The Press.
London, England, 1856-03-08 00:00:00

Nittraturt.

Hours with the Mystics. A Contribution to the
History of Religious Opinion. By R. A.
Vaughan, B.A. Two Vols. London: Parker
and Son.

IF the name of the author had not appeared on
the titlepage, we should have been inclined to
refer this work to some one of the most dis-
tinguished masters of thought of our day—as
to Mr. Henry Rogers, or to Mr. Moseley. It
is much in the style of the " Eclipse of Faith,"
and if less elevated in its eloquence, and less
sharp in its logic, it has the advantage of a
wider range of topics, and the capability of
displaying more various learning.
The work is cast in the form of dialogue,
and its object is to show the various forms of
mysticism which have prevailed in the world,
and particularly in the Christian world, until
the present day. " The term itself is derived
" from the root mu, to close, the secret rites of
" the Greek mysteries being things about which
"the mouth was to be closed. We have the ex-
" pressive word mum in our own language." The
philosophers, says the author, borrowed the
word from the priests, and applied it to their
inner esoteric doctrines. Subsequently it was
imported into the ecclesiastical world, but the
signification of the word remained substan-
tially the same, the mystic being one who
closed the external world to his view, and shut
himself up in his own mind. He was
essentially a believer in innate ideas. He con-
ceived that the mind had not only a life but a
knowledge of its own, apart from the percep-
tions of sense, and that this life grew more
vigorous, and this knowledge wider, as the
mind was more isolated from the body and its
organs. The various forms into which mysti-
cism may be divided (1., 40 et seq.) are stated
with great precision, and show both the clear-
ness and depth of the author's thought. The
spirit of mysticism is tracked through all its
erratic manifestations, and in this way is made
to form a most singular and instructive chap-
ter in the history of the human mind. Mysti-
cism is the groundwork of all those intellectual
enthusiasms which pretend to a knowledge
above what sense, experience, and information
can teach, and which claim for the mind a
revelation of its own, and assert either that it
has special communion with Deity, or that it
is itself supreme, and in itself the lord of the
universe. It is the latter form of m 3 sticism
which seems to find most favour in the present
day.

If we rightly apprehend the spirit and pur-
pose of Mr. Vaughan's volumes, he regards
mysticism of all kinds as essentially false, yet
entitled to respect for the truth mingled with
it, and the service it has done, as we respect
the labours of the alchemists while perceiving
lie errors of their principle. The mystics,
with all their absurdities, yet stimulated
thought ; they kept the intellect in activity ;
and in the midst of much that was false they
arrived at some important truths. The radical
error of all mysticism is well stated here: it
leads " to the unwarrantable identification of
" our own thoughts with the mind of God."
Hence have flowed mainly all the delusions
which have misled, wasted, and scourged the
world. Hence the tyranny of intolerance and
the crimes of bigotry. Men believing in the
inspiration of their own thought, and in virtue
of that inspiration setting themselves up
above all the lights of experience, and all the
aids of sense and external knowledge, will re-
cognise no other kind of moral restraint, and
no other limit to their action, than what is
suggested to them by their own fevered mind.
The mystic confined to contemplation, may be
harmless ; but when intrusted with power, he
is almost sure to run into demonaical excesses.

Tice error of mysticism—in itself but a prac-
tical development of the doctrine of innate
ideas—is exemplified in numerous passages of
Mr. Vaughan's work. In one of the conversa-
tions it is observed that. Proclus, the last great
name among the Neo-Platonists of Alexandria,
taught philosophy only as a path to Quietism.
His,God was a Deity of Negation, " a God of

THE PRESS.

" whom the more you deny the more you
" affirm." One of the speakers remarks :

And this is all! After years of austerity and toil,
Proclus, the scholar stored with the opinions of the past,
surrounded by the admiration of the present,—the astro-
nomer, the geometncian, the philosopher,—learned in the
lore of symbols and of oracles, in the rapt utterances of
Orpheus and of Zoroaster,—an adept in the ritual of invo-
cations among every people in the world,—he at the close
pronounces Quietism the consummation of the whole, and
an unreasoning contemplation an ecstacy which casts off
as an incumbrance all the knowledge so painfully acquired,
the bourne of all the journey.

