Chapter IX (7)

We have already expressed the opinion that the scholastics as represented by St. Thomas really mean by their phantasms and intelligible species, or intermediary ideas by which we attain to the knowledge of sensibles and intelligibles, simply the mediating light furnished by God himself, who is himself light and the Father of lights. In this case the light is objective, and by illumining the object renders it intelligible, and at the same time the subject intelligent. But Reid, who denied intermediary ideas, seemed to suppose that the light emanates from the subject, and that it is our powers that render the object intelligible. Hence he calls the categories first principles of science, constituent principles of belief, or common sense, and sometimes constituent principles of human nature. He seems to have supposed that all the light and activity is on the side of the subject, forgetting that the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not, or that the light shines, and the darkness does not compress it, or hinder it from shining, without our perceiving it or the objects it illumines.

Kant, a German, but, on one side, of Scottish descent, adopts the principles of Reid, but sets them forth with greater precision and more scientific depth. Denying with Reid the mediating ideas, he makes the categories, which, according to Aristotle, are forms of the _mundus logicus_, or intermediary world, forms of the subject or the subjective laws of thought. He does not say with Rosceline that they are mere words, with Abelard that they are mere conceptions, nor with St. Thomas that they are, taken as universals, conceptions, _cum fundamento in re_, but forms of the reason, understanding, and sensibility, without any objective validity. They are not derivable from experience, because without them no experience is possible. Without what he calls synthetic judgments _à priori_, such as, Every phenomenon that begins to exist must have a cause, which includes the judgment of cause, of universal cause, and of necessary cause, we can form no synthetic judgment _à posteriori_. Hence he concludes that the categories, what some philosophers call first principles, necessary truths, necessary ideas, without which we do not and cannot think, are inherent forms of the subject, and are constitutive of reason and understanding. He thus placed the intelligibleness of things in the elemental constitution of the subject, whence it follows that the subject may be its own object, or think without thinking anything distinct from himself. {153} We think God, man, and nature, not because they are, and think them as we do not because they are really such as we think them, but because such is our mental constitution, and we are compelled by it to think them as we do. This the reader must see is hardly disguised scepticism, and Kant never pretended to the contrary. The only escape from scepticism, he himself contends, is to fall back from the pure or speculative reason on the practical reason, or the moral necessities of our nature, and yield to the moral imperative, which commands us to believe in God, nature, and duty. Kant has been followed by Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, who differ more or less from one another, but all follow the fundamental principle he asserted, and end in the doctrine of absolute identity of subject and object. "_Cogito, ergo sum_," said Descartes: "I think, therefore I am." "To think," used to say our old friend Bronson Alcott, "is to _thing_; to thing is to give or produce reality. My thought is creative: I think, therefore I am; I think God, therefore he is; nature, and therefore nature exists. I by thinking make them, that is, _thing_ them, render them real." No bad statement, as far as it goes, of the development Kant's doctrine received from his disciple Fichte. The only defect is that his later disciples, instead of making thought creative, have made it identical with the object. St. Anselm says: "I think most perfect being, therefore most perfect being is;" and so does Descartes, only Descartes substitutes God for most perfect being; but St. Anselm never said it in the sense that most perfect being is because I by my thought make it. Only a modern transcendentalist gone to seed could say that. The trouble with this whole scheme is that it puts me in the place of God, and makes me myself God, which I am quite sure I am not. It would be much more philosophical to say: I exist, therefore I think; I think being because it is, not that it is because I think it. Things do not exist because I think them, but I think them because they exist; they are not intelligible because I think them, but I think them because they are intelligible. Yet the germ of our friend Alcott's philosophy was in Kant's doctrine, which places the _forma_ of the thought in the subject instead of the object.

Whether the categories, as given by Aristotle, are inexact, as Kant alleges, or whether, as given by Kant himself, they are reducible in number to two, as M. Cousin pretends, or to one, as Rosmini maintains, enters not into the present enquiry, which relates not to their number, but their objective reality. Kant in regard to philosophy has done simply what Reid did, only he has done it better or more scientifically. He has fully demonstrated that in every fact of experience there enters a non-empirical element, and, if he holds with Leibnitz that that element is the human understanding itself, he has still demonstrated that it is not an abstraction or generalization of the concrete qualities of the objects presented by experience.

Take the ideas or categories of the necessary, the perfect, the universal, the infinite, the perfect, the immutable, the eternal. These ideas, it is willingly conceded, never exist in the human mind, or are never thought, without their opposites, the contingent, the finite, the imperfect, the particular, the variable, the temporal; but they do not, even in our thought, depend on them, and are not derived or derivable from them by abstraction or generalization. Take the synthetic judgment instanced by Kant, Everything that begins to exist must have a cause. The idea of cause itself, Hume has shown, is not derivable from any fact of experience, and Reid and Kant say the same. The notion we have of power which founds the relation of cause and effect, or that what we call the cause actually produces or places the effect, these philosophers tell us, is not an object of experience, and is not obtainable from any empirical facts. {154} Experience gives only the relation of what we call cause and effect in time, that is, the relation of antecedence and consequence. Main de Biran and Victor Cousin, it is true, deny this, and maintain that the idea of cause is derived from the acts of our own will, which we are conscious of in ourselves, and which not merely precede their effects, but actually produce them. I will to raise my arm, and even if my arm be paralytic or held down by a [force] stronger than I, so that I cannot raise it, I still by willing produce an effect, the volition to raise it, which is none the less real because, owing to external circumstances not under my control, it does not pass beyond my own interior.

