y. Here lies the fallacy which makes his reasoning, in spite
of all its eloquence, but superficial. Protestantism, in truth, has
never been more than a half-way house or halting-place between
Catholicism and what may variously be described as free thought or
science or rationalism. Being in its origin critical--being, as its name
implies, a protest and an opposition--Protestantism was doomed to
sterility, whenever it hardened into one or other of its dogmatic
forms. As critics and insurgents, Luther and Calvin rank among the
liberators of the modern intellect. As founders of intolerant and
mutually hostile Christian sects, Luther and Calvin rank among the
retarders of modern civilization. In subsequent thinkers of whom both
sects have disapproved, we may recognize the veritable continuators of
their work in its best aspect. The Lutheran and Calvinist Churches are
but backwaters and stagnant pools, left behind by the subsidence of
rivers in flood, separated from the tidal stress of cosmic forces.
Macaulay's misconception of the true character of Protestantism, which
is to Catholicism what the several dissenting bodies are to the English
Establishment, has diverted his attention from the deeper issues
involved in the Counter-Reformation. He hardly touches upon Rome's
persecution of free thought, upon her obstinate opposition to science.
Consequently, he is not sufficiently aware that Copernicus and Bruno
were, even in the sixteenth century, far more dangerous foes to
Catholicism than were the leaders of the Reformed Churches. Copernicus
and Bruno, the lineal ancestors of Helmholtz and Darwin, headed that
opposition to Catholicism which has been continuous and potent to the
present day, which has never retreated into backwaters or stagnated in
slumbrous pools. From this opposition the essence of Christianity, the
spirit which Christ bequeathed to his disciples, has nothing to fear.
But Catholicism and Protestantism alike, in so far as both are dogmatic
and reactionary, clinging to creeds which will not bear the test of
scientific investigation, to myths which have lost their significance in
the light of advancing knowledge, and to methods of interpreting the
Scriptures at variance with the canons of historical criticism, have
very much to fear from this opposition. Lord Macaulay thinks it a most
remarkable fact that no Christian nation has adopted the principles of
the Reformation since the end of the sixteenth century. He d