CHAPTER X.

METAPHYSICAL STATE, AND. CRITICAL PERIOD OF MODERN

SOCIETY.

Conduct of

the inquiry.

WE have seen the theological philosophy and the military polity supreme in antiquity: we have seen them modified and enfeebled in the Middle Ages: and we have now to study their final decline and dissolution in the transitional modern period, in preparation for a new and permanent organic state of society. The task seems to mark out its own division. I must first review the process of the dissolution of the old systems; and this will be the work of the present chapter and next, I shall exhibit the progressive evolution of the chief elements of the positive system. The two processes are inseparably connected in practice, as we must carefully remember but they must be divided in analysis, or the conjunction of two orders of considerations so opposite as decomposition and recomposition would introduce endless confusion into our speculations. Such a division was not necessary in treating of earlier periods, because such opposing movements as then existed were convergent; and such transitions as took place were from one phase of the theological system to another. But the case is different when we have to study the issue from the theological system into one which is of a wholly different nature, that is, the greatest revolution, intellectual and social, that the human race could undergo at any period of its career. We should even lose sight of the organic elements of the case in their critical investiture, if we did not study them by themselves, and after the others. In a concrete history, of course, this process would be out of the question: but the form of our historical review has been abstract throughout; and, this being the case, we are not only permitted but bound to use such a method as may best illustrate our subject. Such a method is the division I propose. What we have to be careful of is to bear in mind that the two processes, though separated here for purposes of investigation, are for ever co-operating;-the destruction of old elements being the very means of disclosing the new; the motive force of one period naturally imparting itself to the next; and the mutual reaction of the antagonistic systems being favourable to the func

tions of both. One side of this view is evident enough: we all see how the disorganization of the theological and military system aided the scientific and industrial development of a later time: but the reverse action is less understood, though it is not less important. We shall see as we proceed. however, that it was the latent development of the positive spirit which sustained and substantiated the gradual ascendency of the metaphysical spirit over the theological,-saving it from utter waste in bootless discussion, and directing it towards a genuine philosophical renovation. The same office is fulfilled by the industrial spirit in the temporal system: it in like manner saves the legists and the military class from sterile conflict, and points out the radical incompatibility between the military system, which the legists can only revile, and the characteristic nature of modern civilization. Remembering, therefore, these considerations, that we may avoid supposing the two movements to be unconnected, we may now, seeing them to be heterogeneous and convergent, critical and organic, proceed to consider them separately; taking the critical process first, by reviewing the growing disorganization of the theological and military system for the last five centuries.

state.

An

The negative character of this great revolutionary operation naturally arouses a sort of philosophical repugnance, which must be met by the consideration that this social phase with all its errors and disorders, is as necessary in its intermediate place as any other to the slow and laborious progress of human development. The ancient system was irrevocably doomed: the new elements were in course of disclosure: but it must be long before their political tendencies and their social value could be verified, so Necessity of a transitional as to form the basis of a new organization. immediate substitution of the new for the old was therefore impossible, even if there had been no existing human feelings and interests connected with the past: and it was necessary for modern society to go through the process which we now find ourselves in the midst of,-through that thoroughly exceptional and transitional state, in which the chief political progress must be of a negative character, while public order is maintained by a resistance ever becoming more retrograde. The revolutionary doctrine which is the agent of the change does its work by exhibiting the insufficiency of the old organization, and protecting the elements of progress from the interference of old impediments. Without the impulsion of this critical energy, humanity would have been stationary; and its office could not have been fulfilled if the critical movement had not been urged to its last natural degree, and especially in its mental action; for nothing short of the entire suppression of the religious and political prejudices relating to the old organization could have saved us from a series of fruitless attempts at modifying what was fit only for dismissal.

COMMENCEMENT OF TRANSITIONAL STATE. 255

Such a preparation of the ground may be considered a negative condition; but it is an indispensable one; and all repugnance attendant upon the spectacle of destruction ought to give way before this consideration.

For the date of the beginning of this disorganization, we must go back further than the time usually assigned, Its commencewhich is the sixteenth century. The Catholic con- ment. stitution had, however, fulfilled its office before the end of the thirteenth century, while, at the same time, the conditions of its political existence had become seriously impaired. I therefore fix on the opening of the fourteenth century as the origin of the revolutionary process, which has, from that date, been participated in by every social class, each in its own way. In the spiritual domain, Catholicism transcended its bounds, during the pontificate of Boniface VIII., by setting up an absolute domination, which of course excited universal resistance, as formidable as it was just, at the very time when it had manifested its radical incompetency to direct the intellectual movement, which was becoming of more social importance every day. Serious precursory symptoms of decline began to appear; such as the relaxation of the sacerdotal spirit, and the growing vigour of heretical tendencies. The Franciscans and Dominicans, whose institution was then a century old, were as powerful a reformatory and preservative power as the system admitted; and they effectually counteracted the decay for a time; but their power did not long avail; and the very necessity for its use was a prediction of the speedy downfall of a system which received such a support in vain. Another symptom was the violent means resorted to on a great scale for the extirpation of heresies; for as spiritual authority can finally rest only on the voluntary assent of men's minds, all resort to material force is an unquestionable token of imminent and conscious decline. These indications assign the opening of the fourteenth century as the date of the concussion received by the Catholic system in its most central prerogatives.