But even granting this, how from this particular act of causation conclude universal cause, or even from universal cause necessary cause? I by willing produce the volition to raise my arm, therefore everything that begins to exist must have a cause. The argument from the particular to the universal, _non volet_, say the logicians, and still less the argument from the contingent to the necessary.

Take the idea of the perfect. That we have the idea or category in the mind is indisputable, and it evidently is not derivable by abstraction or generalization from the facts of experience. We have experience only of imperfect things, and no generalizing of imperfection can give perfection. Indeed, without the category of the perfect, the imperfect cannot even be thought. We think a thing imperfect, that is, judge it to be imperfect--and every thought is a judgment, and contains an affirmation--because it falls short of the ideal standard with which the mind compares it. The universal is not derivable from the particular, for the particular is not conceivable without the universal. We may say the same of the immutable, the eternal, the infinite, the one, or unity.

By abstraction or generalization we simply consider in the concrete a particular property, quality, or attribute by itself, and take it _in universo_, without regard to anything else in the concrete thing. It must then be a real property, quality, or attribute of the concrete thing, or the abstraction will have no foundation in reality. But the universal is no property, quality, or attribute of particulars, the immutable of mutables, the eternal of things temporary, the necessary of contingents, the infinite of finites, or unity of multiples, otherwise particulars would be universals, mutables immutables, temporals eternals, contingents necessary, finites infinite, and multiples one--a manifest contradiction in terms. The generalization or abstraction of particulars is particularity, of mutables is mutability, of temporals temporality, of contingents contingency, of finites finiteness, of multiples plurality or multiplicity. The overlooking of this obvious fact, and regarding the universal, immutable, eternal, etc., as abstractions or generalizations of particulars, mutables, temporals, and so on, has given birth to the pantheistic philosophy, than which nothing can be more sophistical.

The ideas or categories of the universal, the immutable, and the eternal, the necessary, the infinite, the one or unity, are so far from being abstractions from particular concretes that in point of fact we cannot even think things as particular, changeable, temporal, contingent, finite, or multiple without them. Hence, they are called necessary ideas, because without them no synthetic judgment _à posteriori_ or fact of experience is possible. They are not abstractions formed by the human mind by contemplating concrete things, because the human mind cannot operate or even exist without them, and without them human intelligence, even if supposable, could not differ from the intelligence of the brute, which, though many eminent men in modern science are endeavoring to prove it, cannot be accepted, because in proving we should disprove it.

{155}

The question now for philosophy to answer, as we have already intimated, is, Are these ideas or categories, which precede and enter into every fact of experience, forms of the subject or human understanding, as Kant alleges, or are they objective and real, and, though necessary to the existence and operation of the human mind, are yet really distinct from it, and independent of it, as much so as if no human mind had been created? This is the problem.

St. Thomas evidently holds them to be objective, for he holds them to be necessary and self-evident principles, principles _per se nota_, as may be seen in his answer to the question, _Utrum Deum esse sit per se notum?_ and we need strong reasons to induce us to dissent from any philosophical conclusion of the angelic doctor. Moreover, Kant by no means proves his own conclusion, that they are forms of the subject. All he proves is that there is and can be no fact of human knowledge without them, which may be true without their being subjective. He proves, if you will, that they are constituent principles of the human understanding, in the sense that the human understanding cannot exist and operate without their initiative and concurrence; but this no more proves that they are forms of the subject than the fact that the creature can neither exist nor act without the creative and concurrent act of the creator proves that the creator is an inherent law or form of the creature. To our mind, Kant confirms a conclusion contrary to his own. His masterly _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_ establishes simply this fact, that man's own subjective reason alone does not suffice for science, and that man, in science as in existence, is dependent on that which is not himself; or, in a word, that man depends on the intelligibleness of the object, or that which renders it intelligible, to be himself intelligent, or knowing. Man is, no doubt, created with the power or faculty of intelligence, but that power or faculty is not the power or faculty to know without an intelligible object, or to know what is not knowable independently of it. Hence, from Kant's facts, we conclude that the ideas or categories, without which no object is intelligible and no fact of intelligence possible, are not subjective, but objective, real, and independent of the subject.

The matter is simple enough if we look at it freed from the obscurity with which philosophers have surrounded it. Thought is a complex fact, the joint product of subject and object. God is his own object, because he is self existent and self-sufficing: is in himself, as say the theologians, _actus purissimus_, most pure act, which permits us up to a certain point to understand the eternal generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Ghost. God, being self-existent and self-sufficing, needs and can receive nothing from without his own most perfect being. But man is a dependent being, a creature, and does not and cannot suffice in himself for either his own existence or his own intelligence. He cannot think by himself alone or without the concurrence of the object, which is not himself. If the concurrence of the object be essential to the production of my thought, then that concurrence must be active, for a passive concurrence is the same as no concurrence at all. Then the object must be active, therefore real, for what is not real cannot act or be active. Then the object in my thought is not and cannot be myself, but stands over against me. Now, I know that I think these ideas, and that they are the object in my thought without which I cannot think at all. Therefore, they are objective and real, and neither myself nor my creations, as are abstractions.

