"RECENT LATIN VERSE." To the Editor of MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE. SIR, I am sorry to have upset Mr. Munro's equanimity so much as I appear to have done; on one point I do certainly owe him an explanation ; and that is my chief reason for troubling you with this letter. Mr. Munro feels aggrieved at being singled out for attack, and complains that "Recent Latin Verse" is no fair description of my article. He is right, I think, in both of these complaints. The article was never intended by me to appear in the form which it ultimately assumed, but to have included many other Latin verse writers, among whom Mr. Munro would only have occupied that position which is due to his undoubted eminence. The causes which unfortunately led to the publication of the article in a different shape would be of no interest to the public, and would perhaps be unsuitable to your columns, but they are much at Mr. Munro's service, if he chooses to inquire for them. And here I should have stopped, but for the wild war-whoop which Mr. Munro utters over what he calls my discomfiture," whereas, in fact, he has entirely avoided the main question at issue, which is the comparative merit of two different styles. I contended that the new style of Latin verse writing-of which Mr. Munro is, if not the representative, at all events a distinguished ornament was inferior to the style in use among an elder race of scholars; and I remarked at the same time that, in accordance with a singular superstition which has lately gathered round this subject, the style aforesaid was likely to be stigmatised as boyish. Mr. Munro, by his allusions to the Gradus, &c., does so stigmatise it, as I knew he would, and then seems to have considered that he had done all that was required of him. His guns are heavy, but his fire is inaccurate. His scholarship, when he gives it fair play, I do not call in question for a moment. His logic, I own, seems to be on a par with his taste. It is, indeed, to the absence of this last-mentioned faculty, rather than to any other defect, that I attribute the peculiar character of Mr. Munro's versification, and his still more remarkable views on the subject of poetic diction. This want of literary taste, and consequent inability to appreciate the Ianguage of Gray, are at the bottom of most of the censures which he pronounces with such extraordinary selfcomplacency. I will only give a single instance, and that not the strongest. "The path of glory leads but to the grave," is a line to which it is quite allowable to affix various shades of meaning. "The grave may mean death in general, in which case tumulus would clearly be a wrong translation of it, or it may mean the particular grave of the ambitious individual, in which case it is quite right. Such of his criticisms as do not spring from this sourcethey are very few-and involve only questions of Latinity, I willingly leave to the judgment of the classical public. The controversy I feel cannot be pursued in your pages. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE. APRIL 1875. II. NATURAL RELIGION. I HAVE suggested the thought of a God revealed in Nature, not by any means because such a view of God seems to me satisfactory, or worthy to replace the Christian view, or even as a commencement from which we must rise by logical necessity to the Christian view. I have suggested it because this is the God Whom the present age actually does, and, in spite of all opposition, certainly will worship, also because this aspect of God is common to all theologies, however much in some it may be slighted or depreciated, and lastly, because I do not believe that any theology can be real or satisfying that does not make it prominent as well as admit it. I can conceive no religion as satisfactory that falls short of Christianity, but, on the other hand, I cannot believe any religion to be healthy that does not start from Nature-worship. It is in the free and instinctive admiration of human beings for the glory of heaven, earth and sea, that religion begins, and I cannot imagine but as morbid a religion which has ceased to admire them. But many readers will probably think that not much is to be hoped from dwelling on this subject. "We know very well that the universe is glorious, but when you have said that, there is an end of the matter. We want to make atheists believe in God, and you do it not by changing their minds, but by changing the meaning of the word God. It is not a verbal controversy that rages between atheists and Christians, but a controversy that concerns the most serious realities. When people display such rancour against religion as was shown by the Paris Commune, you may be sure there is some essential matter in dispute, and that nothing is more vain than to attempt to reconcile them by refining upon words. According to the definition you have given of theism, no rational being could ever be an atheist." I will endeavour to answer this supposed objection at length, and the part of it which sounds the most formidable will give me the least trouble. That people do not shoot and stab each other for a word is not always true. In fact, when the word is theological that is just what people do. It has often been remarked of theological