We forbear to quote cases of this nature,
though really existing in print, because we feel that the blasphemy of
such anecdotes is more revolting and more painful to pious minds than
the absurdity is amusing. Meantime it must not be forgotten, that the
principle concerned, though it may happen to disgust men when
associated with ludicrous circumstances, is, after all, the very same
which has latently governed very many modes of ordeal, or judicial
inquiry; and which has been adopted, blindly, as a moral rule, or
canon, equally by the blindest of the Pagans, the most fanatical of the
Jews, and the most enlightened of the Christians. It proceeds upon the
assumption that man by his actions puts a question to Heaven; and that
Heaven answers by the event. Lucan, in a well known passage, takes it
for granted that the cause of Caesar had the approbation of the gods.
And why? Simply from the event. It was notoriously the triumphant
cause. It was victorious, (_victrix_ causa Deis placuit; sed
_victa_ Catoni.) It was the '_victrix_ causa;' and, _as_ such,
simply because it was 'victrix,' it had a right in his eyes to
postulate the divine favor as mere matter of necessary interference:
whilst, on the other hand, the _victa causa_, though it seemed to
Lucan sanctioned by human virtue in the person of Cato, stood
unappealably condemned.
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