These statements, which in vigour and rigour would satisfy the most extreme curialist in the Society of Jesus, are not a little startling in an American philosopher, who, as far as the present writer knows, does not belong to any ‘Catholic’ Church.  The thesis thus enunciated is the argument of the whole book, in which ‘loyalty to the beloved community’ is declared to be the characteristic Christian virtue.  It is true that the satisfaction of Professor Royce’s Catholic readers is destined to be damped in the second volume, where he forbids us to look for the ideal divine community in any existing Church, and expresses his conviction that great changes must come over the dogmatic teaching of Christianity.  But for our purpose the significant fact is that throughout the book he insists that Christianity is essentially an institutional religion, the most completely institutional of all religions.  For Professor Royce to be a Christian is to be a Churchman.

Our last witness shall be the learned Roman Catholic layman, Baron Friedrich von Huegel, the deepest thinker, perhaps, of all living theologians in this country.  ’It is now ever increasingly clear to all deep impartial students that religion has ever primarily expressed and formed itself in cultus, in social organisation, social worship, intercourse between soul and soul and between soul and God; and in symbols and sacraments, in contacts between spirit and matter.’  He proceeds to discuss the strength and weakness of institutionalism in a perfectly candid spirit, but with too particular reference to the present conditions within the Roman Church to help us much in our more general survey.  He mentions the drawbacks of an official philosophy, prescribed by authority; ’only in 1835 did the Congregation of the Index withdraw heliocentric books from its list.’  He emphasises the necessity of historical dogmas, but admits that orthodoxy cherishes, along with them, ‘fact-like historical pictures’ which ’cannot be taken as directly, simply factual.’  He vindicates the orthodoxy of religious toleration, and refuses to consign all non-Catholics to perdition, lamenting the tendency to identify absolutely the visible and invisible Church, which prevails among ’some of the (now dominant) Italian and German Jesuit Canonists.’  Lastly, he boldly recommends the frank abandonment of the Papal claim to exercise temporal power in Italy.  This is not so much a critique of institutionalism as the plea of a Liberal Catholic that the logic of institutionalism should not be allowed to override all other considerations.  The Baron is, indeed, himself a mystic, though also a strong believer in the necessity of institutional religion.