other conclusion, for these Acts are a man lay education, and with their minds regation of every claim which the Romish full of German philosophy, German hisChurch makes in its dealings with the|tory, and German literature. No enactState. The Prussian priest will be nom- ment could possibly run more counter to inally uncontrolled in his spiritual func- the whole spirit and teaching of modern tions, but the state will interfere with him Ultramontanism. at every turn, and will exercise over him a ceaseless control. The details of these Acts are well worth studying, for it is only by reading their provisions that we can understand how severe is the pressure which the State is to exercise. From the first moment when his prepara-province, and a similar notice must be tion for his sacred office begins the State given if it is proposed to transfer a priest takes the priest in hand; it sees that he from one spiritual office to another, or if is educated properly, sanctions the exer- merely a temporary occupant of the office cise of his functions, removes him if he is to be appointed. Within thirty days offends against secular law, restrains his the President may object to the appointaction towards his fellows, and allows ment on the ground that the nominee has him to enforce none but spiritual penal- not received a proper education, and does ties against the laity. Certain provisions not know philosophy, history, and literaare made in favour of those who are ture as well as a good priest ought to already priests, or who are on the point know them, or that the nominee has been of becoming priests; but, for the future, convicted of, or is being prosecuted for, the new system of control will be rigidly an offence against secular law; or, lastly, applied. In the first place, none but a on the ground that he is a dangerous German or a naturalized foreigner is to person, and not inclined to render due exercise spiritual functions in Prussia; obedience to the State. Against this and the German who exercises them injunction of the provincial President the must be a German educated in a particu- ecclesiastical superior is permitted to lar way. He must first duly pass through a appeal to a new ecclesiastical tribunal gymnasium; he must then go through a constituted by one of these Acts, the three years' course of theological study, ei- character of which tribunal is sufficiently ther in a State University or in a seminary indicated by the provision that six out of under State control; and, lastly, he must its eleven members must be ordinary lay satisfactorily pass a public oral examina- judges. But the State has another dantion conducted by State officials, the ob-ger to guard against besides that of the ject of which is to show that he possesses wrong man being put into the place. what the Act terms the knowledge pecu- There is the danger lest the place should Early necessary for his calling that is, remain unfilled. The Act therefore prothe knowledge of philosophy, history, and vides that within a year from the date of German literature. No new seminaries the vacancy the place must be filled up. are to be established; students in the If it is not filled up, the income attached Universities are not to be allowed to be- to the office is stopped, the income of the ong at the same time to seminaries; and superior who ought to appoint is stopped, it is only if he lives in a place where and the superior is subjected to a fine there is no State University that a student not exceeding one thousand thalers, may go to a seminary at all; while every which fine is to be repeated until his teacher in a seminary must show that he contumacy is vanquished. The priest has received an education satisfactory ac- himself also who ventures to take an cording to a lay standard. Nor will the appointment without due permission, or Friests in future be permitted to get hold temporarily performs the duties of a df the young and give them a special and ap-charge which the State requires to be propriate training. Existing seminaries permanently filled, is to be liable to a for boys are not to be closed at once, but fine not exceeding one hundred thalers. then they are not to be allowed to receive Further, if the priest, after having been any new pupils; and, if they venture to appointed, is guilty of any serious transreceive any, they are to be immediately gression of the secular lawas, for shut up. The Act, in fact, recognizes example, if he makes himself a party to that there must be priests, and that any movement which the State considers priests must learn theology; but it insists prejudicial to its interests he is by the that priests shall be Germans with a Ger- mere fact of his conviction rendered When the priest has been properly trained in this way, the time will arrive for him to be inducted into some spiritual office. His superior who proposes to appoint him must immediately give notice of his intention to the President of the incapable of discharging his spiritual up any penitentiary he pleases, and can duties; and if he persists in acting as if punish with a fine not exceeding a thouhe were still competent, he becomes lia- sand thalers any attempt to establish a ble to a heavy fine. All these enactments more rigorous discipline than the Act must be put together in order to see how permits. If the delinquent thinks himgreat is the change which the position of self unjustly treated, he can appeal to the priests in Prussia will undergo. To us new ecclesiastical Court, and especial who are accustomed to live among clergy-care is taken to provide that one ground men who have received the usual English of this appeal shall be that an attempt education at large schools, who have then has been made to prevent his appealing. gone to an English University and taken The State, too, can itself appeal, or rather the same degrees as their friends des- can carry the case before the ecclesiastitined for lay professions, it may seem cal tribunal, if it thinks, that the continunatural and right that what we know and ance in office of a priest is dangerous to approve of in England should be insisted public order. The previous Act had proon in Prussia. It is one of the great vided that a priest convicted of an offence boasts of the Church of England that its against public order should be deposed; ministers are in this way brought into but this Act goes further, and provides harmony with the laity, share the same that a priest who is merely considered to thoughts, and are animated by the same be a dangerous person may have proceedpolitical instincts. But the Church of ings taken against him. His own eccleRome wishes for something totally different. It wishes for a priesthood forming a caste distinct from the laity, trained in its own peculiar way, and breathing its own peculiar spirit. In Prussia it will not have any such priesthood; and the priesthood which it gets