;and the prayers,the blessings,the holy rites,the solemn chants,which sanctified the while both giver and receiver.

Nor can I forget either,how my own England had meanwhile become the solicitude of the same unwearied eye: how Augustine was sent to us by Gregory;how he fainted in the way at the tidings of our fierceness,and,but for the Pope,would have shrunk as from an impossible expedition;how he was forced on“in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,”until he had achieved the conquest of the island to Christ.Nor,again,how it came to pass that,when Augustine died and his work slackened,another Pope,unwearied still,sent three saints from Rome,to ennoble and refine the people Augustine had converted.Three holy men set out for England together,of different nations: Theodore,an Asiatic Greek,from Tarsus;Adrian,an African;Bennett alone a Saxon,for Peter knows no distinction of races in his ecumenical work.They came with theology and science in their train;with relics,with pictures,with manuscripts of the Holy Fathers and the Greek classics;and Theodore and Adrian founded schools,secular and monastic,all over England,while Bennett brought to the north the large library he had collected in foreign parts,and,with plans and ornamental work from France,erected a church of stone,under the invocation of St.Peter,after the Roman fashion,“which,”says the historian,“he most affected.”I call to mind how St.Wilfrid,St.John of Beverley,St.Bede,and other saintly men,carried on the good work in the following generations,and how from that time forth the two islands,England and Ireland,in a dark and dreary age,were the two lights of Christendom,and had no claims on each other,and no thought of self,save in the interchange of kind offices and the rivalry of love.7.

O memorable time,when St.Aidan and the Irish monks went up to Lindisfarne and Melrose,and taught the Saxon youth,and when a St.Cuthbert and a St.Eata repaid their charitable toil! O blessed days of peace and confidence,when the Celtic Mailduf penetrated to Malmesbury in the south,which has inherited his name,and founded there the famous school which gave birth to the great St.Aldhelm! O precious seal and testimony of Gospel unity,when,as Aldhelm in turn tells us,the English went to Ireland“numerous as bees;”when the Saxon St.Egbert and St.Willibrod,preachers to the heathen Frisons,made the voyage to Ireland to prepare themselves for their work;and when from Ireland went forth to Germany the two noble Ewalds,Saxons also,to earn the crown of martyrdom! Such a period,indeed,so rich in grace,in peace,in love,and in good works,could only last for a season;but,even when the light was to pass away from them,the sister islands were destined,not to forfeit,but to transmit it together.The time came when the neighbouring continental country was in turn to hold the mission which they had exercised so long and well;and when to it they made over their honourable office,faithful to the alliance of two hundred years,they made it a joint act.Alcuin was the pupil both of the English and of the Irish schools;and when Charlemagne would revive science and letters in his own France,it was Alcuin,the representative both of the Saxon and the Celt,who was the chief of those who went forth to supply the need of the great Emperor.Such was the foundation of the School of Paris,from which,in the course of centuries,sprang the famous University,the glory of the middle ages.

The past never returns;the course of events,old in its texture,is ever new in its colouring and fashion.England and Ireland are not what they once were,but Rome is where it was,and St.Peter is the same: his zeal,his charity,his mission,his gifts are all the same.He of old made the two islands one by giving them joint work of teaching;and now surely he is giving us a like mission,and we shall become one again,while we zealously and lovingly fulfil it.

DiscourseⅡ Theology—A Branch of Knowledge

There were two questions,to which I drew your attention,Gentlemen,in the beginning of my first Discourse,as being of especial importance and interest at this time: first,whether it is consistent with the idea of University teaching to exclude Theology from a place among the sciences which it embraces;next,whether it is consistent with that idea to make the useful arts and sciences its direct and principal concern,to the neglect of those liberal studies and exercises of mind,in which it has heretofore been considered mainly to consist.These are the questions which will form the subject of what I have to lay before you,and I shall now enter upon the former of the two.1.

It is the fashion just now,as you very well know,to erect socalled Universities,without making any provision in them at all for Theological chairs.Institutions of this kind exist both here and in England.Such a procedure,though defended by writers of the generation just passed with much plausible argument and not a little wit,seems to me an intellectual absurdity;and my reason for saying so runs,with whatever abruptness,into the form of a syllogism:—A University,I should lay down,by its very name professes to teach universal knowledge: Theology is surely a branch of knowledge: how then is it possible for it to profess all branches of knowledge,and yet to exclude from the subjects of its teaching one which,to say the least,is as important and as large as any of them? I do not see that either premiss of this argument is open to exception.

As to the range of University teaching,certainly the very name of University is inconsistent with restrictions of any kind.Whatever was the original reason of the adoption of that term,which is unknown,I am only putting on it its popular,its recognized sense,when I say that a University should teach universal knowledge.That there is a real necessity for this universal teaching in the highest schools of intellect,I will show by-and-by;here it is sufficient to say that such universality is considered by writers on the subject to be the very characteristic of a University,as contrasted with other seats of learning.Thus Johnson,in his Dictionary,defines it to be“a school where all arts and faculties are taught;”and Mosheim,writing as an historian,says that,before the rise of the University of Paris,—for instance,at Padua,or Salamanca,or Cologne,—“the whole circle of sciences then known was not taught;”but that the school of Paris,“which exceeded all others in various respects,as well as in the number of teachers and students,was the first to embrace all the arts and sciences,and therefore first became a University.”

If,with other authors,we consider the word to be derived from the invitation which is held out by a University to students of every kind,the result is the same;for,if certain branches of knowledge were excluded,those students of course would be excluded also,who desired to pursue them.

Is it,then,logically consistent in a seat of learning to call itself a University,and to exclude Theology from the number of its studies? And again,is it wonderful that Catholics,even in the view of reason,putting aside faith or religious duty,should be dissatisfied with existing institutions,which profess to be Universities,and refuse to teach Theology;and that they should in consequence desire to possess seats of learning,which are,not only more Christian,but more philosophical in their construction,and larger and deeper in their provisions?

But this,of course,is to assume that Theology is a science,and an important one: so I will throw my argument into a more exact form.I say,then,that if a University be,from the nature of the case,a place of instruction,where universal knowledge is professed,and if in a certain University,so called,the subject of Religion is excluded,one of two conclusions is inevitable,—either,on the one hand,that the province of Religion is very barren of real knowledge,or,on the other hand,that in such University one special and important branch of knowledge is omitted.I say,the advocate of such an institution must say this,or he must say that;he must own,either that little or nothing is known about the Supreme Being,or that his seat of learning calls itself what it is not.This is the thesis which I lay down,and on which I shall insist as the subject of this Discourse.I repeat,such a compromise between religious parties,as is involved in the establishment of a University which makes no religious profession,implies that those parties severally consider,—not indeed that their own respective opinions are trifles in a moral and practical point of view—of course not;but certainly as much as this,that they are not knowledge.Did they in their hearts believe that their private views of religion,whatever they are,were absolutely and objectively true,it is inconceivable that they would so insult them as to consent to their omission in an Institution which is bound,from the nature of the case—from its very idea and its name—to make a profession of all sorts of knowledge whatever.2.

I think this will be found to be no matter of words.I allow then fully,that,when men combine together for any common object,they are obliged,as a matter of course,in order to secure the advantages accruing from united action,to sacrifice many of their private opinions and wishes,and to drop the minor differences,as they are commonly called,which exist between man and man.No two persons perhaps are to be found,however intimate,however congenial in tastes and judgments,however eager to have one heart and one soul,but must deny themselves,for the sake of each other,much which they like or desire,if they are to live together happily.Compromise,in a large sense of the word,is the first principle of combination;and any one who insists on enjoying his rights to the full,and his opinions without toleration for his neighbour’s,and his own way in all things,will soon have all things altogether to himself,and no one to share them with him.But most true as this confessedly is,still there is an obvious limit,on the other hand,to these compromises,however necessary they be;and this is found in the proviso,that the differences surrendered should be but“minor,”or that there should be no sacrifice of the main object of the combination,in the concessions which are mutually made.Any sacrifice which compromises that object is destructive of the principle of the combination,and no one who would be consistent can be a party to it.

Thus,for instance,if men of various religious denominations join together for the dissemination of what are called“evangelical”tracts,it is under the belief,that,the object of their uniting,as recognized on all hands,being the spiritual benefit of their neighbours,no religious exhortations,whatever be their character,can essentially interfere with that benefit,which faithfully insist upon the Lutheran doctrine of Justification.If,again,they agree together in printing and circulating the Protestant Bible,it is because they,one and all,hold to the principle,that,however serious be their differences of religious sentiment,such differences fade away before the one great principle,which that circulation symbolizes—that the Bible,the whole Bible,and nothing but the Bible,is the religion of Protestants.On the contrary,if the committee of some such association inserted tracts into the copies of the said Bible which they sold,and tracts in recommendation of the Athanasian Creed or the merit of good works,I conceive any subscribing member would have a just right to complain of a proceeding,which compromised the principle of Private Judgment as the one true interpreter of Scripture.These instances are sufficient to illustrate my general position,that coalitions and comprehensions for an object,have their life in the prosecution of that object,and cease to have any meaning as soon as that object is compromised or disparaged.

When,then,a number of persons come forward,not as politicians,not as diplomatists,lawyers,traders,or speculators,but with the one object of advancing Universal Knowledge,much we may allow them to sacrifice.—ambition,reputation,leisure,comfort,partyinterests,gold;one thing they may not sacrifice,—Knowledge itself.Knowledge being their object,they need not of course insist on their own private views about ancient or modern history,or national prosperity,or the balance of power;they need not of course shrink from the co-operation of those who hold the opposite views;but stipulate they must that Knowledge itself is not compromised;—and as to those views,of whatever kind,which they do allow to be dropped,it is plain they consider such to be opinions,and nothing more,however dear,however important to themselves personally;opinions ingenious,admirable,pleasurable,beneficial,expedient,but not worthy the name of Knowledge or Science.Thus no one would insist on the Malthusian teaching being a sine qua non in a seat of learning,who did not think it simply ignorance not to be a Malthusian;and no one would consent to drop the Newtonian theory,who thought it to have been proved true,in the same sense as the existence of the sun and moon is true.If,then,in an Institution which professes all knowledge,nothing is professed,nothing is taught about the Supreme Being,it is fair to infer that every individual in the number of those who advocate that Institution,supposing him consistent,distinctly holds that nothing is known for certain about the Supreme Being;nothing such,as to have any claim to be regarded as a material addition to the stock of general knowledge existing in the world.If on the other hand it turns out that something considerable is known about the Supreme Being,whether from Reason or Revelation,then the Institution in question professes every science,and yet leaves out the foremost of them.In a word,strong as may appear the assertion,I do not see how I can avoid making it,and bear with me,Gentlemen,while I do so,viz.,such an Institution cannot be what it professes,if there be a God.I do not wish to declaim;but,by the very force of the terms,it is very plain,that a Divine Being and a University so circumstanced cannot co-exist.3.

Still,however,this may seem to many an abrupt conclusion,and will not be acquiesced in: what answer,Gentlemen,will be made to it? Perhaps this:—It will be said,that there are different kinds or spheres of Knowledge,human,divine,sensible,intellectual,and the like;and that a University certainly takes in all varieties of Knowledge in its own line,but still that it has a line of its own.It contemplates,it occupies a certain order,a certain platform,of Knowledge.I understand the remark;but I own to you,I do not understand how it can be made to apply to the matter in hand.I cannot so construct my definition of the subject-matter of University Knowledge,and so draw my boundary lines around it,as to include therein the other sciences commonly studied at Universities,and to exclude the science of Religion.For instance,are we to limit our idea of University Knowledge by the evidence of our senses? then we exclude ethics;by intuition? we exclude history;by testimony? we exclude metaphysics;by abstract reasoning? we exclude physics.Is not the being of a God reported to us by testimony,handed down by history,inferred by an inductive process,brought home to us by metaphysical necessity,urged on us by the suggestions of our conscience? It is a truth in the natural order,as well as in the supernatural.So much for its origin;and,when obtained,what is it worth? Is it a great truth or a small one? Is it a comprehensive truth? Say that no other religious idea whatever were given but it,and you have enough to fill the mind;you have at once a whole dogmatic system.The word“God”is a Theology in itself,indivisibly one,inexhaustibly various,from the vastness and the simplicity of its meaning.Admit a God,and you introduce among the subjects of your knowledge,a fact encompassing,closing in upon,absorbing,every other fact conceivable.How can we investigate any part of any order of Knowledge,and stop short of that which enters into every order? All true principles run over with it,all phenomena converge to it;it is truly the First and the Last.In word indeed,and in idea,it is easy enough to divide Knowledge into human and divine,secular and religious,and to lay down that we will address ourselves to the one without interfering with the other;but it is impossible in fact.Granting that divine truth differs in kind from human,so do human truths differ in kind one from another.If the knowledge of the Creator is in a different order from knowledge of the creature,so,in like manner,metaphysical science is in a different order from physical,physics from history,history from ethics.You will soon break up into fragments the whole circle of secular knowledge,if you begin the mutilation with divine.

I have been speaking simply of Natural Theology;my argument of course is stronger when I go on to Revelation.Let the doctrine of the Incarnation be true: is it not at once of the nature of an historical fact,and of a metaphysical? Let it be true that there are Angels: how is not this a point of knowledge in the same sense as the naturalist’s asseveration,that myriads of living things might coexist on the point of a needle? That the Earth is to be burned by fire,is,if true,as large a fact as that huge monsters once played amid its depths;that Antichrist is to come,is as categorical a heading to a chapter of history,as that Nero or Julian was Emperor of Rome;that a divine influence moves the will,is a subject of thought not more mysterious than the result of volition on our muscles,which we admit as a fact in metaphysics.

I do not see how it is possible for a philosophical mind,first,to believe these religious facts to be true;next,to consent to ignore them;and thirdly,in spite of this,to go on to profess to be teaching all the while de omni scibili.No;if a man thinks in his heart that these religious facts are short of truth,that they are not true in the sense in which the general fact and the law of the fall of a stone to the earth is true,I understand his excluding Religion from his University,though he professes other reasons for its exclusion.In that case the varieties of religious opinion under which he shelters his conduct,are not only his apology for publicly disowning Religion,but a cause of his privately disbelieving it.He does not think that any thing is known or can be known for certain,about the origin of the world or the end of man.4.

This,I fear,is the conclusion to which intellects,clear,logical,and consistent,have come,or are coming,from the nature of the case;and,alas! in addition to this prima-facie suspicion,there are actual tendencies in the same direction in Protestantism,viewed whether in its original idea,or again in the so-called Evangelical movement in these islands during the last century.The religious world,as it is styled,holds,generally speaking,that Religion consists,not in knowledge,but in feeling or sentiment.The old Catholic notion,which still lingers in the Established Church,was,that Faith was an intellectual act,its object truth,and its result knowledge.Thus if you look into the Anglican Prayer Book,you will find definite credenda,as well as definite agenda;but in proportion as the Lutheran leaven spread,it became fashionable to say that Faith was,not an acceptance of revealed doctrine,not an act of the intellect,but a feeling,an emotion,an affection,an appetency;and,as this view of Faith obtained,so was the connexion of Faith with Truth and Knowledge more and more either forgotten or denied.At length the identity of this (so-called) spirituality of heart and the virtue of Faith was acknowledged on all hands.Some men indeed disapproved the pietism in question,others admired it;but whether they admired or disapproved,both the one party and the other found themselves in agreement on the main point,viz.—in considering that this really was in substance Religion,and nothing else;that Religion was based,not on argument,but on taste and sentiment,that nothing was objective,every thing subjective,in doctrine.I say,even those who saw through the affectation in which the religious school of which I am speaking clad itself,still came to think that Religion,as such,consisted in something short of intellectual exercises,viz.,in the affections,in the imagination,in inward persuasions and consolations,in pleasurable sensations,sudden changes,and sublime fancies.They learned to believe and to take it for granted,that Religion was nothing beyond a supply of the wants of human nature,not an external fact and a work of God.There was,it appeared,a demand for Religion,and therefore there was a supply;human nature could not do without Religion,any more than it could do without bread;a supply was absolutely necessary,good or bad,and,as in the case of the articles of daily sustenance,an article which was really inferior was better than none at all.Thus Religion was useful,venerable,beautiful,the sanction of order,the stay of government,the curb of self-will and self-indulgence,which the laws cannot reach: but,after all,on what was it based? Why,that was a question delicate to ask,and imprudent to answer;but,if the truth must be spoken,however reluctantly,the long and the short of the matter was this,that Religion was based on custom,on prejudice,on law,on education,on habit,on loyalty,on feudalism,on enlightened expedience,on many,many things,but not at all on reason;reason was neither its warrant,nor its instrument,and science had as little connexion with it as with the fashions of the season,or the state of the weather.

You see,Gentlemen,how a theory or philosophy,which began with the religious changes of the sixteenth century,has led to conclusions,which the authors of those changes would be the first to denounce,and has been taken up by that large and influential body which goes by the name of Liberal or Latitudinarian;and how,where it prevails,it is as unreasonable of course to demand for Religion a chair in a University,as to demand one for fine feeling,sense of honour,patriotism,gratitude,maternal affection,or good companionship,proposals which would be simply unmeaning.5.

Now,in illustration of what I have been saying,I will appeal,in the first place,to a statesman,but not merely so,to no mere politician,no trader in places,or in votes,or in the stock market,but to a philosopher,to an orator,to one whose profession,whose aim,has ever been to cultivate the fair,the noble,and the generous.I cannot forget the celebrated Discourseof the celebrated man to whom I am referring;a man who is first in his peculiar walk;and who,moreover(which is much to my purpose),has had a share,as much as any one alive,in effecting the public recognition in these Islands of the principle of separating secular and religious knowledge.This brilliant thinker,during the years in which he was exerting himself in behalf of this principle,made a speech or discourse,on occasion of a public solemnity;and in reference to the bearing of general knowledge upon religious belief,he spoke as follows:

“As men,”he said,“will no longer suffer themselves to be led blindfold in ignorance,so will they no more yield to the vile principle of judging and treating their fellow-creatures,not according to the intrinsic merit of their actions,but according to the accidental and involuntary coincidence of their opinions.The great truth has finally gone forth to all the ends of the earth,”and he prints it in capital letters,“that man shall no more render account to man for his belief,over which he has himself no control.Henceforward,nothing shall prevail upon us to praise or to blame any one for that which he can no more change,than he can the hue of his skin or the height of his stature.”You see,Gentlemen,if this philosopher is to decide the matter,religious ideas are just as far from being real,or representing anything beyond themselves,are as truly peculiarities,idiosyncracies,accidents of the individual,as his having the stature of a Patagonian,or the features of a Negro.

But perhaps this was the rhetoric of an excited moment.Far from it,Gentlemen,or I should not have fastened on the words of a fertile mind,uttered so long ago.What Mr.Brougham laid down as a principle in 1825,resounds on all sides of us,with ever-growing confidence and success,in 1852.I open the Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education for the years 1848—1850,presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty,and I find one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools,at p.467 of the second volume,dividing“the topics usually embraced in the better class of primary schools”into four:—the knowledge of signs,as reading and writing;of facts,as geography and astronomy;of relations and laws,as mathematics;and lastly sentiment,such as poetry and music.Now,on first catching sight of this division,it occurred to me to ask myself,before ascertaining the writer’s own resolution of the matter,under which of these four heads would fall Religion,or whether it fell under any of them.Did he put it aside as a thing too delicate and sacred to be enumerated with earthly studies? or did he distinctly contemplate it when he made his division? Anyhow,I could really find a place for it under the first head,or the second,or the third;for it has to do with facts,since it tells of the Selfsubsisting;it has to do with relations,for it tells of the Creator;it has to do with signs,for it tells of the due manner of speaking of Him.There was just one head of the division to which I could not refer it,viz.,to sentiment;for,I suppose,music and poetry,which are the writer’s own examples of sentiment,have not much to do with Truth,which is the main object of Religion.Judge then my surprise,Gentlemen,when I found the fourth was the very head selected by the writer of the Report in question,as the special receptacle of religious topics.“The inculcation of sentiment,”he says,“embraces reading in its higher sense,poetry,music,together with moral and religious Education.”I am far from introducing this writer for his own sake,because I have no wish to hurt the feelings of a gentleman,who is but exerting himself zealously in the discharge of anxious duties;but,taking him as an illustration of the wide-spreading school of thought to which he belongs,I ask what can more clearly prove than a candid avowal like this,that,in the view of his school,Religion is not knowledge,has nothing whatever to do with knowledge,and is excluded from a University course of instruction,not simply because the exclusion cannot be helped,from political or social obstacles,but because it has no business there at all,because it is to be considered a taste,sentiment,opinion,and nothing more?

