count of the danger, always at hand, of falling under the power of its natural counterpart in a direction just the opposite. We are bound to do justice, in the case before us, to the truth which underlies pantheism, as well as to that which underlies dualism; and we are not more bound to fear and avoid heresy in the first shape, than we are bound to avoid and fear it also in the second shape. It has been our wish at least, and our honest endeavour, to keep clear of both extremes, as well as to acknowledge and honor the great truths out of which both grow. Mr. Brownson, we are sorry to say, in common with a large amount of what we conceive to be bad Protestantism, (the almost universal thinking, we might say, perhaps, of New England,) turns the two phases of thought into the form of a simple syllogistic dilemma, where one horn is the only resting-place from the other, and avoids and rejects thus the pantheistic extreme only in such a way as to lay himself open, in our estimation, to the charge of dualism. We distinguish, of course, as he also has done in our case, between his theory and himself, and speak of what the first is by necessary consequence, as it strikes our own mind, rather than by open and direct avowal; although at some points, the general consequence itself might seem to be not indistinctly allowed, in the particular propositions by which we find it indirectly affirmed. The facility with which he throws us continually into the wrong, serves only to illustrate, as we take it, the fault and wrong of his own position. It shows this to be itself a dialectical extreme, whose very character it is always to condemn in a wholesale way, as its own opposite, all that is different from itself, or that carries towards it in any way the aspect of negation. No such extreme can ever live by simply killing its opposite; but only by coming to a true inward reconciliation with it in the power of a higher idea, whose province it is, in such case, not to destroy absolutely on either side, but rather as regards both to complete and fulfil." - pp. 310, 311. The Reviewer, while conceding that we were right in condemning the pantheistic conceptions, maintains, that, since we asserted their immediate contradictories as the truth in opposition to them, we fell into an opposite error, which he calls dualism, and this because the truth in opposition to them "does not stand on the other side, in their simple negation and contradiction." That there is an error as well as a truth opposed to pantheism, we do not deny; that we asserted dualism, if he chooses so to call it, in opposition to pantheism, we concede, but not in the sense in which dualism is false. Dualism is false only when taken in the modern deistical sense, which, after acknowledging God as Creator of the world, denies him as Providence, as Conservator, and as Governor, and asserts that the world, now it is created, is sufficient for itself, and goes "ahead on its own hook," the sense common to most of our modern geologists, naturalists, or cultivators of the physical sciences, and advocates of the Baconian philosophy; or in the sense in which, as in Plato's Timæus, it asserts God on one side, and the eternity of matter on the other; or, in fine, in the Oriental sense, in which it asserts the dual origin of the universe, and of two original, eternal, self-existent, and mutually independent principles, or beings, one good, the other bad,-the old Manichæan doctrine, held by the Albigenses in the Middle Ages, and perhaps, in modern times, by the great body of Protestants, who boast of being their descendants and continuators. But the Reviewer will not pretend that we assert dualism in any one of these three senses; and the only sense in which he can pretend that we assert it is in the sense in which it asserts that creation is contingent, not necessary, and that God and the world are distinguished as creator and creature, cause and effect. That the truth in opposition to pantheism does not stand in an opposite error, we of course concede; but that it does not stand on the other side, or side opposed to pantheism, we cannot concede, for if it does not, it is not the truth in opposition to it. There may be opposite errors, but the truth always stands between them, opposed to both, opposing one face to the one, and another face to the other. The Reviewer is not satisfied with this. He holds that a great truth underlies pantheism, and another underlies dualism, and that our duty is to accept and harmonize the two. Neither is to be denied absolutely, but we must deny a little and affirm a little of both. This is all very well for a Protestant, who can have truth only as mixed with falsehood, and who can never make an affirmation or a denial without falling into error, but the Reviewer must excuse us for not consenting to place ourselves in his unpleasant position. Pantheism is either true or it is false, and if false it is to be denied absolutely, and no truth does or can underlie it; for if a great truth did underlie it, it would be founded in truth, and a doctrine founded in truth is true doctrine, not false. So of dualism; it is either true or it is false, or true in one sense and false in another. If true in one sense and false in another, your business is to distinguish, and define in what sense it is true and in what it is false, and then to affirm it in the former sense, and deny it in the latter. In the sense it is false, or as a false doctrine, no great truth underlies it, for it is a perversion or denial of the truth. Let us have no eclectic or syncretic twaddle on the subject. The Reviewer says of us," The facility with which he throws us continually into the wrong serves only to illustrate, as we take it, the fault and wrong of his own position." That is, we must have fallen into the error opposed to the pantheistic error, or we could not have so easily thrown the Reviewer into the wrong! This is not so clear to us. We should draw an opposite conclusion from the same premises, and say that the facility with which we threw him into the wrong serves to illustrate the truth of our position and the falsity of his; for we are quite sure that, without the truth on our side, we should never have been able to throw such a man as the Reviewer into the wrong. "It shows itself to be a dialectical extreme." And " no such extreme can ever live by simply killing its opposite; but only by coming to a true inward reconciliation with it in the power of a higher idea, whose