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532* • THE E^ADEl. [Satttkda^
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THE CHURCH AND PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE. VEg...
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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.
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How To Live A Hundred Years. Do La Longt...
respecting tlie Hereditary nature of _longevity , and its independence of modes of living ; JTie list of centenaries , indeed , includes all ; professions : savans , artists , doctors , agriculturists , artisans , miners , prisoners , and galley slaves ! The list of drunkards is quite alarming—and not a little paradoxical . The epitaph of' Brawn , given by M . Lejoncourt , is amusing ; " Here lies Brawn , who by the sole virtue of strong beer lived one hundred and twenty winters , He was always drunk , and in that state so terrible that Death feared him . One day that in spite of himself lie happened to be sober , Death took courage , attacked , and triumphed over this unparalleled drunkard . " And as if these examples were not enough , lo ! there comes a list of those who , in spite of deformity and chronic disease , reach the age of a hundred ! IJow to live a hundred years ? The answer is simple .- To endure a hun- dred years a life of sobriety will not avail , neither will a life spent in the calm of _passionlesss egotism ; only the inheritance of an organisation fitted for such duration will endure so long . But happily to endure is not to live : to live is something more than to watch the rolling seasons ; and in tins potency of life , to reach the equivalent of a hundred years , we must multiply exist- ence by noble thoughts , brave endeavours , and much love .
532* • The E^Adel. [Satttkda^
532 * THE E _^ _ADEl . [ _Satttkda _^
The Church And Philosophy In France. Veg...
THE CHURCH AND PHILOSOPHY IN FRANCE . VEglise et les Philosopkes au Dix-Huitieme Stick . Par P . Lanfrey . Pans : Victor . Lecou . The extreme pretensions of the Church—we mean , of course , the Church par excellence , Roman . Catholic and Apostolic—during these latter days in France , are provoking a revival more fierce than ever of what it has been agreed to call the philosophical attack . From peculiar circum- stances , however , this attack , though carried on with incontestable ability , will probably—unless some new direction be soon and suddenly given to it—not produce the effect which many would expect . The world is under great obligations to the succession of French _freethinkers who from Montaigne downwards , have combated the spirit of authority in r . f . _-vr _v . . . , ¦• ' ;; -.. _,, . _T _3 . matters of religion . None _jbut priests and kings can doubt that . But , un- fortunately , the French mind , though active , is essentially unprogressive . It loves to cling to old modes of thought , old formulae , old intellectual man- ceuvres , and even when it seems to think itself most audaciously indepen- dent , is independent after the fashion of the last century , or further back if .,, m , _t .. - . _e , no . 1 1 _, _i „ /> j . j _i possible . The revolutionists of 93 , though they were _iorceu . to develop r ° . ,, ,. ° . , _J , _^ i * individual character by circumstances , strained every nerve to be Greeks and Romans . The revolutionists of ' 48 destroyed themselves by endeavour- ing to ape their ancestors of ' 93 . French tragedy even now can scarcely find models later than the times of classical mythology ; and it is not thought ridiculous to have a five-hundredth edition of Medea . In various departments of human thought , it is true , France produces new ideas and forms because of its activity , and , of course some of these remain on the surface , but most of them sink back into the abysses whence they came , or are wafted away to be made use of in other countries . Michel de Montaigne said nearly all that it was useful to say in support of that indulgent scepticism which bases toleration on our uncertainty with respect to truth . His successors have generally borrowed or imitated his weapons , using them , however , in a very different spirit . The Gascon free- thinker , with a deeper meaning than is generally attributed to him , ex- pressly says , " Je ne suis pas philosophe . " He neither governed his life by a fixed theory of morals—the old idea of a philpsopher—nor affected to possess a complete doctrine on the matters that most concern human nature , which is the modern idea . He saw much misery produced around him by the excessive adoration of man for his own opinions , and asked himself whether it was possible to arrive at the certainty which only could excuse enthusiasm and violence ? His negative answer was applied all round the circle of knowledge ; in jurisprudence as well as in politics—in medecine as well as in religion . He doubted our right and our capacity to decide _posi- tively—that is to say , to the death—on the public or private interests , the bodily or spiritual health of man . He admitted , however , that no legisla- tion could be based on his _negations , and regarded scepticism simply as a useful check to absolute theories . As we have said , the free thinkers of a later age continued , to the extent of their power , to imitate the inquiring manner of Montaigne long after they had arrived at much more positive conclusions than he . They acted in some respect as tacticians , but in a great measure obeyed the habit of routine . This is why , in spite of the vast ability and persevering industry of the school which , in common parlance , is somewhat incorrectly _callexLthat of Voltaire , its writings always have a certain air of unreality and unsub' - stantiality that diminishes their importance in the eyes of a calm student . A film belonging to a previous age is spread over them . They are composed to a certain extent , as it were , in a dead language ; to take one oxample on which we shall presently insist . M . Lanfroy sometimes adopts the indiffc- rent inquiring tone of Montaigne , sometimes indulges in persiflage after the manner of Voltaire , sometimes imitates , perhaps _unconscioualy , thu audacious irony of his contemporary Proudhon , whilst at every page wo see evidences that , like all young men , ho has made up his mind on the most difficult _guestiona that concern our destinies—that he has given up searching , that e is in possession of dogmas of his own , that he knows , is certain , open to no conviction but that of time—which will waft him , alas 1 rapidly , to a different point of view , and show him , when he has arrived at lower reaches of this life ' s stream , that the castlo which ' seems now perfect and iraprcg- nable , because one facade alono is visible to him , yawns hideously ruined Iboth in flank and rear . It would be curious to examine the exact amount of influence which the Catholic Church has exercised , not only in producing _antagonists by its vices and its oppressions , but in determining the form and limits of their doc- _trines . In . many countries criticism nns derived its spirit and its canons i fcom independent sources , but in Franco , if wo carefully notice , we shall :
' find that generally free tbought can arrive at no other result than to place _jitself in exact contradiction to the CEurch . It disbelieves neither more nor ieSg than it is told to believe . It has a negation for every affirmation ; and a priest can always become a philosopher by saying no where he has ' been accustomed to say yes . This is a very unwholesome state of mind it proves the prodigious influence which the Catholic Church has exercised ' on the education of the people . Incapable of maintaining their allegiance it ¦ has condemned them to sterile doubt or deplorable certainty . ' ¦ A good deal of excusable disgust has often been created in pious persons by some frantic insults to the Creator , in which French free thought in its extremest form has occasionally indulged . Such absurdities seem gratuitous an ( J suggest the idea of deliberate wickedness . But they are only one side of the alternative , which priests are constantly presenting to their hearers an ( j -with which even childhood is made familiar . Nothing is more common than to hear it said : —" Either the doctrine of transubstantiation is true or God is an impostor . " The Frenchman , who is accustomed to attribute his non-acceptance of Protestantism to climate , and other such causes , is inca- pable of answering that a certain phrase may be otherwise interpreted , but accepts the ridiculous assumption of the priest , and insults him by _insulting his God . We do not , of course , intend to reproach the philosophical school _™ th not adopting the ideas of the Reformation The consequences of free thought must be accepted , whatever they may be ; but , after all , is this iree thought ? And what is the use of the criticism of which M . Lanfrcy is so prou ( j jf- it _< iocs nofc save nma from savmg : « The opinion which restrains the expression of the Christian idea to the Testament left by Christ may be very respectable , but it is arbitrary , and quite contradicted by tradition ? " This is another of the rays of Catholic doctrine from which even its apostate _^ _gfi _^ ™* g 6 t _**** D ° W 6 traCe her ° _° mfluenCe of a I *™ " * e A _° s _jo ° g _" as the discussion continues in the manner we have indicated , it | may be foreseen that the Church—despite temporary defeats and prodigious blunders—will always maintain a powerful hold on the minds of the great majority . It has occupied the most advantageous ground . It stands firml y | on something , and forces its adversaries to flutter round as it were in the regions of space . Ihere are two or three points on