eminent representative of one of the two great schools of metaphysical thought . . . For the future, therefore, we shall be concerned less with Sir W. Hamilton's philosophy, as such, than with the general mode of thought to which it belongs."* Two points in particular seemed too important and attractive to be passed over in the present paper, but, owing to want of further space, must be deferred for the present. One of these was the question as to how far inconceivability is an evidence of untruth, which necessarily opens up the whole theory of consciousness. It is upon this subject that Mr. Herbert Spencer, treading in Mr. Grote's footsteps, differs as widely from Mill as Mill himself can possibly do from Hamilton. And the other was Mr. Mill's strictures upon the only original doctrine of Sir William's other than that of the Relativity of Human Knowledge with its collaterals, namely, his theory of

Causation.

The various comments upon Mr. Mill's work which are at the present moment issuing from the press, either in the shape of distinct volumes or of articles in the various periodicals, will be well worthy of the attention of those Catholics who are unwilling to be behind their fellow-countrymen in the discussion of those important topics which are now almost table-talk among them. It will be the purpose of a subsequent paper to bring at least some of these before the reader's notice.

R. E. G.

* Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, &c., p. 106.

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Foreign Ebents of Catholic Interest.

In our last number we spoke of the spread of the revolutionary movement in Spain, and alluded to the project set on foot by the Masonic lodges to overthrow the Catholic throne of Queen Isabella, and to establish an "Iberian Empire." Since that time, the movement has made rapid strides. The ministry of Narvaez has succumbed to the revolutionary pressure, and, yielding to evil influences, the Queen of Spain has recognized the Cavourian kingdom of Italy. To inaugurate the new policy, dictated by the Liberals of Spain and accepted by the timid counsellors who surround and betray the throne, O'Donnell, once the friend and colleague of Espartero, then his successful rival, is called to power. His first act after the ignominious recognition of Italy, was to close the Cortes, in order to escape the shame he would have been put to by the indignant questionings of every true Catholic and of every loyal Spaniard. But this cowardly evasion of his duty of answering face to face before the public for his conduct and advice availed him but little. He has been called to account in a manner which no Spanish minister can affect to disregard. With a noble unanimity, and in language as indignant as it is just, the Spanish episcopate have protested against the recognition of the kingdom of Italy as a betrayal of the traditional policy and of the Catholic character of Spain. Although not to the number, or with the energy we could wish, many of the municipal councils have protested against an act which has made, for a variety of reasons, a painful impression on the mind of every one who has the interests of religion and the real honour of Spain at heart. The Archbishop of Toledo has resigned the trust and tutorship of the Prince of Asturias, and has withdrawn from Madrid; whilst the ambassadors at Rome and at Paris have refused any longer to represent a policy which is as repugnant to them as it is dishonourable in itself. Cardinal Antonelli himself, in replying to the notification to the Holy See that the Spanish government had resolved on recognizing the new kingdom of Italy, gave a dignified and severe rebuke to the ministry by saying that, whatever governments may choose to do, the Pope could never for a moment doubt of the faith and loyalty of the Spanish people. The Spanish recognition of Italy was unconditional; unlike that even of Napoleonic France, it was made under no reserve. The Spanish government had not even the decency to stipulate for the preservation of the temporal rights of the Papacy. It was a complete and unqualified surrender of those public principles which had hitherto dictated the policy of Spain in the Roman question. The recognition of the revolutionary kingdom of Italy is, moreover, an act, on the part of the Queen, of suicidal weakness; it is an unworthy concession to the false spirit of Liberalism, in the same manner as the surrender of the VOL. V.-NO. X. [New Series.] 2 L

royal patrimony was to the communistic tendencies which are so rife in many of the commercial cities of Spain. Both of these acts have only augmented the evil which they hoped to avert. The timid sacrifice of the royal patrimony of the Kings of Spain, far from removing the unpopularity of the Crown, has only whetted that appetite which craves for the possession of its neighbour's goods as the proper food for its palate. The disgraceful state of commercial credit, which was made the pretext for this demand, has not in the least benefited by the cowardly surrender of the royal patrimony. The effect has rather been the reverse; for such a policy was looked upon as a confession of weakness. The dynastic vessel was surely in danger, when so valuable a freight was thrown overboard. After all, it was but a sop to the whale.

