You will observe, then, Gentlemen, that those higher sciences of which I have spoken, Morals and Religion, are not represented to the intelligence of the world by intimations and notices strong and obvious, such as those which are the foundation of Physical Science. The physical nature lies before us, patent to the sight, ready to the touch, appealing to the senses in so unequivocal a way that the science which is founded upon it is as real to us as the fact of our personal existence. But the phenomena, which are the basis of morals and Religion, have nothing of this luminous evidence. Instead of being obtruded upon our notice, so that we cannot possibly overlook them, they are the dictates either of Conscience or of Faith. They are faint shadows and tracings, certain indeed, but delicate, fragile, and almost evanescent, which the mind recognizes at one time, not at another,—discerns when it is calm, loses when it is in agitation. The reflection of sky and mountains in the lake is a proof that sky and mountains are around it, but the twilight, or the mist, or the sudden storm hurries away the beautiful image, which leaves behind it no memorial of what it was. Something like this are the Moral Law and the informations of Faith, as they present themselves to individual minds. Who can deny the existence of Conscience? who does not feel the force of its injunctions? but how dim is the illumination in which it is invested, and how feeble its influence, compared with that evidence of sight and touch which is the foundation of Physical Science! How easily can we be talked out of our clearest views of duty! how does this or that moral precept crumble into nothing when we rudely handle it! how does the fear of sin pass off from us, as quickly as the glow of modesty dies away from the countenance! and then we say, "It is all superstition." However, after a time we look round, and then to our surprise we see, as before, the same law of duty, the same moral precepts, the same protests against sin, appearing over against us, in their old places, as if they never had been brushed away, like the divine handwriting upon the wall at the banquet. Then perhaps we approach them rudely, and inspect them irreverently, and accost them sceptically, and away they go again, like so many spectres,—shining in their cold beauty, but not presenting themselves bodily to us, for our inspection, so to say, of their hands and their feet. And thus these awful, supernatural, bright, majestic, delicate apparitions, much as we may in our hearts acknowledge their sovereignty, are no match as a foundation of Science for the hard, palpable, material facts which make up the province of Physics. Recurring to my original illustration, it is as if the India Commander-in-Chief, instead of being under the control of a local seat of government at Calcutta, were governed simply from London, or from the moon. In that case, he would be under a strong temptation to neglect the home government, which nevertheless in theory he acknowledged. Such, I say, is the natural condition of mankind:—we depend upon a seat of government which is in another world; we are directed and governed by intimations from above; we need a local government on earth.

That great institution, then, the Catholic Church, has been set up by Divine Mercy, as a present, visible antagonist, and the only possible antagonist, to sight and sense. Conscience, reason, good feeling, the instincts of our moral nature, the traditions of Faith, the conclusions and deductions of philosophical Religion, are no match at all for the stubborn facts (for they are facts, though there are other facts besides them), for the facts, which are the foundation of physical, and in particular of medical, science. Gentlemen, if you feel, as you must feel, the whisper of a law of moral truth within you, and the impulse to believe, be sure there is nothing whatever on earth which can be the sufficient champion of these sovereign authorities of your soul, which can vindicate and preserve them to you, and make you loyal to them, but the Catholic Church. You fear they will go, you see with dismay that they are going, under the continual impression created on your mind by the details of the material science to which you have devoted your lives. It is so—I do not deny it; except under rare and happy circumstances, go they will, unless you have Catholicism to back you up in keeping faithful to them. The world is a rough antagonist of spiritual truth: sometimes with mailed hand, sometimes with pertinacious logic, sometimes with a storm of irresistible facts, it presses on against you. What it says is true perhaps as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth, or the most important truth. These more important truths, which the natural heart admits in their substance, though it cannot maintain,—the being of a God, the certainty of future retribution, the claims of the moral law, the reality of sin, the hope of supernatural help,—of these the Church is in matter of fact the undaunted and the only defender.