province it is, in such case, not to destroy absolutely on either side, but rather as regards both to complete and fulfil." Here is the mere vulgar cant of our modern eclectics, by which they seek to rehabilitate falsehood, and consecrate every error and heresy, past, present, and to come. It rests on the assumption that error is merely a partial or incomplete truth, as Cousin and his school expressly teach. The assumption is itself a monstrous error. Error is not an incomplete truth, a partial or one-sided view of truth, but a false view, that is, a denial of truth. Every false doctrine is, in that it is false, a contradiction of the truth, and must be killed, or the truth cannot live. Pantheism, the Reviewer concedes, is an error. Its essence consists in the denial of the contingency of the universe, and the assertion that in their substance God and the world are identical. This is not an incomplete truth, a partial or one-sided view of truth, to be completed by an error from the opposite quarter; but it is a sheer, unmitigated falsehood, and is got rid of only by asserting its direct contradictory, namely, the universe is contingent, not necessary, and God and the world are of different substances, or distinct and different as to substance. It and this truth which we oppose to it are in the very nature of things irreconcilable, and one can be asserted only by the absolute, unqualified denial of the other. And what we say of pantheism, we say of every false doctrine. The Reviewer is all wrong in his eclectic twaddle, for we can in conscience call it by no name more respectable. There is no logic by which opposites, that is, contraries, can be reconciled. Truth is never opposed to truth, and of opposites one must always be false. In the power of NEW SERIES.- VOL. IV. NO. III. 48 what higher idea than either truth or falsehood can truth and falsehood come to a true inward reconciliation with each other? The Reviewer wishes to be able to assert the immanence of God in his works, and he thinks this immanence is the truth that underlies pantheism. With his leave, this is a great mistake, for pantheism, by his own concession, is false. Then the immanence of God cannot be asserted in a pantheistic sense; then, in the only sense in which it is permitted us to assert it, it is not pantheistic, is no part of pantheism, is not related to pantheism, neither underlies it nor overlies it, and is not denied in denying pantheism, but in fact is denied in asserting pantheism. In denying pantheism, the Reviewer may be in danger of denying this immanence; but no one who has an infallible guide is in danger of doing it, or has any occasion to fear that, in the plain, plump denial of error on one side, he may fall into an error on the other. Let the Reviewer define the true immanence of God, as distinguished from the pantheistic immanence, and perhaps he will find that we have not denied it, and that he, in order to maintain it, must take his stand with us. We have now replied to the Reviewer's article, as far as we have judged it necessary. We are not conscious of having overlooked a single important point, and we have done our best to seize and reply to the real thought of the author. If we have failed, it has been unintentionally, and perhaps the Reviewer's fault more than our own; for we must tell him that, if he writes with vigor, he by no means writes with clearness and definiteness. He seems rarely to express his meaning with distinctness and precision. If he replies to us, we hope he will be more explicit, and try and accommodate himself somewhat to our dulness of apprehension. We wish to be just to him, and have no disposition to charge upon his principles consequences which they do not logically involve. We think, also, that he would find his own advantage in attempting to give his doctrines a more rigidly scientific and logical method and statement. He will find it no useless discipline, and one of the speediest ways of arriving at truth. In conclusion, we must beg him to excuse us if we have seemed now and then a little severe in our remarks. Our severity is intended for his doctrine, not for him personally, for personally we have a high esteem for him. Conversations of an Old Man and his Young F. You have not satisfied me. I love and honor the Church in her place, and I yield neither to you nor to any other man in my reverence for the clergy, or my obedience to them, so long as they keep within their proper sphere. But when the Church encroaches on the civil authority, and seeks to establish a theocracy, I cease to respect her; and when the clergy leave the spiritual order, and undertake to dictate to me the political conduct I am to follow, I hold myself free to disobey them, and, if need be, to resist them with all my might. I am a man and a citizen, as well as a Christian, and no power on earth, if I can hinder it, shall wrest from me my rights as a man, or interfere with my convictions of duty as a citizen. If the Pope himself should undertake to control my conduct as an American citizen, I would laugh him to scorn, and even, if necessary, make war on him as soon as I would upon any foreign potentate. B. Bravo! my young friend; you are not lacking in brave words and high spirit, such as it is. O. F talks very well, and if he could as a good Catholic talk as he does, it would amount to something. They who are not Catholics would then have some assurance that your Church is not incompatible with civil liberty and social progress. G. Very true. But F's talk is all gammon, and can deceive no one. He is a poor Catholic, and he will never persuade me that he is talking in the spirit of the religion he professes. He either does not know his religion or he does not believe it, and holds on to it only because he is too proud to forsake the religion of his fathers. F. You all seem to know my religion better than I know it myself; but I have never known one, brought up a Protestant or an unbeliever, that did not entirely mistake her character; and in no respect is she more misapprehended than in her teachings on the mutual relations of the two orders, temporal and spiritual. I know that the extravagant pretensions of bigots and Ultramontanists have led many to think that I cannot as a good Catholic say what I have just said, and I own that the conduct of such Popes as Gregory the Seventh, Alexander the Third, Innocent the Third, and Boniface the Eighth, which I dare be known not to approve, may seem to confirm the false |