The Zoological Position of the Dodo. --At a meeting of the Zoological Society on the 9th of January last, Professor Owen read a paper on the osteology of the Dodo, the great extinct bird of the Mauritius. Our readers will remember that this bird has given rise to a good deal of discussion from time to time as to its true affinities. When Professor Owen was Curator of the Royal College of Surgeons' Museum, he classed the Dodo along with the Raptorial birds. This arrangement led to the production of the huge volume of Messrs. Strickland and Melville, in which it was very ably demonstrated that the bird belongs to the Columbae or pigeon group. It is highly creditable therefore to Professor Owen that upon a careful examination of the specimens of the dodo's bones which have lately come under his observation, he has consented to the view long ago expressed by Dr. Melville. {571} The materials upon which Professor Owen's paper was based consisted of about one hundred different bones belonging to various parts of the skeleton, which had been recently discovered by Mr. George Clark, of Mahéberg, Mauritius, in an alluvial deposit in that island. After an exhaustive examination of these remains, which embraced nearly every part of the skeleton, Professor Owen came to the conclusion that previous authorities had been correct in referring the dodo to the Columbine order, the variations presented, though considerable, being mainly such as might be referable to the adaptation of the dodo to a terrestrial life, and different food and habits.--Popular Science Review.
Native Borax. --A lake about two miles in circumference, from which borax is obtained in extremely pure condition and in very large quantity, has recently been discovered in California. The borax hitherto in use has been procured by combining boracic acid, procured from Tuscany, with soda. It is used in large quantities in England, the potteries of Staffordshire alone consuming more than 1100 tons annually.
Fall of the Temperature of Metals. --At the last meeting of the Chemical Society of Paris, Dr. Phipson called attention to the sudden fall of temperature which occurs when certain metals are mixed together at the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere. The most extraordinary descent of temperature occurs when 207 parts of lead, 118 of tin, 284 of bismuth, and l,617 of mercury are alloyed together. The external temperature being at +170° centigrade at the time of the mixture, the thermometer instantly falls to--10° below zero. Even when these proportions are not taken with absolute rigor, the cold produced is such that the moisture of the atmosphere is immediately condensed on the sides of the vessel in which the metallic mixture is made. The presence of lead in the alloy does not appear to be so indispensable as that of bismuth. Dr. Phipson explains this fact by assuming that the cold is produced by the liquefaction at the ordinary temperature of the air of such dense metals as bismuth, etc., in their contact with the mercury.
Greek and Egyptian Inscriptions. --The discovery of a stone bearing a Greek inscription with equivalent Egyptian hieroglyphics, by Messrs. Lepsius, Reinisch, Rösler, and Weidenbach, four German explorers, at Sane, the former Tanis, the chief scene of the grand architectural undertakings of Rameses the Second, is an important event for students of Egyptology. The Greek inscription consists of seventy-six lines, in the most perfect preservation, dating from the time of Ptolemy Energetes I. (238 B.C.) The stone is twenty-two centimetres high, and seventy-eight centimetres wide, and is completely covered by the inscriptions. The finders devoted two days to copying the inscriptions, taking three photographs of the stone, and securing impressions of the hieroglyphics. Egyptologists are therefore anxiously looking forward to the production of these facsimiles and photographs.
MISCELLANEA: comprising Reviews, Lectures, and Essays, on Historical, Theological, and Miscellaneous Subjects, By M. J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Fourth edition. 2 vols. 8vo. Pp. 807. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1866.
This work has attained a well deserved popularity in the Catholic community; and we hail with pleasure this new and enlarged edition of it. Dr. Spalding has obtained the first place amongst the few of our popular writers; and by his contributions to Catholic literature will leave after him evidences of a "good fight" for the truth and faith of Christ. The Miscellanea is a book for the times, such as the Church always needs, and of which in later years we have sadly felt the want. The prolific Anti-catholic press has deluged the country with {572} publications of all sizes and of every character, unfair in their statements of our doctrine and practice, and but too often marked by bitter invective and wilful misrepresentation. The prejudices thus engendered and deepened must be quickly and pointedly met before the poison has had time to spread. We must not be content with a passive confidence in the inherent strength of truth. In the long run truth will prevail, we know; but there is no reason why truth should not also prevail in the short run. Our American style of making a mental meal is not very far different from that of our physical meal. We read as fast as we eat, and are not over dainty. It is perfectly marvellous what hashes of literary refuse your anti-church, anti-papal, and liberal (sic) caterer has the impudence to set before a people hungering after righteousness and truth: and it is equally marvellous that these same people so hastily gulp down the newly spiced dish, without evincing any suspicion of their having once or twice before seen and rejected the same well-picked bones and unsavory morsels.
