socially failed for want of a spiritual organization. Like them, Catholicism would have produced its morality in feeble formulas and superstitious practices, suitable to the vague and unconnected character of theological doctrine, if it had not provided for the constant active intervention of an independent and organized spiritual power, which constituted the social value of the religious system. In order to estimate what this operation was, I will briefly consider first how the doctrines of Catholicism wrought in a moral view, apart from their corresponding organization.

Source of

The most important question, in this connection, is whether the moral influence of Catholicism in the Middle Ages moral influence. was owing to its doctrines being the organs for the constitution of certain common opinions, which, when once established, must have permanent moral power from their universality; or whether, according to the popular view, the results are ascribable to personal hope, and yet more, fear, with regard to a future life, which Catholicism applied itself to co-ordinate and fortify more completely than any other religion has ever attempted to do, precisely by avoiding all dogma on the subject, and leaving every one's imagination to create the rewards and punishments which would be most effectual in his case. The question can, it is obvious, be decided only by observation of exceptional cases, in which general opinion and religious precepts are in opposition; for, when they co-operate, it is impossible to know how much influence to assign to the one or the other. Rare as are these exceptional cases, there are enough in every age of Catholicism to satisfy us in regard to the great axiom of social statics, that public prejudices are habitually more active than religious precepts, when any antagonism arises between these two moral forces, which are usually found convergent. The instance adduced by Condorcet-that of the duel -appears to me sufficiently decisive. This custom, imposed by military morals, induced pious knights to brave the strongest religious condemnation in the most brilliant ages of the Church; whereas, at this day, we see the duel spontaneously disappearing by degrees under the strengthening sway of industrial morals, notwithstanding the entire practical decay of religious prohibition. This one instance will guide the reader in his search for analogous cases, all of which will be found more or less illustrative of the tendency in human nature to brave a remote danger, however fearful, rather than immediate discredit in a fixed and unanimous public opinion. It seems, at first sight, as if nothing could counterbalance the power of religious terror directed upon an eternal future; but it is certain that, by the very element of eternity, the threat loses its force; and there have always been strong minds which have inured themselves to it by familiarity, so as not to be trammelled by it in the indulgence of their natural impulses. Every continued sensation becomes, by our nature, con

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verted into indifference; and when Milton introduces alternation in the punishment of the damned, doomed " from beds of burning fire to starve in ice," the idea of the Russian bath raises a smile, and reminds us that the power of habit extends to alternation, however abrupt, if it be but sufficiently repeated. The same energy which urges to grave crimes fortifies minds against such a future doom, which may also be considered very uncertain, and is always becoming familiarized by lapse of time; and, in the case of ordinary people, while there was absolution in the distance, as there always was, it was easier to violate religious precepts to the moderate extent their character of mind required, than to confront public prejudice. Without going further into this kind of analysis, we are warranted in saying that the moral power of Catholicism was due to its suitability as an organ of general opinions, which must become the more powerfully universal from their active reproduction by an independent and venerated clergy; and that personal interest in a future life has had, comparatively, very little influence at any time upon practical conduct.

The moral regeneration wrought by Catholicism was begun by the elevation of Morals to that social supremacy before accorded to polity. This was done by subordinating the private and variable to the most general and permanent needs, through the consideration of the elementary conditions of human nature common to all social states and individual conditions. It was these great necessities which determined the special mission of the spiritual power, whose function it was to express them in a form of universal doctrine, and to invest them with sanctity in real life, individual and social; a function which supposed an entire independence of the temporal power. No doubt, this beneficent social action was much impaired by its connection with the theological philosophy, by the vagueness with which that philosophy infected its moral prescriptions, -by the too arbitrary moral authority possessed by the directing body, whose absolute precepts would otherwise have been impracticable, and again, by the inherent contradiction of a doctrine which proposed to cultivate the social affections by the prior encouragement of an exorbitant selfishness, for ever occupied with its own future lot, looking for infinite reward for the smallest welldoing, and thus neutralizing the sympathetic element which resides in the benign universal affection of the love of God;-yet these great and inevitable evils have not prevented, but only impaired, a regeneration which could not have begun in any other way, though it must be carried on and perfected on a better intellectual basis in time to come.

Thus was Morality finally placed at the head of social necessities, by conceiving of all the faculties of our nature as means subordinate to the great end of human life, directly sanctioned by a universal doctrine, properly erected into a type of all action,

individual and social. It must be acknowledged that there was something thoroughly hostile to human development in the way in which Christianity conceived of the social supremacy of morality,greatly as this opposition has been exaggerated: but Catholicism, at its best period, restrained this tendency, inasmuch as it recognized capacity as the basis of its ecclesiastical constitution: but the elementary disposition, whose philosophical danger became apparent only when the Catholic system was in its decline, did not interfere with the radical justness of the social decision which subordinated mind itself to morality. Superior minds, which multiplied in number by means of spreading cultivation, have always, and especially of late, secretly rebelled against a decision which restrained their unlimited ambition; but it will be eternally confirmed, with deep-felt gratitude, amidst all disturbances, both by the multitude to whose welfare it is directed, and by philosophical insight, which can fitly analyse its immutable necessity. Though mental superiority is the rarest and most valuable of all, it can never realize its highest expansion unless it is subordinated to a lofty morality, on account of the natural feebleness of the spiritual faculties in human nature. Without this condition, the best developed genius must degenerate into a secondary instrument of narrow personal satisfaction, instead of pursuing that large social destination which can alone offer it a field and sustenance worthy of its nature. Hence, if it is philosophical, it will strive to systematize society in accordance with its own inclinations: if scientific, it will be satisfied with superficial conceptions, such as will procure an easy and profitable success: if aesthetic, it will produce unprincipled works, aspiring, at almost any cost, to a rapid and ephemeral popularity and if industrial, it will not aim at capital inventions, but at lucrative modifications. These melancholy results of mind deprived of moral direction, which cannot annul the value of social genius, though largely neutralizing it, must be most vicious among men of second-rate ability, who have a weaker spontaneousness; and then intelligence, which is valuable only in improving the prevision, the appreciation, and the satisfaction of the chief real needs of the individual and of society, issues in an unsocial vanity, or in absurd pretensions to rule society in virtue of capacity, which, released from the moral condition of the general welfare, becomes equally injurious to private and public happiness. In the view of all who have studied human nature, universal love, as proposed by Catholicism, is of more importance than intellectual good itself, because love makes the most of even the humblest mental faculties, for the benefit of each and all; whereas selfishness perverts or paralyses the most eminent powers, which then become more disturbing than beneficial to both public and private welfare. Such is the evidence of the profound wisdom of Catholicism in placing morality at the head of

