this, he must be free to develop his own activity without restraint, and the religious symbol must be subjected to the free action of his own intellect and will, — and, we may add, to passion and caprice. Hence the conditio sine qua non of the progressiveness of religion is unrestrained freedom for man to alter, reform, amend, modify it at will, so as to adapt it to his moral and intellectual state ; or, in other words, unrestrained freedom to make his religion at all times and in all places after his own image. Hence, whatever tends to restrict man's control over his religious institutions, to render his religion inflexible, immovable, and immutable, the same always, everywhere, and for all, is hostile to religion itself, antichristian, mischievous to man, and hateful to God.

Such, in brief, is the general theory or doctrine of the Shadowists, or, as they are also sometimes called, the Progressists, as we can testify of our own knowledge, and as it is easy to collect from these Lectures themselves. It is clear from this statement, that the leading idea of these philosophers, doctors, or poets is the destruction of all antagonism between man and his religion. They find that there is a powerful antagonism between themselves and religion, as presented by its authorized teachers ; this antagonism they, very properly, look upon as wrong, and to be destroyed. But their peculiarity consists in proposing to destroy it by conforming, not man to religion, but religion to man. Hitherto it has been thought, that, whenever there is discrepancy between man and religion, he, not religion, should give way ; but this the theory corrects, and assumes that man is right, and that religion is in fault and in need of reform, a notable discovery, no doubt.

It is also clear from our statement that the Shadowists do not hold religion to be imposed on man by his Maker as the law he is to learn, believe, and obey ; but they hold it to be something developed from man, spun, spider-like, from his own bowels, subjected to his free control, which he is to provide for and keep in constant repair, alter, contract, enlarge, amend, as occasion may require, so as to prevent it from ever offering any opposition to the age, country, or individual. The religious life, accordingly, consists, not in believing the revelation and keeping the commandments of God, but in adapting one's religion to the times. Under the religious point of view, man is a religion-developer, mender, or stretcher, whose chief duty is to make his religion always an exact shadow of himself. The service he may thus render religion is perhaps intelligible ; but

the advantage to be derived from his religion is not very obvious. Somebody has remarked, that the difference between a good physician and a poor one is very great, but between a good one and none at all it is not great. Perhaps our Professors think that by rendering religion flexible, a sort of Indiarubber religion, capable of contracting and expanding at will, they make it a good religion, and therefore nearly, if not quite, as good as none.

If we analyze this marvellous theory, we shall find that it proceeds on the assumption, that the falsehood and mischief of a religion are in the restraint it imposes on human activity, and that it is true and wholesome so far as it leaves us free and unimpeded, and permits us to follow the bent of our nature, and live as we list. It assumes the end of man to be, not, as the Catechism teaches, “to know God, to love and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him for ever in the next,” but to develop freely and in all directions his inherent activity, or, in other words, to develop and perfect his nature. Our nature, as God left it, is merely inchoate, and we must take it up and complete it ; that is, do what the Creator has left undone. If lest free, man will always keep his religion in harmony with the times, and prevent it from interposing any obstacle to his self-development and growth. It will cease to be a let or hindrance to his progress, and he may then go on in his career, and attain - Here the oracle is silent, and no further response can be obtained.

Knowing now the theory and character of the Professors, we can easily understand the ground of their opposition to the Jesuits. They oppose the Jesuits, substantially, because the Jesuits oppose their theory of man and religion, because they deny that religion should be flexible, movable, mutable, and alterable at the will and caprice of each age, country, and individual ; because they are exclusive, and will not admit that man can attain to salvation in one religion as well as in another ; because they are hostile to the free development of human activity, and seek to subject it to a positive law imposed by authority on man, and not merely developed from him. Here is the ground of their opposition to the Jesuits, and their principal charges against them.

But in these charges they in fact allege no offence. There is no offence where there is no infraction of law; and where no law is alleged as violated, no offence is alleged. The Professors allege no law as violated by what they charge against NEW SERIES. VOL. I. NO. III.

40

ܪ ܐ

a

a

the Jesuits. They declare on no law; but simply on their own theory. That theory is not law; it is a mere private speculation or opinion, and therefore its infraction is no offence.

Before the Professors can allege the infraction of their theory as an offence, they must assume it to be law. But they cannot assume it to be law without contradicting themselves. The essence of their theory, as is evident to all who comprehend it, or have studied their Lectures, is that there is no law, and that man is perfectly free to exert his own activity as seemeth to bimself good. To assume the theory to be law is to deny this, and to assert that man is subject to law, and free to exert his activity only according to law. On no hypothesis, then, can the Professors allege the infraction of their theory as an offence. That theory is either true or it is false. If true, there is no law; then no offence, for its infraction violates no law; if false, its infraction can be no offence ; for it can be no offence to violate a false theory. This is a bad beginning for our distinguished Professors, our learned and philosophic Universitarians, who would have us regard them as standing at the apex of modern civilization, and is not likely to exalt our opinion of their legal attainments and logical ability.

