The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of DublinNewman, John Henry
Religion
The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin
Newman, John Henry
Education, Higher; Universities and colleges
I look out, then, into the enemy’s camp, and I try to trace the outlines
of the hostile movements and the preparations for assault which are there
in agitation against us. The arming and the manœuvring, the earth-works
and the mines, go on incessantly; and one cannot of course tell, without
the gift of prophecy, which of his projects will be carried into effect
and attain its purpose, and which will eventually fail or be abandoned.
Threatening demonstrations may come to nothing; and those who are to be
our most formidable foes, may before the attack elude our observation. All
these uncertainties, we know, are the lot of the soldier in the field: and
they are parallel to those which befall the warriors of the Temple. Fully
feeling the force of such considerations, and under their correction,
nevertheless I make my anticipations according to the signs of the times;
and such must be my _proviso_, when I proceed to describe some
characteristics of one particular form of infidelity, which is coming into
existence and activity over against us, in the intellectual citadels of
England.
It must not be supposed that I attribute, what I am going to speak of as a
form of infidelity of the day, to any given individual or individuals; nor
is it necessary to my purpose to suppose that any one man as yet
consciously holds, or sees the drift, of that portion of the theory to
which he has given assent. I am to describe a set of opinions which may be
considered as the true explanation of many floating views, and the
converging point of a multitude of separate and independent minds; and, as
of old Arius or Nestorius not only was spoken of in his own person, but
was viewed as the abstract and typical teacher of the heresy which he
introduced, and thus his name denoted a heretic more complete and
explicit, even though not more formal, than the heresiarch himself, so
here too, in like manner, I may be describing a school of thought in its
fully developed proportions, which at present every one, to whom
membership with it is imputed, will at once begin to disown, and I may be
pointing to teachers whom no one will be able to descry. Still, it is not
less true that I may be speaking of tendencies and elements which exist,
and he may come in person at last, who comes at first to us merely in his
spirit and in his power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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