This conclusion is questioned only by those persons who have not duly considered the fact that there can be no thought without both subject and object, and that man can never be his own object. To assume that he can act, think, or know with himself alone, without the concurrence of that which is not himself and is independent of him, is to deny his dependence and to assume him to be God--a conclusion which some think follows from the famous "_Cogito, ergo sum_" of Descartes, and which is accepted and defended by the whole German pantheistic school of the present day. {156} Indeed, as atheism was in the last century, so pantheism is in the present century the real enemy philosophy has to combat. In concluding the reality of the object from the fact that I think it, I am far from pretending that thought cannot err; but the error is not in regard to what I really think, but in regard to that which I do not think, but infer from my thought. I think only what is intelligible, and what is intelligible is real, and therefore true, for falsehood, being unreal, is unintelligible, and therefore cannot be thought. But in converting my thought into a proposition, I may include in the proposition not only what I thought, but what I did not think. Hence the part of error, which is always the part not of knowledge, but of ignorance. It is so we understand St. Augustine and St. Thomas.[Footnote 37]

[Footnote 37: Vide St. Augustine, in lib lxxxiii. Qq., quaest. xxii.,
and St. Thomas, Summa p.1 quaest. xvii, a. 3 ln. c. The words of St.
Augustine are, "Omnis qui fallitur, id quo fallitur, non intelligit."
Hence the Intellect is always true.]

These considerations authorize, or we are much mistaken, the conclusion that the ideas or categories, which the schoolmen hold to be forms of the intermediary or logical world, and Kant to be forms of the subject, are objective and real, and either the intelligible object itself or the objective light by which it is rendered intelligible or knowable. Plato, Aristotle, and the scholastics, if we have not misapprehended them, regard them, in explaining the fact of knowledge, rather as the light which illumines the object than the object itself. Yet, when the object is intelligible in itself, or by its own light, St. Thomas clearly identifies it with the object, and distinguishes it from the object only when the object is not intelligible _per se_. Thus, he maintains with St. Augustine that God knows things _per ideam_; but to the objection that God knows them by his essence, he answers that God in his own essence is the similitude, that is, the idea, of all things: _Unde idea in Deo nihil est aliud quam essentia Dei_. Therefore, idea in God is nothing else than the essence of God. [Footnote 38]

[Footnote 38: Summa, p.1, quaest, xv. a. 1 ad 3. The question is _de
Ideis_, and we think the reader, by consulting what St. Thomas says
in the body of the first article, will agree that, though we have used
a different phraseology, we have simply given his sense.]

The doctrine of St. Thomas is that all knowledge is by ideas, in the sense of image, likeness, or similitude. In God the idea, image, likeness, or similitude, the _species_, is not distinguishable from the divine essence, for he is in his essence _similitudo omnium rerum_. Now, though we are created after the _idea exemplaris_, or model eternal in his essence, and therefore in our degree copy or imitate him, we have not in us the types or models of all things, are not in ourselves _similitudo omnium rerum_, and therefore are not intelligent in ourselves alone. The ideas by which things are intelligible and we intelligent must be distinct from us, and exist independent of us. As no creature any more than we has in itself the likeness of all things, or is in itself its own _idea exemplaris_, no creature can be in itself alone intelligible. Hence what the schoolmen call idea or intelligible species must be equally distinct from and independent of the object when the object is _aliquid creatum_, or creature. Hence, while both the created subject and the created object depend on the idea, the one to be intelligible, the other to be intelligent, the idea, intelligible species, the light--as we prefer to say--is independent of them both. The idea _in re_ is not something intermediary between subject and object, as is sometimes supposed, but the light that intervenes between them, as the necessary condition of knowledge in creatures. This seems to us to be the real doctrine of the scholastics, as represented by St. Thomas, and is, in our judgment, indisputable.

{157}

We call the idea, regarded as intervening in the fact of knowledge, the light, and thus avoid the question whether all knowledge is by similitude or not. It may be that the idea is light because it contains the image or likeness of the object, but that seems to us a question more curious than practically important. We cannot see that the explication of the mystery of knowing is carried any further by calling the idea image or similitude than by simply calling it the intelligible light. The Platonists and peripatetics seem to us to come no nearer the secret of knowledge by so calling it than do our philosophers to the secret of external vision, when they tell us that we do not see the visible object itself, but its image painted by the external light on the retina of the eye. How do I see the image or picture, and connect it with the external object? When I have called the object or the idea light, I seem to myself to have said all that can be said on the point, and to retain substantially the scholastic doctrine of ideas, or intelligible species, which asserts, I add, by the way, what is perhaps very true, but which after all brings us no nearer to the secret of knowledge, or the explanation of how in the last analysis we do or can know at all.