The writer avows this conclusion himself,in the explanation into which he presently enters,in which he says:“According to the classification proposed,the essential idea of all religious Education will consist in the direct cultivation of the feelings.”What we contemplate,then,what we aim at,when we give a religious Education,is,it seems,not to impart any knowledge whatever,but to satisfy anyhow desires after the Unseen which will arise in our minds in spite of ourselves,to provide the mind with a means of selfcommand,to impress on it the beautiful ideas which saints and sages have struck out,to embellish it with the bright hues of a celestial piety,to teach it the poetry of devotion,the music of well-ordered affections,and the luxury of doing good.As for the intellect,its exercise happens to be unavoidable,whenever moral impressions are made,from the constitution of the human mind,but it varies in the results of that exercise,in the conclusions which it draws from our impressions,according to the peculiarities of the individual.

Something like this seems to be the writer’s meaning,but we need not pry into its finer issues in order to gain a distinct view of its general bearing;and taking it,as I think we fairly may take it,as a specimen of the philosophy of the day,as adopted by those who are not conscious unbelievers,or open scoffers,I consider it amply explains how it comes to pass that this day’s philosophy sets up a system of universal knowledge,and teaches of plants,and earths,and creeping things,and beasts,and gases,about the crust of the earth and the changes of the atmosphere,about sun,moon,and stars,about man and his doings,about the history of the world,about sensation,memory,and the passions,about duty,about cause and effect,about all things imaginable,except one—and that is,about Him that made all these things,about God.I say the reason is plain because they consider knowledge,as regards the creature,is illimitable,but impossible or hopeless as regards the being and attributes and works of the Creator.6.

Here,however,it may be objected to me that this representation is certainly extreme,for the school in question does,in fact,lay great stress on the evidence afforded by the creation,to the Being and Attributes of the Creator.I may be referred,for instance,to the words of one of the speakers on a memorable occasion.At the very time of laying the first stone of the University of London,I confess it,a learned person,since elevated to the Protestant See of Durham,which he still fills,opened the proceedings with prayer.He addressed the Deity,as the authoritative Report informs us,“the whole surrounding assembly standing uncovered in solemn silence.”“Thou,”he said,in the name of all present,“thou hast constructed the vast fabric of the universe in so wonderful a manner,so arranged its motions,and so formed its productions,that the contemplation and study of thy works exercise at once the mind in the pursuit of human science,and lead it onwards to Divine Truth.”Here is apparently a distinct recognition that there is such a thing as Truth in the province of Religion;and,did the passage stand by itself,and were it the only means we possessed of ascertaining the sentiments of the powerful body whom this distinguished person there represented,it would,as far as it goes,be satisfactory.I admit it;and I admit also the recognition of the Being and certain Attributes of the Deity,contained in the writings of the gifted person whom I have already quoted,whose genius,versatile and multiform as it is,in nothing has been so constant,as in its devotion to the advancement of knowledge,scientific and literary.He then certainly,in his“Discourseof the objects,advantages,and pleasures of science,”after variously illustrating what he terms its“gratifying treats,”crowns the catalogue with mention of“the highest of all our gratifications in the contemplation of science,”which he proceeds to explain thus:

“We are raised by them,”says he,“to an understanding of the infinite wisdom and goodness which the Creator has displayed in all His works.Not a step can be taken in any direction,”he continues,“without perceiving the most extraordinary traces of design;and the skill,every where conspicuous,is calculated in so vast a proportion of instances to promote the happiness of living creatures,and especially of ourselves,that we can feel no hesitation in concluding,that,if we knew the whole scheme of Providence,every part would be in harmony with a plan of absolute benevolence.Independent,however,of this most consoling inference,the delight is inexpressible,of being able to follow,as it were,with our eyes,the marvellous works of the Great Architect of Nature,to trace the unbounded power and exquisite skill which are exhibited in the most minute,as well as the mightiest parts of His system.The pleasure derived from this study is unceasing,and so various,that it never tires the appetite.But it is unlike the low gratifications of sense in another respect: it elevates and refines our nature,while those hurt the health,debase the understanding,and corrupt the feelings;it teaches us to look upon all earthly objects as insignificant and below our notice,except the pursuit of knowledge and the cultivation of virtue,that is to say,the strict performance of our duty in every relation of society;and it gives a dignity and importance to the enjoyment of life,which the frivolous and the grovelling cannot even comprehend.”

Such are the words of this prominent champion of Mixed Education.If logical inference be,as it undoubtedly is,an instrument of truth,surely,it may be answered to me,in admitting the possibility of inferring the Divine Being and Attributes from the phenomena of nature,he distinctly admits a basis of truth for the doctrines of Religion.7.

I wish,Gentlemen,to give these representations their full weight,both from the gravity of the question,and the consideration due to the persons whom I am arraigning;but,before I can feel sure I understand them,I must ask an abrupt question.When I am told,then,by the partisans of Universities without Theological teaching,that human science leads to belief in a Supreme Being,without denying the fact,nay,as a Catholic,with full conviction of it,nevertheless I am obliged to ask what the statement means in their mouths,what they,the speakers,understand by the word“God.”Let me not be thought offensive,if I question,whether it means the same thing on the two sides of the controversy.With us Catholics,as with the first race of Protestants,as with Mahometans,and all Theists,the word contains,as I have already said,a theology in itself.At the risk of anticipating what I shall have occasion to insist upon in my next Discourse,let me say that,according to the teaching of Monotheism,God is an Individual,Self-dependent,All-perfect,Unchangeable Being;intelligent,living,personal,and present;almighty,all-seeing,all-remembering;between whom and His creatures there is an infinite gulf;who has no origin,who is all-sufficient for Himself;who created and upholds the universe;who will judge every one of us,sooner or later,according to that Law of right and wrong which He has written on our hearts.He is One who is sovereign over,operative amidst,independent of,the appointments which He has made;One in whose hands are all things,who has a purpose in every event,and a standard for every deed,and thus has relations of His own towards the subject-matter of each particular science which the book of knowledge unfolds;who has with an adorable,never-ceasing energy implicated Himself in all the history of creation,the constitution of nature,the course of the world,the origin of society,the fortunes of nations,the action of the human mind;and who thereby necessarily becomes the subject-matter of a science,far wider and more noble than any of those which are included in the circle of secular Education.

This is the doctrine which belief in a God implies in the mind of a Catholic: if it means any thing,it means all this,and cannot keep from meaning all this,and a great deal more;and,even though there were nothing in the religious tenets of the last three centuries to disparage dogmatic truth,still,even then,I should have difficulty in believing that a doctrine so mysterious,so peremptory,approved itself as a matter of course to educated men of this day,who gave their minds attentively to consider it.Rather,in a state of society such as ours,in which authority,prescription,tradition,habit,moral instinct,and the divine influences go for nothing,in which patience of thought,and depth and consistency of view,are scorned as subtle and scholastic,in which free discussion and fallible judgment are prized as the birthright of each individual,I must be excused if I exercise towards this age,as regards its belief in this doctrine,some portion of that scepticism which it exercises itself towards every received but unscrutinized assertion whatever.I cannot take it for granted,I must have it brought home to me by tangible evidence,that the spirit of the age means by the Supreme Being what Catholics mean.Nay,it would be a relief to my mind to gain some ground of assurance,that the parties influenced by that spirit had,I will not say,a true apprehension of God,but even so much as the idea of what a true apprehension is.

Nothing is easier than to use the word,and mean nothing by it.The heathens used to say,“God wills,”when they meant“Fate;”“God provides,”when they meant“Chance;”“God acts,”when they meant“Instinct”or“Sense;”and“God is every where,”when they meant“the Soul of Nature.”The Almighty is something infinitely different from a principle,or a centre of action,or a quality,or a generalization of phenomena.If,then,by the word,you do but mean a Being who keeps the world in order,who acts in it,but only in the way of general Providence,who acts towards us but only through what are called laws of Nature,who is more certain not to act at all than to act independent of those laws,who is known and approached indeed,but only through the medium of those laws;such a God it is not difficult for any one to conceive,not difficult for any one to endure.If,I say,as you would revolutionize society,so you would revolutionize heaven,if you have changed the divine sovereignty into a sort of constitutional monarchy,in which the Throne has honour and ceremonial enough,but cannot issue the most ordinary command except through legal forms and precedents,and with the counter-signature of a minister,then belief in a God is no more than an acknowledgment of existing,sensible powers and phenomena,which none but an idiot can deny.If the Supreme Being is powerful or skilful,just so far forth as the telescope shows power,and the microscope shows skill,if His moral law is to be ascertained simply by the physical processes of the animal frame,or His will gathered from the immediate issues of human affairs,if His Essence is just as high and deep and broad and long as the universe,and no more;if this be the fact,then will I confess that there is no specific science about God,that theology is but a name,and a protest in its behalf an hypocrisy.Then is He but coincident with the laws of the universe;then is He but a function,or correlative,or subjective reflection and mental impression,of each phenomenon of the material or moral world,as it flits before us.Then,pious as it is to think of Him,while the pageant of experiment or abstract reasoning passes by,still,such piety is nothing more than a poetry of thought or an ornament of language,and has not even an infinitesimal influence upon philosophy or science,of which it is rather the parasitical production.

I understand,in that case,why Theology should require no specific teaching,for there is nothing to mistake about;why it is powerless against scientific anticipations,for it merely is one of them;why it is simply absurd in its denunciations of heresy,for heresy does not lie in the region of fact and experiment.I understand,in that case,how it is that the religious sense is but a“sentiment,”and its exercise a“gratifying treat,”for it is like the sense of the beautiful or the sublime.I understand how the contemplation of the universe“leads onwards to divine truth,”for divine truth is not something separate from Nature,but it is Nature with a divine glow upon it.I understand the zeal expressed for Physical Theology,for this study is but a mode of looking at Physical Nature,a certain view taken of Nature,private and personal,which one man has,and another has not,which gifted minds strike out,which others see to be admirable and ingenious,and which all would be the better for adopting.It is but the theology of Nature,just as we talk of the philosophy or the romance of history,or the poetry of childhood,or the picturesque,or the sentimental,or the humorous,or any other abstract quality,which the genius or the caprice of the individual,or the fashion of the day,or the consent of the world,recognizes in any set of objects which are subjected to its contemplation.8.

Such ideas of religion seem to me short of Monotheism;I do not impute them to this or that individual who belongs to the school which gives them currency;but what I read about the“gratification”of keeping pace in our scientific researches with“the Architect of Nature;”about the said gratification“giving a dignity and importance to the enjoyment of life,”and teaching us that knowledge and our duties to society are the only earthly objects worth our notice,all this,I own it,Gentlemen,frightens me;nor is Dr.Maltby’s address to the Deity sufficient to reassure me.I do not see much difference between avowing that there is no God,and implying that nothing definite can for certain be known about Him;and when I find Religious Education treated as the cultivation of sentiment,and Religious Belief as the accidental hue or posture of the mind,I am reluctantly but forcibly reminded of a very unpleasant page of Metaphysics,viz.,of the relations between God and Nature insinuated by such philosophers as Hume.This acute,though most low-minded of speculators,in his inquiry concerning the Human Understanding,introduces,as is well known,Epicurus,that is,a teacher of atheism,delivering an harangue to the Athenian people,not indeed in defence,but in extenuation of that opinion.His object is to show that,whereas the atheistic view is nothing else than the repudiation of theory,and an accurate representation of phenomenon and fact,it cannot be dangerous,unless phenomenon and fact be dangerous.Epicurus is made to say,that the paralogism of philosophy has ever been that of arguing from Nature in behalf of something beyond Nature,greater than Nature;whereas,God,as he maintains,being known only through the visible world,our knowledge of Him is absolutely commensurate with our knowledge of it,—is nothing distinct from it,—is but a mode of viewing it.Hence it follows that,provided we admit,as we cannot help admitting,the phenomena of Nature and the world,it is only a question of words whether or not we go on to the hypothesis of a second Being,not visible but immaterial,parallel and coincident with Nature,to whom we give the name of God.“Allowing,”he says,“the gods to be the authors of the existence or order of the universe,it follows that they possess that precise degree of power,intelligence,and benevolence,which appears in their workmanship;but nothing farther can be proved,except we call in the assistance of exaggeration and flattery to supply the defects of argument and reasoning.So far as the traces of any attributes,at present,appear,so far may we conclude these attributes to exist.The supposition of farther attributes is mere hypothesis;much more the supposition that,in distant periods of place and time,there has been,or will be,a more magnificent display of these attributes,and a scheme of administration more suitable to such imaginary virtues.”

Here is a reasoner,who would not hesitate to deny that there is any distinct science or philosophy possible concerning the Supreme Being;since every single thing we know of Him is this or that or the other phenomenon,material or moral,which already falls under this or that natural science.In him then it would be only consistent to drop Theology in a course of University Education: but how is it consistent in any one who shrinks from his companionship? I am glad to see that the author,several times mentioned,is in opposition to Hume,in one sentence of the quotation I have made from his Discourseupon Science,deciding,as he does,that the phenomena of the material world are insufficient for the full exhibition of the Divine Attributes,and implying that they require a supplemental process to complete and harmonize their evidence.But is not this supplemental process a science? and if so,why not acknowledge its existence? If God is more than Nature,Theology claims a place among the sciences: but,on the other hand,if you are not sure of as much as this,how do you differ from Hume or Epicurus?9.

I end then as I began: religious doctrine is knowledge.This is the important truth,little entered into at this day,which I wish that all who have honoured me with their presence here would allow me to beg them to take away with them.I am not catching at sharp arguments,but laying down grave principles.Religious doctrine is knowledge,in as full a sense as Newton’s doctrine is knowledge.University Teaching without Theology is simply unphilosophical.Theology has at least as good a right to claim a place there as Astronomy.

In my next Discourseit will be my object to show that its omission from the list of recognised sciences is not only indefensible in itself,but prejudicial to all the rest.

DiscourseⅢ Bearing of Theology on Other Branches of Knowledge

When men of great intellect,who have long and intently and exclusively given themselves to the study or investigation of some one particular branch of secular knowledge,whose mental life is concentrated and hidden in their chosen pursuit,and who have neither eyes nor ears for any thing which does not immediately bear upon it,when such men are at length made to realize that there is a clamour all around them,which must be heard,for what they have been so little accustomed to place in the category of knowledge as Religion,and that they themselves are accused of disaffection to it,they are impatient at the interruption;they call the demand tyrannical,and the requisitionists bigots or fanatics.They are tempted to say,that their only wish is to be let alone;for themselves,they are not dreaming of offending any one,or interfering with any one;they are pursuing their own particular line,they have never spoken a word against any one’s religion,whoever he may be,and never mean to do so.It does not follow that they deny the existence of a God,because they are not found talking of it,when the topic would be utterly irrelevant.All they say is,that there are other beings in the world besides the Supreme Being;their business is with them.After all,the creation is not the Creator,nor things secular religious.Theology and human science are two things,not one,and have their respective provinces,contiguous it may be and cognate to each other,but not identical.When we are contemplating earth,we are not contemplating heaven;and when we are contemplating heaven,we are not contemplating earth.Separate subjects should be treated separately.As division of labour,so division of thought is the only means of successful application.“Let us go our own way,”they say,“and you go yours.We do not pretend to lecture on Theology,and you have no claim to pronounce upon Science.”

With this feeling they attempt a sort of compromise,between their opponents who claim for Theology a free introduction into the Schools of Science,and themselves who would exclude it altogether,and it is this: viz.,that it should remain indeed excluded from the public schools,but that it should be permitted in private,wherever a sufficient number of persons is found to desire it.Such persons,they seem to say,may have it all their own way,when they are by themselves,so that they do not attempt to disturb a comprehensive system of instruction,acceptable and useful to all,by the intrusion of opinions peculiar to their own minds.

I am now going to attempt a philosophical answer to this representation,that is,to the project of teaching secular knowledge in the University Lecture Room,and remanding religious knowledge to the parish priest,the catechism,and the parlour;and in doing so,you must pardon me,Gentlemen,if my subject should oblige me to pursue a lengthy and careful course of thought,which may be wearisome to the hearer:—I begin then thus:—2.

Truth is the object of Knowledge of whatever kind;and when we inquire what is meant by Truth,I suppose it is right to answer that Truth means facts and their relations,which stand towards each other pretty much as subjects and predicates in logic.All that exists,as contemplated by the human mind,forms one large system or complex fact,and this of course resolves itself into an indefinite number of particular facts,which,as being portions of a whole,have countless relations of every kind,one towards another.Knowledge is the apprehension of these facts,whether in themselves,or in their mutual positions and bearings.And,as all taken together form one integral subject for contemplation,so there are no natural or real limits between part and part;one is ever running into another;all,as viewed by the mind,are combined together,and possess a correlative character one with another,from the internal mysteries of the Divine Essence down to our own sensations and consciousness,from the most solemn appointments of the Lord of all down to what may be called the accident of the hour,from the most glorious seraph down to the vilest and most noxious of reptiles.

Now,it is not wonderful that,with all its capabilities,the human mind cannot take in this whole vast fact at a single glance,or gain possession of it at once.Like a short-sighted reader,its eye pores closely,and travels slowly,over the awful volume which lies open for its inspection.Or again,as we deal with some huge structure of many parts and sides,the mind goes round about it,noting down,first one thing,then another,as it best may,and viewing it under different aspects,by way of making progress towards mastering the whole.So by degrees and by circuitous advances does it rise aloft and subject to itself a knowledge of that universe into which it has been born.

These various partial views or abstractions,by means of which the mind looks out upon its object,are called sciences,and embrace respectively larger or smaller portions of the field of knowledge;sometimes extending far and wide,but superficially,sometimes with exactness over particular departments,sometimes occupied together on one and the same portion,sometimes holding one part in common,and then ranging on this side or that in absolute divergence one from the other.Thus Optics has for its subject the whole visible creation,so far forth as it is simply visible;Mental Philosophy has a narrower province,but a richer one.Astronomy,plane and physical,each has the same subject-matter,but views it or treats it differently;lastly,Geology and Comparative Anatomy have subject-matters partly the same,partly distinct.Now these views or sciences,as being abstractions,have far more to do with the relations of things than with things themselves.They tell us what things are,only or principally by telling us their relations,or assigning predicates to subjects;and therefore they never tell us all that can be said about a thing,even when they tell something,nor do they bring it before us,as the senses do.They arrange and classify facts;they reduce separate phenomena under a common law;they trace effects to a cause.Thus they serve to transfer our knowledge from the custody of memory to the surer and more abiding protection of philosophy,thereby providing both for its spread and its advance:—for,inasmuch as sciences are forms of knowledge,they enable the intellect to master and increase it;and,inasmuch as they are instruments,to communicate it readily to others.Still,after all,they proceed on the principle of a division of labour,even though that division is an abstraction,not a literal separation into parts;and,as the maker of a bridle or an epaulet has not,on that account,any idea of the science of tactics or strategy,so in a parallel way,it is not every science which equally,nor any one which fully,enlightens the mind in the knowledge of things,as they are,or brings home to it the external object on which it wishes to gaze.Thus they differ in importance;and according to their importance will be their influence,not only on the mass of knowledge to which they all converge and contribute,but on each other.

Since then sciences are the results of mental processes about one and the same subject-matter,viewed under its various aspects,and are true results,as far as they go,yet at the same time separate and partial,it follows that on the one hand they need external assistance,one by one,by reason of their incompleteness,and on the other that they are able to afford it to each other,by reason,first,of their independence in themselves,and then of their connexion in their subject-matter.Viewed altogether,they approximate to a representation or subjective reflection of the objective truth,as nearly as is possible to the human mind,which advances towards the accurate apprehension of that object,in proportion to the number of sciences which it has mastered;and which,when certain sciences are away,in such a case has but a defective apprehension,in proportion to the value of the sciences which are thus wanting,and the importance of the field on which they are employed.3.

