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
practising upon the faith of others, had they been authoritatively held up
before him.
9.
Instances of this kind are far from uncommon. Men who are old enough, will
remember the trouble which came upon a person, eminent as a professional
man in London even at that distant day, and still more eminent since, in
consequence of his publishing a book in which he so treated the subject of
Comparative Anatomy as to seem to deny the immateriality of the soul. I
speak here neither as excusing nor reprobating sentiments about which I
have not the means of forming a judgment; all indeed I have heard of him
makes me mention him with interest and respect; anyhow of this I am sure,
that if there be a calling which feels its position and its dignity to lie
in abstaining from controversy and in cultivating kindly feelings with men
of all opinions, it is the medical profession, and I cannot believe that
the person in question would purposely have raised the indignation and
incurred the censure of the religious public. What then must have been his
fault or mistake, but that he unsuspiciously threw himself upon his own
particular science, which is of a material character, and allowed it to
carry him forward into a subject-matter, where it had no right to give the
law, viz., that of spiritual beings, which directly belongs to the science
of Theology?
Another instance occurred at a later date. A living dignitary of the
Established Church wrote a History of the Jews; in which, with what I
consider at least bad judgment, he took an external view of it, and hence
was led to assimilate it as nearly as possible to secular history. A great
sensation was the consequence among the members of his own communion, from
which he still suffers. Arguing from the dislike and contempt of polemical
demonstrations which that accomplished writer has ever shown, I must
conclude that he was simply betrayed into a false step by the treacherous
fascination of what is called the Philosophy of History, which is good in
its place, but can scarcely be applied in cases where the Almighty has
superseded the natural laws of society and history. From this he would
have been saved, had he been a Catholic; but in the Establishment he knew
of no teaching, to which he was bound to defer, which might rule that to
be false which attracted him by its speciousness.
10.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account