which continually led him away from the minutiie of temporary disputes, and has earned for him the somewhat misleading epithet of "judicious" ; the solidity of learning, not ostentatiously dis played, but indicated in the character and variety of his illustra tions and his comprehensive mastery of all that relates to his subject ; the breadth of his conceptions, and the sweep and ease of his movements in the highest regions of thought ; the fine poetical descriptions occasionally introduced, in which his eloquence attains a grave, rich, and massive harmony that compares not unfavour ably with the finest prose of Milton. His manner is, of course, defective in the flexibility and variety characteristic of the best models of English prose literature after the language had been enriched and perfected by long use, and his sentences, constructed too much according to Latin usages, are often tautological and too protracted into long concatenations of clauses ; but if, when regarded superficially, his style presents in some respects a stiff and antiquated aspect, it yet possesses an original and innate charm that has retained its freshness after the lapse of nearly three centuries.
The direct interest in the Ecclesiastical Polity is now philosophi cal and political rather than theological, for what theological im portance it possessed was rather in regard to the spirit and method in which theology should be discussed than in regard to the decision of strictly theological points. Hooker bases his reasoning on prin ciples which he discovered in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, but the intellectual atmosphere of his age was different from that which surrounded them ; he was acted upon by new and more various im pulses enabling him to imbibe more thoroughly the spirit of Greek thought which was the source of their inspiration, and thus to reach a higher and freer region than scholasticism, and in a sense to inaugurate modern philosophy in England. It may be admitted that his principles are only partially and in some degree capriciously wrought out, that if he is not under the dominion of intellectual tendencies leading to opposite results there are occasional blanks and gaps in his argument where he seems sometimes to be groping after a meaning which he cannot fully grasp ; but he is often charged with obscurity simply because readers of various theological schools, beholding in his principles what seem the outline and justi fication of their own ideas, are disappointed when they find that these outlines instead of acquiring as they narrowly examine them the full and definite form of their anticipations, widen out into a region beyond their notions and sympathies, and therefore from their point of view enveloped in mist and shade. It is the exposition of philosophical principles in the first and second books of the Polity, and not the application of these principles in the remaining books that gives the work its standard place in English literature. It was intended to bean answer to the attacks of the Presbyterians on tlie Episcopalian polity and customs, but no attempt is made directly to oust Presbyterianism from the place it then held in the Church of England. The work must rather be regarded as a remonstrance against the narrow ground chosen by the Presbyterians for their basis of attack, Hooker s exact position being that "a necessity of polity and regiment may be held in all churches without holding any form to be necessary." The general purpose of his reasoning is to vindicate Episcopacy from objections that had been urged against it, but he attains a result which has other and wider consequences than this. The fundamental principle on which he bases his reasoning is the unity and all-embracing character of law law "whose seat," he beautifully says, "is the bosom of God, whose voice the harmony of the world." Law as operative in nature, as regulating each man s individual character and actions, as seen in the formations of societies and governments is equally a manifes tation and development of the divine order according to which God Himself acts, is the expression in various forms of the divine reason. He makes a distinction between natural and positive laws, the one being eternal and immutable, the other varying aecordin<* to ex ternal necessity and expediency; and he includes all the forms of government under laws that are positive and therefore alterable ac cording to circumstances. Their application is to be determined by reason, reason enlightened and strengthened by every variety of know ledge, discipline, and experience. The leading feature in his system fs the high place assigned to reason, for, though affirming that certain truths necessary to salvation could be made known only by special divine revelation, he yet elevates reason into the criterion by which these truths are to be judged, and the standard to determine what in revelation is temporal and what eternal. " It is not the word of God itself," he says, "which doth or possibly can assure us that we do well to think it His word." At the same time he saves him self from the dangers of abstract and rash theorizing by a deep and absolute regard for facts, the diligent and accurate study of which he makes of the first importance to the proper use of reason. " The general and perpetual voice of men is," he says, "as the sentence of God Himself. For that which all men have at all times learned, nature herself must needs have taught ; and, God being the author of nature, her voice is but His instrument. " Applying his principles to man individually, the foundation of morality is, according to Hooker, immutable, and rests " on that law which Cud from the be ginning hath set Himself to do all things by ; " this law is to be dis covered by reason ; and the perfection which reason teaches us to strive after is stated, with characteristic breadth of conception and regard to the facts of human nature, to be "a triple perfection : first a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requireth, either as necessary supplements, or as beauties or ornaments there of ; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none underneath man is either capable of or acquainted with ; lastly, a spiritual or divine, consisting in those things whereunto we tend by .supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them." Ap plying his principles to man as a member of a community, he assigns practically the same origin and sanctions to ecclesiastical as to civil government. His theory of government forms the basis of the Treatise on Civil Government by Locke, although Locke de veloped the theory in a way that Hooker would not have sanctioned. The force and justification of government Hooker derives from public approbation, either given directly by the parties immediately concerned, or indirectly through inheritance from their ancestors. " Si th men," he says, " naturally have no full and perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly with out our consent we could in such sort be at no man s commandment living. And to be commanded we do consent, when that society whereof we are part hath at any time before consented, without revoking the same after, by the like universal agreement," His theory as he stated it is in various of its aspects and applications liable to objection; but taken as a whole it is the first philosophical statement of the principles which, though disregarded in the succeeding age, have since regulated political progress in England, and gradually modified its constitution into its present form. One of the corollaries of his principles, his theory of the relation of church and state, according to which, with the qualifications im plied in his theory of government, he asserts the royal supremacy in matters of religion, and identifies the church and commonwealth as but different aspects of the same government, has not met with such general approval, but practically it is the theory of the ablest defenders of state churches at the present time.
A life of Hooker by Dr Gauden was published in Iris edition of Hooker s works, London, 16G2. To correct the errors in Iliis life Walton wrote another, which was published in the 2ii edition of Hooker s works in 1(!GG. The standard modern edition of Hooker s works is that, by Keble, which first appeared in 1836, and has since been several times reprinted. The first book of the Lairs of Ecclesiastical Polity lias been edited for the " Clarendon Press Series," by K. W. Church, M.A. (1868).
(t. f. h.)