Experience proves the necessity of providing for the American mind good solid food, cooked a la hâte, and served with few accompaniments. They are not partial to long introductory soups, and totally disregard all side-dish references and quotations. Comparisons aside, we need quick and popular answers to these popular and hasty accusations. The difficulty we experience is in the fact that the books, pamphlets, and tracts which disseminate error, contain such a mass of illogical reasoning, and are based upon so many contradictory principles, that to answer them all fully and logically would require as many octavos as they possess pages. To give a fair, unsophistical, and popular response to the questions of the day, as presented to us in the forms we have mentioned, requires no little critical skill, and real literary genius. In the perusal of the work before us we have had frequent occasion to admire these characteristics of the distinguished author. His trenchant blows decapitate at once a host of hydra-headed errors, and he displays a happy faculty of marking and dealing with those particular points which would be noticeable ones for the reader of the productions which come under the judgment of his pen. We have cause to congratulate ourselves that we have in him a popular writer for the American people. An American himself, he understands his countrymen, appreciates their merits, and is not blind to their failings. It is true we find in these pages many qualifications of the motives of Protestant antagonists and of Protestant movements generally which we wish might be read only by those to whom they apply; still the intelligent reader will not fail to observe that they were called forth by the temper of the times in which these different essays were written. The author himself observes in his preface to this edition: "As some of them were written as far back as twenty years, it is but natural to suppose that they occasionally exhibit more spirit and heat in argument, than the cooler temper and riper taste of advancing years would fully approve." And he very justly adds: "While I am free to make this acknowledgment, justice to my own convictions and feelings requires me to state, that in regard to the facts alleged, I have nothing to retract, or even, materially to modify, and that in the tone and temper I do not even now believe that I set down aught in malice, or with any other than the good intent of correcting error and establishing truth, without assuming the aggressive except for the sake of what I believed to be the legitimate defence of the Church of God."
What the learned writer here hints at, we feel to be his own profound convictions at the present day, and the wisdom of which the aspect of controversy as it is now successfully being carried on here and in Europe, also proves, that it is better to convince and to teach, than to silence. We are not, however, altogether averse to sharp reproof or good-natured ridicule where it is well deserved. Fools are to be answered, says the Holy Scripture, according to their folly; and fools not unfrequently attack the truth and do a deal of mischief. When a writer or public orator presumes to talk nonsense, or appeals to the vulgar prejudices or the fears of the ignorant, it becomes necessary to exhibit both his character and motives. Calm and unimpassioned argument is thrown away upon him, and is looked upon by the unthinking masses as a confession of weakness. Few instances, if any, can be shown where a Catholic polemic writer has treated an honorable {573} antagonist with discourtesy: and we venture to say that the scathing criticisms which are to be found in the work before us were richly merited, and on the whole will be so judged by the dispassionate reader.
This edition contains upward of one hundred and sixty pages of new matter, of equal interest with that of the fore-going editions.
We give it our humble and earnest commendation, heartily wishing that it may be widely circulated and read; confidently assured as we are that it will do good, and advance the cause of truth.
CHRISTIANITY, Its Influence on Civilization, and its Relation to Nature's Religion: the "Harmonial" or Universal Philosophy. A Lecture. By Caleb S. Weeks. New York: W. White & Co. 1866.
What a pity Mr. Caleb S. Weeks was not born earlier! The whole world has been running for nineteen centuries after the "Nazarene," and his "religious system," when it might have been running after Mister Weeks, and his shallow spiritualistic humanitarian philosophy! Who knows? Reading effusions of this kind, we are reminded of Beppolo's Fanfarone:
REPORT OF THE HOLY CHILDHOOD IN U. S. ANNALS OF THE HOLY CHILDHOOD, etc. 1866.
We are in receipt of the above in French and in English, together with various circulars and pictures illustrating and recommending the extensive and admirable work of charity, called "The Holy Childhood" It was founded by the Bishop of Nancy in France, the Rt. Rev. Forbin-Janson: and its object is principally to rescue the abandoned children of the Chinese, baptize them, and educate them as Christians. Chinese parents have irresponsible control over the life and death of their children, and hence the crime of infanticide is very common amongst them, and that in its most revolting forms, the heartless parents drowning them, leaving them to die by exposure, and even to be eaten alive by dogs and swine. The poor will sell their young children for a paltry sum, apparently without much regret. It was impossible that Catholic charity should forever pass by unnoticed such a plague-spot upon humanity. Wherever humanity suffers, she knows how to inspire devoted souls with an ardent desire for the alleviation of its misery. Founded only since 1843, the association of the Holy Childhood has rescued and baptized three millions of these children. The report for this year gives the number of those under education at twenty-three thousand four hundred and sixteen. Such a noble work, so truly Catholic in its spirit, needs no commendation of ours. We are sure that all Catholic children, who are the ones particularly invited to be members of it, and to contribute to its support, will vie with each other in their prayers and offerings for its success. Catholic charity effects great things with little means. The entire annual expenditures of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, with which we hope our readers are well acquainted, did not amount, a few years since, to more than eight thousand dollars. The Society of the Holy Childhood asks for a contribution of only one cent a month from each of its members, and requires each one to say daily a Hail Mary and an invocation to the child Jesus, to have pity upon all poor pagan children.
