The whole man moves
In the Apologia, Newman famously says how "it was not logic that carried me on; as well might one say that the quicksilver in the barometer changes the weather. It is the concrete being that reasons; pass a number of years, and I find my mind in a new place; how? the whole man moves; paper logic is but the record of it." In the State of Religious Parties, he describes some of the other forces that impelled him and his friends, such as a "moral need" and the attraction of beauty, which accompany reasoning:
It may be frankly confessed that an excitement of the feelings, of whatever kind, has much to do with what is taking place, and perhaps will have still more,—and so again has the influence of authority, respect for character, and the like; so has sentiment, imagination, or fancy; and lastly, though the writer, to whom we refer, would perhaps deny it, so has discussion, argument, investigation. But neither one, nor all of them together have been the real operating cause; rather they had been the means only, through which that cause has acted. Men who feel in themselves a moral need, which certain doctrines supply, may be right or wrong in their feeling, as the case may be; and the doctrines may supply it more or less genuinely; but anyhow they embrace the doctrines because they need them; and if they give tokens of being moved by argument, or feeling, or fancy, or by sympathetic excitement, or by influence and authority, it is merely that they are moved through these means, not by them.
[...]
The views of Catholic truth which are now brought out are deficient in many of those suspicious attractions which other systems hold out to the pride of intellect and originality of mind, to powers of eloquence, to susceptibility of emotion, to impatience of restraint. These views elevate the Church, but they sink the individual: and therefore those who take up with them are the more to be depended on, as far as this goes, for the sincerity and consistency of their profession. It is easy indeed to talk of mere sentiment, romance, and the perception of the beautiful, acting powerfully upon such persons, and being the cause of the present revolution in religious opinion. Of course, if the doctrines in question do give scope for the exercise of these feelings, their advocates are not to blame for this: they cannot help the Church system being beautiful in idea: it is so, whether they would have it so, or whether they would not. But at the same time, the sense of the beautiful, we would beg to suggest, as cherished and elicited by the Catholic doctrines, is, after all, no syren to beguile the unstable, to "take the prison'd soul and lap it in Elysium:" no need here for men to summon up fortitude, to be inflexible, to tie themselves hand and foot, for fear the winning sounds should lure them on to their own undoing. A very moderate foresight of the consequences of indulging it, would, we apprehend, be sufficient to make such precaution against its fascinations quite unnecessary. There are interests and motives which make a more pressing appeal on us than the sense of the beautiful. Yet, if this quality in Catholicism, which is so very much suspected by the prudent and reasoning among us, does carry men away, we do not see that any permanent mischief can come of it, where men are aware what they are doing. We see no harm in persons obeying the higher perceptions and impulses of their minds for the time being, whatever they may be, whether of the contemplative, or what is called the romantic, or again, of a more active and businesslike character,—provided always that they are ready to go on with what they have begun; to acquiesce in consequences when they come upon them; to take up with a course as a whole.
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/essays/volume1/prospects.html
It may be frankly confessed that an excitement of the feelings, of whatever kind, has much to do with what is taking place, and perhaps will have still more,—and so again has the influence of authority, respect for character, and the like; so has sentiment, imagination, or fancy; and lastly, though the writer, to whom we refer, would perhaps deny it, so has discussion, argument, investigation. But neither one, nor all of them together have been the real operating cause; rather they had been the means only, through which that cause has acted. Men who feel in themselves a moral need, which certain doctrines supply, may be right or wrong in their feeling, as the case may be; and the doctrines may supply it more or less genuinely; but anyhow they embrace the doctrines because they need them; and if they give tokens of being moved by argument, or feeling, or fancy, or by sympathetic excitement, or by influence and authority, it is merely that they are moved through these means, not by them.
[...]
The views of Catholic truth which are now brought out are deficient in many of those suspicious attractions which other systems hold out to the pride of intellect and originality of mind, to powers of eloquence, to susceptibility of emotion, to impatience of restraint. These views elevate the Church, but they sink the individual: and therefore those who take up with them are the more to be depended on, as far as this goes, for the sincerity and consistency of their profession. It is easy indeed to talk of mere sentiment, romance, and the perception of the beautiful, acting powerfully upon such persons, and being the cause of the present revolution in religious opinion. Of course, if the doctrines in question do give scope for the exercise of these feelings, their advocates are not to blame for this: they cannot help the Church system being beautiful in idea: it is so, whether they would have it so, or whether they would not. But at the same time, the sense of the beautiful, we would beg to suggest, as cherished and elicited by the Catholic doctrines, is, after all, no syren to beguile the unstable, to "take the prison'd soul and lap it in Elysium:" no need here for men to summon up fortitude, to be inflexible, to tie themselves hand and foot, for fear the winning sounds should lure them on to their own undoing. A very moderate foresight of the consequences of indulging it, would, we apprehend, be sufficient to make such precaution against its fascinations quite unnecessary. There are interests and motives which make a more pressing appeal on us than the sense of the beautiful. Yet, if this quality in Catholicism, which is so very much suspected by the prudent and reasoning among us, does carry men away, we do not see that any permanent mischief can come of it, where men are aware what they are doing. We see no harm in persons obeying the higher perceptions and impulses of their minds for the time being, whatever they may be, whether of the contemplative, or what is called the romantic, or again, of a more active and businesslike character,—provided always that they are ready to go on with what they have begun; to acquiesce in consequences when they come upon them; to take up with a course as a whole.
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/essays/volume1/prospects.html
Can we say that Romanticism and these human factors are a broadening of reason compared with the rationalism of the Enlightenment?
[Roger]