Essays on Catholicism, liberalism, and socialism : considered in their fundamental principles

Front matter

I i

I

V

Book II. Problems And Solutions Relative To Order In General

CHAPTER L

On the free will of man, ......

CHAPTER II.

Answers to some questions relative to this dogma, .

CHAPTER III.

Manicheeism of Proudhon, .

CHAPTER IV.

How the dogmas of Providence and Liberty are saved by Catholicity, without falling into the theory of rivalry between God and Man, .....

CPIAPTER V.

Secret analogies between the Moral and Physical perturbations, all derived from the liberty of man, ....

PAGR

CONTENTS .

CHAPTER VI.

The Angelic and the Human prevarications — Greatness and enormity of sin, .......

CHAPTER VII.

How God draws good from the Angelic and the Human prevarication, ........

Introduction

DONOSO Cortes is one of the most profound thinkers of the nineteenth century. If the many and varied productions which have flowed from his learned pen had not raised him to the rank of eminent publicists, the work now offered to English readers, translated from the rich and harmonious tongue of Cervantes and Fray Louis de Granada, would be sufficient to immortalise him. It bears the modest title of Essays ; but this insignificant title gives no index to the richness and sumptuousness of the splendid edifice he has built up under that name. True merit characteristically presents itself on the scene of the world without pretensions, and real virtue is known to every one but itself. St Augustine, to refute the calumnies of the pagans, who laid all the evils which befell the Roman Empire at the door of the Christians, writes the “City of God; ” and after attaining his object, he does what perhaps he had not intended — he creates a science unknown to the pagans, which was

INTRODUCTION.

i

the science of the intervention of Providence in history, St Thomas aims at writing a systematic text-book for students of theology in the thirteenth century, and his “Sum ” raised theology to the category of a science, and became a book of consultation for the learned of all ages. Dante intends to write a poem after the manner of Virgil, and the “ Divine Comedy ” becomes the reflex of a civilisation, or rather is Christian civilisation sung in numbers by a bard. Cervantes aims at suppressing the books of knight-errantry by ridiculing their extravagances, and he becomes famous with posterity, not for his transitory victory, but for the deep and witty picture he gives of humanity, and the profound knowledge of the human heart he displays. Finally, Bossuet does not venture to call his history anything but a Discourse , and yet posterity has acknowledged Bossuet to be the father of what is known as the Philosophy of History.

Well, what those giants of Christian thought were in their respective ages and in their own spheres, the present work of the Marquis of Valdegamas, under the modest title of “Essays,” is at the present day. He proposes to compare Catholicism with Liberalism and Socialism ; and his work is not, as might appear at first sight, a simple comparison of the truth with the great errors of the present time ; it is more — it is much more, — it is incomparably more, than what he proposes. It is history, like the “ City of God ; ” it is theology, like the “ Sum ” of St Thomas ; it is the portrait of Catholic civilisation, like the “ Divine Comedy ; ” it is a profound knowledge of the miseries of the heart, of the

INTRODUCTION.

errors of the intellect, and of the defects of human institutions, like the work of Cervantes Saavedra ; and it is a philosophy of history much more profound than that of Bossuet and all other historians ; for without the philosophy of these Essays, history is an enigma impossible to decipher. Spain may well be proud of producing the illustrious author of these “ Essays,” a work which, without a controversial character, is the most glorious and sublime apology of religion, and the victorious refutation of Liberalism, Rationalism, and Socialism.

