IX. William George Ward

THE October number of the Dublin Revieiv cannot go forth without bearing on its foremost page a record of the lamented death of Mr. William George Ward.

The loss we have sustained by this event has been sensibly and widely shared, not by Catholics only, but by a multitude of personal friends, and by men of the most various minds, to whom, as a man of letters, he was intimately known. The discerning and generous articles of the Times and other journals, of the Spectator, the Saturday Review, and other similar critics, prove how his genial and attractive character, his spot less integrity of life and his great intellectual powers, had impressed his literary contemporaries with a sense of eminent worth.

If such was the recognition of the general loss which we have all sustained, what must be our consciousness of privation and of diminished resource which has fallen on the Dublin Review? What it owed tc him during the sixteen years in which he was not only editor but chief contributor, and what aid even after he had ceased to conduct it he still gave by a constant series of philosophical writings, is well known. And yet the importance of his work is perhaps fully known only to a few who were in immediate contact with him

VOL. in. n and with the Dublin Review. The great success of the first series of the Dublin Review, when it was sustained by the contributions of the illustrious group of men who surrounded the late Cardinal Wiseman in his early career, had, by the same order of time and nature by which we also are now deprived, begun to decline. In the year 1862 Cardinal Wiseman gave to me the legal proprietorship of the Dublin Review on the condition that I would insure its continuation. After certain preliminary endeavours, Mr. Ward accepted in full the responsibility of editor. He has stated that all articles passed under the judgment of three censors, who were charged to examine the bearing of them on faith, morals, and ecclesiastical prudence. From the time he undertook the office of editor he threw himself into it as the work and way in which as a layman he was to serve the Church. He devoted to it not only all his powers and studies, but large means for its support. It governed his time and his movements. He was wont to leave his home and to reside in London at the quarterly periods of publication. Everything gave way to the Dublin Review. His whole mind, ever active and watchful to note the intellectual needs and vicissitudes of Catholic opinion, found expression in its pages. Four times in every year, and in a wide field, he was able to speak. The fulness and energy of his mind and an unresting zeal for truth impelled him to be always on the alert in defending what is true, and in assailing what is at variance with the truth. This made it a necessity for him to have a ready outlet of his thoughts. Such during sixteen years was the second series of the Dublin Review. Perhaps the only contemporaneous example of the all but identity of an editor with his periodical is Brownson's Review. In both cases the power of mind in the editor impressed a dominant character upon the work. This fact may have made the Review less interesting to general readers, but it greatly increased its intrinsic value. If the articles were wanting in the play and lightness and variety required by ordinary readers, they were solid, grave, and of enduring importance. The second series of the Dublin Review did not rank among literary magazines, but it fairly won and kept its place among the weightier and more serious quarterly periodicals.

Since Mr. Ward laid down the office of editor, he published two volumes of articles selected from his contributions to the Revieiv. To the second of these, which is entitled " Essays on the Church's Doctrinal Authority, "he prefixed a preliminary essay, which may be described as an intellectual history and analysis of the sixteen years of his editorship. He has traced very accurately the condition of opinion and the tendency of thought among Catholics before the year 1862, and the successive controversies in which he was involved down to the year 1873. The whole essay is a summing-up of his own words and acts, and a calm and candid justification of the whole polemical attitude in which he habitually lived. It is, happily, no longer necessary to specify the subjects of the successive conflicts. But the cause of his anxiety may be better given in his own words than in any words of mine. At the close of his essay he thus writes:

