Volume 18 — CHAPTER IX. THE VERDICT. (continued 3)

These four proofs more than suffice to show that all primitive complete beings consist of act, term, and complement as their intrinsic principles. But, as I am satisfied that on the right understanding of such principles the soundness of all our metaphysical reasonings finally depends, I think it necessary, before we proceed further, to make a few considerations on their exact notion, character, and attributions.

The term of a primitive being owes its reality to its act. Before its first actuation, it had no being at all; it was only capable of acquiring it, and therefore was, according to the language of the schools, a reality in mere potency; since everything that has no being, but can be actuated into being, has received the name of pure potency.[280] Now, pure potency, though it is nothing real, is infinite and inexhaustible; not that nothingness can have any such intrinsic attribute, but simply because no limit can be assigned to the possible eduction of beings out of nothing through the exercise of God's infinite and inexhaustible power. And it must be added that such a potency is thus infinite not only with regard to the substances that can be created out of nothing, but also with regard to the accidents which can be produced in those substances, and with regard to the modes resulting from the reception of such accidents. This being admitted, it is evident that, when the term of a created being acquires its first reality, a pure potency is actuated by an act; but is not actuated to the full amount of its actuality, which is infinite and inexhaustible. Indeed, no act gives to its potency the plenitude of all being; but every act gives that being only which corresponds to its own specific nature. And therefore the term of a primitive being, though actuated in its first actuation as much as is needed to make it the real term of a determinate essence, remains always capable of further and further actuation; in other words, such a term is still, and always will be, entirely potential in regard to all other acts compatible with the nature of the first by which it is actuated.

Hence we come to the conclusion that every created being, for the very reason of its having been educed out of nothing, retains potency, as the stamp of its origin, in its essential constitution. All creatures, then, are essentially potential, and therefore imperfect; as potency means perfectibility. God alone is free from potency, as he is the only being that did not come out of nothing.

A second conclusion is that the essential term of a created being may be considered under two aspects—viz., as to the reality it borrows from its act, and as to the potentiality it inherits from its previous nothingness. Hence such a term must be called a real potency; the word real expressing the fact of its actuation, and the word potency expressing its ulterior actuability. Reality and potentiality constitute passivity.

It is not unusual to confound substance with the term actuated by a substantial act. Of course, the term cannot be thus actuated without the substance becoming actual; but, though this is true as a matter of fact, it does not follow that substance can be confounded with its intrinsic term. Sphericity actuates a centre; and yet the centre thus actuated is not a sphere, but only the intrinsic term of sphericity. In like manner the act actuates its potency; but this potency is not the substance itself; it is only one of its constituents.

The potential term, such as it is found in material substance, is called the matter. Hence all that plays the part of potency in any being whatever is called its material constituent, although such a being may not contain matter properly so called. Thus we say, for instance, that the genus is the material part of an essential definition, because the genus is potential respecting some specific difference, by which it may be further determined. In such cases the word material stands for "that which receives any determination," whether it receives it in fact or in thought only. In English, the words material and immaterial are sometimes used in the sense of important and unimportant. This meaning may be perfectly justifiable, but is not adopted in philosophy.

With regard to the act by which the essential term of a being is first actuated, it is necessary fully to realize the fact that this act is neither God's creative power nor God's creative action, but something quite different. It is true that all actions are measured or valued by their effects, that is, by the acts in which they end; thus we measure the amount of motive action by the quantity of movement[281] produced. Nevertheless, it is quite evident that the production of a thing, and the thing produced, cannot be confounded with one another. And, since action is nothing but the production of an act, the action and the act produced cannot be confounded with one another, even though they are represented by one and the same word. Thus the action of a painter is not the painting (substantive), although such an action is also called "painting" (participle). Again, the momentum of a falling drop of rain is not the action of the earth, although it is directly from it. And in the same manner the act produced by the Creator is not his creative action, though it is directly from it. Still less can we confound the act produced with the power by which it is produced; for though every effect is virtually contained in its efficient power, we know that it is not contained formally; otherwise the painting should pre-exist within the painter, and the momentum of the falling drop within the earth. As, then, the momentum of the falling drop has no formal existence in the earth, but only in the drop itself while it is falling, so also the act which proceeds from God has no formal existence in God, but only in the term actuated. To say that a created act is God's creative action or creative power, is no less a blunder than to say that a circle described on a blackboard is the power or the action of describing it.

The act which actuates its essential term, in the case of material substance, is called the form. Hence all that plays the part of an act in any being whatever is called its formal constituent. Thus we say that the specific difference is the formal part of the essential definition, because the difference is conceived as actuating the genus into species. In such cases the word formal stands for "that which gives any determination," whether it gives it in fact or in thought only.

Finally, the actuality of the created being corresponds, as we have already explained in the preceding article, to the finality of creation, inasmuch as it perfects the essence into being. This actuality has received different names, according to the different light in which it can be viewed and the different connotations of which it affords the ground. It is called the complement of the essence, its formal existence, its formal unity, its individuality. It is called "complement" of the essence, inasmuch as it satisfies all its requirements, and completes it into actual being; its "formal existence," inasmuch as it is the formal result of active and passive actuation; its "formal unity," inasmuch as it arises from two principles conspiring into unity of essence, and therefore of existence also; its "individuality," inasmuch as it is the unity of a concrete being; for individuality is nothing but "that on account of which a thing is formally one in its concrete being."

Some philosophers of the Scotistic school hold that "individuality" and "formal unity" are different things. They say that formal unity is not individual, but universal; because it does not include in its conception the individuative notes. They accordingly teach that the universal is to be found to exist formally in the individual; whence they have been surnamed Formalists, or Ultra-realists.[282] But it is not true that the formal unity does not include in itself the individuative notes. In fact, all existing essence contains in its own principles the adequate reason of its individuation, and therefore it cannot, by the real conspiration of its principles, be formally one without being individual also. Accordingly, formal unity, though universal in our conception, is individual in the thing itself.

It is evident that the actuality resulting from the act giving, and the term receiving, existence, exhibits itself as existence given and received—that is, as complete real existence. On the other hand, all real result has a real opposition to the formal principles of its resultation; for all that really proceeds has a real relative opposition to that from which it proceeds. A real relative opposition is therefore to be admitted between the real essence and its formal existence; and consequently essence and existence must be considered as really distinct. Not that the essence of a real being does not imply its existence; but because in the essential act and the essential term existence is contained only radically or virtually, not formally, in the same manner as the conclusion is virtually contained in the premises from which it follows, or as equality is contained in the quantities from whose adequation it results. Hence, as in the logical order the formal conclusion is distinct from the premises in which it is virtually implied, so also in the real order is the formal existence of any being to be distinguished from the real principles of the essence in which it is virtually implied. As, however, the act and the term, notwithstanding their real relative opposition and distinction, identify themselves really, though inadequately, with the essence of the actual being, so also the actuality of the being, though having a real relative opposition to the act and the term from which it results, identifies itself really, yet inadequately, with the complete being of which it is the actuality.[283] Whence we conclude that every primitive being, though strictly one in its physical entity, consists of three metaphysical constituents really distinct from one another on account of their real relative opposition.

We must here notice that the last of these three constituents—actuality—is scarcely ever mentioned by the scholastic philosophers. They, in fact, consider all natural beings as constituted of act and potency only. It may have appeared to them that by simply stating the fact of the concurrence of act and potency into one actual essence, the fact of the unity and actuality of that essence would be sufficiently pointed out. They may have had another reason also for omitting the mention of our third principle; for in speculative questions it is the essence of things, and not their existence, that comes under consideration; and essence, as such, involves two principles only—viz., the act and the term, as we have stated above. It is obvious, then, that in their analysis of the "quiddity" of beings, they had no need of mentioning our third principle. A third reason may have been that the act and the potency, or the form and the matter, in the opinion of those philosophers, were two things separable, as the Aristotelic theory of substantial generations implied; whereas the actuality of the being was not considered as a third thing separable from either the form or the matter, and therefore was not thought worthy of a separate mention.

But, the reality of this third principle being universally admitted, there can be no doubt about the convenience, and even the necessity, of giving it a distinct and prominent place in the constitution of any complete being. This has been already shown in the preceding pages; but, for the benefit of those who have never paid special attention to the subject, we will give a summary of the principal reasons why in metaphysical treatises the actuality of being should be methodically granted as distinct a place among the intrinsic principles of things as is allotted to the essential act and its term.

