Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 46, 15 March 1895, Page 1

Current Topics AT HOME AND ABROAD.

A BANKRUPTCY OF SCIENCE.

In the Revue des Deux Mondes, of January Ist, M. Bruneti6re, the editor, publishes an article containing the conclusions formed by him as the result of an audience which he had recently had with the Pope. The view which the writer takes of the relation of science towards mankind in their spiritual character strikes us as particularly important. The time, he says, is not very far off, at which a learned increduity commonly passed as a mark or a proof of a euperioT intellect or strength of mind. Science pleads the results it has achieved in a little time — but it has promised more than belongs to the sphere of the chemist o» the physicist — and here is where it has become bankrupt. The writer claims that the physical or natural sciences have not fulfilled their promise of doing away with mystery. They are powerless, he says, not only to answer, but even properly to put the only weighty'ques'ions — thoße which touch on the origin of man, the law of his conduct, and his future lot. The writer, nevertheless, gives full oredit to science for its achievements — to Darwin for bis work. The natural sciences, he admits, may perhaps tell us what man is as an animal. They will never tell us what he is as a man. They have failed miserably, and always Bhall fail, to tell us what is the origin of language, of society, of morality. They cannot tell us where we are going. Nay, they have only succeeded in strengthening our attachment to life — what seems, in truth the very height of unreasonableness in beings who must die. Nor have the philological sciences kepi their promisee. They bad undertaken, for example, to show in the writing of Marcus Auralius or Epictetup, the scattered members of the Sermon on the Mount — but the Sernion on the Mount has conquered the world— and those other writings have done nothing. After, as before, t'ne works of tha HellenißtP j there remains in Christianity something inexplicable by Hellen am — a singular virtue, an UDiqae power of propagation and life. Thie^ too, is confirmed by the works of the Hebraists. They, for their part, bad promised to dissipate what was "ii rational" and " marvellous " in the history of the origins oE Christunity, and of the "'people of God," to show us the Bible as on a par with other ancient books. But their systems, as numerous as they are arbitrary, have confused what they uniertook to ckar. Far from having expelled from the history of Christianity the " irrational " or the "marvellous" exegesis has reinstated it there. Even in the history of Buddhism the analogies of evolution which it thought it had discovered, have not held out before a more careful and more conscientious examination. Tne 'rientalists, again, have failed io their promise. Perhaps, indeed, by a change in thei r method they may one day become the most dangerous enemieß of Christianity ; but, meantime, they also have brought a iistuibmg element into the discussion. Have we not s^eT them assert that Sakya Mouni was, perhaps, only a solar myth, and, if t v ey succeed in proving this, what will bfcome of the comparison they have tried co often to establish between Jesus and Buddha ? The historical sciences finally, if sciences they be, have also taught us many thing*, but nothing of those which we expected trom their progress. The greit question is to know whether there ex'sts a law of t.istory, and in what measure we are enslaved to it, But that is exacly what we do not know, and what, it is to be feared we may a.1.1, we shall neve r know. If these are not bankruptcies all ou», cays M. Brume lore, they are, at least, partial failures— and it is cany to conceive how ih-y have ehaken the credit of science. We cannittell, hn adds, what maybe the case in a hundred year?, or in a thousand or two thousand, bat for the present, and for a long time to o me, reason is impo'ent to free itself from doubt. Neither science in general, nor its particular branches, physical or na'ural, philological or historical, can any longer el-am, as trey have for a h in d red years the government ot the present life. The prcgreta it had been thought to make Wl th M. Tame and in bis traces — in soldering, to use bis expression the moral to the natural sci nces has not bet n n pi ogress at all, bu 1 , on the contrsry, a recoil. Ihe situation ib brutly summed up by

THE POPES ACTION.

