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November 4, 1854.] THE LEADER. 1045
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.y, , jLttff UlUtf
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Critics are not the legislators, bat the...
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Always among the most interesting of per...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
November 4, 1854.] The Leader. 1045
November 4 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 1045
.Y, , Jlttff Ulutf
Jlttentto
Critics Are Not The Legislators, Bat The...
Critics are not the legislators , bat the judges and police of literature . They do notmake laws—theyinterpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Review .
Always Among The Most Interesting Of Per...
Always among the most interesting of periodicals to us is the North British Review . It is young as compared with the Edinburgh and Quarterly ; but it is fresh , energetic , often original , and , while to th « full as careful , tasteful and polished as the older Reviews , it is generally deeper in its thinking , and strikes in with greater effect upon the problems and tendencies of the time . Neither the Edinburgh nor the Quarterly , for example , could have produced an ' article precisely like that which appears in the present number of the North British , under the title of " The Insoluble Problem . " In its character
it reminds us of some of Sir Williau Hamilton ' s philosophical articles in the Edinburgh in its old days , now reprinted among his " Discussions . " It is—what we rarely now see—a really profound philosophical paper , written in an orthodox religious spirit . The text of the article is Mr . Cai > dewocxd ' s " Philosophy of the Infinite , " a metaphysical work , recently published in Edinburgh . In this -work the writer discusses the theories of Sir William Hamilton and M . Cousin as to the possibility of man ' s knowledge of tie infinite . These theories , as metaphysical readers know , are , to some extent , antagonistic . Sir William Hamilton holds that the Finite
caa have absolutely no knowledge of the Infinite , and , consequently , that the natural religious sentiment in man is nothing more , rationally speaking , than an eternal pressure against an ever-resisting Negatire—a very different thing , however , from Secularism or Atheism , inasmuch as the Infinite , known only as a Negative , may , even so , act tremendouslj on the thought . M . Cousin , on the other hand , holds that man has a certain positive knowledge ofJDeity , sure so far as it goes . Mr . CAiDJMrobp controverts Sir Wilxiam Hamilton ' s notion , and inclines to M . Cousin ' s . The Reviewer plants himself in the midst of these various opinions , and discusses the whole question in an independent manner , and with the strength of a master in metaphysics . His conclusion is indicated in the following sentences :
Is not the true opinion a mean between these extremes ? Does it not recognise our knowledge of the facts—finite beings and the Transcendent Being—which oeca-. sion the difficulty en the one hand ; and on the other the impossibility of any solution of their relation by human understanding ? This would account for contradiction emerging , whenever a solution is irrationally attempted , and teach the need for -withdrawing our faculty of comparison and reasoning from a region for which it is unfitted . Are we wrong when we suppose that M . Cousin , who speaks of the " incomprehensibility" of < 3 oc \ , and grants that we are unable" absolutely : to comprehend God , " wishes his theory to be interpreted in harmony with the principle that the Great Problem is fundamentall y insoluble ; and that when Sir W . Hamilton indulges his matchless
logical ingenuity in eliciting the contradictions which follow an illegitimate application of reasoning to the Infinite and Eternal , his demonstration does not touch the pillars on which the Facts themselves rest—mysteriously irreconcilable and yet known to be real ? On this intermediate hypothesis , while we have what may » e called a metaphysical knowledge of material and finite beings , —which may be converted into science by reasoning and induction ; we have a metaphysical knowledge of the Transcendent Being , —as not an object of logical definition and scientific reasoning at all . We believe , and -therefore know , that the Infinite One exists ; but whenever He is logically recognised as a term in thought or argument , either the object , like the argument , becomes finite , or else runs into innumerable contradictions .