First, then, all being that has existence in nature is something complete, not only materially—that is, by having its term—but also formally, by having its own complete constitution or actuality. The difference between material and formal completion will be easily understood by an example. The sculptor carves the marble and makes a statue. The marble is the material term, and the figure resulting in the marble is the formal term, of his work. Hence the work of carving is materially complete in the marble and formally complete in the figure,[284] which is the actuality of the statue as such. And it is evident that, in speaking of a statue, such a figure is as worth mentioning as the marble and the carving. And therefore, as in the analysis of being we give a prominent place to the term which completes the act, we should do the same with regard to the actuality, which completes the essence. A writer in the Dublin Review, who has cleverly treated this subject, makes the following remark: "The constituents actus and terminus, or forma and materia, are recognized in the schools. The third constituent is not expressly mentioned there. But you hear of essentia and esse; and esse is the complementum. I have a fancy that the much-canvassed distinction between the ἐνέργεια and the ἐντελέχεια of Aristotle is really this, that ἐνέργεια is the actus, and ἐντελέχεια the complementum."[285] This remark is very judicious; for it is as certain that the complete being consists of essence and existence as it is certain that the essence consists of act and term; and, moreover, there is no less a distinction between the essence and its existence than between the act and its term. Hence the same reasons that led metaphysicians to give a conspicuous place to the act and its term in the analysis of the essence, show that a similar place should also be given to essence and its actuality in the analysis of the being.

In the second place, the formal complement of being is the only ground on which many different and opposite things can be predicated of one and the same being; as, for instance, activity and passivity, action and passion, to be, to be one, to be good, etc. It is, therefore, important not to leave in the shade that principle, without which no unity of being can be conceived.

Thirdly, an explicit knowledge and mention of such a complement is indispensable, in a great number of cases, when we have to explain how accidental modes not received in a substance can intrinsically belong to that substance—a thing which will never be radically explained without an explicit reference to the formal complement of the being in which those modes are to be found.

Fourthly, in the intellectual as well as in the sensitive nature the appetitive faculty cannot be accounted for, nor distinguished from the cognoscitive, unless we have recourse to this same formal complement, which constitutes the affectibility of the same natures—a truth which we must here simply state, as its demonstration belongs to special metaphysics.

Fifthly, it is unwise to expose the reader to the danger of confounding things having a metaphysical opposition to one another; for instance, the uniting with the union accomplished, the constituting with the complete constitution, the actuation with the actuality. But if the actuality is kept out of view when we give the principles of beings, such confusion will be almost unavoidable. I believe that it is owing to the omission of this third principle that even great philosophers have not unfrequently mistaken attitudes for acts, and actualities for forms.

Sixthly, after we have analyzed a primitive complete being, and found it to consist of three intrinsic principles, it is nothing but reasonable to keep them all equally in sight, and to make them all serve in their turn for the simplification of metaphysical investigations; especially as the distinct recollection of the act, of its term, and of the actuality of both will also draw the student's attention to the corresponding extrinsic principles—viz., to the creative power from which that act proceeds, to the nothingness out of which that term was educed, and to the last end for which that actuality obtained a place in the real order of things.

Lastly, by the consideration that these three intrinsic and relatively opposite principles constitute one primitive complete being, it becomes possible to account philosophically for the known fact that every creature bears in itself, in vestigio at least, as S. Thomas puts it, a more or less imperfect image of God's unity and trinity—a topic on which much might be said, were this the place for discussing the analogy between beings of different orders.

A few corollaries. From the resolution of complete beings into their intrinsic principles, and from the different character of these principles and of their principiation, a number of useful corollaries can be drawn, among which the following deserve a special attention:

1. It is a great mistake, and one which leads straight to pantheism, to assert, as Gioberti did, that creatures are not beings, but only existences. For if creatures have their own actual essence, they are not mere existences, but complete beings; and, if they have no essence, they cannot exist; as all existence is the actuality of some essence. Hence to assert that creatures are not beings, but only existences, amounts to saying that creatures have no essence, and that their existence is the existence of nothing—that is, non-existence. Moreover, mere existence is a simple actuality, and does not exhibit an intelligible ratio; hence, if creatures were mere existences, they would be intrinsically unintelligible, not only to us, as Gioberti pretends, but to God himself, who certainly does not understand what is intrinsically unintelligible. There is no need of insisting on such an unavoidable conclusion.

That the same assertion leads straight to pantheism is likewise evident. In fact, the absurdity of admitting existences which would be existences of nothing could not be escaped but by trying to pin them on the substance of God himself, and by saying, with the pantheist, that all such existences are nothing but divers actualities, or attitudes, or forms assumed by the divine substance. Thus, to escape one absurdity, we would fall into another.

2. Inasmuch as the actuality of a given essence makes a given thing formally complete, one, and perfect according to its entitative degree, it is to such an actuality that everything owes that it is formally good, and that it answers to the finality of its creation. Such a goodness implies two things: the first, that every creature is good in its absolute being, for it is in such a being that God's design is fulfilled of communicating his goodness outside of himself; the other, that every creature is good in its relative being also—that is, in its intrinsic aptitude and determination to manifest God's perfections in a manner and degree proportionate to the kind and degree of its entity. Accordingly, every created being is good not only as it is a thing, but also as it is a principle of action. In the first capacity it fulfils the immediate end of its creation, and in the second it fulfils by its action the ultimate end for the sake of which it has been made to exist.

3. Hence we further infer, that the essence of every created being is its nature also. For nature is a principle of motion, according to Aristotle, whether motion is taken as the action proceeding from that nature itself, or as the reception of an action proceeding from an extrinsic agent. Now, we have seen that all creatures are manifestative of God's perfections, and therefore that they have in themselves an act which is a principle of action; on the other hand, we have also seen that every creature has its potential term, and therefore passivity, or receptivity of new determinations. Accordingly, every created being, by the very nature of its essential constituents, is a complete principle of motion. Essence and nature are, therefore, the same thing in reality, though they are distinguished from one another in our conception. S. Thomas considers that these three words, nature, essence, and quiddity, apply to one and the same thing viewed under three distinct aspects; the word nature meaning the essence of the thing as connoting operation, since there is no natural being without active power; whereas the word quiddity means the same essence viewed as an object of definition; and the word essence is used to express the fact that in it and through it a thing has its own being.[286] Whence it follows that a complete being is no sooner endowed with existence than with activity, and is no sooner a being than an individual nature. And therefore a complete being and a concrete nature are really one and the same thing. Malebranche's theory, denying that creatures have any true causality, is therefore utterly untenable, as it cannot be reconciled with the first principles of metaphysics.

4. The entity of the active power contained in the nature of any being cannot be anything else than its essential act; that is, the very act produced by God in its creation. In fact, we have just seen that in all creatures the essence and the nature are the same reality, and that the constituents of the nature are nothing but the constituents of the essence. Accordingly, the nature of every creature consists of an essential act and an essential term; the one being its principle of activity, as the other is its principle of passivity. "The form," says S. Thomas, "is that by which the agent acts," and "By what a thing is, by that it acts," and "The principle of being is the principle of acting," and "Every agent acts inasmuch as it is in act." These axioms are accepted by all real philosophers. Hence the active principle of any complete being, and its essential act, are the same thing in reality, though they are distinguished from one another in our conception, in the same manner as are nature and essence; for the essential act connotes the intrinsic term of the essence, to which the act is essentially terminated, whilst the active principle connotes any extrinsic term to which the action proceeding from the same act is, or can be, accidentally terminated. This is what S. Thomas means when he says that "a natural form is a principle of operation, not inasmuch as it is the permanent form of the thing to which it gives existence, but inasmuch as it has a leaning towards an effect."[287] Such a leaning (inclinatio) should be taken to mean a natural ordination or determination to act.

Philosophers agitate the question, whether created substances act by themselves immediately, or by the aid of accidents. The Scotistic school holds the first opinion, whilst the Thomistic supports the second. For reasons which it would take too long to develop in this place, we are inclined to believe that natural accidents are not active, and that their bearing on the action of substance is not of an efficient, but of a formal, character; by which we mean that accidents have no play in the production of effects, except inasmuch as their presence or absence entails a different formal determination of the conditions in which the agent is to exert its power. It is true, indeed, that created substances never act independently of accidental conditions; but it is true, at the same time, that they always act by themselves without the aid of accidents, inasmuch as the active power they exert is so exclusively owned by them that it cannot even partially reside in any of their accidents.

As the active principle is really nothing else than the act by which the agent is, so also the passive principle is really nothing else than the essential term by which that act is completed. Here again the same reality presents itself under two distinct aspects; for the phrase essential term connotes the essential act by which the term is essentially actuated, whilst the phrase passive principle connotes any accidental act by which the same term is liable to be accidentally actuated.

5. Since a being possessing its three intrinsic principles is so fully and adequately constituted as to require nothing additional to exist, it is obvious that such a being contains in its perfect constitution the sufficient reason of its aptitude to exist non in alio et non per aliud, but in se et per se; that is, in itself and by itself. Now, to exist in itself is to be a substance, and to exist by itself is to be what philosophers call suppositum—i.e., a thing having separate subsistence; and, therefore, such a being, if simply left to itself, will be both a substance and a suppositum. In fact, the essential act of a created being, though always needing positive conservation on account of its contingency, needs no termination to, or sustentation from, a subject, as it already holds under itself its own intrinsic term, by which it is sufficiently terminated and sustained. And in the same manner, the essence of a complete being needs no union with any extraneous nature to be made completely subsistent, as it is already sufficiently complete on account of its formal actuality and individuality. Thus it is manifest that nothing positive is to be added to a complete being in order to make it a substance and a suppositum; it suffices to leave it alone without further sustentation and without further completion. By the first of these two negations, the being will exist non in alio, but in itself; and by the second it will subsist non per aliud, but by itself. Hence it is that the first negation is called the mode of substance, and the second the mode of the suppositum.

