The Unseen World and Other Essays, by John Fiske




TO
JAMES SIME.

MY DEAR SIME:

Life has now and then some supreme moments of pure happiness,
which in reminiscence give to single days the value of months
or years. Two or three such moments it has been my good fortune
to enjoy with you, in talking over the mysteries which forever
fascinate while they forever baffle us. It was our midnight talks
in Great Russell Street and the Addison Road, and our bright May
holiday on the Thames, that led me to write this scanty essay on
the "Unseen World," and to whom could I so heartily dedicate it
as to you? I only wish it were more worthy of its origin. As for
the dozen papers which I have appended to it, by way of clearing
out my workshop, I hope you will read them indulgently, and
believe
me

Ever faithfully yours,
JOHN
FISKE.


HARVARD UNIVERSITY, February 3, 1876.




CONTENTS.

I.   THE UNSEEN WORLD
II.  "THE TO-MORROW OF DEATH"
III. THE JESUS OF HISTORY
IV.  THE CHRIST OF DOGMA
V.   A WORD ABOUT MIRACLES
VI.  DRAPER ON SCIENCE AND RELIGION
VII. NATHAN THE WISE
VIII.HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES
IX.  THE FAMINE OF 1770 IN BENGAL
X.   SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS
XI.  LONGFELLOW'S DANTE
XII. PAINE'S "ST. PETER"
XIII.A PHILOSOPHY OF ART
XIV. ATHENIAN AND AMERICAN LIFE



ESSAYS.

I. THE UNSEEN WORLD.

PART FIRST.

"What are you, where did you come from, and whither are you
bound?"--the question which from Homer's days has been put to the
wayfarer in strange lands--is likewise the all-absorbing question
which man is ever asking of the universe of which he is himself
so tiny yet so wondrous a part. From the earliest times the
ultimate purpose of all scientific research has been to elicit
fragmentary or partial responses to this question, and philosophy
has ever busied itself in piecing together these several bits of
information according to the best methods at its disposal, in
order to make up something like a satisfactory answer. In old
times the best methods which philosophy had at its disposal for
this purpose were such as now seem very crude, and accordingly
ancient philosophers bungled considerably in their task, though
now and then they came surprisingly near what would to-day be
called the truth. It was natural that their methods should be
crude, for scientific inquiry had as yet supplied but scanty
materials for them to work with, and it was only after a very
long course of speculation and criticism that men could find out
what ways of going to work are likely to prove successful and
what are not. The earliest thinkers, indeed, were further
hindered from accomplishing much by the imperfections of the
language by the aid of which their thinking was done; for science
and philosophy have had to make a serviceable terminology by dint
of long and arduous trial and practice, and linguistic processes
fit for expressing general or abstract notions accurately grew up
only through numberless failures and at the expense of much
inaccurate thinking and loose talking. As in most of nature's
processes, there was a great waste of energy before a good result
could be secured. Accordingly primitive men were very wide of the
mark in their views of nature. To them the world was a sort of
enchanted ground, peopled with sprites and goblins; the quaint
notions with which we now amuse our children in fairy tales
represent a style of thinking which once was current among grown
men and women, and which is still current wherever men remain in
a savage condition. The theories of the world wrought out by
early priest-philosophers were in great part made up of such
grotesque notions; and having become variously implicated with
ethical opinions as to the nature and consequences of right and
wrong behaviour, they acquired a kind of sanctity, so that any
thinker who in the light of a wider experience ventured to alter
or amend the primitive theory was likely to be vituperated as an
irreligious man or atheist. This sort of inference has not yet
been wholly abandoned, even in civilized communities. Even to-day
books are written about "the conflict between religion and
science," and other books are written with intent to reconcile
the two presumed antagonists. But when we look beneath the
surface of things, we see that in reality there has never been
any conflict between religion and science, nor is any
reconciliation called for where harmony has always existed. The
real historical conflict, which has been thus curiously misnamed,
has been the conflict between the more-crude opinions belonging
to the science of an earlier age and the less-crude opinions
belonging to the science of a later age. In the course of this
contest the more-crude opinions have usually been defended in the
name of religion, and the less-crude opinions have invariably won
the victory; but religion itself, which is not concerned with
opinion, but with the aspiration which leads us to strive after a
purer and holier life, has seldom or never been attacked. On the
contrary, the scientific men who have conducted the battle on
behalf of the less-crude opinions have generally been influenced
by this religious aspiration quite as strongly as the apologists
of the more-crude opinions, and so far from religious feeling
having been weakened by their perennial series of victories, it
has apparently been growing deeper and stronger all the time. The
religious sense is as yet too feebly developed in most of us; but
certainly in no preceding age have men taken up the work of life
with more earnestness or with more real faith in the unseen than
at the present day, when so much of what was once deemed
all-important knowledge has been consigned to the limbo of
mythology.

The more-crude theories of early times are to be chiefly
distinguished from the less-crude theories of to-day as being
largely the products of random guesswork. Hypothesis, or
guesswork, indeed, lies at the foundation of all scientific
knowledge. The riddle of the universe, like less important
riddles, is unravelled only by approximative trials, and the most
brilliant discoverers have usually been the bravest guessers.
Kepler's laws were the result of indefatigable guessing, and so,
in a somewhat different sense, was the wave-theory of light. But
the guesswork of scientific inquirers is very different now from
what it was in older times. In the first place, we have slowly
learned that a guess must be verified before it can be accepted
as a sound theory; and, secondly, so many truths have been
established beyond contravention, that the latitude for
hypothesis is much less than it once was. Nine tenths of the
guesses which might have occurred to a mediaeval philosopher
would now be ruled out as inadmissible, because they would not
harmonize with the knowledge which has been acquired since the
Middle Ages. There is one direction especially in which this
continuous limitation of guesswork by ever-accumulating
experience has manifested itself. From first to last, all our
speculative successes and failures have agreed in teaching us
that the most general principles of action which prevail to-day,
and in our own corner of the universe, have always prevailed
throughout as much of the universe as is accessible to our
research. They have taught us that for the deciphering of the
past and the predicting of the future, no hypotheses are
admissible which are not based upon the actual behaviour of
things in the present. Once there was unlimited facility for
guessing as to how the solar system might have come into
existence; now the origin of the sun and planets is adequately
explained when we have unfolded all that is implied in the
processes which are still going on in the solar system. Formerly
appeals were made to all manner of violent agencies to account
for the changes which the earth's surface has undergone since our
planet began its independent career; now it is seen that the same
slow working of rain and tide, of wind and wave and frost, of
secular contraction and of earthquake pulse, which is visible
to-day, will account for the whole. It is not long since it was
supposed that a species of animals or plants could be swept away
only by some unusual catastrophe, while for the origination of
new species something called an act of "special creation" was
necessary; and as to the nature of such extraordinary events
there was endless room for guesswork; but the discovery of
natural selection was the discovery of a process, going on
perpetually under our very eyes, which must inevitably of itself
extinguish some species and bring new ones into being. In these
and countless other ways we have learned that all the rich
variety of nature is pervaded by unity of action, such as we
might expect to find if nature is the manifestation of an
infinite God who is without variableness or shadow of turning,
but quite incompatible with the fitful behaviour of the
anthropomorphic deities of the old mythologies. By thus
abstaining from all appeal to agencies that are extra-cosmic, or
not involved in the orderly system of events that we see
occurring around us, we have at last succeeded in eliminating
from philosophic speculation the character of random guesswork
which at first of necessity belonged to it. Modern scientific
hypothesis is so far from being a haphazard mental proceeding
that it is perhaps hardly fair to classify it with guesses. It is
lifted out of the plane of guesswork, in so far as it has
acquired the character of inevitable inference from that which
now is to that which has been or will be. Instead of the
innumerable particular assumptions which were once admitted into
cosmic philosophy, we are now reduced to the one universal
assumption which has been variously described as the "principle
of continuity," the "uniformity of nature," the "persistence of
force," or the "law of causation," and which has been variously
explained as a necessary datum for scientific thinking or as a
net result of all induction. I am not unwilling, however, to
adopt the language of a book which has furnished the occasion for
the present discussion, and to say that this grand assumption is
a supreme act of faith, the definite expression of a trust that
the infinite Sustainer of the universe "will not put us to
permanent intellectual confusion." For in this mode of statement
the harmony between the scientific and the religious points of
view is well brought out. It is as affording the only outlet from
permanent intellectual confusion that inquirers have been driven
to appeal to the principle of continuity; and it is by unswerving
reliance upon this principle that we have obtained such insight
into the past, present, and future of the world as we now
possess.

The work just mentioned[1] is especially interesting as an
attempt to bring the probable destiny of the human soul into
connection with the modern theories which explain the past and
future career of the physical universe in accordance with the
principle of continuity. Its authorship is as yet unknown, but it
is believed to be the joint production of two of the most eminent
physicists in Great Britain, and certainly the accurate knowledge
and the ingenuity and subtlety of thought displayed in it are
such as to lend great probability to this conjecture. Some
account of the argument it contains may well precede the
suggestions presently to be set forth concerning the Unseen
World; and we shall find it most convenient to begin, like our
authors, with a brief statement of what the principle of
continuity teaches as to the proximate beginning and end of the
visible universe. I shall in the main set down only results,
having elsewhere[2] given a simple exposition of the arguments
upon which these results are founded.

[1] The Unseen Universe; or, Physical Speculations on a Future
State. [Attributed to Professors TAIT and BALFOUR STEWART.] New
York: Macmillan & Co. 1875. 8vo. pp. 212.

[2] Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, based on the Doctrine of
Evolution. Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 1875. 2 vols. 8vo.


The first great cosmological speculation which has been raised
quite above the plane of guesswork by making no other assumption
than that of the uniformity of nature, is the well-known Nebular
Hypothesis. Every astronomer knows that the earth, like all other
cosmical bodies which are flattened at the poles, was formerly a
mass of fluid, and consequently filled a much larger space than
at present. It is further agreed, on all hands, that the sun is a
contracting body, since there is no other possible way of
accounting for the enormous quantity of heat which he generates.
The so-called primeval nebula follows as a necessary inference
from these facts. There was once a time when the earth was
distended on all sides away out to the moon and beyond it, so
that the matter now contained in the moon was then a part of our
equatorial zone. And at a still remoter date in the past, the
mass of the sun was diffused in every direction beyond the orbit
of Neptune, and no planet had an individual existence, for all
were indistinguishable parts of the solar mass. When the great
mass of the sun, increased by the relatively small mass of all
the planets put together, was spread out in this way, it was a
rare vapour or gas. At the period where the question is taken up
in Laplace's treatment of the nebular theory, the shape of this
mass is regarded as spheroidal; but at an earlier period its
shape may well have been as irregular as that of any of the
nebulae which we now see in distant parts of the heavens, for,
whatever its primitive shape, the equalization of its rotation
would in time make it spheroidal. That the QUANTITY of rotation
was the same then as now is unquestionable; for no system of
particles, great or small, can acquire or lose rotation by any
action going on within itself, any more than a man could pick
himself up by his waistband and lift himself over a stone wale So
that the primitive rotating spheroidal solar nebula is not a
matter of assumption, but is just what must once have existed,
provided there has been no breach of continuity in nature's
operations. Now proceeding to reason back from the past to the
present, it has been shown that the abandonment of successive
equatorial belts by the contracting solar mass must have ensued
in accordance with known mechanical laws; and in similar wise,
under ordinary circumstances. each belt must have parted into
fragments, and the fragments chasing each other around the same
orbit, must have at last coalesced into a spheroidal planet. Not
only this, but it has also been shown that as the result of such
a process the relative sizes of the planets would be likely to
take the order which they now follow; that the ring immediately
succeeding that of Jupiter would be likely to abort and produce a
great number of tiny planets instead of one good-sized one; that
the outer planets would be likely to have many moons, and that
Saturn, besides having the greatest number of moons, would be
likely to retain some of his inner rings unbroken; that the earth
would be likely to have a long day and Jupiter a short one; that
the extreme outer planets would be not unlikely to rotate in a
retrograde direction; and so on, through a long list of
interesting and striking details. Not only, therefore, are we
driven to the inference that our solar system was once a vaporous
nebula, but we find that the mere contraction of such a nebula,
under the influence of the enormous mutual gravitation of its
particles, carries with it the explanation of both the more
general and the more particular features of the present system.
So that we may fairly regard this stupendous process as veritable
matter of history, while we proceed to study it under some
further aspects and to consider what consequences are likely to
follow.

Our attention should first be directed to the enormous waste of
energy which has accompanied this contraction of the solar
nebula. The first result of such a contraction is the generation
of a great quantity of heat, and when the heat thus generated has
been lost by radiation into surrounding space it becomes possible
for the contraction to continue. Thus, as concentration goes on,
heat is incessantly generated and incessantly dissipated. How
long this process is to endure depends chiefly on the size of the
contracting mass, as small bodies radiate heat much faster than
large ones. The moon seems to be already thoroughly refrigerated,
while Jupiter and Saturn are very much hotter than the earth, as
is shown by the tremendous atmospheric phenomena which occur on
their surfaces. The sun, again, generates heat so rapidly, owing
to his great energy of contraction, and loses it so slowly, owing
to his great size, that his surface is always kept in a state of
incandescence. His surface-temperature is estimated at some three
million degrees of Fahrenheit, and a diminution of his diameter
far too small to be detected by the finest existing instruments
would suffice to maintain the present supply of heat for more
than fifty centuries. These facts point to a very long future
during which the sun will continue to warm the earth and its
companion planets, but at the same time they carry on their face
the story of inevitable ultimate doom. If things continue to go
on as they have all along gone on, the sun must by and by grow
black and cold, and all life whatever throughout the solar system
must come to an end. Long before this consummation, however, life
will probably have become extinct through the refrigeration of
each of the planets into a state like the present state of the
moon, in which the atmosphere and oceans have disappeared from
the surface. No doubt the sun will continue to give out heat a
long time after heat has ceased to be needed for the support of
living organisms. For the final refrigeration of the sun will
long be postponed by the fate of the planets themselves. The
separation of the planets from their parent solar mass seems to
be after all but a temporary separation. So nicely balanced are
they now in their orbits that they may well seem capable of
rolling on in their present courses forever. But this is not the
case. Two sets of circumstances are all the while striving, the
one to drive the planets farther away from the sun, the other to
draw them all into it. On the one hand, every body in our system
which contains fluid matter has tides raised upon its surface by
the attraction of neighbouring bodies. All the planets raise
tides upon the surface of the sun and the periodicity of
sun-spots (or solar cyclones) depends upon this fact. These tidal
waves act as a drag or brake upon the rotation of the sun,
somewhat diminishing its rapidity. But, in conformity with a
principle of mechanics well known to astronomers, though not
familiar to the general reader, all the motion of rotation thus
lost by the sun is added to the planets in the shape of annual
motion of revolution, and thus their orbits all tend to
enlarge,--they all tend to recede somewhat from the sun. But this
state of things, though long-enduring enough, is after all only
temporary, and will at any rate come to an end when the sun and
planets have become solid. Meanwhile another set of circumstances
is all the time tending to bring the planets nearer to the sun,
and in the long run must gain the mastery. The space through
which the planets move is filled with a kind of matter which
serves as a medium for the transmission of heat and light, and
this kind of matter, though different in some respects from
ordinary ponderable matter, is yet like it in exerting friction.
This friction is almost infinitely little, yet it has a wellnigh
infinite length of time to work in, and during all this wellnigh
infinite length of time it is slowly eating up the momentum of
the planets and diminishing their ability to maintain their
distances from the sun. Hence in course of time the planets will
all fall into the sun, one after another, so that the solar
system will end, as it began, by consisting of a single mass of
matter.

But this is by no means the end of the story. When two bodies
rush together, each parts with some of its energy of motion, and
this lost energy of motion reappears as heat. In the concussion
of two cosmical bodies, like the sun and the earth, an enormous
quantity of motion is thus converted into heat. Now heat, when
not allowed to radiate, or when generated faster than it can be
radiated, is transformed into motion of expansion. Hence the
shock of sun and planet would at once result in the vaporization
of both bodies; and there can be no doubt that by the time the
sun has absorbed the outermost of his attendant planets, he will
have resumed something like his original nebulous condition. He
will have been dilated into a huge mass of vapour, and will have
become fit for a new process of contraction and for a new
production of life-bearing planets.

We are now, however, confronted by an interesting but difficult
question. Throughout all this grand past and future career of the
solar system which we have just briefly traced, we have been
witnessing a most prodigal dissipation of energy in the shape of
radiant heat. At the outset we had an enormous quantity of what
is called "energy of position," that is, the outer parts of our
primitive nebula had a very long distance through which to travel
towards one another in the slow process of concentration; and
this distance was the measure of the quantity of work possible to
our system. As the particles of our nebula drew nearer and nearer
together, the energy of position continually lost reappeared
continually as heat, of which the greater part was radiated off,
but of which a certain amount was retained. All the gigantic
amount of work achieved in the geologic development of our earth
and its companion planets, and in the development of life
wherever life may exist in our system, has been the product of
this retained heat. At the present day the same wasteful process
is going on. Each moment the sun's particles are losing energy of
position as they draw closer and closer together, and the heat
into which this lost energy is metamorphosed is poured out most
prodigally in every direction. Let us consider for a moment how
little of it gets used in our system. The earth's orbit is a
nearly circular figure more than five hundred million miles in
circumference, while only eight thousand miles of this path are
at any one time occupied by the earth's mass. Through these eight
thousand miles the sun's radiated energy is doing work, but
through the remainder of the five hundred million it is idle and
wasted. But the case is far more striking when we reflect that it
is not in the plane of the earth's orbit only that the sun's
radiance is being poured out. It is not an affair of a circle,
but of a sphere. In order to utilize all the solar rays, we
should need to have an immense number of earths arranged so as to
touch each other, forming a hollow sphere around the sun, with
the present radius of the earth's orbit. We may well believe
Professor Tyndall, therefore, when he tells us that all the solar
radiance we receive is less than a two-billionth part of what is
sent flying through the desert regions of space. Some of the
immense residue of course hits other planets stationed in the way
of it, and is utilized upon their surfaces; but the planets, all
put together, stop so little of the total quantity that our
startling illustration is not materially altered by taking them
into the account. Now this two-billionth part of the solar
radiance poured out from moment to moment suffices to blow every
wind, to raise every cloud, to drive every engine, to build up
the tissue of every plant, to sustain the activity of every
animal, including man, upon the surface of our vast and stately
globe. Considering the wondrous richness and variety of the
terrestrial life wrought out by the few sunbeams which we catch
in our career through space, we may well pause overwhelmed and
stupefied at the thought of the incalculable possibilities of
existence which are thrown away with the potent actinism that
darts unceasingly into the unfathomed abysms of immensity. Where
it goes to or what becomes of it, no one of us can surmise.

Now when, in the remote future, our sun is reduced to vapour by
the impact of the several planets upon his surface, the resulting
nebulous mass must be a very insignificant affair compared with
the nebulous mass with which we started. In order to make a
second nebula equal in size and potential energy to the first
one, all the energy of position at first existing should have
been retained in some form or other. But nearly all of it has
been lost, and only an insignificant fraction remains with which
to endow a new system. In order to reproduce, in future ages,
anything like that cosmical development which is now going on in
the solar system, aid must be sought from without. We must
endeavour to frame some valid hypothesis as to the relation of
our solar system to other systems.

Thus far our view has been confined to the career of a single
star,--our sun,--with the tiny, easily-cooling balls which it has
cast off in the course of its development. Thus far, too, our
inferences have been very secure, for we have been dealing with a
circumscribed group of phenomena, the beginning and end of which
have been brought pretty well within the compass of our
imagination. It is quite another thing to deal with the actual or
probable career of the stars in general, inasmuch as we do not
even know how many stars there are, which form parts of a common
system, or what. are their precise dynamic relations to one
another. Nevertheless we have knowledge of a few facts which may
support some cautious inferences. All the stars which we can see
are undoubtedly bound together by relations of gravitation. No
doubt our sun attracts all the other stars within our ken, and is
reciprocally attracted by them. The stars, too, lie mostly in or
around one great plane, as is the case with the members of the
solar system. Moreover, the stars are shown by the spectroscope
to consist of chemical elements identical with those which are
found in the solar system. Such facts as these make it probable
that the career of other stars, when adequately inquired into,
would be found to be like that of our own sun. Observation daily
enhances this probability, for our study of the sidereal universe
is continually showing us stars in all stages of development. We
find irregular nebulae, for example; we find spiral and
spheroidal nebulae; we find stars which have got beyond the
nebulous stage, but are still at a whiter heat than our sun; and
we also find many stars which yield the same sort of spectrum as
our sun. The inference seems forced upon us that the same process
of concentration which has gone on in the case of our solar
nebula has been going on in the case of other nebulae. The
history of the sun is but a type of the history of stars in
general. And when we consider that all other visible stars and
nebulae are cooling and contracting bodies, like our sun, to what
other conclusion could we very well come? When we look at Sirius,
for instance, we do not see him surrounded by planets, for at
such a distance no planet could be visible, even Sirius himself,
though fourteen times larger than our sun, appearing only as a
"twinkling little star." But a comparative survey of the heavens
assures us that Sirius can hardly have arrived at his present
stage of concentration without detaching, planet-forming rings,
for there is no reason for supposing that mechanical laws out
there are at all different from what they are in our own system.
And the same kind of inference must apply to all the matured
stars which we see in the heavens.

When we duly take all these things into the account, the case of
our solar system will appear as only one of a thousand cases of
evolution and dissolution with which the heavens furnish us.
Other stars, like our sun, have undoubtedly started as vaporous
masses, and have thrown off planets in contracting. The inference
may seem a bold one, but it after all involves no other
assumption than that of the continuity of natural phenomena. It
is not likely, therefore, that the solar system will forever be
left to itself. Stars which strongly gravitate toward each other,
while moving through a perennially resisting medium, must in time
be drawn together. The collision of our extinct sun with one of
the Pleiades, after this manner, would very likely suffice to
generate even a grander nebula than the one with which we
started. Possibly the entire galactic system may, in an
inconceivably remote future, remodel itself in this way; and
possibly the nebula from which our own group of planets has been
formed may have owed its origin to the disintegration of systems
which had accomplished their career in the depths of the bygone
eternity.

When the problem is extended to these huge dimensions, the
prospect of an ultimate cessation of cosmical work is
indefinitely postponed, but at the same time it becomes
impossible for us to deal very securely with the questions we
have raised. The magnitudes and periods we have introduced are so
nearly infinite as to baffle speculation itself: One point,
however, we seem dimly to discern. Supposing the stellar universe
not to be absolutely infinite in extent, we may hold that the day
of doom, so often postponed, must come at last. The concentration
of matter and dissipation of energy, so often checked, must in
the end prevail, so that, as the final outcome of things, the
entire universe will be reduced to a single enormous ball, dead
and frozen, solid and black, its potential energy of motion
having been all transformed into heat and radiated away. Such a
conclusion has been suggested by Sir William Thomson, and it is
quite forcibly stated by the authors of "The Unseen Universe."
They remind us that "if there be any one form of energy less
readily or less completely transformable than the others, and if
transformations constantly go on, more and more of the whole
energy of the universe will inevitably sink into this lower grade
as time advances." Now radiant heat, as we have seen, is such a
lower grade of energy. "At each transformation of heat-energy
into work, a large portion is degraded, while only a small
portion is transformed into work. So that while it is very easy
to change all of our mechanical or useful energy into heat, it is
only possible to transform a portion of this heat-energy back
again into work. After each change, too, the heat becomes more
and more dissipated or degraded, and less and less available for
any future transformation. In other words," our authors continue,
"the tendency of heat is towards equalization; heat is par
excellence the communist of our universe, and it will no doubt
ultimately bring the system to an end. .... It is absolutely
certain that life, so far as it is physical, depends essentially
upon transformations of energy; it is also absolutely certain
that age after age the possibility of such transformations is
becoming less and less; and, so far as we yet know, the final
state of the present universe must be an aggregation (into one
mass) of all the matter it contains, i. e. the potential energy
gone, and a practically useless state of kinetic energy, i. e.
uniform temperature throughout that mass." Thus our authors
conclude that the visible universe began in time and will in time
come to an end; and they add that under the physical conditions
of such a universe "immortality is impossible."

Concerning the latter inference we shall by and by have something
to say. Meanwhile this whole speculation as to the final
cessation of cosmical work seems to me--as it does to my friend,
Professor Clifford[3]--by no means trustworthy. The conditions of
the problem so far transcend our grasp that any such speculation
must remain an unverifiable guess. I do not go with Professor
Clifford in doubting whether the laws of mechanics are absolutely
the same throughout eternity; I cannot quite reconcile such a
doubt with faith in the principle of continuity. But it does seem
to me needful, before we conclude that radiated energy is
absolutely and forever wasted, that we should find out what
becomes of it. What we call radiant heat is simply transverse
wave-motion, propagated with enormous velocity through an ocean
of subtle ethereal matter which bathes the atoms of all visible
or palpable bodies and fills the whole of space, extending beyond
the remotest star which the telescope can reach. Whether there
are any bounds at all to this ethereal ocean, or whether it is as
infinite as space itself, we cannot surmise. If it be limited,
the possible dispersion of radiant energy is limited by its
extent. Heat and light cannot travel through emptiness. If the
ether is bounded by surrounding emptiness, then a ray of heat, on
arriving at this limiting emptiness, would be reflected back as
surely as a ball is sent back when thrown against a solid wall.
If this be the case, it will not affect our conclusions
concerning such a tiny region of space as is occupied by the
solar system, but it will seriously modify Sir William Thomson's
suggestion as to the fate of the universe as a whole. The
radiance thrown away by the sun is indeed lost so far as the
future of our system is concerned, but not a single unit of it is
lost from the universe. Sooner or later, reflected back in all
directions, it must do work in one quarter or another, so that
ultimate stagnation be comes impossible. It is true that no such
return of radiant energy has been detected in our corner of the
world; but we have not yet so far disentangled all the
force-relations of the universe that we are entitled to regard
such a return as impossible. This is one way of escape from the
consummation of things depicted by our authors. Another way of
escape is equally available, if we suppose that while the ether
is without bounds the stellar universe also extends to infinity.
For in this case the reproduction of nebulous masses fit for
generating new systems of worlds must go on through space that is
endless, and consequently the process can never come to an end
and can never have had a beginning. We have, therefore, three
alternatives: either the visible universe is finite, while the
ether is infinite; or both are finite; or both are infinite. Only
on the first supposition, I think, do we get a universe which
began in time and must end in time. Between such stupendous
alternatives we have no grounds for choosing. But it would seem
that the third, whether strictly true or not, best represents the
state of the case relatively to our feeble capacity of
comprehension. Whether absolutely infinite or not, the dimensions
of the universe must be taken as practically infinite, so far as
human thought is concerned. They immeasurably transcend the
capabilities of any gauge we can bring to bear on them.
Accordingly all that we are really entitled to hold, as the
outcome of sound speculation, is the conception of innumerable
systems of worlds concentrating out of nebulous masses, and then
rushing together and dissolving into similar masses, as bubbles
unite and break up--now here, now there--in their play on the
surface of a pool, and to this tremendous series of events we can
assign neither a beginning nor an end.

[3] Fortnightly Review, April, 1875.


We must now make some more explicit mention of the ether which
carries through space the rays of heat and light. In closest
connection with the visible stellar universe, the vicissitudes of
which we have briefly traced, the all-pervading ether constitutes
a sort of unseen world remarkable enough from any point of view,
but to which the theory of our authors ascribes capacities
hitherto unsuspected by science. The very existence of an ocean
of ether enveloping the molecules of material bodies has been
doubted or denied by many eminent physicists, though of course
none have called in question the necessity for some interstellar
medium for the transmission of thermal and luminous vibrations.
This scepticism has been, I think, partially justified by the
many difficulties encompassing the conception, into which,
however, we need not here enter. That light and heat cannot be
conveyed by any of the ordinary sensible forms of matter is
unquestionable. None of the forms of sensible matter can be
imagined sufficiently elastic to propagate wave-motion at the
rate of one hundred and eighty-eight thousand miles per second.
Yet a ray of light is a series of waves, and implies some
substance in which the waves occur. The substance required is one
which seems to possess strangely contradictory properties. It is
commonly regarded as an "ether" or infinitely rare substance;
but, as Professor Jevons observes, we might as well regard it as
an infinitely solid "adamant." "Sir John Herschel has calculated
the amount of force which may be supposed, according to the
undulatory theory of light, to be exerted at each point in space,
and finds it to be 1,148,000,000,000 times the elastic force of
ordinary air at the earth's surface, so that the pressure of the
ether upon a square inch of surface must be about
17,000,000,000,000, or seventeen billions of pounds."[4] Yet at
the same time the resistance offered by the ether to the
planetary motions is too minute to be appreciable. "All our
ordinary notions," says Professor Jevons, "must be laid aside in
contemplating such an hypothesis; yet [it is] no more than the
observed phenomena of light and heat force us to accept. We
cannot deny even the strange suggestion of Dr. Young, that there
may be independent worlds, some possibly existing in different
parts of space, but others perhaps pervading each other, unseen
and unknown, in the same space. For if we are bound to admit the
conception of this adamantine firmament, it is equally easy to
admit a plurality of such."

[4] Jevons's Principles of Science, Vol. II. p. 145. The figures,
which in the English system of numeration read as seventeen
billions, would in the American system read as seventeen
trillions.


The ether, therefore, is unlike any of the forms of matter which
we can weigh and measure. In some respects it resembles a fluid,
in some respects a solid. It is both hard and elastic to an
almost inconceivable degree. It fills all material bodies like a
sea in which the atoms of the material bodies are as islands, and
it occupies the whole of what we call empty space. It is so
sensitive that a disturbance in any part of it causes a "tremour
which is felt on the surface of countless worlds." Our old
experiences of matter give us no account of any substance like
this; yet the undulatory theory of light obliges us to admit such
a substance, and that theory is as well established as the theory
of gravitation. Obviously we have here an enlargement of our
experience of matter. The analysis of the phenomena of light and
radiant heat has brought us into mental relations with matter in
a different state from any in which we previously knew it. For
the supposition that the ether may be something essentially
different from matter is contradicted by all the terms we have
used in describing it. Strange and contradictory as its
properties may seem, are they any more strange than the
properties of a gas would seem if we were for the first time to
discover a gas after heretofore knowing nothing but solids and
liquids? I think not; and the conclusion implied by our authors
seems to me eminently probable, that in the so-called ether we
have simply a state of matter more primitive than what we know as
the gaseous state. Indeed, the conceptions of matter now current,
and inherited from barbarous ages, are likely enough to be crude
in the extreme. It is not strange that the study of such subtle
agencies as heat and light should oblige us to modify them; and
it will not be strange if the study of electricity should entail
still further revision of our ideas.

We are now brought to one of the profoundest speculations of
modern times, the vortex-atom theory of Helmholtz and Thomson, in
which the evolution of ordinary matter from ether is plainly
indicated. The reader first needs to know what vortex-motion is;
and this has been so beautifully explained by Professor Clifford,
that I quote his description entire: "Imagine a ring of
india-rubber, made by joining together the ends of a cylindrical
piece (like a lead-pencil before it is cut), to be put upon a
round stick which it will just fit with a little stretching. Let
the stick be now pulled through the ring while the latter is kept
in its place by being pulled the other way on the outside. The
india-rubber has then what is called vortex-motion. Before the
ends were joined together, while it was straight, it might have
been made to turn around without changing position, by rolling it
between the hands. Just the same motion of rotation it has on the
stick, only that the ends are now joined together. All the inside
surface of the ring is going one way, namely, the way the stick
is pulled; and all the outside is going the other way. Such a
vortex-ring is made by the smoker who purses his lips into a
round hole and sends out a puff of smoke. The outside of the ring
is kept back by the friction of his lips while the inside is
going forwards; thus a rotation is set up all round the
smoke-ring as it travels out into the air." In these cases, and
in others as we commonly find it, vortex-motion owes its origin
to friction and is after a while brought to an end by friction.
But in 1858 the equations of motion of an incompressible
frictionless fluid were first successfully solved by Helmholtz,
and among other things he proved that, though vortex-motion could
not be originated in such a fluid, yet supposing it once to
exist, it would exist to all eternity and could not be diminished
by any mechanical action whatever. A vortex-ring, for example, in
such a fluid, would forever preserve its own rotation, and would
thus forever retain its peculiar individuality, being, as it
were, marked off from its neighbour vortex-rings. Upon this
mechanical truth Sir William Thomson based his wonderfully
suggestive theory of the constitution of matter. That which is
permanent or indestructible in matter is the ultimate homogeneous
atom; and this is probably all that is permanent, since chemists
now almost unanimously hold that so-called elementary molecules
are not really simple, but owe their sensible differences to the
various groupings of an ultimate atom which is alike for all.
Relatively to our powers of comprehension the atom endures
eternally; that is, it retains forever unalterable its definite
mass and its definite rate of vibration. Now this is just what a
vortex-ring would do in an incompressible frictionless fluid.
Thus the startling question is suggested, Why may not the
ultimate atoms of matter be vortex-rings forever existing in such
a frictionless fluid filling the whole of space? Such a
hypothesis is not less brilliant than Huyghens's conjectural
identification of light with undulatory motion; and it is
moreover a legitimate hypothesis, since it can be brought to the
test of verification. Sir William Thomson has shown that it
explains a great many of the physical properties of matter: it
remains to be seen whether it can explain them all.

Of course the ether which conveys thermal and luminous
undulations is not the frictionless fluid postulated by Sir
William Thomson. The most conspicuous property of the ether is
its enormous elasticity, a property which we should not find in a
frictionless fluid. "To account for such elasticity," says
Professor Clifford (whose exposition of the subject is still more
lucid than that of our authors), "it has to be supposed that even
where there are no material molecules the universal fluid is full
of vortex-motion, but that the vortices are smaller and more
closely packed than those of [ordinary] matter, forming
altogether a more finely grained structure. So that the
difference between matter and ether is reduced to a mere
difference in the size and arrangement of the component
vortex-rings. Now, whatever may turn out to be the ultimate
nature of the ether and of molecules, we know that to some extent
at least they obey the same dynamic laws, and that they act upon
one another in accordance with these laws. Until, therefore, it
is absolutely disproved, it must remain the simplest and most
probable assumption that they are finally made of the same stuff,
that the material molecule is some kind of knot or coagulation of
ether."[5]

[5] Fortnightly Review, June, 1875, p. 784.


Another interesting consequence of Sir William Thomson's pregnant
hypothesis is that the absolute hardness which has been
attributed to material atoms from the time of Lucretius downward
may be dispensed with. Somewhat in the same way that a loosely
suspended chain becomes rigid with rapid rotation, the hardness
and elasticity of the vortex-atom are explained as due to the
swift rotary motion of a soft and yielding fluid. So that the
vortex-atom is really indivisible, not by reason of its hardness
or solidity, but by reason of the indestructibleness of its
motion.

Supposing, now, that we adopt provisionally the vortex
theory,--the great power of which is well shown by the
consideration just mentioned,--we must not forget that it is
absolutely essential to the indestructibleness of the material
atom that the universal fluid in which it has an existence as a
vortex-ring should be entirely destitute of friction. Once admit
even the most infinitesimal amount of friction, while retaining
the conception of vortex-motion in a universal fluid, and the
whole case is so far altered that the material atom can no longer
be regarded as absolutely indestructible, but only as
indefinitely enduring. It may have been generated, in bygone
eternity, by a natural process of evolution, and in future
eternity may come to an end. Relatively to our powers of
comprehension the practical difference is perhaps not great.
Scientifically speaking, Helmholtz and Thomson are as well
entitled to reason upon the assumption of a perfectly
frictionless fluid as geometers in general are entitled to assume
perfect lines without breadth and perfect surfaces without
thickness. Perfect lines and surfaces do not exist within the
region of our experience; yet the conclusions of geometry are
none the less true ideally, though in any particular concrete
instance they are only approximately realized. Just so with the
conception of a frictionless fluid. So far as experience goes,
such a thing has no more real existence than a line without
breadth; and hence an atomic theory based upon such an assumption
may be as true ideally as any of the theorems of Euclid, but it
can give only an approximatively true account of the actual
universe. These considerations do not at all affect the
scientific value of the theory; but they will modify the tenour
of such transcendental inferences as may be drawn from it
regarding, the probable origin and destiny of the universe.

The conclusions reached in the first part of this paper, while we
were dealing only with gross visible matter, may have seemed bold
enough; but they are far surpassed by the inference which our
authors draw from the vortex theory as they interpret it. Our
authors exhibit various reasons, more or less sound, for
attributing to the primordial fluid some slight amount of
friction; and in support of this view they adduce Le Sage's
explanation of gravitation as a differential result of pressure,
and Struve's theory of the partial absorption of light-rays by
the ether,--questions with which our present purpose does not
require us to meddle. Apart from such questions it is every way
probable that the primary assumption of Helmholtz and Thomson is
only an approximation to the truth. But if we accredit the
primordial fluid with even an infinitesimal amount of friction,
then we are required to conceive of the visible universe as
developed from the invisible and as destined to return into the
invisible. The vortex-atom, produced by infinitesimal friction
operating through wellnigh infinite time, is to be ultimately
abolished by the agency which produced it. In the words of our
authors, "If the visible universe be developed from an invisible
which is not a perfect fluid, then the argument deduced by Sir
William Thomson in favour of the eternity of ordinary matter
disappears, since this eternity depends upon the perfect fluidity
of the invisible. In fine, if we suppose the material universe to
be composed of a series of vortex-rings developed from an
invisible universe which is not a perfect fluid, it will be
ephemeral, just as the smoke-ring which we develop from air, or
that which we develop from water, is ephemeral, the only
difference being in duration, these lasting only for a few
seconds, and the others it may be for billions of years." Thus,
as our authors suppose that "the available energy of the visible
universe will ultimately be appropriated by the invisible," they
go on to imagine, "at least as a possibility, that the separate
existence of the visible universe will share the same fate, so
that we shall have no huge, useless, inert mass existing in after
ages to remind the passer-by of a form of energy and a species of
matter that is long since out of date and functionally effete.
Why should not the universe bury its dead out of sight?"

In one respect perhaps no more stupendous subject of
contemplation than this has ever been offered to the mind of man.
In comparison with the length of time thus required to efface the
tiny individual atom, the entire cosmical career of our solar
system, or even that of the whole starry galaxy, shrinks into
utter nothingness. Whether we shall adopt the conclusion
suggested must depend on the extent of our speculative audacity.
We have seen wherein its probability consists, but in reasoning
upon such a scale we may fitly be cautious and modest in
accepting inferences, and our authors, we may be sure, would be
the first to recommend such modesty and caution. Even at the
dimensions to which our theorizing has here grown, we may for
instance discern the possible alternative of a simultaneous or
rhythmically successive generation and destruction of
vortex-atoms which would go far to modify the conclusion just
suggested. But here we must pause for a moment, reserving for a
second paper the weightier thoughts as to futurity which our
authors have sought to enwrap in these sublime physical
speculations.



PART SECOND.


UP to this point, however remote from ordinary every-day thoughts
may be the region of speculation which we have been called upon
to traverse, we have still kept within the limits of legitimate
scientific hypothesis. Though we have ventured for a goodly
distance into the unknown, we have not yet been required to
abandon our base of operations in the known. Of the views
presented in the preceding paper, some are wellnigh certainly
established, some are probable, some have a sort of plausibility,
others--to which we have refrained from giving assent--may
possibly be true; but none are irretrievably beyond the
jurisdiction of scientific tests. No suggestion has so far been
broached which a very little further increase of our scientific
knowledge may not show to be either eminently probable or
eminently improbable. We have kept pretty clear of mere
subjective guesses, such as men may wrangle about forever without
coming to any conclusion. The theory of the nebular origin of our
planetary system has come to command the assent of all persons
qualified to appreciate the evidence on which it is based; and
the more immediate conclusions which we have drawn from that
theory are only such as are commonly drawn by astronomers and
physicists. The doctrine of an intermolecular and interstellar
ether is wrapped up in the well-established undulatory theory of
light. Such is by no means the case with Sir William Thomson's
vortex-atom theory, which to-day is in somewhat the same
condition as the undulatory theory of Huyghens two centuries ago.
This, however, is none the less a hypothesis truly scientific in
conception, and in the speculations to which it leads us we are
still sure of dealing with views that admit at least of definite
expression and treatment. In other words, though our study of the
visible universe has led us to the recognition of a kind of
unseen world underlying the world of things that are seen, yet
concerning the economy of this unseen world we have not been led
to entertain any hypothesis that has not its possible
justification in our experiences of visible phenomena.

We are now called upon, following in the wake of our esteemed
authors, to venture on a different sort of exploration, in which
we must cut loose altogether from our moorings in the world of
which we have definite experience. We are invited to entertain
suggestions concerning the peculiar economy of the invisible
portion of the universe which we have no means of subjecting to
any sort of test of probability, either experimental or
deductive. These suggestions are, therefore, not to be regarded
as properly scientific; but, with this word of caution, we may
proceed to show what they are.

Compared with the life and death of cosmical systems which we
have heretofore contemplated, the life and death of individuals
of the human race may perhaps seem a small matter; yet because we
are ourselves the men who live and die, the small event is of
vastly greater interest to us than the grand series of events of
which it is part and parcel. It is natural that we should be more
interested in the ultimate fate of humanity than in the fate of a
world which is of no account to us save as our present
dwelling-place. Whether the human soul is to come to an end or
not is to us a more important question than whether the visible
universe, with its matter and energy, is to be absorbed in an
invisible ether. It is indeed only because we are interested in
the former question that we are so curious about the latter. If
we could dissociate ourselves from the material universe, our
habitat, we should probably speculate much less about its past
and future. We care very little what becomes of the black ball of
the earth, after all life has vanished from its surface; or, if
we care at all about it, it is only because our thoughts about
the career of the earth are necessarily mixed up with our
thoughts about life. Hence in considering the probable ultimate
destiny of the physical universe, our innermost purpose must be
to know what is to become of all this rich and wonderful life of
which the physical universe is the theatre. Has it all been
developed, apparently at almost infinite waste of effort, only to
be abolished again before it has attained to completeness, or
does it contain or shelter some indestructible element which
having drawn sustenance for a while from the senseless turmoil of
physical phenomena shall still survive their final decay? This
question is closely connected with the time-honoured question of
the meaning, purpose, or tendency of the world. In the career of
the world is life an end, or a means toward an end, or only an
incidental phenomenon in which we can discover no meaning?
Contemporary theologians seem generally to believe that one
necessary result of modern scientific inquiry must be the
destruction of the belief in immortal life, since against every
thoroughgoing expounder of scientific knowledge they seek to hurl
the charge of "materialism." Their doubts, however, are not
shared by our authors, thorough men of science as they are,
though their mode of dealing with the question may not be such as
we can well adopt. While upholding the doctrine of evolution, and
all the so-called "materialistic" views of modern science, they
not only regard the hypothesis of a future life as admissible,
but they even go so far as to propound a physical theory as to
the nature of existence after death. Let us see what this
physical theory is.

As far as the visible universe is concerned, we do not find in it
any evidence of immortality or of permanence of any sort, unless
it be in the sum of potential and kinetic energies on the
persistency of which depends our principle of continuity. In
ordinary language "the stars in their courses" serve as symbols
of permanence, yet we have found reason to regard them as but
temporary phenomena. So, in the language of our authors, "if we
take the individual man, we find that he lives his short tale of
years, and that then the visible machinery which connects him
with the past, as well as that which enables him to act in the
present, falls into ruin and is brought to an end. If any germ or
potentiality remains, it is certainly not connected with the
visible order of things." In like manner our race is pretty sure
to come to an end long before the destruction of the planet from
which it now gets its sustenance. And in our authors opinion even
the universe will by and by become "old and effete, no less truly
than the individual: it is a glorious garment this visible
universe, but not an immortal one; we must look elsewhere if we
are to be clothed with immortality as with a garment."

It is at this point that our authors call attention to "the
apparently wasteful character of the arrangements of the visible
universe." The fact is one which we have already sufficiently
described, but we shall do well to quote the words in which our
authors recur to it: "All but a very small portion of the sun's
heat goes day by day into what we call empty space, and it is
only this very small remainder that is made use of by the various
planets for purposes of their own. Can anything be more
perplexing than this seemingly frightful expenditure of the very
life and essence of the system? That this vast store of
high-class energy should be doing nothing but travelling outwards
in space at the rate of 188,000 miles per second is hardly
conceivable, especially when the result of it is the inevitable
destruction of the visible universe."

Pursuing this teleological argument, it is suggested that perhaps
this apparent waste of energy is "only an arrangement in virtue
of which our universe keeps up a memory of the past at the
expense of the present, inasmuch as all memory consists in an
investiture of present resources in order to keep a hold upon the
past." Recourse is had to the ingenious argument in which Mr.
Babbage showed that "if we had power to follow and detect the
minutest effects of any disturbance, each particle of existing
matter must be a register of all that has happened. The track of
every canoe, of every vessel that has yet disturbed the surface
of the ocean, whether impelled by manual force or elemental
power, remains forever registered in the future movement of all
succeeding particles which may occupy its place. The furrow which
is left is, indeed, instantly filled up by the closing waters;
but they draw after them other and larger portions of the
surrounding element, and these again, once moved, communicate
motion to others in endless succession." In like manner, "the air
itself is one vast library, on whose pages are forever written
all that man has ever said or even whispered. There in their
mutable but unerring characters, mixed with the earliest as well
as the latest sighs of mortality, stand forever recorded vows
unredeemed, promises unfulfilled, perpetuating in the united
movements of each particle the testimony of man's changeful
will."[6] In some such way as this, records of every movement
that takes place in the world are each moment transmitted, with
the speed of light, through the invisible ocean of ether with
which the world is surrounded. Even the molecular displacements
which occur in our brains when we feel and think are thus
propagated in their effects into the unseen world. The world of
ether is thus regarded by our authors as in some sort the obverse
or complement of the world of sensible matter, so that whatever
energy is dissipated in the one is by the same act accumulated in
the other. It is like the negative plate in photography, where
light answers to shadow and shadow to light. Or, still better, it
is like the case of an equation in which whatever quantity you
take from one side is added to the other with a contrary sign,
while the relation of equality remains undisturbed. Thus, it will
be noticed, from the ingenious and subtle, but quite defensible
suggestion of Mr. Babbage, a leap is made to an assumption which
cannot be defended scientifically, but only teleologically. It is
one thing to say that every movement in the visible world
transmits a record of itself to the surrounding ether, in such a
way that from the undulation of the ether a sufficiently powerful
intelligence might infer the character of the generating movement
in the visible world. It is quite another thing to say that the
ether is organized in such a complex and delicate way as to be
like a negative image or counterpart of the world of sensible
matter. The latter view is no doubt ingenious, but it is
gratuitous. It is sustained not by scientific analogy, but by the
desire to find some assignable use for the energy which is
constantly escaping from visible matter into invisible ether. The
moment we ask how do we know that this energy is not really
wasted, or that it is not put to some use wholly undiscoverable
by human intelligence, this assumption of an organized ether is
at once seen to be groundless. It belongs not to the region of
science, but to that of pure mythology.

[6] Babbage, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, p. 115; Jevons,
Principles of Science, Vol. II. p. 455.


In justice to our authors, however, it should be remembered that
this assumption is put forth not as something scientifically
probable, but as something which for aught we know to the
contrary may possibly be true. This, to be sure, we need not
deny; nor if we once allow this prodigious leap of inference,
shall we find much difficulty in reaching the famous conclusion
that "thought conceived to affect the matter of another universe
simultaneously with this may explain a future state." This
proposition, quaintly couched in an anagram, like the discoveries
of old astronomers, was published last year in "Nature," as
containing the gist of the forthcoming book. On the
negative-image hypothesis it is not hard to see how thought is
conceived to affect the seen and the unseen worlds
simultaneously. Every act of consciousness is accompanied by
molecular displacements in the brain, and these are of course
responded to by movements in the ethereal world. Thus as a series
of conscious states build up a continuous memory in strict
accordance with physical laws of motion,[7] so a correlative
memory is simultaneously built up in the ethereal world out of
the ethereal correlatives of the molecular displacements which go
on in our brains. And as there is a continual transfer of energy
from the visible world to the ether, the extinction of vital
energy which we call death must coincide in some way with the
awakening of vital energy in the correlative world; so that the
darkening of consciousness here is coincident with its dawning
there. In this way death is for the individual but a transfer
from one physical state of existence to another; and so, on the
largest scale, the death or final loss of energy by the whole
visible universe has its counterpart in the acquirement of a
maximum of life by the correlative unseen world.

There seems to be a certain sort of rigorous logical consistency
in this daring speculation; but really the propositions of which
it consists are so far from answering to anything within the
domain of human experience that we are unable to tell whether any
one of them logically follows from its predecessor or not. It is
evident that we are quite out of the region of scientific tests,
and to whatever view our authors may urge we can only languidly
assent that it is out of our power to disprove it.

[7] See my Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II. pp. 142-148.


The essential weakness of such a theory as this lies in the fact
that it is thoroughly materialistic in character. It is currently
assumed that the doctrine of a life after death cannot be
defended on materialistic grounds, but this is altogether too
hasty an assumption. Our authors, indeed, are not philosophical
materialists, like Dr. Priestley,--who nevertheless believed in a
future life,--but one of the primary doctrines of materialism
lies at the bottom of their argument. Materialism holds for one
thing that consciousness is a product of a peculiar organization
of matter, and for another thing that consciousness cannot
survive the disorganization of the material body with which it is
associated. As held by philosophical materialists, like Buchner
and Moleschott, these two opinions are strictly consistent with
each other; nay, the latter seems to be the inevitable inference
from the former, though Priestley did not so regard it. Now our
authors very properly refuse to commit themselves to the opinion
that mind is the product of matter, but their argument
nevertheless implies that some sort of material vehicle is
necessary for the continuance of mind in a future state of
existence. This material vehicle they seek to supply in the
theory which connects by invisible bonds of transmitted energy
the perishable material body with its counterpart in the world of
ether. The materialism of the argument is indeed partly veiled by
the terminology in which this counterpart is called a "spiritual
body," but in this novel use or abuse of scriptural language
there seems to me to be a strange confusion of ideas. Bear in
mind that the "invisible universe" into which energy is
constantly passing is simply the luminiferous ether, which our
authors, to suit the requirements of their hypothesis, have
gratuitously endowed with a complexity and variety of structure
analogous to that of the visible world of matter. Their language
is not always quite so precise as one could desire, for while
they sometimes speak of the ether itself as the "unseen
universe," they sometimes allude to a primordial medium yet
subtler in constitution and presumably more immaterial. Herein
lies the confusion. Why should the luminiferous ether, or any
primordial medium in which it may have been generated, be
regarded as in any way "spiritual"? Great physicists, like less
trained thinkers, are sometimes liable to be unconsciously
influenced by old associations of ideas which, ostensibly
repudiated, still lurk under cover of the words we use. I fear
that the old associations which led the ancients to describe the
soul as a breath or a shadow, and which account for the
etymologies of such words as "ghost" and "spirit," have had
something to do with this spiritualization of the interstellar
ether. Some share may also have been contributed by the Platonic
notion of the "grossness" or "bruteness" of tangible matter,--a
notion which has survived in Christian theology, and which
educated men of the present day have by no means universally
outgrown. Save for some such old associations as these, why
should it be supposed that matter becomes "spriritualized" as it
diminishes in apparent substantiality? Why should matter be
pronounced respectable in the inverse ratio of its density or
ponderability? Why is a diamond any more chargeable with
"grossness" than a cubic centimetre of hydrogen? Obviously such
fancies are purely of mythologic parentage. Now the luminiferous
ether, upon which our authors make such extensive demands, may be
physically "ethereal" enough, in spite of the enormous elasticity
which leads Professor Jevons to characterize it as "adamantine";
but most assuredly we have not the slightest reason for speaking
of it as "immaterial" or "spiritual." Though we are unable to
weigh it in the balance, we at least know it as a transmitter of
undulatory movements, the size and shape of which we can
accurately measure. Its force-relations with ponderable matter
are not only universally and incessantly maintained, but they
have that precisely quantitative character which implies an
essential identity between the innermost natures of the two
substances. We have seen reason for thinking it probable that
ether and ordinary matter are alike composed of vortex-rings in a
quasi-frictionless fluid; but whatever be the fate of this subtle
hypothesis, we may be sure that no theory will ever be
entertained in which the analysis of ether shall require
different symbols from that of ordinary matter. In our authors'
theory, therefore, the putting on of immortality is in no wise
the passage from a material to a spiritual state. It is the
passage from one kind of materially conditioned state to another.
The theory thus appeals directly to our experiences of the
behaviour of matter; and in deriving so little support as it does
from these experiences, it remains an essentially weak
speculation, whatever we may think of its ingenuity. For so long
as we are asked to accept conclusions drawn from our experiences
of the material world, we are justified in demanding something
more than mere unconditioned possibility. We require some
positive evidence, be it ever so little in amount; and no theory
which cannot furnish such positive evidence is likely to carry to
our minds much practical conviction.

This is what I meant by saying that the great weakness of the
hypothesis here criticized lies in its materialistic character.
In contrast with this we shall presently see that the assertion
of a future life which is not materially conditioned, though
unsupported by any item of experience whatever, may nevertheless
be an impregnable assertion. But first I would conclude the
foregoing criticism by ruling out altogether the sense in which
our authors use the expression "Unseen Universe." Scientific
inference, however remote, is connected by such insensible
gradations with ordinary perception, that one may well question
the propriety of applying the term "unseen" to that which is
presented to "the mind's eye" as inevitable matter of inference.
It is true that we cannot see the ocean of ether in which visible
matter floats; but there are many other invisible things which
yet we do not regard as part of the "unseen world." I do not see
the air which I am now breathing within the four walls of my
study, yet its existence is sufficiently a matter of
sense-perception as it fills my lungs and fans my cheek. The
atoms which compose a drop of water are not only invisible, but
cannot in any way be made the objects of sense-perception; yet by
proper inferences from their behaviour we can single them out for
measurement, so that Sir William Thomson can tell us that if the
drop of water were magnified to the size of the earth, the
constituent atoms would be larger than peas, but not so large as
billiard-balls. If we do not see such atoms with our eyes, we
have one adequate reason in their tiny dimensions, though there
are further reasons than this. It would be hard to say why the
luminiferous ether should be relegated to the "unseen world" any
more than the material atom. Whatever we know as possessing
resistance and extension, whatever we can subject to mathematical
processes of measurement, we also conceive as existing in such
shape that, with appropriate eyes and under proper visual
conditions, we MIGHT see it, and we are not entitled to draw any
line of demarcation between such an object of inference and
others which may be made objects of sense-perception. To set
apart the ether as constituting an "unseen universe" is therefore
illegitimate and confusing. It introduces a distinction where
there is none, and obscures the fact that both invisible ether
and visible matter form but one grand universe in which the sum
of energy remains constant, though the order of its distribution
endlessly varies.

Very different would be the logical position of a theory which
should assume the existence of an "Unseen World" entirely
spiritual in constitution, and in which material conditions like
those of the visible world should have neither place nor meaning.
Such a world would not consist of ethers or gases or ghosts, but
of purely psychical relations akin to such as constitute thoughts
and feelings when our minds are least solicited by
sense-perceptions. In thus marking off the "Unseen World" from
the objective universe of which we have knowledge, our line of
demarcation would at least be drawn in the right place. The
distinction between psychical and material phenomena is a
distinction of a different order from all other distinctions
known to philosophy, and it immeasurably transcends all others.
The progress of modern discovery has in no respect weakened the
force of Descartes's remark, that between that of which the
differential attribute is Thought and that of which the
differential attribute is Extension, there can be no similarity,
no community of nature whatever. By no scientific cunning of
experiment or deduction can Thought be weighed or measured or in
any way assimilated to such things as may be made the actual or
possible objects of sense-perception. Modern discovery, so far
from bridging over the chasm between Mind and Matter, tends
rather to exhibit the distinction between them as absolute. It
has, indeed, been rendered highly probable that every act of
consciousness is accompanied by a molecular motion in the cells
and fibres of the brain; and materialists have found great
comfort in this fact, while theologians and persons of little
faith have been very much frightened by it. But since no one ever
pretended that thought can go on, under the conditions of the
present life, without a brain, one finds it rather hard to
sympathize either with the self-congratulations of Dr. Buchner's
disciples[8] or with the terrors of their opponents. But what has
been less commonly remarked is the fact that when the thought and
the molecular movement thus occur simultaneously, in no
scientific sense is the thought the product of the molecular
movement. The sun-derived energy of motion latent in the food we
eat is variously transformed within the organism, until some of
it appears as the motion of the molecules of a little globule of
nerve-matter in the brain. In a rough way we might thus say that
the chemical energy of the food indirectly produces the motion of
these little nerve-molecules. But does this motion of
nerve-molecules now produce a thought or state of consciousness?
By no means. It simply produces some other motion of
nerve-molecules, and this in turn produces motion of contraction
or expansion in some muscle, or becomes transformed into the
chemical energy of some secreting gland. At no point in the whole
circuit does a unit of motion disappear as motion to reappear as
a unit of consciousness. The physical process is complete in
itself, and the thought does not enter into it. All that we can
say is, that the occurrence of the thought is simultaneous with
that part of the physical process which consists of a molecular
movement in the brain.[9] To be sure, the thought is always there
when summoned, but it stands outside the dynamic circuit, as
something utterly alien from and incomparable with the events
which summon it. No doubt, as Professor Tyndall observes, if we
knew exhaustively the physical state of the brain, "the
corresponding thought or feeling might be inferred; or, given the
thought or feeling, the corresponding state of the brain might be
inferred. But how inferred? It would be at bottom not a case of
logical inference at all, but of empirical association. You may
reply that many of the inferences of science are of this
character; the inference, for example, that an electric current
of a given direction will deflect a magnetic needle in a definite
way; but the cases differ in this, that the passage from the
current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is thinkable, and
that we entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution of
the problem. But the passage from the physics of the brain to the
corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that
a definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain
occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ,
nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us
to pass by a process of reasoning from the one to the other. They
appear together, but we do not know why."[10]

[8] The Nation once wittily described these people as "people who
believe that they are going to die like the beasts, and who
congratulate themselves that they are going to die like the
beasts."

[9] For a fuller exposition of this point, see my Outlines of
Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II. pp. 436-445.

[10] Fragments of Science, p. 119.