" I just now said that I do not think that there-exists at this moment among English Catholics any such organised intellectual agitation as there was some sixteen years ago in favour of anti-Catholic doctrine. Yet they must always be exposed to considerable dangers of unconsciously imbibing such doctrine while they are circumstanced as at present. Such danger, I say, must always exist, so long as — instead of their living (as in olden time) under the Church's magisterial shelter— there exists that unreserved intercourse between them and non-Catholics which is an unhappy necessity of the time; and so long as they indulge the habit of freely and unsuspiciously familiarising themselves with non-Catholic literature, periodical or other. As the Month once happily expressed the matter, the * surges are sometimes considerable which rock the vessels riding in security within the shelter of a land locked harbour '—i.e. the Catholic Church—' while a violent storm rages without, fraught with danger to the rash and unfortunate mariners who are exposed to its fury on the open sea.' And very far more especially, more calamitously, will this be the case in regard to those vessels which do not avail themselves of the full shelter afforded by the innermost part of the harbour, but approach the extreme limit dividing it from the ocean itself. I think that, under the circumstances of modem society, it must always be important for Catho lics to be familiar with much of the ground covered by the following essays, and this is one of my various reasons for republishing them. No doubt I must have incidentally made many serious mistakes in them, both as regards theory, and, still more, the practical application of theory; though my conviction is certainly strong that the general principles which I have maintained are quite indubitably sound and Catholic. On all this, however, I unreservedly submit my own judgment to that of more learned and competent theo logians. Even if there were far more of error in what I have written than I believe there to have been, still, I hope I may say without presumption that I am confident I have done a really important service, were it only by pressing the questions on the attention of my •co-religionists.

" I must again express an apology to the reader for troubling him with so much reference to my own personal history. I can promise him, however, that nothing of the kind will be found in the essays which here follow, and which I once more submit to the judgment of Catholics."!

These words were indeed the last he ever wrote of himself. They seem to be a summing-up of his work and a bequest intrusted to us. They give a clear survey of the intellectual condition and dangers of Catholics in England. If, as he says, the condition has been changed in some things by the Vatican Council, the dangers are still around us, and are ever rising again in the midst of us. But this passage is especially valuable for another reason. No truer portrait of the man can be given than in this unconscious description of himself. He was supposed to be full of self-assertion and intolerance; exaggerated and extreme 1 " Preliminary Essay," pp. 41, 42, 43.

both in thought and language. Perhaps few men have ever been more docile to the Church, to traditionary judgments, and to the authority of theologians; few more fearful of novelties, of his own want of various learning, and of his liability to err.

It was with these dangers before him that Mr. Ward incessantly laboured in three distinct fields. First, in philosophy, without which the intellectual conception of theology can have no sound and precise foundation; secondly, in the relation between religion and politics, including the office of the Civil Power and the Civil Princedom of the Sovereign Pontiff; thirdly, on Catholic education, especially in its higher form. It would be impossible to give any adequate idea of these incessant labours without a history, which would fill volumes, and an analysis which would require a full statement of every thesis, together with the objections of opponents and the detailed answers to each. All that I can do is to give a catalogue of Mr. Ward's writings with the titles and dates. This list will be enough to show the minute and tenacious grasp of his mind. I omit the titles of works written before he submitted to the Catholic Church. They showed great power at an early age, but they belong to the history of his life. I give only those written by him in exposition or defence of the Catholic Faith; and especially his contributions to the Dublin Review, for it is to this I must confine what I say.

PUBLISHED WORKS BY DR. WARD.

(Excluding till the Theological Lectures at S. Edmund's on Nature and Grace, Attrition, iC-c. <£c.)

WORKS PUBLISHED SEPARATELY.

"Philosophical Introduction to Nature and Grace." Burns

" Authority of Doctrinal Decisions." Burns, l«(;r». " Essays, Devotional and Scriptural " (from Dublin Review}.

Burns & Gates, 1870. "NEssays on the Church's Doctrinal Authority." Burns &

Gates, 1880.

PAMPHLETS.

" Letters on the Anglican Establishment." Burns, 1852. " Relation of Intellectual Power to Man's True Perfection "

(Two Pamphlets). Burns, 1862. " Condemnation of Pope Honorius." Burns & Gates, 1879 or 1880. " Science, Prayer, Free Will, and Miracles." Burns, 1881.

Also Pamphlets on Attrition, " The Obdurate Sinner,"

" The Extent of Free Will," &c. (for private circulation).

ESSAYS IN " DUBLIN REVIEW." Philosophical.

July 1869 "Philosophical Axioms."

Oct. 1869 "Explicit and Implicit Thought."

April 1871 " Certitude in Religious Assent."