One of the ladies who join in the conversa-
tion beautifully adds :

As though it were the highest glory of man, forgetting
all that his inquiry has achieved—hidden away from the
world—to gaze at vacancy, inactive and infantine; to he
like some peasant's child, left in its cradle for awhile in
the furrow of a field, shut in by the little mound of earth
on either side. and having but the blue tether above, daz•
zling and void, at which to look with smiles of witless
wonder.
This sentiment is the key-note of the whole
book:—

The fault I find with these myatics is, that they en-
courage the imagination to run riut in provinces where it
is not needed, and prohibit its exercise where it would
render the greatest service. Orthodox as they were in
their day, they yet attempt to gaze on the Divine Nature
in its absoluteness and abstraction, apart from the mani-
festation of it to our heart, our intellect, and our imagina-
tion, which is made in the incarnate Christ Jesus. God
has supplied them with this help to their apprehension of
Him, but they hope by His help to dispense with it. They
neglect the possible and practical in striving after a
dazzling impossibility, which allures their spiritual ambi-
tion. This is a natural consequence of that extravagance
of spirituality which tells man that his highest aim is to
escape from his human nature; not to work under the
conditions of his finite being, but to violate and escape
them as far as possible, in quest of a superhuman eleva-
tion. We poor mortals, as Schiller says, must have colour.
The attempt to evade this law always ends in substituting
the mind's creation for the mind's Creator.
In other words, we must know God not by
the constitution of our mind, but by such
manifestations of His Being as He is pleased
to make to us. His knowledge is to be sought
in the ways He has appointed, and not in the
ways which intellectual vanity would pre-
scribe. The less cannot contain the greater ;
He is not contained in us; but we may hope
to be contained in Him. Another of the
characters remarks :

This said Eye of Intelligence appears to me a pure fic•
tion. What am I to make of a faculty which is above,
and independent of, memory, reason, feeling, imagination,
without cognisance of those external influences ( which, at
least, contribute to make us what we are), and without
organs, instruments, or means of any kind for doing any
sort of work whatever? Surely this complete and perpetual
separation between intuition and everything else within
and without us is a most unphilosophical dichotomy of the
mind of man.
Again :

The history of mysticism shows us farther, that the
attempt to escape all figure or symbol in our apprehen-
sions of Divine truth is useless, or worse than useless
Such endeavour commonly ends in substituting for a
figure which, though limited and partial, has life and
heart in it, some vague abstraction, cold and lifeless, and
itself perhaps ultimately no figure after all
Surely the words " King," `• Shepherd," " Father," ex•
press more truth concerning God than the "Pure Act" of
philosophy.

These conceptions are, in our opinion
essentially sound and wliplesome. A form of
mysticism has become prevalent in our day ;
and it is an unfortunate circumstance that the
great Burnett prizes should have been awarded
to works of a mystical tendency, works which
are only profound in dialectical logic, and
which are deficient in a remarkable degree in
solid matter and in natural science. But this
fashion will pass away—the profoundest minds
of our day are opposed to it. Natural theology
can rest on no other foundation than that on
which other sciences depend,—just inferences
from established facts. " Poor Paley," as
modern mystics delight to call him, will out-
live all their cloudy abstractions, and afford
instruction and delight when their theories of
" egoism " are classed with the follies of past
time.

Mr. Vaughan's hook displays great learning,
eloquence, and original thought. In form it re-
senibles the " Eclipse of Faith ;" but in matter,
and in its thorough mastery• of a difficult
tlr2me, it is more like the profound book of
Mr. Moseley—the finest philosophical essay of
our day—on the St. Augustinian doctrine of
Predestination.

RATURDAY,

Memoirs of Celebrated Characters. By Alphonse
de Larnartine. Three Vols. Vol. 111.
London: Bentley.

(Second Notice.)
IT is the presence of a noble conscientious•
ness which makes Lamartine's essay on Bos-
suet so valuable. It is not a onesided piece
of writing; on the contrary, it is impartial and
loftily moral in its tone. It rebukes Bossuet
for his bigotry, and attacks him with some
polemical severity on account of his schismati-
cal view about the Gallican Church; but it
would be impossible to render more critical
appreciation to the genius of Bossuet. The
commencement of the essay is particularly
fine :

If, after having studied, in all their details, the actions,
works, opinions, faults, virtues, style, and language of so
eminent a person as Bossuet, we desire to sum up, in one
word, his general character, the word which presents itself
to our minds as descriptive of the man is—Priest.
The priest, in all his majesty, his authority, his intel•
lectual pride, could not be better represented than in the
person of Bossuet.
Bossuet, to exhibit himself as he was,—to develop, i❑
all their extent and grandeur, the high qualities of soul,
genius, diplomacy, energy, and eloquence, with which
Nature had endowed him, could not have been anything
but a priest.
This eminent person was made for the priesthood, the
pontificate, the altar, the vestibule of the cathedral, the
pulpit, the trailing robe, and the tiara; any other place,
office, or habiliment would be inconsistent with such a
nature. The mind could not picture Bossuet to itself in
the habit of a layman.