We have been much interested in looking over the number of the annals sent us, but we are sorry to see certain Religious Orders singled out by name as not yet having made this enterprise a part of their work. Those holy and devoted men need no stimulation of this kind to do all that comes within their sphere for God's greater glory, and the salvation of mankind: and one does not like one's name called out as a delinquent by him who solicits, but has not yet obtained our name for his subscription-list It is, to say the least, injudicious; but we hope that the well-known zeal and ardent charity of the Directors of this pious work will be sufficient apology for the incautious remark.
A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. Compiled and arranged by the Rev. Charles Hole, B.A., Trinity College, Cambridge; with additions and corrections by William A. Wheeler, M.A., assistant editor of Webster's Dictionary, author of "A Dictionary of Noted Names of Fiction," etc. 12mo, pp. 453. New-York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.
We have here a most convenient little volume for reference, and one that is also pretty accurate and complete. It merely gives the name of the person, his country, profession, date of birth and death. The American editor has done his work well, as well as it is possible, humanly speaking, to compile such a work; but he certainly should have added the name of Dr. J.V. Huntington to the Appendix, which contains the names of those omitted by Mr. Hole, He has placed names there that are not half so well known to men of letters as that of the late lamented Dr. Huntington. We make special mention of his name, as the American editor of this useful little book is the author of "A Dictionary of Noted Names of Fiction," and must have read of the author of "Alban," "The Forest," "Rosemary," "Pretty Plate," "Blonde and Brunette," etc., etc. There may be other omissions, but this author being one of the most prominent of our deceased American Catholic writers, there can be no good excuse for the exclusion of his name.
DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY IN NORTH AMERICA. By the Rev. Xavier Donald Macleod. With a Memoir of the author by the Most Rev. John B. Purcell, D.D., Archbishop of Cincinnati. 8vo, pp. 467. Virtue & Yorston, New-York.
Few Americans are well acquainted with the religious history of their own country. It is to be regretted, for in the religious history of any nation we find a revelation of life no less interesting, and far more important than the detail of its political fortunes. Indeed, we believe that history written so as to exclude the mention of religion and its influence upon the social character, civilization, and the national peculiarities of a people, would be as incomplete as it would be unintelligible. Americans are educated to believe that this country, with the exception of Mexico, has been a Protestant country from the start; that its religious activity has been purely Protestant; that Catholicity has been chiefly hitherto a work confined to the spiritual ministrations of foreign priests to a foreign immigrant population; and he is surprised to learn that the only missionary work done on this continent worthy of record on the page of its history is wholly Catholic. And we venture to affirm that the only picture of the religion of America, either of its early or its later days, which will be looked upon by future generations with pleasure and pride, will be that which the Catholic Church presents in the apostolic labors of her missionaries, through which the savage Indian becomes the docile Christian; the rude, uneducated masses, whether white or black, are guided, instructed, and saved; the truth and grace of the holy faith is preached in hardship, toil, privation, persecution, and death. It is true that the book before as treats of religion in America with only the devotion toward our Blessed Lady as its particular theme, but it necessarily offers us a view of the progress of the Catholic religion in every part of the continent. It is written in a most charming style, replete with graphic descriptions, and marked throughout by that tone of enthusiastic loyalty to the faith so characteristic of the gifted and lamented author. There is no portion of the work we have read with greater interest than that which concerns the conversion and religious life of the Indians. There has been no truer type of the Catholic missionary than is displayed by those devoted priests, who came to this country burning with the desire to win its savage aborigines to the faith of Christ. Let us give a little extract:
"For thirty years now has Father Sebastian Rasle dwelt in the forest, teaching to its wild, red children the love of God and Mary. He is burned by sun and tanned by wind until he is almost as red as his parishioners. The languages of the Abenaki and Huron, the Algonquin and Illinois, are more familiar to him than the tongue in which his mother taught him the Ave Maria. The huts of Norridgewock contain his people; the river Kennebec flows swiftly past his dwelling to the sea. There he has built a church--handsome, he thinks and says; perhaps it would not much excite our luxurious imagination. At any rate, the altar is handsome; and he has gathered a store of copes and chasubles, albs and embroidered stoles for the dignity of the holy service. He has trained, also, as many as forty Indian boys in the ceremonies, and, in their crimson cassocks and white surplices, they aid the sacred pomp. Besides the church, there are two chapels, one on the road which leads to the forest, {575} where the braves are wont to make a short retreat before they start to trap and hunt; the other on the