Chapter V: Part 5

On the other hand, Mandeville receives only a column and two-thirds. To begin with, he was of French parentage, and his philosophy (according to the _Britannica_) “has always been stigmatized as false, cynical and degrading.” He did not believe in the higher Presbyterian virtues, and read hypocrisy into the vaunted goodness of the English. Although in a history of modern philosophy he is deserving of nearly equal space with Butler, in the _Britannica_ he is given only a little over one-fifth of the space! Even David Hartley, the English physician who supplemented Hume’s theory of knowledge, is given nearly as much consideration as the “degrading” Mandeville. And Joseph Priestley, who merely popularized these theories, is given no less than two columns.

Let us turn now to what has been called the “philosophy of the enlightenment” in France and Germany, and we shall see the exquisite workings of British moral prejudice in all its purity. Voltaire, we learn, “was one of the most astonishing, if not exactly one of the more admirable, figures of letters.” He had “cleverness,” but not “genius”; and his great fault was an “inveterate superficiality.” Again: “Not the most elaborate work of Voltaire is of much value for matter.” (The biography, a derogatory and condescending one, is written by the eminent moralist, George Saintsbury.)

Condillac, who is given far less space than either Berkeley or Shaftesbury, only half of the space given Hutcheson, and only a little over one-third of the space given Joseph Butler, is set down as important for “having established systematically in France the principles of Locke.” But his “genius was not of the highest order”; and in his analysis of the mind “he missed out the active and spiritual side of human experience.” James Mill did not like him, and his method of imaginative reconstruction “was by no means suited to English ways of thinking.” This latter shortcoming no doubt accounts for the meagre and uncomplimentary treatment Condillac receives in the great British reference work which is devoted so earnestly to “English ways of thinking.”

Helvétius, whose theory of equality is closely related to Condillac’s doctrine of psychic passivity, is given even shorter shrift, receiving only a column and a third; and it is noted that “there is no doubt that his thinking was unsystematic.” Diderot, however, fares much better, receiving five columns of biography. But then, more and more “did Diderot turn for the hope of the race to virtue; in other words, to such a regulation of conduct and motive as shall make us tender, pitiful, simple, contented,”—an attitude eminently fitted to “English ways of thinking”! And Diderot’s one great literary passion, we learn, was Richardson, the English novelist.

La Mettrie, the atheist, who held no brief for the pious virtues or for the theological soul so beloved by the British, receives just half a column of biography in which the facts of his doctrine are set down more in sorrow than in anger. Von Holbach, the German-Parisian prophet of earthly happiness, who denied the existence of a deity and believed that the soul became extinct at physical death, receives only a little more space than La Mettrie—less than a column. But then, the uprightness of Von Holbach’s character “won the friendship of many to whom his philosophy was repugnant.”

Montesquieu, however, is given five columns with liberal praise—both space and eulogy being beyond his deserts. Perhaps an explanation of such generosity lies in this sentence which we quote from his biography: “It is not only that he is an Anglo-maniac, but that he is rather English than French in style and thought.”

Rousseau, on the other hand, possessed no such exalted qualities; and the biography of this great Frenchman is shorter than Adam Smith’s and only a little longer than that of the English divine, Joseph Butler! The _Britannica_ informs us that Rousseau’s moral character was weak and that he did not stand very high as a man. Furthermore, he was not a philosopher; the essence of his religion was sentimentalism; and during the last ten or fifteen years of his life he was not sane. If you wish to see how unjust and biased is this moral denunciation of Rousseau, turn to any unprejudiced history of philosophy, and compare the serious and lengthy consideration given him, with the consideration given the English moral thinkers who prove such great favorites with the _Britannica’s_ editors.

The German “philosophers of the enlightenment” are given even less consideration. Christian Wolff, whose philosophy admittedly held almost undisputed sway in Germany till eclipsed by Kantianism, receives only a column-and-a-half biography, only half the space given to Samuel Clarke, the English theological writer, and equal space with John Norris, the English philosophical divine, and with Arthur Collier, the English High Church theologian. Even Anthony Collins, the English deist, receives nearly as long a biography. Moses Mendelssohn draws only two and a half columns; Crusius, only half a column; Lambert, only a little over three-fourths of a column; Reimarus, only a column and a third, in which he is considered from the standpoint of the English deists; and Edelmann and Tetens have no biographies whatever!

Kant, as I have noted, receives less biographical space than Isaac Newton, and only about a fifth more space than does either John Locke or Hume. It is unnecessary to indicate here the prejudice shown by these comparisons. Every one is cognizant of Kant’s tremendous importance in the history of thought, and knows what relative consideration should be given him in a work like the _Britannica_. Hamann, “the wise man of the North,” who was the foremost of Kant’s opponents, receives only a column-and-a-quarter biography, in which he is denounced. His writings, to one not acquainted with the man, must be “entirely unintelligible and, from their peculiar, pietistic tone and scriptural jargon, probably offensive.” And he expressed himself in “uncouth, barbarous fashion.” Herder, however, another and lesser opponent of Kantianism, receives four and a half columns. Jacobi receives three; Reinhold, half a column; Maimon, two-thirds of a column; and Schiller, four and a half columns. Compare these allotments of space with: Thomas Hill Green, the English neo-Kantian, two and two-thirds columns; Richard Price, a column and three-fourths; Martineau, the English philosophic divine, five columns; Ralph Cudworth, two columns; and Joseph Butler, six and a half columns!