Oct. 1871 " Mill's Denial of Necessary Truth."

Jan. 1872 " Mill on the Foundation of Morality."

July 1873 " Mill's Reply to Dublin Review"

Jan. 1874 " Mill's Philosophical Position."

April 1874 " Mill's Denial of Free Will."

July 1874 " A Reply on Necessary Truth " (to Sir James

Stephen).

July 1874 " Appendix on Free Will."

July 1875 -" A Reply on Necessary Truth."

July 1876 " Mill on Causation."

Oct. 1878 " The Reasonable Basis of Certitude."

April 1879 " Free Will."

Oct. 1879 " Supplementary Remarks on Free Will."

Oct. 1880 " Mr. Shad worth Hodgson on Free Will."

July 1881 " Extent of Free

Jan. 1882 "[Philosophy of the Theistic Controversy."

On the Relations bettceen Relit/ion ami Politics.

July 1803 " Intrinsic End of Civil Government."

April 1*07 " Catholics and Tarty Politics."

July 1*72 " Priestliood at Irish Elections."

Oct. 1872 "The Priesthood in Irish Politics."

Jan. 1*73 " Irish Priests and Landlords."

Oct. 1874 " Sovereignty in Modem States " (the Comte de

Chambord).

Jan. 1*75 " Mr. Gladstone's Expostulation."

April 1*75 " Mr. Gladstone and his Catholic Critics."

July 1*75 " A Reply on Civil Sovereignty."

Jan. 1*70 " Fatlier O'Reilly on Society and the Church."

April 187 f> " Church and State."

July 1*70 " Professor Mivart on Liberty of Conscience."

Jan. 1*77 " Civil Intolerance of Religious Error."

Educational.

Oct. 1804 " University Education of Catholics."

July 1HOO " Irish Writers on University Education."

Jan. 1*09 " Principles of Catholic Higher Education."

July I860 " Misunderstandings on Higher Education."

Oct 1*73 " Father Newman on the Idea of a University."

Oct. 1874 " Infidelity of the Day and Higher Education."

April 17 " Catholic College Education in England."

July 1878 " Catholic College Education."

Oct. 1*79 " Catholic Colleges and Protestant Schools."

The Essays on the Council, the Extent of Infallibility, Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon, the Case of Galileo, the Project of Corporate Union, &c., as well as all the Devotional and Scriptural Essays, are contained in the three volumes of repuhlished essays already mentioned and referred to, together with the circumstances under which they were written in the respective prefaces to those volumes. There are, however, a few not included in his repuhlications; among them are the following, which he intended to publish under a slightly altered form, divested (in some cases) of the allusions to the special circumstances under which they written:

Oct. 18(53 " The Dogmatic Principle."

•Jan. 1804 " Theological Errors of the Day."

Oct. 1805 " Mr. Oxenham and the Dublin Review."

April 1867 " Mr. Ffoulkes on Divisions of Christendom."

July 1867 " Father Ryder and Dr. Ward " (and others on the same controversy in later numbers).

Jan. 1868 " Doctrinal Apostolic Letters."

Jan. 1868 "Archbishop Manning on the Centenary."

April 1868 " St. Leo's Dogmatic Letter."

July 1868 " Mr. Renouf on Pope Honorius."

Oct. 1868 " Father Botalla on Papal Supremacy."

Oct. 1868 "The Coming Council."

April 1869 " Catholic Controversies" (also Ffoulkes' Letter to

Archbishop Manning).

April 1870 " Janus and False Brethren."

Jan. 1871 " Definition of Papal Infallibility."

April 1875 " Fessler on Papal Infallibility."

April 1876 " Tradition and Papal Infallibility."

July 1876 " A Few more Words on Fessler."

April 1872 " Father Liberatore, Father Harper, and Lord R.

Montagu."

Oct 1875 " Father Newman on Ecclesiastical Prudence."