the writer :— Science has lost Us prestige and religion baa regained a portion of hers: M, Brunetiere goes on to explain the action taken by the Pope in the face of this failure of 6cieoce, of which h* speaks 1 . All religions re-action, he writes in effect, being first of profit to Catholicism—it is at least Renan who says bo— it is not surprising that a politic Pope conceived the hope and formed tba project of directing the movement. Other more pressing careB — and notably that of sustaining and repelling the assault of secular science — had preoccupied Leo Xlll's. predecessors. Autres tevips, autres gains ! Who would quit the communion of the Church to-day for philological reasons? And, on the other hand, if the impotence of physical or natural science to suppress mystery is proved, let us now go up again to th« source. Let us invoke the spirit of conciliation and peace. Free and disengaged from the necessities of a struggle which had hitherto claimed all our activity, let us not prolong useless controversies— and, after having proved the truth or the divini y of religion by the continuity of its immutable dogma, let us prove it now by the good it can st ill do to this restless and troubled world. Such are the intentions whioh the writer attributes to the reigning Pope — all whoße actions, as well as words, for 17 year?, be eaye, eeem to have tended to this great design. In proclaiming the independence of the Church with regard to forms of government, adds the writer, as well as in occupying himself, with a particularly active solicitude, with the labour question— and also in working to prepare, for a distant future, the reconciliation together of the different Christian communities, the Pope has done ihree great things — of which the first result has been to restore to Catholicism, aud generally to religion, their part in social action. M. Brunette quotes from various Papal utterances to prove and illustrate his argument. His conclusion is as follows :— lf it is justly the honour oE Christianity — if that w.ts its strength at its outset — if, perhaps, i* has given no more s riking sign, nor convincing proof, of its mis-non, than to have addr^sad its 'If first to the humble oni_s of the world, there is alsi its future, and, so to speab, in the society that the philosophy of the last century has made for us, there is its promise of eternity. No Pontiff has felt this better than Pope LeD XIII , or, having felt it, has said it with more fulness of heart and warmth of persuasion. None, has repeated it with more ineistance. And, above all, none in teaching th se who are troubled by the uselessneßS of violence or revolt, and those who enjoy the good fortune of the day, how imperious and absolute their obligations towards their brethren are, has done so with a nnre lively sentiment of human brotherhood, of Coriatiaa equality, anJ apostolic liberty.

BKLIGION AND MOHALITY.

M BRtTNtTfEEE then advocates tbe claims of the Christian religion, pleading the right of Catholicism to preference. Science cannot replace religion, he says, nor can religion oppose science. Each has its kingdom apart, and since it depends only on otmelveß to becomp the subjects of the one or of the other, or of both at the same time, what more can be n quired 1 With morality, however, it is different. The writer quotes from Edmond Kcherer in support of his conviction that morals and religion are inseparable. Morality, wrote Scherer in 1884. has need of the absoluie ; it finds its basis only in G.d. "Conscience is like the heart: it needs a beyond, Duty is nothing if it v not sublime ; and life becomes a frivolous thing if it does not imply e'ernal rela ions." " A moral system," he wiote again, ' is nothing if it is nit rel'gious." M Brunetie c pom' out, «s a proof of t'.e tru h of Ins a«Brrlion, that fir the la^t iwo thousand year-, and u;> to 'ht> pres'nt century, every effort made to laicise or srculansc luoru's baa been only a deformation or an alteration or a Jisguue of seme Chnetian H<- 1. X »?ery where he finds the Lhriatiiu idea — in BaL 1 , in Tame, in Kint, in George Eliot — so •rue is it, he sayn, that we s.n* impregnated with Christianity, The choice, therefore, to hi Oi>.d a by ihose who do not think that a democricy can sifford 'o be in lifTerent as to mora's, and who r^cog nise the strength still existing in religion, is ihit of th» f jrm of Cbiifctianity of winch they can make the best us for ton regeneration of morals. The writer gives, wi hout hebi ation, his own decision,

which he afterwards makes good by some pages cf powerful argument, in favour of Catholicism. Id his concluding passage he expresses hia view of the pressing nature of tho situ.it! n, and the necessity that the choice BhonM be immediate : — Whirrs th" hc.une is burning, he cays, the ODly question for thoae who live iv ilia to pat out the fire. Or, if a comparison more noble and, perhaps, at the aame time, more true, is desired, it is neither the time nor the place to oppose the caprice of the individual to the rights of t' 0 community when we are on the field of battle,

ODDS AND BNDB.