How we do or can know seems to us an inexplicable mystery, as is our existence itself. That we do know is certain. Every man knows, and in knowing knows that be knows; but how he knows no man knows. To deny is as much an act of reason as is to affirm, and no one can deny without knowing that he denies. Men may doubt many things, but universal doubt is a simple impossibility, for whoever doubts knows that be doubts, and never doubts that he doubts or that doubt is doubting. In all things and in all science we arrive at last, if we think long and deep enough, at a mystery which it is in no human power to deny or to explain, and which is explicable only in God by his divine science. Hence it is that philosophy never fully suffices for itself, and always needs to be supplemented by revelation, as nature to attain its end must not only be redeemed from the fall, but supplemented by grace. Man never suffices for himself, since his very being is not in himself; and how, then, shall philosophy, which is his creation, suffice for itself? Let philosophy go as far as it can, but let the philosopher never for a moment imagine that human reason will ever be able to explain itself. The secret as of all things is in God and with him. Would man be God, the creature the Creator?

If we have seized the sense of the scholastic philosophy as represented by St. Thomas, and are right in understanding by the intelligible species of the schoolmen the light by which the object is intelligible, therefore the object itself when the object is intelligible _per se_, and the intelligible light when it is not, the ideal is objective and real, and both the old quarrel and the new are voided. Abstractions are null; genera and species are real, but creatures; ideas, as the intelligible light by which we know, are not forms of the subject, but objective and real, and in fact the light of the divine being, which, intelligible by itself, is the intelligibility of all created existences. St. Anselm's argument is, then, rigidly sound and conclusive: I think most perfect being _in re_; and therefore such being is, or I could not think it, since what is not cannot be thought. If the most perfect being, a greater than which and the contrary of which cannot be thought, be only in my thought, then I am myself greater than the most perfect being, and my thought becomes the criterion of perfection, and I am greater than God, and can judge him.

This follows from the fact that the ideal is real. The ideas of the universal, the infinite, the perfect, the necessary, the immutable, the eternal cannot be either the intelligible object or the intelligible light, unless they are being. As abstractions, or as abstracted from being, they are simple nullities. {158} To think them is to think real, universal, infinite, perfect, necessary, immutable, and eternal being, the _ens perfectissimum_ of St. Anselm, the _ens necessarium et reale_ of the theologians, a greater than which or the contrary of which cannot be thought. That this _ens_, intuitively affirmed to every intellect, is God, is amply shown in the papers on "The Problems of the Age," and also that _ens_ or being creates existences, and hence there is no occasion for us to show it over again.

But it will not do to say, as many do, that we have intuition of God. The idea is intuitive; and we know by intuition that which is God, and that he is would be indemonstrable if we did not; but we do not know by intuition that what is affirmed or presented in intuition is God. When Descartes says, "I think God, therefore God is," he misapprehends St. Anselm, and assumes what is not tenable. St. Anselm does not say he thinks God, and therefore God is; he says, "I think most perfect being, a greater than which cannot be thought," and therefore most perfect being is. The intuition is not God, but most perfect being. So the ideal formula, _ens creat existentias_ so ably defended in the papers on "The Problems of the Age," would be indefensible, if _Deus _were substituted for _ens_, and it read, God creates existences. That is true, and _ens_, no doubt, is _Deus_; but we know not that by intuition, and it would be wrong to understand St. Augustine, who seems to teach that we know that God is by intuition, in any other sense than that we have intuition of that which can be demonstrated to be God. We know by intuition that which is God, but not that it is God.

St. Thomas seems to us to set this matter right in his answer to the question, _Utrum Deum esse sit per notum?_--He holds that _ens_ is _per se notum_, or self-evident, and that first principles in knowing, as well as in being, evidence themselves, but denies that _Deum esse sit per se notum_, because the meaning of the word _Deus_ or God is not self-evident and known by all. His own words are: "_Dico ergo haec propositio, DEUS EST, quantum in se est, per se nota est, quia praedicatum est idem cum subjecto Deus enim est suum esse, ut infra patebit. Sed qua nos non scimus de Deo QUID EST, non est per se nota est, sed indiget demonstrari._" [Footnote 39]

[Footnote 39: Summa, pars. 1, quaest. 1 a. ln c.]

St. Thomas adds, indeed, "Sed indiget demonstrari, per ea quae sunt magis nota quoad nos, et minus secundam naturam, scilicet per effectus;" but this is easily explained. The saint argues that it is not self-evident that God is, because it is not self-evident what he is; for, according to the scholastic philosophy, to be able to affirm that a thing is, it is necessary to know its quidity [Footnote 40], since without knowing what the thing is we cannot know that it is. What God is can be demonstrated only by his works, and that it can be so demonstrated St. Paul assures us, Rom. 1:20: "Invisibilia ipsius, a creatura mundi, per ea quae facta sunt, intellecta, conspiciuntur: sempiterna quoqne virtus et divinitas;" or as we venture to English it: "The invisible things of God, even his eternal power and divinity, are clearly seen from the foundation of the world, being understood (or known) by the things that are made." St. Paul appeals to the things that are made not to prove that God is, but to show what he is, or rather, if we may so express ourself, to prove that he is God, and leaves us, as does St. Thomas, to prove, with St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Fénelon, and others, that he is, by the argument derived from intuitive ideas, or first principles, commonly called the _argumentum a priori_, though that, strictly speaking, it is not, for there is nothing more ultimate or universal in science than is God himself, or, rather, that which is God.