And let it not be imagined that the varied and encyclopedic character of the work throws the matters of which it treats into confusion, or clogs the development of the author’s plan in its majestic march. No ; the author knows well what he has to do, and scans all with the eye of genius, which walks not on beaten paths, but opens fresh ones for itself, If he paints, it is as a creative artist, who rises superior to all calculation, and discovers new aspects of truth and beauty by some method of his own. Our author is like the eagle, who discovers from the firmament he brushes with his wings immense horizons unseen by other birds. He is like the daguerreotype, which condenses into small space, without confusion, a group of innumerable objects. The merit of the work is not in the matters it treats of, nor in the facts it states, nor in the problems it deals with, nor in the employment of this or that argument, nor in the amount of erudition it displays, nor in the clear method it follows, nor in the critical skill it mani-

INTRODUCTION, i V

fests ; for, everything in the “Essays ” has been treated of and discussed a thousand times before. The merit of Donoso Cortes, as far as the “ Essays ” are original and great, consists in raising the question to a height to which no other book carries it ; in extracting, like the bee, from the flowers spread over the field of human intelligence the wax and honey with which the hive of the “ Essays ” is stored ; and in the new aspect with which every question is invested from the first to the last page.

But I should scarcely have used the word question , for there is no such thing here, as it is not a work of controversy. From the point of view he occupies, Donoso does not argue nor hold discussions with error, to which he denies all rights. Donoso only teaches, and shows error its profound ignorance and contradictions, or points out its deformity to the world ; and in teaching one and the other with the authority of truth, whose eloquent organ he is, he needs not to enter on a contest with error in order to conquer it. Whilst other apologists go down into the arena, and contend with dubious victory, Donoso Cortes, like a giant, demolishes error by one stroke of his arm : witness his victory over Proudhon and Guizot, whose fairy edifices crumble to earth under his analytical touch. In the contest with others, the monster, Proteus-like, assumes a thousand forms, and when pressed on one side escapes on the other, but Donoso strips it of its false appearances, and presents it to the eyes of thinking men in all its foul nakedness, and holds it up to the contempt of the world

INTROD UCTION.

— enough assuredly to fill it with confusion, and make it hide its dishonoured head.

The reader may now see how this book, without boast of erudition, without scientific pretensions, or ostentation of great acquirements, possesses an encyclopedic character. There is no dogma of faith, nor hierarchy in the Church, nor institution in society, nor important question in philosophy, nor epoch in history, nor human aberration in the speculative sphere of the schools, or in the practical life of nations ; which does not occupy its proper place in the vast plan of this work. As we have said, Donoso Cortes is theologian, philosopher, historian, politician, apologist ; but not as a scientific man who limits himself to one sole branch, but like a genius, who takes in at one glance all the orders of science and of life. The mystery of faith, defended by dogmatic theologians in the limited circle of the schools, Donoso, without profaning it, presents on the scene of real life, and makes it the touchstone of science, and the foundation of society. In the Theological Places, the organisation of the Church is dealt with from the data supplied by scripture and tradition. According to Donoso Cortes the Church is the mistress, the foundress, the life of society. He does not require, like the apologists, to demonstrate the existence of the miracles and the prophecies. In his historical studies Donoso has discovered a sublime miracle in the Christianising of pagan society, and in the indefectibility of the Church, a profound prophecy in process of fulfilment for nineteen centuries. The autonomy of reason cannot be admitted

INTRODUCTION.

by him who reveres the infallibility of the teaching of the Church ; nor the noisiness of parliaments admired by him who stands astonished before the majesty of the Councils ; nor the regulations of the police lauded by him who bends in reverence before the grand law of charity. Without the dogma of the fall, and the dogma of the rehabilitation, as they are explained in the “ Essays,” history is without explanation. The miracle of the Christianising of society lies patent before the eyes of men. Or, to use our author’s own words — As God had no witnesses in the grand act of the creation of the heavens and the earth, He desires that man should witness a more sublime creation — the creation of Christian civilisation.

The foregoing is a slight sketch of the work now offered to the English-speaking public. We have made no extracts from it, for we would be afraid to profane and injure them by placing them in juxtaposition with our meagre observations. The work of Donoso Cortes forms a perfect whole. One must read it through ; and on concluding, every man of bona fides must exclaim, “ I never before had noticed the sublime harmonies of Catholicism, and the foul repugnance of error. Catholicism is the law of life, the life of the intelligence, the solution of all problems. Catholicism is the truth, and everything that departs from it one iota, is disorder, deception, and error.”

