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MANNING'S ESSAYS ON GENERAL LITERATURE.

Essays on Religion and Literature. By various writers. Edited by H. E. MANNING, D.D. Longman, 1865.

Essays on Religion and Literature. By various writers. Edited by Archbishop MANNING. Second Series. Longman, 1867.

In the beginning of the present century a number of learned and pious members of the Roman Communion started in Rome an institution, to which they gave the name of the Academy of the Catholic Religion, with the laudable object of counteracting the infidel tendencies of the age. The Academy held periodical meetings, at which papers were read, with ensuing discussion, on such topics, religious, literary, and scientific, as were likely to interest a body of devout and cultivated Churchmen, lay and clerical.

In the year 1830, Dr. Wiseman, already favourably known to men of letters by his essay on the connection between science and revealed religion, made his début at the "Academia di Religione Cattolica" by a paper, afterwards published, on "the Barrenness of the Missions undertaken by Protestants for the Conversion of Heathen Nations, proved by their own Accounts." The future Cardinal became, as might have been expected, one of the most prominent and active members of the association, delivering, among other contributions, a discourse on the Oxford movement, which seems to have attracted his attention in the very dawn of its career, and on which he was destined in later times to inflict a blow which stunned it for a time, in the defection of John Henry Newman.

The Cardinal evidently thought that the famous, though, intellectually considered, contemptible, "Essays and Reviews," heralded the commencement of another Oxford movement, and he prepared at once to buckle on his armour and enter the lists, with the hope of reaping a rich harvest from the intestine strife of English Churchmen. He opened the campaign with one of those manifestoes, full of picturesque and outlandish eloquence, in which he delighted. He addressed at the same time a circular to the leading Roman Catholics of England, soliciting their support in establishing an affiliated branch of the Roman Academia in London. The two books before us seem to be the chief, if not the only result, as far at least as the outer world has the means of judging. They consist, we suppose, of the cream of the papers read before the English branch of the "Academia di Religione Cattolica;" but we should be sorry to think that they fairly represent the cultivated intellect of Roman Catholicism in England. The contributors are nearly all converts -exclusively so, we believe, in the case of the second volume; and VOL. XXIX.-OCTOBER, 1867.

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they all belong, with perhaps the exception of Dr. Rock, who does not appear in the second volume, to the straitest and most overbearing section of Ultramontanism. This probably accounts for the small support which they seem to receive from the great body of the Roman Catholic communion in this country.

The writers in both volumes are mostly the same; and not only so, but more than one of the writers contribute two essays in each volume. This looks like poverty of literary power among the members of the "Academia ;" and a critical examination of the essays will not help to dispel that impression. They are all more or less heavy, and several are as dull as they are unreasonably long. In the latter category we include especially the essays of Mr. Lucas, Mr. Purcell, Mr. Christie, and of Archbishop Manning himself. The ablest essays are undoubtedly by the late Cardinal, and by Dr. Ward; while Dr. Rock's, on "the Golden Frontal at Milan," and Mr. Cashel Hoey's monograph "on the Birthplace of S. Patrick," are about the most interesting. The last two show much antiquarian research and literary acumen, and will well repay a careful perusal. Mr. Cashel Hoey undertakes to prove that S. Patrick was born in the neighbourhood of Boulogne, and he brings a great deal of curious learning to bear upon his thesis. The two essays, however, which have interested ourselves most are Dr. Ward's, on "the Religious View of Intellect," and on "the Dangers of Uncontrolled Intellect." We shall presently advance some reasons for dissenting from the main position which he takes up; but the essays are in their way valuable. They are written with Dr. Ward's usual intellectual force, and contain much that is true and excellent. We think it right to admit this, before proceeding to express our dissidence from his view-at least in the naked way in which he propounds it.

The position which Dr. Ward maintains in both his essays is this: that "intellectual excellence forms no part whatever in the perfection of man's moral and spiritual nature," or, as he elsewhere expresses it, in man's "personal perfection;" the latter phrase being, in his opinion, the more accurate of the two. This seems to us a paradox, and Dr. Ward's examples and arguments do not make it appear less So. Take, for instance, the following example :

"Let us suppose," he says, "two Christian philosophers, who are both occupied in some theoretical speculation, and that for some good supernatural motive. Let me suppose that both have the same degree of habitual grace, and that both are aiming at the same supernatural end, with the same degree of efficacity. It is absolutely certain that to both acts GOD promises an equal reward. Yet one of these philosophers may be originating the most true and profound speculations, while the other's theories are quite feeble and commonplace. I say that, so long as this intellectual feebleness does not arise from the

will's fault,so long as the will adheres in the same degree to its supernatural motive,—the merit of the act is in no way affected. But if GOD promises an equal reward to both these acts, He equally approves them both; if He equally approves them both, they tend equally to the end for which He created us; if they tend equally to the end for which we were created, they tend equally to our personal perfection. But they tend most unequally to intellectual excellence: hence intellectual excellence has no part in our personal perfection."

We must distinguish here. What does Dr. Ward mean by personal perfection? And what does he mean by saying that to both of the supposed philosophers "GOD promises an equal reward ?” Further on he draws a sharp distinction between "personal perfection" and "perfection of the various parts which constitute our nature." By "personal perfection," therefore, he seems to mean the perfection of the will, its complete conformity with the Divine Will. Of course there is a sense in which it is true that intellectual excellence has nothing to do with this kind of perfection, just as it is true that the smell and colour of a rose have nothing to do with the perfection of its form. But when we speak of the perfection of anything, we mean that thing in its totality. Man's personal perfection means, in strict propriety of language, simply the perfection of man-that is, the perfection of his whole complex

nature.