path to the cultivated lands, where prayers are offered when they go to plant or gather in the harvest. The one is dedicated to the guardian angel of the tribe, the other to our most holy mother, Mary Immaculate. To adorn this latter is the especial emulation of the women. Whatever they have of jewels, of silk stuff from the settlements, or delicate embroidery of porcupine-quill, or richly tinted moose-hair, is found here; and from amidst their offerings rises, white and fair, the statue of the Virgin; and her sweet face looks down benignantly upon her swarthy children, kneeling before her to recite their rosaries. One beautiful inanimate ministrant to God's worship they have in abundance--light from wax candles. The wax is not precisely opus apium, but it is a nearer approach to it than you find in richer and less excusable places. It is wax from the berry of the laurels, which cover the hills of Maine. And to the chapel every night and morning come all the Indian Christians. At morning they make their prayer in common, and assist at mass, chanting, in their own dialect, hymns written for that purpose by their pastor. Then they go to their employment for the day; he to his continuous, orderly, and ceaseless labor. The morning is given up to visitors, who come to their good father with their sorrows and disquietudes; to ask his relief against some little injustice of their fellows; his advice on their marriage or other projects. He consoles this one, instructs that, reestablishes peace in disunited families, calms troubled consciences, administers gentle rebuke, or gives encouragement to the timid. The afternoon belongs to the sick, who are visited in their own cabins. If there be a council, the black-robe must come to invoke the Holy Spirit on their deliberations; if a feast, he must be present to bless the viands and to check all approaches to disorder. And always in the afternoon, old and young, warrior and gray-haired squaw, Christian and catechumen, assemble for the catechism. When the sun declines westward, and the shadows creep over the village, they seek the chapel for the public prayer, and to sing a hymn to St. Mary. Then each to his own home; but before bed-time, neighbors gather again, in the house of one of them, and in antiphonal choirs they sing their beads, and with another hymn they separate for sleep."
The work does not need any commendation at our hands; it will assuredly become popular wherever it is introduced, whether it be into the libraries of colleges or literary associations, or into the family circle.
LIFE AND CAMPAIGNS OF LIEUT.-GENERAL U. S. GRANT, from his Boyhood to the Surrender of General Lee; including an accurate account of Sherman's great march from Chattanooga to Washington, and the final official Reports of Sheridan, Meade, Sherman, and Grant; with portraits on steel of Stanton, Grant and his Generals, and other illustrations. By Rev. P.G. Headley, author of Life of Napoleon, Life of Josephine, etc., etc. 8vo, pp. 720. New York: Derby & Miller Publishing Co. 1866.
The title of this work is sufficiently ambitious to justify the expectation that it is really a valuable contribution to our national historical literature. Such is, however, not the case. The only valuable portions of the book are the reports of different commanding generals, which are appended. The style is of the inflated, mock-heroic order, of which we have had a surfeit, especially since the commencement of the late war. The descriptions of battles remind us of a certain class of cheap battle pictures, in which smoke, artillery horses, and men are arranged and rearranged to suit any desired emergency. One is left in doubt in reading the account of the famous charge on the left at Fort Donelson, whether C. F. Smith or Morgan L. Smith was the officer in command. Morgan L. Smith was a brave and valuable officer, but the decisive charge in question was led by C. F. Smith, and was one of the most remarkable and brilliant military exploits of the war. We cannot pretend to wade through all the crudities, platitudes, and mistakes of this bulky volume, manufactured to order, not written. There is one glaring blunder or intentional perversion, in the desire to please every body, which all cannot pass over. The relief of Major-General McClernand in front of Vicksburg is made to appear to be a reluctant act on the part of General Grant. Mr. Headley represents General Grant as complying with an urgent military necessity, at the cost of his friend. This is all sheer nonsense. There was and could be no friendship between Grant and McClernand. One might as well expect fellowship between light and darkness. There was a military necessity to remove McClernand, for every day that he commanded a corps imperilled the safety of the whole army. Sherman and McPherson united in demanding his removal, {576} and General Grant chose the right moment to relieve him--when he had demonstrated his incapacity, or worse, to the mind of every soldier on the field, and ruined forever the false popularity he had acquired as a politician of the lowest grade. Mr. Headley makes an unsuccessful effort to glaze over General Wallace's unaccountable delay in coming up to the field of' Shiloh. In fact, he deals in indiscriminate praise for an obvious reason, and like all such people is certain to get very little himself from his critics. The book no doubt sells, and will probably stimulate a desire to read the authentic histories which will in due season appear, and of which Wm. Swinton's History of the Army of the Potomac (not without its faults) is a specimen. We expect a first-class scientific History of the War. Major-General Schofield is the man to write it, when the proper time arrives.