[Transcribers footnote 40: quidity--Real nature of a thing; the
essence.]

{159}

The ideal formula is true, for it is contained in the first verse of Genesis, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth," and in the first article of the creed, "I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth, and all things visible and invisible;" and what it formulates is, as we have shown, and as is shown more at length in "The Problems of the Age," intuitive, and the human mind could not exists and operate if it were not so; but the formula itself, or, rather, the formulation as an intellectual judgment, is not so. The judgment was beyond the reach of all Gentile philosophy, which nowhere asserts or recognizes the fact of creation; it is beyond the reach of the mass even of the Christian people, who hold that God creates the world as an article of faith rather than as a scientific truth; it is denied by nearly all the systems of philosophy constructed by non-Catholics even in our own day, and it may well be doubted if science, unaided by revelation, could ever have attained to it.

This relieves the formula of the principal objections urged against it. The ideas formulated are the first principles in science with which all philosophy must commence, but the formulation, instead of being at the beginning, does not always appear even at its conclusion. The explanations we have offered show that there is no discrepancy between its assertion and the philosophy of St. Thomas. Indeed, the formula in substance is the common doctrine of all great Catholic theologians in all ages of the church, and may be seen to be so if we will only take the pains to understand them and ourselves. The objection, that the doctrine that we have intuition of most perfect being assumes that we have the intuitive vision of God even in this life, cannot stand, because that vision is vision of God as he is in himself, and this asserts only intuition of him as idea, which we even know not by intuition is God. The result of our discussion is to show that the sounder and better philosophy of our day is in reality nothing but the philosophy of St. Anselm and St. Thomas, and which in substance has been always, and still is, taught with more or less clearness and depth in all our Catholic schools.

------

Original

The Hidden Crucifixion.

"And they crucified him there."

Say not 'twas on dread Calvary's mountain top,
And in the broad and glaring light
Of noonday sun;
With hooting rabble crowded 'round
To show
The Holy One despite.

No, no! But in this guilty breast, alone--
God of my love, how could I dare!--
The deed was done.
Ye angels, look upon this heart;
Ye know
I crucified him there!

------

{160}

Impressions Of Spain.

By Lady Herbert.

St. Sebastian and Burgos.

What is it that we seek for, we Englishmen and Englishwomen, who year by year, about the month of November, are seen crowding the Folkestone and Dover steamboats, with that unmistakable "going abroad" look of travelling--bags and wide-awakes and bundles of wraps and alpaca gowns? I think it may be comprised in one word--_sunshine_. This dear old land of ours, with all its luxuries and all its comforts and all its associations of home and people, still lacks one thing--and that is climate. For climate means health to one half of us; and health means power of enjoyment; for, without it, the most perfect of homes (and nowhere is that word understood so well as in England) is spoiled and saddened. So, in pursuit of this great boon, a widow lady and her children, with a doctor and two other friends, started off in the winter of 186-, in spite of ominous warnings of revolutions, and grim stories of brigands, for that comparatively unvisited country called Spain. As far as St. Sebastian the journey was absolutely without interest or adventure of any kind. The express train dashed them past houses and villages, and picturesque old towns with fine church towers, from Paris to Bordeaux, and from Bordeaux to Bayonne, and so on past the awful frontier, the scene of so many passages-at-arms between officials and ladies' maids, till they found themselves crossing the picturesque bridge which leads to the little town of St. Sebastian, with its beach of fine sand, washed by the long billowy waves of the Atlantic on the one hand, and its riant, well-cultivated little Basque farms on the other. As to the town itself, time and the prefect may eventually make it a second Biarritz, as in every direction lodging-houses are springing up, till it will become what one of Dickens's heroes would call "the most sea-bathingest place" that ever was! But at present it is a mass of rough stone and lime and scaffolding; and the one straight street leading from the hotel to the church of St. Maria, with the castle above, are almost all that remains of the old town which stood so many sieges, and was looked upon as the key of Northern Spain. The hotel appeared but tolerably comfortable to our travellers, fresh from the luxuries of Paris. When they returned, four or five months later, they thought it a perfect paradise of comfort and cleanliness. After wandering through the narrow streets, and walking into one or two uninteresting churches, it was resolved to climb up to the citadel which commands the town, and to which the ascent is by the fair zigzag road, like that which leads to Dover Castle. A small garrison remains in the keep, which is also a military prison. The officers receiving our party very courteously, inviting them to walk on the battlements, and climb up to the flag-staff, and offering them the use of their large telescope for the view, which is certainly magnificent, especially toward the sea. There is a tiny chapel in the fortress, in which the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. It was pleasant to see the sentinel presenting arms to it each time his round brought him past the ever open door. On the hill side, a few monumental slabs, let in here and there into the rock, and one or two square tombs, mark the graves of the Englishmen killed during the siege, and also in the Don Carlos revolution. {161} Of the siege itself, and of the historical interest attached to St. Sebastian, we will say nothing: are they not written in the book of the chronicles of Napier and Napoleon?