Canon and Dignitary of the Cathedral of Salamanca , and Professor of Sacred Scripture , 6°c., drv.

BOOK I.

ON CATHOLICISM.

NOTE.

This work was examined in its dogmatic aspect by one of the most famous theologians of Paris, belonging to the glorious school of the Benedictines of Solesmes , and the author has finally adopted all his observations.

ON CATHOLICISM.

o

Chapter I

How a great question of theology is always involved in every great political question .

In his “ Confessions of a Revolutionist,” M. Proudhon has written these remarkable words — “ It is wonderful how we ever stumble on theology in all our political questions.” There is nothing here to cause surprise, but the surprise of M. Proudhon. Theology, inasmuch as it is the science of God, is the ocean which contains and embraces all sciences, as God is the ocean which contains and embraces all things.

They were all before, and they are all after, their creation, in the divine understanding ; for if God made them from nothing, He adjusted them to a mould which is eternally in Him. They are all there in that sublime manner in which effects are in their causes, consequences, in their principles, reflections, in light, forms, in their eternal exemplars. In Him are the expanse of the sea,

IO ESS A YS ON CA THOLICISM, \

the beauty of the plains, the harmony of globes, the pomp of worlds, the splendour of the stars, the magnificence of the heavens. There, are the measure, the weight, and the number of all things, and all things came thence with number, weight, and measure. There, are the inviolable and sublime laws of all beings, and each is under the empire of its own. Everything that lives finds there the laws of life ; everything that vegetates, the laws of vegetation ; everything that moves, the laws of motion ; everything that has feeling, the laws of sensations ; everything that has intelligence, the laws of understandings ; everything that has liberty, the laws of wills. In this way, it might be said, without falling into Pantheism, that all things are in God, and God is in all things.

This explains why, in proportion to the diminution of faith, truths diminish in the world ; and why the society which turns its back on God, beholds all its horizons suddenly obscured by terrifying darkness. For this reason, religion has been considered by all men, and in all times, as the indestructible foundation of human society. “ Omnis humanse societatis fundamentum convellit qui religionem convellit,” says Plato in the ioth Book of his Laws. According to Zenophon (on Socrates), “ The most pious cities and nations have ever been the wisest and most lasting.” Plutarch says (against Colotes), “ That it is easier to build a city in the air than to constitute a society without belief in the gods.” Rousseau, in his “ Social Contract,” lib. 4, chap. 8, observes, “ That there never was a state formed

LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM.

ii without religion serving as the foundation.” Voltaire says in the “ Treatise on Intolerance,” chap. 20, “That wherever there is a society, religion is absolutely necessary.” All the legislations of ancient peoples rest on the fear of the gods. Polybius declares that this holy fear is more necessary in free states than in others. Numa, that Rome might be eternal, made her the Holy City. The Roman, among the peoples of antiquity, was the greatest, precisely because it was the most religious. When Caesar one day uttered in full senate certain expressions against the existence of the gods, Cato and Cicero at once rose to their feet to accuse the irreverent youth of pronouncing words dangerous to the state. It is told of Fabricius, a Roman captain, that when he heard the philosopher Cineas mock the Divinity in presence of Pyrrus, he uttered these memorable words — “ Would to the gods our enemies may follow this doctrine when at war with the Republic ! ”

The diminution of faith, which produces the diminution of truth, does not necessarily carry with it the diminution, but rather, the extravagance, of the human intellect. At once merciful and just, God denies the truth to culpable intelligences, but He does not deny them life ; He condemns them to error, but not to death. Hence we have all seen pass before our eyes those ages of prodigious incredulity and high culture, which have left a track behind, less luminous than inflamed, in the prolongation of time, and have shone with phosphoric light in history. Fix your eyes on them, however — look at them again and again, and you shall see that their splendours are conflagrations, and they illumine, only because they are lightning. One would say their illumination proceeds from the sudden explosion of materials in themselves obscure but inflammable, rather than from the pure regions where is engendered that gentle light softly diffused over the arches of heaven, by the inimitable pencil of the Sovereign Painter.