controversies, that they are never conducted more bitterly than when the difference between the rival doctrines is very small. This is nearly correct, but not quite. If you want to see the true white heat of controversial passion, if you want to see men fling away the very thought of reconciliation, and close in internecine conflict, you should look at controversialists who do not differ at all, but who have adopted different words to express the same opinion. But the other question raised in the objection, the question whether there can be such a thing as atheism, will furnish me with a convenient point "RECENT LATIN VERSE." To the Editor of MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE. SIR, I am sorry to have upset Mr. Munro's equanimity so much as I appear to have done; on one point I do certainly owe him an explanation; and that is my chief reason for troubling you with this letter. Mr. Munro feels aggrieved at being singled out for attack, and complains that "Recent Latin Verse" is no fair description of my article. He is right, I think, in both of these complaints. The article was never intended by me to appear in the form which it ultimately assumed, but to have included many other Latin verse writers, among whom Mr. Munro would only have occupied that position which is due to his undoubted eminence. The causes which unfortunately led to the publication of the article in a different shape would be of no interest to the public, and would perhaps be unsuitable to your columns, but they are much at Mr. Munro's service, if he chooses to inquire for them. And here I should have stopped, but for the wild war-whoop which Mr. Munro utters over what he calls "my discomfiture," whereas, in fact, he has entirely avoided the main question at issue, which is the comparative merit of two different styles. I contended that the new style of Latin verse writing-of which Mr. Munro is, if not the representative, at all events a distinguished ornament was inferior to the style in use among an elder race of scholars; and I remarked at the same time that, in accordance with a singular superstition which has lately gathered round this subject, the style aforesaid was likely to be stigmatised as boyish. Mr. Munro, by his allusions to the Gradus, &c., does so stigmatise it, as I knew he would, and then seems to have considered that he had done all that was required of him. His guns are heavy, but his fire is inaccurate. His scholarship, when he gives it fair play, I do not call in question for a moment. His logic, I own, seems to be on a par with his taste. It is, indeed, to the absence of this last-mentioned faculty, rather than to any other defect, that I attribute the peculiar character of Mr. Munro's versification, and his still more remarkable views on the subject of poetic diction. This want of literary taste, and consequent inability to appreciate the language of Gray, are at the bottom of most of the censures which he pronounces with such extraordinary selfcomplacency. I will only give a single instance, and that not the strongest. "The path of glory leads but to the grave," is a line to which it is quite allowable to affix various shades of meaning. "The grave may mean death in general, in which case tumulus would clearly be a wrong translation of it, or it may mean the particular grave of the ambitious individual, in which case it is quite right. Such of his criticisms as do not spring from this sourcethey are very few-and involve only questions of Latinity, I willingly leave to the judgment of the classical public. The controversy I feel cannot be pursued in your pages. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE. APRIL 1875. II. NATURAL RELIGION. I HAVE Suggested the thought of a God revealed in Nature, not by any means because such a view of God seems to me satisfactory, or worthy to replace the Christian view, or even as a commencement from which we must rise by logical necessity to the Christian view. I have suggested it because this is the God Whom the present age actually does, and, in spite of all opposition, certainly will worship, also because this aspect of God is common to all theologies, however much in some it may be slighted or depreciated, and lastly, because I do not believe that any theology can be real or satisfying that does not make it prominent as well as admit it. I can conceive no religion as satisfactory that falls short of Christianity, but, on the other hand, I cannot believe any religion to be healthy that does not start from Nature-worship. It is in the free and instinctive admiration of human beings for the glory of heaven, earth and sea, that religion begins, and I cannot imagine but as morbid a religion which has ceased to admire them. But many readers will probably think that not much is to be hoped from dwelling on this subject. "We know very well that the universe is glorious, but when you have said that, there is an end of the matter. We want to make atheists believe in God, and you do it not by changing their minds, but by changing the meaning of the word God. It is not a verbal controversy that rages between atheists and Christians, but a controversy that concerns the most serious realities. When people display such rancour against