Europe have come to be universally appreciated. One or two testimonies to the grandeur of the mediæval philosophy from distinguished opponents are given. The widespread and earnest revival of the same among Catholics all over the world is a fact too patent to need any proof. Dr. Mivart’s almost chivalric enthusiasm for scholastic philosophy is of itself a signal instance of a movement in this direction from a new quarter—i.e., from the ranks of the devotees of physical science. It would seem that he himself has been led through science to philosophy, and therefore his views and reasonings on the matter have a peculiar interest. He presents two distinct phases of the question. One represents the inability of the anti-Christian scientists to construct a philosophy which may successfully oppose Christianity. The other presents positive tendencies in scientific evolution toward the peripatetic philosophy of the Christian schools. In respect to the first, his line of argument shows that these anti-Christian scientists are at war with each other and can never agree upon any one system; furthermore, that their reasonings end in absolute scepticism, and thus undermine their own foundations. Human nature and common sense invariably cause a reaction against idiotic and suicidal systems of this sort. Even the cultivation of natural science, therefore, must produce a tendency to seek for a satisfactory system of psychology and ontology. And as the philosophy which Des Cartes brought into vogue, ending with the transcendentalism of Kant and his successors, is no better than a philosophy of scepticism, it seems that a return to the mediæval and Grecian school, to Aristotle and St.
Thomas, is unavoidable. There is but one other system which holds out the promise of a refuge from materialism and scepticism—that of the Ontologists. This system, however, is too contrary to the spirit and method of the natural sciences to offer any attractions to minds seeking for a synthesis of the spiritual and the material. The exposition of positive tendencies toward Catholic philosophy in the evolutionary processes of modern thought is on too abstruse and extensive a range to admit of being more compendiously treated than it actually is in the author’s text. We will, therefore, content ourselves with quoting his own words, in which he summarily expresses the result of his arguments in his conclusion: “Glancing backward over the course we have traversed, it seems borne in upon us that the logical development of that process which Philip the Fair began is probably advancing, however slowly, to a result very generally unforeseen. But if such result as that here indicated be the probable outcome of philosophical evolution, Christianity has once more evidently nothing whatever to fear from it. A philosophy which as a complement unites in one all other systems will harmonize with a religion which as a complement synthesizes all other religions, and not only religions properly so called, but atheism also. Atheism, pantheism, and pure deism, running their logical course and mutually refuting each other, find an ultimate synthesis in Christianity, as we have before found them to do in nature. Christianity affirms the truth latent in atheism—namely, that God, as He is, is unimaginable and inscrutable by us; in other words, no such God as we can imagine exists. It also affirms the truth in pantheism, that God
acts in every action of every created thing, and that in him we live and move and are. Finally, it also asserts the truths of deism, but by its other assertions escapes the objections to which deism is liable from opposing systems. Similarly, Christianity also effects a synthesis between theism and the worship of humanity, and that by the path, not of destruction, but through the nobler conception of ‘taking the manhood into God.’
