mentioned as those of Professor Huxley, Professor Sidgwick, and Dr Gore, Bishop of Worcester.

Professor Huxley said: "Theological apologists who insist that morality will vanish if their dogmas are exploded would do well to consider the fact that, in the matter of intellectual veracity, science is already a long way ahead of the Churches; and that, in this particular, it is exerting an educational influence on mankind of which the Churches have shown themselves utterly incapable." This is perhaps an instance of the odiousness of comparisons, and it is capable, and possibly was intended to be capable, of arousing some of the odium theologicum. Nevertheless, it is a strong charge against ecclesiasticism. Coming from one who was a frank critic of ecclesiastical Christianity, its importance will be discounted by many who will listen more attentively to the other two.

Professor Sidgwick, some eight years ago, made what is probably the severest attack on Anglican Erasmianism ever made:

"The efforts made for more than a generation in England to liberalise the teachings of the English Church, and to open its ministry to men of modern ideas, must find an inexorable moral barrier in the obligations of veracity and good faith. For the minister who recites any one of the creeds, while conscious of not really believing it, can hardly be acquitted of breaking both these rules of duty at once; since he solemnly states that he believes a theological proposition which he has given an express pledge to believe and to teach, and stating this falsely, breaks his pledge.'

This is a very solemn and serious charge.

Confidence in

the ethical standards inculcated in the Church is not assured as we read the able replies made by Dr Hastings Rashdall. Dr Rashdall not only concedes, he very earnestly claims, a very wide divergence between the actual beliefs of the clergy and the doctrines they are required to assent to. "There are few clergymen whose private beliefs correspond with the letter of the formula to which they profess adhesion." "If anyone supposes that the Articles really express the actual views of the clergy, he must be singularly inobservant of their

pulpit and other utterances.

66

section of the clergy

Among the most numerous nothing can exceed the contempt

with which the Thirty-nine Articles are commonly treated." He claims that there is such a general, although not quite universal, agreement on the subject, that "it is legitimate to subscribe to the Articles in a very elastic and unnatural

These expressions do not lack the Protestant merit of frankness. Erasmus certainly could not and would not have written them. Dr Rashdall is deeply in earnest, and he feels the exigencies of a situation which he deplores. If every man were as outspoken as he, the difficulties would vanish. But he is arguing for a position which he himself, by reason of his frankness, does not share. In a second paper, which is a reply to Dr Sanday's criticism of his previous utterance, he claims that there is no unveracity in assenting to propositions when both parties recognise that the propositions are not literally meant. He is so infelicitous in his illustrations as to compare the solemn vow to maintain the truths of Christianity to the polite expression, "My dear sir!" or even to the words of an actor on the stage!

The logic of Dr Rashdall's argument hangs on the point that there is a virtual agreement between the parties interested that the vow is to be interpreted indirectly. But Dr Gore and Dr Sanday deny any such general agreement. The Bishop has recently written that clergymen who constantly recite the words of the Creed cannot consistently hold their office unless they personally believe what they recite. There are many who will agree with this statement of Dr Gore's who neither agree with his Christology nor with the letter of the creed he is endeavouring to preserve intact.

If all progressive men were as frank as Dr Rashdall, the moral atmosphere might soon become clarified. If his own suggestive phrase might sometimes be expressly stated, some change might come speedily. If an applicant for Holy Orders could say, "I accept the Articles of the Church on the basis

T

de

of a common understanding that these Articles are to be interpreted in a very elastic and unnatural sense," perhaps there would no longer be occasion for the Reviews to discuss the reluctance of able men to take Orders.

Dr Rashdall argues further that it is better that able men should enter the Church, interpreting the moral obligations in the free way suggested, rather than that the ministry should be recruited exclusively from the class of narrow-minded men who really believe the doctrines required by the Church.

Dr Martineau, a generation ago, wrote: "It is no longer an insult to a clergyman's honour, but rather a compliment to his intelligence, to suspect him of saying one thing and believing another." This is asserting ironically the same thing that Dr Rashdall is conceding apologetically.

It seems almost certain that great changes will appear soon on the theological horizon. A sign is seen in the general expressions of dissatisfaction with the old Protestant formulas. A more hopeful sign is the expectation that great modern ideas, such as cosmic development, will prove to be of tremendous power when appropriated religiously.

The coming years are fraught with great issues for Protestantism. The intellectual progress of the world is largely dependent upon the free advance of spiritual Protestantism. The answer to our questions of to-day will not lie in any elaborate formula, or in the invention of any ingenious plan by which one may believe one thing while professing to believe another. The solution will be moral, not intellectual.

Every man who in his secret heart has broken with the old doctrines must, in his own way, win the moral right to speak out the truth that is in him. There cannot be true progress except on the basis of veracity and sincerity.

The moral spirit of Luther, the spirit of the Protestants of Schmalkald, is the true "essence of Protestantism." It is the spirit which abhors insincerity and refuses to offer to God the unclean sacrifice of a lie. If it is true to itself, Protestantism will tear away the tissues and glosses with which the Erasmian

VOL. III.-No. 1.

6

morals have entangled it. Progressive Protestantism will come forth courageously from its bondage to the old Protestant letter. It will defend the noble ideas of Erasmus in the

spirit of Luther. It will never speak with power and persua

sion until it does.

To do this will cost much, and many men will feel the cost, but there seems to be no other solution of the difficulties. Sincerity, spirituality, self-sacrifice these virtues are elemental in the character of Jesus Christ. They have given Christianity its power and permanency. They created Protestantism. They are guiding now into the path of promise.

CINCINNATI, OHIO.

HENRY GOODWIN SMITH.

DREAMS AND IDEALISM.

F. C. S. SCHILLER,

Fellow and Tutor of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

For some reason, not easy to analyse completely, but probably connected with the convenient ambiguities of the word, it has become more reputable for philosophers to call themselves "idealists" than "realists." But the verbal agreement which has thus been reached can hardly be said to indicate any real advance either in the cogency of the philosophic case for idealism, or in the amount of popular acceptance it has conquered. Indeed, there seems to be a real and growing danger that, on the one hand, the philosophic arguments for idealism should become more and more slipshod as their technicality increases, and, on the other, that the great mass of human thought should become more and more contentedly ignorant of reasonings grown too unintelligible for their value to be appreciated, or their fallacies to be detected. The blame for both these tendencies would seem to rest mainly on the doctrine which would like to monopolise the name "Idealism," but is more accurately described as idealistic absolutism, and has unfortunately succeeded only in obscuring and rendering unpalatable the truth contained in the idealistic interpretation of our experience.

It may be useful, therefore, to make an attempt to clear away the fallacies and confusions on which idealism is too often based, in order to make room for an argument which is easily within the scope of ordinary minds, and, while it