CARDINAL NEWMAN AND PRINCIPAL FAIRBAIRN.

The Contemporary Review for October has, in the place of honour, an article by Cardinal Newman on the "Development of Religious Error." . . . . .

After giving his reasons for believing Cardinal Newman to be by far the best representative man for the illustration of his argument, Principal Fairbairn sets himself by a careful induction of the Cardinal's written opinions to get at what he calls the ultimate ideas or regulative principles of his thought. To comprehend these, as Dr. Fairbairn says, is to determine with all but scientific accuracy not only his ratiocination, but his mode of viewing things, and the kind and quality of the arguments that weigh with him. According to this mode of appraisement, Dr. Newman is a poet by nature, and by necessity rather than choice a metaphysician and historian. Hence he not only views things in the rosy light of the imagination, but the things that most powerfully affect him are those that present themselves to his mind steeped in its orient colours. Dr. Newman's starting point has not been carefully and logically analysed by himself, and as this is the case, his conclusions, when legitimately drawn, cannot be stronger than his premises. As an illustration of defective analysis, under this poetic rhythm of his mind, Dr. Fairbairn gives us Dr. Newman's alternative of atheism or Catholicism. He— Newman—is a Catholic, according to his own account, because he is a Theist, and he is a Theist because he believes in his own existence, for he hears God speak to him in his conscience or his moral nature, which is the highest expression of his existence. If the process of the argument has been correctly traced, Catholicism rests upon conscience, and the question may well be asked, by those who see to the bottom of this argument, how can Catholicism rest upon conscience and at the same time be an infallible guide to conscience in matters of duty? There is a much greater entanglement here than the question which the author of Christianity put to his argumentative tormentors :— " If David called the Messiah Lord, how then is he His son ? "

But leaving this for a moment, another question springs up from amongst the rank weeds of fallacious reasoning. If conscience is the Theistic faculty, what of the intellect, or speaking generally, the reason? Dr. Fairbairn here shows by copious references to Dr. Newman's works, that he has not much faith in the argumentative faculty. Dr. Newman believes that the reason or the intellect tends towards unbelief. He surveys the field of its operations both in individuals and in nations with unconcealed alarm, and hence the necessity in the cardinal's outlook, of some strong dam—that is some infallible authority, external to the mind—to arrest the progress of reason's destructive floods. But if conscience is the basis of Theism, and conscience is a part of our existence, whence this distrust of reason, which is a part of our existence also? Why should conscience be crowned, and reason banished from the palace when they are both children of the some father? Orientalism in the matter of succession should have n0 place in the royal family of the mind. If sin, as it has been sometimes contended, has beclouded the intellect and disturbed its delicate balances, has it not to the some extent disturbed the working of the conscience, and made its decisions liable to suspicion for the self-same reason? Dr. Fairbairn therefore shows, and very fairly, that it we reject any part of our nature as unreliable, to that extent we are open to the charge of philosophical scepticism ; and the Principal charges this form of scepticism upon the Cardinal, on the ground that although Dr. Newman accepts the dictates of conscience as a basis for Theism, he rejects the guidance of reason alone, because that would lead him through criticism to atheism.

But even assuming that Dr. Newman is right in rejecting reason to the extent indicated, and in accepting the dictates of conscience as a basis for Theism, it is not at first sight apparent why, being a Theist, he must also be a Catholic. Dr. Fairbairn explains the process, and we cannot see any other reason for the theory. The conscience is not only the faculty of moral distinctions and of duty, but it is also an echo of something without us, from which it derives its authority, and whose infallible teachings we must follow. That authority Dr. Newman believes, must be an infallible church speaking through its infallible head. This position is reached by a tremendous leap, but when once reached it satisfies we are told, the reason as well as the conscience—the reason be it observed, which yet all the while tends to atheism. The vital atmosphere of Theism is, according to this mode of looking at things, Catholicism ; and where this vital air is wanting, Theism, and all that it includes must wither and die. Referring to this position Dr. Fairbairn contends that it is not possible to conceive a worse basis for constructive Theism, especially in a critical and sceptical age. The truest and noblest Catholicism according to Dr. Fairbairn is that which is based, not on the excommunication of the reason, but in the reconciliation of the whole nature, intellect, conscience, heart, and will to God and His truth.

