CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIV., No. 139.—OCTOBER, 1876.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. Hecker. 1877.

MIVART’S “LESSONS FROM NATURE.”[1]

The condition of what is called the scientific mind in England to-day may be described as chaotic. Its researches begin nowhere and end nowhere. Its representative men deny the facts of consciousness, or misinterpret them, which is equivalent to negation, and thus ignore the subjective starting point of all knowledge, while they relegate God to the domain of the unknowable, thereby removing from sight the true end and goal of all inquiry. Nothing, then, is the Alpha and Omega of their systems, and it is small matter of surprise that theirs has been called the philosophy of nihilism. Yet it is sadly true that the votaries of scientism (salvâ dignitate, O scientia!) are on the increase, and that Huxley, Spencer, Darwin, and Tyndall usurp among the fashionable leaders of thought, or rather the leaders of fashionable scientific thought, to-day, the place lately held by Mill, Renan, Strauss, and Hegel. It is not quite the ton now to content one’s self with denying the divine inspiration of Holy Writ or with questioning the Divinity of Christ. We must iterate our belief that in matter are to be found the “promise and potency of every form and quality of life,” or that all living things sprang from a primordial homogeneous cell developed in a primitive plastic fluid eruditely denominated “protoplasm”; nay, we must join hands with Herbert Spencer, and affirm of the First Cause that it is unknowable and entirely divested of personal attributes. It is evident that scientism is more rigorously sceptical than rationalism or the materialism of the eighteenth century—in a word, that it is supremely nihilistic. Being such, it is worth while to inquire through what influence it has succeeded in dominating over so many vigorous minds, and winning to its standard the rank and file of non-Catholic scholars. It presents to the expectant lover of truth a set of interesting Pg 2 facts which fascinate as well by their novelty and truth as by the hope that the “open sesame” which unearthed them cannot but swell the list, and that whatever it pronounces upon is irrevocably fixed. No one can gainsay the value to science of the brilliant experiments and interesting discoveries of Prof. Tyndall, nor underrate the painstaking solicitude of Darwin. Indeed, we are all more or less under the thraldom of the senses, and the truths which reach our minds through that channel come home with irresistible force. Hence the allurements of science for the majority of men, and their complete subjection to the authority of scientific discoverers. No wonder, therefore, that when a slur is cast upon the supersensible order—that order with which they have neither sympathy nor acquaintance—that same majority are ready to deride the sublimest truths of Christianity, and to devour the veriest inanities as the utterances of sound philosophy. No wonder that, captivated by the fast-increasing array of fresh discoveries in the field of physical science, they pay to the dreamy speculations of Spencer and Darwin the homage which is due to their solid contributions to science. These men forget that science is but a grand plexus of facts which afford to many a convenient peg on which to hang a bit of shallow philosophism. The truths of science are so cogent and obvious that most men, failing to discriminate between those truths and unwarranted inferences drawn from them, regard both with equal respect, and so deem those who question the latter to be the sworn foes of the former. It is this confusion of truth with error, natural enough under the circumstances, that has imparted so much et id genus omne, and given to the guinea stamp the value which belongs to the gold. Moreover, our modern men of science have not only introduced us to the field of their legitimate labors with a large knowledge of its varied and interesting features, but have invested the presentment of their subject with a glamour which the splendid rhetorical training of the schools and universities of England has enabled them to throw around it.

Such being the anomalous and insidious blending of truth with error which characterizes modern scientific thought in England, we should welcome the appearance of any work aiming at the disentanglement of this intricate web, especially if the ability and scientific culture of its author give earnest of its success. Such a work do we find in that whose title heads this article, and whose author, Dr. Mivart, has already fully attested, in many a well-written page, his competency for the task. In his Lessons from Nature Dr. Mivart has undertaken the consideration of the more salient errors of Herbert Spencer’s philosophy and Mr. Darwin’s theory of descent and evolution. He has wisely addressed himself in his opening chapter to a refutation of the errors which vitiate the substructure of Spencerianism; for the basis having been proved to be rotten, we are not surprised at beholding the entire edifice topple to the ground. This chapter he has entitled “The Starting Point,” and sets out with this theorem for demonstration:

“Our own continued existence is a primary truth naturally made known to us with supreme certainty, and this certainty cannot be denied Pg 3 without involving the destruction of all knowledge whatever.”

It will be seen from this statement that Dr. Mivart regards his opponents as having laid the basis of their systems on the quicksands of the most radical scepticism; for certainly, if the fact of a το ἐγω be called in question, all knowledge must go by the board, its containing subject being no better than a myth. Those casting a doubt upon the truth of this proposition are by themselves happily styled Agnostics, or know-nothings, and Dr. Mivart includes in the category such distinguished names as Hamilton, Mansel, Mill, Lewes, Spencer, Huxley, and Bain. These writers, one and all, have repeatedly asserted the relativity of our knowledge—i.e., its merely phenomenal character. They do not deny that we possess knowledge, but that we can predicate nothing as to its absolute truth. They claim, indeed, themselves to have sounded the whole diapason of human knowledge, but they regard it only as a mirage which appears real to the eye whilst beholding it, but is none the less a mirage in itself. Dr. Mivart tersely points out the absurdity of this principle of the agnostic philosophy by stating that either this knowledge is absolute—i.e., objectively valid—or has no corresponding reality outside of the mind, in which case it represents nothing—i.e., is no knowledge at all. Those, then, who insist upon the relativity of all knowledge are “in the position of a man who saws across the branch of a tree on which he actually sits, at a point between himself and the trunk.” For if our knowledge be purely relative, we know it but relatively, and that relative knowledge of it is in turn relative, and so on ad infinitum. In i.e., purely subjective—we affirm an objective fact; for however much the facts of the mind be subjective in relation to the objects represented, they become objective in regard to the mind viewing them as the term point of knowledge; so that to affirm of all knowledge that it is purely relative is equal to affirming that the knowledge we have of that knowledge is not the knowledge thereof, but a similar modification of the mind having no business to look for anything beyond itself. This surely is a reductio ad absurdum; yet such threads and thrums are made the warp and woof of so-called scientific philosophy.

Professor Huxley is the most conspicuous champion of this universal nescience, and Dr. Mivart devotes himself at greater length to a review of his principles. Huxley says: “Now, is our knowledge of anything we know or feel more or less than a knowledge of states of consciousness? And our whole life is made up of such states. Some of these states we refer to a cause we call ‘self,’ others to a cause or causes which may be comprehended under the title of ‘not-self.’ But neither of the existence of ‘self’ nor of that of ‘not-self’ have we, or can we by any possibility have, any such unquestionable and immediate certainty as we have of the states of consciousness which we consider to be their effects.” This utterance is remarkable for the inaccuracies with which it abounds and for the crudeness of its author’s philosophy. The fact that we immediately apprehend consciousness in the light of passing states is proof that, mediately or by reflection, we view it altogether differently, and Pg 4 this latter mode certainly affords a more certain and satisfactory knowledge. By reflection, then, or mediately, we regard those passing states as the product of something enduring and continuous of which we are in reality conscious, while experiencing those modifications described by Huxley as “passing states of consciousness.” When conscious of a state we are certainly conscious of that by which consciousness is had, or we would be forced to admit that nothing can be conscious, than which there could be no greater absurdity. The direct consciousness, therefore, which Huxley’s “passing states of consciousness” would describe, presupposes the consciousness of the organ of those “passing states”—a consciousness which stands in an à priori relation to these latter. The chief flaw in Huxley’s reasoning is that, as he confines consciousness to a mere modification, and admits no modified substance as an abiding essence, he must regard mind, so far as he knows it, as a modification of nothing modified.