POETRY, LYRICAL, NARRATIVE, AND SATIRICAL, OF THE CIVIL WAR. Selected and edited by Richard Grant White. 12mo, pp. 384. American News Co.
Mr. White's preface to this volume of selected poetry is the best criticism which the book could have, and is an exhaustive and elegant essay. It is a remarkably complete collection of the pieces which have appeared from time to time in the progress of the war. The value of such a work is in its completeness less than in the merits of the compositions selected. We should be glad to see another edition, containing some which have been overlooked or omitted. The value of such a collection increases with time, and it will be eagerly sought for and highly prized when the hateful, painful, and commonplace features of the struggle have softened into the elements of pleasing reminiscence and romance, and become the incentives to heroism and patriotism to unborn children.
A TEXT BOOK ON PHYSIOLOGY. For the use of Schools and Colleges, being an Abridgement of the author's larger work on Human Physiology. By John William Draper, M.D., LL.D., author of A Treatise on Human Physiology, and A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, etc. 12mo, pp. 376. Harper & Brothers, 1866.
A TEXT BOOK ON CHEMISTRY. For the use of Schools and Colleges. By Henry Draper, M.D., Professor Adjunct of Chemistry and Natural History in the University of New York. 12mo, pp. 507. Harper & Brothers. 1866.
The Drapers, father and sons, present the rare example in this materialistic age and most materialistic city, of a whole family devoted to literary and scientific pursuits, and working in that harmony which the sincere and loyal pursuit of science is sure to produce. Although we have had occasion to differ with Professor Draper in his philosophical and some of his political deductions, we admire his intellect and attainments, and in the purely scientific order consider him entitled to the highest consideration and respect. He is a close student and an original observer, and we believe him ardently and faithfully devoted to the ascertainment of exact scientific truth.
His sons are men of great promise, and have already done more in their short lives in the respective departments of natural science than many of twice their age.
Catholicity courts scientific investigation and verification in every department of inquiry, and delights to honor all men who devote their lives to these self-denying labors. There is, so to speak, a sanctity of science. Science inevitably tends toward religion, and is the most powerful safeguard of society and civilization next to religion.
The two manuals whose titles are given above are excellent of their kind, and we cordially recommend them to our schools and colleges.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
From D. Appleton & Co., New-York. The Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1865. 8vo, pp. 850.
From Hurd & Houghton, New-York. Revolution and Reconstruction. Two Lectures delivered in the Law School of Harvard College, in January, 1865, and January, 1866, by Joel Parker. 8vo, pamphlet, pp. 89. Shakespeare's Delineations of Insanity, Imbecility, and Suicide. By A. O. Kellogg, M.D., Assistant Physician State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N.Y. 12mo. pp. 204. Pictures of Country Life. By Alice Cary. 18mo, pp. 859.
From D. & J. Sadlier & Co., New-York. Parts 18. 19, and 20 of D'Artaud's Lives of the Popes; and Vol II. of Catholic Anecdotes.
From P. O'Shea, New-York. Nos. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. and 33 of Darras's History of the Catholic Church.
From A. D. F. Randolph, New-York. The Lady of La Garaye. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton, 12mo, pp. 115.
From J. J. O'Connor & Co., Newark, N.J. Jesus and Mary. A Catholic hymn-book. Selected from various sources, and arranged for the use of the children of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Newark, N.J. 12mo, pp. 76, paper.
[ORIGINAL.]
V.
THE REVELATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL ORDER, AND ITS RELATION TO THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OF REASON.
Our reason in apprehending the intelligible is advertised at the same time of the existence of the super-intelligible. It is necessary to explain here the sense in which this latter term is used. It is evident that it can be used only in a relative and not in an absolute sense. That which is absolutely without the domain of the intelligible is absolutely unintelligible and therefore a non-entity. The super-intelligible must therefore be something which is intelligible to God, but above the range either of all created reason, or of human reason in its present condition. It will suffice for the present to consider it under the latter category.
