in the Vita Nuova,' but they hold it to be a secondary growth and development out of a story originally real and terrestrial. The position which we assume is diametrically opposite to this. The story is from its germ an allegory, and its true sphere is spiritual from first to last, however much it may have drawn to itself material from the actual occurrences of life, or may disclose points of contact with chronology and history.

The Vita Nuova' records a conflict, but not of passions that have their seat in the body. It records a conflict which was but imperfectly apprehended by him who was, more or less, the subject of it, and he described it in that figurative kind of discourse which was truest to his vague impressions: whereas to delineate it in proper terms of philosophical prose was not in his power. The conflict which emotional and inherited faith sustains against the encroachments of intellectual ratiocination is familiar to us now, and many an ordinary man is able by force of traditional culture to describe this struggle in the recognised terms of psychological analysis. But this diction had hardly any existence in the thirteenth century, certainly not in any vernacular language. Dante has a great meaning, but he is not completely master of it. He cannot reduce it to a clear analysis, but he can picture it in the vague similitudes of analogy and allegory. This has not been sufficiently understood by some interpreters on the allegorist side. For instance, Gietmann is too minute in the correspondences which he seeks to establish between the incidents of the outward story and the details of the inward signification. We must allow the allegory to contain some things which cannot be translated; indeed we must allow it to contain much which is but a veil to the imperfection of the author's thought. It is just because he cannot perfectly explain, cannot accurately delineate, cannot sharply define his meaning, that allegory is so convenient a vehicle to his mind; and it stood ready to his use, as the one literary instrument of any compass which was at that time perfect and mature.

What gives importance to this dispute about Beatrice is the fact that Dante's inner meaning is certainly figured in Beatrice. As respects the 'Commedia' this position is not controverted; and our contention is that Beatrice is one and the same character from first to last, from the opening of the 'Vita Nuova' down to the close of the Paradiso.'

The Beatricefrage is practically confined to the Vita Nuova.' The question is about the right understanding of this little book, and its true relation to the 'Commedia.' Can the character of Beatrice be (as the literalists say) one thing in

the

Commedia'? Is Vita Nuova,' who Commedia '? It

the 'Vita Nuova' and another thing in the she a damsel of flesh and blood in the gradually becomes the divine lady of the is more than a matter of literary curiosity to ascertain what was the true order of Dante's thought. The present state of the discussion is in the highest degree unsatisfactory. The divided state of opinion threatens to become factious. Any reasoning is reckoned good enough if it only supports the cause which the writer upholds; and the most trustworthy evidences are called in question when they cross the path of the disputant. In this way the natural difficulties of the case are aggravated. There are surely some facts which may be recognised as beyond dispute; and unless this can be admitted, all hope of progress in Dante studies is cut off. Therefore, before we go further we will propose a few postulates, which we think ought to be generally accepted and placed beyond reach of question. Without this concession we have nothing fixed, we stand upon a quaking morass, and constructive argument is impossible.

1. The first sonnet of the 'Vita Nuova' is what it purports to be,—namely, a true copy of that enigmatical sonnet which Dante had made long before and circulated among friends. That it was so circulated is evidenced by extant answers which are universally accepted as genuine. Such circulation would make any substantial alteration well-nigh impossible, and Scartazzini's suggestion (Prolegomeni, p. 168) that the sonnet had probably undergone alteration is gratuitous, and calculated to disturb one of the most sure points in the enquiry.

2. The donna gentile is to be understood according to Dante's explanation in the 'Convito' as donna Filosofia. The contrary arguments of Witte and Scartazzini are ineffectual; or effectual only to shake the foundations of the discussion. We must either accept Dante's statement as the simple truth, or accuse him of falsifying the evidence. There is no escape from this alternative.

3. The mirabil visione of c. 43 is to be identified with the 'Divina Commedia,' as it has been generally understood; and Scartazzini's assertion to the contrary (Prolegomeni, p. 317) cannot be admitted to unsettle this point.

4. And fourthly, the most important of all. We must investigate the operations of Dante's mind, as of a man constituted as we ourselves are constituted; and if we disclaim the possession of this faculty, we declare ourselves incapable of criticism altogether. No weight of authority should induce us to hesitate in the assertion of this natural right.

It needs no great acquaintance with Dante literature to perceive, that both literalists and allegorists have much that is very plausible to say for themselves, and that both are confident in the strength of their respective positions. Yet one must be right, and the other wrong: both cannot be true. We want a train of argument that shall be recognised as cogent; we believe that the requisite material exists; and we hold that victory must ultimately rest with that theory which proves itself most capable of resolving stock difficulties, and exhibiting our author's design in the light of a continuous purpose and a consistent plan. To this test we shall sometimes have occasion to appeal, as we proceed.

Scartazzini acknowledges a difficulty in the narrative which says that the lover, when he had heard the voice of Beatrice for the first time, immediately began to despair of her life.

'At the end of nine years he saw her again and heard her gentle salutation, and then he seemed to taste the utmost of possible beatitude. But, alas! this beatitude is embittered by a presentiment of his lady's death, which rises, we know not why, in the poet's mind at the age of eighteen.' (Prolegomeni, p. 319.)