Even those who do not look on her as divine must grant as much as this. I do not ask you for more here than to contemplate and recognize her as a fact,—as other things are facts. She has been eighteen hundred years in the world, and all that time she has been doing battle in the boldest, most obstinate way in the cause of the human race, in maintenance of the undeniable but comparatively obscure truths of Religion. She is always alive, always on the alert, when any enemy whatever attacks them. She has brought them through a thousand perils. Sometimes preaching, sometimes pleading, sometimes arguing,—sometimes exposing her ministers to death, and sometimes, though rarely, inflicting blows herself,—by peremptory deeds, by patient concessions,—she has fought on and fulfilled her trust. No wonder so many speak against her, for she deserves it; she has earned the hatred and obloquy of her opponents by her success in opposing them. Those even who speak against her in this day, own that she was of use in a former day. The historians in fashion with us just now, much as they may disown her in their own country, where she is an actual, present, unpleasant, inconvenient monitor, acknowledge that, in the middle ages which are gone, in her were lodged, by her were saved, the fortunes and the hopes of the human race. The very characteristics of her discipline, the very maxims of her policy, which they reprobate now, they perceive to have been of service then. They understand, and candidly avow, that once she was the patron of the arts, the home and sanctuary of letters, the basis of law, the principle of order and government, and the saviour of Christianity itself. They judge clearly enough in the case of others, though they are slow to see the fact in their own age and country; and, while they do not like to be regulated by her, and kept in order by her, themselves, they are very well satisfied that the populations of those former centuries should have been so ruled, and tamed, and taught by her resolute and wise teaching. And be sure of this, that as the generation now alive admits these benefits to have arisen from her presence in a state of society now gone by, so in turn, when the interests and passions of this day are passed away, will future generations ascribe to her a like special beneficial action upon this nineteenth century in which we live. For she is ever the same,—ever young and vigorous, and ever overcoming new errors with the old weapons.



5.

And now I have explained, Gentlemen, why it has been so highly expedient and desirable in a country like this to bring the Faculty of Medicine under the shadow of the Catholic Church. I say "in a country like this;" for, if there be any country which deserves that Science should not run wild, like a planet broken loose from its celestial system, it is a country which can boast of such hereditary faith, of such a persevering confessorship, of such an accumulation of good works, of such a glorious name, as Ireland. Far be it from this country, far be it from the counsels of Divine Mercy, that it should grow in knowledge and not grow in religion! and Catholicism is the strength of Religion, as Science and System are the strength of Knowledge.

Aspirations such as these are met, Gentlemen, I am well aware, by a responsive feeling in your own hearts; but by my putting them into words, thoughts which already exist within you are brought into livelier exercise, and sentiments which exist in many breasts hold intercommunion with each other. Gentlemen, it will be your high office to be the links in your generation between Religion and Science. Return thanks to the Author of all good that He has chosen you for this work. Trust the Church of God implicitly, even when your natural judgment would take a different course from hers, and would induce you to question her prudence or her correctness. Recollect what a hard task she has; how she is sure to be criticized and spoken against, whatever she does;—recollect how much she needs your loyal and tender devotion. Recollect, too, how long is the experience gained in eighteen hundred years, and what a right she has to claim your assent to principles which have had so extended and so triumphant a trial. Thank her that she has kept the faith safe for so many generations, and do your part in helping her to transmit it to generations after you.

For me, if it has been given me to have any share in so great a work, I shall rejoice with a joy, not such indeed as I should feel were I myself a native of this generous land, but with a joy of my own, not the less pure, because I have exerted myself for that which concerns others more nearly than myself. I have had no other motive, as far as I know myself, than to attempt, according to my strength, some service to the cause of Religion, and to be the servant of those to whom as a nation the whole of Christendom is so deeply indebted; and though this University, and the Faculty of Medicine which belongs to it, are as yet only in the commencement of their long career of usefulness, yet while I live, and (I trust) after life, it will ever be a theme of thankfulness for my heart and my lips, that I have been allowed to do even a little, and to witness so much, of the arduous, pleasant, and hopeful toil which has attended on their establishment.



