LITERARY NOTICES. 



849 



epidemic character of crime ; or the remarks on 

 the rise of self-distrust consequent on the decline 

 of authority; or the view that the modern school- 

 master is a kind of professional parent. And 

 joined to this power of observation is found the 

 power of expressing its results in short, pithy 

 phrases or sentences that stick in the memory. 

 "Life is interesting if not happy" is a whole 

 answer to Mr. Mallock. " Is life but a liveli- 

 hood ? " is a home-thrust at a certain school of 

 politicians. " Worship is habitual admiration " 

 is not likely to be bettered for some time as a 

 working definition. 



Nowadays one is not allowed to call a book 

 brilliant unless it says some witty and therefore 

 spiteful things. Even these are not wanting in 

 the pages of " Natural Religion." Let us cull a 

 few that display this quality: 



" If you want to see the true white-heat of 

 controversial passion if you want to see men 

 fling away the very thought of reconciliation, and 

 close in internecine conflict, yon should look at 

 controversialists who do not differ at all, but who 

 have adopted different words to express the same 

 opinion." 



" What should we think, then, if its name and 

 its glories formed the staple of our religious wor- 

 ship, if our church-goers sang, ' Oh, pray for 

 the peace of England they shall prosper that 

 love thee 1 ?" 



" ' Erudition ' and ' philosophy ' are terms of 

 contempt in their mouths. They denounce the 

 former as a busy idleness, and the latter as a 

 sham wisdom, consistingmainly of empty words, 

 and offering solutions either imaginary cr unin- 

 telligible of problems which are either imaginary 

 or unintelligible themselves." 



But of far more iaiportance than these isolat- 

 ed instances of acuteness of thought or phrase 

 are the many new positions taken up in this 

 book. The distinction between theology and 

 religion has never been brought so clearly into 

 connection with the difference between scientific 

 and imaginative knowledge. The three different 

 phases of atheism by which term is meant by 

 this author want of adaptation to the environ- 

 mentare excellently discriminated. 



It may cause some surprise, but can not fail 

 to cause as much enlightenment, to find our au- 

 thor, most modern of the moderns as he is, advo- 

 cating the closest possi bl3 union between Chu rch 

 and state, and defending his position by all the 

 wealth of his historical knowledge. But has ever 

 the modern temper been hit off more exactly than 

 in the following passage ? 



" Another maxim has to be learned in time, 

 that some things are impossible, and to master 

 this is to enter upon the manhood of the higher 

 life. But it ought not to be mastered as a mere 

 depressing negation, but rather as a new religion. 

 The law that is independent of us, and that con- 

 ditions all our activity, is not to be reluctantly 

 acknowledged, but studied with absorbing de- 

 light and awe. At the moment when our own 

 self-consciousness is liveliest, when our own be- 

 liefs, hopes, and purposes a^e most precious to 

 us, we are to acknowledge that the universe is 

 VOL. xxi. 54 



greater than ourselves, and that our wills are 

 weak compared with the law that governs it, 

 and our purposes futile except so far as they are 

 in agreement with that law." 



But enough. We have given the main argu- 

 ment of the book, aud selected some of its de- 

 tails for discussion or lor admiration. It remains 

 to discuss its probable effect on the two parties 

 between whom, in a measure, it attempts to 

 effect a reconciliation. It has already been 

 pointed out that the religious world will regard 

 its religion as having been misunderstood, and 

 not sympathized with ; and this complaint will 

 be just. It is natural, at this point, to compare 

 the somewhat similar attempts of Mr. Matthew 

 Arnold in this direction; and it must be owned 

 that, with regard to knowledge of and sympathy 

 with orthodox belief, the whilom Oxford pro- 

 fessor is the superior of his Cambridge rival, if 

 we may venture so to term the author of " Ecce 

 Homo." Mr. Matthew Arnold was bent on bat- 

 tling with religious Philistinism, and did not 

 disdain to deal it some heavy and rather unfair 

 blows, chiefly by way of irony. Our author, on 

 the contrary, cares more to expound the position 

 of nous antres, and has, for the first time, given 

 an adequate exposition of the creed of culture. 

 "Religion," he says, "has been revived under 

 the artificial name of culture " ; and, again, " The 

 momentary evanescence of the Church in modern 

 life is only caused by the decay of one sort of 

 Church coinciding in time with the infancy of 

 another." In thus boldly pointing out that the 

 spiritual currents now flow in other channels 

 than those that are technically called religious, 

 the book says what many have been feeling. It 

 must necessarily give courage to the Antinomi- 

 ans, and give, for the first time, a true sense of 

 their position to the followers of ancient lines of 

 thought. That the followers cf culture will con- 

 sent, to call their ideal by the name of religion, 

 and that the believers of religion in its old sense 

 will grant that name, full of the most sacred as- 

 sociations, to fie pursuit of truth and of beauty, 

 are very doubtful propositions. So far, there- 

 fore, as our author seriously aims at these inno- 

 vations his efforts appear doomed to failure. No 

 eirenicon can be effected between two opposing 

 schools by inducing them to acfopt the same 

 name on their banners. It is by bringing into 

 full consciousness the thoughts and feelings of 

 modern men that this book will exercise its chief 

 influence It will enable the adherents of the 

 old and of the upw faith to know for what the 

 strife is being carried on. And it shows how 

 fast and for the world has been drifting since 

 1866 to re^e-t that this b^ok takes the place of 

 an exposition of " Christ's ttaeolosry " promised 

 in the preface of" Ecce Homo." But the second 

 or " practical " nart of the book is not practical 

 in any sense that leads to action. It merely 

 shows that the natural religion which is his 

 theme i* renVv in action among us in influ- 

 encing men's lives. It may set men thinking, 

 it can not Kid them to act. Meanwhile, let us 

 close t' is notice of a book which we assume will 

 be read by most thinking Englishmen with a 