An unseen world consisting of purely psychical or spiritual
phenomena would accordingly be demarcated by an absolute gulf
from what we call the material universe, but would not
necessarily be discontinuous with the psychical phenomena which
we find manifested in connection with the world of matter. The
transfer of matter, or physical energy, or anything else that is
quantitatively measurable, into such an unseen world, may be set
down as impossible, by reason of the very definition of such a
world. Any hypothesis which should assume such a transfer would
involve a contradiction in terms. But the hypothesis of a
survival of present psychical phenomena in such a world, after
being denuded of material conditions, is not in itself absurd or
self-contradictory, though it may be impossible to support it by
any arguments drawn from the domain of human experience. Such is
the shape which it seems to me that, in the present state of
philosophy, the hypothesis of a future life must assume. We have
nothing to say to gross materialistic notions of ghosts and
bogies, and spirits that upset tables and whisper to ignorant
vulgar women the wonderful information that you once had an aunt
Susan. The unseen world imagined in our hypothesis is not
connected with the present material universe by any such
"invisible bonds" as would allow Bacon and Addison to come to
Boston and write the silliest twaddle in the most ungrammatical
English before a roomful of people who have never learned how to
test what they are pleased to call the "evidence of their
senses." Our hypothesis is expressly framed so as to exclude all
intercourse whatever between the unseen world of spirit
unconditioned by matter and the present world of spirit
conditioned by matter in which all our experiences have been
gathered. The hypothesis being framed in such a way, the question
is, What has philosophy to say to it? Can we, by searching our
experiences, find any reason for adopting such an hypothesis? Or,
on the other hand, supposing we can find no such reason, would
the total failure of experimental evidence justify us in
rejecting it?

The question is so important that I will restate it. I have
imagined a world made up of psychical phenomena, freed from the
material conditions under which alone we know such phenomena. Can
we adduce any proof of the possibility of such a world? Or if we
cannot, does our failure raise the slightest presumption that
such a world is impossible?

The reply to the first clause of the question is sufficiently
obvious. We have no experience whatever of psychical phenomena
save as manifested in connection with material phenomena. We know
of Mind only as a group of activities which are never exhibited
to us except through the medium of motions of matter. In all our
experience we have never encountered such activities save in
connection with certain very complicated groupings of highly
mobile material particles into aggregates which we call living
organisms. And we have never found them manifested to a very
conspicuous extent save in connection with some of those
specially organized aggregates which have vertebrate skeletons
and mammary glands. Nay, more, when we survey the net results of
our experience up to the present time, we find indisputable
evidence that in the past history of the visible universe
psychical phenomena have only begun to be manifested in
connection with certain complex aggregates of material phenomena.
As these material aggregates have age by age become more complex
in structure, more complex psychical phenomena have been
exhibited. The development of Mind has from the outset been
associated with the development of Matter. And to-day, though
none of us has any knowledge of the end of psychical phenomena in
his own case, yet from all the marks by which we recognize such
phenomena in our fellow-creatures, whether brute or human, we are
taught that when certain material processes have been gradually
or suddenly brought to an end, psychical phenomena are no longer
manifested. From first to last, therefore, our appeal to
experience gets but one response. We have not the faintest shadow
of evidence wherewith to make it seem probable that Mind can
exist except in connection with a material body. Viewed from this
standpoint of terrestrial experience, there is no more reason for
supposing that consciousness survives the dissolution of the
brain than for supposing that the pungent flavour of table-salt
survives its decomposition into metallic sodium and gaseous
chlorine.

Our answer from this side is thus unequivocal enough. Indeed, so
uniform has been the teaching of experience in this respect that
even in their attempts to depict a life after death, men have
always found themselves obliged to have recourse to materialistic
symbols. To the mind of a savage the future world is a mere
reproduction of the present, with its everlasting huntings and
fightings. The early Christians looked forward to a renovation of
the earth and the bodily resurrection from Sheol of the
righteous. The pictures of hell and purgatory, and even of
paradise, in Dante's great poem, are so intensely materialistic
as to seem grotesque in this more spiritual age. But even to-day
the popular conceptions of heaven are by no means freed from the
notion of matter; and persons of high culture, who realize the
inadequacy of these popular conceptions, are wont to avoid the
difficulty by refraining from putting their hopes and beliefs
into any definite or describable form. Not unfrequently one sees
a smile raised at the assumption of knowledge or insight by
preachers who describe in eloquent terms the joys of a future
state; yet the smile does not necessarily imply any scepticism as
to the abstract probability of the soul's survival. The
scepticism is aimed at the character of the description rather
than at the reality of the thing described. It implies a tacit
agreement, among cultivated people, that the unseen world must be
purely spiritual in constitution. The agreement is not habitually
expressed in definite formulas, for the reason that no mental
image of a purely spiritual world can be formed. Much stress is
commonly laid upon the recognition of friends in a future life;
and however deep a meaning may be given to the phrase "the love
of God," one does not easily realize that a heavenly existence
could be worth the longing that is felt for it, if it were to
afford no further scope for the pure and tender household
affections which give to the present life its powerful though
indefinable charm. Yet the recognition of friends in a purely
spiritual world is something of which we can frame no conception
whatever. We may look with unspeakable reverence on the features
of wife or child, less because of their physical beauty than
because of the beauty of soul to which they give expression, but
to imagine the perception of soul by soul apart from the material
structure and activities in which soul is manifested, is
something utterly beyond our power. Nay, even when we try to
represent to ourselves the psychical activity of any single soul
by itself as continuing without the aid of the physical machinery
of sensation, we get into unmanageable difficulties. A great part
of the contents of our minds consists of sensuous (chiefly
visual) images, and though we may imagine reflection to go on
without further images supplied by vision or hearing, touch or
taste or smell, yet we cannot well see how fresh experiences
could be gained in such a state. The reader, if he require
further illustrations, can easily follow out this line of
thought. Enough has no doubt been said to convince him that our
hypothesis of the survival of conscious activity apart from
material conditions is not only utterly unsupported by any
evidence that can be gathered from the world of which we have
experience, but is utterly and hopelessly inconceivable.

It is inconceivable BECAUSE it is entirely without foundation in
experience. Our powers of conception are closely determined by
the limits of our experience. When a proposition, or combination
of ideas, is suggested, for which there has never been any
precedent in human experience, we find it to be UNTHINKABLE,--the
ideas will not combine. The proposition remains one which we may
utter and defend, and perhaps vituperate our neighbours for not
accepting, but it remains none the less an unthinkable
proposition. It takes terms which severally have meanings and
puts them together into a phrase which has no meaning.[11] Now
when we try to combine the idea of the continuance of conscious
activity with the idea of the entire cessation of material
conditions, and thereby to assert the existence of a purely
spiritual world, we find that we have made an unthinkable
proposition. We may defend our hypothesis as passionately as we
like, but when we strive coolly to realize it in thought we find
ourselves baulked at every step.

[11] See my Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. I. pp. 64-67.


But now we have to ask, How much does this inconceivability
signify? In most cases, when we say that a statement is
inconceivable, we practically declare it to be untrue; when we
say that a statement is without warrant in experience, we plainly
indicate that we consider it unworthy of our acceptance. This is
legitimate in the majority of cases with which we have to deal in
the course of life, because experience, and the capacities of
thought called out and limited by experience, are our only guides
in the conduct of life. But every one will admit that our
experience is not infinite, and that our capacity of conception
is not coextensive with the possibilities of existence. It is not
only possible, but in the very highest degree probable, that
there are many things in heaven, if not on earth, which are
undreamed of in our philosophy. Since our ability to conceive
anything is limited by the extent of our experience, and since
human experience is very far from being infinite, it follows that
there may be, and in all probability is, an immense region of
existence in every way as real as the region which we know, yet
concerning which we cannot form the faintest rudiment of a
conception. Any hypothesis relating to such a region of existence
is not only not disproved by the total failure of evidence in its
favour, but the total failure of evidence does not raise even the
slightest prima facie presumption against its validity.

These considerations apply with great force to the hypothesis of
an unseen world in which psychical phenomena persist in the
absence of material conditions. It is true, on the one hand, that
we can bring up no scientific evidence in support of such an
hypothesis. But on the other hand it is equally true that in the
very nature of things no such evidence could be expected to be
forthcoming: even were there such evidence in abundance, it could
not be accessible to us. The existence of a single soul, or
congeries of psychical phenomena, unaccompanied by a material
body, would be evidence sufficient to demonstrate the hypothesis.
But in the nature of things, even were there a million such souls
round about us, we could not become aware of the existence of one
of them, for we have no organ or faculty for the perception of
soul apart from the material structure and activities in which it
has been manifested throughout the whole course of our
experience. Even our own self-consciousness involves the
consciousness of ourselves as partly material bodies. These
considerations show that our hypothesis is very different from
the ordinary hypotheses with which science deals. The entire
absence of testimony does not raise a negative presumption except
in cases where testimony is accessible. In the hypotheses with
which scientific men are occupied, testimony is always
accessible; and if we do not find any, the presumption is raised
that there is none. When Dr. Bastian tells us that he has found
living organisms to be generated in sealed flasks from which all
living germs had been excluded, we demand the evidence for his
assertion. The testimony of facts is in this case hard to elicit,
and only skilful reasoners can properly estimate its worth. But
still it is all accessible. With more or less labour it can be
got at; and if we find that Dr. Bastian has produced no evidence
save such as may equally well receive a different interpretation
from that which he has given it, we rightly feel that a strong
presumption has been raised against his hypothesis. It is a case
in which we are entitled to expect to find the favouring facts if
there are any, and so long as we do not find such, we are
justified in doubting their existence. So when our authors
propound the hypothesis of an unseen universe consisting of
phenomena which occur in the interstellar ether, or even in some
primordial fluid with which the ether has physical relations, we
are entitled to demand their proofs. It is not enough to tell us
that we cannot disprove such a theory. The burden of proof lies
with them. The interstellar ether is something concerning the
physical properties of which we have some knowledge; and surely,
if all the things are going on which they suppose in a medium so
closely related to ordinary matter, there ought to be some
traceable indications of the fact. At least, until the contrary
can be shown, we must refuse to believe that all the testimony in
a case like this is utterly inaccessible; and accordingly, so
long as none is found, especially so long as none is even
alleged, we feel that a presumption is raised against their
theory.

These illustrations will show, by sheer contrast, how different
it is with the hypothesis of an unseen world that is purely
spiritual. The testimony in such a case must, under the
conditions of the present life, be forever inaccessible. It lies
wholly outside the range of experience. However abundant it may
be, we cannot expect to meet with it. And accordingly our failure
to produce it does not raise even the slightest presumption
against our theory. When conceived in this way, the belief in a
future life is without scientific support; but at the same time
it is placed beyond the need of scientific support and beyond the
range of scientific criticism. It is a belief which no imaginable
future advance in physical discovery can in any way impugn. It is
a belief which is in no sense irrational, and which may be
logically entertained without in the least affecting our
scientific habit of mind or influencing our scientific
conclusions.

To take a brief illustration: we have alluded to the fact that in
the history of our present world the development of mental
phenomena has gone on hand in hand with the development of
organic life, while at the same time we have found it impossible
to explain mental phenomena as in any sense the product of
material phenomena. Now there is another side to all this. The
great lesson which Berkeley taught mankind was that what we call
material phenomena are really the products of consciousness
co-operating with some Unknown Power (not material) existing
beyond consciousness. We do very well to speak of "matter" in
common parlance, but all that the word really means is a group of
qualities which have no existence apart from our minds. Modern
philosophers have quite generally accepted this conclusion, and
every attempt to overturn Berkeley's reasoning has hitherto
resulted in complete and disastrous failure. In admitting this,
we do not admit the conclusion of Absolute Idealism, that nothing
exists outside of consciousness. What we admit as existing
independently of our own consciousness is the Power that causes
in us those conscious states which we call the perception of
material qualities. We have no reason for regarding this Power as
in itself material: indeed, we cannot do so, since by the theory
material qualities have no existence apart from our minds. I have
elsewhere sought to show that less difficulty is involved in
regarding this Power outside of us as quasi-psychical, or in some
measure similar to the mental part of ourselves; and I have gone
on to conclude that this Power may be identical with what men
have, in all times and by the aid of various imperfect symbols,
endeavoured to apprehend as Deity.[12] We are thus led to a view
of things not very unlike the views entertained by Spinoza and
Berkeley. We are led to the inference that what we call the
material universe is but the manifestation of infinite Deity to
our finite minds. Obviously, on this view, Matter--the only thing
to which materialists concede real existence--is simply an
orderly phantasmagoria; and God and the Soul--which materialists
regard as mere fictions of the imagination--are the only
conceptions that answer to real existences.

[12] See my Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Part I. Chap. IV.;
Part III. Chaps. III., IV.


In the foregoing paragraph I have been setting down opinions with
which I am prepared to agree, and which are not in conflict with
anything that our study of the development of the objective world
has taught us. In so far as that study may be supposed to bear on
the question of a future life, two conclusions are open to us.
First we may say that since the phenomena of mind appear and run
their course along with certain specialized groups of material
phenomena, so, too, they must disappear when these specialized
groups are broken up. Or, in other words, we may say that every
living person is an organized whole; consciousness is something
which pertains to this organized whole, as music belongs to the
harp that is entire; but when the harp is broken it is silent,
and when the organized whole of personality falls to pieces
consciousness ceases forever. To many well-disciplined minds this
conclusion seems irresistible; and doubtless it would be a sound
one--a good Baconian conclusion--if we were to admit, with the
materialists, that the possibilities of existence are limited by
our tiny and ephemeral experience.

But now, supposing some Platonic speculator were to come along
and insist upon our leaving room for an alternative conclusion;
suppose he were to urge upon us that all this process of material
development, with the discovery of which our patient study has
been rewarded, may be but the temporary manifestation of
relations otherwise unknown between ourselves and the infinite
Deity; suppose he were to argue that psychical qualities may be
inherent in a spiritual substance which under certain conditions
becomes incarnated in matter, to wear it as a perishable garment
for a brief season, but presently to cast it off and enter upon
the freedom of a larger existence;--what reply should we be bound
to make, bearing in mind that the possibilities of existence are
in no wise limited by our experience? Obviously we should be
bound to admit that in sound philosophy this conclusion is just
as likely to be true as the other. We should, indeed, warn him
not to call on us to help him to establish it by scientific
arguments; and we should remind him that he must not make illicit
use of his extra-experiential hypotheses by bringing them into
the treatment of scientific questions that lie within the range
of experience. In science, for example, we make no use of the
conception of a "spiritual substance" (or of a "material
substance" either), because we can get along sufficiently well by
dealing solely with qualities. But with this general
understanding we should feel bound to concede the impregnableness
of his main position.

I have supposed this theory only as an illustration, not as a
theory which I am prepared to adopt. My present purpose is not to
treat as an advocate the question of a future life, but to
endeavour to point out what conditions should be observed in
treating the question philosophically. It seems to me that a
great deal is gained when we have distinctly set before us what
are the peculiar conditions of proof in the case of such
transcendental questions. We have gained a great deal when we
have learned how thoroughly impotent, how truly irrelevant, is
physical investigation in the presence of such a question. If we
get not much positive satisfaction for our unquiet yearnings, we
occupy at any rate a sounder philosophic position when we
recognize the limits within which our conclusions, whether
positive or negative, are valid.

It seems not improbable that Mr. Mill may have had in mind
something like the foregoing considerations when he suggested
that there is no reason why one should not entertain the belief
in a future life if the belief be necessary to one's spiritual
comfort. Perhaps no suggestion in Mr. Mill's richly suggestive
posthumous work has been more generally condemned as
unphilosophical, on the ground that in matters of belief we must
be guided, not by our likes and dislikes, but by the evidence
that is accessible. The objection is certainly a sound one so far
as it relates to scientific questions where evidence is
accessible. To hesitate to adopt a well-supported theory because
of some vague preference for a different view is in scientific
matters the one unpardonable sin,--a sin which has been only too
often committed. Even in matters which lie beyond the range of
experience, where evidence is inaccessible, desire is not to be
regarded as by itself an adequate basis for belief. But it seems
to me that Mr. Mill showed a deeper knowledge of the limitations
of scientific method than his critics, when he thus hinted at the
possibility of entertaining a belief not amenable to scientific
tests. The hypothesis of a purely spiritual unseen world, as
above described, is entirely removed from the jurisdiction of
physical inquiry, and can only be judged on general
considerations of what has been called "moral probability"; and
considerations of this sort are likely, in the future as in the
past, to possess different values for different minds. He who, on
such considerations, entertains a belief in a future life may not
demand that his sceptical neighbour shall be convinced by the
same considerations; but his neighbour is at the same time
estopped from stigmatizing his belief as unphilosophical.

The consideration which must influence most minds in their
attitude toward this question, is the craving, almost universally
felt, for some teleological solution to the problem of existence.
Why we are here now is a question of even profounder interest
than whether we are to live hereafter. Unfortunately its solution
carries us no less completely beyond the range of experience! The
belief that all things are working together for some good end is
the most essential expression of religious faith: of all
intellectual propositions it is the one most closely related to
that emotional yearning for a higher and better life which is the
sum and substance of religion. Yet all the treatises on natural
theology that have ever been written have barely succeeded in
establishing a low degree of scientific probability for this
belief. In spite of the eight Bridgewater Treatises, and the
"Ninth" beside, dysteleology still holds full half the field as
against teleology. Most of this difficulty, however, results from
the crude anthropomorphic views which theologians have held
concerning God. Once admitting that the Divine attributes may be
(as they must be) incommensurably greater than human attributes,
our faith that all things are working together for good may
remain unimpugned.

To many minds such a faith will seem incompatible with belief in
the ultimate destruction of sentiency amid the general doom of
the material universe. A good end can have no meaning to us save
in relation to consciousness that distinguishes and knows the
good from the evil. There could be no better illustration of how
we are hemmed in than the very inadequacy of the words with which
we try to discuss this subject. Such words have all gained their
meanings from human experience, and hence of necessity carry
anthropomorphic implications. But we cannot help this. We must
think with the symbols with which experience has furnished us;
and when we so think, there does seem to be little that is even
intellectually satisfying in the awful picture which science
shows us, of giant worlds concentrating out of nebulous vapour,
developing with prodigious waste of energy into theatres of all
that is grand and sacred in spiritual endeavour, clashing and
exploding again into dead vapour-balls, only to renew the same
toilful process without end,--a senseless bubble-play of Titan
forces, with life, love, and aspiration brought forth only to be
extinguished. The human mind, however "scientific" its training,
must often recoil from the conclusion that this is all; and there
are moments when one passionately feels that this cannot be all.
On warm June mornings in green country lanes, with sweet
pine-odours wafted in the breeze which sighs through the
branches, and cloud-shadows flitting over far-off blue mountains,
while little birds sing their love-songs, and golden-haired
children weave garlands of wild roses; or when in the solemn
twilight we listen to wondrous harmonies of Beethoven and Chopin
that stir the heart like voices from an unseen world; at such
times one feels that the profoundest answer which science can
give to our questionings is but a superficial answer after all.
At these moments, when the world seems fullest of beauty, one
feels most strongly that it is but the harbinger of something
else,--that the ceaseless play of phenomena is no mere sport of
Titans, but an orderly scene, with its reason for existing, its

          "One divine far-off event
      To which the whole creation moves."


Difficult as it is to disentangle the elements of reasoning that
enter into these complex groups of feeling, one may still see, I
think, that it is speculative interest in the world, rather than
anxious interest in self, that predominates. The desire for
immortality in its lowest phase is merely the outcome of the
repugnance we feel toward thinking of the final cessation of
vigorous vital activity. Such a feeling is naturally strong with
healthy people. But in the mood which I have above tried to
depict, this feeling, or any other which is merely
self-regarding, is lost sight of in the feeling which associates
a future life with some solution of the burdensome problem of
existence. Had we but faith enough to lighten the burden of this
problem, the inferior question would perhaps be less absorbing.
Could we but know that our present lives are working together
toward some good end, even an end in no wise anthropomorphic, it
would be of less consequence whether we were individually to
endure. To the dog under the knife of the experimenter, the world
is a world of pure evil; yet could the poor beast but understand
the alleviation of human suffering to which he is contributing,
he would be forced to own that this is not quite true; and if he
were also a heroic or Christian dog, the thought would perhaps
take away from death its sting. The analogy may be a crude one;
but the reasonableness of the universe is at least as far above
our comprehension as the purposes of man surpass the
understanding of the dog. Believing, however, though as a simple
act of trust, that the end will crown the work, we may rise
superior to the question which has here concerned us, and
exclaim, in the supreme language of faith, "Though He slay me,
yet will I trust in Him!"

     July, 1875.



II. "THE TO-MORROW OF DEATH."

Few of those who find pleasure in frequenting bookstores can have
failed to come across one or more of the profusely illustrated
volumes in which M. Louis Figuier has sought to render dry
science entertaining to the multitude. And of those who may have
casually turned over their pages, there are probably none,
competent to form an opinion, who have not speedily perceived
that these pretentious books belong to the class of pests and
unmitigated nuisances in literature. Antiquated views, utter lack
of comprehension of the subjects treated, and shameless
unscrupulousness as to accuracy of statement, are faults but ill
atoned for by sensational pictures of the "dragons of the prime
that tare each other in their slime," or of the Newton-like brow
and silken curls of that primitive man in contrast with whom the
said dragons have been likened to "mellow music."

Nevertheless, the sort of scientific reputation which these
discreditable performances have gained for M. Figuier among an
uncritical public is such as to justify us in devoting a few
paragraphs to a book[13] which, on its own merits, is unworthy of
any notice whatever. "The To-morrow of Death"--if one were to put
his trust in the translator's prefatory note--discusses a grave
question upon "purely scientific methods." We are glad to see
this remark, because it shows what notions may be entertained by
persons of average intelligence with reference to "scientific
methods." Those--and they are many--who vaguely think that
science is something different from common-sense, and that any
book is scientific which talks about perihelia and asymptotes and
cetacea, will find their vague notions here well corroborated.
Quite different will be the impression made upon those--and they
are yet too few--who have learned that the method of science is
the common-sense method of cautiously weighing evidence and
withholding judgment where evidence is not forthcoming. If
talking about remote and difficult subjects suffice to make one
scientific, then is M. Figuier scientific to a quite terrible
degree. He writes about the starry heavens as if he had been
present at the hour of creation, or had at least accompanied the
Arabian prophet on his famous night-journey. Nor is his knowledge
of physiology and other abstruse sciences at all less remarkable.
But these things will cease to surprise us when we learn the
sources, hitherto suspected only in mythology, from which
favoured mortals can obtain a knowledge of what is going on
outside of our planet.

[13] The To-morrow of Death; or, The Future Life according to
Science. By Louis Figuier. Translated from the French by S. R.
Crocker. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1872.


The four inner planets being nearly alike in size (?) and in
length of day, M. Figuier infers, by strictly scientific methods,
that whatever is true of one of them, as our earth, will be true
of the others (p. 34). Hence, they are all inhabited by human
beings. It is true that human beings must find Venus rather warm,
and are not unlikely to be seriously incommoded by the tropical
climate of Mercury. But we must remember that "the men of Venus
and Mercury are made by nature to resist heat, as those of
Jupiter and Saturn are made to endure cold, and those of the
Earth and Mars to live in a mean temperature: OTHERWISE THEY
COULD NOT EXIST" (p. 72). In view of this charming specimen of a
truly scientific inference, it is almost too bad to call
attention to the fact that M. Figuier is quite behind the age in
his statement of facts. So far from Jupiter and Saturn being
cold, observation plainly indicates that they are prodigiously
hot, if not even incandescent and partly self-luminous; the
explanation being that, by reason of their huge bulk, they still
retain much of the primitive heat which smaller planets have more
quickly radiated away. As for M. Figuier's statement, that polar
snows have been witnessed on these planets, it is simply untrue;
no such thing has ever been seen there. Mars, on the other hand,
has been observed to resemble in many important respects its near
neighbour, the Earth; whence our author declares that if an
aeronaut were to shoot clear of terrestrial gravitation and land
upon Mars, he would unquestionably suppose himself to be still
upon the earth. For aerolites, it seems, are somehow fired down
upon our planet both from Mars and from Venus; and aerolites
sometimes contain vegetable matter (?). Therefore, Mars has a
vegetation, and very likely its red colour is caused by its
luxuriant autumnal foliage! (p. 47.) To return to Jupiter: this
planet, indeed, has inconveniently short days. "In his 'Picture
of the Heavens,' the German astronomer, Littrow (these Germans
think of nothing but gormandizing), asks how the people of
Jupiter order their meals in the short interval of five hours."
Nevertheless, says our author, the great planet is compensated
for this inconvenience by its equable and delicious climate.

In view, however, of our author's more striking and original
disclosures, one would suppose that all this discussion of the
physical conditions of existence on the various planets might
have been passed over without detriment to the argument. After
these efforts at proving (for M. Figuier presumably regards this
rigmarole as proof) that all the members of our solar system are
habitable, the interplanetary ether is forthwith peopled thickly
with "souls," without any resort to argument. This, we suppose,
is one of those scientific truths which as M. Figuier tells us,
precede and underlie demonstration. Upon this impregnable basis
is reared the scientific theory of a future life. When we die our
soul passes into some other terrestrial body, unless we have been
very good, in which case we at once soar aloft and join the noble
fraternity of the ether-folk. Bad men and young children, on
dying, must undergo renewed probation here below, but ultimately
all pass away into the interplanetary ether. The dweller in ether
is chiefly distinguished from the mundane mortal by his acute
senses and his ability to subsist without food. He can see as if
through a telescope and microscope combined. His intelligence is
so great that in comparison an Aristotle would seem idiotic. It
should not be forgotten, too, that he possesses eighty-five per
cent of soul to fifteen per cent of body, whereas in terrestrial
man the two elements are mixed in equal proportions. There is no
sex among the ether-folk, their numbers being kept up by the
influx of souls from the various planets. "Alimentation, that
necessity which tyrannizes over men and animals, is not imposed
upon the inhabitants of ether. Their bodies must be repaired and
sustained by the simple respiration of the fluid in which they
are immersed, that is, of ether." Most likely, continues our
scientific author, the physiological functions of the ether-folk
are confined to respiration, and that it is possible to breathe
"without numerous organs is proved by the fact that in all of a
whole class of animals--the batrachians--the mere bare skin
constitutes the whole machinery of respiration" (p. 95). Allowing
for the unfortunate slip of the pen by which "batrachians" are
substituted for "fresh-water polyps," how can we fail to admire
the severity of the scientific method employed in reaching these
interesting conclusions?

But the King of Serendib must die, nor will the relentless scythe
of Time spare our Etherians, with all their exalted attributes.
They will die repeatedly; and after having through sundry periods
of probation attained spiritual perfection, they will all pour
into the sun. Since it is the sun which originates life and
feeling and thought upon the surface of our earth, "why may we
not declare that the rays transmitted by the sun to the earth and
the other planets are nothing more nor less than the emanations
of these souls?" And now we may begin to form an adequate
conception, of the rigorously scientific character of our
author's method. There have been many hypotheses by which to
account for the supply of solar radiance. One of the most
ingenious and probable of these hypotheses is that of Helmholtz,
according to which the solar radiance is due to the arrested
motion of the sun's constituent particles toward their common
centre of gravity. But this is too fanciful to satisfy M.
Figuier. The speculations of Helmholtz "have the disadvantage of
resting on the idea of the sun's nebulosity,--an hypothesis which
would need to be more closely examined before serving as a basis
for so important a deduction." Accordingly, M. Figuier propounds
an explanation which possesses the signal advantage that there is
nothing hypothetical in it. "In our opinion, the solar radiation
is sustained by the continual influx of souls into the sun."
This, as the reader will perceive, is the well-known theory of
Mayer, that the solar heat is due to a perennial bombardment of
the sun by meteors, save that, in place of gross materialistic
meteors, M. Figuier puts ethereal souls. The ether-folk are daily
raining into the solar orb in untold millions, and to the
unceasing concussion is due the radiation which maintains life in
the planets, and thus the circle is complete.

In spite of their exalted position, the ether-folk do not disdain
to mingle with the affairs of terrestrial mortals. They give us
counsel in dreams, and it is from this source, we presume, that
our author has derived his rigid notions as to scientific method.
In evidence of this dream-theory we have the usual array of
cases, "a celebrated journalist, M. R----," "M. L----, a lawyer,"
etc., etc., as in most books of this kind.

M. Figuier is not a Darwinian: the derivation of our bodies from
the bodies of apes is a conception too grossly materialistic for
him. Our souls, however, he is quite willing to derive from the
souls of lower animals. Obviously we have pre-existed; how are we
to account for Mozart's precocity save by supposing his
pre-existence? He brought with him the musical skill acquired in
a previous life. In general, the souls of musical children come
from nightingales, while the souls of great architects have
passed into them from beavers (p. 247). We do not remember these
past existences, it is true; but when we become ether-folk, we
shall be able to look back in recollection over the whole series.

Amid these sublime inquiries, M. Figuier is sometimes notably
oblivious of humbler truths, as might indeed be expected. Thus he
repeatedly alludes to Locke as the author of the doctrine of
innate ideas (!!),[14] and he informs us that Kepler never
quitted Protestant England (p. 336), though we believe that the
nearest Kepler ever came to living in England was the refusing of
Sir Henry Wotton's request that he should move thither.

[14] Pages 251, 252, 287. So in the twenty-first century some
avatar of M. Figuier will perhaps describe the late professor
Agassiz as the author of the Darwinian theory.


And lastly, we are treated to a real dialogue, with quite a
dramatic mise en scene. The author's imaginary friend,
Theophilus, enters, "seats himself in a comfortable chair, places
an ottoman under his feet, a book under his elbow to support it,
and a cigarette of Turkish tobacco between his lips, and sets
himself to the task of listening with a grave air of
collectedness, relieved by a certain touch of suspicious
severity, as becomes the arbiter in a literary and philosophic
matter." "And so," begins our author, "you wish to know, my dear
Theophilus, WHERE I LOCATE GOD? I locate him in the centre of the
universe, or, in better phrase, at the central focus, which must
exist somewhere, of all the stars that make the universe, and
which, borne onward in a common movement, gravitate together
around this focus."

Much more, of an equally scientific character, follows; but in
fairness to the reader, who is already blaming us for wasting the
precious moments over such sorry trash, we may as well conclude
our sketch of this new line of speculation.

     May, 1872.



III. THE JESUS OF HISTORY.[15]

[15] The Jesus of History. Anonymous. 8vo. pp. 426. London:
Williams & Norgate, 1869.

Vie de Jesus, par Ernest Renan. Paris, 1867. (Thirteenth edition,
revised and partly rewritten.)

In republishing this and the following article on "The Christ of
Dogma," I am aware that they do but scanty justice to their very
interesting subjects. So much ground is covered that it would be
impossible to treat it satisfactorily in a pair of
review-articles; and in particular the views adopted with regard
to the New Testament literature are rather indicated than
justified. These defects I hope to remedy in a future work on
"Jesus of Nazareth, and the Founding of Christianity," for which
the present articles must be regarded as furnishing only a few
introductory hints. This work has been for several years on my
mind, but as it may still be long before I can find the leisure
needful for writing it out, it seemed best to republish these
preliminary sketches which have been some time out of print. The
projected work, however, while covering all the points here
treated, will have a much wider scope, dealing on the one hand
with the natural genesis of the complex aggregate of beliefs and
aspirations known as Christianity, and on the other hand with the
metamorphoses which are being wrought in this aggregate by modern
knowledge and modern theories of the world.

The views adopted in the present essay as to the date of the
Synoptic Gospels may seem over-conservative to those who accept
the ably-argued conclusions of "Supernatural Religion." Quite
possibly in a more detailed discussion these briefly-indicated
data may require revision; but for the present it seems best to
let the article stand as it was written. The author of
"Supernatural Religion" would no doubt admit that, even if the
synoptic gospels had not assumed their present form before the
end of the second century, nevertheless the body of tradition
contained in them had been committed to writing very early in
that century. So much appears to be proved by the very variations
of text upon which his argument relies. And if this be granted,
the value of the synoptics as HISTORICAL evidence is not
materially altered. With their value as testimony to so-called
SUPERNATURAL events, the present essay is in no way concerned.


Of all the great founders of religions, Jesus is at once the best
known and the least known to the modern scholar. From the
dogmatic point of view he is the best known, from the historic
point of view he is the least known. The Christ of dogma is in
every lineament familiar to us from early childhood; but
concerning the Jesus of history we possess but few facts resting
upon trustworthy evidence, and in order to form a picture of him
at once consistent, probable, and distinct in its outlines, it is
necessary to enter upon a long and difficult investigation, in
the course of which some of the most delicate apparatus of modern
criticism is required. This circumstance is sufficiently singular
to require especial explanation. The case of Sakyamuni, the
founder of Buddhism, which may perhaps be cited as parallel, is
in reality wholly different. Not only did Sakyamuni live five
centuries earlier than Jesus, among a people that have at no time
possessed the art of insuring authenticity in their records of
events, and at an era which is at best but dimly discerned
through the mists of fable and legend, but the work which he
achieved lies wholly out of the course of European history, and
it is only in recent times that his career has presented itself
to us as a problem needing to be solved. Jesus, on the other
hand, appeared in an age which is familiarly and in many respects
minutely known to us, and among a people whose fortunes we can
trace with historic certainty for at least seven centuries
previous to his birth; while his life and achievements have
probably had a larger share in directing the entire subsequent
intellectual and moral development of Europe than those of any
other man who has ever lived. Nevertheless, the details of his
personal career are shrouded in an obscurity almost as dense as
that which envelops the life of the remote founder of Buddhism.

This phenomenon, however, appears less strange and paradoxical
when we come to examine it more closely. A little reflection will
disclose to us several good reasons why the historical records of
the life of Jesus should be so scanty as they are. In the first
place, the activity of Jesus was private rather than public.
Confined within exceedingly narrow limits, both of space and of
duration, it made no impression whatever upon the politics or the
literature of the time. His name does not occur in the pages of
any contemporary writer, Roman, Greek, or Jewish. Doubtless the
case would have been wholly different, had he, like Mohammed,
lived to a ripe age, and had the exigencies of his peculiar
position as the Messiah of the Jewish people brought him into
relations with the Empire; though whether, in such case, the
success of his grand undertaking would have been as complete as
it has actually been, may well be doubted.

Secondly, Jesus did not, like Mohammed and Paul, leave behind him
authentic writings which might serve to throw light upon his
mental development as well as upon the external facts of his
career. Without the Koran and the four genuine Epistles of Paul,
we should be nearly as much in the dark concerning these great
men as we now are concerning the historical Jesus. We should be
compelled to rely, in the one case, upon the untrustworthy gossip
of Mussulman chroniclers, and in the other case upon the garbled
statements of the "Acts of the Apostles," a book written with a
distinct dogmatic purpose, sixty or seventy years after the
occurrence of the events which it professes to record.

It is true, many of the words of Jesus, preserved by hearsay
tradition through the generation immediately succeeding his
death, have come down to us, probably with little alteration, in
the pages of the three earlier evangelists. These are priceless
data, since, as we shall see, they are almost the only materials
at our command for forming even a partial conception of the
character of Jesus' work. Nevertheless, even here the cautious
inquirer has only too often to pause in face of the difficulty of
distinguishing the authentic utterances of the great teacher from
the later interpolations suggested by the dogmatic necessities of
the narrators. Bitterly must the historian regret that Jesus had
no philosophic disciple, like Xenophon, to record his
Memorabilia. Of the various writings included in the New
Testament, the Apocalypse alone (and possibly the Epistle of
Jude) is from the pen of a personal acquaintance of Jesus; and
besides this, the four epistles of Paul, to the Galatians,
Corinthians, and Romans, make up the sum of the writings from
which we may expect contemporary testimony. Yet from these we
obtain absolutely nothing of that for which we are seeking. The
brief writings of Paul are occupied exclusively with the internal
significance of Jesus' work. The epistle of Jude--if it be really
written by Jesus' brother of that name, which is doubtful--is
solely a polemic directed against the innovations of Paul. And
the Apocalypse, the work of the fiery and imaginative disciple
John, is confined to a prophetic description of the Messiah's
anticipated return, and tells us nothing concerning the deeds of
that Messiah while on the earth.

Here we touch upon our third consideration,--the consideration
which best enables us to see why the historic notices of Jesus
are so meagre. Rightly considered, the statement with which we
opened this article is its own explanation. The Jesus of history
is so little known just because the Christ of dogma is so well
known.[16] Other teachers--Paul, Mohammed, Sakyamuni--have come
merely as preachers of righteousness, speaking in the name of
general principles with which their own personalities were not
directly implicated. But Jesus, as we shall see, before the close
of his life, proclaimed himself to be something more than a
preacher of righteousness. He announced himself--and justly, from
his own point of view--as the long-expected Messiah sent by
Jehovah to liberate the Jewish race. Thus the success of his
religious teachings became at once implicated with the question
of his personal nature and character. After the sudden and
violent termination of his career, it immediately became
all-important with his followers to prove that he was really the
Messiah, and to insist upon the certainty of his speedy return to
the earth. Thus the first generation of disciples dogmatized
about him, instead of narrating his life,--a task which to them
would have seemed of little profit. For them the all-absorbing
object of contemplation was the immediate future rather than the
immediate past. As all the earlier Christian literature informs
us, for nearly a century after the death of Jesus, his followers
lived in daily anticipation of his triumphant return to the
earth. The end of all things being so near at hand, no attempt
was made to insure accurate and complete memoirs for the use of a
posterity which was destined, in Christian imagination, never to
arrive. The first Christians wrote but little; even Papias, at
the end of a century, preferring second-hand or third-hand oral
tradition to the written gospels which were then beginning to
come into circulation.[17] Memoirs of the life and teachings of
Jesus were called forth by the necessity of having a written
standard of doctrine to which to appeal amid the growing
differences of opinion which disturbed the Church. Thus the
earlier gospels exhibit, though in different degrees, the
indications of a modifying, sometimes of an overruling dogmatic
purpose. There is, indeed, no conscious violation of historic
truth, but from the varied mass of material supplied by
tradition, such incidents are selected as are fit to support the
views of the writers concerning the personality of Jesus.
Accordingly, while the early gospels throw a strong light upon
the state of Christian opinion at the dates when they were
successively composed, the information which they give concerning
Jesus himself is, for that very reason, often vague, uncritical,
and contradictory. Still more is this true of the fourth gospel,
written late in the second century, in which historic tradition
is moulded in the interests of dogma until it becomes no longer
recognizable, and in the place of the human Messiah of the
earlier accounts, we have a semi-divine Logos or Aeon, detached
from God, and incarnate for a brief season in the likeness of
man.

[16] "Wer einmal vergottert worden ist, der hat seine Mensetheit
unwiederbringlich eingebusst."--Strauss, Der alte und der neue
Glaube, p. 76.

[17] "Roger was the attendant of Thomas [Becket] during his
sojourn at Pontigny. We might have expected him to be very full
on that part of his history; but, writing doubtless mainly for
the monks of Pontigny, he says that HE WILL NOT ENLARGE UPON WHAT
EVERY ONE KNOWS, and cuts that part very short."--Freeman,
Historical Essays, 1st series, p. 90.


Not only was history subordinated to dogma by the writers of the
gospel-narratives, but in the minds of the Fathers of the Church
who assisted in determining what writings should be considered
canonical, dogmatic prepossession went very much further than
critical acumen. Nor is this strange when we reflect that
critical discrimination in questions of literary authenticity is
one of the latest acquisitions of the cultivated human mind. In
the early ages of the Church the evidence of the genuineness of
any literary production was never weighed critically; writings
containing doctrines acceptable to the majority of Christians
were quoted as authoritative while writings which supplied no
dogmatic want were overlooked, or perhaps condemned as
apocryphal. A striking instance of this is furnished by the
fortunes of the Apocalypse. Although perhaps the best
authenticated work in the New Testament collection, its
millenarian doctrines caused it to become unpopular as the Church
gradually ceased to look for the speedy return of the Messiah,
and, accordingly, as the canon assumed a definite shape, it was
placed among the "Antilegomena," or doubtful books, and continued
to hold a precarious position until after the time of the
Protestant Reformation. On the other hand, the fourth gospel,
which was quite unknown and probably did not exist at the time of
the Quartodeciman controversy (A. D. 168), was accepted with
little hesitation, and at the beginning of the third century is
mentioned by Irenaeus, Clement, and Tertullian, as the work of
the Apostle John. To this uncritical spirit, leading to the
neglect of such books as failed to answer the dogmatic
requirements of the Church, may probably be attributed the loss
of so many of the earlier gospels. It is doubtless for this
reason that we do not possess the Aramaean original of the
"Logia" of Matthew, or the "Memorabilia" of Mark, the companion
of Peter,--two works to which Papias (A. D. 120) alludes as
containing authentic reports of the utterances of Jesus.

These considerations will, we believe, sufficiently explain the
curious circumstance that, while we know the Christ of dogma so
intimately, we know the Jesus of history so slightly. The
literature of early Christianity enables us to trace with
tolerable completeness the progress of opinion concerning the
nature of Jesus, from the time of Paul's early missions to the
time of the Nicene Council; but upon the actual words and deeds
of Jesus it throws a very unsteady light. The dogmatic purpose
everywhere obscures the historic basis.

This same dogmatic prepossession which has rendered the data for
a biography of Jesus so scanty and untrustworthy, has also until
comparatively recent times prevented any unbiassed critical
examination of such data as we actually possess. Previous to the
eighteenth century any attempt to deal with the life of Jesus
upon purely historical methods would have been not only contemned
as irrational, but stigmatized as impious. And even in the
eighteenth century, those writers who had become wholly
emancipated from ecclesiastic tradition were so destitute of all
historic sympathy and so unskilled in scientific methods of
criticism, that they utterly failed to comprehend the
requirements of the problem. Their aims were in the main polemic,
not historical. They thought more of overthrowing current dogmas
than of impartially examining the earliest Christian literature
with a view of eliciting its historic contents; and, accordingly,
they accomplished but little. Two brilliant exceptions must,
however, be noticed. Spinoza, in the seventeenth century, and
Lessing, in the eighteenth, were men far in advance of their age.
They are the fathers of modern historical criticism; and to
Lessing in particular, with his enormous erudition and
incomparable sagacity, belongs the honour of initiating that
method of inquiry which, in the hands of the so-called Tubingen
School, has led to such striking and valuable conclusions
concerning, the age and character of all the New Testament
literature. But it was long before any one could be found fit to
bend the bow which Lessing and Spinoza had wielded. A succession
of able scholars--Semler, Eichhorn, Paulus, Schleiermacher
Bretschneider, and De Wette--were required to examine, with
German patience and accuracy, the details of the subject, and to
propound various untenable hypotheses, before such a work could
be performed as that of Strauss. The "Life of Jesus," published
by Strauss when only twenty-six years of age, is one of the
monumental works of the nineteenth century, worthy to rank, as a
historical effort, along with such books as Niebuhr's "History of
Rome," Wolf's "Prolegomena," or Bentley's "Dissertations on
Phalaris." It instantly superseded and rendered antiquated
everything which had preceded it; nor has any work on early
Christianity been written in Germany for the past thirty years
which has not been dominated by the recollection of that
marvellous book. Nevertheless, the labours of another generation
of scholars have carried our knowledge of the New Testament
literature far beyond the point which it had reached when Strauss
first wrote. At that time the dates of but few of the New
Testament writings had been fixed with any approach to certainty;
the age and character of the fourth gospel, the genuineness of
the Pauline epistles, even the mutual relations of the three
synoptics, were still undetermined; and, as a natural. result of
this uncertainty, the progress of dogma during the first century
was ill understood. At the present day it is impossible to read
the early work of Strauss without being impressed with the
necessity of obtaining positive data as to the origin and
dogmatic character of the New Testament writings, before
attempting to reach any conclusions as to the probable career of
Jesus. These positive data we owe to the genius and diligence of
the Tubingen School, and, above all, to its founder, Ferdinand
Christian Baur. Beginning with the epistles of Paul, of which he
distinguished four as genuine, Baur gradually worked his way
through the entire New Testament collection, detecting--with that
inspired insight which only unflinching diligence can impart to
original genius--the age at which each book was written, and the
circumstances which called it forth. To give any account of
Baur's detailed conclusions, or of the method by which he reached
them, would require a volume. They are very scantily presented in
Mr. Mackay's work on the "Tubingen School and its Antecedents,"
to which we may refer the reader desirous of further information.
We can here merely say that twenty years of energetic controversy
have only served to establish most of Baur's leading conclusions
more firmly than ever. The priority of the so-called gospel of
Matthew, the Pauline purpose of "Luke," the second in date of our
gospels, the derivative and second-hand character of "Mark," and
the unapostolic origin of the fourth gospel, are points which may
for the future be regarded as wellnigh established by
circumstantial evidence. So with respect to the pseudo-Pauline
epistles, Baur's work was done so thoroughly that the only
question still left open for much discussion is that concerning
the date and authorship of the first and second
"Thessalonians,"--a point of quite inferior importance, so far as
our present subject is concerned. Seldom have such vast results
been achieved by the labour of a single scholar. Seldom has any
historical critic possessed such a combination of analytic and of
co-ordinating powers as Baur. His keen criticism and his
wonderful flashes of insight exercise upon the reader a truly
poetic effect like that which is felt in contemplating the
marvels of physical discovery.

The comprehensive labours of Baur were followed up by Zeller's
able work on the "Acts of the Apostles," in which that book was
shown to have been partly founded upon documents written by Luke,
or some other companion of Paul, and expanded and modified by a
much later writer with the purpose of covering up the traces of
the early schism between the Pauline and the Petrine sections of
the Church. Along with this, Schwegler's work on the
"Post-Apostolic Times" deserves mention as clearing up many
obscure points relating to the early development of dogma.
Finally, the "New Life of Jesus," by Strauss, adopting and
utilizing the principal discoveries of Baur and his followers,
and combining all into one grand historical picture, worthily
completes the task which the earlier work of the same author had
inaugurated.

The reader will have noticed that, with the exception of Spinoza,
every one of the names above cited in connection with the
literary analysis and criticism of the New Testament is the name
of a German. Until within the last decade, Germany has indeed
possessed almost an absolute monopoly of the science of Biblical
criticism; other countries having remained not only unfamiliar
with its methods, but even grossly ignorant of its conspicuous
results, save when some German treatise of more than ordinary
popularity has now and then been translated. But during the past
ten years France has entered the lists; and the writings of
Reville, Reuss, Nicolas, D'Eichthal, Scherer, and Colani testify
to the rapidity with which the German seed has fructified upon
her soil.[18]

[18] But now, in annexing Alsace, Germany has "annexed" pretty
much the whole of this department of French scholarship,--a
curious incidental consequence of the late war.


None of these books, however, has achieved such wide-spread
celebrity, or done so much toward interesting the general public
in this class of historical inquiries, as the "Life of Jesus," by
Renan. This pre-eminence of fame is partly, but not wholly,
deserved. From a purely literary point of view, Renan's work
doubtless merits all the celebrity it has gained. Its author
writes a style such as is perhaps surpassed by that of no other
living Frenchman. It is by far the most readable book which has
ever been written concerning the life of Jesus. And no doubt some
of its popularity is due to its very faults, which, from a
critical point of view, are neither few nor small. For Renan is
certainly very faulty, as a historical critic, when he
practically ignores the extreme meagreness of our positive
knowledge of the career of Jesus, and describes scene after scene
in his life as minutely and with as much confidence as if he had
himself been present to witness it all. Again and again the
critical reader feels prompted to ask, How do you know all this?
or why, out of two or three conflicting accounts, do you quietly
adopt some particular one, as if its superior authority were
self-evident? But in the eye of the uncritical reader, these
defects are excellences; for it is unpleasant to be kept in
ignorance when we are seeking after definite knowledge, and it is
disheartening to read page after page of an elaborate discussion
which ends in convincing us that definite knowledge cannot be
gained.

In the thirteenth edition of the "Vie de Jesus," Renan has
corrected some of the most striking errors of the original work,
and in particular has, with praiseworthy candour, abandoned his
untenable position with regard to the age and character of the
fourth gospel. As is well known, Renan, in his earlier editions,
ascribed to this gospel a historical value superior to that of
the synoptics, believing it to have been written by an eyewitness
of the events which it relates; and from this source,
accordingly, he drew the larger share of his materials. Now, if
there is any one conclusion concerning the New Testament
literature which must be regarded as incontrovertibly established
by the labours of a whole generation of scholars, it is this,
that the fourth gospel was utterly unknown until about A. D. 170,
that it was written by some one who possessed very little direct
knowledge of Palestine, that its purpose was rather to expound a
dogma than to give an accurate record of events, and that as a
guide to the comprehension of the career of Jesus it is of far
less value than the three synoptic gospels. It is impossible, in
a brief review like the present, to epitomize the evidence upon
which this conclusion rests, which may more profitably be sought
in the Rev. J. J. Tayler's work on "The Fourth Gospel," or in
Davidson's "Introduction to the New Testament." It must suffice
to mention that this gospel is not cited by Papias; that Justin,
Marcion, and Valentinus make no allusion to it, though, since it
furnishes so much that is germane to their views, they would
gladly have appealed to it, had it been in existence, when those
views were as yet under discussion; and that, finally, in the
great Quartodeciman controversy, A. D. 168, the gospel is not
only not mentioned, but the authority of John is cited by
Polycarp in flat contradiction of the view afterwards taken by
this evangelist. Still more, the assumption of Renan led at once
into complicated difficulties with reference to the Apocalypse.
The fourth gospel, if it does not unmistakably announce itself as
the work of John, at least professes to be Johannine; and it
cannot for a moment be supposed that such a book, making such
claims, could have gained currency during John's lifetime without
calling forth his indignant protest. For, in reality, no book in
the New Testament collection would so completely have shocked the
prejudices of the Johannine party. John's own views are well
known to us from the Apocalypse. John was the most enthusiastic
of millenarians and the most narrow and rigid of Judaizers. In
his antagonism to the Pauline innovations he went farther than
Peter himself. Intense hatred of Paul and his followers appears
in several passages of the Apocalypse, where they are stigmatized
as "Nicolaitans," "deceivers of the people," "those who say they
are apostles and are not," "eaters of meat offered to idols,"
"fornicators," "pretended Jews," "liars," "synagogue of Satan,"
etc. (Chap. II.). On the other hand, the fourth gospel contains
nothing millenarian or Judaical; it carries Pauline universalism
to a far greater extent than Paul himself ventured to carry it,
even condemning the Jews as children of darkness, and by
implication contrasting them unfavourably with the Gentiles; and
it contains a theory of the nature of Jesus which the Ebionitish
Christians, to whom John belonged, rejected to the last.

In his present edition Renan admits the insuperable force of
these objections, and abandons his theory of the apostolic origin
of the fourth gospel. And as this has necessitated the omission
or alteration of all such passages as rested upon the authority
of that gospel, the book is to a considerable extent rewritten,
and the changes are such as greatly to increase its value as a
history of Jesus. Nevertheless, the author has so long been in
the habit of shaping his conceptions of the career of Jesus by
the aid of the fourth gospel, that it has become very difficult
for him to pass freely to another point of view. He still clings
to the hypothesis that there is an element of historic tradition
contained in the book, drawn from memorial writings which had
perhaps been handed down from John, and which were inaccessible
to the synoptists. In a very interesting appendix, he collects
the evidence in favour of this hypothesis, which indeed is not
without plausibility, since there is every reason for supposing
that the gospel was written at Ephesus, which a century before
had been John's place of residence. But even granting most of
Renan's assumptions, it must still follow that the authority of
this gospel is far inferior to that of the synoptics, and can in
no case be very confidently appealed to. The question is one of
the first importance to the historian of early Christianity. In
inquiring into the life of Jesus, the very first thing to do is
to establish firmly in the mind the true relations of the fourth
gospel to the first three. Until this has been done, no one is
competent to write on the subject; and it is because he has done
this so imperfectly, that Renan's work is, from a critical point
of view, so imperfectly successful.

The anonymous work entitled "The Jesus of History," which we have
placed at the head of this article, is in every respect
noteworthy as the first systematic attempt made in England to
follow in the footsteps of German criticism in writing a life of
Jesus. We know of no good reason why the book should be published
anonymously; for as a historical essay it possesses extraordinary
merit, and does great credit not only to its author, but to
English scholarship and acumen.[19] It is not, indeed, a book
calculated to captivate the imagination of the reading public.
Though written in a clear, forcible, and often elegant style, it
possesses no such wonderful rhetorical charm as the work of
Renan; and it will probably never find half a dozen readers where
the "Vie de Jesus" has found a hundred. But the success of a book
of this sort is not to be measured by its rhetorical excellence,
or by its adaptation to the literary tastes of an uncritical and
uninstructed public, but rather by the amount of critical
sagacity which it brings to bear upon the elucidation of the many
difficult and disputed points in the subject of which it treats.
Measured by this standard, "The Jesus of History" must rank very
high indeed. To say that it throws more light upon the career of
Jesus than any work which has ever before been written in English
would be very inadequate praise, since the English language has
been singularly deficient in this branch of historical
literature. We shall convey a more just idea of its merits if we
say that it will bear comparison with anything which even Germany
has produced, save only the works of Strauss, Baur, and Zeller.

[19] "The Jesus of History" is now known to have been written by
Sir Richard Hanson, Chief Justice of South Australia.


The fitness of our author for the task which he has undertaken is
shown at the outset by his choice of materials. In basing his
conclusions almost exclusively upon the statements contained in
the first gospel, he is upheld by every sound principle of
criticism. The times and places at which our three synoptic
gospels were written have been, through the labours of the
Tubingen critics, determined almost to a certainty. Of the three,
"Mark" is unquestionably the latest; with the exception of about
twenty verses, it is entirely made up from "Matthew" and "Luke,"
the diverse Petrine and Pauline tendencies of which it strives to
neutralize in conformity to the conciliatory disposition of the
Church at Rome, at the epoch at which this gospel was written,
about A. D. 130. The third gospel was also written at Rome, some
fifteen years earlier. In the preface, its author describes it as
a compilation from previously existing written materials. Among
these materials was certainly the first gospel, several passages
of which are adopted word for word by the author of "Luke." Yet
the narrative varies materially from that of the first gospel in
many essential points. The arrangement of events is less natural,
and, as in the "Acts of the Apostles," by the same author, there
is apparent throughout the design of suppressing the old discord
between Paul and the Judaizing disciples, and of representing
Christianity as essentially Pauline from the outset. How far Paul
was correct in his interpretation of the teachings of Jesus, it
is difficult to decide. It is, no doubt, possible that the first
gospel may have lent to the words of Jesus an Ebionite colouring
in some instances, and that now and then the third gospel may
present us with a truer account. To this supremely important
point we shall by and by return. For the present it must suffice
to observe that the evidences of an overruling dogmatic purpose
are generally much more conspicuous in the third synoptist than
in the first; and that the very loose manner in which this writer
has handled his materials in the "Acts" is not calculated to
inspire us with confidence in the historical accuracy of his
gospel. The writer who, in spite of the direct testimony of Paul
himself could represent the apostle to the Gentiles as acting
under the direction of the disciples at Jerusalem, and who puts
Pauline sentiments into the mouth of Peter, would certainly have
been capable of unwarrantably giving a Pauline turn to the
teachings of Jesus himself. We are therefore, as a last resort,
brought back to the first gospel, which we find to possess, as a
historical narrative, far stronger claims upon our attention than
the second and third. In all probability it had assumed nearly
its present shape before A. D. 100, its origin is unmistakably
Palestinian; it betrays comparatively few indications of dogmatic
purpose; and there are strong reasons for believing that the
speeches of Jesus recorded in it are in substance taken from the
genuine "Logia" of Matthew mentioned by Papias, which must have
been written as early as A. D. 60-70, before the destruction of
Jerusalem. Indeed, we are inclined to agree with our author that
the gospel, even in its present shape (save only a few
interpolated passages), may have existed as early as A. D. 80,
since it places the time of Jesus' second coming immediately
after the destruction of Jerusalem; whereas the third evangelist,
who wrote forty-five years after that event, is careful to tell
us, "The end is NOT immediately." Moreover, it must have been
written while the Paulo-Petrine controversy was still raging, as
is shown by the parable of the "enemy who sowed the tares," which
manifestly refers to Paul, and also by the allusions to "false
prophets" (vii. 15), to those who say "Lord, Lord," and who "cast
out demons in the name of the Lord" (vii. 21-23), teaching men to
break the commandments (v. 17-20). There is, therefore, good
reason for believing that we have here a narrative written not
much more than fifty years after the death of Jesus, based partly
upon the written memorials of an apostle, and in the main
trustworthy, save where it relates occurrences of a marvellous
and legendary character. Such is our author's conclusion, and in
describing the career of the Jesus of history, he relies almost
exclusively upon the statements contained in the first gospel.
Let us now after this long but inadequate introduction, give a
brief sketch of the life of Jesus, as it is to be found in our
author.


Concerning the time and place of the birth of Jesus, we know next
to nothing. According to uniform tradition, based upon a
statement of the third gospel, he was about thirty years of age
at the time when he began teaching. The same gospel states, with
elaborate precision, that the public career of John the Baptist
began in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, or A. D. 28. In the
winter of A. D. 35-36, Pontius Pilate was recalled from Judaea,
so that the crucifixion could not have taken place later than in
the spring of 35. Thus we have a period of about six years during
which the ministry of Jesus must have begun and ended; and if the
tradition with respect to his age be trustworthy, we shall not be
far out of the way in supposing him to have been born somewhere
between B. C. 5 and A. D. 5. He is everywhere alluded to in the
gospels as Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee, where lived also his
father, mother brothers and sisters, and where very likely he was
born. His parents' names are said to have been Joseph and Mary.
His own name is a Hellenized form of Joshua, a name very common
among the Jews. According to the first gospel (xiii. 55), he had
four brothers,--Joseph and Simon; James, who was afterwards one
of the heads of the church at Jerusalem, and the most formidable
enemy of Paul; and Judas or Jude, who is perhaps the author of
the anti-Pauline epistle commonly ascribed to him.

