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    $82 THE' 1IADE1, [Satpkd^y. I

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    THE CHURCH ASD PHH.OSOPH* » FSANCE. UEgl...

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    How To Live A Hundred Years. De La Longd...

    respecting , ttie hereditary nature of longevity , and its independence of modes of living . The 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 he happened to be sober , Death took courage , attacked , and triumphed over this unparalleled drunkard . " And as if thesa 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 ! How to live a hundred years ? The answer is simple . To endure a him- 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 this potency of life , to reach the equivalent of a hundred years , we must multiply exist- ence by noble thoughts , brave endeavours , and much love .

    $82 The' 1iade1, [Satpkd^Y. I

    $ 82 THE' 1 IADE 1 _, [ _Satpkd _^ y . I

    The Church Asd Phh.Osoph* » Fsance. Uegl...

    THE CHURCH _ASD PHH . OSOPH _* » _FSANCE . _UEgliseetleaPhilosop _hesauDiB-Huitieme _Siecle . Par P . Lanfrey . Fans : Victor l _^ econ . 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- i _i _iii -i _.,, . . , i i _T-1-. 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 free-thinkers who from Montaigne downwards , have combated the spirit of authority in r _. ? - - -vr _, . . ¦ , i „„ 5 -l _^ u . . i . t > . matters of religion . None but 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 forrnulEe , 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 possible . The revolutionists of' 93 , though they were forced to develop _^ ,. .,,,- , ° . _, _, ,-, 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 tactjeians , but in a great measure obeyed the habit of routine . This is why , in spite of tho vast ability and persevering industry of the school which , in common parlance , is somewhat incorrectly called that of Voltaire , its writings always have a certain air of unreality and unsub- Stantiality that diminishes _^ their importance in tho 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 example on which we Shall presently insist . M . Lanfrey sometimes adopts tho indifle- rent inquiring tone of Montaigne , sometimes indulges in persiflage after the manner of Voltaire , sometimes imitates , perhaps unconsciously , the audacious irony of his contemporary Proudhon , whilst at every pnge wo see evidences that , like all young men , ho has made up hia mind on the most difficult questions that concern our destinies—that he has given up searching , that he is in possession of dogmas of his own , that he knows , is certain , open to no conviction _^ ut that of time—which will waft him , alas I rapidly , to a different point of view , and show him , when he has arrived at lower reaches of this life ' s stream , that the castle which seems now perfect and impreg- nable , because one facade alone is visiblo to him , yawns hideously ruined both in flank and rear . It would be curious to examine the exact amount of influence which the Catholic Church has oxercised , not only in producing antagonists by its vices and its oppressions , but in determining tho form and limits of their doc- tones . In many countries criticism has derived its spirit and its canons from independent sources , but in Franco , if wo carefully notice , wo shall

