A very plausible-looking doctrine, but a very dangerous one as here laid down. An example will serve to show the mischievous and vicious nature of it. According to Mr. Froude, to be a Catholic is “to live unworthily.” The comment suggests itself.
“Individuals cannot be independent, or society cannot exist.... The individual has to sacrifice his independence to his family, the family to the tribe,” etc. Why so? Would it not be truer as well as nobler to say that the individual uses his independence for his family?
“Necessity and common danger drive families into alliance for self-defence; the smaller circles of independence lose themselves in ampler areas; and those who refuse to conform to the new authority are either required to take themselves elsewhere, or, if they remain and persist in disobedience, may be treated as criminals” (p. 4).
Quite independent of the nature and claims of the “new authority,” so far as Mr. Froude enlightens us.
“On the whole, and as a rule, superior strength is the equivalent of superior merit.... As a broad principle it may be said that, as nature has so constituted us that we must be ruled in some way, and as at any given time the rule inevitably will be in the hands of those who are then the strongest, so nature also has allotted superiority of strength to superiority of intellect and character; and in deciding that the weaker shall obey the more powerful, she is in reality saving them from themselves, and then most confers true liberty when she seems most to be taking it away” (pp. 4, 5).
We hold that “superiority of strength” belongs to “superiority of intellect and character,” but not in Mr. Froude’s sense. This sense is obviously that expounded by the third Napoleon in the preface to his Julius Cæsar—viz., that once Cæsar is established, it is a crime to go against him under any circumstances; which is equivalent to saying that whatever is, is right. It is forgotten by, or not known to, these writers that man is prone to evil from childhood; that the good has always a hard battle to fight; that it does conquer by force of “superiority of intellect and character,” but that it is often, and for a long time, borne down by the physical superiority of brute strength. The history of Christianity is the strongest instance we can offer of the truth of our position. Christianity has been struggling upwards for nineteen centuries; to human eyes it was often at the point of death; on those whom it subdued it conferred superiority of intellect and of character—a superiority which they sometimes turned against itself—and to-day it is struggling as fiercely as ever.
However, let us gauge Mr. Froude by his own standard: that superiority of strength goes with superiority of intellect and of character. It is a very convenient theory as so stated; but it is apt to work two ways. So long as it works for Mr. Froude it is very natural and explicable. As soon, however, as it turns to the opposite side it is to Mr. Froude a “phenomenon.” We are as little inclined to underrate as to overrate success, though very far from accepting it as the standard of right. One thing, however, will be conceded by all men: what succeeds in face of the most strenuous, long-sustained, and powerful opposition; in face of wealth, position, possession, numbers, resources, education, tradition—in a word, of all that goes to form and mould and fix peoples and their character, their history, their mode of thought, their national bent—what, we say, succeeds in face of all this must have something in it very much resembling Mr. Froude’s “superiority of intellect and of character.” It must have an immense vital force and strength and reality within it. It is hard for any man not to acknowledge that under such circumstances success approves itself; that it came because it deserved to come.
But this is just Mr. Froude’s “revival” of Catholicity—a fact which for him has no adequate explanation.
“The tide of knowledge and the tide of outward events,” he says, “have set with equal force in the direction opposite to Romanism; yet in spite of it, perhaps by means of it, as a kite rises against the wind, the Roman Church has once more shot up into visible and practical consequence. While she loses ground in Spain and Italy, which had been so long exclusively her own, she is gaining in the modern energetic races, which had been the stronghold of Protestantism. Her numbers increase, her organization gathers vigor. Her clergy are energetic, bold, and aggressive. Sees long prostrate are re-established; cathedrals rise, and churches, with schools, and colleges, and convents, and monasteries. She has taken into her service her old enemy, the press, and has established a popular literature. Her hierarchy in England and America have already compelled the state to consult their opinions and respect their pleasure; while each step that is gained is used as a vantage-ground from which to present fresh demands. Hildebrand, in the plenitude of his power, was not more arrogant in his claim of universal sovereignty than the present wearer of the tiara.”
This glowing passage suggests a variety of comments. In the first place, taking it as a statement of facts, it is, coming from Mr. Froude, a most marvellous testimony to the power and growth of the Catholic Church within the present century. Let us venture to paraphrase his outburst, and see how it runs: