is necessarily either Vice-God or Anti-God; and this fact wonderfully simplifies the issue.

(4.) There is a certain type of morality, impressed on all Catholics in their various devotional books, their hagiologies, their catechisms, their religious practices; a type, which those who disapprove it commonly call the "ascetical." Reason rightly directed, we affirm, peremptorily declares, that this is the one type conformable with eternal truth; and the most uneducated Catholic, in proportion as he is devout, has had his reason thus rightly directed.

(5.) The various revealed dogmata, which in themselves are wholly inaccessible to reason, are nevertheless found by a believer to be in deep and mysterious harmony on many points with this true type of morality. To meditate on them and bring them in every possible way to bear on practical action, has a singular effect in elevating his mind towards the true moral standard. "The Catholic religion is true," says F. Newman (p. 205), among other reasons, "because it has about it an odour of truth and sanctity sui generis, as perceptible to my moral nature as flowers to my sense, such as can only come from heaven."

(6.) Then all who really hold the Catholic Faith, are more or less keenly impressed with a sense of sin. If they labour to serve God, in proportion as they do so they feel profoundly their numberless faults; because clearness of moral perception grows far more quickly than consistency of moral action. On the other hand, if they retain the Faith without labouring to serve God, they see by the light of reason (no less than by the light of faith) that such omission is most sinful. All Catholics then, really such, are impressed with a reasonable conviction, that there can be no surer note of a divinely-sent religion, than its prominent recognition of human sinfulness. To our mind there is no greater excellence in F. Newman's volume, than his repeated inculcation of this truth. But this note is a special characteristic of Catholicity in many different respects. Consider e.g. the dogma of the Atonement: how marvellously it appeals to man's sense of sin!

(7.) Emphatically also to be considered is the experienced effect of Catholicity, as assisting a believer in all increase of virtue and piety. As one instance out of many, consider that power of resisting the foulest and most importunate temptations, which is obtained by Catholic prayer, by frequentation of the Sacraments, by the constant and tender worship of Mary Most Holy.

* This is taken from a phrase of F. Newman's; who says that the Church, from her claims, must be either Vice-Christ or Anti-Christ.

Now all the reasons which we have mentioned are accessible to the most unintellectual Catholics; and they are reasons moreover, which admit of being pressed home to the mind with special impressiveness by divine agency. In their legitimate effect, they are super-superabundantly sufficient to produce certitude; and our affirmation is, that the Holy Ghost uses these and similar reasons for that very purpose in the soul of Catholics. From first to last undoubtedly the Catholic is perfectly free to reject that which he has such abundant reason for accepting; but in proportion as he surrenders the whole current of his life to the influences of his Faith, in that proportion the divine origin of that Faith is more vividly and efficaciously evidenced to his mind.

As to the reasons available for the conversion of uncultured non-Catholics, we cannot even enter into that amount of detail which we gave to the last case; but we heartily concur with the whole of F. Newman's magnificent sermon-"Dispositions for Faith "-which stands fifth in the "Occasional" volume. For ourselves we can only make two, and those most general, observations. Firstly, in proportion as externs are brought more closely into contact with the Church, they are enabled more clearly to discern such notes of the Church as we have already mentioned. Secondly we are most strongly disposed to concur with what F. Newman has consistently advocated (we may say) through his whole theological life; viz. that by far the most hopeful course for an extern (speaking generally and allowing for exceptions) is to act energetically, under the guidance of his moral faculty, on what is placed before him as moral truth by his parents and teachers.* These are his words in the volume before us :

Of the two, I would rather have to maintain that we ought to begin with believing everything that is offered to our acceptance, than that it is our duty to doubt of everything. This, indeed, seems the true way of learning. In that case, we soon discover and discard what is contradictory; and error having always some portion of truth in it, and the truth having a reality which error has not, we may expect, that when there is an honest purpose and fair talents, we shall somehow make our way forward, the error falling off from the mind, and the truth developing and occupying it. Thus it is that the Catholic religion is reached, as we see, by inquirers from all points of the compass; as if it mattered not where a man began, so that he had an eye and a heart for the truth (pp. 371, 372).

Now the purpose of our article is, as our readers will

*If this be admitted, here will be a second exception to the general truth, that it is in itself a great advantage for men to hold no conclusion more strongly than is warranted by its evidence.

remember, to consider a certain "chief stronghold of philosophical objections against the Church," which we set forth at starting. And we suppose we may assume without express argument that, if Catholics have really such super-superabundant ground for their belief as we have affirmed, a thoroughly satisfactory answer is furnished by such a fact to the philosophical objection. The whole question therefore turns on the issue, whether the account we have given of Catholic evidence is substantially true.

Hitherto we have been merely arguing, that at all events it cannot be disproved; that it contains nothing inconsistent with phenomena. No such inconsistency, so far as we see, can be even alleged, except by assuming that such processes as we suppose to have traversed a Catholic's mind, must (if they really did so) have left behind them some record on the memory. But the illustrations we have given amply refute any such attempted argument. Indeed there is perhaps no one point in which psychologians of the present day have so outstripped their predecessors, as in their very strong doctrine on the multitude and importance of implicit mental processes.* We have proved then, we trust, to philosophical nonCatholics, that our theory is not inconsistent with phenomena; but can we further prove to them that it is true? Even if we could not prove this to them, this theory might nevertheless be cognisable by Catholics as true, and might therefore be obligatory on their action. Let us revert to our familiar illustration. I have the firmest conviction of my father's integrity. I may be utterly unable to make my friends sharers in this conviction but I am none the less bound to act on it myself, and should be greatly culpable if I did otherwise. The application is obvious. Catholics are responsible for their conduct to their Creator, and not to their non-Catholic fellow-creatures.

