The Map of Life Part 6

Nothing, indeed, in this strange history is more significant than the att.i.tude a.s.sumed by the special leaders and representatives of the Church which teaches that 'it were better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all of the many millions upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul ... should commit one venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth.'[54]

Three ill.u.s.trious churchmen--Lacordaire, Ravignan and Dupanloup--to their immortal honour refused to give any approbation to the _Coup d'etat_ or to express any confidence in its author. But the latest panegyrist of the Empire boasts that they were almost alone in their profession. By the advice of the Papal Nuncio and of the leading French bishops, the clergy lost no time in presenting their felicitations.

Veuillot, who more than any other man represented and influenced the vast majority of the French priesthood, wrote on what had been done with undisguised and unqualified exultation and delight. Even Montalembert rallied to the Government on the morrow of the _Coup d'etat_. He described Louis Napoleon as a Prince 'who had shown a more efficacious and intelligent devotion to religious interests than any of those who had governed France during sixty years;' and it was universally admitted that the great body of the clergy, with Archbishop Sibour at their head, were in this critical moment ardent supporters of the new government.[55] Kinglake, in a page of immortal beauty, has described the scene when, thirty days after the _Coup d'etat_, Louis Napoleon appeared in Notre Dame to receive, amid all the pomp that Catholic ceremonial could give, the solemn blessing of the Church, and to listen to the Te Deum thanking the Almighty for what had been accomplished. The time came, it is true, when the policy of the priests was changed, for they found that Louis Napoleon was more liberal and less clerical than they imagined; but in estimating the feelings with which French Liberals judge the Church, its att.i.tude towards the perjury and violence of December 2 should never be forgotten.

To those who judge the political ethics of the Roman Catholic Church not from the deceptive pages of such writers as Newman, but from an examination of its actual conduct in the different periods of its history, it will appear in no degree inconsistent. It is but another instance added to many of the manner in which it regards all acts which appear conducive to its interests. It was the same spirit that led a Pope to offer public thanks for the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew, and to order Vasari to paint the murder of Coligny on the walls of the Vatican among the triumphs of the Church. No Christian sovereign of modern times has left a worse memory behind him than Ferdinand II. of Naples, who received the Pope when he fled to Gaeta in 1848. He was the sovereign whose government was described by Gladstone as 'a negation of G.o.d.' He not only destroyed the Const.i.tution he had sworn to observe, but threw into a loathsome dungeon the Liberal ministers who had trusted him. But in the eyes of the Pope his services to the Church far outweighed all defects, and the monument erected to this 'most pious prince' may be seen in one of the chapels of St. Peter's. Every visitor to Paris may see the fresco in the Madeleine in which Napoleon I. appears seated triumphant on the clouds and surrounded by an admiring priesthood, the most prominent and glorified figure in a picture representing the history of French Christianity, with Christ above, blessing the work.

It is indeed a most significant fact that in Catholic countries the highest moral level in public life is now rarely to be found among those who specially represent the spirit and teaching of their Church, and much more frequently among men who are unconnected with it, and often with all dogmatic theology. How seldom has the distinctively Catholic press seriously censured unjust wars, unscrupulous alliances, violations of const.i.tutional obligations, unprovoked aggressions, great outbursts of intolerance and fanaticism! It is, indeed, not too much to say that some of the worst moral perversions of modern times have been supported and stimulated by a great body of genuinely Catholic opinion both in the priesthood and in the press. The anti-Semite movement, the shameful indifference to justice shown in France in the Dreyfus case, and the countless frauds, outrages and oppressions that accompanied the domination of the Irish Land League are recent and conspicuous examples.

Among secular-minded laymen the _Coup d'etat_ of Louis Napoleon was, as I have said, differently judged. Few things in French history are more honourable than the determination with which so many men who were the very flower of the French nation refused to take the oath or give their adhesion to the new Government. Great statesmen and a few distinguished soldiers, with a splendid past behind them and with the prospect of an ill.u.s.trious career before them; men of genius who in their professorial chairs had been the centres of the intellectual life of France; functionaries who had by laborious and persevering industry climbed the steps of their profession and depended for their livelihood on its emoluments, accepted poverty, exile and the long eclipse of the most honourable ambitions rather than take an oath which seemed to justify the usurpation. At the same time, some statesmen of unquestionable honour did not wholly and in all its parts condemn it. Lord Palmerston was conspicuous among them. Without expressing approval of all that had been done, he always maintained that the condition of France was such that a violent subversion of an unworkable Const.i.tution and the establishment of a strong government had become absolutely necessary; that the _Coup d'etat_ saved France from the gravest and most imminent danger of anarchy and civil war, and that this fact was its justification. If it had not been for the acts of ferocious tyranny which immediately followed it, his opinion would have been more largely shared.

