NEW PUBLICATIONS
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HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS.
By John Henry Newman, D.D., of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green. 1865. 8vo., pp. 379.
Under this title, Dr. Newman has republished the charming autobiography which originally appeared as an answer to the calumnies of Charles Kingsley, and was entitled "Apologia pro Vita Sua," republished in a neat and attractive manner by the Appletons. We earnestly recommend all our readers, whether they be Catholics or not, who have not procured and read the "Apologia," to do so without delay, if they wish to give themselves a rich intellectual treat. The American edition is decidedly to be preferred, on account [{140}] of the complete history it furnishes of the controversy with Mr. Kingsley which led to the composition of the book. In England, this controversy is already well-known to the entire religious and literary world, and may be supposed by this time to have lost its interest. Dr. Newman's autobiography will never lose its interest and value while the English language remains; and for this reason, it was no doubt a wise thought in the author to prepare it for posterity in a form wherein the local and personal controversy which occasioned its being written should no longer be connected with its proper subject-matter. No doubt, too, the author felt some reluctance to perpetuate, in close connection with his own personal history, the memory of the severe castigation which he administered to his opponent. This is honorable to his delicate and charitable sentiments. At the same time, the castigation was necessary, it was just, it was not one whit too severe, and we owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Newman for having applied the terrible lash which he possesses, but which he employs so seldom and usually so lightly, in this case with all his strength to the shoulders of a delinquent. There is a certain small class of writers in the English Church, some of whom are Puseyites, others more or less broad in their views, who violate all the laws of honorable and courteous warfare in their attacks on the Catholic Church. They take the line of charging fraud, forgery, lying, and utterly unprincipled and wicked motives and maxims upon the hierarchy, priesthood, and other advocates of the Catholic cause. One of the first and foremost of these was Mr. Meyrick, of Oxford, the author of a disingenuous work against Catholic morals, and one of Mr. Kingsley's defenders. This work of Mr. Meyrick's was republished in this country with a more offensive preface, by the Rev. A. C. Coxe, now the bishop of Western New York, a person who has abjured all regard to the rules of common civility, both in his public writings and speeches concerning the Catholic clergy, and also in his private demeanor when he has happened to be thrown into contact with them personally. This class of writers adopt what Dr. Newman happily styles a mode of warfare which consists in "poisoning the wells." That is, they seek to forestall all debate on the merits of the Catholic question, by accusing the advocates of the Catholic side of being liars by principle and on system; infamous persons, who have no claim to decent treatment or even to a hearing. There is but one course to be taken with opponents of this sort. Argument, explanation, courtesy, are alike thrown away upon them. They must be treated like guerrillas, and summary justice must be done up on them, as the only means of self-defence, and as a salutary example to others. They must be taught that they cannot have free license to calumniate and vituperate the Catholic Church or its members with impunity. How effectually this lesson was read to them by Dr. Newman, is shown by the hearty applause which his book received from all England, the evidence of which may be seen in the review of it which appeared in the principal English periodicals.