In concluding his article Dr. Fairbairn combats the notion, both on philosophical and historic grounds, that the activity of the intellect begins in freedom of criticism, and having broken away from authority, ends in atheism or agnosticism. It the intellect is as much a part of our original constitution as the conscience, on what grounds is reason ignored and conscience exiled? Because, says Dr. Newman, it has done nothing else in the past than bring about such a result. Dr. Fairbairn says that the cardinal's history is at fault here as well as his reasonings. In a rapid but valuable historic sketch Dr. Fairbairn, moving easily,and even with grace, under a load of learning, that would crush any ordinary man, shows not only that Dr. Newman's position is untenable, but that the very opposite is the truth ; and the majority of those who know anything about the subject will take the side of the principal against the cardinal. But even had it had been otherwise the question is still open for discussion whether an infallible church, speaking through an infallible head is the best check, or indeed any check, upon the aberrations of the intellect? Dr. Fairbairn endeavours to show that the assumption of such infallibility is no solution of the difficulties and problems of religious thought, but on the other hand it is a cowardly running away from them to take shelter under a dogma which not only fails to bring light and pence to the mind, but increases the evils it is put forth to remove. When divested of its high-sounding title it is simply another name for one of the most dangerous forms of unbelief where faith seems to live and triumph, but where reason lies trampled upon under the heel of authority.

This leads Dr. Fairbairn to deal with the question, What is reason, and especially what are its functions? He shows most conclusively that reason is as godlike is the conscience ; that conscience is only the moral reason and that even it one were to admit that the Catholic Church was infallible, yet if Dr Newman or any one else ignored the guidance of the reason, he would not only cut away the timbers on which the whole superstructure of knowledge rests but be guilty of some thing like profanity in his mistrust of and contempt for so fine and divine a faculty. "He who," says Dr. Fairbairn, "places the rational nature of man on the side of atheism, that he may the better defend a church, saves the church at the expense of religion and God." To these charges Dr. Newman replies, as we have already said, in the October number of the Contemporary Review. The religious world is deeply interested in the controversy, and so also is the philosophic. Even the general reader may be tempted to inquire what the Cardinal has to say for himself; for Dr. Fairbairn's is no vulgar attack on infallibility as claimed by the Catholic Church, nor does he use any weapons save the lawful ones of learning and logic.

Dr. Newman begins by saying that it would be easy to expose the errors, both in fact and in logic, which Dr. Fairbairn has made himself responsible for in the pages of the Contemporary. But this he declares is not his purpose. To begin with, this is not very promising, for if such a thing requires to be done, and if it is easy to do it, it it is not done, a suspicion will force itself into the minds or those who are simply spectators of the conflict that the thing is not done because of its difficulty or impossibility.

Dr. Newman begins by telling us that he is shocked that Dr. Fairbairn should insinuate that he, Dr. Newman, was a sceptic, and he quotes a saying of Polycarp to express his own religious convictions, and the natural and constant movements of his soul godwards. Here we have an illustration of what Dr. Fairbairn says is the most prominent characteristic of the Cardinals mind, defective powers of analysis. It was not religious scepticism that was charged against him but philosophical, and that distinction the Cardinal has either failed to grasp, or he has quietly ignored it. No one who knows anything of the history of Dr. Newman, or who has any acquaintance with his writings, would charge him with religious scepticism. If one were to record an opinion at all, it would be that he was religious overmuch. To mistrust God is one form of unbelief, to mistrust ourselves is another. Faith and unbelief may thus exist side by side, without producing in their subjects any sense of contradiction.