In the treatment of German philosophic romanticism the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is curiously prejudiced. The particular philosophers of this school—especially the ones with speculative systems—who had a deep and wide influence on English thought, are treated with adequate liberality. But the later idealistic thinkers, who substituted criticism for speculation, receive scant attention, and in several instances are omitted entirely. For English readers such a disproportioned and purely national attitude may be adequate, since England’s intellectualism is, in the main, insular. But, it must be remembered, the _Britannica_ has assumed the character of an American institution; and, to date, this country has not quite reached that state of British complacency where it chooses to ignore _all_ information save that which is narrowly relative to English culture. Some of us are still un-British enough to want an encyclopædia of universal information. The _Britannica_ is not such a reference work, and the manner in which it deals with the romantic philosophers furnishes ample substantiation of this fact.

Fichte, for instance, whose philosophy embodies a moral idealism eminently acceptable to “English ways of thinking,” receives seven columns of biography. Schelling, whose ideas were tainted with mythical mysticism, but who was not an evolutionist in the modern sense of the word, receives five columns. Hegel, who was, in a sense, the great English philosophical idol and whose doctrines had a greater influence in Great Britain than those of any other thinker, is given no less than fifteen columns, twice the space that is given to Rousseau, and five-sixths of the space that is given to Kant! Even Schleiermacher is given almost equal space with Rousseau, and his philosophy is interpreted as an effort “to reconcile science and philosophy with religion and theology, and the modern world with the Christian church.” Also, the focus of his thought, culture and life, we are told, “was religion and theology.”

Schopenhauer is one of the few foreign philosophers who receive adequate treatment in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. But Boström, in whose works the romantic school attained its systematic culmination, receives just twenty-four lines, less space than is devoted to Abraham Tucker, the English moralist, or to Garth Wilkinson, the English Swedenborgian; and about the same amount of space as is given to John Morell, the English Congregationalist minister who turned philosopher. And Frederick Christian Sibbern receives no biography whatever!

Kierkegaard, whose influence in the North has been profound, receives only half a column, equal space with Andrew Baxter, the feeble Scottish metaphysician; and only half the space given to Thomas Brown, another Scotch “philosopher.” Fries who, with Herbart, was the forerunner of modern psychology and one of the leading representatives of the critical philosophy, is given just one column; but Beneke, a follower of Fries, who approached more closely to the English school, is allotted twice the amount of space that Fries receives.

The four men who marked the dissolution of the Hegelian school—Krause, Weisse, I. H. Fichte and Feuerbach—receive as the sum total of all their biographies less space than is given to the English divine, James Martineau, or to Francis Hutcheson. (In combating Hegelianism these four thinkers invaded the precincts of British admiration.) In the one-column biography of Krause we are told that the spirit of his thought is difficult to follow and that his terminology is artificial. Weisse receives only twenty-three lines; and I. H. Fichte, the son of J. G. Fichte, receives only two-thirds of a column. Feuerbach, who marked the transition between romanticism and positivism and who accordingly holds an important position in the evolution of modern thought, is accorded a biography of a column and a half, shorter than that of Richard Price. Feuerbach, however, unlike Price, was an anti-theological philosopher, and is severely criticised for his spiritual shortcomings.

Let us glance quickly at the important philosophers of positivism as represented in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. At the end of the seventeenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth centuries the principal French philosophers representative of schools were de Maistre, Maine de Biran, Ampère, Saint-Simon and Victor Cousin. De Maistre, the most important philosopher of the principle of authority, is given a biography of a column and a third, is highly praised for his ecclesiasticism, and is permitted to be ranked with Hobbes. Maine de Biran receives a little over a column; Ampère, less than a column; and Saint-Simon, two and a third columns.

Victor Cousin is given the astonishing amount of space of eleven columns; but just why he should have been treated in this extravagant manner is not clear, for we are told that his search for principles was not profound and that he “left no distinctive, permanent principles of philosophy.” Nor does it seem possible that he should draw nearly as much space as Rousseau and Montesquieu combined simply because he left behind interesting analyses and expositions of the work of Locke and the Scottish philosophers. Even Comte is given only four and a half columns more.

The English philosophers of the nineteenth century before John Stuart Mill are awarded space far in excess of their importance, comparatively speaking. For instance, James Mill receives two columns of biography; Coleridge, who “did much to deepen and liberalize Christian thought in England,” five and three-fourths columns; Carlyle, nine and two-thirds columns; William Hamilton, two and three-fourths columns; Henry Mansel, a disciple of Hamilton’s, two-thirds of a column; Whewell, over a column; and Bentham, over three and a half columns.

Bentham’s doctrines “have become so far part of the common thought of the time, that there is hardly an educated man who does not accept as too clear for argument truths which were invisible till Bentham pointed them out.... The services rendered by Bentham to the world would not, however, be exhausted even by the practical adoption of every one of his recommendations. There are no limits to the good results of his introduction of a true method of reasoning into the moral and political sciences.” John Stuart Mill, whose philosophy is “generally spoken of as being typically English,” receives nine and a half columns; Charles Darwin, seven columns; and Herbert Spencer, over five.

Positivism in Germany is represented by Dühring in a biography which is only three-fourths of a column in length—an article which is merely an attack, both personal and general. “His patriotism,” we learn, “is fervent, but narrow and exclusive.” (Dühring idolized Frederick the Great.) Ardigò, the important Italian positivist, receives no mention whatever in the Encyclopædia, although in almost any adequate history of modern philosophy, even a brief one, you will find a discussion of his work.

