296 CoHddiitional IIistori/. [chap.
age of change was to contribute to the world’s history. And
some cf these points require rather minute treatment.
Intrinsic The careful study of history suggests many problems for
Iofthesub- which it supplies no solution. None of these is more easy to
• state, or more difficult to handle, than the great question of the
proper relation between Church and State. It may be taken
for granted that, between the extreme claims made by the advo-
cates of the two, there can never be even an approximate recon-
ciliation. The claims of both are very deeply rooted, and the
roots of both lie in the best parts of human nature ; neither can
do violence to, or claim complete supremacy over, the other,
without crushing something which is precious. Nor will any
universal formula be possible so long as different nations and
churches are in different stages of development, even if for the
highest forms of Church and State such a formal concordat be
practicable. A perfect solution of the problem involves the old
question of the identity between the good man and the good
citizen as well as the modern ideal of a free church within a free
state. Religion, morality, and law, overlap one another in al-
most every region of human action ; they approach their common
subject-matter from different points and legislate for it with
different sanctions. The idea of peɪfeet harmony between them
seems to imply an amount of subordination which is scarcely
compatible with freedom ; the idea of complete disjunction
implies either the certainty of conflict on some if not all parts
of the common field of work, or the abdication, on the one part
or on the other, of some duty which according to its own ideal
it is bound to fulfil. The church, for instance, cannot engross
the work of education without some danger to liberty ; the state
cannot engross it without some danger to religion ; the work of
the church without liberty loses half its value ; the state without
religion does only half its work. And this is only an illus-
tration of what is true throughout. The individual conscience,
the spiritual aspiration, the moral system, the legal enactment,
will never, in a world of mixed character, work consistently or
harmoniously in all points.
For the historian, who is content to view men as they are
XIX.] Churck and State. 2t)"j
and appear to be, not as they ought to be or are capable of Perfect
becoming, it is no dereliction of duty if he declines to lay down of relations
any definition of the ideal relations between Church and State. Church and
He may honestly and perhaps wisely confess that he regards be realised,
the indeterminateness and the indeterminability of those re-
lations as one of the points in which religion teaches him to
see a trial of his faith incident to a state of probation. The
practical statesman too may content himself with assuming
the existence of an ideal towards which he may approximate,
without the hope of realising it ; trying to deal equitably, but
conscious all the time that theoretical considerations will not
solve the practical problem. Even the philosopher may admit
that there are departments of life and action in which the
working of two different laws may be traced, and yet any exact
harmonising of their respective courses must be left for a
distant future and altered conditions of existence.
Nor does our perplexity end here. Even if it were possible Relations
, , ɪ 1 ,i t x with foreign
that in a sniffle state, of Iionioffeneous population and a fair churches
.o ɪ ɪ λ.. add another
level of property and education, the relations of religion, element of
morality and law could be adjusted, so that a perfectly national
church could be organised and a system of co-operation work
smoothly and harmoniously, the fact remains that religion and
morality are not matters of nationality. The Christian religion
is a historical and Catholic religion ; and a perfect adjustment
of relations with foreign churches would seem to be a necessary
adjunct to the perfect constitution of the single communion at
home. In the middle ages of European history, the influence of
the Boman church was directed to some such end. The claim of
supremacy made for the see of Rome, a claim which its modern
advocates urge as vehemently as if it were part of the Christian
Creed, was a practical assertion that such an adjustment was
possible. But whether it be possible or no in a changed state
of society, the sober judgment of history determines that, as the
world is at present moved and governed, perfect ecclesiastical
unity is, like a perfect adjustment between Church and State,
an ideal to be aimed at rather than to be hoped for.
375. The historian who has arrived at such a conviction