regard to poetry, it is enough to name Dante to show what the system could effect, notwithstanding the obstacles presented by the slow and laborious elaboration of the modern languages, and the difficulty arising from the equivocal and unstable character of the corresponding social state, which was unfavourable to poetical inspiration. I noticed before the superior aptitude of polytheism in this respect even to this day, as is shown by the inability of even our best poets to free modern poetry from its traces. As to the rest, the influence of the period, in this case as in others, so stretches forward into the next, that we cannot appreciate its services fully till we arrive at that part of our analysis.

Turning now to the lower and more universal aspect of the mental movement,-the industrial,-it is clear that, Industry. starting from the time of personal emancipation, we must adjourn the estimate of industrial progress to the next period. The greatest industrial improvement of all however must be the gradual abolition of serfage, accompanied by the progressive enfranchisement of communities, such as was accomplished under the guardianship of the Catholic system, and furnished the basis of the vast success of a later time. We may notice here-what we must dwell longer on hereafter-the new character of industry, shown in the substitution of external forces for human efforts. It was not only that men were becoming better acquainted with nature: a stronger reason was that the Catholic and feudal world were placed in a wholly new position by the emancipation of labourers, whence arose the general obligation to spare human forces by using inorganic or brute assistance. As evidence of this, we may notice the invention of water-mills, windmills, and other machines, the origin of which we are too apt to overlook. It was the slavery more than the ignorance of a prior time that prevented the use of machinery, which could not be sufficiently desired while there was an abundant provision of intelligent muscular force always at hand; and when the use of machinery had begun, we trace the wisdom of the Catholic system in interposing between this inevitable improvement and the theological discouragement which must forbid any great industrial modification of the external world as a direct offence against the providential optimism which had succeeded to the polytheistic fatalism.

This brief survey seems to prove the injustice of the reproach of barbarism and darkness brought against the period; against the very age illustrated by Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Dante, and others. To conclude our analysis of the period, I have only to exhibit the principle of the irrevocable decay of this transitory system, the great destination of which was to prepare for the gradual and safe decomposition of the theological and military régime, taking place at the same time with the rise and expansion of the new elements of order.

SYSTEM PROVISIONAL.

Provisional nature of the régime.

249

Whichever way we look at the organization proper to the Middle Ages, its provisional nature is evident from the fact that the developments it encouraged were the first causes of its decay. In the spiritual region the concentration of deity into one object was the last possible modification, as the reduction could go no further without a total perversion of the theological philosophy, and the loss of its social ascendency; while, at the same time, the more rapid and extensive rise of the positive spirit, not only among educated men, but among the masses of civilized nations, could not but bring on such fatal modifications. We have seen that the existence of the Catholic system depended on numerous conditions, the failure of any one of which involved the destruction of the whole; and we have ascertained the precariousness of the greater number of those conditions. The system was not, as I have shown, hostile to intellectual progress: on the contrary, it favoured it; but it never incorporated that improvement with itself. The improvement grew up under the shelter of Catholicism; but it outgrew the provisional protection, which was thenceforth done with. The great intellectual office of Catholicism was to prepare, under the theological régime, the elements of the positive régime. In the same way, in morals it prepared men for the new system by encouraging the exercise of human reason in judging of conduct; and thus it rendered the downfall of theological influence inevitable,-apart from the instruction it gave to Man's moral nature to revolt against its own violations of his noblest feelings, in support of its declining existence,-thus offending, in its hour of necessity, the moral sentiments which were its own best work.

tween Natural

If we are to trace the principle of decay through its whole existence, we must admit that it was older than the system itself; for we find it in the great division, considered in a former chapter, between natural and moral philosophy; the philos- Division beophy of the inorganic world, and that of moral and social Man. This division, proposed by the Greek and Moral philosophers a little before the establishment of the philosophy. Alexandrian Museum, by which it was openly sanctioned, was the first logical condition of all future progress, because it permitted the independent growth of inorganic philosophy (then in the metaphysical stage), whose more simple speculations might be rapidly perfected without injury to the social operation of moral philosophy (then in its theological stage), which was much less occupied with the abstract improvement of its doctrines, than with trying the fitness of theological conceptions for civilizing mankind. A rivalry, extending from doctrines to persons, immediately grew up between the metaphysical spirit, which was in possession of the scientific domain, and the theological, which governed morals: and it was the social ascendency of moral philosophy which kept down intellectual enterprise in the direction of natural philosophy, and was

the first cause of the retardation of science which I explained just now. We see the conflict reflected in the struggles of such a man as St Augustine against the mathematical reasonings, already popularized among students of natural philosophy, by which the Alexandrian philosophers proved the form of the earth, and the necessary existence of antipodes. One of the most illustrious founders of the Catholic philosophy was seen enforcing objections so puerile that the lowest understandings would not now condescend to them. Comparing this case with that before mentioned, of the astronomical extravagances of Epicurus, we shall see how thorough was this separation,-very like antipathy,-between natural and moral philosophy.