Keason thus presents two corresponding faculties or organs for the apprehension of real beings : —Intuition and ExrisiuicNCE , governed by the logical and associative laws ; and Faitix , to whose object , as transcendent , the laws of scientific thought cannot be applied . The problem of metaphysics , regarded as the science of knowledge in its Tolation to Being , may be put thus : —Given Experience and ' . Faith , lodged in a mind governed by the laws of association and logic , —to account for actual , human knowledge . In short , the Atheist ' s universe , and the Pantheist ' universe , are both metaphysically impossible . The former excludes transcondent , and the latter absorbs iiuite existence . The dualism implied in creation and providonce is logically inconceivable , because beyond the range of human thought ; but it is originated and maintained in belief by an unaccountable necessity of reason . Now , we may believe what ¦\ vo cannot scientifically rationalise . Thus the balauco falls on the side of the former of the alternatives to which wo are confined by logic ; and we escape from tho mental oscillation , to which we were hopelessly abandoned , by a theory which declines to recognise in knowledge whatever cmuiot bo logically conceived and reasoned about .
Tho position the Leader has talcen in regard to such discussions as tho above is known to our ruaders ; but we have pleasure in referring to such articles as those in an orthodox Review , us indicating what strength of intellect and nobLe serenity of feeling ar « still at work on these problems . It is with this thoology—a very different theology from that of Palkv with his " Watch" and its Watchmaker ^ ' and from that of the Bridgowuter treatises with their- " argument from design "—that scoptius have now to grapple . Metaphysics of this kind , as tho reviewer himself hints , have boe « hitherto rather English than Scotch—the Scotch with all their metaphysical reputation , halving concerned thonwolvos chiefly with that u loss abstract part of
metaphysics" which consists of an investigation of the origin , limits , and certainty of our knowledge of tho material world ; " while , in comparison even with lingliahman , and inuuh more with GoriuuiH , they hiivu neglected that , "higher motuphynic wliioh oonl ; umplutus the foundation and nature of theological Icnowlodge . " This would give u duupor inclining than has usually been allowed to Gkokoh tiih Third ' s saying , " Noi » o of your Scotch metaphysics , Mr . Dundas "—as if his Majority did not object to tho higher or lSuglish spaolcm of tho same commodity . For tins Hake of those of our readers , however , who may object to tho commodity in all its kinds , wo may mention that the paper in quosLion in the North British occupiOB only about thirty pages , and that in tho samo number there arc sevon other articles on
very various subjects —including a rich and delightful article on the study of natural history , entitled " The Wonders of the Shore , " full of the poetry of science ; & comprehensive article reviewing recent speculations on " Mental Physiology , Electro-Biology , & c . ; " and an excellent political article , in which a readjustment of the map of Europe , involving a setting-up of Poland , Italy , and Hungary , as independent nationalities , is advocated as the only final solution of the present European question . Prom a . " notice" prefixed to this number of the Prospective Review , we learn that one of its editors , the Rev . Charles Wick . st . eed , has withdrawn from the management on account of ill health , leaving the care of the Review to the Rev . John Jambs Tatleb , the Rev . James Mabtineau , the Rbv .
John Hamilton Thom , and Mr . William C . Roscob ; also , that in future the Review is to be published by Mb . Theobald , of Paternoster-row ; and , finally , that " a scheme is now tinder consideration for enlarging the scope of the Heview , and giving it all the variety and interest of a first-class Quarterly . " The scheme is to involve no change in -the relations of the Review towards contemporary speculation : it is still to be an organ of Rationalistic Christianity . "We confess ourselves , " say the editors , "to be interwoven with Historic Christendom by every fibre of conviction and sympathy ; bat , as we cannot break from its roots , so neither would we stop its development . " In the present number there are six articles , all of a theological tenor , of which the longest , and , perhaps , the most interesting , is a careful and thoughtful paper on Bishop Butleir , the author of the * ' Analogy . "
Browmson' ' s Quarterly Review is an American Catholic periodical of some note , published in New York , and reprinted for British circulation by a Catholic publisher in London . The editor , Ma . Brown son , we believe , was formerly a Unitarian minister , but is now a champion of Catholicism in America . There is little in the present . number worth noticing except an article on the " Know-Nothings . " The following passage characterises the " Know-Nothings" from the point of view of the American Catholics , and states the relation in which American Catholicism seeks to stand towards this new and powerful movement : —