Of the early youth of Jesus, and of the circumstances which
guided his intellectual development, we know absolutely nothing,
nor have we the data requisite for forming any plausible
hypothesis. He first appears in history about A. D. 29 or 30, in
connection with a very remarkable person whom the third
evangelist describes as his cousin, and who seems, from his mode
of life, to have been in some way connected with or influenced by
the Hellenizing sect of Essenes. Here we obtain our first clew to
guide us in forming a consecutive theory of the development of
Jesus' opinions. The sect of Essenes took its rise in the time of
the Maccabees, about B. C. 170. Upon the fundamental doctrines of
Judaism it had engrafted many Pythagorean notions, and was
doubtless in the time of Jesus instrumental in spreading Greek
ideas among the people of Galilee, where Judaism was far from
being so narrow and rigid as at Jerusalem. The Essenes attached
but little importance to the Messianic expectations of the
Pharisees, and mingled scarcely at all in national politics. They
lived for the most part a strictly ascetic life, being indeed the
legitimate predecessors of the early Christian hermits and monks.
But while pre-eminent for sanctity of life, they heaped ridicule
upon the entire sacrificial service of the Temple, despised the
Pharisees as hypocrites, and insisted upon charity toward all men
instead of the old Jewish exclusiveness.

It was once a favourite theory that both John the Baptist and
Jesus were members of the Essenian brotherhood; but that theory
is now generally abandoned. Whatever may have been the case with
John, who is said to have lived like an anchorite in the desert,
there seems to have been but little practical Essenism in Jesus,
who is almost uniformly represented as cheerful and social in
demeanour, and against whom it was expressly urged that he came
eating and drinking, making no presence of puritanical holiness.
He was neither a puritan, like the Essenes, nor a ritualist, like
the Pharisees. Besides which, both John and Jesus seem to have
begun their careers by preaching the un-Essene doctrine of the
speedy advent of the "kingdom of heaven," by which is meant the
reign of the Messiah upon the earth. Nevertheless, though we
cannot regard Jesus as actually a member of the Essenian
community or sect, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that he, as
well as John the Baptist, had been at some time strongly
influenced by Essenian doctrines. The spiritualized conception of
the "kingdom of heaven" proclaimed by him was just what would
naturally and logically arise from a remodelling of the Messianic
theories of the Pharisees in conformity to advanced Essenian
notions. It seems highly probable that some such refined
conception of the functions of the Messiah was reached by John,
who, stigmatizing the Pharisees and Sadducees as a "generation of
vipers," called aloud to the people to repent of their sins, in
view of the speedy advent of the Messiah, and to testify to their
repentance by submitting to the Essenian rite of baptism. There
is no positive evidence that Jesus was ever a disciple of John;
yet the account of the baptism, in spite of the legendary
character of its details, seems to rest upon a historical basis;
and perhaps the most plausible hypothesis which can be framed is,
that Jesus received baptism at John's hands, became for a while
his disciple, and acquired from him a knowledge of Essenian
doctrines.

The career of John seems to have been very brief. His stern
puritanism brought him soon into disgrace with the government of
Galilee. He was seized by Herod, thrown into prison, and
beheaded. After the brief hints given as to the intercourse
between Jesus and John, we next hear of Jesus alone in the
desert, where, like Sakyamuni and Mohammed, he may have brooded
in solitude over his great project. Yet we do not find that he
had as yet formed any distinct conception of his own Messiahship.
The total neglect of chronology by our authorities[20] renders it
impossible to trace the development of his thoughts step by step;
but for some time after John's catastrophe we find him calling
upon the people to repent, in view of the speedy approach of the
Messiah, speaking with great and commanding personal authority,
but using no language which would indicate that he was striving
to do more than worthily fill the place and add to the good work
of his late master. The Sermon on the Mount, which the first
gospel inserts in this place, was perhaps never spoken as a
continuous discourse; but it no doubt for the most part contains
the very words of Jesus, and represents the general spirit of his
teaching during this earlier portion of his career. In this is
contained nearly all that has made Christianity so powerful in
the domain of ethics. If all the rest of the gospel were taken
away, or destroyed in the night of some future barbarian
invasion, we should still here possess the secret of the
wonderful impression which Jesus made upon those who heard him
speak. Added to the Essenian scorn of Pharisaic formalism, and
the spiritualized conception of the Messianic kingdom, which
Jesus may probably have shared with John the Baptist, we have
here for the first time the distinctively Christian conception of
the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men, which
ultimately insured the success of the new religion. The special
point of originality in Jesus was his conception of Deity. As
Strauss well says, "He conceived of God, in a moral point of
view, as being identical in character with himself in the most
exalted moments of his religious life, and strengthened in turn
his own religious life by this ideal. But the most exalted
religious tendency in his own consciousness was exactly that
comprehensive love, overpowering the evil only by the good, which
he therefore transferred to God as the fundamental tendency of
His nature." From this conception of God, observes Zeller, flowed
naturally all the moral teaching of Jesus, the insistence upon
spiritual righteousness instead of the mere mechanical observance
of Mosaic precepts, the call to be perfect even as the Father is
perfect, the principle of the spiritual equality of men before
God, and the equal duties of all men toward each other.

[20] "The biographers [of Becket] are commonly rather careless as
to the order of time. Each .... recorded what struck him most or
what he best knew, one set down one event and another; and none
of them paid much regard to the order of details."--Freeman,
Historical Essays, 1st series, p. 94.


How far, in addition to these vitally important lessons, Jesus
may have taught doctrines of an ephemeral or visionary character,
it is very difficult to decide. We are inclined to regard the
third gospel as of some importance in settling this point. The
author of that gospel represents Jesus as decidedly hostile to
the rich. Where Matthew has "Blessed are the poor in spirit,"
Luke has "Blessed are ye poor." In the first gospel we read,
"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for
they will be filled"; but in the third gospel we find, "Blessed
are ye that hunger now, for ye will be filled"; and this
assurance is immediately followed by the denunciation, "Woe to
you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation! Woe to
you that are full now, for ye will hunger." The parable of Dives
and Lazarus illustrates concretely this view of the case, which
is still further corroborated by the account, given in both the
first and the third gospels, of the young man who came to seek
everlasting life. Jesus here maintains that righteousness is
insufficient unless voluntary poverty be superadded. Though the
young man has strictly fulfilled the greatest of the
commandments,--to love his neighbour as himself,--he is required,
as a needful proof of his sincerity, to distribute all his vast
possessions among the poor. And when he naturally manifests a
reluctance to perform so superfluous a sacrifice, Jesus observes
that it will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for a rich man to share in the glories of the
anticipated Messianic kingdom. It is difficult to escape the
conclusion that we have here a very primitive and probably
authentic tradition; and when we remember the importance which,
according to the "Acts," the earliest disciples attached to the
principle of communism, as illustrated in the legend of Ananias
and Sapphira, we must admit strong reasons for believing that
Jesus himself held views which tended toward the abolition of
private property. On this point, the testimony of the third
evangelist singly is of considerable weight; since at the time
when he wrote, the communistic theories of the first generation
of Christians had been generally abandoned, and in the absence of
any dogmatic motives, he could only have inserted these
particular traditions because he believed them to possess
historical value. But we are not dependent on the third gospel
alone. The story just cited is attested by both our authorities,
and is in perfect keeping with the general views of Jesus as
reported by the first evangelist. Thus his disciples are enjoined
to leave all, and follow him; to take no thought for the morrow;
to think no more of laying up treasures on the earth, for in the
Messianic kingdom they shall have treasures in abundance, which
can neither be wasted nor stolen. On making their journeys, they
are to provide neither money, nor clothes, nor food, but are to
live at the expense of those whom they visit; and if any town
refuse to harbour them, the Messiah, on his arrival, will deal
with that town more severely than Jehovah dealt with the cities
of the plain. Indeed, since the end of the world was to come
before the end of the generation then living (Matt. xxiv. 34; 1
Cor. xv. 51-56, vii. 29), there could be no need for acquiring
property or making arrangements for the future; even marriage
became unnecessary. These teachings of Jesus have a marked
Essenian character, as well as his declaration that in the
Messianic kingdom there was to be no more marriage, perhaps no
distinction of sex (Matt. xxii. 30). The sect of Ebionites, who
represented the earliest doctrine and practice of Christianity
before it had been modified by Paul, differed from the Essenes in
no essential respect save in the acknowledgment of Jesus as the
Messiah, and the expectation of his speedy return to the earth.

How long, or with what success, Jesus continued to preach the
coming of the Messiah in Galilee, it is impossible to conjecture.
His fellow-townsmen of Nazareth appear to have ridiculed him in
his prophetical capacity; or, if we may trust the third
evangelist, to have arisen against him with indignation, and made
an attempt upon his life. To them he was but a carpenter, the son
of a carpenter (Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3), who told them
disagreeable truths. Our author represents his teaching in
Galilee to have produced but little result, but the gospel
narratives afford no definite data for deciding this point. We
believe the most probable conclusion to be that Jesus did attract
many followers, and became famous throughout Galilee; for Herod
is said to have regarded him as John the Baptist risen from the
grave. To escape the malice of Herod, Jesus then retired to
Syro-Phoenicia, and during this eventful journey the
consciousness of his own Messiahship seems for the first time to
have distinctly dawned upon him (Matt. xiv. 1, 13; xv. 21; xvi.
13-20). Already, it appears, speculations were rife as to the
character of this wonderful preacher. Some thought he was John
the Baptist, or perhaps one of the prophets of the Assyrian
period returned to the earth. Some, in accordance with a
generally-received tradition, supposed him to be Elijah, who had
never seen death, and had now at last returned from the regions
above the firmament to announce the coming of the Messiah in the
clouds. It was generally admitted, among enthusiastic hearers,
that he who spake as never man spake before must have some divine
commission to execute. These speculations, coming to the ears of
Jesus during his preaching in Galilee, could not fail to excite
in him a train of self-conscious reflections. To him also must
have been presented the query as to his own proper character and
functions; and, as our author acutely demonstrates, his only
choice lay between a profitless life of exile in Syro-Phoenicia,
and a bold return to Jewish territory in some pronounced
character. The problem being thus propounded, there could hardly
be a doubt as to what that character should be. Jesus knew well
that he was not John the Baptist; nor, however completely he may
have been dominated by his sublime enthusiasm, was it likely that
he could mistake himself for an ancient prophet arisen from the
lower world of shades, or for Elijah descended from the sky. But
the Messiah himself he might well be. Such indeed was the almost
inevitable corollary from his own conception of Messiahship. We
have seen that he had, probably from the very outset, discarded
the traditional notion of a political Messiah, and recognized the
truth that the happiness of a people lies not so much in
political autonomy as in the love of God and the sincere practice
of righteousness. The people were to be freed from the bondage of
sin, of meaningless formalism, of consecrated hypocrisy,--a
bondage more degrading than the payment of tribute to the
emperor. The true business of the Messiah, then, was to deliver
his people from the former bondage; it might be left to Jehovah,
in his own good time, to deliver them from the latter. Holding
these views, it was hardly possible that it should not sooner or
later occur to Jesus that he himself was the person destined to
discharge this glorious function, to liberate his countrymen from
the thraldom of Pharisaic ritualism, and to inaugurate the real
Messianic kingdom of spiritual righteousness. Had he not already
preached the advent of this spiritual kingdom, and been
instrumental in raising many to loftier conceptions of duty, and
to a higher and purer life? And might he not now, by a grand
attack upon Pharisaism in its central stronghold, destroy its
prestige in the eyes of the people, and cause Israel to adopt a
nobler religious and ethical doctrine? The temerity of such a
purpose detracts nothing from its sublimity. And if that purpose
should be accomplished, Jesus would really have performed the
legitimate work of the Messiah. Thus, from his own point of view,
Jesus was thoroughly consistent and rational in announcing
himself as the expected Deliverer; and in the eyes of the
impartial historian his course is fully justified.

"From that time," says the first evangelist, "Jesus began to show
to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many
things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be put
to death, and rise again on the third day." Here we have,
obviously, the knowledge of the writer, after the event,
reflected back and attributed to Jesus. It is of course
impossible that Jesus should have predicted with such
definiteness his approaching death; nor is it very likely that he
entertained any hope of being raised from the grave "on the third
day." To a man in that age and country, the conception of a
return from the lower world of shades was not a difficult one to
frame; and it may well be that Jesus' sense of his own exalted
position was sufficiently great to inspire him with the
confidence that, even in case of temporary failure, Jehovah would
rescue him from the grave and send him back with larger powers to
carry out the purpose of his mission. But the difficulty of
distinguishing between his own words and the interpretation put
upon them by his disciples becomes here insuperable; and there
will always be room for the hypothesis that Jesus had in view no
posthumous career of his own, but only expressed his unshaken
confidence in the success of his enterprise, even after and in
spite of his death.

At all events, the possibility of his death must now have been
often in his mind. He was undertaking a wellnigh desperate
task,--to overthrow the Pharisees in Jerusalem itself. No other
alternative was left him. And here we believe Mr. F. W. Newman to
be singularly at fault in pronouncing this attempt of Jesus upon
Jerusalem a foolhardy attempt. According to Mr. Newman, no man
has any business to rush upon certain death, and it is only a
crazy fanatic who will do so.[21] But such "glittering
generalizations" will here help us but little. The historic data
show that to go to Jerusalem, even at the risk of death, was
absolutely necessary to the realization of Jesus' Messianic
project. Mr. Newman certainly would not have had him drag out an
inglorious and baffled existence in Syro-Phoenicia. If the
Messianic kingdom was to be fairly inaugurated, there was work to
be done in Jerusalem, and Jesus must go there as one in
authority, cost what it might. We believe him to have gone there
in a spirit of grand and careless bravery, yet seriously and
soberly, and under the influence of no fanatical delusion. He
knew the risks, but deliberately chose to incur them, that the
will of Jehovah might be accomplished.

We next hear of Jesus travelling down to Jerusalem by way of
Jericho, and entering the sacred city in his character of
Messiah, attended by a great multitude. It was near the time of
the Passover, when people from all parts of Galilee and Judaea
were sure to be at Jerusalem, and the nature of his reception
seems to indicate that he had already secured a considerable
number of followers upon whose assistance he might hope to rely,
though it nowhere appears that he intended to use other than
purely moral weapons to insure a favourable reception. We must
remember that for half a century many of the Jewish people had
been constantly looking for the arrival of the Messiah, and there
can be little doubt that the entry of Jesus riding upon an ass in
literal fulfilment of prophecy must have wrought powerfully upon
the imagination of the multitude. That the believers in him were
very numerous must be inferred from the cautious, not to say
timid, behaviour of the rulers at Jerusalem, who are represented
as desiring to arrest him, but as deterred from taking active
steps through fear of the people. We are led to the same
conclusion by his driving the money-changers out of the Temple;
an act upon which he could hardly have ventured, had not the
popular enthusiasm in his favour been for the moment
overwhelming. But the enthusiasm of a mob is short-lived, and
needs to be fed upon the excitement of brilliant and dramatically
arranged events. The calm preacher of righteousness, or even the
fiery denouncer of the scribes and Pharisees, could not hope to
retain undiminished authority save by the display of
extraordinary powers to which, so far as we know, Jesus (like
Mohammed) made no presence (Matt. xvi. 1-4). The ignorant and
materialistic populace could not understand the exalted
conception of Messiahship which had been formed by Jesus, and as
day after day elapsed without the appearance of any marvellous
sign from Jehovah, their enthusiasm must naturally have cooled
down. Then the Pharisees appear cautiously endeavouring to entrap
him into admissions which might render him obnoxious to the Roman
governor. He saw through their design, however, and foiled them
by the magnificent repartee, "Render unto Caesar the things that
are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Nothing
could more forcibly illustrate the completely non-political
character of his Messianic doctrines. Nevertheless, we are told
that, failing in this attempt, the chief priests suborned false
witnesses to testify against him: this Sabbath-breaker, this
derider of Mosaic formalism, who with his Messianic pretensions
excited the people against their hereditary teachers, must at all
events be put out of the way. Jesus must suffer the fate which
society has too often had in store for the reformer; the fate
which Sokrates and Savonarola, Vanini and Bruno, have suffered
for being wiser than their own generation. Messianic adventurers
had already given much trouble to the Roman authorities, who were
not likely to scrutinize critically the peculiar claims of Jesus.
And when the chief priests accused him before Pilate of
professing to be "King of the Jews," this claim could in Roman
apprehension bear but one interpretation. The offence was
treason, punishable, save in the case of Roman citizens, by
crucifixion.

[21] Phases of Faith, pp. 158-164.


Such in its main outlines is the historic career of Jesus, as
constructed by our author from data furnished chiefly by the
first gospel. Connected with the narrative there are many
interesting topics of discussion, of which our rapidly
diminishing space will allow us to select only one for comment.
That one is perhaps the most important of all, namely, the
question as to how far Jesus anticipated the views of Paul in
admitting Gentiles to share in the privileges of the Messianic
kingdom. Our author argues, with much force, that the designs of
Jesus were entirely confined to the Jewish people, and that it
was Paul who first, by admitting Gentiles to the Christian fold
without requiring them to live like Jews, gave to Christianity
the character of a universal religion. Our author reminds us that
the third gospel is not to be depended upon in determining this
point, since it manifestly puts Pauline sentiments into the mouth
of Jesus, and in particular attributes to Jesus an acquaintance
with heretical Samaria which the first gospel disclaims. He
argues that the apostles were in every respect Jews, save in
their belief that Jesus was the Messiah; and he pertinently asks,
if James, who was the brother of Jesus, and Peter and John, who
were his nearest friends, unanimously opposed Paul and
stigmatized him as a liar and heretic, is it at all likely that
Jesus had ever distinctly sanctioned such views as Paul
maintained?

In the course of many years' reflection upon this point, we have
several times been inclined to accept the narrow interpretation
of Jesus' teaching here indicated; yet, on the whole, we do not
believe it can ever be conclusively established. In the first
place it must be remembered that if the third gospel throws a
Pauline colouring over the events which it describes, the first
gospel also shows a decidedly anti-Pauline bias, and the one
party was as likely as the other to attribute its own views to
Jesus himself. One striking instance of this tendency has been
pointed out by Strauss, who has shown that the verses Matt. v.
17-20 are an interpolation. The person who teaches men to break
the commandments is undoubtedly Paul, and in order to furnish a
text against Paul's followers, the "Nicolaitans," Jesus is made
to declare that he came not to destroy one tittle of the law, but
to fulfil the whole in every particular. Such an utterance is in
manifest contradiction to the spirit of Jesus' teaching, as shown
in the very same chapter, and throughout a great part of the same
gospel. He who taught in his own name and not as the scribes, who
proclaimed himself Lord over the Sabbath, and who manifested from
first to last a more than Essenian contempt for rites and
ceremonies, did not come to fulfil the law of Mosaism, but to
supersede it. Nor can any inference adverse to this conclusion be
drawn from the injunction to the disciples (Matt. x. 5-7) not to
preach to Gentiles and Samaritans, but only "to the lost sheep of
the house of Israel"; for this remark is placed before the
beginning of Jesus' Messianic career, and the reason assigned for
the restriction is merely that the disciples will not have time
even to preach to all the Jews before the coming of the Messiah,
whose approach Jesus was announcing (Matt. x. 23)

These examples show that we must use caution in weighing the
testimony even of the first gospel, and must not too hastily cite
it as proof that Jesus supposed his mission to be restricted to
the Jews. When we come to consider what happened a few years
after the death of Jesus, we shall be still less ready to insist
upon the view defended by our anonymous author. Paul, according
to his own confession, persecuted the Christians unto death. Now
what, in the theories or in the practice of the Jewish disciples
of Jesus, could have moved Paul to such fanatic behaviour?
Certainly not their spiritual interpretation of Mosaism, for Paul
himself belonged to the liberal school of Gamaliel, to the views
of which the teachings and practices of Peter, James, and John
might easily be accommodated. Probably not their belief in Jesus
as the Messiah, for at the riot in which Stephen was murdered and
all the Hellenist disciples driven from Jerusalem, the Jewish
disciples were allowed to remain in the city unmolested. (See
Acts viii. 1, 14.) This marked difference of treatment indicates
that Paul regarded Stephen and his friends as decidedly more
heretical and obnoxious than Peter, James, and John, whom,
indeed, Paul's own master Gamaliel had recently (Acts v. 34)
defended before the council. And this inference is fully
confirmed by the account of Stephen's death, where his murderers
charge him with maintaining that Jesus had founded a new religion
which was destined entirely to supersede and replace Judaism
(Acts vi. 14). The Petrine disciples never held this view of the
mission of Jesus; and to this difference it is undoubtedly owing
that Paul and his companions forbore to disturb them. It would
thus appear that even previous to Paul's conversion, within five
or six years after the death of Jesus, there was a prominent
party among the disciples which held that the new religion was
not a modification but an abrogation of Judaism; and their name
"Hellenists" sufficiently shows either that there were Gentiles
among them or that they held fellowship with Gentiles. It was
this which aroused Paul to persecution, and upon his sudden
conversion it was with these Hellenistic doctrines that he
fraternized, taking little heed of the Petrine disciples
(Galatians i. 17), who were hardly more than a Jewish sect.

Now the existence of these Hellenists at Jerusalem so soon after
the death of Jesus is clear proof that he had never distinctly
and irrevocably pronounced against the admission of Gentiles to
the Messianic kingdom, and it makes it very probable that the
downfall of Mosaism as a result of his preaching was by no means
unpremeditated. While, on the other hand, the obstinacy of the
Petrine party in adhering to Jewish customs shows equally that
Jesus could not have unequivocally committed himself in favour of
a new gospel for the Gentiles. Probably Jesus was seldom brought
into direct contact with others than Jews, so that the questions
concerning the admission of Gentile converts did not come up
during his lifetime; and thus the way was left open for the
controversy which soon broke out between the Petrine party and
Paul. Nevertheless, though Jesus may never have definitely
pronounced upon this point, it will hardly be denied that his
teaching, even as reported in the first gospel, is in its utter
condemnation of formalism far more closely allied to the Pauline
than to the Petrine doctrines. In his hands Mosaism became
spiritualized until it really lost its identity, and was
transformed into a code fit for the whole Roman world. And we do
not doubt that if any one had asked Jesus whether circumcision
were an essential prerequisite for admission to the Messianic
kingdom, he would have given the same answer which Paul
afterwards gave. We agree with Zeller and Strauss that, "as
Luther was a more liberal spirit than the Lutheran divines of the
succeeding generation, and Sokrates a more profound thinker than
Xenophon or Antisthenes, so also Jesus must be credited with
having raised himself far higher above the narrow prejudices of
his nation than those of his disciples who could scarcely
understand the spread of Christianity among the heathen when it
had become an accomplished fact."

            January, 1870.



IV. THE CHRIST OF DOGMA.[22]

[22] Saint-Paul, par Ernest Renan. Paris, 1869.

Histoire du Dogme de la Divinite de Jesus-Christ, par Albert
Reville. Paris, 1869.

The End of the World and the Day of Judgment. Two Discourses by
the Rev. W. R. Alger. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1870.


The meagreness of our information concerning the historic career
of Jesus stands in striking contrast with the mass of information
which lies within our reach concerning the primitive character of
Christologic speculation. First we have the four epistles of
Paul, written from twenty to thirty years after the crucifixion,
which, although they tell us next to nothing about what Jesus
did, nevertheless give us very plain information as to the
impression which he made. Then we have the Apocalypse, written by
John, A. D. 68, which exhibits the Messianic theory entertained
by the earliest disciples. Next we have the epistles to the
Hebrews, Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians, besides the four
gospels, constituting altogether a connected chain of testimony
to the progress of Christian doctrine from the destruction of
Jerusalem to the time of the Quartodeciman controversy (A. D.
70-170). Finally, there is the vast collection of apocryphal,
heretical, and patristic literature, from the writings of Justin
Martyr, the pseudo-Clement, and the pseudo-Ignatius, down to the
time of the Council of Nikaia, when the official theories of
Christ's person assumed very nearly the shape which they have
retained, within the orthodox churches of Christendom, down to
the present day. As we pointed out in the foregoing essay, while
all this voluminous literature throws but an uncertain light upon
the life and teachings of the founder of Christianity, it
nevertheless furnishes nearly all the data which we could desire
for knowing what the early Christians thought of the master of
their faith. Having given a brief account of the historic career
of Jesus, so far as it can now be determined, we propose here to
sketch the rise and progress of Christologic doctrine, in its
most striking features, during the first three centuries.
Beginning with the apostolic view of the human Messiah sent to
deliver Judaism from its spiritual torpor, and prepare it for the
millennial kingdom, we shall briefly trace the progressive
metamorphosis of this conception until it completely loses its
identity in the Athanasian theory, according to which Jesus was
God himself, the Creator of the universe, incarnate in human
flesh.

The earliest dogma held by the apostles concerning Jesus was that
of his resurrection from the grave after death. It was not only
the earliest, but the most essential to the success of the new
religion. Christianity might have overspread the Roman Empire,
and maintained its hold upon men's faith until to-day, without
the dogmas of the incarnation and the Trinity; but without the
dogma of the resurrection it would probably have failed at the
very outset. Its lofty morality would not alone have sufficed to
insure its success. For what men needed then, as indeed they
still need, and will always need, was not merely a rule of life
and a mirror to the heart, but also a comprehensive and
satisfactory theory of things, a philosophy or theosophy. The
times demanded intellectual as well as moral consolation; and the
disintegration of ancient theologies needed to be repaired, that
the new ethical impulse imparted by Christianity might rest upon
a plausible speculative basis. The doctrine of the resurrection
was but the beginning of a series of speculative innovations
which prepared the way for the new religion to emancipate itself
from Judaism, and achieve the conquest of the Empire. Even the
faith of the apostles in the speedy return of their master the
Messiah must have somewhat lost ground, had it not been supported
by their belief in his resurrection from the grave and his
consequent transfer from Sheol, the gloomy land of shadows, to
the regions above the sky.

The origin of the dogma of the resurrection cannot be determined
with certainty. The question has, during the past century, been
the subject of much discussion, upon which it is not necessary
for us here to comment. Such apparent evidence as there is in
favour of the old theory of Jesus' natural recovery from the
effects of the crucifixion may be found in Salvador's
"Jesus-Christ et sa Doctrine"; but, as Zeller has shown, the
theory is utterly unsatisfactory. The natural return of Jesus to
his disciples never could have given rise to the notion of his
resurrection, since the natural explanation would have been the
more obvious one; besides which, if we were to adopt this
hypothesis, we should be obliged to account for the fact that the
historic career of Jesus ends with the crucifixion. The most
probable explanation, on the whole, is the one suggested by the
accounts in the gospels, that the dogma of the resurrection is
due originally to the excited imagination of Mary of Magdala.[23]
The testimony of Paul may also be cited in favour of this view,
since he always alludes to earlier Christophanies in just the
same language which he uses in describing his own vision on the
road to Damascus.

[23] See Taine, De l'Intelligence, II. 192.


But the question as to how the belief in the resurrection of
Jesus originated is of less importance than the question as to
how it should have produced the effect that it did. The dogma of
the resurrection has, until recent times, been so rarely treated
from the historical point of view, that the student of history at
first finds some difficulty in thoroughly realizing its import to
the minds of those who first proclaimed it. We cannot hope to
understand it without bearing in mind the theories of the Jews
and early Christians concerning the structure of the world and
the cosmic location of departed souls. Since the time of
Copernicus modern Christians no longer attempt to locate heaven
and hell; they are conceived merely as mysterious places remote
from the earth. The theological universe no longer corresponds to
that which physical science presents for our contemplation. It
was quite different with the Jew. His conception of the abode of
Jehovah and the angels, and of departed souls, was exceedingly
simple and definite. In the Jewish theory the universe is like a
sort of three-story house. The flat earth rests upon the waters,
and under the earth's surface is the land of graves, called
Sheol, where after death the souls of all men go, the righteous
as well as the wicked, for the Jew had not arrived at the
doctrine of heaven and hell. The Hebrew Sheol corresponds
strictly to the Greek Hades, before the notions of Elysium and
Tartarus were added to it,--a land peopled with flitting shadows,
suffering no torment, but experiencing no pleasure, like those
whom Dante met in one of the upper circles of his Inferno. Sheol
is the first story of the cosmic house; the earth is the second.
Above the earth is the firmament or sky, which, according to the
book of Genesis (chap. i. v. 6, Hebrew text), is a vast plate
hammered out by the gods, and supports a great ocean like that
upon which the earth rests. Rain is caused by the opening of
little windows or trap-doors in the firmament, through which
pours the water of this upper ocean. Upon this water rests the
land of heaven, where Jehovah reigns, surrounded by hosts of
angels. To this blessed land two only of the human race had ever
been admitted,--Enoch and Elijah, the latter of whom had ascended
in a chariot of fire, and was destined to return to earth as the
herald and forerunner of the Messiah. Heaven forms the third
story of the cosmic house. Between the firmament and the earth is
the air, which is the habitation of evil demons ruled by Satan,
the "prince of the powers of the air."

Such was the cosmology of the ancient Jew; and his theology was
equally simple. Sheol was the destined abode of all men after
death, and no theory of moral retribution was attached to the
conception. The rewards and punishments known to the authors of
the Pentateuch and the early Psalms are all earthly rewards and
punishments. But in course of time the prosperity of the wicked
and the misfortunes of the good man furnished a troublesome
problem for the Jewish thinker; and after the Babylonish
Captivity, we find the doctrine of a resurrection from Sheol
devised in order to meet this case. According to this
doctrine--which was borrowed from the Zarathustrian theology of
Persia--the Messiah on his arrival was to free from Sheol all the
souls of the righteous, causing them to ascend reinvested in
their bodies to a renewed and beautiful earth, while on the other
hand the wicked were to be punished with tortures like those of
the valley of Hinnom, or were to be immersed in liquid brimstone,
like that which had rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Here we get
the first announcement of a future state of retribution. The
doctrine was peculiarly Pharisaic, and the Sadducees, who were
strict adherents to the letter of Mosaism, rejected it to the
last. By degrees this doctrine became coupled with the Messianic
theories of the Pharisees. The loss of Jewish independence under
the dominion of Persians, Macedonians, and Romans, caused the
people to look ever more earnestly toward the expected time when
the Messiah should appear in Jerusalem to deliver them from their
oppressors. The moral doctrines of the Psalms and earlier
prophets assumed an increasingly political aspect. The Jews were
the righteous "under a cloud," whose sufferings were symbolically
depicted by the younger Isaiah as the afflictions of the "servant
of Jehovah"; while on the other hand, the "wicked" were the
Gentile oppressors of the holy people. Accordingly the Messiah,
on his arrival, was to sit in judgment in the valley of
Jehoshaphat, rectifying the wrongs of his chosen ones, condemning
the Gentile tyrants to the torments of Gehenna, and raising from
Sheol all those Jews who had lived and died during the evil times
before his coming. These were to find in the Messianic kingdom
the compensation for the ills which they had suffered in their
first earthly existence. Such are the main outlines of the theory
found in the Book of Enoch, written about B. C. 100, and it is
adopted in the Johannine Apocalypse, with little variation, save
in the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, and in the
transferrence to his second coming of all these wonderful
proceedings. The manner of the Messiah's coming had been
variously imagined. According to an earlier view, he was to enter
Jerusalem as a King of the house of David, and therefore of human
lineage. According to a later view, presented in the Book of
Daniel, he was to descend from the sky, and appear among the
clouds. Both these views were adopted by the disciples of Jesus,
who harmonized them by referring the one to his first and the
other to his second appearance.

Now to the imaginations of these earliest disciples the belief in
the resurrection of Jesus presented itself as a needful guarantee
of his Messiahship. Their faith, which must have been shaken by
his execution and descent into Sheol, received welcome
confirmation by the springing up of the belief that he had been
again seen upon the face of the earth. Applying the imagery of
Daniel, it became a logical conclusion that he must have ascended
into the sky, whence he might shortly be expected to make his
appearance, to enact the scenes foretold in prophecy. That such
was the actual process of inference is shown by the legend of the
Ascension in the first chapter of the "Acts," and especially by
the words, "This Jesus who hath been taken up from you into
heaven, will come in the same manner in which ye beheld him going
into heaven." In the Apocalypse, written A. D. 68, just after the
death of Nero, this second coming is described as something
immediately to happen, and the colours in which it is depicted
show how closely allied were the Johannine notions to those of
the Pharisees. The glories of the New Jerusalem are to be
reserved for Jews, while for the Roman tyrants of Judaea is
reserved a fearful retribution. They are to be trodden underfoot
by the Messiah, like grapes in a wine-press, until the gushing
blood shall rise to the height of the horse's bridle.

In the writings of Paul the dogma of the resurrection assumes a
very different aspect. Though Paul, like the older apostles, held
that Jesus, as the Messiah, was to return to the earth within a
few years, yet to his catholic mind this anticipated event had
become divested of its narrow Jewish significance. In the eyes of
Paul, the religion preached by Jesus was an abrogation of
Mosaism, and the truths contained in it were a free gift to the
Gentile as well as to the Jewish world. According to Paul, death
came into the world as a punishment for the sin of Adam. By this
he meant that, had it not been for the original transgression,
all men escaping death would either have remained upon earth or
have been conveyed to heaven, like Enoch and Elijah, in
incorruptible bodies. But in reality as a penance for
disobedience, all men, with these two exceptions, had suffered
death, and been exiled to the gloomy caverns of Sheol. The Mosaic
ritual was powerless to free men from this repulsive doom, but it
had nevertheless served a good purpose in keeping men's minds
directed toward holiness, preparing them, as a schoolmaster would
prepare his pupils, to receive the vitalizing truths of Christ.
Now, at last, the Messiah or Christ had come as a second Adam,
and being without sin had been raised by Jehovah out of Sheol and
taken up into heaven, as testimony to men that the power of sin
and death was at last defeated. The way henceforth to avoid death
and escape the exile to Sheol was to live spiritually like Jesus,
and with him to be dead to sensual requirements. Faith, in Paul's
apprehension, was not an intellectual assent to definitely
prescribed dogmas, but, as Matthew Arnold has well pointed out,
it was an emotional striving after righteousness, a developing
consciousness of God in the soul, such as Jesus had possessed,
or, in Paul's phraseology, a subjugation of the flesh by the
spirit. All those who should thus seek spiritual perfection
should escape the original curse. The Messiah was destined to
return to the earth to establish the reign of spiritual holiness,
probably during Paul's own lifetime (1 Cor. xv. 51). Then the
true followers of Jesus should be clothed in ethereal bodies,
free from the imperfections of "the flesh," and should ascend to
heaven without suffering death, while the righteous dead should
at the same time be released from Sheol, even as Jesus himself
had been released.

To the doctrine of the resurrection, in which ethical and
speculative elements are thus happily blended by Paul, the new
religion doubtless owed in great part its rapid success. Into an
account of the causes which favoured the spreading of
Christianity, it is not our purpose to enter at present. But we
may note that the local religions of the ancient pagan world had
partly destroyed each other by mutual intermingling, and had lost
their hold upon people from the circumstance that their ethical
teaching no longer corresponded to the advanced ethical feeling
of the age. Polytheism, in short, was outgrown. It was outgrown
both intellectually and morally. People were ceasing to believe
in its doctrines, and were ceasing to respect its precepts. The
learned were taking refuge in philosophy, the ignorant in
mystical superstitions imported from Asia. The commanding ethical
motive of ancient republican times had been patriotism,--devotion
to the interests of the community. But Roman dominion had
destroyed patriotism as a guiding principle of life, and thus in
every way the minds of men were left in a sceptical, unsatisfied
state,--craving after a new theory of life, and craving after a
new stimulus to right action. Obviously the only theology which
could now be satisfactory to philosophy or to common-sense was
some form of monotheism;--some system of doctrines which should
represent all men as spiritually subjected to the will of a
single God, just as they were subjected to the temporal authority
of the Emperor. And similarly the only system of ethics which
could have a chance of prevailing must be some system which
should clearly prescribe the mutual duties of all men without
distinction of race or locality. Thus the spiritual morality of
Jesus, and his conception of God as a father and of all men as
brothers, appeared at once to meet the ethical and speculative
demands of the time.

Yet whatever effect these teachings might have produced, if
unaided by further doctrinal elaboration, was enhanced myriadfold
by the elaboration which they received at the hands of Paul.
Philosophic Stoics and Epicureans had arrived at the conception
of the brotherhood of men, and the Greek hymn of Kleanthes had
exhibited a deep spiritual sense of the fatherhood of God. The
originality of Christianity lay not so much in its enunciation of
new ethical precepts as in the fact that it furnished a new
ethical sanction,--a commanding incentive to holiness of living.
That it might accomplish this result, it was absolutely necessary
that it should begin by discarding both the ritualism and the
narrow theories of Judaism. The mere desire for a monotheistic
creed had led many pagans, in Paul's time, to embrace Judaism, in
spite of its requirements, which to Romans and Greeks were
meaningless, and often disgusting; but such conversions could
never have been numerous. Judaism could never have conquered the
Roman world; nor is it likely that the Judaical Christianity of
Peter, James, and John would have been any more successful. The
doctrine of the resurrection, in particular, was not likely to
prove attractive when accompanied by the picture of the Messiah
treading the Gentiles in the wine-press of his righteous
indignation. But here Paul showed his profound originality The
condemnation of Jewish formalism which Jesus had pronounced, Paul
turned against the older apostles, who insisted upon
circumcision. With marvellous flexibility of mind, Paul placed
circumcision and the Mosaic injunctions about meats upon a level
with the ritual observances of pagan nations, allowing each
feeble brother to perform such works as might tickle his fancy,
but bidding all take heed that salvation was not to be obtained
after any such mechanical method, but only by devoting the whole
soul to righteousness, after the example of Jesus.

This was the negative part of Paul's work. This was the knocking
down of the barriers which had kept men, and would always have
kept them, from entering into the kingdom of heaven. But the
positive part of Paul's work is contained in his theory of the
salvation of men from death through the second Adam, whom Jehovah
rescued from Sheol for his sinlessness. The resurrection of Jesus
was the visible token of the escape from death which might be
achieved by all men who, with God's aid, should succeed in
freeing themselves from the burden of sin which had encumbered
all the children of Adam. The end of the world was at hand, and
they who would live with Christ must figuratively die with
Christ, must become dead to sin. Thus to the pure and spiritual
ethics contained in the teachings of Jesus, Paul added an
incalculably powerful incentive to right action, and a theory of
life calculated to satisfy the speculative necessities of the
pagan or Gentile world. To the educated and sceptical Athenian,
as to the critical scholar of modern times, the physical
resurrection of Jesus from the grave, and his ascent through the
vaulted floor of heaven, might seem foolishness or naivete. But
to the average Greek or Roman the conception presented no serious
difficulty. The cosmical theories upon which the conception was
founded were essentially the same among Jews and Gentiles, and
indeed were but little modified until the establishment of the
Copernican astronomy. The doctrine of the Messiah's second coming
was also received without opposition, and for about a century men
lived in continual anticipation of that event, until hope long
deferred produced its usual results; the writings in which that
event was predicted were gradually explained away, ignored, or
stigmatized as uncanonical; and the Church ended by condemning as
a heresy the very doctrine which Paul and the Judaizing apostles,
who agreed in little else, had alike made the basis of their
speculative teachings. Nevertheless, by the dint of allegorical
interpretation, the belief has maintained an obscure existence
even down to the present time; the Antiochus of the Book of
Daniel and the Nero of the Apocalypse having given place to the
Roman Pontiff or to the Emperor of the French.

But as the millenarism of the primitive Church gradually died out
during the second century, the essential principles involved in
it lost none of their hold on men's minds. As the generation
contemporary with Paul died away and was gathered into Sheol, it
became apparent that the original theory must be somewhat
modified, and to this question the author of the second epistle
to the Thessalonians addresses himself. Instead of literal
preservation from death, the doctrine of a resurrection from the
grave was gradually extended to the case of the new believers,
who were to share in the same glorious revival with the righteous
of ancient times. And thus by slow degrees the victory over
death, of which the resurrection of Jesus was a symbol and a
witness, became metamorphosed into the comparatively modern
doctrine of the rest of the saints in heaven, while the
banishment of the unrighteous to Sheol was made still more
dreadful by coupling with the vague conception of a gloomy
subterranean cavern the horrible imagery of the lake of fire and
brimstone borrowed from the apocalyptic descriptions of Gehenna.
But in this modification of the original theory, the fundamental
idea of a future state of retribution was only the more
distinctly emphasized; although, in course of time, the original
incentive to righteousness supplied by Paul was more and more
subordinated to the comparatively degrading incentive involved in
the fear of damnation. There can hardly be a doubt that the
definiteness and vividness of the Pauline theory of a future life
contributed very largely to the rapid spread of the Christian
religion; nor can it be doubted that to the desire to be holy
like Jesus, in order to escape death and live with Jesus, is due
the elevating ethical influence which, even in the worst times of
ecclesiastic degeneracy, Christianity has never failed to exert.
Doubtless, as Lessing long, ago observed, the notion of future
reward and punishment needs to be eliminated in order that the
incentive to holiness may be a perfectly pure one. The highest
virtue is that which takes no thought of reward or punishment;
but for a conception of this sort the mind of antiquity was not
ready, nor is the average mind of to-day yet ready; and the
sudden or premature dissolution of the Christian theory--which is
fortunately impossible--might perhaps entail a moral
retrogradation.

The above is by no means intended as a complete outline of the
religious philosophy of Paul. We have aimed only at a clear
definition of the character and scope of the doctrine of the
resurrection of Jesus, at the time when it was first elaborated.
We have now to notice the influence of that doctrine upon the
development of Christologic speculation.

In neither or the four genuine epistles of Paul is Jesus
described as superhuman, or as differing in nature from other
men, save in his freedom from sin. As Baur has shown, "the proper
nature of the Pauline Christ is human. He is a man, but a
spiritual man, one in whom spirit or pneuma was the essential
principle, so that he was spirit as well as man. The principle of
an ideal humanity existed before Christ in the bright form of a
typical man, but was manifested to mankind in the person of
Christ." Such, according to Baur, is Paul's interpretation of the
Messianic idea. Paul knows nothing of the miracles, of the
supernatural conception, of the incarnation, or of the Logos. The
Christ whom he preaches is the man Jesus, the founder of a new
and spiritual order of humanity, as Adam was the father of
humanity after the flesh. The resurrection is uniformly described
by him as a manifestation of the power of Jehovah, not of Jesus
himself. The later conception of Christ bursting the barred gates
of Sheol, and arising by his own might to heaven, finds no
warrant in the expressions of Paul. Indeed, it was essential to
Paul's theory of the Messiah as a new Adam, that he should be
human and not divine; for the escape of a divine being from Sheol
could afford no precedent and furnish no assurance of the future
escape of human beings. It was expressly because the man Jesus
had been rescued from the grave because of his spirituality, that
other men might hope, by becoming spiritual like him, to be
rescued also. Accordingly Paul is careful to state that "since
through man came death, through man came also the resurrection of
the dead" (1 Cor. xv. 21); a passage which would look like an
express denial of Christ's superhuman character, were it probable
that any of Paul's contemporaries had ever conceived of Jesus as
other than essentially human.

But though Paul's Christology remained in this primitive stage,
it contained the germs of a more advanced theory. For even Paul
conceived of Jesus as a man wholly exceptional in spiritual
character; or, in the phraseology of the time, as consisting to a
larger extent of pneuma than any man who had lived before him.
The question was sure to arise, Whence came this pneuma or
spiritual quality? Whether the question ever distinctly presented
itself to Paul's mind cannot be determined. Probably it did not.
In those writings of his which have come down to us, he shows
himself careless of metaphysical considerations. He is mainly
concerned with exhibiting the unsatisfactory character of Jewish
Christianity, and with inculcating a spiritual morality, to which
the doctrine of Christ's resurrection is made to supply a
surpassingly powerful sanction. But attempts to solve the problem
were not long in coming. According to a very early tradition, of
which the obscured traces remain in the synoptic gospels, Jesus
received the pneuma at the time of his baptism, when the Holy
Spirit, or visible manifestation of the essence of Jehovah,
descended upon him and became incarnate in him. This theory,
however, was exposed to the objection that it implied a sudden
and entire transformation of an ordinary man into a person
inspired or possessed by the Deity. Though long maintained by the
Ebionites or primitive Christians, it was very soon rejected by
the great body of the Church, which asserted instead that Jesus
had been inspired by the Holy Spirit from the moment of his
conception. From this it was but a step to the theory that Jesus
was actually begotten by or of the Holy Spirit; a notion which
the Hellenic mind, accustomed to the myths of Leda, Anchises, and
others, found no difficulty in entertaining. According to the
Gospel of the Hebrews, as cited by Origen, the Holy Spirit was
the mother of Jesus, and Joseph was his father. But according to
the prevailing opinion, as represented in the first and third
synoptists, the relationship was just the other way. With greater
apparent plausibility, the divine aeon was substituted for the
human father, and a myth sprang up, of which the materialistic
details furnished to the opponents of the new religion an
opportunity for making the most gross and exasperating
insinuations. The dominance of this theory marks the era at which
our first and third synoptic gospels were composed,--from sixty
to ninety years after the death of Jesus. In the luxuriant
mythologic growth there exhibited, we may yet trace the various
successive phases of Christologic speculation but imperfectly
blended. In "Matthew" and "Luke" we find the original Messianic
theory exemplified in the genealogies of Jesus, in which,
contrary to historic probability (cf. Matt. xxii. 41-46), but in
accordance with a time-honoured tradition, his pedigree is traced
back to David; "Matthew" referring him to the royal line of
Judah, while "Luke" more cautiously has recourse to an assumed
younger branch. Superposed upon this primitive mythologic
stratum, we find, in the same narratives, the account of the
descent of the pneuma at the time of the baptism; and crowning
the whole, there are the two accounts of the nativity which,
though conflicting in nearly all their details, agree in
representing the divine pneuma as the father of Jesus. Of these
three stages of Christology, the last becomes entirely
irreconcilable with the first; and nothing can better illustrate
the uncritical character of the synoptists than the fact that the
assumed descent of Jesus from David through his father Joseph is
allowed to stand side by side with the account of the miraculous
conception which completely negatives it. Of this difficulty
"Matthew" is quite unconscious, and "Luke," while vaguely
noticing it (iii. 23), proposes no solution, and appears
undisturbed by the contradiction.

Thus far the Christology with which we have been dealing is
predominantly Jewish, though to some extent influenced by
Hellenic conceptions. None of the successive doctrines presented
in Paul, "Matthew," and "Luke" assert or imply the pre-existence
of Jesus. At this early period he was regarded as a human being
raised to participation in certain attributes of divinity; and
this was as far as the dogma could be carried by the Jewish
metaphysics. But soon after the date of our third gospel, a
Hellenic system of Christology arose into prominence, in which
the problem was reversed, and Jesus was regarded as a semi-divine
being temporarily lowered to participation in certain attributes
of humanity. For such a doctrine Jewish mythology supplied no
precedents; but the Indo-European mind was familiar with the
conception of deity incarnate in human form, as in the avatars of
Vishnu, or even suffering III the interests of humanity, as in
the noble myth of Prometheus. The elements of Christology
pre-existing in the religious conceptions of Greece, India, and
Persia, are too rich and numerous to be discussed here. A very
full account of them is given in Mr. R. W. Mackay's acute and
learned treatise on the "Religious Development of the Greeks and
Hebrews{.}"

It was in Alexandria, where Jewish theology first came into
contact with Hellenic and Oriental ideas, that the way was
prepared for the dogma of Christ's pre-existence. The attempt to
rationalize the conception of deity as embodied in the Jehovah of
the Old Testament gave rise to the class of opinions described as
Gnosis, or Gnosticism. The signification of Gnosis is simply
"rationalism,"--the endeavour to harmonize the materialistic
statements of an old mythology with the more advanced
spiritualistic philosophy of the time. The Gnostics rejected the
conception of an anthropomorphic deity who had appeared visibly
and audibly to the patriarchs; and they were the authors of the
doctrine, very widely spread during the second and third
centuries, that God could not in person have been the creator of
the world. According to them, God, as pure spirit, could not act
directly upon vile and gross matter. The difficulty which
troubled them was curiously analogous to that which disturbed the
Cartesians and the followers of Leibnitz in the seventeenth
century; how was spirit to act upon matter, without ceasing, pro
tanto, to be spirit? To evade this difficulty, the Gnostics
postulated a series of emanations from God, becoming successively
less and less spiritual and more and more material, until at the
lowest end of the scale was reached the Demiurgus or Jehovah of
the Old Testament, who created the world and appeared, clothed in
material form, to the patriarchs. According to some of the
Gnostics this lowest aeon or emanation was identical with the
Jewish Satan, or the Ahriman of the Persians, who is called "the
prince of this world," and the creation of the world was an
essentially evil act. But all did not share in these extreme
opinions. In the prevailing, theory, this last of the divine
emanations was identified with the "Sophia," or personified
"Wisdom," of the Book of Proverbs (viii. 22-30), who is described
as present with God before the foundation of the world. The
totality of these aeons constituted the pleroma, or "fulness of
God" (Coloss. i. 20; Eph. i. 23), and in a corollary which bears
unmistakable marks of Buddhist influence, it was argued that, in
the final consummation of things, matter should be eliminated and
all spirit reunited with God, from whom it had primarily flowed.

It was impossible that such views as these should not soon be
taken up and applied to the fluctuating Christology of the time.
According to the "Shepherd of Hermas," an apocalyptic writing
nearly contemporary with the gospel of "Mark," the aeon or son of
God who existed previous to the creation was not the Christ, or
the Sophia, but the Pneuma or Holy Spirit, represented in the Old
Testament as the "angel of Jehovah." Jesus, in reward for his
perfect goodness, was admitted to a share in the privileges of
this Pneuma (Reville, p. 39). Here, as M. Reville observes,
though a Gnostic idea is adopted, Jesus is nevertheless viewed as
ascending humanity, and not as descending divinity. The author of
the "Clementine Homilies" advances a step farther, and clearly
assumes the pre-existence of Jesus, who, in his opinion, was the
pure, primitive man, successively incarnate in Adam, Enoch, Noah,
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and finally in the Messiah or
Christ. The author protests, in vehement language, against those
Hellenists who, misled by their polytheistic associations, would
elevate Jesus into a god. Nevertheless, his own hypothesis of
pre-existence supplied at once the requisite fulcrum for those
Gnostics who wished to reconcile a strict monotheism with the
ascription of divine attributes to Jesus. Combining with this
notion of pre-existence the pneumatic or spiritual quality
attributed to Jesus in the writings of Paul, the Gnosticizing
Christians maintained that Christ was an aeon or emanation from
God, redeeming men from the consequences entailed by their
imprisonment in matter. At this stage of Christologic speculation
appeared the anonymous epistle to the "Hebrews," and the
pseudo-Pauline epistles to the "Colossians," "Ephesians," and
"Philippians" (A. D. 130). In these epistles, which originated
among the Pauline Christians, the Gnostic theosophy is skilfully
applied to the Pauline conception of the scope and purposes of
Christianity. Jesus is described as the creator of the world
(Coloss. i. 16), the visible image of the invisible God, the
chief and ruler of the "throues, dominions, principalities, and
powers," into which, in Gnostic phraseology, the emanations of
God were classified. Or, according to "Colossians" and
"Philippians," all the aeons are summed up in him, in whom dwells
the pleroma, or "fulness of God." Thus Jesus is elevated quite
above ordinary humanity, and a close approach is made to
ditheism, although he is still emphatically subordinated to God
by being made the creator of the world,--an office then regarded
as incompatible with absolute divine perfection. In the
celebrated passage, "Philippians" ii. 6-11, the aeon Jesus is
described as being the form or visible manifestation of God, yet
as humbling himself by taking on the form or semblance of
humanity, and suffering death, in return for which he is to be
exalted even above the archangels. A similar view is taken in
"Hebrews"; and it is probable that to the growing favour with
which these doctrines were received, we owe the omission of the
miraculous conception from the gospel of "Mark,"--a circumstance
which has misled some critics into assigning to that gospel an
earlier date than to "Matthew" and "Luke." Yet the fact that in
this gospel Jesus is implicitly ranked above the angels (Mark
xiii. 32), reveals a later stage of Christologic doctrine than
that reached by the first and third synoptists; and it is
altogether probable that, in accordance with the noticeable
conciliatory disposition of this evangelist, the supernatural
conception is omitted out of deference to the Gnosticizing
theories of "Colossians" and "Philippians," in which this
materialistic doctrine seems to have had no assignable place. In
"Philippians" especially, many expressions seem to verge upon
Docetism, the extreme form of Gnosticism, according to which the
human body of Jesus was only a phantom. Valentinus, who was
contemporary with the Pauline writers of the second century,
maintained that Jesus was not born of Mary by any process of
conception, but merely passed through her, as light traverses a
translucent substance. And finally Marcion (A. D. 140) carried
the theory to its extreme limits by declaring that Jesus was the
pure Pneuma or Spirit, who contained nothing in common with
carnal humanity.

The pseudo-Pauline writers steered clear of this extravagant
doctrine, which erred by breaking entirely with historic
tradition, and was consequently soon condemned as heretical.
Their language, though unmistakably Gnostic, was sufficiently
neutral and indefinite to allow of their combination with earlier
and later expositions of dogma, and they were therefore
eventually received into the canon, where they exhibit a stage of
opinion midway between that of Paul and that of the fourth
gospel.

For the construction of a durable system of Christology, still
further elaboration was necessary. The pre-existence of Jesus, as
an emanation from God, in whom were summed up the attributes of
the pleroma or full scale of Gnostic aeons, was now generally
conceded. But the relation of this pleroqma to the Godhead of
which it was the visible manifestation, needed to be more
accurately defined. And here recourse was had to the conception
of the "Logos,"--a notion which Philo had borrowed from Plato,
lending to it a theosophic significance. In the Platonic
metaphysics objective existence was attributed to general terms,
the signs of general notions. Besides each particular man, horse,
or tree, and besides all men, horses, and trees, in the
aggregate, there was supposed to exist an ideal Man, Horse, and
Tree. Each particular man, horse, or tree consisted of abstract
existence plus a portion of the ideal man, horse, or tree.
Sokrates, for instance, consisted of Existence, plus Animality,
plus Humanity, plus Sokraticity. The visible world of particulars
thus existed only by virtue of its participation in the
attributes of the ideal world of universals. God created the
world by encumbering each idea with an envelopment or clothing of
visible matter; and since matter is vile or imperfect, all things
are more or less perfect as they partake more or less fully of
the idea. The pure unencumbered idea, the "Idea of ideas," is the
Logos, or divine Reason, which represents the sum-total of the
activities which sustain the world, and serves as a mediator
between the absolutely ideal God and the absolutely non-ideal
matter. Here we arrive at a Gnostic conception, which the
Philonists of Alexandria were not slow to appropriate. The Logos,
or divine Reason, was identified with the Sophia, or divine
Wisdom of the Jewish Gnostics, which had dwelt with God before
the creation of the world. By a subtle play upon the double
meaning of the Greek term (logos = "reason" or "word"), a
distinction was drawn between the divine Reason and the divine
Word. The former was the archctypal idea or thought of God,
existing from all eternity; the latter was the external
manifestation or realization of that idea which occurred at the
moment of creation, when, according to Genesis, God SPOKE, and
the world was.

In the middle of the second century, this Philonian theory was
the one thing needful to add metaphysical precision to the
Gnostic and Pauline speculations concerning the nature of Jesus.
In the writings of Justin Martyr (A. D. 150-166), Jesus is for
the first time identified with the Philonian Logos or "Word of
God." According to Justin, an impassable abyss exists between the
Infinite Deity and the Finite World; the one cannot act upon the
other; pure spirit cannot contaminate itself by contact with
impure matter. To meet this difficulty, God evolves from himself
a secondary God, the Logos,--yet without diminishing himself any
more than a flame is diminished when it gives birth to a second
flame. Thus generated, like light begotten of light (lumen de
lumine), the Logos creates the world, inspires the ancient
prophets with their divine revelations, and finally reveals
himself to mankind in the person of Christ. Yet Justin sedulously
guards himself against ditheism, insisting frequently and
emphatically upon the immeasurable inferiority of the Logos as
compared with the actual God (gr o ontws qeos).

We have here reached very nearly the ultimate phase of New
Testament speculation concerning Jesus. The doctrines enunciated
by Justin became eventually, with slight modification, the
official doctrines of the Church; yet before they could thus be
received, some further elaboration was needed. The pre-existing
Logos-Christ of Justin was no longer the human Messiah of the
first and third gospels, born of a woman, inspired by the divine
Pneuma, and tempted by the Devil. There was danger that
Christologic speculation might break quite loose from historic
tradition, and pass into the metaphysical extreme of Docetism.
Had this come to pass, there might perhaps have been a fatal
schism in the Church. Tradition still remained Ebionitish; dogma
had become decidedly Gnostic; how were the two to be moulded into
harmony with each other? Such was the problem which presented
itself to the author of the fourth gospel (A. D. 170-180). As M.
Reville observes, "if the doctrine of the Logos were really to be
applied to the person of Jesus, it was necessary to remodel the
evangelical history." Tradition must be moulded so as to fit the
dogma, but the dogma must be restrained by tradition from running
into Docetic extravagance. It must be shown historically how "the
Word became flesh" and dwelt on earth (John i. 14), how the deeds
of Jesus of Nazareth were the deeds of the incarnate Logos, in
whom was exhibited the pleroma or fulness of the divine
attributes. The author of the fourth gospel is, like Justin, a
Philonian Gnostic; but he differs from Justin in his bold and
skilful treatment of the traditional materials supplied by the
earlier gospels. The process of development in the theories and
purposes of Jesus, which can be traced throughout the Messianic
descriptions of the first gospel, is entirely obliterated in the
fourth. Here Jesus appears at the outset as the creator of the
world, descended from his glory, but destined soon to be
reinstated. The title "Son of Man" has lost its original
significance, and become synonymous with "Son of God." The
temptation, the transfiguration, the scene in Gethsemane, are
omitted, and for the latter is substituted a Philonian prayer.
Nevertheless, the author carefully avoids the extremes of
Docetism or ditheism. Not only does he represent the human life
of Jesus as real, and his death as a truly physical death, but he
distinctly asserts the inferiority of the Son to the Father (John
xiv. 28). Indeed, as M. Reville well observes, it is part of the
very notion of the Logos that it should be imperfect relatively
to the absolute God; since it is only its relative imperfection
which allows it to sustain relations to the world and to men
which are incompatible with absolute perfection, from the
Philonian point of view. The Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity
finds no support in the fourth gospel, any more than in the
earlier books collected in the New Testament.

