The idea never was that throve and lasted, yet, like mathematical truth, incorporated nothing from external sources. So far from the fact of such incorporation implying corruption, as is sometimes supposed, development implies incorporation. Mahometanism may be in external developments scarcely more than a compound of other theologies, yet no one would deny that there has been a living idea somewhere in that religion, which has been so strong, so wide, so lasting a bond of union in the history of the world. Why it has not continued to develope after its first preaching, if this be the case, as it seems to be, cannot be determined without a greater knowledge of that religion, and how far it is merely political, how far theological, than we commonly possess.

In Christianity, opinion, while a raw material, is called philosophy or scholasticism; when a rejected refuse, it is called heresy.

Ideas are more open to an external bias in their commencement than afterwards; hence the great majority of writers who consider the Medieval Church corrupt, trace its corruption to the first four centuries, not to what are called the dark ages.

At

That an idea more readily coalesces with certain ideas than with others does not show that it has been unduly influenced, that is, corrupted by them, but that it has an antecedent affinity to them. least it shall be assumed here that, when the Gospels speak of virtue going out of our Lord, and of His healing with the clay which He had moistened, they afford instances, not of a perversion of Christianity, but of affinity to notions which were external to it; and that St. Paul was not biassed by Orientalism, though he said that it was "excellent not to touch a woman."

Thus in politics, too, ideas are sometimes proposed, discussed, rejected, or adopted, as it may happen. Sometimes they are shown to be unmean

ing and impossible; sometimes they are true, but partially so, or in subordination to other ideas, with which, in consequence, they are as wholes or in part incorporated, as far as these have affinities to them. • Mr. Bentham's system was an attempt to make the circle of legal and moral truths developments of certain principles of his own;-those principles of his may, if it so happen, prove unequal to the weight of truths which are eternal, and the system founded on them may break into pieces; or again, a State may absorb certain of them, for which it has affinity, that is, it may develope in Benthamism, yet remain in substance what it was before. In the history of the French Revolution we read of many middle parties, who attempted to form theories of constitutions short of those which they would call extreme, and successively failed from the want of power or reality in their characteristic ideas. The Semiarians attempted a middle way between orthodoxy and heresy, but could not stand their ground; at length part fell into Macedonianism, and part joined the Church.

The stronger and more living is an idea, that is, the more powerful hold it exercises on the minds of men, the more able is it to dispense with safeguards, and trust to itself against the danger of corruption. As strong frames exult in their agility, and healthy constitutions throw off ailments, so parties or schools that live can afford to be rash, and will sometimes be betrayed into extravagances, yet are brought right by their inherent vigour. On the other hand, unreal systems are commonly decent externally. Forms, subscriptions, or Articles of religion are indispensable when the principle of life is weakly. Thus Presbyterianism has maintained its original theology in Scotland where legal subscriptions are enforced, while it has run into Arianism or Unitarianism where that protection is away. We have yet to see whether the Free Kirk can keep its present

theological ground. The Church of Rome can consult expedience more freely than other bodies, as trusting to her living tradition, and is sometimes thought to disregard principle and scruple when she is but dispensing with forms. Thus Saints are often characterized by acts which are no patterns for others; and the most gifted men are, by reason of their very gifts, sometimes led into fatal inadvertences. Hence vows are the wise defence of unstable virtue, and general rules the refuge of feeble authority.

And so much may suffice on the unitive power of faithful developments, which constitutes their third characteristic.

§ 6.

The Fourth Test; Early Anticipation.

Since, when an idea is living, that is, influential and operative in the minds of recipients, it is sure to develope according to the principles on which they are formed; instances of such a process, though vague and isolated, may occur from the very first, though a lapse of time be necessary to bring it to perfection. And since developments are in great measure only aspects of the idea from which they come, and all of them are natural consequences of it, it is often a matter of accident in what order they are carried out in individual minds; and it is in no wise strange that here and there definite specimens should very early occur, which in the historical course are not found till a late day. The fact, then, of such early or recurring intimations of tendencies, which afterwards are fully realized, is a sort of evidence that those later and more systematic fulfilments are but in accordance with the original idea.

Nothing is more common, for instance, than accounts or legends of the anticipations, which great

men have given in boyhood of the bent of their minds, as afterwards displayed in their history; so much so that the popular expectation has sometimes led to the invention of them. The child - Cyrus mimics a despot's power, and St. Athanasius is elected Bishop by his playfellows. In the Book of Job, we find a special doctrine of the Gospel anticipated at so early a date that Warburton even considers it a difficulty in his particular theory, and is led in consequence to make Ezra the writer.

To turn to profane history. It is observable that in the eleventh century, when the Russians were but pirates upon the Black Sea, Constantinople was their aim; and that a prophecy was in circulation in that city that they should one day gain possession

of it.

In the reign of James the First, we have a curious anticipation of the system of influence in the management of political parties, which was developed by Sir R. Walpole a century afterwards. This attempt is traced by a living writer to the ingenuity of Lord Bacon. "He submitted to the King that there were expedients for more judiciously managing a House of Commons; ... that much might be done by forethought towards filling the House with well-affected persons, winning or blinding the lawyers and drawing the chief constituent bodies of the assembly, the country gentlemen, the merchants, the courtiers, to act for the King's advantage; that it would be expedient to tender voluntarily certain graces and modifications of the King's prerogative," &c.1 The writer adds, "This circumstance, like several others in the present reign, is curious, as it shows the rise of a systematic parliamentary influence, which was one day to become the mainspring of government."

Arcesilas and Carneades, the founders of the later Academy, are known to have innovated on the Pla1 Hallam's Const. Hist. ch. vi. p. 461.

tonic doctrine by inculcating a universal scepticism; and they did this, as if on the authority of Socrates, who had adopted the method of ironia against the Sophists, on their professing to know everything. This, of course, was an insufficient plea. However, could it be shown that Socrates did on one or two occasions evidence deliberate doubts on the great principles of theism or morals, would any one deny that the innovation in question had grounds for being. considered a true development, not a corruption?

It is certain that, in the idea of Monachism, prevalent in ancient times, manual labour had a more prominent place than study; so much so that De Rancé, the celebrated Abbot of La Trappe, in controversy with Mabillon, maintained his ground with great plausibility against the latter's apology for the literary occupations for which the Benedictines of France are so famous. Nor can it be denied that the labours of such as Mabillon and Montfaucon are at least a development upon the simplicity of the primitive institution. And yet it is remarkable that St. Pachomius, the first author of a monastic rule, enjoined a library in each of his houses, and appointed conferences and disputations three times a week on religious subjects, interpretation of Scripture, or points of theology. St. Basil, the founder of Monachism in Pontus, one of the most learned of the Greek Fathers, wrote his theological treatises in the intervals of agricultural labour. St. Jerome, the author of the Latin version of Scripture, lived as a poor monk in a cell at Bethlehem. These, indeed, were but exceptions in the character of early Monachism; but they suggest its capabilities and anticipate its history. Literature is certainly not inconsistent with its idea.

In the controversies with the Gnostics, in the second century, striking anticipations occasionally occur, in the works of their opponents, of the formal dogmatic teaching developed in the Church in the