Scartazzini admits that there is an unsolved difficulty in the author's anticipation of the death of Beatrice. If we suppose ourselves to be reading a simple narrative of youthful love, it certainly is hard to understand how a lover of eighteen, who has just now received his first encouragement, should at this particular moment despair of the lady's life. But this difficulty may be eased by accepting the oldest allegorical solution, namely this, that Beatrice is a symbol of Theologia.

First, we must give attention to certain incidents which Scartazzini has passed over in his brief abstract. At the first appearance of Beatrice in childhood she was arrayed in a tender crimson hue; and at that time love followed sight, but there was no communication of speech. On the second occasion, nine years later, the colour of her raiment was of the purest white (di colore bianchissimo), and she walked in the midst between two gentlewomen who were older than herself, and then it was that with ineffable courtesy she gave him that salutation in which he had a glimpse of the utmost beatitude. These incidents must not be overlooked, for they are essential, and the story is not the same without them.

The crimson hue betokens that at the age of nine years religion is embraced by the affections; and the pure white of eighteen is the apprehension of divine truth with an enlightened faith; all which is further confirmed by the support on either

side of the two elder ladies, who are surely intended for Faith and Reason. And as the occasions differed in colour, so also in regard to speech. This means that at nine there was a simple and implicit faith, but at eighteen there was also discourse of explicit reason. With this awakening of intellectual activity, the apprehension that Theology has no permanent footing in the scientific processes of this world begins to make its first entrance into the enquiring mind. To us this explanation is sufficient; we do not, however, rely on the solution of any one difficulty, but rather on a series of solutions, which are cogent not singly but in combination, because they are signal, because they are organically related, because they tend to establish one consistent motive and principle of interpretation.

There is a leading thought running through both the Vita Nuova' and the Divina Commedia,' which gives them an inner unity. And this thought is the Supremacy of Theology over Philosophy, of Faith over Science. We apprehend that some. readers may be inclined to question whether it is likely that this conflict between Faith and Science was keenly felt by Dante. To our present contention this is a point of such vital importance that we must seek to establish it beyond doubt. We will therefore bring two lines of argument to bear upon it, the first being of a general nature respecting the times, and the other of a personal nature respecting the poet. For the first, we may refer to the opening chapters of the De Imitatione,' which show a great mistrust of science as affecting the religious sentiment. Indeed the whole scholastic period, if we glance at its summits, will appear to have been less a conflict between realism and nominalism, than between Faith and Science. The one is a question of the lecture-room, esoteric and transient; the other is a universal question which everywhere attends the progress of human culture. Every crisis of the scholastic period hinges upon this controversy. Towards the end of the twelfth century there came a great reaction, a recoil of the religious mind from the rationalizing movement, in which mysticism regained its sway.

A typical example of this revolution is Alanus de Insulis (Alain de Lille), who, from being a famous master in the schools at Paris, one who could reduce mysteries to mathematical proof, underwent a profound change, and thenceforward gave his wisdom to the world, not in arguments, but in symbols and allegories. The story of his conversion became a parable. When at the height of his celebrity, he had raised great expectation by announcing that he would publicly demonstrate the mystery of the Trinity. In the morning of the day fixed for

this performance he was walking by the Seine, and saw a child dipping water out of the river and pouring it into a hole in the sand. 'What are you doing there, my child?' 'I've got to pour all the water into this hole, till the river is dry.' 'And when shall you finish your task, my child?' 'Before you finish the plan that's in your head.' 'What plan?' 'You mean to parade your science by explaining the mystery of the Trinity; yours is a harder task than mine.'

Then in the thirteenth century followed the triumph of Philosophy, to be again succeeded by that conciliation of the warring elements which was achieved by the two great Dominicans, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. This reconciliation lasted some centuries, and is still satisfactory to many. But the fact is that no permanent reconciliation of the kind is possible. The interests which are supposed to be reconciled are severed at their base by an impassable chasm. To the heart of faith God is very near, and may be known of all; to the intellect of science He is immeasurably distant, unapproachable, unknowable. This radical difference was already apprehended by the author of the Book of Job; it was burnt into the memory of the Church by the Gnostic heresy; it was too rigidly enforced in practice by Gregory the Great, with his insistence upon the profanity of all learning that was not consecrated by Church authority. Here there are two irreconcilable positions, in each of which severally there is truth, but they face one another in perpetual antinomy. There must always be something unsound or sophistical in every system which pretends to their reconciliation. And herein consists the weakness of the scholastic theology. When in the progress of learning an alarming rift manifested itself between Faith and Science, it naturally fol- ' lowed that religious zeal in learned men burned with ardent desire to bridge over the chasm, and to restore unity and harmony between the two great sources of human conviction. Already, in the twelfth century, this state of things had come to pass. The first great example of the effort at reconciliation was made by a Jew in the twelfth century. Moses Maimonides was born in 1135, and he died in 1204. His book, entitled 'The Wanderer's Guide,' is by Hauréau pronounced to be 'the finest monument of philosophy produced by the Jews, their veritable classic, the influence of which was so lasting that it still shines in the pages of Spinoza and of Mendelssohn.' *

The same century produced two works bearing the title

Histoire de la Philosophie Scolastique.' Par B. Hauréau. Paris, 1880; part ii. p. 43.

'Summa