Thus there Originated a moral union, which was initiated in Rome in 1894 by a group of chosen Men as a result of the lectures of Paul Defardins and in imitation of the Societies of Ethical Culture started in America, Germany and other countries by Adler, and which are still active. Notwithstanding their noble ef forts, the work of this Italian society was not a success, and the journal L'Ora presence (Me dour"), our"), which was the organ of this praiseworthy society, although well conceived and edited in a liberal and enlightened spirit, did not succeed in revivifying and renewing the public -spirit of the country, and was short lived.
On the other hand, every attempt to recon cile the Catholic Church to the modern move ment of ideas seemed to be futile. As regards its relations with international culture, whether in the line of thought, or of social life, it has that tendency to fortify itself behind the rigid inflexibility of dogma of authority and disci pline at the least -breadth modern thought, more especially in the land where it has its historical seat and centre of power.
The Roman Catholic Church for long cen turies marched with the times, and it had that marvelous power of adaptation which enabled it to survive the wreck of many empires, to hold its own amid varying events, and to issue victorious from the treachery of foes within and the persecution of enemies without its fold.
i In ts apparent immobility, it progressed in doctrine and in action. The nil immutetur in ecelesia was rather a rule of internal discipline than a precept of its active life, It welcomed the culture of ancient Roman and the political traditions of the empire. With that good sense that characterizes the Latin race and which was its strength, the Catholic Church knew how to gain advantage from the uprising of the orders of mendicant friars in the 13th century. It made the teachings of Aristotle the foundation of her philosophy, and in the humanitarian period welcomed Plato nism. Under the name of culture it knew how to make use of the classical Renaissance through the fine arts, raising them to that magnificence exemplified in the Vatican chamber, and in the Sistine Chapel This regeneration culminated in the Council of Trent.
It seemed as though its power of adaptation and assimilation had been exhausted m that effort and the secular evolutionary tradition lost. The Church from this time smothered every live movement of free thought, although consenting to the work of literary and historical learning and — where they did not touch on dogma — the physical sciences. She would not affiliate with the three great movements of the '19th century— that of Italian national liberty, the socialistic movement and the modern scien tific movement. After the vain hopes of 184a
the Church contrasted the Unification with the Freedom of Italy, and if Leo XIII in his en cyclical Reruns Novarum appeared to arouse the Church to new social action, his succeeding en cyclicals, and those of Pius X. discouraged the Christian Democracy, thus extinguishing all so cialistic vitality in the younger clergy and the Catholic laity. It was the same with the sci ences.
It was certainly a great benefit to the stu dents of history when Leo XIII opened the archives of the Vatican, and the Italian clergy have taken a notable place in the work of the scientific laboratories. But as the Holy See and the doctrine of papal infallibility closed the door on all independence of thought, it was natural that philosophy should also be officially proscribed by the Church, and thus by the act of Leo XIII the scholastic became the only true and sane philosopher. We hope that it will not be the same with biblical criticism, and that the commission selected by Leo XIII (in many respects liberal-minded men) will not risk the suppression of enlightened biblical study, of which the younger Vatican clergy have given praiseworthy examples.
However, the news that they found a dog matic confirmation of the Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch made one fear that even in this respect the Roman Catholic Church desires to close every channel to modern criticism, as was done in the condemnation of Loisy, in the re traction imposed on Monsignor Hulst and other liberal, energetic Catholics. Just so in the re cent condemnation of Bonomelli, of Fogazzaro, and his novel The Saint,) and of Christian Democracy it is seen that the restrictive and irreconcilable attitude still obtains in the bosom of Roman Catholicism toward every movement for freedom of thought.
Notwithstanding all these signs of rigid ad herence to the central traditions of the Catho lic Church, there is a noteworthy revival of religious life if not in the Church, at least all around it, in Italy. For this reason what Har nack wrote some years ago is not exactly true to-day— that Italians were two extreme poles, Papistry and Atheism. He did not know that there would be many Italians who would con, sent that Italy should to-day be at the head of the movement of religious reform in the Catho lic Church, as Harrier Reid affirmed in review ing Fogazzaro's ideal works (Motably Review, September 1906). It is not a question, if it ever was, in Italy, of a vague and unorganized aspiration. This is something more, and the Will to Believe is not quite religious, it is never theless, as Nietzsche declares, not a negation; and there are not wanting among us signs of the need of a renewal of faith, or at least of a greater regard for religious matters.