has continued, at the instance of anonymous or powerful delators, to pass judgment on books brought before it. Examples like Lamennais, Gioberti, Rosmini, Ventura, Mamiani, Curci, demonstrate how frequently the question of modern liberties has occupied its attention. Hermes, Günther, Ubaghs represent philosophic ideas not welcome to the Jesuit professors of the Roman College. Victor Hugo, George Sand, Quinet, Michelet, are voices of the Revolution offensive to pious ears. Renan's first condemnation goes back to 1859, his last bears date July 14th-a mischievous allusion to the taking of the Bastille-1892. Döllinger and some less illustrious names are trophies of the Vatican Council. But we seek Charles Darwin in vain among these dwellers in the shades. The memory of Galileo protects him. Goethe, like Shakespeare, sits above the clouds in a world of his own. And so the story ends.

Leo XIII issued an Index only a little revised in 1881. He has now, with assistance from scholars, of whom Esser is a brilliant example, had this hortus siccus weeded and set in order. Three thousand names have been removed; many are left, as we learn from the preface, not because they signify now, but because they did so in their time. Among these we remark innocent Goldsmith's 'History of England,' and Sterne's 'Sentimental Journey,' translated by Ugo Foscolo. Absolute prohibition falls upon every treatise assailing Roman doctrine, church authority, and the clerical order. Books of magic, spiritualism, and freemasonry are classed, as in previous collections, with immoral writings. Versions of Scripture not approved in Rome are still forbidden, except to students. Newspapers incur the same censures as printed volumes. An imprimatur is required for works dealing with religious, ethical, and ecclesiastical subjects. Whether printers can obtain a licence to reproduce forbidden books is not stated, but booksellers may not vend them unless by leave obtained of the Sacred Congregation. Former penalties stand repealed; those who read without licence the works of apostates and heretics which propagate heresy, or of any author condemned by name in Apostolic Letters, incur excommunication specially reserved to the Pope. Any one printing the Sacred Scriptures or commenting on them, without leave of the Ordinary, is also

excommunicate. For offenders against the law in other ways no definite punishment is assigned. What may be the actual binding force of these regulations in countries where the Index was never received, or where it has not hitherto been observed, is a matter for casuists to determine. But it would appear that much is left to the conscience of individuals and the custom of the country.

When we compare the enactments of Leo XIII with those of Paul IV, who founded the Index, we cannot but feel sensible that a great change has taken place, and that it is in the direction of freedom. The celebrated Jesuit, Canisius, writing in 1581 to William, Duke of Bavaria, while counselling a strict and sharp outlook on religious literature, observed that it was not enough to publish edicts and Indexes. The Fair of Frankfort, he went on to say, would always call up new heretical authors; to count them, let alone to put them in a forbidden list, would be an infinite matter. There was need of distinguishing even in Catholics between the sound and the unsound, nor could all be prohibited indiscriminately which was published by the other side. Not severe laws but wise censors were in request; to suppress bad books would not avail unless good authors took their place; and the true method was expurgation of dangerous writings by learned orthodox men.

This idea of a constructive system in which wholesome works should be recommended, and books otherwise useful be relieved of their errors, was not carried out. It seemed more agreeable to the practice of the Roman tribunals to dispense with persons than to enter upon the particulars of disputes in which learning rather than authority took the lead. Nevertheless, Canisius perIceived that wherever the secular arm is unable to put down dissidents, and so long as the printing-press declines to become the monopoly of power, an Index merely prohibitive will not succeed. Of the many thousands of volumes forbidden under penalties between 1559 and 1900, probably not a single one which later times would value has perished. Satire pretends that all the best books may be found by consulting the Roman Index. That is a witty exaggeration. It has preserved worthless authors from oblivion, and advertised ephemeral pamphlets of no account. But if every great name which it contains,

from Machiavelli to Renan, were blotted out, modern
literature would not only be impoverished, it would
become unintelligible. We could neither describe nor
comprehend the movement of thought during three cen-
turies which have been rich in achievement, original and
unwearied in their effort to resolve the enigmas of nature
and history. Canisius desired that good books should fill
the void which the censors were making; but classics
cannot be improvised. Erasmus, Montaigne, Bacon, Des-
cartes, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau,
have all laid themselves open to criticism. Yet the world
in which we live is largely of their creation; and to know
ourselves we must know them.