We have not here followed out the exact line of argument pursued by Dr. Mivart, whose strictures on Huxley in regard to his absurd position must be attentively read in order to be appreciated; but we hope to have indicated enough to enable the reader to judge of the fitness of our neoterists to become the leaders of thought. Having established, then, the implied existence of self in consciousness, Dr. Mivart proceeds, in a chain of the most solid reasoning, to marshal around this central truth those having a direct dependence upon it, and from the admission of which Huxley had fondly hoped to escape by perverting the true data of consciousness. Memory is the corner-stone

“But it is hoped that the cavils of the Agnostics have been here met by arguments sufficient to enable even the most timid and deferential readers and hearers of our modern sophists to hold their own rational convictions, and to maintain they know what they are convinced they do know, and not to give up a certain and absolute truth (their intellectual birthright) at the bidding of those who would illogically make use of such negation as a ground for affirming the relativity of all our knowledge, and consequently for denying all such truths as, for whatever reason, they may desire to deny.”

To the casual thinker it may appear that the arguments of Dr. Mivart are somewhat antiquated as against the strongholds of modern error; but the fact additionally illustrates the slenderness of the resources with which error comes equipped to the fray, since, whenever there is question of first principles, truth can with the same weapons always assail the vulnerable point in the enemy’s armor. It is true that in point of detail the ground of conflict has shifted, and that those who once successfully opposed the errors of Voltaire, Diderot, or Volney, should they suddenly appear on the scene now, Pg 5 would have to count themselves out of the fight; but with respect to principles and ultimate expressions, we find the Agnostics of to-day ranging themselves side by side with the Gnostics and Manicheans of old. So we believe that Dr. Mivart has done well, before approaching the details of the controversy, to knock the underpinning from the whole superstructure of modern error by exposing the falsity of its principles. At least the procedure is more philosophical and more satisfactory to the logical mind.

In his second chapter, entitled “First Truths,” Dr. Mivart lays down the following proposition:

“Knowledge must be based on the study of mental facts and on undemonstrable truths which declare their own absolute certainty and are seen by the mind to be positively and necessarily true.” This proposition finds its counterpart in every text-book of scholastic philosophy from Bouvier to Liberatore and Ton Giorgi, so that there is no need to follow the learned author through his very excellent series of proofs in support of it. The main points of interest in the chapter are his arraignment of Herbert Spencer’s faulty basis of certainty, and the disproof of Mr. Lewes’ theory of reasoning.

Mr. Spencer says (Psychology, vol. ii. p. 450):

“A discussion in consciousness proves to be simply a trial of strength between different connections in consciousness—a systematized struggle serving to determine which are the least coherent states of consciousness. And the result of the struggle is that the least coherent states of consciousness separate, while the most coherent remain together; forming a proposition of which the predicate persists in the mind along with its subject.… If there are any indissoluble connections, he is compelled to accept them.

We have quoted this passage of Mr. Spencer’s at some length, both for the purpose of exhibiting the misty, Germanic manner of his expression, and of calling attention to Dr. Mivart’s neat and effectual unfolding of the fallacy which it contains. We presume that Mr. Spencer means by “least coherent states of consciousness” those propositions in which the subject and predicate mutually repel each other, or, in other words, those which involve a physical or a metaphysical impossibility. Had he, indeed, stated his conception in those terms, he might have avoided Dr. Mivart’s well-aimed shafts, to which his cloudiness of expression alone exposed him. A cannon-ball fired from England to America is the typical proposition which he offers of “least cohering states of consciousness.” But every one perceives that the terms of this proposition involve a mere repugnance to actual and not to imagined facts, causing it to differ in an essential manner, accordingly, from such a proposition as 2×2 = 5, against the truth of which there exists a metaphysical impossibility. The importance of the distinction may be realized when we reflect that there can be no absolute truth so long as we make the test thereof a mere non-cohering state of consciousness; for if the terms of a physically non-possible proposition do not cohere in consciousness, and if such non-coherence be the absolute test of non-truth, that same non-truth must end with such non-coherence. This makes truth purely relative, and is Pg 6 the legitimate goal of such philosophic speculations as those of Mr. Spencer, which would make all knowledge purely relative.

Dr. Mivart distinguishes four sorts of propositions: “1. Those which can be both imagined and believed. 2. Those which can be imagined, but cannot be believed. 3. Those which cannot be imagined, but can be believed. 4. Those which cannot be imagined and are not believed, because they are positively known to be absolutely impossible.”

The third of these propositions finds no place in Mr. Spencer’s enumeration, since, according to him, it involves “a non-cohering state of consciousness,” or, as he elsewhere expresses it, is “inconceivable.” That there are numberless propositions of the third class described by Dr. Mivart the intelligent reader may perceive at a glance, and so infer the absurdity of Herbert Spencer’s “non-cohering states of consciousness” viewed as a “universal law of thinking.”

Thus there is no absolute impossibility in accepting the doctrine of the multilocation of bodies or of their compenetrability, though no effort of the imagination can enable us to picture such a thing to the mind. The common belief that the soul is whole and entire in every part of the body is “unimaginable,” but certainly not “inconceivable,” since many vigorous and enlightened minds hold the doctrine with implicit confidence.

In connection with this subject Dr. Mivart takes occasion to allude to Professor Helmholtz’s method of disproving the absoluteness of truth. He supposes

“beings living and moving along the surface of a solid body, who are able to perceive nothing but what exists on this surface, and insensible to all beyond it.…

We have quoted enough from the professor to indicate the drift of his objection. He concludes: “We may résumé the results of these investigations by saying that the axioms on which our geometrical system is based are no necessary truths.” Such is the sorry mode of reasoning adopted by an eminent man of science in establishing a conclusion so subversive of the principles of science. Is it not evident that, no matter what name the inhabitants of the sphere described by Helmholtz might bestow on the “arcs of great circles,” these still would be “arcs,” and as such those beings would perceive them? As showing the lack of uniformity of views which prevail among men of science when it is question of super-sensible cognitions, Mr. Mill rushes to the opposite extreme from Herbert Spencer, and holds that there is nothing to prevent us from conceiving 2×2 = 5. In this arraignment of Spencer’s faulty view of the basis of certainty, Dr. Mivart proceeds with care and acumen, and adroitly pits his antagonists against each other, or invokes their testimony in support of his own views as against themselves.

The other point of interest in this chapter is the author’s refutation of Mr. Lewes’ conception of reasoning. In his Problems of Life and Mind Mr. Lewes reduces the process of reasoning to mere sensible associations, and entirely overlooks Pg 7 the force and significance of the ergo. He says: “Could we realize all the links in the chain” (of reasoning) “by reducing conceptions to perceptions, and perceptions to sensibles, our most abstract reasonings would be a series of sensations.” This certainly is strange language for a psychologist, and forcibly demonstrates the hold Locke’s sensism still holds over the English mind. If we can conceive of a series of sensations in which the form of a syllogism does not enter—and we experience such many times daily—then surely there is something more in a train of reasoning than a mere series of sensations, and that is the intellectual act of illation denoted by ergo. Throughout this strange philosophism there runs an endeavor to debase man’s intellect and reduce it to the level of mere brutish faculties. The dignity of our common manhood is made the target of Spencer’s speculation and Mill’s subtle reveries, while the grand work of the church which lifted us out from the slough of barbarism is being gradually undone. We must indeed congratulate Dr. Mivart upon having led the way in grappling with the difficulties with which scientific transcendentalism bristles, and on having rent the net in which error strives to hold truth in silken dalliance.

We come now to the most difficult and important chapter in the book—viz., that pertaining to the existence of the external world. We would premise, before entering upon an analysis of this chapter, that nothing short of a slow and careful perusal of it in the author’s language can convey to the reader a full impression of the difficulty and subtlety which attend the terms of the controversy as waged tripartitely between Herbert Spencer, Mr. viz.:

“The real existence of an external world made up of objects possessing qualities such as our faculties declare they possess, cannot be logically denied, and may be rationally affirmed.”

