FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]See Damiron’sLa Philosophie en France au XIXième Siècle. Introduction to Vol. I. (Fifth edition.)[2]The facts of De Maistre’s life I have drawn from a very meagre biography by his son, Count Rodolphe de Maistre, supplemented by two volumes ofLettres et Opuscules(Fourth edition. Paris: Vaton. 1865), and a volume of hisDiplomatic Correspondence, edited by M. Albert Blanc.[3]Soirées de Saint Pétersbourg(8th ed. 1862), vol. i. pp. 238-243.[4]Soirées de Saint Pétersbourg, 6ième entretien, i. 397-442.[5]Ib.(8th ed. 1862) vol. i. p. 403.[6]Soirées, i. 76[7]De Maistre found a curiously characteristic kind of support for this view in the fact that evils are calledfléaux:flails are things to beat with: so evils must be things with which men are beaten; and as we should not be beaten if we did not deserve it,argal, suffering is a merited punishment. Apart from that common infirmity which leads people after they have discovered an analogy between two things, to argue from the properties of the one to those of the other, as if, instead of being analogous, they were identical, De Maistre was particularly fond of inferring moral truths from etymologies. He has an argument for the deterioration of man, drawn from the fact that the Romans expressed in the same word,supplicium, the two ideas of prayer and punishment (Soirées, 2ième entretien, i. p. 108). His profundity as an etymologist may be gathered from his analysis ofcadaver:ca-ro,da-ta,ver-mibus. There are many others of the same quality.[8]Gibbon, c. xlvi. vol. v. 385.[9]See theExamen de la Philosophie de Bacon, vol. ii. 58et seq.[10]De Maistre forgot or underestimated the services of Leo the Isaurian whose repulse of the Caliph’s forces at Constantinople (a.d.717) was perhaps as important for Europe as the more renowned victory of Charles Martel. But then Leo was an Iconoclast and heretic. Cf. Finlay’sByzantine Empire, pp. 22, 23.[11]Du Pape, bk. iii. c. iv. p. 298 (ed. 1866).[12]Du Pape, bk. iv. c. vii.[13]A remark of Mr. Finlay’s is worth quoting here. ‘The Greeks,’ he says, ‘had at times only a secondary share in the ecclesiastical controversies in the Eastern Church, though the circumstance of these controversies having been carried on in the Greek language has made the natives of Western Europe attribute them to a philosophic, speculative, and polemic spirit, inherent in the Hellenic mind. A very slight examination of history is sufficient to prove that several of the heresies which disturbed the Eastern Church had their origin in the more profound religious ideas of the oriental nations, and that many of the opinions called heretical were in a great measure expressions of the mental nationality of the Syrians, Armenians, Egyptians, and Persians, and had no conception whatever with the Greek mind.’—Byzantine Empire, from 716 to 1057, p. 262.The same writer (p. 263) remarks very truly, that ‘the religious or theological portion of Popery, as a section of the Christian Church, is really Greek; and it is only the ecclesiastical, political, and theoretic peculiarities of the fabric which can be considered as the work of the Latin Church.’[14]Sir J. Fitzjames Stephen in theSaturday Review, Sept. 9, 1865, p. 334.[15]Du Pape, bk. i. c. i. p. 17.[16]Ib.bk. i. c. xix. pp. 124, 125.[17]Ib.bk. i. c. xvi. p. 111.[18]‘Il n’y a point de souveraineté qui pour le bonheur des hommes, et pour le sien surtout, ne soit bornée de quelque manière, mais dans l’intérieur de ces bornes, placées comme il plaît à Dieu, elle est toujours et partout absolue et tenue pour infaillible. Et quand je parle de l’exercice légitime de la souveraineté, je n’entends point ou je ne dis point l’exercicejuste,ce qui produirait une amphibologie dangereuse, à moins que par ce dernier mot on ne veuille dire que tout ce qu’elle opine dans son cercle estjuste ou tenu pour tel,ce qui est la vérité. C’est ainsi qu’un tribunal suprême, tant qu’il ne sort pas de ses attributions, est toujours juste;car c’est la même chosedans la pratique, d’être infaillible, ou de se tromper sans appel.’—Bk. ii. c. xi. p. 212 (footnote).[19]Thomassin, the eminent French theologian, flourished from the middle to the end of the seventeenth century. The aim of his writings generally was to reconcile conflicting opinions on discipline or doctrine by exhibiting a true sense in all. In this spirit he wrote on the Pope and the Councils, and on the never-ending question of Grace. Among other things, he insisted that all languages could be traced to the Hebrew. He wrote a defence of the edict in which Lewisxiv.revoked the Edict of Nantes, contending that it was less harsh than some of the decrees of Theodosius and Justinian, which the holiest fathers of the Church had not scrupled to approve—an argument which would now be thought somewhat too dangerous for common use, as cutting both ways. Gibbon made use of hisDiscipline de l’Eglisein the twentieth chapter, and elsewhere.[20]Du Pape, bk. i. c. xviii. p. 122.[21]Bk. i. c. xvii. p. 117.[22]Littré,Auguste Comte et la Phil. Posit.p. 152.[23]Du Pape, Conclusion, p. 380.

[1]See Damiron’sLa Philosophie en France au XIXième Siècle. Introduction to Vol. I. (Fifth edition.)

[2]The facts of De Maistre’s life I have drawn from a very meagre biography by his son, Count Rodolphe de Maistre, supplemented by two volumes ofLettres et Opuscules(Fourth edition. Paris: Vaton. 1865), and a volume of hisDiplomatic Correspondence, edited by M. Albert Blanc.