With the exception of Lotze, the philosophers of the new idealism receive scant treatment in the _Britannica_. Hartmann and Fechner are accorded only one column each; and Wilhelm Wundt, whose æsthetic and psychological researches outstrip even his significant philosophical work, is accorded only half a column! Francis Herbert Bradley has no biography—a curious oversight, since he is English; and Fouillée receives only a little over half a column.

The most inadequate and prejudiced treatment in the _Britannica_ of any modern philosopher is to be found in the biography of Nietzsche, which is briefer than Mrs. Humphry Ward’s! Not only is Nietzsche accorded less space than is given to such British philosophical writers as Dugald Stewart, Henry Sidgwick, Richard Price, John Norris, Thomas Hill Green, James Frederick Ferrier, Adam Ferguson, Ralph Cudworth, Anthony Collins, Arthur Collier, Samuel Clarke and Alexander Bain—an absurd and stupid piece of narrow provincial prejudice—but the biography itself is superficial and inaccurate. The supposed doctrine of Nietzsche is here used to expose the personal opinions of the tutor of Corpus Christi College who was assigned the task of interpreting Nietzsche to the readers of the _Britannica_. It would be impossible to gather any clear or adequate idea of Nietzsche and his work from this biased and moral source. Here middle-class British insularity reaches its high-water mark.

Other important modern thinkers, however, are given but little better treatment. Lange receives only three-fourths of a column; Paulsen, less than half a column; Ernst Mach, only seventeen lines; Eucken, only twenty-eight lines, with a list of his works; and Renouvier, two-thirds of a column. J. C. Maxwell, though, the Cambridge professor, gets two columns—twice the space given Nietzsche!

In the biography of William James we discern once more the contempt which England has for this country. Here is a man whose importance is unquestioned even in Europe, and who stands out as one of the significant figures in modern thought; yet the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, that “supreme book of knowledge,” gives him a biography of just twenty-eight lines! And it is Americans who are furnishing the profits for this English reference work!

Perhaps the British editors of this encyclopædia think that we should feel greatly complimented at having William James admitted at all when so many other important moderns of Germany and France and America are excluded. But so long as unimportant English philosophical writers are given biographies, we have a right to expect, in a work which calls itself an “international dictionary of biography,” the adequate inclusion of the more deserving philosophers of other nations.

But what do we actually find? You may hunt the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ through, yet you will not see the names of John Dewey and Stanley Hall mentioned! John Dewey, an American, is perhaps the world’s leading authority on the philosophy of education; but the British editors of the Encyclopædia do not consider him worth noting, even in a casual way. Furthermore, Stanley Hall, another American, who stands in the front rank of the world’s genetic psychologists, is not so much as mentioned. And yet Hall’s great work, _Adolescence_, appeared five years before the _Britannica_ went to press! Nor has Josiah Royce a biography, despite the fact that he was one of the leaders in the philosophical thought of America, and was even made an LL.D. by Aberdeen University in 1900. These omissions furnish excellent examples of the kind of broad and universal culture which is supposed to be embodied in the _Britannica_.

But these are by no means all the omissions of the world’s important modern thinkers. Incredible as it may seem, there is no biography of Hermann Cohen, who elaborated the rationalistic elements in Kant’s philosophy; of Alois Riehl, the positivist neo-Kantian; of Windelband and Rickert, whose contributions to the theory of eternal values in criticism are of decided significance to-day; of Freud, a man who has revolutionized modern psychology and philosophic determinism; of Amiel Boutroux, the modern French philosopher of discontinuity; of Henri Bergson, whose influence and popularity need no exposition here; of Guyau, one of the most effective critics of English utilitarianism and evolutionism; or of Jung.

When we add Roberto Ardigò, Weininger, Edelmann, Tetans, and Sibbern to this list of philosophic and psychologic writers who are not considered of sufficient importance to receive biographical mention in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, we have, at a glance, the prejudicial inadequacy and incompleteness of this “great” English reference work. Nor can any excuse be offered that the works of these men appeared after the _Britannica_ was printed. At the time it went to press even the most modern of these writers held a position of sufficient significance or note to have been included.

In closing, and by way of contrast, let me set down some of the modern British philosophical writers who are given liberal biographies; Robert Adamson, the Scottish critical historian of philosophy; Alexander Bain; Edward and John Caird, Scottish philosophic divines; Harry Calderwood, whose work was based on the contention that fate implies knowledge and on the doctrine of divine sanction; David George Ritchie, an unimportant Scotch thinker; Henry Sidgwick, an orthodox religionist and one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research; James H. Stirling, an expounder of Hegel and Kant; William Wallace, an interpreter of Hegel; and Garth Wilkinson, the Swedenborgian homeopath.

Such is the brief record of the manner in which the world’s modern philosophers are treated in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. From this work hundreds of thousands of Americans are garnering their educational ideas.

XI

RELIGION

Throughout several of the foregoing chapters I have laid considerable emphasis on the narrow parochial attitude of the _Britannica’s_ editors and on the constant intrusion of England’s middle-class Presbyterianism into nearly every branch of æsthetics. The _Britannica_, far from being the objective and unbiased work it claims to be, assumes a personal and prejudiced attitude, and the culture of the world is colored and tinctured by that viewpoint. It would appear self-obvious to say that the subject of religion in any encyclopædia whose aim is to be universal, should be limited to the articles on religious matters. But in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ this is not the case. As I have shown, those great artists and thinkers who do not fall within the range of _bourgeois_ England’s suburban morality, are neglected, disparaged, or omitted entirely.