will not only be trained in what it thinks a wrong way, but will be subjected to a supervision it abhors, and will be constantly suspected of acts which are as meritorious in the eyes of Rome as they are treasonable in the judgment of Berlin. siastical superiors are to be first invited to take upon themselves the responsibil ity of deposing him; but, if they decline, the authority of the tribunal is to be called into play; and if, after it pronounces against him, he presumes to discharge the duties of his office, he is liable to a fine not exceeding a hundred thalers, which is to be increased to a thousand thalers if he persists in his offence. The laity are protected by an Act, which provides that no ecclesiastical punishment can be inflicted affecting their personal But the jealous watchfulness of the liberty, their property, or their civil staState is carried still further. A properly tus. Nor can any ecclesiastical punishtrained priest guilty of no offence against ment be inflicted if its ground is that the the State might still, in the exercise of offender has done something which the his spiritual functions, be inclined to ty- State requires him to do, or has voted or rannize over other priests or over lay-not voted where the State permitted him Two other Acts tie him up as tight a free choice. For purely spiritual of as Acts can tie him, lest he should trans- fences a spiritual penalty may be inflicted; gress in this direction. The discipline but then no public notification of its inof the Church over ecclesiastics can only be exercised by German ecclesiastical authorities. Punishment can only be inflicted after proceedings have been taken in a formal manner, after the accused has been heard, and after the grounds of condemnation have been duly recorded. No corporal punishment is to be inflicted, the delinquent can only be fined to the extent of a month's salary, and although he may be sent to a penitentiary for three months, he cannot be sent out of Germany. And his detention must be immediately notified with the most precise details to the provincial President, who can shut men. fliction may be made, and all that may be done is to announce to members of the same communion that it has been inflicted; and even then this announcement must be made in language which cannot convey any unnecessary pain to the of fender. The spiritual terrors of excommunication thus remain; but every precaution is taken that, in this world at least, they shall operate in the mildest possible manner. If it is the duty of a State to protect its subjects against their spiritual pastors and masters, every one must allow that Prussia has now fulfilled this duty as it was never fulfilled before. forwarding the money; nor when we club the LIVING Age with another periodical. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. 128 From Fraser's Magazine. to a desperate attempt to restore the old LECTURES ON MR. DARWIN'S PHILOSO-dynasty of Locke and Hume. During PHY OF LANGUAGE. the years immediately preceding the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species (1860) and his Descent of Man, the old problems which had been discussed in the days of Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, turned up again in full force. We had to read again that sensuous impressions were the sole constituent elements of the human intellect; that general ideas were all developed spontaneously from single impressions; that the only difference between sensations and ideas was the faintness of the latter; that what we mean by substance is only a collection of particular ideas, united by imagination, and comprehended by a particular name; and that what we are pleased to call our mind, is but a delusion, though who the deluder is and who the deluded, would seem to be a question too indiscreet to ask. * If we want to understand the history of the Norman Conquest, the Reformation, the French Revolution, or any other great crisis in the political, religious, and social state of the world, we know that we must study the history of the times immediately preceding those momentous changes. Nor shall we ever understand the real character of a great philosophical crisis unless we have made ourselves thoroughly familiar with its antecedents. Without going so far as Hegel, who saw in the whole history of philosophy an unbroken dialectic evolution, it is easy to see that there certainly is a greater continuity in the history of philosophic thought than in the history of politics, But the principal assault in this strugand it therefore seemed to me essential gle came from a new quarter. It was not to dwell in my first Lecture on the exact to be the old battle over again, we were stage which the philosophical struggle of told; but the fight was to be carried on our century had reached before Mr. Dar- with modern and irresistible weapons. win's publications appeared, in order to The new philosophy, priding itself, as all enable us to appreciate fully his historical philosophies have done, on its positive position, not only as an eminent physiolo- character, professed to despise the endgist, but as the restorer of that great em- less argumentations of the schools, and pire in the world of thought which claims to appeal for evidence to matter of fact as its founders the glorious names of only. Our mind, whether consisting of Locke and Hume. It might indeed be material impressions or intellectual consaid of Mr. Darwin what was once said of cepts, was now to be submitted to the the restorer of another empire, " Il n'est dissecting knife and the microscope. We pas parvenu, il est arrivé." The philo- were shown the nervous tubes, afferent sophical empire of Locke and Hume had and efferent, through which shocks from fallen under the blows of Kant's Criticism without pass on to sensitive and motive of pure Reason. But the successors of cells; the commissural tubes holding Kant - Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel these cells together were laid bare before disregarding the checks by which Kant us; the exact place in the brain was had so carefully defined the legitimate pointed out where the messages from exercise of the rights of Pure Reason, without were delivered; and it seemed indulged in such flights of transcendent as if nothing were wanting but a more fancy, that a reaction became inevitable. powerful lens to enable us to see with First came the violent protest of Scho- our own eyes how, in the workshop of penhauer, and his exhortation to return to the brain, as in a photographic apparatus, the old fundamental principles of Kant's the pictures of the senses and the ideas philosophy. These, owing to their very of the intellect were being turned out in violence, passed unheeded. Then fol- endless variety. lowed a complete disorganization of philosophic thought, and this led in the endi. p. 33. Hume, Treatise on Human Nature, book i. sec. |