posed to them, with which we are acquainted, are to be found in his writings. He never fears to make a bold and manly profession of the Catholic faith, and it is from the point of view of Catholicity, and by the aid of Catholic doctrine, that he refutes the modern errors and heresies he attacks. He seems, also, save in the ascetic region, whenever he has occasion to present Catholic theology, to present it in its highest and most rigidly orthodox forms. According to him, the true human race does not and cannot subsist out of the Catholic or elect society; and he energetically maintains, that out of the Catholic Church man is in an abnormal condition, and incapable, under any aspect of his nature, of attaining to his normal development. He attacks Gallicanism, and asserts in their plenitude the spiritual and civil prerogatives of the Papacy, which French, German, and English theologians, especially during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have so generally denied, or but ambiguously admitted. He maintains that civil society is of sacerdotal origin, derives all power, civil as well as ecclesiastical, from God through the sacerdotal order, and makes the Pope, who embodies in himself the whole priesthood, the representative on earth of the full and universal sovereignty of God.

But we cannot read Gioberti's works without feeling that, along with this, and by ordinary readers not easily separable from it, the author introduces remarks and opinions, and exhibits practical aims and tendencies, which, in our times at least, go far to neutralize his orthodox influence, nay, to throw his influence into the scale of modern liberalism and socialism. We do not judge a book by the personal conduct of the author; but as far as Gioberti's conduct, whether in power or out of power, is known to us, it does not appear to have harmonized with the hightoned Catholic principles he has, at least, the air of professing. His present position with regard to the Holy See, unless we are wholly misinformed, is not that of a dutiful and affectionate son, and contrasts unfavorably with that of Rosmini, or even with that of Padre Ventura. Professedly opposed to all violent revolutions, claiming to be a man of great moderation, and occasionally using language which would lead one to suspect him of being a delegate to the Peace Congress, he nevertheless undeniably had a large share in preparing and precipitating the recent shameful Italian revolutions, and plunging his own sovereign, the late Charles Albert, into his disastrous and unprovoked campaigns against Austria. Professing to disdain modern liberals, to hold democratic politicians in contempt,

and to address himself only to the wisdom and solid judgment of the enlightened and virtuous few, he aided, indirectly, to say the least, in stirring up that infuriated mob which drove the Jesuits out of Italy, assassinated Count Rossi, exiled the Holy Father from Rome, persecuted the religious, massacred the clergy, and enabled Mazzini and his fellow-miscreants to establish the infamous Roman Republic. Asserting in the most unqualified terms the infallibility of the Holy See in the definition of doctrines and the condemnation of books, he has, we believe, never submitted a single one of his own publications to its judgment, and up to the present time has refused to submit to its condemnation of his Gesuita Moderno. It is true, and we take pleasure in saying so, that, when at the head of the Sardinian government, he refused to acknowledge the infidel and sacrilegious Roman Republic; but he also refused to cooperate with the Catholic powers of Europe in restoring the Holy Father to his temporal sovereignty, and sanctioned encroachments of the civil on the spiritual power, which but too clearly preluded the sacrilegious Sicardi laws, the imprisonment of the illustrious Fransoni, and the persecution of the clergy in the Subalpine kingdom, which so deeply wound the heart, not only of our Holy Father, but of every sincere Catholic. These things, which we are unable to deny, or satisfactorily to explain away, coupled with the fact that he is usually surrounded, not by men venerable for their doctrine and their piety, but by a knot of young Italian atheists and misbelievers, compel us to pause in our admiration, and ask if there be not, after all, some grave fault in the author as well as in the man. With our high estimation of his genius, his talent, his clear and profound thought, his erudition, and his polish and eloquence as a writer, as well as of the soundness of his doctrines on many of the most vital points of philosophy and theology, we must naturally be disposed to place the most favorable construction possible on both his speculations and his acts; but, considering what has undeniably been the practical influence of his views and tendencies, as a political writer and statesman, on the disastrous and shameful revolutionary movements of his countrymen, we cannot but believe that there is something rotten in his writings, and that, with all his high-toned orthodoxy on so many important points, there is yet something in his thought, as well as in his heart, not compatible with Catholic doctrine and Catholic piety, and which we are bound to reprobate.

We took up and read Gioberti's works at first from curiosity, and to find out the truth they might contain, and we were charmed and carried away by his learning and eloquence, to an extent we are ashamed to acknowledge, although we had all the time a secret feeling that he was not altogether healthy in his practical influence; we have since re-read his writings, to discover, if possible, the error concealed in them, or the source of that unhealthy influence. We think we have discovered it, and our chief purpose in noticing the volumes we have introduced is to point it out to our readers, and, if our review should chance to fall under his eyes, to the distinguished author himself. Several books of greater or less magnitude have been written against the author, but we are unacquainted with their contents. We have read nothing against him, except some high commendations of him in The North British Review, a Scotch Presbyterian journal, intended to perpetuate the spirit of John Knox, and some two or three articles, feebly and unsuccessfully attacking his philosophy, in a respectable French periodical, conducted by a layman whose learning and good intentions we hold in high esteem. Our judgment, whether sound or unsound, has been formed by the simple study of the volumes before us, and the school to which their author obviously belongs, and of which he is the most distinguished member.