Not only patriotic prejudice, but evangelical prejudice as well, characterizes this encyclopædia’s treatment of the world’s great achievements; and nowhere does this latter bias exhibit itself more unmistakably than in the articles relating to Catholicism. The trickery, the manifest ignorance, the contemptuous arrogance, the inaccuracies, the venom, and the half-truths which are encountered in the discussion of the Catholic Church and its history almost pass the bounds of credibility. The wanton prejudice exhibited in this department of the _Britannica_ cannot fail to find resentment even in non-Catholics, like myself; and for scholars, either in or out of the Church, this encyclopædia, as a source of information, is not only worthless but grossly misleading.

The true facts relating to the inclusion of this encyclopædia’s article on Catholicism, as showing the arrogant and unscholarly attitude of the editors, are as interesting to those outside of the Church as to Catholics themselves. And it is for the reason that these articles are typical of a great many of the Encyclopædia’s discussions of culture in general that I call attention both to the misinformation contained in them and to the amazing refusal of the _Britannica’s_ editors to correct the errors when called to their attention at a time when correction was possible. The treatment of the Catholic Church by the _Britannica_ is quite in keeping with its treatment of other important subjects, and it emphasizes, perhaps better than any other topic, not only the Encyclopædia’s petty bias and incompleteness, but the indefensible and mendacious advertising by which this set of books was foisted upon the American public. And it also gives direct and irrefutable substantiation to my accusation that the spirit of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is closely allied to the provincial religious doctrines of the British _bourgeoisie_; and that therefore it is a work of the most questionable value.

Over five years ago T. J. Campbell, S. J., in _The Catholic Mind_, wrote an article entitled _The Truth About the Encyclopædia Britannica_—an article which, from the standpoint of an authority, exposed the utter unreliability of this Encyclopædia’s discussion of Catholicism. The article is too long to quote here, but enough of it will be given to reveal the inadequacy of the _Britannica_ as a source of accurate information. “The _Encyclopædia Britannica_,” the article begins, “has taken an unfair advantage of the public. By issuing all its volumes simultaneously it prevented any protests against misstatements until the whole harm was done. Henceforth prudent people will be less eager to put faith in prospectuses and promises. The volumes were delivered in two installments a couple of months apart. The article _Catholic Church_, in which the animus of the Encyclopædia might have been detected, should naturally have been in the first set. It was adroitly relegated to the end of the second set, under the caption _Roman Catholic Church_.

“It had been intimated to us that the Encyclopædia’s account of the Jesuits was particularly offensive. That is our excuse for considering it first. Turning to it we found that the same old battered scarecrow had been set up. The article covers ten and a half large, double-columned, closely-printed pages, and requires more than an hour in its perusal. After reading it two or three times we closed the book with amazement, not at the calumnies with which the article teems and to which custom has made us callous, but at the lack of good judgment, of accurate scholarship, of common information, and business tact which it reveals in those who are responsible for its publication.

“It ought to be supposed that the subscribers to this costly encyclopædia had a right to expect in the discussion of all the questions presented an absolute or quasi-absolute freedom from partisan bias, a sincere and genuine presentation of all the results of the most modern research, a positive exclusion of all second-hand and discredited matter, and a scrupulous adherence to historical truth. In the article in question all these essential conditions are woefully lacking.

“Encyclopædias of any pretence take especial pride in the perfection and completeness of their bibliographies. It is a stamp of scholarship and a guarantee of the thoroughness and reliability of the article, which is supposed to be an extract and a digest of all that has been said or written on the subject. The bibliography annexed to the article on the _Jesuits_, is not only deplorably meagre, but hopelessly antiquated. Thus, for instance, only three works of the present century are quoted; one of them apparently for no reason whatever, viz.: _The History of the Jesuits of North America_, in three volumes, by Thomas Hughes, S. J., for, as far as we are able to see, the Encyclopædia article makes no mention of their being with Lord Baltimore in Maryland, or of the preceding troubles of the Jesuits in England, which were considered important enough for a monumental work, but evidently not for a compiler of the Encyclopædia. Again, the nine words, ‘laboring amongst the Hurons and Iroquois of North America,’ form the sum total of all the information vouchsafed us about the great missions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though we are referred to the seventy-three volumes of Thwaites’ edition of the _Jesuits Relations_. Had the author or editor even glanced at these books he might have seen that besides the Huron and Iroquois missions, which were very brief in point of time and very restricted in their territorial limitations, the Jesuit missions with the Algonquins extended from Newfoundland to Alaska, and are still continued; he would have found that most of the ethnological, religious, linguistic and geographical knowledge we have of aboriginal North America comes from those _Jesuit Relations_; and possibly without much research the sluggish reader would have met with a certain inconspicuous Marquette; but as Englishmen, up to the Civil War, are said to have imagined that the Mississippi was the dividing line between the North and South, the value of the epoch-making discovery of the great river never entered this slow foreigner’s mind. Nor is there any reference to the gigantic labors of the Jesuits in Mexico; but perhaps Mexico is not considered to be in North America.

“Nor is there in this bibliography any mention of the _Monumenta Historica Societatis Jesu_, nor of the _Monumenta Pædagogica_, nor is there any allusion to the great and learned works of Duhr, Tacchi-Venturi, Fouqueray, and Kroes, which have just been published and are mines of information on the history of the Society in Spain, Germany, Italy and France; and although we are told of the _Historia Societatis Jesu_ by Orlandini, which bears the very remote imprint of 1620, is very difficult to obtain, and covers a very restricted period, there is apparently no knowledge of the classic work of Jouvency, nor is Sacchini cited, nor Polanco. The _Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus_, by De Backer, not ‘Backer,’ as the Encyclopædia has it, is listed; but it is simply shocking to find that there was no knowledge of Sommervogel, who is the continuator of De Backer, and who has left us a most scholarly and splendid work which is brought down to our own times, and for which De Backer’s, notable though it be, was only a preparation. In brief, the bibliography is absolutely worthless, not only for a scholar, but even for the average reader.