We wish to be understood that the language we have used above has no application to any but a few offending individuals, whose spirit and manner are even more severely condemned by a large class of the non-Catholic public than by Catholics themselves. It is very gratifying to observe the respectful, moderate, and courteous tone which many of the most illustrious of the recent advocates of the Protestant side maintain toward the Church of Rome and her distinguished and worthy members. Copying after Leibniz, the greatest genius which the Protestant confession can boast of, we have, among others, Guizot, Ranke, Dr. Pusey, Palmer; and in this country, William R. Alger, who, albeit he has inadvertently repeated some of the current misstatements of Catholic doctrine, has always shown a fairness and generosity of spirit and a readiness to correct mistakes which make him conspicuous among our honorable opponents. In this species of candor and courtesy the most eminent writers of the continent are still far before the most of those in England and America. Dr. Newman himself and his compeers in the early Oxford movement, even in their strongest and most pronounced expressions of opinion against Rome and against various form of dissent, furnished the most perfect specimens of the truly Christian and gentlemanly style of polemics which English literature had yet [{141}] seen. Never was there a man who kept his intellect and his varied gifts as a writer more completely under the discipline of a strict conscience, one who was more scrupulously just and fair, truthful and frank, yet guarded and cautious, than John Henry Newman. He has the soul of knightly chivalry in him; religious, fearless, modest, and compassionate; loyal to the death to every sacred obligation, and scorning a mean or deceitful act more than common men do treason and perjury. Such a man ought to have been secure of honorable treatment; and yet he has not been spared in the strife of tongues; and if he has at last triumphed over calumny, it has only been by overpowering his enemies with the superior weight of his armor and strength of his arm, and not because his holy retirement and spotless name have been respected. However, after long years, during whose lapse the English people have disdained and slighted the man of genius and the pure Christian who is one of the greatest ornaments of their literature, on account of their intense hostility to his religion, their love of fair play, and admiration for intellectual greatness and prowess, has gained a signal victory, and we give them due credit for it. The demand for the "Apologia" on its first publication in successive numbers was so great that the Longmans were unable to keep up with it. That it has not been unappreciated also in this country is proved by the fact that four editions of the American reprint have been exhausted. Of the book itself, it is almost superfluous to speak at this late day. It will bear to be read and re-read, and the repeated perusal, instead of wearying, only brings out new charms and occasions an increasing delight. We have read and admired Dr. Newman's writings for more than twenty years, but have never so fully appreciated the wonderful subtlety and vigor of his intellect as we have done since reading his last book. It is like the keen, bright, dexterously wielded, and irresistible scimeter of Saladin. At his conversion Anglicanism lost a champion far more capable than any other of coping with its stoutest antagonists, and the Catholic Church gained over the most formidable of her foes who wields an English pen. Even as now reproduced by himself, as a mere history of the past, his method of defending the Church of England against Rome appears to us so much more subtle and plausible, and adroitly managed, not through any designed artifice on his part, but from the acuteness with which his mind detects all the most defensible points of his own position and the most assailable ones of the opposite, than that of any other writer, that we instinctively say, no man but John Henry Newman could fully refute himself. Each successive post at which he pauses in his gradual approach to the Catholic Church seems as defensible as the others which he has abandoned as untenable. At his very last halting place, he has the air of a man who is about to defend himself there to the last, and is not to be driven further. Indeed, he was not driven by any mind more powerful than his own; for although the arguments of Cardinal Wiseman had considerable weight with him, neither he nor any other Catholic writer really answered the difficulties which were in his own mind, or fully refuted, in a manner consonant to his intellectual convictions, the plausible arguments by which he justified to himself and recommended to others a continuance in the Anglican communion. He was driven only by his innate love of truth, his conscientiousness, his logical fidelity to his own first principles, and the grace of God. Humanly speaking, his conversion was one of the most unlikely events which has ever taken place. Ten years before it occurred he was at an immense distance from the Catholic Church, and advancing toward it by a most circuitous route, with the greatest apparent, reluctance. We rise from the perusal of his own record of his journey with a sentiment of astonishment that he ever reached his destination. When we remember the light in which Dr. Newman was regarded by his own school in the days of his leadership at Oxford, it appears to us that the estimate formed of him was both singularly just and singularly incorrect. It was just in one way, inasmuch as, whatever his modesty may suggest to the contrary, he was more than any other man the leader of the movement. It was incorrect, inasmuch as a far greater originative force in causing this movement and a far greater comprehension of its principles were attributed to him than he or any other man possessed. The [{142}] movement itself created its own agents, and bore them on with a power infinitely greater than they possessed of themselves. Dr. Newman was a master to inferior and more backward scholars; but was himself only a scholar, who began with the first and simplest rudiments of Catholicity. His merit consisted in this, that while many paused at various stages of elementary and partial knowledge, he pushed on to the mastery of final results and completed his curriculum. Considering what he had to learn, and that he had in great measure to be his own teacher, the space of ten years was really a short rather than a long period for the process.