The terms of this proposition differ but little from those in which argument is usually made in support of the reality of external objects, but with Dr. Mivart it serves as the text of a refutation of Mr. Spencer’s theory of “transfigured realism.” Mr. Spencer stoutly professes his belief in the realism of the external world, but distinguishes his conception of it from the common crude realism of the majority as having been by him filtered through the intellect, and based, not on the direct data of the senses, but on these as interpreted by the mind. According to him, “what we are conscious of as properties of matter, even down to its weight and resistance, are but subjective affections produced by objective agencies which are unknown and unknowable.” Divested of an involved and trying terminology, Mr. Spencer’s theory amounts to this: The mind under the experience of a sensation is irresistibly borne to admit that it is not itself the active agent concerned in its production; for sensation as a “passing state of consciousness” is not accompanied by that other “passing state of consciousness” which exhibits the mind to itself as spontaneously generating the sensation in question. Therefore that sensation is derived ab extra; therefore its cause, unknown or unknowable, is something outside of the mind—i.e., has an objective reality. It is a sort of game of blind man’s buff between the Pg 8 mind and the world, according to Mr. Spencer—we know something has impressed us, but how or what we cannot find out.

“Thus the universe, as we know it,” says Dr. Mivart, “disappears not only from our gaze, but from our very thought. Not only the song of the nightingale, the brilliancy of the diamond, the perfume of the rose, and the savor of the peach lose for us all objective reality—these we might spare and live—but the solidity of the very ground we tread on, nay, even the coherence and integrity of our own material frame, dissolve from us, and leave us vaguely floating in an insensible ocean of unknown potentiality.”

This is “transfigured realism” with a vengeance, and leaves us somewhat at a loss to know what can be meant by idealism. It practically differs not from the doctrine of Berkeley and Hume; for it matters little to us whether external objects exist or not, if they are in and by themselves something “unknown and unknowable,” altogether different from what we consider them to be. The radical fault of Mr. Spencer’s “transfigured realism” is that he mistakes sensations themselves for the act of the mind which is concerned about them; and when in reality he speaks merely of the sensations as such, he imagines he has in view purely speculative intellectual acts. Such confusion is quite natural in a philosopher who recognizes no form of idea but transformed sensation, no purely unimaginable conceivability. This is evident when he says:

“We can think of matter only in terms of mind. We can think of mind only in terms of matter. When we have pushed our explorations of the first to the uttermost limit, we are referred to the second for final answer; and when we have got the final answer of the second, we are referred back to the first for an interpretation of it.”

Thus is he compelled to revolve in a circular process which makes the knowledge of mind depend on the knowledge of matter, and vice versâ. How admirably does the scholastic theory of the origin of thought dissipate the clouds which befog Mr. Spencer throughout this discussion, and prevent him from seeing to what consequences he blindly drifts! The unseen, the unfelt, the unheard are each and all absolutely nothing, so that sense alone can determine reality. Such is the philosophy of Mr. Spencer; and there can be no wonder that upon an analysis of premises he finds that, having set out from nothing, he lands upon the same unreal shore. Scholasticism—the philosophy which at the present time is returning into unexpected though much deserved vogue, superseding in the highest intellectual circles the tenuity of Kant’s unrealism and the sensism of Locke and Condillac—proposes an explanation of the relation of the external world to the intellect through the medium of the senses, which cannot but elicit the endorsement of every logical mind. Just at the point where Spencer modifies his subjective sensible impression received from the external world, in such a manner that he can find nothing corresponding to it outside of himself, the scholastic supposes the active intellect to seize this phantasm or sensible image, and, having so far divested it of its sensible qualities as to fit it to become the object of pure cognition, offers it to the mind cognitive for such cognition, which, as the true cognitive faculty, pronounces it to be the type or exemplar of the object, and this he calls the verbum mentis, or idea of the thing. The created light of our intellect, which is itself a participation in the uncreated divine Pg 9 light, enables us to see and judge of what is exhibited to it through the organs of sense, surveying it, measuring it, and penetrating its general essence so far as to be able to perceive that it is the spiritualized resemblance of the object which primarily produced the sensation.

We do not here propose to offer any of the usual arguments in support of this system, apart from the palpable fact that it appears to offer to each faculty, sensitive and intellective, appropriate material for operation, but to contrast its adequacy with the confessed impotency of Spencer’s “transfigured realism.” And, indeed, not only is this latter impotent but eminently fallacious. In endeavoring to prove that the mind transfigures its sensations in such a manner that there can exist no correspondence between the sensation and the object, Mr. Spencer allows the decision to rest on his test-case of sound. With respect to the sensation produced on the auditory nerve by aërial undulations, he says that “the subjective state no more resembles its objective cause than the pressure which moves the trigger of a gun resembles the explosion which follows.” And again, summarizing the argument, he says: “All the sensations produced in us by environing things are but symbols of actions out of ourselves, the natures of which we cannot even conceive.” The fallacy of this statement it is not difficult to perceive; for Mr. Spencer rules out the action of the intellect, which can alone determine the value and significance of a sensation, and takes account only of the sensation itself, deeming it able to pronounce upon its own correspondence with its exciting object. Indeed, there can be no more correspondence Pg 10 produces a sensation which is felt as one, and necessarily is one in consequence. Mr. Spencer seems to forget that causes in combination can produce results entirely different from those to which each cause separately taken can give rise; or, as Dr. Mivart says, “All that Mr. Spencer really shows and proves is that diverse conditions result in the evocation of diverse simple perceptions, of which perceptions such conditions are the occasions.” Mr. Spencer’s position, bolstered up as it is by the minutest analysis of mental consciousness and by a wealth of marvellously subtle reasoning, is after all but a prejudice. He is indisposed to admit aught but sensation, and hence plies his batteries against every other element which dares obtrude itself into the domain of thought. How suggestive of this fact are the following words:

“It needs but to think of a brain as a seat of nervous discharges, intermediate between actions in the outer world and actions in the world of thought, to be impressed with the absurdity of supposing that the connections among outer actions, after being transferred through the medium of nervous discharges, can reappear in the world of thought in the forms they originally had.”

With Dr. Mivart we ask, “Where is the absurdity?” For surely He who made the brain might, if he saw fit, and as the facts prove, have so made it that it would perform its functions in this very identical manner. The steps of the process by which the results of nervous action are appropriated by the mind in the shape of knowledge will necessarily remain an inscrutable mystery for ever, but that is no reason why they should not be accomplished in any manner short of that involving a contradiction.

So pregnant with material for thought are the different chapters of Dr. Mivart’s book that we have thus far been unable to get beyond the opening ones, nor do their diversified character allow of a kindred criticism. Thus, from the consideration of the “External World” the author at once proceeds to a few reflections on language in opposition to the Darwinian theory of its progressive formation and development. We wish we could bestow on the whole of this chapter the same unqualified praise which his previous chapters merit; for, though partaking of the same general character of carefulness and research which belongs to all Dr. Mivart’s writings, in it he rather petulantly waves aside one of the strongest arguments and most valuable auxiliaries which could be found in support of his position. The proposition is to this effect: “Rational language is a bond of connection between the mental and material world which is absolutely peculiar to man.” He first considers language under its twofold aspect of emotional and rational, the latter alone being the division alluded to in the proposition. With the view, however, of facilitating his encounter with Darwin, he makes six subdistinctions which, though true, seem to overlap at times, or Pg 11 at least are gratuitous, since they are not needed for the purpose of their introduction. Mr. Darwin has exhibited, in his effort to make language a mere improvement on the gutturals and inarticulate sounds of animals, less of his accustomed ingenuity than elsewhere, so that any amount of concession might have been made to him, and yet the orthodox view on the subject have been left intact. And this we deem the wiser procedure in such cases; for less expenditure of force is required if the outer entrenchments can be passed by without a struggle, and siege laid at once to the inner fortress itself. In one point of the argument Dr. Mivart gets the better of Darwin so neatly as to remind us of a carte blanche thrust in fencing. Mr. Darwin remarks that man, in common with the lower animals, uses, in order to express emotion, cries and gestures which are at times more expressive than any words, thus asserting an innate equality between both, if not even the superiority of the emotional over the rational language, and thereby insinuating that, in point of origin, there could not have been any difference between them. Dr. Mivart replies that certainly emotional language is more expressive when it is question of expressing emotion. “But what,” he asks, “has that to do with the question of definite signs intelligently given and understood?” The fact that man uses emotional language in common with other animals proves nothing beyond the additional fact that he too is an animal, which is not the question; the question being whether in addition he possesses exclusively another faculty—viz., that of rational language, sui generis—radically different from the emotional. Mr. Darwin’s argument a and a (animality) + x (rational language) = a and a.