The fourth gospel completes the speculative revolution by which
the conception of a divine being lowered to humanity was
substituted for that of a human being raised to divinity. We have
here travelled a long distance from the risen Messiah of the
genuine Pauline epistles, or the preacher of righteousness in the
first gospel. Yet it does not seem probable that the Church of
the third century was thoroughly aware of the discrepancy. The
authors of the later Christology did not regard themselves as
adding new truths to Christianity, but merely as giving a fuller
and more consistent interpretation to what must have been known
from the outset. They were so completely destitute of the
historic sense, and so strictly confined to the dogmatic point of
view, that they projected their own theories back into the past,
and vituperated as heretics those who adhered to tradition in its
earlier and simpler form. Examples from more recent times are not
wanting, which show that we are dealing here with an inveterate
tendency of the human mind. New facts and new theories are at
first condemned as heretical or ridiculous; but when once firmly
established, it is immediately maintained that every one knew
them before. After the Copernican astronomy had won the day, it
was tacitly assumed that the ancient Hebrew astronomy was
Copernican, and the Biblical conception of the universe as a kind
of three-story house was ignored, and has been, except by
scholars, quite forgotten. When the geologic evidence of the
earth's immense antiquity could no longer be gainsaid, it was
suddenly ascertained that the Bible had from the outset asserted
that antiquity; and in our own day we have seen an elegant
popular writer perverting the testimony of the rocks and
distorting the Elohistic cosmogony of the Pentateuch, until the
twain have been made to furnish what Bacon long ago described as
"a heretical religion and a false philosophy." Now just as in the
popular thought of the present day the ancient Elohist is
accredited with a knowledge of modern geology and astronomy, so
in the opinion of the fourth evangelist and his contemporaries
the doctrine of the Logos-Christ was implicitly contained in the
Old Testament and in the early traditions concerning Jesus, and
needed only to be brought into prominence by a fresh
interpretation. Hence arose the fourth gospel, which was no more
a conscious violation of historic data than Hugh Miller's
imaginative description of the "Mosaic Vision of Creation." Its
metaphysical discourses were readily accepted as equally
authentic with the Sermon on the Mount. Its Philonian doctrines
were imputed to Paul and the apostles, the pseudo-Pauline
epistles furnishing the needful texts. The Ebionites--who were
simply Judaizing Christians, holding in nearly its original form
the doctrine of Peter, James, and John--were ejected from the
Church as the most pernicious of heretics; and so completely was
their historic position misunderstood and forgotten, that, in
order to account for their existence, it became necessary to
invent an eponymous heresiarch, Ebion, who was supposed to have
led them astray from the true faith!

The Christology of the fourth gospel is substantially the same as
that which was held in the next two centuries by Tertullian,
Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Arius. When the doctrine of
the Trinity was first announced by Sabellius (A. D. 250-260), it
was formally condemned as heretical, the Church being not yet
quite prepared to receive it. In 269 the Council of Antioch
solemnly declared that the Son was NOT consubstantial with the
Father,--a declaration which, within sixty years, the Council of
Nikaia was destined as solemnly to contradict. The Trinitarian
Christology struggled long for acceptance, and did not finally
win the victory until the end of the fourth century. Yet from the
outset its ultimate victory was hardly doubtful. The peculiar
doctrines of the fourth gospel could retain their integrity only
so long as Gnostic ideas were prevalent. When Gnosticism declined
in importance, and its theories faded out of recollection, its
peculiar phraseology received of necessity a new interpretation.
The doctrine that God could not act directly upon the world sank
gradually into oblivion as the Church grew more and more hostile
to the Neo-Platonic philosophy. And when this theory was once
forgotten, it was inevitable that the Logos, as the creator of
the world, should be raised to an equality or identity with God
himself. In the view of the fourth evangelist, the Creator was
necessarily inferior to God; in the view of later ages, the
Creator could be none other than God. And so the very phrases
which had most emphatically asserted the subordination of the Son
were afterward interpreted as asserting his absolute divinity. To
the Gnostic formula, lumen de lumine, was added the Athanasian
scholium, Deum verum de Deo vero; and the Trinitarian dogma of
the union of persons in a single Godhead became thus the only
available logical device for preserving the purity of monotheism.

    February, 1870.



V. A WORD ABOUT MIRACLES.[24]

[24] These comments on Mr. Henry Rogers's review of M. Renan's
Les Apotres, contained in a letter to Mr. Lewes, were shortly
afterwards published by him in the Fortnightly Review, September
15, 1866,


It is the lot of every book which attempts to treat the origin
and progress of Christianity in a sober and scientific spirit, to
meet with unsparing attacks. Critics in plenty are always to be
found, who, possessed with the idea that the entire significance
and value of the Christian religion are demolished unless we
regard it as a sort of historical monstrosity, are only too eager
to subject the offending work to a scathing scrutiny, displaying
withal a modicum of righteous indignation at the unblushing
heresy of the author, not unmixed with a little scornful pity at
his inability to believe very preposterous stories upon very
meagre evidence. "Conservative" polemics of this sort have
doubtless their function. They serve to purge scientific
literature of the awkward and careless statements too often made
by writers not sufficiently instructed or cautious, which in the
absence of hostile criticism might get accepted by the unthinking
reader along with the truths which they accompany. Most
scientific and philosophical works have their defects; and it is
fortunate that there is such a thing as dogmatic ardour in the
world, ever sharpening its wits to the utmost, that it may spy
each lurking inaccuracy and ruthlessly drag it to light. But this
useful spirit is wont to lead those who are inspired by it to
shoot beyond the mark, and after pointing out the errors of
others, to commit fresh mistakes of their own. In the skilful
criticism of M. Renan's work on the Apostles, in No. 29 of the
"Fortnightly Review" there is now and then a vulnerable spot
through which a controversial shaft may perhaps be made to
pierce.

It may be true that Lord Lyttelton's tract on the Conversion of
St. Paul, as Dr. Johnson and Dr. Rogers have said, has never yet
been refuted; but if I may judge from my own recollection of the
work, I should say that this must be because no competent writer
ever thought it worth his pains to criticize it. Its argument
contains about as much solid consistency as a distended balloon,
and collapses as readily at the first puncture. It attempts to
prove, first, that the conversion of St. Paul cannot be made
intelligible except on the assumption that there was a miracle in
the case; and secondly, that if Paul was converted by a miracle,
the truth of Christianity is impregnable. Now, if the first of
these points be established, the demonstration is not yet
complete, for the second point must be proved independently. But
if the first point be overthrown, the second loses its prop, and
falls likewise.

Great efforts are therefore made to show that no natural
influences could have intervened to bring about a change in the
feelings of Paul. He was violent, "thorough," unaffected by pity
or remorse; and accordingly he could not have been so completely
altered as he was, had he not actually beheld the risen Christ:
such is the argument which Mr. Rogers deems so conclusive. I do
not know that from any of Paul's own assertions we are entitled
to affirm that no shade of remorse had ever crossed his mind
previous to the vision near Damascus. But waiving this point, I
do maintain that, granting Paul's feelings to have been as Mr.
Rogers thinks they were, his conversion is inexplicable, even on
the hypothesis of a miracle. He that is determined not to
believe, will not believe, though one should rise from the dead.
To make Paul a believer, it was not enough that he should meet
his Lord face to face he must have been already prepared to
believe. Otherwise he would have easily found means of explaining
the miracle from his own point of view. He would certainly have
attributed it to the wiles of the demon, even as the Pharisees
are said to have done with regard to the miraculous cures
performed by Jesus. A "miraculous" occurrence in those days did
not astonish as it would at present. "Miracles" were rather the
order of the day, and in fact were lavished with such extreme
bounty on all hands, that their convincing power was very slight.
Neither side ever thought of disputing the reality of the
miracles supposed to be performed on the other; but each side
considered the miracles of its antagonist to be the work of
diabolic agencies. Such being the case, it is useless to suppose
that Paul could have distinguished between a true and a false
miracle, or that a real miracle could of itself have had any
effect in inducing him to depart from his habitual course of
belief and action. As far as Paul's mental operations were
concerned, it could have made no difference whether he met with
his future Master in person, or merely encountered him in a
vision. The sole point to be considered is whether or not he
BELIEVED in the Divine character and authority of the event which
had happened. What the event might have really been was of no
practical consequence to him or to any one else. What he believed
it to be was of the first importance. And since he did believe
that he had been divinely summoned to cease persecuting, and
commence preaching the new faith, it follows that his state of
mind must have been more or less affected by circumstances other
than the mere vision. Had he not been ripe for change, neither
shadow nor substance could have changed him.

This view of the case is by no means so extravagant as Mr. Rogers
would have us suppose. There is no reason for believing that
Paul's character was essentially different afterwards from what
it had been before. The very fervour which caused him, as a
Pharisee, to exclude all but orthodox Jews from the hope of
salvation, would lead him, as a Christian, to carry the Christian
idea to its extreme development, and admit all persons whatever
to the privileges of the Church. The same zeal for the truth
which had urged him to persecute the Christians unto the death
afterwards led him to spare no toil and shun no danger which
might bring about the triumph of their cause. It must not be
forgotten that the persecutor and the martyr are but one and the
same man under different circumstances. He who is ready to die
for his own faith will sometimes think it fair to make other men
die for theirs. Men of a vehement and fiery temperament,
moreover,--such as Paul always was,--never change their opinions
slowly, never rest in philosophic doubt, never take a middle
course. If they leave one extreme for an instant, they are drawn
irresistibly to the other; and usually very little is needed to
work the change. The conversion of Omar is a striking instance in
point, and has been cited by M. Renan himself. The character of
Omar bears a strong likeness to that of Paul. Previous to his
conversion, he was a conscientious and virulent persecutor of
Mohammedanism.[25] After his conversion, he was Mohammed's most
efficient disciple, and it may be safely asserted that for
disinterestedness and self-abnegation he was not inferior to the
Apostle of the Gentiles. The change in his case was, moreover,
quite as sudden and unexpected as it was with Paul; it was
neither more nor less incomprehensible; and if Paul's conversion
needs a miracle to explain it, Omar's must need one likewise. But
in truth, there is no difficulty in the case, save that which
stupid dogmatism has created. The conversions of Paul and Omar
are paralleled by innumerable events which occur in every period
of religious or political excitement. Far from being
extraordinary, or inexplicable on natural grounds, such phenomena
are just what might occasionally be looked for.

[25] Saint-Hilaire: Mahomet et le Coran, p. 109.


But, says Mr. Rogers, "is it possible for a moment to imagine the
doting and dreaming victim of hallucinations (which M. Renan's
theory represents Paul) to be the man whose masculine sense,
strong logic, practical prudence, and high administrative talent
appear in the achievements of his life, and in the Epistles he
has left behind him?" M. Renan's theory does not, however,
represent Paul as the "victim of hallucinations "to a greater
degree than Mohammed. The latter, as every one knows, laboured
during much of his life under almost constant "hallucination";
yet "masculine sense, strong logic," etc., were qualities quite
as conspicuous in him as in St. Paul.

Here, as throughout his essay, Mr. Rogers shows himself totally
unable to comprehend the mental condition of men in past ages. If
an Apostle has a dream or sees a vision, and interprets it
according to the ideas of his time and country, instead of
according to the ideas of scientific England in the nineteenth
century Mr. Rogers thinks he must needs be mad: and when
according to the well-known law that mental excitement is
contagious,[26] several persons are said to have concurred in
interpreting some phenomenon supernaturally, Mr. Rogers cannot
see why so many people should all go mad at once! "To go mad," in
fact is his favourite designation for a mental act, which nearly
all the human race have habitually performed in all ages; the act
of mistaking subjective impressions for outward realities. The
disposition to regard all strange phenomena as manifestations of
supernatural power was universally prevalent in the first century
of Christianity, and long after. Neither greatness of intellect
nor thoroughness of scepticism gave exemption. Even Julius
Caesar, the greatest practical genius that ever lived, was
somewhat superstitious, despite his atheism and his Vigorous
common-sense. It is too often argued that the prevalence of
scepticism in the Roman Empire must have made men scrupulous
about accepting miracles. By no means. Nothing but physical
science ever drives out miracles: mere doctrinal scepticism is
powerless to do it. In the age of the Apostles, little if any
radical distinction was drawn between a miracle and an ordinary
occurrence. No one supposed a miracle to be an infraction of the
laws of nature, for no one had a clear idea that there were such
things as laws of nature. A miracle was simply an extraordinary
act, exhibiting the power of the person who performed it. Blank,
indeed, would the evangelists have looked, had any one told them
what an enormous theory of systematic meddling with nature was
destined to grow out of their beautiful and artless narratives.

[26] Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages, pp. 87-152.


The incapacity to appreciate this frame of mind renders the
current arguments in behalf of miracles utterly worthless. From
the fact that Celsus and others never denied the reality of the
Christian miracles, it is commonly inferred that those miracles
must have actually happened. The same argument would, however,
equally apply to the miracles of Apollonius and Simon Magus, for
the Christians never denied the reality of these. What these
facts really prove is that the state of human intelligence was as
I have just described it: and the inference to be drawn from them
is that no miraculous account emanating from an author of such a
period is worthy of serious attention. When Mr. Rogers supposes
that if the miracles had not really happened they would have been
challenged, he is assuming that a state of mind existed in which
it was possible for miracles to be challenged; and thus commits
an anachronism as monstrous as if he had attributed the knowledge
of some modern invention, such as steamboats, to those early
ages.

Mr. Rogers seems to complain of M. Renan for "quietly assuming"
that miracles are invariably to be rejected. Certainly a
historian of the present day who should not make such an
assumption would betray his lack of the proper qualifications for
his profession. It is not considered necessary for every writer
to begin his work by setting out to prove the first principles of
historical criticism. They are taken for granted. And, as M.
Renan justly says, a miracle is one of those things which must be
disbelieved until it is proved. The onus probandi lies on the
assertor of a fact which conflicts with universal experience.
Nevertheless, the great number of intelligent persons who, even
now, from dogmatic reasons, accept the New Testament miracles,
forbids that they should be passed over in silence like similar
phenomena elsewhere narrated. But, in the present state of
historical science, the arguing against miracles is, as Colet
remarked of his friend Erasmus's warfare against the Thomists and
Scotists of Cambridge, "a contest more necessary than glorious or
difficult." To be satisfactorily established, a miracle needs at
least to be recorded by an eyewitness; and the mental attainments
of the witness need to be thoroughly known besides. Unless he has
a clear conception of the difference between the natural and the
unnatural order of events, his testimony, however unimpeachable
on the score of honesty, is still worthless. To say that this
condition was fulfilled by those who described the New Testament
miracles, would be absurd. And in the face of what German
criticism has done for the early Christian documents, it would be
an excess of temerity to assert that any one of the supernatural
accounts contained in them rests on contemporary authority. Of
all history, the miraculous part should be attested by the
strongest testimony, whereas it is invariably attested by the
weakest. And the paucity of miracles wherever we have
contemporary records, as in the case of primitive Islamism, is a
most significant fact.

In attempting to defend his principle of never accepting a
miracle, M. Renan has indeed got into a sorry plight, and Mr.
Rogers, in controverting him, has not greatly helped the matter.
By stirring M. Renan's bemuddled pool, Mr. Rogers has only
bemuddled it the more. Neither of these excellent writers seems
to suspect that transmutation of species, the geologic
development of the earth, and other like phenomena do not present
features conflicting with ordinary experience. Sir Charles Lyell
and Mr. Darwin would be greatly astonished to be told that their
theories of inorganic and organic evolution involved any agencies
not known to exist in the present course of nature. The great
achievement of these writers has been to show that all past
changes of the earth and its inhabitants are to be explained as
resulting from the continuous action of causes like those now in
operation, and that throughout there has been nothing even
faintly resembling a miracle. M. Renan may feel perfectly safe in
extending his principle back to the beginning of things; and Mr.
Rogers's argument, even if valid against M. Renan, does not help
his own case in the least.

On some points, indeed, M. Renan has laid himself open to severe
criticism, and on other points he has furnished good handles for
his orthodox opponents. His views in regard to the authorship of
the Fourth Gospel and the Acts are not likely to be endorsed by
many scholars; and his revival of the rationalistic absurdities
of Paulus merits in most instances all that Mr. Rogers has said
about it. As was said at the outset, orthodox criticisms upon
heterodox books are always welcome. They do excellent service.
And with the feeling which impels their authors to defend their
favourite dogmas with every available weapon of controversy I for
one can heartily sympathize. Their zeal in upholding what they
consider the truth is greatly to be respected and admired. But so
much cannot always be said for the mode of argumentation they
adopt, which too often justifies M. Renan's description, when he
says, "Raisonnements triomphants sur des choses que l'adversaire
n'a pas dites, cris de victoire sur des erreurs qu'il n'a pas
commises, rien ne parait deloyal a celui qui croft tenir en main
les interets de la verite absolue."

     August, 1866.



VI. DRAPER ON SCIENCE AND RELIGION.[27]

[27] History of the Conflict between Religion and Science. by
John William Draper, M. D., LL. D. Fourth edition. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 1875. 12mo, pp. xxii., 373. (International
Scientific Series, XII.)


Some twelve years ago, Dr. Draper published a bulky volume
entitled "A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe,"
in which his professed purpose was to show that nations or races
pass through certain definable epochs of development, analogous
to the periods of infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, and old age
in individuals. But while announced with due formality, the
carrying out of the argument was left for the most part to the
headings and running-titles of the several chapters, while in the
text the author peacefully meandered along down the stream of
time, giving us a succession of pleasant though somewhat
threadbare anecdotes, as well as a superabundance of detached and
fragmentary opinions on divers historical events, having
apparently quite forgotten that he had started with a thesis to
prove. In the arrangement of his "running heads," some points
were sufficiently curious to require a word of explanation, as,
for example, when the early ages of Christianity were at one time
labelled as an epoch of progress and at another time as an epoch
of decrepitude. But the argument and the contents never got so
far en rapport with each other as to clear up such points as
this. On the contrary, each kept on the even tenour of its way
without much regard to the other. From the titles of the chapters
one was led to expect some comprehensive theory of European
civilization continuously expounded. But the text merely showed a
great quantity of superficial and second-hand information,
serving to illustrate the mental idiosyncrasies of the author.
Among these idiosyncrasies might be noted a very inadequate
understanding of the part played by Rome in the work of
civilization, a singular lack of appreciation of the political
and philosophical achievements of Greece under Athenian
leadership, a strong hostility to the Catholic Church, a curious
disposition to overrate semi-barbarous. or abortive
civilizations, such as those of the old Asiatic and native
American communities, at the expense of Europe, and, above all,
an undiscriminating admiration for everything, great or small,
that has ever worn the garb of Islam or been associated with the
career of the Saracens. The discovery that in some respects the
Mussulmans of the Middle Ages were more highly cultivated than
their Christian contemporaries, has made such an impression on
Dr. Draper's mind that it seems to be as hard for him to get rid
of it as it was for Mr. Dick to keep the execution of Charles I.
out of his "Memorial." Even in an essay on the "Civil Policy of
America," the turbaned sage figures quite prominently; and it is
needless to add that he reappears, as large as life, when the
subject of discussion is the attitude of science toward religion.

Speaking briefly with regard to this matter, we may freely admit
that the work done by the Arabs, in scientific inquiry as well as
in the making of events, was very considerable. It was a work,
too, the value of which is not commonly appreciated in the
accounts of European history written for the general reader, and
we have no disposition to find fault with Dr. Draper for
describing it with enthusiasm. The philosophers of Bagdad and
Cordova did excellent service in keeping alive the traditions of
Greek physical inquiry at a time when Christian thinkers were too
exclusively occupied with transcendental speculations in theology
and logic. In some departments, as in chemistry and astronomy,
they made original discoveries of considerable value; and if we
turn from abstract knowledge to the arts of life, it cannot be
denied that the mediaeval Mussulmans had reached a higher plane
of material comfort than their Christian contemporaries. In
short, the work of all kinds done by these people would furnish
the judicious advocate of the claims of the Semitic race with
materials for a pleasing and instructive picture. Dr. Draper,
however, errs, though no doubt unintentionally, by so presenting
the case as to leave upon the reader's mind the impression that
all this scientific and practical achievement was the work of
Islamism, and that the Mohammedan civilization was of a higher
type than the Christian. It is with an apparent feeling of regret
that he looks upon the ousting of the Moors from dominion in
Spain; but this is a mistaken view. As regards the first point,
it is a patent fact that scientific inquiry was conducted at the
cost of as much theological obloquy in the Mohammedan as in the
Christian world. It is true there was more actual tolerance of
heresy on the part of Moslem governments than was customary in
Europe in those days; but this is a superficial fact, which does
not indicate any superiority in Moslem popular sentiment. The
caliphate or emirate was a truly absolute despotism, such as the
Papacy has never been, and the conduct of a sceptical emir in
encouraging scientific inquiry goes but little way toward proving
anything like a general prevalence of tolerance or of
free-thinking. And this brings us to the second point,--that
Mohammedan civilization was, on the whole, rather a skin-deep
affair. It was superficial because of that extreme severance
between government and people which has never existed in European
nations within historic times, but which has always existed among
the principal races that have professed Moslemism. Nowhere in the
Mohammedan world has there ever been what we call a national
life, and nowhere do we find in its records any trace of such an
intellectual impulse, thrilling through every fibre of the people
and begetting prodigious achievements in art, poetry, and
philosophy, as was awakened in Europe in the thirteenth century
and again in the fifteenth. Under the peculiar form of unlimited
material and spiritual despotism exemplified in the caliphate, a
few men may discover gases or comment on Aristotle, but no
general movement toward political progress or philosophical
inquiry is possible. Such a society is rigid and inorganic at
bottom, whatever scanty signs of flexibility and life it may show
at the surface. There is no better illustration of this, when
well considered, than the fact that Moorish civilization
remained, politically and intellectually, a mere excrescence in
Spain, after having been fastened down over half the country for
nearly eight centuries.

But we are in danger of forgetting our main theme, as Dr. Draper
seems to do, while we linger with him over these interesting
wayside topics. We may perhaps be excused, however, if we have
not yet made any very explicit allusion to the "Conflict between
Religion and Science," because this work seems to be in the main
a repetition en petit of the "Intellectual Development of
Europe," and what we have said will apply as well to one as to
the other. In the little book, as in the big one, we hear a great
deal about the Arabs, and something about Columbus and Galileo,
who made men accept sundry truths in the teeth of clerical
opposition; and, as before, we float gently down the current of
history without being over well-informed as to the precise
didactic purpose of our voyage. Here, indeed, even our headings
and running-titles do not materially help us, for though we are
supposed to be witnessing, or mayhap assisting in, a perennial
conflict between "science" and "religion," we are nowhere
enlightened as to what the cause or character of this conflict
is, nor are we enabled to get a good look at either of the
parties to the strife. With regard to it "religion" especially
are we left in the dark. What this dreadful thing is towards
which "science" is always playing the part of Herakles towards
the Lernaean Hydra, we are left to gather from the course of the
narrative. Yet, in a book with any valid claim to
clearsightedness, one would think such a point as this ought to
receive very explicit preliminary treatment.

The course of the narrative, however, leaves us in little doubt
as to what Dr. Draper means by a conflict between science and
religion. When he enlarges on the trite story of Galileo, and
alludes to the more modern quarrel between the Church and the
geologists, and does this in the belief that he is thereby
illustrating an antagonism between religion and science, it is
obvious that he identifies the cause of the anti-geologists and
the persecutors of Galileo with the cause of religion. The word
"religion" is to him a symbol which stands for unenlightened
bigotry or narrow-minded unwillingness to look facts in the face.
Such a conception of religion is common enough, and unhappily a
great deal has been done to strengthen it by the very persons to
whom the interests of religion are presumed to be a professional
care. It is nevertheless a very superficial conception, and no
book which is vitiated by it can have much philosophic value. It
is simply the crude impression which, in minds unaccustomed to
analysis, is left by the fact that theologians and other persons
interested in religion are usually alarmed at new scientific
truths, and resist them with emotions so highly wrought that they
are not only incapable of estimating evidence, but often also
have their moral sense impaired, and fight with foul means when
fair ones fail. If we reflect carefully on this class of
phenomena, we shall see that something besides mere pride of
opinion is involved in the struggle. At the bottom of changing
theological beliefs there lies something which men perennially
value, and for the sake of which they cling to the beliefs as
long as possible. That which they value is not itself a matter of
belief, but it is a matter of conduct; it is the searching after
goodness,--after a higher life than the mere satisfaction of
individual desires. All animals seek for fulness of life; but in
civilized man this craving has acquired a moral significance, and
has become a spiritual aspiration; and this emotional tendency,
more or less strong in the human race, we call religious feeling
or religion. Viewed in this light, religion is not only something
that mankind is never likely to get rid of, but it is
incomparably the most noble as well as the most useful attribute
of humanity.

Now, this emotional prompting toward completeness of life
requires, of course, that conduct should be guided, as far as
possible, in accordance with a true theory of the relations of
man to the world in which he lives. Hence, at any given era the
religious feeling will always be found enlisted in behalf of some
theory of the universe. At any time, whatever may be their
shortcomings in practice, religious men will aim at doing right
according to their conceptions of the order of the world. If
men's conceptions of the order of nature remained constant, no
apparent conflict between their religious feelings and their
knowledge need ever arise. But with the first advance in our
knowledge of nature the case is altered. New and strange theories
are naturally regarded with fear and dislike by persons who have
always been accustomed to find the sanction and justification of
their emotional prompting toward righteousness in old familiar
theories which the new ones are seeking to supplant. Such persons
oppose the new doctrine because their engrained mental habits
compel them to believe that its establishment will in some way
lower men's standard of life, and make them less careful of their
spiritual welfare. This is the case, at all events, when
theologians oppose scientific conclusions on religious grounds,
and not simply from mental dulness or rigidity. And, in so far as
it is religious feeling which thus prompts resistance to
scientific innovation, it may be said, with some appearance of
truth, that there is a conflict between religion and science.

But there must always be two parties to a quarrel, and our
statement has to be modified as soon as we consider what the
scientific innovator impugns. It is not the emotional prompting
toward righteousness, it is not the yearning to live im Guten,
Ganzen, Wahren, that he seeks to weaken; quite likely he has all
this as much at heart as the theologian who vituperates him. Nor
is it true that his discoveries, in spite of him, tend to destroy
this all-important mental attitude. It would be ridiculous to say
that the fate of religious feeling is really involved in the fate
of grotesque cosmogonies and theosophies framed in the infancy of
men's knowledge of nature; for history shows us quite the
contrary. Religious feeling has survived the heliocentric theory
and the discoveries of geologists; and it will be none the worse
for the establishment of Darwinism. It is the merest truism to
say that religion strikes its roots deeper down into human nature
than speculative opinion, and is accordingly independent of any
particular set of beliefs. Since, then, the scientific innovator
does not, either voluntarily or involuntarily, attack religion,
it follows that there can be no such "conflict" as that of which
Dr. Draper has undertaken to write the history. The real contest
is between one phase of science and another; between the
more-crude knowledge of yesterday and the less-crude knowledge of
to-day. The contest, indeed, as presented in history, is simply
the measure of the difficulty which men find in exchanging old
views for new ones. All along, the practical question has been,
whether we should passively acquiesce in the crude
generalizations of our ancestors or venture actively to revise
them. But as for the religious sentiment, the perennial struggle
in which it has been engaged has not been with scientific
inquiry, but with the selfish propensities whose tendency is to
make men lead the lives of brutes.

The time is at hand when the interests of religion can no longer
be supposed to be subserved by obstinate adherence to crude
speculations bequeathed to us from pre-scientific antiquity. One
good result of the doctrine of evolution, which is now gaining
sway in all departments of thought, is the lesson that all our
opinions must be held subject to continual revision, and that
with none of them can our religious interests be regarded as
irretrievably implicated. To any one who has once learned this
lesson, a book like Dr. Draper's can be neither interesting nor
useful. He who has not learned it can derive little benefit from
a work which in its very title keeps open an old and baneful
source of error and confusion.

      November. 1875.



VII. NATHAN THE WISE.[28]

[28] Nathan the Wise: A Dramatic Poem, by Gotthold Ephraim
Lessing. Translated by Ellen Frothingham. Preceded by a brief
account of the poet and his works, and followed by an essay on
the poem by Kuno Fischer. Second edition. New York: Leypoldt &
Holt. 1868.

Le Christianisme Moderne. etude sur Lessing. Par Ernest Fontanes.
Paris: Bailliere. 1867.

The fame of Lessing is steadily growing. Year by year he is
valued more highly, and valued by a greater number of people. And
he is destined, like his master and forerunner Spinoza, to
receive a yet larger share of men's reverence and gratitude when
the philosophic spirit which he lived to illustrate shall have
become in some measure the general possession of the civilized
part of mankind. In his own day, Lessing, though widely known and
greatly admired, was little understood or appreciated. He was
known to be a learned antiquarian, a terrible controversialist,
and an incomparable writer. He was regarded as a brilliant
ornament to Germany; and a paltry Duke of Brunswick thought a few
hundred thalers well spent in securing the glory of having such a
man to reside at his provincial court. But the majority of
Lessing's contemporaries understood him as little perhaps as did
the Duke of Brunswick. If anything were needed to prove this, it
would he the uproar which was made over the publication of the
"Wolfenbuttel Fragments," and the curious exegesis which was
applied to the poem of "Nathan" on its first appearance. In order
to understand the true character of this great poem, and of
Lessing's religious opinions as embodied in it, it will be
necessary first to consider the memorable theological controversy
which preceded it.

During Lessing's residence at Hamburg, he had come into
possession of a most important manuscript, written by Hermann
Samuel Reimarus, a professor of Oriental languages, and bearing
the title of an "Apology for the Rational Worshippers of God."
Struck with the rigorous logic displayed in its arguments, and
with the quiet dignity of its style, while yet unable to accept
its most general conclusions, Lessing resolved to publish the
manuscript, accompanying it with his own comments and strictures.
Accordingly in 1774, availing himself of the freedom from
censorship enjoyed by publications drawn from manuscripts
deposited in the Ducal Library at Wolfenbuttel, of which he was
librarian, Lessing published the first portion of this work,
under the title of "Fragments drawn from the Papers of an
Anonymous Writer." This first Fragment, on the "Toleration of
Deists," awakened but little opposition; for the eighteenth
century, though intolerant enough, did not parade its bigotry,
but rather saw fit to disclaim it. A hundred years before,
Rutherford, in his "Free Disputation," had declared "toleration
of alle religions to bee not farre removed from blasphemie."
Intolerance was then a thing to be proud of, but in Lessing's
time some progress had been achieved, and men began to think it a
good thing to seem tolerant. The succeeding Fragments were to
test this liberality and reveal the flimsiness of the stuff of
which it was made. When the unknown disputant began to declare
"the impossibility of a revelation upon which all men can rest a
solid faith," and when he began to criticize the evidences of
Christ's resurrection, such a storm burst out in the theological
world of Germany as had not been witnessed since the time of
Luther. The recent Colenso controversy in England was but a
gentle breeze compared to it. Press and pulpit swarmed with
"refutations," in which weakness of argument and scantiness of
erudition were compensated by strength of acrimony and
unscrupulousness of slander. Pamphlets and sermons, says M.
Fontanes, "were multiplied, to denounce the impious blasphemer,
who, destitute alike of shame and of courage, had sheltered
himself behind a paltry fiction, in order to let loose upon
society an evil spirit of unbelief." But Lessing's artifice had
been intended to screen the memory of Reimarus, rather than his
own reputation. He was not the man to quail before any amount of
human opposition; and it was when the tempest of invective was
just at its height that he published the last and boldest
Fragment of all,--on "the Designs of Jesus and his Disciples."

The publication of these Fragments led to a mighty controversy.
The most eminent, both for uncompromising zeal and for worldly
position, of those who had attacked Lessing, was Melchior Goetze,
"pastor primarius" at the Hamburg Cathedral. Though his name is
now remembered only because of his connection with Lessing,
Goetze was not destitute of learning and ability. He was a
collector of rare books, an amateur in numismatics, and an
antiquarian of the narrow-minded sort. Lessing had known him
while at Hamburg, and had visited him so constantly as to draw
forth from his friends malicious insinuations as to the
excellence of the pastor's white wine. Doubtless Lessing, as a
wise man, was not insensible to the attractions of good Moselle;
but that which he chiefly liked in this theologian was his
logical and rigorously consistent turn of mind. "He always," says
M. Fontanes, "cherished a holy horror of loose, inconsequent
thinkers; and the man of the past, the inexorable guardian of
tradition, appeared to him far more worthy of respect than the
heterodox innovator who stops in mid-course, and is faithful
neither to reason nor to faith."

But when Lessing published these unhallowed Fragments, the hour
of conflict had sounded, and Goetze cast himself into the arena
with a boldness and impetuosity which Lessing, in his artistic
capacity, could not fail to admire. He spared no possible means
of reducing his enemy to submission. He aroused against him all
the constituted authorities, the consistories, and even the Aulic
Council of the Empire, and he even succeeded in drawing along
with him the chief of contemporary rationalists, Semler, who so
far forgot himself as to declare that Lessing, for what he had
done, deserved to be sent to the madhouse. But with all Goetze's
orthodox valour, he was no match for the antagonist whom he had
excited to activity. The great critic replied with pamphlet after
pamphlet, invincible in logic and erudition, sparkling with wit,
and irritating in their utter coolness. Such pamphlets had not
been seen since Pascal published the "Provincial Letters." Goetze
found that he had taken up arms against a master in the arts of
controversy, and before long he became well aware that he was
worsted. Having brought the case before the Aulic Council, which
consisted in great part of Catholics, the stout pastor,
forgetting that judgment had not yet been rendered, allowed
himself to proclaim that all who do not recognize the Bible as
the only source of Christianity are not fit to be called
Christians at all. Lessing was not slow to profit by this unlucky
declaration. Questioned, with all manner of ferocious
vituperation, by Goetze, as to what sort of Christianity might
have existed prior to and independently of the New Testament
canon, Lessing imperturbably answered: "By the Christian religion
I mean all the confessions of faith contained in the collection
of creeds of the first four centuries of the Christian Church,
including, if you wish it, the so-called creed of the apostles,
as well as the creed of Athanasius. The content of these
confessions is called by the earlier Fathers the regula fidei, or
rule of faith. This rule of faith is not drawn from the writings
of the New Testament. It existed before any of the books in the
New Testament were written. It sufficed not only for the first
Christians of the age of the apostles, but for their descendants
during four centuries. And it is, therefore, the veritable
foundation upon which the Church of Christ is built; a foundation
not based upon Scripture." Thus, by a master-stroke, Lessing
secured the adherence of the Catholics constituting a majority of
the Aulic Council of the Empire. Like Paul before him, he divided
the Sanhedrim. So that Goetze, foiled in his attempts at using
violence, and disconcerted by the patristic learning of one whom
he had taken to be a mere connoisseur in art and writer of plays
for the theatre, concluded that discretion was the surest kind of
valour, and desisted from further attacks.

Lessing's triumph came opportunely; for already the ministry of
Brunswick had not only confiscated the Fragments, but had
prohibited him from publishing anything more on the subject
without first obtaining express authority to do so. His last
replies to Goetze were published at Hamburg; and as he held
himself in readiness to depart from Wolfenbuttel, he wrote to
several friends that he had conceived the design of a drama, with
which he would tear the theologians in pieces more than with a
dozen Fragments. "I will try and see," said he, "if they will let
me preach in peace from my old pulpit, the theatre." In this way
originated "Nathan the Wise." But it in no way answered to the
expectations either of Lessing's friends or of his enemies. Both
the one and the other expected to see the controversy with Goetze
carried on, developed, and generalized in the poem. They looked
for a satirical comedy, in which orthodoxy should be held up for
scathing ridicule, or at least for a direful tragedy, the moral
of which, like that of the great poem of Lucretius, should be

          "Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum."

Had Lessing produced such a poem, he would doubtless have
gratified his free-thinking friends and wreaked due literary
vengeance upon his theological persecutors. He would, perhaps,
have given articulate expression to the radicalism of his own
time, and, like Voltaire, might have constituted himself the
leader of the age, the incarnation of its most conspicuous
tendencies. But Lessing did nothing of the kind; and the
expectations formed of him by friends and enemies alike show how
little he was understood by either. "Nathan the Wise" was, as we
shall see, in the eighteenth century an entirely new phenomenon;
and its author was the pioneer of a quite new religious
philosophy.

Reimarus, the able author of the Fragments, in his attack upon
the evidences of revealed religion, had taken the same ground as
Voltaire and the old English deists. And when we have said this,
we have sufficiently defined his position, for the tenets of the
deists are at the present day pretty well known, and are,
moreover, of very little vital importance, having long since been
supplanted by a more just and comprehensive philosophy. Reimarus
accepted neither miracles nor revelation; but in accordance with
the rudimentary state of criticism in his time, he admitted the
historical character of the earliest Christian records, and was
thus driven to the conclusion that those writings must have been
fraudulently composed. How such a set of impostors as the
apostles must on this hypothesis have been, should have succeeded
in inspiring large numbers of their contemporaries with higher
and grander religious notions than had ever before been
conceived; how they should have laid the foundations of a
theological system destined to hold together the most enlightened
and progressive portion of human society for seventeen or
eighteen centuries,--does not seem to have entered his mind.
Against such attacks as this, orthodoxy was comparatively safe;
for whatever doubt might be thrown upon some of its leading
dogmas, the system as a whole was more consistent and rational
than any of the theories which were endeavouring to supplant it.
And the fact that nearly all the great thinkers of the eighteenth
century adopted this deistic hypothesis, shows, more than
anything else, the crudeness of their psychological knowledge,
and their utter lack of what is called "the historical sense."

Lessing at once saw the weak point in Reimarus's argument, but
his method of disposing of it differed signally from that adopted
by his orthodox contemporaries. The more advanced German
theologians of that day, while accepting the New Testament
records as literally historical, were disposed to rationalize the
accounts of miracles contained in them, in such a way as to get
rid of any presumed infractions of the laws of nature. This
method of exegesis, which reached its perfection in Paulus, is
too well known to need describing. Its unsatisfactory character
was clearly shown, thirty years ago, by Strauss, and it is now
generally abandoned, though some traces of it may still be seen
in the recent works of Renan. Lessing steadily avoided this
method of interpretation. He had studied Spinoza to some purpose,
and the outlines of Biblical criticism laid down by that
remarkable thinker Lessing developed into a system wonderfully
like that now adopted by the Tubingen school. The cardinal
results which Baur has reached within the past generation were
nearly all hinted at by Lessing, in his commentaries on the
Fragments. The distinction between the first three, or synoptic
gospels, and the fourth, the later age of the fourth, and the
method of composition of the first three, from earlier documents
and from oral tradition, are all clearly laid down by him. The
distinct points of view from which the four accounts were
composed, are also indicated,--the Judaizing disposition of
"Matthew," the Pauline sympathies of "Luke," the compromising or
Petrine tendencies of "Mark," and the advanced Hellenic character
of "John." Those best acquainted with the results of modern
criticism in Germany will perhaps be most surprised at finding
such speculations in a book written many years before either
Strauss or Baur were born.

But such results, as might have been expected, did not satisfy
the pastor Goetze or the public which sympathized with him. The
valiant pastor unhesitatingly declared that he read the
objections which Lessing opposed to the Fragmentist with more
horror and disgust than the Fragments themselves; and in the
teeth of the printed comments he declared that the editor was
craftily upholding his author in his deistical assault upon
Christian theology. The accusation was unjust, because untrue.
There could be no genuine cooperation between a mere iconoclast
like Reimarus, and a constructive critic like Lessing. But the
confusion was not an unnatural one on Goetze's part, and I cannot
agree with M. Fontanes in taking it as convincing proof of the
pastor's wrong-headed perversity. It appears to me that Goetze
interpreted Lessing's position quite as accurately as M.
Fontanes. The latter writer thinks that Lessing was a Christian
of the liberal school since represented by Theodore Parker in
this country and by M. Reville in France; that his real object
was to defend and strengthen the Christian religion by relieving
it of those peculiar doctrines which to the freethinkers of his
time were a stumbling-block and an offence. And, in spite of
Lessing's own declarations, he endeavours to show that he was an
ordinary theist,--a follower of Leibnitz rather than of Spinoza.
But I do not think he has made out his case. Lessing's own
confession to Jacobi is unequivocal enough, and cannot well be
argued away. In that remarkable conversation, held toward the
close of his life, he indicates clearly enough that his faith was
neither that of the ordinary theist, the atheist, nor the
pantheist, but that his religious theory of the universe was
identical with that suggested by Spinoza, adopted by Goethe, and
recently elaborated in the first part of the "First Principles"
of Mr. Herbert Spencer. Moreover, while Lessing cannot be
considered an antagonist of Christianity, neither did he assume
the attitude of a defender. He remained outside the theological
arena; looking at theological questions from the point of view of
a layman, or rather, as M. Cherbuliez has happily expressed it,
of a Pagan. His mind was of decidedly antique structure. He had
the virtues of paganism: its sanity, its calmness, and its
probity; but of the tenderness of Christianity, and its
quenchless aspirations after an indefinable ideal, of that
feeling which has incarnated itself in Gothic cathedrals, masses
and oratorios, he exhibited but scanty traces. His intellect was
above all things self-consistent and incorruptible. He had that
imperial good-sense which might have formed the ideal alike of
Horace and of Epictetus. No clandestine preference for certain
conclusions could make his reason swerve from the straight paths
of logic. And he examined and rejected the conclusions of
Reimarus in the same imperturbable spirit with which he examined
and rejected the current theories of the French classic drama.

Such a man can have had but little in common with a preacher like
Theodore Parker, or with a writer like M. Fontanes, whose whole
book is a noble specimen of lofty Christian eloquence. His
attribute was light, not warmth. He scrutinized, but did not
attack or defend. He recognized the transcendent merits of the
Christian faith, but made no attempt to reinstate it where it had
seemed to suffer shock. It was therefore with the surest of
instincts, with that same instinct of self-preservation which had
once led the Church to anathematize Galileo, that Goetze.
proclaimed Lessing a more dangerous foe to orthodoxy than the
deists who had preceded him. Controversy, he doubtless thought,
may be kept up indefinitely, and blows given and returned
forever; but before the steady gaze of that scrutinizing eye
which one of us shall find himself able to stand erect? It has
become fashionable to heap blame and ridicule upon those who
violently defend an antiquated order of things; and Goetze has
received at the hands of posterity his full share of abuse. His
wrath contrasted unfavourably with Lessing's calmness; and it was
his misfortune to have taken up arms against an opponent who
always knew how to keep the laugh upon his own side. For my own
part I am constrained to admire the militant pastor, as Lessing
himself admired him. From an artistic point of view he is not an
uninteresting figure to contemplate. And although his attempts to
awaken persecution were reprehensible, yet his ardour in
defending what he believed to be vital truth is none the less to
be respected. He had the acuteness to see that Lessing's
refutation of deism did not make him a Christian, while the new
views proposed as a substitute for those of Reimarus were such as
Goetze and his age could in no wise comprehend.

Lessing's own views of dogmatic religion are to be found in his
work entitled, "The Education of the Human Race." These views
have since so far become the veriest commonplaces of criticism,
that one can hardly realize that, only ninety years ago, they
should have been regarded as dangerous paradoxes. They may be
summed up in the statement that all great religions are good in
their time and place; that, "as there is a soul of goodness in
things evil, so also there is a soul of truth in things
erroneous." According to Lessing, the successive phases of
religious belief constitute epochs in the mental evolution of the
human race. So that the crudest forms of theology, even
fetishism, now to all appearance so utterly revolting, and
polytheism, so completely inadequate, have once been the best,
the natural and inevitable results of man's reasoning powers and
appliances for attaining truth. The mere fact that a system of
religious thought has received the willing allegiance of large
masses of men shows that it must have supplied some consciously
felt want, some moral or intellectual craving. And the mere fact
that knowledge and morality are progressive implies that each
successive system may in due course of time be essentially
modified or finally supplanted. The absence of any reference to a
future state of retribution, in the Pentateuch and generally in
the sacred writings of the Jews, and the continual appeal to
hopes and fears of a worldly character, have been pronounced by
deists an irremediable defect in the Jewish religion. It is
precisely this, however, says Lessing, which constitutes one of
its signal excellences. "That thy days may be long in the land
which Jehovah thy God giveth thee," was an appeal which the
uncivilized Jew could understand, and which could arouse him to
action; while the need of a future world, to rectify the
injustices of this, not yet being felt, the doctrine would have
been of but little service. But in later Hebrew literature, many
magnificent passages revealed the despair felt by prophet and
thinker over the insoluble problem presented by the evil fate of
the good and the triumphant success of the wicked; and a solution
was sought in the doctrine of a Messianic kingdom, until
Christianity with its proclamation of a future life set the
question entirely aside. By its appeal to what has been aptly
termed "other-worldliness," Christianity immeasurably intensified
human responsibility, besides rendering clearer its nature and
limits. But according to Lessing, yet another step remains to be
taken; and here we come upon the gulf which separates him from
men of the stamp of Theodore Parker. For, says Lessing, the
appeal to unearthly rewards and punishments is after all an
appeal to our lower feelings; other-worldliness is but a refined
selfishness; and we are to cherish virtue for its own sake not
because it will lead us to heaven. Here is the grand principle of
Stoicism. Lessing believed, with Mr. Mill, that the less we think
about getting rewarded either on earth or in heaven the better.
He was cast in the same heroic mould as Muhamad Efendi, who when
led to the stake exclaimed: "Though I have no hope of recompense
hereafter, yet the love of truth constraineth me to die in its
defence!"

With the truth or completeness of these views of Lessing we are
not here concerned; our business being not to expound our own
opinions, but to indicate as clearly as possible Lessing's
position. Those who are familiar with the general philosophical
spirit of the present age, as represented by writers otherwise so
different as Littre and Sainte-Beuve, will best appreciate the
power and originality of these speculations. Coming in the last
century, amid the crudities of deism, they made a well-defined
epoch. They inaugurated the historical method of criticism, and
they robbed the spirit of intolerance of its only philosophical
excuse for existing. Hitherto the orthodox had been intolerant
toward the philosophers because they considered them heretics;
and the philosophers had been intolerant toward the orthodox
because they considered them fools. To Voltaire it naturally
seemed that a man who could believe in the reality of miracles
must be what in French is expressively termed a sot. But
henceforth, to the disciple of Lessing, men of all shade of
opinion were but the representatives and exponents of different
phases in the general evolution of human intelligence, not
necessarily to be disliked or despised if they did not happen to
represent the maturest phase.

Religion, therefore, from this point of view, becomes clearly
demarcated from theology. It consists no longer in the mental
assent to certain prescribed formulas, but in the moral obedience
to the great rule of life; the great commandment laid down and
illustrated by the Founder of the Christian religion, and
concerning which the profoundest modern philosophy informs us
that the extent to which a society has learned to conform to it
is the test and gauge of the progress in civilization which that
society has achieved. The command "to love one another," to check
the barbarous impulses inherited from the pre-social state, while
giving free play to the beneficent impulses needful for the
ultimate attainment of social equilibrium,--or as Tennyson
phrases it, to "move upward, working out the beast, and letting
the ape and tiger die,"--was, in Lessing's view, the task set
before us by religion. The true religious feeling was thus, in
his opinion, what the author of "Ecce Homo" has finely termed
"the enthusiasm of humanity." And we shall find no better
language than that of the writer just mentioned, in which to
describe Lessing's conception of faith:--

"He who, when goodness is impressively put before him, exhibits
an instinctive loyalty to it, starts forward to take its side,
trusts himself to it, such a man has faith, and the root of the
matter is in such a man. He may have habits of vice, but the
loyal and faithful instinct in him will place him above many that
practice virtue. He may be rude in thought and character, but he
will unconsciously gravitate toward what is right. Other virtues
can scarcely thrive without a fine natural organization and a
happy training. But the most neglected and ungifted of men may
make a beginning with faith. Other virtues want civilization, a
certain amount of knowledge, a few books; but in half-brutal
countenances faith will light up a glimmer of nobleness. The
savage, who can do little else, can wonder and worship and
enthusiastically obey. He who cannot know what is right can know
that some one else knows; he who has no law may still have a
master; he who is incapable of justice may be capable of
fidelity; he who understands little may have his sins forgiven
because he loves much."

Such was Lessing's religion, so far as it can be ascertained from
the fragmentary writings which he has left on the subject.
Undoubtedly it lacked completeness. The opinions which we have
here set down, though constituting something more than a mere
theory of morality, certainly do not constitute a complete theory
of religion. Our valiant knight has examined but one side of the
shield,--the bright side, turned toward us, whose marvellous
inscriptions the human reason can by dint of unwearied effort
decipher. But the dark side, looking out upon infinity, and
covered with hieroglyphics the meaning of which we can never
know, he has quite forgotten to consider. Yet it is this side
which genuine religious feeling ever seeks to contemplate. It is
the consciousness that there is about us an omnipresent Power, in
which we live and move and have our being, eternally manifesting
itself throughout the whole range of natural phenomena, which has
ever disposed men to be religious, and lured them on in the vain
effort to construct adequate theological systems. We may, getting
rid of the last traces of fetishism, eliminate arbitrary volition
as much as we will or can. But there still remains the
consciousness of a divine Life in the universe, of a Power which
is beyond and above our comprehension, whose goings out and
comings in no man can follow. The more we know, the more we reach
out for that which we cannot know. And who can realize this so
vividly as the scientific philosopher? For our knowledge being,
according to the familiar comparison, like a brilliant sphere,
the more we increase it the greater becomes the number of
peripheral points at which we are confronted by the impenetrable
darkness beyond. I believe that this restless yearning,--vague
enough in the description, yet recognizable by all who, communing
with themselves or with nature, have felt it,--this constant
seeking for what cannot be found, this persistent knocking at
gates which, when opened, but reveal others yet to be passed,
constitutes an element which no adequate theory of religion can
overlook. But of this we find nothing in Lessing. With him all is
sunny, serene, and pagan. Not the dim aisle of a vast cathedral,
but the symmetrical portico of an antique temple, is the
worshipping-place into which he would lead us.

But if Lessing's theology must be considered imperfect, it is
none the less admirable as far as it goes. With its peculiar
doctrines of love and faith, it teaches a morality far higher
than any that Puritanism ever dreamed of. And with its theory of
development it cuts away every possible logical basis for
intolerance. It is this theology to which Lessing has given
concrete expression in his immortal poem of "Nathan."

The central idea of "Nathan" was suggested to Lessing by
Boccaccio's story of "The Three Rings," which is supposed to have
had a Jewish origin. Saladin, pretending to be inspired by a
sudden, imperious whim, such as is "not unbecoming in a Sultan,"
demands that Nathan shall answer him on the spur of the moment
which of the three great religions then known--Judaism,
Mohammedanism, Christianity--is adjudged by reason to be the true
one. For a moment the philosopher is in a quandary. If he does
not pronounce in favour of his own religion, Judaism, he
stultifies himself; but if he does not award the precedence to
Mohammedanism, he will apparently insult his sovereign. With true
Oriental tact he escapes from the dilemma by means of a parable.
There was once a man, says Nathan, who possessed a ring of
inestimable value. Not only was the stone which it contained
incomparably fine, but it possessed the marvellous property of
rendering its owner agreeable both to God and to men. The old man
bequeathed this ring to that one of his sons whom he loved the
most; and the son, in turn, made a similar disposition of it. So
that, passing from hand to hand, the ring finally came into the
possession of a father who loved his three sons equally well.
Unto which one should he leave it? To get rid of the perplexity,
he had two other rings made by a jeweller, exactly like the
original, and to each of his three sons he bequeathed one. Each
then thinking that he had obtained the true talisman, they began
violently to quarrel, and after long contention agreed to carry
their dispute before the judge. But the judge said: "Quarrelsome
fellows! You are all three of you cheated cheats. Your three
rings are alike counterfeit. For the genuine ring is lost, and to
conceal the loss, your father had made these three substitutes."
At this unexpected denouement the Sultan breaks out in
exclamations of delight; and it is interesting to learn that when
the play was brought upon the stage at Constantinople a few years
ago, the Turkish audience was similarly affected. There is in the
story that quiet, stealthy humour which is characteristic of many
mediaeval apologues, and in which Lessing himself loved to deal.
It is humour of the kind which hits the mark, and reveals the
truth. In a note upon this passage, Lessing himself said: "The
opinion of Nathan upon all positive religions has for a long time
been my own." Let him who has the genuine ring show it by making
himself loved of God and man. This is the central idea of the
poem. It is wholly unlike the iconoclasm of the deists, and,
coming in the eighteenth century, it was like a veritable
evangel.

"Nathan" was not brought out until three years after Lessing's
death, and it kept possession of the stage for but a short time.
In a dramatic point of view, it has hardly any merits. Whatever
plot there is in it is weak and improbable. The decisive
incidents seem to be brought in like the deus ex machina of the
later Greek drama. There is no movement, no action, no
development. The characters are poetically but not dramatically
conceived. Considered as a tragedy, "Nathan" would be weak;
considered as a comedy, it would be heavy. With full knowledge of
these circumstances, Lessing called it not a drama, but a
dramatic poem; and he might have called it still more accurately
a didactic poem, for the only feature which it has in common with
the drama is that the personages use the oratio directa.

"Nathan" is a didactic poem: it is not a mere philosophic
treatise written in verse, like the fragments of Xenophanes. Its
lessons are conveyed concretely and not abstractly; and its
characters are not mere lay figures, but living poetical
conceptions. Considered as a poem among classic German poems, it
must rank next to, though immeasurably below, Goethe's "Faust."

There are two contrasted kinds of genius, the poetical and the
philosophical; or, to speak yet more generally, the artistic and
the critical. The former is distinguished by a concrete, the
latter by an abstract, imagination. The former sees things
synthetically, in all their natural complexity; the latter pulls
things to pieces analytically, and scrutinizes their relations.
The former sees a tree in all its glory, where the latter sees an
exogen with a pair of cotyledons. The former sees wholes, where
the latter sees aggregates.

Corresponding with these two kinds of genius there are two
classes of artistic productions. When the critical genius writes
a poem or a novel, he constructs his plot and his characters in
conformity to some prearranged theory, or with a view to
illustrate some favourite doctrine. When he paints a picture, he
first thinks how certain persons would look under certain given
circumstances, and paints them accordingly. When he writes a
piece of music, he first decides that this phrase expresses joy,
and that phrase disappointment, and the other phrase disgust, and
he composes accordingly. We therefore say ordinarily that he does
not create, but only constructs and combines. It is far different
with the artistic genius, who, without stopping to think, sees
the picture and hears the symphony with the eyes and ears of
imagination, and paints and plays merely what he has seen and
heard. When Dante, in imagination, arrived at the lowest circle
of hell, where traitors like Judas and Brutus are punished, he
came upon a terrible frozen lake, which, he says,--

     "Ever makes me shudder at the sight of frozen pools."

I have always considered this line a marvellous instance of the
intensity of Dante's imagination. It shows, too, how Dante
composed his poem. He did not take counsel of himself and say:
"Go to, let us describe the traitors frozen up to their necks in
a dismal lake, for that will be most terrible." But the picture
of the lake, in all its iciness, with the haggard faces staring
out from its glassy crust, came unbidden before his mind with
such intense reality that, for the rest of his life, he could not
look at a frozen pool without a shudder of horror. He described
it exactly as he saw it; and his description makes us shudder who
read it after all the centuries that have intervened. So Michael
Angelo, a kindred genius, did not keep cutting and chipping away,
thinking how Moses ought to look, and what sort of a nose he
ought to have, and in what position his head might best rest upon
his shoulders. But, he looked at the rectangular block of Carrara
marble, and beholding Moses grand and lifelike within it, knocked
away the environing stone, that others also might see the mighty
figure. And so Beethoven, an artist of the same colossal order,
wrote out for us those mysterious harmonies which his ear had for
the first time heard; and which, in his mournful old age, it
heard none the less plainly because of its complete physical
deafness. And in this way Shakespeare wrote his "Othello";
spinning out no abstract thoughts about jealousy and its fearful
effects upon a proud and ardent nature, but revealing to us the
living concrete man, as his imperial imagination had
spontaneously fashioned him.

Modern psychology has demonstrated that this is the way in which
the creative artistic imagination proceeds. It has proved that a
vast portion of all our thinking goes on unconsciously; and that
the results may arise into consciousness piecemeal and gradually,
checking each other as they come; or that they may come all at
once, with all the completeness and definiteness of perceptions
presented from without. The former is the case with the critical,
and the latter with the artistic intellect. And this we recognize
imperfectly when we talk of a genius being "inspired." All of us
probably have these two kinds of imagination to a certain extent.
It is only given to a few supremely endowed persons like Goethe
to possess them both to an eminent degree. Perhaps of no other
man can it be said that he was a poet of the first order, and as
great a critic as poet.

It is therefore apt to be a barren criticism which studies the
works of creative geniuses in order to ascertain what theory lies
beneath them. How many systems of philosophy, how many subtle
speculations, have we not seen fathered upon Dante, Cervantes,
Shakespeare, and Goethe! Yet their works are, in a certain sense,
greater than any systems. They partake of the infinite complexity
and variety of nature, and no more than nature itself can they be
narrowed down to the limits of a precise formula.

Lessing was wont to disclaim the title of poet; but, as Goethe
said, his immortal works refute him. He had not only poetical,
but dramatic genius; and his "Emilia Galotti" has kept the stage
until to-day. Nevertheless, he knew well what he meant when he
said that he was more of a critic than a poet. His genius was
mainly of the critical order; and his great work, "Nathan the
Wise," was certainly constructed rather than created. It was
intended to convey a doctrine, and was carefully shaped for the
purpose. And when we have pronounced it the greatest of all poems
that have been written for a set purpose, and admit of being
expressed in a definite formula, we have classified it with
sufficient accuracy.

For an analysis of the characters in the poem, nothing can be
better than the essay by Kuno Fischer, appended to the present
volume. The work of translation has been admirably done; and
thanks are due to Miss Frothingham for her reproduction of this
beautiful poem.

      June, 1868.


VIII. HISTORICAL DIFFICULTIES.[29]

[29] Historical Difficulties and Contested Events. By Octave
Delepierre, LL. D., F. S. A., Secretary of Legation to the King
of the Belgians. 8vo. London: Murray. 1868.