It was the metaphysical spirit which had wrought the transition The Metaphy from fetichism to polytheism; and, quite recently, sical spirit. from polytheism to monotheism; and it was not likely to desist from its office of modification at the moment when it was most earnest and strong. As there was nothing beyond monotheism but a total issue from the theological state, which was then impracticable, the metaphysical action became destructive, and more and more so; its propagators being unconsciously employed in spoiling, by their anti-social analyses, the very conditions of existence of the monotheistic system. The more Catholicism aided the intellectual movement, the faster did the destruction proceed, because every scientific and other intellectual advance added honour to the metaphysical spirit which appeared to direct it. The antagonism was certain to overtake Catholicism when it had fulfilled the social conditions which were its proper office, and when intellectual conditions should become the most important to human development. Thus the general cause of the mental dissolution of Catholicism was its inability to incorporate with itself the intellectual inovement, by which it was necessarily left behind: and, from that time, the only way in which it could maintain its empire was by exchanging its progressive for a stationary, or even retrograde character, such as sadly distinguishes it at this day. It may be thought, in a superficial way, that the intellectual decline may be reconciled with an indefinite protraction of that moral sway to which Catholicism seems to be entitled by the excellence of its own morality, which will be respected when the prejudices of its enemies have died out but it is philosophically true that moral influence is inseparable from intellectual superiority; for it can never be in the natural course of things for men to give their chief confidence, in the dearest interests of their life, to minds which they respect so little as not to consult them about the simplest speculative questions. Catholicism was once the organ of universal morality; and we now accept it as a precious legacy, without insisting that the giver shall not die, or refusing the gift because the bestower is dead. We have derived valuable truth from astrology and alchemy, finding the truth

ITS TEMPORAL DECLINE.

251

remain when the vehicle was broken up: and the process is the same in the case of the moral and political progress set on foot by the theological philosophy. It could not perish with the philosophy, if another spiritual organization had been meantime prepared to receive it, as we shall see hereafter.

Temporal

decline.

:

The temporal decline of the Middle Age system proceeded from a cause so evident as to require little remark. In all the three aspects of the feudal régime, its transitory character is distinctly marked. Its defensive organization was required only till the invaders should have settled down into agricultural life at home, and become converted to Catholicism and military pursuits thenceforth became more and more exceptional, as industry strengthened and extended itself. The breaking up of the temporal power into partial sovereignties, which was the second feature of the feudal system, was no less a transient arrangement, which must give place to a new centralization; as we shall presently see that it did.-As for the third feature,--the transformation of slavery into serfage, it is unquestionable that while slavery may exist a long time under suitable conditions, serfage can be no more than a transition state, sure to be speedily modified by the establishment of industrial communities, and serving no other special purpose than gradually leading on the labourers to entire personal freedom. Thus, it is the same with feudalism as with Catholicism,-the better it discharged its function, the more it accelerated its own destruction. External circumstances, however, which were in themselves in no degree accidental, prolonged the duration of the system very unequally among the European nations, its political rule having lasted longest on the various frontiers of Catholic feudal civilization, that is, in Poland, Hungary, etc., with regard to Tartar and Scandinavian invasions; and even, in some respects, in Spain and the larger Mediterranean islands, especially Sicily, with regard to Arab encroachments: a distinction which it is well to notice here in its germ, as we shall find an interesting application of it in a future part of our analysis. This short explanation will help us to fix on the class by whom the disintegration of the feudal system was conducted. The advent of the industrial class was the issue from it; but it could not be that class which should conduct the process, on account of its subordinate position, and of its having enough to do in its own interior development. The work was done by the legists, who had risen in social influence as military activity declined. Like the metaphysicians, they had a provisional office; and the one class in philosophy, and the other in polity, effected the critical modifications required, and founded nothing.

The reflection which naturally occurs at the end of our survey of the monotheistic régime is that the immense time required for its slow political elaboration is out of

Conclusion.

all proportion to the short period of its social sway: its rise having

occupied ten centuries; whereas it remained at the head of the European system for only two,-from Gregory VII., who completed it, to Boniface VIII., under whom its decline conspicuously commenced, the five following centuries having exhibited only a kind of chronic agony perpetually relaxing in activity. The only possible solution of this great historical problem is that the part of Catholicism which was thus destined to expire was the doctrine, and not its organization, which was only transiently spoiled through its adherence to the theological philosophy; while, reconstructed upon a sounder and broader intellectual basis, the same constitution must superintend the spiritual reorganization of modern society, except for such differences as must be occasioned by diversity of doctrine. We must either assent to this, or suppose (what seems to contradict the laws of our nature) that the vast efforts of so many great men, seconded by the persevering earnestness of civilized nations, in the secular establishment of this masterpiece of human wisdom, must be irrevocably lost to the most advanced portion of humanity, except in its provisional results. This general explanation is grounded on the considerations we have just reviewed, and it will be confirmed by all the rest of our analysis, of which it will be the main political conclusion.