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THE CATHOLIC CLERGY.

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pensated for by the unity of conception and composition which belonged to it, and which could not have been otherwise obtained: so that it should be no surprise that the philosophical origin of universal historical speculation is due to the genius of modern Catholicism. Taking for granted the political superiority which must have belonged to disciplined and meditative thinkers in the midst of an ignorant temporal aristocracy, who cared for nothing else in history than the genealogy of their houses, or some provincial or national chronicles, we may further admit that the prerogative still rests where it did, for want of being claimed by any other body. Amidst the intellectual and social decay of Catholicism, we shall probably find, in the higher ranks of its hierarchy, more minds than we can find elsewhere which are capable of assuming the true point of view of human affairs as a whole, though the political destruction of their corporation prevents their manifesting, or perhaps cultivating the quality.

One more quality of their political philosophy, hitherto unnoticed, remains to be pointed out;-I mean the discipline Restriction of by which Catholicism, in the days of its greatness, inspiration. diminished the political dangers of the religious spirit by restricting more and more that right of supernatural inspiration which no theological system can dispense with entirely, but which the Catholic organization reduced, and shackled by wise and powerful ordinances, the importance of which can be understood only by a comparison with the preceding, and in some sort, with the following state. Polytheism was never at a loss for a deity to protect some inspiration or other; and though monotheism reduced its extent, and modified its exercise, it still allowed a dangerous scope to inspiration, as we see by the case of the Jews, among whom prophets and seers abounded, and had even a certain recognized though irregular function. Catholicism, as the organ of a more advanced state, represented the privilege of inspiration as eminently exceptional, limiting it to instances more and more serious, to fewer and fewer chosen persons, at more and more distant intervals, and subjecting it to tests of growing severity; and it reached its last degree of possible restriction when divine communications were generally reserved for the supreme ecclesiastical authority exclusively. This papal infallibility, which has been regarded as such a reproach to Catholicism, was thus, in fact, a great intellectual and social advance. As De Maistre observed, it was simply the religious condition of the final jurisdiction, without which society would have been for ever troubled by the inexhaustible disputes generated by such vague doctrines. It will at once occur to the thoughtful observer that we find here a striking confirmation of the great proposition of historical philosophy before laid down, that, in the passage from polytheism to monotheism, the religious spirit underwent an intellectual decline; for we find Catholicism constantly

employed in actual life in extending the domain of human wisdom at the expense of that, once so vast, of divine inspiration.

I cannot afford space to dwell on the special institutions of Catholicism, however great their importance in the working of the organism; such, for instance, as the employment of a kind of sacred language, by the preservation of Latin in the sacerdotal corporation, when it was no longer the popular language; a means of facilitating communication and concentration, within and without, and also of putting off the inevitable day when the spirit of individual criticism should attack the noble social edifice, whose intellectual bases were so precarious. But there are still two eminent conditions, the one moral and the other political, which, without being so essential as those I have just noticed, are yet indispensably connected with Catholicism. Both were ordained by the special nature of the period and the system, rather than by the general nature of the spiritual organization: a distinction which is important to their clearness and relevancy in this place. They are, the institution of ecclesiastical celibacy, and the annexation of a temporal principality to the centre of spiritual authority, in order to secure its European independence.

The institution of ecclesiastical celibacy, long repressed, but at Ecclesiastical length established by the powerful Hildebrand, has celibacy. ever been justly regarded as one of the essential bases of sacerdotal discipline. Its favourable influence on the performance of spiritual and social functions, in a general way, is well understood; and, with regard to Catholicism in particular, it is seen to be necessary to the common discharge of the chief moral offices of the clergy, especially confession. In a political view, we have only to imagine a state of society in which, without celibacy, the Catholic hierarchy could certainly never have acquired or maintained either the social independence or the freedom of mind necessary to the accomplishment of their great provisional mission. The hereditary principle was still prevalent and in vigour, everywhere but in the ecclesiastical organization; and the clergy would have been drawn away by it, but for the institution of celibacy. Whatever nepotism there was, was exceptional; but there was enough to show what would have been the consequences if the division of the two social powers had been put to risk by such a transmutation as the popes found it so difficult to restrain, of bishops into barons, and priests into knights. We have never done justice to the bold and radical innovation wrought by Catholicism in the social organism, when it superseded the hereditary principle in the priesthood, which was incorporated with the social economy, not only of theocracies, but of the Greeks and Romans, among whom pontifical offices of importance were the exclusive patrimony of some privileged families, or at least of a caste. The great political service of Catholicism in aiming this fatal blow at

STATES OF THE CHURCH.

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the system of caste is a sufficient evidence how far it was in advance of the society on which it had to operate. Yet the blind opponents of Catholicism may be seen to confound the Catholic régime with the ancient theocracies, while reproaching it with that ecclesiastical celibacy which renders pure theocracy impossible by guaranteeing a legitimate access to sacerdotal dignities for all ranks of society.