The following morning, after a fine and crowded service at the church of St. Maria, where they first saw the beautiful Spanish custom of the women being all veiled, and in black, two of the party started at seven in the morning, in a light carriage, for Loyola. The road throughout is beautiful, reminding one of the Tyrol, with picturesque villages, old Roman bridges, quaint manor-houses, with coats of arms emblazoned over their porticoes; rapid, clear trout-streams and fine glimpses of snowy mountains on the left, and of the bright blue sea on the right. The flowers, too, were lovely. There was a dwarf blue bugloss of an intensity of color which is only equalled by the large forget-me-not on the mountainsides of Lebanon. The peasants are all small proprietors. They were cultivating their fields in the most primitive way, father, mother, and children working the ground with a two-pronged fork, called by them a "laya;" but the result was certainly satisfactory. They speak a language as utterly hopeless for a foreigner to understand as Welsh or Gaelic. The saying among the Andalusians is that the devil, who is no fool, spent seven years in Bilboa studying the Basque dialect, and learned three words only; and of their pronunciation they add that the Basque write "Solomon," and pronounce it "Nebuchadnezzar!" Be this as it may, they are a contented, happy, prosperous, sober race, rarely leaving their own country, to which they are passionately attached, and deserving, by their independence and self-reliance, their name of "Bayascogara"--"Somos bastantes."

Passing through the baths Certosa, the mineral springs of which are much frequented by the Spaniards in summer, our travellers came, after a four hours' drive, to Azpeitia, a walled town, with a fine church containing the "pila," or font, in which St. Ignatius was baptized. Here the good-natured curé, Padre G--, met them, and insisted on escorting them to the great college of Loyola, which is about a mile from the town. It has a fine Italian façade, and is built in a fertile valley round the house of St. Ignatius, the college for missionary priests being on one side, and a florid, domed, circular marble church on the other. The whole is thoroughly Roman in its aspect, but not so beautiful as the Gothic buildings of the south. They first went into the church, which is very rich in jaspers, marbles, and mosaics, the marbles being brought from the neighboring mountains. The cloisters at the back are still unfurnished; but the entrance to the monastery is of fine and good proportions, and the corridors and staircase are very handsome. Between the church and the convent is a kind of covered cloister, leading to the "Santuario," the actual house in which the saint was born and lived. The outside is in raised brickwork, of curious old geometrical patterns; and across the door is the identical wooden bar which in old times served as protection to the château. Entering the low door, you see on your right a staircase; and on your left a long low room on the ground floor, in which is a picture of the Blessed Virgin. Here the saint was born: his mother, having a particular devotion to the Virgin, insisted on being brought down here to be confined. Going up the stairs, to a kind of corridor used as a confessional, you come first to the chapel of St. Francis Borgia, where he said his first mass. Next to it is one dedicated to Marianne di Jesu, the "Lily of Quito," with a beautiful picture of the South American saint over the high altar. To the left, again, is another chapel, and here St. François Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies, said his mass before starting on his glorious evangelical mission. {162} Ascending a few steps higher, their guide led them into a long low room, richly decorated and gilt, and full of pictures of the different events of the life of the saint. A gilt screen divided the ante-chapel from the altar, raised on the very spot where he lay so long with his wounded leg, and where he was inspired by the Blessed Virgin to renounce the world, and devote himself, body and soul, to the work of God. There is a representation of him in white marble under the altar as he lay; and opposite, a portrait, in his soldier's dress, said to be taken from life, and another of him afterward, when he had become a priest. It is a beautiful face, with strong purpose and high resolve in every line of the features.

In the sacristy is the "baldachino," or tester of his bed, in red silk. It was in this room that he first fell sick and took to reading the Lives of the Saints to amuse himself, there being no other book within reach. Such are the "common ways," which we blindly call "accidents," in which God leads those whom he chooses, like Saul, for his special service. The convent contains thirty fathers and twenty-five lay brothers. There are about 120 students, a fine library, refectory, etc. They have a large day-school of poor children, whom they instruct in Basque and Spanish; and distribute daily a certain number of dinners, soup, and bread, to the sick poor of the neighboring villages, about twenty of whom were waiting at the buttery door for their daily supply.

The English strangers, taking leave of the kind and courteous fathers, had luncheon at a little "posada" close by, where the hostess insisted on their drinking some of the cider of the country, which the doctor, himself a Devonshire man, was obliged to confess excelled that of his own country. The good curé entertained them meanwhile with stories of his people, who appear to be very like the Highlanders, both in their merits and their faults. Some of their customs seemed to be derived from pagan times, such as that of offering bread and wine on the tombs of those they love on the anniversary of their death; a custom in vogue in the early days of Christianity, and mentioned by St. Augustine in his Confessions as being first put a stop to by St. Ambrose, at Milan, on account of the abuses which had crept into the practice. The drive back was, if possible, even more beautiful than that of the morning, and they reached St. Sebastian at eight o'clock, delighted with their expedition.