Let us take,for instance,man himself as our object of contemplation;then at once we shall find we can view him in a variety of relations;and according to those relations are the sciences of which he is the subject-matter,and according to our acquaintance with them is our possession of a true knowledge of him.We may view him in relation to the material elements of his body,or to his mental constitution,or to his household and family,or to the community in which he lives,or to the Being who made him;and in consequence we treat of him respectively as physiologists,or as moral philosophers,or as writers of economics,or of politics,or as theologians.When we think of him in all these relations together,or as the subject at once of all the sciences I have named,then we may be said to reach unto and rest in the idea of man as an object or external fact,similar to that which the eye takes of his outward form.On the other hand,according as we are only physiologists,or only politicians,or only moralists,so is our idea of man more or less unreal;we do not take in the whole of him,and the defect is greater or less,in proportion as the relation is,or is not,important,which is omitted,whether his relation to God,or to his king,or to his children,or to his own component parts.And if there be one relation,about which we know nothing at all except that it exists,then is our knowledge of him,confessedly and to our own consciousness,deficient and partial,and that,I repeat,in proportion to the importance of the relation.

That therefore is true of sciences in general which we are apt to think applies only to pure mathematics,though to pure mathematics it applies especially,viz.,that they cannot be considered as simple representations or informants of things as they are.We are accustomed to say,and say truly,that the conclusions of pure mathematics are applied,corrected,and adapted,by mixed;but so too the conclusions of Anatomy,Chemistry,Dynamics,and other sciences,are revised and completed by each other.Those several conclusions do not represent whole and substantive things,but views,true,so far as they go;and in order to ascertain how far they do go,that is,how far they correspond to the object to which they belong,we must compare them with the views taken out of that object by other sciences.Did we proceed upon the abstract theory of forces,we should assign a much more ample range to a projectile than in fact the resistance of the air allows it to accomplish.Let,however,that resistance be made the subject of scientific analysis,and then we shall have a new science,assisting,and to a certain point completing,for the benefit of questions of fact,the science of projection.On the other hand,the science of projection itself,considered as belonging to the forces it contemplates,is not more perfect,as such,by this supplementary investigation.And in like manner,as regards the whole circle of sciences,one corrects another for purposes of fact,and one without the other cannot dogmatize,except hypothetically and upon its own abstract principles.For instance,the Newtonian philosophy requires the admission of certain metaphysical postulates,if it is to be more than a theory or an hypothesis;as,for instance,that what happened yesterday will happen tomorrow;that there is such a thing as matter,that our senses are trustworthy,that there is a logic of induction,and so on.Now to Newton metaphysicians grant all that he asks;but,if so be,they may not prove equally accommodating to another who asks something else,and then all his most logical conclusions in the science of physics would remain hopelessly on the stocks,though finished,and never could be launched into the sphere of fact.

Again,did I know nothing about the movement of bodies,except what the theory of gravitation supplies,were I simply absorbed in that theory so as to make it measure all motion on earth and in the sky,I should indeed come to many right conclusions,I should hit off many important facts,ascertain many existing relations,and correct many popular errors: I should scout and ridicule with great success the old notion,that light bodies flew up and heavy bodies fell down;but I should go on with equal confidence to deny the phenomenon of capillary attraction.Here I should be wrong,but only because I carried out my science irrespectively of other sciences.In like manner,did I simply give myself to the investigation of the external action of body upon body,I might scoff at the very idea of chemical affinities and combinations,and reject it as simply unintelligible.Were I a mere chemist,I should deny the influence of mind upon bodily health;and so on,as regards the devotees of any science,or family of sciences,to the exclusion of others;they necessarily become bigots and quacks,scorning all principles and reported facts which do not belong to their own pursuit,and thinking to effect everything without aid from any other quarter.Thus,before now,chemistry has been substituted for medicine;and again,political economy,or intellectual enlightenment,or the reading of the Scriptures,has been cried up as a panacea against vice,malevolence,and misery.4.

Summing up,Gentlemen,what I have said,I lay it down that all knowledge forms one whole,because its subject-matter is one;for the universe in its length and breadth is so intimately knit together,that we cannot separate off portion from portion,and operation from operation,except by a mental abstraction;and then again,as to its Creator,though He of course in His own Being is infinitely separate from it,and Theology has its departments towards which human knowledge has no relations,yet He has so implicated Himself with it,and taken it into His very bosom,by His presence in it,His providence over it,His impressions upon it,and His influences through it,that we cannot truly or fully contemplate it without in some main aspects contemplating Him.Next,sciences are the results of that mental abstraction,which I have spoken of,being the logical record of this or that aspect of the whole subject-matter of knowledge.As they all belong to one and the same circle of objects,they are one and all connected together;as they are but aspects of things,they are severally incomplete in their relation to the things themselves,though complete in their own idea and for their own respective purposes;on both accounts they at once need and subserve each other.And further,the comprehension of the bearings of one science on another,and the use of each to each,and the location and limitation and adjustment and due appreciation of them all,one with another,this belongs,I conceive,to a sort of science distinct from all of them,and in some sense a science of sciences,which is my own conception of what is meant by Philosophy,in the true sense of the word,and of a philosophical habit of mind,and which in these Discourses I shall call by that name.This is what I have to say about knowledge and philosophical knowledge generally;and now I proceed to apply it to the particular science,which has led me to draw it out.

I say,then,that the systematic omission of any one science from the catalogue prejudices the accuracy and completeness of our knowledge altogether,and that,in proportion to its importance.Not even Theology itself,though it comes from heaven,though its truths were given once for all at the first,though they are more certain on account of the Giver than those of mathematics,not even Theology,so far as it is relative to us,or is the Science of Religion,do I exclude from the law to which every mental exercise is subject,viz.,from that imperfection,which ever must attend the abstract,when it would determine the concrete.Nor do I speak only of Natural Religion;for even the teaching of the Catholic Church,in certain of its aspects,that is,its religious teaching,is variously influenced by the other sciences.Not to insist on the introduction of the Aristotelic philosophy into its phraseology,its explanation of dogmas is influenced by ecclesiastical acts or events;its interpretations of prophecy are directly affected by the issues of history;its comments upon Scripture by the conclusions of the astronomer and the geologist;and its casuistical decisions by the various experience,political,social,and psychological,with which times and places are ever supplying it.

What Theology gives,it has a right to take;or rather,the interests of Truth oblige it to take.If we would not be beguiled by dreams,if we would ascertain facts as they are,then,granting Theology is a real science,we cannot exclude it,and still call ourselves philosophers.I have asserted nothing as yet as to the preeminent dignity of Religious Truth;I only say,if there be Religious Truth at all,we cannot shut our eyes to it without prejudice to truth of every kind,physical,metaphysical,historical,and moral;for it bears upon all truth.And thus I answer the objection with which I opened this Discourse.I supposed the question put to me by a philosopher of the day,“Why cannot you go your way,and let us go ours?”I answer,in the name of the Science of Religion,“When Newton can dispense with the metaphysician,then may you dispense with us.”So much at first sight;now I am going on to claim a little more for Theology,by classing it with branches of knowledge which may with greater decency be compared to it.5.

Let us see,then,how this supercilious treatment of so momentous a science,for momentous it must be,if there be a God,runs in a somewhat parallel case.The great philosopher of antiquity,when he would enumerate the causes of the things that take place in the world,after making mention of those which he considered to be physical and material,adds,“and the mind and everything which is by means of man.”Certainly;it would have been a preposterous course,when he would trace the effects he saw around him to their respective sources,had he directed his exclusive attention upon some one class or order of originating principles,and ascribed to these everything which happened anywhere.It would indeed have been unworthy a genius so curious,so penetrating,so fertile,so analytical as Aristotle’s,to have laid it down that everything on the face of the earth could be accounted for by the material sciences,without the hypothesis of moral agents.It is incredible that in the investigation of physical results he could ignore so influential a being as man,or forget that,not only brute force and elemental movement,but knowledge also is power.And this so much the more,inasmuch as moral and spiritual agents belong to another,not to say a higher,order than physical;so that the omission supposed would not have been merely an oversight in matters of detail,but a philosophical error,and a fault in division.

However,we live in an age of the world when the career of science and literature is little affected by what was done,or would have been done,by this venerable authority;so,we will suppose,in England or Ireland,in the middle of the nineteenth century,a set of persons of name and celebrity to meet together,in spite of Aristotle,in order to adopt a line of proceeding which they conceive the circumstances of the time render imperative.We will suppose that a difficulty just now besets the enunciation and discussion of all matters of science,in consequence of the extreme sensitiveness of large classes of the community,clergy and laymen,on the subjects of necessity,responsibility,the standard of morals,and the nature of virtue.Parties run so high,that the only way of avoiding constant quarrelling in defence of this or that side of the question is,in the judgment of the persons I am supposing,to shut up the subject of anthropology altogether.This is accordingly done.Henceforth man is to be as if he were not,in the general course of Education;the moral and mental sciences are to have no professorial chairs,and the treatment of them is to be simply left as a matter of private judgment,which each individual may carry out as he will.I can just fancy such a prohibition abstractedly possible;but one thing I cannot fancy possible,viz.,that the parties in question,after this sweeping act of exclusion,should forthwith send out proposals on the basis of such exclusion for publishing an Encyclopædia,or erecting a National University.

It is necessary,however,Gentlemen,for the sake of the illustration which I am setting before you,to imagine what cannot be.I say,let us imagine a project for organizing a system of scientific teaching,in which the agency of man in the material world cannot allowably be recognized,and may allowably be denied.Physical and mechanical causes are exclusively to be treated of;volition is a forbidden subject.A prospectus is put out,with a list of sciences,we will say,Astronomy,Optics,Hydrostatics,Galvanism,Pneumatics,Statics,Dynamics,Pure Mathematics,Geology,Botany,Physiology,Anatomy,and so forth;but not a word about the mind and its powers,except what is said in explanation of the omission.That explanation is to the effect that the parties concerned in the undertaking have given long and anxious thought to the subject,and have been reluctantly driven to the conclusion that it is simply impracticable to include in the list of University Lectures the Philosophy of Mind.What relieves,however,their regret is the reflection,that domestic feelings and polished manners are best cultivated in the family circle and in good society,in the observance of the sacred ties which unite father,mother,and child,in the correlative claims and duties of citizenship,in the exercise of disinterested loyalty and enlightened patriotism.With this apology,such as it is,they pass over the consideration of the human mind and its powers and works,“in solemn silence,”in their scheme of University Education.

Let a charter be obtained for it;let professors be appointed,lectures given,examinations passed,degrees awarded:—what sort of exactness or trustworthiness,what philosophical largeness,will attach to views formed in an intellectual atmosphere thus deprived of some of the constituent elements of daylight? What judgment will foreign countries and future times pass on the labours of the most acute and accomplished of the philosophers who have been parties to so portentous an unreality? Here are professors gravely lecturing on medicine,or history,or political economy,who,so far from being bound to acknowledge,are free to scoff at the action of mind upon matter,or of mind upon mind,or the claims of mutual justice and charity.Common sense indeed and public opinion set bounds at first to so intolerable a licence;yet,as time goes on,an omission which was originally but a matter of expedience,commends itself to the reason;and at length a professor is found,more hardy than his brethren,still however,as he himself maintains,with sincere respect for domestic feelings and good manners,who takes on him to deny psychology in toto,to pronounce the influence of mind in the visible world a superstition,and to account for every effect which is found in the world by the operation of physical causes.Hitherto intelligence and volition were accounted real powers;the muscles act,and their action cannot be represented by any scientific expression;a stone flies out of the hand and the propulsive force of the muscle resides in the will;but there has been a revolution,or at least a new theory in philosophy,and our Professor,I say,after speaking with the highest admiration of the human intellect,limits its independent action to the region of speculation,and denies that it can be a motive principle,or can exercise a special interference,in the material world.He ascribes every work,every external act of man,to the innate force or soul of the physical universe.He observes that spiritual agents are so mysterious and unintelligible,so uncertain in their laws,so vague in their operation,so sheltered from experience,that a wise man will have nothing to say to them.They belong to a different order of causes,which he leaves to those whose profession it is to investigate them,and he confines himself to the tangible and sure.Human exploits,human devices,human deeds,human productions,all that comes under the scholastic terms of“genius”and“art,”and the metaphysical ideas of“duty,”“right,”and“heroism,”it is his office to contemplate all these merely in their place in the eternal system of physical cause and effect.At length he undertakes to show how the whole fabric of material civilization has arisen from the constructive powers of physical elements and physical laws.He descants upon palaces,castles,temples,exchanges,bridges,causeways,and shows that they never could have grown into the imposing dimensions which they present to us,but for the laws of gravitation and the cohesion of part with part.The pillar would come down,the loftier the more speedily,did not the centre of gravity fall within its base;and the most admired dome of Palladio or of Sir Christopher would give way,were it not for the happy principle of the arch.He surveys the complicated machinery of a single day’s arrangements in a private family;our dress,our furniture,our hospitable board;what would become of them,he asks,but for the laws of physical nature? Those laws are the causes of our carpets,our furniture,our travelling,and our social intercourse.Firm stitches have a natural power,in proportion to the toughness of the material adopted,to keep together separate portions of cloth;sofas and chairs could not turn upside down,even if they would;and it is a property of caloric to relax the fibres of animal matter,acting through water in one way,through oil in another,and this is the whole mystery of the most elaborate cuisine:—but I should be tedious if I continued the illustration.6.

Now,Gentlemen,pray understand how it is to be here applied.I am not supposing that the principles of Theology and Psychology are the same,or arguing from the works of man to the works of God,which Paley has done,which Hume has protested against.I am not busying myself to prove the existence and attributes of God,by means of the Argument from design.I am not proving anything at all about the Supreme Being.On the contrary,I am assuming His existence,and I do but say this:—that,man existing,no University Professor,who had suppressed in physical lectures the idea of volition,who did not take volition for granted,could escape a one-sided,a radically false view of the things which he discussed;not indeed that his own definitions,principles,and laws would be wrong,or his abstract statements,but his considering his own study to be the key of everything that takes place on the face of the earth,and his passing over anthropology,this would be his error.I say,it would not be his science which was untrue,but his socalled knowledge which was unreal.He would be deciding on facts by means of theories.The various busy world,spread out before our eyes,is physical,but it is more than physical;and,in making its actual system identical with his scientific analysis,formed on a particular aspect,such a Professor as I have imagined was betraying a want of philosophical depth,and an ignorance of what an University Teaching ought to be.He was no longer a teacher of liberal knowledge,but a narrow-minded bigot.While his doctrines professed to be conclusions formed upon an hypothesis or partial truth,they were undeniable;not so if they professed to give results in facts which he could grasp and take possession of.Granting,indeed,that a man’s arm is moved by a simple physical cause,then of course we may dispute about the various external influences which,when it changes its position,sway it to and fro,like a scarecrow in a garden;but to assert that the motive cause is physical,this is an assumption in a case,when our question is about a matter of fact,not about the logical consequences of an assumed premiss.And,in like manner,if a people prays,and the wind changes,the rain ceases,the sun shines,and the harvest is safely housed,when no one expected it,our Professor may,if he will,consult the barometer,Discourseabout the atmosphere,and throw what has happened into an equation,ingenious,even though it be not true;but,should he proceed to rest the phenomenon,in matter of fact,simply upon a physical cause,to the exclusion of a divine,and to say that the given case actually belongs to his science because other like cases do,I must tell him,Ne sutor ultra crepidam: he is making his particular craft usurp and occupy the universe.This then is the drift of my illustration.If the creature is ever setting in motion an endless series of physical causes and effects,much more is the Creator;and as our excluding volition from our range of ideas is a denial of the soul,so our ignoring Divine Agency is a virtual denial of God.Moreover,supposing man can will and act of himself in spite of physics,to shut up this great truth,though one,is to put our whole encyclopædia of knowledge out of joint;and supposing God can will and act of Himself in this world which He has made,and we deny or slur it over,then we are throwing the circle of universal science into a like,or a far worse confusion.

Worse incomparably,for the idea of God,if there be a God,is infinitely higher than the idea of man,if there be man.If to plot out man’s agency is to deface the book of knowledge,on the supposition of that agency existing,what must it be,supposing it exists,to blot out the agency of God? I have hitherto been engaged in showing that all the sciences come to us as one,that they all relate to one and the same integral subject-matter,that each separately is more or less an abstraction,wholly true as an hypothesis,but not wholly trustworthy in the concrete,conversant with relations more than with facts,with principles more than with agents,needing the support and guarantee of its sister sciences,and giving in turn while it takes:—from which it follows,that none can safely be omitted,if we would obtain the exactest knowledge possible of things as they are,and that the omission is more or less important,in proportion to the field which each covers,and the depth to which it penetrates,and the order to which it belongs;for its loss is a positive privation of an influence which exerts itself in the correction and completion of the rest.This is a general statement;but now as to Theology in particular,what,in matter of fact,are its pretensions,what its importance,what its influence upon other branches of knowledge,supposing there be a God,which it would not become me to set about proving? Has it vast dimensions,or does it lie in a nutshell? Will its omission be imperceptible,or will it destroy the equilibrium of the whole system of Knowledge? This is the inquiry to which I proceed.7.

Now what is Theology? First,I will tell you what it is not.And here,in the first place (though of course I speak on the subject as a Catholic),observe that,strictly speaking,I am not assuming that Catholicism is true,while I make myself the champion of Theology.Catholicism has not formally entered into my argument hitherto,nor shall I just now assume any principle peculiar to it,for reasons which will appear in the sequel,though of course I shall use Catholic language.Neither,secondly,will I fall into the fashion of the day,of identifying Natural Theology with Physical Theology;which said Physical Theology is a most jejune study,considered as a science,and really is no science at all,for it is ordinarily nothing more than a series of pious or polemical remarks upon the physical world viewed religiously,whereas the word“Natural”properly comprehends man and society,and all that is involved therein,as the great Protestant writer,Dr.Butler,shows us.Nor,in the third place,do I mean by Theology polemics of any kind;for instance,what are called“the Evidences of Religion,”or“the Christian Evidences;”for,though these constitute a science supplemental to Theology and are necessary in their place,they are not Theology itself,unless an army is synonymous with the body politic.Nor,fourthly,do I mean by Theology that vague thing called“Christianity,”or“our common Christianity,”or“Christianity the law of the land,”if there is any man alive who can tell what it is.I discard it,for the very reason that it cannot throw itself into a proposition.Lastly,I do not understand by Theology,acquaintance with the Scriptures;for,though no person of religious feelings can read Scripture but he will find those feelings roused,and gain much knowledge of history into the bargain,yet historical reading and religious feeling are not science.I mean none of these things by Theology,I simply mean the Science of God,or the truths we know about God put into system;just as we have a science of the stars,and call it astronomy,or of the crust of the earth,and call it geology.

For instance,I mean,for this is the main point,that,as in the human frame there is a living principle,acting upon it and through it by means of volition,so,behind the veil of the visible universe,there is an invisible,intelligent Being,acting on and through it,as and when He will.Further,I mean that this invisible Agent is in no sense a soul of the world,after the analogy of human nature,but,on the contrary,is absolutely distinct from the world,as being its Creator,Upholder,Governor,and Sovereign Lord.Here we are at once brought into the circle of doctrines which the idea of God embodies.I mean then by the Supreme Being,one who is simply self-dependent,and the only Being who is such;moreover,that He is without beginning or Eternal,and the only Eternal;that in consequence He has lived a whole eternity by Himself;and hence that He is all-sufficient,sufficient for His own blessedness,and all-blessed,and ever-blessed.Further,I mean a Being,who,having these prerogatives,has the Supreme Good,or rather is the Supreme Good,or has all the attributes of Good in infinite intenseness;all wisdom,all truth,all justice,all love,all holiness,all beautifulness;who is omnipotent,omniscient,omnipresent;ineffably one,absolutely perfect;and such,that what we do not know and cannot even imagine of Him,is far more wonderful than what we do and can.I mean One who is sovereign over His own will and actions,though always according to the eternal Rule of right and wrong,which is Himself.I mean,moreover,that He created all things out of nothing,and preserves them every moment,and could destroy them as easily as He made them;and that,in consequence,He is separated from them by an abyss,and is incommunicable in all His attributes.And further,He has stamped upon all things,in the hour of their creation,their respective natures,and has given them their work and mission and their length of days,greater or less,in their appointed place.I mean,too,that He is ever present with His works,one by one,and confronts every thing He has made by His particular and most loving Providence,and manifests Himself to each according to its needs: and has on rational beings imprinted the moral law,and given them power to obey it,imposing on them the duty of worship and service,searching and scanning them through and through with His omniscient eye,and putting before them a present trial and a judgment to come.

