624 SUPPRESSION OF PHILOSOPHY. 



dependence of the spiritual order, how she kept her grasp upon mankind 

 by the establishment of monastic institutions ; how, after the death of 

 Charlemagne, who had done so much for her, she adopted the feudal 

 system, which was the legitimate offspring of barbarism ; how, as knowl- 

 edge began to spread, she tried to render it tributary to her by councils, 

 convocations, federations ; how, finding it likely to become uncontrollable, 

 she took the alarm, and in an evil hour attempted its repression ; how 

 for a little while she became the autocrat of Europe, and in the plenitude 

 of her power so greatly forgot her duty that, in the time of Leo X., it 

 was doubted in Rome whether the soul be immaterial and immortal, 

 Erasmus testifying with horror that he heard it proved that there is 

 no difference between the soul of a man and that of a beast of a truth 

 it was said that the Eternal City teemed at once with all crime and all 

 the glories of art how, against the moral and intellectual revolt which 

 she encountered the Reformation the Church made a stand by the aid 

 of the Society of the Jesuits and the establishment of the Inquisition, 

 Its attem t at an< ^' w ^ a quick sense of her true position, attempted to 

 suppressing guide children through education by the former, and to check 

 philosophy. men ^ the terrors of the i a tter; h OWj as if ^ i ns tinct, she 



detected the antagonism of exact science, and on the one hand published 

 her Index of prohibited books, and on the other allied herself with art, 

 cultivating it so eminently as to compel even her enemies to confess that 

 she had produced true miracles at last in architecture, sculpture, paint- 

 ing, music. Pius IV. was justified in comparing some of her grand 

 masses to the strains of Paradise. 



The mistake committed by the Italian governmftnt in thus attempting 

 the compression of human thought was in its imperfect appreciation of 

 the qualities of the European mind and the existing philosophical tend- 

 ency. Up to a certain point opinion may be coerced by force. It is 

 altogether a vulgar error that persecution never attains its ends. In 

 nine cases out often it does attain them, provided it is applied with suf- 

 ficient severity and for a sufficient time, as is proved by the history of 

 almost any nation ; but in the tenth it fails. 



Judging from the experience of twenty centuries, for that was nearly 

 Failure of that the period during which the European had been philosophiz- 

 attempt. j n g ? the popes were justified in coming to the conclusion that 

 they did. Those centuries had produced no philosophy of a sure and 

 permanent kind. The only fruit which they had borne was the meta- 

 physical uncertainties of the schools. There seemed no prospect that the 

 human mind would ever do more than flounder in doubt ; that sect after 

 sect, and doctrine after doctrine, would emerge into prominence and disap- 

 pear. In such a state of things, it was not to be supposed that any peril 

 could arise from attempting to control opinion by authority, and to extin- 

 guish the spirit of inquiry by asserting the paramount efficacy of faith. 



