[Footnote 136]
[Footnote 136: We take pleasure in presenting in our pages the following able article, from the pen of the late lamented Colonel James Monroe. Few writers have left behind a testimony more striking of their devotion to our holy faith, or of their confidence in its elevating social power. It meets living questions of the day with a rare aptitude, and presents views and applies principles in a manner worthy of attentive and thoughtful consideration.—ED. C. W.]
If the creative genius of Catholicity were to be stated from an a priori point of view, it would reduce itself to the form of an axiom; for Catholicity being the body of revealed truth, confirming and agreeing with truth in every order, truth being essentially "that which is," (to employ the words of Bossuet,) Catholicity must be pre-eminently endowed with the germinative and fruitful spirit of origination. But inasmuch as truth has in this world a clouded scene for her activity, as effects arise constantly, and almost invariably, from an intermixture of causes of a diverse and contending character, and as the divine, the human, and the material elements are incessantly conjoined in action, it becomes necessary to trace the chain of events and to elucidate the influence of principles. This process does not, with the mind which is gifted with faith, arrive at the dignity of the highest proof; it rather serves to record examples and to collect illustrations.
In executing such a process, the difficulty is, not to find instances, but to decide which of them to choose amidst the boundless variety. I think it germane to the subject to compare Catholic genius with that of the most polished nation of the Gentile world, as the two have been displayed under the sensuous relation of form. The Greeks, beyond all other people, possessed a native capability in art, and there remains of the productions of the Greek mind enough for a just estimate of its rich capabilities. The models of Greek genius have won the enthusiastic admiration of mankind, and they dominate with a strong mastery over all cultivated minds which lack the Catholic faith. "Even from their urns, they rule them still."
Whatever difficulties language, poetry, philosophy, may labor under from the lapse of time, that which is tactual and visual needs but to be present to be appreciated. If art be the emanation of a creative spirit; if it be not, in its highest sphere, a copy or an imitation, then must it be admitted that the evolution of the Greek orders of architecture, combining majestic strength, radiant grace, and flowery beauty, embodied in pure and enduring material, is the loftiest expression of impassioned heathen genius. It is higher than their types of the human form, because it was wrought without a model and shaped directly from the mind's ideal. The conception is one so strong and great that it has never had a rival outside of Catholicity—and indeed hardly a respectable imitator. The coarser capability of the Roman mind not only originated nothing and added nothing to Greek invention, but it marred and misapplied that which it undertook to adopt. Later copyists have aimed no higher than a restoration of what their masters had created.
All that addresses the eye, and through it the mind, under form alone, may be objectively resolved into lines and surfaces, which may be again subdivided into yet simpler elements. The combinations of these elements—their union, tangencies, and contrasts—may be classified, and may furnish certain deductions which are incontrovertible general conclusions. Indeed, the deduction may become so far generalized as to pass beyond the boundary of the art which suggested it—as "the perfection of form is said to annihilate form;" it then arrives at abstract truth, which seeks its illustration in matter, without deriving its validity therefrom. This is so far true that the science whose highest deductions fall short of such generalization is yet in a rudimentary condition. [Footnote 137]
[Footnote 137: As an example, we may take the principle of beauty as shown in the simplest and least beautiful of the regular curves, the circular. In the circle variation in direction is combined with identity in the distance from a fixed point. There is, then, unity in diversity—a general principle, of which the circle is but an example. Nature, ever affluent in resources, varies the tameness of the circle by presenting it to the eye as a right line, an ellipse, etc., according to the point of view. Thus again illustrating the law of unity in diversity; for the knowledge that the figure is still a circle is one, while the gradations in its appearance are many.]
In adjusting the elements of form under harmonious combinations, and in expanding them into imposing dimensions, the Greek mind was so subtle and appreciative that it missed nothing, and exhausted everything within the reach of its science, "unwinding all the links of grace, without a blunder or an oversight." If the Gothic architecture had borrowed from the Greek, or had simply carried forward into further development the same formative idea, it might be said that the case was that of the dwarf upon the giant's shoulders, who sees further than the giant himself. But the fact is entirely otherwise. The projectors and moulders of the Gothic church architecture found the field of invention limited—as must ever be the case—by preceding invention. The genius, therefore, must have been the greater which not only discovered new combinations of excellence, but anticipated and antedated yet surpassed all predecessors.
Among tribes of men whom the Greek styled "barbarous" emanates a life in art which transcends his highest conception. We encounter fabrics loftier, broader, deeper; the arch which he did not employ is lifted from its circular character into a higher curvature, and its key-stone boldly stricken out. We find pillars massed, scalloped, and filleted; mouldings of a more graceful contour, every way flexure of contrast and gradation; a mazy web of tracery combining lightness, symmetry, permanence, and equilibrium; in mid air, a shapely dome, poised by the daring hand of science, where the cloud might visit it and the rainbow circle it. All this prodigality of invention and unequalled execution, springing forth as from an exhaustless fountain, is not confined to some favored peninsula, but is common to Italy, Germany, France, and England. The common cause of an effect so uniform and remarkable was the inspiring and elevating influence of the One Catholic faith.