Such is what Theology teaches about God,a doctrine,as the very idea of its subject-matter presupposes,so mysterious as in its fulness to lie beyond any system,and in particular aspects to be simply external to nature,and to seem in parts even to be irreconcileable with itself,the imagination being unable to embrace what the reason determines.It teaches of a Being infinite,yet personal;all-blessed,yet ever operative;absolutely separate from the creature,yet in every part of the creation at every moment;above all things,yet under every thing.It teaches of a Being who,though the highest,yet in the work of creation,conservation,government,retribution,makes Himself,as it were,the minister and servant of all;who,though inhabiting eternity,allows Himself to take an interest,and to have a sympathy,in the matters of space and time.His are all beings,visible and invisible,the noblest and the vilest of them.His are the substance,and the operation,and the results of that system of physical nature into which we are born.His too are the powers and achievements of the intellectual essences,on which He has bestowed an independent action and the gift of origination.The laws of the universe,the principles of truth,the relation of one thing to another,their qualities and virtues,the order and harmony of the whole,all that exists,is from Him;and,if evil is not from Him,as assuredly it is not,this is because evil has no substance of its own,but is only the defect,excess,perversion,or corruption of that which has substance.All we see,hear,and touch,the remote sidereal firmament,as well as our own sea and land,and the elements which compose them,and the ordinances they obey,are His.The primary atoms of matter,their properties,their mutual action,their disposition and collocation,electricity,magnetism,gravitation,light,and whatever other subtle principles or operations the wit of man is detecting or shall detect,are the work of His hands.From Him has been every movement which has convulsed and re-fashioned the surface of the earth.The most insignificant or unsightly insect is from Him,and good in its kind;the ever-teeming,inexhaustible swarms of animalculæ,the myriads of living motes invisible to the naked eye,the restless everspreading vegetation which creeps like a garment over the whole earth,the lofty cedar,the umbrageous banana,are His.His are the tribes and families of birds and beasts,their graceful forms,their wild gestures,and their passionate cries.

And so in the intellectual,moral,social,and political world.Man,with his motives and works,his languages,his propagation,his diffusion,is from Him.Agriculture,medicine,and the arts of life,are His gifts.Society,laws,government,He is their sanction.The pageant of earthly royalty has the semblance and the benediction of the Eternal King.Peace and civilization,commerce and adventure,wars when just,conquest when humane and necessary,have His co-operation,and His blessing upon them.The course of events,the revolution of empires,the rise and fall of states,the periods and eras,the progresses and the retrogressions of the world’s history,not indeed the incidental sin,over-abundant as it is,but the great outlines and the results of human affairs,are from His disposition.The elements and types and seminal principles and constructive powers of the moral world,in ruins though it be,are to be referred to Him.He“enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world.”His are the dictates of the moral sense,and the retributive reproaches of conscience.To Him must be ascribed the rich endowments of the intellect,the irradiation of genius,the imagination of the poet,the sagacity of the politician,the wisdom (as Scripture calls it),which now rears and decorates the Temple,now manifests itself in proverb or in parable.The old saws of nations,the majestic precepts of philosophy,the luminous maxims of law,the oracles of individual wisdom,the traditionary rules of truth,justice,and religion,even though imbedded in the corruption,or alloyed with the pride,of the world,betoken His original agency,and His longsuffering presence.Even where there is habitual rebellion against Him,or profound far-spreading social depravity,still the undercurrent,or the heroic outburst,of natural virtue,as well as the yearnings of the heart after what it has not,and its presentiment of its true remedies,are to be ascribed to the Author of all good.Anticipations or reminiscences of His glory haunt the mind of the self-sufficient sage,and of the pagan devotee;His writing is upon the wall,whether of the Indian fane,or of the porticoes of Greece.He introduces Himself,He all but concurs,according to His good pleasure,and in His selected season,in the issues of unbelief,superstition,and false worship,and He changes the character of acts by His overruling operation.He condescends,though He gives no sanction,to the altars and shrines of imposture,and He makes His own fiat the substitute for its sorceries.He speaks amid the incantations of Balaam,raises Samuel’s spirit in the witch’s cavern,prophesies of the Messias by the tongue of the Sibyl,forces Python to recognize His ministers,and baptizes by the hand of the misbeliever.He is with the heathen dramatist in his denunciations of injustice and tyranny,and his auguries of divine vengeance upon crime.Even on the unseemly legends of a popular mythology He casts His shadow,and is dimly discerned in the ode or the epic,as in troubled water or in fantastic dreams.All that is good,all that is true,all that is beautiful,all that is beneficent,be it great or small,be it perfect or fragmentary,natural as well as supernatural,moral as well as material,comes from Him.8.

If this be a sketch,accurate in substance and as far as it goes,of the doctrines proper to Theology,and especially of the doctrine of a particular Providence,which is the portion of it most on a level with human sciences,I cannot understand at all how,supposing it to be true,it can fail,considered as knowledge,to exert a powerful influence on philosophy,literature,and every intellectual creation or discovery whatever.I cannot understand how it is possible,as the phrase goes,to blink the question of its truth or falsehood.It meets us with a profession and a proffer of the highest truths of which the human mind is capable;it embraces a range of subjects the most diversified and distant from each other.What science will not find one part or other of its province traversed by its path? What results of philosophic speculation are unquestionable,if they have been gained without inquiry as to what Theology had to say to them? Does it cast no light upon history? has it no influence upon the principles of ethics? is it without any sort of bearing on physics,metaphysics,and political science? Can we drop it out of the circle of knowledge,without allowing,either that that circle is thereby mutilated,or on the other hand,that Theology is really no science?

And this dilemma is the more inevitable,because Theology is so precise and consistent in its intellectual structure.When I speak of Theism or Monotheism,I am not throwing together discordant doctrines;I am not merging belief,opinion,persuasion,of whatever kind,into a shapeless aggregate,by the help of ambiguous words,and dignifying this medley by the name of Theology.I speak of one idea unfolded in its just proportions,carried out upon an intelligible method,and issuing in necessary and immutable results;understood indeed at one time and place better than at another,held here and there with more or less of inconsistency,but still,after all,in all times and places,where it is found,the evolution,not of half-a-dozen ideas,but of one.9.

And here I am led to another and most important point in the argument in its behalf,—I mean its wide reception.Theology,as I have described it,is no accident of particular minds,as are certain systems,for instance,of prophetical interpretation.It is not the sudden birth of a crisis,as the Lutheran or Wesleyan doctrine.It is not the splendid development of some uprising philosophy,as the Cartesian or Platonic.It is not the fashion of a season,as certain medical treatments may be considered.It has had a place,if not possession,in the intellectual world from time immemorial;it has been received by minds the most various,and in systems of religion the most hostile to each other.It has prima facie claims upon us,so imposing,that it can only be rejected on the ground of those claims being nothing more than imposing,that is,being false.As to our own countries,it occupies our language,it meets us at every turn in our literature,it is the secret assumption,too axiomatic to be distinctly professed,of all our writers;nor can we help assuming it ourselves,except by the most unnatural vigilance.Whoever philosophizes,starts with it,and introduces it,when he will,without any apology.Bacon,Hooker,Taylor,Cudworth,Locke,Newton,Clarke,Berkeley,and Butler,and it would be as easy to find more,as difficult to find greater names among English authors,inculcate or comment upon it.Men the most opposed,in creed or cast of mind,Addison and Johnson,Shakespeare and Milton,Lord Herbert and Baxter,herald it forth.Nor is it an English or a Protestant notion only;you track it across the Continent,you pursue it into former ages.When was the world without it? Have the systems of Atheism or Pantheism,as sciences,prevailed in the literature of nations,or received a formation or attained a completeness such as Monotheism? We find it in old Greece,and even in Rome,as well as in Judea and the East.We find it in popular literature,in philosophy,in poetry,as a positive and settled teaching,differing not at all in the appearance it presents,whether in Protestant England,or in schismatical Russia,or in the Mahometan populations,or in the Catholic Church.If ever there was a subject of thought,which had earned by prescription to be received among the studies of a University,and which could not be rejected except on the score of convicted imposture,as astrology or alchemy;if there be a science anywhere,which at least could claim not to be ignored,but to be entertained,and either distinctly accepted or distinctly reprobated,or rather,which cannot be passed over in a scheme of universal instruction,without involving a positive denial of its truth,it is this ancient,this far-spreading philosophy.10.

And now,Gentlemen,I may bring a somewhat tedious discussion to a close.It will not take many words to sum up what I have been urging.I say then,if the various branches of knowledge,which are the matter of teaching in a University,so hang together,that none can be neglected without prejudice to the perfection of the rest,and if Theology be a branch of knowledge,of wide reception,of philosophical structure,of unutterable importance,and of supreme influence,to what conclusion are we brought from these two premisses but this? that to withdraw Theology from the public schools is to impair the completeness and to invalidate the trustworthiness of all that is actually taught in them.

But I have been insisting simply on Natural Theology,and that,because I wished to carry along with me those who were not Catholics,and,again,as being confident,that no one can really set himself to master and to teach the doctrine of an intelligent Creator in its fulness,without going on a great deal farther than he at present dreams.I say,then,secondly:—if this Science,even as human reason may attain to it,has such claims on the regard,and enters so variously into the objects,of the Professor of Universal Knowledge,how can any Catholic imagine that it is possible for him to cultivate Philosophy and Science with due attention to their ultimate end,which is Truth,supposing that system of revealed facts and principles,which constitutes the Catholic Faith,which goes so far beyond nature,and which he knows to be most true,be omitted from among the subjects of his teaching?

In a word,Religious Truth is not only a portion,but a condition of general knowledge.To blot it out is nothing short,if I may so speak,of unravelling the web of University Teaching.It is,according to the Greek proverb,to take the Spring from out of the year;it is to imitate the preposterous proceeding of those tragedians who represented a drama with the omission of its principal part.

DiscourseⅣ Bearing of Other Branches of Knowledge on Theology

Nothing is more common in the world at large than to consider the resistance,made on the part of religious men,especially Catholics,to the separation of Secular Education from Religion,as a plain token that there is some real contrariety between human science and Revelation.To the multitude who draw this inference,it matters not whether the protesting parties avow their belief in this contrariety or not;it is borne in upon the many,as if it were self-evident,that religious men would not thus be jealous and alarmed about Science,did they not feel instinctively,though they may not recognize it,that knowledge is their born enemy,and that its progress,if it is not arrested,will be certain to destroy all that they hold venerable and dear.It looks to the world like a misgiving on our part similar to that which is imputed to our refusal to educate by means of the Bible only;why should you dread the sacred text,men say,if it be not against you? And in like manner,why should you dread secular education,except that it is against you? Why impede the circulation of books which take religious views opposite to your own? Why forbid your children and scholars the free perusal of poems or tales or essays or other light literature which you fear would unsettle their minds? Why oblige them to know these persons and to shun those,if you think that your friends have reason on their side as fully as your opponents? Truth is bold and unsuspicious;want of self-reliance is the mark of falsehood.

Now,as far as this objection relates to any supposed opposition between secular science and divine,which is the subject on which I am at present engaged,I made a sufficient answer to it in my foregoing Discourse.In it I said,that,in order to have possession of truth at all,we must have the whole truth;and no one science,no two sciences,no one family of sciences,nay,not even all secular science,is the whole truth;that revealed truth enters to a very great extent into the province of science,philosophy,and literature,and that to put it on one side,in compliment to secular science,is simply,under colour of a compliment,to do science a great damage.I do not say that every science will be equally affected by the omission;pure mathematics will not suffer at all;chemistry will suffer less than politics,politics than history,ethics,or metaphysics;still,that the various branches of science are intimately connected with each other,and form one whole,which whole is impaired,and to an extent which it is difficult to limit,by any considerable omission of knowledge,of whatever kind,and that revealed knowledge is very far indeed from an inconsiderable department of knowledge,this I consider undeniable.As the written and unwritten word of God make up Revelation as a whole,and the written,taken by itself,is but a part of that whole,so in turn Revelation itself may be viewed as one of the constituent parts of human knowledge,considered as a whole,and its omission is the omission of one of those constituent parts.Revealed Religion furnishes facts to the other sciences,which those sciences,left to themselves,would never reach;and it invalidates apparent facts,which,left to themselves,they would imagine.Thus,in the science of history,the preservation of our race in Noah’s ark is an historical fact,which history never would arrive at without Revelation;and,in the province of physiology and moral philosophy,our race’s progress and perfectibility is a dream,because Revelation contradicts it,whatever may be plausibly argued in its behalf by scientific inquirers.It is not then that Catholics are afraid of human knowledge,but that they are proud of divine knowledge,and that they think the omission of any kind of knowledge whatever,human or divine,to be,as far as it goes,not knowledge,but ignorance.2.

Thus I anticipated the objection in question last week: now I am going to make it the introduction to a further view of the relation of secular knowledge to divine.I observe,then,that,if you drop any science out of the circle of knowledge,you cannot keep its place vacant for it;that science is forgotten;the other sciences close up,or,in other words,they exceed their proper bounds,and intrude where they have no right.For instance,I suppose,if ethics were sent into banishment,its territory would soon disappear,under a treaty of partition,as it may be called,between law,political economy,and physiology;what,again,would become of the province of experimental science,if made over to the Antiquarian Society;or of history,if surrendered out and out to Metaphysicians? The case is the same with the subject-matter of Theology;it would be the prey of a dozen various sciences,if Theology were put out of possession;and not only so,but those sciences would be plainly exceeding their rights and their capacities in seizing upon it.They would be sure to teach wrongly,where they had no mission to teach at all.The enemies of Catholicism ought to be the last to deny this:—for they have never been blind to a like usurpation,as they have called it,on the part of theologians;those who accuse us of wishing,in accordance with Scripture language,to make the sun go round the earth,are not the men to deny that a science which exceeds its limits falls into error.

I neither then am able nor care to deny,rather I assert the fact,and to-day I am going on to account for it,that any secular science,cultivated exclusively,may become dangerous to Religion;and I account for it on this broad principle,that no science whatever,however comprehensive it may be,but will fall largely into error,if it be constituted the sole exponent of all things in heaven and earth,and that,for the simple reason that it is encroaching on territory not its own,and undertaking problems which it has no instruments to solve.And I set off thus:3.

One of the first acts of the human mind is to take hold of and appropriate what meets the senses,and herein lies a chief distinction between man’s and a brute’s use of them.Brutes gaze on sights,they are arrested by sounds;and what they see and what they hear are mainly sights and sounds only.The intellect of man,on the contrary,energizes as well as his eye or ear,and perceives in sights and sounds something beyond them.It seizes and unites what the senses present to it;it grasps and forms what need not have been seen or heard except in its constituent parts.It discerns in lines and colours,or in tones,what is beautiful and what is not.It gives them a meaning,and invests them with an idea.It gathers up a succession of notes into the expression of a whole,and calls it a melody;it has a keen sensibility towards angles and curves,lights and shadows,tints and contours.It distinguishes between rule and exception,between accident and design.It assigns phenomena to a general law,qualities to a subject,acts to a principle,and effects to a cause.In a word,it philosophizes;for I suppose Science and Philosophy,in their elementary idea,are nothing else but this habit of viewing,as it may be called,the objects which sense conveys to the mind,of throwing them into system,and uniting and stamping them with one form.

This method is so natural to us,as I have said,as to be almost spontaneous;and we are impatient when we cannot exercise it,and in consequence we do not always wait to have the means of exercising it aright,but we often put up with insufficient or absurd views or interpretations of what we meet with,rather than have none at all.We refer the various matters which are brought home to us,material or moral,to causes which we happen to know of,or to such as are simply imaginary,sooner than refer them to nothing;and according to the activity of our intellect do we feel a pain and begin to fret,if we are not able to do so.Here we have an explanation of the multitude of off-hand sayings,flippant judgments,and shallow generalizations,with which the world abounds.Not from self-will only,nor from malevolence,but from the irritation which suspense occasions,is the mind forced on to pronounce,without sufficient data for pronouncing.Who does not form some view or other,for instance,of any public man,or any public event,nay,even so far in some cases as to reach the mental delineation of his appearance or of its scene? yet how few have a right to form any view.Hence the misconceptions of character,hence the false impressions and reports of words or deeds,which are the rule,rather than the exception,in the world at large;hence the extravagances of undisciplined talent,and the narrowness of conceited ignorance;because,though it is no easy matter to view things correctly,nevertheless the busy mind will ever be viewing.We cannot do without a view,and we put up with an illusion,when we cannot get a truth.4.

Now,observe how this impatience acts in matters of research and speculation.What happens to the ignorant and hotheaded,will take place in the case of every person whose education or pursuits are contracted,whether they be merely professional,merely scientific,or of whatever other peculiar complexion.Men,whose life lies in the cultivation of one science,or the exercise of one method of thought,have no more right,though they have often more ambition,to generalize upon the basis of their own pursuit but beyond its range,than the schoolboy or the ploughman to judge of a Prime Minister.But they must have something to say on every subject;habit,fashion,the public require it of them: and,if so,they can only give sentence according to their knowledge.You might think this ought to make such a person modest in his enunciations;not so: too often it happens that,in proportion to the narrowness of his knowledge,is,not his distrust of it,but the deep hold it has upon him,his absolute conviction of his own conclusions,and his positiveness in maintaining them.He has the obstinacy of the bigot,whom he scorns,without the bigot’s apology,that he has been taught,as he thinks,his doctrine from heaven.Thus he becomes,what is commonly called,a man of one idea;which properly means a man of one science,and of the view,partly true,but subordinate,partly false,which is all that can proceed out of any thing so partial.Hence it is that we have the principles of utility,of combination,of progress,of philanthropy,or,in material sciences,comparative anatomy,phrenology,electricity,exalted into leading ideas,and keys,if not of all knowledge,at least of many things more than belong to them,—principles,all of them true to a certain point,yet all degenerating into error and quackery,because they are carried to excess,viz.at the point where they require interpretation and restraint from other quarters,and because they are employed to do what is simply too much for them,inasmuch as a little science is not deep philosophy.

Lord Bacon has set down the abuse,of which I am speaking,among the impediments to the Advancement of the Sciences,when he observes that“men have used to infect their meditations,opinions,and doctrines,with some conceits which they have most admired,or some Sciences which they have most applied;and give all things else a tincture according to them utterly untrue and improper.… So have the alchemists made a philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace;and Gilbertus,our countryman,hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a lodestone.So Cicero,when,reciting the several opinions of the nature of the soul,he found a musician that held the soul was but a harmony,saith pleasantly,‘hic ab arte sua non recessit,’‘he was true to his art.’But of these conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely when he saith,‘Qui respiciunt ad pauca,de facili pronunciant,’‘they who contemplate a few things have no difficulty in deciding.’”弗朗西斯 培根（1561—1626），英国散文家，哲学家。5.

And now I have said enough to explain the inconvenience which I conceive necessarily to result from a refusal to recognize theological truth in a course of Universal Knowledge;—it is not only the loss of Theology,it is the perversion of other sciences.What it unjustly forfeits,others unjustly seize.They have their own department,and,in going out of it,attempt to do what they really cannot do;and that the more mischievously,because they do teach what in its place is true,though when out of its place,perverted or carried to excess,it is not true.And,as every man has not the capacity of separating truth from falsehood,they persuade the world of what is false by urging upon it what is true.Nor is it open enemies alone who encounter us here,sometimes it is friends,sometimes persons who,if not friends,at least have no wish to oppose Religion,and are not conscious they are doing so;and it will carry out my meaning more fully if I give some illustrations of it.