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human interests, as the guide and controller of all human action. It thus certainly established the main principle of social life: a principle which, however occasionally discredited or obscured by dangerous sophisms, will ever arise with increasing clearness and power from a deepening study of the true nature of Man.

Moral types.

In all moral appreciation of Catholicism we must bear in mind that, in consequence of the separation between the spiritual and the temporal power, and therefore of the independence of morality in regard to polity, the moral doctrine must be composed of a series of types, which, not expressing immediate practical reality, fix the ideal limit to which our conduct must approximate more and more. These moral types are, in nature and object, analogous to the scientific and aesthetic types which guide our various conceptions, and which are needed in the simplest human operations, even the industrial. It would be as wise to reproach the artist for the unattainable perfection of his ideal model, as Catholic morality for the supposed exaggeration of its requirements. In both cases the attainment will fall short of the ideal; but it will be greater than it could be without the ideal. The philosophical instinct of Catholicism led it to fulfil the practical conditions of the case by transferring the type from the abstract to the concrete state. It applied its social genius in gradually concentrating in the Founder of their system all the perfection that they could imagine in human nature, thus constituting a universal and operative type, admirably adapted to the moral guidance of humanity, and in which the highest and the humblest could alike find a model for human conduct; and they completed the lesson by the addition of that yet more ideal conception which offers as the feminine type the beautiful mystic reconciliation of purity with maternity.

There is no department of general morality which was not eminently improved by Catholicism, as I could show, if my space and my purpose admitted of it. I can only briefly point out the most important instances of advancement, under the three heads of personal, domestic, and social morality.

Personal

morality.

The great aim being the exaltation of reason over passion, Catholicism justly regarded personal virtues as the basis of all others. The sanitary practices and the personal privations it imposed had therefore some social efficacy, being, at the least, beneficial auxiliaries to moral education,especially in the Middle Ages. Again, the personal virtues which were recommended in more ancient times as a matter of individual prudence were now first conceived of in a social connection. Humility, so strongly enforced by Catholicism as to form a popular reproach against it, was of eminent importance, not only during a period of haughty oppression which proved its necessity, but in reference to the permanent moral wants of human nature, in which

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we need not fear that pride and vanity will ever be too much repressed. Nothing is more remarkable, under this head, than the reprobation of suicide, which had been erected into a sort of honour among the ancients, who valued their own lives no more than other people's; or, at least, into a resource which their philosophers were not blamed for recurring to. This anti-social practice would no doubt have declined with the predominance of military manners, but it is certainly one of the moral glories of Catholicism to have organized an energetic condemnation of it.

Domestic

Under Catholicism, domestic morality issued forth from the subjection to polity in which the ancients had placed morality. it, and assumed its proper rank. When the spiritual and temporal orders were separated, it was felt that the domestic life must henceforth be the most important for the mass of mankind, -political life being reserved for the exceptional few, instead of absorbing everything else, as it did when the question concerned the minority of free men in a population of slaves. The special care of Catholicism for domestic life induced such a multitude of happy results as defies even the most summary analysis here. The reader must imagine for himself the improvement in human families when Catholic influence penetrated every relation, to develop without tyranny the sense of reciprocal duty, solemnly sanctioning, for instance, the paternal authority, while abolishing the ancient patriarchal despotism, under which infants were murdered or abandoned, -as they still were, beyond the pale of monotheism. I can specially notice only what relates to the closest tie of all, with regard to which I am of opinion that we have only to consolidate and complete what Catholicism has happily organized. No one now denies that it essentially improved the social condition of women; but it is seldom or never remarked that it deprived them of all participation whatever in sacerdotal functions, even in the constitution of the monastic orders to which they were admitted. I may add that it also, as far as possible, precluded them from royalty in all countries in which it had political influence enough to modify, by the consideration of aptitude, the theocratic principle of hereditary succession, embodied in caste. The benefit bestowed on women by Catholicism consisted in rendering their lives essentially domestic, in securing the due liberty of their interior existence, and in establishing their position by sanctifying the indissolubleness of marriage; whereas, even among the Romans, who married but one wife, the condition of women was seriously injured by the power of divorce. I shall have occasion hereafter to treat of the evils attending the power of divorce. In the intermediate period of human history, when Catholicism interdicted it, that beneficent influence so connected the two sexes that, under the morals and manners of the system, the wife acquired an imprescriptible right, independent even of her own conduct, to an unconditional participation in not only all the social advantages of him