has direct control, and of course there can be no questioning her judgment with reference to them. It follows, then, that the Church judges directly of many, and indirectly of very many more, of those questions which Mr. Mivart fancies are the exclusive province of the man of science; and her office as divinely commissioned guardian of the deposit of faith would be impossible if her authority did not extend to such questions. And hence it is that loyal Catholics have always bowed to that authority, and that Catholics who have read Mr. Mivart's article are pained and shocked by the extraordinary assertions it contains. He tells us that ecclesiastical authority did give a judgment which impeded the progress of science' (p. 39). This is all but a literal translation of the 12th proposition condemned in the syllabus. And history justifies the condemnation, for it teaches that as long as scientific men confined themselves to their own province they were encouraged by ecclesiastical authority,' and that they met with opposition from that authority only when they began to dogmatise in a province not their own. That license which Mr. Mivart claims for scientific men the Church will not grant them; her whole life is a protest against it, and it has been sternly reprobated by repeated solemn and authoritative declarations of the supreme head of the Church in our own times. The encyclical Quanta cura' is very explicit in its reprobation of that license. The brief'Inter gravissimas addressed to the Archbishop of Munich in 1862, when 'Old Catholicism' was in its embryo, lays down the following plain statement, which is very profitable matter for meditation for Catholic men of science :

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Wherefore the Church, in virtue of the power entrusted to her by her Divine Author, has the right and the duty not only of refusing to tolerate, but also of proscribing and condemning, all errors, if the integrity of the faith and the salvation of souls demand it; and all philosophers who wish to be sons of the Church, and philosophy itself likewise, are bound in duty never to say anything contrary to the Church's teaching, and to retract those things about which she may have admonished them. Moreover we decree and declare that the opinion which teaches the contrary to this is altogether erroneous, and in the highest degree insulting to the faith of the Church and her authority.

And in the brief Tuas libenter' addressed to the same Archbishop in 1863, Pius the Ninth says: "For although the natural sciences depend on their own principles known from reason, yet Catholic students of these sciences must keep their eyes on revelation as a guiding star, that they may avoid the labyrinths of error.' And the Holy Father goes on to tell Catholic scientists that their obligation is not at all restricted to such things as are defined by the Apostolic See, but that they are also bound to accept as decisive the voice of the ordinary magisterium of the Church. Mr. Mivart gives his estimate of these ' utterances' with lamentable clearness. He disregards them, but they are none the less wise and true, obligatory on, and accepted by, all loyal children of the Catholic Church. Thus the Church has acted always,

and her action is proof conclusive of her right to act. Mr. Mivart admits this, for he says: An infallible authority must know the limits of its revealed message. If authority can make a mistake in determining its own limits, it may make a mistake in a matter of faith' (p. 38). And since authority cannot make a mistake in determining its own limits,' it remains for all loyal Catholics to keep within the limits so repeatedly and so clearly laid down. I am quite as anxious as Mr. Mivart can be to avoid anything that may be an unnecessary strain upon the belief of good Catholics, or that may be an unnecessary obstacle in the way of persons desirous of joining the Catholic Church, but it would be cowardly as well as unchristian to conceal from those who are within the Church the extent of their obligations, or to hold out delusive hopes of intellectual license to those who are without. If persons are to become Catholics or to continue such, it must be, not on their own terms, but on the terms of the Catholic Church. This is nothing more than saying that the Catholic Church has a fixed and definite creed. Mr. Mallock wrote recently that the clergymen of a certain school seemed to regard their Church as 'seized in a sort of intellectual custom house,' and considered it their duty to cast overboard as many articles of faith as science could object to.' Catholics and the Catholic Church would be in just this position if Mr. Mivart's ideas on ecclesiastical authority were correct.

The doctrine of the immediate formation-the independent creation—of our first parents, Mr. Mivart regards as 'inexpressibly shocking;' it 'could never have been the creation of a God of truth and goodness, but rather of a malignant father of lies' (p. 45). This is very strong language of a doctrine which, whether true or false, has been believed by the greatest, the holiest, the wisest men and women who have ever been. But why is this doctrine inexpressibly shocking'? Because Mr. Mivart sees in man certain things which he cannot explain to his own satisfaction unless this doctrine were what he describes it. Then, unless the plan of man's creation be such as to get Mr. Mivart's nihil obstat, it must be a process worthy only of a malignant father of lies!' Truly a modest man is this philosopher, and most fortunate is the Catholic Church in possessing a son who is sufficiently learned to enlighten her even on the meaning of Scripture which was universally supposed to be her province,' and sufficiently loyal to warn her against opening her lips on physical science which was not her province,' and who is good enough to expose and refute her 'egregious errors' whenever she may happen to disregard his warning. But then, by a strange perversity, the Church disregards such admonitions, and keeps on never minding' the philosophers-treats some of them as incompetent obstructives.' Worse still, she now and then puts one of them on the Index, as a spectacle a warning to others of his kind-just as a farmer shoots a