As to friends,I may take as an instance the cultivation of the Fine Arts,Painting,Sculpture,Architecture,to which I may add Music.These high ministers of the Beautiful and the Noble are,it is plain,special attendants and handmaids of Religion;but it is equally plain that they are apt to forget their place,and,unless restrained with a firm hand,instead of being servants,will aim at becoming principals.Here lies the advantage,in an ecclesiastical point of view,of their more rudimental state,I mean of the ancient style of architecture,of Gothic sculpture and painting,and of what is called Gregorian music,that these inchoate sciences have so little innate vigour and life in them,that they are in no danger of going out of their place,and giving the law to Religion.But the case is very different when genius has breathed upon their natural elements,and has developed them into what I may call intellectual powers.When Painting,for example,grows into the fulness of its function as a simply imitative art,it at once ceases to be a dependant on the Church.It has an end of its own,and that of earth: Nature is its pattern,and the object it pursues is the beauty of Nature,even till it becomes an ideal beauty,but a natural beauty still.It cannot imitate that beauty of Angels and Saints which it has never seen.At first,indeed,by outlines and emblems it shadowed out the Invisible,and its want of skill became the instrument of reverence and modesty;but as time went on and it attained its full dimensions as an art,it rather subjected Religion to its own ends than ministered to the ends of Religion,and in its long galleries and stately chambers,did but mingle adorable figures and sacred histories with a multitude of earthly,not to say unseemly forms,which the Art had created,borrowing withal a colouring and a character from that bad company.Not content with neutral ground for its development,it was attracted by the sublimity of divine subjects to ambitious and hazardous essays.Without my saying a word more,you will clearly understand,Gentlemen,that under these circumstances Religion was bound to exert itself,that the world might not gain an advantage over it.Put out of sight the severe teaching of Catholicism in the schools of Painting,as men now would put it aside in their philosophical studies,and in no long time you would have the hierarchy of the Church,the Anchorite and Virgin-martyr,the Confessor and the Doctor,the Angelic Hosts,the Mother of God,the Crucifix,the Eternal Trinity,supplanted by a sort of pagan mythology in the guise of sacred names,by a creation indeed of high genius,of intense,and dazzling,and soul-absorbing beauty,in which,however,there was nothing which subserved the cause of Religion,nothing on the other hand which did not directly or indirectly minister to corrupt nature and the powers of darkness.6.

The art of Painting,however,is peculiar: Music and Architecture are more ideal,and their respective archetypes,even if not supernatural,at least are abstract and unearthly;and yet what I have been observing about Painting,holds,I think,analogously,in the marvellous development which Musical Science has undergone in the last century.Doubtless here too the highest genius may be made subservient to Religion;here too,still more simply than in the case of Painting,the Science has a field of its own,perfectly innocent,into which Religion does not and need not enter;on the other hand here also,in the case of Music as of Painting,it is certain that Religion must be alive and on the defensive,for,if its servants sleep,a potent enchantment will steal over it.Music,I suppose,though this is not the place to enlarge upon it,has an object of its own;as mathematical science also,it is the expression of ideas greater and more profound than any in the visible world,ideas,which centre indeed in Him whom Catholicism manifests,who is the seat of all beauty,order,and perfection whatever,still ideas after all which are not those on which Revelation directly and principally fixes our gaze.If then a great master in this mysterious science (if I may speak of matters which seem to lie out of my own province) throws himself on his own gift,trusts its inspirations,and absorbs himself in those thoughts which,though they come to him in the way of nature,belong to things above nature,it is obvious he will neglect everything else.Rising in his strength,he will break through the trammels of words,he will scatter human voices,even the sweetest,to the winds;he will be borne upon nothing less than the fullest flood of sounds which art has enabled him to draw from mechanical contrivances;he will go forth as a giant,as far as ever his instruments can reach,starting from their secret depths fresh and fresh elements of beauty and grandeur as he goes,and pouring them together into still more marvellous and rapturous combinations;—and well indeed and lawfully,while he keeps to that line which is his own;but,should he happen to be attracted,as he well may,by the sublimity,so congenial to him,of the Catholic doctrine and ritual,should he engage in sacred themes,should he resolve by means of his art to do honour to the Mass,or the Divine Office,—(he cannot have a more pious,a better purpose,and Religion will gracefully accept what he gracefully offers;but)—is it not certain,from the circumstances of the case,that he will be carried on rather to use Religion than to minister to it,unless Religion is strong on its own ground,and reminds him that,if he would do honour to the highest of subjects,he must make himself its scholar,must humbly follow the thoughts given him,and must aim at the glory,not of his own gift,but of the Great Giver?7.

As to Architecture,it is a remark,if I recollect aright both of Fénélon and Berkeley,men so different,that it carries more with it even than the names of those celebrated men,that the Gothic style is not as simple as befits ecclesiastical structures.I understand this to be a similar judgment to that which I have been passing on the cultivation of Painting and Music.For myself,certainly I think that that style which,whatever be its origin,is called Gothic,is endowed with a profound and a commanding beauty,such as no other style possesses with which we are acquainted,and which probably the Church will not see surpassed till it attain to the Celestial City.No other architecture,now used for sacred purposes,seems to be the growth of an idea,whereas the Gothic style is as harmonious and as intellectual as it is graceful.But this feeling should not blind us,rather it should awaken us,to the danger lest what is really a divine gift be incautiously used as an end rather than as a means.It is surely quite within the bounds of possibility,that,as the renaissance three centuries ago carried away its own day,in spite of the Church,into excesses in literature and art,so that revival of an almost forgotten architecture,which is at present taking place in our own countries,in France,and in Germany,may in some way or other run away with us into this or that error,unless we keep a watch over its course.I am not speaking of Ireland;but to English Catholics at least it would be a serious evil,if it came as the emblem and advocate of a past ceremonial or an extinct nationalism.We are not living in an age of wealth and loyalty,of pomp and stateliness,of time-honoured establishments,of pilgrimage and penance,of hermitages and convents in the wild,and of fervent populations supplying the want of education by love,and apprehending in form and symbol what they cannot read in books.Our rules and our rubrics have been altered now to meet the times,and hence an obsolete discipline may be a present heresy.8.

I have been pointing out how the Fine Arts may prejudice Religion,by laying down the law in cases where they should be subservient.The illustration is analogous rather than strictly proper to my subject,yet I think it is to the point.If then the most loyal and dutiful children of the Church must deny themselves,and do deny themselves,when they would sanctify to a heavenly purpose sciences as sublime and as divine as any which are cultivated by fallen man,it is not wonderful,when we turn to sciences of a different character,of which the object is tangible and material,and the principles belong to the Reason,not to the Imagination,that we should find their disciples,if disinclined to the Catholic Faith,acting the part of opponents to it,and that,as may often happen,even against their will and intention.Many men there are,who,devoted to one particular subject of thought,and making its principles the measure of all things,become enemies to Revealed Religion before they know it,and,only as time proceeds,are aware of their own state of mind.These,if they are writers or lecturers,while in this state of unconscious or semi-conscious unbelief,scatter infidel principles under the garb and colour of Christianity;and this,simply because they have made their own science,whatever it is,Political Economy,or Geology,or Astronomy,to the neglect of Theology,the centre of all truth,and view every part or the chief parts of knowledge as if developed from it,and to be tested and determined by its principles.Others,though conscious to themselves of their anti-christian opinions,have too much good feeling and good taste to obtrude them upon the world.They neither wish to shock people,nor to earn for themselves a confessorship which brings with it no gain.They know the strength of prejudice,and the penalty of innovation;they wish to go through life quietly;they scorn polemics;they shrink,as from a real humiliation,from being mixed up in religious controversy;they are ashamed of the very name.However,they have had occasion at some time to publish on some literary or scientific subject;they have wished to give no offence;but after all,to their great annoyance,they find when they least expect it,or when they have taken considerable pains to avoid it,that they have roused by their publication what they would style the bigoted and bitter hostility of a party.This misfortune is easily conceivable,and has befallen many a man.Before he knows where he is,a cry is raised on all sides of him;and so little does he know what we may call the lie of the land,that his attempts at apology perhaps only make matters worse.In other words,an exclusive line of study has led him,whether he will or no,to run counter to the principles of Religion;which principles he has never made his landmarks,and which,whatever might be their effect upon himself,at least would have warned him against practising upon the faith of others,had they been authoritatively held up before him.9.

Instances of this kind are far from uncommon.Men who are old enough,will remember the trouble which came upon a person,eminent as a professional man in London even at that distant day,and still more eminent since,in consequence of his publishing a book in which he so treated the subject of Comparative Anatomy as to seem to deny the immateriality of the soul.I speak here neither as excusing nor reprobating sentiments about which I have not the means of forming a judgment;all indeed I have heard of him makes me mention him with interest and respect;anyhow of this I am sure,that if there be a calling which feels its position and its dignity to lie in abstaining from controversy and in cultivating kindly feelings with men of all opinions,it is the medical profession,and I cannot believe that the person in question would purposely have raised the indignation and incurred the censure of the religious public.What then must have been his fault or mistake,but that he unsuspiciously threw himself upon his own particular science,which is of a material character,and allowed it to carry him forward into a subject-matter,where it had no right to give the law,viz.,that of spiritual beings,which directly belongs to the science of Theology?

Another instance occurred at a later date.A living dignitary of the Established Church wrote a History of the Jews;in which,with what I consider at least bad judgment,he took an external view of it,and hence was led to assimilate it as nearly as possible to secular history.A great sensation was the consequence among the members of his own communion,from which he still suffers.Arguing from the dislike and contempt of polemical demonstrations which that accomplished writer has ever shown,I must conclude that he was simply betrayed into a false step by the treacherous fascination of what is called the Philosophy of History,which is good in its place,but can scarcely be applied in cases where the Almighty has superseded the natural laws of society and history.From this he would have been saved,had he been a Catholic;but in the Establishment he knew of no teaching,to which he was bound to defer,which might rule that to be false which attracted him by its speciousness.10.

I will now take an instance from another science,and will use more words about it.Political Economy is the science,I suppose,of wealth,—a science simply lawful and useful,for it is no sin to make money,any more than it is a sin to seek honour;a science at the same time dangerous and leading to occasions of sin,as is the pursuit of honour too;and in consequence,if studied by itself,and apart from the control of Revealed Truth,sure to conduct a speculator to unchristian conclusions.Holy Scripture tells us distinctly,that“covetousness,”or more literally the love of money,“is the root of all evils;”and that“they that would become rich fall into temptation;”and that“hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God;”and after drawing the picture of a wealthy and flourishing people,it adds,“They have called the people happy that hath these things;but happy is that people whose God is the Lord:”—while on the other hand it says with equal distinctness,“If any will not work,neither let him eat;”and,“If any man have not care of his own,and especially of those of his house,he hath denied the faith,and is worse than an infidel.”These opposite injunctions are summed up in the wise man’s prayer,who says,“Give me neither beggary nor riches,give me only the necessaries of life.”With this most precise view of a Christian’s duty,viz.,to labour indeed,but to labour for a competency for himself and his,and to be jealous of wealth,whether personal or national,the holy Fathers are,as might be expected,in simple accordance.“Judas,”says St.Chrysostom,“was with Him who knew not where to lay His head,yet could not restrain himself;and how canst thou hope to escape the contagion without anxious effort?”“It is ridiculous,”says St.Jerome,“to call it idolatry to offer to the creature the grains of incense that are due to God,and not to call it so,to offer the whole service of one’s life to the creature.”“There is not a trace of justice in that heart,”says St.Leo,“in which the love of gain has made itself a dwelling.”The same thing is emphatically taught us by the counsels of perfection,and by every holy monk and nun anywhere,who has ever embraced them;but it is needless to collect testimonies,when Scripture is so clear.

Now,observe,Gentlemen,my drift in setting Scripture and the Fathers over against Political Economy.Of course if there is a science of wealth,it must give rules for gaining wealth and disposing of wealth,and can do nothing more;it cannot itself declare that it is a subordinate science,that its end is not the ultimate end of all things,and that its conclusions are only hypothetical,depending on its premisses,and liable to be overruled by a higher teaching.I do not then blame the Political Economist for anything which follows from the very idea of his science,from the very moment that it is recognized as a science.He must of course direct his inquiries towards his end;but then at the same time it must be recollected,that so far he is not practical,but only pursues an abstract study,and is busy himself in establishing logical conclusions from indisputable premisses.Given that wealth is to be sought,this and that is the method of gaining it.This is the extent to which a Political Economist has a right to go;he has no right to determine that wealth is at any rate to be sought,or that it is the way to be virtuous and the price of happiness;I say,this is to pass the bounds of his science,independent of the question whether he be right or wrong in so determining,for he is only concerned with an hypothesis.

To take a parallel case:—a physician may tell you,that if you are to preserve your health,you must give up your employment and retire to the country.He distinctly says“if;”that is all in which he is concerned,he is no judge whether there are objects dearer to you,more urgent upon you,than the preservation of your health;he does not enter into your circumstances,your duties,your liabilities,the persons dependent on you;he knows nothing about what is advisable or what is not;he only says,“I speak as a physician;if you would be well,give up your profession,your trade,your office,whatever it is.”However he may wish it,it would be impertinent in him to say more,unless indeed he spoke,not as a physician but as a friend;and it would be extravagant,if he asserted that bodily health was the summum bonum,and that no one could be virtuous whose animal system was not in good order.11.

But now let us turn to the teaching of the actual Political Economist,in his present fashionable shape.I will take a very favourable instance of him: he shall be represented by a gentleman of high character,whose religious views are sufficiently guaranteed to us by his being the special choice,in this department of science,of a University removed more than any other Protestant body of the day from sordid or unchristian principles on the subject of moneymaking.I say,if there be a place where Political Economy would be kept in order,and would not be suffered to leave the high road and ride across the pastures and the gardens dedicated to other studies,it is the University of Oxford.And if a man could anywhere be found who would have too much good taste to offend the religious feeling of the place,or to say any thing which he would himself allow to be inconsistent with Revelation,I conceive it is the person whose temperate and well-considered composition,as it would be generally accounted,I am going to offer to your notice.Nor did it occasion any excitement whatever on the part of the academical or the religious public,as did the instances which I have hitherto been adducing.I am representing then the science of Political Economy,in its independent or unbridled action,to great advantage,when I select,as its specimen,the Inaugural Lecture upon it,delivered in the University in question,by its first Professor.Yet with all these circumstances in its favour,you will soon see,Gentlemen,into what extravagance,for so I must call it,a grave lawyer is led in praise of his chosen science,merely from the circumstance that he has fixed his mind upon it,till he has forgotten there are subjects of thought higher and more heavenly than it.You will find beyond mistake,that it is his object to recommend the science of wealth,by claiming for it an ethical quality,viz.,by extolling it as the road to virtue and happiness,whatever Scripture and holy men may say to the contrary.

He begins by predicting of Political Economy,that in the course of a very few years,“it will rank in public estimation among the first of moral sciences in interest and in utility.”Then he explains most lucidly its objects and duties,considered as“the science which teaches in what wealth consists,by what agents it is produced,and according to what laws it is distributed,and what are the institutions and customs by which production may be facilitated and distribution regulated,so as to give the largest possible amount of wealth to each individual.”And he dwells upon the interest which attaches to the inquiry,“whether England has run her full career of wealth and improvement,but stands safe where she is,or whether to remain stationary is impossible.”After this he notices a certain objection,which I shall set before you in his own words,as they will furnish me with the illustration I propose.

This objection,he says,is,that,“as the pursuit of wealth is one of the humblest of human occupations,far inferior to the pursuit of virtue,or of knowledge,or even of reputation,and as the possession of wealth is not necessarily joined,—perhaps it will be said,is not conducive,—to happiness,a science,of which the only subject is wealth,cannot claim to rank as the first,or nearly the first,of moral sciences.”Certainly,to an enthusiast in behalf of any science whatever,the temptation is great to meet an objection urged against its dignity and worth;however,from the very form of it,such an objection cannot receive a satisfactory answer by means of the science itself.It is an objection external to the science,and reminds us of the truth of Lord Bacon’s remark,“No perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level;neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science,if you stand upon the level of the science,and ascend not to a higher science.”The objection that Political Economy is inferior to the science of virtue,or does not conduce to happiness,is an ethical or theological objection;the question of its“rank”belongs to that Architectonic Science or Philosophy,whatever it be,which is itself the arbiter of all truth,and which disposes of the claims and arranges the places of all the departments of knowledge which man is able to master.I say,when an opponent of a particular science asserts that it does not conduce to happiness,and much more when its champion contends in reply that it certainly does conduce to virtue,as this author proceeds to contend,the obvious question which occurs to one to ask is,what does Religion,what does Revelation,say on the point? Political Economy must not be allowed to give judgment in its own favour,but must come before a higher tribunal.The objection is an appeal to the Theologian;however,the Professor does not so view the matter;he does not consider it a question for Philosophy;nor indeed on the other hand a question for Political Economy;not a question for Science at all;but for Private Judgment,—so he answers it himself,and as follows:12.

“My answer,”he says,“is,first,that the pursuit of wealth,that is,the endeavour to accumulate the means of future subsistence and enjoyment,is,to the mass of mankind,the great source of moral improvement.”Now observe,Gentlemen,how exactly this bears out what I have been saying.It is just so far true,as to be able to instil what is false,far as the author was from any such design.I grant,then,that,ordinarily,beggary is not the means of moral improvement;and that the orderly habits which attend upon the hot pursuit of gain,not only may effect an external decency,but may at least shelter the soul from the temptations of vice.Moreover,these habits of good order guarantee regularity in a family or household,and thus are accidentally the means of good;moreover,they lead to the education of its younger branches,and they thus accidentally provide the rising generation with a virtue or a truth which the present has not: but without going into these considerations,further than to allow them generally,and under circumstances,let us rather contemplate what the author’s direct assertion is.He says,“the endeavour to accumulate,”the words should be weighed,and for what?“for enjoyment;”—“to accumulate the means of future subsistence and enjoyment,is,to the mass of mankind,the great source,”not merely a source,but the great source,and of what? of social and political progress?—such an answer would have been more within the limits of his art,—no,but of something individual and personal,“of moral improvement.”The soul,in the case of“the mass of mankind,”improves in moral excellence from this more than any thing else,viz.,from heaping up the means of enjoying this world in time to come! I really should on every account be sorry,Gentlemen,to exaggerate,but indeed one is taken by surprise,one is startled,on meeting with so very categorical a contradiction of our Lord,St.Paul,St.Chrysostom,St.Leo,and all Saints.

“No institution,”he continues,“could be more beneficial to the morals of the lower orders,that is,to at least nine-tenths of the whole body of any people,than one which should increase their power and their wish to accumulate;none more mischievous than one which should diminish their motives and means to save.”No institution more beneficial than one which should increase the wish to accumulate! then Christianity is not one of such beneficial institutions,for it expressly says,“Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth … for where thy treasure is,there is thy heart also;”—no institution more mischievous than one which should diminish the motives to save! then Christianity is one of such mischiefs,for the inspired text proceeds,“Lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven,where neither the rust nor the moth doth consume,and where thieves do not dig through,nor steal.”

But it is not enough that morals and happiness are made to depend on gain and accumulation;the practice of Religion is ascribed to these causes also,and in the following way.Wealth depends upon the pursuit of wealth;education depends upon wealth;knowledge depends on education;and Religion depends on knowledge;therefore Religion depends on the pursuit of wealth.He says,after speaking of a poor and savage people,“Such a population must be grossly ignorant.The desire of knowledge is one of the last results of refinement;it requires in general to have been implanted in the mind during childhood;and it is absurd to suppose that persons thus situated would have the power or the will to devote much to the education of their children.A further consequence is the absence of all real religion;for the religion of the grossly ignorant,if they have any,scarcely ever amounts to more than a debasing superstition.”The pursuit of gain then is the basis of virtue,religion,happiness;though it is all the while,as a Christian knows,the“root of all evils,”and the“poor on the contrary are blessed,for theirs is the kingdom of God.”

As to the argument contained in the logical Sorites which I have been drawing out,I anticipated just now what I should say to it in reply.I repeat,doubtless“beggary,”as the wise man says,is not desirable;doubtless,if men will not work,they should not eat;there is doubtless a sense in which it may be said that mere social or political virtue tends to moral and religious excellence;but the sense needs to be defined and the statement to be kept within bounds.This is the very point on which I am all along insisting.I am not denying,I am granting,I am assuming,that there is reason and truth in the“leading ideas,”as they are called,and“large views”of scientific men;I only say that,though they speak truth,they do not speak the whole truth;that they speak a narrow truth,and think it a broad truth;that their deductions must be compared with other truths,which are acknowledged to be truths,in order to verify,complete,and correct them.They say what is true,exceptis excipiendis;what is true,but requires guarding;true,but must not be ridden too hard,or made what is called a hobby;true,but not the measure of all things;true,but if thus inordinately,extravagantly,ruinously carried out,in spite of other sciences,in spite of Theology,sure to become but a great bubble,and to burst.13.

