was the active and rational organ of a progression naturally occasioned by the new phase which human development had assumed. The military and national morality of antiquity, subordinate to polity, had given place to a more pacific and universal morality, predominant over polity, in proportion as the system of conquest became changed into one of defence. Now, the social glory of Catholicism,—a glory which mankind will gratefully commemorate when all theological faiths shall have become matters of mere historical remembrance,—is that it developed and regulated to the utmost a tendency which it could not have created. It would be to exaggerate most mischievously the influence, unhappily only too feeble, of any doctrines on human life, to attribute to them the power of so changing the essential mode of human existence. If Catholicism had been transplanted untimely among nations which had not achieved the preparatory progress, its social influence would not have been sustained by the moral efficacy which distinguished it in the Middle Ages. Mohammedanism is an illustration of this. Its morality, derived from Christianity, and no less pure, is far from having produced the same results, because its subjects were insufficiently prepared for a monotheism which was, in their case, far from spontaneous, and altogether premature. We must not then judge of Middle Age morality from the spiritual point of view, without the temporal; and we must moreover avoid any attempt to give precedence to either element, each being indispensable, and the two therefore inseparable.

A great error of the metaphysical school is that of attributing the moral efficacy of Catholicism to its doctrine alone, apart from its organization, which is indeed supposed to have an opposite tendency. It is enough, in answer to this, to refer to what I have already said of the action of the Catholic organization, and to the moral inefficacy of Mohammedanism, and of Greek or Byzantine Catholicism, which, with abundance of doctrinal power, have 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 doc

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trine, 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 mo

ral influence.

The most important question, in this connection, is whether the moral influence of Catholicism in the Middle Ages 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, converted 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 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, in

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dividual 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 well-doing, 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

analyze 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 æsthetic, 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 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.