But we say much more than this. We say that the only question really at issue is, whether the historical and philosophical arguments, adduced by educated Catholics for the truth of their religion, be really conclusive. This of course is a question entirely external to the present article, and we are obliged to assume the affirmative answer.† But what we wish

* We should add however, that the doctrine itself cannot possibly be stated with greater clearness, than it was by Lugo two centuries back. "Hæc est virtus intellectûs et voluntatis, ut uno actu brevissimo et subtilissimo attingant compendiosè totam illam seriem motivorum," &c. de Fide, d. i, n. 98. See also n. 87 and n. 91.

F. Newman does not hesitate to say ("Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England," Preface, p. viii.) that "the proof" of Catholicity "is irresistible, so as even to master and carry away the intellect directly it

here to say is this. Whatever arguments suffice to convince an educated man that the Catholic religion is true, should suffice also to convince him that uneducated Catholics have full evidence of its truth. There are two reasons for this, either sufficient.

(1.) Suppose an educated man to become convinced that Catholicity is true. He thereby becomes convinced that, wherever the Gospel is duly preached, all men are under an obligation of accepting what the Church teaches; and that her Gospel is more especially directed to the uneducated and poor. If then it is their duty to accept what the Church teaches, they must have sufficient evidence to make such acceptance reasonable.

(2.) Then again. Suppose an educated man becomes convinced that Catholicity is true, he thereby becomes convinced that the Church is infallible in faith and morals. But no one ever questioned, that she prescribes to her children that very course of conduct, set forth in the philosophical objection against which our whole argument has been directed. If an educated man then becomes convinced that Catholicity is true, he thereby becomes convinced that this very course of conduct is conformable to right reason. But it is not conformable to right reason, unless an uneducated Catholic has access to such implicit evidence as we have alleged. The inference is obvious.

In saying however what we have said, we have had no thought of doubting, that an educated Catholic will often find it of great importance to enter on an explicit investigation* of Catholic evidences in this or that direction. Here again we are brought to a very important theme, which it is impossible to handle in our brief remaining space; and we can but state most briefly the opinions which we should humbly advocate. On the one hand we cannot but think, that the implicit grounds of belief, possessed by educated and uneducated alike and pressed on the attention of all by divine grace, will ever remain the strongest and most satisfying basis of conviction.† On the other hand an educated

is stated." We rather fancy him however here to assume as granted, that Christianity in one shape or another is of divine origin, and that the facts narrated in the New Testament are substantially true. So understood, we thoroughly concur with his statement.

*F. Newman (p. 184) draws a very important distinction between "investigation" and "inquiry."

† So F. Newman. "The grounds, on which we hold the divine origin of the Church, and the previous truths which are taught us by nature-the being of a God, and the immortality of the soul-are felt by most men to be recondite and impalpable, in proportion to their depth and reality, As we

Catholic will often be tempted to doubt, however unreasonably, the conclusiveness of these grounds, unless he has learned to see how strongly reinforced they are by explicit reasoning, derived from every branch of human thought and study. Moreover, as we need hardly add, it is of vital moment, that a sufficient number of able Catholic thinkers shall be, for controversial purposes, thoroughly acquainted with the vast variety of arguments adducible for the truth of Catholicity.

In the article which we here conclude, we have not unfrequently verged on the confines of various delicate philosophical questions, which we have thought it better to avoid. It seems to us abundantly plain, that the view we have put forth is substantially true, so far as it goes; while it is nevertheless constantly ignored by anti-Catholic disputants. If we can obtain the concurrence of such persons to the truth of what has here been said, we shall be in a far more favourable position for treating the more anxious and difficult questions which remain behind.

As to F. Newman's volume, which has been the occasion of our remarks though hardly their principal theme, it is so conspicuous for genius and power, and treats so many questions which are of extreme moment in the present crisis of European thought, that we shall be brought across it again and again in the articles we hope to publish from time to time on the relations between religion and philosophy.

cannot see ourselves, so we cannot well see intellectual motives which are so intimately ours, and which spring up from the very constitution of our minds" (pp. 328, 329). And he thus concludes the fifth of his "Occasional Sermons," to which we have already referred. "This is a day in which much stress is laid upon the arguments producible for believing Religion, Natural and Revealed; and books are written to prove that we ought to believe, and why. These books are called Natural Theology and Evidences of Christianity; and it is often said by our enemies, that Catholics do not know why they believe. Now I have no intention whatever of denying the beauty and the cogency of the arguments which these books contain; but I question much, whether in matter of fact they make or keep men Christians. I have no such doubt about the argument which I have been here recommending to you. Be sure, my Brethren, that the best argument, better than all the books in the world, better than all that astronomy, and geology, and physiology, and all other sciences, can supply,-an argument intelligible to those who cannot read as well as to those who can,- -an argument which is 'within us,'—an argument intellectually conclusive, and practically persuasive, whether for proving the Being of a God, or for laying the ground for Christianity, is that which arises out of a careful attention to the teachings of our heart, and a comparison between the claims of conscience and the announcements of the Gospel" (pp. 98, 99).