PERHAPS the most animated religious controversy of the last quarter of the nineteenth century was precipitated by the appearance of St. George Mivart’s article on “Happiness in Hell,” published in 1892. Peculiar interest was lent to it by the fact that Dr. Mivart was a pronounced Roman Catholic and also a pronounced evolutionist of the Darwinian school. The ground of the essay is that hell is primarily a moral state developing into an intellectual condition in which those who impose it on themselves find pleasure; and that because of the pleasure it gives them, they seek to realize it, turning thought to action and from the invisible hell within creating a corresponding hell, outward and visible. While Mivart was not strongly attacked on the main point, he found opponents resisting at all points his assumption that those who choose their own hell to suit their peculiar condition can find happiness in it.

  He was born in London, November 30th, 1827, and educated for the bar. Giving up law for science, he became a naturalist of great attainment and international reputation. The Pope was pleased with his argument that Catholic “dogma” and scientific truth are not antagonistic, and Mivart is himself authority for the statement that the degree of Doctor conferred on him by the Church was on this account. He was by no means satisfied, however, with the “orthodox” support given him on his theories of future punishment. His worst hell is virtually identical with that described by Plutarch in his wonderful passages on “The Delay of the Deity.” Mivart died April 1st, 1900.