The errors of the liberalists have been to a certain extent already discussed in our pages, and will be probably discussed more fully and to greater advantage after the decrees of the Council of the Vatican are published.
We therefore confine ourselves at present to a particular notice of one point only in Dr. Brownson's argument, to which we desire to call special attention. We allude to his exposition of his views in regard to the relation of the Catholic religion to the principles of the American constitution. Dr. Brownson is a thorough Catholic and a thorough American. As a Catholic, he condemns all the errors condemned by the syllabus of Pius IX. As an American, he accepts all the principles of the constitution of the United States. As a philosopher, he reconciles and harmonizes the two documents of the ecclesiastical and political sovereignties to which he owes allegiance. If he were wavering or dubious in obeying the instructions of the encyclical, his exposition of the relation between Catholic and American principles would have no weight whatever; for it would be merely an exposition of his own private version of Catholicity and not of the authorized version. If he were not thoroughly American, his exposition of the Catholic's ideal conception of the relations of the church and civil society might be very perfect, but it would rather confirm than shake the common persuasion that there is a contrariety between the principles of our political order and those of the Catholic Church. If he were not a philosopher, he might present both his religious and his political doctrines, separately, in such a way as to satisfy the claims both of orthodoxy and of patriotism; but he would not be able to show how these two hemispheres can be joined together in a complete whole. It is one of his greatest merits that he is perpetually aiming at the construction of these synthetic harmonies of what we may call, for the sake of the figure, the different gospels of truth, and is perpetually approximating nearer and nearer to that success which perhaps cannot be fully achieved by any human intellect. We think he has substantially succeeded in the task undertaken in the present volume, and we commend it to the perusal of all Americans, whether Catholics or non-Catholics, in the hope that it may strengthen both in the determination to do no injustice to each other, and to remain always faithful to the allegiance we owe to the American republic. We recommend it also to Dr. Brownson's numerous admirers and friends in Europe as a valuable aid to the understanding of what are commonly called American principles.
So far as the exterior is concerned, this is one of the very finest books which the Sadliers have yet published.
The End of the World, and the Day of Judgment. Two Discourses preached to the Music Hall Society, by their minister, the Rev. William Rounseville Alger. Published by request. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
Considering what are the contents of these "discourses," for which, naturally, the preacher failed to find any text, their title seems like a dismal jest. There is nothing, however, too absurd for the Music Hall of Boston, not even the amalgamation of puritanism and pantheism. We have two palmary objections to the argument of these discourses, which is, of course, intended to disprove the Christian doctrine respecting the last judgment and the end of the world. The first is, the boundless credulity which underlies the whole series of assumptions on which it is founded; the second is, its total want of scientific method and accuracy. Mr. Alger has an extensive knowledge of certain departments of literature, a vivid imagination, a certain nobleness of sentiment, and a considerable power of graphic delineation and combination of his intellectual conceptions; but no logic or philosophy, very little discriminative or analytic skill, and nothing of the judicial faculty. Wherever his imagination leads, his intellect follows, and willingly lends itself to clothe all the visions which are met with on the aerial journey with the garb of real and rational discoveries. Therefore, we say that his argument in these discourses rests on credulity, a basis of vapor, like that which supports a castle in the clouds. We proceed to give some instances. Mr. Alger has fashioned to himself a conception of what our Lord Jesus Christ ought to have been, and ought to have said and done. Throughout these discourses, and his other works, he explains every thing recorded of the sayings and doings of our divine Lord in the New Testament according to this à priori conception of his own, without regard to common sense or sound criticism. This is credulity, and nothing more. As well might we say, Mr. Alger is a man of sense and honesty, and therefore he can never have meant any of the absurd things he seems to say against the Catholic doctrine. Another extraordinary instance of credulity is the theory of accounting for the similarity to the principal Catholic dogmas which is seen in the religious beliefs of heathen nations. It is a fanciful conjecture, and, as a philosophical theory, untenable, that the same myths had an independent origin and development among distinct races. There must have been a common cause and origin of religious traditions, as well as of languages. Another instance of credulity is found in the following passage: "It is confidently believed that within twenty years the views adopted in the present writing will be established beyond all cavil from any fair-minded critic." Here is a heavy strain indeed on our faith, worse than that which Moses makes upon poor Colenso! Worse than all is the following, which we will not credit to the author's credulity any further than he himself warrants us in doing by his own language, which we will quote entire, that the reader may judge for himself of the extent to which it shows in the author a penchant for the marvellous, provided that the marvellous is in no way connected with revelation. "A brilliant French writer has suggested that even if the natural course of evolution does of itself necessitate the final destruction of the world, yet our race, judging from the magnificent achievements of science and art already reached, may, within ten thousand centuries, which will be long before the foreseen end approaches, obtain such a knowledge and control of the forces of nature as to make collective humanity master of this planet, able to shape and guide its destinies, ward off every fatal crisis, and perfect and immortalize the system as now sustained. It is an audacious fancy. But, like many other incredible conceptions which have forerun their own still more incredible fulfilment, the very thought electrifies us with hope and courage." (P. 18.)