It is probable that the moral character of _Coups d'etat_ may in the future not unfrequently come into discussion in Europe, as it has often done in South America. As the best observers are more and more perceiving, parliamentary government worked upon party lines is by no means an easy thing, and it seldom attains perfection without long experience and without qualities of mind and character which are very unequally distributed among the nations of the world. It requires a spirit of compromise, patience and moderation; the kind of mind which can distinguish the solid, the practical and the well meaning, from the brilliant, the plausible and the ambitious, which cares more for useful results and for the conciliation of many interests and opinions than for any rigid uniformity and consistency of principle; which, while pursuing personal ambitions and party aims, can subordinate them on great occasions to public interests. It needs a combination of independence and discipline which is not common, and where it does not exist parliaments speedily degenerate either into an a.s.semblage of puppets in the hands of party leaders or into disintegrated, demoralised, insubordinate groups. Some of the foremost nations of the world--nations distinguished for n.o.ble and brilliant intellect; for splendid heroism; for great achievements in peace and war--have in this form of government conspicuously failed. In England it has grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength. We have practised it in many phases. Its traditions have taken deep root and are in full harmony with the national character. But in the present century this kind of government has been adopted by many nations which are wholly unfit for it, and they have usually adopted it in the most difficult of all forms--that of an uncontrolled democracy resting upon universal suffrage. It is becoming very evident that in many countries such a.s.semblies are wholly incompetent to take the foremost place in government, but they are so fenced round by oaths and other const.i.tutional forms that nothing short of violence can take from them a power which they are never likely voluntarily to relinquish. In such countries democracy tends much less naturally to the parliamentary system than to some form of dictatorship, to some despotism resting on and justified by a plebiscite. It is probable that many transitions in this direction will take place. They will seldom be carried out through purely public motives or without perjury and violence. But public opinion will judge each case on its own merits, and where it can be shown that its results are beneficial and that large sections of the people have desired it, such an act will not be severely condemned.

Cases of conflicting ethical judgments of another kind may be easily cited. One of the best known was that of Governor Eyre at the time of the Jamaica insurrection of 1865. In this case there was no question of personal interest or ambition. The Governor was a man of stainless honour, who in a moment of extreme difficulty and danger had rendered a great service to his country. By his prompt and courageous action a negro insurrection was quickly suppressed, which, if it had been allowed to extend, must have brought untold horrors upon Jamaica. But the martial law which he had proclaimed was certainly continued longer than was necessary, it was exercised with excessive severity, and those who were tried under it were not merely men who had been taken in arms. One conspicuous civilian agitator, who had contributed greatly to stimulate the insurrection, and had been, in the opinion of the Governor, its 'chief cause and origin,' but who, like most men of his kind, had merely incited others without taking any direct part himself, was arrested in a part of the island in which martial law was not proclaimed, and was tried and hanged by orders of a military tribunal in a way which the best legal authorities in England p.r.o.nounced wholly unwarranted by law.

If this act had been considered apart from the general conditions of the island it would have deserved severe punishment. If the services of the Governor had been considered apart from this act they would have deserved high honours from the Crown. In Jamaica the Governor was fully supported by the Legislative Council and the a.s.sembly, but at home public opinion was fiercely divided, and the fact that the chief literary and scientific men in England took sides on the question added greatly to its interest. Carlyle took a leading part in the defence of Governor Eyre. John Stuart Mill was the chairman of a committee who regarded him as a simple criminal, and who for more than two years pursued him with a persistent vindictiveness. As might have been expected the one side dwelt solely on his services and the other side on his misdeeds. Governor Eyre received no reward for the great service he had rendered, and he was involved by his enemies in a ruinous legal expenditure, which, however, was subsequently paid by the Government; but those who desired to bring him to trial for murder were baffled, for the Old Bailey Grand Jury threw out the bill. Public opinion, I think, on the whole, approved of what they had done. Most moderate men had come to the conclusion that Governor Eyre was a brave and honourable man who had rendered great services to the State and had saved countless lives, but who, through no unworthy motive and in a time of extreme danger and panic, had committed a serious mistake which had been very amply expiated.