In like manner, the recognition of Italy--an act which has a two-fold effect, one on the foreign relations, and the other on the home policy of Spain-will give such an impetus to the revolutionary movement as, far from saving, is not unlikely to end in the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty. This act of the government of O'Donnell is a pledge given to the revolution, is the formal adoption of the policy of the Spanish Liberals. It is the lowering of the Catholic standard before an enemy who is only strong because of the divisions, treachery, and cowardice in the Catholic camp. It points, again, to military revolt, to brute force, personified in the successful soldier, so well known and so dreaded in unhappy Spain. It means, in the end, the recall of Espartero, and the triumph of the revolution over the Crown and over the Church.

It means all this, and more; for the recognition of Italy has of late years been the touchstone of parties. To recognize Victor Emmanuel was to break with the Pope; to enter into friendly alliance with Italy was to forswear the loyal traditions of Spain. But this policy is not merely negative in its effect; it implies the active espousal of Liberal opinions in every department of political and religious life, at home as well as abroad. Such a policy is very wide in its application, and goes very deep into the heart of things; its adoption involves many considerations as to the social and religious condition of Spain. The question irresistibly forces itself upon our notice, what can the state of that Catholic country be, in which such things as we witness or apprehend can take place? Inspired by the hopes of a better future for so Catholic a country, or deluded by the reminiscences of its past glories, writers have too often thrown a gloss over the rottenness which, to a certain extent, lies beneath the surface of things, and which goes far to account for the present disturbed state of the Spanish peninsula. Owing to the glorious privilege which it enjoys, of being exempt from heresy, and to the existence of laws prohibiting religious error, both the friends and the enemies of Catholicism are too apt to impute to Spain a higher Catholicity than it in reality deserves. It must be remembered that the successive governments which have proscribed Protestantism have prohibited the monastic orders. The heretic has been forbidden to propagate in Spain his pernicious error; but the Jesuit, the foremost soldier of truth, is still proscribed by the laws. No Protestant churches are permitted to pollute the Catholic soil of Spain; yet government after government has plundered

ecclesiastical and monastic property, has left the churches roofless and tenantless, and the monasteries in ruins, all over the country. Though the maxims of Government and the political traditions are Catholic, the politicians of Spain are, for the most part, corrupt to the core. They are the children of the revolution: they have no faith but in armies; no hope but in bribery and corruption. The successful politician is the favourite general : yesterday it was Espartero-to-morrow it may be General Prim. Installed in power by a military revolt, each soldier of fortune is ready to sacrifice one principle after another of the monarchy or of the Church at the bidding of self-interest, or on the demand of the liberalism of the day. A long series of governments, founded on narrow personal interests, representing no principle, has produced a political rottenness which is one of the chief dangers of the Spanish monarchy. Another serious evil which we must take into account, if we wish rightly to gauge the present state of things in Spain, or that which seems impending, is the spread of communistic principles in the commercial cities and districts. In these great resorts of mercantile activity, the anti-social and irreligious literature of France has done its work of corruption. It is here the Siècle finds its chief readers; and here the translation of impious French works meets with reward and encouragement. In such classes revolutionary principles have taken root, and nowhere in Spain than over such classes has religion less hold. A curious trial in one of the great Spanish cities lately brought to light, in an unexpected manner, the extent and activity of communistic ideas. We were not altogether unprepared for such a revelation; but what is more surprising, is the manner in which the Royal dynasty is publicly threatened in the Liberal press and in the Cortes. Spain, says one of these journals, only puts up for a moment with the present dynasty for want of something better. And in the Cortes, a member of the Left put, at the close of a violent harangue on the sanguinary suppression of the riot in the streets of Madrid, on the 10th April, such ill-boding questions as these-" At the eve of 1830 did Charles X. dream of the advent of Louis Philip? Of the outbreak of the revolution of 1848, what notion had the citizen-king? Who, then, shall dare to say that the Bourbon dynasty in Spain shall last 48 hours?"