As for the temporal sovereignty of the Head of the Church,— it must not be forgotten that the Catholic system Temporal arose at a time when the two powers were confounded, Sovereignty and that it would have been absorbed or politically of the Popes. annulled by the temporal power, if the seat of its authority had been included in any particular jurisdiction, whose lord would presently, after the manner of his time, have humbled the pope into a sort of chaplain : unless, indeed, we resort to the artless supposition of a miraculous succession of Charlemagnes, sagacious, like him, to discern the true spirit of European organization in the Middle Ages, and therefore disposed to respect and guard the independence of the pope. Though monotheism favoured the separation of the two powers, it could not be with such energy and precision as would enable it to dispense with the aid of political conditions and of these the most evident and important was the possession of a territorial sovereignty, containing a population which might be provisionally sufficient to itself, and which might thus offer a secure refuge to all members of the vast hierarchy, in case of collision with the temporal powers which, but for such a resource, would have held them in close local dependence. The seat of this exceptional principality was hardly a matter of choice. The centre of the authority that was henceforth to rule the civilized world must be in that one city in which alone the ancient order merged without interruption into the modern, by means of the rooted habits which for long ages had directed thither the social ideas and hopes of the human race. De Maistre has shown us how, in the famous removal to Byzantium, Constantine fled morally before the Church, no less than politically before the barbarians. The necessity of this temporal appendage to the supreme spiritual dignity must not, however, make us forget the serious evils arising from it, both towards the sacerdotal authority itself, and for the portion of Europe set apart to be this political anomaly. The purity, and even the dignity of the pontifical character were compromised by the permanent incorporation of the lofty prerogatives of the papacy with the secondary operations of provincial government. Through this very discordance, the popes have ruled so little in Rome, even in the most splendid period of Catholicism, as to have been unable to repress the factions of great families, whose disgraceful conflicts so often defied and injured the temporal authority of the papacy. Italian ambition had at first favoured the

VOL. II.

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papal system; but in this way it helped to disorganize it; and the spiritual head of Europe is now seen transformed into a petty Italian prince, elective while his neighbours are hereditary, but occupied, just as they are, and even more than they, with the precarious maintenance of his local dominion. As for Italy at large, her intellectual and even moral development was accelerated by such a settlement: but she lost her political nationality by it: for the popes could neither pervert their function by including all Italy under their temporal rule, in defiance of Europe; nor, from a regard to their own independence, permit any other great Italian sovereignty to border upon their territory. There was no more deplorable consequence of the condition of existence that we have just reviewed than the political sacrifice of so valuable and so interesting a part of the European community, which has been fruitlessly struggling, for ten centuries, to establish a national unity incompatible with the political system founded upon Catholicism.

These statical conditions of the political existence of Catholicism have been noticed with so much distinctness, because they are open to misconception when the philosophical principle of interpretation is not laid hold of. The dynamical conditions may be more briefly dismissed. We have little more to consider than the great elementary prerogative of Education,-using the word in the large sense before assigned to it.

If we were philosophical enough to judge of the Catholic system Educational of universal ministration, not by the backward charfunction. acter of Catholic education in the present day, but by what it was in comparison with the preceding state of things, we should better estimate its importance. The polytheistic régime doomed the mass of society to brutish stupidity: not only slaves but the majority of free men being deprived of all regular instruction, unless we may so call the popular interest in the fine arts and observance of festivals, finished off with scenic sports. Military education, in which free men alone could share, was in fact the only one in ancient times that could be appropriately organized. Vast, then, was the elementary progress when Catholicism imposed on every disciple the strict duty of receiving, and as far as possible, of procuring that religious instruction which, taking possession of the individual from his earliest days, and preparing him for his social duties, followed him through life, keeping him up to his principles by an admirable combination of exhortations, of exercises, and of material signs, all converging towards unity of impression. In an intellectual view, the philosophy which formed the basis of popular catechisms was all that it could be in those times, all that existed except the metaphysical teachings, which were radically unfit, from their anti-organic nature, to enter into

* Published in 1841.

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general circulation, and which could only have engendered a prevalent scepticism. The rudiments of science, discovered in the school of Alexandria, were too weak, disconnected, and abstract to enter into popular education, even if they had not been repelled by the spirit of the system. So far from the Catholic system having always been repressive of popular intelligence, as is now most unjustly said, it was for a long period the most efficacious promoter of it. The prohibition of the indiscreet and popular use of the Scriptures was a logical necessity imposed by the view of giving an indefinite continuity to monotheism; and, injurious as are the intellectual and social consequences of such a prohibition, it cannot be philosophically regarded as a step backwards towards theocracy: for, so far from favouring the monopoly of knowledge and power which distinguished theocracy, the Catholic clergy were for ever labouring to imbue the whole of society with whatever knowledge they had themselves obtained. This was indeed a necessary consequence of the division of powers, which left no other sufficient support for the spiritual authority than the intellectual development of society. Our estimate of the mental and moral operation of the Catholic educational system will come in better hereafter; and our present business is with its political operation only. The political influence of the priesthood arose out of the natural ascendency which accrues to the original directors of all education that is not confined to mere instruction; an immediate and general ascendency, inherent in that great social office, quite apart from the sacred character of spiritual authority in the Middle Ages, and the superstitious terrors which were connected with it. Furnished from the beginning with the empirical wisdom of the Eastern theocracies and the ingenious speculations of the Greek philosophy, the Catholic clergy had to apply themselves to the steady and accurate investigation of human nature, individual and social; and they made as much progress in it as was possible by means of irrational observations, directed or interpreted by theological or metaphysical conceptions. Such knowledge, possessed in the highest existing degree, was eminently favourable to political ascendency, because it naturally and at all times constitutes the chief intellectual basis of spiritual authority; all other sciences operating merely, in this relation, through their influence on speculation that regards Man and society. The institution of Confession is an all-important function of the prerogative of Education. It is at once a consequence and a complement of it. For it is impossible, on the one hand, that the directors of youth should not be the counsellors of active manhood; and, on the other, that the social efficacy of their early influence should be secure without such a protraction of moral influence as would enable them. to watch over the daily application of the principles of conduct which they had instilled. There can be no stronger proof of the decay of the old spiritual organization than our present inability to

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