The Council of Trent dealt with this question, accepting attritio as sufficient if accompanied by resolve to forego the sin and to do penance, but added that the contritio was higher.1 Now here again the Jesuits as the confessors of half of the Catholic world were deeply interested and again out of practical grounds took the more flexible rule. This was not because they were "laxer" as father confessors than others had been, but because they had greater need of elasticity in working an impossible position. They were becoming the confessors of the European courts and princes, and these had never been noted for any strict morality. Exactly the same reasons that controlled Luther and Melanchthon in their unfortunate advice to the elector controlled the individual Jesuits, and they were compelled to defend flexibility to make the system of authority work. That it involved theoretic laxity was inevitable, and that sooner or later the evil effects of this would appear is beyond dispute.

But when we turn to Jansenism all that is found is a stricter legalism, an unflinching application of an external morality. It was a Puritan, though individualistic Puritan, movement. The men and women of Port Royal bowed to authority and to the Pope, and although persuaded that Augustine taught a doctrine of grace very different from the semi-pelagianism of historic Roman Catholicism, they were as much afraid of Protestantism as the Jesuits themselves. One must have deep personal sympathy with the sufferings of the faithful few at Port Royal, and the intrigues of the Jesuits are exceedingly contemptible. But even the convinced Protestant must carry away the impression that, as a matter of papal imperial policy, the Jesuits were right and Port Royal was wrong.

1

Liguori is often confused with the Jesuits, and his rules and

1 Cf. 4 cap. of 14th Session, 1651, and the discussion of it in Döllinger, "Moralstreitigkeiten," p. 71.

"The best account is in the book already mentioned, Joh. Huber, "Der Jesuiten Orden," pp. 438-495. He was of the school of Döllinger, so stands between extreme views on either side.

'Alfonso Maria de Liguori (1696–1787) was the founder of the Redemptorists, who are often confused with the Jesuits. He was a most prolific writer, and the

his main interests closely coincide with those of the Society of Jesus. He began as a probabilist but ended as an aequi probabilist. His casuistry is open to all the objections that can be urged against a legal formal system stretched to try and meet actual life. He was himself forever tormented by scruples and the fear of offending, and as in all such cases tries to justify all manner of really immoral ways of escape from the letter of law. His tricks with Equivocatio and Restrictio mentalis are certainly demoralizing. Yet here again they are the outcome of the system, and it is hard to escape Liguori's conclusions starting with his assumptions. The outcome is hideous, it always must be. It was so in Christ's time and always will be. It is the bankruptcy of an external morality on the basis of outward authority.

The Council of Trent made no advances in systematic ethics, but simply fixed the discipline. The papacy has always been practical and political in its aims rather than theoretical or systematic. It reformed the Catholic system and made it at once more simple and more highly authoritative and centralized. The young Jesuit movement already made its devotion felt, and the new religious vigor of the great awakening found expression in a revived Catholicism. But it made no great contribution to the systematizing of ethics. It indeed regulated the discipline and carefully defined indulgence and sought to guard against abuses, but beyond that it did not go.

Thus in theory and in its teachings the ethics of Thomas Aquinas are the authorized statement of the Roman position.

cult of Mary was his special message. His "Gloria di Maria" ("Glories of Mary," many editions and translations) and his "Moralia Theologia" are still powerful books of propaganda. The best life is by Carl Dilgskron, “Leben des heiligen Bischofs und Kirchenlehrers Alfonsus Maria de Liguori," 2 vols., Regensburg, 1887. There are many Italian editions of his works and a new French edition ("Euvres completes du S. Alphonse Marie de Liguori. Traduites par les Peres L. Dujardin et Jules Jacques," Tournai, 1855 ff.; nouv. édit., 1895 ff.), and a German edition in 42 vols. (“Sämmtliche Werke von Alphonsus Maria von Liguori," Regensburg, 1842-1847). An English edition by R. A. Coffin, of which, however, only six volumes appeared, London, 1854-1868.

Nor did any philosophic system up to the time of Kant seem to make any impression upon the revived and invigorated Roman Catholic imperialism.

XI. THE ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM ON THE CONTINENT

The controversy between Arminius and the Calvinistic party was ethically singularly barren. Although in fact the heart of the question was the ethical character of God and his government, the dispute was carried on on scholastic lines, and dealt with the metaphysics and exegetical questions involved, without due consideration of the ethics. So that the protest of Arminius, like that of Socinus, with whom his opponents sought to identify him, never really gave ethics the help that discussion along more fruitful lines might have rendered. But one man came out from the Arminian ranks, or rather from the atmosphere which made Arminius possible, who did much to give ethics an independent place in human thinking.