A " priest," unquestionably, Bossuct was. His
nature was peculiarly unsuited for the hearty
love of liberty. In the middle of the essay
Laniartine observes—of Bossuet's high birth
at Dijon:—

The innate contempt that Bossuet seemed to have
adopted from the hour of his birth for the doctrine of
equality; the instinctive love of hierarchy, high caste, and
authority ; the peremptory tone and haughty glance, are
the natural and distinctive traits of this patrician breed
of Upper Burgundy, where the blood, warm at the head,
but coldly stimulates the heart. The character of a race
is to be retraced in each of its descendants; the exceptions
are only accidental. The peculiar genius of an individual
will not belie the genius of a city; Dijon is an intellectual
capital, but not one that overflows with enthusiasm or
feeling. St. Bernard, Bossuet, Buffon, natives of this
town, were men compounded rather of bronze and marble
than of flesh : the first had Abelard for his victim, the
second Fenelon, and the third dissected all nature without
finding a tear, a single hymn of praise, or a Deity !

Personal pride is unconsciously stamped on
all the effusions of Bossuet. He was not a
man for " the people," in the modern sense of
the term, and his tone of thought does not
suit the living supporters of the Church of
Home, which, with its instinctive love of abso-
lutism, flatters democracy. In his remarks
on the genius loci of Dijon we think that
Lamartine is rather fanciful. St. Bernard's
writings show that he was not a "Irian of
bronze or marble." On the contrary, St.
Bernard is renowned as " the mellifluons
doctor," and his writings abound in what
French preachers call onetion, while his the-
ology was addressed rather to the heart than
the head. But a critical knowledge of litera-
ture is not the strong point of Lamartine. He
is one of those writers who show that the
modern school of authors is beginning to
trench upon the peculiar domain given
hitherto to artists.

Like all orators in every age, Bossuet
took enormous pains to train his organs of
speech. Recollecting how the stage was
anathematised by the French Church, the
facts in the following passage are more re-
markable :

To modulate his voice, to study his attitudes, to rept•
late his gesticulation, he went frequently to the theatres,
to hear the great tragic actors who recited upon the stage
the dialogues and speeches of Rotron, Corneille, and
Racine. He did not consider it any desecration to tae
word of God in his mouth, to devote to it all the energy
and excellence of human organs: he borrowed all he could
from profane art, that he might embellish and add strength
to his sacred calling. What he sought from the drama Nay
not the idle pleasure of hearing a speech beautifully de•
elaimed in a musical cadence; he looked for esamplesbY
which to reach the perfection of Oratory. He did not hide
from others his frequent visits to the theatre, the only
forum where he could learn to imitate the ancient orators,
and the most ascetic did not blame him.

In all great writers or speakers who address
the feelings, there is a certain indefinable
charm which baffles analysis. Beneath all the
talent of Bossuet there is a peculiar vibration
which we never can forget. The wail of
humanity, mourning at its fugitive life, and

■

MARCH 8, 1856.

its imprisoned faculties, is uttered by Boa.
suet with sublime pathos. There is that
mixture of pain and power in his words which
seizes our minds with the master-spell of
rills. He had rare aptitude for language,
Ind his taste was fur in advance of many of
the French intellects of his age. What Lamar-
tine observes on the great orator's " Discourse
Jn Universal History " applies, we think, to the
whole spirit of Bossuet's works :

No other human hand has turned with a louder
report or more rapid evolution, that wheel of for.
tune, which raises or humbles, supporta or abandons,
crowns with success or overthrows men, races, empires,
sod nations. Bossuet is the great interpreter of the in-
significance of humanity. He appears to delight, like a
child upon the edge of a well, iu precipitating religious
institutions, dynasties, and all that is usually considered
Sled and immutable, to the bottom of the abyss, that he
may hear the noise of their full, and cause the echoes of
eternity to ascend from thence to the ears of men.
So far does Bossuet carry this wail over fallen
man, that at times ho speaks like an Ossian of
the s,.lliools. The bardic power and polemical
intellect were singularly blended in him.

Lamartine does not sufficiently mark the
effects on Bossuet of his familiarity with the
Bible. He pored over the sacred volume
constantly, and few men ever had more relish
fin• its inspired eloquence, transcending human
ffJrts.