Our readers have no need to be informed that there is a secret anti ^ Catholic organisation throughout the Union , bearing some resemblance to the Orange lodges of Ireland , of persons who very appropriately call themselves Know-Nothings . The party that is represented by this organisation , is substantially the late anti-Catholic Native American party , and is led on , avowedly or unavoweclly , under the direction of . foreign anarchists , and apostate priests and monks , by men of desperate fortunes , fanatics , bigots , and demagogues , some of home and some of foreign production . The party reduced to its own elements would have little or no importance , but , affecting to be national , it is , in the actual state of the country and of national , religious , and political passions and prejudices , somewhat formidable , and demands the grave consideration of every true American , and especially of every Catholic citizen . The Know-Nothing party , taken in a general rather than in a special sense , rely for their
success -on two powerful sentiments ; —the sentiment of American nationality alarmed by the extraordinary influx of foreigners , and the antUCatholic sentiment , or hatted of the Catliolic Church , shared to a greater or less extent by the majority of our countrymen , and which , by the anti-Catholic declamations of Protestant England , Exeter Hall , and apostate priests and monks , and by the extension and consolidation of the church , and the freer , bolder , and more independent tone of Catholics , in the United States , 3 ias been quickened just now into more than its wonted . activity . The strength of the party consists in the appeals it is able to make to these . sentiments , especially to that of American nationality , for with the American people tliis world carries it over the other , and politics over religion . From neither of these two sentiments should we , as Catholics , have much to apprehend , if they were not combined and acting in concert . Our obvious policy is , then , to do all we lawfully can to keep them separate iu the
public mind , and prevent them from combining . This can bo done , humanly speaking , only by satisfying tho souuder portion of our noii-Uatholit : countrymen , —us every Catholic knows to be true , —that there i « no incompatibility between Catholicity and the honest sentiment of American nationality , and that whatever of foreignism attached for the moment to Catholics in tbis country attaches to tliem in their quality of foreigners , and not in their quality of Catholics . This is curtain , for the sentiment of nationality is as strong in the bosom of the American Catholic as in the bosom , of tho American Protestant . Nothing seems to us more important nt thin crisis in relation to the Know-Nothing movement , than for us clearly to distinguish tho sentiment of nationality from tho anti-Catholic sentiment , and to hv . on oiir f » uurd against offering it any gratuitous oflence , « . n < l by our indiscretion enlisting on the side of that movement the largo class of respectable nou-Uutholica wlio love thuir country more than they hate Popery .
JLhe American Catholics scorn , indeed , to bo in a very awkward predicament us regards this " Know-Nothing" movement . If they side with it , and take , up tho notion of excluding foreigners in future from American citizenship , they check the increase of their own numbers l > y the influx ol Catholics from Ireland and other countries , mid ho arrest their own growth as a political element in the Republic ; if they oppose it , they throw tho Republic open to foreign Liberals , socialists , and till kinds of anti-Catholic immigrants from Europe . Jirowns < m \ f Itaview acorns fairly nonplussed by this
dilemma . It lias got into a scrape by advocating , in a previous number , tho doctrine of 4 l Nutivo Americanism ; " and it tri < w to get out . of this Hcrape in the present by protestation , explanation , anil mystification . Evidently vrlmt tho reviewer would liko would bo to solves tho difliuulty by lotting in good Irish Catholics , and keeping out all other foreigners ; but , as this uunnot bu , hu hints that it might bo worth wliilu in tho foreign Catholics to , exorcise self-denial , and forego tho right of luturulisufcioii , »< order to ltoop out enemies of tho Church . Altogether , " Know-Nothiiigisin" seems to boa fornridnblcj phenomenon for American Catholicism .
In 4 ho North American Review—publiahod in IJohUjii , and taking a first runic among American periodicals—tliero b « n article of a more general character on Catholicism , from tl » o opposito point of view . Tho writer , taking the celebrated Do Muiatro for hia toxt , comments on tho present
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 4, 1854, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04111854/page/13/
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