6. To be, to be true, to be one, to be good, to be a thing or a being, are convertible expressions so far as their real objective meaning is concerned, and are distinct only on account of their different connotations. A thing is called a being, inasmuch as it has existence. It is called true, inasmuch as its act suits its term, and vice versa. For the objective truth of things—i.e., their metaphysical truth—is nothing but their intelligibility; and the whole intelligibility of a being consists in the agreement of an essential act with its essential term; that is, in this: that the one adequately satisfies the wants of the other, and thus constitutes with it one perfect intelligible ratio or essence. Hence the termination of the proper act to the proper term makes a thing objectively true; just as the application of the proper predicate to the proper subject makes true a proposition. This objective or metaphysical truth is perfectly independent of our knowledge of it; it has, however, the reason of its being in God's intellect, in which the archetypes of all that is intelligible are contained, and to which the whole ideal order is to be traced as to its original source. A thing is called one on account of the formal unity of its essence and of its existence. It is called good, objectively and metaphysically, inasmuch as it is materially and formally complete in the manner above described, and consequently perfect, so as to require no further intrinsic endowment to exist.

The objective goodness of any being arises from its truth; for it is the mutual fitness of the essential act and of the essential term that accounts for their mutual agreement in unity of existence; whence it follows that the being will naturally exist in itself, and subsist by itself, without any further addition, as though finding rest in its own reality. But, that in which anything finds rest is its own good; and therefore everything that exists in itself completely is good to itself, while its act and its term, as the intrinsic factors of such a goodness, are good also, but only of an initial and relative goodness—viz., so far as the one is good to the other. Lastly, the word thing expresses the whole being as it is in its concrete essence—that is, the whole reality implied in its three intrinsic principles. Thing in Latin is res; and res, as well as ratio, are connected with the verb reor (to judge) in the same manner as pax (peace) and pactio (compact) are connected with the verb paciscor (to make a compact); and accordingly, as peace implies the compact, of which it is the result, and by which its conditions are duly determined, so also res implies the ratio, of which it is the concrete result, and by which it is confined between the bounds of a determinate quiddity. Whether the English words thing, thought, and to think bear to one another the same relation as the Latin res, ratio, and reor, we are not ready to decide.

7. The verb to be has not exactly the same meaning, when applied to a complete being, as when applied to its constituent principles. Of the complete being we say that it is simply and completely. Of the essential act we also say that it is, but not absolutely nor completely, because it has no existence apart from its term; existence being the result of the position of the one in the other. Of the essential term we should not say precisely that it is, but rather that it has being. This adjective predication is here employed, because the being of the term is wholly due to its act, without which the term would be nothing, as we have already shown; and therefore the term is not a being, but only has the being borrowed from its act, just as the geometric centre has no being but that which it receives from the circumference. Of the complement we do not say that it is, or that it exists, because the complement is the formal existence, not of itself, but of the being of which it is the complement, and therefore must be predicated of the existent being, not of itself. Thus we cannot correctly say that loquacity talks, nor that velocity runs: and for the same reason we should not say that existence exists; for as it is the woman that talks by her loquacity, and the horse that runs with its velocity, so it is the complete being that exists by its own existence.

Nevertheless, the verb to be, when used in a logical sense to express the existence of an agreement between a predicate and a subject, or any other mental relation between objects of thought, applies equally to all things conceived, whatever their degree of reality; because, inasmuch as such things are actually known, they are all equally actual in our intellectual faculty.

And now, with regard to the essence itself of a complete being, the question arises whether it should be held to be, or to have being, in the sense of the distinction already made. S. Thomas seems to hold that the essence of creatures cannot be said to be, but only to have being; for he teaches that in creatures the essence is to its existence as a potency is to an act. If this doctrine were to be applied to possible essences only, we might admit it without discussion; but the holy doctor seems to apply it to the actual essence also; for "to be," says he, "is the most perfect of all realities, because it performs the parts of an act with regard to them all; as no thing has actuality but according as it is; and therefore to be is the actuality of all things, even of the forms themselves; and for this reason existence is not compared to any existing thing as a recipient to that which is received, but rather as that which is received to its recipient. For when I mention the existence of a man, or of a horse, or of anything else, existence stands for something formal and received, and not for that to which it belongs."[288]

It is clear, however, that the actuality of anything is not an act really received in the essence of the thing as in a potency. For, according to S. Thomas himself, nothing is educed from potency into act, except through an act which is not originated by that potency; and therefore no potency contains in itself the formal reason of its actuation, but all potency is actuated by an act originated by an extrinsic agent. Now, such is not the case with real essences; for every real essence contains in itself all that is required to give rise to its actuality, as we have proved; and consequently, as soon as the essential act actuates the essential term, the actuality of the essence springs forth by spontaneous resultation, as the consequence from the premises, with no need of an extrinsic agent producing a new act. Granting, then, that existence is something formal, as S. Thomas truly says, yet it does not follow that it is an act received; it is only a resulting actuality. And therefore the real essence is not the potency of existence, but its formal reason. Existence is the complement of real essence, and presupposes it; and consequently gives it nothing but the real denomination of existent—and, perhaps, this is all that S. Thomas intended to teach, though his words seem to imply a great deal more. For, on the one hand, he very often employs the word potentia, not in the sense of passive potency, but in that of virtuality; and, on the other, he frequently gives the name of forms to those formalities from which things receive their proper denomination, and considers them as received in the things to which they give such a denomination. But in such cases their reception is of course only logical, not real, and accordingly the thing denominated by them is only a logical, not a real, potency, as it already possesses the reality of that by which it receives its special denomination. Thus we say that in man rationality is to animality as act is to potency; but this is true in a logical sense only, because man's animality implies in its constitution a rational soul, and therefore is already in possession of rationality.

To conclude: the essence of all actual beings is to be said to be or to exist rather than to have being or to have existence; and in the same manner the essence of a possible being is to be called a potency of existing rather than of receiving existence, so far, at least, as it is considered in connection with its intrinsic principles. The reader, if not accustomed to metaphysical investigations, will think that we, in this last question, have only amused ourselves with splitting hairs; to correct such a judgment, he has only to ask himself whether between being rich and holding borrowed riches the difference be important or trivial.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

THE JANSENIST SCHISM IN HOLLAND. JANSENISM IN THE CHURCH OF UTRECHT.

FROM LES ETUDES RELIGIEUSES. BY C. VAN AKEN.

CONCLUDED.

II.

Such was the system of Jansenius, at least as to its main points; its five famous propositions forming the most important conclusions of the system. If they are not all to be found, in so many words, in the Augustinus—which neither pope nor theologian has ever pretended they are—they are the soul of the book, in the words of Bossuet. This soul, this breath of error, is revived in Quesnel and in the false Synod of Pistoia. Now, are the proofs called for of its existence in the pretended church of Utrecht? Then we have only to let the hierarchy intruded in Holland speak for itself through its letter addressed to Scipio Ricci. So far as I know, this letter has never before been published. We give it as faithfully transcribed from the original in the archives at Florence:[289]

"Monseigneur:

"We have just read with astonishment a bull of Pope Pius VI., in which the Synod of Pistoia, held by you in 1786, is condemned, and your episcopal administration calumniated, upon grounds which are incomprehensible. Conduct such as this in regard to a bishop and an ecclesiastical assembly of the highest repute in the church, and the spirit of partisanship which characterizes the bull generally, have certainly not been imitated from the great Doctor of Grace, S. Augustine, whom the latter seems intended to honor, since it is dated on his feast.

"Your synod, monseigneur, was for years, as the public well knew, under examination by Roman censors; and it is evident that they would not have occupied themselves with it for so long a time[290] if, instead of laboriously seeking for pretexts to condemn it, they had sought in it for that truth which is everywhere displayed in it with clearness, dignity, and unction. We need not, therefore, have expected a confirmation of this synod as the result of such an examination. We are no longer in the days when the popes used the authority of their see only for edification, and not for destruction. Your synod, monseigneur, reveals nothing which is unworthy of the full approbation of the head of the church, and which would not have been cordially received by the popes of former times. But God permits that those of later times should be swayed by prejudices and by the dominating influence of a court which, although foreign and even contrary to the divine institution of the Holy See, pretends, nevertheless, to identify itself with the chair of S. Peter, and has consequently taken upon itself to dictate the bulls of the popes conformably to its own interests—interests often greatly opposed to those of the church and of the Holy See.[291] It finds that these human interests have not been made much of by the Synod of Pistoia, which kept in view only the good of souls and the disinterested exercise of the functions of the pastorate. It could not, therefore, approve this synod, since its decrees preach the new covenant, of which we are ministers, in the spirit and not in the letter. The ancient one, in which the spirit was sacrificed to the letter, and in which God was honored by the lips, while the heart was far from him, is the only one in accord with the political maxims and views of a court entirely devoted to the éclat of the pontifical throne, and to the externals of religion. The fathers of the synod, most reasonably convinced that the true and only object of the ministry established by Jesus Christ is to give to God adorers in spirit and truth, have endeavored, so far as these evil times permitted, to bring back Christian worship to its primitive purity and simplicity. But this could not be suffered by a court which applies itself exclusively to fostering abuses in ecclesiastical discipline and in the administration of the sacraments, and to all the new devotions and superstitions[292] which give a false idea of Christian piety, and cause the faithful to forget the true spirit of Christianity; not reforming, as it ought, this Judaical worship, but making its profit of it, and taking it under its protection, on all occasions.

