A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume IIDe Morgan, Augustus
Philosophy
A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II
De Morgan, Augustus
Circle-squaring; Perpetual motion; Science -- Miscellanea; Trisection of angle
He _shortened his clause_; and for a reason. If he had used the whole
epithet which he knew so well, any one might have given his argument a
half-turn. Had he written, as he ought, "the _Holy_ Catholic Church" and
then argued as above, some sly Protestant would have parodied him with "and
yet if I ask any of them the question: _Are you_ HOLY? he is sure to answer
me _No, I am a_ SINNER." To take the adjective from the Church, and apply
it to the individual partisan, is recognized slipslop, but not ground of
argument. If Dr. M. had asked his Protestant whether he belonged to the
Catholic _Church_, the answer would have been Yes, but not to the Roman
branch. When he put his question as he did, he was rightly answered and in
his own division. This leaving out words is a common practice, especially
when the omitter is in authority, and cannot be exposed. A year or two ago
a bishop wrote a snubbing letter to a poor parson, who had complained that
he was obliged, in burial, to send the worst of sinners to everlasting
happiness. The bishop sternly said, "_hope_[50] is not _assurance_." {25}
Could the clergyman have dared to answer, he would have said, "No, my Lord!
but '_sure and certain_ hope' is as like assurance as a _minikin_ man is
like a dwarf." Sad to say, a theologian must be illogical: I feel sure that
if you took the clearest headed writer on logic that ever lived, and made a
bishop of him, he would be shamed by his own books in a twelvemonth.
Milner's sophism is glaring: but why should Dr. Milner be wiser than St.
Augustine, one of his teachers? I am tempted to let out the true derivation
of the word _Catholic, as exclusively applied to the Church of Rome_. All
can find it who have access to the _Rituale_ of Bonaventura Piscator[51]
(lib. i. c. 12, _de nomine Sacrae Ecclesiae_, p. 87 of the Venice {26} folio
of 1537). I am told that there is a _Rituale_ in the Index Expurgatorius,
but I have not thought it worth while to examine whether this be the one: I
am rather inclined to think, as I have heard elsewhere, that the book was
held too dangerous for the faithful to know of it, even by a prohibition:
it would not surprise me at all if Roman Christians should deny its
existence.[52]
It amuses me to give, at a great distance of time, a small Rowland for a
small Oliver,[53] which I received, _de par l'Eglise_,[54] so far as lay in
the Oliver-carrier more than twenty years ago. The following contribution
of mine to _Notes and Queries_ (3d Ser. vi. p. 175, Aug. 27, 1864) will
explain what I say. There had been a complaint that a contributor had used
the term _Papist_, which a very excellent dignitary of the Papal system
pronounced an offensive term:
PAPIST.
The term _papist_ should be stripped of all except its etymological
meaning, and applied to those who give the higher and final authority to
the declaration _ex cathedra_[55] of the Pope. See Dr. Wiseman's[56]
article, _Catholic Church_, in the _Penny Cyclopaedia_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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