DOGMATISM.

The philosopher Chrysippus would have those who teach a truth, to take but little notice of the reasons of the contrary party, and to imitate the advocates. It was the general spirit of the Dogmatists: there were but few, besides the Academics, who proposed the arguments of both parties with the same force. Now I maintain that, that method of the Dogmatists was a bad one, and that it differed very little from the deceitful art of the rhetorician Sophisters, which made them so odious, and which consisted in transforming the worst causes into the best. One of the chief artifices of the latter was, to conceal all the advantages of the causes which they opposed, and all the weak sides of those which they maintained; only they proposed some objections to themselves for form-sake, which

were chosen among the easiest to be refuted. This is, at the bottom, what Chrysippus would have philosophers do: he would have them to touch slightly upon the reasons of the contrary party, which were able to shake the persuasion of the hearers or readers, and to imitate those who plead at the bar. Why did he not say plainly, that they must do like shop-keepers, who cry up their own wares, and cunningly decry those of their neighbours? Why did he not say also, that they must do like those who, having quarrelled, carry their complaints before the judges? Every one tells his story so much to his advantage, that, if you believe him, he is not at all in the wrong, because he suppresses all that is against him, and all that is favourable to his enemy. Chrysippus was not only to blame for the dishonest and unfair way by which he would have the victory obtained, but also for his indiscretion in revealing that practice. It was not a thing to be communicated to the public; he ought to have kept it in secret, as the politicians do their designs or maxims of state,Arcana Imperii: he ought, at most, to have whispered it in the ear of some wise and learned disciple.

Antiquity had two sorts of philosophers; some were like the advocates, and others like those who report a cause. The former, in proving their opinions, hid the weak side of their cause, and the strong side of their adversaries, as much as they could. The latter, to wit, the Sceptics or Academics, represented the strong and the weak arguments of the two opposite parties faithfully, and without any partiality. This distinction has been very seldom seen among Christians, in the schools of philosophy, and less still in the schools of divinity. Religion does not admit of the character of an Academic; it requires either a negative or an affirmative. No religious judges are found, but what are parties at the same time, and there are a great many pious authors, who plead a cause according to Chrysippus’s maxim. I mean who keep to the

function of an advocate; but there is scarcely any reporter to be seen, for, if any one represent the whole strength of the contrary party faithfully, and without any disguise, he becomes odious and suspected, and runs the hazard of being treated as an infamous prevaricator. Human prudence, policy, the interest of the party, are not always the reason why a man acts merely like an advocate. A charitable zeal likewise inspires this conduct; and, upon this, I shall allege what was said to me the other day by a learned divine, and a very honest man. I maintained to him that an author who, without dogmatising, keeps within the bounds of history, may and ought, faithfully, to represent the most specious things that the worst sects can allege in their own vindication, or against Orthodoxy. He denied it. I suppose, said I, that you are a professor of divinity, and that you make choice of the mystery of the Trinity for the subject-matter of your lectures for a whole winter. You examine to the bottom what the Orthodox have said, and what the Heretics have objected; and you find, by your meditation and by the strength of your parts, that the solutions of the Orthodox may be much better answered than they have been by the sectaries. In a word, you discover new objections, more difficult to be resolved than all that has hitherto been objected; and I suppose you propose them to your auditors. “ No,” replied he, “I would by no means do it; it would be a dangerous thing for them: neither charity, nor zeal for truth, allow of such a thing.” Such was his answer. It may very well be then, that certain authors boast, in a preface, to have overthrown all the bulwarks of Heresy, and yet that they remember to have omitted the discussion of the most captious arguments, for charity-sake. There is reason to believe this chiefly of the Romish controversialists, since the complaints that have been made against Bellarmin, that his sincerity in representing the reasons of the Heretics, has been prejudicial to the Romish church.