Our reason undoubtedly apprehends in its intelligible object the existence of something which is above the range of human intelligence in its present state. The intimate nature of material and spiritual substances is incomprehensible. Much more, the intimate nature or essence of the infinite divine being. All science begins from and conducts to the incomprehensible. Any one who wishes to satisfy himself of this may peruse the first few chapters of Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Philosophy." That portion of the first article of the creed which reason can demonstrate; namely, the being of God, the Creator of the world, in which is included also the immortality of the soul, and the principle of moral obligation; advertises therefore, of an infinite sphere of truth which is above our comprehension. The natural suggests the supernatural, in which it has its first and final cause, its origin and ultimate end. The knowledge of the natural, therefore, gives us a kind of negative knowledge of the super-natural, by advertising us of its own incompleteness, and of the want of any principle of self-origination or metaphysical finality in itself. A system of pure naturalism which represents the idea of reason under a form which satisfies completely the intelligence without introducing the supernatural, is impossible. What is nature, and what do we mean by the natural? Nature is simply the aggregate of finite entities, and the natural is {578} what may be predicated of these entities. A system of pure naturalism would therefore give a complete account of this aggregate of finite entities, without going beyond the entities themselves, that is, without transcending the limits of space, time, the finite and the contingent. Such a system is not only incapable of rational demonstration, but utterly unthinkable. For, when the mind has gone to its utmost length in denying or excluding every positive affirmation of anything except nature, there remains always the abyss of the unknown from which nature came and to which it tends, even though the unknown may be declared to be unknowable. Those who deny the super-intelligible and the supernatural, therefore, are mere sceptics, and cannot construct a philosophy. Those who affirm a First Cause, in which second causes and their effects are intelligible, affirm the supernatural. For the first and absolute Cause cannot be included under the same generic term with the second causes and finite forces of nature. The more perfectly and clearly they evolve the full theistic conception of pure reason, the more distinctly do they affirm the supernatural, because the idea of God as the infinite, intelligible object of his own infinite intelligence is proportionately explicated and apprehended. It is explicated and apprehended by means of analogies derived from finite objects, but these analogies suggest that there is an infinite something behind them which they represent. By these analogies we learn in a measure the meaning of the affirmation Ut Deus sit. We do not learn Quid sit Deus, but still we cannot help asking the question, What is God, what is his essence? We know that he is the adequate object of his own intelligence and will, and therefore we cannot help asking the question what is that object, what does God see and love in himself, in what does his most pure and infinite act consist, what is his beatitude? Our reason is advertised of an infinite truth, reality, or being, which it cannot comprehend, that is, of the super-intelligible. Those who base their philosophy on pure theism, or a modified rationalistic Christianity, are therefore entirely mistaken when they profess to be anti-supernaturalists, and to draw a distinctly marked line between themselves and the supernaturalists. The distinction is only between more or less consistent supernaturalists. Those who are at the remotest point from the Catholic idea, see that those who are a little nearer have no tenable standing-point, and these see it of those who are nearer than they are, and so on, until we come to the Anglicans and the Orientals. But the extremists themselves have no better standing-point than the intermediaries, and in their theistic conception have admitted a principle from which they can be driven by irresistible and invincible logic to the Catholic Church. For the present, we merely aim to show that they are compelled to admit the supernatural when they affirm God as the first and final cause of the world. In affirming this, they affirm that nature has its origin and final reason in the supernatural, or in an infinite object above itself, which human reason cannot comprehend. That is, they affirm super-intelligible and super-natural relations, of man and the universe. These relations must be regulated and adjusted by some law. This law is either the simple continuity of the original creative act which explicates itself through con-creative second causes in time and space, or it is this, and in addition to this, an immediate act of the Creator completing his original, creative act by subsequent acts of an equal or superior order, which concur with the first towards the final cause of the creation. Whoever takes the first horn of this dilemma is a pure naturalist in the only sense of the word which is intelligible. That is, while he is a supernaturalist, in maintaining that nature has its first and final cause in the supernatural, or in {579} God; he is a naturalist in maintaining that man has no other tendency to his final cause except that given in the creative act that is essential to nature, and no other mode prescribed for returning to his final cause than the explication of this natural tendency, according to natural law. Consequently, reason is sufficient, without revelation; the will, without grace; humanity, without the incarnation; society, or the race organized under law, without the church. It is precisely in the method of treating this thesis of naturalism that the divarication takes place between the great schools of Catholic theology and between the various systems of philosophy, whether orthodox or heterodox, which profess to base themselves on the Christian idea, or to ally themselves with it. It is not easy to find the clue which will lead us safely through this labyrinth and preserve us from deviating either to the right hand or to the left, by denying too much on the one hand to the naturalists, or conceding too much to them on the other. Nevertheless it is necessary to search for it, or to give up all effort to discuss the question before us, and to prove from principles furnished by nature and reason the necessity of accepting a supernatural revelation.