In the religious condition of Spain, to turn our attention for a moment in that direction, in the midst of much that is hopeful and most praiseworthy, there are many causes for dissatisfaction. The country, indeed, is Catholic to its core. It has been permeated for ages by a Catholic spirit, and it is still alive with Catholic instincts. It has inherited traditions of faith and practices of piety which trials, such as Spain has had to undergo, have failed to uproot. The Spanish character has, it seems to us, taken its impress to no small degree from the Catholic Church. Its dignity, its kindliness, its chivalry, and its charity, reflect the supernatural workings of grace. There is a natural delicacy and consideration for the wants and weaknesses of others about the Spanish people which bespeak a long training, and the habitual presence of higher influences than are often found in countries which lay claim to a greater civilization than that of Catholic Spain. In the villages and small country towns the people respond readily to the requirements of religion. They form a fine stuff to work upon. They are the

sound fruit from the seed which was sown by the glorious monasteries now in ruins, and round which Catholicism still thickly clusters, like ivy around ruined walls. But the loss, which the destruction of the monastic orders and their continued suppression by every successive government which rules in Madrid have caused, is visibly telling in a weakened zeal among the people and a lessened vigilance on the part of the clergy. In the capital and in the larger cities religion is losing somewhat of its hold on the hearts of the people, and though custom does much to preserve the outward appearance of piety, yet custom is but a sorry substitute for the hearty energy of faith and the active work of charity. Catholicism is interwoven with the national feelings and the national pride of the Spaniard-in itself an inestimable boon, but for that very reason standing in greater need that its spiritual character should be perpetually vivified by the supernatural agencies of the Church. In the extinction of the monasteries one of the most potent means which the Church possesses for preserving and quickening the Catholic spirit of a people is lost to Spain.

The absence of the regular clergy naturally reacts injuriously on the secular clergy, and this injurious effect is in nowise likely to be corrected by the lax discipline exercised over such of the ecclesiastical students at least as attend the universities. These students of theology do not live in common under ecclesiastical direction, but lodge in the town, and mix freely with the other students. Their pursuits are of their own choice, and their reading depends on individual taste. Most of the light literature which falls into their hands is of a most frivolous if not of a worse description. To remedy this long-standing evil as much as possible, the noble episcopate of Spain, the real hope and strength of the country, have for many years been successfully engaged in increasing the number and efficiency of the seminaries. But theirs has been an uphill work in a country so long the victim of revolutionary violence, a violence which, like that in Sardinia, was not content with plundering the Church and exiling the bishops, but sought to alienate Spain altogether from the Holy See. The revolutionary party is patient in evildoing. It knows how to bide its time. For some years the Spanish liberals have abstained from acts of overt hostility; now it appears the time of action has arrived. Their first object is to seize upon the reins of government, and then either to depose the Bourbon dynasty altogether, or to force the Crown to adopt a revolutionary policy. At a meeting of the more advanced party, held some short time ago, the plan of attack was accurately laid down. The revolution was to have broken out simultaneously all over the country; the dispersed troops, the gendarmes, the civil guard, were to have been disarmed, and all communication between the metropolis and the provinces was to have been cut off, and not till the government should have been compelled to send the troops concentrated at Madrid into the provinces, was the revolution to have broken out in the capital, and thus completed the victory. Of the success of this plan no doubt appears to have been entertained. The Masonic lodges of Lisbon had suggested the King of Portugal, a pliable instrument in the hands of the revolution, and therefore not unacceptable to Italy and France, as the nominal ruler of the "Iberian Empire." Espartero, the veteran leader of the revolution, and the inveterate enemy of