The more recent events connected with the Jameson raid into the Transvaal may also be cited. Of the raid itself there is little to be said. It was, in truth, one of the most discreditable as well as mischievous events in recent colonial history, and its character was entirely unrelieved by any gleam either of heroism or of skill. Those who took a direct part in it were duly tried and duly punished. A section of English society adopted on this question a disgraceful att.i.tude, but it must at least be said in palliation that they had been grossly deceived, one of the chief and usually most trustworthy organs of opinion having been made use of as an organ of the conspirators.

A more difficult question arose in the case of the statesman who had prepared and organized the expedition against the Transvaal. It is certain that the actual raid had taken place without his knowledge or consent, though when it was brought to his knowledge he abstained from taking any step to stop it. It may be conceded also that there were real grievances to be complained of. By a strange irony of fate some of the largest gold mines of the world had fallen to the possession of perhaps the only people who did not desire them; of a race of hunters and farmers intensely hostile to modern ideas, who had twice abandoned their homes and made long journeys into distant lands in search of solitude and s.p.a.ce and of a home where they could live their primitive, pastoral lives, undisturbed by any foreign element. These men now found their country the centre of a vast stream of foreign immigration, and of that most undesirable kind of immigration which gold mines invariably promote. Their laws were very backward, but the part which was most oppressive was that connected with the gold-mining industry which was almost entirely in the hands of the immigrants, and it was this which made it a main object to overthrow their government. The trail of finance runs over the whole story, but it may be acknowledged that, although Mr. Rhodes had made an enormous fortune by mining speculations, and although he was largely interested as a financier in overturning the system of government at Johannesburg, he was not a man likely to be actuated by mere love of money, and that political ambition closely connected with the opening and the civilisation of Africa largely actuated him. Whether the motives of his co-conspirators were of the same kind may be open to question. What, however, he did has been very clearly established. When holding the highly confidential position of Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, and being at the same time a Privy Councillor of the Queen, he engaged in a conspiracy for the overthrow of the government of a neighbouring and friendly State. In order to carry out this design he deceived the High Commissioner whose Prime Minister he was. He deceived his own colleagues in the Ministry. He collected under false pretences a force which was intended to co-operate with an insurrection in Johannesburg. Being a Director of the Chartered Company he made use of that position, without the knowledge of his colleagues, to further the conspiracy. He took an active and secret part in smuggling great quant.i.ties of arms into the Transvaal, which were intended to be used in the rebellion; and at a time when his organs in the press were representing Johannesburg as seething with spontaneous indignation against an oppressive government, he, with another millionaire, was secretly expending many thousands of pounds in that town in stimulating and subsidising the rising. He was also directly connected with the shabbiest incident in the whole affair, the concoction of a letter from the Johannesburg conspirators absurdly representing English women and children at Johannesburg as in danger of being shot down by the Boers, and urging the British to come at once to save them. It was a letter drawn up with the sanction of Mr. Rhodes many weeks before the raid, and before any disturbance had arisen, and kept in reserve to be dated and used in the last moment for the purpose of inducing the young soldiers in South Africa to join in the raid, and of subsequently justifying their conduct before the War Office, and also for the purpose of being published in the English press at the same time as the first news of the raid, in order to work upon English public opinion and persuade the English people that the raid, though technically wrong, was morally justifiable.[56]

Mr. Rhodes is a man of great genius and influence, and in the past he has rendered great services to the Empire. At the same time no reasonable judge can question that in these transactions he was more blamable than those who were actually punished by the law for taking part in the raid--far more blamable than those young officers who were, in truth, the most severely punished, and who had been induced to take part in it under a false representation of the wishes of the Government at home, and a grossly false representation of the state of things at Johannesburg. The failure of the raid, and his undoubted complicity with its design, obliged Mr. Rhodes to resign the post of Prime Minister and his directorship of the Chartered Company, and, for a time at least, eclipsed his influence in Africa; but the question confronted the Ministers whether these resignations alone const.i.tuted a sufficient punishment for what he had done.