The terse strength with which Bossuet
closes a passage of mere sentiment is one of
his peculiar arts. It may he seen in his
lescription of the resignation of Mlle. de la
Va!here when about to enter a convent:—

" Her strength and tranquillity," thus he wrote to the
pious Marechal de Bellefonds, " increase in proportion as
the moment draws near. I cannot think of it without be
hold.og the wonderful workings of grace ! I trace the
finger of Heaven in the composure and humility which
pervade all her thoughts, and with which I am equally de-
lighted and astonished. I speak, but she acts ; I have ex-
hortations to produce, but she has works I %Then I think of
these, I feel inclined to hide myself and be silent.
Miserable channel, through which heavenly waters flow,
while it scarcely retains a few drops!"

We will not withhold from our readers the
description of Bossuet's sermon on La Val-
here taking the veil :

This discourse of Bossuet was a scene rather than a
simple oration, and so thoroughly dramatic, that Madame
de Sivigne, in the light gossipping style of the time,
wrote, that mere words could not sufficiently characterise
it. The listeners thought more of the palpitations of
the victim's heart than of the studied periods of the
preacher; for no ianguage can so deeply touch the soul,
or resound so loudly, as the sobs of unrestrained afflic-
tion. This beautiful being, still in the flower of her age,
torn and consumed in the springtime of life by that fire
which she had herself create 1, and which she could not
extinguish in her own bosom—tarnished by enjoyment
won et the sacrifice of moral principle, which degraded
while it raised her—betrayed by the inconstancy of her
lover, and thrown by his ingratitude into a tomb with a
still fervent heart—covered b' the Queen herself, whom
she had injured, with the mortuary veil which enveloped
her with shame and pardon in the presence of that Court,
yesterday the witnesses of her triumph, and to-day the
spectators of her interment—and finally, Bossuet in the
pulpit, to give the weight of oratory to all the wounds
and silent sufferings of her heart. What more could
Madame de Sevigne desire? Did she not feel that elo-
quence must be suspended and paralysed on the lips,
when the faculties of feeling and expression so tho-
roughly absorb the hearts of an auditory? Notwithstand-
ing which, the eloquence of Bossuet was not even then
arrested.

" The silence," said be, with a visible effort, that
seemed to tear the words from his soul, " which has
lasted for many )ears, must be broken, anti a voice,
which the pulpit no longer recognises, must be heard.
What have we beheld, and what do we now behold?
What a change between that which has been and that
which is! I need not speak, facts declare themselves,"
and he pointed to the kneeling female, clothed in a shroud,
like a corpse. Then, as it' interrupting his own tnnn of
thought. he turned towards the Queen, and said, " Madam,
look there! behold an object worthy the eyes of so pious
\ al gracious a sovereign !"
Then, resuming his subject, he called the attention of
ria 41 ee plyliffeet ed listeners from the scene before them,
and transferred it to those exalted considerations which
embody the morality of human tears. " Religious senti-
ments," said he, " are the last to be effaced from the
heart of man ; nothing is more commonly excited, and,
at the same time, nothing is so seldom changed. Is this
prodigy or an enigma in human nature? or is it not
rather, if I may so speak, a remnant of what man once
Was. a vestige of his origin, a ruined edifice, which, even
in its destroyed and crumbling walls, retains some of the
beauty and grandeur of its first form ? Man has been
overthrown by his own depraved will, the roof has fallen
Mon the walls, and the walla upon the found itions ; but
then the ruins are removed, they find in the remains of
the uptitrred edifice the plait of the original design. and
the hand of the architect. The impress of Divinity is so
strong that man cannot lose it entirely, while at the same
tine it is so feeble that he cannot follow it : it appears to

. .
MA
its imp
suet iv
mixture
seizes
genius.
end hit
the Fre
tine obt
on Unii
whole S
No ot
report c
tune, wh
crowns v
and natio
signitican
child upo
institOtto
fixed and
may hear
eternity t,
So far c:
man, tli
the 5,...11
intellec
Lamt
effects
Bible.
constan
for its it
enits.
The
closes
his per
descrip
Va!UM
" Iler
pious Me
the mom(
hold.ng
finger of
pervade a
lighted at
hortatiotu
thes, I
Miserabli
while it a
We v
descrip
here tal
This
simple ot
de SiviE
wrote, th
it. The
the victi
preacher
or resonc
tion. TI
torn and
which sh
extinguis
won et I
while it
lover, an
still fervt
she had i
her with
yester3a3
spectator
pulpit, t
and silei
adame
quence
when th
roughly a
ing whirl
arrested.
" The
seemed I
lasted fa
which dr
What he
What a
which is
and he p
like a coi
thought.
look ther
graci
Then,
his lee p 1
and tram
ern hod v
ments,."
heart of
St the sal
a prodig
rather, it
Was. a vex
in its des
beauty a
overthrow
upon the
when the
the uptitr
the hand
Strong thi
time it is