“Our investigations have led us to what we might have à priori anticipated—the conclusion that the highest and most intellectual power is that which must ultimately dominate the inferior forces. Neither political nor scientific developments can avail against the necessary consequences of philosophical evolution. No mistake can be greater than that of supposing that philosophy is but a mental luxury for the few. An implicit, unconscious philosophy possesses the mind and influences the conduct of every peasant. Metaphysical doctrines, sooner or later, filter down from the cultured few to the lowest social strata, and become, for good or ill, the very marrow of the bones, first of a school, then of a society, ultimately of a nation. The course of general philosophy, it is here contended, is now returning to its legitimate channel after a divergence of some three centuries’ duration. This return cannot affect prejudicially the Christian church, but must strengthen and aid it; and thus that beneficial action upon it of political and scientific evolution, before represented as probable, will be greatly intensified, and the great movement of the Renaissance hereafter take its place as the manifestly efficient promoter of a new development of the Christian
organism such as the first twenty centuries of its life afforded it no opportunity to manifest.”[105]
The author’s last chapter, on Æsthetic Evolution, is a kind of appendix to the essay—which is really concluded with the passage just now quoted—but it is nevertheless an ingenious and elaborate essay in itself. The author begins by remarking that the question of evolution in religion is one which would furnish an interesting subject of inquiry. He then pays a very high but just tribute to the genius of Dr. Newman, whose influence over Dr. Mivart’s mind may be traced in all his writings, as the one who, in his great essay on Development, has elucidated with a master-hand the evolutionary process within the church, and anticipated the doctrines of Spencer, of Darwin, and of Haeckel. With a passing allusion to the great Vatican decree as the culmination of this process and the keystone of the great arch of civil and religious liberty; and to the two distinct though intermixed processes of evolution outside the church, one simply pagan, the other sectarian; and to the process of disruption and dissolution which is tending to carry the adherents of the sects either toward anti-theism or toward the church—the author turns aside to consider a subject closely connected with religious evolution: the probable effect of the great modern movement of contemporary evolution upon Christian art. Most of his remarks are upon architecture, although he touches lightly upon music, painting, and sculpture. In music he appears to give his vote for St. Gregory and Palestrina. In respect to painting and sculpture,
he anticipates progress in these arts by the blending of the best elements of the Preraphaelite period and those of the Renaissance. In handling the topic of architecture he analyzes the arguments for and against both the Gothic and Italian styles, and ends by declining to advocate the side of the exclusive champions of either of the two styles. After discussing some of the general principles of the art, he proposes a return to the style which prevailed before the introduction of the pointed arch, as a starting point for an improved style combining some features of the Gothic with some others of the Romanesque style of architecture. One consideration which he presents respecting the use of stained-glass windows strikes us as especially worthy of attention. As ornaments and as objects of devotion, the paintings upon glass in church-windows are far inferior to statues and pictures, and they nevertheless exclude them and occupy their place by reason of the quality of the light which is reflected through stained glass. It is desirable, therefore, to find some way of making the windows beautiful and ornamental as well as useful, and at the same time admitting light of that quality and in that direction which is requisite in a church decorated with paintings and statuary. Dr. Mivart says: “In the first place, the absence of any rigid rule of symmetry will allow the admission of light just wherever it may be required. Secondly, the windows may be of any shape found the most convenient—square, elongated, and narrow windows, rose-windows or semi-circular windows, as in the nave of Bonn cathedral. They may also be made ornamental by mullions, while tracery need
not by any means be confined to the upper part of each window, since each window may be all tracery, the stone-work being of such thickness as may combine strength and security with a copious admission of light. The absence of that beautiful but self-contradictory feature, brilliant stained glass, will allow an ample supply of light without too great a sacrifice of wall-space, and without any impairment of stability. Not that the glazing should not be ornamental and artistic; the pieces of glass might be so designed that their lead frame-work may form elegant patterns, while the glass itself, of delicate grays and half-tints, will afford a wide scope for the skilful designer.”[106]
Finally, the author winds up by expressing his belief in a future development of Christian art in language which we condense a little from his concluding pages: “Nullum tempus occurrit ecclesiæ! The ever-fruitful mother of beauty and of truth, of holy aspirations and of good works, has not come to the end of her evolution even in the world of art, and it may be affirmed that there appear to be grounds for thinking that in the whole field of art, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture, our successors may witness a vast, new, complex, and stable artistic integration of a special and distinctly Christian character—a self-consciousness, as it were, in Christian art such as never was before, and which will appropriately serve to externally clothe and embody that vast and magnificent Christian development for which all phases of evolution are preparing the way, and to which Christians may look forward with joy and hope as the
one supreme end of the whole evolutionary process, so far as the Author of nature has revealed to us his purposes either by the lessons which the universe of mind and matter displays before our eyes, or by supernatural revelation.”[107]