History, says Sainte-Beuve, is in great part a set of fables
which people agree to believe in. And, on reading books like the
present, one certainly needs a good deal of that discipline
acquired by long familiarity with vexed historical questions, in
order to check the disposition to accept the great critic's
ironical remark in sober earnest. Much of what is currently
accredited as authentic history is in fact a mixture of flattery
and calumny, myth and fable. Yet in this set of fables, whatever
may have been the case in past times, people will no longer agree
to believe. During the present century the criticism of recorded
events has gone far toward assuming the developed and
systematized aspect of a science, and canons of belief have been
established. which it is not safe to disregard. Great
occurrences, such as the Trojan War and the Siege of Thebes, not
long ago faithfully described by all historians of Greece, have
been found to be part of the common mythical heritage of the
Aryan nations. Achilleus and Helena, Oidipous and Iokasta, Oinone
and Paris, have been discovered in India and again in
Scandinavia, and so on, until their nonentity has become the
legitimate inference from their very ubiquity. Legislators like
Romulus and Numa, inventors like Kadmos, have evaporated into
etymologies. Whole legions of heroes, dynasties of kings, and
adulteresses as many as Dante saw borne on the whirlwind, have
vanished from the face of history, and terrible has been the
havoc in the opening pages of our chronological tables. Nor is it
primitive history alone which has been thus metamorphosed.
Characters unduly exalted or defamed by party spirit are daily
being set before us in their true, or at least in a truer, light.
What Mr. Froude has done for Henry VIII. we know; and he might
have done more if he had not tried to do so much. Humpbacked
Richard turns out to have been one of the handsomest kings that
ever sat on the throne of England. Edward I., in his dealings
with Scotland, is seen to have been scrupulously just; while the
dignity of the patriot hero Wallace has been somewhat impaired.
Elizabeth is proved to have befriended the false Mary Stuart much
longer than was consistent with her personal safety. Eloquent
Cicero has been held up as an object of contempt; and even
weighty Tacitus has been said to owe much of his reputation to
his ability to give false testimony with a grave face. It has
lately been suspected that gloomy Tiberius, apart from his
gloominess, may have been rather a good fellow; not so licentious
as puritanical, not cruel so much as exceptionally merciful,--a
rare general, a sagacious statesman, and popular to boot with all
his subjects save the malignant oligarchy which he consistently
snubbed, and which took revenge on him by writing his life. And,
to crown all, even Catiline, abuser of our patience, seducer of
vestal nuns, and drinker of children's blood,--whose very name
suggests murder, incest, and robbery,--even Catiline has found an
able defender in Professor Beesly. It is claimed that Catiline
was a man of great abilities and average good character, a
well-calumniated leader of the Marian party which Caesar
afterwards led to victory, and that his famous plot for burning
Rome never existed save in the unscrupulous Ciceronian fancy. And
those who think it easy to refute these conclusions of Professor
Beesly had better set to work and try it. Such are a few of the
surprising questions opened by recent historical research; and in
the face of them the public is quite excusable if it declares
itself at a loss what to believe.

These, however, are cases in which criticism has at least made
some show of ascertaining the truth and detecting the causes of
the prevalent misconception. That men like Catiline and Tiberius
should have had their characters blackened is quite easily
explicable. President Johnson would have little better chance of
obtaining justice at the hands of posterity, if the most widely
read history of his administration should happen to be written by
a radical member of the Rump Congress. But the cases which Mr.
Delepierre invites us to contemplate are of a different
character. They come neither under the head of myths nor under
that of misrepresentations. Some of them are truly vexed
questions which it may perhaps always be impossible
satisfactorily to solve. Others may be dealt with more easily,
but afford no clew to the origin of the popularly received error.
Let us briefly examine a few of Mr. Delepierre's "difficulties."
And first, because simplest, we will take the case of the
Alexandrian Library.

Every one has heard how Amrou, after his conquest of Egypt, sent
to Caliph Omar to know what should be done with the Alexandrian
Library. "If the books agree with the Koran," said the Caliph,
"they are superfluous; if they contradict it, they are damnable;
in either case, destroy them." So the books were taken and used
to light the fires which heated water for the baths; and so vast
was the number that, used in this way, they lasted six months!
All this happened because John the Grammarian was over-anxious
enough to request that the books might be preserved, and thus
drew Amrou's attention to them. Great has been the obloquy poured
upon Omar for this piece of vandalism, and loud has been the
mourning over the treasures of ancient science and literature
supposed to have been irrecoverably lost in this ignominious
conflagration Theologians, Catholic and Protestant, have been
fond of quoting it as an instance of the hostility of
Mahometanism to knowledge, and we have even heard an edifying
sermon preached about it. On seeing the story put to such uses,
one feels sometimes like using the ad hominem argument, and
quoting the wholesale destruction of pagan libraries under
Valens, the burning of books by the Latin stormers of
Constantinople, the alleged annihilation of 100,000 volumes by
Genoese crusaders at Tripoli, the book-burning exploits of
Torquemada, the bonfire of 80,000 valuable Arabic manuscripts,
lighted up in the square of Granada by order of Cardinal Ximenes,
and the irreparable cremation of Aztec writings by the first
Christian bishops of Mexico. These examples, with perhaps others
which do not now occur to us, might be applied in just though
ungentle retort by Mahometan doctors. Yet the most direct
rejoinder would probably not occur to them: the Alexandrian
Library was NOT destroyed by the orders of Omar, and the whole
story is a figment!

The very pithiness of it, so characteristic of the excellent but
bigoted Omar, is enough to cast suspicion upon it. De Quincey
tells us that "if a saying has a proverbial fame, the probability
is that it was never said." How many amusing stories stand a
chance of going down to posterity as the inventions of President
Lincoln, of which, nevertheless, he is doubtless wholly innocent!
How characteristic was Caesar's reply to the frightened pilot!
Yet in all probability Caesar never made it.

Now for the evidence. Alexandria was captured by Armrou in 640.
The story of the burning of the library occurs for the first time
in the works of Abulpharagius, who flourished in 1264. Six
hundred years had elapsed. It is as if a story about the crusades
of Louis IX. were to be found for the first time in the writings
of Mr. Bancroft. The Byzantine historians were furiously angry
with the Saracens; why did they, one and all, neglect to mention
such an outrageous piece of vandalism? Their silence must be
considered quite conclusive. Moreover we know "that the caliphs
had forbidden under severe penalties the destruction" of Jewish
and Christian books, a circumstance wholly inconsistent with this
famous story. And finally, what a mediaeval recklessness of dates
is shown in lugging into the story John the Grammarian, who was
dead and in his grave when Alexandria was taken by Amrou!

But the chief item of proof remains to be mentioned. The Saracens
did not burn the library, because there was no library there for
them to burn! It had been destroyed just two hundred and fifty
years before by a rabble of monks, incited by the patriarch
Theophilus, who saw in such a vast collection of pagan literature
a perpetual insult and menace to religion. In the year 390 this
turbulent bigot sacked the temple of Serapis, where the books
were kept, and drove out the philosophers who lodged there. Of
this violent deed we have contemporary evidence, for Orosius
tells us that less than fifteen years afterwards, while passing
through Alexandria, he saw the empty shelves. This fact disposes
of the story.

Passing from Egypt to France, and from the seventh century to the
fifteenth, we meet with a much more difficult problem. That
Jeanne d'Arc was burnt at the stake, at Rouen, on the 30th of
May, 1431, and her bones and ashes thrown into the Seine, is
generally supposed to be as indisputable as any event in modern
history. Such is, however, hardly the case. Plausible evidence
has been brought to prove that Jeanne d'Arc was never burnt at
the stake, but lived to a ripe age, and was even happily married
to a nobleman of high rank and reputation. We shall abridge Mr.
Delepierre's statement of this curious case.

In the archives of Metz, Father Vignier discovered the following
remarkable entry: "In the year 1436, Messire Phlin Marcou was
Sheriff of Metz, and on the 20th day of May of the aforesaid year
came the maid Jeanne, who had been in France, to La Grange of
Ormes, near St. Prive, and was taken there to confer with any one
of the sieurs of Metz, and she called herself Claude; and on the
same day there came to see her there her two brothers, one of
whom was a knight, and was called Messire Pierre, and the other
'petit Jehan,' a squire, and they thought that she had been
burnt, but as soon as they saw her they recognized her and she
them. And on Monday, the 21st day of the said month, they took
their sister with them to Boquelon, and the sieur Nicole, being a
knight, gave her a stout stallion of the value of thirty francs,
and a pair of saddle-cloths; the sieur Aubert Boulle, a
riding-hood, the sieur Nicole Groguet, a sword; and the said
maiden mounted the said horse nimbly, and said several things to
the sieur Nicole by which he well understood that it was she who
had been in France; and she was recognized by many tokens to be
the maid Jeanne of France who escorted King Charles to Rheims,
and several declared that she had been burnt in Normandy, and she
spoke mostly in parables. She afterwards returned to the town of
Marnelle for the feast of Pentecost, and remained there about
three weeks, and then set off to go to Notre Dame d'Alliance. And
when she wished to leave, several of Metz went to see her at the
said Marnelle and gave her several jewels, and they knew well
that she was the maid Jeanne of France; and she then went to
Erlon, in the Duchy of Luxembourg, where she was thronged,....
and there was solemnized the marriage of Monsieur de Hermoise,
knight, and the said maid Jeanne, and afterwards the said sieur
Hermoise, with his wife, the Maid, came to live at Metz, in the
house the said sieur had, opposite St. Seglenne, and remained
there until it pleased them to depart."

This is surprising enough; but more remains behind. Dining
shortly afterwards with M. des Armoises, member of one of the
oldest families in Lorraine, Father Vignier was invited to look
over the family archives, that he might satisfy his curiosity
regarding certain ancestors of his host. And on looking over the
family register, what was his astonishment at finding a contract
of marriage between Robert des Armoises, Knight, and Jeanne
d'Arcy, the so-called Maid of Orleans!

In 1740, some time after these occurrences, there was found, in
the town hall of Orleans, a bill of one Jacques l'Argentier, of
the year 1436, in which mention is made of a small sum paid for
refreshments furnished to a messenger who had brought letters
from the Maid of Orleans, and of twelve livres given to Jean du
Lis, brother of Jeanne d'Arc, to help him pay the expenses of his
journey back to his sister. Then come two charges which we shall
translate literally. "To the sieur de Lis, 18th October, 1436,
for a journey which he made through the said city while on his
way to the Maid, who was then at Erlon in Luxembourg, and for
carrying letters from Jeanne the Maid to the King at Loicher,
where he was then staying, six livres." And again: "To Renard
Brune, 25th July, 1435, at evening, for paying the hire of a
messenger who was carrying letters from Jeanne the Maid, and was
on his way to William Beliers, bailiff of Troyes, two livres."

As no doubt has been thrown upon the genuineness of these
documents, it must be considered established that in 1436, five
years after the public execution at Rouen, a young woman,
believed to be the real Jeanne d'Arc, was alive in Lorraine and
was married to a M. Hermoises or Armoises. She may, of course,
have been an impostor; but in this case it is difficult to
believe that her brothers, Jean and Pierre, and the people of
Lorraine, where she was well known, would not have detected the
imposture at once. And that Jean du Lis, during a familiar
intercourse of at least several months, as indicated in the above
extracts, should have continued to mistake a stranger for his own
sister, with whom he had lived from childhood, seems a very
absurd supposition. Nor is it likely that an impostor would have
exposed herself to such a formidable test. If it had been a bold
charlatan who, taking advantage of the quite general belief, to
which we have ample testimony, that there was something more in
the execution at Rouen than was allowed to come to the surface,
had resolved to usurp for herself the honours due to the woman
who had saved France, she would hardly have gone at the outset to
a part of the country where the real Maid had spent nearly all
her life. Her instant detection and exposure, perhaps a
disgraceful punishment, would have been inevitable. But if this
person were the real Jeanne, escaped from prison or returning
from an exile dictated by prudence, what should she have done but
go straightway to the haunts of her childhood, where she might
meet once more her own friends and family?

But the account does not end here. M. Wallon, in his elaborate
history of Jeanne d'Arc, states that in 1436 the supposed Maid
visited France, and appears to have met some of the men-at-arms
with whom she had fought. In 1439 she came to Orleans, for in the
accounts of the town we read, "July 28, for ten pints of wine
presented to Jeanne des Armoises, 14 sous." And on the day of her
departure, the citizens of Orleans, by a special decree of the
town-council, presented her with 210 livres, "for the services
which she had rendered to the said city during the siege." At the
same time the annual ceremonies for the repose of her soul were,
quite naturally, suppressed. Now we may ask if it is at all
probable that the people of Orleans, who, ten years before,
during the siege, must have seen the Maid day after day, and to
whom her whole appearance must have been perfectly familiar,
would have been likely to show such attentions as these to an
impostor? "In 1440," says Mr. Delepierre, "the people so firmly
believed that Jeanne d'Arc was still alive, and that another had
been sacrificed in her place, that an adventuress who endeavoured
to pass herself off as the Maid of Orleans was ordered by the
government to be exposed before the public on the marble stone of
the palace hall, in order to prove that she was an impostor. Why
were not such measures taken against the real Maid of Orleans,
who is mentioned in so many public documents, and who took no
pains to hide herself?"

There is yet another document bearing on this case, drawn from
the accounts of the auditor of the Orleans estate, in the year
1444, which we will here translate. "An island on the River Loire
is restored to Pierre du Lis, knight, 'on account of the
supplication of the said Pierre, alleging that for the acquittal
of his debt of loyalty toward our Lord the King and M. the Duke
of Orleans, he left his country to come to the service of the
King and M. the Duke, accompanied by his sister, Jeanne the Maid,
with whom, down to the time of her departure, and since, unto the
present time, he has exposed his body and goods in the said
service, and in the King's wars, both in resisting the former
enemies of the kingdom who were besieging the town of Orleans,
and since then in divers enterprises,' &c., &c." Upon this Mr.
Delepierre justly remarks that the brother might have presented
his claims in a much stronger light, "if in 1444," instead of
saying 'up to the time of her departure,' he had brought forward
the martyrdom of his sister, as having been the means of saving
France from the yoke of England." The expression here cited and
italicized in the above translation, may indeed be held to refer
delicately to her death, but the particular French phrase
employed, "jusques a son absentement," apparently excludes such
an interpretation. The expression, on the other hand, might well
refer to Jeanne's departure for Lorraine, and her marriage, after
which there is no evidence that she returned to France, except
for brief visits. Thus a notable amount of evidence goes to show
that Jeanne was not put to death in 1431, as usually supposed,
but was alive, married, and flourishing in 1444. Upon this
supposition, certain alleged difficulties in the traditional
account are easily disposed of. Mr. Delepierre urges upon the
testimony of Perceval de Cagny, that at the execution in Rouen
"the victim's face was covered when walking to the stake, while
at the same time a spot had been chosen for the execution that
permitted the populace to have a good view. Why this
contradiction? A place is chosen to enable the people to see
everything, but the victim is carefully hidden from their sight."
Whether otherwise explicable or not, this fact is certainly
consistent with the hypothesis that some other victim was
secretly substituted for Jeanne by the English authorities.

We have thus far contented ourselves with presenting and
re-enforcing Mr. Delepierre's statement of the case. It is now
time to interpose a little criticism. We must examine our data
somewhat more closely, for vagueness of conception allows a
latitude to belief which accuracy of conception considerably
restricts.

On the hypothesis of her survival, where was Jeanne, and what was
she doing all the time from her capture before Compiegne, May 24,
1430, until her appearance at Metz, May 20, 1436? Mr. Delepierre
reminds us that the Duke of Bedford, regent of France for the
English king, died in 1435, and "that most probably Jeanne d'Arc
was released from prison after this event." Now this supposition
lands us in a fatally absurd conclusion. We are, in fact, asked
to believe that the English, while holding Jeanne fast in their
clutches, gratuitously went through the horrid farce of burning
some one else in her stead; and that, after having thus
inexplicably behaved, they further stultified themselves by
letting her go scot-free, that their foolishness might be duly
exposed and confuted. Such a theory is childish. If Jeanne d'Arc
ever survived the 30th May, 1431, it was because she escaped from
prison and succeeded in hiding herself until safer times. When
could she have done this? In a sortie from Compiegne, May 24,
1430, she was thrown from her horse by a Picard archer and taken
prisoner by the Bastard of Vendome, who sold her to John of
Luxembourg. John kept her in close custody at Beaulieu until
August. While there, she made two attempts to escape; first,
apparently, by running out through a door, when she was at once
caught by the guards; secondly, by jumping from a high window,
when the shock of the fall was so great that she lay insensible
on the ground until discovered. She was then removed to
Beaurevoir, where she remained until the beginning of November.
By this time, Philip "the Good," Duke of Burgundy, had made up
his mind to sell her to the English for 10,000 francs; and Jeanne
was accordingly taken to Arras, and thence to Cotoy, where she
was delivered to the English by Philip's officers. So far, all is
clear; but here it may be asked, WAS she really delivered to the
English, or did Philip, pocketing his 10,000 francs, cheat and
defraud his allies with a counterfeit Jeanne? Such crooked
dealing would have been in perfect keeping with his character.
Though a far more agreeable and gentlemanly person, he was almost
as consummate and artistic a rascal as his
great-great-great-grandson and namesake, Philip II. of Spain. His
duplicity was so unfathomable and his policy so obscure, that it
would be hardly safe to affirm a priori that he might not, for
reasons best known to himself, have played a double game with his
friend the Duke of Bedford. On this hypothesis, he would of
course keep Jeanne in close custody so long as there was any
reason for keeping his treachery secret. But in 1436, after the
death of Bedford and the final expulsion of the English from
France, no harm could come from setting her at liberty.

But as soon as we cease to reason a priori, this is seen to be,
after all, a lame hypothesis. No one can read the trial of Jeanne
at Rouen, the questions that were put to her and the answers
which she made, without being convinced that we are here dealing
with the genuine Maid and not with a substitute. The first step
of a counterfeit Jeanne would have naturally been to save herself
from the flames by revealing her true character. Moreover, among
the multitudes who saw her during her cruel trial, it is not
likely that none were acquainted with the true Jeanne's voice and
features. We must therefore conclude that Jeanne d'Arc was really
consigned to the tender mercies of the English. About the 21st of
November she was taken on horseback, strongly guarded, from Cotoy
to Rouen, where the trial began January 9, 1431. On the 21st of
February she appeared before the court; on the 13th of March she
was examined in the prison by an inquisitor; and on May 24, the
Thursday after Pentecost, upon a scaffold conspicuously placed in
the Cemetery of St. Ouen, she publicly recanted, abjuring her
"heresies" and asking the Church's pardon for her "witchcraft."
We may be sure that the Church dignitaries would not knowingly
have made such public display of a counterfeit Jeanne; nor could
they well have been deceived themselves under such circumstances.
It may indeed be said, to exhaust all possible suppositions, that
a young girl wonderfully similar in feature and voice to Jeanne
d'Arc was palmed off upon the English by Duke Philip, and
afterwards, on her trial, comported herself like the Maid,
trusting in this recantation to effect her release. But we
consider such an hypothesis extremely far-fetched, nor does it
accord with the events which immediately followed. It seems
hardly questionable that it was the real Jeanne who publicly
recanted on the 24th of May. This was only six days before the
execution. Four days after, on Monday the 28th, it was reported
that Jeanne had relapsed, that she had, in defiance of the
Church's prohibition, clothed herself in male attire, which had
been left in a convenient place by the authorities, expressly to
test her sincerity. On the next day but one, the woman purporting
to be the Maid of Orleans was led out, with her face carefully
covered, and burnt at the stake.

Here is the first combination of circumstances which bears a
suspicious look. It disposes of our Burgundy hypothesis, for a
false Jeanne, after recanting to secure her safety, would never
have stultified herself by such a barefaced relapse. But the true
Jeanne, after recanting, might certainly have escaped. Some
compassionate guard, who before would have scrupled to assist her
while under the ban of the Church, might have deemed himself
excusable for lending her his aid after she had been absolved.
Postulating, then, that Jeanne escaped from Rouen between the
24th and the 28th, how shall we explain what happened immediately
afterward?

The English feared Jeanne d'Arc as much as they hated her. She
had, by her mere presence at the head of the French army, turned
their apparent triumph into ignominious defeat. In those days the
true psychological explanation of such an event was by no means
obvious. While the French attributed the result to celestial
interposition in their behalf, the English, equally ready to
admit its supernatural character, considered the powers of hell
rather than those of heaven to have been the prime instigators.
In their eyes Jeanne was a witch, and it was at least their cue
to exhibit her as such. They might have put her to death when she
first reached Rouen. Some persons, indeed, went so far as to
advise that she should be sewed up in a sack and thrown at once
into the Seine; but this was not what the authorities wanted. The
whole elaborate trial, and the extorted recantation, were devised
for the purpose of demonstrating her to be a witch, and thus
destroying her credit with the common people. That they intended
afterwards to burn her cannot for an instant be doubted; that was
the only fit consummation for their evil work.

Now when, at the end of the week after Pentecost, the bishops and
inquisitors at Rouen learned, to their dismay, that their victim
had escaped, what were they to do? Confess that they had been
foiled, and create a panic in the army by the news that their
dreaded enemy was at liberty? Or boldly carry out their purposes
by a fictitious execution, trusting in the authority which
official statements always carry, and shrewdly foreseeing that,
after her recantation, the disgraced Maid would no more venture
to claim for herself the leadership of the French forces?
Clearly, the latter would have been the wiser course. We may
assume, then, that, by the afternoon of the 28th, the story of
the relapse was promulgated, as a suitable preparation for what
was to come; and that on the 30th the poor creature who had been
hastily chosen to figure as the condemned Maid was led out, with
face closely veiled, to perish by a slow fire in the old
market-place. Meanwhile the true Jeanne would have made her way,
doubtless, in what to her was the effectual disguise of a woman's
apparel, to some obscure place of safety, outside of doubtful
France and treacherous Burgundy, perhaps in Alsace or the Vosges.
Here she would remain, until the final expulsion of the English
and the conclusion of a treaty of peace in 1436 made it safe for
her to show herself; when she would naturally return to Lorraine
to seek her family.

The comparative obscurity in which she must have remained for the
rest of her life, otherwise quite inexplicable on any hypothesis
of her survival, is in harmony with the above-given explanation.
The ingratitude of King Charles towards the heroine who had won
him his crown is the subject of common historical remark. M.
Wallon insists upon the circumstance that, after her capture at
Compiegne, no attempts were made by the French Court to ransom
her or to liberate her by a bold coup de main. And when, at
Rouen, she appealed in the name of the Church to the Pope to
grant her a fair trial, not a single letter was written by the
Archbishop of Rheims, High Chancellor of France, to his
suffragan, the Bishop of Beauvais, demanding cognizance of the
proceedings. Nor did the King make any appeal to the Pope, to
prevent the consummation of the judicial murder. The Maid was
deliberately left to her fate. It is upon her enemies at court,
La Tremouille and Regnault de Chartres, that we must lay part of
the blame for this wicked negligence. But it is also probable
that the King, and especially his clerical advisers, were at
times almost disposed to acquiesce in the theory of Jeanne's
witchcraft. Admire her as they might, they could not help feeling
that in her whole behaviour there was something uncanny; and,
after having reaped the benefits of her assistance, they were
content to let her shift for herself. This affords the clew to
the King's inconsistencies. It may be thought sufficient to
explain the fact that Jeanne is said to have received public
testimonials at Orleans, while we have no reason to suppose that
she visited Paris. It may help to dispose of the objection that
she virtually disappears from history after the date of the
tragedy at Rouen.

Nevertheless, this last objection is a weighty one, and cannot
easily be got rid of. It appears to me utterly incredible that,
if Jeanne d'Arc had really survived, we should find no further
mention of her than such as haply occurs in one or two
town-records and dilapidated account-books. If she was alive in
1436, and corresponding with the King, some of her friends at
court must have got an inkling of the true state of things. Why
did they not parade their knowledge, to the manifest discomfiture
of La Tremouille and his company? Or why did not Pierre du Lis
cause it to be proclaimed that the English were liars, his sister
being safely housed in Metz?

In the mere interests of historical criticism, we have said all
that we could in behalf of Mr. Delepierre's hypothesis. But as to
the facts upon which it rests, we may remark, in the first place,
that the surname Arc or "Bow" was not uncommon in those days,
while the Christian name Jeanne was and now is the very commonest
of French names. There might have been a hundred Jeanne d'Arcs,
all definable as pucelle or maid, just as we say "spinster": we
even read of one in the time of the Revolution. We have,
therefore, no doubt that Robert des Hermoises married a Jeanne
d'Arc, who may also have been a maid of Orleans; but this does
not prove her to have been the historic Jeanne. Secondly, as to
the covering of the face, we may mention the fact, hitherto
withheld, that it was by no means an uncommon circumstance: the
victims of the Spanish Inquisition were usually led to the stake
with veiled faces. Thirdly, the phrase "jusques a son
absentement" is hopelessly ambiguous, and may as well refer to
Pierre du Lis himself as to his sister.

These brief considerations seem to knock away all the main props
of Mr. Delepierre's hypothesis, save that furnished by the
apparent testimony of Jeanne's brothers, given at second hand in
the Metz archives. And those who are familiar with the phenomena
of mediaeval delusions will be unwilling to draw too hasty an
inference from this alone. From the Emperor Nero to Don Sebastian
of Portugal, there have been many instances of the supposed
reappearance of persons generally believed to be dead. For my own
part, therefore, I am by no means inclined to adopt the
hypothesis of Jeanne's survival, although I have endeavoured to
give it tangible shape and plausible consistency. But the fact
that so much can be said in behalf of a theory running counter
not only to universal tradition, but also to such a vast body of
contemporaneous testimony, should teach us to be circumspect in
holding our opinions, and charitable in our treatment of those
who dissent from them. For those who can discover in the
historian Renan and the critic Strauss nothing but the
malevolence of incredulity, the case of Jeanne d'Arc, duly
contemplated, may serve as a wholesome lesson.

We have devoted so much space to this problem, by far the most
considerable of those treated in Mr. Delepierre's book, that we
have hardly room for any of the others. But a false legend
concerning Solomon de Caus, the supposed original inventor of the
steam-engine, is so instructive that we must give a brief account
of it.

In 1834 "there appeared in the Musee des Familles a letter from
the celebrated Marion Delorme, supposed to have been written on
the 3d February, 1641, to her lover Cinq-Mars." In this letter it
is stated that De Caus came four years ago [1637] from Normandy,
to inform the King concerning a marvellous invention which he had
made, being nothing less than the application of steam to the
propulsion of carriages. "The Cardinal [Richelieu] dismissed this
fool without giving him a hearing." But De Caus, nowise
discouraged, followed close upon the autocrat's heels wherever he
went, and so teased him, that the Cardinal, out of patience, sent
him off to a madhouse, where he passed the remainder of his days
behind a grated window, proclaiming his invention to the
passengers in the street, and calling upon them to release him.
Marion gives a graphic account of her visit, accompanied by the
famous Lord Worcester, to the asylum at Bicetre, where they saw
De Caus at his window; and Worcester, in whose mind the
conception of the steam-engine was already taking shape, informed
her that the raving prisoner was not a madman, but a genius. A
great stir was made by this letter. The anecdote was copied into
standard works, and represented in engravings. Yet it was a
complete hoax. De Caus was not only never confined in a madhouse,
but he was architect to Louis XIII. up to the time of his death,
in 1630, just eleven years BEFORE Marion Delorme was said to have
seen him at his grated window!

"On tracing this hoax to its source," says Mr. Delepierre, "we
find that M. Henri Berthoud, a literary man of some repute, and a
constant contributor to the Musee des Familles, confesses that
the letter attributed to Marion was in fact written by himself.
The editor of this journal had requested Gavarni to furnish him
with a drawing for a tale in which a madman was introduced
looking through the bars of his cell. The drawing was executed
and engraved, but arrived too late; and the tale, which could not
wait, appeared without the illustration. However, as the
wood-engraving was effective, and, moreover, was paid for, the
editor was unwilling that it should be useless. Berthoud was,
therefore, commissioned to look for a subject and to invent a
story to which the engraving might be applied. Strangely enough,
the world refused to believe in M. Berthoud's confession, so
great a hold had the anecdote taken on the public mind; and a
Paris newspaper went so far even as to declare that the original
autograph of this letter was to be seen in a library in Normandy!
M. Berthoud wrote again, denying its existence, and offered a
million francs to any one who would produce the said letter."

From this we may learn two lessons, the first being that utterly
baseless but plausible stories may arise in queer ways. In the
above case, the most far-fetched hypothesis to account for the
origin of the legend could hardly have been as apparently
improbable as the reality. Secondly, we may learn that if a myth
once gets into the popular mind, it is next to impossible to get
it out again. In the Castle of Heidelberg there is a portrait of
De Caus, and a folio volume of his works, accompanied by a note,
in which this letter of Marion Delorme is unsuspectingly cited as
genuine. And only three years ago, at a public banquet at
Limoges, a well-known French Senator and man of letters made a
speech, in which he retailed the story of the madhouse for the
edification of his hearers. Truly a popular error has as many
lives as a cat; it comes walking in long after you have imagined
it effectually strangled.

In conclusion, we may remark that Mr. Delepierre does very scant
justice to many of the interesting questions which he discusses.
It is to be regretted that he has not thought it worth while to
argue his points more thoroughly, and that he has not been more
careful in making statements of fact. He sometimes makes strange
blunders, the worst of which, perhaps, is contained in his
article on Petrarch and Laura. He thinks Laura was merely a
poetical allegory, and such was the case, he goes on to say,
"with Dante himself, whose Beatrice was a child who died at nine
years of age." Dante's Beatrice died on the 9th of June, 1290, at
the age of twenty-four, having been the wife of Simone dei Bardi
rather more than three years.

     October, 1868.



IX. THE FAMINE OF 1770 IN BENGAL.[30]

[30] The Annals of Rural Bengal. By W. W. Hunter. Vol. I. The
Ethnical Frontier of Lower Bengal, with the Ancient
Principalities of Beerbhoom and Bishenpore. Second Edition. New
York: Leypoldt and Holt. 1868. 8vo., pp. xvi., 475.

No intelligent reader can advance fifty pages in this volume
without becoming aware that he has got hold of a very remarkable
book. Mr. Hunter's style, to begin with, is such as is written
only by men of large calibre and high culture. No words are
wasted. The narrative flows calmly and powerfully along, like a
geometrical demonstration, omitting nothing which is significant,
admitting nothing which is irrelevant, glowing with all the
warmth of rich imagination and sympathetic genius, yet never
allowing any overt manifestation of feeling, ever concealing the
author's personality beneath the unswerving exposition of the
subject-matter. That highest art, which conceals art, Mr. Hunter
appears to have learned well. With him, the curtain is the
picture.

Such a style as this would suffice to make any book interesting,
in spite of the remoteness of the subject. But the "Annals of
Rural Bengal" do not concern us so remotely as one might at first
imagine. The phenomena of the moral and industrial growth or
stagnation of a highly-endowed people must ever possess the
interest of fascination for those who take heed of the maxim that
"history is philosophy teaching by example." National prosperity
depends upon circumstances sufficiently general to make the
experience of one country of great value to another, though
ignorant Bourbon dynasties and Rump Congresses refuse to learn
the lesson. It is of the intimate every-day life of rural Bengal
that Mr. Hunter treats. He does not, like old historians, try our
patience with a bead-roll of names that have earned no just title
to remembrance, or dazzle us with a bountiful display of
"barbaric pearls and gold," or lead us in the gondolas of
Buddhist kings down sacred rivers, amid "a summer fanned with
spice"; but he describes the labours and the sufferings, the
mishaps and the good fortune, of thirty millions of people, who,
however dusky may be their hue, tanned by the tropical suns of
fifty centuries, are nevertheless members of the imperial Aryan
race, descended from the cool highlands eastward of the Caspian,
where, long before the beginning of recorded history, their
ancestors and those of the Anglo-American were indistinguishably
united in the same primitive community.

The narrative portion of the present volume is concerned mainly
with the social and economical disorganization wrought by the
great famine of 1770, and with the attempts of the English
government to remedy the same. The remainder of the book is
occupied with inquiries into the ethnic character of the
population of Bengal, and particularly with an exposition of the
peculiarities of the language, religion, customs, and
institutions of the Santals, or hill-tribes of Beerbhoom. A few
remarks on the first of these topics may not be uninteresting.

Throughout the entire course of recorded European history, from
the remote times of which the Homeric poems preserve the dim
tradition down to the present moment, there has occurred no
calamity at once so sudden and of such appalling magnitude as the
famine which in the spring and summer of 1770 nearly exterminated
the ancient civilization of Bengal. It presents that aspect of
preternatural vastness which characterizes the continent of Asia
and all that concerns it. The Black Death of the fourteenth
century was, perhaps, the most fearful visitation which has ever
afflicted the Western world. But in the concentrated misery which
it occasioned the Bengal famine surpassed it, even as the
Himalayas dwarf by comparison the highest peaks of Switzerland.
It is, moreover, the key to the history of Bengal during the next
forty years; and as such, merits, from an economical point of
view, closer attention than it has hitherto received.

Lower Bengal gathers in three harvests each year; in the spring,
in the early autumn, and in December, the last being the great
rice-crop, the harvest on which the sustenance of the people
depends. Through the year 1769 there was great scarcity, owing to
the partial failure of the crops of 1768, but the spring rains
appeared to promise relief, and in spite of the warning appeals
of provincial officers, the government was slow to take alarm,
and continued rigorously to enforce the land-tax. But in
September the rains suddenly ceased. Throughout the autumn there
ruled a parching drought; and the rice-fields, according to the
description of a native superintendent of Bishenpore, "became
like fields of dried straw." Nevertheless, the government at
Calcutta made--with one lamentable exception, hereafter to be
noticed--no legislative attempt to meet the consequences of this
dangerous condition of things. The administration of local
affairs was still, at that date, intrusted to native officials.
The whole internal regulation was in the hands of the famous
Muhamad Reza Ehan. Hindu or Mussulman assessors pried into every
barn and shrewdly estimated the probable dimensions of the crops
on every field; and the courts, as well as the police, were still
in native hands. "These men," says our author, "knew the country,
its capabilities, its average yield, and its average
requirements, with an accuracy that the most painstaking English
official can seldom hope to attain to. They had a strong interest
in representing things to be worse than they were; for the more
intense the scarcity, the greater the merit in collecting the
land-tax. Every consultation is filled with their apprehensions
and highly-coloured accounts of the public distress; but it does
not appear that the conviction entered the minds of the Council
during the previous winter months, that the question was not so
much one of revenue as of depopulation." In fact, the local
officers had cried "Wolf!" too often. Government was slow to
believe them, and announced that nothing better could be expected
than the adoption of a generous policy toward those landholders
whom the loss of harvest had rendered unable to pay their
land-tax. But very few indulgences were granted, and the tax was
not diminished, but on the contrary was, in the month of April,
1770, increased by ten per cent for the following year. The
character of the Bengali people must also be taken into the
account in explaining this strange action on the part of the
government.

"From the first appearance of Lower Bengal in history, its
inhabitants have been reticent, self-contained, distrustful of
foreign observation, in a degree without parallel among other
equally civilized nations. The cause of this taciturnity will
afterwards be clearly explained; but no one who is acquainted
either with the past experiences or the present condition of the
people can be ignorant of its results. Local officials may write
alarming reports, but their apprehensions seem to be contradicted
by the apparent quiet that prevails. Outward, palpable proofs of
suffering are often wholly wanting; and even when, as in 1770,
such proofs abound, there is generally no lack of evidence on the
other side. The Bengali bears existence with a composure that
neither accident nor chance can ruffle. He becomes silently rich
or uncomplainingly poor. The emotional part of his nature is in
strict subjection, his resentment enduring but unspoken, his
gratitude of the sort that silently descends from generation to
generation. The. passion for privacy reaches its climax in the
domestic relations. An outer apartment, in even the humblest
households, is set apart for strangers and the transaction of
business, but everything behind it is a mystery. The most
intimate friend does not venture to make those commonplace kindly
inquiries about a neighbour's wife or daughter which European
courtesy demands from mere acquaintances. This family privacy is
maintained at any price. During the famine of 1866 it was found
impossible to render public charity available to the female
members of the respectable classes, and many a rural household
starved slowly to death without uttering a complaint or making a
sign.

"All through the stifling summer of 1770 the people went on
dying. The husbandmen sold their cattle; they sold their
implements of agriculture; they devoured their seed-grain; they
sold their sons and daughters, till at length no buyer of
children could be found; they ate the leaves of trees and the
grass of the field; and in June, 1770, the Resident at the Durbar
affirmed that the living were feeding on the dead. Day and night
a torrent of famished and disease-stricken wretches poured into
the great cities. At an early period of the year pestilence had
broken out. In March we find small-pox at Moorshedabad, where it
glided through the vice-regal mutes, and cut off the Prince Syfut
in his palace. The streets were blocked up with promiscuous heaps
of the dying and dead. Interment could not do its work quick
enough; even the dogs and jackals, the public scavengers of the
East, became unable to accomplish their revolting work, and the
multitude of mangled and festering corpses at length threatened
the existence of the citizens..... In 1770, the rainy season
brought relief, and before the end of September the province
reaped an abundant harvest. But the relief came too late to avert
depopulation. Starving and shelterless crowds crawled
despairingly from one deserted village to another in a vain
search for food, or a resting-place in which to hide themselves
from the rain. The epidemics incident to the season were thus
spread over the whole country; and, until the close of the year,
disease continued so prevalent as to form a subject of
communication from the government in Bengal to the Court of
Directors. Millions of famished wretches died in the struggle to
live through the few intervening weeks that separated them from
the harvest, their last gaze being probably fixed on the
densely-covered fields that would ripen only a little too late
for them..... Three months later, another bountiful harvest, the
great rice-crop of the year, was gathered in. Abundance returned
to Bengal as suddenly as famine had swooped down upon it, and in
reading some of the manuscript records of December it is
difficult to realize that the scenes of the preceding ten months
have not been hideous phantasmagoria or a long, troubled dream.
On Christmas eve, the Council in Calcutta wrote home to the Court
of Directors that the scarcity had entirely ceased, and,
incredible as it may seem, that unusual plenty had returned.....
So generous had been the harvest that the government proposed at
once to lay in its military stores for the ensuing year, and
expected to obtain them at a very cheap rate."

Such sudden transitions from the depths of misery to the most
exuberant plenty are by no means rare in the history of Asia,
where the various centres of civilization are, in an economical
sense, so isolated from each other that the welfare of the
population is nearly always absolutely dependent on the
irregular: and apparently capricious bounty of nature. For the
three years following the dreadful misery above described,
harvests of unprecedented abundance were gathered in. Yet how
inadequate they were to repair the fearful damage wrought by six
months of starvation, the history of the next quarter of a
century too plainly reveals. "Plenty had indeed returned," says
our annalist, "but it had returned to a silent and deserted
province." The extent of the depopulation is to our Western
imaginations almost incredible. During those six months of
horror, more than TEN MILLIONS of people had perished! It was as
if the entire population of our three or four largest
States--man, woman, and child--were to be utterly swept away
between now and next August, leaving the region between the
Hudson and Lake Michigan as quiet and deathlike as the buried
streets of Pompeii. Yet the estimate is based upon most accurate
and trustworthy official returns; and Mr. Hunter may well say
that "it represents an aggregate of individual suffering which no
European nation has been called upon to contemplate within
historic times."

This unparalleled calamity struck down impartially the rich and
the poor. The old, aristocratic families of Lower Bengal were
irretrievably ruined. The Rajah of Burdwan, whose possessions
were so vast that, travel as far as he would, he always slept
under a roof of his own and within his own jurisdiction, died in
such indigence that his son had to melt down the family plate and
beg a loan from the government in order to discharge his father's
funeral expenses. And our author gives other similar instances.
The wealthy natives who were appointed to assess and collect the
internal revenue, being unable to raise the sums required by the
government, were in many cases imprisoned, or their estates were
confiscated and re-let in order to discharge the debt.

For fifteen years the depopulation went on increasing. The
children in a community, requiring most nourishment to sustain
their activity, are those who soonest succumb to famine. "Until
1785," says our author, "the old died off without there being any
rising generation to step into their places." From lack of
cultivators, one third of the surface of Bengal fell out of
tillage and became waste land. The landed proprietors began each
"to entice away the tenants of his neighbour, by offering
protection against judicial proceedings, and farms at very low
rents." The disputes and deadly feuds which arose from this
practice were, perhaps, the least fatal of the evil results which
flowed from it. For the competition went on until, the tenants
obtaining their holdings at half-rates, the resident
cultivators--who had once been the wealthiest farmers in the
country--were no longer able to complete on such terms. They
began to sell, lease, or desert their property, migrating to less
afflicted regions, or flying to the hills on the frontier to
adopt a savage life. But, in a climate like that of Northeastern
India, it takes but little time to transform a tract of untilled
land into formidable wilderness. When the functions of society
are impeded, nature is swift to assert its claims. And
accordingly, in 1789, "Lord Cornwallis after three years'
vigilant inquiry, pronounced one third of the company's
territories in Bengal to be a jungle, inhabited only by wild
beasts."

On the Western frontier of Beerbhoom the state of affairs was,
perhaps, most calamitous. In 1776, four acres out of every seven
remained untilled. Though in earlier times this district had been
a favourite highway for armies, by the year 1780 it had become an
almost impassable jungle. A small company of Sepoys, which in
that year by heroic exertions forced its way through, was obliged
to traverse 120 miles of trackless forest, swarming with tigers
and black shaggy bears. In 1789 this jungle "continued so dense
as to shut off all communication between the two most important
towns, and to cause the mails to be carried by a circuit of fifty
miles through another district."

Such a state of things it is difficult for us to realize; but the
monotonous tale of disaster and suffering is not yet complete.
Beerbhoom was, to all intents and purposes, given over to tigers.
"A belt of jungle, filled with wild beasts, formed round each
village." At nightfall the hungry animals made their dreaded
incursions carrying away cattle, and even women and children, and
devouring them. "The official records frequently speak of the
mail-bag being carried off by wild beasts." So great was the
damage done by these depredations, that "the company offered a
reward for each tiger's head, sufficient to maintain a peasant's
family in comfort for three months; an item of expenditure it
deemed so necessary, that, when under extraordinary pressure it
had to suspend all payments, the tiger-money and diet allowance
for prisoners were the sole exceptions to the rule." Still more
formidable foes were found in the herds of wild elephants, which
came trooping along in the rear of the devastation caused by the
famine. In the course of a few years fifty-six villages were
reported as destroyed by elephants, and as having lapsed into
jungle in consequence; "and an official return states that forty
market-towns throughout the district had been deserted from the
same cause. In many parts of the country the peasantry did not
dare to sleep in their houses, lest they should be buried beneath
them during the night." These terrible beasts continued to infest
the province as late as 1810.

But society during these dark days had even worse enemies than
tigers and elephants. The barbarous highlanders, of a lower type
of mankind, nourishing for forty centuries a hatred of their
Hindu supplanters, like that which the Apache bears against the
white frontiersman, seized the occasion to renew their inroads
upon the lowland country. Year by year they descended from their
mountain fastnesses, plundering and burning. Many noble Hindu
families, ousted by the tax-collectors from their estates, began
to seek subsistence from robbery. Others, consulting their
selfish interests amid the general distress, "found it more
profitable to shelter banditti on their estates, levying
blackmail from the surrounding villages as the price of immunity
from depredation, and sharing in the plunder of such as would not
come to terms. Their country houses were robber strongholds, and
the early English administrators of Bengal have left it on record
that a gang-robbery never occurred without a landed proprietor
being at the bottom of it." The peasants were not slow to follow
suit, and those who were robbed of their winter's store had no
alternative left but to become robbers themselves. The thieveries
of the Fakeers, or religious mendicants, and the bold, though
stealthy attacks of Thugs and Dacoits--members of Masonic
brotherhoods, which at all times have lived by robbery and
assassination--added to the general turmoil. In the cold weather
of 1772 the province was ravaged far and wide by bands of armed
freebooters, fifty thousand strong; and to such a pass did things
arrive that the regular forces sent by Warren Hastings to
preserve order were twice disastrously routed; while, in Mr.
Hunter's graphic language, "villages high up the Ganges lived by
housebreaking in Calcutta." In English mansions "it was the
invariable practice for the porter to shut the outer door at the
commencement of each meal, and not to open it till the butler
brought him word that the plate was safely locked up." And for a
long time nearly all traffic ceased upon the imperial roads.

This state of things, which amounted to chronic civil war,
induced Lord Cornwallis in 1788 to place the province under the
direct military control of an English officer. The administration
of Mr. Keating--the first hardy gentleman to whom this arduous
office was assigned--is minutely described by our author. For our
present purpose it is enough to note that two years of severe
campaigning, attended and followed by relentless punishment of
all transgressors, was required to put an end to the disorders.

Such was the appalling misery, throughout a community of thirty
million persons, occasioned by the failure of the winter
rice-crop in 1769. In abridging Mr. Hunter's account we have
adhered as closely to our original as possible, but he who would
obtain adequate knowledge of this tale of woe must seek it in the
ever memorable description of the historian himself. The first
question which naturally occurs to the reader--though, as Mr.
Hunter observes, it would have been one of the last to occur to
the Oriental mind--is, Who was to blame? To what culpable
negligence was it due that such a dire calamity was not foreseen,
and at least partially warded off? We shall find reason to
believe that it could not have been adequately foreseen, and that
no legislative measures could in that state of society have
entirely prevented it. Yet it will appear that the government,
with the best of intentions, did all in its power to make matters
worse; and that to its blundering ignorance the distress which
followed is largely due.

The first duty incumbent upon the government in a case like that
of the failure of the winter rice-crop of 1769, was to do away
with all hindrance to the importation of food into the province.
One chief cause of the far-reaching distress wrought by great
Asiatic famines has been the almost complete commercial isolation
of Asiatic communities. In the Middle Ages the European
communities were also, though to a far less extent, isolated from
each other, and in those days periods of famine were
comparatively frequent and severe. And one of the chief causes
which now render the occurrence of a famine on a great scale
almost impossible in any part of the civilized world is the
increased commercial solidarity of civilized nations. Increased
facility of distribution has operated no less effectively than
improved methods of production.

Now, in 1770 the province of Lower Bengal was in a state of
almost complete commercial isolation from other communities.
Importation of food on an adequate scale was hardly possible. "A
single fact speaks volumes as to the isolation of each district.
An abundant harvest, we are repeatedly told, was as disastrous to
the revenues as a bad one; for, when a large quantity of grain
had to be carried to market, the cost of carriage swallowed up
the price obtained. Indeed, even if the means of
intercommunication and transport had rendered importation
practicable, the province had at that time no money to give in
exchange for food. Not only had its various divisions a separate
currency which would pass nowhere else except at a ruinous
exchange, but in that unfortunate year Bengal seems to have been
utterly drained of its specie..... The absence of the means of
importation was the more to be deplored, as the neighbouring
districts could easily have supplied grain. In the southeast a
fair harvest had been reaped, except, in circumscribed spots; and
we are assured that, during the famine, this part of Bengal was
enabled to export without having to complain of any deficiency in
consequence..... INDEED, NO MATTER HOW LOCAL A FAMINE MIGHT BE IN
THE LAST CENTURY, THE EFFECTS WERE EQUALLY DISASTROUS. Sylhet, a
district in the northeast of Bengal, had reaped unusually
plentiful harvests in 1780 and 1781, but the next crop was
destroyed by a local inundation, and, notwithstanding the
facilities for importation afforded by water-carriage, one third
of the people died."

Here we have a vivid representation of the economic condition of
a society which, however highly civilized in many important
respects, still retained, at the epoch treated of, its aboriginal
type of organization. Here we see each community brought face to
face with the impossible task of supplying, unaided, the
deficiencies of nature. We see one petty district a prey to the
most frightful destitution, even while profuse plenty reigns in
the districts round about it. We find an almost complete absence
of the commercial machinery which, by enabling the starving
region to be fed out of the surplus of more favoured localities,
has in the most advanced countries rendered a great famine
practically impossible.

Now this state of things the government of 1770 was indeed
powerless to remedy. Legislative power and wisdom could not
anticipate the invention of railroads; nor could it introduce
throughout the length and breadth of Bengal a system of coaches,
canals, and caravans; nor could it all at once do away with the
time-honoured brigandage, which increased the cost of transport
by decreasing the security of it; nor could it in a trice remove
the curse of a heterogeneous coinage. None, save those
uninstructed agitators who believe that governments can make
water run up-hill, would be disposed to find fault with the
authorities in Bengal for failing to cope with these
difficulties. But what we are to blame them for--though it was an
error of the judgment and not of the intentions--is their
mischievous interference with the natural course of trade, by
which, instead of helping matters, they but added another to the
many powerful causes which were conspiring to bring about the
economic ruin of Bengal. We refer to the act which in 1770
prohibited under penalties all speculation in rice.

This disastrous piece of legislation was due to the universal
prevalence of a prejudice from which so-called enlightened
communities are not yet wholly free. It is even now customary to
heap abuse upon those persons who in a season of scarcity, when
prices are rapidly rising, buy up the "necessaries of life,"
thereby still increasing for a time the cost of living. Such
persons are commonly assailed with specious generalities to the
effect that they are enemies of society. People whose only ideas
are "moral ideas" regard them as heartless sharpers who fatten
upon the misery of their fellow-creatures. And it is sometimes
hinted that such "practices" ought to be stopped by legislation.

Now, so far is this prejudice, which is a very old one, from
being justified by facts, that, instead of being an evil,
speculation in breadstuffs and other necessaries is one of the
chief agencies by which in modern times and civilized countries a
real famine is rendered almost impossible. This natural monopoly
operates in two ways. In the first place, by raising prices, it
checks consumption, putting every one on shorter allowance until
the season of scarcity is over, and thus prevents the scarcity
from growing into famine. In the second place, by raising prices,
it stimulates importation from those localities where abundance
reigns and prices are low. It thus in the long run does much to
equalize the pressure of a time of dearth and diminish those
extreme oscillations of prices which interfere with the even,
healthy course of trade. A government which, in a season of high
prices, does anything to check such speculation, acts about as
sagely as the skipper of a wrecked vessel who should refuse to
put his crew upon half rations.

The turning-point of the great Dutch Revolution, so far as it
concerned the provinces which now constitute Belgium, was the
famous siege and capture of Antwerp by Alexander Farnese, Duke of
Parma. The siege was a long one, and the resistance obstinate,
and the city would probably not have been captured if famine had
not come to the assistance of the besiegers. It is interesting,
therefore, to inquire what steps the civic authorities had taken
to prevent such a calamity. They knew that the struggle before
them was likely to be the life-and-death struggle of the Southern
Netherlands; they knew that there was risk of their being
surrounded so that relief from without would be impossible; they
knew that their assailant was one of the most astute and
unconquerable of men, by far the greatest general of the
sixteenth century. Therefore they proceeded to do just what our
Republican Congress, under such circumstances, would probably
have done, and just what the New York Tribune, if it had existed
in those days, would have advised them to do. Finding that sundry
speculators were accumulating and hoarding up provisions in
anticipation of a season of high prices, they hastily decided,
first of all to put a stop to such "selfish iniquity." In their
eyes the great thing to be done was to make things cheap. They
therefore affixed a very low maximum price to everything which
could be eaten, and prescribed severe penalties for all who
should attempt to take more than the sum by law decreed. If a
baker refused to sell his bread for a price which would have been
adequate only in a time of great plenty, his shop was to be
broken open, and his loaves distributed among the populace. The
consequences of this idiotic policy were twofold.

In the first place, the enforced lowness of prices prevented any
breadstuffs or other provisions from being brought into the city.
It was a long time before Farnese succeeded in so blockading the
Scheldt as to prevent ships laden with eatables from coming in
below. Corn and preserved meats might have been hurried by
thousands of tons into the beleaguered city. Friendly Dutch
vessels, freighted with abundance, were waiting at the mouth of
the river. But all to no purpose. No merchant would expose his
valuable ship, with its cargo, to the risk of being sunk by
Farnese's batteries, merely for the sake of finding a market no
better than a hundred others which could be entered without
incurring danger. No doubt if the merchants of Holland had
followed out the maxim Vivre pour autrui, they would have braved
ruin and destruction rather than behold their neighbours of
Antwerp enslaved. No doubt if they could have risen to a broad
philosophic view of the future interests of the Netherlands, they
would have seen that Antwerp must be saved, no matter if some of
them were to lose money by it. But men do not yet sacrifice
themselves for their fellows, nor do they as a rule look far
beyond the present moment and its emergencies. And the business
of government is to legislate for men as they are, not as it is
supposed they ought to be. If provisions had brought a high price
in Antwerp, they would have been carried thither. As it was, the
city, by its own stupidity, blockaded itself far more effectually
than Farnese could have done it.

In the second place, the enforced lowness of prices prevented any
general retrenchment on the part of the citizens. Nobody felt it
necessary to economize. Every one bought as much bread, and ate
it as freely, as if the government by insuring its cheapness had
insured its abundance. So the city lived in high spirits and in
gleeful defiance of its besiegers, until all at once provisions
gave out, and the government had to step in again to palliate the
distress which it had wrought. It constituted itself
quartermaster-general to the community, and doled out stinted
rations alike to rich and poor, with that stern democratic
impartiality peculiar to times of mortal peril. But this served
only, like most artificial palliatives, to lengthen out the
misery. At the time of the surrender, not a loaf of bread could
be obtained for love or money.

In this way a bungling act of legislation helped to decide for
the worse a campaign which involved the territorial integrity and
future welfare of what might have become a great nation
performing a valuable function in the system of European
communities.

The striking character of this instructive example must be our
excuse for presenting it at such length. At the beginning of the
famine in Bengal the authorities legislated in very much the same
spirit as the burghers who had to defend Antwerp against Parma.

"By interdicting what it was pleased to term the monopoly of
grain, it prevented prices from rising at once to their natural
rates. The Province had a certain amount of food in it, and this
food had to last about nine months. Private enterprise if left to
itself would have stored up the general supply at the harvest,
with a view to realizing a larger profit at a later period in the
scarcity. Prices would in consequence have immediately risen,
compelling the population to reduce their consumption from the
very beginning of the dearth. The general stock would thus have
been husbanded, and the pressure equally spread over the whole
nine months, instead of being concentrated upon the last six. The
price of grain, in place of promptly rising to three half-pence a
pound as in 1865-66, continued at three farthings during the
earlier months of the famine. During the latter ones it advanced
to twopence, and in certain localities reached fourpence."

The course taken by the great famine of 1866 well illustrates the
above views. This famine, also, was caused by the total failure
of the December rice-crop, and it was brought to a close by an
abundant harvest in the succeeding year.

"Even as regards the maximum price reached, the analogy holds
good, in each case rice having risen in general to nearly
twopence, and in particular places to fourpence, a pound; and in
each the quoted rates being for a brief period in several
isolated localities merely nominal, no food existing in the
market, and money altogether losing its interchangeable value. In
both the people endured silently to the end, with a fortitude
that casual observers of a different temperament and widely
dissimilar race may easily mistake for apathy, but which those
who lived among the sufferers are unable to distinguish from
qualities that generally pass under a more honourable name.
During 1866, when the famine was severest, I superintended public
instruction throughout the southwestern division of Lower Bengal,
including Orissa. The subordinate native officers, about eight
hundred in number, behaved with a steadiness, and when called
upon, with a self-abnegation, beyond praise. Many of them ruined
their health. The touching scenes of self-sacrifice and humble
heroism which I witnessed among the poor villagers on my tours of
inspection will remain in my memory till my latest day."

But to meet the famine of 1866 Bengal was equipped with railroads
and canals, and better than all, with an intelligent government.
Far from trying to check speculation, as in 1770, the government
did all in its power to stimulate it. In the earlier famine one
could hardly engage in the grain trade without becoming amenable
to the law. "In 1866 respectable men in vast numbers went into
the trade; for government, by publishing weekly returns of the
rates in every district, rendered the traffic both easy and safe.
Every one knew where to buy grain cheapest, and where to sell it
dearest, and food was accordingly brought from the districts that
could best spare it, and carried to those which most urgently
needed it. Not only were prices equalized so far as possible
throughout the stricken parts, but the publicity given to the
high rates in Lower Bengal induced large shipments from the upper
provinces, and the chief seat of the trade became unable to
afford accommodation for landing the vast stores of grain brought
down the river. Rice poured into the affected districts from all
parts,--railways, canals, and roads vigorously doing their duty."

The result of this wise policy was that scarcity was heightened
into famine only in one remote corner of Bengal. Orissa was
commercially isolated in 1866, as the whole country had been in
1770. "As far back as the records extend, Orissa has produced
more grain than it can use. It is an exporting, not an importing
province, sending away its surplus grain by sea, and neither
requiring nor seeking any communication with Lower Bengal by
land." Long after the rest of the province had begun to prepare
for a year of famine, Orissa kept on exporting. In March, when
the alarm was first raised, the southwest monsoon had set in,
rendering the harbours inaccessible. Thus the district was
isolated. It was no longer possible to apply the wholesome policy
which was operating throughout the rest of the country. The
doomed population of Orissa, like passengers in a ship without
provisions, were called upon to suffer the extremities of famine;
and in the course of the spring and summer of 1866, some seven
hundred thousand people perished.

     January, 1869.


X. SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS.[31]

[31] History of the United Netherlands: from the Death of William
the Silent to the Twelve Years' Truce, 1609. By John Lothrop
Motley, D. C. L. In four volumes. Vols. III. and IV. New York.
1868.


Tandem fit surculus arbor: the twig which Mr. Motley in his
earlier volumes has described as slowly putting forth its leaves
and rootless, while painfully struggling for existence in a
hostile soil, has at last grown into a mighty tree of liberty,
drawing sustenance from all lands, and protecting all civilized
peoples with its pleasant shade. We congratulate Mr. Motley upon
the successful completion of the second portion of his great
work; and we think that the Netherlanders of our time have reason
to be grateful to the writer who has so faithfully and eloquently
told the story of their country's fearful struggle against civil
and ecclesiastical tyranny, and its manifold contributions to the
advancement of European civilization.

Mr. Motley has been fortunate in his selection of a subject upon
which to write. Probably no century of modern times lends itself
to the purposes of the descriptive historian so well as the
sixteenth. While on the one hand the problems which it presents
are sufficiently near for us to understand them without too great
an effort of the imagination, on the other hand they are
sufficiently remote for us to study them without passionate and
warping prejudice. The contest between Catholicism and the
reformed religion--between ecclesiastical autocracy and the right
of private investigation--has become a thing of the past, and
constitutes a closed chapter in human history. The epoch which
begins where Mr. Motley's history is designed to close--at the
peace of Westphalia--is far more complicated. Since the middle of
the seventeenth century a double movement has been going on in
religion and philosophy, society and politics,--a movement of
destruction typified by Voltaire and Rousseau, and a constructive
movement represented by Diderot and Lessing. We are still living
in the midst of this great epoch: the questions which it presents
are liable to disturb our prejudices as well as to stimulate our
reason; the results to which it must sooner or later attain can
now be only partially foreseen; and even its present tendencies
are generally misunderstood, and in many quarters wholly ignored.
With the sixteenth century, as we have said, the case is far
different. The historical problem is far less complex. The issues
at stake are comparatively simple, and the historian has before
him a straightforward story.