The next day they started for Burgos, by rail, only stopping for a few minutes on their way to the station to see the "Albergo dei Poveri," a hospital and home for incurables, nursed by the Spanish sisters of charity. They are affiliated to the sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, and follow their rule, but do not wear the "white cornette" of the French sisters.

The railroad in this part of Spain has been carried through most magnificent scenery, which appeared to our travellers like a mixture of Poussin and Salvator Rosa. Fine purple mountains, still sprinkled with snow, with rugged and jagged peaks standing out against the clear blue sky, and with waterfalls and beautiful streams rushing down their sides; an underwood of chestnut and beach trees; deep valleys, with little brown villages and bright white convents perched on rising knolls, and picturesque bridges spanning the little streams as they dashed through the gorges; and then long tracks of bright rose-colored heather, out of which rose big boulder-stones or the wayside cross; the whole forming, as it were, a succession of beautiful pictures such as would delight the heart of a painter, both as to composition and coloring. No one can say much for the pace at which the Spanish railways travel; yet are they all too quick in scenery such as this, when one longs to stop and sketch at every turn. {163} Suddenly, however, the train came to a stand-still: an enormous fragment of rock had fallen across the line in the night, burying a luggage-train, but fortunately without injury to its drivers; and our party had no alternative but to get out, with their manifold bags and packages, and walk across the _débris_ to another train, which, fortunately, was waiting for them on the opposite side of the chasm. A little experience of Spanish travelling taught them to expect such incidents half a dozen times in the course of the day's journey; but at first it seemed startling and strange. They reached Burgos at six, and found themselves in a small but very decent "fonda," where the daughter of the landlord spoke a little French, to their great relief. They had had visions of Italian serving nearly as well as Spanish for making themselves understood by the people; but this idea was rudely dispelled the very first day of their arrival in Spain. Great as the similarity may be in reading, the accent of the Spaniard makes him utterly incomprehensible to the bewildered Italian scholar; and the very likeness of some words increases the difficulty when he finds that, according to the pronunciation, a totally different meaning is attached to them. For instance, one of the English ladies, thinking to please the mistress of the house, made a little speech to her about the beauty and cleanliness of her kitchen, using the right word (_cocina_), but pronouncing it with the Italian accent. She saw directly she had committed a blunder, though Spanish civility suppressed the laugh at her expense. She found afterward that the word she had used, with the "ci" _soft_, meant a female pig. And this was only a specimen of mistakes hourly committed by all who adventured themselves in this unknown tongue.

A letter of introduction procured for our travellers an instant admission to the cardinal archbishop, who received them most kindly, and volunteered to be their escort over the cathedral. He had been educated at Ushaw, and spoke English fluently and well. He had a very pretty little chapel in his palace, with a picture in it of Sta. Maria della Pace at Rome, from whence he derives his cardinal's title.

The cathedral at Burgos, with the exception of Toledo, is the most beautiful Gothic building in Spain. It was begun by Bishop Maurice, an Englishman, and a great friend of St. Ferdinand's, in the year 1220. The spires, with their lacework carving; the doorways, so rich in sculpture; the rose-windows, with their exquisite tracery; the beautiful lantern-shaped clerestory; the curious double staircase of Diego de Siloe; the wonderful "retablos" behind the altars, of the finest wood-carving; the magnificent marble and alabaster monuments in the side chapels, vying with one another in beauty and richness of detail; the wonderful wood-carving of the stalls in the choir; the bas reliefs carved in every portion of the stone; in fact, every detail of this glorious building is equally perfect; and even in Southern Spain, that paradise for lovers of cathedrals, can scarcely be surpassed. The finest of the monuments are those of the Velasco family, the hereditary high-constable of Castile. They are of Carrara marble, resting upon blocks of jasper: at the feet of the lady lies a little dog, as the emblem of "Fidelity." Over the doorway of this chapel, leading to a tiny sacristy, are carved the arms of Jerusalem. In the large sacristy is a Magdalen, by Leonardo da Vinci; and some exquisite church plate, in gold and enamel, especially a chalice, a processional cross, a pax, etc. In the first chapel on the right, as you enter by the west door, is a very curious figure of Christ, brought from the Holy Land, with real hair and skin; but painful in the extreme, and almost grotesque from the manner in which it has been dressed. This remark, however, applies to almost all the images of Christ and of the Blessed Virgin throughout Spain, which are rendered both sad and ludicrous to English eyes from the petticoats and finery with which modern devotion has disfigured them. {164} This crucifix, however, is greatly venerated by the people, who call it "The Christ of Burgos," and on Sundays or holidays there is no possibility of getting near it, on account of the crowd. In the Chapel of the Visitation are three more beautiful monuments, and a very fine picture of the Virgin and Child, by Sebastian del Piombo. But it was impossible to take in every portion of this cathedral at once; and so our travellers went on to the cloisters, passing through a beautiful pointed doorway, richly carved, which leads to the chapter-house, now a receptacle for lumber, but containing the chest of the Cid, regarding which the old chronicle says: "He filled it with sand, and then, telling the Jews it contained gold, raised money on security." In justice to the hero, however, we are bound to add, that when the necessities of the war were over, he repaid both principal and interest. Leaving, at last, the cloisters and cathedral, and taking leave of the kind archbishop, our party drove to the Town Hall, where, in a walnut-wood urn, are kept the bones of the Cid, which were removed twenty years ago from their original resting-place at Cardena. The sight of them strengthened their resolve to make a pilgrimage to his real tomb, which is in a Benedictine convent about eight miles from the town. Starting, therefore, in two primitive little carriages, guiltless of springs, they crossed the river and wound up a steep hill till they came in sight of _Miraflores_, the great Carthusian convent, which, seen from a distance, strongly resembles Eton College Chapel. It was built by John II. for a royal burial-place, and was finished by Isabella of Castile. Arriving at the monastery, from whence the monks have been expelled, and which is now tenanted by only one or two lay brothers of the order, they passed through a long cloister, shaded by fine cypresses, into the church, in the chancel of which is that which may really be called one of the seven wonders of the world. This is the alabaster sepulcher of John II. and his wife, the father and mother of Queen Isabella, with their son, the Infante Alonso, who died young. In richness of detail, delicacy of carving, and beauty of execution, the work of these monuments is perfectly unrivalled--the very material seems to be changed into Mechlin lace. The artist was Maestro Gil, the father of the famous Diego de Siloe, who carved the staircase in the cathedral. He finished it in 1493; and one does not wonder at Philip II.'s exclamation when he saw it: "_We_ have done nothing at the Escurial." In the sacristy is a wonderful statue of St. Bruno, carved in wood, and so beautiful and life-like in expression that it was difficult to look at anything else.