What may have been the effect on mental develop-
ment in Latin Christendom of an Index so variously en-
forced, would be a fruitful though difficult enquiry. The
delays, uncertainties, and suspicions, even of well-meaning
censors, cannot have been favourable to learning. This,
however, seems probable, that in proportion as books
were condemned they ceased to be studied; that ignor-
ance of the changes in thought ever going forward did
much to weaken the old apologetics; that, save on rare
occasions, under men of the world like Chateaubriand,
or strangers like Newman, the Roman method of con-
troversy has not travelled farther than Bellarmine and
Bossuet, and has remained a stereotype of the seventeenth
century; and that in Bible criticism, in metaphysics, in
the philosophy of religion or the comprehension of litera-
ture, its adept stands at a marked disadvantage when
addressing his own time. The breach that in Paul IV's
days might perhaps have been healed by open discussion,
is now a gulf between two worlds opposed in ideas, differ-
ing in speech, and unequal in literary aptitudes. If the
north of Europe is foreign to the south, and if the south
cannot understand the north, we must ascribe it to those
who have kept them for hundreds of years from ex-
changing their thoughts freely with one another. All
governments have acted consistently on the principle of
repression; it has broken down everywhere; but its con-
sequences will long be felt, and ages may pass before a
common agreement in first principles is arrived at on
which to build the civilisation of the future.

Art. XI.-MODERN PESSIMISM.

1. L'Avenir de la Race Blanche: Critique du Pessimisme contemporain. Par J. Novicow. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1897. 2. Études et Réflexions d'un Pessimiste. Par ChallemelLacour. Paris: Charpentier, 1901.

Von Friedrich

3. Schopenhauer, Hamlet, Mephistopheles: Drei Aufsätze zur Naturgeschichte des Pessimismus. Paulsen. Berlin: Hertz, 1900.

4. Zur Zeitgeschichte, Neue Tagesfragen. von Hartmann. Leipzig: Haacke, 1900.

5. Schopenhauer: Studies in Pessimism.

Von Eduard

Selected and

translated by T. Bailey Saunders. London: Sonnenschein, 1891.

6. Schopenhauer: a Lecture. By T. Bailey Saunders. London: Black, 1901.

And other works.

A GREAT change has come over the world since those three pessimists, Byron, Schopenhauer, and Leopardi, crossed one another's paths, unknown to each other, at Venice in 1818. Byron and Schopenhauer were born in the same year, within a month of each other, the former on the 22nd of January, the latter on the 22nd of February, 1788; Leopardi ten years later. In their pessimistic views they had much in common. Byron struck the keynote of revolt against the existing order; Schopenhauer, 'the sardonic sage,' though no less passionate in his misanthropic pessimism, was, or affected to be, more philosophical; whilst Leopardi, more gentle in spirit than either, resignedly bewailed his own sad lot, at the same time weeping in sympathy with his distracted country, the sacred 'Niobe of nations.' These three pessimists of the past resembled each other, however, in this respect, that their sad and sombre views of life are to some extent explained by inherited eccentricities, personal defects, physical and moral, as well as by untoward circumstances in their environment. These produced paroxysms of rage and resentment in the two elder, and a doleful tone of self-commiseration in the younger member of the trio which represents the pessimism of the past.

Schopenhauer died on the 20th September, 1860; but the low moaning of the still sad music of humanity'

is still heard, though in a somewhat different key, in modern dramas, lyrics, and fiction, not to speak of metaphysical treatises. Its tone, if possible, is more sad and desponding as it dwells on the sorrows and sufferings of existence, from which, it tells us, there is no escape but in the sleep of death and the peace of the grave, even as Byron would have placed on his tombstone the inscription, 'Implora pacem.' But pessimism has entered upon a new phase; it has become less revolutionary and more reflective, less sentimental and more scientific, less personal and more general; it makes its appeal to the universal heart. It is also more readily accepted as a theory of life by the cultivated class, and has succeeded in impregnating modern modes of thought to a remarkable extent, fully entering into the spirit of the age and influencing every department of literature and art.

In the country of Schopenhauer its general diffusion has rendered it desirable to publish an anthology of pessimistic verse-'Stimmen des Leides'--selected from oriental, classical, and modern poetry in most European languages; and to this have been added a pessimistic breviary and hymn-book for the use of those to whom pessimism has become a religion. The pessimistic dramas of Hauptmann, the novels of Sudermann, the music of Wagner, as the interpreter of Schopenhauer's philosophy, the poems of Hamerling and lesser poets, as well as the philosophical writings and popular essays of Eduard von Hartmann, the learned protagonist of the movement, enjoy an immense popularity. So great, indeed, has the danger of a further spread of pessimism become in Germany that an association was formed a few years ago for the purpose of stemming its further progress.

In France, Baudelaire followed by Leconte de Lisle, the leader of the Parnassians, Pierre Loti in the 'exotic romance,' M. Zola at the head of the realists, with the impressionists and the decadents, dwell with melancholy delight on the process of degeneration and decomposition in modern society. They all chime in chorus, solemnly denouncing or piteously bewailing the depravity of the age, some in grating sounds, others in dulcet measures, joining in the swan-song of what they hold to be the last phase of our modern civilisation.

The welcome given in this country to recent trans