Similarly, Marcus Aurelius, in speaking of God, falls back into the old habit of religious expression, unconsciously applying a new meaning whilst retaining the old phraseology rendered venerable by association. Spinoza, anxious to show due deference to established authority, with a certain degree of prudence and caution-'cautious' was the inscription on his seal-ring-is at times reticent, yet without the faintest approach to insincerity or lack of intellectual integrity, though at others he is honest to the verge of imprudence.

With dogmatic theology Spinoza had no sympathy. As the father of a larger liberality,' he is the forerunner of Lessing's Nathan the Wise''the song of songs of religious toleration,' which may be traced directly to his influence. It is contrary to my habit,' says Nathan, ‘to seek to discover the errors into which other men have fallen.' And this has become the mental habit of scientific theologians. From this it does not follow, as was said by Lichtenberg, that in the course of time the universal religion will become a purified Spinozaism, nor, as Mr Picton has said, that Spinoza's Ethic' will furnish the key of the religion of the future. But there can be no doubt that, for the present, modern Spinozaism provides a shadowy creed for those who can only believe in God as the infinite sum of all natural forces and as the supreme law of the universe,' rendering the dark material mass of the world, as Martineau finely expresses it, 'incandescent with the currents of divine life.'

This brings us to the confines of ethical Theism, and suggests the final question as to the place of Spinozaism in the evolution of morality and its probable effect on the future development of ethics. Spinoza's chief merit consists in having led the way to the modern conception of scientific ethics. He identifies, as we have seen, knowledge with virtue, and speaks of the intuitive knowledge of God as the highest virtue. The highest good of the intellect is the knowledge of God, and the highest virtue of the intellect is to know God.' Love is the result of a clear and complete insight into the nature of things and the laws of existence, including the laws which govern human conduct. Hence the intellectual love of God becomes the love of goodness arising from a rational contemplation of the order of things. This Emerson has

translated into the language of modern thought in the following words:

'When the mind opens and reveals the laws which traverse the universe and make things what they are, then shrinks the great world at once into a mere illustration and fable of this mind. . . . A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue. Then he is instructed in what is above him.'

Living in conformity with the necessary laws of the world-process produces a state of intellectual equilibrium, so that the mind, no longer perturbed by error, lives in an atmosphere of placid acquiescence and cheerful performance of duty, that 'waveless calm of soul' which is real blesssedness. Beatitudo non praemium virtutis, sed ipsa virtus.' In other words, the highest good is the harmonious coalescence of our own mind with the universe.' Thence follow the bene agere et laetari, the 'Heiterkeit,' blitheness, joyous performance of duty. Such is the eudæmonistic conception of ethics which Spinoza left as an heirloom to posterity, and which, through the intermediation of Goethe, has since become an integral part of modern ethics.

6

To sum up. What renders Spinozaism attractive to present-day thinkers is its power to satisfy the scientific mind by its apparent completeness as a system of philosophical monism in full accordance with the laws of biology. And this without excluding the spiritual element in human nature. It presents a view of the world as an idealistic cosmic reality in which we actually live and move and have our being'; and in which, in the words of Sir Oliver Lodge, the whole of existence can become infused and suffused with immanent Deity.' The Modernist in religion is drawn towards Spinozaism as a system which gave the first impulse to chastened criticism and a liberal interpretation of Holy Writ, and as an attempt to save the essentials of religion by liberating them from dogmatic accretions. When Father Tyrrell in his last book says that ' Union with God is union with the Divine life and action, with the undisturbed centre of the cyclone,' he speaks the language of Spinoza.

Again, the representative of scientific ethics sees in Spinozaism a system which treats morality scientifically Vol. 217.-Nọ. 433.

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and yet is something more than the scientific gospel of physiological self-interest,' founded on the action of physiological functions only. For, whilst taking its stand on the actual facts of existence, it holds up the highest moral standard on spiritual grounds. It conceives of the ethical ideal as innate, as an integral part of human nature; and, since each individual mind is a mode of the soul of Souls,' pervading all things, it furnishes the basis of human solidarity. It is a system freeing the mind from the slavery of prescriptive forms of morality and inaugurating the new new theory of disinterested ethics, opening up a new avenue of moral progress by the introduction of a higher type of moral perfectibility.

