The history of national character supplies an analogy, rather than an instance strictly in point; yet there is so close a connexion between the development of minds and of ideas that it is allowable to 6 refer to it here. Thus we find England of old the most loyal supporter, and England of late the most jealous enemy, of the Holy See. As great a change is exhibited in France, once the eldest born of the Church and the flower of her Knighthood, now democratic and lately infidel. Yet, in both nations, these great changes cannot be well called corruptions.

Or again, let us reflect on the ethical vicissitudes of the chosen people. How different is their grovelling and cowardly temper on leaving Egypt from the chivalrous spirit, as it may be called, of the age of David, or, again, from the bloody fanaticism which braved Titus and Hadrian! How different that impotence of mind which yielded even at the sight of a pagan idol, from the stern iconoclasm and bigoted nationality of later Judaism! How startling the apparent absence of what would be called talent in this people during their supernatural Dispensation, compared with the gifts of mind which various witnesses assign to them now!

And, in like manner, ideas may remain, when the expression of them is indefinitely varied; and we cannot determine whether a professed development is truly such or not, without some further knowledge than the mere fact of this variation. Nor will our feelings serve as a criterion. It must have been an extreme shock to St. Peter to be told he must slay and eat beasts, unclean as well as clean, though such a command was implied already in that faith which he held and taught; a shock, which a single effort, or a short period, or the force of reason would not suffice to overcome. Nay, it may happen that a representation which varies from its original may be felt as more true and faithful than one whcih has more pretensions to be exact. So it is with many a

portrait which is not striking: at first look, of course, it disappoints us; but when we are familiar with it, we see in it what we could not see at first, and prefer it, not to a perfect likeness, but to many a sketch which is so precise as to be a caricature.

And, in like manner, real perversions and corruptions are often not so unlike externally to the doctrine to which they belong, as are changes which are consistent with it and true developments. When Rome changed from a Republic to an Empire, it was a real alteration of polity or a corruption; yet in appearance the change was small. The old offices or functions of government remained: it was only that the Imperator, or Commander in Chief, concentrated them in his own person. Augustus was Consul and Tribune, Supreme Pontiff and Censor, and the Imperial rule was, in the words of Gibbon, "an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth." On the other hand, when the dissimulation of Augustus was exchanged for the ostentation of Dioclesian, the real alteration of constitution was trivial, but the appearance of change was great. Instead of plain Consul, Censor, and Tribune, Dioclesian became Dominus or King, assumed the diadem, and threw around him the forms of a court.

Nay, one cause of corruption in religion is the ° refusal to follow the course of doctrine as it moves on, and an obstinacy in the notions of the past. Certainly as we see conspicuously in the history of the chosen race. The Samaritans who refused to add the Prophets to the Law, and the Sadducees who denied what lay hid in the Book of Exodus, were in appearance but faithful adherents to the primitive doctrine. Our Lord found His people precisians in their obedience to the letter; He condemned them for not being led on to its spirit, that is, to its developments. The Gospel is the development of the Law; yet what difference

separates the un"grace and truth" Samuel had of old

seems wider than that which bending rule of Moses from the which "came by Jesus Christ?" time fancied that the tall Eliab was the Lord's anointed; and Jesse had thought David only fit for the sheepcote; and when the Great King came, He was "as a root out of a dry ground:" but strength came out of weakness, and out of the strong sweet

ness.

So it is in the case of our friends; the most obsequious are not always the truest, and seeming cruelty is often the most faithful. We know the conduct of the three daughters in the fable towards the old King. She who had found her love "more richer than her tongue," and could not "heave her heart into her mouth," was in the event alone true to her father.

Natural then as it is at first sight to suppose that an idea will always be the exact image of itself in all stages of its history, experience does not bear out the anticipation. To discover the tests of a true development, as distinguished from a corruption, we must consider the subject more attentively.

Perhaps it will help us in the difficulty to consider the literal meaning of the word corruption, as used of material substances. Corruption is a breaking up of the subject in which it takes place, or its resolution into its component parts, which involves eventually a loss of unity. Again, it is only applied to organized matter; a stone may be crushed to powder, but cannot be corrupted. Moreover, since organization involves, corruption must in consequence destroy, both life and growth; for which reason it is opposed by philosophers to generation. If this analogy is to be followed, the corruption of philosophical and political ideas is a process ending in dissolution of the body of thought and usage which was bound up, as it were, into one

system; in the destruction of the norm or type, whatever it may be considered, which made it one; in its disorganization; in its loss of the principle of life and growth; in its resolution into other distinct lives, that is, into other ideas which take the place of it.

Moreover, corruption, as seen in the physical world, not only immediately precedes dissolution, but immediately follows upon development. It is the turning-point or transition-state in that continuous process by which the birth of a living thing is mysteriously connected with its death. In this it differs from a re-action, innovation, or reform, that it is a state to which a development tends from the first, at which sooner or later it arrives, and which is its reversal, while it is its continuation. Animated natures live on till they die; they grow in order to decrease; and every hour which brings them nearer to perfection, brings them nearer to their end. Here the resemblance and the difference between a development and corruption are brought into close juxta-position. The corruption of an idea is that state of a development which undoes its previous advances.

If the process is suspended and the state chronic, then it is called decay; but it is called corruption when it hastens to a crisis, as a fever, or the disturbance of system consequent on poisoning, in which the bodily functions are under preternatural influence, whereas in decay there is a loss of activity and vigour.

Thus, without considering the analogy as strict, or sufficient to rest an argument upon, we may use it to introduce several rules for drawing the line between a development and a corruption. That development, then, is to be considered a corruption which obscures or prejudices its essential idea, or which disturbs the laws of development which constitute its organization, or which reverses its course

of development; that is not a corruption which is both a chronic and an active state, or which is capable of holding together the component parts of a system. From this analysis seven tests of a development may be drawn of varying cogency and independence.

§ 2.

First Test of a true Development; Preservation of Idea.

That the essential idea or type which a philosophical or political system represents must continue under all its developments, and that its loss is tantamount to the corruption of the system, will scarcely be denied. When, for instance, we pronounce a monastic institution to have been in a state of corruption, we mean that it had departed from the views or professions in which it was founded. Judges are corrupt, when they are guided in their decisions, not by justice and truth, but by the love of lucre or respect of persons. Severity in living may be carried to excess as well as indulgence; but we predicate corruption, not of the extreme, which preserves, but of that which destroys, the type of self-restraint.

This is in substance acknowledged in a variety of other cases. An empire or a religion may have many changes: but when we speak of its developing, we consider it to be fulfilling, not to be belying its destiny; so much so that we even take its actual fortunes as a comment on its early history, and call its policy a mission. The Popes present a very different appearance to the historian of the world, when in apostolical poverty or in more than imperial power; but, while they protect the poor, reconcile rival sovereigns, convert barbarians, and promote civilization, he recognizes their func