“On the other hand it is quite in keeping with the character of the writers who were chosen for the article. The New York _Evening Post_ informs us that before 1880, when a search for a suitable scribe for the Jesuit article was instituted, some one started on a hunt for Cardinal Newman, but the great man had no time. Then he thought of Manning, who, of course, declined, and finally knowing no other ‘Jesuit’ he gave the work to Littledale. Littledale, as everyone knows, was an Anglican minister, notorious not only for his antagonism to the Jesuits, but also to the Catholic Church. He gladly addressed himself to the task, and forthwith informed the world that ‘the Jesuits controlled the policy of Spain’; that ‘it was a matter of common knowledge that they kindled the Franco-Prussian war of 1870’; that ‘Pope Julius II dispensed the Father General from his vow of poverty,’ though that warrior Pope expired eight years before Ignatius sought the solitude of Manresa, and had as yet no idea of a Society of Jesus; again, that ‘the Jesuits from the beginning never obeyed the Pope’; that ‘in their moral teaching they can attenuate and even defend any kind of sin’; and, finally, not to be too prolix in this list of absurdities, that, prior to the Vatican Council, ‘they had filled up all the sees of Latin Christendom with bishops of their own selection.’

“It is true that only the last mentioned charge appears in the present edition, and it is a fortunate concession for Littledale’s suffering victims; for if ‘there are no great intellects among the Jesuits,’ and if they are only a set of ‘respectable mediocrities,’ as this ‘revised’ article tells us, they can point with pride to this feat which makes a dozen Franco-Prussian wars pale into insignificance alongside it. We doubt, however, if the 700 prelates who sat in the Vatican Council would accept that explanation of their promotion in the prelacy; and we feel certain that Cardinal Manning, who was one of the great figures in that assembly, would resent it, at least if it be true, as the Encyclopædia assures us, that he considered the suppression of the Society in 1773 to be the work of God, and was sure that another 1773 was coming.

“The wonder is that a writer who can be guilty of such absurdities should, after twenty years, be summoned from the dead as a witness to anything at all. But on the other hand it is not surprising when we see that the Rev. Ethelred Taunton, who is also dead and buried, should be made his yoke-fellow in ploughing over this old field, to sow again these poisonous weeds. There are many post-mortems in the Encyclopædia. Had the careless editors of the Encyclopædia consulted Usher’s _Reconstruction of the English Church_, they would have found Taunton described as an author ‘who makes considerable parade of the amount of his research, but has not gone very far and has added little, if anything, to what we knew before. As a whole, his book on _The History of the Jesuits in England_ is uncritical and prejudiced.’

“Such is the authority the Encyclopædia appeals to for information. That is bad enough, but in the list of authors Taunton is actually described as a ‘Jesuit.’ Possibly it is one of the punishments the Almighty has meted out to him for his misuse of the pen while on earth. But he never did half the harm to the Jesuits by his ill-natured assaults as he has to the Encyclopædia in being mistaken for an ‘S. J.’; for although there are some people who will believe anything an encyclopædia tells them, there are others who are not so meek and who will be moved to inquire how, if the editor of this publication is so lamentably ignorant of the personality and antecedents of his contributors, he can vouch for the reliability of what newspaper men very properly call the stuff that comes into the office. We are not told who revised the writings of those two dead men, one of whom departed this life twenty, the other four years ago; and we have to be satisfied with a posthumous and prejudiced and partly anonymous account of a great Order, about which many important books have been written since the demise of the original calumniators, and with which apparently the unknown reviser is unacquainted.

“It may interest the public to know that many of these errors were pointed out to the managers of the Encyclopædia at their New York office when the matter was still in page proof and could have been corrected. Evidently it was not thought worth while to pay any attention to the protest.

“It is true that in the minds of some of their enemies, especially in certain parts of the habitable globe, Catholics have no right to resent anything that is said of their practices and beliefs, no matter how false or grotesque such statements may be; and, consequently, we are not surprised at the assumption by the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ of its usual contemptuous attitude. Thus, for instance, on turning to the articles _Casuistry_ and _Roman Catholic Church_ we find them signed ‘St. C.’ Naturally and supernaturally to be under the guidance of a Saint C. or a Saint D. always inspires confidence in a Catholic; but this ‘St. C.’ turns out to be only the Viscount St. Cyres, a scion of the noble house of Sir Stafford Northcote, the one time leader of the House of Commons, who died in 1887. In the Viscount’s ancestral tree we notice that Sir Henry Stafford Northcote, first Baronet, has appended to his name the title ‘Prov. Master of Devonshire Freemasons.’ What ‘Prov.’ means we do not know, but we are satisfied with the remaining part of the description. The Viscount was educated at Eton, and Merton College, Oxford. He is a layman and a clubman, and as far as we know is not suspected of being a Catholic. A search in the ‘Who’s Who?’ failed to reveal anything on that point, though a glance at the articles over his name will dispense us from any worry about his religious status.

“We naturally ask why he should have been chosen to enlighten the world on Catholic topics? ‘Because,’ says the editor of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, ‘the Viscount St. Cyres has probably more knowledge of the development of theology in the Roman Catholic Church than any other person in that Church.’