Hugo Grotius is the real father of modern international ethics. But the basis of his international ethics is really pagan and not Christian. Not that he was not himself a most devout believer. On the contrary he, like Bacon, still attempted the

1 Grotius (or de Groot), Hugo (1583-1645), was alike scholar and statesman. He was condemned by Prince Maurice of Orange to life-long imprisonment, but escaped after two years, and, fleeing to Paris, became later the Swedish ambassador to France. Many editions of his works, and translations of his great work, "De jure belli ac pacis," libri tres, Paris, 1625; "The Illustrious Hugo Grotius of the Law of Warre and Peace; with Annotations, III Parts, and Memorials of the Author's Life and Death," translated by Clement Barksdale, 2 parts, London, 1654; "On the Rights of War and Peace: an Abridged Edition," translated by W. Whewell,” 1853; “Drei Bücher über das Recht des Krieges und Friedens," in Kirchmann's "Philosphische Bibliothek,” vols. XV and XVI, Berlin, 1868 8 sq. This and his "De Veritate Religionis Christianæ," Paris, 1627; editio novissima, 1669, many English translations and editions; "Truth of the Christian Religion, Literally Translated by T. Sedger," London, 2d ed., 1859, form our chief source for the ethics. His life has been written by Charles Butler (“The Life of Hugo Grotius; with Minutes of the Civil, Ecclesiastical and Literary History of the Netherlands," London, 1826), and a large literature concerning the legal aspects of his work exists.

impossible task of separating the fields of knowledge, and admitting the relative and progressive character of "secular" knowledge while still retaining the "absolute" character of knowledge that has been "revealed."

Thus Grotius has a threefold standard in ethics. There is first the law of nature,' which is fixed and quite unchangeable from the beginning of time, and then following Aristotle there is the given law, and then besides these there is the law of custom and habit. God's law is twofold. There is a general law given at creation, again at the flood, and then by the revelation of Jesus Christ. There is also a special law given only to the Jews and only binding upon them. From these complicated premises Grotius strives to build up an ethics that should have international sweep and validity. But in point of fact the foundation has to be laid in natural law (jus naturale) and never rises higher than the old Stoic ethics in its Roman dress. As the student reads the complicated argument of Grotius, wearisome in a degree from being overburdened by quotation after quotation from relevant and irrelevant authors, one is at first surprised at the place and influence assigned to the work. It never really rises higher than Roman Stoicism at its best, and is often on lower planes, as in the defence of private war. Then, however, there is forced upon us the historic significance of such an effort at a time when the old "imperium," whether ecclesiastical or military, had given way, and some basis had to be found for the existence side by side of independent national units. If ever the world sees a great federation of nations, as doubtless it will, men will look back upon Grotius as the historical student who first tried to construct an ethics for such a federation.

"Jus belli ac pacis,” Prol. 1.

2"Jus belli ac pacis," lib. I, cap. I, X: 1-7.

"Juris ita accepti optima partitio est, quæ apud Aristotelem exstat, ut fit aliud jus naturale, aliud voluntarium, quod ille legitimum vocat, legis vocabulo strictius posito: interdum et rò èv #íže, (sic) constitutum," "Jus belli ac pacis," lib. I, cap. I, IX: 2. "Jus belli ac pacis," Prol. I.

"Jus belli ac pacis," lib. I, cap. I, XV : 2, and XVII : 1-8. • "Jus belli ac pacis," lib. I, cap. III, § II.

There are ethical sections in his other best-known work, "De Veritate," in which Grotius attempts to define the relation of natural law to the Gospel and to revelation. And the outcome of his discussion is a real separation between "reason" and "revelation," and what Grotius did not really intend, an emphasis upon "reason" which makes all revelation superfluous.

The failure with Grotius as with all the seventeenth and eighteenth century men up to Kant is the unquestioned acceptance of a system of absolute truth on the basis of revelation, and of a world of perception apart from the mind perceiving. For Grotius the senses never really deceive the healthy mind, but there is an antinomy between "reason" and "revelation" which can only be solved by separating their spheres. And in this separation practically everything in which a healthy man is interested is relegated to the field of "reason," and religion is left to deal with questions of but very secondary importance. That such a rationalism should be religiously barren was no wonder, and not even the exceedingly religious cosmogonies of Descartes, Spinoza, or Leibnitz could give back again what religion thus lost.

The assumption by Descartes of a universal doubt, and then of a reconstruction on the basis of the assurance of personality

1 Lib. II, §§ XII-XVII, and lib. V, §§ VI-XIV.

2 "De Jure Belli ac Pacis," Prol. § XXXIX.

...

Descartes or Des Cartes, René (Renatus Cartesius), 1596-1650. Born at La Haye, Touraine, and of old noble family. The best edition of his works is that of Victor Cousin ("Œuvres . . . publieés par Victor Cousin,” 11 vols., Paris, 1824-1826), and the Latin edition ("R. Des Cartes Opera philosophica, Editio secunda ab Auctore recognita," Amsterdam, 1650). The best bibliography is that of the last edition of Ueberweg-Heinze, “Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie," theil 3, § XIII. The life has often been written; but one of the most lively and sympathetic summaries is that of Kuno Fischer's "Descartes' Leben, Werke und Lehre (Geschichte der neueren Philosophie Band I), Heidelberg, 1897, vierte neubearbeitete Auflage," pp. 149-272. English translation of 3d ed. by J. P. Gordy, London, 1887. Kuno Fischer has also admirably translated into German the chief philosophical works, "R. Descartes' Hauptschriften zur Grundlegung seiner Philosophie. Ins Deutsche übertragen und mit einem Vorwort versehen,” Mannheim and Darmstadt, 1863. English translation by J. Veith ("The Method, Meditations, and Selections from the Principles