The question was indeed one of great difficulty. The Government, in my opinion, were right in not attempting a prosecution which, in the face of the fact that the actual raid had certainly been undertaken without the knowledge of Mr. Rhodes, and that the evidence against him was chiefly drawn from his own voluntary admissions before the committee of inquiry, would inevitably have proved abortive. They were, perhaps, right in not taking from him the dignity of Privy Councillor, which had been bestowed on him as a reward for great services in the past, and which had never in the present reign been taken from anyone on whom it had been bestowed. They were right also, I believe, in urging that after a long and elaborate inquiry into the circ.u.mstances of the raid, and after a report in which Mr. Rhodes's conduct had been fully examined and severely censured, it was most important for the peace and good government of South Africa that the matter should as soon as possible be allowed to drop, and the raid and the party animosities it had aroused to subside. But what can be thought of the language of a Minister who volunteered to a.s.sure the House of Commons that in all the transactions I have described, Mr. Rhodes, though he had made 'a gigantic mistake,' a mistake perhaps as great as a statesman could make, had done nothing affecting his personal honour?[57]

The foregoing examples will serve to ill.u.s.trate the kind of difficulty which every statesman has to encounter in dealing with political misdeeds, and the impossibility of treating them by the clearly defined lines and standards that are applicable to the morals of a private life.

Whatever conclusions men may arrive at in the seclusion of their studies, when they take part in active political life they will find it necessary to make large allowances for motives, tendencies, past services, pressing dangers, overwhelming expediencies, opposing interests. Every statesman who is worthy of the name has a strong predisposition to support the public servants who are under him when he knows that they have acted with a sincere desire to benefit the Empire.

This is, indeed, a characteristic of all really great statesmen, and it gives a confidence and energy to the public service which in times of difficulty and danger are of supreme importance. In such times a mistaken decision is usually a less evil than timid, vacillating, or procrastinated action, and a wise Minister will go far to defend his subordinates if they have acted promptly and with substantial justice in the way they believed to be best, even though they may have made considerable mistakes, and though the results of their action may have proved unfortunate.

But of all forms of prestige, moral prestige is the most valuable, and no statesman should forget that one of the chief elements of British power is the moral weight that is behind it. It is the conviction that British policy is essentially honourable and straightforward, that the word and honour of its statesmen and diplomatists may be implicitly trusted, and that intrigues and deceptions are wholly alien to their nature. The statesman must steer his way between rival fanaticisms--the fanaticism of those who pardon everything if it is crowned by success and conduces to the greatness of the Empire, and who act as if weak Powers and savage nations had no moral rights; and the fanaticism of those who always seem to have a leaning against their own country, and who imagine that in times of war, anarchy, or rebellion, and in dealings with savage or half-savage military populations, it is possible to act with the same respect for the technicalities of law, and the same invariably high standard of moral scrupulousness, as in a peaceful age and a highly civilised country. In the affairs of private life the distinction between right and wrong is usually very clear, but it is not so in public affairs. Even the moral aspects of political acts can seldom be rightly estimated without the exercise of a large, judicial, and comprehensive judgment, and the spirit which should actuate a statesman should be rather that of a high-minded and honourable man of the world than that of a theologian, or a lawyer, or an abstract moralist.