NOTE ON PAGE 478.

I think it worthwhile, in illustration of what I have said above at the page specified, to append the following passage from Grandorgaeus's catalogue of Muratori's works.

"Sanctissimus D.N. Benedictus xiv. Pont. Max. Epistolam sapientiae ac roboris plenam dederat … ad Episcopum Terulensem Hispaniae Inquisitionis Majorem Inquisitorem, qua illum hortabatur, ut 'Historiam Pelagianam et dissertationem, etc.,' editas a clarae memoriae Henrico Cardinali Norisio, in Indicem Expurgatorium Hispanum nuper ingestas, perinde ac si aliquid Baianismi aut Jansenismi redolerent, prout auctor 'Bibliothecae Jansenisticae' immerito autumavit, quamprimum expungendas curaret. Eoque nomine Sapientissimus Pontifex plura in medium attulit prudentis oeconomiae exempla, qua semper usum, supremum S. R. Congr. Indicis Tribunal, a proscribendis virorum doctissimorum operibus aliquando temperavit.

"Quum autem summus Pontifex, ea inter nomina illustria Tillemontii, Bollandistarum, Bosoueti Ep. Meld., et illud recensuerit L. A. Muratorii, his ad Auctorem nostrum delatis, quam maxime indoluit, veritus ne in tanta operum copia ab se editorum, aliquid Fidei aut Religioni minus consonum sibi excidisset.…

"Verum clementissimus Pontifex ne animum desponderet doctus et humilis filius, pernumaniter ad ipsum rescripsit … eumque paterne consolatus, inter alia haec habet: 'Quanto si era detto nella nostra Lettera all' Inquisitore di Spagna in ordine alle di Lei Opere, non aveva che fare con la materia delle Feste, ne con verun dogma o disciplina. Il contenuto delle Opere chi qui non e piaciuto (ne che Ella poteva mai lusingarsi che fosse per piacere), riguarda la Giurisdizione Temporale del Romano Pontifice ne suoi stati,' " etc. (pp. lx., lxi).



INDEX.

ABELARD, 96, age of, 263

Accomplishments not education, 144

Addison, his Vision of Mirza, 279; his care in writing, 284; the child of the Revolution, 312, 329

AEschylus, 258

Alcuin, 17

Aldhelm, St., 17

Alexander the Great, his delight in Homer, 258; conquests of, 264

Anaxagoras, 116

Andes, the, 136

Animuccia and St. Philip Neri, 237

Apollo Belvidere, the, 283

Aquinas, St. Thomas, 134, 263, 384

Arcesilas, 101

Architecture, 81

Arian argument against our Lord's Divinity, 95

Ariosto, 316

Aristotelic philosophy, the, 52

Aristotle, xii., 6, 53; quoted, 78, 101, 106, 109, 134, 222, 275; his sketch of the magnanimous man, 280, 383, 431, 469

Athens, the fountain of secular knowledge, 264

Augustine, St., of Canterbury, mission of, 16

Augustine, St., of Hippo, quoted, 410

BACCI'S Life of St. Philip Neri, quoted, 236

Bacon, Friar, xiii., 220

Baconian philosophy, the, 109

Bacon, Lord, quoted, 77, 90, 117-119, 175, 221, 225, 263, 319, 437

Balaam, 66

Beethoven, 286, 313

Bentham's Preuves Judiciaires, 96

Berkeley, Bishop, on Gothic Architecture, 81

Boccaccio, 316

Boniface, St., 220

Borromeo, St. Carlo, enjoins the use of some of the Latin classics, 261; on preaching, 406, 412, 414, 421