Leaving Miraflores, our travellers broke tenderly to their coachmen their wish to go on to Cardena. One of them utterly refused, saying the road was impassable; the other, _moyennant_ an extra gratuity, undertook to try it, but stipulated that the gentlemen should walk, and the ladies do the same, if necessary. Winding round the convent garden walls, and then across a bleak wild moor, they started, and soon found themselves involved in a succession of ruts and sloughs of despond which more than justified the hesitation of their driver. On the coach-box was an imp of a boy, whose delights consisted in quickening the fears of the most timid among the ladies by invariably making the horses gallop at the most difficult and precipitous parts of the road, and then turning round and grinning at the fright he had given them. It is needless to say that the carriage was not his property. At last, the horses came to a stand-still; they could go no further, and the rest of the way had to be done on foot. But our travellers were not to be pitied; for the day was lovely, and the path across the moor was studded with flowers. At last, on climbing over a steep hill which had intercepted their view, they came on a lovely panorama, with a background of blue mountains tipped with snow; a wooded glen, in which the brown convent nestled, and a wild moor foreground, across which long strings of mules with gay trappings, driven by peasants in Spanish costumes, exactly as represented in Ansdell's paintings, were wending their way toward the city. {165} Tired as some of our party were, this glorious view seemed to give them fresh strength, and they rapidly descended the hill by the hollow path leading to the convent. Over the great entrance is a statue of the Cid, mounted on his favorite horse, "Babicca," who bore him to his last resting-place, and was afterward buried beside the master he loved so well. But the grand old building seemed utterly deserted, and a big mastiff, fastened by an ominously slight chain to the doorway, appeared determined to defy their attempts to enter. At last, one of them, more courageous than the rest, tempting the Cerberus with the remains of her luncheon, got past him, and wandered through the cloister, up a fine staircase to a spacious corridor, in hopes of finding a guide to show them the way to the chapel, where lay the object of their expedition, that is, the monument of the Cid. But she was only answered by the echo of her own footsteps. The cells were empty; the once beautiful library gutted and destroyed; the refectory had nothing in it but bare walls--the whole place was like a city of the dead. At last, she discovered a staircase lending down to a cloister on the side opposite the great entrance, and there a low-arched door, which she found ajar, admitted her into the deserted church. The tomb of the Cid has been removed from the high altar to a side Chapel; and there is interred likewise, his faithful and devoted wife Ximena, and their two daughters. On his shield is emblazoned the "tizona," or sparkling brand, which the legends affirm he always carried in his hand, and with which he struck terror into the hearts of the infidels. This church and convent, built for the Benedictines by the Princess Sancho, in memory of her son Theodoric, who was killed out hunting, was sacked by the Moors in the ninth century, when 200 of the monks were murdered. A tablet in the south transept still remains, recording the massacre; but the monument of Theodoric has been mutilated and destroyed. The Christian spoilers have done their work more effectually than the Moslem! Sorrowfully our travellers left this beautiful spot, thinking bitterly on the so-called age of progress which had left the abode of so much learning and piety to the owls and the bats; and partly walking, partly driving, returned without accident to the city. One more memento of the Cid at Burgos deserves mention. It is the lock on which he compelled the king, Alonso VI., to swear that he had had no part in his brother Sancho's assassination at Zamora. All who wished to confirm their word with a solemn oath used to touch it, till the practice was abolished by Isabella, and the lock itself hung up in the old church of St. Gadea, on the way to the castle hill, where it still rests. This is the origin of the peasant custom of closing the hand and raising the thumb, which they kiss in token of asseveration; and in like manner we have the old Highland saying: "There's my thumb. I'll not betray you."