crow and suspends it to a pole in his corn-field, to warn off other trespassers of the same class. Of course philosophers of a certain class think this very unreasonable conduct on the part of the Church, and naturally say that the Church is the enemy of science. But the common sense of sober-thinking people ultimately vindicates the Church, and the philosophers are quietly forgotten. Thus has arisen the false idea that the Catholic Church is hostile to science, and this idea is to some extent strengthened by the efforts of some well-meaning Catholics, who attempt seriously to refute so palpable, so notorious a calumny. We sometimes hear the question asked, 'May a Catholic study science?' As well might the question be,' May a Catholic take his breakfast ?' 'Ubinam gentium sumus?' said the indignant Roman long ago. Are we now living in the time when Tertullian hurled his indignant eloquence against the calumniators of the Christian name? Are we Catholics at this time to go about hat in hand apologising for our ignorance, when the intellectual triumphs of our co-religionists are the most notorious faets in history? Are we then, like cowards, to play the game of our calumniators by putting the silly question, 'May a Catholic study science?' Yes, Catholics may study, and have studied science, with zeal and with success, and in its study, as well as in everything else, they have all the intellectual freedom which reasonable men, believing in revelation, can demand. In every honourable enterprise, in every learned profession, in every department of knowledge, Catholics have distinguished themselves. And the Church rejoices in the triumphs of her children. She blesses them, encourages them, patronises them, but she does not like to see any of her loyal sons' proceeding on the supposition of his own personal infallibility. When loyal Catholics study science, as they are quite free to do, the Church insists that they should not lose sight of the advice wisely given them by her Supreme Head: 'Catholici earum scientiarum cultores divinam revelationem, veluti rectricem stellam, præ oculis habeant oportet, qua prælucente sibi a Syrtibus et erroribus caveant' (Munich Brief, Dec. 21, 1863).

J. MURPHY, C.C.

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE: A REPLY.

As one who for some years has taken a great interest in the extension of the Parliamentary suffrage to women, perhaps I may be allowed to offer a few observations in reply to Mrs. Chapman's article on this subject.

There are fortunately only two matters of fact in regard to which Mrs. Chapman's paper calls for a reply: the first of these is the assertion that women do not wish for the suffrage; the second is that the advocates of women's rights' strongly insist on the absolute mental equality of the sexes as a main ground for the concession of the franchise to women. In both these statements Mrs. Chapman, in my opinion, has unintentionally fallen into error.

With regard to the first, Mrs. Chapman makes the assertion in the broadest possible terms that there is no genuine demand on the part of women for representation. One thing is clear,' she writes, 'that neither among educated nor uneducated women, among those who think most nor among those who work most, among rich women nor among poor, is there any great and pressing and genuine desire for the suffrage.' The facts surely point the other way: if the case of educated women, thinkers and workers, is considered first, there is a remarkable preponderance of opinion among them in favour of women's suffrage. There is hardly any distinguished English woman of the latter half of the nineteenth century who has made an honourable name through the work she has done in literature, science, education, or philanthropy who has not expressed her sympathy with the movement for the extension of the suffrage to women. We have had warm help and support from Miss Martineau, Mrs. Somerville, Miss Mary Carpenter, Mrs. Jameson, Mrs. Nassau Senior, Mrs. Grote, Miss Emily Davies, Miss Clough, Mrs. W. Grey, Miss Nightingale, Miss Anna Swanwick, Mrs. Garrett Anderson, Miss Edith Pechey, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, Mrs. Pfeiffer, Mrs. Butler, Miss Irby, Miss Clara Montalba, Mme. Bodichon, Mrs. Thackeray Ritchie, &c. A page could easily be filled with names, but I have merely taken a selection hastily and almost at random from among the great army of women who have done good work for the world in various ways, and who have joined their forces with those of the men and

women who are endeavouring to remove the electoral disabilities of women. Of course it is not contended that among the women whom we think of when we speak of thinkers and workers, there is absolute unanimity on this or any other subject; but for every name among women thinkers and workers which can be quoted as opposed to women's suffrage, I should not mind undertaking to quote at least a dozen, and that without going very far afield, who support it.

With regard to the masses of women, it is difficult to get at precise facts. We have, however, some indications which encourage the belief that the mass of women do wish that those among them who possess the statutory qualifications, should be enfranchised. I never saw a paper specially intended for women, from The Queen downwards, which is not favourable to women's suffrage. Petitions have repeatedly been sent up to Parliament signed by a very large majority of the women householders in a particular place. The petition from Hyde, near Manchester, may be quoted as an example, where out of 700 women householders 608 petitioned Parliament to grant them the suffrage. Mrs. Chapman does not, however, think much of petitions, so she will not be influenced by the fact that year after year for eighteen years hundreds of thousands of women have petitioned Parliament to pass the Women's Suffrage Bill. She will perhaps find more significance in the annual attendance at the Trades' Union Congress of a deputation of working women, who of late years have always been able to carry the majority of the Congress with them in support of a resolution affirming the principle of women's suffrage. In 1885 this resolution was carried by 70 to 6. In schools and colleges for girls where there are debating societies it is possible to gather some indication of the tendency of public opinion among young women. A short time ago at Newnham College, Cambridge, a resolution condemning women's suffrage was lost by 56 to 13. At a working women's college in London in which there are several hundred women, some of the members of the college were lately talking over with the secretary desirable subjects for discussion at the debating society. The secretary suggested women's suffrage, but the women present objected on the ground that a debate was no good on a subject on which all were agreed; there was, they urged, no possibility of getting anyone to oppose a proposition so obviously just as that women householders and ratepayers should be allowed to vote in Parliamentary elections.

The progress of events often opens women's eyes to their need of representation. The pit-brow women, whose work and wages will be taken from them if the bill relating to mines now before Parliament becomes law, are receiving this kind of enlightenment. Their numbers are estimated at about 5,000; there are 1,300 in West Lancashire alone. Several cases similar to this, where the claims of the unrepreVOL. XIX.-No. 111.

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