Here I must examine a thing which I promised in the article of that cardinal. Is it to argue consequentially, is it to preserve a uniform and regular conduct, to cause the writings of a Heretic to be burnt, and yet to permit the reading of the authors who have refuted him? No, you will say; for the reason why the reading and the sale of heretical books are prohibited is, because it is feared they will infect the readers. They are afraid, in Italy, that those who should see in what manner a protestant writer proves his tenets, and attacks the catholic doctrine, would be filled with doubts, and even would suffer themselves to be wholly persuaded by that author’s reasons. But is there no reason to fear the same misfortune, if they read Bellarmin’s writings? Will they not see there the proofs and objections of the heretics? And, supposing that Bellarmin has been a fair writer, will they not find them as strong there, as in the very books of the most learned Protestant? Yes, will it be said to me; but they will find them confuted; whereas, if they should read the book of a Heretic,, they would find the poison, without having a preservative at the same time. This answer is not satisfactory; for it supposes an extraordinary imprudence and laziness in the readers: it is to suppose, that they had rather run the hazard of their salvation, than go from one book to another; and that, knowing they might find Bellarmin’s works in a shop where they bought the book of a Calvinist, they would decide in favour of the latter, before they had informed themselves of that Cardinal’s reasons; though at the same time they might lay on their table both the book which contains the poison, and that which has the antidote. You will grant that the difference between the arguments of a Heretic, bound up together with the arguments of an Orthodox, and those same arguments bound up by themselves, those of the Heretic in one volume, and those of the Orthodox in another; I say, you will grant me, that such a difference is not a sufficient reason either to hope or

to fear. Thia hope or this fear must therefore proceed from something else. It must be said, that what is thought to be a sufficient antidote, when the reader compares together what an orthodox writer quotes out of an heretical book, and what he answers to it, is not looked upon as a good remedy, when he compares together the whole book of the Heretic and the whole book of the Orthodox. It is therefore supposed that, independently of the answer, the reasons of the Heretic are weaker in the work of the orthodox writer, than in the work of the Heretic; and consequently, it is supposed that the author of the answer had the prudence to misrepresent and curtail them, and to turn them in such a manner, that they shall not be able to surprise those who shall see nothing but that, and shall compare it with the refutation. At this rate, the inquisitors who prohibit a book, and permit the reading of those who have refuted it, do not contradict themselves: their conduct is not made up of inconsistent proceedings; they are sure that the prohibition will be useful, and that the permission will do no harm. Nevertheless, let us infer, that the same policy, prudence, charity, or zeal (make use of what term you please) which requires that certain books should be burnt, or that the reading or selling of them should be prohibited, requires by a necessary consequence, that all the reasons of an author should not be inserted in the books wherein they are confuted; for if, contrary to Chrysippus’s maxim, all the strength of those reasons should be displayed with the utmost sincerity, it would be to no purpose to suppress those ill books, unless they should prohibit, at the same time, all the writings that confute them. This is so plain, that it is very probable that all the authors, who are zealous to maintain the discipline, comply with the spirit of the tribunals that condemn certain books; it is very probable that, if those authors undertake to refute any of those books, they order it so that their refutation does not discover what might shake the faith of the readers. They reduce an objection to three or four lines which takes up several pages; they produce it without any support, and without its preliminaries; they leave out what they cannot answer. After all, a book, which seems never so strong to those who read it through, will hardly appear so in the fragments which an adversary alleges out of it. and which he scatters in several parts of his answer, here four lines, there five or six, &c.; they are branches lopped from their trunk; they are a dismounted machine, a dismembered body, which cannot be known again. All controversialists mutually complain of the artifices of those who write against them. I knew a Roman catholic who said, that all the works published against Bellarmin deserved the title ofBellarminus enervatus, which Amesius made use of;enervatus,added he, not by the force of the answer, but by the manner of representing his objections. The Protestants complain yet more of the tricks of their adversaries. If you observe the quarrels that arise sometimes between persons of the same party, and if you read the books of the two disputants, you will find some force in them; but, if you should judge of Mævius’s book by the scraps which his antagonist Titius cites out of them, and by the censure that he passes upon them, you would think that Mævius can neither write nor argue, and that he has not common sense.—Art.Chrysippus.