not even wish his work to pass by his name. He was more successful than Spinoza, for we do not really know at all who he was. His book is known as the German Theology, and I think it is about as certain as anything in the history of letters can be that Spinoza had never read or heard of it; and if he had read or heard of it, he probably would have paid no attention to it. But it is important to see how very far this fourteenth-century German, who, for anything one knows may have been a monk, was removed from the vulgar machinery of practical theology. He says that a man who has attained a real sense of religion loves the good only for its own sake. These men, he says, are in a state of freedom, because they have lost the fear of pain or hell, and the hope of reward or heaven, and are living in pure submission to eternal goodness, in the perfect freedom of fervent love. This mind was

in Christ in perfection, and is also in His followers-in some more, in some less. And again he says: "Mark: that when true love and true light are in a man, good is known and loved for itself, and as itself." And he says again: "In this sense the saying is true that God loveth not Himself; that if there were aught better than God, God would love it, and not Himself." And much more, which is well worth seeing at large in the book. These passages and several others might almost have come out of the last part of the Ethics of Spinoza. So far as I know there is absolutely no trace of historical connection, but it is important to see that a fourteenth-century Catholic, living in a time when the doctrines of the Church of Rome would not generally lend themselves to such views, could write down this, and apparently without any consciousness that he was in any way offending against orthodoxy. I do not mean you to suppose that the author of this book would have been what we call a reformer, but I think he would probably have told you that what the Church commanded was no doubt right, but that all these ceremonies and details of dogma were as nothing compared to a man having the true light.

Spinoza's work fell, at the time, quite flat, not only on the orthodox, but on most of the unorthodox, until towards the end of the eighteenth century. It was a time when people cared very little for anything they could not put into definite propositions, and all through the eighteenth century you will find that the higher side of Spinoza's teaching was absolutely ignored. I think there is not a single writer in the eighteenth century who can be said to grapple with Spinoza seriously. His orthodox opponents picked logical holes in one or more of his propositions, which was not a very difficult feat, although I am bound to say that they did it ill rather than well. Freethinkers, on the other hand, got hold of the Theologico-Political Treatise, and picked out its arguments against miracles, and so forth, as controversial weapons; whereas it is really a little matter whether a man believes in miracles or not, but an infinitely greater matter in what spirit he believes or disbelieves them. The first man, so far as I 3 B

VOL. I.-pt. 2.

know, in modern Europe who really took hold of Spinoza in the right way was Lessing, the great restorer of literature and criticism in Germany. Then the spirit of Spinoza, which was first awakened in Lessing, took hold of Goethe. To say that it took hold of Goethe is to say that it was established in the centre of the European movement of letters and civilization. I need hardly tell those of you whom it interests to know it that the spirit of Spinoza has been actively at work ever since in the whole development of modern German philosophy.

His influence then came to England through Coleridge, who was a man of genius in many directions: in poetry, in religion, and almost, although not quite, in philosophy. Coleridge learned to know Spinoza from the Germans, and taught much of what he knew to Wordsworth. There is an odd story in Coleridge's autobiography, of how he roamed about with Wordsworth on the Quantocks, where he was living during the early period of the great French war. There was an alarm about Jacobins and corresponding societies, and so a disguised police officer was sent to watch the movements of Coleridge and Wordsworth as being more or less suspected persons. Coleridge heard afterwards what this man had re ported of the fragments of conversation he had picked up. "At first he fancied that we were aware of our danger, for he often heard me talk of "Spy Nozy"; which he was inclined to interpret of himself and of a remarkable feature belonging to him; but he was speedily convinced that it was the name of a man who had made a book and lived long ago." Coleridge was accordingly left unmolested. Perhaps it is not too fanciful to suppose that something of Coleridge's talk about Spinoza found its way into Wordsworth's poetry, and from thence into what, for want of a better word, we call Nature-Worship-an element which has certainly been an influence for the better in nearly all English literature since.