Bossuet and Bishop Bull, 7

Brougham, Lord, his Discourse at Glasgow, quoted, 30, 34-35

Brutus, abandoned by philosophy, 116

Burke, Edmund, 176; his valediction to the spirit of chivalry, 201

Burman, 140

Butler, Bishop, his Analogy, 61, 100, 158, 226

Byron, Lord, his versification, 326

CAIETAN, St., 235

Campbell, Thomas, 322, 326

Carneades, 106

Cato the elder, his opposition to the Greek philosophy, 106

Catullus, 325

Chinese civilization, 252

Christianity and Letters, 249

Chrysostom, St., on Judas, 86

Cicero, quoted, 77; on the pursuit of knowledge, 104, 116, 260; style of, 281, 282, 327; quoted, 399; his orations against Verres, 421

Civilization and Christianity, 255

Clarendon, Lord, 311

Colours, combination of, 100

"Condescension," two senses of, 205

Copleston, Dr., Bishop of Llandaff, 157; quoted, 167-169

Corinthian brass, 175

Cowper, quoted, 191, 467

Crabbe, his Tales of the Hall, 150; his versification, 326

Craik, Dr. G. L., his Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties, quoted, 103, 104

DANTE, 316, 329

Davison, John, 158; on Liberal Education, 169-177

Definiteness, the life of preaching, 426

Demosthenes, 259, 284

Descartes, 315

Dumesnil's Synonymes, 368

Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History, 140

EDGEWORTH, Mr., on Professional Education, 158, 170, 176

Edinburgh, 154

Edinburgh Review, the, 153, 157, 160, 301, 329

Edward II., King of England, vow at his flight from Bannockburn, 155

Elmsley, xiv.

Epicurus, 40

Euclid's Elements, 274, 313, 501

Euripides, 258

FENELON, on the Gothic style of Architecture, 82

Fontaine, La, his immoral Contes, 315

Fouque, Lamotte, his tale of the Unknown Patient, 119

Fra Angelico, 287

Franklin, 304

Frederick II., 383, 384

GALEN, 222

Gentleman, the true, defined, 208

Gerdil, Cardinal, quoted, xiii., on the Emperor Julian, 194; on Malebranche, 477

Giannone, 316

Gibbon, on the darkness at the Passion, 95; his hatred of Christianity, 195, 196; his care in writing, 285; influence of his style on the literature of the present day, 323; his tribute to Hume and Robertson, 325

Goethe, 134

Gothic Architecture, 82

Grammar, 96, 334

Gregory the Great, St., 260

HARDOUIN, Father, on Latin literature, 310

Health, 164

Herodotus, 284, 325, 329

Hobbes, 311

Homer, his address to the Delian women, 257; his best descriptions, according to Sterne, marred by translation, 271

Hooker, 311

Horace, quoted, 257, 258, 329

Horne Tooke, 96

Hume, 40, 58; style of, 325

Humility, 206

Huss, 155

JACOB'S courtship, 232

Jeffrey, Lord, 157

Jerome, St., on idolizing the creature, 87

Jerusalem, the fountain-head of religious knowledge, 264

Ignatius, St., 235

Job, religious merry-makings of, 232; Book of, 289

John, King, 383

John of Salisbury, 262

Johnson, Dr., his method of writing the Ramblers, xx.; his vigour and resource of intellect, xxi.; his definition of the word University, 20; his Rasselas quoted, 116-117; style of, 283; his Table-talk, 313; his bias towards Catholicity, 319; his definition of Grammar, 334

Joseph, history of, 271

Isaac, feast at his weaning, 232

Isocrates, 282

Julian the Apostate, 194

Justinian, 265

Juvenal, 325

KEBLE, John, 158; his Latin Lectures, 369

Knowledge, its own end, 99; viewed in relation to learning, 124; to professional skill, 151; to religion, 179

LALANNE, Abbe, 9

Leo, St., on the love of gain, 87

Literature, 268

Locke, on Education, 158-160, 163, 319

Logos, 276

Lohner, Father, his story of a court-preacher, 411

Longinus, his admiration of the Mosaic account of Creation, 271

Lutheran leaven, spread of the, 28

MACAULAY, Lord, his Essay on Bacon's philosophy, 118, 221; his Essays quoted, 301, 435-438, 450