The true thesis of pure naturalism or rationalism is, that God in educating the human race for the destiny in view of which he created it, merely explicates that which is contained in nature by virtue of the original creative act, without any subsequent interference of the divine, creative power. He develops nature by natural laws alone, in one invariable mode. The physical universe evolves by a rigid sequence the force of all the second causes which it contains. The rational world is governed by the same law, and so also is the moral and spiritual world. The intellectual and spiritual education of the human race develops nothing except natural reason, and the natural, spiritual capacity of the soul. Reason extends its conquests by a continual progress in the super-intelligible realm, reducing it to the intelligible, and eternally approaching to the comprehension of the infinite and absolute truth. The spiritual capacity advances constantly in the supernatural realm, reducing it to the natural, and eternally approaching the infinite and absolute good or being. All nature, all creation, is on the march, and its momentum is the impulsive force given it by the creative impact that launched it into existence and activity.
Planting themselves on this thesis, its advocates profess to have à priori principle by which they prove the all-sufficiency of nature for the fulfilment of its own destiny, and reject as an unnecessary or even inconceivable intrusion, the affirmation of another divine creative act, giving a new impact to nature, superadding a new force to natural law, subordinating the physical universe to a higher end, implanting a superior principle of intelligence and will in the human soul, and giving to the race a destination above that to which it tends by its own proper momentum. They refuse to entertain the question of a supernatural order, or an order which educates the race according to a law superior to that of the evolution of the mere forces of nature; and in consequence of this refusal, they logically refuse to entertain the question of a supernatural revelation disclosing this order, and of a supernatural religion in which the doctrines, laws, institutions, forces and instruments of this order are organized, for the purpose of drawing the human race into itself. This is the last fortress into which heterodox philosophy has fled. The open plains are no longer tenable. The only conflict of magnitude now raging in Christendom is between the champions of the Catholic faith and the tenants of this stronghold. It is a great advantage for the cause of truth that it is so. The controversy is simplified, the issues are clearly marked, the opportunity is favorable for an {580} unimpeded and decisive collision between the forces of faith and unbelief, and the triumph of faith will open the way for Christianity to gain a new and mighty sway over the mind, the heart, and the life of the civilized world. This stronghold is no more tenable than any of the others which have been successively occupied and abandoned. Its tenants have gained only a momentary advantage by retreating to it. They escape certain of the inconsistencies of other parties and evade the Catholic arguments levelled against these inconsistencies. But they can be driven by the irresistible force of reason from their position, and made to draw the Catholic conclusion from their own premises.
We do not say this in a boastful spirit, or as vaunting our own ability to effect a logical demolition of rationalism. Rather, we desire to express our confidence that the reason of its advocates themselves will drive them out of it, and that the common judgment of an age more enlightened than the present will demolish it. It is our opinion, formed after hearing the language used by a great number of men of all parties, and reading a still greater number of their published utterances, that the most enlightened intelligence of this age in Protestant Christendom has reached two conclusions; the first is, that the Catholic Church is the true and genuine church of Christianity; and the second, that it is necessary to have a positive religion which will embody the same idea that produced Christianity. The combination and evolution of these two intellectual convictions promise to result in a return to Catholicism. And there are to be seen even already in the writings of those who have given up the positive Christianity of orthodox Protestantism, indications of the workings of a philosophy which tends to bring them round to the positive supernatural faith of the Catholic church. It is by these grand, intellectual currents moving the general mind of an age, that individual minds are chiefly influenced, more than by the thoughts of other individual minds. Individual thinkers can scarcely do more than to detect the subtle element which the common intellectual atmosphere holds in solution, to interpret to other thinkers their own thoughts, or give them a direction which will help them to discover for themselves some truth more integral and universal than they now possess. Therefore, while confiding in the power of the integral and universal truth embodied in the Catholic creed to bear down all opposition and vanquish every philosophy which rises up agamst it, we do not arrogate the ability to grasp and wield this power, and to exhibit the Catholic idea in its full evidence as the integrating, all-embracing form of universal truth. It is proposed in an honorable and conciliatory spirit to those who love truth and are able to investigate it for themselves. Many things must necessarily be affirmed or suggested in a brief, unpretending series of essays, which admit of and require minute and elaborate proof, such as can only be given in an extensive work, but merely sketched here after the manner of an outline engraving which leaves out the filling up belonging to a finished picture.
To return from this digression. We have begun the task of indicating how that naturalism or pure rationalism which affirms the theistic conception logically demonstrable by pure reason, can only integrate itself and expand itself to a universal Theodicy or doctrine of God, in a supernatural revelation.
If the opposite theory of pure naturalism were true, it ought to verify itself in the actual history of the human race, and in the actual process of its education. The idea of the supernatural ought to be entirely absent from the consciousness of the race. For, on the supposition of that theory, it has no place in the human mind--and no business in the world. If unassisted nature and reason suffice for {581} themselves they ought to do their work alone, and do it so thoroughly that there would be no room for any pretended supernatural revelation to creep in. The history of mankind ought to be a continuous, regular evolution of reason and nature, like the movements of the planets; the human race ought to have been conscious of this law from the beginning, and never to have dreamed of the supernatural, never to have desired it.