And what we have here said of ages, can be said of men. Denying or granting them the faith, God denies or grants them the truth. He does not grant nor deny them intelligence. The infidel’s may be sublime, the believer’s moderate. But the former is only great like an abyss, whilst the latter is holy like a tabernacle : in the first dwells error ; in the second, truth. In the abyss, with error, is death ; in the tabernacle, with truth, is life. For this reason there is no hope whatever for those societies which abandon the austere worship of truth for the idolatry of genius. On the heels of sophisms come revolutions ; on the heels of the sophists, executioners.

He who knows the laws to which governments are subject, possesses political truth ; he who knows the laws to which human societies are subject, possesses social truth; he who knows God, knows these laws; he knows God who hears what He affirms of Himself, and believes what he hears. Theology is the science which has these affirmations for its object. Whence it follows, that every affirmation relative to society or to government, supposes an affirmation relative to God ; or, what

LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM .

amounts to the same, that every political and social, is necessarily converted into a theological, truth.

If all is explained in God and by God, and theology is the science of God, in whom, and by whom, all is explained, theology is the science of all. If it be, there is nothing beyond that science, which has no plural, because all, which is its subject, has none. Political and social science do not exist, except as arbitrary classifications of the human understanding. Man in his weakness distinguishes what is united in God in the simplest unity. In this way he distinguishes political affirmations from social and from religious affirmations ; whilst in God there is but one indivisible and sovereign affirmation. He who, when he speaks explicitly of anything, knows not he speaks implicitly of God, or wh^n he speaks explicitly of any science, is unaware he speaks implicitly of theology, may rest assured he has received from God only the intelligence absolutely necessary to constitute him a man. Theology, then, considered in its most general acceptation, is the perpetual subject of all sciences, as God is the perpetual subject of all human speculations. Every word which comes from the mouth of man, is an affirmation of the Divinity, even that by which he blasphemes or denies Him. He who, turning against God, frantically exclaims, “ I abhor Thee ; Thou dost not exist,” lays down a complete system of theology, as well as he who raises his contrite heart to Him, and says, “ Lord, strike Thy servant who adores Thee ! ” The first hurls a blasphemy in His face; the second lays a prayer at

His feet : but both affirm Him, each in his own way, for both pronounce His incommunicable name.

In the manner of pronouncing that name, lies the solution of fearful enigmas — the vocation of races, the providential mission of peoples, the great vicissitudes of history, the rise and fall of famous empires, conquests, and wars, the different temperaments of nations, their physiognomy, and even their various fortunes.

Away there where God is infinite substance, man, abandoned to silent contemplation, inflicts death on his senses, and passes through life like a dream, fanned by sweet-scented and enervating breezes. The adorer of the infinite substance is condemned to a perpetual slavery and an infinite indolence : the desert will be for him something more sublime than the city, because it is more silent, more solitary and grand ; and yet he will not adore it as his god, because the desert is not infinite. The ocean would be his only divinity, because it embraces all, only for its wild turbulence and strange noise. The sun, which illumines all, would be worthy of his worship, if only he could not take in its resplendent disc with his eye. The heavens would be his lord if it had no stars, and the night, if it had no rumours. His god is all these things together — immensity, obscurity, immobility, silence. There, shall suddenly rise, by the secret virtue of a powerful vegetation, colossal and barbarous empires, which shall fall one day, with rude noise, crushed by the immense weight of others more gigantic and colossal, without leaving a trace in the memory of men either of their fall or of their foundation.