“The Church was unaware that it had at its disposal such a source of information. It will be news to many, but we are inclined to ask how the Viscount acquired that marvelous knowledge. It would require a life-long absorption in the study of divinity quite incompatible with the social duties of one of his station. Furthermore, we should like to know whence comes the competency of the editor to decide on the ability of the Viscount, and to pass judgment on the correctness of his contribution? That also supposes an adequate knowledge of all that the dogmatic, moral and mystic theologians ever wrote, a life-long training in the language and methods of the science, and a special intellectual aptitude to comprehend the sublime speculations of the Church’s divines.

“It will not be unkind to deny him such qualifications, especially now, for did he not tell his friends at the London banquet: ‘During all these (seven) years I have been busy in the blacksmith’s shop (of the editor’s room) and I do not hear the noise that is made by the hammers all around me’—nor, it might be added, does he hear what is going on outside the _Britannica’s_ forge.

“Meantime, we bespeak the attention of all the Catholic theologians in every part of the world to the preposterous invitation to come to hear the last word about ‘the development of theology’ in the Catholic Church from a scholar whose claim to theological distinction is that ‘he has written about Fénélon and Pascal.’ The _Britannica_ shows scant respect to Catholic scholarship and Catholic intelligence.”

Father Campbell then devotes several pages to a specific indictment of the misstatements and the glaring errors to be found in several of the articles relating to the Catholic Church. He quotes eight instances of St. Cyres’ inaccurate and personal accusations, and also many passages from the articles on _Papacy_, _Celibacy_ and _St. Catherine of Siena_—passages which show the low and biased standard of scholarship by which they were written. The injustice contained in them is obvious even to a superficial student of history. At the close of these quotations he accuses the _Britannica_ of being neither up-to-date, fair, nor well-informed. “It repeats old calumnies that have been a thousand times refuted, and it persistently selects the Church’s enemies who hold her up to ridicule and contempt. We are sorry for those who have been lavish in their praises of a book which is so defective, so prejudiced, so misleading and so insulting.”

It seems that while the _Britannica’s_ contributions to the general misinformation of the world were being discussed, the editor wrote to one of his subscribers saying that the Catholics were very much vexed because the article on the Jesuits was not “sufficiently eulogistic.”

“He is evidently unaware,” Father Campbell goes on to comment, “that the Society of Jesus is sufficiently known both in the Church and the world not to need a monument in the graveyard of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. Not the humblest Brother in the Order expected anything but calumny and abuse when he saw appended to the article the initials of the well-known assassins of the Society’s reputation. Not one was surprised, much less displeased, at the absence of eulogy, sufficient or otherwise; but, on the contrary, they were all amazed to find the loudly trumpeted commercial enterprise, which had been so persistently clamorous of its possession of the most recent results of research in every department of learning, endeavoring to palm off on the public such shopworn travesties of historical and religious truth. The editor is mistaken if he thinks they pouted. Old and scarred veterans are averse to being patted on the back by their enemies.

“It is not, however, the ill-judged gibe that compels us to revert to the Society, as much as the suspicion that the editor of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ seems to fancy that we had nothing to say beyond calling attention to his dilapidated bibliography, which he labels with the very offensive title of ‘the bibliography of _Jesuitism_’—a term which is as incorrect as it is insulting—or that we merely objected to the employment of two dead and discredited witnesses to tell the world what kind of an organization the Society is.

“It may be, moreover, that we misjudged a certain portion of the reading public in treating the subject so lightly, and as the Encyclopædia is continually reiterating the assertion that it has no ‘bias’ and that its statement of facts is purely ‘objective,’ a few concrete examples of the opposite kind of treatment—the one commonly employed—may not be out of place.

“We are told, for instance, that ‘the Jesuits had their share, direct or indirect, in the embroiling of States, in concocting conspiracies and in kindling wars. They were responsible by their theoretical teachings in theological schools for not a few assassinations’ (340). ‘They powerfully aided the revolution which placed the Duke of Braganza on the throne of Portugal, and their services were rewarded with the practical control of ecclesiastical and almost civil affairs in that kingdom for nearly one hundred years’ (344). ‘Their war against the Jansenists did not cease till the very walls of Port Royal were demolished in 1710, even to the very abbey church itself, and the bodies of the dead taken with every mark of insult from their graves and literally flung to the dogs to devour’ (345). ‘In Japan the Jesuits died with their converts bravely as martyrs to the Faith, yet it is impossible to acquit them of a large share of the causes of that overthrow’ (345). ‘It was about the same time that the grave scandal of the Chinese and Malabar rites began to attract attention in Europe and to make thinking men ask seriously whether the Jesuit missionaries in those parts taught anything which could fairly be called Christianity at all’ (348). ‘The political schemings of Parsons in England was an object lesson to the rest of Europe of a restless ambition and a lust of domination which were to find many imitators’ (348). ‘The General of the Order drove away six thousand exiled Jesuit priests from the coast of Italy, and made them pass several months of suffering on crowded vessels at sea to increase public sympathy, but the actual result was blame for the cruelty with which he had enhanced their misfortunes’ (346). ‘Clement XIV, who suppressed them, is said to have died of poison, but Tanucci and two others entirely acquit the Jesuits.’ ‘They are accountable in no small degree in France, as in England, for alienating the minds of men from the religion for which they professed to work’ (345).

