Outspoken Essays

All the Essays in this volume, except the first, have appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_, the _Quarterly Review_, or the _Hibbert Journal_. I have to thank the Publishers and Ed...

Democracy is, in fact, a disintegrating force. It is strong in destruction, and tends to fall to pieces when the work of demolition (which may of course be a necessary task) is...

Secularists ask impatiently what Christianity has done or proposes to do to make mankind happier, by which they mean more comfortable. The answer is (to put it in a form intelli...

Catholicism, whether Roman or Anglican, stands to lose heavily by the decay of institutionalism as an article of faith. It is becoming impossible for those who mix at all with t...

But, though pugnacity and acquisitiveness have been the real foundation of much miscalled patriotism, better motives are generally mingled with these primitive instincts. It is...

But the absence of traditional ideas is by no means an unmixed evil. The working-man sees more clearly than the majority of educated persons the absurdity of international hatre...

The influence of Christianity on population is very difficult to estimate. Nothing is more unscientific than to collect the ethical precepts and practices of nations which profe...

The other choice is that which France has made for herself; it is on the lines of Plato's ideal State. Each country is to be, as far as possible, self-sufficing. If it cannot gr...

The other factor, which is really promoting the gradual disappearance of the Anglo-Saxons from the United States, is of a very different character. The descendants of the old im...

Even more interesting to most of us is the future of our race at home. As regards quality, the outlook for the present is bad. We have seen that the destruction of the upper and...

The Oxford Movement claimed to be, and was, a revival of the principles of Anglo-Catholicism, which had not been left without witness for any long period since the Reformation....

The Bishop himself has affirmed his personal belief that some narratives in the Old Testament are probably not historical. It may fairly be asked on what principle he is prepare...

It is as a slave, not as an honoured help-mate, that the Social Democrats would treat any Christian body that helped them to overthrow our present civilisation. And rightly; for...

The papal autocracy has now reached its Byzantine period of decadence. During the Middle Ages Catholicism suited the Latin races very well on the whole. Their ancestral paganism...

And on what principles are such liberties taken with our authorities? What is the criterion by which it is decided that Christ said, 'I am a king,' but not 'My kingdom is not of...

Development, however great the changes which it exhibits, can only follow certain laws; and the development of the Church of Rome has steadily followed a direction opposite to t...

The main events in a very uneventful career are narrated at length in Mr. Ward's volumes. After his 'conversion' Newman first resided in a small community at Maryvale (Oscott) b...

It is nevertheless true that this self-centred spirit was, at least in early life, impressionable and open to the influence of others. His friendship with Hurrell Froude and Keb...

For what kind of knowledge is it which is acquired, not by the exercise of the discursive intellect, or by the evidence of our senses, but by the affirmations of our basal perso...

With St. Paul it is quite different. He is a saint without a luminous halo. His personal characteristics are too distinct and too human to make idealisation easy. For this reaso...

The distinctive feature of the Jewish religion is not, as is often supposed, its monotheism, Hebrew religion in its golden age was monolatry rather than monotheism; and when Jah...

It is difficult for us to realise the life of his little communities without importing into the picture features which belong to a later time. The organisation, such as it was,...

There are, however, a few questions which we are bound to ask him. First, is his idea of the Church Christian? Did the Founder of Christianity contemplate or even implicitly san...

And so it has always been. We remember Condorcet foretelling a reign of truth and peace just before he was compelled to flee from the storm of calumny to die in a damp cell at B...

The dominant classes in Germany also found that their power was being undermined by the growing industrialisation. The steady increase in the social-democratic vote was a porten...

Psychology is the science which describes mental states, as physical science describes the behaviour of matter in motion. Both are abstract sciences. Physical science treats nat...

'Death does not count,' as Nettleship used to say; and he met his own fate on the Alps with a cheerfulness which showed that he believed it. The craving for mere survival, no ma...