From the dramatic, or rather from the epic, point of view, the
sixteenth century is pre-eminent. The essentially transitional
character of modern history since the breaking up of the papal
and feudal systems is at no period more distinctly marked. In
traversing the sixteenth century we realize that we have fairly
got out of one state of things and into another. At the outset,
events like the challenge of Barletta may make us doubt whether
we have yet quite left behind the Middle Ages. The belief in the
central position of the earth is still universal, and the belief
in its rotundity not yet, until the voyage of Magellan, generally
accepted. We find England--owing partly to the introduction of
gunpowder and the consequent disuse of archery, partly to the
results of the recent integration of France under Louis
XI.--fallen back from the high relative position which it had
occupied under the rule of the Plantagenets; and its policy still
directed in accordance with reminiscences of Agincourt, and
garnet, and Burgundian alliances. We find France just beginning
her ill-fated career of intervention in the affairs of Italy; and
Spain, with her Moors finally vanquished and a new world beyond
the ocean just added to her domain, rapidly developing into the
greatest empire which had been seen since the days of the first
Caesars. But at the close of the century we find feudal life in
castles changed into modern life in towns; chivalric defiances
exchanged for over-subtle diplomacy; Maurices instead of Bayards;
a Henry IV. instead of a Gaston de Foix. We find the old theory
of man's central position in the universe--the foundation of the
doctrine of final causes and of the whole theological method of
interpreting nature--finally overthrown by Copernicus. Instead of
the circumnavigability of the earth, the discovery of a Northwest
passage--as instanced by the heroic voyage of Barendz, so nobly
described by Mr. Motley--is now the chief geographical problem.
East India Companies, in place of petty guilds of weavers and
bakers, bear witness to the vast commercial progress. We find
England, fresh from her stupendous victory over the whole power
of Spain, again in the front rank of nations; France, under the
most astute of modern sovereigns, taking her place for a time as
the political leader of the civilized world; Spain, with her evil
schemes baffled in every quarter, sinking into that terrible
death-like lethargy, from which she has hardly yet awakened, and
which must needs call forth our pity, though it is but the
deserved retribution for her past behaviour. While the little
realm of the Netherlands, filched and cozened from the
unfortunate Jacqueline by the "good" Duke of Burgundy, carried
over to Austria as the marriage-portion of Lady Mary, sent down
to Spain as the personal inheritance of the "prudent" Philip, and
by him intolerably tormented with an Inquisition, a
Blood-Council, and a Duke of Alva, has after a forty years' war
of independence taken its position for a time as the greatest of
commercial nations, with the most formidable navy and one of the
best disciplined armies yet seen upon the earth.

But the central phenomenon of the sixteenth century is the
culmination of the Protestant movement in its decisive
proclamation by Luther. For nearly three hundred years already
the power of the Church had been declining, and its function as a
civilizing agency had been growing more and more obsolete. The
first great blow at its supremacy had been directed with partial
success in the thirteenth century by the Emperor Frederick II.
Coincident with this attack from without, we find a reformation
begun within, as exemplified in the Dominican and Franciscan
movements. The second great blow was aimed by Philip IV. of
France, and this time it struck with terrible force. The removal
of the Papacy to Avignon, in 1305, was the virtual though
unrecognized abdication of its beneficent supremacy. Bereft of
its dignity and independence, from that time forth it ceased to
be the defender of national unity against baronial anarchy, of
popular rights against monarchical usurpation, and became a
formidable instrument of despotism and oppression. Through the
vicissitudes of the great schism in the fourteenth century, and
the refractory councils in the fifteenth, its position became
rapidly more and more retrograde and demoralized. And when, in
1530, it joined its forces with those of Charles V., in crushing
the liberties of the worthiest of mediaeval republics, it became
evident that the cause of freedom and progress must henceforth be
intrusted to some more faithful champion. The revolt of Northern
Europe, led by Luther and Henry VIII. was but the articulate
announcement of this altered state of affairs. So long as the
Roman Church had been felt to be the enemy of tyrannical monarchs
and the steadfast friend of the people, its encroachments, as
represented by men like Dunstan and Becket, were regarded with
popular favour. The strength of the Church lay ever in its
democratic instincts; and when these were found to have abandoned
it, the indignant protest of Luther sufficed to tear away half of
Europe from its allegiance.

By the end of the sixteenth century, we find the territorial
struggle between the Church and the reformed religion
substantially decided. Protestantism and Catholicism occupied
then the same respective areas which they now occupy. Since 1600
there has been no instance of a nation passing from one form of
worship to the other; and in all probability there never will be.
Since the wholesale dissolution of religious beliefs wrought in
the last century, the whole issue between Romanism and
Protestantism, regarded as dogmatic systems, is practically dead.
M. Renan is giving expression to an almost self-evident truth,
when he says that religious development is no longer to proceed
by way of sectarian proselytism, but by way of harmonious
internal development. The contest is no longer between one
theology and another, but it is between the theological and the
scientific methods of interpreting natural phenomena. The
sixteenth century has to us therefore the interest belonging to a
rounded and completed tale. It contains within itself
substantially the entire history of the final stage of the
theological reformation.

This great period falls naturally into two divisions, the first
corresponding very nearly with the reigns of Charles V. and Henry
VIII., and the second with the age of Philip II. and Elizabeth.
The first of these periods was filled with the skirmishes which
were to open the great battle of the Reformation. At first the
strength and extent of the new revolution were not altogether
apparent. While the Inquisition was vigorously crushing out the
first symptoms of disaffection in Spain, it at one time seemed as
if the Reformers were about to gain the whole of the Empire,
besides acquiring an excellent foothold in France. Again, while
England was wavering between the old and the new faith, the last
hopes of the Reform in Germany seemed likely to be destroyed by
the military genius of Charles. But in Maurice, the red-bearded
hero of Saxony, Charles found more than his match. The picture of
the rapid and desperate march of Maurice upon Innspruck, and of
the great Emperor flying for his life at the very hour of his
imagined triumph, has still for us an intenser interest than
almost any other scene of that age; for it was the event which
proved that Protestantism was not a mere local insurrection which
a monarch like Charles could easily put down, but a gigantic
revolution against which all the powers in the world might well
strive in vain.

With the abdication of Charles in 1556 the new period may be said
to begin, and it is here that Mr. Motley's history commences.
Events crowded thick and fast. In 1556 Philip II., a prince bred
and educated for the distinct purpose of suppressing heresy,
succeeded to the rule of the most powerful empire which had been
seen since the days of the Antonines. In the previous year a new
era had begun at the court of Rome. The old race of pagan
pontiffs, the Borgias, the Farneses, and the Medicis, had come to
an end, and the papal throne was occupied by the puritanical
Caraffa, as violent a fanatic as Robespierre, and a foe of
freedom as uncompromising as Philip II. himself. Under his
auspices took place the great reform in the Church signalized by
the rise of the Jesuits, as the reform in the thirteenth century
had been attended by the rise of the Cordeliers and Dominicans.
His name should not be forgotten, for it is mainly owing to the
policy inaugurated by him that Catholicism was enabled to hold
its ground as well as it did. In 1557 the next year, the strength
of France was broken at St. Quentin, and Spain was left with her
hands free to deal with the Protestant powers. In 1558, by the
accession of Elizabeth, England became committed to the cause of
Reform. In 1559 the stormy administration of Margaret began in
the Netherlands. In 1560 the Scotch nobles achieved the
destruction of Catholicism in North Britain. By this time every
nation except France, had taken sides in the conflict which was
to last, with hardly any cessation, during two generations.

Mr. Motley, therefore, in describing the rise and progress of the
united republic of the Netherlands, is writing not Dutch but
European history. On his pages France, Spain, and England make
almost as large a figure as Holland itself. He is writing the
history of the Reformation during its concluding epoch, and he
chooses the Netherlands as his main subject, because during that
period the Netherlands were the centre of the movement. They
constituted the great bulwark of freedom, and upon the success or
failure of their cause the future prospect of Europe and of
mankind depended. Spain and the Netherlands, Philip II. and
William the Silent, were the two leading antagonists and were
felt to be such by the other nations and rulers that came to
mingle in the strife. It is therefore a stupid criticism which we
have seen made upon Mr. Motley, that, having brought his
narrative down to the truce of 1609, he ought, instead of
describing the Thirty Years' War, to keep on with Dutch history,
and pourtray the wars against Cromwell and Charles II., and the
struggle of the second William of Orange against Louis XIV. By so
doing he would only violate the unity of his narrative. The wars
of the Dutch against England and France belong to an entirely
different epoch in European history,--a modern epoch, in which
political and commercial interests were of prime importance, and
theological interests distinctly subsidiary. The natural terminus
of Mr. Motley's work is the Peace of Westphalia. After bringing
down his history to the time when the independence of the
Netherlands was virtually acknowledged, after describing the
principal stages of the struggle against Catholicism and
universal monarchy, as carried on in the first generation by
Elizabeth and William, and in the second by Maurice and Henry, he
will naturally go on to treat of the epilogue as conducted by
Richelieu and Gustavus, ending in the final cessation of
religious wars throughout Europe.

The conflict in the Netherlands was indeed far more than a mere
religious struggle. In its course was distinctly brought into
prominence the fact which we have above signalized, that since
the Roman Church had abandoned the liberties of the people they
had found a new defender in the reformed religion. The Dutch
rebellion is peculiarly interesting, because it was a revolt not
merely against the Inquisition, but also against the temporal
sovereignty of Philip. Besides changing their religion, the
sturdy Netherlanders saw fit to throw off the sway of their
legitimate ruler, and to proclaim the thrice heretical doctrine
of the sovereignty of the people. In this one respect their views
were decidedly more modern than those of Elizabeth and Henry IV.
These great monarchs apparently neither understood nor relished
the republican theories of the Hollanders; though it is hardly
necessary for Mr. Motley to sneer at them quite so often because
they were not to an impossible degree in advance of their age.
The proclamation of a republic in the Netherlands marked of
itself the beginning of a new era,--an era when flourishing
communities of men were no longer to be bought and sold,
transferred and bequeathed like real estate and chattels, but
were to have and maintain the right of choosing with whom and
under whom they should transact their affairs. The interminable
negotiations for a truce, which fill nearly one third of Mr.
Motley's concluding volume, exhibit with striking distinctness
the difference between the old and new points of view. Here again
we think Mr. Motley errs slightly, in calling too much attention
to the prevaricating diplomacy of the Spanish court, and too
little to its manifest inability to comprehend the demands of the
Netherlanders. How should statesmen brought up under Philip II.
and kept under the eye of the Inquisition be expected to
understand a claim for liberty originating in the rights of the
common people and not in the gracious benevolence or intelligent
policy of the King? The very idea must have been practically
inconceivable by them. Accordingly, they strove by every
available device of chicanery to wheedle the Netherlanders into
accepting their independence as a gift from the King of Spain.
But to such a piece of self-stultification the clear-sighted
Dutchmen could by no persuasion be brought to consent. Their
independence, they argued, was not the King's to give. They had
won it from him and his father, in a war of forty years, during
which they had suffered atrocious miseries, and all that the King
of Spain could do was to acknowledge it as their right, and cease
to molest them in future. Over this point, so simple to us but
knotty enough in those days, the commissioners wrangled for
nearly two years. And when the Spanish government, unable to
carry on the war any longer without risk of utter bankruptcy, and
daily crippled in its resources by the attacks of the Dutch navy,
grudgingly a reed to a truce upon the Netherlanders' terms, it
virtually acknowledged its own defeat and the downfall of the
principles for which it had so obstinately fought. By the truce
of 1609 the republican principle was admitted by the most
despotic of governments.

Here was the first great triumph of republicanism over monarchy;
and it was not long in bearing fruits. For the Dutch revolution,
the settlement of America by English Puritans, the great
rebellion of the Commons, the Revolution of 1688, the revolt of
the American Colonies, and the general overthrow of feudalism in
1789, are but successive acts in the same drama William the
Silent was the worthy forerunner of Cromwell and Washington; and
but for the victory which he won, during his life and after his
untimely death, the subsequent triumphs of civil liberty might
have been long, postponed.

Over the sublime figure of William--saevis tranquillus in
undis--we should be glad to dwell, but we are not reviewing the
"Rise of the Dutch Republic," and in Mr. Motley's present volumes
the hero of toleration appears no longer. His antagonist,
however,--the Philip whom God for some inscrutable purpose
permitted to afflict Europe during a reign of forty-two
years,--accompanies us nearly to the end of the present work,
dying just in time for the historian to sum up the case against
him, and pronounce final judgment. For the memory of Philip II.
Mr. Motley cherishes no weak pity. He rarely alludes to him
without commenting upon his total depravity, and he dismisses him
with the remark that "if there are vices--as possibly there
are--from which he was exempt, it is because it is not permitted
to human nature to attain perfection in evil." The verdict is
none the less just because of its conciseness. If there ever was
a strife between Hercules and Cacus, between Ormuzd and Ahriman,
between the Power of Light and the Power of Darkness, it was
certainly the strife between the Prince of Orange and the Spanish
Monarch. They are contrasted like the light and shade in one of
Dore's pictures. And yet it is perhaps unnecessary for Mr. Motley
to say that if Philip had been alive when Spinola won for him the
great victory of Ostend, "he would have felt it his duty to make
immediate arrangements for poisoning him." Doubtless the
imputation is sufficiently justified by what we know of Philip;
but it is uncalled for. We do not care to hear about what the
despot might have done. We know what he did do, and the record is
sufficiently damning. There is no harm in our giving the Devil
his due, or as Llorente wittily says, "Il ne faut pas calomnier
meme l'Inquisition."

Philip inherited all his father's bad qualities, without any of
his good ones; and so it is much easier to judge him than his
father. Charles, indeed, is one of those characters whom one
hardly knows whether to love or hate, to admire or despise. He
had much bad blood in him. Charles the Bold and Ferdinand of
Aragon were not grandparents to be proud of. Yet with all this he
inherited from his grandmother Isabella much that one can like,
and his face, as preserved by Titian, in spite of its frowning
brow and thick Burgundian lip, is rather prepossessing, while the
face of Philip is simply odious. In intellect he must probably be
called great, though his policy often betrayed the pettiness of
selfishness. If, in comparison with the mediaeval emperor whose
fame he envied, he may justly be called Charles the Little, he
may still, when compared to a more modern emulator of
Charlemagne,--the first of the Bonapartes,--be considered great
and enlightened. If he could lie and cheat more consummately than
any contemporary monarch, not excepting his rival, Francis, he
could still be grandly magnanimous, while the generosity of
Francis flowed only from the shallow surface of a maudlin
good-nature. He spoke many languages and had the tastes of a
scholar, while his son had only the inclinations of an unfeeling
pedagogue. He had an inkling of urbanity, and could in a measure
become all things to all men, while Philip could never show
himself except as a gloomy, impracticable bigot. It is for some
such reasons as these, I suppose, that Mr. Buckle--no friend to
despots--speaks well of Charles, and that Mr. Froude is moved to
tell the following anecdote: While standing by the grave of
Luther, and musing over the strange career of the giant monk
whose teachings had gone so far to wreck his most cherished
schemes and render his life a failure, some fanatical bystander
advised the Emperor to have the body taken up and burned in the
market-place. "There was nothing," says Mr. Froude, "unusual in
the proposal; it was the common practice of the Catholic Church
with the remains of heretics, who were held unworthy to be left
in repose in hallowed ground. There was scarcely, perhaps another
Catholic prince who would have hesitated to comply. But Charles
was one of nature's gentlemen. He answered, 'I war not with the
dead.' " Mr. Motley takes a less charitable view of the great
Emperor. His generous indignation against all persecutors makes
him severe; and in one of his earlier volumes, while speaking of
the famous edicts for the suppression of heresy in the
Netherlands, he somewhere uses the word "murder." Without
attempting to palliate the crime of persecution, I doubt if it is
quite fair to Charles to call him a murderer. We must not forget
that persecution, now rightly deemed an atrocious crime, was once
really considered by some people a sacred duty; that it was none
other than the compassionate Isabella who established the Spanish
Inquisition; and that the "bloody" Mary Tudor was a woman who
would not wilfully have done wrong. With the progress of
civilization the time will doubtless come when warfare, having
ceased to be necessary, will be thought highly criminal; yet it
will not then be fair to hold Marlborough or Wellington
accountable for the lives lost in their great battles. We still
live in an age when war is, to the imagination of some persons,
surrounded with false glories; and the greatest of modern
generals[32] has still many undiscriminating admirers. Yet the
day is no less certainly at hand when the edicts of Charles V.
will be deemed a more pardonable offence against humanity than
the wanton march to Moscow.

[32] This was written before the deeds of Moltke had eclipsed
those of Napoleon.


Philip II. was different from his father in capacity as a
drudging clerk, like Boutwell, is different from a brilliant
financier like Gladstone. In organization he differed from him as
a boor differs from a gentleman. He seemed made of a coarser
clay. The difference between them is well indicated by their
tastes at the table. Both were terrible gluttons, a fact which
puritanic criticism might set down as equally to the discredit of
each of them. But even in intemperance there are degrees of
refinement, and the impartial critic of life and manners will no
doubt say that if one must get drunk, let it be on Chateau
Margaux rather than on commissary whiskey. Pickled partridges,
plump capons, syrups of fruits, delicate pastry, and rare fish
went to make up the diet of Charles in his last days at Yuste.
But the beastly Philip would make himself sick with a surfeit of
underdone pork.

Whatever may be said of the father, we can hardly go far wrong in
ascribing the instincts of a murderer to the son. He not only
burned heretics, but he burned them with an air of enjoyment and
self-complacency. His nuptials with Elizabeth of France were
celebrated by a vast auto-da-fe. He studied murder as a fine art,
and was as skilful in private assassinations as Cellini was in
engraving on gems. The secret execution of Montigny, never
brought to light until the present century, was a veritable chef
d'oeuvre of this sort. The cases of Escobedo and Antonio Perez
may also be cited in point. Dark suspicions hung around the
premature death of Don John of Austria, his too brilliant and
popular half-brother. He planned the murder of William the
Silent, and rewarded the assassin with an annuity furnished by
the revenues of the victim's confiscated estates. He kept a staff
of ruffians constantly in service for the purpose of taking off
Elizabeth, Henry IV., Prince Maurice, Olden-Barneveldt, and St.
Aldegonde. He instructed Alva to execute sentence of death upon
the whole population of the Netherlands. He is partly responsible
for the martyrdoms of Ridley and Latimer, and the judicial murder
of Cranmer. He first conceived the idea of the wholesale massacre
of St. Bartholomew, many years before Catharine de' Medici
carried it into operation. His ingratitude was as dangerous as
his revengeful fanaticism. Those who had best served his
interests were the least likely to escape the consequences of his
jealousy. He destroyed Egmont, who had won for him the splendid
victories of St. Quentin and Gravelines; and "with minute and
artistic treachery" he plotted "the disgrace and ruin" of
Farnese, "the man who was his near blood-relation, and who had
served him most faithfully from earliest youth." Contemporary
opinion even held him accountable for the obscure deaths of his
wife Elizabeth and his son Carlos; but M. Gachard has shown that
this suspicion is unfounded. Philip appears perhaps to better
advantage in his domestic than in his political relations. Yet he
was addicted to vulgar and miscellaneous incontinence; toward the
close of his life he seriously contemplated marrying his own
daughter Isabella; and he ended by taking for his fourth wife his
niece, Anne of Austria, who became the mother of his half-idiotic
son and successor. We know of no royal family, unless it may be
the Claudians of Rome, in which the transmission of moral and
intellectual qualities is more thoroughly illustrated than in
this Burgundian race which for two centuries held the sceptre of
Spain. The son Philip and the grandmother Isabella are both
needful in order to comprehend the strange mixture of good and
evil in Charles. But the descendants of Philip--two generations
of idiocy, and a third of utter impotence--are a sufficient
commentary upon the organization and character of their
progenitor.

Such was the man who for two generations had been considered the
bulwark of the Catholic Church; who, having been at the bottom of
nearly all the villany that had been wrought in Europe for half a
century, was yet able to declare upon his death-bed that "in all
his life he had never consciously done wrong to any one." At a
ripe old age he died of a fearful disease. Under the influence of
a typhus fever, supervening upon gout, he had begun to decompose
while yet alive. "His sufferings," says Mr. Motley, "were
horrible, but no saint could have manifested in them more gentle
resignation or angelic patience. He moralized on the condition to
which the greatest princes might thus be brought at last by the
hand of God, and bade the Prince observe well his father's
present condition, in order that when he too should be laid thus
low, he might likewise be sustained by a conscience void of
offence." What more is needed to complete the disgusting picture?
Philip was fanatical up to the point where fanaticism borders
upon hypocrisy. He was possessed with a "great moral idea," the
idea of making Catholicism the ruler of the world, that he might
be the ruler of Catholicism. Why, it may be said, shall the
charge of fanaticism be allowed to absolve Isabella and extenuate
the guilt of Charles, while it only strengthens the case against
Philip? Because Isabella persecuted heretics in order to save
their souls from a worse fate, while Philip burnt them in order
to get them out of his way. Isabella would perhaps have gone to
the stake herself, if thereby she might have put an end to
heresy. Philip would have seen every soul in Europe consigned to
eternal perdition before he would have yielded up an iota of his
claims to universal dominion. He could send Alva to browbeat the
Pope, as well as to oppress the Netherlanders. He could compass
the destruction of the orthodox Egmont and Farnese, as well as of
the heretical William. His unctuous piety only adds to the
abhorrence with which we regard him; and his humility in face of
death is neither better nor worse than the assumed humility which
had become second nature to Uriah Heep. In short, take him for
all in all, he was probably the most loathsome character in all
European history. He has frequently been called, by Protestant
historians, an incarnate devil; but we do not think that
Mephistopheles would acknowledge him. He should rather be classed
among those creatures described by Dante as "a Dio spiacenti ed
ai nemici sui."

The abdication of Charles V. left Philip ruler over wider
dominions than had ever before been brought together under the
sway of one man. In his own right Philip was master not only of
Spain, but of the Netherlands, Franche Comte, Lombardy, Naples,
and Sicily, with the whole of North and South America; besides
which he was married to the Queen of England. In the course of
his reign he became possessed of Portugal, with all its vast
domains in the East Indies. His revenues were greater than those
of any other contemporary monarch; his navy was considered
invincible, and his army was the best disciplined in Europe. All
these great advantages he was destined to throw to the winds. In
the strife for universal monarchy, in the mad endeavour to
subject England, Scotland, and France to his own dominion and the
tyranny of the Inquisition, besides re-conquering the
Netherlands, all his vast resources were wasted. The Dutch war
alone, like a bottomless pit, absorbed all that he could pour
into it. Long before the war was over, or showed signs of drawing
to an end, his revenues were wasted, and his troops in Flanders
were mutinous for want of pay. He had to rely upon energetic
viceroys like Farnese and the Spinolas to furnish funds out of
their own pockets. Finally, he was obliged to repudiate all his
debts; and when he died the Spanish empire was in such a beggarly
condition that it quaked at every approach of a hostile Dutch
fleet. Such a result is not evidence of a statesmanlike ability;
but Philip's fanatical selfishness was incompatible with
statesmanship. He never could be made to believe that his
projects had suffered defeat. No sooner had the Invincible Armada
been sent to the bottom by the guns of the English fleet and the
gales of the German Ocean, than he sent orders to Farnese to
invade England at once with the land force under his command! He
thought to obtain Scotland, when, after the death of Mary, it had
passed under the undisputed control of the Protestant noblemen.
He dreamed of securing for his family the crown of France, even
after Henry, with free consent of the Pope, had made his
triumphal entry into Paris. He asserted complete and entire
sovereignty over the Netherlands, even after Prince Maurice had
won back from him the last square foot of Dutch territory. Such
obstinacy as this can only be called fatuity. If Philip had lived
in Pagan times, he would doubtless, like Caligula, have demanded
recognition of his own divinity.

The miserable condition of the Spanish people under this terrible
reign, and the causes of their subsequent degeneracy, have been
well treated by Mr. Motley. The causes of the failure of Spanish
civilization are partly social and partly economical; and they
had been operating for eight hundred years when Philip succeeded
to the throne. The Moorish conquest in 711 had practically
isolated Spain from the rest of Europe. In the Crusades she took
no part, and reaped none of the signal advantages resulting from
that great movement. Her whole energies were directed toward
throwing off the yoke of her civilized but "unbelieving"
oppressors. For a longer time than has now elapsed since the
Norman Conquest of England, the entire Gothic population of Spain
was engaged in unceasing religious and patriotic warfare. The
unlimited power thus acquired by an unscrupulous clergy, and the
spirit of uncompromising bigotry thus imparted to the whole
nation, are in this way readily accounted for. But in spite of
this, the affairs of Spain at the accession of Charles V. were
not in an unpromising condition. The Spanish Visigoths had been
the least barbarous of the Teutonic settlers within the limits of
the Empire; their civil institutions were excellent; their cities
had obtained municipal liberties at an earlier date than those of
England; and their Parliaments indulged in a liberty of speech
which would have seemed extravagant even to De Montfort. So late
as the time of Ferdinand, the Spaniards were still justly proud
of their freedom; and the chivalrous ambition which inspired the
marvellous expedition of Cortes to Mexico, and covered the soil
of Italy with Spanish armies, was probably in the main a healthy
one. But the forces of Spanish freedom were united at too late an
epoch; in 1492, the power of despotism was already in the
ascendant. In England the case was different. The barons were
enabled to combine and wrest permanent privileges from the crown,
at a time when feudalism was strong. But the Spanish communes
waited for combined action until feudalism had become weak, and
modern despotism, with its standing armies and its control of the
spiritual power, was arrayed in the ranks against them. The War
of the Communes, early in the reign of Charles V., irrevocably
decided the case in favour of despotism, and from that date the
internal decline of Spain may be said to have begun.

But the triumphant consolidation of the spiritual and temporal
powers of despotism, and the abnormal development of loyalty and
bigotry, were not the only evil results of the chronic struggle
in which Spain had been engaged. For many centuries, while
Christian Spain had been but a fringe of debatable border-land on
the skirts of the Moorish kingdom, perpetual guerilla warfare had
rendered consecutive labour difficult or impracticable; and the
physical configuration of the country contributed in bringing
about this result. To plunder the Moors across the border was
easier than to till the ground at home. Then as the Spaniards,
exemplifying the military superiority of the feudal over the
sultanic form of social organization, proceeded steadily to
recover dominion over the land, the industrious Moors, instead of
migrating backward before the advance of their conquerors,
remained at home and submitted to them. Thus Spanish society
became compounded of two distinct castes,--the Moorish Spaniards,
who were skilled labourers, and the Gothic Spaniards, by whom all
labour, crude or skilful, was deemed the stigma of a conquered
race, and unworthy the attention of respectable people. As Mr.
Motley concisely says:--

"The highest industrial and scientific civilization that had been
exhibited upon Spanish territory was that of Moors and Jews. When
in the course of time those races had been subjugated, massacred,
or driven into exile, not only was Spain deprived of its highest
intellectual culture and its most productive labour, but
intelligence, science, and industry were accounted degrading,
because the mark of inferior and detested peoples."

This is the key to the whole subsequent history of Spain.
Bigotry, loyalty, and consecrated idleness are the three factors
which have made that great country what it is to-day,--the most
backward region in Europe. In view of the circumstances just
narrated, it is not surprising to learn that in Philip II.'s time
a vast portion of the real estate of the country was held by the
Church in mortmain; that forty-nine noble families owned all the
rest; that all great estates were held in tail; and that the
property of the aristocracy and the clergy was completely exempt
from taxation. Thus the accumulation and the diffusion of capital
were alike prevented; and the few possessors of property wasted
it in unproductive expenditure. Hence the fundamental error of
Spanish political economy, that wealth is represented solely by
the precious metals; an error which well enough explains the
total failure, in spite of her magnificent opportunities, of
Spain's attempts to colonize the New World. Such was the
frightful condition of Spanish society under Philip II.; and as
if this state of things were not bad enough, the next king,
Philip III., at the instigation of the clergy, decided to drive
into banishment the only class of productive labourers yet
remaining in the country. In 1610, this stupendous crime and
blunder--unparalleled even in Spanish history--was perpetrated.
The entire Moorish population were expelled from their homes and
driven into the deserts of Africa. For the awful consequences of
this mad action no remedy was possible. No system of native
industry could be created on demand, to take the place of that
which had been thus wantonly crushed forever. From this epoch
dates the social ruin of Spain. In less than a century her people
were riotous with famine; and every sequestered glen and mountain
pathway throughout the country had become a lurking-place for
robbers. Whoever would duly realize to what a lamentable
condition this beautiful peninsula had in the seventeenth century
been reduced, let him study the immortal pages of Lesage. He will
learn afresh the lesson, not yet sufficiently regarded in the
discussion of social problems, that the laws of nature cannot be
violated without entailing a penalty fearful in proportion to the
extent of the violation. But let him carefully remember also that
the Spaniards are not and never have been a despicable people. If
Spain has produced one of the lowest characters in history, she
has also produced one of the highest. That man was every inch a
Spaniard who, maimed, diseased, and poor, broken down by long
captivity, and harassed by malignant persecution, lived
nevertheless a life of grandeur and beauty fit to be a pattern
for coming generations,--the author of a book which has had a
wider fame than any other in the whole range of secular
literature, and which for delicate humour, exquisite pathos, and
deep ethical sentiment, remains to-day without a peer or a rival.
If Philip II. was a Spaniard, so, too, was Cervantes.

Spain could not be free, for she violated every condition by
which freedom is secured to a people. "Acuteness of intellect,
wealth of imagination, heroic qualities of heart and hand and
brain, rarely surpassed in any race and manifested on a thousand
battle-fields, and in the triumphs of a magnificent and most
original literature, had not been able to save a whole nation
from the disasters and the degradation which the mere words
Philip II. and the Holy Inquisition suggest to every educated
mind." Nor could Spain possibly become rich, for, as Mr. Motley
continues, "nearly every law, according to which the prosperity
of a country becomes progressive, was habitually violated." On
turning to the Netherlands we find the most complete contrast,
both in historical conditions and in social results; and the
success of the Netherlands in their long struggle becomes easily
intelligible. The Dutch and Flemish provinces had formed a part
of the renovated Roman Empire of Charles the Great and the Othos.
Taking advantage of the perennial contest for supremacy between
the popes and the Roman emperors, the constituent baronies and
municipalities of the Empire succeeded in acquiring and
maintaining a practical though unrecognized independence; and
this is the original reason why Italy and Germany, unlike the
three western European communities, have remained fragmentary
until our own time. By reason of the practical freedom of action
thus secured, the Italian civic republics, the Hanse towns, and
the cities of Holland and Flanders, were enabled gradually to
develop a vast commerce. The outlying position of the
Netherlands, remote from the imperial authorities, and on the
direct line of commerce between Italy and England, was another
and a peculiar advantage. Throughout the Middle Ages the Flemish
and Dutch cities were of considerable political importance, and
in the fifteenth century the Netherland provinces were the most
highly civilized portion of Europe north of the Alps. For several
generations they had enjoyed, and had known how to maintain,
civic liberties, and when Charles and Philip attempted to fasten
upon them their "peculiar institution," the Spanish Inquisition,
they were ripe for political as well as theological revolt.
Natural laws were found to operate on the Rhine as well as on the
Tagus, and at the end of the great war of independence, Holland
was not only better equipped than Spain for a European conflict,
but was rapidly ousting her from the East Indian countries which
she had in vain attempted to colonize.

But if we were to take up all the interesting and instructive
themes suggested by Mr. Motley's work, we should never come to an
end. We must pass over the exciting events narrated in these last
volumes; the victory of Nieuport, the siege of Ostend, the
marvellous career of Maurice, the surprising exploits of Spinola.
We have attempted not so much to describe Mr. Motley's book as to
indulge in sundry reflections suggested by the perusal of it. But
we cannot close without some remarks upon a great man, whose
character Mr. Motley seems to have somewhat misconceived.

If Mr. Motley exhibits any serious fault, it is perhaps the
natural tendency to TAKE SIDES in the events which he is
describing, which sometimes operates as a drawback to complete
and thoroughgoing criticism. With every intention to do justice
to the Catholics, Mr. Motley still writes as a Protestant,
viewing all questions from the Protestant side. He praises and
condemns like a very fair-minded Huguenot, but still like a
Huguenot. It is for this reason that he fails to interpret
correctly the very complex character of Henry IV., regarding him
as a sort of selfish renegade whom he cannot quite forgive for
accepting the crown of France at the hands of the Pope. Now this
very action of Henry, in the eye of an impartial criticism, must
seem to be one of his chief claims to the admiration and
gratitude of posterity. Henry was more than a mere Huguenot: he
was a far-seeing statesman. He saw clearly what no ruler before
him, save William the Silent, had even dimly discerned, that not
Catholicism and not Protestantism, but absolute spiritual freedom
was the true end to be aimed at by a righteous leader of opinion.
It was as a Catholic sovereign that he could be most useful even
to his Huguenot subjects; and he shaped his course accordingly.
It was as an orthodox sovereign, holding his position by the
general consent of Europe, that he could best subserve the
interests of universal toleration. This principle he embodied in
his admirable edict of Nantes. What a Huguenot prince might have
done, may be seen from the shameful way in which the French
Calvinists abused the favour which Henry--and Richelieu
afterwards--accorded to them. Remembering how Calvin himself
"dragooned" Geneva, let us be thankful for the fortune which, in
one of the most critical periods of history, raised to the
highest position in Christendom a man who was something more than
a sectarian.

With this brief criticism, we must regretfully take leave of Mr.
Motley's work. Much more remains to be said about a historical
treatise which is, on the whole, the most valuable and important
one yet produced by an American; but we have already exceeded our
limits. We trust that our author will be as successful in the
future as he has been in the past; and that we shall soon have an
opportunity of welcoming the first instalment of his "History of
the Thirty Years' War."

     March, 1868.



XI. LONGFELLOW'S DANTE.[33]

[33] The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow. 3 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867.

THE task of a translator is a thankless one at best. Be he never
so skilful and accurate, be he never so amply endowed with the
divine qualifications of the poet, it is still questionable if he
can ever succeed in saying satisfactorily with new words that
which has once been inimitably said--said for all time--with the
old words. Psychologically, there is perhaps nothing more complex
than an elaborate poem. The sources of its effect upon our minds
may be likened to a system of forces which is in the highest
degree unstable; and the slightest displacement of phrases, by
disturbing the delicate rhythmical equilibrium of the whole, must
inevitably awaken a jarring sensation." Matthew Arnold has given
us an excellent series of lectures upon translating Homer, in
which he doubtless succeeds in showing that some methods of
translation are preferable to others, but in which he proves
nothing so forcibly as that the simplicity and grace, the
rapidity, dignity, and fire, of Homer are quite incommunicable,
save by the very words in which they first found expression. And
what is thus said of Homer will apply to Dante with perhaps even
greater force. With nearly all of Homer's grandeur and rapidity,
though not with nearly all his simplicity, the poem of Dante
manifests a peculiar intensity of subjective feeling which was
foreign to the age of Homer, as indeed to all pre-Christian
antiquity. But concerning this we need not dilate, as it has
often been duly remarked upon, and notably by Carlyle, in his
"Lectures on Hero-Worship." Who that has once heard the wail of
unutterable despair sounding in the line

          "Ahi, dura terra, perche non t' apristi?"

can rest satisfied with the interpretation

          "Ah, obdurate earth, wherefore didst thou not open?"

yet this rendering is literally exact.

[34] As Dante himself observes, "E pero sappia ciascuno, che
nulla cosa per legame musaico armonizzata si puo della sue
loquela in altra trasmutare sanza rompere tutta sue dolcezza e
armonia. E questa e la ragione per che Omero non si muto di greco
in latino, come l'altre scritture che avemo da loro: e questa e
la ragione per che i versi del Psaltero sono sanza dolcezza di
musica e d'armonia; che essi furono trasmutati d' ebreo in
greco, e di greco in latino, e nella prima trasmutazione tutta
quella dolcezza venne meno." Convito, I. 7, Opere Minori, Tom.
III. p. 80. The noble English version of the Psalms possesses a
beauty which is all its own.


A second obstacle, hardly less formidable, hardly less fatal to a
satisfactory translation, is presented by the highly complicated
system of triple rhyme upon which Dante's poem is constructed.
This, which must ever be a stumbling-block to the translator,
seems rarely to interfere with the free and graceful movement of
the original work. The mighty thought of the master felt no
impediment from the elaborate artistic panoply which must needs
obstruct and harass the interpretation of the disciple. Dante's
terza rima is a bow of Odysseus which weaker mortals cannot bend
with any amount of tugging, and which Mr. Longfellow has
judiciously refrained from trying to bend. Yet no one can fail to
remark the prodigious loss entailed by this necessary sacrifice
of one of the most striking characteristics of the original poem.
Let any one who has duly reflected upon the strange and subtle
effect produced on him by the peculiar rhyme of Tennyson's "In
Memoriam," endeavour to realize the very different effect which
would be produced if the verses were to be alternated or coupled
in successive pairs, or if rhyme were to be abandoned for blank
verse. The exquisite melody of the poem would be silenced. The
rhyme-system of the "Divine Comedy" refuses equally to be
tampered with or ignored. Its effect upon the ear and the mind is
quite as remarkable as that of the rhyme-system of "In Memoriam";
and the impossibility of reproducing it is one good reason why
Dante must always suffer even more from translation than most
poets.

Something, too, must be said of the difficulties inevitably
arising from the diverse structure and genius of the Italian and
English languages. None will deny that many of them are
insurmountable. Take the third line of the first canto,--

          "Che la diritta via era smarrita,"

which Mr. Longfellow translates

          "For the straightforward pathway had been lost."

Perhaps there is no better word than "lost" by which to translate
smarrita in this place; yet the two words are far from equivalent
in force. About the word smarrita there is thrown a wide penumbra
of meaning which does not belong to the word lost.[35] By its
diffuse connotations the word smarrita calls up in our minds an
adequate picture of the bewilderment and perplexity of one who is
lost in a trackless forest. The high-road with out, beaten hard
by incessant overpassing of men and beasts and wheeled vehicles,
gradually becomes metamorphosed into the shady lane, where grass
sprouts up rankly between the ruts, where bushes encroach upon
the roadside, where fallen trunks now and then intercept the
traveller; and this in turn is lost in crooked by-ways, amid
brambles and underbrush and tangled vines, growing fantastically
athwart the path, shooting up on all sides of tile bewildered
wanderer, and rendering advance and retreat alike hopeless. No
one who in childhood has wandered alone in the woods can help
feeling all this suggested by the word smarrita in this passage.
How bald in comparison is the word lost, which might equally be
applied to a pathway, a reputation, and a pocket-book![36] The
English is no doubt the most copious and variously expressive of
all living languages, yet I doubt if it can furnish any word
capable by itself of calling up the complex images here suggested
by smarrita.[37] And this is but one example, out of many that
might be cited, in which the lack of exact parallelism between
the two languages employed causes every translation to suffer.

[35] See Diez, Romance Dictionary, s. v. "Marrir."

[36] On literally retranslating lost into Italian, we should get
the quite different word perduta.

[37] The more flexible method of Dr. Parsons leads to a more
satisfactory but still inadequate result:--
    "Half-way on our life's Journey, in a wood,
      From the right path I found myself astray."


All these, however, are difficulties which lie in the nature of
things,--difficulties for which the translator is not
responsible; of which he must try to make the best that can be
made, but which he can never expect wholly to surmount. We have
now to inquire whether there are not other difficulties,
avoidable by one method of translation, though not by another;
and in criticizing Mr. Longfellow, we have chiefly to ask whether
he has chosen the best method of translation,--that which most
surely and readily awakens in the reader's mind the ideas and
feelings awakened by the original.

The translator of a poem may proceed upon either of two distinct
principles. In the first case, he may render the text of his
original into English, line for line and word for word,
preserving as far as possible its exact verbal sequences, and
translating each individual word into an English word as nearly
as possible equivalent in its etymological force. In the second
case, disregarding mere syntactic and etymologic equivalence, his
aim will be to reproduce the inner meaning and power of the
original, so far as the constitutional difference of the two
languages will permit him.

It is the first of these methods that Mr. Longfellow has followed
in his translation of Dante. Fidelity to the text of the original
has been his guiding principle; and every one must admit that, in
carrying out that principle, he has achieved a degree of success
alike delightful and surprising. The method of literal
translation is not likely to receive any more splendid
illustration. It is indeed put to the test in such a way that the
shortcomings now to be noticed bear not upon Mr. Longfellow's own
style of work so much as upon the method itself with which they
are necessarily implicated. These defects are, first, the too
frequent use of syntactic inversion, and secondly, the too
manifest preference extended to words of Romanic over words of
Saxon origin.

To illustrate the first point, let me give a few examples. In
Canto I. we have:--

     "So bitter is it, death is little more;
      But of the good to treat which there I found,
      Speak will I of the other things I saw there";

which is thus rendered by Mr. Cary,--

     "Which to remember only, my dismay
      Renews, in bitterness not far from death.
      Yet to discourse of what there good befell,
      All else will I relate discovered there";

and by Dr. Parsons,--

     "Its very thought is almost death to me;
      Yet, having found some good there, I will tell
      Of other things which there I chanced to see."[38]

[38] "Tanto e amara, che poco e piu morte:
      Ma per trattar del teen ch' i' vi trovai,
      Diro dell' altre Bose, ch' io v' ho scorte."

Inferno, I. 7-10.


Again in Canto X. we find:--

     "Their cemetery have upon this side
      With Epicurus all his followers,
      Who with the body mortal make the soul";--

an inversion which is perhaps not more unidiomatic than Mr.
Cary's,--

     "The cemetery on this part obtain
      With Epicurus all his followers,
      Who with the body make the spirit die";

but which is advantageously avoided by Mr. Wright,--

     "Here Epicurus hath his fiery tomb,
      And with him all his followers, who maintain
      That soul and body share one common doom";

and is still better rendered by Dr. Parsons,--

     "Here in their cemetery on this side,
      With his whole sect, is Epicurus pent,
      Who thought the spirit with its body died."[39]

[39] "Suo cimitero da questa parte hanno
      Con Epieuro tutti i suoi seguaci,
      Che l'anima col corpo morta fanno."
     Inferno, X. 13-15.

And here my eyes, reverting to the end of Canto IX.,

fall upon a similar contrast between Mr. Longfellow's lines,--

     "For flames between the sepulchres were scattered,
      By which they so intensely heated were,
      That iron more so asks not any art,"--

and those of Dr. Parsons,--

     "For here mid sepulchres were sprinkled fires,
Wherewith the enkindled tombs all-burning gleamed;
      Metal more fiercely hot no art requires."[40]

[40] "Che tra gli avelli flamme erano sparte,
      Per le quali eran si del tutto accesi,
      Che ferro piu non chiede verun' arte."
      Inferno, IX. 118-120.

Does it not seem that in all these cases Mr. Longfellow, and to a
slightly less extent Mr. Cary, by their strict adherence to the
letter, transgress the ordinary rules of English construction;
and that Dr. Parsons, by his comparative freedom of movement,
produces better poetry as well as better English? In the last
example especially, Mr. Longfellow's inversions are so violent
that to a reader ignorant of the original Italian, his sentence
might be hardly intelligible. In Italian such inversions are
permissible; in English they are not; and Mr. Longfellow, by
transplanting them into English, sacrifices the spirit to the
letter, and creates an obscurity in the translation where all is
lucidity in the original. Does not this show that the theory of
absolute literality, in the case of two languages so widely
different as English and Italian, is not the true one?

Secondly, Mr. Longfellow's theory of translation leads him in
most cases to choose words of Romanic origin in preference to
those of Saxon descent, and in many cases to choose an unfamiliar
instead of a familiar Romanic word, because the former happens to
be etymologically identical with the word in the original. Let me
cite as an example the opening of Canto III.:--

     "Per me si va nella eitti dolente,
      Per me si va nell' eterno dolore,
      Per me si va tra la perduta gente."

Here are three lines which, in their matchless simplicity and
grandeur, might well excite despair in the breast of any
translator. Let us contrast Mr. Longfellow's version.--

     "Through me the way is to the city dolent;
      Through me the way is to eternal dole;
      Through me the way among the people lost,"--

with that of Dr. Parsons,--,

     "Through me you reach the city of despair;
      Through me eternal wretchedness ye find;
      Through me among perdition's race ye fare."

I do not think any one will deny that Dr. Parsons's version,
while far more remote than Mr. Longfellow's from the diction of
the original, is somewhat nearer its spirit. It remains to seek
the explanation of this phenomenon. It remains to be seen why
words the exact counterpart of Dante's are unfit to call up in
our minds the feelings which Dante's own words call up in the
mind of an Italian. And this inquiry leads to some general
considerations respecting the relation of English to other
European languages.

Every one is aware that French poetry, as compared with German
poetry, seems to the English reader very tame and insipid; but
the cause of this fact is by no means so apparent as the fact
itself. That the poetry of Germany is actually and intrinsically
superior to that of France, may readily be admitted; but this is
not enough to account for all the circumstances of the case. It
does not explain why some of the very passages in Corneille and
Racine, which to us appear dull and prosaic, are to the
Frenchman's apprehension instinct with poetic fervour. It does
not explain the undoubted fact that we, who speak English, are
prone to underrate French poetry, while we are equally disposed
to render to German poetry even more than its due share of merit.
The reason is to be sought in the verbal associations established
in our minds by the peculiar composition of the English language.
Our vocabulary is chiefly made up on the one hand of indigenous
Saxon words, and on the other hand of words derived from Latin or
French. It is mostly words of the first class that we learn in
childhood, and that are associated with our homeliest and deepest
emotions; while words of the second class--usually acquired
somewhat later in life and employed in sedate abstract
discourse--have an intellectual rather than an emotional function
to fulfil. Their original significations, the physical metaphors
involved in them, which are perhaps still somewhat apparent to
the Frenchman, are to us wholly non-existent. Nothing but the
derivative or metaphysical signification remains. No physical
image of a man stepping over a boundary is presented to our minds
by the word transgress, nor in using the word comprehension do we
picture to ourselves any manual act of grasping. It is to this
double structure of the English language that it owes its
superiority over every other tongue, ancient or modern, for
philosophical and scientific purposes. Albeit there are numerous
exceptions, it may still be safely said, in a general way, that
we possess and habitually use two kinds of language,--one that is
physical, for our ordinary purposes, and one that is
metaphysical, for purposes of abstract reasoning and discussion.
We do not say like the Germans, that we "begripe" (begreifen) an
idea, but we say that we "conceive" it. We use a word which once
had the very same material meaning as begreifen, but which has in
our language utterly lost it. We are accordingly able to carry on
philosophical inquiries by means of words which are nearly or
quite free from those shadows of original concrete meaning which,
in German, too often obscure the acquired abstract signification.
Whoever has dealt in English and German metaphysics will not fail
to recognize the prodigious superiority of English in force and
perspicuity, arising mainly from the causes here stated. But
while this homogeneity of structure in German injures it for
philosophical purposes, it is the very thing which makes it so
excellent as an organ for poetical expression, in the opinion of
those who speak English. German being nearly allied to
Anglo-Saxon, not only do its simple words strike us with all the
force of our own homely Saxon terms, but its compounds also,
preserving their physical significations almost unimpaired, call
up in our minds concrete images of the greatest definiteness and
liveliness. It is thus that German seems to us pre-eminently a
poetical language, and it is thus that we are naturally inclined
to overrate rather than to depreciate the poetry that is written
in it.

With regard to French, the case is just the reverse. The
Frenchman has no Saxon words, but he has, on the other hand, an
indigenous stock of Latin words, which he learns in early
childhood, which give outlet to his most intimate feelings, and
which retain to some extent their primitive concrete
picturesqueness. They are to him just as good as our Saxon words
are to us. Though cold and merely intellectual to us, they are to
him warm with emotion; and this is one reason why we cannot do
justice to his poetry, or appreciate it as he appreciates it. To
make this perfectly clear, let us take two or three lines from
Shakespeare:--

     "Blow, blow, thou winter wind!
      Thou art not so unkind
      As man's ingratitude,
      Thy tooth is not so keen," etc., etc.;

which I have somewhere seen thus rendered into French:

     "Souffle, souffle, vent d'hiver!
      Tu n'es pas si cruel
      Que l'ingratitude de l'homme.
      Ta dent n'est pas si penetrante," etc., etc.

Why are we inclined to laugh as we read this? Because it excites
in us an undercurrent of consciousness which, if put into words,
might run something like this:--

     "Insufflate, insufflate, wind hibernal!
      Thou art not so cruel
      As human ingratitude.
      Thy dentition is not so penetrating," etc., etc.

No such effect would be produced upon a Frenchman. The
translation would strike him as excellent, which it really is.
The last line in particular would seem poetical to us, did we not
happen to have in our language words closely akin to dent and
penetrante, and familiarly employed in senses that are not
poetical.

Applying these considerations to Mr. Longfellow's choice of words
in his translation of Dante, we see at once the unsoundness of
the principle that Italian words should be rendered by their
Romanic equivalents in English. Words that are etymologically
identical with those in the original are often, for that very
reason, the worst words that could be used. They are harsh and
foreign to the English ear, however homelike and musical they may
be to the ear of an Italian. Their connotations are unlike in the
two languages; and the translation which is made literally exact
by using them is at the same time made actually inaccurate, or at
least inadequate. Dole and dolent are doubtless the exact
counterparts of dolore and dolente, so far as mere etymology can
go. But when we consider the effect that is to be produced upon
the mind of the reader, wretchedness and despairing are fat
better equivalents. The former may compel our intellectual
assent, but the latter awaken our emotional sympathy.

Doubtless by long familiarity with the Romanic languages, the
scholar becomes to a great degree emancipated from the conditions
imposed upon him by the peculiar composition of his native
English. The concrete significance of the Romanic words becomes
apparent to him, and they acquire energy and vitality. The
expression dolent may thus satisfy the student familiar with
Italian, because it calls up in his mind, through the medium of
its equivalent dolente, the same associations which the latter
calls up in the mind of the Italian himself.[41] But this power
of appreciating thoroughly the beauties of a foreign tongue is in
the last degree an acquired taste,--as much so as the taste for
olives and kirschenwasser to the carnal palate. It is only by
long and profound study that we can thus temporarily vest
ourselves, so to speak, with a French or Italian consciousness in
exchange for our English one. The literary epicure may keenly
relish such epithets as dolent; but the common English reader,
who loves plain fare, can hardly fail to be startled by it. To
him it savours of the grotesque; and if there is any one thing
especially to be avoided in the interpretation of Dante, it is
grotesqueness.

[41] A consummate Italian scholar, the delicacy of whose taste is
questioned by no one, and whose knowledge of Dante's diction is
probably not inferior to Mr. Longfellow's, has told me that he
regards the expression as a noble and effective one, full of
dignity and solemnity.


Those who have read over Dante without reading into him, and
those who have derived their impressions of his poem from M.
Dore's memorable illustrations, will here probably demur. What!
Dante not grotesque! That tunnel-shaped structure of the infernal
pit; Minos passing sentence on the damned by coiling his tail;
Charon beating the lagging shades with his oar; Antaios picking
up the poets with his fingers and lowering them in the hollow of
his hand into the Ninth Circle; Satan crunching in his monstrous
jaws the arch-traitors, Judas, Brutus and Cassius; Ugolino
appeasing his famine upon the tough nape of Ruggieri; Bertrand de
Born looking (if I may be allowed the expression) at his own
dissevered head; the robbers exchanging form with serpents; the
whole demoniac troop of Malebolge,--are not all these things
grotesque beyond everything else in poetry? To us, nurtured in
this scientific nineteenth century, they doubtless seem so; and
by Leigh Hunt, who had the eighteenth-century way of appreciating
other ages than his own, they were uniformly treated as such. To
us they are at first sight grotesque, because they are no longer
real to us. We have ceased to believe in such things, and they no
longer awaken any feeling akin to terror. But in the thirteenth
century, in the minds of Dante and his readers, they were living,
terrible realities. That Dante believed literally in all this
unearthly world, and described it with such wonderful minuteness
because he believed in it, admits of little doubt. As he walked
the streets of Verona the people whispered, "See, there is the
man who has been in hell!" Truly, he had been in hell, and
described it as he had seen it, with the keen eyes of imagination
and faith. With all its weird unearthliness, there is hardly
another book in the whole range of human literature which is
marked with such unswerving veracity as the "Divine Comedy."
Nothing is there set down arbitrarily, out of wanton caprice or
for the sake of poetic effect, but because to Dante's imagination
it had so imposingly shown itself that he could not but describe
it as he saw it. In reading his cantos we forget the poet, and
have before us only the veracious traveller in strange realms,
from whom the shrewdest cross-examination can elicit but one
consistent account. To his mind, and to the mediaeval mind
generally, this outer kingdom, with its wards of Despair,
Expiation, and Beatitude, was as real as the Holy Roman Empire
itself. Its extraordinary phenomena were not to be looked on with
critical eyes and called grotesque, but were to be seen with eyes
of faith, and to be worshipped, loved, or shuddered at. Rightly
viewed, therefore, the poem of Dante is not grotesque, but
unspeakably awful and solemn; and the statement is justified that
all grotesqueness and bizarrerie in its interpretation is to be
sedulously avoided.

Therefore, while acknowledging the accuracy with which Mr.
Longfellow has kept pace with his original through line after
line, following the "footing of its feet," according to the motto
quoted on his title-page, I cannot but think that his accuracy
would have been of a somewhat higher kind if he had now and then
allowed himself a little more liberty of choice between English
and Romanic words and idioms.

A few examples will perhaps serve to strengthen as well as to
elucidate still further this position.

"Inferno," Canto III., line 22, according to Longfellow:--

     "There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud
      Resounded through the air without a star,
      Whence I at the beginning wept thereat."

According to Cary:--

     "Here sighs, with lamentations and loud moans
      Resounded through the air pierced by no star,
      That e'en I wept at entering."

According to Parsons:--

     "Mid sighs, laments, and hollow howls of woe,
      Which, loud resounding through the starless air,
      Forced tears of pity from mine eyes at first."[42]

[42] "Quivi sospiri, pianti ed alti guai
      Risonavan per l' ner senza stelle,
      Perch' io al cominciar ne lagrimai."

Canto V., line 84:--

LONGFELLOW.--"Fly through the air by their volition borne."
CARY.--"Cleave the air, wafted by their will along."
PARSONS.--"Sped ever onward by their wish alone."[43]

[43] "Volan per l' aer dal voler portate."


Canto XVII., line 42:--

LONGFELLOW.--"That he concede to us his stalwart shoulders."
CARY--"That to us he may vouchsafe
      The aid of his strong shoulders."
 PARSONS.--"And ask for us his shoulders' strong support."[44]

[44] "Che ne conceda i suoi omeri forti."


Canto XVII., line 25:--

LONGFELLOW.--
"His tail was wholly quivering in the void,
           Contorting upwards the envenomed fork
           That in the guise of scorpion armed its point."
CARY.--
"In the void
Glancing, his tail upturned its venomous fork,
With sting like scorpions armed."

PARSONS.--"In the void chasm his trembling tail he showed,
As up the envenomed, forked point he swung,      Which, as in
scorpions, armed its tapering end."[45]

[45] "Nel vano tutta sue coda guizzava,
  Torcendo in su la venenosa forca,
  Che, a guisa di scorpion, la punta armava."

Canto V., line 51:--

LONGFELLOW.--"People whom the black air so castigates.
 CARY.--"By the black air so scourged."[46]

[46] "Genti che l' aura nera si gastiga."

Line 136:--

LONGFELLOW.--"Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating."
CARY.--"My lips all trembling kissed."[47]

[47] "La bocca mi bacio tutto tremante."

"Purgatorio," Canto XV., line 139:--

LONGFELLOW.--
"We passed along, athwart the twilight peering
 Forward as far as ever eye could stretch
 Against the sunbeams serotine and lucent."[48]

[48] "Noi andavam per lo vespero attenti
  Oltre, quanto potean gli occhi allungarsi,
  Contra i raggi serotini e lucenti."


Mr. Cary's "bright vespertine ray" is only a trifle better; but
Mr. Wright's "splendour of the evening ray" is, in its
simplicity, far preferable.

Canto XXXI., line 131:--

LONGFELLOW.--"Did the other three advance Singing to their
angelic saraband."

CARY.--"To their own carol on they came Dancing, in festive ring
angelical "

WRIGHT.--"And songs accompanied their angel dance."


Here Mr. Longfellow has apparently followed the authority of the
Crusca, reading

          "Cantando al loro angelico carribo,"

and translating carribo by saraband, a kind of Moorish dance. The
best manuscripts, however, sanction M. Witte's reading:--

          "Danzando al loro angelico carribo."

If this be correct, carribo cannot signify "a dance," but rather
"the song which accompanies the dance"; and the true sense of the
passage will have been best rendered by Mr. Cary.[49]

[49] See Blanc, Vocabolario Dantesco, s. v. "caribo."


Whenever Mr. Longfellow's translation is kept free from oddities
of diction and construction, it is very animated and vigorous.
Nothing can be finer than his rendering of "Purgatorio," Canto
VI., lines 97-117:--

 "O German Albert! who abandonest
      Her that has grown recalcitrant and savage,
      And oughtest to bestride her saddle-bow,

 May a just judgment from the stars down fall
      Upon thy blood, and be it new and open,
      That thy successor may have fear thereof:

 Because thy father and thyself have suffered,
      By greed of those transalpine lands distrained,
      The garden of the empire to be waste.

 Come and behold Montecchi and Cappelletti,
      Monaldi and Filippeschi, careless man!
      Those sad already, and these doubt-depressed!

 Come, cruel one! come and behold the oppression
      Of thy nobility, and cure their wounds,
      And thou shalt see how safe [?] is Santafiore.

 Come and behold thy Rome that is lamenting,
      Widowed, alone, and day and night exclaims
      'My Caesar, why hast thou forsaken me?'