Machiavel, 316

Malebranche, 477

Maltby, Dr., bishop of Durham, his Address to the Deity, 33, 40

Michael Angelo, first attempts of, 283

Milman, Dean, his History of the Jews, 85

Milton, on Education, 169; his Samson Agonistes quoted, 323; his allusions to himself, 329

Modesty, 206

Montaigne's Essays, 315

More, Sir Thomas, 437

Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, 140

Muratori, 478, 520

Music, 80

NERI, St. Philip, 234

Newton, Sir Isaac, xiii., 49, 53; on the Apocalypse, 304; his marvellous powers, 324

Newtonian philosophy, the, 49

Noah's ark, 73

OLYMPIC games, the, 107

Optics, 46

PAINTING, 79

Palestrina, 237

Paley, 58, 449

Palladio, 57

Pascal, 315

Patrick, St., greatness of his work, 15

Periodical criticism, 333

Persian mode of letter-writing, 277

Pindar, 329

Pitt, William, his opinion of Butler's Analogy, 100

Pius IV., Pope, death of, 237

Plato, on poets, 101; on music, 110

Playfair, Professor, 157

Political Economy, 86

Pompey's Pillar, 136

Pope, Alex., quoted, 118; an indifferent Catholic, 318; has tuned our versification, 323; quoted, 375, 501

Porson, Richard, xiv., 304

Pride and self-respect, 207

Private Judgment, 97

Protestant argument against Transubstantiation, 95

Psalter, the, 289

Pulci, 316

Pythagoras, xiii

RABELIAS, 315

Raffaelle, first attempts of, 283; 287

Rasselas quoted, 116

Recreations not Education, 144

Robertson, style of, 325

Rome, 265

Round Towers of Ireland, the, 95

SALES, St Francis de, on preaching, 406, 410, 411

Salmasius, 140

Savonarola, 235

Scott, Sir Walter, 313; his Old Mortality, 359

Seneca, 110, 116, 327

Sermons of the seventeenth century, 140

Shaftesbury, Lord, his Characteristics, 196-201, 204

Shakespeare, quoted, 150; his Macbeth quoted, 280; Hamlet quoted, 281; quoted, 284, 287; morality of, 318; quoted, 410, 513

Simon of Tournay, narrative of, 384

Smith, Sydney, 157

Sophocles, 258

Southey's Thalaba, 323; quoted, 324

Sterne's Sermons, quoted, 270-272

Stuffing birds not education, 144

Sylvester II., Pope, accused of magic, 220

TARPEIA, 140

Taylor, Jeremy, his Liberty of Prophesying, 472

Terence and Menander, 259

Tertullian, 327

Thales, xiii.

Theology, a branch of knowledge, 19; definition of, 60

Thucydides, 259, 325, 329

Titus, armies of, 265

VIRGIL, his obligations to Greek poets, 259; wishes his AEneid burnt, 284; fixes the character of the hexameter, 325, 329

Voltaire, 303, 315

UTILITY in Education, 161

WATSON, Bishop, on Mathematics, 101

Wiclif, 155

Wren, Sir Christopher, 57

XAVIER, St. Francis, 235

Xenophon quoted, 107, 258

FINIS.



FOOTNOTES

1 Vid. Huber's English Universities, London, 1843, vol. ii., part 1, pp. 321, etc.

2 Opere, t. iii., p. 353.

3 Vide M. L'Abbe Lalanne's recent work.

4 Cressy.

5 In Roman law it means a Corporation. Vid. Keuffel, de Scholis.

6 Hist. vol. ii. p. 529. London, 1841.

7 Mr. Brougham's Glasgow Discourse.

8 Arist. Ethic. Nicom., iii. 3.

9 Introd. Lecture on Pol. Econ. pp. 11, 12.

10 Advancement of Learning.

11 Intr. Lect., p. 16.

12 Vid. Abelard, for instance.

13 Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties. Introd.

14 Cicer. Offic. init.

15 Τέχνη τύχην ἔστερχε καὶ τύχη τέχνην. Vid. Arist. Nic. Ethic. vi.