    find that generally free thought can arrive at no other result than to uk itself in exact contradiction to the Church . It disbelieves neither more n less 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 be accustomed to say yes . This is a very unwholesome state of mind t proves the prodigious influence which the Catholic Church has exercised' ' the education of the people . Incapable of maintaining their alleg iance it J has condemned them to sterile doubt or deplorable certainty . ' j A good deal of excusable disgust has often been created in pious persons I by some frantic insults to the Creator , in which French free _thought in its I extremest form has occasionally indulged . Such absurdities seem gratuitous I and suggest the idea of deliberate wickedness . But they are only one side ' 1 of the alternative , which priests are constantly presenting to their hearers I and with which even childhood is made familiar . Nothing is more common 1 than to hear it said : —" Either the doctrine of transubstantiation is true or I God is an impostor . " The Frenchman , who is accustomed to attribute his 1 non-acceptance of Protestantism to climate , and other such causes , is inca- I pable of answering that a certain phrase may be otherwise interpreted but I accepts the ridiculous assumption of the priest , and insults him by insulting I his God . We do not , of course , intend to reproach , the philosophical school ¦ _t _^ _£ _^ J _^& _££ * _%£ r _* I _SSZSSSgZ ££ thought ? And what is the use of the criticism of which M . Lanfrey is so I prou ( _j if it does not save him from saying . « The opinion which restrains I the expression of the Christian idea to the Testament left by Christ may be H very respectable , but it is arbitrary , and quite contradicted by tradition ? " K This is another of the rays of Catholic doctrine from which even its apostate disciples cannot get free . Do we trace here the influence of a perverse education r Ag long as the discussion continues in the manner we have indicated , it mav _ke 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 . There are two or three points on which men require m so _^ etlling p _^ itive-whether capable of demonstration or _not-to be said to I them ; and a Corporation which professes power to affirm the divinity , the K immortality of the soul , the doctrine of responsibility , will , right or wrong , B always carry the day against a schopl that professes to doubt , and in reality B has accepted the negative , as the final result of human speculation . K A great element of weakness , m a militant point of view of the philosophicd . I system is the profound ignorance into which the Church has plunged it on the nature of what it _cans two « principles "—namely , Faith and Reason . m . Lanfrey , whose work has suggested these observations—we shall presently say why we lay stress on his opinions—distinctly says : "Faith and lfeason are two inimical principles , two opposite negations . " Is it possible for 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 , 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 m become the object of Faith ; and to represent the two " principles , " if you m will call them so , as perpetually engaged in an internecine war , perpetually ¦ denying one another , is as pernicious as it is unphilosophieal . The quarrel M between science and relig ion is not so trivial as this . It is the _^ tendency of m religion , or rather of its professors , to foist into the domain of Faith matters B which have not been subjected to the examination of Reason—that is all . M But to admit this would be to abandon the antithesis . Besides , the Catholic m Church—profoundly ignorant of the philosophy of the human mind—has I : j pronounced the panegyric of Faith , and has anathematised Reason . This m is quite sufficient for its antagonists , who are equally ignorant on that score . K They glorify Reason and overwhelm Faith with their contempt . K M . Lanfrey , writing the history of the great struggle of the Church and K the Philosophers , quotes , it is easy to sec with reference to what discussion , m , as an " axiom of reason , " the geometrical statement—which after all is no- B thing but a pleonasm— " the -whole is greater than its part , " and accuses K Faith of maintaining the contrary . He then goes on to say , " Between B Reason which affirms , and Faith which denies " Here we have a new K though latent definition of these two opposing " principles , " still more H erroneous than the preceding one . Reason , though essentially a critical K faculty , may perhaps be said to affirm sometimes ; but Faith—further on , K in pursuance of the same _regrettable search after antithesis , called " its rival" K —can deny nothing . It is purely and simply tlie receptacle of man's K convictions which are the motive power of his actions . These convictions B may bo ill-founded , or absurd , or shocking , whether received with or with- B out examination—whether they be the drea . ni of an excited imag ination or m the product of reason , which is not so unerring as we are apt to suppose . | At any rate they have always an affirmative character . ' M . Lanfrey , however , has a particular dislike to Faith in any thing—ho sneers even at the age which continued to have fnith in the epic poem ; and , ; rising in tone , solemnl y arraigns the metaphysical system which it has m- j vented for its satisfaction , and calls it to give an account of the great intelljgence "it has perverted and turned ' aside from the straight rondl We expected to read the names of some abject theologians and schoolmen . | But no : " What hast thou done Avith Descartes , with Mulebnmche , with B Leibnitz , with Pa . scnl ? " O for a little Faith to givo us such men as those _M again ! We shall never seek to know anything beyond thin mi . somble ¦ horizon when we shall hnvo been thoroughly indoctrinated by M . Lanfrey ¦ and other Opposites of the Romish Church with tho idea that there in no- B thing beyond honorable or worth knowing . Far be it , however , from us B to quarrel with the results of freedom of thought , whatever they may bo . m Truth , being immutable , both in form and place , mu . st at lust bo found , oven | if it bo by accident . What wo object to is this narrowing of the ( _Uhcuhhioh ¦ —this identification of Reason with ant , i-Catholic—or , as M . Lanfrey says , to I vex tho priests—with nnti-Christian ideas—this presumptuous derision , not only of tho affirmation of all reli _g ions past and present , but of all systems ol philosophy which have not for their exclusive object tho overthrow of tuo

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 16, 1855, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/sldr_16061855/page/6/