PREFACE.

THE following essays and reviews are republished from Brownson's Quarterly Review. They have been subjected to a rigid revision, but are reproduced as originally published, excepting a few verbal corrections, the suppression of a few superfluous sentences, and the omission of some paragraphs which have lost their interest.

It is very possible that in selecting these articles for republication, I have not chosen those which the student of theology or philosophy would have recommended, nor even those which I myself regard as the least unworthy of my writings during the past seven or eight years; but essays of a somewhat abstruse and metaphysical nature, though they may be tolerated in a periodical where they appear along with others of a less unpopular cast, will hardly find in these times readers if published in a volume by themselves. I have selected such articles as have seemed to me best adapted to the tastes of the general reader, and the most likely to be useful to the public at large, whether Catholic or Protestant.

The reader must not expect too much from these articles, and must be content to take them for what they are,―simply articles originally written for a Quarterly Review. They are by no means separate and complete treatises on the several topics they discuss. But, if read in connection, in the order in which I have arranged them, they may, perhaps, be found to give a

tolerably full view of the argument for the Church and against Protestantism, of the origin and constitution of Government, the principles of Authority and Liberty, the sacredness of Law, the duty of Loyalty, and the madness and danger of modern Socialism.

If any one looks over this volume for something new, original, or striking he will, most likely, be disappointed. I have not labored to present novel or startling speculations on theology, philosophy, ethics, or politics, but simply to ascertain the principles and doctrines of the Church of God, and to apply them to the great practical questions of the day. My aim has been to bring up anew the old and too often forgotten truth, not to bring out a novel theory. From first to last I think and write as a man many centuries behind his age.

The articles before being printed in the Quarterly Review were submitted to the revision of a competent theologian, and I have no reason to suppose that they fontain anything not in accordance with Catholic faith and morals; but they are as a matter of course republished with submission to the proper authority, and I shall be most happy to correct any error of any sort they may contain the moment it is brought authoritatively to my notice. It is not my province to teach; all that I am free to do is to reproduce with scrupulous fidelity what I am taught.

Religion is for me the supreme law; it governs my politics, not my politics it. I never suffer myself to inquire whether such or such a religion favors or not such or such a political order; for if there is a conflict the political must yield to the religious. I therefore have not labored to show that the Church is favorable or unfavorable to monarchy, to aristocracy, or to democracy.

I do not find that she erects any particular

form of Government into an article of faith, the mouarchical no more than the democratic, the democratic no more than the monarchical. Any one of these particular forms may be legal government, and when and where it is the good Catholic is bound to support it, and forbidden to conspire to subvert it. The republican order is the legal order here, and I owe it civil obedience. I am the citizen of a republic, and therefore a republican citizen; I am a Catholic, therefore a loyal citizen, and no radical or revolutionist, either for my own country or any other.

My Catholic friends, who have been frequently disturbed by hearing it alleged that Catholicity is antirepublican and incompatible with popular institutions, will find no direct attempt to refute so silly, nay, so absurd an objection. I respect my religion, and even the great body of my own countrymen, too much to undertake to do that. But they will find that I have attempted, not unsuccessfully perhaps, to prove that without the Catholic religion it is impossible permanently to sustain popular institutions, or to secure their free and salutary operations. Indeed no form of government can be secure or operate well without the Church. Without Catholicity you can have, in principle at least, only despotism or anarchy. All that our countrymen find in our institutions has been adopted from England, and inherited from Catholic ancestors.

I seldom throw a sop to Cerberus. I have made no attempt to propitiate popular opinion by pandering to popular prejudice. I was not born to be a courtier, either of king or people. I seek to enlighten public opinion, not to echo it; and I always say, in a plain, straight forward way, what I am convinced ought to be said, leaving popularity or unpopularity to 'ook out for

itself. But if my language is free, bold, and some. times severe, I would fain hope that it is never inconsiderate, rash, or gratuitously offensive.

I shall be found to have seldom indulged in frothy declamations about liberty, the rights of man, and the dignity of human nature. There are enough others to do that. I assert my liberty in my practice; I exerse my rights as a man, and I aim to show my respect for the dignity of human nature in my deportment. Liberty is, no doubt, threatened in this country, but the danger comes chiefly from the side of license, and is best averted, not by common place declamations for the largest liberty, but by asserting and maintaining the supremacy of Law.

I have shown no sympathy with the various classes of fanatics with which the country teems,-philanthropists, reformers, as they call themselves. They have become as troublesome as the frogs of Egypt, and are far more dangerous. They strike at the root of all individual liberty and manly independence of character, and are doing their best to revive the absurd and despotic legislation of the early Colonial times of New England. Of Christian Charity, that supernatural virtue which loves God supremely and its neighbor as itself for God's sake, we cannot have too much; but of the whimpering sentiment of philanthropy, which an unbelieving age substitutes for it, and which is the love of all men in general and the hatred of every man in particular, unless a criminal, we cannot have too little. Charity redeems the world, and gives us a heaven on earth; philanthropy effects no good, and tramples down more good by the way in going to its object, than it could possibly effect in accomplishing it.

Whatever the imperfections of these articles, and