In the temporal order, in the same way, the feudal system fell into decay because it had fulfilled its military office. Two series of efforts had been required during the defensive period,-one to guard the uprising civilization from the incursions of the wild polytheists of the north, and the other to protect it from Mussulman monotheism. In the first, the great hero of the Middle Ages found a field for his energy; but the struggle was harder in the second case. Catholicism could put the seal on the conquest of the northern nations by converting them; whereas, there could be no conversion where the hostile powers were both monotheistic, and each insisting that his form of monotheism should prevail. The great result of the Crusades, among many which have engrossed more attention, was that they preserved the Western progression,

and remanded the Mussulman proselytism to the East, where its action might be really progressive. The success of the Crusades could not be complete till the Northern migrations had been brought to an end by stout resistance and wise concessions: and this is why the defence of Catholicism against Islamism became the chief object of military activity during the two centuries when the Middle Age polity was in its perfection. The great defensive operation may be regarded as complete towards the end of the thirteenth century, though there were occasional irruptions from the East till the seventeenth, and the habit of crusading excitement required time for subsidence. When the protective and conservative office of the feudal régime was accomplished, the military spirit became disturbing; and the more so as the European authority of the papacy declined. Its services were partial, in guarding the nationality of the various European peoples; but then it was through this very military spirit that those nationalities were endangered. It declined, together with the spiritual power, when its political ascendency would have stood in the way of progress.

Division of

In any scientific analysis of the whole critical period of five centuries, from the fourteenth to our own,-the the critical period must be divided into two parts; the first comperiod. prehending the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which the critical movement was spontaneous and involuntary, without any intervention of systematic doctrine; and the other comprehending the last three centuries, during which the disorganization has proceeded under the growing influence of an avowedly negative doctrine, extended by degrees to all social ideas, and indicating the tendency of modern society to renovation, though the principle of renovation has remained undisclosed.

By what has gone before, we see that the critical doctrine was not, as is commonly supposed, the cause, but the effect, of the decay of the system that was passing away. And nothing exhibits so plainly the provisional character of the Catholic régime as the spectacle of its sinking under the mutual conflict of its own instruments, without any systematic external attack: but the decay is not difficult to account for, after what we have seen of its germs, included in the organism in its best days, and sure to grow with a rapidity proportioned to its decline.

Causes of

The separation between the spiritual and temporal power was itself a cause of decline, both from the want of conspontaneous formity of the existing civilization, and from the decline. imperfection of the only existing philosophy. The military spirit is always aiming at exclusive rule, even when it has arrived at the defensive stage of character; and therefore the division of authority, desirable and useful as it was, was a premature attempt at what can be fully accomplished only when the industrial

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257

spirit shall have completely superseded the military. The theological spirit was no less disposed to pass its limits, the sacerdotal boundary being moreover thoroughly empirical and indeterminate. The mental discipline, which became more and more stringent and oppressive as the necessary convergence became more difficult, strengthened the sacerdotal disposition to usurpation. Again, though the temporal dominions annexed to the papacy became important among European sovereignties only when the Catholic system was in a state of political decline, the temporal sovereignty no doubt aided the spirit of ambition in the popes. Between an imperfect civilization on the one hand and a vicious philosophy on the other, the fundamental division which it was the glory of the period to have proposed, was overthrown; and the wonder would be that it lasted so long as to the fourteenth century, if we had not seen how slow and feeble was the growth of the new social elements, and how much remained to be done, to the last, before the function of the Catholic and feudal system was fulfilled. Our conclusions will be the same if we study the principal subdivision of each of these main powers; that is, the corresponding relation between the central and the local authorities. We shall see that the interior harmony of each power could have no more stability than their mutual combination. In the spiritual case there was a stronger peril of discord between the central sacerdotal authority and the national clergies, than always attends upon human imperfection. The system had special liabilities of its own. When the severe discipline necessary to preserve unity in the Church began to react, any partial rebellion might become important by attaching itself to national rivalries, under the guardianship of the respective temporal powers. The same causes which limited the territorial extension of Catholicism were fatal to its interior constitution, quite apart from dogmatic difficulties. In the most favouring countries the national clergy claimed special privileges, which the popes declared to be incompatible with the political existence of Catholicism; and the opposition was doubtless as real in more remote countries, though less formally expressed. At the same time the papal tendency to centralization, which indulged Italian ambition at the expense of all other, aroused very energetic and obstinate national susceptibilities on every hand. Thus there was danger of a breaking-up, from the formation of independent national Churches before doctrinal schism was heard of. Considering the liabilities of such a system, and the imperfection of its intellectual bases, it is clear that no excellencies of organization could preserve it from decay when once its discordant forces were set free from their combined pursuit of a common end; that is, when the system had once reached its culminating-point. As for the temporal case, we are all familiar with the struggles between the central power of royalty and the local powers of the various classes of the feudal

VOL. II.

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