“Very little of this can be characterized as ‘eulogistic,’ especially as interwoven in the story are malignant insinuations, incomplete and distorted statements, suppressions of truth, gross errors of fact, and a continual injection of personal venom which makes the argument not an ‘unbiased and objective presentment’ of the case, but the plea of a prejudiced prosecuting and persecuting attorney endeavoring by false testimony to convict before the bar of public opinion an alleged culprit, whose destruction he is trying to accomplish with an uncanny sort of delight.”

After having adduced a long list of instances which “reveal the rancor and ignorance of many of the writers hired by the Encyclopædia,” the article then points out “the fundamental untruthfulness” on which the _Britannica_ is built. In a letter written by the Encyclopædia’s editor appears the following specious explanation: “Extreme care was taken by the editors, and especially by the editor responsible for the theological side of the work, that every subject, either directly or indirectly concerned with religion, should as far as possible be objective and not subjective in _their_ presentation. The majority of the articles on the various Churches and their beliefs were written by members within the several communions, and, if not so written, were submitted to those most competent to judge, for criticism and, if need be, correction.”

Father Campbell in his answer to this letter says: “Without animadverting on the peculiar use of the English language by the learned English editor who tells us that ‘_every_ subject’ should be ‘objective’ in _their_ presentation, we do not hesitate to challenge absolutely the assertion that ‘the majority of the articles on the various Churches were written by members within the several communions, and if not so written were submitted to those most competent to judge, for criticism and, if need be, for correction.’ Such a pretence is simply amazing, and thoroughly perplexed, we asked: What are we supposed to understand when we are informed that ‘the _majority_ of the articles on the various Churches and their beliefs were written by members within the several communions’?

“Was the article on _The Roman Catholic Church_ written by a Catholic? Was the individual who accumulated and put into print all those vile aspersions on the Popes, the saints, the sacraments, the doctrines of the Church, a Catholic? Were the other articles on _Casuistry_, _Celibacy_, _St. Catherine of Siena_, and _Mary_, the mother of Jesus, written by a Catholic? The supposition is simply inconceivable, and it calls for more than the unlimited assurance of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ to compel us to accept it.

“But ‘they were submitted to the most competent judge for criticism and, if need be, correction.’ Were they submitted to any judge at all, or to any man of sense, before they were sent off to be printed and scattered throughout the English speaking world? Is it permissible to imagine for a moment that any Catholic could have read some of those pages and not have been filled with horror at the multiplied and studied insults to everything he holds most sacred in his religion? Or did ‘the editor responsible for the theological side of the work’ reserve for himself the right to reject or accept whatever recommended itself to his superior judgment?”

The article then points out that “far from being just to Catholics, the _Britannica_ pointedly and persistently discriminated against them.” The article on the Episcopalians was assigned to the Rev. Dr. D. D. Addison, Rector of All Saints, Brookline, Mass.; that on Methodists to the Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley, Editor of the _Christian Advocate_, New York; that on the Baptists to the Rev. Newton Herbert Marshall, Baptist Church, Hampstead, England; that on the Jews to Israel Abrahams, formerly President of the Jewish Historical Society and now Reader on Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature in Cambridge, and so on for the Presbyterians, Unitarians, Lutherans, etc. But in the case of the Catholic Church not only its history but its theology was given to a critic who was neither a theologian, nor a cleric, nor even a Catholic, and who, as Father Campbell notes, is not known outside of his little London coterie.

The _Britannica’s_ editor also apologized for his encyclopædia by stating that “Father Braun, S. J., has _assisted_ us in our article on _Vestments_, and that Father Delehaye, S. J., has contributed, among other articles, those on _The Bollandists and Canonization_. Abbé Boudinhon and Mgr. Duchesne, and Luchaire and Ludwig von Pastor and Dr. Kraus have also contributed, and Abbot Butler, O. S. B., has written on the Augustinians, Benedictines, Carthusians, Cistercians, Dominicans and Franciscans”; and, finally: “The new _Britannica_ has had the honor of having as a contributor His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, who has written of the Roman Catholic Church in America.”

“But, after all,” answers Father Campbell, “it was not a very generous concession to let Father Joseph Braun, S. J., _Staatsexamen als Religionsoberlehren für Gymnasien_, University of Bonn, _assist_ the editors in the very safe article on _Vestments_, nor to let the Bollandists write a column on their publication, which has been going on for three or four hundred years. The list of those who wrote on the _Papacy_ is no doubt respectable in ability if not in number, but we note that the editor is careful to say that the writers of that article were ‘_principally_’ Roman Catholics.

“Again we are moved to ask why should a Benedictine, distinguished though he be, have assigned to him the history of the Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans, etc.? Were there no men in those great and learned orders to tell what they must have known better than even the erudite Benedictine? Nor will it avail to tell us that His Eminence of Baltimore wrote _The History of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States_, when that article comprises only a column of statistics, preceded by two paragraphs, one on the early missions, and the other on the settlement of Lord Baltimore. No one more than the illustrious and learned churchman would have resented calling such a mere compilation of figures a _History of the Catholic Church in the United States_, and no one would be more shocked than he by the propinquity of his restricted article to the prolix and shameless one to which it is annexed.”

Here in brief is an account of the “impartial” manner in which Catholicism is recorded and described in that “supreme” book of knowledge, the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. And I set down this record here not because it is exceptional but, to the contrary, because it is representative of the way in which the world’s culture (outside of England), and especially the culture of America, is treated.

