THE REV. JAMES MAttTINEAU. 529 



the planet cooled. The difficulty and reluctance encoun- 

 tered by this conception arise solely from the fact that the 

 theologic conception obtained a prior footing in the human 

 mind. Did the latter depend upon reasoning alone, it 

 could not hold its ground for an hour against its rival. 

 But it is wanned into life and strength by associated hopes 

 and fears and not only by these, which are more or less 

 mean, but by that loftiness of thought and feeling which 

 lifts its possessor above the atmosphere of self, and which 

 the theologic idea, in its nobler forms, has engendered in 

 noble minds. 



Were not man's origin implicated, we should accept 

 without a murmur the derivation of animal and vegetable 

 life from what we call inorganic nature. The conclusion 

 of pure intellect points this way and no other. But the 

 purity is troubled by our interests in this life, and by our 

 hopes and fears regarding the life to come. Reason is 

 traversed by the emotions, anger rising in the weaker heads 

 to the height of suggesting that the suppression of the 

 inquirer by the arm of the law would be an act agreeable 

 to God, and serviceable to man. But this foolishness is 

 more than neutralized by the sympathy of the wise; and 

 in England at least, so long as the courtesy which befits an 

 earnest theme is adhered to, such sympathy is ever ready 

 for an honest man. None of us here need -shrink from 

 saying all that he has a right to say. We ought, however, 

 to remember that it is not only a band of Jesuits, weaving 

 their schemes of intellectual slavery, under the innocent 

 guise " of education," th.it we are opposing. Our foes 

 are to some extent of our own household, including not 

 only the ignorant and the passionate, but a minority of 

 minds of high caliber and culture, lovers of freedom, 

 moreover, who, though its objective hull be riddled by 

 logic, still find the ethic life of their religion unimpaired. 

 But while such considerations ought to influence the form 

 of our argument, and prevent it from ever slipping out of 

 the region of courtesy into that of scorn or abuse, its 

 substance, I think, ought to be maintained and pre- 

 sented in unmitigated strength. 



In the year 1855 the chair of philosophy in the Uni- 

 versity of Munich happened to be filled by a Catholic 

 priest of great critical penetration, great learning, and 

 great courage, who had borne the brunt of battle long 