In some respects the standard of political morality has undoubtedly risen in modern times; but it is by no means certain that in international politics this is the case. A true history of the wars of the last half of the nineteenth century may well lead us to doubt it, and recent disclosures have shown us that in the most terrible of them--the Franco-German War of 1870--the blame must be much more equally divided than we had been accustomed to believe. Very few ma.s.sacres in history have been more gigantic or more clearly traced to the action of a government than those perpetrated by Turkish soldiers in our generation, and few signs of the low level of public feeling in Christendom are more impressive than the general indifference with which these ma.s.sacres were contemplated in most countries. It was made evident that a Power which retains its military strength, and which is therefore sought as an ally and feared as an enemy, may do things with impunity, and even with very little censure, which in the case of a weak nation would produce a swift retribution. Among the minor episodes of nineteenth-century history the historian will not forget how soon after the savage Armenian ma.s.sacres the sovereign of one of the greatest and most civilised of Christian nations hastened to Constantinople to clasp the hand which was so deeply dyed with Christian blood, and then, having, as he thought, sufficiently strengthened his popularity and influence in that quarter, proceeded to the Mount of Olives, where, amid scenes that are consecrated by the most sacred of all memories, and most fitted to humble the pride of power and dispel the dreams of ambition, he proclaimed himself with melodramatic piety the champion and the patron of the Christian faith! How many instances may be culled from very modern history of the deliberate falsehood of statesmen; of distinct treaty engagements and obligations simply set aside because they were inconvenient to one Power, and could be repudiated with impunity; of weak nations annexed or plundered without a semblance of real provocation! The safety of the weak in the presence of the strong is the best test of international morality. Can it be said that, if measured by this test, the public morality of our time ranks very high?

No one can fail to notice with what levity the causes of war with barbarous or semi-civilised nations are scrutinised if only those wars are crowned with success; how strongly the present commercial policy of Europe is stimulating the pa.s.sion for aggression; how warmly that policy is in all great nations supported by public opinion and by the Press.

The questions of morality arising out of these things are many and complicated, and they cannot be disposed of by short and simple formulae.

How far is a statesman who sees, or thinks he sees, some crushing danger from an aggressive foreign Power impending over his country, justified in antic.i.p.ating that danger, and at a convenient moment and without any immediate provocation forcing on a war? How far is it his right or his duty to sacrifice the lives of his people through humanitarian motives, for the redress of some flagrant wrong with which he is under no treaty obligation to interfere? How far, if several Powers agree to guarantee the integrity of a small Power, is one Power bound at great risk to interfere in isolation if its co-partners refuse to do so or are even accomplices in a policy of plunder? How far, if the aggression of other Powers places his nation at a commercial or other disadvantage in the compet.i.tion of nations, may a statesman take measures which, under other circ.u.mstances, would be plainly unjustifiable, to guard against such disadvantage? With what degrees of punctiliousness, at what cost of treasure and of life, ought a nation to resent insults directed against its dignity, its subjects and its flag? What is the meaning and what are the limits of national egotism and national unselfishness? There is such a thing as the comity of nations, and even apart from treaty obligations no great nation can pursue a policy of complete isolation, disregarding crimes and aggressions beyond its border. On the other hand, the primary duty of every statesman is to his own country. His task is to secure for many millions of the human race the highest possible amount of peace and prosperity, and a selfishness is at least not a narrow one which, while abstaining from injuring others, restricts itself to promoting the happiness of a vast section of the human race. Sacrifices and dangers which a good man would think it his clear duty to accept if they fell on himself alone wear another aspect if he is acting as trustee for a great nation and for the interests of generations who are yet unborn. Nothing is more calamitous than the divorce of politics from morals, but in practical politics public and private morals will never absolutely correspond. The public opinion of the nation will inevitably inspire and control its statesmen. It creates in all countries an ethical code which with greater or less perfection marks out for them the path of duty, and though a great statesman may do something to raise its level, he can never wholly escape its influence. In different nations it is higher or lower--in truthfulness and sincerity of diplomacy the variations are very great--but it will never be the exact code on which men act in private life. It is certainly widely different from the Sermon on the Mount.

There is one belief, half unconscious, half avowed, which in our generation is pa.s.sing widely over the world and is practically accepted in a very large measure by the English-speaking nations. It is that to reclaim savage tribes to civilisation, and to place the outlying dominions of civilised countries which are anarchical or grossly misgoverned in the hands of rulers who govern wisely and uprightly, are sufficient justification for aggression and conquest. Many who, as a general rule, would severely censure an unjust and unprovoked war, carried on for the purpose of annexation by a strong Power against a weak one, will excuse or scarcely condemn such a war if it is directed against a country which has shown itself incapable of good government.