The intellectual prejudice and contempt of England for America is even greater if anything than England’s religious prejudice and contempt for Catholicism; and this fact should be borne in mind when you consult the _Britannica_ for knowledge. It will not give you even scholarly or objective information: it will advise you, by constant insinuation and intimation, as well as by direct statement, that English culture and achievement represent the transcendent glories of the world, and that the great men and great accomplishments of other nations are of minor importance. No more fatal intellectual danger to America can be readily conceived than this distorted, insular, incomplete, and aggressively British reference work.

XII

TWO HUNDRED OMISSIONS

The following list contains two hundred of the many hundreds of writers, painters, musicians and scientists who are denied biographies in the _Britannica_. There is not a name here which should not be in an encyclopædia which claims for itself the completeness which the _Britannica_ claims. Many of the names stand in the forefront of modern culture. Their omission is nothing short of preposterous, and can be accounted for only on the grounds of ignorance or prejudice. In either case, they render the encyclopædia inadequate as an up-to-date and comprehensive reference work.

It will be noted that not one of these names is English, and that America has suffered from neglect in a most outrageous fashion. After reading the flamboyant statements made in the _Encyclopædia Britannica’s_ advertising, glance down this list. Then decide for yourself whether or not the statements are accurate.

Objection may be raised to some of the following names on the ground that they are not of sufficient importance to be included in an encyclopædia, and that their omission cannot be held to the discredit of the _Britannica_. In answer let me state that for every name listed here as being denied a biography, there are one or two, and, in the majority of cases, many, Englishmen in the same field who are admittedly inferior and yet who are given detailed and generally laudatory biographies.

LITERATURE

“A. E.” (George W. Russell)
Andreiev
Artzibashef
Hermann Bahr
Henri Bernstein
Otto Julius Bierbaum
Ambrose Bierce
Helene Böhlau
Henry Bordeaux
René Boylesve
Enrico Butti
Cammaerts
Capuana
Bliss Carman
Winston Churchill
Pierre de Coulevain
Richard Dehmel
Margaret Deland
Grazia Deledda
Theodore Dreiser
Eekhoud
Clyde Fitch
Paul Fort
Gustav Frenssen
Fröding
Fucini (Tanfucio Neri)
Garshin
Stefan George
René de Ghil
Giacosa
Ellen Glasgow
Rémy de Gourmont
Robert Grant
Lady Gregory
Grigorovich
Hartleben
Heidenstam
Hirschfeld
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Arno Holz
Richard Hovey
Bronson Howard
Ricarda Huch
James Huneker
Douglas Hyde
Lionel Johnson
Karlfeldt
Charles Klein
Korolenko
Kuprin
Percy MacKaye
Emilio de Marchi
Ferdinando Martini
Stuart Merrill
William Vaughn Moody
Nencioni
Standish O’Grady
Ompteda
Panzacchi
Giovanni Pascoli
David Graham Phillips
Wilhelm von Polenz
Rapisardi
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Romain Rolland
T. W. Rolleston
Rovetta
Albert Samain
George Santayana
Johannes Schlaf
Schnitzler
Severin
Signoret
Synge
John Bannister Tabb
Tchekhoff
Gherardi del Testa
Jérôme and Jean Tharaud
Ludwig Thoma
Augustus Thomas
Tinayre
Katherine Tynan
Veressayeff
Clara Viebig
Annie Vivanti
Wackenroder
Wedekind
Edith Wharton
Owen Wister
Ernst von Wolzogen

PAINTING

George Bellows
Carrière
Mary Cassatt
Cézanne
Louis Corinth
Maurice Denis
Gauguin
Habermann
C. W. Hawthorne
Robert Henri
Hodler
Sergeant Kendall
Ludwig Knaus
Krüger
Jean Paul Laurens
Leibl
Von Marées
René Ménard
Redon
Charles Shuch
Lucien Simon
Steinlen
Toulouse-Lautrec
Trübner
Twachtman
Van Gogh
Vallotton
Zorn

MUSIC

d’Albert
Arensky
Mrs. Beach
Busoni
Buxtehude
Charpentier
Frederick Converse
Cui
Arthur Foote
Grechaninov
Guilmant
Henry K. Hadley
Josef Hofmann
Edgar Stillman Kelly
Kreisler
Leschetitzky
Gustav Mahler
Marschner
Nevin
Nordraak
John Knowles Paine
Horatio Parker
Rachmaninov
Ravel
Max Reger
Nikolaus Rubinstein
Scharwenka brothers
Georg Alfred Schumann
Scriabine
Sibelius
Friedrich Silcher
Sinding
Taneiev
Wolf-Ferrari

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

William Beaumont
John Shaw Billings
Luther Burbank
George W. Crile
Harvey Cushing
Rudolph Diesel
Daniel Drake
Ehrlich
Simon Flexner
W. W. Gerhard
Samuel David Gross
William S. Halsted
Wilhelm His
Abraham Jacobi
Rudolph Leuckart
Franz Leydig
Jacques Loeb
Percival Lowell
Lyonet (Lyonnet)
S. J. Meltzer
Metchnikoff
T. H. Morgan
Joseph O’Dwyer
Ramón y Cajal
Nicholas Senn
Marion Sims
Theobald Smith
W. H. Welch
Orville Wright
Wilbur Wright

PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

Ardigò
Bergson
Boutroux
Hermann Cohen
John Dewey
Edelmann
Freud
Guyau
G. Stanley Hall
Hildebrand
Jung
Külpe
Lipps
Josiah Royce
Alois Riehl
Sibbern
Soloviov
Tetans
Windelband

End of Project Gutenberg's Misinforming a Nation, by Willard Huntington Wright