Our purpose in our present article is not to review Gioberti so much under a philosophical as an ascetic, a speculative as a practical, point of view; and perhaps we cannot better introduce the criticisms we propose to offer, than by reverting to a fact which we have often insisted on, namely, that there is in modern society a fatal schism between the ecclesiastical order and the temporal, and between spiritual culture and secular. There is not, under Christianity, that harmony between the two orders that there appears to have been under gentilism in Greek and Roman antiquity. In classic antiquity there seems to have been, for the most part, a perfect harmony between religious and secular life, spiritual and secular culture; and in the great men of Livy and Plutarch, regarding them simply as men, we find a balance, a proportion, a completeness, and, so to speak, roundness of character, in its order, that we do not find in the men of modern times. In modern society the two orders are not only distinct, but mutually repugnant, and we are able to devote ourselves to the one only by rejecting or opposing the other. Civil government opposes,

and, as far as possible, subjects the Church; philosophy rejects theology; the sciences are irreligious in their tendency; and secular literature and art foster unbelief and impiety. The individual and society are alike torn by two internal hostile and irreconcilable forces, and we have no peace, hardly, at rare intervals, a brief truce. This schism, taken in its principle, may be regarded as the source of all the evils which afflict modern society, whether temporal or spiritual.

It is from the fact we here state, more especially as it exists in Italy, the author's own country, that Gioberti appears to start. He assumes that this schism is practically remediable, that it ought to be healed; and hence his chief inquiry is as to its causes and the means of healing it. The principal cause, if we understand him aright, is, that the sacerdotal society has lost its control of the lay society, by having lost its former moral and intellectual superiority over it, and yet insists on retaining the dominion it rightfully exercised when it possessed that superiority; and the remedy is to be sought in the voluntary cession, as far as civilized Europe is concerned, on the part of the sacerdotal society, of that former dominion, become incompatible with modern civilization, the new conditions and relations of peoples and nations, the emancipation of the civil order from the sacerdotal tutelage, and a union, alliance, or interfusion of sacerdotal and lay culture, of the sacerdotal and lay genius, of the Christian spirit and the spirit of ancient ItaloGreek gentilism. He denies, indeed, the right of the lay society to assert its emancipation by violence, and thus far condemns modern liberalists, but contends that the clerical order should voluntarily concede the emancipation, and invest the lay order with an independence that was denied it, and very properly denied it, in the earlier mediæval times. We shall amply prove, before we close, that this is the author's view of the matter; and, indeed, it is evident from almost every page of his writings, and especially from his long discussion in the Del Primato on the difference between the civil dictatorship exercised by the Popes immediately after the dissolution of the Western Empire by the Northern barbarians, and the arbitratorship which he contends is now for civilized Europe all that can or should be exercised by the sovereign pontiffs, except in the Ecclesiastical States.

That, in pointing out the causes of this schism, and proposing the remedy, Gioberti refutes much false philosophy, demolishes many false systems of politics, ethics, and society, and brings

to his aid truths in philosophy, theology, morals, and politics of the highest order and of the last importance, there is no question; but he has nowhere the appearance of doing this for the sake of a genuinely Catholic end. The end for which he brings forward Catholicity, he says expressly,* is not the salvation of the soul, or the advancement of faith and piety for the sake of heaven, eternal beatitude, but the advancement of civilization for the sake of the "earthly felicity of men," and "the temporal well-being of nations." And hence he presents himself as a political and social reformer, in reality as a socialist in relation to his ends, differing from the vulgar herd of socialists only in the respect, that his instruments of reform, of reconstructing society, and of advancing civilization and social well-being, include, instead of rejecting, the ideal philosophy and the Church. In doctrine, in formal teaching, he is the antipodes of our modern socialists and liberalists, but in heart and soul, in spirit, in aim, and practical tendency, he is, after all, with them, and hardly distinguishable from them. Speaking in general terms, his error lies here, and is practical rather than theoretical, in what he is laboring to effect rather than in the doctrines he formally and expressly teaches or attempts to apply to his socialistic purposes; and hence you feel, in reading him, that he is carrying you away in an antiCatholic direction, although you cannot easily lay your finger on a direct and positive statement that you can assert to be in itself absolutely heterodox, or that directly and unequivocally expresses the error you are sure he is insinuating into your mind and heart.

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Nevertheless, in his practical doctrine, as we have just stated it, there are clearly errors both of fact and of principle. He says expressly, "La declinazione delle influenze civili del clero in alcuni paesi cattolici nasce appunto dall' aver lasciato che i laici di sperienza, di senno, di dottrina, e di gentilezza lo avanzassero." And it is clear that he means to lay this down as a general principle, and to maintain that the decline of the influence of the clergy in the civil order is owing to their having suffered the laity to surpass them in experience, wisdom, knowledge, and cultivation," or, in other words, to the fact, that the sacerdotal society has lost its moral and intellectual superiority over the lay society. But he knows little of human affairs, and of the world at large, who can seriously hold that the

* Del Primato, Tom. I. p. 95.

† Del Primato, Tom. II. p. 255.