The passage in this chapter to which we reluctantly take exception is the following: “I actually heard Professor Vogt at Norwich (at the British Association meeting of 1868), in discussing certain cases of aphasia, declare before the whole physiological section: ‘Je ne comprends pas la parole dans un homme qui ne parle pas’—a declaration which manifestly showed that he was not qualified to form, still less to express, any opinion whatever on the subject.” Now, we are of opinion that, rightly understood and interpreted in the light of the most recent researches, these words convey a deep and significant truth. Dr. Mivart is anxious, in the interest of truth, to maintain intact and entire the essential difference between emotional and rational language, and this we believe he might best do by investigating and adapting the facts of aphasia. Aphasia declares that language-function is confined to some portion of the anterior convolution of the brain—a source or centre of nerve-power altogether distinct from the vesicular or gray portion of the cerebral substance which is concerned in the production of thought and all purely intellectual processes. This being the case, whenever we discover a lesion of the anterior convolution, and find it accompanied with impaired ability of speech, we also find inability to conceive such thoughts as those of which words are the sole symbol and sensible signs. The researches made by Trousseau, Hammond, and Ferrier prove that the faculty of language is thus localized, the anatomical region being somewhere in the neighborhood of the island of Pg 12 Reil; and though Brown-Séquard, a physiologist whose opinion is entitled to great consideration, differs from this view, the fact that more than five hundred cases as against thirteen favor the opinion is sufficient guarantee of its probable truth.

The distinction here is not sufficiently kept in sight between objects of thought which are denoted by some symbol besides the articulate word, and those which can be represented in words alone. All material objects, or such as are found amid material environments, belong to the former class, and of course need no words to become known. Their material outlines and specific sensible qualities sufficiently reveal them to the mind without any spoken language; for these individualize, differentiate, and circumscribe the object, and that is the whole function of language. When, however, it is question of purely intellectual conceptions, such as obtain throughout the range of metaphysics, these are so bound up with their expression that, this being lost, the thought disappears with it. This theory, long since broached by De Bonald, finds unexpected support in the facts of aphasia. There are two forms of aphasia, the one amnesic, involving the loss of the memory of words, the other ataxic, or inability to coordinate words in coherent speech. The latter form is met with often separately, and under those conditions the study of this phenomenon becomes more interesting. We then see that all idea of relation has disappeared, because it being a purely intellectual idea, having no sensible sign to represent it, its expression being lost to the mind, the thought perishes at the same time. Hence words are confusedly jumbled by Prof. Vogt which Dr. Mivart quotes with so much disapprobation, or to lend force to the dictum of Max Müller, that “without language there can be no thought.” We have merely touched upon this interesting subject of aphasia, as a lengthened consideration of it would carry us beyond our limits; but we hope to have stated enough to show that Dr. Mivart was, to say the least, rash in dismissing its teachings so summarily. We will, however, do him the justice of saying that he conclusively proves the essential difference between emotional and rational language, and the absurdity of regarding the latter as a mere development of the former. He has done this, too, by citing authorities from the opposing school, and the labors of Mr. Taylor and Sir John Lubbock are made to do yeoman’s service against Mr. Darwin.

We have thus far followed Dr. Mivart step by step through the opening chapters of his book, and have found at each point of our progress abundant materials for reflection. The field he has surveyed with close-gazing eye is varied and extensive; and though many gleaners will come after him laden with fresh sheaves of toilsome gathering, to him belongs the credit of having garnered the first crop of Catholic truth from the seeds which modern science planted. He has done this service, too, for philosophy: that he has enabled us to view modern speculations in the light of the grand old principles of Pg 13 scholastic philosophy, and dispelled the clouds of sophistry which filled up and gilded over the cranks and crannies of modern error. He has appreciated au juste the drift and meaning of that false science which strives to make the beautiful facts of nature the basis of a pernicious philosophy. Not a few of our orthodox friends have hitherto failed to discern the real germ of falsity in the speculations of such men as Tyndall and Huxley and Spencer. They felt that the conclusions arrived at by those writers are false, subversive of reason and morality, but, not being sufficiently versed in the premises wherewith those conclusions were sought to be connected, they were obliged either to hold themselves to a silent protest or to carp and snarl without proof or argument to offer.

SEVILLE.

Our first glimpse of the soft-flowing Guadalquivir was a disappointment—a turbid stream between two flat, uninteresting banks, on which grew low bushes that had neither grace nor dignity. It needed its musical name and poetic associations to give it any claim on the attention. But it assumed a better aspect as we went on. Immense orchards of olive-trees, soft and silvery, spread wide their boughs as far as the eye could see. The low hills were sun-bathed; the valleys were fertile; mountains appeared in the distance, severe and jagged as only Spanish mountains know how to be, to give Encantadora Sevilla!

We went to the Fonda Europa, a Spanish-looking hotel with a patio Pg 14 in the centre, where played a fountain amid odorous trees and shrubs, and lamps, already lighted, hung along the arcades, in which were numerous guests sauntering about, and picturesque beggars, grouped around a pillar, singing some old ditty in a recitative way to the sound of their instruments. Our room was just above, where we were speedily lulled to sleep by their melancholy airs, in a fashion not unworthy of one’s first night in poetic Andalusia. What more, indeed, could one ask for than an orange-perfumed court with a splashing fountain, lamps gleaming among the trailing vines, Spanish caballeros pacing the shadowy arcades, and wild-looking beggars making sad music on the harp and guitar?

Of course our first visit in the morning was to the famed cathedral. Everything was charmingly novel in the streets to our new-world eyes—the gay shops of the Calle de las Sierpes, the Broadway of Seville, which no carriage is allowed to enter; the Plaza, with its orange-trees and graceful arcades; and the dazzling white houses, with their Moorish balconies and pretty courts, of which we caught glimpses through the iron gratings, fresh and clean, with plants set around the cooling fountain, where the family assembled in the evening for music and conversation.

We soon found ourselves at the foot of the Giralda, which still calls to prayer, not, as in the time of the Moors, by means of its muezzin, but by twenty-four bells all duly consecrated and named—Santa Maria, San Miguel, San Cristobal, San Fernando, Santa Barbara, etc.—which, from time to time, send a whole wave of prayer over the city. It is certainly one of the finest towers in Spain, and the people of Seville

The Moors regarded it as so sacred that they would have destroyed it rather than have it fall into the hands of the Christians, had not Alfonso the Wise threatened them with his vengeance should they do so. Its strong foundations were partly built out of the statues of the saints, as if they wished to raise a triumphant structure on the ruins of what was sacred to Christians. The remainder is of brick, of a soft rose-tint, very pleasing to the eye. The tower rises to the height of three hundred and fifty feet, square, imposing, and so solid as to have resisted the shock of several earthquakes. Around the belfry is the inscription:

Nomen Domini fortissima Turris

—the name of the Lord is a strong tower. It is lighted by graceful arches and ascended by means of a ramp in the centre, which is so gradual that a horse could go to the very top. We found on the summit no wise old Egyptian raven, as in Prince Ahmed’s time, with one foot in the grave, but still poring, with his knowing one eye, over the cabalistic diagrams before him. No; all magic lore vanished from the land with the dark-browed Moors, and now there were only gentle doves, softly cooing in less heathenish notes, but perhaps not without their spell.