[3]Soirées de Saint Pétersbourg(8th ed. 1862), vol. i. pp. 238-243.

[4]Soirées de Saint Pétersbourg, 6ième entretien, i. 397-442.

[5]Ib.(8th ed. 1862) vol. i. p. 403.

[6]Soirées, i. 76

[7]De Maistre found a curiously characteristic kind of support for this view in the fact that evils are calledfléaux:flails are things to beat with: so evils must be things with which men are beaten; and as we should not be beaten if we did not deserve it,argal, suffering is a merited punishment. Apart from that common infirmity which leads people after they have discovered an analogy between two things, to argue from the properties of the one to those of the other, as if, instead of being analogous, they were identical, De Maistre was particularly fond of inferring moral truths from etymologies. He has an argument for the deterioration of man, drawn from the fact that the Romans expressed in the same word,supplicium, the two ideas of prayer and punishment (Soirées, 2ième entretien, i. p. 108). His profundity as an etymologist may be gathered from his analysis ofcadaver:ca-ro,da-ta,ver-mibus. There are many others of the same quality.

[8]Gibbon, c. xlvi. vol. v. 385.

[9]See theExamen de la Philosophie de Bacon, vol. ii. 58et seq.

[10]De Maistre forgot or underestimated the services of Leo the Isaurian whose repulse of the Caliph’s forces at Constantinople (a.d.717) was perhaps as important for Europe as the more renowned victory of Charles Martel. But then Leo was an Iconoclast and heretic. Cf. Finlay’sByzantine Empire, pp. 22, 23.

[11]Du Pape, bk. iii. c. iv. p. 298 (ed. 1866).

[12]Du Pape, bk. iv. c. vii.

[13]A remark of Mr. Finlay’s is worth quoting here. ‘The Greeks,’ he says, ‘had at times only a secondary share in the ecclesiastical controversies in the Eastern Church, though the circumstance of these controversies having been carried on in the Greek language has made the natives of Western Europe attribute them to a philosophic, speculative, and polemic spirit, inherent in the Hellenic mind. A very slight examination of history is sufficient to prove that several of the heresies which disturbed the Eastern Church had their origin in the more profound religious ideas of the oriental nations, and that many of the opinions called heretical were in a great measure expressions of the mental nationality of the Syrians, Armenians, Egyptians, and Persians, and had no conception whatever with the Greek mind.’—Byzantine Empire, from 716 to 1057, p. 262.The same writer (p. 263) remarks very truly, that ‘the religious or theological portion of Popery, as a section of the Christian Church, is really Greek; and it is only the ecclesiastical, political, and theoretic peculiarities of the fabric which can be considered as the work of the Latin Church.’

The same writer (p. 263) remarks very truly, that ‘the religious or theological portion of Popery, as a section of the Christian Church, is really Greek; and it is only the ecclesiastical, political, and theoretic peculiarities of the fabric which can be considered as the work of the Latin Church.’

[14]Sir J. Fitzjames Stephen in theSaturday Review, Sept. 9, 1865, p. 334.

[15]Du Pape, bk. i. c. i. p. 17.

[16]Ib.bk. i. c. xix. pp. 124, 125.

[17]Ib.bk. i. c. xvi. p. 111.

[18]‘Il n’y a point de souveraineté qui pour le bonheur des hommes, et pour le sien surtout, ne soit bornée de quelque manière, mais dans l’intérieur de ces bornes, placées comme il plaît à Dieu, elle est toujours et partout absolue et tenue pour infaillible. Et quand je parle de l’exercice légitime de la souveraineté, je n’entends point ou je ne dis point l’exercicejuste,ce qui produirait une amphibologie dangereuse, à moins que par ce dernier mot on ne veuille dire que tout ce qu’elle opine dans son cercle estjuste ou tenu pour tel,ce qui est la vérité. C’est ainsi qu’un tribunal suprême, tant qu’il ne sort pas de ses attributions, est toujours juste;car c’est la même chosedans la pratique, d’être infaillible, ou de se tromper sans appel.’—Bk. ii. c. xi. p. 212 (footnote).

[19]Thomassin, the eminent French theologian, flourished from the middle to the end of the seventeenth century. The aim of his writings generally was to reconcile conflicting opinions on discipline or doctrine by exhibiting a true sense in all. In this spirit he wrote on the Pope and the Councils, and on the never-ending question of Grace. Among other things, he insisted that all languages could be traced to the Hebrew. He wrote a defence of the edict in which Lewisxiv.revoked the Edict of Nantes, contending that it was less harsh than some of the decrees of Theodosius and Justinian, which the holiest fathers of the Church had not scrupled to approve—an argument which would now be thought somewhat too dangerous for common use, as cutting both ways. Gibbon made use of hisDiscipline de l’Eglisein the twentieth chapter, and elsewhere.

[20]Du Pape, bk. i. c. xviii. p. 122.

[21]Bk. i. c. xvii. p. 117.

[22]Littré,Auguste Comte et la Phil. Posit.p. 152.

[23]Du Pape, Conclusion, p. 380.

end of vol. ii.

Printed byR. & R.Clark, Limited,Edinburgh.

Transcribers’ Notes:Minor printer errors (omitted quotation marks) have been amended without note. Other errors have been amended and are listed below.List of Amendments:Page 305: lights amended to rights; “... freedom, of equal rights, and by ...”Page 329: impressisn amended to impression; “... theory made a deep impression on the mind ...”

Transcribers’ Notes:

Minor printer errors (omitted quotation marks) have been amended without note. Other errors have been amended and are listed below.

List of Amendments:

Page 305: lights amended to rights; “... freedom, of equal rights, and by ...”

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