It was, too, this nisi prius attitude that enabled Newman to believe as long as he did in his via media. It is impossible even at this distance of time to explain with any clearness the subtle distinctions which in Newman's mind differentiated the Anglican Church, as the via media, from the Roman Catholic Church. The distinctions he makes are exactly of the legal kind. There was no room in his mind for what Englishmen would call the common-sense method of solving the difficulties his own subtleties had raised. He never to the last faced the plain fact that the Roman Catholic Church no longer occupies the position of the Church of the fifth century or of the fifteenth. That Church is so far removed from the tone and feeling of the modern world that it is impossible to consider conversion to its fold anything but il gran rifiuto of these latter days—a renunciation of all the privileges the modern mind holds dear; and, to do it justice, the Roman Church fully recognises the fact. But it remains that Newman did make the renunciation, and thereby declared his antipathy to the modern ideals. They who hold to those ideals may admire Newman, but they must condemn his renunciation of reason and its claims.
He had the head of a lawyer, we have said, but it should be added that he had the heart