I am getting to the end of this Discourse,before I have noticed one tenth part of the instances with which I might illustrate the subject of it.Else I should have wished especially to have dwelt upon the not unfrequent perversion which occurs of antiquarian and historical research,to the prejudice of Theology.It is undeniable that the records of former ages are of primary importance in determining Catholic doctrine;it is undeniable also that there is a silence or a contrariety abstractedly conceivable in those records,as to an alleged portion of that doctrine,which would be sufficient to invalidate its claims on our acceptance;but it is quite as undeniable that the existing documentary testimony to Catholicism and Christianity may be so unduly valued as to be made the absolute measure of Revelation,as if no part of theological teaching were true which cannot bring its express text,as it is called,from Scripture,and authorities from the Fathers or profane writers,—whereas there are numberless facts in past times which we cannot deny,for they are indisputable,though history is silent about them.I suppose,on this score,we ought to deny that the round towers of this country had any origin,because history does not disclose it;or that any individual came from Adam who cannot produce the table of his ancestry.Yet Gibbon argues against the darkness at the Passion,from the accident that it is not mentioned by Pagan historians:—as well might he argue against the existence of Christianity itself in the first century,because Seneca,Pliny,Plutarch,the Jewish Mishna,and other authorities are silent about it.Protestants argue in a parallel way against Transubstantiation,and Arians against our Lord’s Divinity,viz.,on the ground that extant writings of certain Fathers do not witness those doctrines to their satisfaction:—as well might they say that Christianity was not spread by the Twelve Apostles,because we know so little of their labours.The evidence of History,I say,is invaluable in its place;but,if it assumes to be the sole means of gaining Religious Truth,it goes beyond its place.We are putting it to a larger office than it can undertake,if we countenance the usurpation;and we are turning a true guide and blessing into a source of inexplicable difficulty and interminable doubt.

And so of other sciences: just as Comparative Anatomy,Political Economy,the Philosophy of History,and the Science of Antiquities may be and are turned against Religion,by being taken by themselves,as I have been showing,so a like mistake may befall any other.Grammar,for instance,at first sight does not appear to admit of a perversion;yet Horne Tooke made it the vehicle of his peculiar scepticism.Law would seem to have enough to do with its own clients,and their affairs;and yet Mr.Bentham made a treatise on Judicial Proofs a covert attack upon the miracles of Revelation.And in like manner Physiology may deny moral evil and human responsibility;Geology may deny Moses;and Logic may deny the Holy Trinity;and other sciences,now rising into notice,are or will be victims of a similar abuse.14.

And now to sum up what I have been saying in a few words.My object,it is plain,has been—not to show that Secular Science in its various departments may take up a position hostile to Theology;—this is rather the basis of the objection with which I opened this Discourse;—but to point out the cause of an hostility to which all parties will bear witness.I have been insisting then on this,that the hostility in question,when it occurs,is coincident with an evident deflection or exorbitance of Science from its proper course;and that this exorbitance is sure to take place,almost from the necessity of the case,if Theology be not present to defend its own boundaries and to hinder the encroachment.The human mind cannot keep from speculating and systematizing;and if Theology is not allowed to occupy its own territory,adjacent sciences,nay,sciences which are quite foreign to Theology,will take possession of it.And this occupation is proved to be a usurpation by this circumstance,that these foreign sciences will assume certain principles as true,and act upon them,which they neither have authority to lay down themselves,nor appeal to any other higher science to lay down for them.For example,it is a mere unwarranted assumption if the Antiquarian says,“Nothing has ever taken place but is to be found in historical documents;”or if the Philosophic Historian says,“There is nothing in Judaism different from other political institutions;”or if the Anatomist,“There is no soul beyond the brain;”or if the Political Economist,“Easy circumstances make men virtuous.”These are enunciations,not of Science,but of Private Judgment;and it is Private Judgment that infects every science which it touches with a hostility to Theology,a hostility which properly attaches to no science in itself whatever.

If then,Gentlemen,I now resist such a course of acting as unphilosophical,what is this but to do as men of Science do when the interests of their own respective pursuits are at stake? If they certainly would resist the divine who determined the orbit of Jupiter by the Pentateuch,why am I to be accused of cowardice or illiberality,because I will not tolerate their attempt in turn to theologize by means of astronomy? And if experimentalists would be sure to cry out,did I attempt to install the Thomist philosophy in the schools of astronomy and medicine,why may not I,when Divine Science is ostracized,and La Place,or Buffon,or Humboldt,sits down in its chair,why may not I fairly protest against their exclusiveness,and demand the emancipation of Theology?15.

And now I consider I have said enough in proof of the first point,which I undertook to maintain,viz.,the claim of Theology to be represented among the Chairs of a University.I have shown,I think,that exclusiveness really attaches,not to those who support that claim,but to those who dispute it.I have argued in its behalf,first,from the consideration that,whereas it is the very profession of a University to teach all sciences,on this account it cannot exclude Theology without being untrue to its profession.Next,I have said that,all sciences being connected together,and having bearings one on another,it is impossible to teach them all thoroughly,unless they all are taken into account,and Theology among them.Moreover,I have insisted on the important influence,which Theology in matter of fact does and must exercise over a great variety of sciences,completing and correcting them;so that,granting it to be a real science occupied upon truth,it cannot be omitted without great prejudice to the teaching of the rest.And lastly,I have urged that,supposing Theology be not taught,its province will not simply be neglected,but will be actually usurped by other sciences,which will teach,without warrant,conclusions of their own in a subject-matter which needs its own proper principles for its due formation and disposition.

Abstract statements are always unsatisfactory;these,as I have already observed,could be illustrated at far greater length than the time allotted to me for the purpose has allowed.Let me hope that I have said enough upon the subject to suggest thoughts,which those who take an interest in it may pursue for themselves.

DiscourseⅤ Knowledge Its Own End

A University may be considered with reference either to its Students or to its Studies;and the principle,that all Knowledge is a whole and the separate Sciences parts of one,which I have hitherto been using in behalf of its studies,is equally important when we direct our attention to its students.Now then I turn to the students,and shall consider the education which,by virtue of this principle,a University will give them;and thus I shall be introduced,Gentlemen,to the second question,which I proposed to discuss,viz,whether and in what sense its teaching,viewed relatively to the taught,carries the attribute of Utility along with it.1.

I have said that all branches of knowledge are connected together,because the subject-matter of knowledge is intimately united in itself,as being the acts and the work of the Creator.Hence it is that the Sciences,into which our knowledge may be said to be cast,have multiplied bearings one on another,and an internal sympathy,and admit,or rather demand,comparison and adjustment.They complete,correct,balance each other.This consideration,if well-founded,must be taken into account,not only as regards the attainment of truth,which is their common end,but as regards the influence which they exercise upon those whose education consists in the study of them.I have said already,that to give undue prominence to one is to be unjust to another;to neglect or supersede these is to divert those from their proper object.It is to unsettle the boundary lines between science and science,to disturb their action,to destroy the harmony which binds them together.Such a proceeding will have a corresponding effect when introduced into a place of education.There is no science but tells a different tale,when viewed as a portion of a whole,from what it is likely to suggest when taken by itself,without the safeguard,as I may call it,of others.

Let me make use of an illustration.In the combination of colours,very different effects are produced by a difference in their selection and juxta-position;red,green,and white,change their shades,according to the contrast to which they are submitted.And,in like manner,the drift and meaning of a branch of knowledge varies with the company in which it is introduced to the student.If his reading is confined simply to one subject,however such division of labour may favour the advancement of a particular pursuit,a point into which I do not here enter,certainly it has a tendency to contract his mind.If it is incorporated with others,it depends on those others as to the kind of influence which it exerts upon him.Thus the Classics,which in England are the means of refining the taste,have in France subserved the spread of revolutionary and deistical doctrines.In Metaphysics,again,Butler’s Analogy of Religion,which has had so much to do with the conversion to the Catholic faith of members of the University of Oxford,appeared to Pitt and others,who had received a different training,to operate only in the direction of infidelity.And so again,Watson,Bishop of Llandaff,as I think he tells us in the narrative of his life,felt the science of Mathematics to indispose the mind to religious belief,while others see in its investigations the best parallel,and thereby defence,of the Christian Mysteries.In like manner,I suppose,Arcesilas would not have handled logic as Aristotle,nor Aristotle have criticized poets as Plato;yet reasoning and poetry are subject to scientific rules.亚里士多德（公元前384—公元前322，伟大的哲学家、科学家和教育家）

It is a great point then to enlarge the range of studies which a University professes,even for the sake of the students;and,though they cannot pursue every subject which is open to them,they will be the gainers by living among those and under those who represent the whole circle.This I conceive to be the advantage of a seat of universal learning,considered as a place of education.An assemblage of learned men,zealous for their own sciences,and rivals of each other,are brought,by familiar intercourse and for the sake of intellectual peace,to adjust together the claims and relations of their respective subjects of investigation.They learn to respect,to consult,to aid each other.Thus is created a pure and clear atmosphere of thought,which the student also breathes,though in his own case he only pursues a few sciences out of the multitude.He profits by an intellectual tradition,which is independent of particular teachers,which guides him in his choice of subjects,and duly interprets for him those which he chooses.He apprehends the great outlines of knowledge,the principles on which it rests,the scale of its parts,its lights and its shades,its great points and its little,as he otherwise cannot apprehend them.Hence it is that his education is called“Liberal.”A habit of mind is formed which lasts through life,of which the attributes are,freedom,equitableness,calmness,moderation,and wisdom;or what in a former DiscourseI have ventured to call a philosophical habit.This then I would assign as the special fruit of the education furnished at a University,as contrasted with other places of teaching or modes of teaching.This is the main purpose of a University in its treatment of its students.

And now the question is asked me,What is the use of it? and my answer will constitute the main subject of the Discourses which are to follow.2.

Cautious and practical thinkers,I say,will ask of me,what,after all,is the gain of this Philosophy,of which I make such account,and from which I promise so much.Even supposing it to enable us to exercise the degree of trust exactly due to every science respectively,and to estimate precisely the value of every truth which is anywhere to be found,how are we better for this master view of things,which I have been extolling? Does it not reverse the principle of the division of labour? will practical objects be obtained better or worse by its cultivation? to what then does it lead? where does it end? what does it do? how does it profit? what does it promise? Particular sciences are respectively the basis of definite arts,which carry on to results tangible and beneficial the truths which are the subjects of the knowledge attained;what is the Art of this science of sciences? what is the fruit of such a Philosophy? what are we proposing to effect,what inducements do we hold out to the Catholic community,when we set about the enterprise of founding a University?

I am asked what is the end of University Education,and of the Liberal or Philosophical Knowledge which I conceive it to impart: I answer,that what I have already said has been sufficient to show that it has a very tangible,real,and sufficient end,though the end cannot be divided from that knowledge itself.Knowledge is capable of being its own end.Such is the constitution of the human mind,that any kind of knowledge,if it be really such,is its own reward.And if this is true of all knowledge,it is true also of that special Philosophy,which I have made to consist in a comprehensive view of truth in all its branches,of the relations of science to science,of their mutual bearings,and their respective values.What the worth of such an acquirement is,compared with other objects which we seek,—wealth or power or honour or the conveniences and comforts of life,I do not profess here to discuss;but I would maintain,and mean to show,that it is an object,in its own nature so really and undeniably good,as to be the compensation of a great deal of thought in the compassing,and a great deal of trouble in the attaining.

Now,when I say that Knowledge is,not merely a means to something beyond it,or the preliminary of certain arts into which it naturally resolves,but an end sufficient to rest in and to pursue for its own sake,surely I am uttering no paradox,for I am stating what is both intelligible in itself,and has ever been the common judgment of philosophers and the ordinary feeling of mankind.I am saying what at least the public opinion of this day ought to be slow to deny,considering how much we have heard of late years,in opposition to Religion,of entertaining,curious,and various knowledge.I am but saying what whole volumes have been written to illustrate,viz.,by a“selection from the records of Philosophy,Literature,and Art,in all ages and countries,of a body of examples,to show how the most unpropitious circumstances have been unable to conquer an ardent desire for the acquisition of knowledge.”That further advantages accrue to us and redound to others by its possession,over and above what it is in itself,I am very far indeed from denying;but,independent of these,we are satisfying a direct need of our nature in its very acquisition;and,whereas our nature,unlike that of the inferior creation,does not at once reach its perfection,but depends,in order to it,on a number of external aids and appliances,Knowledge,as one of the principal of these,is valuable for what its very presence in us does for us after the manner of a habit,even though it be turned to no further account,nor subserve any direct end.3.

Hence it is that Cicero,in enumerating the various heads of mental excellence,lays down the pursuit of Knowledge for its own sake,as the first of them.“This pertains most of all to human nature,”he says,“for we are all of us drawn to the pursuit of Knowledge;in which to excel we consider excellent,whereas to mistake,to err,to be ignorant,to be deceived,is both an evil and a disgrace.”And he considers Knowledge the very first object to which we are attracted,after the supply of our physical wants.After the calls and duties of our animal existence,as they may be termed,as regards ourselves,our family,and our neighbours,follows,he tells us,“the search after truth.Accordingly,as soon as we escape from the pressure of necessary cares,forthwith we desire to see,to hear,and to learn;and consider the knowledge of what is hidden or is wonderful a condition of our happiness.”

This passage,though it is but one of many similar passages in a multitude of authors,I take for the very reason that it is so familiarly known to us;and I wish you to observe,Gentlemen,how distinctly it separates the pursuit of Knowledge from those ulterior objects to which certainly it can be made to conduce,and which are,I suppose,solely contemplated by the persons who would ask of me the use of a University or Liberal Education.So far from dreaming of the cultivation of Knowledge directly and mainly in order to our physical comfort and enjoyment,for the sake of life and person,of health,of the conjugal and family union,of the social tie and civil security,the great Orator implies,that it is only after our physical and political needs are supplied,and when we are“free from necessary duties and cares,”that we are in a condition for“desiring to see,to hear,and to learn.”Nor does he contemplate in the least degree the reflex or subsequent action of Knowledge,when acquired,upon those material goods which we set out by securing before we seek it;on the contrary,he expressly denies its bearing upon social life altogether,strange as such a procedure is to those who live after the rise of the Baconian philosophy,and he cautions us against such a cultivation of it as will interfere with our duties to our fellow-creatures.“All these methods,”he says,“are engaged in the investigation of truth;by the pursuit of which to be carried off from public occupations is a transgression of duty.For the praise of virtue lies altogether in action;yet intermissions often occur,and then we recur to such pursuits;not to say that the incessant activity of the mind is vigorous enough to carry us on in the pursuit of knowledge,even without any exertion of our own.”The idea of benefiting society by means of“the pursuit of science and knowledge”did not enter at all into the motives which he would assign for their cultivation.

This was the ground of the opposition which the elder Cato made to the introduction of Greek Philosophy among his countrymen,when Carneades and his companions,on occasion of their embassy,were charming the Roman youth with their eloquent expositions of it.The fit representative of a practical people,Cato estimated every thing by what it produced;whereas the Pursuit of Knowledge promised nothing beyond Knowledge itself.He despised that refinement or enlargement of mind of which he had no experience.4.

Things,which can bear to be cut off from every thing else and yet persist in living,must have life in themselves;pursuits,which issue in nothing,and still maintain their ground for ages,which are regarded as admirable,though they have not as yet proved themselves to be useful,must have their sufficient end in themselves,whatever it turn out to be.And we are brought to the same conclusion by considering the force of the epithet,by which the knowledge under consideration is popularly designated.It is common to speak of“liberal knowledge,”of the“liberal arts and studies,”and of a“liberal education,”as the especial characteristic or property of a University and of a gentleman;what is really meant by the word? Now,first,in its grammatical sense it is opposed to servile;and by“servile work”is understood,as our catechisms inform us,bodily labour,mechanical employment,and the like,in which the mind has little or no part.Parallel to such servile works are those arts,if they deserve the name,of which the poet speaks,which owe their origin and their method to hazard,not to skill;as,for instance,the practice and operations of an empiric.As far as this contrast may be considered as a guide into the meaning of the word,liberal education and liberal pursuits are exercises of mind,of reason,of reflection.

But we want something more for its explanation,for there are bodily exercises which are liberal,and mental exercises which are not so.For instance,in ancient times the practitioners in medicine were commonly slaves;yet it was an art as intellectual in its nature,in spite of the pretence,fraud,and quackery with which it might then,as now,be debased,as it was heavenly in its aim.And so in like manner,we contrast a liberal education with a commercial education or a professional;yet no one can deny that commerce and the professions afford scope for the highest and most diversified powers of mind.There is then a great variety of intellectual exercises,which are not technically called“liberal;”on the other hand,I say,there are exercises of the body which do receive that appellation.Such,for instance,was the palæstra,in ancient times;such the Olympic games,in which strength and dexterity of body as well as of mind gained the prize.In Xenophon we read of the young Persian nobility being taught to ride on horseback and to speak the truth;both being among the accomplishments of a gentleman.War,too,however rough a profession,has ever been accounted liberal,unless in cases when it becomes heroic,which would introduce us to another subject.

Now comparing these instances together,we shall have no difficulty in determining the principle of this apparent variation in the application of the term which I am examining.Manly games,or games of skill,or military prowess,though bodily,are,it seems,accounted liberal;on the other hand,what is merely professional,though highly intellectual,nay,though liberal in comparison of trade and manual labour,is not simply called liberal,and mercantile occupations are not liberal at all.Why this distinction? because that alone is liberal knowledge,which stands on its own pretensions,which is independent of sequel,expects no complement,refuses to be informed (as it is called) by any end,or absorbed into any art,in order duly to present itself to our contemplation.The most ordinary pursuits have this specific character,if they are self-sufficient and complete;the highest lose it,when they minister to something beyond them.It is absurd to balance,in point of worth and importance,a treatise on reducing fractures with a game of cricket or a fox-chase;yet of the two the bodily exercise has that quality which we call“liberal,”and the intellectual has it not.And so of the learned professions altogether,considered merely as professions;although one of them be the most popularly beneficial,and another the most politically important,and the third the most intimately divine of all human pursuits,yet the very greatness of their end,the health of the body,or of the commonwealth,or of the soul,diminishes,not increases,their claim to the appellation“liberal,”and that still more,if they are cut down to the strict exigencies of that end.If,for instance,Theology,instead of being cultivated as a contemplation,be limited to the purposes of the pulpit or be represented by the catechism,it loses,—not its usefulness,not its divine character,not its meritoriousness (rather it gains a claim upon these titles by such charitable condescension),—but it does lose the particular attribute which I am illustrating;just as a face worn by tears and fasting loses its beauty,or a labourer’s hand loses its delicateness;—for Theology thus exercised is not simple knowledge,but rather is an art or a business making use of Theology.And thus it appears that even what is supernatural need not be liberal,nor need a hero be a gentleman,for the plain reason that one idea is not another idea.And in like manner the Baconian Philosophy,by using its physical sciences in the service of man,does thereby transfer them from the order of Liberal Pursuits to,I do not say the inferior,but the distinct class of the Useful.And,to take a different instance,hence again,as is evident,whenever personal gain is the motive,still more distinctive an effect has it upon the character of a given pursuit;thus racing,which was a liberal exercise in Greece,forfeits its rank in times like these,so far as it is made the occasion of gambling.

All that I have been now saying is summed up in a few characteristic words of the great Philosopher.“Of possessions,”he says,“those rather are useful,which bear fruit;those liberal,which tend to enjoyment.By fruitful,I mean,which yield revenue;by enjoyable,where nothing accrues of consequence beyond the using.”5.

