Dr. Caldecott in his
'Philosophy of Religion,' 'is based frankly and wholly on the appeal to
reason.' This is notoriously true; and what Newman thought of reason we
have already seen. His extreme disparagement of the intellect seems to
preclude what he calls 'real assent' to the creeds and dogmas of
Catholicism; for these clearly consist of 'notional' propositions. But
Newman would answer that the Church is a concrete fact, to which 'real
assent' can be given; and the Church has guaranteed the truth of the
notional propositions in question. But since reason is put out of court
as a witness to truth, on what faculty, or on what evidence, does Newman
rely? Feeling he distrusts; that side of mysticism, at any rate, finds
no sympathy from him. Nor does he, like many Kantians and others, make
the will supreme over the other faculties. Rather, as we have seen, he
bases his reliance on the verdicts of the undivided personality, which
he often calls conscience. This line of apologetic was at this very time
being ably developed by Julius Hare. It is in itself an argument which
has no necessary connexion with obscurantism. 'Personalism,' as it is
technically called, reminds us that we do actually base our judgments on
grounds which are nob purely rational; that the intellect, in forming
concepts, has to be content with an approximate resemblance to concrete
reality; and that the will and feelings have their rights and claims
which cannot be ignored in a philosophy of religion. But while it is
compatible with a robust faith in the powers of the constructive
intellect, personalism is beyond question a self-sufficient,
independent, individualistic doctrine. When it is combined with a
nominalist theory of knowledge, it naturally suggests that every man may
and should live by the creed which bests suits his idiosyncrasies. Now
there was much in Newman's temperament which made him turn in this
direction. 'Lead, kindly Light' has been the favourite hymn of many an
independent thinker, to whom the authority of the Church is less than
nothing. But on another side Newman was all his life a fierce upholder
of the principle of authority. His reason for accepting the dogmas of
the Church, and for wishing to destroy heresiarchs like wild beasts, was
certainly not that his basal personality testified to the truth and
value of all ecclesiastical dogmas. He believed them 'by confiding in
the testimony of others'--in other words, on the authority o