 Come and behold how loving are the people;
      And if for us no pity moveth thee,
      Come and be made ashamed of thy renown."[50]

[50] "O Alberto Tedesco, che abbandoni
      Costei ch' e fatta indomita e selvaggia,
      E dovresti inforcar li suoi arcioni,

 Giusto gindizio dalle stelle caggia
      Sopra il tuo sangue, e sia nuovo ed aperto,
      Tal che il tuo successor temenza n' aggia:
  Cheavete tu e il tuo padre sofferto,
      Per cupidigia di costa distretti,
      Che il giardin dell' imperio sia diserto.

 Vieni a veder Montecchi e Cappelletti,
      Monaldi e Filippeschi, uom senza cura:
      Color gia tristi, e questi con sospetti.
  Vien, crudel, vieni, e vedi la pressura
      De' tuoi gentili, e cure lor magagne,
      E vedrai Santafior com' e oscura [secura?].
  Vieni a veder la tua Roma che piagne,
      Vedova e sola, e di e notte chiama:
      Cesare mio, perche non m' accompagne?
  Vieni a veder la gente quanto s' ama;
      E se nulla di noi pieta ti move,
      A vergognar ti vien della tua fama."



So, too, Canto III., lines 79-84:--

     "As sheep come issuing forth from out the fold
      By ones, and twos, and threes, and the others stand
Timidly holding down their eyes and nostrils,

 And what the foremost does the others do
      Huddling themselves against her if she stop,
      Simple and quiet, and the wherefore know not."[51]

[51] "Come le pecorelle escon del chiuso
      Ad una, a due, a tre, e l' altre stanno
      Timidette atterrando l' occhio e il muso;

 E cio che fa la prima, e l' altre sanno,
      Addossandosi a lei s' ella s' arresta,
      Semplici e quete, e lo 'mperche non sanno."


Francesca's exclamation to Dante is thus rendered by Mr.
Longfellow:--

     "And she to me: There is no greater sorrow
      Than to be mindful of the happy time
      In misery."[52]

[52] "Ed ella a me: Nessun maggior dolore
  Che ricordarsi del tempo felice  Nella miseria."
Inferno, V. 121-123.



This is admirable,--full of the true poetic glow, which would
have been utterly quenched if some Romanic equivalent of dolore
had been used instead of our good Saxon sorrow.[53] So, too, the
"Paradiso," Canto I., line 100:--

     "Whereupon she, after a pitying sigh,
      Her eyes directed toward me with that look
      A mother casts on a delirious child."[54]

[53] Yet admirable as it is, I am not quite sure that Dr.
Parsons, by taking further liberty with the original, has not
surpassed it:--
    "And she to me: The mightiest of all woes
      Is in the midst of misery to be cursed
      With bliss remembered."

[54] "Ond' ella, appresso d'un pio sospiro
,  Gli occhi drizzo ver me con quel sembiante,
  Che madre fa sopra figlinol deliro."


And, finally, the beginning of the eighth canto of the
"Purgatorio":--

     "'T was now the hour that turneth back desire
      In those who sail the sea, and melts the heart,
      The day they've said to their sweet friends farewell;
  And the new pilgrim penetrates with love,
      If he doth hear from far away a bell
      That seemeth to deplore the dying day."[55]

[55] "Era gia l' ora che volge il disio
      Ai naviganti, e intenerisce il core
      Lo di ch' hen detto ai dolci amici addio;
  E che lo nuovo peregrin d' amore
      Punge, se ode squilla di lontano,
      Che paia il giorno pianger che si more."

This passage affords an excellent example of what the method of
literal translation can do at its best. Except in the second
line, where "those who sail the sea" is wisely preferred to any
Romanic equivalent of naviganti the version is utterly literal;
as literal as the one the school-boy makes, when he opens his
Virgil at the Fourth Eclogue, and lumberingly reads, "Sicilian
Muses, let us sing things a little greater." But there is nothing
clumsy, nothing which smacks of the recitation-room, in these
lines of Mr. Longfellow. For easy grace and exquisite beauty it
would be difficult to surpass them. They may well bear comparison
with the beautiful lines into which Lord Byron has rendered the
same thought:--

 "Soft hour which wakes the wish, and melts the heart,
      Of those who sail the seas, on the first day
  When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
      Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way,
  As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
      Seeming to weep the dying day's decay.
  Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
  Ah, surely nothing dies but something mourns!"[56]

[56] Don Juan, III. 108.

Setting aside the concluding sentimental generalization,--which
is much more Byronic than Dantesque,--one hardly knows which
version to call more truly poetical; but for a faithful rendering
of the original conception one can hardly hesitate to give the
palm to Mr. Longfellow.

Thus we see what may be achieved by the most highly gifted of
translators who contents himself with passively reproducing the
diction of his original, who constitutes himself, as it were, a
conduit through which the meaning of the original may flow. Where
the differences inherent in the languages employed do not
intervene to alloy the result, the stream of the original may, as
in the verses just cited, come out pure and unweakened. Too
often, however, such is the subtle chemistry of thought, it will
come out diminished in its integrity, or will appear, bereft of
its primitive properties as a mere element in some new
combination. Our channel is a trifle too alkaline perhaps; and
that the transferred material may preserve its pleasant
sharpness, we may need to throw in a little extra acid. Too often
the mere differences between English and Italian prevent Dante's
expressions from coming out in Mr. Longfellow's version so pure
and unimpaired as in the instance just cited. But these
differences cannot be ignored. They lie deep in the very
structure of human speech, and are narrowly implicated with
equally profound nuances in the composition of human thought. The
causes which make dolente a solemn word to the Italian ear, and
dolent a queer word to the English ear, are causes which have
been slowly operating ever since the Italican and the Teuton
parted company on their way from Central Asia. They have brought
about a state of things which no cunning of the translator can
essentially alter, but to the emergencies of which he must
graciously conform his proceedings. Here, then, is the sole point
on which we disagree with Mr. Longfellow, the sole reason we have
for thinking that he has not attained the fullest possible
measure of success. Not that he has made a "realistic"
translation,--so far we conceive him to be entirely right; but
that, by dint of pushing sheer literalism beyond its proper
limits, he has too often failed to be truly realistic. Let us
here explain what is meant by realistic translation.

Every thoroughly conceived and adequately executed translation of
an ancient author must be founded upon some conscious theory or
some unconscious instinct of literary criticism. As is the
critical spirit of an age, so among other things will be its
translations. Now the critical spirit of every age previous to
our own has been characterized by its inability to appreciate
sympathetically the spirit of past and bygone times. In the
seventeenth century criticism made idols of its ancient models;
it acknowledged no serious imperfections in them; it set them up
as exemplars for the present and all future times to copy. Let
the genial Epicurean henceforth write like Horace, let the epic
narrator imitate the supreme elegance of Virgil,--that was the
conspicuous idea, the conspicuous error, of seventeenth-century
criticism. It overlooked the differences between one age and
another. Conversely, when it brought Roman patricians and Greek
oligarchs on to the stage, it made them behave like French
courtiers or Castilian grandees or English peers. When it had to
deal with ancient heroes, it clothed them in the garb and imputed
to them the sentiments of knights-errant. Then came the
revolutionary criticism of the eighteenth century, which assumed
that everything old was wrong, while everything new was right. It
recognized crudely the differences between one age and another,
but it had a way of looking down upon all ages except the
present. This intolerance shown toward the past was indeed a
measure of the crudeness with which it was comprehended. Because
Mohammed, if he had done what he did, in France and in the
eighteenth century, would have been called an impostor, Voltaire,
the great mouthpiece and representative of this style of
criticism, portrays him as an impostor. Recognition of the fact
that different ages are different, together with inability to
perceive that they ought to be different, that their differences
lie in the nature of progress,--this was the prominent
characteristic of eighteenth-century criticism. Of all the great
men of that century, Lessing was perhaps the only one who outgrew
this narrow critical habit.

Now nineteenth-century criticism not only knows that in no
preceding age have men thought and behaved as they now think and
behave, but it also understands that old-fashioned thinking and
behaviour was in its way just as natural and sensible as that
which is now new-fashioned. It does not flippantly sneer at an
ancient custom because we no longer cherish it; but with an
enlightened regard for everything human, it inquires into its
origin, traces its effects, and endeavours to explain its decay.
It is slow to characterize Mohammed as an impostor, because it
has come to feel that Arabia in the seventh century is one thing
and Europe in the nineteenth another. It is scrupulous about
branding Caesar as an usurper, because it has discovered that
what Mr. Mill calls republican liberty and what Cicero called
republican liberty are widely different notions. It does not tell
us to bow down before Lucretius and Virgil as unapproachable
models, while lamenting our own hopeless inferiority; nor does it
tell us to set them down as half-skilled apprentices, while
congratulating ourselves on our own comfortable superiority; but
it tells us to study them as the exponents of an age forever
gone, from which we have still many lessons to learn, though we
no longer think as it thought or feel as it felt. The eighteenth
century, as represented by the characteristic passage from
Voltaire, cited by Mr. Longfellow, failed utterly to understand
Dante. To the minds of Voltaire and his contemporaries the great
mediaeval poet was little else than a Titanic monstrosity,--a
maniac, whose ravings found rhythmical expression; his poem a
grotesque medley, wherein a few beautiful verses were buried
under the weight of whole cantos of nonsensical scholastic
quibbling. This view, somewhat softened, we find also in Leigh
Hunt, whose whole account of Dante is an excellent specimen of
this sort of criticism. Mr. Hunt's fine moral nature was shocked
and horrified by the terrible punishments described in the
"Inferno." He did not duly consider that in Dante's time these
fearful things were an indispensable part of every man's theory
of the world; and, blinded by his kindly prejudices, he does not
seem to have perceived that Dante, in accepting eternal torments
as part and parcel of the system of nature, was nevertheless, in
describing them, inspired with that ineffable tenderness of pity
which, in the episodes of Francesca and of Brunetto Latini, has
melted the hearts of men in past times, and will continue to do
so in times to come. "Infinite pity, yet infinite rigour of law!
It is so Nature is made: it is so Dante discerned that she was
made."[57] This remark of the great seer of our time is what the
eighteenth century could in no wise comprehend. The men of that
day failed to appreciate Dante, just as they were oppressed or
disgusted at the sight of Gothic architecture; just as they
pronounced the scholastic philosophy an unmeaning jargon; just as
they considered mediaeval Christianity a gigantic system of
charlatanry, and were wont unreservedly to characterize the
Papacy as a blighting despotism. In our time cultivated men think
differently. We have learned that the interminable hair-splitting
of Aquinas and Abelard has added precision to modern
thinking.[58] We do not curse Gregory VII. and Innocent III. as
enemies of the human race, but revere them as benefactors. We can
spare a morsel of hearty admiration for Becket, however strongly
we may sympathize with the stalwart king who did penance for his
foul murder; and we can appreciate Dante's poor opinion of Philip
the Fair no less than his denunciation of Boniface VIII. The
contemplation of Gothic architecture, as we stand entranced in
the sublime cathedrals of York or Rouen, awakens in our breasts a
genuine response to the mighty aspirations which thus became
incarnate in enduring stone. And the poem of Dante--which has
been well likened to a great cathedral--we reverently accept,
with all its quaint carvings and hieroglyphic symbols, as the
authentic utterance of feelings which still exist, though they no
longer choose the same form of expression.

[57] Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship, p. 84.

[58] See my Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. I. p. 123.


A century ago, therefore, a translation of Dante such as Mr.
Longfellow's would have been impossible. The criticism of that
time was in no mood for realistic reproductions of the antique.
It either superciliously neglected the antique, or else dressed
it up to suit its own notions of propriety. It was not like a
seven-league boot which could fit everybody, but it was like a
Procrustes-bed which everybody must be made to fit. Its great
exponent was not a Sainte-Beuve, but a Boileau. Its typical
sample of a reproduction of the antique was Pope's translation of
the Iliad. That book, we presume, everybody has read; and many of
those who have read it know that, though an excellent and
spirited poem, it is no more Homer than the age of Queen Anne was
the age of Peisistratos. Of the translations of Dante made during
this period, the chief was unquestionably Mr. Cary's.[59] For a
man born and brought up in the most unpoetical of centuries, Mr.
Cary certainly made a very good poem, though not so good as
Pope's. But it fell far short of being a reproduction of Dante.
The eighteenth-century note rings out loudly on every page of it.
Like much other poetry of the time, it is laboured and
artificial. Its sentences are often involved and occasionally
obscure. Take, for instance, Canto IV. 25-36 of the "Paradiso":

[59] This work comes at the end of the eighteenth-century period,
as Pope's translation of Homer comes at the beginning.

     "These are the questions which they will
      Urge equally; and therefore I the first
      Of that will treat which hath the more of gall.
      Of seraphim he who is most enskied,
      Moses, and Samuel, and either John,
      Choose which thou wilt, nor even Mary's self,
      Have not in any other heaven their seats,
      Than have those spirits which so late thou saw'st;
      Nor more or fewer years exist; but all
      Make the first circle beauteous, diversely
      Partaking of sweet life, as more or less
      Afflation of eternal bliss pervades them."


Here Mr. Cary not only fails to catch Dante's grand style; he
does not even write a style at all. It is too constrained and
awkward to be dignified, and dignity is an indispensable element
of style. Without dignity we may write clearly, or nervously, or
racily, but we have not attained to a style. This is the second
shortcoming of Mr. Cary's translation. Like Pope's, it fails to
catch the grand style of its original. Unlike Pope's, it
frequently fails to exhibit any style.

It is hardly necessary to spend much time in proving that Mr.
Longfellow's version is far superior to Mr. Cary's. It is usually
easy and flowing, and save in the occasional use of violent
inversions, always dignified. Sometimes, as in the episode of
Ugolino, it even rises to something like the grandeur of the
original:

     "When he had said this, with his eyes distorted,
      The wretched skull resumed he with his teeth,
      Which, as a dog's, upon the bone were strong."[60]

[60] "Quand' ebbe detto cio, eon gli occhi torti
  Riprese il teschio misero coi denti,
  Che furo all' osso, come d'un can, forti."
   Inferno, XXXIII. 76.


That is in the grand style, and so is the following, which
describes those sinners locked in the frozen lake below
Malebolge:--

     "Weeping itself there does not let them weep,
      And grief that finds a barrier in the eyes
      Turns itself inward to increase the anguish.[61]

[61] "Lo pianto stesso li pianger non lascia,
  E il duol, che trova in sugli occhi rintoppo,
  Si volve in entro a far crescer l' ambascia."
 Inferno, XXXIII. 94.


And the exclamation of one of these poor "wretches of the frozen
crust" is an exclamation that Shakespeare might have written:--

     "Lift from mine eyes the rigid veils, that I
      May vent the sorrow which impregns my heart."[62]

[62] "Levatemi dal viso i duri veli,
  Si ch' io sfoghi il dolor che il cor m' impregna."
                Ib. 112.


There is nothing in Mr. Cary's translation which can stand a
comparison with that. The eighteenth century could not translate
like that. For here at last we have a real reproduction of the
antique. In the Shakespearian ring of these lines we recognize
the authentic rendering of the tones of the only man since the
Christian era who could speak like Shakespeare.

In this way Mr. Longfellow's translation is, to an eminent
degree, realistic. It is a work conceived and executed in entire
accordance with the spirit of our time. Mr. Longfellow has set
about making a reconstructive translation, and he has succeeded
in the attempt. In view of what he has done, no one can ever wish
to see the old methods of Pope and Cary again resorted to. It is
only where he fails to be truly realistic that he comes short of
success. And, as already hinted, it is oftenest through sheer
excess of LITERALISM that he ceases to be realistic, and departs
from the spirit of his author instead of coming nearer to it. In
the "Paradiso," Canto X. 1-6, his method leads him into
awkwardness:--

     "Looking into His Son with all the love
      Which each of them eternally breathes forth,
      The primal and unutterable Power
      Whate'er before the mind or eye revolves
      With so much order made, there can be none
      Who this beholds without enjoying Him."


This seems clumsy and halting, yet it is an extremely literal
paraphrase of a graceful and flowing original:--

     "Guardando nel suo figlio con l' amore
           Che l' uno e l' altro eternalmente spire,
           Lo primo ed ineffabile Valore,
      Quanto per mente o per loco si gira
           Con tanto ordine fe', ch' esser non puote
           Senza gustar di lui ehi cio rimira "

Now to turn a graceful and flowing sentence into one that is
clumsy and halting is certainly not to reproduce it, no matter
how exactly the separate words are rendered, or how closely the
syntactic constructions match each other. And this consideration
seems conclusive as against the adequacy of the literalist
method. That method is inadequate, not because it is too
REALISTIC, but because it runs continual risk of being too
VERBALISTIC. It has recently been applied to the translation of
Dante by Mr. Rossetti, and it has sometimes led him to write
curious verses. For instance, he makes Francesca say to Dante,--

     "O gracious and benignant ANIMAL!"

for

     "O animal grazioso e benigno!"

Mr. Longfellow's good taste has prevented his doing anything like
this, yet Mr. Rossetti's extravagance is due to an unswerving
adherence to the very rules by which Mr. Longfellow has been
guided.

Good taste and poetic genius are, however, better than the best
of rules, and so, after all said and done, we can only conclude
that Mr. Longfellow has given us a great and noble work not
likely soon to be equalled. Leopardi somewhere, in speaking of
the early Italian translators of the classics and their
well-earned popularity, says, who knows but Caro will live in
men's remembrance as long as Virgil? "La belie destinee," adds
Sainte-Beuve, "de ne pouvoir plus mourir, sinon avec un
immortel!" Apart from Mr. Longfellow's other titles to undying
fame, such a destiny is surely marked out for him, and throughout
the English portions of the world his name will always be
associated with that of the great Florentine.

     June, 1867.



XII. PAINE'S "ST. PETER."

For music-lovers in America the great event of the season has
been the performance of Mr. Paine's oratorio, "St. Peter," at
Portland, June 3. This event is important, not only as the first
appearance of an American oratorio, but also as the first direct
proof we have had of the existence of creative musical genius in
this country. For Mr. Paine's Mass in D--a work which was brought
out with great success several years ago in Berlin--has, for some
reason or other, never been performed here. And, with the
exception of Mr. Paine, we know of no American hitherto who has
shown either the genius or the culture requisite for writing
music in the grand style, although there is some of the
Kapellmeister music, written by our leading organists and
choristers, which deserves honourable mention. Concerning the
rank likely to be assigned by posterity to "St. Peter," it would
be foolish now to speculate; and it would be equally unwise to
bring it into direct comparison with masterpieces like the
"Messiah," "Elijah," and "St. Paul," the greatness of which has
been so long acknowledged. Longer familiarity with the work is
needed before such comparisons, always of somewhat doubtful
value, can be profitably undertaken. But it must at least be
said, as the net result of our impressions derived both from
previous study of the score and from hearing, the performance at
Portland, that Mr. Paine's oratorio has fairly earned for itself
the right to be judged by the same high standard which we apply
to these noble works of Mendelssohn and Handel.

In our limited space we can give only the briefest description of
the general structure of the work. The founding of Christianity,
as illustrated in four principal scenes of the life of St. Peter,
supplies the material for the dramatic development of the
subject. The overture, beginning with an adagio movement in
B-flat minor, gives expression to the vague yearnings of that
time of doubt and hesitancy when the "oracles were dumb," and the
dawning of a new era of stronger and diviner faith was matter of
presentiment rather than of definite hope or expectation. Though
the tonality is at first firmly established, yet as the movement
becomes more agitated, the final tendency of the modulations also
becomes uncertain, and for a few bars it would seem as if the key
of F-sharp minor might be the point of destination. But after a
short melody by the wind instruments, accompanied by a rapid
upward movement of strings, the dominant chord of C major asserts
itself, being repeated, with sundry inversions, through a dozen
bars, and leading directly into the triumphant and majestic
chorus, " The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven is at
hand." The second subject, introduced by the word "repent"
descending through the interval of a diminished seventh and
contrasted with the florid counterpoint of the phrase, "and
believe the glad tidings of God," is a masterpiece of
contrapuntal writing, and, if performed by a choir of three or
four hundred voices, would produce an overpowering effect. The
divine call of Simon Peter and his brethren is next described in
a tenor recitative; and the acceptance of the glad tidings is
expressed in an aria, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me," which,
by an original but appropriate conception, is given to the
soprano voice. In the next number, the disciples are dramatically
represented by twelve basses and tenors, singing in four-part
harmony, and alternating or combining with the full chorus in
description of the aims of the new religion. The poem ends with
the choral, "How lovely shines the Morning Star!" Then follows
the sublime scene from Matthew xvi. 14-18, where Peter declares
his master to be "the Christ, the Son of the living God,"--one of
the most impressive scenes, we have always thought, in the gospel
history, and here not inadequately treated. The feeling of
mysterious and awful grandeur awakened by Peter's bold
exclamation, "Thou art the Christ," is powerfully rendered by the
entrance of the trombones upon the inverted subdominant triad of
C-sharp minor, and their pause upon the dominant of the same key.
Throughout this scene the characteristic contrast between the
ardent vigour of Peter and the sweet serenity of Jesus is well
delineated in the music. After Peter's stirring aria, "My heart
is glad," the dramatic climax is reached in the C-major chorus,
"The Church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets."

The second scene is carried out to somewhat greater length,
corresponding nearly to the last half of the first part of
"Elijah," from the point where the challenge is given to the
prophets of Baal. In the opening passages of mingled recitative
and arioso, Peter is forewarned that he shall deny his Master,
and his half-indignant remonstrance is sustained, with added
emphasis, by the voices of the twelve disciples, pitched a fourth
higher. Then Judas comes, with a great multitude, and Jesus is
carried before the high-priest. The beautiful F-minor chorus, "We
hid our faces from him," furnishes the musical comment upon the
statement that "the disciples all forsook him and fled." We
hardly dare to give full expression to our feelings about this
chorus (which during the past month has been continually singing
itself over and over again in our recollection), lest it should
be supposed that our enthusiasm has got the better of our sober
judgment. The second theme, "He was brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, yet he opened not his mouth," is quite Handel-like in
the simplicity and massiveness of its magnificent harmonic
progressions. With the scene of the denial, for which we are thus
prepared, the dramatic movement becomes exceedingly rapid, and
the rendering of the events in the high-priest's hall--Peter's
bass recitative alternating its craven protestations with the
clamorous agitato chorus of the servants--is stirring in the
extreme. The contralto aria describing the Lord's turning and
looking upon Peter is followed by the orchestra with a lament in
B-flat minor, introducing the bass aria of the repentant and
remorse-stricken disciple, "O God, my God, forsake me not." As
the last strains of the lamentation die away, a choir of angels
is heard, of sopranos and contraltos divided, singing, "Remember
from whence thou art fallen," to an accompaniment of harps. The
second theme, "He that overcometh shall receive a crown of life,"
is introduced in full chorus, in a cheering allegro movement,
preparing the way for a climax higher than any yet reached in the
course of the work. This climax--delayed for a few moments by an
andante aria for a contralto voice, "The Lord is faithful and
righteous"--at last bursts upon us with a superb crescendo of
strings, and the words, "Awake, thou that sleepest, arise from
the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." This chorus, which
for reasons presently to be given was heard at considerable
disadvantage at Portland, contains some of the best fugue-writing
in the work, and is especially rich and powerful in its
instrumentation.

The second part of the oratorio begins with the crucifixion and
ascension of Jesus. Here we must note especially the deeply
pathetic opening chorus, "The Son of Man was delivered into the
hands of sinful men," the joyous allegro, "And on the third day
he rose again," the choral, "Jesus, my Redeemer, lives," and the
quartet, "Feed the flock of God," commenting upon the command of
Jesus, "Feed my lambs." This quartet has all the heavenly
sweetness of Handel's "He shall feed his flock," which it
suggests by similarity of subject, though not by similarity of
treatment; but in a certain quality of inwardness, or religious
meditativeness, it reminds one more of Mr. Paine's favourite
master, Bach. The choral, like the one in the first part and the
one which follows the scene of Pentecost, is taken from the
Lutheran Choral Book, and arranged with original harmony and
instrumentation, in accordance with the custom of Bach,
Mendelssohn, and other composers, "of introducing into their
sacred compositions the old popular choral melodies which are the
peculiar offspring of a religious age." Thus the noblest choral
ever written, the "Sleepers, wake," in "St. Paul," was composed
in 1604 by Praetorius, the harmonization and accompaniment only
being the work of Mendelssohn.

In "St. Peter," as in "Elijah," the second part, while forming
the true musical climax of the oratorio, admits of a briefer
description than the first part. The wave of emotion answering to
the sensuously dramatic element having partly spent itself, the
wave of lyric emotion gathers fresh strength, and one feels that
one has reached the height of spiritual exaltation, while,
nevertheless, there is not so much which one can describe to
others who may not happen to have gone through with the same
experience. Something of the same feeling one gets in studying
Dante's "Paradiso," after finishing the preceding divisions of
his poem: there is less which can be pictured to the eye of
sense, or left to be supplied by the concrete imagination.
Nevertheless, in the scene of Pentecost, which follows that of
the Ascension, there is no lack of dramatic vividness. Indeed,
there is nothing in the work more striking than the orchestration
of the introductory tenor recitative, the mysterious chorus, "The
voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire," or the amazed
query which follows, "Behold, are not all these who speak
Galileans? and how is it that we every one hear them in our own
tongue wherein we were born?" We have heard the opinion expressed
that Mr. Paine's oratorio must be lacking in originality, since
it suggests such strong reminiscences of "St. Paul." Now, this
suggestion, it seems to us, is due partly to the similarity of
the subjects, independently of any likeness in the modes of
treatment, and partly, perhaps, to the fact that Mr. Paine, as
well as Mendelssohn, has been a devoted student of Bach, whose
characteristics are so strong that they may well have left their
mark upon the works of both composers. But especially it would
seem that there is some real, though very general resemblance
between this colloquial chorus, "Behold," etc., and some choruses
in "St. Paul," as, for example Nos. 29 and 36-38. In the same way
the scene in the high-priest's hall might distantly suggest
either of these passages, or others in "Elijah;" These
resemblances, however, are very superficial, pertaining not to
the musical but to the dramatic treatment of situations which are
generically similar in so far, and only in so far, as they
represent conversational passages between an apostle or prophet
and an ignorant multitude, whether amazed or hostile, under the
sway of violent excitement. As regards the musical elaboration of
these terse and striking alternations of chorus and recitative,
its originality can be questioned only after we have decided to
refer all originality on such matters to Bach, or, indeed, even
behind him, into the Middle Ages.

After the preaching of Peter, and the sweet contralto aria, "As
for man, his days are as grass," the culmination of this scene
comes in the D-major chorus, "This is the witness of God." What
follows, beginning with the choral, "Praise to the Father," is to
be regarded as an epilogue or peroration to the whole work. It is
in accordance with a sound tradition that the grand sacred drama
of an oratorio should conclude with a lyric outburst of
thanksgiving, a psalm of praise to the Giver of every good and
perfect gift. Thus, after Peter's labours are ended in the aria,
"Now as ye were redeemed," in which the twelve disciples and the
full chorus join, a duet for tenor and soprano, "Sing unto God,"
brings us to the grand final chorus in C major, "Great and
marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty."

The cadence of this concluding chorus reminds us that one of the
noteworthy points in the oratorio is the character of its
cadences. The cadence prepared by the 6/4 chord, now become so
hackneyed from its perpetual and wearisome repetition in popular
church music, seems to be especially disliked by Mr. Paine, as it
occurs but once or twice in the course of the work. In the great
choruses the cadence is usually reached either by a pedal on the
tonic, as in the chorus, "Awake, thou that sleepest," or by a
pedal on the dominant culminating in a chord of the major ninth,
as in the final chorus; or there is a plagal cadence, as in the
first chorus of the second part; or, if the 6/4 chord is
introduced, as it is in the chorus, "He that overcometh," its
ordinary effect is covered and obscured by the movement of the
divided sopranos. We do not remember noticing anywhere such a
decided use of the 6/4 chord as is made, for example, by
Mendelssohn, in "Thanks be to God," or in the final chorus of
"St. Paul." Perhaps if we were to confess our lingering fondness
for the cadence prepared by the 6/4 chord, when not too
frequently introduced, it might only show that we retain a liking
for New England "psalm-tunes"; but it does seem to us that a
sense of final repose, of entire cessation of movement, is more
effectually secured by this cadence than by any other. Yet while
the 6/4 cadence most completely expresses finality and rest, it
would seem that the plagal and other cadences above enumerated as
preferred by Mr. Paine have a certain sort of superiority by
reason of the very incompleteness with which they express
finality. There is no sense of finality whatever about the
Phrygian cadence; it leaves the mind occupied with the feeling of
a boundless region beyond, into which one would fain penetrate;
and for this reason it has, in sacred music, a great value.
Something of the same feeling, too, attaches to those cadences in
which an unexpected major third usurps the place of the minor
which the ear was expecting, as in the "Incarnatus" of Mozart's
"Twelfth Mass," or in Bach's sublime "Prelude," Part I., No. 22
of the "Well-tempered Clavichord." In a less degree, an analogous
effect was produced upon us by the cadence with a pedal on the
tonic in the choruses, "The Church is built," and "Awake, thou
that sleepest." On these considerations it may become
intelligible that to some hearers Mr. Paine's cadences have
seemed unsatisfactory, their ears having missed the positive
categorical assertion of finality which the 6/4 cadence alone can
give. To go further into this subject would take us far beyond
our limits.

The pleasant little town of Portland has reason to congratulate
itself, first, on being the birthplace of such a composer as Mr.
Paine; secondly, on having been the place where the first great
work of America in the domain of music was brought out; and
thirdly, on possessing what is probably the most thoroughly
disciplined choral society in this country. Our New York friends,
after their recent experiences, will perhaps be slow to believe
us when we say that the Portland choir sang this new work even
better, in many respects, than the Handel and Haydn Society sing
the old and familiar "Elijah"; but it is true. In their command
of the pianissimo and the gradual crescendo, and in the precision
of their attack, the Portland singers can easily teach the Handel
and Haydn a quarter's lessons. And, besides all this, they know
how to preserve their equanimity under the gravest persecutions
of the orchestra; keeping the even tenour of their way where a
less disciplined choir, incited by the excessive blare of the
trombones and the undue scraping of the second violins, would be
likely to lose its presence of mind and break out into an
untimely fortissimo.

No doubt it is easier to achieve perfect chorus-singing with a
choir of one hundred and twenty-five voices than with a choir of
six hundred. But this diminutive size, which was an advantage so
far as concerned the technical excellence of the Portland choir,
was decidedly a disadvantage so far as concerned the proper
rendering of the more massive choruses in "St. Peter." All the
greatest choruses--such as Nos. 1, 8, 19, 20, 28, 35, and
39--were seriously impaired in the rendering by the lack of
massiveness in the voices. For example, the grand chorus, "Awake,
thou that sleepest," begins with a rapid crescendo of strings,
introducing the full chorus on the word "Awake," upon the
dominant triad of D major; and after a couple of beats the voices
are reinforced by the trombones, producing the most tremendous
effect possible in such a crescendo. Unfortunately, however, the
brass asserted itself at this point so much more emphatically
than the voices that the effect was almost to disjoin the latter
portion of the chord from its beginning, and thus to dwarf the
utterance of the word "Awake." To us this effect was very
disagreeable; and it was obviously contrary to the effect
intended by the composer. But with a weight of four or five
hundred voices, the effect would be entirely different. Instead
of entering upon the scene as intruders, the mighty trombones
would only serve to swell and enrich the ponderous chord which
opens this noble chorus. Given greater weight only, and the
performance of the admirable Portland choir would have left
nothing to be desired.

We cannot speak with so much satisfaction of the performance of
the orchestra. The instrumentation of "St. Peter" is remarkably
fine. But this instrumentation was rather clumsily rendered by
the orchestra, whose doings constituted the least enjoyable part
of the performance. There was too much blare of brass, whine of
hautboy, and scraping of strings. But in condonation of this
serious defect, one must admit that the requisite amount of
rehearsal is out of the question when one's choir is in Portland
and one's orchestra in Boston; besides which the parts had been
inaccurately copied. For a moment, at the beginning of the
orchestral lament, there was risk of disaster, the wind
instruments failing to come in at the right time, when Mr. Paine,
with fortunate presence of mind, stopped the players, and the
movement was begun over again,--the whole occurring so quickly
and quietly as hardly to attract attention.

In conclusion we would say a few words suggested by a recent
critical notice of Mr. Paine's work in the "Nation." While
acknowledging the importance of the publication of this oratorio,
as an event in the art-history of America, the writer betrays
manifest disappointment that this work should not rather have
been a symphony,[63] and thus have belonged to what he calls the
"domain of absolute music." Now with regard to the assumption
that the oratorio is not so high a form of music as the symphony,
or, in other words, that vocal music in general is artistically
inferior to instrumental music, we may observe, first, that
Ambros and Dommer--two of the most profound musical critics now
living--do not sustain it. It is Beanquier, we think, who
suggests that instrumental music should rank above vocal, because
it is "pure music," bereft of the fictitious aids of language and
of the emotional associations which are grouped about the
peculiar timbre of the human voice.[64] At first the suggestion
seems plausible; but on analogous grounds we might set the piano
above the orchestra, because the piano gives us pure harmony and
counterpoint, without the adventitious aid of variety in timbre.
And it is indeed true that, for some such reason as this,
musicians delight in piano-sonatas, which are above all things
tedious and unintelligible to the mind untrained in music.
Nevertheless, in spite of its great and peculiar prerogatives, it
would be absurd to prefer the piano to the orchestra; and there
is a kindred absurdity involved in setting the orchestra above
that mighty union of orchestra, organ, and voices which we get in
the oratorio. When the reason alleged for ranking the symphony
above the oratorio leads us likewise to rank the sonata above the
symphony, we seem to have reached a reductio ad absurdum.

[63] Now within two years, Mr. Paine's C-minor symphony has
followed the completion of his oratorio.

[64] These peculiar associations are no doubt what is chiefly
enjoyed in music, antecedent to a properly musical culture.
Persons of slight acquaintance with music invariably prefer the
voice to the piano.


Rightly considered, the question between vocal and instrumental
music amounts to this, What does music express? This is a great
psychological question, and we have not now the space or the
leisure requisite for discussing it, even in the most summary
way. We will say, however, that we do not see how music can in
any way express ideas, or anything but moods or emotional states
to which the ideas given in language may add determination and
precision. The pure symphony gives utterance to moods, and will
be a satisfactory work of art or not, according as the composer
has been actuated by a legitimate sequence of emotional states,
like Beethoven, or by a desire to produce novel and startling
effects, like Liszt. But the danger in purely instrumental music
is that it may run riot in the extravagant utterance of emotional
states which are not properly concatenated by any normal sequence
of ideas associated with them. This is sometimes exemplified in
the most modern instrumental music.

Now, as in real life our sequent clusters of emotional states are
in general determined by their association with our sequent
groups of intellectual ideas, it would seem that music, regarded
as an exponent of psychical life, reaches its fullest
expressiveness when the sequence of the moods which it incarnates
in sound is determined by some sequence of ideas, such as is
furnished by the words of a libretto. Not that the words should
have predominance over the music, or even coequal sway with it,
but that they should serve to give direction to the succession of
feelings expressed by the music. "Lift up your heads" and
"Hallelujah" do not owe their glory to the text, but to that
tremendous energy of rhythmic and contrapuntal progression which
the text serves to concentrate and justify. When precision and
definiteness of direction are thus added to the powerful physical
means of expression which we get in the combination of chorus,
orchestra, and organ, we have attained the greatest sureness as
well as the greatest wealth of musical expressiveness. And thus
we may see the reasonableness of Dommer's opinion that in order
to restrain instrumental music from ruining itself by meaningless
extravagance, it is desirable that there should be a renaissance
of vocal music, such as it was in the golden age of Palestrina
and Orlando Lasso.

We are not inclined to deny that in structural beauty--in the
symmetrical disposition and elaboration of musical themes--the
symphony has the advantage. The words, which in the oratorio
serve to give definite direction to the currents of emotion, may
also sometimes hamper the free development of the pure musical
conception, just as in psychical life the obtrusive entrance of
ideas linked by association may hinder the full fruition of some
emotional state. Nevertheless, in spite of this possible
drawback, it may be doubted if the higher forms of polyphonic
composition fall so very far short of the symphony in capability
of giving full elaboration to the musical idea. The practical
testimony of Beethoven, in his Ninth Symphony, is decidedly
adverse to any such supposition.

But to pursue this interesting question would carry us far beyond
our limits. Whatever may be the decision as to the respective
claims of vocal and instrumental music, we have every reason for
welcoming the appearance, in our own country, of an original work
in the highest form of vocal music. It is to be hoped that we
shall often have the opportunity to "hear with our ears" this
interesting work; for as a rule great musical compositions are
peculiarly unfortunate among works of art, in being known at
first hand by comparatively few persons. In this way is rendered
possible that pretentious kind of dilettante criticism which is
so common in musical matters, and which is often positively
injurious, as substituting a factitious public opinion for one
that is genuine. We hope that the favour with which the new
oratorio has already been received will encourage the author to
pursue the enviable career upon which he has entered. Even
restricting ourselves to vocal music, there is still a broad
field left open for original work. The secular cantata--attempted
in recent times by Schumann, as well as by English composers of
smaller calibre--is a very high form of vocal music; and if
founded on an adequate libretto, dealing with some supremely
grand or tragical situation, is capable of being carried to an
unprecedented height of musical elaboration. Here is an
opportunity for original achievement, of which it is to be hoped
that some gifted and well-trained composer, like the author of
"St. Peter," may find it worth while to avail himself.

 June, 1873.



XIII. A PHILOSOPHY OF ART.[65]

[65] The Philosophy of Art. By H. Taine. New York: Leypoldt &;
Holt. 1867.

We are glad of a chance to introduce to our readers one of the
works of a great writer. Though not yet[66] widely known in this
country, M. Taine has obtained a very high reputation in Europe.
He is still quite a young man, but is nevertheless the author of
nineteen goodly volumes, witty, acute, and learned; and already
he is often ranked with Renan, Littre, and Sainte-Beuve, the
greatest living French writers.

[66] That is, in 1868.


Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was born at Vouziers, among the grand
forests of Ardennes, in 1828, and is therefore about forty years
old. His family was simple in habits and tastes, and entertained
a steadfast belief in culture, along with the possession of a
fair amount of it. His grandfather was sub-prefect at Rocroi, in
1814 and 1815, under the first restoration of the Bourbons. His
father, a lawyer by profession, was the first instructor of his
son, and taught him Latin, and from an uncle, who had been in
America, he learned English, while still a mere child. Having
gone to Paris with his mother in 1842, he began his studies at
the College Bourbon and in 1848 was promoted to the ecole
Normale. Weiss, About, and Prevost-Paradol were his
contemporaries at this institution. At that time great liberty
was enjoyed in regard to the order and the details of the
exercises; so that Taine, with his surprising rapidity, would do
in one week the work laid out for a month, and would spend the
remainder of the time in private reading. In 1851 he left
college, and after two or three unsatisfactory attempts at
teaching, in Paris and in the provinces, he settled down at Paris
as a private student. He gave himself the very best elementary
preparation which a literary man can have,--a thorough course in
mathematics and the physical sciences. His studies in anatomy and
physiology were especially elaborate and minute. He attended the
School of Medicine as regularly as if he expected to make his
daily bread in the profession. In this way, when at the age of
twenty-five he began to write books, M. Taine was a really
educated man; and his books show it. The day is past when a man
could write securely, with a knowledge of the classics alone. We
doubt if a philosophical critic is perfectly educated for his
task, unless he can read, for instance, Donaldson's "New
Cratylus" on the one hand, and Rokitansky's "Pathological
Anatomy" on the other, for the sheer pleasure of the thing. At
any rate, it was an education of this sort which M. Taine, at the
outset of his literary career, had secured. By this solid
discipline of mathematics, chemistry, and medicine, M. Taine
became that which above all things he now is,--a man possessed of
a central philosophy, of an exact, categorical, well-defined
system, which accompanies and supports him in his most distant
literary excursions. He does not keep throwing out ideas at
random, like too many literary critics, but attaches all his
criticisms to a common fundamental principle; in short, he is not
a dilettante, but a savant.

His treatise on La Fontaine, in 1853, attracted much attention,
both the style and the matter being singularly fresh and
original. He has since republished it, with alterations which
serve to show that he can be docile toward intelligent
criticisms. About the same time he prepared for the French
Academy his work upon the historian Livy, which was crowned in
1855. Suffering then from overwork, he was obliged to make a
short journey to the Pyrenees, which he has since described in a
charming little volume, illustrated by Dore.

His subsequent works are a treatise on the French philosophers of
the present century, in which the vapid charlatanism of M. Cousin
is satisfactorily dealt with; a history of English literature in
five volumes; a humorous book on Paris; three volumes upon the
general theory of art; and two volumes of travels in Italy;
besides a considerable collection of historical and critical
essays. We think that several of these works would be interesting
to the American public, and might profitably be translated.

Some three or four years ago, M. Taine was appointed Professor in
the ecole des Beaux Arts, and we suppose his journey to Italy
must have been undertaken partly with a view to qualify himself
for his new position. He visited the four cities which may be
considered the artistic centres of Italy,--Rome, Naples,
Florence, and Venice,--and a large part of his account of his
journey is taken up with descriptions and criticisms of pictures,
statues, and buildings.

This is a department of criticism which, we may as well frankly
acknowledge, is far better appreciated on the continent of Europe
than in England or America. Over the English race there passed,
about two centuries ago, a deluge of Puritanism, which for a time
almost drowned out its artistic tastes and propensities. The
Puritan movement, in proportion to its success, was nearly as
destructive to art in the West, as Mohammedanism had long before
been in the East. In its intense and one-sided regard for
morality, Puritanism not only relegated the love for beauty to an
inferior place, but contemned and spat upon it, as something
sinful and degrading. Hence, the utter architectural impotence
which characterizes the Americans and the modern English; and
hence the bewildered ignorant way in which we ordinarily
contemplate pictures and statues. For two centuries we have been
removed from an artistic environment, and consequently can with
difficulty enter into the feelings of those who have all this
time been nurtured in love for art, and belief in art for its own
sake. These peculiarities, as Mr. Mill has ably pointed out, have
entered deep into our ethnic character. Even in pure morals there
is a radical difference between the Englishman and the inhabitant
of the continent of Europe. The Englishman follows virtue from a
sense of duty, the Frenchman from an emotional aspiration toward
the beautiful The one admires a noble action because it is right,
the other because it is attractive. And this difference underlies
the moral judgments upon men and events which are to be found
respectively in English and in continental literature. By keeping
it constantly in view, we shall be enabled to understand many
things which might otherwise surprise us in the writings of
French authors.

We are now slowly outgrowing the extravagances of Puritanism. It
has given us an earnestness and sobriety of character, to which
much of our real greatness is owing, both here and in the mother
country. It has made us stronger and steadier, but it has at the
same time narrowed us in many respects, and rendered our lives
incomplete. This incompleteness, entailed by Puritanism, we are
gradually getting rid of; and we are learning to admire and
respect many things upon which Puritanism set its mark of
contempt. We are beginning, for instance, to recognize the
transcendent merits of that great civilizing agency, the drama;
we no longer think it necessary that our temples for worshipping
God should be constructed like hideous barracks; we are gradually
permitting our choirs to discard the droning and sentimental
modern "psalm-tune" for the inspiring harmonies of Beethoven and
Mozart; and we admit the classical picture and the undraped
statue to a high place in our esteem. Yet with all this it will
probably be some time before genuine art ceases to be an exotic
among us, and becomes a plant of unhindered native growth. It
will be some time before we cease to regard pictures and statues
as a higher species of upholstery, and place them in the same
category with poems and dramas, duly reverencing them as
authentic revelations of the beauty which is to be found in
nature. It will be some time before we realize that art is a
thing to be studied, as well as literature, and before we can be
quite reconciled to the familiar way in which a Frenchman quotes
a picture as we would quote a poem or novel.

Artistic genius, as M. Taine has shown, is something which will
develop itself only under peculiar social circumstances; and,
therefore, if we have not art, we can perhaps only wait for it,
trusting that when the time comes it will arise among us. But
without originating, we may at least intelligently appreciate.
The nature of a work of art, and the mode in which it is
produced, are subjects well worthy of careful study. Architecture
and music, poetry, painting and sculpture, have in times past
constituted a vast portion of human activity; and without knowing
something of the philosophy of art, we need not hope to
understand thoroughly the philosophy of history.

In entering upon the study of art in general, one may find many
suggestive hints in the little books of M. Taine, reprinted from
the lectures which he has been delivering at the ecole des Beaux
Arts. The first, on the Philosophy of Art, designated at the head
of this paper, is already accessible to the American reader; and
translations of the others are probably soon to follow. We shall
for the present give a mere synopsis of M. Taine's general views.

And first it must be determined what a work of art is. Leaving
for a while music and architecture out of consideration, it will
be admitted that poetry, painting, and sculpture have one obvious
character in common: they are arts of IMITATION. This, says
Taine, appears at first sight to be their essential character. It
would appear that their great object is to IMITATE as closely as
possible. It is obvious that a statue is intended to imitate a
living man, that a picture is designed to represent real persons
in real attitudes, or the interior of a house, or a landscape,
such as it exists in nature. And it is no less clear that a novel
or drama endeavours to represent with accuracy real characters,
actions, and words, giving as precise and faithful an image of
them as possible. And when the imitation is incomplete, we say to
the painter, "Your people are too largely proportioned, and the
colour of your trees is false"; we tell the sculptor that his leg
or arm is incorrectly modelled; and we say to the dramatist,
"Never has a man felt or thought as your hero is supposed to have
felt and thought."

This truth, moreover, is seen. both in the careers of individual
artists, and in the general history of art. According to Taine,
the life of an artist may generally be divided into two parts. In
the first period, that of natural growth, he studies nature
anxiously and minutely, he keeps the objects themselves before
his eyes, and strives to represent them with scrupulous fidelity.
But when the time for mental growth ends, as it does with every
man, and the crystallization of ideas and impressions commences,
then the mind of the artist is no longer so susceptible to new
impressions from without. He begins to nourish himself from his
own substance. He abandons the living model, and with recipes
which he has gathered in the course of his experience, he
proceeds to construct a drama or novel, a picture or statue. Now,
the first period, says Taine, is that of genuine art; the second
is that of mannerism. Our author cites the case of Michael
Angelo, a man who was one of the most colossal embodiments of
physical and mental energy that the world has ever seen. In
Michael Angelo's case, the period of growth, of genuine art, may
be said to have lasted until after his sixtieth year. But look,
says Taine, at the works which he executed in his old age;
consider the Conversion of St. Paul, and the Last Judgment,
painted when he was nearly seventy. Even those who are not
connoisseurs can see that these frescos are painted by rule, that
the artist, having stocked his memory with a certain set of
forms, is making use of them to fill out his tableau; that he
wantonly multiplies queer attitudes and ingenious
foreshortenings; that the lively invention, the grand outburst of
feeling, the perfect truth, by which his earlier works are
distinguished, have disappeared; and that, if he is still
superior to all others, he is nevertheless inferior to himself.
The careers of Scott, of Goethe, and of Voltaire will furnish
parallel examples. In every school of art, too, the flourishing
period is followed by one of decline; and in every case the
decline is due to a failure to imitate the living models. In
painting, we have the exaggerated foreshorteners and
muscle-makers who copied Michael Angelo; the lovers of theatrical
decorations who succeeded Titian and Giorgione and the degenerate
boudoir-painters who followed Claucle and Poussin. In literature,
we have the versifiers, epigrammatists, and rhetors of the Latin
decadence; the sensual and declamatory dramatists who represent
the last stages of old English comedy; and the makers of sonnets
and madrigals, or conceited euphemists of the Gongora school, in
the decline of Italian and Spanish poetry. Briefly it may be
said, that the masters copy nature and the pupils copy the
masters. In this way are explained the constantly recurring
phenomena of decline in art, and thus, also, it is seen that art
is perfect in proportion as it successfully imitates nature.

But we are not to conclude that absolute imitation is the sole
and entire object of art. Were this the case, the finest works
would be those which most minutely correspond to their external
prototypes. In sculpture, a mould taken from the living features
is that which gives the most faithful representation of the
model; but a well-moulded bust is far from being equal to a good
statue. Photography is in many respects more accurate than
painting; but no one would rank a photograph, however exquisitely
executed, with an original picture. And finally, if exact
imitation were the supreme object of art, the best tragedy, the
best comedy, and the best drama would be a stenographic report of
the proceedings in a court of justice, in a family gathering, in
a popular meeting, in the Rump Congress. Even the works of
artists are not rated in proportion to their minute exactness.
Neither in painting nor in any other art do we give the
precedence to that which deceives the eye simply. Every one
remembers how Zeuxis was said to have painted grapes so
faithfully that the birds came and pecked at them; and how,
Parrhasios, his rival, surpassed even this feat by painting a
curtain so natural in its appearance that Zeuxis asked him to
pull it aside and show the picture behind it. All this is not
art, but mere knack and trickery. Perhaps no painter was ever so
minute as Denner. It used to take him four years to make one
portrait. He would omit nothing,--neither the bluish lines made
by the veins under the skin, nor the little black points
scattered over the nose, nor the bright spots in the eye where
neighbouring objects are reflected; the head seems to start out
from the canvas, it is so like flesh and blood. Yet who cares for
Denner's portraits? And who would not give ten times as much for
one which Van Dyck or Tintoretto might have painted in a few
hours? So in the churches of Naples and Spain we find statues
coloured and draped, saints clothed in real coats, with their
skin yellow and bloodless, their hands bleeding, and their feet
bruised; and beside them Madonnas in royal habiliments, in gala
dresses of lustrous silk, adorned with diadems, precious
necklaces, bright ribbons, and elegant laces, with their cheeks
rosy, their eyes brilliant, their eyelashes sweeping. And by this
excess of literal imitation, there is awakened a feeling, not of
pleasure, but always of repugnance, often of disgust, and
sometimes of horror So in literature, the ancient Greek theatre,
and the best Spanish and English dramatists, alter on purpose the
natural current of human speech, and make their characters talk
under all the restraints of rhyme and rhythm. But we pronounce
this departure from literal truth a merit and not a defect. We
consider Goethe's second "Iphigenie," written in verse, far
preferable to the first one written in prose; nay, it is the
rhythm or metre itself which communicates to the work its
incomparable beauty. In a review of Longfellow's "Dante,"
published last year, we argued this very point in one of its
special applications; the artist must copy his original, but he
must not copy it too literally.

What then must he copy? He must copy, says Taine, the mutual
relations and interdependences of the parts of his model. And
more than this, he must render the essential characteristic of
the object--that characteristic upon which all the minor
qualities depend--as salient and conspicuous as possible. He must
put into the background the traits which conceal it, and bring
into the foreground the traits which manifest it. If he is
sculpturing a group like the Laocoon, he must strike upon the
supreme moment, that in which the whole tragedy reveals itself,
and he must pass over those insignificant details of position and
movement which serve only to distract our attention and weaken
our emotions by dividing them. If he is writing a drama, he must
not attempt to give us the complete biography of his character;
he must depict only those situations which stand in direct
subordination to the grand climax or denoument. As a final
result, therefore. Taine concludes that a work of art is a
concrete representation of the relations existing between the
parts of an object, with the intent to bring the essential or
dominating character thereof into prominence.

We should overrun our limits if we were to follow out the
admirable discussion in which M. Taine extends this definition to
architecture and music. These closely allied arts are
distinguished from poetry, painting, and sculpture, by appealing
far less directly to the intelligence, and far more exclusively
to the emotions. Yet these arts likewise aim, by bringing into
prominence certain relations of symmetry in form as perceived by
the eye, or in aerial vibrations as perceived by the ear, to
excite in us the states of feeling with which these species of
symmetry are by subtle laws of association connected. They, too,
imitate, not literally, but under the guidance of a predominating
sentiment or emotion, relations which really exist among the
phenomena of nature. And here, too, we estimate excellence, not
in proportion to the direct, but to the indirect imitation. A
Gothic cathedral is not, as has been supposed, directly imitated
from the towering vegetation of Northern forests; but it may well
be the expression of the dim sentiment of an unseen,
all-pervading Power, generated by centuries of primeval life amid
such forests. So the sounds which in a symphony of Beethoven are
woven into a web of such amazing complexity may exist in
different combinations in nature; but when a musician steps out
of his way to imitate the crowing of cocks or the roar of the
tempest, we regard his achievement merely as a graceful conceit.
Art is, therefore, an imitation of nature; but it is an
intellectual and not a mechanical imitation; and the performances
of the camera and the music-box are not to be classed with those
of the violinist's bow or the sculptor's chisel.

And lastly, in distinguishing art from science, Taine remarks,
that in disengaging from their complexity the, causes which are
at work in nature, and the fundamental laws according to which
they work, science describes them in abstract formulas conveyed
in technical language. But art reveals these operative causes and
these dominant laws, not in arid definitions, inaccessible to
most people, intelligible only to specially instructed men, but
in a concrete symbol, addressing itself not only to the
understanding, but still more to the sentiments of the ordinary
man. Art has, therefore, this peculiarity, that it is at once
elevated and popular, that it manifests that which is often most
recondite, and that it manifests it to all.

Having determined what a work of art is, our author goes on to
study the social conditions under which works of art are
produced; and he concludes that the general character of a work
of art is determined by the state of intellect and morals in the
society in which it is executed. There is, in fact, a sort of
moral temperature which acts upon mental development much as
physical temperature acts upon organic development. The condition
of society does not produce the artist's talent; but it assists
or checks its efforts to display itself; it decides whether or
not it shall be successful And it exerts a "natural selection"
between different kinds of talents, stimulating some and starving
others. To make this perfectly clear, we will cite at some length
Taine's brilliant illustration.

The case chosen for illustration is a very simple one,--that of a
state of society in which one of the predominant feelings is
melancholy. This is not an arbitrary supposition, for such a time
has occurred more than once in human history; in Asia, in the
sixth century before Christ, and especially in Europe, from the
fourth to the tenth centuries of our era. To produce such a state
of feeling, five or six generations of decadence, accompanied
with diminution of population, foreign invasions, famines,
pestilences, and increasing difficulty in procuring the
necessaries of life, are amply sufficient. It then happens that
men lose courage and hope, and consider life an evil. Now,
admitting that among the artists who live in such a time, there
are likely to be the same relative numbers of melancholy, joyous,
or indifferent temperaments as at other times, let us see how
they will be affected by reigning circumstances.

Let us first remember, says Taine, that the evils which depress
the public will also depress the artist. His risks are no less
than those of less gifted people. He is liable to suffer from
plague or famine, to be ruined by unfair taxation or
conscription, or to see his children massacred and his wife led
into captivity by barbarians. And if these ills do not reach him
personally, he must at least behold those around him affected by
them. In this way, if he is joyous by temperament, he must
inevitably become less joyous; if he is melancholy, he must
become more melancholy.

Secondly, having been reared among melancholy contemporaries, his
education will have exerted upon him a corresponding influence.
The prevailing religious doctrine, accommodated to the state of
affairs, will tell him that the earth is a place of exile, life
an evil, gayety a snare, and his most profitable occupation will
be to get ready to die. Philosophy, constructing its system of
morals in conformity to the existing phenomena of decadence, will
tell him that he had better never have been born. Daily
conversation will inform him of horrible events, of the
devastation of a province, the sack of a town by the Goths, the
oppression of the neighbouring peasants by the imperial
tax-collectors, or the civil war that has just burst out between
half a dozen pretenders to the throne. As he travels about, he
beholds signs of mourning and despair, crowds of beggars, people
dying of hunger, a broken bridge which no one is mending, an
abandoned suburb which is going to ruin, fields choked with
weeds, the blackened walls of burned houses. Such sights and
impressions, repeated from childhood to old age (and we must
remember that this has actually been the state of things in what
are now the fairest parts of the globe), cannot fail to deepen
whatever elements of melancholy there may be already in the
artist's disposition.

The operation of all these causes will be enhanced by that very
peculiarity of the artist which constitutes his talent. For,
according to the definitions above given, that which makes him an
artist is his capacity for seizing upon the essential
characteristics and the salient traits of surrounding objects and
events. Other men see things in part fragmentarily; he catches
the spirit of the ensemble. And in this way he will very likely
exaggerate in his works the general average of contemporary
feeling.

Lastly, our author reminds us that a man who writes or paints
does not remain alone before his easel or his writing-desk. He
goes out, looks about him, receives suggestions from friends,
from rivals, from books, and works of art whenever accessible,
and hears the criticisms of the public upon his own productions
and those of his contemporaries. In order to succeed, he must not
only satisfy to some extent the popular taste, but he must feel
that the public is in sympathy with him. If in this period of
social decadence and gloom he endeavours to represent gay,
brilliant, or triumphant ideas, he will find himself left to his
own resources; and, as Taine rightly says, the power of an
isolated man is always insignificant. His work will be likely to
be mediocre. If he attempts to write like Rabelais or paint like
Rubens, he will get neither assistance nor sympathy from a public
which prefers the pictures of Rembrandt, the melodies of Chopin,
and the poetry of Heine.

Having thus explained his position by this extreme instance,
signified for the sake of clearness, Taine goes on to apply such
general considerations to four historic epochs, taken in all
their complexity. He discusses the aspect presented by art in
ancient Greece, in the feudal and Catholic Middle Ages, in the
centralized monarchies of the seventeenth century, and in the
scientific, industrial democracy in which we now live. Out of
these we shall select, as perhaps the simplest, the case of
ancient Greece, still following our author closely, though
necessarily omitting many interesting details.

The ancient Greeks, observes Taine, understood life in a new and
original manner. Their energies were neither absorbed by a great
religious conception, as in the case of the Hindus and Egyptians,
nor by a vast social organization, as in the case of the
Assyrians and Persians, nor by a purely industrial and commercial
regime, as in the case of the Phoenicians and Carthaginians.
Instead of a theocracy or a rigid system of castes, instead of a
monarchy with a hierarchy of civil officials, the men of this
race invented a peculiar institution, the City, each city giving
rise to others like itself, and from colony to colony reproducing
itself indefinitely. A single Greek city, for instance, Miletos,
produced three hundred other cities, colonizing with them the
entire coast of the Black Sea. Each city was substantially
self-ruling; and the idea of a coalescence of several cities into
a nation was one which the Greek mind rarely conceived, and never
was able to put into operation.