To place the world in the hands of those who can best govern it is looked upon as a supreme end. Wars are not really undertaken for this end. The philanthropy of nations when it takes the form of war and conquest is seldom or never unmixed with selfishness, though strong gusts of humanitarian enthusiasm often give an impulse, a pretext, or a support to the calculated actions of statesmen. But when wars, however selfish and unprovoked, contribute to enlarge the boundaries of civilisation, to stimulate real progress, to put an end to savage customs, to oppression or to anarchy, they are now very indulgently judged even in the many cases in which the inhabitants of the conquered Power do not desire the change and resist it strenuously in the field.

In domestic as in foreign politics the maintenance of a high moral standard in statesmanship is impossible unless the public opinion of the country is in harmony with it. Moral declension in a nation is very swiftly followed by a corresponding decadence among its public men, and it will indeed be generally found that the standard of public men is apt to be somewhat lower than that of the better section of the public outside. They are exposed to very special temptations, some of which I have already indicated.

The constant habit of regarding questions with a view to party advantage, to proximate issues, to immediate popularity, which is inseparable from parliamentary government, can hardly fail to give some ply to the most honest intellect. Most questions have to be treated more or less in the way of compromise; and alliances and coalitions not very conducive to a severe standard of political morals are frequent. In England the leading men of the opposing parties have happily usually been able to respect one another. The same standard of honour will be found on both sides of the House, but every parliament contains its notorious agitators, intriguers and self-seekers, men who have been connected with acts which may or may not have been brought within the reach of the criminal law, but have at least been sufficient to stamp their character in the eyes of honest men. Such men cannot be neglected in party combinations. Political leaders must co-operate with them in the daily intercourse and business of parliamentary life--must sometimes ask them favours--must treat them with deference and respect. Men who on some subjects and at some times have acted with glaring profligacy, on others act with judgment, moderation and even patriotism, and become useful supporters or formidable opponents. Combinations are in this way formed which are in no degree wrong, but which tend to dull the edge of moral perception and imperceptibly to lower the standard of moral judgment. In the swift changes of the party kaleidoscope the bygone is soon forgotten. The enemy of yesterday is the ally of to-day; the services of the present soon obscure the misdeeds of the past; and men insensibly grow very tolerant not only of diversities of opinion, but also of gross aberrations of conduct. The constant watchfulness of external opinion is very necessary to keep up a high standard of political morality.

Public opinion, it is true, is by no means impeccable. The tendency to believe that crimes cease to be crimes when they have a political object, and that a popular vote can absolve the worst crimes, is only too common; there are few political misdeeds which wealth, rank, genius or success will not induce large sections of English society to pardon, and nations even in their best moments will not judge acts which are greatly for their own advantage with the severity of judgment that they would apply to similar acts of other nations. But when all this is admitted, it still remains true that there is a large body of public opinion in England which carries into all politics a sound moral sense and which places a just and righteous policy higher than any mere party interest. It is on the power and pressure of this opinion that the high character of English government must ultimately depend.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] This sentence may appear obscure to English readers. The explanation is, that by an ingenious arrangement, devised by Lord Beaconsfield, the professors of the Jesuit College in Stephen's Green are nearly all made Fellows of the Royal University, those of the Arts Faculty receiving 400_l._ a year, and three Medical Fellows 150_l._ each. By this device the Catholic college has in reality a State endowment to the amount of between 6,000_l._ and 7,000_l._ a year. This fact considerably reduces the grievance.

[43] See e.g. the death-bed counsels of Henry IV. to his son:--

'Therefore, my Harry, Be it thy course to busy giddy minds With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out, May waste the memory of the former days.'

_Henry IV_. Part II. Act IV. Sc. 4.

[44] Lord Lanesborough _v._ Reilly.

[45] See Tocqueville's _Memoirs_ (English trans.), ii. 189, Letter to the _Times_.

[46] See Maupas, _Memoires sur le Second Empire_, i. 511, 512. It is said that, contrary to the orders of St.-Arnaud, the soldiers, instead of immediately shooting all persons in the street who were found with arms or constructing or defending a barricade, made many prisoners, and it is not clear what became of them. Granier de Ca.s.sagnac, however, altogether denies the executions on the Champ de Mars (ii. 433).

[47] Granier de Ca.s.sagnac, ii. 438.

[48] _L'Empire Liberal_, ii. 526.

[49] _Memoires d'Odilon Barrot_, iv. 59-61.

[50] _Memoires d'Odilon Barrot_, iv. 56, 57.