Let us now put two cases. One man has what Dr. Ward calls "personal perfection," that is, perfection of the will; but his intellectual faculties are undeveloped, and therefore imperfect. Another man has perfection of the will, and intellectual excellence as well. Are they both equally perfect beings? Does it not follow that the one who has intellectual excellence, plus what the other has, surpasses the other in perfection? We do not see how any one can deny it. He may not be a better man, viewed morally; but he is a more perfect creature than the man who lacks intellectual excellence. To maintain the contrary opinion is to destroy all degrees of perfection among God's creatures, and reduce them to one dead level. Indeed, Dr. Ward himself makes an admission which is destructive of his argument. He admits that "intellectual excellence may be made most useful for our advancement in spirituality," and "can render important services to us when regulated well." And he proceeds to "mention two services in particular, as specimens of many more," which intellectual excellence renders. "First, by means of theological study, we are able to obtain a surer and firmer grasp of supernatural truth; and, secondly, we may derive great help from our intellectual power in examining our motives of action more accurately; seeing our faults more clearly; devising more judicious means of spiritual improvement." Here it is emphatically avowed that intellectual insight

enables us, on the one hand, to have a clearer vision of supernatural truth, and, on the other, to advance our moral and spiritual perfection; and yet it is asserted in the same breath that intellectual excellence has nothing to do with our personal perfection! What do the degrees of comparison in the above quotation mean, if they do not imply a superiority in the possessor of intellectual excellence over him who is without it?

But let us go back again to the two philosophers. "It is absolutely certain," says Dr. Ward, "that to both acts GOD promises an equal reward." What reward? The beatific vision, let us say. No doubt this would in one sense be "an equal reward" in the case of the feeble philosopher and of him of intellectual eminence ; but, in another sense, the reward would surely not be equal. Both men are supposed to be spiritually and morally on a level; but one is intellectually superior to the other. Does it not follow, therefore, that the former would have a deeper and clearer insight into supernatural truth than the latter? Dr. Ward must believe this, since he admits that even in this world intellectual excellence enables its possessor to "obtain a surer and firmer grasp of supernatural truth." The reward, therefore, would not really be equal. Materially the reward might be the same; but to the one it would open out avenues of thought and contemplation which would be locked to the other. Each would, doubtless, be as happy as his capacities permitted; but he who had the larger capacities would have the greater happiness, and therefore the greater reward, and in that sense he would be a more perfect being.

Dr. Ward says that intellectual excellence has no more to do with personal perfection than the muscular development of the body has. But this is a fallacy. The material fibres of the body decompose in the grave, and are resolved into their elements. Is it so with the intellect? Is it, too, "of the earth, earthy?" or does it survive the dissolution of the body, and retain its excellence? Clearly it does; and therefore there is no proper analogy between the development of the intellect and the development of a material frame whose perfection in its spiritual state may possibly bear no relation to what we consider its perfection here. Besides, it seems reasonable to believe that GOD bestows no gift on man which He does not intend should reach the fullest development of which it is capable; and till it do reach that goal man is so far short of his proper yov, and consequently of his perfection. Of course cases may be imagined where it would clearly be the duty of a man to sacrifice the cultivation of his intellect to some higher end, the glory of GoD or the good of his fellow-man; but it would not follow from this admission that intellectual excellence has no share in man's perfection άλs.

It appears that several objections were urged against Dr. Ward's thesis by members of the " Academia.” It was asked, for instance,

whether it would not place S. Paul and a pious apple-woman on the same level. Dr. Ward replies that "it would be fairer to make the comparison between S. Paul and S. John." And then he goes on to deny "that S. John possessed any considerable intellectual cultivation; that he had any great power, for instance, of rightly understanding some vast system of heathen philosophy, and laying his finger on the precise points at issue between that philosophy and Christian Revelation." And then he asks,-"Yet is there any one who would regard him as on that account less spiritually perfect than S. Paul?" Now we submit that S. John's Gospel alone proves that the eagle-eyed Evangelist could and did "lay his finger on the precise points at issue between heathen philosophy and Christian Revelation." Dr. Ward may retort that, granting this to be the case, S. John's intellectual excellence, whatever it may have been, was not the result of human cultivation, like S. Paul's, but of illuminating grace. Such an objection, however, would not be in point; because the question is as to the fact of intellectual excellence having anything to do with man's perfection, not as to the means by which that fact has been brought about. A case subsequently put by Dr. Ward shows that he makes this confusion between intellectual excellence itself and the means which some two saints of postapostolic times B. Benedict Labbré, for instance, the beggar, and S. Antoninus, who wrote on moral theology. Supposing these two saints were equally prompt to follow God's wishes and preference in every particular, who will say that S. Antoninus was the more holy because he was more powerful in reasoning from premisses? or because he was more ready in solving casuistical questions ?"

produce it. "Let us take," he says,

Let us observe, in passing, that the question in dispute is not the holiness of the two saints, but their perfection. Of course Dr. Ward may reply that the holiness of an intelligent being constitutes his perfection. But surely this cannot be seriously maintained. Holiness is undoubtedly the most necessary element in man's perfection, for "without holiness no man shall see the LORD." But a newly-baptized babe is as holy as S. Paul, and as fit for heaven has the babe therefore attained his perfection as fully as the apostle? does he as completely fulfil the idea of human perfection? Dr. Ward must answer in the affirmative, or sacrifice his theory; yet who would deny that such an answer would be an outrageous paradox ?

But let us proceed with Dr. Ward's illustration. He admits that "in ordinary cases, if we suppose equal promptitude of will to GOD's love and service, the more intellectual man is the holier;" and he explains his meaning as follows:

"You individually and I individually are more perfect in proportion as we have greater promptitude to serve and obey GOD. But it does