But the case for our Professors is worse yet. They not only cannot allege the infraction of their theory as an offence, but, on the assumption of that theory, they can allege no act of the Jesuits or of any body else, whatever it may be, as an offence. According to their theory, human activity is left perfectly free and unrestrained, and subject to no law but its own inherent law, by virtue of which it is human activity ; which inherent law, it is evident of itself, can never be violated, unless it be by not acting. There is no law, then, which restrains or forbids any act whatever. There then can be no offence; for the offence is necessarily in doing what the law forbids. If there can be no offence, none can be charged against any one, let him do what he will. This is an awkward position for our Professors to assume. They wish to commence and sustain an action against the Jesuits, and as the condition of doing it, begin by denying all law, and therefore the possibility of any actionable matter! But no man can be arraigned without law, or but by law. Whoever, then, wishes to arraign and condemn a party must in the outset concede the existence of law, and show that the law, on which he declares, forbids the particular acts he sets forth in his declaration. Are the

learned Professors of the College of France, the celebrated Universitarians, under the necessity of being taught this?

But, unhappily for our Professors, if they should undertake to assert law, and to relieve themselves by an appeal to it, they would be obliged to abandon their theory. If they appeal to law, they recognize a legal order. But the moment they recognize a legal order, they recognize an authority to make and declare the law, and that the right or the wrong of human actions is determinable only by the law. This is as true in moral matters as in civil. Man is a moral being only by being placed under law; and he is moral or immoral in his character, simply as his acts conform or do not conform to the law to which he is subjected. Deny law, and you deny morals. Admit law, and you must admit a sovereign lawgiver, whose will is law. But the will of the lawgiver cannot bind till promulgated, and it cannot be promulgated without authority. "Where there is no

. authority to promulgate and declare the will of the sovereign, there is no law. Law necessarily supposes such authority, and the supposition of such authority necessarily supposes the law to be what, and only what, the authority declares it to be. But if the Professors admit this, as they must, if they appeal to law, they admit the very principle for which they arraign the Jesuits ; for the gist of their allegation against the Jesuits is that they assert that man is subject to law, and that the law is determinable only by the authority which promulgates and declares it. They would, then, not only bring no charge against the Jesuits, but they would even condemn themselves. Not the Jesuits, then, would be wrong in opposing, but they in defending, their theory. So much in general; a more particular examination will disclose everywhere this same original vice of the pleadings of the Professors against the Jesuits. They assert universal liberty, and allege against the Jesuits that they deny and oppose it. Be it so. But if all actions are free, it is no more an offence against liberty to deny it than it is to assert it. The Jesuits in denying it only exercise that liberty which you assert, and therefore do only what you assert they are free to do.

Do you reply, that it is self-contradictory to assert universal liberty, and at the same time the universal liberty to violate liberty ? If so, that is your affair, not ours. To assert universal liberty is, no doubt, to assert a universal absurdity; but the responsibility is yours, not ours. If you assert it, you can assume no act to be a violation of it; for whatever the

act may be, it is a free act, which no law forbids. But liberty, you say, necessarily excludes all acts which are repugnant to liberty. But no act is repugnant to liberty, if liberty be universal. Let this pass. Liberty can exclude no act repug

. nant to liberty, unless liberty be erected into law. The law must ordain it, define it, and forbid its violation. But a law ordaining and defining liberty is already a limitation of liberty, and there is only so much liberty as the law ordains, concedes, or forbids to be attacked. But the Professors by their theory deny all law.

There is a great deal of loose declamation in our days about liberty and natural rights; but liberty is really unintelligible without law. Liberty is my right, or it is not liberty. If it is my right, you have no right to encroach on it, and if you attempt it, I have the right to repel you; for a right which there is no right to defend as a right is no right at all. But I can have no right to repel your attack, unless there is some law which forbids it. Hence law always lies necessarily at the foundation of liberty, the law of God, of nature, of the state, or of nations. The question of liberty, therefore, always involves the question of law, and can never be determined but by determining what the law permits, commands, or forbids. Deny this, you assert, in the name of universal liberty, universal liberty to violate liberty, which is absurd. The assertion of law is essential to the assertion of liberty, and the denial of law is a virtual denial of liberty ; for it denies liberty as a right. We wish our modern advocates of liberty, who seek to advance liberty by the destruction of law, would bear this in mind, and remember that liberty without the guaranty of law is even less than an empty name.

This reasoning is as applicable in one sphere of human activity as in another, in the sphere of thought as in that of outward action. The Professors seek to arraign and condemn the Jesuits in the name of liberty of thought; but the liberty of thought cannot be asserted without asserting law, which grants and guaranties it, and therefore only so much liberty of thought can be asserted as the law grants and guaranties. To determine how much this is, the appeal is not to liberty itself, but to the law; and therefore to the authority competent to declare the law. But our Professors deny all such authority, for the gist of their charge against the Jesuits, as we have seen, is that they assert it. They then deprive themselves of the means of determining whether they are entitled to the liberty