Do not suppose,that in thus appealing to the ancients,I am throwing back the world two thousand years,and fettering Philosophy with the reasonings of paganism.While the world lasts,will Aristotle’s doctrine on these matters last,for he is the oracle of nature and of truth.While we are men,we cannot help,to a great extent,being Aristotelians,for the great Master does but analyze the thoughts,feelings,views,and opinions of human kind.He has told us the meaning of our own words and ideas,before we were born.In many subject-matters,to think correctly,is to think like Aristotle,and we are his disciples whether we will or no,though we may not know it.Now,as to the particular instance before us,the word“liberal”as applied to Knowledge and Education,expresses a specific idea,which ever has been,and ever will be,while the nature of man is the same,just as the idea of the Beautiful is specific,or of the Sublime,or of the Ridiculous,or of the Sordid.It is in the world now,it was in the world then;and,as in the case of the dogmas of faith,it is illustrated by a continuous historical tradition,and never was out of the world,from the time it came into it.There have indeed been differences of opinion from time to time,as to what pursuits and what arts came under that idea,but such differences are but an additional evidence of its reality.That idea must have a substance in it,which has maintained its ground amid these conflicts and changes,which has ever served as a standard to measure things withal,which has passed from mind to mind unchanged,when there was so much to colour,so much to influence any notion or thought whatever,which was not founded in our very nature.Were it a mere generalization,it would have varied with the subjects from which it was generalized;but though its subjects vary with the age,it varies not itself.The palæstra may seem a liberal exercise to Lycurgus,and illiberal to Seneca;coach-driving and prize-fighting may be recognized in Elis,and be condemned in England;music may be despicable in the eyes of certain moderns,and be in the highest place with Aristotle and Plato,—(and the case is the same in the particular application of the idea of Beauty,or of Goodness,or of Moral Virtue,there is a difference of tastes,a difference of judgments)—still these variations imply,instead of discrediting,the archetypal idea,which is but a previous hypothesis or condition,by means of which issue is joined between contending opinions,and without which there would be nothing to dispute about.

I consider,then,that I am chargeable with no paradox,when I speak of a Knowledge which is its own end,when I call it liberal knowledge,or a gentleman’s knowledge,when I educate for it,and make it the scope of a University.And still less am I incurring such a charge,when I make this acquisition consist,not in Knowledge in a vague and ordinary sense,but in that Knowledge which I have especially called Philosophy or,in an extended sense of the word,Science;for whatever claims Knowledge has to be considered as a good,these it has in a higher degree when it is viewed not vaguely,not popularly,but precisely and transcendently as Philosophy.Knowledge,I say,is then especially liberal,or sufficient for itself,apart from every external and ulterior object,when and so far as it is philosophical,and this I proceed to show.6.

Now bear with me,Gentlemen,if what I am about to say,has at first sight a fanciful appearance.Philosophy,then,or Science,is related to Knowledge in this way:—Knowledge is called by the name of Science or Philosophy,when it is acted upon,informed,or if I may use a strong figure,impregnated by Reason.Reason is the principle of that intrinsic fecundity of Knowledge,which,to those who possess it,is its especial value,and which dispenses with the necessity of their looking abroad for any end to rest upon external to itself.Knowledge,indeed,when thus exalted into a scientific form,is also power;not only is it excellent in itself,but whatever such excellence may be,it is something more,it has a result beyond itself.Doubtless;but that is a further consideration,with which I am not concerned.I only say that,prior to its being a power,it is a good;that it is,not only an instrument,but an end.I know well it may resolve itself into an art,and terminate in a mechanical process,and in tangible fruit;but it also may fall back upon that Reason which informs it,and resolve itself into Philosophy.In one case it is called Useful Knowledge,in the other Liberal.The same person may cultivate it in both ways at once;but this again is a matter foreign to my subject;here I do but say that there are two ways of using Knowledge,and in matter of fact those who use it in one way are not likely to use it in the other,or at least in a very limited measure.You see,then,here are two methods of Education;the end of the one is to be philosophical,of the other to be mechanical;the one rises towards general ideas,the other is exhausted upon what is particular and external.Let me not be thought to deny the necessity,or to decry the benefit,of such attention to what is particular and practical,as belongs to the useful or mechanical arts;life could not go on without them;we owe our daily welfare to them;their exercise is the duty of the many,and we owe to the many a debt of gratitude for fulfilling that duty.I only say that Knowledge,in proportion as it tends more and more to be particular,ceases to be Knowledge.It is a question whether Knowledge can in any proper sense be predicated of the brute creation;without pretending to metaphysical exactness of phraseology,which would be unsuitable to an occasion like this,I say,it seems to me improper to call that passive sensation,or perception of things,which brutes seem to possess,by the name of Knowledge.When I speak of Knowledge,I mean something intellectual,something which grasps what it perceives through the senses;something which takes a view of things;which sees more than the senses convey;which reasons upon what it sees,and while it sees;which invests it with an idea.It expresses itself,not in a mere enunciation,but by an enthymeme: it is of the nature of science from the first,and in this consists its dignity.The principle of real dignity in Knowledge,its worth,its desirableness,considered irrespectively of its results,is this germ within it of a scientific or a philosophical process.This is how it comes to be an end in itself;this is why it admits of being called Liberal.Not to know the relative disposition of things is the state of slaves or children;to have mapped out the Universe is the boast,or at least the ambition,of Philosophy.

Moreover,such knowledge is not a mere extrinsic or accidental advantage,which is ours to-day and another’s to-morrow,which may be got up from a book,and easily forgotten again,which we can command or communicate at our pleasure,which we can borrow for the occasion,carry about in our hand,and take into the market;it is an acquired illumination,it is a habit,a personal possession,and an inward endowment.And this is the reason,why it is more correct,as well as more usual,to speak of a University as a place of education,than of instruction,though,when knowledge is concerned,instruction would at first sight have seemed the more appropriate word.We are instructed,for instance,in manual exercises,in the fine and useful arts,in trades,and in ways of business;for these are methods,which have little or no effect upon the mind itself,are contained in rules committed to memory,to tradition,or to use,and bear upon an end external to themselves.But education is a higher word;it implies an action upon our mental nature,and the formation of a character;it is something individual and permanent,and is commonly spoken of in connexion with religion and virtue.When,then,we speak of the communication of Knowledge as being Education,we thereby really imply that that Knowledge is a state or condition of mind;and since cultivation of mind is surely worth seeking for its own sake,we are thus brought once more to the conclusion,which the word“Liberal”and the word“Philosophy”have already suggested,that there is a Knowledge,which is desirable,though nothing come of it,as being of itself a treasure,and a sufficient remuneration of years of labour.7.

This,then,is the answer which I am prepared to give to the question with which I opened this Discourse.Before going on to speak of the object of the Church in taking up Philosophy,and the uses to which she puts it,I am prepared to maintain that Philosophy is its own end,and,as I conceive,I have now begun the proof of it.I am prepared to maintain that there is a knowledge worth possessing for what it is,and not merely for what it does;and what minutes remain to me to-day I shall devote to the removal of some portion of the indistinctness and confusion with which the subject may in some minds be surrounded.

It may be objected then,that,when we profess to seek Knowledge for some end or other beyond itself,whatever it be,we speak intelligibly;but that,whatever men may have said,however obstinately the idea may have kept its ground from age to age,still it is simply unmeaning to say that we seek Knowledge for its own sake,and for nothing else;for that it ever leads to something beyond itself,which therefore is its end,and the cause why it is desirable;—moreover,that this end is twofold,either of this world or of the next;that all knowledge is cultivated either for secular objects or for eternal;that if it is directed to secular objects,it is called Useful Knowledge,if to eternal,Religious or Christian Knowledge;—in consequence,that if,as I have allowed,this Liberal Knowledge does not benefit the body or estate,it ought to benefit the soul;but if the fact be really so,that it is neither a physical or a secular good on the one hand,nor a moral good on the other,it cannot be a good at all,and is not worth the trouble which is necessary for its acquisition.

And then I may be reminded that the professors of this Liberal or Philosophical Knowledge have themselves,in every age,recognized this exposition of the matter,and have submitted to the issue in which it terminates;for they have ever been attempting to make men virtuous;or,if not,at least have assumed that refinement of mind was virtue,and that they themselves were the virtuous portion of mankind.This they have professed on the one hand;and on the other,they have utterly failed in their professions,so as ever to make themselves a proverb among men,and a laughingstock both to the grave and the dissipated portion of mankind,in consequence of them.Thus they have furnished against themselves both the ground and the means of their own exposure,without any trouble at all to any one else.In a word,from the time that Athens was the University of the world,what has Philosophy taught men,but to promise without practising,and to aspire without attaining? What has the deep and lofty thought of its disciples ended in but eloquent words? Nay,what has its teaching ever meditated,when it was boldest in its remedies for human ill,beyond charming us to sleep by its lessons,that we might feel nothing at all? like some melodious air,or rather like those strong and transporting perfumes,which at first spread their sweetness over every thing they touch,but in a little while do but offend in proportion as they once pleased us.Did Philosophy support Cicero under the disfavour of the fickle populace,or nerve Seneca to oppose an imperial tyrant? It abandoned Brutus,as he sorrowfully confessed,in his greatest need,and it forced Cato,as his panegyrist strangely boasts,into the false position of defying heaven.How few can be counted among its professors,who,like Polemo,were thereby converted from a profligate course,or like Anaxagoras,thought the world well lost in exchange for its possession? The philosopher in Rasselas taught a superhuman doctrine,and then succumbed without an effort to a trial of human affection.

“He discoursed,”we are told,“with great energy on the government of the passions.His look was venerable,his action graceful,his pronunciation clear,and his diction elegant.He showed,with great strength of sentiment and variety of illustration,that human nature is degraded and debased,when the lower faculties predominate over the higher.He communicated the various precepts given,from time to time,for the conquest of passion,and displayed the happiness of those who had obtained the important victory,after which man is no longer the slave of fear,nor the fool of hope.… He enumerated many examples of heroes immoveable by pain or pleasure,who looked with indifference on those modes or accidents to which the vulgar give the names of good and evil.”

Rasselas in a few days found the philosopher in a room half darkened,with his eyes misty,and his face pale.“Sir,”said he,“you have come at a time when all human friendship is useless;what I suffer cannot be remedied,what I have lost cannot be supplied.My daughter,my only daughter,from whose tenderness I expected all the comforts of my age,died last night of a fever.”“Sir,”said the prince,“mortality is an event by which a wise man can never be surprised;we know that death is always near,and it should therefore always be expected.”“Young man,”answered the philosopher,“you speak like one who has never felt the pangs of separation.”“Have you,then,forgot the precept,”said Rasselas,“which you so powerfully enforced?… consider that external things are naturally variable,but truth and reason are always the same.”“What comfort,”said the mourner,“can truth and reason afford me? Of what effect are they now,but to tell me that my daughter will not be restored?”8.

Better,far better,to make no professions,you will say,than to cheat others with what we are not,and to scandalize them with what we are.The sensualist,or the man of the world,at any rate is not the victim of fine words,but pursues a reality and gains it.The Philosophy of Utility,you will say,Gentlemen,has at least done its work;and I grant it,—it aimed low,but it has fulfilled its aim.If that man of great intellect who has been its Prophet in the conduct of life played false to his own professions,he was not bound by his philosophy to be true to his friend or faithful in his trust.Moral virtue was not the line in which he undertook to instruct men;and though,as the poet calls him,he were the“meanest”of mankind,he was so in what may be called his private capacity and without any prejudice to the theory of induction.He had a right to be so,if he chose,for any thing that the Idols of the den or the theatre had to say to the contrary.His mission was the increase of physical enjoyment and social comfort;and most wonderfully,most awfully has he fulfilled his conception and his design.Almost day by day have we fresh and fresh shoots,and buds,and blossoms,which are to ripen into fruit,on that magical tree of Knowledge which he planted,and to which none of us perhaps,except the very poor,but owes,if not his present life,at least his daily food,his health,and general well-being.He was the divinely provided minister of temporal benefits to all of us so great,that,whatever I am forced to think of him as a man,I have not the heart,from mere gratitude,to speak of him severely.And,in spite of the tendencies of his philosophy,which are,as we see at this day,to depreciate,or to trample on Theology,he has himself,in his writings,gone out of his way,as if with a prophetic misgiving of those tendencies,to insist on it as the instrument of that beneficent Father,who,when He came on earth in visible form,took on Him first and most prominently the office of assuaging the bodily wounds of human nature.And truly,like the old mediciner in the tale,“he sat diligently at his work,and hummed,with cheerful countenance,a pious song;”and then in turn“went out singing into the meadows so gaily,that those who had seen him from afar might well have thought it was a youth gathering flowers for his beloved,instead of an old physician gathering healing herbs in the morning dew.”

Alas,that men,in the action of life or in their heart of hearts,are not what they seem to be in their moments of excitement,or in their trances or intoxications of genius,—so good,so noble,so serene! Alas,that Bacon too in his own way should after all be but the fellow of those heathen philosophers who in their disadvantages had some excuse for their inconsistency,and who surprise us rather in what they did say than in what they did not do! Alas,that he too,like Socrates or Seneca,must be stripped of his holy-day coat,which looks so fair,and should be but a mockery amid his most majestic gravity of phrase;and,for all his vast abilities,should,in the littleness of his own moral being,but typify the intellectual narrowness of his school! However,granting all this,heroism after all was not his philosophy:—I cannot deny he has abundantly achieved what he proposed.His is simply a Method whereby bodily discomforts and temporal wants are to be most effectually removed from the greatest number;and already,before it has shown any signs of exhaustion,the gifts of nature,in their most artificial shapes and luxurious profusion and diversity,from all quarters of the earth,are,it is undeniable,by its means brought even to our doors,and we rejoice in them.9.

Useful Knowledge then,I grant,has done its work;and Liberal Knowledge as certainly has not done its work,—that is,supposing,as the objectors assume,its direct end,like Religious Knowledge,is to make men better;but this I will not for an instant allow,and,unless I allow it,those objectors have said nothing to the purpose.I admit,rather I maintain,what they have been urging,for I consider Knowledge to have its end in itself.For all its friends,or its enemies,may say,I insist upon it,that it is as real a mistake to burden it with virtue or religion as with the mechanical arts.Its direct business is not to steel the soul against temptation or to console it in affliction,any more than to set the loom in motion,or to direct the steam carriage;be it ever so much the means or the condition of both material and moral advancement,still,taken by and in itself,it as little mends our hearts as it improves our temporal circumstances.And if its eulogists claim for it such a power,they commit the very same kind of encroachment on a province not their own as the political economist who should maintain that his science educated him for casuistry or diplomacy.Knowledge is one thing,virtue is another;good sense is not conscience,refinement is not humility,nor is largeness and justness of view faith.Philosophy,however enlightened,however profound,gives no command over the passions,no influential motives,no vivifying principles.Liberal Education makes not the Christian,not the Catholic,but the gentleman.It is well to be a gentlemen,it is well to have a cultivated intellect,a delicate taste,a candid,equitable,dispassionate mind,a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life;—these are the connatural qualities of a large knowledge;they are the objects of a University;I am advocating,I shall illustrate and insist upon them;but still,I repeat,they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness,they may attach to the man of the world,to the profligate,to the heartless,—pleasant,alas,and attractive as he shows when decked out in them.Taken by themselves,they do but seem to be what they are not;they look like virtue at a distance,but they are detected by close observers,and on the long run;and hence it is that they are popularly accused of pretence and hypocrisy,not,I repeat,from their own fault,but because their professors and their admirers persist in taking them for what they are not,and are officious in arrogating for them a praise to which they have no claim.Quarry the granite rock with razors,or moor the vessel with a thread of silk;then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants,the passion and the pride of man.

Surely we are not driven to theories of this kind,in order to vindicate the value and dignity of Liberal Knowledge.Surely the real grounds on which its pretensions rest are not so very subtle or abstruse,so very strange or improbable.Surely it is very intelligible to say,and that is what I say here,that Liberal Education,viewed in itself,is simply the cultivation of the intellect,as such,and its object is nothing more or less than intellectual excellence.Every thing has its own perfection,be it higher or lower in the scale of things;and the perfection of one is not the perfection of another.Things animate,inanimate,visible,invisible,all are good in their kind,and have a best of themselves,which is an object of pursuit.Why do you take such pains with your garden or your park? You see to your walks and turf and shrubberies;to your trees and drives;not as if you meant to make an orchard of the one,or corn or pasture land of the other,but because there is a special beauty in all that is goodly in wood,water,plain,and slope,brought all together by art into one shape,and grouped into one whole.Your cities are beautiful,your palaces,your public buildings,your territorial mansions,your churches;and their beauty leads to nothing beyond itself.There is a physical beauty and a moral: there is a beauty of person,there is a beauty of our moral being,which is natural virtue;and in like manner there is a beauty,there is a perfection,of the intellect.There is an ideal perfection in these various subject-matters,towards which individual instances are seen to rise,and which are the standards for all instances whatever.The Greek divinities and demigods,as the statuary has moulded them,with their symmetry of figure,and their high forehead and their regular features,are the perfection of physical beauty.The heroes,of whom history tells,Alexander,or Cæsar,or Scipio,or Saladin,are the representatives of that magnanimity or self-mastery which is the greatness of human nature.Christianity too has its heroes,and in the supernatural order,and we call them Saints.The artist puts before him beauty of feature and form;the poet,beauty of mind;the preacher,the beauty of grace: then intellect too,I repeat,has its beauty,and it has those who aim at it.To open the mind,to correct it,to refine it,to enable it to know,and to digest,master,rule,and use its knowledge,to give it power over its own faculties,application,flexibility,method,critical exactness,sagacity,resource,address,eloquent expression,is an object as intelligible (for here we are inquiring,not what the object of a Liberal Education is worth,nor what use the Church makes of it,but what it is in itself),I say,an object as intelligible as the cultivation of virtue,while,at the same time,it is absolutely distinct from it.10.

This indeed is but a temporal object,and a transitory possession;but so are other things in themselves which we make much of and pursue.The moralist will tell us that man,in all his functions,is but a flower which blossoms and fades,except so far as a higher principle breathes upon him,and makes him and what he is immortal.Body and mind are carried on into an eternal state of being by the gifts of Divine Munificence;but at first they do but fail in a failing world;and if the powers of intellect decay,the powers of the body have decayed before them,and,as an Hospital or an Almshouse,though its end be ephemeral,may be sanctified to the service of religion,so surely may a University,even were it nothing more than I have as yet described it.We attain to heaven by using this world well,though it is to pass away;we perfect our nature,not by undoing it,but by adding to it what is more than nature,and directing it towards aims higher than its own.

DiscourseⅥ Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Learning

It were well if the English,like the Greek language,possessed some definite word to express,simply and generally,intellectual proficiency or perfection,such as“health,”as used with reference to the animal frame,and“virtue,”with reference to our moral nature.I am not able to find such a term;—talent,ability,genius,belong distinctly to the raw material,which is the subject-matter,not to that excellence which is the result of exercise and training.When we turn,indeed,to the particular kinds of intellectual perfection,words are forthcoming for our purpose,as,for instance,judgment,taste,and skill;yet even these belong,for the most part,to powers or habits bearing upon practice or upon art,and not to any perfect condition of the intellect,considered in itself.Wisdom,again,is certainly a more comprehensive word than any other,but it has a direct relation to conduct,and to human life.Knowledge,indeed,and Science express purely intellectual ideas,but still not a state or quality of the intellect;for knowledge,in its ordinary sense,is but one of its circumstances,denoting a possession or a habit;and science has been appropriated to the subject-matter of the intellect,instead of belonging in English,as it ought to do,to the intellect itself.The consequence is that,on an occasion like this,many words are necessary,in order,first,to bring out and convey what surely is no difficult idea in itself,—that of the cultivation of the intellect as an end;next,in order to recommend what surely is no unreasonable object;and lastly,to describe and make the mind realize the particular perfection in which that object consists.Every one knows practically what are the constituents of health or of virtue;and every one recognizes health and virtue as ends to be pursued;it is otherwise with intellectual excellence,and this must be my excuse,if I seem to any one to be bestowing a good deal of labour on a preliminary matter.

In default of a recognized term,I have called the perfection or virtue of the intellect by the name of philosophy,philosophical knowledge,enlargement of mind,or illumination;terms which are not uncommonly given to it by writers of this day: but,whatever name we bestow on it,it is,I believe,as a matter of history,the business of a University to make this intellectual culture its direct scope,or to employ itself in the education of the intellect,—just as the work of a Hospital lies in healing the sick or wounded,of a Riding or Fencing School,or of a Gymnasium,in exercising the limbs,of an Almshouse,in aiding and solacing the old,of an Orphanage,in protecting innocence,of a Penitentiary,in restoring the guilty.I say,a University,taken in its bare idea,and before we view it as an instrument of the Church,has this object and this mission;it contemplates neither moral impression nor mechanical production;it professes to exercise the mind neither in art nor in duty;its function is intellectual culture;here it may leave its scholars,and it has done its work when it has done as much as this.It educates the intellect to reason well in all matters,to reach out towards truth,and to grasp it.2.

