synthetic judgment. Dr. Brownson’s great mistake lay in his attempting to reconstruct philosophy and theology from the foundation, instead of applying himself to learn both from the traditional scholastic system, which needs to be reconstructed and completed only where certain portions have been proved by real scientific discoveries to be weak or have been left unfinished. But we will not weary our readers with any further remarks on such abstruse topics. We have said enough to indicate to those who are familiar with them the grounds of our judgment on certain portions of Dr. Brownson’s writings, and for others the requisite explanation would occupy far more space than we are at liberty to appropriate.
While a considerable part of these writings belonging to domestic controversy will, in our opinion, be forgotten except as literary curiosities, there are others which deserve to remain as a portion of our standard Catholic literature, and to be studied while the English language itself endures. We are disposed to consider the various essays on subjects belonging to the department of political ethics as the most consummate productions of the great publicist. His work entitled The Great Republic is the most extensive and complete of these essays, but there are numerous other single pieces, making together a great collection, to be found in various parts of his own Review and of this magazine. The articles on the controversy with Protestants and various kinds of free-thinkers, those on transcendentalism, the autobiography entitled The Convert, and the whole series of articles contributed to The Catholic World, with the exception of a few of minor importance, may be placed in the same
category of excellence and permanent value. The quantity of literary labor accomplished by Dr. Brownson was literally astounding, especially for our day. A great part of that which he published during his fifty years of active life was necessarily ephemeral. But there might be selected from his extant publications as a Catholic reviewer a mass considerable enough to fill several volumes of the best quality of matter in the most excellent, admirable, and enduring form. Such competent judges as Lord Brougham, Cardinal Wiseman, Mr. Webster, Mr. Ripley, and the editors of the principal reviews in England, France, and Germany, have pronounced the highest eulogiums upon the masterpieces of Dr. Brownson’s pen, either in respect to the power of thought and beauty of style which are their characteristics, or the intrinsic value of their argument as an exposition or defence of great truths and principles. The terse logic of Tertullian, the polemic crash of St. Jerome, the sublime eloquence of Bossuet, are all to be found there in combination or alternation, with many sweet strains of tenderness and playful flashes of humor. There are numerous passages in his writings not to be surpassed by the finest portions of the works of the great masters of thought and style, whether in the English or any other language, in the present or in any past age. They render certain and immortal the just and hard-earned fame of their author, who labored not, however, at least not principally, for fame and honor, but for the love of truth, the welfare of mankind, and the approbation of heaven.
Dr. Brownson is the most remarkable of all the converts to the Catholic Church in the United States, and among the most remarkable
in the group of illustrious men who have paid homage to her authority in the present age. His conversion was a great event and made an epoch. What the amount of good which has been and will be effected by his works may be, it is utterly impossible to estimate; for such things have no statistics, no criterion of measurement, no data for calculation. The weight of his testimony and the conclusiveness of his arguments have been slightingly treated, and represented as not worthy to be considered, on the plea that he was capricious, changeable, and possessed of a kind of marvellous art, a sort of intellectual magic, by which he could persuade himself, and make a plausible show of proving to others, that any theory, doctrine, or scheme which took his fancy was solid truth; somewhat as Kant attributes an illusory power to nature, by which all sorts of paralogisms are made to seem equally true and real to reason, whereas they are only phenomenal forms. To a great number of persons Dr. Brownson was an intellectual phenomenon, a sort of philosophical comet of the most eccentric orbit, a prestidigitator with magical formulas, a Prospero having a magic wand, a being such as the popular superstition of old represented Albertus Magnus. That a mind which is searching for the truth which it does not possess, and after a supreme good which it knows not except as an object of vague longing, should wander, is not strange. It is the principle of Protestantism, and of the rationalistic, sceptical philosophy which it has produced, to be always doubting, questioning; “ever seeking and never coming to the knowledge of the truth,” unless by the substitution of another, higher principle. That there was a law in his mental aberrations,
a progressive movement in his eccentric orbit, a “method in his madness,” even in its utmost extravagance, a careful perusal of his autobiography will show. It requires intelligence and patience, however, to read that book. His intellect was one always quærens causas altissimas. When he became once convinced of the truth of the Catholic religion, and surrendered his mind to the supernatural light of faith, although his faith was fides quærens intellectum, he never changed or wavered in his belief of the grand dogmas of Catholic Christianity. That such a mind and disposition as his could be firmly held under the dominion of authority with the full assent of the understanding and the joyful submission of the will, is no weak proof that the authority is divine which subdued so restive a spirit. Pegasus in the yoke with his wings tied was an unruly, troublesome steed; but when Apollo mounted on his back and cut his cords, he was docile to his rein, while with all the joy of liberty he flew through the air, proud to obey such a master.