religion as was shown by the Paris Commune, you may be sure there is some essential matter in dispute, and that nothing is more vain. than to attempt to reconcile them by refining upon words. "According to the definition you have given of theism, no rational being could ever be an atheist." I will endeavour to answer this supposed objection at length, and the part of it which sounds the most formidable will give me the least trouble. That people do not shoot and stab each other for a word is not always true. In fact, when the word is theological that is just what people do. It has often been remarked of theological controversies, that they are never conducted more bitterly than when the difference between the rival doctrines is very small. This is nearly correct, but not quite. If you want to see the true white heat of controversial passion, if you want to see men fling away the very thought of reconciliation, and close in internecine conflict, you should look at, controversialists who do not differ at all, but who have adopted different words to express the same opinion. But the other question raised in the objection, the question whether there. can be such a thing as atheism, will furnish me with a convenient point from which I may start for a fuller explanation of what I mean by the worship of God in Nature. As I have represented modern science as a form of theism, and as there is no rational man who does not believe-at least, in a general way-in science, it follows of course that no sensible man in these times can be speculatively an atheist. And I believe no one can, however many great philosophers may have congratulated themselves upon accomplishing that feat. If, then, no man could be an atheist practically without being one speculatively also, it would be true that men are entirely mistaken in the importance they attach to the distinction between theist and SUcalled atheist. It would then appear to be a misdescribed distinction, and to be in reality only a distinction between two kinds of theists. This is what in common controversy it actually is. One might suppose beforehand that the theist and atheist must necessarily have the whole diameter between them, that their thoughts upon all subjects must be affected by this fundamental difference. It is not so in fact; the theist and the so-called atheist often indeed differ very widely, but sometimes also they think very much alike. This is, in reality, because one or other has been misnamed, for between a real and thoroughly convinced theist and an atheist really deserving that name, there is almost as much difference as we could expect; only the latter character is not very easy to meet with. An atheist in the proper sense of the word is not a man who disbelieves in the goodness of God, or in His distinctness from Nature, or in His personality. These disbeliefs may be as serious in their way as atheism, but they are different. Atheism is a disbelief in the existence of God—that is, a disbelief in any regularity in the universe to which a man must conform himself under penalties. Such a disbelief, as I have said, is speculatively monstrous, but it may exist practically, and where it does is an evil as fatal to character and virtue We may consider here briefly some of the forms which atheism assumes. The purest form of atheism might be called by the general name of wilfulness. All human activity is a transaction with Nature. It is the arrangement of a compromise between what we want on the one hand, and what Nature has decreed on the other. Something of our own wishes we have almost always to give up; but by carefully considering the power outside ourselves, the necessity that conditions all our actions, we may make better terms than we could otherwise, and reduce to a minimum what we are obliged to renounce. Now we may either underrate or overrate the force of our own wills. The first is the extravagance of theism; it is that fatalism which steals so naturally upon those who have dwelt much upon the thought of God, which is said to paralyze, for example, the whole soul of the Mussulman. the opposite mistake is a deficiency of theism; a touch of it often marks the hero, but the fulness of it is that kind of blind infatuation which poets have represented under the image of the giants that tried to storm heaven. But Not to recognize anything but your own will, to fancy everything within your reach if you only will strongly enough, to acknowledge no superior Power outside. yourself which must be considered and in some way propitiated if you would succeed in any undertaking; this is complete wilfulness, or, in other words, pure atheism. It may also be called childishness, for the child naturally discovers the force within it sooner than the resisting necessity outside. Not without a few falls in the wrestle with Nature do we learn the limits of our own power and the pitiless immensity of the power that is not ours. But there are many who cannot learn this lesson even from experience, who forget every defeat they suffer, and always refuse to see any power in the universe but their own wills. Sometimes, indeed, they discover their mistake too late. Many barbarous races are in this condition. In their childishness they have engaged them |