This is indeed brilliant! It surpasses the famous moon-hoax of Mr. Locke, and the balloon-voyages of that wild genius Edgar A. Poe, from whom we have some recent and interesting intelligence, contained in a volume which we recommend to the congregation of Music Hall; the volume being entitled Strange Visitors, by a Clairvoyant. In those days, probably, our Congress will have a committee on comets, and make appropriations for a railroad to the Dog-star.
The second objection to Mr. Alger's argument runs partly into the first. It is, we have said, totally wanting in scientific method and accuracy. This is true of the entire process by which the thesis of the discourses is sustained. This thesis is, that the present constitution of the world and the human race will endure for ever, or at least for an indefinitely long period. If there were no light to be had on this point except the light of nature, the opinion maintained by the author would be at best only a conjecture. It could not be made even solidly probable, unless some rational theory were first established concerning the ultimate destiny of the human race, and the end for which the present miserably imperfect constitution of the world had been decreed by the Creator, and the perpetuity of the existing order on the earth were shown to have a reason in this final cause of man's creation. The author has not done this, and we do not believe that it is possible to do it, even prescinding all question of revelation. Even on scientific grounds—that is, reasoning from all the analogies known to us, and from purely rational and philosophical data—it is far more probable and reasonable to suppose that the present state of the world is merely preparatory to a far higher and more perfect state, and will be swept away to make place for it. But when we consider the universality and antiquity of this latter belief, and the solid mountain of historical, miraculous, and moral evidence on which rests the demonstration that this belief proceeds from a divine revelation, it is the most unscientific method that can be conceived to ignore it, or leap over it by the aid of fanciful hypotheses, as Mr. Alger does. The manner in which the Catholic doctrine is distorted and misrepresented, in extremely bad rhetoric, is also unscientific. Nearly all the pith of this so-called argument consists in a violent invective against the notion of a partial, unjust, vindictive Divinity, who rewards and punishes like an ambitious tyrant, without regard to necessary and eternal principles of truth, right, and moral laws. So far as this invective is directed against Calvinism, considered in its logical entity, and apart from the correctives of common sense and sound moral sentiment which practically modify it, we give the author the right of the case. But it is palpably false, as the author has had ample opportunity of knowing, as respects the Catholic doctrine. He is unscientific, moreover, in confusing the substance of the doctrine that the generation of the human race will cease, all mankind be raised from the dead in their bodies immortal, the ways of God to man be openly vindicated before the universe, and each one assigned to an immutable state according to his deserts or fitness, this visible earth also undergoing a corresponding change of condition; with the scenic act of proclaiming judgment and inaugurating the new, everlasting order, which is commonly believed in, according to the literal sense of the New Testament. If Mr. Alger can show good reasons for substituting a figurative, metaphorical interpretation of the passages depicting this last grand scene in the drama of human history for the literal sense, he is welcome to do it; but he has not touched the substance of the Catholic dogma which he gratuitously denies. Mr. Alger tells us, (p. 46,) "Loyalty to truth is the first duty of every man." It is also one in which he himself signally fails, by a persistent misrepresentation of Catholic doctrines, by disregarding the evidence which has been clearly set before him of their truth, subjecting his intellect to his imagination, and preaching as "truth" opinions which he cannot possibly prove, in the teeth of arguments which he cannot possibly refute. One who wilfully sins against "the first duty of man," by rejecting the faith and law of his Sovereign Creator when sufficiently proposed to him, must surely be condemned by divine justice; and it is only such who, the Catholic Church teaches, will be condemned for infidelity or heresy at the tribunal of Christ. "The judgment of God," says the author, "is the return of the laws of being on all deeds, actual or ideal." (P. 66.) God, therefore, will judge all men by acting toward them throughout eternity in accordance with that revealed law which is the transcript of his own immutable nature, and which assures us that beatitude is gained or lost by the acts which every responsible creature performs during the time of probation, and that every merit or demerit has its appropriate retribution in another life. Perhaps the most foolish thing in these discourses is the gleeful assurance to the congregation of Music Hall that the world will not come to an end because it has gone on so long already, although many people expected the end before this. A great pope has already cautioned us against this error, in an encyclical of the first century, beginning Simon Petrus, Servus et Apostolus Jesu Christi. "In the last days there shall come scoffers with deceit, walking according to their own lusts, saying, Where is his promise, or his coming? For since the fathers slept, all things continue so from the beginning of the creation," (2 Pet. iii.)
The good people of the Boston Music Hall who requested the publication of these discourses, no doubt because they were so much delighted to think that the world may stand for ever, have been a little premature in their exultation. The publication of Mr. Alger's manifesto against St. Peter only gives another proof that the first of the popes was also a prophet. Who is more likely to be infallible, Mr. Alger or St. Peter?