Two centuries intervene between Spinoza and ourselves; and the estimate formed of him and his work has risen considerably in the interval. Called by Malebranche 'le misérable Spinoza,' and by Massillon 'a monster of impiety,' thought by Cudworth scarce worthy of confutation, and treated with scant respect by Hume, he has come to be regarded as one of the philosophic leaders of the modern world. There are those still who prefer to dwell on the demerits of his system, its glaring inconsistencies, its imperfections of form and substance. There are others who too readily condemn it as 'a philosophy of atheistic monism.' But, whatever may be advanced in depreciation of his system as a whole, in its metaphysical aspects more especially, its author will never cease to be considered as one of the mighty spirits of our race, distinguished by his evident love of truth and the fervid pursuit of it under great difficulties, and also by his persistent advocacy of a noble ideal which has done much to raise the moral temperature of Europe. In his complete detachment from the world, his noble independence, his intellectual integrity and spiritual elevation, he fully deserves the high encomium of an opponent when he says: 'Blessed be thou, great, yea, holy Benedictus, notwithstanding thy vagaries in thought and word when philosophising on the nature of the most High! His truth was in thy soul, His love was in thy life.

M. KAUFMANN,

Art. 6.-ROMAN CANON LAW IN ENGLAND.

1. The Canon Law in Medieval England. By Arthur Ogle. London: Murray, 1912.

2. Roman Canon Law in the Church of England. By F. W. Maitland. London: Methuen, 1898.

3. Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Medieval and Modern History. By William Stubbs. Third edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900.

THE question how the old Roman Canon Law, the Corpus Juris Canonici, was regarded in the English Ecclesiastical Courts before the Reformation seems somewhat remote from present-day concerns, and yet it touches matters political, religious and historical of immediate and vivid interest, affecting us more deeply, at any rate more consciously, than anything that the Ecclesiastical Courts, exiguously surviving to-day, are likely to accomplish. Welsh Members of Parliament, filled with unassimilated reading, argue that, if the Pope's law ran in our Church Courts until the middle of the sixteenth century and then ceased to do so, the Church before that time and since cannot be one and the same body. Therefore property given before the change, and still enjoyed nearly four hundred years afterwards, must, to satisfy tender Celtic consciences, be now taken away and bestowed on Welsh County Councils. The 'Tablet' newspaper (May 18, 1912), from another point of view, hails the establishment of the same proposition as something analogous to pricking 'the bubble of the continuity illusion.'

Thus Nonconformists and Roman Catholics combine to give a practical application to this problem, the historical interest of which has at divers times attracted many students, and notably, in recent years, Bishop Stubbs and Prof. Maitland, who have been supposed to represent antagonistic schools of opinion. Mr Ogle's book, 'The Canon Law in Medieval England,' has drawn fresh attention to the question. His main object is to defend Stubbs's view, as he understands it, from the assault of Maitland; and he has performed his task with chivalrous devotion to the memory of the great historian and a familiarity with the subject which few

persons possess. Unfortunately the effectiveness of his work is diminished by two defects. By some accident Mr Ogle has evidently written his book without knowing Stubbs's published views in their final shape, as revised by himself after reading Maitland's criticism. Secondly, devotion to Stubbs has betrayed him into a tone of disparagement of Maitland which is unnecessary and unjust. To represent Maitland as indulging in vivacious flippancy is really inexcusable and, we must add, unsupported by anything brought to light in Mr Ogle's book. Prof. Maitland never wrote on any matter of legal history without adequate knowledge and research; and to take literally, as Mr Ogle does, Maitland's characteristic apology for making 'an invasion into a region that was unfamiliar' to him, betrays a misunderstanding of his mind and methods. It would be equally easy to quote Stubbs's assurance that he lectured on the history of Canon Law' by way of learning something' about it, and equally fallacious to take his disclaimer seriously.

Thanks to the labours of Bishop Stubbs, Prof. Maitland and Mr Ogle, a fairly definite answer to the problem propounded in the opening sentence of this article can be given. On March 31, 1534, the Canterbury Convocation considered the fateful question, whether the Roman pontiff has any greater jurisdiction bestowed on him by God in the Holy Scriptures in this realm of England than any other foreign bishop.' They gave a decisive answer in the negative, which was subsequently repeated by the York Convocation. On June 9, 1534, Henry VIII issued his proclamation for 'abolishing the usurped power of the Pope.' At this date the Ecclesiastical Courts were numerous and important. The Canterbury Provincial Courts of Arches, of Audience and of the Prerogative, and similar Courts for the Northern Province, the Consistory Courts of the Bishops, the Commissary Courts of capitular bodies and of minor or peculiar jurisdictions, and the Archdeacons' Courts, formed a great network of tribunals. They took cognisance of nearly all matrimonial questions, whether of prohibited degrees, validity or separation, of probate matters, of the ecclesiastical rights and duties of the whole clerical body, including those in minor orders, of the morals of clergy and laity alike, and of a vast amount of other business connected