Dr. Brownson’s demonstration of the divine institution and authority of the church is unanswered and unanswerable. It is childish trifling, unworthy of rational men, to ignore his arguments and escape from his logic by petty criticisms on his person. Reason is objective and real; the subjective qualities of the reasoner have nothing to do with its authority. Several years before Dr. Brownson’s conversion, the writer heard several of the professors of Princeton express their opinion that he was the ablest and most dangerous antagonist of Christianity in this country. Like Saul of Tarsus, he was changed from an enemy to a champion of the cause of Christ
and his church. Though somewhat sudden, his conversion was from rational conviction and the purest motives. It is impossible to deprive it of its significance or deny its importance. It is one of many instances proving that now, as ever, the Catholic Church has power to win and master the strongest and most fearless minds, the most generous and disinterested hearts. Dr. Brownson was generous and disinterested. He obeyed his conscience, devoted himself to truth and justice, served God and his fellow-men, without price, in poverty, and with a total neglect of popularity and worldly honor, comfort, enjoyment, and every sort of earthly pomp and ostentation. In a merely natural point of view he was like the simple old men of the Greek and Roman heroic age, and the early fathers of our degenerate commonwealth. His austere figure is an example and a reproach to a frivolous, luxurious, sceptical, perfidious generation. What a contrast between his incorruptible integrity and unpurchasable allegiance to truth and right, to virtue and honesty, to order and liberty, and the venal trafficking of our so-called statesmen, who swindle soldiers and artisans, rob the country and the poor, barter and trade in votes and offices, renounce their faith for political preferment, bid for honors by appeals to sectarian animosity, sell the most sacred rights and interests for their own selfish advantage, flaunt in a vulgar magnificence which is maintained by theft, and abscond to escape the punishment due to their felonies! Amid this mean crowd he stands out like Aristides among the demagogues of Athens; and compared with that other brood which has settled down on the domain of the
press and the lecture-hall, the professors of atheistic materialism, he is like Socrates among the sophists. Detected swindlers, defaulters and robbers are despised and denounced, disgraced and punished, if it is money and material goods which they administer fraudulently or appropriate unjustly. They are the small cattle-thieves of Waverley, but the great lifters escape unpunished and are honored. Tyrants who rob their subjects of their rights or neighboring states of their possessions; defaulters to faith, conscience, and God, who abuse their gifts and power to debauch and degrade the minds of their fellow-men; swindlers in the priceless goods of the soul and eternity; the prophets of falsehood and licentiousness; are enriched and applauded. Neglect, aversion, martyrdom, are the portion of the genuine heroes, sages, patriots, lovers and benefactors of the race; and whatever homage they receive is extorted, reluctant, scanty in proportion to their worth and merit. Even when they are admired and praised, their teaching is not heeded or their example followed by the fickle, frivolous crowd. Morally, when not literally, exile and the cup of hemlock are their portion. Those who literally encounter death and receive the palm of martrydom are the happiest and most favored among them. But these are the men who redeem the race, and are the only lasting glory of the age in which their task of labor and suffering is fulfilled. Among these crusaders Dr. Brownson enlisted when he abandoned the camp of infidelity and revolution to receive the cross. The corps d’élite of Catholic laymen distinguished by their eminent superiority and illustrious services to
the church, in this century, is a confraternity even more chivalrous and honorable than the Order of the Temple in its purest, brightest days. Görres, O’Connell, De Gerlache, Rossi, Lamoricière, Montalembert, Veuillot, Dechamps, Marshall, Ward, Garcia Moreno, Mallinkrodt—these are names which represent a great battalion of more or less renowned warriors in the sacred cause of Christ, of his Vicar, of true religion, science, civilization, and man’s eternal welfare. The unshaken, loyal fidelity of Abdiel among the innumerable hosts of revolted angels shines forth, not with solitary lustre, but like the splendor of the cohort seen in the vision recorded in the Machabees: Peraera equites discurrentes, auratas stolas habentes, et aureorum splendorem armorum. The Catholic laity of the United States have furnished one illustrious champion to this band. He loved the church first of all, and next his country. He deserved well of both, for Christian and civic virtues, sacrifices on the altar of God and the battle-field of the republic, wise and eloquent pleadings for Catholic law in the Christian commonwealth, and constitutional right, freedom, and order in the American state. We trust that his instructions and example will always be a light and an encouragement, a glory and a model, to the Catholic laymen of the United States, and especially to the young men of education who aspire to intellectual culture and feel the impulse to act valiantly and usefully their part as citizens of this republic and Christian gentlemen.