Dr. Newman now advances to the direct portion of his reply by telling us in what sense he uses the indefinite word reason. He adopts Dr. Johnson's definition, which he quotes :—" Reason is the power by which man deduces one proposition from another, or proceeds from premises to consequences; the rational faculty; the discursive power." The faculty of reason thus defined is, according to Dr. Newman, the instrument of knowledge, but he reminds us that as it is only an instrument it can err, and also be used in the service of falsehood as well as of truth. All of which may be granted without any serious consequences to any one. But the Cardinal contends that the reason of the living world, that is reason outside the Catholic Church, has been used in the service of falsehood and against the teachings of revealed truth. But this admission, meant to be explanatory, reveals the very inconsistency with which Dr. Fairbairn accuses him. Both writers admit that reason is the instrument of knowledge, both believe that the reasoning faculty may err, and that as an instrument it may be used in the service of falsehood as well as truth. But the point to be determined is this:— What or who is to arbitrate, not between reason and authority, but between the conflicting opinions that rise up within the province of reason itself? If reason has her conflicts as all will admit she has, and if, as a matter of historic fact, reason has led some men into error and atheism, where are we to look for the rectification of what is wrong; for such discernment as shall detect the subtlest threads of sophistry in the web of argument, and give us some assurance and conviction that we have got down to the rock of truth which cannot be shaken. Dr. Newman says that the only satisfactory answer to this question is the belief in an infallible church, speaking through an infallible head Dr. Fairbairn replies, on philosophical grounds, that this is no solution, but a cowardly abandonment of the difficulty, and that it amounts to an acknowledgment of defeat under the hallucination of victory; because if the intellect has really solved the question, the intellect can vindicate it on the grounds of reason. If it has not solved the question, the original problem remains, although the mind's eye has been shut to its presence. Dr. Fairbairn and those who think with him would find the answer to this a perplexing question, not in any external authority to overawe the reason, but in the necessities imposed by nature upon the reason itself, of never ceasing to look at her fundamental doctrines and first principles as the data on which her argued conclusions rest; and in ascertaining from time to time whether the results of her most laborious efforts are in harmony with the unity of truth. The eye may err, and so may the ear, but when eye and ear and touch all testify to the some facts, there is not much risk in accepting the testimony of our senses. The reason is a thing with many senses, and the testimony of their united voice is our best, and, in some cases, our only criterion of truth.

The aberrations of the intellect, when reason is used in the interests of falsehood, attain their full development and force in society when society separates itself from authority, and becomes lawless by being a law to itself. To the pertinent question why society, which is also an ordinance of God, should be mistrusted and confronted in its natural progress with infallible authority, in the same way as the personal reason is confronted, Dr. Newman has only one answer :—" It is," he says, "because society, without some controlling and regulating power, tends to atheism and social and political revolution. Put precisely the same objections that are urged against the dogma of infallibility when applied to the reason, are valid, and if possible have more force, when applied to society in general. The individual may err, but the liability to err is decreased with the widening area of reason's activity. To quell the contests of reason by command of some external power—claiming to have infallible authority—is to sacrifice reason to a false and hypocritical peace, and to silence society in the presence of this incomprehensible power, is not to save society, but to destroy it.

At this stage of his defence, Dr. Newman enters upon a long vindication of one of his fundamental portions, which is, that its modern society is becoming wiser in its own estimation, so it is becoming, more irreligious and materialistic. The "corrosive reason" in the aggregate is passing from Catholicism to theism, and from theism to materialism, from whose universe faith has disappeared, and the sceptre of supreme authority is in the hands of those who never fold them in the attitude of devotion. Dr. Fairbairn's position is simply one of historic fact, but on a common assent as to what constitutes religion. But, if we were even compelled to admit the justice of Dr. Newman's estimate of the religious character of modern society,the main charge remains, namely, that Dr. Newman, illogically and inconsistently applies a cure which does not touch the disease, but rather increases its virulency. But that is not all, for if the world has grown bad under the guidance of natural reason, it was the Catholic Church, with its lofty pretensions that forced the world to adopt the doctrine of free thought in the best sense of that phrase; and if the homæopathic law of similars is to be applied here, we must have not an increased dose of the dogma of infallibility but a compound in which the original element shall practically disappear in its passage to the infinitesimal.