In these cities, labour was for the most part carried on by
slaves. In Athens there were four or five for each citizen, and
in places like Korinth and Aigina the slave population is said to
have numbered four or five hundred thousand. Besides, the Greek
citizen had little need of personal service. He lived out of
doors, and, like most Southern people, was comparatively
abstemious in his habits. His dinners were slight, his clothing
was simple, his house was scantily furnished, being intended
chiefly for a den to sleep in.

Serving neither king nor priest, the citizen was free and
sovereign in his own city. He elected his own magistrates, and
might himself serve as city-ruler, as juror, or as judge.
Representation was unknown. Legislation was carried on by all the
citizens assembled in mass. Therefore politics and war were the
sole or chief employments of the citizen. War, indeed, came in
for no slight share of his attention. For society was not so well
protected as in these modern days. Most of these Greek cities,
scattered over the coasts of the Aigeian, the Black Sea, and the
Mediterranean, were surrounded by tribes of barbarians,
Scythians, Gauls Spaniards, and Africans. The citizen must
therefore keep on his guard, like the Englishman of to-day in New
Zealand, or like the inhabitant of a Massachusetts town in tho
seventeenth century. Otherwise Gauls Samnites, or Bithynians, as
savage as North American Indians, would be sure to encamp upon
the blackened ruins of his town. Moreover, the Greek cities had
their quarrels with each other, and their laws of war were very
barbarous. A conquered city was liable to be razed to the ground,
its male inhabitants put to the sword, its women sold as slaves.
Under such circumstances, according to Taine's happy expression,
a citizen must be a politician and warrior, on pain of death. And
not only fear, but ambition also tended to make him so. For each
city strove to subject or to humiliate its neighbours, to acquire
tribute, or to exact homage from its rivals. Thus the citizen
passed his life in the public square, discussing alliances,
treaties, and constitutions, hearing speeches, or speaking
himself, and finally going aboard of his ship to fight his
neighbour Greeks, or to sail against Egypt or Persia.

War (and politics as subsidiary to it) was then the chief pursuit
of life. But as there was no organized industry, so there were no
machines of warfare. All fighting was done hand to hand.
Therefore, the great thing in preparing for war was not to
transform the soldiers into precisely-acting automata, as in a
modern army, but to make each separate soldier as vigorous and
active as possible. The leading object of Greek education was to
make men physically perfect. In this respect, Sparta may be taken
as the typical Greek community, for nowhere else was physical
development so entirely made the great end of social life. In
these matters Sparta was always regarded by the other cities as
taking the lead,--as having attained the ideal after which all
alike were striving. Now Sparta, situated in the midst of a
numerous conquered population of Messenians and Helots, was
partly a great gymnasium and partly a perpetual camp. Her
citizens were always in training. The entire social constitution
of Sparta was shaped with a view to the breeding and bringing up
of a strong and beautiful race. Feeble or ill-formed infants were
put to death. The age at which citizens might marry was
prescribed by law; and the State paired off men and women as the
modern breeder pairs off horses, with a sole view to the
excellence of the off-spring. A wife was not a helpmate, but a
bearer of athletes. Women boxed, wrestled, and raced; a
circumstance referred to in the following passage of
Aristophanes, as rendered by Mr. Felton:--

LYSISTRATA.
  Hail! Lampito, dearest of Lakonian women.
  How shines thy beauty, O my sweetest friend!
  How fair thy colour, full of life thy frame!
  Why, thou couldst choke a bull.

                       LAMPITO.
               Yes, by the Twain;
 For I do practice the gymnastic art,
 And, leaping, strike my backbone with my heels.
                    LYSISTRATA.
 In sooth, thy bust is lovely to behold.


The young men lived together, like soldiers in a camp. They ate
out-of-doors, at a public table. Their fare was as simple as that
of a modern university boat-crew before a race. They slept in the
open air, and spent their waking hours in wrestling, boxing,
running races, throwing quoits, and engaging in mock battles.
This was the way in which the Spartans lived; and though no other
city carried this discipline to such an extent, yet in all a very
large portion of the citizen's life was spent in making himself
hardy and robust.

The ideal man, in the eyes of a Greek, was, therefore not the
contemplative or delicately susceptible thinker but the naked
athlete, with firm flesh and swelling muscles. Most of their
barbarian neighbours were ashamed to be seen undressed, but the
Greeks seem to have felt little embarrassment in appearing naked
in public. Their gymnastic habits entirely transformed their
sense of shame. Their Olympic and other public games were a
triumphant display of naked physical perfection. Young men of the
noblest families and from the farthest Greek colonies came to
them, and wrestled and ran, undraped, before countless multitudes
of admiring spectators. Note, too, as significant, that the Greek
era began with the Olympic games, and that time was reckoned by
the intervals between them; as well as the fact that the grandest
lyric poetry of antiquity was written in celebration of these
gymnastic contests. The victor in the foot-race gave his name to
the current Olympiad; and on reaching home, was received by his
fellow-citizens as if he had been a general returning from a
successful campaign. To be the most beautiful man in Greece was
in the eyes of a Greek the height of human felicity; and with the
Greeks, beauty necessarily included strength. So ardently did
this gifted people admire corporeal perfection that they actually
worshipped it. According to Herodotos, a young Sicilian was
deified on account of his beauty, and after his death altars were
raised to him. The vast intellectual power of Plato and Sokrates
did not prevent them from sharing this universal enthusiasm.
Poets like Sophokles, and statesmen like Alexander, thought it
not beneath their dignity to engage publicly in gymnastic sports.

Their conceptions of divinity were framed in accordance with
these general habits. Though sometimes, as in the case of
Hephaistos, the exigencies of the particular myth required the
deity to be physically imperfect, yet ordinarily the Greek god
was simply an immortal man, complete in strength and beauty. The
deity was not invested with the human form as a mere symbol. They
could conceive no loftier way of representing him. The grandest
statue, expressing most adequately the calmness of absolutely
unfettered strength, might well, in their eyes, be a veritable
portrait of divinity. To a Greek, beauty of form was a
consecrated thing. More than once a culprit got off with his life
because it would have been thought sacrilegious to put an end to
such a symmetrical creature. And for a similar reason, the
Greeks, though perhaps not more humane than the Europeans of the
Middle Ages, rarely allowed the human body to be mutilated or
tortured. The condemned criminal must be marred as little as
possible; and he was, therefore, quietly poisoned, instead of
being hung, beheaded, or broken on the wheel.

Is not the unapproachable excellence of Greek statuary--that art
never since equalled, and most likely, from the absence of the
needful social stimulus, destined never to be equalled--already
sufficiently explained? Consider, says our author, the nature of
the Greek sculptor's preparation. These men have observed the
human body naked and in movement, in the bath and the gymnasium,
in sacred dances and public games. They have noted those forms
and attitudes in which are revealed vigour, health, and activity.
And during three or four hundred years they have thus modified,
corrected and developed their notions of corporeal beauty. There
is, therefore, nothing surprising in the fact that Greek
sculpture finally arrived at the ideal model, the perfect type,
as it was, of the human body. Our highest notions of physical
beauty, down to the present day, have been bequeathed to us by
the Greeks. The earliest modern sculptors who abandoned the bony,
hideous, starveling figures of the monkish Middle Ages, learned
their first lessons in better things from Greek bas-reliefs. And
if, to-day, forgetting our half-developed bodies, inefficiently
nourished, because of our excessive brain-work, and with their
muscles weak and flabby from want of strenuous exercise, we wish
to contemplate the human form in its grandest perfection, we must
go to Hellenic art for our models.

The Greeks were, in the highest sense of the word, an
intellectual race; but they never allowed the mind to tyrannize
over the body. Spiritual perfection, accompanied by corporeal
feebleness, was the invention of asceticism; and the Greeks were
never ascetics. Diogenes might scorn superfluous luxuries, but if
he ever rolled and tumbled his tub about as Rabelais says he did,
it is clear that the victory of spirit over body formed no part
of his theory of things. Such an idea would have been
incomprehensible to a Greek in Plato's time. Their consciences
were not over active. They were not burdened with a sense of
sinfulness. Their aspirations were decidedly finite; and they
believed in securing the maximum completeness of this terrestrial
life. Consequently they never set the physical below the
intellectual. To return to our author, they never, in their
statues, subordinated symmetry to expression, the body to the
head. They were interested not only in the prominence of the
brows, the width of the forehead, and the curvature of the lips,
but quite as much in the massiveness of the chest, the
compactness of the thighs, and the solidity of the arms and legs.
Not only the face, but the whole body, had for them its
physiognomy. They left picturesqueness to the painter, and
dramatic fervour to the poet; and keeping strictly before their
eyes the narrow but exalted problem of representing the beauty of
symmetry, they filled their sanctuaries and public places with
those grand motionless people of brass, gold, ivory, copper, and
marble, in whom humanity recognizes its highest artistic types.
Statuary was the central art of Greece. No other art was so
popular, or so completely expressed the national life. The number
of statues was enormous. In later days, when Rome had spoiled the
Greek world of its treasures, the Imperial City possessed a
population of statues almost equal in number to its population of
human beings. And at the present day, after all the destructive
accidents of so many intervening centuries, it is estimated that
more than sixty thousand statues have been obtained from Rome and
its suburbs alone.

In citing this admirable exposition as a specimen of M. Taine's
method of dealing with his subject, we have refrained from
disturbing the pellucid current of thought by criticisms of our
own. We think the foregoing explanation correct enough, so far as
it goes, though it deals with the merest rudiments of the
subject, and really does nothing toward elucidating the deeper
mysteries of artistic production. For this there is needed a
profounder psychology than M. Taine's. But whether his theory of
art be adequate or not, there can be but one opinion as to the
brilliant eloquence with which it is set forth.
      June, 1868.



XIV.

ATHENIAN AND AMERICAN LIFE.

IN a very interesting essay on British and Foreign
Characteristics, published a few years ago, Mr. W. R. Greg quotes
the famous letter of the Turkish cadi to Mr. Layard, with the
comment that "it contains the germ and element of a wisdom to
which our busy and bustling existence is a stranger"; and he uses
it as a text for an instructive sermon on the "gospel of
leisure." He urges, with justice, that the too eager and restless
modern man, absorbed in problems of industrial development, may
learn a wholesome lesson from the contemplation of his Oriental
brother, who cares not to say, "Behold, this star spinneth round
that star, and this other star with a tail cometh and goeth in so
many years"; who aspires not after a "double stomach," nor hopes
to attain to Paradise by "seeking with his eyes." If any one may
be thought to stand in need of some such lesson, it is the
American of to-day. Just as far as the Turk carries his apathy to
excess, does the American carry to excess his restlessness. But
just because the incurious idleness of the Turk is excessive, so
as to be detrimental to completeness of living, it is unfit to
supply us with the hints we need concerning the causes,
character, and effects of our over-activity. A sermon of leisure,
if it is to be of practical use to us, must not be a sermon of
laziness. The Oriental state of mind is incompatible with
progressive improvement of any sort, physical, intellectual, or
moral. It is one of the phenomena attendant upon the arrival of a
community at a stationary condition before it has acquired a
complex civilization. And it appears serviceable rather as a
background upon which to exhibit in relief our modern turmoil,
than by reason of any lesson which it is itself likely to convey.
Let us in preference study one of the most eminently progressive
of all the communities that have existed. Let us take an example
quite different from any that can be drawn from Oriental life,
but almost equally contrasted with any that can be found among
ourselves; and let us, with the aid of it, examine the respective
effects of leisure and of hurry upon the culture of the
community.

What do modern critics mean by the "healthy completeness" of
ancient life, which they are so fond of contrasting with the
"heated," "discontented," or imperfect and one-sided existence of
modern communities? Is this a mere set of phrases, suited to some
imaginary want of the literary critic, but answering to nothing
real? Are they to be summarily disposed of as resting upon some
tacit assumption of that old-grannyism which delights in
asseverating that times are not what they used to be? Is the
contrast an imaginary one, due to the softened, cheerful light
with which we are wont to contemplate classic antiquity through
the charmed medium of its incomparable literature? Or is it a
real contrast, worthy of the attention and analysis of the
historical inquirer? The answer to these queries will lead us far
into the discussion of the subject which we have propounded, and
we shall best reach it by considering some aspects of the social
condition of ancient Greece. The lessons to be learned from that
wonderful country are not yet exhausted Each time that we return
to that richest of historic mines, and delve faithfully and
carefully, we shall be sure to dig up some jewel worth carrying
away.

And in considering ancient Greece, we shall do well to confine
our attention, for the sake of definiteness of conception, to a
single city. Comparatively homogeneous as Greek civilization was,
there was nevertheless a great deal of difference between the
social circumstances of sundry of its civic communities. What was
true of Athens was frequently not true of Sparta or Thebes, and
general assertions about ancient Greece are often likely to be
collect only in a loose and general way. In speaking, therefore,
of Greece, I must be understood in the main as referring to
Athens, the eye and light of Greece, the nucleus and centre of
Hellenic culture.

Let us note first that Athens was a large city surrounded by
pleasant village-suburbs,--the demes of Attika,--very much as
Boston is closely girdled by rural places like Brookline, Jamaica
Plain, and the rest, village after village rather thickly
covering a circuit of from ten to twenty miles' radius. The
population of Athens with its suburbs may perhaps have exceeded
half a million; but the number of adult freemen bearing arms did
not exceed twenty-five thousand.[67] For every one of these
freemen there were four or five slaves; not ignorant, degraded
labourers, belonging to an inferior type of humanity, and bearing
the marks of a lower caste in their very personal formation and
in the colour of their skin, like our lately-enslaved negroes;
but intelligent, skilled labourers, belonging usually to the
Hellenic, and at any rate to the Aryan race, as fair and perhaps
as handsome as their masters, and not subjected to especial
ignominy or hardship. These slaves, of whom there were at least
one hundred thousand adult males, relieved the twenty-five
thousand freemen of nearly all the severe drudgery of life; and
the result was an amount of leisure perhaps never since known on
an equal scale in history.

[67] See Herod. V. 97; Aristoph. Ekkl. 432; Thukyd. II. 13;
Plutarch, Perikl. 37.


The relations of master and slave in ancient Athens constituted,
of course, a very different phenomenon from anything which the
history of our own Southern States has to offer us. Our Southern
slaveholders lived in an age of industrial development; they were
money-makers: they had their full share of business in managing
the operations for which their labourers supplied the crude
physical force. It was not so in Athens. The era of civilization
founded upon organized industry had not begun; money-making had
not come to be, with the Greeks, the one all-important end of
life; and mere subsistence, which is now difficult, was then
easy. The Athenian lived in a mild, genial, healthy climate, in a
country which has always been notable for the activity and
longevity of its inhabitants. He was frugal in his habits,--a
wine-drinker and an eater of meat, but rarely addicted to
gluttony or intemperance. His dress was inexpensive, for the
Greek climate made but little protection necessary, and the
gymnastic habits of the Greeks led them to esteem more highly the
beauty of the body than that of its covering. His house was
simple, not being intended for social purposes, while of what we
should call home-life the Greeks had none. The house was a
shelter at night, a place where the frugal meal might be taken, a
place where the wife might stay, and look after the household
slaves or attend to the children. And this brings us to another
notable feature of Athenian life. The wife having no position in
society, being nothing, indeed, but a sort of household utensil,
how greatly was life simplified! What a door for expenditure was
there, as yet securely closed, and which no one had thought of
opening! No milliner's or dressmaker's bills, no evening parties,
no Protean fashions, no elegant furniture, no imperious necessity
for Kleanthes to outshine Kleon, no coaches, no Chateau Margaux,
no journeys to Arkadia in the summer! In such a state of society,
as one may easily see, the labour of one man would support half a
dozen. It cost the Athenian but a few cents daily to live, and
even these few cents might be earned by his slaves. We need not,
therefore, be surprised to learn that in ancient Athens there
were no paupers or beggars. There might be poverty, but indigence
was unknown; and because of the absence of fashion, style, and
display, even poverty entailed no uncomfortable loss of social
position. The Athenians valued wealth highly, no doubt, as a
source of contributions to public festivals and to the
necessities of the state. But as far as the circumstances of
daily life go, the difference between the rich man and the poor
man was immeasurably less than in any modern community, and the
incentives to the acquirement of wealth were, as a consequence,
comparatively slight.

I do not mean to say that the Athenians did not engage in
business. Their city was a commercial city, and their ships
covered the Mediterranean. They had agencies and factories at
Marseilles, on the remote coasts of Spain, and along the shores
of the Black Sea. They were in many respects the greatest
commercial people of antiquity, and doubtless knew, as well as
other people, the keen delights of acquisition. But my point is,
that with them the acquiring of property had not become the chief
or only end of life. Production was carried on almost entirely by
slave-labour; interchange of commodities was the business of the
masters, and commerce was in those days simple. Banks, insurance
companies, brokers' boards,--all these complex instruments of
Mammon were as yet unthought of. There was no Wall Street in
ancient Athens; there were no great failures, no commercial
panics, no over-issues of stock. Commerce, in short, was a quite
subordinate matter, and the art of money-making was in its
infancy.

The twenty-five thousand Athenian freemen thus enjoyed, on the
whole, more undisturbed leisure, more freedom from petty
harassing cares, than any other community known to history.
Nowhere else can we find, on careful study, so little of the
hurry and anxiety which destroys the even tenour of modern
life,--nowhere else so few of the circumstances which tend to
make men insane, inebriate, or phthisical, or prematurely old.

This being granted, it remains only to state and illustrate the
obverse fact. It is not only true that Athens has produced and
educated a relatively larger number of men of the highest calibre
and most complete culture than any other community of like
dimensions which has ever existed; but it is also true that there
has been no other community, of which the members have, as a
general rule, been so highly cultivated, or have attained
individually such completeness of life. In proof of the first
assertion it will be enough to mention such names as those of
Solon, Themistokles, Perikles, and Demosthenes; Isokrates and
Lysias; Aristophanes and Menander; Aischylos, Sophokles, and
Euripides; Pheidias and Praxiteles; Sokrates and Plato;
Thukydides and Xenophon: remembering that these men,
distinguished for such different kinds of achievement, but like
each other in consummateness of culture, were all produced within
one town in the course of three centuries. At no other time and
place in human history has there been even an approach to such a
fact as this.

My other assertion, about the general culture of the community in
which such men were reared, will need a more detailed
explanation. When I say that the Athenian public was, on the
whole, the most highly cultivated public that has ever existed, I
refer of course to something more than what is now known as
literary culture. Of this there was relatively little in the days
of Athenian greatness; and this was because there was not yet
need for it or room for it. Greece did not until a later time
begin to produce scholars and savants; for the function of
scholarship does not begin until there has been an accumulation
of bygone literature to be interpreted for the benefit of those
who live in a later time. Grecian greatness was already becoming
a thing of the past, when scholarship and literary culture of the
modern type began at Rome and Alexandria. The culture of the
ancient Athenians was largely derived from direct intercourse
with facts of nature and of life, and with the thoughts of rich
and powerful minds orally expressed. The value of this must not
be underrated. We moderns are accustomed to get so large a
portion of our knowledge and of our theories of life out of
books, our taste and judgment are so largely educated by
intercourse with the printed page, that we are apt to confound
culture with book-knowledge; we are apt to forget the innumerable
ways in which the highest intellectual faculties may be
disciplined without the aid of literature. We must study
antiquity to realize how thoroughly this could be done. But even
in our day, how much more fruitful is the direct influence of an
original mind over us, in the rare cases when it can be enjoyed,
than any indirect influence which the same mind may exert through
the medium of printed books! What fellow of a college, placed
amid the most abundant and efficient implements of study, ever
gets such a stimulus to the highest and richest intellectual life
as was afforded to Eckermann by his daily intercourse with
Goethe? The breadth of culture and the perfection of training
exhibited by John Stuart Mill need not surprise us when we
recollect that his earlier days were spent in the society of
James Mill and Jeremy Bentham. And the remarkable extent of view,
the command of facts, and the astonishing productiveness of such
modern Frenchmen as Sainte-Beuve and Littre become explicable
when we reflect upon the circumstance that so many able and
brilliant men are collected in one city, where their minds may
continually and directly react upon each other. It is from the
lack of such personal stimulus that it is difficult or indeed
wellnigh impossible, even for those whose resources are such as
to give them an extensive command of books, to keep up to the
highest level of contemporary culture while living in a village
or provincial town. And it is mainly because of the personal
stimulus which it affords to its students, that a great
university, as a seat of culture, is immeasurably superior to a
small one.

Nevertheless, the small community in any age possesses one signal
advantage over the large one, in its greater simplicity of life
and its consequent relative leisure. It was the prerogative of
ancient Athens that it united the advantages of the large to
those of the small community. In relative simplicity of life it
was not unlike the modern village, while at the same time it was
the metropolis where the foremost minds of the time were enabled
to react directly upon one another. In yet another respect these
opposite advantages were combined. The twenty-five thousand free
inhabitants might perhaps all know something of each other. In
this respect Athens was doubtless much like a New England country
town, with the all-important difference that the sordid tone due
to continual struggle for money was absent. It was like the small
town in the chance which it afforded for publicity and community
of pursuits among its inhabitants. Continuous and unrestrained
social intercourse was accordingly a distinctive feature of
Athenian life. And, as already hinted, this intercourse did not
consist in evening flirtations, with the eating of indigestible
food at unseasonable hours, and the dancing of "the German." It
was carried on out-of-doors in the brightest sunlight; it brooked
no effeminacy; its amusements were athletic games, or dramatic
entertainments, such as have hardly since been equalled. Its
arena was a town whose streets were filled with statues and
adorned with buildings, merely to behold which was in itself an
education. The participators in it were not men with minds so
dwarfed by exclusive devotion to special pursuits that after
"talking shop" they could find nothing else save wine and cookery
to converse about. They were men with minds fresh and open for
the discussion of topics which are not for a day only.

A man like Sokrates, living in such a community, did not need to
write down his wisdom. He had no such vast public as the modern
philosopher has to reach. He could hail any one he happened to
pass in the street, begin an argument with him forthwith, and set
a whole crowd thinking and inquiring about subjects the mere
contemplation of which would raise them for the moment above
matters of transient concern. For more than half a century any
citizen might have gratis the benefit of oral instruction from
such a man as he. And I sometimes think, by the way,
that--curtailed as it is to literary proportions in the dialogues
of Plato, bereft of all that personal potency which it had when
it flowed, instinct with earnestness, from the lips of the
teacher--even to this day the wit of man has perhaps devised no
better general gymnastics for the understanding than the Sokratic
dialectic. I am far from saying that all Athens listened to
Sokrates or understood him: had it been so, the caricature of
Aristophanes would have been pointless, and the sublime yet
mournful trilogy of dialogues which pourtray the closing scenes
of the greatest life of antiquity would never have been written.
But the mere fact that such a man lived and taught in the way
that he did goes far in proof of the deep culture of the Athenian
public. Further confirmation is to be found in the fact that such
tragedies as the Antigone, the Oidipous, and the Prometheus were
written to suit the popular taste of the time; not to be read by
literary people, or to be performed before select audiences such
as in our day listen to Ristori or Janauschek, but to hold
spell-bound that vast concourse of all kinds of people which
assembled at the Dionysiac festivals.

Still further proof is furnished by the exquisite literary
perfection of Greek writings. One of the common arguments in
favour of the study of Greek at the present day is based upon the
opinion that in the best works extant in that language the art of
literary expression has reached wellnigh absolute perfection. I
fully concur in this opinion, so far as to doubt if even the
greatest modern writers, even a Pascal or a Voltaire, can fairly
sustain a comparison with such Athenians as Plato or Lysias. This
excellence of the ancient books is in part immediately due to the
fact that they were not written in a hurry, or amid the anxieties
of an over-busy existence; but it is in greater part due to the
indirect consequences of a leisurely life. These books were
written for a public which knew well how to appreciate the finer
beauties of expression; and, what is still more to the point,
their authors lived in a community where an elegant style was
habitual. Before a matchless style can be written, there must be
a good style "in the air," as the French say. Probably the most
finished talking and writing of modern times has been done in and
about the French court in the seventeenth century; and it is
accordingly there that we find men like Pascal and Bossuet
writing a prose which for precision, purity, and dignity has
never since been surpassed. It is thus that the unapproachable
literary excellence of ancient Greek books speaks for the genuine
culture of the people who were expected to read them, or to hear
them read. For one of the surest indices of true culture, whether
professedly literary or not, is the power to express one's self
in precise, rhythmical, and dignified language. We hardly need a
better evidence than this of the superiority of the ancient
community in the general elevation of its tastes and perceptions.
Recollecting how Herodotos read his history at the Olympic games,
let us try to imagine even so picturesque a writer as Mr. Parkman
reading a few chapters of his "Jesuits in North America" before
the spectators assembled at the Jerome Park races, and we shall
the better realize how deep-seated was Hellenic culture.

As yet, however, I have referred to but one side of Athenian
life. Though "seekers after wisdom," the cultivated people of
Athens did not spend all their valuable leisure in dialectics or
in connoisseurship. They were not a set of dilettanti or dreamy
philosophers, and they were far from subordinating the material
side of life to the intellectual. Also, though they dealt not in
money-making after the eager fashion of modern men, they had
still concerns of immediate practical interest with which to busy
themselves. Each one of these twenty-five thousand free Athenians
was not only a free voter, but an office-holder, a legislator, a
judge. They did not control the government through a
representative body, but they were themselves the government.
They were, one and all, in turn liable to be called upon to make
laws, and to execute them after they were made, as well as to
administer justice in civil and criminal suits. The affairs and
interests, not only of their own city, but of a score or two of
scattered dependencies, were more or less closely to be looked
after by them. It lay with them to declare war, to carry it on
after declaring it, and to pay the expenses of it. Actually and
not by deputy they administered the government of their own city,
both in its local and in its imperial relations. All this implies
a more thorough, more constant, and more vital political training
than that which is implied by the modern duties of casting a
ballot and serving on a jury. The life of the Athenian was
emphatically a political life. From early manhood onward, it was
part of his duty to hear legal questions argued by powerful
advocates, and to utter a decision upon law and fact; or to mix
in debate upon questions of public policy, arguing, listening,
and pondering. It is customary to compare the political talent of
the Greeks unfavourably with that displayed by the Romans, and I
have no wish to dispute this estimate. But on a careful study it
will appear that the Athenians, at least, in a higher degree than
any other community of ancient times, exhibited parliamentary
tact, or the ability to sit still while both sides of a question
are getting discussed,--that sort of political talent for which
the English races are distinguished, and to the lack of which so
many of the political failures of the French are egregiously due.
One would suppose that a judicature of the whole town would be
likely to execute a sorry parody of justice; yet justice was by
no means ill-administered at Athens. Even the most unfortunate
and disgraceful scenes,--as where the proposed massacre of the
Mytilenaians was discussed, and where summary retribution was
dealt out to the generals who had neglected their duty at
Arginusai,--even these scenes furnish, when thoroughly examined,
as by Mr. Grote, only the more convincing proof that the Athenian
was usually swayed by sound reason and good sense to an
extraordinary degree. All great points in fact, were settled
rather by sober appeals to reason than by intrigue or lobbying;
and one cannot help thinking that an Athenian of the time of
Perikles would have regarded with pitying contempt the trick of
the "previous question." And this explains the undoubted
pre-eminence of Athenian oratory. This accounts for the fact that
we find in the forensic annals of a single city, and within the
compass of a single century, such names as Lysias, Isokrates,
Andokides, Hypereides, Aischines, and Demosthenes. The art of
oratory, like the art of sculpture, shone forth more brilliantly
then than ever since, because then the conditions favouring its
development were more perfectly combined than they have since
been. Now, a condition of society in which the multitude can
always be made to stand quietly and listen to a logical discourse
is a condition of high culture. Readers of Xenophon's Anabasis
will remember the frequency of the speeches in that charming
book. Whenever some terrible emergency arose, or some alarming
quarrel or disheartening panic occurred, in the course of the
retreat of the Ten Thousand, an oration from one of the
commanders--not a demagogue's appeal to the lower passions, but a
calm exposition of circumstances addressed to the sober
judgment--usually sufficed to set all things in order. To my mind
this is one of the most impressive historical lessons conveyed in
Xenophon's book. And this peculiar kind of self-control,
indicative of intellectual sobriety and high moral training,
which was more or less characteristic of all Greeks, was
especially characteristic of the Athenians.

These illustrations will, I hope, suffice to show that there is
nothing extravagant in the high estimate which I have made of
Athenian culture. I have barely indicated the causes of this
singular perfection of individual training in the social
circumstances amid which the Athenians lived. I have alleged it
as an instance of what may be accomplished by a well-directed
leisure and in the absence or very scanty development of such a
complex industrial life as that which surrounds us to-day. But I
have not yet quite done with the Athenians. Before leaving this
part of the subject, I must mention one further circumstance
which tends to make ancient life appear in our eyes more sunny
and healthy and less distressed, than the life of modern times.
And in this instance, too, though we are not dealing with any
immediate or remote effects of leisureliness, we still have to
note the peculiar advantage gained by the absence of a great
complexity of interests in the ancient community.

With respect to religion, the Athenians were peculiarly situated.
They had for the most part outgrown the primitive terrorism of
fetishistic belief. Save in cases of public distress, as in the
mutilation of the Hermai, or in the refusal of Nikias to retreat
from Syracuse because of an eclipse of the moon, they were no
longer, like savages, afraid of the dark. Their keen aesthetic
sense had prevailed to turn the horrors of a primeval
nature-worship into beauties. Their springs and groves were
peopled by their fancy with naiads and dryads, not with trolls
and grotesque goblins. Their feelings toward the unseen powers at
work about them were in the main pleasant; as witness the little
story about Pheidippides meeting the god Pan as he was making
with hot haste toward Sparta to announce the arrival of the
Persians. Now, while this original source of mental discomfort,
which afflicts the uncivilized man, had ceased materially to
affect the Athenians, they on the other hand lived at a time when
the vague sense of sin and self-reproof which was characteristic
of the early ages of Christianity, had not yet invaded society.
The vast complication of life brought about by the extension of
the Roman Empire led to a great development of human sympathies,
unknown in earlier times, and called forth unquiet yearnings,
desire for amelioration, a sense of short-coming, and a morbid
self-consciousness. It is accordingly under Roman sway that we
first come across characters approximating to the modern type,
like Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. It is then
that we find the idea of social progress first clearly expressed,
that we discover some glimmerings of a conscious philanthropy,
and that we detect the earliest symptoms of that unhealthy
tendency to subordinate too entirely the physical to the moral
life, which reached its culmination in the Middle Ages. In the
palmy days of the Athenians it was different. When we hint that
they were not consciously philanthropists, we do not mean that
they were not humane; when we accredit them with no idea of
progress, we do not forget how much they did to render both the
idea and the reality possible; when we say that they had not a
distressing sense of spiritual unworthiness, we do not mean that
they had no conscience. We mean that their moral and religious
life sat easily on them, like their own graceful drapery,--did
not gall and worry them, like the hair-cloth garment of the monk.
They were free from that dark conception of a devil which lent
terror to life in the Middle Ages; and the morbid
self-consciousness which led mediaeval women to immure themselves
in convents would have been to an Athenian quite inexplicable.
They had, in short, an open and childlike conception of religion;
and, as such, it was a sunny conception. Any one who will take
the trouble to compare an idyl of Theokritos with a modern
pastoral, or the poem of Kleanthes with a modern hymn, or the
Aphrodite of Melos with a modern Madonna, will realize most
effectually what I mean.

And, finally, the religion of the Athenians was in the main
symbolized in a fluctuating mythology, and had never been
hardened into dogmas. The Athenian was subject to no priest, nor
was he obliged to pin his faith to any formulated creed. His
hospitable polytheism left little room for theological
persecution, and none for any heresy short of virtual atheism.
The feverish doubts which rack the modern mind left him
undisturbed. Though he might sink to any depth of scepticism in
philosophy, yet the eternal welfare of his soul was not supposed
to hang upon the issue of his doubts. Accordingly Athenian
society was not only characterized in the main by freedom of
opinion, in spite of the exceptional cases of Anaxagoras and
Sokrates; but there was also none of that Gothic gloom with which
the deep-seated Christian sense of infinite responsibility for
opinion has saddened modern religious life.

In these reflections I have wandered a little way from my
principal theme, in order more fully to show why the old Greek
life impresses us as so cheerful. Returning now to the keynote
with which we started, let us state succinctly the net result of
what has been said about the Athenians. As a people we have seen
that they enjoyed an unparalleled amount of leisure, living
through life with but little turmoil and clatter. Their life was
more spontaneous and unrestrained, less rigorously marked out by
uncontrollable circumstances, than the life of moderns. They did
not run so much in grooves. And along with this we have seen
reason to believe that they were the most profoundly cultivated
of all peoples; that a larger proportion of men lived complete,
well-rounded, harmonious lives in ancient Athens than in any
other known community. Keen, nimble-minded, and self-possessed;
audacious speculators, but temperate and averse to extravagance;
emotionally healthy, and endowed with an unequalled sense of
beauty and propriety; how admirable and wonderful they seem when
looked at across the gulf of ages intervening,--and what a
priceless possession to humanity, of what noble augury for the
distant future, is the fact that such a society has once existed!

The lesson to be drawn from the study of this antique life will
impress itself more deeply upon us after we have briefly
contemplated the striking contrast to it which is afforded by the
phase of civilization amid which we live to-day. Ever since Greek
civilization was merged in Roman imperialism, there has been a
slowly growing tendency toward complexity of social life,--toward
the widening of sympathies, the multiplying of interests, the
increase of the number of things to be done. Through the later
Middle Ages, after Roman civilization had absorbed and
disciplined the incoming barbarism which had threatened to
destroy it, there was a steadily increasing complication of
society, a multiplication of the wants of life, and a consequent
enhancement of the difficulty of self-maintenance. The ultimate
causes of this phenomenon lie so far beneath the surface that
they could be satisfactorily discussed only in a technical essay
on the evolution of society. It will be enough for us here to
observe that the great geographical discoveries of the sixteenth
century and the somewhat later achievements of physical science
have, during the past two hundred years, aided powerfully in
determining the entrance of the Western world upon an industrial
epoch,--an epoch which has for its final object the complete
subjection of the powers of nature to purposes of individual
comfort and happiness. We have now to trace some of the effects
of this lately-begun industrial development upon social life and
individual culture. And as we studied the leisureliness of
antiquity where its effects were most conspicuous, in the city of
Athens, we shall now do well to study the opposite
characteristics of modern society where they are most
conspicuously exemplified, in our own country. The attributes of
American life which it will be necessary to signalize will be
seen to be only the attributes of modern life in their most
exaggerated phase.

To begin with, in studying the United States, we are no longer
dealing with a single city, or with small groups of cities. The
city as a political unit, in the antique sense, has never existed
among us, and indeed can hardly be said now to exist anywhere.
The modern city is hardly more than a great emporium of trade, or
a place where large numbers of people find it convenient to live
huddled together; not a sacred fatherland to which its
inhabitants owe their highest allegiance, and by the requirements
of which their political activity is limited. What strikes us
here is that our modern life is diffused or spread out, not
concentrated like the ancient civic life. If the Athenian had
been the member of an integral community, comprising all
peninsular Greece and the mainland of Asia Minor, he could not
have taken life so easily as he did.

Now our country is not only a very large one, but compared to its
vast territorial extent it contains a very small population. If
we go on increasing at the present rate, so that a century hence
we number four or five hundred millions, our country will be
hardly more crowded than China is to-day. Or if our whole
population were now to be brought east of Niagara Falls, and
confined on the south by the Potomac, we should still have as
much elbow-room as they have in France. Political economists can
show the effects of this high ratio of land to inhabitants, in
increasing wages, raising the interest of money, and stimulating
production. We are thus living amid circumstances which are
goading the industrial activity characteristic of the last two
centuries, and notably of the English race, into an almost
feverish energy. The vast extent of our unwrought territory is
constantly draining fresh life from our older districts, to aid
in the establishment of new frontier communities of a somewhat
lower or less highly organized type. And these younger
communities, daily springing up, are constantly striving to take
on the higher structure,--to become as highly civilized and to
enjoy as many of the prerogatives of civilization as the rest.
All this calls forth an enormous quantity of activity, and causes
American life to assume the aspect of a life-and-death struggle
for mastery over the material forces of that part of the earth's
surface upon which it thrives.

It is thus that we are traversing what may properly be called the
BARBAROUS epoch of our history,--the epoch at which the
predominant intellectual activity is employed in achievements
which are mainly of a material character. Military barbarism, or
the inability of communities to live together without frequent
warfare, has been nearly outgrown by the whole Western world.
Private wars, long since made everywhere illegal, have nearly
ceased; and public wars, once continual, have become infrequent.
But industrial barbarism, by which I mean the inability of a
community to direct a portion of its time to purposes of
spiritual life, after providing for its physical
maintenance,--this kind of barbarism the modern world has by no
means outgrown. To-day, the great work of life is to live; while
the amount of labour consumed in living has throughout the
present century been rapidly increasing. Nearly the whole of this
American community toils from youth to old age in merely
procuring the means for satisfying the transient wants of life.
Our time and energies, our spirit and buoyancy, are quite used up
in what is called "getting on."

Another point of difference between the structure of American and
of Athenian society must not be left out of the account. The time
has gone by in which the energies of a hundred thousand men and
women could be employed in ministering to the individual
perfection of twenty-five thousand. Slavery, in the antique
sense,--an absolute command of brain as well as of muscle, a
slave-system of skilled labour,--we have never had. In our day it
is for each man to earn his own bread; so that the struggle for
existence has become universal. The work of one class does not
furnish leisure for another class. The exceptional circumstances
which freed the Athenian from industrial barbarism, and enabled
him to become the great teacher and model of culture for the
human race, have disappeared forever.

Then the general standard of comfortable living, as already
hinted, has been greatly raised, and is still rising. What would
have satisfied the ancient would seem to us like penury. We have
a domestic life of which the Greek knew nothing. We live during a
large part of the year in the house. Our social life goes on
under the roof. Our houses are not mere places for eating and
sleeping, like the houses of the ancients. It therefore costs us
a large amount of toil to get what is called shelter for our
heads. The sum which a young married man, in "good society," has
to pay for his house and the furniture contained in it, would
have enabled an Athenian to live in princely leisure from youth
to old age. The sum which he has to pay out each year, to meet
the complicated expense of living in such a house, would have
more than sufficed to bring up an Athenian family. If worthy
Strepsiades could have got an Asmodean glimpse of Fifth Avenue,
or even of some unpretending street in Cambridge, he might have
gone back to his aristocratic wife a sadder but a more contented
man.

Wealth--or at least what would until lately have been called
wealth--has become essential to comfort; while the opportunities
for acquiring it have in recent times been immensely multiplied.
To get money is, therefore, the chief end of life in our time and
country. "Success in life" has become synonymous with "becoming
wealthy." A man who is successful in what he undertakes is a man
who makes his employment pay him in money. Our normal type of
character is that of the shrewd, circumspect business man; as in
the Middle Ages it was that of the hardy warrior. And as in those
days when fighting was a constant necessity, and when the only
honourable way for a gentleman of high rank to make money was by
freebooting, fighting came to be regarded as an end desirable in
itself; so in these days the mere effort to accumulate has become
a source of enjoyment rather than a means to it. The same truth
is to be witnessed in aberrant types of character. The infatuated
speculator and the close-fisted millionaire are our substitutes
for the mediaeval berserkir,--the man who loved the pell-mell of
a contest so well that he would make war on his neighbour, just
to keep his hand in. In like manner, while such crimes as murder
and violent robbery have diminished in frequency during the past
century, on the other hand such crimes as embezzlement, gambling
in stocks, adulteration of goods, and using of false weights and
measures, have probably increased. If Dick Turpin were now to be
brought back to life, he would find the New York Custom-House a
more congenial and profitable working-place than the king's
highway.

The result of this universal quest for money is that we are
always in a hurry. Our lives pass by in a whirl. It is all labour
and no fruition. We work till we are weary; we carry our work
home with us; it haunts our evenings, and disturbs our sleep as
well as our digestion. Our minds are so burdened with it that our
conversation, when serious, can dwell upon little else. If we
step into a railway-car, or the smoking-room of a hotel, or any
other place where a dozen or two of men are gathered together, we
shall hear them talking of stocks, of investments, of commercial
paper, as if there were really nothing in this universe worth
thinking of, save only the interchange of dollars and
commodities. So constant and unremitted is our forced
application, that our minds are dwarfed for everything except the
prosecution of the one universal pursuit.

Are we now prepared for the completing of the contrast? Must we
say that, as Athens was the most leisurely and the United States
is the most hurried community known in history, so the Americans
are, as a consequence of their hurry, lacking in thoroughness of
culture? Or, since it is difficult to bring our modern culture
directly into contrast with that of an ancient community, let me
state the case after a different but equivalent fashion. Since
the United States present only an exaggerated type of the modern
industrial community, since the turmoil of incessant
money-getting, which affects all modern communities in large
measure, affects us most seriously of all, shall it be said that
we are, on the whole, less highly cultivated than our
contemporaries in Western Europe? To a certain extent we must
confess that this is the case. In the higher culture--in the
culture of the whole man, according to the antique idea--we are
undoubtedly behind all other nations with which it would be fair
to compare ourselves. It will not do to decide a question like
this merely by counting literary celebrities, although even thus
we should by no means get a verdict in our favour. Since the
beginning of this century, England has produced as many great
writers and thinkers as France or Germany; yet the general status
of culture in England is said--perhaps with truth--to be lower
than it is in these countries. It is said that the average
Englishman is less ready than the average German or Frenchman to
sympathize with ideas which have no obvious market-value. Yet in
England there is an amount of high culture among those not
professionally scholars, which it would be vain to seek among
ourselves. The purposes of my argument, however, require that the
comparison should be made between our own country and Western
Europe in general. Compare, then, our best magazines--not solely
with regard to their intrinsic excellence, but also with regard
to the way in which they are sustained--with the Revue des Deux
Mondes or the Journal des Debats. Or compare our leading
politicians with men like Gladstone, Disraeli, or Sir G. C.
Lewis; or even with such men as Brougham or Thiers. Or compare
the slovenly style of our newspaper articles, I will not say with
the exquisite prose of the lamented Prevost-Paradol, but with the
ordinary prose of the French or English newspaper. But a far
better illustration--for it goes down to the root of things--is
suggested by the recent work of Matthew Arnold on the schools of
the continent of Europe. The country of our time where the
general culture is unquestionably the highest is Prussia. Now, in
Prussia, they are able to have a Minister of Education, who is a
member of the Cabinet. They are sure that this minister will not
appoint or remove even an assistant professor for political
reasons. Only once, as Arnold tells us, has such a thing been
done; and then public opinion expressed itself in such an
emphatic tone of disapproval that the displaced teacher was
instantly appointed to another position. Nothing of this sort,
says Arnold, could have occurred in England; but still less could
it occur in America. Had we such an educational system, there
would presently be an "Education Ring" to control it. Nor can
this difference be ascribed to the less eager political activity
of Germany. The Prussian state of things would have been possible
in ancient Athens, where political life was as absorbing and
nearly as turbulent as in the United States. The difference is
due to our lack of faith in culture, a lack of faith in that of
which we have not had adequate experience.

We lack culture because we live in a hurry, and because our
attention is given up to pursuits which call into activity and
develop but one side of us. On the one hand contemplate Sokrates
quietly entertaining a crowd in the Athenian market-place, and on
the other hand consider Broadway with its eternal clatter, and
its throngs of hurrying people elbowing and treading on each
other's heels, and you will get a lively notion of the difference
between the extreme phases of ancient and modern life. By the
time we have thus rushed through our day, we have no strength
left to devote to things spiritual. To-day finds us no nearer
fruition than yesterday. And if perhaps the time at last arrives
when fruition is practicable, our minds have run so long in the
ruts that they cannot be twisted out.

As it is impossible for any person living in a given state of
society to keep himself exempt from its influences, detrimental
as well as beneficial, we find that even those who strive to make
a literary occupation subservient to purposes of culture are not,
save in rare cases, spared by the general turmoil. Those who have
at once the ability, the taste, and the wealth needful for
training themselves to the accomplishment of some many-sided and
permanent work are of course very few. Nor have our universities
yet provided themselves with the means for securing to literary
talent the leisure which is essential to complete mental
development, or to a high order of productiveness. Although in
most industrial enterprises we know how to work together so
successfully, in literature we have as yet no co-operation. We
have not only no Paris, but we have not even a Tubingen, a
Leipsic, or a Jena, or anything corresponding to the fellowships
in the English universities. Our literary workers have no choice
but to fall into the ranks, and make merchandise of their
half-formed ideas. They must work without co-operation, they must
write in a hurry, and they must write for those who have no
leisure for aught but hasty and superficial reading.

Bursting boilers and custom-house frauds may have at first sight
nothing to do with each other or with my subject. It is
indisputable, however, that the horrible massacres perpetrated
every few weeks or mouths by our common carriers, and the
disgraceful peculation in which we allow our public servants to
indulge with hardly ever an effective word of protest, are alike
to be ascribed to the same causes which interfere with our higher
culture. It is by no means a mere accidental coincidence that for
every dollar stolen by government officials in Prussia, at least
fifty or a hundred are stolen in the United States. This does not
show that the Germans are our superiors in average honesty, but
it shows that they are our superiors in thoroughness. It is with
them an imperative demand that any official whatever shall be
qualified for his post; a principle of public economy which in
our country is not simply ignored in practice, but often openly
laughed at. But in a country where high intelligence and thorough
training are imperatively demanded, it follows of necessity that
these qualifications must insure for their possessors a permanent
career in which the temptations to malfeasance or dishonesty are
reduced to the minimum. On the other hand, in a country where
intelligence and training have no surety that they are to carry
the day against stupidity and inefficiency, the incentives to
dishonourable conduct are overpowering. The result in our own
political life is that the best men are driven in disgust from
politics, and thus one of the noblest fields for the culture of
the whole man is given over to be worked by swindlers and
charlatans. To an Athenian such a severance of the highest
culture from political life would have been utterly
inconceivable. Obviously the deepest explanation of all this lies
in our lack of belief in the necessity for high and thorough
training. We do not value culture enough to keep it in our employ
or to pay it for its services; and what is this short-sighted
negligence but the outcome of the universal shiftlessness
begotten of the habit of doing everything in a hurry? On every
hand we may see the fruits of this shiftlessness, from buildings
that tumble in, switches that are misplaced, furnaces that are
ill-protected, fire-brigades that are without discipline, up to
unauthorized meddlings with the currency, and revenue laws which
defeat their own purpose.

I said above that the attributes of American life which we should
find it necessary for our purpose to signalize are simply the
attributes of modern life in their most exaggerated phase. Is
there not a certain sense in which all modern handiwork is
hastily and imperfectly done? To begin with common household
arts, does not every one know that old things are more durable
than new things? Our grandfathers wore better shoes than we wear,
because there was leisure enough to cure the leather properly. In
old times a chair was made of seasoned wood, and its joints
carefully fitted; its maker had leisure to see that it was well
put together. Now a thousand are turned off at once by machinery,
out of green wood, and, with their backs glued on, are hurried
off to their evil fate,--destined to drop in pieces if they
happen to stand near the fireplace, and liable to collapse under
the weight of a heavy man. Some of us still preserve, as
heirlooms, old tables and bedsteads of Cromwellian times: in the
twenty-first century what will have become of our machine-made
bedsteads and tables?

Perhaps it may seem odd to talk about tanning and joinery in
connection with culture, but indeed there is a subtle bond of
union holding together all these things. Any phase of life can be
understood only by associating with it some different phase.
Sokrates himself has taught us how the homely things illustrate
the grand things. If we turn to the art of musical composition
and inquire into some of the differences between our recent music
and that of Handel's time, we shall alight upon the very
criticism which Mr. Mill somewhere makes in comparing ancient
with modern literature: the substance has improved, but the form
has in some respects deteriorated. The modern music expresses the
results of a richer and more varied emotional experience, and in
wealth of harmonic resources, to say nothing of increased skill
in orchestration, it is notably superior to the old music. Along
with this advance, however, there is a perceptible falling off in
symmetry and completeness of design, and in what I would call
spontaneousness of composition. I believe that this is because
modern composers, as a rule, do not drudge patiently enough upon
counterpoint. They do not get that absolute mastery over
technical difficulties of figuration which was the great secret
of the incredible facility and spontaneity of composition
displayed by Handel and Bach. Among recent musicians Mendelssohn
is the most thoroughly disciplined in the elements of
counterpoint; and it is this perfect mastery of the technique of
his art which has enabled him to outrank Schubert and Schumann,
neither of whom would one venture to pronounce inferior to him in
native wealth of musical ideas. May we not partly attribute to
rudimentary deficiency in counterpoint the irregularity of
structure which so often disfigures the works of the great Wagner
and the lesser Liszt, and which the more ardent admirers of these
composers are inclined to regard as a symptom of progress?

I am told that a similar illustration might be drawn from the
modern history of painting; that, however noble the conceptions
of the great painters of the present century, there are none who
have gained such a complete mastery over the technicalities of
drawing and the handling of the brush as was required in the
times of Raphael, Titian, and Rubens. But on this point I can
only speak from hearsay, and am quite willing to end here my
series of illustrations, fearing that I may already have been
wrongly set down as a lavulator temporis acti. Not the idle
praising of times gone by, but the getting a lesson from them
which may be of use to us, has been my object. And I believe
enough has been said to show that the great complexity of modern
life, with its multiplicity of demands upon our energy, has got
us into a state of chronic hurry, the results of which are
everywhere to be seen in the shape of less thorough workmanship
and less rounded culture.

For one moment let me stop to note a further source of the
relative imperfection of modern culture, which is best
illustrated in the case of literature. I allude to the immense,
unorganized mass of literature in all departments, representing
the accumulated acquisitions of past ages, which must form the
basis of our own achievement, but with which our present methods
of education seem inadequate to deal properly. Speaking roughly,
modern literature may be said to be getting into the state which
Roman jurisprudence was in before it was reformed by Justinian.
Philosophic criticism has not yet reached the point at which it
may serve as a natural codifier. We must read laboriously and
expend a disproportionate amount of time and pains in winnowing
the chaff from the wheat. This tends to make us "digs" or
literary drudges; but I doubt if the "dig" is a thoroughly
developed man. Goethe, with all his boundless knowledge, his
universal curiosity, and his admirable capacity for work, was not
a "dig." But this matter can only be hinted at: it is too large
to be well discussed at the fag end of an essay while other
points are pressing for consideration.

A state of chronic hurry not only directly hinders the
performance of thorough work, but it has an indirect tendency to
blunt the enjoyment of life. Let us consider for a moment one of
the psychological consequences entailed by the strain of a too
complex and rapid activity. Every one must have observed that in
going off for a vacation of two or three weeks, or in getting
freed in any way from the ruts of every-day life, time slackens
its gait somewhat, and the events which occur are apt a few years
later to cover a disproportionately large area in our
recollections. This is because the human organism is a natural
timepiece in which the ticks are conscious sensations. The
greater the number of sensations which occupy the foreground of
consciousness during the day, the longer the day seems in the
retrospect. But the various groups of sensations which accompany
our daily work tend to become automatic from continual
repetition, and to sink into the background of consciousness; and
in a very complex and busied life the number of sensations or
states of consciousness which can struggle up to the front and
get attended to, is comparatively small It is thus that the days
seem so short when we are busy about every-day matters, and that
they get blurred together, and as it were individually
annihilated in recollection. When we travel, a comparatively
large number of fresh sensations occupy attention, there is a
maximum of consciousness, and a distinct image is left to loom up
in memory. For the same reason the weeks and years are much
longer to the child than to the grown man. The life is simpler
and less hurried, so that there is time to attend to a great many
sensations. Now this fact lies at the bottom of that keen
enjoyment of existence which is the prerogative of childhood and
early youth. The day is not rushed through by the automatic
discharge of certain psychical functions, but each sensation
stays long enough to make itself recognized. Now when once we
understand the psychology of this matter, it becomes evident that
the same contrast that holds between the child and the man must
hold also between the ancient and the modern. The number of
elements entering into ancient life were so few relatively, that
there must have been far more than there is now of that intense
realization of life which we can observe in children and remember
of our own childhood. Space permitting, it would be easy to show
from Greek literature how intense was this realization of life.
But my point will already have been sufficiently apprehended.
Already we cannot fail to see how difficult it is to get more
than a minimum of conscious fruition out of a too complex and
rapid activity.

One other point is worth noticing before we close. How is this
turmoil of modern existence impressing itself upon the physical
constitutions of modern men and women? When an individual man
engages in furious productive activity, his friends warn him that
he will break down. Does the collective man of our time need some
such friendly warning? Let us first get a hint from what
foreigners think of us ultra-modernized Americans. Wandering
journalists, of an ethnological turn of mind, who visit these
shores, profess to be struck with the slenderness, the apparent
lack of toughness, the dyspeptic look, of the American physique.
And from such observations it has been seriously argued that the
stalwart English race is suffering inevitable degeneracy in this
foreign climate. I have even seen it doubted whether a race of
men can ever become thoroughly naturalized in a locality to which
it is not indigenous. To such vagaries it is a sufficient answer
that the English are no more indigenous to England than to
America. They are indigenous to Central Asia, and as they have
survived the first transplantation, they may be safely counted on
to survive the second. A more careful survey will teach us that
the slow alteration of physique which is going on in this country
is only an exaggeration of that which modern civilization is
tending to bring about everywhere. It is caused by the premature
and excessive strain upon the mental powers requisite to meet the
emergencies of our complex life. The progress of events has
thrown the work of sustaining life so largely upon the brain that
we are beginning to sacrifice the physical to the intellectual.
We are growing spirituelle in appearance at the expense of
robustness. Compare any typical Greek face, with its firm
muscles, its symmetry of feature, and its serenity of expression,
to a typical modern portrait, with its more delicate contour, its
exaggerated forehead, its thoughtful, perhaps jaded look. Or
consider in what respects the grand faces of the Plantagenet
monarchs differ from the refined countenances of the leading
English statesmen of to-day. Or again, consider the familiar
pictures of the Oxford and Harvard crews which rowed a race on
the Thames in 1869, and observe how much less youthful are the
faces of the Americans. By contrast they almost look careworn.
The summing up of countless such facts is that modern
civilization is making us nervous. Our most formidable diseases
are of nervous origin. We seem to have got rid of the mediaeval
plague and many of its typhoid congeners; but instead we have an
increased amount of insanity, methomania, consumption, dyspepsia,
and paralysis. In this fact it is plainly written that we are
suffering physically from the over-work and over-excitement
entailed by excessive hurry.

In view of these various but nearly related points of difference
between ancient and modern life as studied in their extreme
manifestations, it cannot be denied that while we have gained
much, we have also lost a good deal that is valuable, in our
progress. We cannot but suspect that we are not in all points
more highly favoured than the ancients. And it becomes probable
that Athens, at all events, which I have chosen as my example,
may have exhibited an adumbration of a state of things which, for
the world at large, is still in the future,--still to be remotely
hoped for. The rich complexity of modern social achievement is
attained at the cost of individual many-sidedness. As Tennyson
puts it, "The individual withers and the world is more and more."
Yet the individual does not exist for the sake of society, as the
positivists would have us believe, but society exists for the
sake of the individual. And the test of complete social life is
the opportunity which it affords for complete individual life.
Tried by this test, our contemporary civilization will appear
seriously defective,--excellent only as a preparation for
something better.

This is the true light in which to regard it. This incessant
turmoil, this rage for accumulation of wealth, this crowding,
jostling, and trampling upon one another, cannot be regarded as
permanent, or as anything more than the accompaniment of a
transitional stage of civilization. There must be a limit to the
extent to which the standard of comfortable living can be raised.
The industrial organization of society, which is now but
beginning, must culminate in a state of things in which the means
of expense will exceed the demand for expense, in which the human
race will have some surplus capital. The incessant manual labour
which the ancients relegated to slaves will in course of time be
more and more largely performed by inanimate machinery. Unskilled
labour will for the most part disappear. Skilled labour will
consist in the guiding of implements contrived with versatile
cunning for the relief of human nerve and muscle. Ultimately
there will be no unsettled land to fill, no frontier life, no
savage races to be assimilated or extirpated, no extensive
migration. Thus life will again become comparatively stationary.
The chances for making great fortunes quickly will be diminished,
while the facilities for acquiring a competence by steady labour
will be increased. When every one is able to reach the normal
standard of comfortable living, we must suppose that the
exaggerated appetite for wealth and display will gradually
disappear. We shall be more easily satisfied, and thus enjoy more
leisure. It may be that there will ultimately exist, over the
civilized world, conditions as favourable to the complete
fruition of life as those which formerly existed within the
narrow circuit of Attika; save that the part once played by
enslaved human brain and muscle will finally be played by the
enslaved forces of insentient nature. Society will at last bear
the test of providing for the complete development of its
individual members.

So, at least, we may hope; such is the probability which the
progress of events, when carefully questioned, sketches out for
us. "Need we fear," asks Mr. Greg, "that the world would stagnate
under such a change? Need we guard ourselves against the
misconstruction of being held to recommend a life of complacent
and inglorious inaction? We think not. We would only substitute a
nobler for a meaner strife,--a rational for an excessive
toil,--an enjoyment that springs from serenity, for one that
springs from excitement only. . . . . To each time its own
preacher, to each excess its own counteraction. In an age of
dissipation, languor, and stagnation, we should join with Mr.
Carlyle in preaching the 'Evangel of Work,' and say with him,
'Blessed is the man who has found his work,--let him ask no other
blessedness.' In an age of strenuous, frenzied, .... and often
utterly irrational and objectless exertion, we join Mr. Mill in
preaching the milder and more needed 'Evangel of Leisure.' "

Bearing all these things in mind, we may understand the remark of
the supremely cultivated Goethe, when asked who were his masters:
Die Griechen, die Griechen, und immer die Griechen. We may
appreciate the significance of Mr. Mill's argument in favour of
the study of antiquity, that it preserves the tradition of an era
of individual completeness. There is a disposition growing among
us to remodel our methods of education in conformity with the
temporary requirements of the age in which we live. In this
endeavour there is much that is wise and practical; but in so far
as it tends to the neglect of antiquity, I cannot think it
well-timed. Our education should not only enhance the value of
what we possess; is should also supply the consciousness of what
we lack. And while, for generations to come, we pass toilfully
through an era of exorbitant industrialism, some fragment of our
time will not be misspent in keeping alive the tradition of a
state of things which was once briefly enjoyed by a little
community, but which, in the distant future, will, as it is
hoped, become the permanent possession of all mankind.

January, 1873.