and Ultramontanes raised the same question
under different aspects, and Fitzjames frequently finds texts upon which
to preach his favourite sermon. It may be said, I think, that there are
three main lines of opinion. In the first place, there was the view of
the liberationists and their like. The ideal is a free Church in a free
State. Each has its own sphere, and, as Macaulay puts it in his famous
essay upon Mr. Gladstone's early book, the State has no more to do with
the religious opinions of its subjects than the North-Western Railway
with the religious opinions of its shareholders. This, represented a
view to which Fitzjames felt the strongest antipathy. It assumed, he
thought, a radically false notion, the possibility of dividing human
life into two parts, religious and secular; whereas in point of fact the
State is as closely interested as the Church in the morality of its
members, and therefore in the religion which determines the morality.
The State can only keep apart permanently from religious questions by
resigning all share in the most profoundly important and interesting
problems of life. To accept this principle would therefore be to degrade
the State to a mere commercial concern, and it was just for that reason
that its acceptance was natural to the ordinary radical who reflected
the prejudices of the petty trader. A State which deserves the name has
to adopt morality of one kind or another, in its criminal legislation,
in its whole national policy, in its relation to education, and more or
less in every great department of life. In his view, therefore, the
ordinary cry for disestablishment was not the recognition of a tenable
and consistent principle, but an attempt to arrange a temporary
compromise which could only work under special conditions, and must
break up whenever men's minds were really stirred. However reluctant
they may be, they will have to answer the question, Is this religion
true or not? and to regulate their affairs accordingly. He often
expresses a conviction that we are all in fact on the eve of such a
controversy, which must stir the whole of society to its base.

We have, then, to choose between two other views. The doctrine of
sovereignty expounded by Austin, and derived from his favourite
philosopher Hobbes, enabled him to put the point in his own dialect. The
difference between Church and State, he said, is not a difference of
spheres, but a difference of sanctions. Their commands