The history of this process constitutes the direct object and the principal value and charm of the "Apologia," and the "History of My Religious Opinions." The mind of the author is, however, one of those full streams that overflows its bounds, and whose obiter dicta are frequently the richest and most precious of its effusions. There are several passages in this work falling within the scope of this remark. We can only call attention to two, without quoting them. One is found on pp. 266-273 of the American edition of the "Apologia," and relates to the doctrine of original sin. Another, on pp. 275-291, concerns the question of the relations between faith and science and reason and authority. In the very act of giving a reason for avoiding the discussion of these questions, the author has given in a short compass, one of the most admirable disquisitions we have ever read. There is no passage in all his writings which exhibits better the fine discrimination of his thought, and the perspicuity and beauty of his style, and in both these respects it is a specimen of the most perfect logical and rhetorical art.
We feel bound, however, to enter one caveat against a part of Dr. Newman's philosophy, which we regard not so much as being a positive error as a defect, and which has been quite distinctly brought out by the Westminster Review, as a part of his defence of Catholicity which presents a weak side to the infidel. This defect is one originating in the philosophy which has prevailed in England, and in which Dr. Newman was educated; one which has always been conspicuous in the writers of the Oxford school, and which appears to us to leave a great hiatus in their theology. This defect may be described, though it is not defined, as the doctrine probability, We have no hesitation in agreeing with Dr. Newman in the maxim, that in most matters "probability is the guide of life." We have heretofore thought, however, that he extended this principle into the domain of natural and revealed religion so far as to agree with those writers who consider their fundamental verities as being merely more probable than their logical contradictories. After carefully weighing his words, we have come to the conclusion that he does not use the word in this sense, when he speaks of the great truths of religion. That is, he does not admit that there is any real probability, though a lesser one, in the infidel negations, but only a metaphysical possibility. He allows of a moral certainty which admits of no prudent doubt to the contrary, but does not reach to a metaphysical certainty. Here again we agree with him partially, and if we understand rightly the ecclesiastical decisions on the point, we think his doctrine is one that has official sanction. That is, we regard, with him, the evidence of revealed religion and of the authority of the Catholic Church, as apprehended by the light of our natural intelligence in that act which theologians call "the preamble to faith," as being in the order of probability and incapable of generating more than a moral certainty. That certitude of belief which excludes possibility of error, we regard as an effect of the gift of faith imparting a supernatural firmness to the intellectual assent. We dissent from Dr. Newman, when he extends this doctrine to our ultimate belief in God, and we think it necessary, in order to give a firm basis even to a true probability, that we should affirm the absolute intuition of that idea of God, from which we are able to deduce his attributes; and, moreover, affirm also the perfect metaphysical demonstrability of all these attributes as expressed in the Christian conception of God. We dislike very much any form of expression which implies that we believe in God on a probability, which is tantamount to saying that "it is probable there is a God." Even if we say that the being of God is morally certain, we still leave it possible that there is no God. If we deduce [{143}] the being of God from the ultimate principle of the certainty of our own existence, we make our self-consciousness, our reason, the laws of our own being, the standard of right and truth which we establish within ourselves, more certain, and to us more ultimate than God. We become our own centre and stand-point, our own ultimate judge, a light and a law to ourselves, really subsisting in an intellectual independence of God. This is ceding, in our view, to the pure infidel rationalist all the ground he wants, which is simply liberty for every one to speculate about the cause of all things, and their procession to the ultimate end, as he lists. It is true he will do it without our leave, whatever our way of stating Christian truth; but if we admit, or do not clearly repudiate, his first principles, he will point out a logical defect in our argument, and show that we are inconsistent; and then the philosophical proof of Christianity, which consists in demonstrating the conception of God from first principles intuitively certain, and showing that none of the Christian doctrines which we received from testimony are incompatible with these first principles, will, in our hands, be defectively managed.
It is proper to state, however, that Dr. Newman does not propose anything dogmatically on this important question, but rather indicates that he has not yet obtained a solution which satisfies him.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH; FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA UNTIL THE PRESENT TIME.