Also several Philosophical Papers in the Contemporary Review and Nineteenth Century on Necessary Truth, the Reasonable Basis of Certitude, the Relation of Religious Belief to Morality, the Soul and a Future Life. The passage quoted by Mr. Ward from the Month is an apt illustration of the intellectual position and the perils of Catholics in England. They are sheltered in the harbour, but the storm out at sea sends a swell within the port. It is impossible that Catholics should not be profoundly affected, and I may say infected, by the public opinion of our times. Another illustration may be given. The emancipation of Catholics in 1829 was the opening of the gates through which the Catho lics of England ent-ered upon the rapids of what men call Modern Thought. For three hundred years the Catholic remnant of England, with a rare and heroic constancy, had preserved not only the unity of the faith, hut the unity of the intellectual system on which the faith reposes. The theology of the Catholic Church has its precise intellectual system of philosophy in all the truths cognisable by the light of nature. Both unite in one intellectual system, coherent, and in perfect harmony with itself. In the three centuries of depression in England, Catholics were robbed of col leges and schools. The higher education of the laity and the education of the priesthood were obtained abroad. If the isolation of Catholics and their exile from the political and social life of the country narrowed their range of thought, it guarded with singular accuracy the unity of religious faith and the axioms and principles of Catholic life. No more beautiful Catholic homes ever existed; no more chivalrous Catholic lay men; no more devoted Catholic priests could be found than those who shone here and there in the gloom of our times of depression. The succession of centuries deepened and intensified the intelligent fidelity and the heroic perseverance of the men of those dark days. Not that there were wanting even then some of another spirit infected by the world and by the social atmo sphere, which they breathed too gladly. Witness the Cisalpine Club, the history of the Veto, and the period described in the life of Bishop Milner. Nevertheless, the Catholics of England were compact and firm as a phalanx in their faith, and in the principles which spring from faith and guard its integrity and its instincts. In these same centuries how fared it with the public mind or opinion of England? For three hundred years it has been hurrying down the rapids of " modern thought." The religious compromises of the sixteenth century and the dogmatism of the seventeenth were swept over the bar by the Eevolution of 1688, and have disappeared in the latitudinarianism which reigns absolute at this day. Upon this wide waste of un limited laxity in thought and practice the Catholics of England have been launched for half a century. It would be blindness not to see the danger. It would be self-deception to believe that we can resist this strong tide without the counter-effort and the resolute attitude of our forefathers. The special dangers that are upon us are 'worldliness, social ambition, impatience of re straint, a seeking of secular advantages at the known risk of Catholic faith and of fidelity to Catholic instincts; a belief, or a practice which implies the belief, that we can be Catholics and yet act as non-Catholics do; and, finally, that we may breathe the atmosphere of " modern thought " in society, literature, colleges, and schools without tainting the life-blood of faith. We do not indeed now find men calling themselves, or willing to be called, Liberal Catholics. The claim to be Catholic and to give away Catholic truth and principle is hardly now to be found. Till the Italian Revolution usurped Eome, and till the Vatican Council condemned Gallicanism, men freely uttered opinions and laid down principles of which they did not as yet see the end. They are at least silent now; and our danger is rather in the temptation to profess what is right, and to yield to what is wrong; to condemn Liberal Catholicism in words, but to be lax in practice. So long as the Catholics of England are a handful in the millions of our country there must ever be the danger of being acclimatised. The assimilating power of public opinion, of English life, and of national ism, which is strong in our race, will long be a subtil and powerful influence dangerous to the firmness and fidelity of English Catholics. So long as this danger is around us, the writings of William George Ward will stand as a witness and a guide. We cannot hope to see raised up again in our time an intellect of such power and clearness, disciplined with such mathematical exactness, with such logical completeness, so firm in its grasp of truth, and so extensive in its range of thought and perception. But we may all strive to be like him in his childlike piety, his zeal for truth, his impatience of all paltering with principle, his docility to the Catholic Church, aud his fearlessness in the declaration and the defence of all that the Supreme Pontiff, the Doctor of all Christians, has taught for our guidance.

These few and inadequate words are a poor tribute to the memory of a friend for whom I have cherished an affection of more than forty years, and of a man to whom the Church in England owes so large a debt of gratitude and of veneration for services which no one has surpassed. Nevertheless, to write them has been to me both a duty and a consolation.