But there were also theologians and philosophers who learnt much from Coleridge in due time, and amongst others one whose name I can never mention otherwise than with reverence-and I think it would have been the same even if I had not had the privilege of knowing him- I mean the late Mr. Maurice, one of the most enlightened and large-hearted men the Church of England ever had. He wrote a book on Modern Philosophy, in which he gave many pages to Spinoza, and treated him as you would expect a man of his nature to do (although evidently dissenting from his conclusions), with the utmost respect and moral sympathy. I think Maurice must have taught a great many people to think better of Spinoza than the popular theology does; and what Maurice's influence was on liberal English theology I need not say here. So that I think one may say that Spinoza has been a living power not only in modern philo sophy and theology, but in the best life of modern English theology. I am quite aware that there are still sections in the Church of England, and for anything I know in other Churches in England, which refuse to have. anything to do with modern criticism, and regard men like Maurice and

1

Kingsley as dangerous. From their own point of view those sections are doubtless right, and they have their reward.

I am not here (need I say it?) to endeavour to persuade you that everything Spinoza said is right; or that you may not find serious logical defects in his work. That is one of the great misapprehensions that have grown up about Spinoza; because he put some of his work into the form of demonstration in the manner of his time, it is supposed to be an absolutely logical system which must all stand or fall together. That is an entire mistake. And it would be a mistake even if Spinoza had thought that he had made an absolutely logical demonstration. The living power of a philosopher does not depend on his finding the whole truth, a thing which certainly no man has yet found. But Spinoza did that on a great scale which all of us on some scale, be it small or great, can certainly do. He sought truth with an open heart; he never feared to face it, however unexpected its appearance might be; and he never turned back from the consequences of that of which he was once fully persuaded, He is, perhaps, the great example in modern Europe of one who worked as the true philosopher should work. He built (to borrow the words used by Mr. Browning for a different purpose in one of his noblest poems) "broad on the roots of things."

I have not thought it necessary so far to give out a text for this discourse, but I propose now to give you a text for the end. It is from William Blake, who, with the possible exception of Coleridge, is, in my judgment, the man of the greatest religious genius whom we have had in England in recent generations. I need hardly tell you that William Blake was also a madman, a dangerous heretic in both letters and art, and altogether unaccounted for by orthodox canons of poetry and painting. In other words, he was a great and original artist, endowed, moreover, with that peculiar kind of philosophical temper which we call religious insight as distinguished from pure intellectual speculation. Blake did not care much, I suppose, about the literal acceptation of his own words, and if any one construes them literally it is entirely on his own responsibility. But I think that in the words of Blake there is a good deal of the spirit of Spinoza, notwithstanding that Blake probably never heard of him:

"The worship of God is honouring his gifts in other men, each according to his genius, and loving the greatest men best. Those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there is no other God."

724

THE RELIGION OF NATURE,

AS TAUGHT BY JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU.

BY MRS. FREDERIKA MACDONALD.

"J'APERÇOIS Dieu partout dans ses œuvres, je le sens en moi, je le vois tout autour de moi mais sitôt que je veux chercher où il est, ce qu'il est, quelle est sa substance, sitôt que je veux le contempler en lui-même, il m'échappe, et mon esprit troublé n'aperçoit plus rien."

'Penétré de mon insuffisance, je ne raisonnerai jamais sur la nature de Dieu : car ce qu'il-y-a de plus injurieux à la divinité n'est pas de n'y point penser, mais d'en mal penser.

"Il est au fond des âmes un principe inné de justice et de vertu sur lequel, malgré nos propres maximes, nous jugeons nos actions, et celles d'autrui, et c'est à ce principe que je donne le nom de Conscience."

"La Conscience ne trompe jamais; elle est le vrai guide de l'homme; elle est à l'âme ce que l'instinct est au corps: qui la suit, obéit à la nature.”—Vicaire Savovard Emile, liv. iv.

"Je veux chercher si dans l'ordre civil il peut y avoir quelque règle d'administration légitime et sure, en prenant les hommes tels qu'ils sonts, et les lois telles qu'elles A peuvent être

"La force est une puissance physique je ne vois point quelle moralité peut résulter de ses effets. S'il faut obéir par force, on n'a pas besoin d'obéir par devoir : et si l'on n'est plus forcé d'obéir, on n'y est plus obligé.

"Le plus fort n'est jamais assez fort pour être toujours le maître s'il ne transforme sa force en droit, et l'obéissance en devoir."-Contrat Social, chap. iii.