By M. l'Abbé J. E. Darras; First American from the last French edition. With an Introduction and Notes by the most Rev. M. J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Vol. I. 8vo., pp. 675. New York: P. O'Shea.
The appearance of this volume realizes very fully all we were led to expect from its prospectus. The first impression made upon us by its exterior dress is that this is an attractive and readable book; two qualities of a work on history which, whatever be the learning, accuracy, and completeness displayed in its more intimate perusal, are not to be despised. We are glad to meet with a life of the Church which does not look like a catalogue of dried and dead specimens for a scientific museum. The majority of the volumes which issue from the press now-a-days like a literary flood, owe their success a vast deal more to their beautiful typography, chaste binding, and other general attractive features, than to the solid merit of their contents. As there are certain orators whose appearance alone captivates their auditory, and excites in us a curiosity to hear what fine things such a fine-looking man has to say, so there are books which feel well to the touch, look good to the eyes, and prejudice one's judgment in their favor. We will listen to a stupid-looking speaker, or read a commonplace featured book, on the testimony of their friends, provided they give us strong recommendations; but a speaker "of a commanding presence and a winning air," or a book that is well gotten up, we think worthy of notice at the first introduction.
It is difficult to write an interesting history. Simple facts of the past stated in dry statistical style, like the reports of an insane asylum or a poor-house, are about as interesting as they, and appear to the general reader to be of about equal importance. We may be thought weak in judgment to say it, but we should like to read history for the same reason we like to read the last novel by Dickens, in which the author wields his magic pen to paint life-pictures of the events of the world before our mind, and compels us to be living witnesses of the past in the realm of imagination. To insure a deep interest and a lasting impression all the faculties of the mind should be engaged. Our imagination must not be told to step out of doors or go to sleep whilst our memory takes an inventory of facts consigned to its storehouse by a historian. The senses of sight and of taste are given to man that he may be guided in supplying his stomach with the proper quantum and quality of the food it craves. What these senses are to the stomach, the imagination is to the mind, and if it have no hand in the choice of mental food there cannot help but be an indigestion; the brain, indeed, holding the crude mass, but unable to make any use of it.
We may sum up in a few sentences the application these remarks may have to the history before us. The volume [{144}] comes to us with uncut edges. Let the reader open it at random. He finds before him a fair page, printed in large cool type, with broad generous margins, looking as a page ought to look, like a goodly field of wheat or corn, and not like a stiff, prim, pinched, and gravelled parterre. Let him read down one page, and he will surely bring his paper-cutter into requisition and follow the author to the beginning of the next paragraph. He will find the style, if we mistake not, like one of those charming, shady, winding, country roads, which always entice you to go just as far as the next turning; an agreeable contrast to the ordinary page of history, which to us is so like a grievous paved military road in France, straight enough, wide enough, and direct enough, but lamentably monotonous, dry, dusty, and tiresome. There is a little stiffness and dull regularity about the division of the subject-matter; but this is inevitable to any history of a long period, and may be regarded as the signboards and finger-posts on the road, making up in convenience what they detract from the romance.
As to the character of the work of M. Darras as a history—as one in which we can learn the actual life of our mother, the Church; one which we can quote with confidence in public, and not be obliged to contradict to its back as it stands on our shelves; one which we can give to our friends, of all classes and opinions, as a good, reliable, and respectable Church history—we are content to take it as such upon the warm approbation it has received at the hands of the Holy Father, the use that is made of it in colleges and seminaries in Europe, the approval it has obtained from the Rt. Rev. bishops there and in the United States, and the good opinion universally expressed concerning it by scholars whose critical judgment is worthy of reliance. Certainly we have no Church history equal to it in the English language, and we bid this translated French one welcome, and hope it may receive an hospitable reception amongst us.
The dissertation on the perpetuity of the Church, and the immortality of the Papacy, from the pen of the Most Rev. Archbishop Spalding, which embellishes this edition under the form of an introduction, is both appropriate and well deserving of perusal. The learned prelate puts us at once on reading acquaintance with the work of M. Darras, and enkindles in us the desire to know more of the eventful course of the existence of Holy Church.