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*5

The armies there shall be without discipline, as the individuals, without intelligence. The army will be principally and above all, a multitude. It shall be less the object of war to determine which nation is the most heroic, than to discover which empire is the most populous. Victory itself shall be only a title of legitimacy, inasmuch as it is the symbol of the Divinity, because it is the proof of strength. So we see that Indian theology and history are one and the same thing.

Turning our eyes to the West, we see, stretched at its portals, a region which begins a new world in the moral, political, and theological, orders. The immense Oriental divinity is here analysed, and stripped of its austere and formidable character — here it is multitude. The divinity was there stationary ; here the multitude seethes without rest. All was there silence ; here it is murmurs, cadence, and harmonies. The Oriental divinity extended through all time and over all space. The grand divine family has here its genealogical tree, and finds room on the small space of a mountain top. There is the repose of eternal peace in the god of the East ; here, in the divine dwelling, all is war, confusion, and tumult. The political, suffers the same vicissitudes as the religious, unity : here, every city is an empire, whilst there, all the multitudes formed one empire. To a god corresponds a king ; to a republic of gods, one of cities. In this multitude of cities and of gods all will be disorder and confusionr Men will have in them something heroic and divine, and the gods, something terrestrial and human. The gods i6 will give to men the comprehension and instinct of the great and the beautiful, and men will give to the gods L their discords and their vices. There will be men of lofty fame and virtue, and incestuous and adulterous gods. Impressionable and nervous in temperament, that people will be great in its poets and famous in its artists, and will make itself the wonder of the world. Life will not be beautiful in its eyes, unless surrounded by the splendour and the reflections of glory ; nor will death be fearful, only because it is followed by oblivion. Sensual to the marrow of its bones, it will look for nothing but pleasure in life ; and will consider death happy if it occurs among flowers. The familiarity and relationship with its gods will make that people vain, capricious, loquacious, and petulant. Wanting in respect for the divinity, it will be wanting in gravity in its designs, firmness, and consistency in its resolutions. The Oriental world will appear to it as a region full of shadows, or as a world peopled by statues. The East in its turn, regarding the other’s life so ephemeral, its death so premature, its glory so short-lived, will call it a nation of children. In the eyes of the one, greatness is in duration ; in those of the other, in movement. In this way Grecian theology, Grecian history, and the Grecian character are one and the same thing.

This phenomenon is visible above all in the history of the Roman people. Its principal gods, of Etrurian origin, as far as they were gods, were Grecian ; as far as Etrurian, Oriental. Inasmuch as they were Grecian they were many ; inasmuch as they were Oriental,

LIBERALISM , AND SOCIALISM.

austere and sombre. In politics as in religion, Rome is at once the East and the West. It is a city like that of Theseus, and an empire like that of Cyrus. Rome is like Janus : on its head there are two faces, and on its faces two countenances ; the one is symbolic of Oriental duration, and the other of Grecian movement. So great is her capacity of movement, that she reaches the confines of the world ; and so gigantic her duration, that the world calls her eternal. Created in the designs of God to prepare the way for Him who was to come, her providential mission was to assimilate all theologies, and to domineer over all nations. Obeying a mysterious call, all the gods mount the Roman Capitol, and the nations, seized with a sudden terror, bow their heads to the earth. All cities, one after another, see themselves deserted by their gods : the gods, one after another, see themselves despoiled of their temples and of their cities. Her gigantic empire regards as peculiarly its own, the legitimacy of the East, the multitude, power, and legitimacy of the West, intelligence and discipline. Hence it subjugates all, and nothing withstands it; it grinds all, and no one complains. As her theology has at once something different from, and something in common with, all theologies, Rome has something peculiar and something in common with all the cities conquered by her arms or eclipsed by her glory. From Sparta she has severity ; from Athens, culture ; from Memphis, pomp ; and grandeur from Babylon and Nineveh. In a word, the East is the thesis,

the West its antithesis, Rome the synthesis ; and

B i8 the Roman empire signifies nothing else but the Oriental thesis and the Grecian antithesis, which have become lost and confounded in the Roman synthesis. Analyse now the constitutive elements of that powerful synthesis, and you shall find that it is synthesis in the political and social orders, only because it is so in the religious order. In the Oriental peoples as in the Grecian republics, and in the Roman empire as in the Grecian republics and in the Oriental peoples, the theological, serve to explain the political, systems. Theology is the light of history.