On the top of the tower is a bronze statue of Santa Fé, fourteen feet high, weighing twenty-five hundred pounds, but, instead of being steadfast and immovable, as well-grounded faith should be, it turns like a weather-cock, veering Pg 15 with every wind like a very straw, whence the name of Giralda. Don Quixote makes his Knight of the Wood, speaking of his exploits in honor of the beautiful Casilda, say: “Once she ordered me to defy the famous giantess of Seville, called Giralda, as valiant and strong as if she were of bronze, and who, without ever moving from her place, is the most changeable and inconstant woman in the world. I went. I saw her. I conquered her. I forced her to remain motionless, as if tied, for more than a week. No wind blew but from the north.”

At the foot of this magic tower is the Patio de las Naranjas—an immense court filled with orange-trees of great age, in the midst of which is the fountain where the Moors used to perform their ablutions. It is surrounded by a high battlemented wall, which makes the cathedral look as if fortified. You enter it by a Moorish archway, now guarded by Christian apostles and surmounted by the victorious cross. Just within you are startled by a thorn-crowned statue of the Ecce Homo, in a deep niche, with a lamp burning before it. The court is thoroughly Oriental in aspect, with its fountain, its secluded groves, the horseshoe arches with their arabesques, the crocodile suspended over the Puerta del Lagarto, sent by the Sultan of Egypt to Alfonso the Wise, asking the hand of his daughter in marriage (an ominous love-token from which the princess naturally shrank); and over the church door, with a lamp burning before it, is a statue of the Oriental Virgin whom all Christians unite in calling Blessed—here specially invoked as Nuestra Señora de los Remedios. The Oriental aspect of the court makes the cathedral within all the more impressive, with its tenebrario for Holy Week is twelve feet high, with sixteen saints arrayed on the triangle. The Pascal candle, given every year by the chapter of Toledo in exchange for the palm branches used on Palm Sunday, is twenty-five feet high, and weighs nearly a ton. It looks like a column of white marble, and might be called the “Grand Duc des chandelles,” as the sun was termed by Du Bartas, a French poet of the time of Henry of Navarre. On the right wall, just within one of the doors, is a St. Christopher, painted in the sixteenth century, thirty-two feet high, with a green tree for a staff, crossing a mighty Pg 16 current with the child Jesus on his shoulder, looking like an infant Hercules. These gigantic St. Christophers are to be seen in most of the Spanish cathedrals, from a belief that he who looks prayerfully upon an image of this saint will that day come to no evil end: Christophorum videas; postea tutus eas—Christopher behold; then mayest thou safely go; or, according to the old adage:

These colossal images are at first startling, but one soon learns to like the huge, kindly saint who walked with giant steps in the paths of holiness; bore a knowledge of Christ to infidel lands of suffering and trial, upheld amid the current by his lofty courage and strength of will, which raised him above ordinary mortals, and carrying his staff, ever green and vigorous, emblem of his constancy. No legend is more beautifully significant, and no saint was more popular in ancient times. His image was often placed in elevated situations, to catch the eye and express his power over the elements, and he was especially invoked against lightning, hail, and impetuous winds. His name of happy augury—the Christ-bearer—was given to Columbus, destined to carry a knowledge of the faith across an unknown deep.

This reminds us that in the pavement near the end of the church is the tombstone of Fernando, the son of Christopher Columbus, on which are graven the arms given by Ferdinand and Isabella, with the motto: A Castilla y a Leon, mundo nuevo dio Colon. Over this stone is erected the immense monumento for the Host on Maundy Thursday,

This church, though full of solemn religious gloom, is by no means gloomy. It is too lofty and spacious, and the windows, especially in the morning, light it up with resplendent hues. The choir, which is as large as an ordinary church, stands detached in the body of the house. It is divided into two parts transversely, with a space between them for the laity, as in all the Spanish cathedrals. The part towards the east contains the high altar, and is called the Capilla mayor. The other is the Coro, strictly speaking, and contains the richly-carved stalls of the canons and splendid choral books. They are both surrounded by a high wall finely sculptured, except the ends that face each other, across which extend rejas, or open-work screens of iron artistically wrought, that do not obstruct the view.

The canons were chanting the Office when we entered, and looked like bishops in their flowing purple robes. The service ended with a procession around the church, the clergy in magnificent copes, heavy with ancient embroidery in gold. The people were all devout. No careless ways, as in many places where religion sits lightly on the people, but an earnestness and devotion that were impressive. The attitudes of the clergy were fine, without being studied; the grouping of the people picturesque. The ladies all wore the Spanish mantilla, and, when not kneeling, sat, in true Oriental style, on the matting that covered portions of the marble pavement. Lights were burning on nearly all the altars like constellations Pg 17 of stars all along the dim aisles. The grandeur of the edifice, the numerous works of Christian art, the august rites of the Catholic Church, and the devotion of the people all seemed in harmony. Few churches leave such an impression on the mind.

In the first chapel at the left, where stands the baptismal font, is Murillo’s celebrated “Vision of St. Anthony,” a portion of which was cut out by an adroit thief a few years ago, and carried to the United States, but is now replaced. It is so large that, with a “Baptism of our Saviour” above it by the same master, it fills the whole side of the chapel up to the very arch. It seemed to be the object of general attraction. Group after group came to look at it before leaving the church, and it is worthy of its popularity and fame, though Mr. Ford says it has always been overrated. Théophile Gautier is more enthusiastic. He says:

“Never was the magic of painting carried so far. The rapt saint is kneeling in the middle of his cell, all the poor details of which are rendered with the vigorous realism characteristic of the Spanish school. Through the half-open door is seen one of those long, spacious cloisters so favorable to reverie. The upper part of the picture, bathed in a soft, transparent, vaporous light, is filled with a circle of angels of truly ideal beauty, playing on musical instruments. Amid them, drawn by the power of prayer, the Infant Jesus descends from cloud to cloud to place himself in the arms of the saintly man, whose head is bathed in the streaming radiance, and who seems ready to fall into an ecstasy of holy rapture. We place this divine picture above the St. Elizabeth of Hungary cleansing the teigneux, to be seen at the Royal Academy of Madrid; above the ‘Moses’; above all the Virgins and all the paintings of the Infant Jesus by this master, however beautiful, however pure they be. He who has not seen the ‘St. Anthony of Padua’ does not know

We passed chapel after chapel with paintings, statues, and tombs, till we came to the Capilla Real, where lies the body of St. Ferdinand in a silver urn, with an inscription in four languages by his son, Alfonso the Wise, who seems to have had a taste for writing epitaphs. He composed that of the Cid.

St. Ferdinand was the contemporary and cousin-german of St. Louis of France, who gave him the Virgen de los Reyes that hangs in this chapel, and, like him, added the virtues of a saint to the glories of a warrior. He had such a tender love for his subjects that he was unwilling to tax them, and feared the curse of one poor old woman more than a whole army of Moors. He took Cordova, and dedicated the mosque of the foul Prophet to the purest of Virgins. He conquered Murcia in 1245; Jaen in 1246; Seville in 1248; but he remained humble amid all his glory, and exclaimed with tears on his death-bed: “O my Lord! thou hast suffered so much for the love of me; but I, wretched man that I am! what have I done out of love for thee?” He died like a criminal, with a cord around his neck and a crucifix in his hands, and so venerated by foes as well as friends that, when he was buried, Mohammed Ebn Alahmar, the founder of the Alhambra, sent a hundred Moorish knights to bear lighted tapers around his bier—a tribute of respect he continued to pay him on every anniversary of his death. And to this day, when the body of St. Ferdinand, which is in a remarkable state of preservation, is Pg 18 exposed to veneration, the troops present arms as they pass, and the flag is lowered before the conqueror of Seville.

The arms of the city represent St. Ferdinand on his throne, with St. Leander and Isidore, the patrons of Seville, at his side. Below is the curious device—No 8 Do—a rebus of royal invention, to be seen on the pavement of the beautiful chapter-house. When Don Sancho rebelled against his father, Alfonso the Wise, most of the cities joined in the revolt. But Seville remained loyal, and the king gave it this device as the emblem of its fidelity. The figure 8, which represents a knot or skein—madeja in Spanish—between the words No and Do, reads: No madeja do, or No m’ha dejado, which, being interpreted, is: She has not abandoned me.