"In the synod you held, monseigneur, there were useful reforms proposed, and even commenced. Still greater ones were desired. If the wise regulations made in it were put in practice and everywhere adopted, as they deserve to be; if its wishes were attended to, true piety would flourish again, the church would possess good ministers, their labors would produce abundant fruits, the observance of the canons would restore the salutary discipline of the early days, the hierarchical order would enjoy all its rights, its head, the Holy See, would be listened to and respected, but the Roman court would become nothing. It is this, monseigneur, which excites its resentment against you and your synod. It is the court alone which has produced this extraordinary bull, which is an injury to the chair of S. Peter, more even than to the Synod of Pistoia, and the Pope has been dishonored by causing him to adopt it.

"It was already sufficiently a scandal that Rome alone gave no sign of approving this synod, while it was receiving praises everywhere else; that she alone seemed to take no interest in the good results of which it was susceptible, and appeared even aggrieved and offended at that which gave joy to all true children of the church.[293] But this was not enough for the jealous and vindictive policy of the Roman court. It wished to brand, by a public and solemn censure, the acts of the Synod of Pistoia; and although it must have been infinitely painful to the censors to find no matter for condemnation, yet, by condemning, at whatever detriment to itself, that which all the world approved, it has capped the climax of scandal—scandali mensuram implevit.

"Injustice vainly attempts a disguise: it often betrays itself by the clumsy precautions it takes to disguise itself. This, monseigneur, is what we see in the bull of August 28, in which God permitted that its compilers should, against all prudence, depart from their ordinary method of making qualifications in globo, so convenient, and even so necessary, where there is question of condemning good books. By applying to each of the propositions censured by them particular qualifications, they have thought to give to their censure an appearance of greater rectitude and equity, and by this very means they have rendered evident to all the spirit of deception and bad faith which characterizes them. In fact, monseigneur, if the use of this kind of censure be even just and equitable in itself, it would be impossible to abuse it more grossly than they have done in the matter of your synod. Every one knows that, when propositions are bad and condemnable, they are so in themselves and in the sense they express. It is, then, in themselves and in reference to this sense that they should be condemned.[294] This, however, is not what has been done in regard to the greater number of the propositions drawn from the Synod of Pistoia. They are not condemned in themselves nor in their proper sense, but relatively to the imaginary sense attributed to them. The truths they express are passed over, in order to condemn the errors they do not express; and while it would be against all evidence to attribute to them an erroneous sense, to which the words are repugnant, they are nevertheless condemned conditionally—that is to say, by virtue of a gratuitous and often absurd supposition that this erroneous or in some wise reprehensible sense may be conveyed therein. They dare not condemn Jesus Christ, or, what is the same thing, the truth in its own name; but they give him the name and the dress of Barabbas, in order to have the right of sending him to punishment as a malefactor—Et cum iniquis reputatus est.

"We have just said, monseigneur, that the bull violated grossly in your regard good faith and justice by this indirect and captious manner in which it condemns the greater number of the propositions drawn from your synod. But there are others, in the censure of which the interests of the faith and of the teachings of the church are equally disregarded. They do not hesitate to sacrifice these to the pernicious opinions of obnoxious theological schools, the defence of which is taken up against your decrees, under the pretext that the Holy See tolerates them under the name of Molinism—a Pelagian doctrine[295] rejected by all tradition. Thus error, or rather a number of most dangerous errors, is put on a level with truth; and the hand of Pius VI. is made use of to replace beside the ark that idol of Dagon so often overturned to its base by the censures of the church and the writings of her doctors. What idea have they, then, of the teachings of the church, and of the rights of bishops and their co-laborers in reference to this doctrine? Because Paul V. did not choose to do in regard to the doctrine of Molina that which his successors did in regard to the doctrine of S. Augustine in their bulls against Jansenius and Quesnel;[296] because they have not published, with condemnation, the system of equilibrium, of gratia sufficiens, of the state of pure nature, of the scientia media, of limbo, etc.; and have allowed to be taught the sufficiency of attrition without the love of God, and the ignorant devotion to the Sacred Heart to be practised, shall pastors no longer be permitted to oppose to these novelties the principles and the language of Scripture and tradition? And shall they no longer warn the faithful of the snares spread for their faith and piety, because those who spread them have not yet been declared heretics by the Sovereign Pontiffs?

"They have not contented themselves, monseigneur, with making a crime of your private sentiments, however irreproachable, but have quarrelled with you for having, in your synod, adhered to a doctrine so authoritative, so precious in all churches and all states, as that contained in the four articles of the assembly of the clergy of France in 1682. They have so poor an opinion of the present clergy and of the Gallican Church itself as to imagine that this clergy would feel offended at the praises you give to the celebrated declaration of that assembly, and to take the insertion you have made of it in the acts of the Synod of Pistoia as an injury. But if the synod does an injury to the French clergy by adopting its maxims, what does the Pope's bull do, which rejects and condemns them?

"You may be sure, monseigneur, that a bull like this—a censure as manifestly unjust at bottom as singular and indecent in form—is not likely to shake or diminish in the least either our attachment for you or our esteem and admiration for the acts of your synod, in the doctrine of which our clergy recognize their own, through the chapter of Utrecht, whose act of adhesion was sent to you in November, 1789,[297] shortly after the French publication of the synod. The efforts which are now being made to cry down its results, and to render them abortive, are so much more a motive for our confirming this adhesion, and of renewing to you the expression of our interest in your cause, afflicted, as we are, to the bottom of our heart, that our Holy Father, Pope Pius VI., who ought to show us the example of like sentiments, shows himself in his bull entirely opposed to them. We sympathize with you, monseigneur, no less in the personal offence that has been offered you than in the annoyances which cannot fail to arise to you as well as to the faithful clergy of your ancient diocese. But God, who has enabled you long to foresee these things, and who has already prepared you for them by preliminary trials, will give you grace to bear all this with continued courage and confidence in his protection and assistance.

"Considering the affair in itself, nothing can be weaker than the attack that has been made upon you by this bull, which is more likely, in view of its whole contents, to justify your doctrine than to render it an object of suspicion. But if we pay attention to the fact that it is the very purity of this doctrine, and your enlightened zeal for the house of God, that have drawn upon you this unjust treatment; that it is the testimony you render fearlessly and without disguise to the most important truths, so combated in our days, of dogma, of morals, and of discipline in the church, which renders the Synod of Pistoia odious to the enemies of these truths, nothing can be grander nor more worthy of a bishop than the cause you will have to defend. Consequently, nothing can impel us more to invoke upon you, monseigneur, by our prayers, and upon all those whom divine Providence will associate with you in the same defence, the lights and graces of the Holy Ghost. Ask them also for us, who long preceded you in the same career of tribulations and trials, and whose cause has not been separated from yours, since it has been attempted to injure your synod by comparing it, in the new bull, to our council—a comparison most just and natural, and which cannot but do honor to both.

"We are, with respect and tender attachment in our Lord Jesus Christ, monseigneur, your most humble and obedient servants,

✠ Gaulth. Mich., Archbishop of Utrecht. ✠ Adrien Jean, Bishop of Harlem. ✠ Nicholas, Bishop of Deventer.[298]

"Utrecht, October 31st, All-Saints' Eve."

This letter renders evidence against the clergy of Utrecht that may justly be called crushing, and would be sufficient in itself to close the debate. It sheds light, also, on the whole history of the schismatical church of the United Provinces. Now, to complete the demonstration entered upon, let us retrace our steps, and make research into the origin and the peculiar character of the Jansenism of Holland.

III.

In the beginning of the XVIIth century the University of Louvain was in a most flourishing condition; the purity of doctrine that prevailed there, its attachment to the Holy See, and the example of loyal and perfect submission it had recently given before the world by repudiating the errors of Baius, gained for it the respect and good wishes of all Christendom. Some of its professors, however, had not entirely renounced Baianism; and unhappily, in their case, distinguished talents were joined with uncommon activity. The most eminent of these men was Jacques Janson, who was the professor and, as it were, the father of Jansenius. He made the third of the party of whom the future Bishop of Ypres and the Abbé de Saint-Cyran were the other two. Louvain then became the centre of a set of ideas of which the doctrines of Baius formed the basis, and which were ripened and developed by Jansenius during nearly thirty years, to be finally brought forth in his famous Augustinus. It was also at the school of Jacques Janson that Philip Rovenius and several eminent individuals among his clergy received their theological training; they therefore drank of Jansenism at its very source.