OtJR contemporary the Dunedin Evening Star of Friday last giveß us a sort of round-about paper on the Moa Creek case. Oar contemporary begins with the Otago Education Board and ends with no-Popery, which necessarily implies his reasoning in a circle. Our contemporary's argument, however, does not particularly concern us His object is a bad one, and he pleads consistently in its support — with the hypocritical cant that strict secular impartiality mast be enforced to prevent a certain denomintiton " ever active and viligant '' from getting " a lei? inside." That, however, need not astonish us, knowing as we do the life-long effort of the Star not to leave the denomination in question, inside or out, a leg to stand on. Meantime, it would seem preferable that our contemporary should do his dir'y work at homa as openly *q he does ib abr jad, Hi? mask of a devotion to impartial secularism, while his true object is to harass and impede Catholics if he cannot destroy th r ir Church, is as contemptible as it is false. Let our contemporary's leader-writers, therefore, take a lesson from his American correspondent, They will not, of course, be any the more respectable or any the less mean. But, after all, there is a kind of negative virtue in the impudence that — subjectively in the instance referred to — tells the truth and shames the dcv 1. We do not find even that much in the leader to which we refer. It tells the truth, indeed, but that in a way that may leave the devil in a very complacent state — aa much pleased es possible, both with the writer and himself. The leader in the Star to which we have referred was published a propos of the defeat of Mr Ramsay and the discussion which had consequently taken place ii the Education Board. The discussion was chiefly distinguished, as the Star also mentions, by a dispu'e which took place bitwti.n the defeated caodida'e and Messrs Mackenzie, Clark, and McKerrow. This eminent trio are men af'er the Star's own heart, and th> lr desi"e was to make out that Mie« While, havu.g been appointed on donominational grounds — as to a Roman Catholic district --was fairly riveted, on denominational grounds, by the people of iije disirict, v* v >o were Lot Roman Catholics. They also had no hesitatiou id attempting; to sacrifice Miss White's reputation as a teacher to support then argument, Men like these, we may add, are very fit lo reprpscnt a c immunity whose members find it an offence in a man to be honest in in expre sion of his convictions, and consistent in acting up to the .', and, therefore, reject him, Mr Ramsay, nevertheless, polled ve-y resp^rabiy, and was rejected only by a majority of nine, He receive 1 luB votes, the highest recorded being 157. In the following par^gr^ph a seal is placed upon the miserab'e bigotry of this Moa <\ ok business .—. — 'A' a inciting of the Loy-il Orange Lodge (No 12; last oveai.ig (says the Otnr/o D nhj Timri of the 7th mat), the following resolution was pas=Pii : — ' That the lor^e, being convinced of the penous evils which would result to the country from efforts to establish a system of education on sectarian lines, feels that by the rejection of Mr J J Ramsay by the ?chool committees of this provincial district they have adrniaiati ie 1 a jngf censure upon his attempt to create secnnai discord in thp Olago Education Board over the Moa Creek tiffair.' " That an Orange Lod^e should play into the hands of atheists, Freemasons, and devil worshippers, by sacrificing to its bigo f ry even such a iemnant of Chiintianity as remains with it, seems consistent. The foim of Cnustianity, it professes, polluted as it is{by hatred an.l venom, is hardiy worth preserving — and the lodges of Lucifer would have little to gain in openly welcoming its adherents among them. Wt- f therefore) recognue this resolution se quite in its place. Wr ere the Orangemen, or those who sympathise with them, or with wiora they sympathise, are concerned, there is no moral to be drawn A moral, nevertheless ( remains for Catholics. It is that no sicnrice required of them for the i stabliabment or support of Catholic schools should be considered by them as too much. It should be quite enough for them to see the patrons by whom the godless schools are championed. This stamps their character in big letters above the portals of their donrs. Prohibition in the Clutha dts'nct also, it would saem, hardly anives at the perfection expected of it. There are sevcra. cases reported of prosecuti n for sly grag s.lliog. The Inspector, however, did not reaeon fr ni the lesson denved g<n erally from exp* rience. Because, as he said m (fleet, the police had acted straightforwardly and got drink by simply asking for it, he denied the counsel's plea that the publicans had been worried and temptei. Why, he might as well say that, because a dog gives you his paw without pressure, there has been no trouble iv teachmg him, or because