The Roman greatness could not descend from the Capitol except by the same means which had served it in ascending. No one could put his foot in Rome without the permission of her gods ; no one could scale the Capitol without first hurling down Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The ancients, who had a confused notion of the vital force which exists in every religious system, believed that no city could be conquered unless first abandoned by the national gods. Hence we find in all wars of city with city, of people with people, and race with race, a spiritual and religious contest, which followed the fortunes of the material and political. The besieged, whilst they resisted with the sword, turned their eyes to their gods that they might not abandon them in their misery. The besiegers, in their turn, conjured them with mysterious imprecations to abandon the city. Woe to the city in which was heard that terrible voice which said, “ Thy gods are going ; thy gods are abandoning thee ! ” The people of Israel could not be overcome whilst Moses kept his hands raised to the Lord ; and could not conquer when they fell. Moses is the figure of the human race, proclaiming in all ages, in different formulas and ways, the omnipotence of God and the dependence of man, the power of religion and the virtue of prayer.

Rome succumbed because her gods succumbed ; her empire came to an end because her theology ended. In this way does history place in relief, the grand principle which is hidden in the depths of the human conscience.

Rome had given to the world her Caesars and her gods. Jupiter and Caesar Augustus had divided between them the grand empire of things human and divine. The sun, which had seen gigantic empires rise and fall, had never, since the day of its creation, beheld one of such august majesty and such extraordinary grandeur. All nations had received its yoke ; even the rudest and wildest had bent their necks : the world laid down its arms; the earth hushed its breath.

At that time there was born, in an humble stable, of humble parents, a Child, prodigious in the land of prodigies. It was said of Him that at the time of His appearance among men a new star shone out in heaven ; that He was scarcely born when He was adored by shepherds and kings ; that angelic spirits had swept through the air and spoken to men ; that His incommunicable and mysterious name had been pronounced in the beginning of the world ; that the patriarchs had watched for His coming ; that the prophets had announced His kingdom ; and that even the sibyls had ^ung His victories. These strange rumours had reached rhe ears of the servants of Caesar, and awakened a vague terror and dread in their breasts. That dread and that vague terror soon passed away, when they saw the days and nights prosecute as before, their perpetual rotation, and the sun continue rising on the Roman horizon. And the imperial governors said to themselves, “ Caesar is immortal, and the rumours we heard were the rumours of nervous and idle people.” And so passed thirty years. Against the prejudices of the vulgar there is an efficacious remedy — contempt and oblivion.

But at the end of thirty years the discontented and idle begin to find, in new and more extraordinary rumours, new food for their idle talk. The Child had become man, according to people’s report. On receiving on His head the waters of the Jordan, a spirit like a dove had descended on Him ; the heavens had opened, and a voice was heard on high saying, “ This is my beloved Son.” In the meantime, he who baptized Him, an austere and sombre man, a dweller in the desert and an abhorrer of the human race, cried out without ceasing to the people, “Do penance;” and pointing to the Child made man, gave this testimony of Him, “This is the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.” That all this was a miserable farce enacted by wretched clowns, was a thing beyond all manner of doubt in the eyes of the “strong minds ” of that age. The Jewish people was always given to

LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM.

witchcraft and superstition. In past times, when it turned its eyes, obscured with weeping, to its abandoned temple and its ruined country, in the Babylonic slavery, a great conqueror, announced by its prophets, had redeemed it from slavery, and restored it at once to its temple and its country. It was no way wonderful, then, but quite natural, that it should await a new redemption and a new redeemer, who should strike from its neck the heavy chain of Rome.