This,I said in my foregoing Discourse,was the object of a University,viewed in itself,and apart from the Catholic Church,or from the State,or from any other power which may use it;and I illustrated this in various ways.I said that the intellect must have an excellence of its own,for there was nothing which had not its specific good;that the word“educate”would not be used of intellectual culture,as it is used,had not the intellect had an end of its own;that,had it not such an end,there would be no meaning in calling certain intellectual exercises“liberal,”in contrast with“useful,”as is commonly done;that the very notion of a philosophical temper implied it,for it threw us back upon research and system as ends in themselves,distinct from effects and works of any kind;that a philosophical scheme of knowledge,or system of sciences,could not,from the nature of the case,issue in any one definite art or pursuit,as its end;and that,on the other hand,the discovery and contemplation of truth,to which research and systematizing led,were surely sufficient ends,though nothing beyond them were added,and that they had ever been accounted sufficient by mankind.

Here then I take up the subject;and,having determined that the cultivation of the intellect is an end distinct and sufficient in itself,and that,so far as words go it is an enlargement or illumination,I proceed to inquire what this mental breadth,or power,or light,or philosophy consists in.A Hospital heals a broken limb or cures a fever: what does an Institution effect,which professes the health,not of the body,not of the soul,but of the intellect? What is this good,which in former times,as well as our own,has been found worth the notice,the appropriation,of the Catholic Church?

I have then to investigate,in the Discourses which follow,those qualities and characteristics of the intellect in which its cultivation issues or rather consists;and,with a view of assisting myself in this undertaking,I shall recur to certain questions which have already been touched upon.These questions are three: viz.the relation of intellectual culture,first,to mere knowledge;secondly,to professional knowledge;and thirdly,to religious knowledge.In other words,are acquirements and attainments the scope of a University Education? or expertness in particular arts and pursuits? or moral and religious proficiency? or something besides these three? These questions I shall examine in succession,with the purpose I have mentioned;and I hope to be excused,if,in this anxious undertaking,I am led to repeat what,either in these Discourses or elsewhere,I have already put upon paper.And first,of Mere Knowledge,or Learning,and its connexion with intellectual illumination or Philosophy.3.

I suppose the prima-facie view which the public at large would take of a University,considering it as a place of Education,is nothing more or less than a place for acquiring a great deal of knowledge on a great many subjects.Memory is one of the first developed of the mental faculties;a boy’s business when he goes to school is to learn,that is,to store up things in his memory.For some years his intellect is little more than an instrument for taking in facts,or a receptacle for storing them: he welcomes them as fast as they come to him;he lives on what is without;he has his eyes ever about him;he has a lively susceptibility of impressions;he imbibes information of every kind;and little does he make his own in a true sense of the word,living rather upon his neighbours all around him.He has opinions,religious,political,and literary,and,for a boy,is very positive in them and sure about them;but he gets them from his schoolfellows,or his masters,or his parents,as the case may be.Such as he is in his other relations,such also is he in his school exercises;his mind is observant,sharp,ready,retentive;he is almost passive in the acquisition of knowledge.I say this in no disparagement of the idea of a clever boy.Geography,chronology,history,language,natural history,he heaps up the matter of these studies as treasures for a future day.It is the seven years of plenty with him: he gathers in by handfuls,like the Egyptians,without counting;and though,as time goes on,there is exercise for his argumentative powers in the Elements of Mathematics,and for his taste in the Poets and Orators,still,while at school,or at least,till quite the last years of his time,he acquires,and little more;and when he is leaving for the University,he is mainly the creature of foreign influences and circumstances,and made up of accidents,homogeneous or not,as the case may be.Moreover,the moral habits,which are a boy’s praise,encourage and assist this result;that is,diligence,assiduity,regularity,despatch,persevering application;for these are the direct conditions of acquisition,and naturally lead to it.Acquirements,again,are emphatically producible,and at a moment;they are a something to show,both for master and scholar;an audience,even though ignorant themselves of the subjects of an examination,can comprehend when questions are answered and when they are not.Here again is a reason why mental culture is in the minds of men identified with the acquisition of knowledge.

The same notion possesses the public mind,when it passes on from the thought of a school to that of a University: and with the best of reasons so far as this,that there is no true culture without acquirements,and that philosophy presupposes knowledge.It requires a great deal of reading,or a wide range of information,to warrant us in putting forth our opinions on any serious subject;and without such learning the most original mind may be able indeed to dazzle,to amuse,to refute,to perplex,but not to come to any useful result or any trustworthy conclusion.There are indeed persons who profess a different view of the matter,and even act upon it.Every now and then you will find a person of vigorous or fertile mind,who relies upon his own resources,despises all former authors,and gives the world,with the utmost fearlessness,his views upon religion,or history,or any other popular subject.And his works may sell for a while;he may get a name in his day;but this will be all.His readers are sure to find on the long run that his doctrines are mere theories,and not the expression of facts,that they are chaff instead of bread,and then his popularity drops as suddenly as it rose.

Knowledge then is the indispensable condition of expansion of mind,and the instrument of attaining to it;this cannot be denied,it is ever to be insisted on;I begin with it as a first principle;however,the very truth of it carries men too far,and confirms to them the notion that it is the whole of the matter.A narrow mind is thought to be that which contains little knowledge;and an enlarged mind,that which holds a great deal;and what seems to put the matter beyond dispute is,the fact of the great number of studies which are pursued in a University,by its very profession.Lectures are given on every kind of subject;examinations are held;prizes awarded.There are moral,metaphysical,physical Professors;Professors of languages,of history,of mathematics,of experimental science.Lists of questions are published,wonderful for their range and depth,variety and difficulty;treatises are written,which carry upon their very face the evidence of extensive reading or multifarious information;what then is wanting for mental culture to a person of large reading and scientific attainments? what is grasp of mind but acquirement? where shall philosophical repose be found,but in the consciousness and enjoyment of large intellectual possessions?

And yet this notion is,I conceive,a mistake,and my present business is to show that it is one,and that the end of a Liberal Education is not mere knowledge,or knowledge considered in its matter;and I shall best attain my object,by actually setting down some cases,which will be generally granted to be instances of the process of enlightenment or enlargement of mind,and others which are not,and thus,by the comparison,you will be able to judge for yourselves,Gentlemen,whether Knowledge,that is,acquirement,is after all the real principle of the enlargement,or whether that principle is not rather something beyond it.4.

For instance,let a person,whose experience has hitherto been confined to the more calm and unpretending scenery of these islands,whether here or in England,go for the first time into parts where physical nature puts on her wilder and more awful forms,whether at home or abroad,as into mountainous districts;or let one,who has ever lived in a quiet village,go for the first time to a great metropolis,—then I suppose he will have a sensation which perhaps he never had before.He has a feeling not in addition or increase of former feelings,but of something different in its nature.He will perhaps be borne forward,and find for a time that he has lost his bearings.He has made a certain progress,and he has a consciousness of mental enlargement;he does not stand where he did,he has a new centre,and a range of thoughts to which he was before a stranger.

Again,the view of the heavens which the telescope opens upon us,if allowed to fill and possess the mind,may almost whirl it round and make it dizzy.It brings in a flood of ideas,and is rightly called an intellectual enlargement,whatever is meant by the term.

And so again,the sight of beasts of prey and other foreign animals,their strangeness,the originality (if I may use the term) of their forms and gestures and habits and their variety and independence of each other,throw us out of ourselves into another creation,and as if under another Creator,if I may so express the temptation which may come on the mind.We seem to have new faculties,or a new exercise for our faculties,by this addition to our knowledge;like a prisoner,who,having been accustomed to wear manacles or fetters,suddenly finds his arms and legs free.

Hence Physical Science generally,in all its departments,as bringing before us the exuberant riches and resources,yet the orderly course,of the Universe,elevates and excites the student,and at first,I may say,almost takes away his breath,while in time it exercises a tranquilizing influence upon him.

Again,the study of history is said to enlarge and enlighten the mind,and why? because,as I conceive,it gives it a power of judging of passing events,and of all events,and a conscious superiority over them,which before it did not possess.

And in like manner,what is called seeing the world,entering into active life,going into society,travelling,gaining acquaintance with the various classes of the community,coming into contact with the principles and modes of thought of various parties,interests,and races,their views,aims,habits and manners,their religious creeds and forms of worship,—gaining experience how various yet how alike men are,how low-minded,how bad,how opposed,yet how confident in their opinions;all this exerts a perceptible influence upon the mind,which it is impossible to mistake,be it good or be it bad,and is popularly called its enlargement.

And then again,the first time the mind comes across the arguments and speculations of unbelievers,and feels what a novel light they cast upon what he has hitherto accounted sacred;and still more,if it gives in to them and embraces them,and throws off as so much prejudice what it has hitherto held,and,as if waking from a dream,begins to realize to its imagination that there is now no such thing as law and the transgression of law,that sin is a phantom,and punishment a bugbear,that it is free to sin,free to enjoy the world and the flesh;and still further,when it does enjoy them,and reflects that it may think and hold just what it will,that“the world is all before it where to choose,”and what system to build up as its own private persuasion;when this torrent of wilful thoughts rushes over and inundates it,who will deny that the fruit of the tree of knowledge,or what the mind takes for knowledge,has made it one of the gods,with a sense of expansion and elevation,—an intoxication in reality,still,so far as the subjective state of the mind goes,an illumination? Hence the fanaticism of individuals or nations,who suddenly cast off their Maker.Their eyes are opened;and,like the judgment-stricken king in the Tragedy,they see two suns,and a magic universe,out of which they look back upon their former state of faith and innocence with a sort of contempt and indignation,as if they were then but fools,and the dupes of imposture.

On the other hand,Religion has its own enlargement,and an enlargement,not of tumult,but of peace.It is often remarked of uneducated persons,who have hitherto thought little of the unseen world,that,on their turning to God,looking into themselves,regulating their hearts,reforming their conduct,and meditating on death and judgment,heaven and hell,they seem to become,in point of intellect,different beings from what they were.Before,they took things as they came,and thought no more of one thing than another.But now every event has a meaning;they have their own estimate of whatever happens to them;they are mindful of times and seasons,and compare the present with the past;and the world,no longer dull,monotonous,unprofitable,and hopeless,is a various and complicated drama,with parts and an object,and an awful moral.5.

Now from these instances,to which many more might be added,it is plain,first,that the communication of knowledge certainly is either a condition or the means of that sense of enlargement or enlightenment,of which at this day we hear so much in certain quarters: this cannot be denied;but next,it is equally plain,that such communication is not the whole of the process.The enlargement consists,not merely in the passive reception into the mind of a number of ideas hitherto unknown to it,but in the mind’s energetic and simultaneous action upon and towards and among those new ideas,which are rushing in upon it.It is the action of a formative power,reducing to order and meaning the matter of our acquirements;it is a making the objects of our knowledge subjectively our own,or,to use a familiar word,it is a digestion of what we receive,into the substance of our previous state of thought;and without this no enlargement is said to follow.There is no enlargement,unless there be a comparison of ideas one with another,as they come before the mind,and a systematizing of them.We feel our minds to be growing and expanding then,when we not only learn,but refer what we learn to what we know already.It is not the mere addition to our knowledge that is the illumination;but the locomotion,the movement onwards,of that mental centre,to which both what we know,and what we are learning,the accumulating mass of our acquirements,gravitates.And therefore a truly great intellect,and recognized to be such by the common opinion of mankind,such as the intellect of Aristotle,or of St.Thomas,or of Newton,or of Goethe,(I purposely take instances within and without the Catholic pale,when I would speak of the intellect as such,) is one which takes a connected view of old and new,past and present,far and near,and which has an insight into the influence of all these one on another;without which there is no whole,and no centre.It possesses the knowledge,not only of things,but also of their mutual and true relations;knowledge,not merely considered as acquirement,but as philosophy.

Accordingly,when this analytical,distributive,harmonizing process is away,the mind experiences no enlargement,and is not reckoned as enlightened or comprehensive,whatever it may add to its knowledge.For instance,a great memory,as I have already said,does not make a philosopher,any more than a dictionary can be called a grammar.There are men who embrace in their minds a vast multitude of ideas,but with little sensibility about their real relations towards each other.These may be antiquarians,annalists,naturalists;they may be learned in the law;they may be versed in statistics;they are most useful in their own place;I should shrink from speaking disrespectfully of them;still,there is nothing in such attainments to guarantee the absence of narrowness of mind.If they are nothing more than well-read men,or men of information,they have not what specially deserves the name of culture of mind,or fulfils the type of Liberal Education.

In like manner,we sometimes fall in with persons who have seen much of the world,and of the men who,in their day,have played a conspicuous part in it,but who generalize nothing,and have no observation,in the true sense of the word.They abound in information in detail,curious and entertaining,about men and things;and,having lived under the influence of no very clear or settled principles,religious or political,they speak of every one and every thing,only as so many phenomena,which are complete in themselves,and lead to nothing,not discussing them,or teaching any truth,or instructing the hearer,but simply talking.No one would say that these persons,well informed as they are,had attained to any great culture of intellect or to philosophy.

The case is the same still more strikingly where the persons in question are beyond dispute men of inferior powers and deficient education.Perhaps they have been much in foreign countries,and they receive,in a passive,otiose,unfruitful way,the various facts which are forced upon them there.Seafaring men,for example,range from one end of the earth to the other;but the multiplicity of external objects,which they have encountered,forms no symmetrical and consistent picture upon their imagination;they see the tapestry of human life,as it were on the wrong side,and it tells no story.They sleep,and they rise up,and they find themselves,now in Europe,now in Asia;they see visions of great cities and wild regions;they are in the marts of commerce,or amid the islands of the South;they gaze on Pompey’s Pillar,or on the Andes;and nothing which meets them carries them forward or backward,to any idea beyond itself.Nothing has a drift or relation;nothing has a history or a promise.Every thing stands by itself,and comes and goes in its turn,like the shifting scenes of a show,which leave the spectator where he was.Perhaps you are near such a man on a particular occasion,and expect him to be shocked or perplexed at something which occurs;but one thing is much the same to him as another,or,if he is perplexed,it is as not knowing what to say,whether it is right to admire,or to ridicule,or to disapprove,while conscious that some expression of opinion is expected from him;for in fact he has no standard of judgment at all,and no landmarks to guide him to a conclusion.Such is mere acquisition,and,I repeat,no one would dream of calling it philosophy.6.

Instances,such as these,confirm,by the contrast,the conclusion I have already drawn from those which preceded them.That only is true enlargement of mind which is the power of viewing many things at once as one whole,of referring them severally to their true place in the universal system,of understanding their respective values,and determining their mutual dependence.Thus is that form of Universal Knowledge,of which I have on a former occasion spoken,set up in the individual intellect,and constitutes its perfection.Possessed of this real illumination,the mind never views any part of the extended subject-matter of Knowledge without recollecting that it is but a part,or without the associations which spring from this recollection.It makes every thing in some sort lead to every thing else;it would communicate the image of the whole to every separate portion,till that whole becomes in imagination like a spirit,every where pervading and penetrating its component parts,and giving them one definite meaning.Just as our bodily organs,when mentioned,recall their function in the body,as the word“creation”suggests the Creator,and“subjects”a sovereign,so,in the mind of the Philosopher,as we are abstractedly conceiving of him,the elements of the physical and moral world,sciences,arts,pursuits,ranks,offices,events,opinions,individualities,are all viewed as one,with correlative functions,and as gradually by successive combinations converging,one and all,to the true centre.

To have even a portion of this illuminative reason and true philosophy is the highest state to which nature can aspire,in the way of intellect;it puts the mind above the influences of chance and necessity,above anxiety,suspense,unsettlement,and superstition,which is the lot of the many.Men,whose minds are possessed with some one object,take exaggerated views of its importance,are feverish in the pursuit of it,make it the measure of things which are utterly foreign to it,and are startled and despond if it happens to fail them.They are ever in alarm or in transport.Those on the other hand who have no object or principle whatever to hold by,lose their way,every step they take.They are thrown out,and do not know what to think or say,at every fresh juncture;they have no view of persons,or occurrences,or facts,which come suddenly upon them,and they hang upon the opinion of others,for want of internal resources.But the intellect,which has been disciplined to the perfection of its powers,which knows,and thinks while it knows,which has learned to leaven the dense mass of facts and events with the elastic force of reason,such an intellect cannot be partial,cannot be exclusive,cannot be impetuous,cannot be at a loss,cannot but be patient,collected,and majestically calm,because it discerns the end in every beginning,the origin in every end,the law in every interruption,the limit in each delay;because it ever knows where it stands,and how its path lies from one point to another.It is the xfxtάc~oqς of the Peripatetic,and has the“nil admirari”of the Stoic,—

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,Atque m etus om nes,et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus,strepitum que Acherontis avari.

There are men who,when in difficulties,originate at the moment vast ideas or dazzling projects;who,under the influence of excitement,are able to cast a light,almost as if from inspiration,on a subject or course of action which comes before them;who have a sudden presence of mind equal to any emergency,rising with the occasion,and an undaunted magnanimous bearing,and an energy and keenness which is but made intense by opposition.This is genius,this is heroism;it is the exhibition of a natural gift,which no culture can teach,at which no Institution can aim;here,on the contrary,we are concerned,not with mere nature,but with training and teaching.That perfection of the Intellect,which is the result of Education,and its beau ideal,to be imparted to individuals in their respective measures,is the clear,calm,accurate vision and comprehension of all things,as far as the finite mind can embrace them,each in its place,and with its own characteristics upon it.It is almost prophetic from its knowledge of history;it is almost heart-searching from its knowledge of human nature;it has almost supernatural charity from its freedom from littleness and prejudice;it has almost the repose of faith,because nothing can startle it;it has almost the beauty and harmony of heavenly contemplation,so intimate is it with the eternal order of things and the music of the spheres.7.

And now,if I may take for granted that the true and adequate end of intellectual training and of a University is not Learning or Acquirement,but rather,is Thought or Reason exercised upon Knowledge,or what may be called Philosophy,I shall be in a position to explain the various mistakes which at the present day beset the subject of University Education.

I say then,if we would improve the intellect,first of all,we must ascend;we cannot gain real knowledge on a level;we must generalize,we must reduce to method,we must have a grasp of principles,and group and shape our acquisitions by means of them.It matters not whether our field of operation be wide or limited;in every case,to command it,is to mount above it.Who has not felt the irritation of mind and impatience created by a deep,rich country,visited for the first time,with winding lanes,and high hedges,and green steeps,and tangled woods,and every thing smiling indeed,but in a maze? The same feeling comes upon us in a strange city,when we have no map of its streets.Hence you hear of practised travellers,when they first come into a place,mounting some high hill or church tower,by way of reconnoitring its neighbourhood.In like manner,you must be above your knowledge,not under it,or it will oppress you;and the more you have of it,the greater will be the load.The learning of a Salmasius or a Burman,unless you are its master,will be your tyrant.“Imperat aut servit;”if you can wield it with a strong arm,it is a great weapon;otherwise,Vis consili expers

Mole ruit sua.

You will be overwhelmed,like Tarpeia,by the heavy wealth which you have exacted from tributary generations.

Instances abound;there are authors who are as pointless as they are inexhaustible in their literary resources.They measure knowledge by bulk,as it lies in the rude block,without symmetry,without design.How many commentators are there on the Classics,how many on Holy Scripture,from whom we rise up,wondering at the learning which has passed before us,and wondering why it passed! How many writers are there of Ecclesiastical History,such as Mosheim or Du Pin,who,breaking up their subject into details,destroy its life,and defraud us of the whole by their anxiety about the parts! The Sermons,again,of the English Divines in the seventeenth century,how often are they mere repertories of miscellaneous and officious learning! Of course Catholics also may read without thinking;and in their case,equally as with Protestants,it holds good,that such knowledge is unworthy of the name,knowledge which they have not thought through,and thought out.Such readers are only possessed by their knowledge,not possessed of it;nay,in matter of fact they are often even carried away by it,without any volition of their own.Recollect,the

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