' under conditions impossible to other human beings, then ' equally without doubt he was not a Christian.' Deep as is the difference between Green's view and the view of Christ taught by the Church of England, as well as by the Church of Rome and by the Nonconformists, there is a still deeper difference between the Absolute Idealism of Hegelian philosophy and the whole of Christian theology, on the relation of God to the world. According to the Christian theology of the Bible, and all existing Churches, God is the creator and governor of things, necessary to their being, omnipresent to them, but not the immanent subject of which they are attributes; things are creatures of God, made by and subject to the Divine will in consequence of the Divine intelligence, but not thoughts of God; we men also are creatures of God, in whom we live and move and have our being, in whose image we are made, by whom we are to be raised from the dead to be with God, but not to be identical with God. According to Absolute Idealism, on the other hand, God is not the creator of things different from Himself, but is their immanent subject, whose thought is not the external cause, but the very essence of things; all is thought; things are not creatures of will beyond the thoughts of intelligence, and there is no difference between them and God other than that between thought and thinker; we men are spirits not separate from the Divine Spirit, and our immortality is identification with God Himself. In short, the whole world, according to Christianity, is a Divine creation; but, according to Hegelianism, it is a Divine idea. Nobody who is not defending a thesis can fail to perceive the enormous difference between the doctrine that stocks and stones are substances created by God's will and the paradox that they are actually so many thoughts of God Himself. Nobody who Nn 2 is at all acquainted with the history of human thought can mistake the different frames of mind in which the two views have succeeded one another. It is not a mere difference between the XXXIX Articles and the present day, nor between the Athanasian Creed and the present day, nor between the Bible and the present day; it is a difference between ancient and modern philosophy; nay, more, between all the religious and philosophical thought of the past and the philosophical thought of the present moment. Hegel himself was quite aware of the difference between the ancient saying that intelligence governs the world and his own saying that reason is in the world as the soul of the world, its immanent, proper, inner nature; and he also knew that Aristotle does not quite agree with him that all is thought. Yet, in spite of this palpable opposition, we are asked by Mrs. Ward to reform Christian theology by the Absolute Idealism of Hegel as represented by Green. Nor does she speak quite unadvisedly; for through Green's influence at Oxford the higher Pantheism', as they call it, has already found votaries in the Church of England; for example, the Rev. Mr. Illingworth, in his essay on the Incarnation and Development in Lux Mundi, calls it the Christian doctrine that all the objects of our thought are 'ideas' of the Divine Wisdom, the Logos, written upon the pages of the world. But it is clear, from the whole commentary of antiquity, and from the whole frame of mind in which the Scriptures took their origin, that according to Christianity objects are not ideas but creatures of the Divine Will in consequence of the Divine Wisdom. How, then, can Christianity be reformed by a philosophy so unlike itself? We must look to it that the proposal for reformation is not in reality a plot for destruction. Such an attempt to put new wine into old bottles, and to call new views by venerable names, exposes us to a multitude of evils. To say that, when the Bible calls things the creatures it means the thoughts of God, is bad for morals, by encouraging the hypocrisy of twisting words used in one sense to mean another. It is bad for Christianity, partly because anybody can see the difference, when pointed out, between a creature and a thought, but mainly because when he has seen the difference the ordinary man cannot be got to believe the paradox that a solid rock is a thought or idea. It is bad for philosophy, because it gives a factitious importance to opinions apart from their truth; and much of the popularity of Absolute Idealism at Oxford is due to the supposition that it contains a new explanation of the Christian religion. But, as Bacon says, pessima res est errorum apotheosis. At any rate, we ought to make very sure of the new view that the world is an idea before we give up the old view that it is a creature of Providence. It will be said, no doubt, by religious reformers that they are sure; that whatever Christianity may have meant, and however it may be opposed to the new philosophy, yet the new philosophy has taken the place of the old, because it is true; and that the time is ripe for a new reformation of religion based on the new philosophy, whether called Christian or not. I admit the full cogency of this argument, if only the reformers can prove that solid bodies are divine ideas, except in the metaphorical sense to which we resort when we call a work of art a beautiful idea, though conscious that we only mean that it is a result of a beautiful idea impressed on matter by the will of the artist. The real difficulty is to prove this new philosophy of ideas to be true. Meanwhile it is not true because it is new. Yet this assumption seems to be made by Rara Avis' and Mrs. Ward, who talk in an airy and superior way of bygone philosophical beliefs, and the passing away of the forms of thought which gave us the Athanasian Creed and the XXXIX Articles. The wisdom of the ancients cannot be so lightly dismissed. I am not a blind admirer of ancient philosophy, which itself teaches us that a philosopher should be a spectator of all time and of all existence. But I think it probable that there is truth and there is falsity alike in the most ancient and in the most recent thought. In the details of scientific discovery and invention the modern advance is undeniable. But steam engines and electric telegraphs are not exactly the materials of religion. When on the other hand one looks beyond details to principles, what strikes one is the comparative absence of paradox in the main view of the world, and of God's relation to it, which has come down to us from antiquity, as in the text, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' Applying this contrast between the old and the new to the proposal for a philosophical reformation of religion, I cannot help thinking that ordinary men fall naturally enough into the old view that the great world around them is the work of God, but would be inclined to laugh at the new view, that it is literally the idea of God. 'No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new; for he saith, The old is better.' If the Church of England took up with the new philosophy, the Roman Catholics would adhere to the old philosophy, as true, as reasonable, as convincing to the majority; and the new Reformation would probably end in the triumph of Roman Catholicism. Indeed, this seems to be about the last age to found a new religion; it is an age of invention and criticism; but its sentiment is not quite faith; its wisdom is too often paradox. Oxford. 279 'BY THEIR OWN BEAUTIES' Case was a close student of Shakespeare, and had a valuable collection of books on the subject, including several copies of the second folio edition. He had many theories on the proper reading of certain lines, as well as on the wider problems of Shakespeare scholarship. He knew Shakespeare as well as he knew Homer. FROM Literature, DECEMBER 8, 1900. Your review of Professor Dowden's edition of May I take this opportunity of calling attention to the authoritative reading of the last line? The imperfect first quarto of 1597 does not contain the passage at all. The second quarto of 1599, which is admitted to be the first correct edition of the play, reads 'And by their own beauties'. So does the third quarto of 1609, and so does the first folio. Against this overwhelming force of early authorities the accepted reading By their own beauties' rests only on the inferior authority of the fourth and fifth quartos and the later folios. We ought, then, if possible, to begin the line in question with the conjunction 'and'. It will be objected that this would be to destroy the scansion of the line. Only, I answer, to our modern ears, accustomed to the common reading. The authoritative reading scans perfectly well thus: And by their own beauties; or if love be blind It scans, indeed, exactly as a line just before itThat runaway's eyes may wink, and Romeo In both these lines the trisyllabic foot heightens |