16 Aristot. Rhet. i. 5.

17 It will be seen that on the whole I agree with Lord Macaulay in his Essay on Bacon's Philosophy. I do not know whether he would agree with me.

18 De Augment. iv. 2, vid. Macaulay's Essay; vid. also "In principio operis ad Deum Patrem, Deum Verbum, Deum Spiritum, preces fundimus humillimas et ardentissimas, ut humani generis aerumnarum memores, et peregrinationis istius vitae, in qua dies paucos et malos terimus, novis suis eleemosynis, per manus nostras, familiam humanam dotare digneatur. Atque illud insuper supplices rogamus, ne humana divinis officiant; neve ex reseratione viarum sensus, et accensione majore luminis naturalis, aliquid incredulitatis et noctis, animis nostris erga divina mysteria oboriatur," etc. Praef. Instaur. Magn.

19 Fouque's Unknown Patient.

20 The pages which follow are taken almost verbatim from the author's 14th (Oxford) University Sermon, which, at the time of writing this Discourse, he did not expect ever to reprint.

21 Crabbe's Tales of the Hall. This Poem, let me say, I read on its first publication, above thirty years ago, with extreme delight, and have never lost my love of it; and on taking it up lately, found I was even more touched by it than heretofore. A work which can please in youth and age, seems to fulfil (in logical language) the accidental definition of a Classic. [A further course of twenty years has past, and I bear the same witness in favour of this Poem.]

22 Mr. Keble, Vicar of Hursley, late Fellow of Oriel, and Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford.

23 Vid. Milton on Education.

24 I do not consider I have said above any thing inconsistent with the following passage from Cardinal Gerdil, though I have enlarged on the favourable side of Julian's character. "Du genie, des connaissances, de l'habilite dans le metier de la guerre, du courage et du desinteressement dans le commandement des armees, des actions plutot que des qualites estimables, mais le plus souvent gatees par la vanite qui en etait le principe, la superstition jointe a l'hypocrisie; un esprit fecond en ressources eclaire, mais susceptible de petitesse; des fautes essentielles dans le gouvernement; des innocens sacrifies a la vengeance; une haine envenimee contre le Christianisme, qu'il avait abandonne; un attachement passionne aux folies de la Theurgie; tels etaient les traits sous lesquels on nous preignait Julien." Op. t. x. p. 54.

25 Gibbon, Hist., ch. 24.

26 Vid. Hallam's Literature of Europe, Macaulay's Essay, and the Author's Oxford University Sermons, IX.

27 In Augment., 5.

28 De Augm., 28.

29 Vid. the Author's Parochial Sermons, vol. i. 25.

30 Bacci, vol. i., p. 192, ii., p. 98.

31 Now LORD EMLY.

32 Vid. Huber.

33 Vid. the treatises of P. Daniel and Mgr. Landriot, referred to in Historical Sketches, vol. ii., p. 460, note.

34 Sterne, Sermon xlii.

35 "Position of Catholics in England," pp. 101, 2.

36 August, 1854.

37 Macaulay's Essays.

38 Hallam.

39 Misc. Works, p. 55.

40 This was written in June, 1854, before the siege began.

41 Bombarding.

42 The Black Sea.

43 Here again Mr. Brown prophesies. He wrote in June, 1854.

44 Vid. University Sermons, vii., 14.

45 Vid. Article I.

46 Macaulay's Essays.

47 I use the word, not in the sense of "Naturalis Theologia," but, in the sense in which Paley uses it in the work which he has so entitled.

48 Cardinal Gerdil speaks of his "Metaphysique," as "brillante a la verite, mais non moins solide" (p. 9.), and that "la liaison qui enchaine toutes les parties du systeme philosophique du Pere Malebranche,… pourra servir d'apologie a la noble assurance, avec laquelle il propose ses sentiments." (p. 12, OEuvres, t. iv.)

49 Muratori's work was not directly theological. Vid. note at the end of the Volume.

50 University Gazette, No. 42, p. 420.

51 Vid. supr. p. 231.