a horse in a circus dances the polka, no coaxing has been necessary beforehand. For our own part we agree with the learned counsel, The buyer is as bad as the seller, and should 6hare the penalty — except cf c-iurse the engaging policeman whom no publican should suspect, much less resist. The demand for sly giog should be made penal as well as its supply, and, until the prohibitionists have brought that about they will have little chance of succesß in their meritorious undertaking. The proposed abandonment of Cyprus by th« Imperial Government — a report that seems confirmed by Sir William Harcourt speaking in the House of Commons — at the present time is rather suggestive. A month or two ago, for example, the Saturday Review suggested the abandonment in question as a compensation to the Turks for handing them over to Russia to be dealt with according to her good will with reppect to Constantinople. The suggestion was made with regard to the Armenian masßacre — which seemed to make it impossible for England any longer to protect Turkish interests. But if Cyprnß be given vp — expensive and useless though its retention is declared to be — there will be an additional reason for the continued or permanent occupation of Egypt — more especially with Russia within palpable reach of Constantinople. The presence of Frame at Madagascar, we may add, has already made, the occupation in qnestion, where these colonies are concerned, morr than desirable— and almost absolutely necessary. Htra is a cablegram which may contain a truth, but certainly contains a falsehood. It is published under date London, March 7. " Under the pressure of the Emperor, his Holiness tho Pope has consented to denounce the anti-Semetic movement." It may be true that the Pope has consented to denounce the anti-Semitic movement, This is bat a tradition of the Papacy, and we can easily believe it. But it ia certainly false that his Holiness has given his consent under pressure of the Emperor. And here, by the way, is another of those utterances on the part of the Emperor William which, if we were not used to tnem, might seem somewhat startling. " The Emperor of Germany, addressing the recruits in the army, said : ' You are bound to give up your whole life to me. Our navy is Btnall, but stronger than others in discipline, Thus, with a hope in God, shall we destroy the enemy." Somehow or another a man who talks in this way seems hardly qualified, morally at least, to exercise a very forcible pressure on sensible people. The Pope, we may well believe, takes him at his true value. Meantime the "enemy " to bo destroyed are placed upon their guard — and the world in geueral must feel the volcano beneath its feet, — unless of course it be generally agreed that the Emperor talks like a fool. The ordinary meeting of the West port Irish National Federation (saya the Tunes of March 4) was held in Si Cauice's schoolroom on lbursday evening. There was a good atf^n lance of members and friends. Mr T. James presided. A letter was received from Mr Rooney, Secretary to the Irish Parliamentary Fund, acknowledging receipt of tho contribution of (he West port branch, amounting to £8 The total amount forwarded by the various branches in the colony was £115, a welcome addition to the fuuds of the Irish Parliamentary Party. After tho ordinary business was concluded the meeting went into harmony. An excellent programme of vocal and instrumental music, reading?, recitations, etc., was gone through by those present, and an enjoyable evening spent. The Rev T. Rogers, of Branxton, and the R°v J. Collins, who have bern on a visit to New Zealand (says the Freeman's Journal of March 2), returned to Sydney on Monday. Both pries's are greatly bencfVed in health by their trip, and both express themselves hs deligh ed wuh the evidences of the advance of Catholicity ia the Colony, especially in regard to Catholic education. Their trip ex. tended from Auckland to Dunedin. Father Rogers informs us that in every respect the Catholic ecboolrf appeared to be up to our beet etandaid. S me of the schools stiurk him as being if anything in advance of our own. While in Duuudin Father Rogers and Father Collins were present at the inspection, by three of the State Bchool inspectors, of the Dominican Convent school. The inspectors, after testing the methods of instruction and the qualifications of the teaching staff, expressed their highest admiration of the whole system. Father Rogers states that this particular convent building is one rf the very finest in the colonies with a magnificent site, adding " I may say the same of the other principal ecclesiastical buildings and churches throughout New Zeiland. He greatly admired the Bishop's house at Auckland (Bishop Luck's), which, he says, for beauty of architecture and position excels anything of the kind in the Australian colonies. Finally, he gives all the praise of the victory in regard to the State inspection of Catholic schools, to Bishop Moran of Dunedin, who has been foremost in the fight for recognition of Catholic efforts in the cause of education for the past 20 or 25 years.

The Duke of Argyll, who was stricken with syncope while speaking in Glasgow on the evening of January 16, has regained hia strength, but ltin announced that he has cancelled all of his lecturing and other engagements and will retire from public life.