Referring to the existence of evil, to the mystery of its origin in relation to moral government and a moral governor, and more especially to the Divine victim who took the place of man in the Christian scheme of redemption, Dr. Newman says, and here many will agree with him, that the problems of natural religion throw no more light on such matters than the Christian religion. It has become the commonplace of modern thought that all the difficulties that emerge from theology have previously emerged from philosophy ; for philosophical thought goes before the formulation of theological dogmas. But the relation of modern religious thought to Christianity is not the point under discussion. Christianity and infallibility expressing itself through an infallible head, are not identical propositions, and it is sophistical to defend this dogma of infallibility by arguments that are of force only when applied to Christianity. And yet this is precisely what Dr. Newman has done, replying to Dr. Fairbairn as if the principal had made an attack upon Christianity, and not on Dr. Newman's position as a representative of modern Catholicism, and the defender of its antiquated doctrines.

In conclusion Dr. Newman maintains that he has been misunderstood and misrepresented by Dr. Fairbairn on many important points because his opponent has been guilty of the fallacy of the leading idea." The cardinal somewhat indignantly repudiates the correctness of the inference drawn under this fallacy as to religious scepticism, with which he says Dr. Fairbairn has so unjustly charged him. But, as we have already shown, Dr. Newman has strangely misunderstood Dr.Fairbairn in this matter. The distinction between philosophical and religious scepticism is not so difficult to grasp, and although Dr. Newman does not profess to be well read in mental science, he cannot plead ignorance of logical methods; and an elementary distinction like that between the two kinds of scepticism to which reference has just been made, should not have been confounded, even by a poetical mind like Dr. Newman's.

In summing up his defence, the cardinal denies the correctness of Dr. Fairbairn's inference that the alternative of atheism was Newman's only argument for believing in the Catholic Church. But the point in dispute is not either as to the number or the cogency of his arguments in defence of Catholicism, but whether the alternative referred to was a very real and true alternative. That it was so to Dr. Newman is not so much an inference from his written opinions as a direct categorical statement from his own recorded sayings.

Again, Dr. Newman denies the correctness of Dr. Fairbairn's inference, that the formal proofs on which belief in the being of God rests are illegitimate, because of his distrust of the personal reason. But the inference is perfectly logical if the mistrust is admitted. Dr. Newman accepts the guidance of reason only when its conclusions are in harmony with the teachings of the infallible church, and he ignores reason when it leads to an opposite result. Surely there is gross inconsistency here, not to speak of vicious reasoning. The test of the validity or reason cannot be determined by the nature of its conclusions, but by the soundness or its starting point, and the correctness of its processes. To accept its conclusions only when they conform to some external authority is manifestly equivalent to the abnegation of reason altogether. There is therefore no alternative between accepting the reason as the instrument of truth, or totally ignoring it. This is a point which Dr. Newman will not see, and his failure to see it has made his reply ineffective, weak, and unsatisfactory. Hence, as one would naturally expect there is just a little personal bitterness in the cardinal to his opponent, for no one who is consciously strong in argument requires to magnify himself by the shabby process of trying to belittle his antagonist.

We have endeavoured to hold fairly the balance between Cardinal Newman and Professor Fairbairn. We are compelled to give the palm of victory to the Protestant professor rather than to the Catholic cardinal. We do this not on Protestant grounds at all, nor because we think that the scholarship of the professor is superior to that of the cardinal, but simply because we think that Dr. Fairbairn has the best of the argument, and because his position appears to us to be the only tenable one to occupy in the present conflicts of opinions for the reconstruction of religious thought on rational lines and on a truly scientific basis.

 The Argus 28 November 1885,