“BISHOP BLOUGRAM’S APOLOGY.”

“Bishop Blougram’s Apology” is a defence of religious conformity in those cases in which the doctrines to which we conform exceed our powers of belief, but ate not throughout opposed to them; its point of view being that of a Roman Catholic churchman, who has secured his preferment by this kind of compromise.  It is addressed to a semi-freethinker, who is supposed to have declared that a man who could thus identify himself with Romish superstitions must be despised as either knave or fool; and Bishop Blougram has undertaken to prove that he is not to be thus despised; and least of all by the person before him.

The argument is therefore special-pleading in the full sense of the word; and it is clear from a kind of editor’s note with which the poem concludes, that we are meant to take it as such.  But it is supposed to lie in the nature of the man who utters, as also in the circumstance in which it is uttered:  for Bishop Blougram was suggested by Cardinal Wiseman;[57] and the literary hack, Gigadibs, is the kind of critic by whom a Cardinal Wiseman is most likely to be assailed:  a man young, shallow, and untried; unused to any but paper warfare; blind to the deeper issues of both conformity and dissent, and as much alive to the distinction of dining in a bishop’s palace as Bishop Blougram himself.  The monologue is spoken on such an occasion, and includes everything which Mr. Gigadibs says, or might say, on his own side of the question.  We must therefore treat it as a conversation.

Mr. Gigadibs’ reasoning resolves itself into this:  “he does not believe in dogmas, and he says so.  The Bishop cannot believe in them, but does not say so.  He is true to his own convictions:  the Bishop is not true to his.”  And the Bishop’s defence is as follows.

“Mr. Gigadibs aims at living his own life:  in other words, the ideal life.  And this means that he is living no life at all.  For a man, in order to live, must make the best of the world he is born in; he must adapt himself to its capabilities as a cabin-passenger to those of his cabin.  He must not load himself with moral and intellectual fittings which the ship cannot carry, and which will therefore have to be thrown overboard.  He (the Bishop) has chosen to live a real life; and has equipped himself accordingly.”

“And, supposing he displays what Mr. Gigadibs considers the courage of his convictions, and flings his dogmas overboard,—­what will he have gained?  Simply that his uncertainty has changed sides.  Believing, he had shocks of unbelief.  Disbelieving, he will have shocks of belief (note a fine passage, vol. iv. p. 245):  since no certainty in these matters is possible.”

“But,” says Gigadibs; “on that principle, your belief is worth no more than my unbelief.”

“Yes,” replies the Bishop, “it is worth much more in practice, if no more in theory.  Life cannot be carried on by negations.  Least of all will religious negations be tolerated by those we live with.  And the more definite the religion affirmed, the better will the purposes of life be advanced by it.”