The Augustinus was issued in 1640 from the press of Jacques Zegers, of Louvain. Immediately, Philip Rovenius, Archbishop of Philippi, in partibus infidelium, and Vicar Apostolic of the United Provinces; Jean Wachtelaer, his vicar-general; Baudoin Catz, afterwards the successor of Jacques de la Torre; Leonard Marius, professor in the College Hollandais at Cologne, and several besides, gave a public and entire approval to the book of Jansenius, coupled with the most flattering praises. There was at once in Belgium, as well as in Holland, and on the part of many virtuous and well-meaning priests, an infatuation, an enthusiasm, exhibited for the Augustinus, of which the reception given almost in our day to the first volume of the Essai sur l'Indifference will give only a faint idea. But Holland distinguished herself in this concert of praises; S. Augustine himself, people said, had spoken by the mouth of Jansenius; Jean Wachtelaer averred that the Netherland priests were never wearied with reading and meditating this incomparable work; Rovenius went further, and formed a league with the Canon of Furnes, a nephew of Jansenius, and several other partisans of the new doctrines, to prevent the Council of Brabant from putting in execution the first measures taken by the Holy See against the Augustinus. These were the circumstances that preceded the bull In eminenti, published at Rome on the 19th of June, 1643, in which the famous work was proscribed as containing propositions previously condemned;[299] we are thus made aware of the sentiments of the clergy, and the spirit in which the young Levites of the United Provinces were formed. Rovenius submitted to the pontifical definition; in his book on the Christian Republic,[300] printed at Anvers, in 1648, he even renders solemn homage to the infallibility of the Vicar of Christ. This important doctrine was then, as always, held in honor at the University of Louvain. Rovenius had learned it there, and to this powerful preservative he owed the honor and fidelity that attended his last days.

The clergy of Holland seemed at first to imitate the humble obedience of its chief; but it soon became evident that this submission was neither as general nor as perfect as was desirable. Left to its ancient traditions of respect for the Holy See, the Church of Holland would perhaps have escaped shipwreck; but it shortly received as vicar apostolic a man of whom Sainte-Beuve has truly said that he was "the great auxiliary of Port Royal in Holland."[301] Jean Neercassel, priest of the Oratory, had had a share in the government of the mission since the year 1652. Consecrated Bishop of Castoria, in partibus, in 1662, he shortly after became, by the death of Baudoin Catz (1663), the sole vicar apostolic in the United Provinces, and continued so to be for the long period of twenty-three years. The illustrious Archbishop of Malines, who knew, by a painful but glorious experience, how greatly firmness and devotion on the part of a chief pastor were needed in those sad times, said: "I shall always commiserate those bishops who are even on terms with a single one of these innovators."[302] Neercassel invited these innovators all to Holland, and made it a place of refuge for them. Arnauld, du Vaucel, Gerberon, Quesnel, and a multitude of apostate monks and fugitive priests, all in revolt against the decisions of the church, cast themselves upon the poor mission as upon a prey provided for them. From Arnauld's correspondence, and the papers found on Gerberon, Quesnel, and others, we see that the direction of the most important affairs of the vicariate apostolic then passed into the hands of the patriarchs of Jansenism. In this school, the clergy of the Netherlands learned the wretched distinction between right and fact (le droit et le fait). As this distinction tion forms one of the bases of the resistance offered by that clergy to the definitions of the Holy See, it would be proper to give a brief explanation of it.

The five famous propositions having been referred to the tribunal of the Sovereign Pontiff by eighty-five French bishops, the so-called disciples of S. Augustine sent a deputation to Rome to defend the sense of Jansenius. They prepared, on this occasion, the celebrated Ecrit à trois Colonnes, in order, said they, "to show fully the state of the controversy, and to furnish the Pope with the means of knowing exactly upon what he had to give judgment." For each proposition there is distinguished, 1st, the sense of Luther or of Calvin, which is condemned; 2d, the natural sense, prout a nobis defenditur, the sense of Jansenius—in a word, that said to be the sense of the church and of S. Augustine;[303] 3d, and last, the Pelagian or semi-Pelagian, which is rejected like the first. At this time, then, the party acknowledged, in an official and authentic document, that it defended the five propositions in the sense of Jansenius, and that this sense was the only natural and legitimate one. The whole question was to know if this sense were heretical or not. It was upon this point that the Pope's decision was invoked both by the bishops and by the partisans of Jansenius.

The decision was given the 31st of May, 1653, in the bull Cum occasione, which condemned the five famous propositions. The church evidently aimed a blow at the spirit of the book, which alone conveyed the error. The Jansenists understood it as every one else did at the time, and were confounded by it. But in their farewell audience, the deputies of the party asked the Pope if he had been understood to condemn the opinion in regard to efficacious grace by itself—the doctrine of S. Augustine. Certainly not, replied the Holy Father. The whole of Jansenism was embraced in this equivocal question; for the Jansenists reasoned thus: the Augustinus contains nothing but the pure doctrine of S. Augustine; we can therefore submit to the bull without rejecting the sense of Jansenius.

To prevent and eliminate in advance every pretext for disobedience, Pope Alexander VII., in 1665, ordered, in a new bull, that the condemnation of the five propositions in the sense of Jansenius should be subscribed to; he directed at the same time, according to the ancient usage of the church, that the signature should be attached to a formula in these words: "I,——, submit to the Apostolic Constitution of Pope Innocent X., dated the 30th of May, 1653, and to that of the Sovereign Pontiff Alexander VII., dated the 16th of October, 1665; I condemn and reject heartily and in all sincerity the five propositions taken from the Augustinus of Cornelius Jansenius in the same manner as they are condemned by the said constitutions; I condemn them in the sense of that author; thus I swear. May God help me and this holy Gospel!"

Then it began to be said in the camp of Jansenius: The pope and the bishops may well decide if the propositions are heretical; it is a question of right. Créance au droit! But are the propositions taken from the Augustinus, and do they convey its sense? That is a question of fact, in regard to which the church might be mistaken. Nevertheless, respect au fait! After this, it was signed, excluding (en exceptant) the sense of Jansenius. The more determined refused their signature; after the time of Pierre Codde, the successor of Neercassel, this was the general rule.

No one, in my opinion, has more fully set forth the state of this question than the author of the Provincial Letters, whose genius demonstrates conclusively the absurdity of this celebrated distinction.[304] He thus expresses himself in a passage wherein he maintains his opinion against Arnauld, Nicole, and others: "The whole dispute is in ascertaining if there be a fact and a right disconnected from one another, or if there be only a right; that is, if the sense of Jansenius ... does nothing but indicate the right. The Pope and the bishops are on one side, and they claim that it is a point of right and of faith to say that the five propositions are heretical in the sense of Jansenius; and Alexander VII. declares in his constitution that, to be in the true faith, we must say that the words, 'sense of Jansenius,' express only the heretical sense of the propositions, and that thus it is a fact which carries with it a right, and makes an essential part of the profession of faith; as if we should say: The sense of Calvin on the Eucharist is heretical, which is certainly a point of faith."[305]

Nothing could be better said. But what is the conclusion? It is this, and Sainte-Beuve himself says the same in other words:[306] the church must be denied all infallibility on the question of right; we must allege that she can be mistaken even as to the true and natural sense of her own decrees, if we would maintain that she could err as to the fact in Jansenius. In a word, we must either completely break with the church, or condemn the sense of Jansenius.

M. Réville seems to know very little of the question of fact as regards Jansenius. One might say that, to form his opinion on this point, he had consulted only a report of the Jansenist Bishop of Utrecht, which contains an account of the latter's interview in 1828 with the Papal nuncio, Mgr. Capaccini. In this, the representative of the Holy See is made to use absurd and ridiculous language; the author of Port Royal, who was not any too well versed in theology, had a better knowledge of the question than this nuncio. How could M. Réville regard this as a serious relation? Has a witness who could neither understand the Catholic theologians nor Pascal himself the right to be believed on his word when he reports, word for word, a long conversation with his opponent, a kind of diplomatic passage-at-arms, wherein it was greatly to his interest to make the best figure for himself? And, besides, what guarantee of exactitude have we in a relation published for the first time twenty-three years after the interview, and six after the death of Cardinal Capaccini, the only person able to rectify the assertions of his interlocutor?[307]

That a Protestant or a free-thinker should encourage the "Friends of Holland" in resisting the Holy See, that he should even go so far as to do honor to that resistance, I can conceive; but that he should share in the inveterate obstinacy of the Jansenists concerning fact and right defies logic and common sense. M. Réville seems likewise to confound the bull Unigenitus with that of Alexander VII. concerning the formulary. This leads us to speak of the second point on which the opposition of the clergy of Utrecht to the Holy See is founded.