[51] See Lord Palmerston's statements on this subject in Ashley's _Life of Palmerston_, ii. 200-211. Tocqueville, however, utterly denies that the majority of the a.s.sembly had any sympathy with these views (Tocqueville's _Memoirs_ (Eng. trans.), ii. 177). Maupas, in his _Memoires_, gives a very detailed account of the conspiracy on the Bonapartist side. It appears that the 'homme de confiance' of Changarnier was in his pay.

[52] Tocqueville's _Memoirs_, ii.

[53] Ashley's _Life of Palmerston_, ii. 208.

[54] Newman.

[55] See Ollivier, _L'Empire Liberal_, i. 510-512.

[56] _Second Report of the Select Committee on British South Africa_ (July, 1897).

[57] _Parliamentary Debates_, July 26, 1897, 1169, 1170.

CHAPTER XI

The necessities for moral compromise I have traced in the army, in the law, and in the fields of politics may be found in another form not less conspicuously in the Church. The members, and still more the ministers, of an ancient Church bound to formularies and creeds that were drawn up in long bygone centuries, are continually met by the difficulties of reconciling these forms with the changed conditions of human knowledge, and there are periods when the pressure of these difficulties is felt with more than common force. Such, for example, were the periods of the Renaissance and the Reformation, when changes in the intellectual condition of Europe produced a widespread conviction of the vast amount of imposture and delusion which had received the sanction of a Church that claimed to be infallible, the result being in some countries a silent evanescence of all religious belief among the educated cla.s.s, even including a large number of the leaders of the Church, and in other countries a great outburst of religious zeal aiming at the restoration of Christianity to its primitive form and a repudiation of the accretions of superst.i.tion that had gathered around it. The Copernican theory proving that our world is not, as was long believed, the centre of the universe, but a single planet moving with many others around a central sun, and the discovery, by the instrumentality of the telescope, of the infinitesimally small place which our globe occupies in the universe, altered men's measure of probability and affected widely, though indirectly, their theological beliefs.

A similar change was gradually produced by the Newtonian discovery that the whole system of the universe was pervaded by one great law, and by the steady growth of scientific knowledge, proving that vast numbers of phenomena which were once attributed to isolated and capricious acts of spiritual intervention were regulated by invariable, inexorable, all-pervasive law. Many of the formularies by which we still express our religious beliefs date from periods when comets and eclipses were believed to have been sent to portend calamity; when every great meteorological change was attributed to some isolated spiritual agency; when witchcraft and diabolical possession, supernatural diseases, and supernatural cures were deemed indubitable facts: and when accounts of contemporary miracles, Divine or Satanic, carried with them no sense of strangeness or improbability. It is scarcely surprising that these formularies sometimes seem incongruous with an age when the scientific spirit has introduced very different conceptions of the government of the universe, and when the miraculous, if it is not absolutely discredited, is, at least in the eyes of most educated men, relegated to a distant past.

The present century has seen some powerful reactions towards older religious beliefs, but it has also been to an unusual extent fertile in the kind of changes that most deeply affect them. Not many years have pa.s.sed since the whole drama of the world's history was believed to have been comprised in the framework of 'Paradise Lost' and 'Paradise Regained.' Man appeared in the universe a faultless being in a faultless world, but he soon fell from his first estate, and his fall entailed world-wide consequences. It introduced into our globe sin, death, suffering, disease, imperfection and decay; all the mischievous and ferocious instincts and tendencies of man and beast; all the mult.i.tudinous forms of struggle, terror, anxiety and grief; all that makes life bitter to any living being, and, even as the Fathers were accustomed to say, the briars and weeds and sterility of the earth.

Paradise Regained was believed to be indissolubly connected with Paradise Lost. The one was the explanation of the other. The one introduced the disease, the other provided the remedy.

It is idle to deny that the main outlines of this picture have been wholly changed. First came the discovery that the existence of our globe stretches far beyond the period once a.s.signed to the Creation, and that for countless ages before the time when Adam was believed to have lost Paradise, death had been its most familiar fact and its inexorable law; that the animals who inhabited it preyed upon and devoured each other as at present, their claws and teeth being specially adapted for that purpose. Even their half-digested remains have been preserved in fossil.