IN 1760, that is to say, a short time before the publication of Rousseau's great works, the Emile and The Social Contract, a satirical play,1 was put on the French stage by one Palissot, a protégé of the Jesuits, whose purpose it was to ridicule the leading philosophers, and their social doctrines. In this play, Jean Jacques, then known to fame only as the author of a popular romance and of two remarkable essays attacking the corrupt civilization of his day, was represented walking upon all fours, and grazing, Nebuchadnezzar-like, in a meadow.

Now does this caricature show us, in an exaggerated light, of course, the true character and direction of the "Religion of Nature" taught by Rousseau? If we are to be guided by popular modern theories, it actually does this. In other words, the prophetic message that produced so deep an impression upon men and women, who were certainly, to say the least, as intelligent in their generation as we are in ours, was nothing better

Les Philosophes. The comedy was composed to please the Princesse de Robecq, daughter of the Duke of Luxembourg, and mistress of Choiseul. Diderot and Helvetius were especially painted in odious colours. Stanislas, king of Poland, would have dismissed Palissot from his Academy, for having written Les Philosophes, had not Roussean interceded for the playwright. See Conf., part ii., liv. 87. In June, 1782, i.e. four years after Rousseau's death, it was attempted to represent Les Philosophes, but when the actor personating Jean Jacques entered crawling, the audience rose in indignation, and the piece was stopped. See Correspondance Littéraire of Grimm, June, 1782.

than the assurance that all civilization is a mistake; and that the only remedy for the evils and injustices we find existing amongst us, is to drive human life back upon the path of progress, and to return, if not to fourfooted tranquillity, then to a state of barbarism.

If this is a true account of the matter, if the gospel according to Jean Jacques was actually "the sorry affair" (to quote Professor Huxley) that modern critics suppose, then the effect it produced is one of the most astounding events in human history.

"

"It was Rousseau's work more than that of any other one man," says Mr. Morley," that France arose from the deadly decay that had laid hold of her whole political and social system; and found the irresistible energy that warded off dissolution within, and partition from without." Well, but if this "irresistible energy' was derived from the doctrines Mr. Morley attributes to Rousseau, all one can say is that the notions of men and women one hundred and thirty years ago concerning what principles are inspiring, and what destructive of hope, must have been exactly opposite to our own.

The proposition that "a tree is known by its fruits," is one, nevertheless, that commands the assent of most impartial minds. Let us see, then, whether in this instance we must reject a general truth; and allow the modern critics to convince us that in the case of Rousseau and his "gospel," men did actually gather grapes from thorns, and figs from = thistles.

The first step towards a proper understanding of Rousseau's doctrine is to recognise its relationship to, or rather its place in, the great spiritual movement that went on in France during the Eighteenth Century. This movement we can at length study from the favourable position that enables us to discover, amongst many minor currents, the main stream of thoughts and events that constitutes the true life of an epoch long made dark by the smoke and glare left by that great conflagration, the Revolu

It is precisely the master-current of spiritual activity, where lives and moves the mind of France in the Eighteenth Century, that has been lost sight of by critics who have only sought and found, in this age, the example of a world that had to perish for its sins.

"This epoch of the Eighteenth or Philosophe Century," declares Car

Life of Rousseau, vol. i., chap. i., p. 3. Compare this account and other accounts of Rousseau's influence with the descriptions of him personally, as a "diseased miserable sensualist," (vol. i., p. 257), and with such accounts of his doctrine as the following :"The dream of human perfectibility, which nerved men like Condorcet, was to Rousseau a sour and fantastic mockery. The utmost men could do was to turn their eyes to the Past, to obliterate the interval, to try to walk for a space in the track of ancient societies— they would hardly succeed, but endeavour might at least do something to stay the plague of universal degeneracy" (vol. ii., p. 120). With this description compare Rousseau's own account of the sentiments that inspired him when he wrote the Discourses :"Bercé de l'espoir de faire enfin triompher des préjugés et du mensonge la raison, la vérité, et de rendre les hommes sages en leur montrant leur véritable intérêt, son cœur échauffé par l'idée du bonheur futur du genre humain et par l'honneur d'y contribuer, lui dictait un langage digne d'une si grande entreprise."-Second Dialogue, 457.