The Jansenist discussions on le fait and le droit were still proceeding, when the patriarch of the sect, the ex-Oratorian, Pasquier Quesnel, threw off the mask, and in his Réflexions Morales renewed the principal dogmas of Baius and Jansenius.[308] Pope Clement XI. ordered the book to be examined; he proceeded in this affair, says Döllinger, "with perfect prudence and deliberation. The Jesuits had been charged with being bitterly opposed to the Réflexions; he chose examiners from religious orders whose teachings had the least affinity with those of the Society of Jesus. He himself presided at twenty-three sessions of the examiners, and the discussion lasted for nearly two whole years.[309] Finally, on the 8th of September, 1713, the bull Unigenitus appeared, condemning one hundred and one propositions taken from Quesnel's book. Among them are some which at first sight appeared inoffensive; but they cunningly convey Jansenist error, and intimately coalesce with the system; in others, expressions are skilfully worded to infect the reader with prejudices against the teachings or the general discipline of the church; many clearly announce the dogmas of Jansenius."[310]

Here, seeing that the one hundred and one propositions were found word for word in the condemned book, the distinction of right and of fact (du droit et du fait) was impossible. Quesnel, on hearing of the decree condemning it, exclaimed: "The Pope has proscribed one hundred and one truths!" The whole party echoed this exclamation, and our Netherland sectaries followed the impulse given by the patriarch of Jansenism. This, then, in two words, is the attitude of Jansenism in Holland: it refuses to condemn the sense of Jansenius by signature to the formulary of Alexander VII.; it refuses adherence to the bull Unigenitus. All the efforts made by the Holy See to bring back the Jansenists of Utrecht to Catholic unity have failed, from a persistence in this double refusal. Among these efforts at reconciliation, there is one which deserves special mention.

In 1826, Mgr. Nazalli, Papal nuncio, opened a conference with the Holland Jansenists. He announced to them that Rome exacted of them nothing more than an adhesion pure and simple to the constitutions of Innocent X., Alexander VII., and Clement XI., and he proposed for their signature the formula previously referred to, with the following addition: "I moreover submit, without distinction, reticence, or explanation, to the constitution of Clement XI., dated September 8, 1713, and beginning with the word Unigenitus; I accept it purely and simply, and thus I swear. May God help me and this holy Gospel!"[311]

The bull Unigenitus was, even under the Gallican point of view, obligatory on all Catholics, since it had been accepted by the entire episcopate with that moral unanimity of which so much was said about the time of the last council. However, the schismatic archbishop and bishops of Holland declined the overtures of the Sovereign Pontiff. Their reply is a true model of Jansenist style; every member of a phrase hides a restriction or an equivocation:

"We replied frankly (honnêtement) that none of the bishops or clergy would hesitate to recognize with sincerity, by means of an unequivocal declaration in general[312] terms, all that the Holy See might exact on their part, and that they would have no difficulty in declaring, for example, that they agree, and that they even swear, if needs be, to accept, without any exception whatever, all the articles of the Holy Catholic faith: not to maintain nor to teach, now or hereafter, any opinions but those which have been established, determined, and published at all times by our holy mother, the church, conformably to Scripture, tradition, the acts of œcumenical councils, and, lastly, to that of Trent; that, besides, they especially reprehend, reject, and condemn the five propositions which the Holy See has condemned, and which are pretended to be found in the book of Jansenius, known as the Augustinus." All the rest is in this spirit. But what follows was quite unforeseen:

"We therefore leave it to the decision of the world whether a declaration so frank and so sincere ... does not offer incontestable proof of entire submission to the Holy See; and whether the general terms in which it is conceived do not embrace all the specialties of which acknowledgment can reasonably be expected from us, but into the details of which we are not permitted to enter by citing bulls which we cannot in conscience accept—bulls which have not been recognized by the government, and which we are therefore not permitted to mention without incurring grave penalties.... It is, in fact, sufficiently well known that the said constitutions (of Innocent X., Alexander VII., and Clement XI.) are not only not adopted nor obligatory in several countries, but that they cannot be adopted or enforced in a country where they have never received the placet of the government, and where their acceptance as such is interdicted under threat of severe punishments. In the northern countries, to the jurisdiction of which the clergy of Utrecht belonged, such acceptance was strictly forbidden by the edicts of the 24th February and 25th May, 1703, the 14th December, 1708, and of the 20th and 21st September, 1730—edicts in which the principle was established that it belongs to the sovereign alone to permit the publication and execution of such bulls, and that without his visa or placet neither is permitted."[313]

Can one imagine baser or more servile language? In presence of a heterodox power, the pretended successors of S. Boniface, of the martyrs and victims of Calvinist persecution, dare to take sides with power, and to concede to it a right to dominate over faith and ecclesiastical discipline! At that very time William I. was oppressing his Catholic subjects, and endeavoring to deprive the bishops of the right of bringing up in their seminaries young aspirants to the priesthood. Need it be added that no law in vigor in 1826 interdicted the acceptance pure and simple of the Apostolical Constitutions of Alexander VII. and Clement XI.?

The Revolution had overridden ancient laws, and not a single Catholic was molested on account of his adhesion to the decrees of the Holy See. But the worship of the state as God makes progress in proportion as respect for the church is banished. For a bishop especially independence is impossible; when he refuses to walk in the royal way of submission to the Vicar of Christ, he becomes, by a just punishment, the plaything of a party or the slave of the secular power.

And this is the church which the neo-Protestants declare is calumniated when the accusation of Jansenism is brought against it; the church which, infected with this poison at the very sources whence it poured itself abroad on the world, has always kept its arms open to receive the followers of Jansenius; which has always shown its readiness to sign formularies like those of Quesnel and Ricci, and has obstinately rejected the profession of Catholic faith; this, in fine, is the church which precipitated itself into schism in order to remain faithful to the errors of Jansenius, and of Saint-Cyran, and of Quesnel!

FOOTNOTES:

A LOOKER-BACK.

II.

Leaving Christ's Hospital, and rambling on, one soon comes to a church partly covered with ivy, in a yard filled with shrubbery and autumn flowers. It is S. Sepulchre's, the burial-place of Captain John Smith, the Virginia pioneer. It is almost a sacred duty to pay a passing tribute to his memory, notwithstanding a lifelong grudge against him for not rounding off his romantic career by wedding the dusky Pocahontas. The clock of this church has the sad distinction of regulating the hanging of criminals at Newgate. The tower has four pinnacles, each one bearing a vane with its own notions as to rectitude, which has given rise to the saying that "unreasonable people are as hard to reconcile as the vanes of S. Sepulchre's tower, which never looked all four upon one point of the heavens."

In old times, the bell of this church was tolled as criminals passed to Tyburn, and the bell-man cried: "All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death;" for which he received the sum of one pound, six shillings, and eight pence. A hand-bell was likewise rung for them to stop for a nosegay of flowers. It must have been a great consolation to them! And yet who knows but such silent messengers of God might not have spoken to many a heart inaccessible to human tongue?

In the XVIIth century a legacy of fifty pounds was left to S. Sepulchre's on condition that, before execution-day, some one should go to Newgate in the dead of night, and give twelve solemn tolls with a hand-bell by way of calling attention to the following appeal:

Plucking an ivy-leaf from the wall of S. Sepulchre's, our pilgrim kept on his way. West Smithfield at the corner of a street brought our friend Fox and his martyrs to mind, and he turned down towards the square where John Rogers met his fate. A tablet of Scotch granite fastened to the wall of S. Bartholomew's Hospital marks the spot. This tablet is protected by a grating, the upright rods of which terminate in gilded flames of most portentous brightness. He did not see any such tablet around London recording the numberless Catholic martyrs of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth's time.

No dispassionate reader of history can regard the church as responsible for the sufferings of the so-called "Marian Martyrs." But let us thank God that such severe penalties are now obsolete in Catholic and Protestant lands alike!

Smithfield was the ordinary place of execution before Tyburn was used. The patriot Wallace was executed here on S. Bartholomew's eve, 1305. Shakespeare makes Henry V. say: "The witch in Smithfield shall be burned to ashes." In Henry VIII.'s time, poisoners were here boiled to death, as the old chronicles of the Grey Friars testify. Here is one quotation: "The x day of March was a mayde boyllyd in Smythfelde for poysing of divers persons." Evelyn records as late as 1652: "Passing by Smithfield, I saw a miserable creature burning, who had poisoned her husband."

But there are pleasanter memories connected with Smithfield, or Smoothfield, as it was originally called. It was once a famous tilting-ground. Froissart tells us how in 1393 "certain lords of Scotland came into England to get worship by force of arms in Smithfield." Here Edward III. celebrated the victories of Cressy and Poitiers by jousts and feats of arms; and Richard II., at the time of his marriage, ordered here a tournament of three days.

