sophy of History, that New Philosophy can be fully adequate to the reconstruction of the Ideal, only when it is complete in, at least, its central theory. Now, only an Ultimate Law of History can give such completeness to the New Philosophy. But such a law is confessedly, as yet, not discovered. And clear is, therefore, I trust, the need of an Ultimate Law of History as the basis of the Ideal.

9. In the meantime, undiscovered as such a law as yet is, and incomplete as the New Philosophy of History is, therefore, still, we cannot but feel confident that it will at length be thus completed. And seeing that the relation of the New Philosophy of History to Christian beliefs is that of an historical theory, implying the notion of Law to beliefs concerning History, involving the notion of Miracle; the cup which contains the Christian Revelation, an historical theory, guarded in a castle built on this notion, seems most truly to have been imaged in the Holy Grail of Arthurian Romance; and Christianity, considered as a Religion, seems likenable only to that Chatel Merveil in which the Holy Grail was preserved. But a Castle this is, in these days threatened, not only by open assaults and wary parallels, but by a continually advancing mine. Such a mine it is that is driven by the great, and, as we have seen, most amply verified generalisation of the New Philosophy of History. For, if narratives of miracle are indeed to be regarded as records, not of actual facts of Nature, but of ignorant states of Mind; miracles are exposed to a new and infinitely more destructive, because incomparably more scientific, method of attack. And to

For,

what, indeed, can the pushing home of such a generalisation be compared but to a many-galleried mine, which if we are brought to see, the ordinary attacks on the Castle of Miracle must appear but as brilliant, perhaps, but quite unnecessary charges against the defenders of a fortress, built on a hill so completely honeycombed that the castle-walls rest on a mere crumbling crust? But as this mine advances from without, treason becomes more rife within. as the footing of the besieged sounds more and more hollow, none but the most uneducated emotional natures can any longer be blinded by those old sophistries, touched by those old appeals to mere sentiment, or terrified by those old threats of everlasting torment which have from time immemorial constituted the armoury of the priestly defenders of Miracle. Besides, a large section of them profess, at least, principles that make all their attempts to stop the spreading treason illogical and incoherent. For, if they do not urge, their principles will not permit them openly to reprobate the exercise of the right of free enquiry and private judgment. But what is this but, as their priestly adversaries of the other faction truly declare, to permit the besieged to aid the besiegers in the sap of the very foundations of their citadel? Was ever such madness? And can it, then, be a matter of just surprise that the more logical party is continually recruiting adherents from the other? Such must ever be the case in a period of widespread, and thoroughgoing controversy. That, however, this more logical sect, in authoritatively prohibiting enquiry by

proclaiming itself a supernatural corporation with an infallible chief, can thus prevent those only from examining the foundations of their refuge who are willing to accept this monstrous pretension, need hardly be pointed out. And this Chatel Merveil, with both its Protestant and Papal factions-this castle built on a mount thus mined, a hill thus honeycombed-can appear to those who live on the terra firma of verifiable fact but as a mere castle in the air, a Nephelococcygia, or Cloud-cuckoo-town, presided-over by a wildly hopeful Euelpides, and an arrogantly plausible Peisthetairos.1

SUBSECTION II.

The Non-Discovery, as yet, of the Ultimate Law of History.

1. We have seen, then, that the Ideal which has for centuries constituted the religion of the most advanced peoples of the Earth having been founded on an untrue historical theory, there is needed, as the basis of the reconstruction of the Ideal, a true historical theory; but we have also acknowledged that such a theory, essentially consisting, as it must, in an Ultimate Law of History, has not as yet been discovered. Are we to admit that such a law is undiscoverable; or to believe that, in studying the development hitherto of the New Philosophy of History, the road may be indicated to

1 See the most brilliantly witty, perhaps, and most finely imaginative of all the Comedies of Aristophanes, The Birds.

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that discovery which will be its completion? Let us first consider what value there may be in those views of History which would make our hopes of discovering the ultimate, or indeed any law of its phenomena, appear altogether groundless. For such is the present state of philosophic thought in England, at least as applied to human history, that, by two of our most eminent historical writers-by Mr. Carlyle, and his disciple, Mr. Froude the whole doctrine of Progress which has given unity to the great movement towards a New Philosophy of History is either doubted to be true, or denied to be worth much. Mr. Froude, for instance, declares that the History of Man 'seems to him like a child's box of letters with which we can spell any word we please;' and so, with equal truth or falsehood, either Progress or the reverse, or anything else whatever. There is, then '- the enthusiastic student questions incredulously- there is, then, no such progress as was thought to have been discovered in the history of Humanity? The supposed Revelation of God's will, and of Man's destiny, has failed us; yet in Science there is no help; and in the history of Man no general laws are revealed? And scholars and thinkers have, then, missed their sacred aim-to show that History may, at least, become a science, and that on verifiable laws may be reconstructed the Ideal?' We must, replies Mr. Froude, accept despair. We must nerve ourselves to Stoicism. And if we occupy ourselves with History, we must aim only at some picture of the things acted, which picture

1 Short Studies on Great Subjects, vol. I. p. 1, and compare p. 13.

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itself will at best be but a poor approximation, and leave the inscrutable purport of them an acknowledged secret. What!' the student of the school of Science exclaims, is there, then, no discoverable meaning in the succession of such phenomena as Paganism, Christianity, and that new system of thought and of society which we more or less clearly have in view when we speak of the Modern Revolution? What! have the discoveries which prove that the individual is made up of countless cells, and that their birth, life, and death is the condition of his higher life; have the discoveries which prove a succession of phenomena to which you may not attach any meaning but this definite signification, progressive complexity, progressively harmonious co-existence; have these discoveries no bearing on, or analogy with, the life of Humanity, the history of Man? What! is there no science of logic, no science of proof, or of evidence, applicable to humanital, as well as to natural phenomena; and is it indeed possible to spell what you like from your box of letters, without giving anyone the right to laugh at your childishness?' But let us more particularly consider Mr. Froude's objections to the doctrine of Progress. In his last disquisition on this subject, the state of society now is compared with what it was one or two hundred years ago, and with respect particularly to the condition of the peasantry, the character of the clergy, and the reality of education.1 The comparison is in favour of the past. And, taken in conjunction with such passages as those above

1 Short Studies, vol. 11. p. 249,