which men require _^ ething _positive—whether capable of demonstration or nofr-to be Bal d to them ; and a Corporation which _pr-ofesses power to affirm the divinity , the immortality of the soul , the doctrine of responsibility , will , right or wrong , always carry the day against a school that professes to doubt , and in reality has accepted the negative , as the final result of human speculation . | A srreat element ot weakness , in a militant point of view , of the philosophical , ° . _Al £ . , . ' . , _, . f _, _ , _,.,, , ' , \ -, 1 .. system is the profound ignorance into which the Church has plunged it on ' the nature of what it calls two " principles" —namely , Faith and Reason . M . Lnnfrey , whose work has suggested these observations—we shall presently say why we lay stress on his opinions—distinctly says : " Faith and Reason k are two inimical principles , two opposite negations . " Is it possible for it a definition to be more totally erroneous in form and substance ? Faith is an attribute , quality , or function of the mind ; Reason is another attribute , E quality , or function . The second is , or should be , the purveyor , as it , were , of the first . No idea or doctrine can pass into action without having first | become the object of Faith ; and to represent the two " principles , " if you will call them so , as perpetually _engaged in an internecine war , perpetually denying one another , is as pernicious as it is unphilosophical . The quarrel between science and religion is not so trivial as this . It is the tendency of religion , or rather of its professors , to foist into the domain of Faith matters which have not been subjected to the examination of Reason—that is all . But to admit this would be to abandon the antithesis . Besides , the Catholic Church—profoundly ignorant of the philosophy of the human mind- —has pronounced the panegyric of Faith , and has anathematised Reason . This is quite sufficient for its antagonists , who are equally ignorant on that score . | They glorify Reason and overwhelm Faith with their contempt . | M . Lanfrey , writing the history of the great struggle of the Church and | the Philosophers , quotes , it is easy to see with reference to what discussion , as an " axiom of reason , " the geometrical statement—which after all is no- thing but a pleonasm—" the whole is greater than its part , " and accuses Faith of maintaining the contrary . He then goes on to say , " Between Reason which affirms , and Faith which denies " Here we have a new though latent definition of these two opposing " principles , " still more erroneous than the preceding one . Reason , though essentially a critical faculty , may perhaps be said to affirm sometimes ; but Faith—further on , j in pursuance of tho same regrettable search after antithesis , called " its rival —can deny nothing . It is purely and simply the receptacle of mans convictions which are the motive power of his actions . These convictions niay be ill-founded , or absurd , or shocking , whether received with or with- out examination—whether they be the dream of an excited imag ination or the product of reason , which is not so unerring as wo arc apt to suppose . At-any rate they have always an affirmative character . M . Lanfrey , however , has a particular dislike to FuitU in anything ho ; sneers even at the age which continued to have faith in the epic poem ; and , _rining in tone , solemnly arraigns the metaphysical system which it Una in- vented for its satisfaction , and calls it to give an account of the groat 1 Ille _J' _licence "it has perverted and turned aside from the straight roaul We expected to read the names of sonic abject theologians and schoolmen . l _*« t no : " What bust thou done with Descartes , with _Mulebranehe _, with Leibnitz , with _Tascal ? " O for a little Faith to give us such men hh those i again ! Wo shall never seek to know anything beyond this miserable horizon when we shall have been thoroughly indoctrinated by M . Li >> i ' l ' cy and other _Opposites of the Romish Church with the idea that there ' _« _» ° " thing beyond honorable or worth knowing . Far bo it , however , from us to quarrel with the results of freedom of thought , whatever they may Do-Truth , being immutable , both in form and place , must at la _« t bo found , even if it bo by accident . What wo object to is this narrowing of _tlio di . scuHtuon —this identification of Reason with anti-Catholic —or , as ML . Lanfrey Hiiys , vox the priests—with nnti-Christian ideas—this presumptuous _deriaion , no onl y of tho affirmation of all religions past and present , but of all » _yflteu _> s _philoeophy which huvo not for their exclusive object tho overthrow oi tu
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 16, 1855, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/scld_16061855/page/6/
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