St. Ferdinand’s effigy is rightfully graven on the city arms; for it was he who wrested Seville from Mahound and restored it to Christ, to use the expression on the Puerta de la Carne:

—Alcides founded the city, Julius Cæsar rebuilt it, and Ferdinand III., the Hero, restored it to Christ; a proud inscription, showing the antiquity of Seville. Hercules himself, who played so great a rôle in Spain, founded it, as you see; its historians say just two thousand two hundred and twenty-eight years after the creation of the world. On the Puerta de Jerez it is written: “Hercules built me, Julius Cæsar surrounded me with walls, and the Holy King conquered me with the aid of Garcia Perez de Vargas.” Hercules’ name has been given to one of the principal promenades of

The above-mentioned Garcia Perez and Alfonso el Sabio are both buried in the Royal Chapel. Close beside it is the chapel of the Immaculate Conception, with some old paintings of that mystery, which Seville was one of the foremost cities in the world to maintain. Andalusia is the true land of the Immaculate Conception, and Seville was the first to raise a cry of remonstrance against those who dared attack the most precious prerogative of the Virgin. Its clergy and people sent deputies to Rome, and had silence imposed on all who were audacious enough to dispute it. And when Pope Paul V. published his bull authorizing the festival of the Immaculate Conception, and forbidding any one’s preaching or teaching to the contrary, Seville could not contain itself for joy, but broke out into tournaments and banquets, bull-fights and the roaring of cannon. When the festival came round, this joy took another form, and expressed itself in true Oriental fashion by dances before the Virgin, as the Royal Harper danced before the ark. Nor was this a novelty. Religious dances had been practised from remote times in Spain. They formed part of the Mozarabic rite, which Cardinal Ximenes reestablished at Toledo, authorizing dances in the choir and nave. St. Basil, among other fathers, approved of imitating the tripudium angelorum—the dance of the angelic choirs that

“Sing, and, singing in their glory, move.”

At the Cathedral of Seville the choir-boys, called Los Seises—the Sixes—used to dance to the sound of ivory castanets before the Host Pg 19 on Corpus Christi, and in the chapel of the Virgin on the 8th of December, when they were dressed in blue and white. Sometimes they sang as they danced. One of their hymns began: “Hail, O Virgin, purer and fairer than the dawn or star of day! Daughter, Mother, Spouse, Maria! and the Eastern Gate of God!” with the chorus: “Sing, brothers, sing, to the praise of the Mother of God; of Spain the royal patroness, conceived without sin!” There was nothing profane in this dance. It was a kind of cadence, decorous, and not without religious effect. Several of the archbishops of Seville, however, endeavored to suppress it, but the lower clergy long clung to the custom. Pope Eugenius IV., in 1439, authorized the dance of the Seises. St. Thomas of Villanueva speaks approvingly of the religious dances of Seville in his day. They were also practised in Portugal, where we read of their being celebrated at the canonization of St. Charles Borromeo, as in Spain for that of St. Ignatius de Loyola. These, however, were of a less austere character, and were not performed in church. In honor of the latter, quadrilles were formed of children, personifying the four quarters of the globe, with costumes in accordance. America had the greatest success, executed by children eight or ten years old, dressed as monkeys, parrots, etc.—tropical America, evidently. These were varied in one place by the representation of the taking of Troy, the wooden horse included.

The Immaculate Conception is still the favorite dogma of this region. Ave Maria Purissima! is still a common exclamation. There are few churches without a Virgin dressed in blue and white; few Rosario de la Aurora. Among the hymns they sing is a verse in which Mary is compared to a vessel of grace, of which St. Joseph is the sail, the child Jesus the helm, and the oars are the pious members, who devoutly pray:

There is another chapel of Our Lady in the cathedral of Seville, in which is a richly-sculptured retable with pillars, and niches, and statues, all of marble, and a balustrade of silver, along the rails of which you read, in great silver letters, the angelic salutation: Ave Maria!

At the further end of one of the art-adorned sacristies hangs Pedro de Campaña’s famous “Descent from the Cross,” before which Murillo loved to meditate, especially in his last days. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, in deep-red mantles, let down the dead Christ. St. John stands at the foot ready to receive him. The Virgin is half fainting. Magdalen is there with her vase. The figures are a little stiff, but their attitudes are expressive of profound grief, and the picture is admirable in coloring and religious in effect, as well as interesting from its associations. It was once considered so awful that Pacheco was afraid to remain before it after dark. But those were days of profound religious feeling; now men are afraid of nothing. And it was so full of reality to Murillo that, one evening, lingering longer than usual before it, the sacristan Pg 20 came to warn him it was time to close the church. “I am waiting,” said the pious artist, rousing from his contemplation, “till those holy men shall have finished taking down the body of the Lord.” The painting then hung in the church of Santa Cruz, and Murillo was buried beneath it. This was destroyed by Marshal Soult, and the bones of the artist scattered.

In the same sacristy hang, on opposite walls, St. Leander and his brother Isidore, by Murillo, both with noble heads. The latter is the most popular saint in Spain after St. James, and is numbered among the fathers of the church. Among the twelve burning suns, circling in the fourth heaven of Dante’s Paradiso, is “the arduous spirit of Isidore,” whom the great Alcuin long before called “Hesperus, the star of the church—Jubar Ecclesiæ, sidus Hesperiæ.” The Venerable Bede classes him with Jerome, Athanasius, Augustine, and Cyprian; and it was after dictating some passages from St. Isidore that he died.

St. Isidore is said to have been descended from the old Gothic kings. At any rate, he belonged to a family of saints, which is better; his sister and two brothers being in the calendar. His saintly mother, when the family was exiled from Carthagena on account of their religion, chose to live in Seville, saying with tears: “Let me die in this foreign land, and have my sepulchre here where I was brought to the knowledge of God!” It is said a swarm of bees came to rest on the mouth of St. Isidore when a child; as is related of several other men celebrated for their mellifluence—Plato and St. Ambrose, for example. Old legends tell how he went to Rome and back Doctor Egregius. There are two hundred MSS. of his in the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, and still more at the Vatican, to say nothing of those in Spain. His great work, the Etymologies, in twenty books, is an encyclopædia of all the learning of the seventh century. Joseph Scaliger says it rendered great service to science by saving from destruction what would otherwise have been irretrievably lost.

The account of St. Isidore’s death, celebrated by art, is very affecting. When he felt his end was drawing near, he summoned two of his suffragans, and had himself transported to the church of San Vicente amid a crowd of clergy, monks, and the entire population of Seville, who rent the air with their cries. When he arrived before the high altar, he ordered all the women to retire. Then one of the bishops clothed him in sackcloth, and the other sprinkled him with ashes. In this penitential state he publicly confessed his sins, imploring pardon of God, and begging all present to pray for him. “And if I have offended any one,” added he, “let him pardon me in view of my sincere repentance.” He then received the holy Body of the Lord, and gave all around him the kiss of peace, desiring that it might be a pledge of eternal reunion, after which he distributed all the money he had left to the poor. He was then taken home, and died four days after.[2]

Pg 21 On the church in which this touching scene occurred is represented San Vicente, the titular, with the legendary crow which piloted the ship that bore his body to Lisbon, with a pitchfork in its mouth. Mr. Ford, whose knowledge of saintly lore is not commensurate with his desire to be funny, thinks “a rudder would be more appropriate,” not knowing that a fork was one of the instruments used to torture the “Invincible Martyr.” Prudentius says: “When his body was lacerated by iron forks, he only smiled on his tormentors; the pangs they inflicted were a delight; thorns were his roses; the flames a refreshing bath; death itself was but the entrance to life.”

