New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1897-04-18

49, ,oh,snatics nv appointing commission
to report on abuses in the Church ana oh nv.
DDS Of remedying them. Even Luther' up '" w
a.. ~, tho r,iet of Worms would have been sat
isfied with practically the same purihca'''" VI
Church life that was demanded by Dante a ce"-
., earlier In doctrine Il is easy for Ozanam
TO show that Dante was theoiogiah "i,"'"'
flaw but he only emphasizes by the apology lie
makes the emergency Of the poet from 'he .c".
denotes of the Church la AFFAIRS In MS pon''o"'
theories Dante was dametricaly opposeo 10 '"e
very doctors Of the Church whom ne ioho"e" III
al othor matters His Latin treatise on mon
archy was promptly condemned by 'ne e.
siastica, authorities He maintained simply that
the universal empire of his dreams was "o'
srhordinate to- but coordinate with. the uni
versal church. He invests this thought WIN d..
rho spendor Of poetic expression in his verse. IL
ho wos censurable for his prose he must also
have been censurable for his poetry. and II ne
os censurable In the fourteenth century he
,ust st,II he censurable In the nineteenth, or else
tho Church must have changed its ATTITUDE
toward the State in the mean while. Thus the
unpreiudiced reader may agree with Ozanam
that Dante was orthodox. and still concede 10
Protestant critics all the aid and comfort tha' lie
gave to adversaries Of the Church
Mr. Harris frankly wrenches Dante from MS
medieval mornings and proposes TO UNDERSTAND
him only by the light of modern opinions ABOUT
the life after death. On the race or 'hihsS'
Dante's poem Is to him simply cruel and horrioie'
When il is reduced to symbolism, Mr. Harris can
digest It. But. after ALL 1t may be that MI.
Harris has mmltted himself TO an argument
for the eternal punishment OF sinners even more
binding than that of Dante or Of ordinary ortho-
doyy II is understood that the flames ana pitch
and ice and bowling tempests OF Dante hethei-
world are TO be taken not as materiai put do
psychological facts. Nevertheless. they are just
as real to Dan.c as II he had beheld them VIII"
his bodily powers of vision. and he may actudiiy
have considered them part Of world as tahsio'c
as the Italian hills and wales among Which, "o
snent his life. To Mr. Harris they are without
reality and yet the Inferno Is true. Dante mas
taken the trouble to classify his sinners. To a
careless reader this means nothing. The poet
NAV have been merely gratifying his malice or
contrivng horrors for the sake of artistic fitness
Not at all, says Mr.. Harris. Dante was miracu-
IousIv accurate In his study Of various kinds OF
guilt and their effect upon the soul of man. ana
he has remorselessy depicted every guilty soul
In precisely the condition where it stands from
the moment guilt has been contracted.
That Is to say, a living man worthy or Male
bolge is In Malebolge even though he be waking
about this earth doing business with other men
and comforting himself perhaps with the
thought that death will end all. 1t can be SAID
that he is suffering a penalty. but as matter OF
fact something more has happened to MIN thah
that His soul has literally taken the color OF
his offence Now it is hard to see any limits 10
a psychological principle OF this SORT. except o!
DENYING Immortality altogether. If the soul sur
wives the body. how can 1t escape from wnat mas
become part of its nature? In fact, Mr. harris
has studiously preserved all the horrors or
Dante except his figures of speech. by making
them wholly psychical he has made them apso-
Lutte and eternal and by replacing the thought
of nenaIty with the thought of an inevitable
transformation in the soul itself he has tran
scended the severity Of fatalism. II that Is the
way the nineteenth century is going to escape
from the terrOrs of medevalism, commend us
to the Middle Ages. That Mr. Harris snould
shudder at Dante's realism and then attribute 10
him downright ideasm Of misery may well be
considered a striking phenomenon even In TINS
day of retrospective self-tcrture