Passing through Smithfield market, one soon comes to the Charter House (a corruption of the French word Chartreuse), the old monastery of the Carthusians. The arched gateway is the original entrance into the realm of silence of those old monks. Over it two lions grotesquely carved support an en-tablature. The lion is typical of solitude and the wilderness, and is often found represented beside the hermits of the desert. A porter leads the way at once to the chapel by a passage paved with tombstones and hung with memorial tablets. One familiar name on the wall makes the heart leap, though a modern name:

Gulielmus Makepeace Thackeray, Carthusiani Carthusiano.

H. M. P. C.

Natus, MDCCCXI. Obiit, MDCCCLXIII.

Alumnus, MDCCCXXII-MDCCCXXVI.

Beside this white marble slab is one precisely like it in memory of John Leech.

The Elizabethan chapel is solemn and interesting with its dark oaken pews, its arched roof, on the keystones of which are carved the Charter House arms, and the monumental tombs here and there. A bright coal-fire in an open grate gives it a comfortable, homelike aspect that must be grateful to the aged pensioners. And there are hassocks of straw for them all to kneel upon. Over one of the doors is an arch of modern stained glass, but with colors of unusual richness, or seemed so, coming in from the neutral tints of a dense fog. There is Magdalen with her golden hair, and the other Maries, with beautiful faces and purple, red, and amber robes.

At the north of the chancel is the tomb of Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charter House Hospital, in the style of James I.'s reign. He lies, cut in marble, on a marble tomb, with ruff and long gown, and hands folded palm to palm as peacefully as if they never itched to acquire riches. Two men in armor support an inscription attesting his beneficence. Some persons of a qualifying turn do say that he was, like many others who are very charitable with their money when they see the impossibility of keeping it any longer in their grasp, guilty of what has been called the "good old gentlemanly vice of avarice," and was the original of Volpone the Fox. However that may be, the many who are sheltered here have reason to roar as loudly as they can, and as we are told they do, on the 12th of December, with cracked voices and half-palsied tongues, the chorus of the Carthusian melody:

Catholics, however, cannot forget that when young he took part in the Italian wars, and was present at the sacking of Rome. At a later period he commanded a battery as a volunteer at the siege of Edinburgh, when that city held out for poor Queen Mary. And he aided in the expedition against the Spanish Armada by fitting out a ship named Sutton for himself, which captured a Spanish vessel worth twenty thousand pounds. When he came to London to reside, it was reported that his purse was fuller than Queen Elizabeth's exchequer, and in time he became the banker of London, and had the freedom of the city.

On the 12th of December there is a great festival here in honor of the Fundator, and before it is over the pensioners and school-boys assemble in the chapel, which is lighted, as Thackeray tells, "so the founder's tomb, with its grotesque carvings, monsters, and heraldries, darkles and shines with the most wonderful shadows and lights."

At the south end of the chapel is a fine statue of Lord Ellenborough by Chantrey, in a sitting posture, robed as chief-justice. He was buried here at his own request, having been educated in the Charter House, and one of its governors.

As at Christ's Hospital, the visitor is allowed to wander alone through cloisters and quadrangles, as hushed and peaceful as when occupied by the Carthusians themselves. The pensioners (the school has been removed) seem to lead a kind of friar-life here, and in their seclusion ought to taste something of the peace of the cloister. They only lack the consecration of religion. One of them in cloak and cap came up, bowing with remarkable flexion of body considering his years, and politely offered to show the way with quite an air of proprietorship. His manner was gentlemanly, and he looked as if he might be some "disabled invalide from the campaign of vanity." In these days, when old people are apt to be regarded as unduly persistent about living, it is delightful to feel there are places of refuge for them like this, which confer a kind of dignity on fallen fortunes and declining life which is always a certain going down in the world.

We wonder if there is any service in the English ritual when these old gentlemen take shelter here. There surely ought to be. Some Vade in pace ought to follow them under these arches, dying away little by little with the hours and fragrance of life, and leaving behind silence and repose of soul.

There is a touching custom here of giving the bell at night a number of strokes corresponding to the number of pensioners; and when one of them dies, his decease is notified by one stroke less than on the preceding evening. It was at the evening hour, as the chapel-bell began to toll, that Col. Newcome lifted up his head, said Adsum with a smile, and died.

A bell like this must always have a knell-like solemnity of tone. It is a kind of curfew-bell, reminding the brothers that the evening of life has come, and its fires must be put out before lying down to rest. We can fancy them counting the strokes one by one every night, to learn if some light is for ever extinguished. The thought often occurs how we old people will find heaven—whether a place all youth, and freshness, and beauty. Are there to be no shades and gradations in Paradise, no stars differing from one another in glory, or faces in sweetness and serenity? Are the very angels that are to minister to us there all so full of grace and loveliness, and perfection of form, and crowned with everlasting youth? "Will there not be some comforting ones, shabby and tender, whose radiance does not dazzle nor bewilder; whose faces are worn perhaps, while their stars shine with a gentle, tremulous light more soothing to our earth-bound hearts than the glorious radiance of brighter spirits?" Who that is old and sorrow-stricken, or belongs to the poor and unloved ones of this world, does not feel the need of some such spirits to greet him there—need of some shadowy, sequestered spot where the brightness and love of that ineffable region will be tempered for us who have had but little cheer on earth, at least till our unaccustomed souls are fitted for loftier heights?

Many such—perhaps too human—dreams of heaven flitted across the mind while sitting on a bench beside some old graves in a yard at the Charter House that gloomy afternoon. Weary with climbing old staircases, going through old passages and old halls, where one only breathed the atmosphere of old times, perhaps the soul had become infected by the gloom of the place.

Borders of dull chrysanthemums grew along the gravelled walks—apparently a favorite flower in England, for they are to be found everywhere. A few trees with blighted leaves, instead of bright autumn foliage as in America, stood around with nothing in the world to do but look well, any more than Voltaire's trees, but, like many poor mortals, did not succeed very well. They looked weary of the struggle, and had a certain bowed, resigned look that was pathetic. How could anything look fresh and vigorous in that field of death? One cannot imagine the place peopled with boys full of life and fun, as it used to be.

The land on which the Charter House stands was a graveyard at the time of the great plague, five hundred years ago, being consecrated to that purpose by Bishop Stratford, of London, in 1348. Distressed that so many of his flock should be buried out of consecrated ground during the prevalence of the plague, he bought three acres of land called "No Man's Land" for a burial-ground, and erected a chapel thereon, where Masses could be said for the repose of the dead. The place became known as Pardon Churchyard and Chapel. We read of an early instance of lynching on No Man's Land previous to this time. A wealthy merchant, one Anthony of Spain, so exasperated the public by an excessive duty on wine that a mob dragged him barefoot to this spot, and here beheaded him, in November, 1326—doubtless on just such a dismal, foggy day as this, supremely adapted to give one desperate views, and aggravate the natural ferocity of the human animal.

The plague continuing to increase, the churchyard was enlarged through the charity of Sir Walter Manny, of knightly fame, who purchased a piece of land adjoining. An old ballad says:

The next Bishop of London, Michael de Northburg, when he died, in 1361, bequeathed two thousand pounds, with all his leases, rents, and tenements, towards the foundation of a Carthusian monastery at Pardon Churchyard, together with an enamelled vessel of silver for the Host, another for holy water, a silver bell, and all his theological works. Sir Walter Manny, desirous of co-operating in this work, petitioned for a royal license to build a monastery here, to be called "The House of the Salutation of the Mother of God," and gave to it the land he had bought for a graveyard, consisting of thirteen acres and one rod. Sir Walter's charter was witnessed by the Earl of Pembroke, Edward Mortimer, Earl of March, and others. The monastery was completed in 1370, and was the fourth of the Carthusian Order in England.

The London Charter House was furthermore endowed by several other persons. Two hundred and sixty marks were bestowed in perpetual frank-almoign to build a cell for a monk who should offer daily suffrages for the souls of Thomas Aubrey and Felicia his wife, as well as all the faithful departed. Richard Clyderhowe, in 1418, gave up, "from reverence to God and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and for the health of his own soul and that of his wife Alicia, who was buried in the church of the convent, a lease of land he held in Rochester, that these religious might, in their orisons, remember him, his soul, the soul of his wife, the souls of his relations, children, and all his benefactors, and devoutly recommend them to God."

It is pleasant to find the Charter House interchanging charitable offices with its neighbor, the priory of S. John of Jerusalem. They exchange lands, and the prior of the Charter House offers a trental of Masses "that the soul of Brother William Hulles, Prior of the Hospital of S. John of Jerusalem, might the sooner be conveyed, with God's providence, into Abraham's bosom."

In the XVth century the Charter House became, for the space of four years, the residence of Sir Thomas More, who here gave himself up to devotion and prayer without taking upon himself any vow.