Near the cathedral is the Alcazar, with battlemented walls, and an outer pillared court where pace the guards to defend the shades of past royalty. As we had not then seen the Alhambra, we were the more struck by the richness and beauty of this next best specimen of Moorish architecture. The fretwork of gold on a green ground, or white on red; the mysterious sentences from the Koran; the curious ceilings inlaid with cedar; the brilliant azulejos; the Moorish arches and decorations; and the secluded courts, were all novel, and like a page from some Eastern romance. The windows looked out on enchanting gardens, worthy of being sung by Ariosto, with orange hedges, palm-trees, groves of citrons and pomegranates, roses in full bloom, though in azulejos, and a fountain in the centre; fish playing in immense marble tanks, tiny jets of water springing up along the paths to cool the air, a bright sun, and a delicious temperature. All this was the creation of Don Pedro the Cruel, aided by some of the best Moorish workmen from Granada. Here reigned triumphant Maria de Padilla, called the queen of sorcerers by the people, who looked upon Don Pedro as bewitched. When she died, the king had her buried with royal honors—shocking to say, in the Capilla Real, where lies Fernando the Saint! Her apartments are pointed out, now silent and deserted where once reigned love and feasting—yes, and crime. In one of the halls it is said Don Pedro treacherously slew Abou Said, King of the Moors, who had come to visit him in sumptuous garments of silk and gold, covered with jewels—slew him for the sake of the booty. Among the spoils were three rubies of extraordinary brilliancy, as large as pigeons’ eggs, one of which Don Pedro afterwards gave the Black Prince; it is now said to adorn the royal crown of England.

There is a little oratory in the Alcazar, only nine or ten feet square, called the Capilla de los Azulejos, because the altar, retable, and the walls to a certain height, are composed of enamelled tiles, some of which bear the F and Y, with the arrows and yoke, showing they were made in the time of Isabella the Catholic. The altar-piece represents the Visitation. In this chapel Charles V. was married to Isabella of Portugal.

No one omits to visit the hospital of La Caridad, which stands on a square by the Guadalquivir, with Pg 22 five large pictures on the front, of blue and white azulejos, painted after the designs of Murillo. One of them represents St. George and the dragon, to which saint the building is dedicated. This hospital was rebuilt in 1664 by Miguel de Mañara in expiation of his sins; for he had been, before his conversion, a very Don Juan for profligacy. In his latter days he acquired quite a reputation for sanctity, and some years since there was a question of canonizing him. However, he had inscribed on his tomb the unique epitaph: “Here lie the ashes of the worst man that ever lived in the world.” He was a friend of Murillo’s, and, being a man of immense wealth, employed him to adorn the chapel of his hospital. Marshal Soult carried off most of these paintings, among which was the beautiful “St. Elizabeth of Hungary,” now at Madrid; but six still remain. “Moses smiting the Rock” and the “Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes” are justly noted, but the most beautiful is the picture of San Juan de Dios staggering home through the dark street on a stormy night, with a dying man on his shoulder. An angel, whose heavenly radiance lights up the gloom with truly Rembrandt coloring, is aiding him to bear his burden.

There is a frightful picture among these soft Murillos, by Juan Valdés Leal, of a half-open coffin, in which lies a bishop in magnificent pontifical robes, who is partially eaten up by the worms. Murillo could never look at it without compressing his nose, as if it gave out a stench. The “Descent from the Cross” over the altar is exquisitely carved and colored. Few chapels contain so many gems of art, but the light is ill-adapted for displaying them.

This hospital was in part founded for night wanderers. It is now an almshouse for old men, and served by Sisters of Charity.

Among other places of attraction are the palace of the Duke de Montpensier and the beautiful grounds with orange orchards and groves of palm-trees. Then there is the house of Murillo, bright and sunny, with its pleasant court and marble pillars, still the home of art, owned by a dignitary of the church.

The Casa de Pilatos is an elegant palace, half Moorish, half Gothic, belonging to the Duke of Medina Celi, said to have been built by a nobleman of the sixteenth century, in commemoration of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, after the plan of Pilate’s house. Perhaps the name was given it because the public stations of the Via Crucis, or Way of Bitterness, as the Spanish call it, begin here, at the cross in the court. The Pretorian chapel has a column of the flagellation and burning lamps; and on the staircase, as you go up, is the cock in memory of St. Peter. Beautiful as the palace is, it is unoccupied, and kept merely for show.

It would take a volume to describe all the works of art to be seen in the palaces and churches of Seville. We will only mention the Jesus Nazareno del Gran Poder—of great power—at San Lorenzo, a statue by Montañes, which is carried in the processions of Holy Week, dressed in black velvet broidered with silver and gold, and bearing a large cross encrusted with ivory, shell, and pearl. Angels, with outspread wings, bear lanterns before him. The whole group is carried by men so concealed under draperies that it seems to move of itself. We had not the satisfaction of witnessing one of these processions, Pg 23 perhaps the most striking in the world, with the awful scenes of the Passion, the Virgin of Great Grief, and the apostles in their traditional colors; even Judas in yellow, still in Spain the color of infamy and criminals.

Of course we went repeatedly to the Museo of Seville; for we had specially come here to see Murillo on his native ground. His statue is in the centre of the square before it. The collection of paintings is small, but it comprises some of the choicest specimens of the Seville school. They are all of a religious nature, and therefore not out of place in the church and sacristy where they are hung—part of the suppressed convent of La Merced, founded by Fernando el Santo in the thirteenth century. The custodian who ushered us in waved his hand to the pictures on the opposite wall, breathing rather than saying the word Murillo! with an ineffable accent, half triumph, half adoration, and then kissed the ends of his fingers to express their delicious quality. He was right. They are adorable. We recognized them at a glance, having read of them for long years, and seen them often in our dreams. And visions they are of beauty and heavenly rapture, such as Murillo alone could paint. His refinement of expression, his warm colors and shimmering tints, the purity and tenderness of his Virgins, the ecstatic glow of his saints, and the infantine grace and beauty of his child Christs, all combine to make him one of the most beautiful expressions of Christian art, in harmony with all that is mystical and fervid. He has twenty-four paintings here, four of which are Conceptions, the subject for which he is specially renowned. Murillo is emphatically the Painter IV., amid the enthusiastic applause of all Spain, solemnly placed his kingdom under the protection of the Virgen concebida sin peccado. Artists were at once inspired by the subject, and vied with each other in depicting the

But Murillo alone rose to the full height of this great theme, and he will always be considered as, par excellence, the Pintor de las Concepciones. He painted the Conception twenty-five times, and not twice in the same way. Two are at Paris, several in England, three at Madrid, and four in this museum, one of which is called the Perla—a pearl indeed. Innocence and purity, of course, are the predominant expressions of these Virgins, from the very nature of the subject. Mary is always represented clothed in flowing white robes, and draped with an azure mantle. She is radiant with youth and grace, and mysterious and pure as the heaven she floats in. Her small, delicate hands are crossed on her virginal breast or folded in adoration. Her lips are half open and tremulous. She is borne up in a flood of silvery light, calmly ecstatic, her whole soul in her eyes, which are bathed in a humid languor, and her beautiful hair, caressed by the wind, is floating around her like an aureola of gold. The whole is a vision as intoxicating as a cloud of Arabian incense. It is a poem of mystical Pg 24 love—the very ecstasy of devotion.

Murillo’s best paintings were done for the Franciscans, the great defenders of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. From the Capuchins of Seville perhaps he derived his inspiration. They were his first patrons. He loved to paint the Franciscan saints, as well as their darling dogma. Such subjects were in harmony with his spiritual nature. He almost lived in the cloister. Piety reigned in his household. One of his sons took orders, and his daughter, Francisca, the model of some of his virgins, became a nun in the convent of the Madre de Dios.

Among his paintings here is one of “St. Francis at the foot of the Cross,” trampling the world and its vanities under his feet. Our Saviour has detached one bleeding hand from the cross, and bends down to lay it on the shoulder of the saint, as if he would draw him closer to his wounded side. St. Francis is looking up with a whole world of adoring love in his eyes, of self-surrender and abandon in his attitude. Though sombre in tone, this is one of the most expressive and devotional of pictures, and, once seen, can never be forgotten.

Then there is St. Felix, in his brown Franciscan dress, holding the beautiful child Jesus in his arms. When we first saw it, the afternoon sun, streaming through the windows, threw fresh radiance over the heavenly Madonna, who comes lightly, so lightly! down through the luminous ether, borne by God’s angels, slightly bending forward to the saint, as if with special predilection. A wallet of bread is at his feet, in reference to the legend that St. Felix went out vaporous style. The Spanish say it was painted con leche y sangre—with milk and blood.

The Servietta, so famous, is greatly injured. It is said to have been dashed off on a napkin, while waiting for his dinner, and given to the porter of the convent. If so, the friars’ napkins were of very coarse canvas, as may be seen where the paint has scaled off. The Virgin, a half-length, has large, Oriental eyes, full of intensity and earnestness.

Opposite is St. Thomas of Villanueva, giving alms to the poor, with a look of compassionate feeling on his pale, emaciated face, the light coming through the archway above him with fine effect. The beggars around him stand out as if in relief. One is crawling up to the saint on his knees, the upper part of his body naked and brown from exposure. A child in the corner is showing his coin to his mother with glee. Murillo used to call this his picture, as if he preferred it to his other works.

St. Thomas was Archbishop of Valencia in the sixteenth century, and a patron of letters and the arts, but specially noted for his excessive charity, for which he is surnamed the Almsgiver. His ever-open purse was popularly believed to have been replenished by the angels. When he died, more than eight thousand poor people followed him to the grave, filling the air with their sighs and groans. Pope Paul V. canonized him, and ordered that he should be represented with a purse instead of a crosier.

Pg 25 Murillo’s SS. Justa and Rufina are represented with victorious palms of martyrdom, holding between them the Giralda, of which they have been considered the special protectors since a terrible storm in 1504, which threatened the tower. They are two Spanish-looking maidens, one in a violet dress and yellow mantle, the other in blue and red, with earthen dishes around their feet. They lived in the third century, and were the daughters of a potter in Triana, a faubourg of Seville, on the other side of the river, which has always been famous for its pottery. In the time of the Arabs beautiful azulejos were made here, of which specimens are to be seen in some of the churches of Seville. In the sixteenth century there were fifty manufactories here, which produced similar ones of very fine lustre, such as we see at the Casa de Pilatos. Cervantes celebrates Triana in his Rinconete y Cortadillo. It is said to derive its name, originally Trajana, from the Emperor Trajan, who was born not far from Seville. It has come down from its high estate, and is now mostly inhabited by gypsies and the refuse of the city. The potteries are no longer what they once were. But there is an interesting little church, called Santa Ana, built in the time of Alfonso the Wise, in which are some excellent pictures, and a curious tomb of the sixteenth century made of azulejos. It was in this unpromising quarter the two Christian maidens, Justa and Rufina, lived fifteen hundred years ago or more. Some pagan women coming to their shop one day to buy vases for the worship of Venus, they refused to sell any for the purpose, and the women fell upon their stock of dishes and broke them to pieces.

There are two St. Anthonies here by Murillo, one of which is specially remarkable for beauty and intensity of expression. The child Jesus has descended from the skies, and sits on an open volume, about to clasp the saint around the neck. St. Anthony’s face seems to have caught something of the glow of heaven. Angels hover over the scene, as well they may.

There are several paintings here by the genial Pacheco, the father-in-law of Velasquez; among others one of St. Peter Nolasco, the tutor of Don Jayme el Conquistador, going in a boat to the redemption of captives. The man at the prow is Cervantes, who, with the other beaux esprits of the day, used to assemble in the studio of Pacheco, a man of erudition and a poet as well as a painter. Pacheco was a familiar of the Inquisition, and inspector of sacred pictures. It was in the latter capacity he laid down rules for their representation, among which were some relating to paintings of the Immaculate Conception (he has two paintings of this subject in the museum), which were generally adhered to in Spain. The general idea was taken from the woman in the Apocalypse, clothed with the sun, having the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. The Virgin was to be represented in the freshness of maidenhood, with grave, sweet eyes, golden hair, in a robe of spotless white and a blue mantle. Blue and white are the traditional colors of the Virgin. In the Pg 26 unchanging East Lamartine found the women of Nazareth clad in a loose white garment that fell around them in long, graceful folds, over which was a blue tunic confined at the waist by a girdle—a dress he thought might have come down from the time of the patriarchs.

But to return to Pacheco. It was he who, in the seventeenth century, took so active a part in the discussion whether St. Teresa, just canonized, should be chosen as the Compatrona of Spain. Many maintained that St. James should continue to be considered the sole patron, and Quevedo espoused his cause so warmly that he ended by challenging his adversaries to a combat en champ clos, and was in danger of losing his estates. Pacheco, as seen by existing manuscripts, wrote a learned theological treatise against him, taking up the cause of St. Teresa, which proved victorious. She was declared the second patron of Spain by Philip III.—a decision re-echoed by the Spanish Cortes as late as 1812. All the prominent men of the day took part in this discussion, even artists and literary men, as well as politicians and the clergy.

The place of honor in the museum is given to Zurbarán’s “Santo Tomás,” a grand picture, painted for the Dominican college of Seville. In the centre is St. Thomas Aquinas, in the Dominican habit, resting on a cloud, with the four doctors of the church, in ample flowing robes, around him. He holds up his pen, as if for inspiration, to the opening heavens, where appear Christ and the Virgin, St. Paul and St. Dominic. Below, at the left, is Diego de Deza, the founder of the college, and other dignitaries; while on the right, attended by courtiers, is Charles V., in a splendid

Zurbarán has another picture here, of a scene from the legend of St. Hugo, who was Bishop of Grenoble in the time of St. Bruno, and often spent weeks together at the Grande Chartreuse. Once he arrived at dinner-time, and found the monks at table looking despairingly at the meat set before them, which they could not touch, it being a fast-day. The bishop, stretching forth his staff, changed the fowls into tortoises. The white habits and pointed cowls of the monks, and the varied expressions of their faces, contrast agreeably with the venerable bishop in his rich episcopal robes, and the beauty of the page who accompanies him.

The masterpiece of the elder Herrera is also here. Hermenegildo, a Gothic prince of the sixth century, martyred by order of his Arian father, whose religion he had renounced, is represented ascending to heaven in a coat of mail, leaving below him his friends SS. Leandro and Isidore, beside whom is his fair young son, richly attired, gazing wonderingly up at his sainted father as he ascends among a whole cloud of angels. This picture was painted for the high altar of the Jesuits of Seville, with whom Herrera took refuge when accused of the crime of issuing false money. It attracted the artistic eye of Philip IV. when he came to Seville in 1624. He asked the name of the artist, and, learning the cause of his reclusion Pg 27 sent for him and pardoned him, saying that a man who had so much talent ought not to make a bad use of it.

There is no sculpture in the gallery of Seville, except a few statues of the saints—the spoils of monasteries, like the paintings. The finest thing is a St. Jerome, furrowed and wasted by penance, laying hold of a cross before which he bends one knee, with a stone in his right hand ready to smite his breast. This was done for the convent of Buenavista by Torrigiano, celebrated not only for his works, but for breaking Michael Angelo’s nose. He was sent to Spain by his protector, Alexander VI., who was a generous patron of the arts. Goya considered this

Our last hours at Seville were spent before all these works of sacred art, each of which has its own special revelation to the soul; and then we went to the cathedral. The day was nearly at an end. The chapels were all closed. The vast edifice was as silent as the grave, with only a few people here and there absorbed in their devotions. The upper western windows alone caught a few rays of the declining sun, empurpling the arches. The long aisles were full of gloom. We lingered awhile, like Murillo, before “Christ descending from the Cross,” and then went back to the Fonda Europa with regret in our hearts.

Pg 28

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.