This monastery flourished about three centuries with a constant reputation for strict observance of the rules of the order and for holiness of life. It was during the time of Prior John Houghton, in 1534, that it was visited by the royal commissioners appointed by Henry VIII. to inspect all the monasteries of the kingdom, and draw up an account of their rules, customs, and revenues.

Most of the monks refused to subscribe to the king's supremacy, and the prior and procurator were committed to the Tower. They afterwards yielded to advice which they respected, but, suspected of disaffection, were summoned to renew the oath, and the prior was arraigned for speaking too freely of the king's proceedings, and, with two other Carthusians, was condemned to be hung, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn for refusing to acknowledge the king head of the church in England. As they were leaving the Tower to be executed, they were perceived by Sir Thomas More, imprisoned there for the same reason, who said to his favorite daughter, as if envying them: "Lo, dost thou not see, Meg, that these blessed fathers be now as cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriage?" This was not long before his own martyrdom. There is at the South Kensington Museum a painting of Sir Thomas and his daughter, depicting this very scene. He stands looking down through the grated window. Margaret, tall and stately, with her father's left hand in hers, has her deep violet eyes raised steadfastly to heaven with the most appealing expression; her whole face calm and holy, but inexpressibly sad.

The heads of these monks were suspended over London Bridge—a bridge built, too, by religious—and Prior Houghton's mangled body was hung up over the gate of the Charter House. The next month three more monks of this house were executed for a like reason, and the remainder were called upon three times in one year to take the oath of supremacy—a proof that they were regarded as specially loyal to the pope. Of the ten who had subscribed two years before, nine now refused, and were committed to prison at Newgate, where they were chained in a filthy dungeon and starved to death. Their end was announced to Cromwell as "by the hand of God." Their keeper, Bedyll, gave him a list of these poor martyrs, adding: "There be one hole." This whole one survived an imprisonment of four years, only to be executed at last.

All this did not take place without some supernatural manifestations to fortify the poor monks. It is recorded that "unearthly lights were seen in their church," and, at the burial of one of their number, all the lamps of the church were miraculously lighted, and one of the deceased brethren appeared to the monk who had nursed him in his last illness, saying that "the angells of pease did lamment and murn w^towt measur," and that my "lord of Rochester" and "o^r Father" (Houghton) were "next unto angells in hevyn."

The remainder of the English Carthusians went to Bruges, where they remained till the accession of Mary, who, at the suggestion of Philip, it is said, invited them back, and gave them the old Carthusian monastery at Shene, near Richmond. They were exiled again in Elizabeth's reign, and returned to Belgium.

The south wall of the present chapel formed part of the old church in which were buried Sir Walter Manny, and Margaret his wife, and many other knights and dames. Prior Houghton's remains are supposed to be buried somewhere within the wall now marked by a cross and a huge I. H. It is recorded of him that he was so meek and humble that if any one addressed him as "my lord," or with any unusual deference, he immediately rebuked him, saying: "It is not lawful for poor Carthusian monks to make broad their phylacteries, or to be called rabbi by their fellow-men."

The Charter House was given to John Bridges, yeoman, and Thomas Hale, groom, as a reward for the safe keeping of the king's tents and pavilions which had been deposited here, but it afterwards passed through several hands. While owned by Lord North, Queen Elizabeth spent four days here, which so diminished his lordship's resources that he was obliged to live in retirement the rest of his life. James I. also passed a few days here when it was in possession of Lord Thomas Howard, in order to show his respect for a family that had aided and suffered for his mother. While here, he knighted more than eighty gentlemen—let us hope less awkwardly than he knighted Sir Richard Monopilies, of Castle Collop!

The Charter House was finally purchased by Thomas Sutton, the founder of the hospital. It is delightful to step from the noise and bustle of the streets into these secluded courts with grass-plots to refresh the eye, lime-trees to give shade, here a fountain in the midst of a garden, and there some old tombs, perhaps of the monks; on this wall some holy symbol left here ages ago, but not in vain, for it still speaks to the heart; and scattered around are seats for the pensioners to enjoy the sun and air.

The kitchen fireplace is capacious enough to roast fifteen surloins. What extensive means are always used to provide for the body which perisheth! If at least equal provision were made, as in the times of the old monks, to supply the needs of the soul! Does that get its three meals a day, and now and then a lunch or some refreshing draught? Are there none who labor day after day to supply the soul's hunger, as multitudes do to satisfy the cravings of the body? Yes, thank God! there is still an army of such spiritual people in the cloister and in the world, who only live to feed their higher natures. If they care for the body, it is merely enough to enable it to serve the soul. The world may call them "drones," but they are necessary in order to preserve the moral balance of the world, as an offset to the materiality of the day. Yes, the hermit, the contemplative, contributes in his degree to sustain the world, and this is why the suppression of such a class is an irreparable loss to society.

A BLOCK OF GOLD.

"France paid the Prussian indemnity like a proud debtor; it seemingly did not cost her any trouble to do so. Few nations could do as France has done within the past two years; none have ever excelled her in cancelling a monetary obligation." One hears such remarks occasionally; they were quite common a few months past. But what was the French indemnity? Five milliards of francs—that is, five thousand millions of francs, or one thousand millions of dollars in gold! To think of the sum is to make one feel covetous of a chip of the block; to see the whole sum in one block of gold is almost enough to make one cry out with Timon—

"Ce que c'est que cinq milliards en or monnaye!"

Well, we did not exactly know what five milliards of francs in gold or copper were. The cool February evening in the year of grace 1873, we were accosted in front of No.— Boulevard St. Denis by the above question. At the same time a polite French boy hands us a handbill, which told us that un bloc d'or, eight metres long, five metres high, and three and two-third metres deep, could be seen for fifty centimes—ten cents. This cube of one hundred and fifty metres contained one hundred thousand rouleaux of fifty thousand francs each; each one of the rolls—rouleaux—contained two thousand five hundred pieces of twenty francs, and the whole two hundred and fifty million (250,000,000) pieces.

We paid the admission fee, and were ushered into the room where the gilded cube stood. A stout lady sat near the door knitting; the master of ceremonies was young and thin. We were the only visitor at 8 P.M. on the evening of February, 1873. We surveyed the cube, and admired the ingenuity displayed in its make-up; but it occurred to us at the time that, as a speculation, it was a failure. People, I thought, who have to pay a large debt don't care about being told the length, breadth, and height of their indebtedness; that it would be, perhaps, a success at Berlin. We thanked the thin master of ceremonies for his attention, respectfully bowed to the stout woman plying her knitting-needles; and walked along the boulevard with our back to the Pont St. Denis, asking ourselves what we could or would do with one or five milliards of dollars.

The other day we saw an old copy of the New Orleans Propagateur Catholique. It contained an article on the five milliards, which it credits to the Christian Brothers—Les Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes. It recalled our ten-cent investment of last February, and is so interesting, especially to all who are mathematically inclined, that we translate it.

In bank-notes of one thousand francs, the weight of each note being estimated at two grams,[314] the five milliards in paper would weigh ten thousand kilograms;[315] in gold, one million six hundred and twelve thousand nine hundred; in silver, twenty-five millions; in copper, five hundred millions. It would take one hundred men to carry the five milliards in bank-notes of one thousand francs each, allowing one hundred kilograms to each man; sixteen thousand one hundred and twenty-nine, in gold; two hundred and fifty thousand, in silver; five million, in copper. It would take a man to count the five milliards, at the rate of ten hours per day, and counting every minute sixty notes of one thousand francs—fifty pieces of twenty francs, sixty pieces of one franc, sixty pieces of five centimes—to count the notes, four months and nineteen days; the gold, nineteen years and ten days; the silver, three hundred and eighty years, six months, and eight days; the copper, seven thousand six hundred and ten years, four months, and seven days.

To remove this great sum of money in bank-bills one wagon would suffice, it being capable of bearing ten thousand kilograms; in gold, one hundred and sixty-one and one-third wagons; in silver, two thousand five hundred; in copper, fifty thousand. Allowing ten metres[316] to each wagon, those carrying the gold would extend sixteen hundred and ten metres; the silver, twenty-five thousand metres; the copper, five hundred thousand metres.

Placing the notes of one thousand francs one upon another, and giving each one a space of one tenth of a millimetre,[317] they would ascend to a height of five hundred metres. The diameter of the five-franc piece being equal to thirty-seven millimetres, the five milliards placed in the same direction, side to side, would form a chain thirty-seven millions of metres in length—almost the circumference of the earth, which is forty millions. With one-franc pieces placed as the preceding, they would encircle the globe twice and seven-eighths; with fifty centimes—ten-cent pieces—four times and one-half; with sous—cents—sixty-two times and one-half!

The Franco-Prussian war did not commence till July, 1870. Inside of three years the greatest of modern battles have been lost and won, and the heaviest fine ever laid upon a nation paid, and without interfering with the commercial classes or any important interest or branch of business in the fair land. Great in science, in war, in religion, she has given the world a proof of her magnificent resources, and that her children are still proud of la belle France, and filled with the "sacré amour de la patrie."