Philosophy ought to have been, from the first, master of the situation, and to have domineered over the whole domain of thought.
The reverse of this is the fact. The history of the human race, and the whole world of human thought, is filled with the idea of the supernatural. The philosophy of naturalism is either a modification and re-combination of principles learned from revelation, or a protest against revelation and an attempt to dethrone it from its sway. It has no pretence of being original and universal, but always pre-supposes revelation as having prior possession, and dating from time immemorial. Now human nature and human reason are certainly competent to fulfil whatever task God has assigned them. They act according to fixed laws, and tend infallibly to the end for which they were created. The judgments of human reason and of the human race are valid in their proper sphere. And therefore the judgment of mankind that its law of evolution is in the line of the supernatural is a valid judgment. Revelation has the claim of prescription and of universal tradition. Naturalism must set aside this claim and establish a positive claim for itself based on demonstration, before it has any right even to a hearing. It can do neither. It cannot bring any conclusive argument against revelation, nor can it establish itself on any basis of demonstration which does not pre-suppose the instruction of reason by revelation.
It cannot conclusively object to revelation. The very principle of law, that is, of the invariable nexus between cause and effect, which is the ultimate axiom of naturalism, is based on the perpetual concurrence of the first cause with all secondary causes, that is, the perpetuity of the creative act by which God perpetually creates the creature. There is no reason why this creative act should explicate all its effects at once or merely conserve the existences it has produced, and not explicate successively in space and time the effects of its creative energy. The hypothesis that the creative power can never act directly in nature except at its origin, and must afterwards merely act through the medium of previously created causes in a direct line, is the sheerest assumption. Some of the most eminent men in modern physical science maintain the theory of successive creations. There may be the same direct intervention of creative power in the moral and spiritual world. Miracles, revelations, supernatural interventions for the regeneration and elevation of the human race, are not improbable on any à priori principle. The artifice by which the entire tradition of the human race is set aside, and a demand made to prove the supernatural de novo, is unwarrantable and unfair. The supernatural has the title of prescription, and the burden of proof lies only upon the particular systems, to show that they are genuine manifestations of it, and not its counterfeits. The existence of a reality which may be counterfeited is a fair postulate of reason, until the contrary is demonstrated, and something positive of a prior and more universal order is logically established from the first principles of reason. We are not to be put off with assurances like a fraudulent debtor's promises of payment, that our doubts and uncertainties, will be satisfied after two thousand or two hundred thousand years. Exclude the supernatural, and natural reason will have, and can have nothing in the future, beyond the universal data and principles which we have now and have had from the beginning, with which to solve its problems. The {582} connection between mind and matter, the origin and destination of the soul, the future life, the state of other orders of intelligent beings, the condition of other worlds, will be as abstruse and incapable of satisfactory settlement then as now. If we are to gain any certain knowledge concerning them, it must be in a supernatural way. And what conclusive reason is there for deciding that we may not? Who can prove that some of that infinite truth which surrounds us may not break through the veil, that some of the intelligent spirits of other spheres may not be sent to enlighten and instruct us? [Footnote 125]
[Footnote 125: That is, who can prove it from reason alone, without the evidence of Revelation itself that it is already completed?]
One of the ablest advocates of naturalism, Mr. William R. Alger, has admitted that it is possible, and oven maintains that it has already taken place. In his erudite work on the "History of the Doctrine of a Future Life," he maintains the opinion that Jesus Christ is a most perfect and exalted being, who was sent into this world by God to teach mankind, who wrought miracles and really raised his body to life in attestation of his doctrine, although he supposes that he laid it aside again when he left the earth. He distinctly asserts the infallibility of Christ as a teacher, and of the doctrine which he actually taught with his own lips. Here is a most distinct and explicit concession of the principle of supernatural revelation. To those who heard him he was a supernatural and infallible teacher. In so far as his doctrine is really apprehended it is for all generations a supernatural and infallible truth. It has regenerated mankind, and Mr. Alger believes it is destined, when better understood, to carry the work of regeneration to a higher point in the future. It is true, he does not acknowledge that the apostles were infallible in apprehending and teaching the doctrine of Christ. But he must admit, that in so far as they have apprehended and perpetuated it, and in so far as he himself and others of his school now apprehend it more perfectly than they did, they apprehend supernatural truth and appropriate a supernatural power. Besides, once admitting that Christ was an infallible teacher, it is impossible to show why he could not do what so many philosophers have done, communicate his doctrine in clear and intelligible terms, so that the substance of it would be correctly understood and perpetuated. Miss Frances Cobbe, admitted to be the best expositor of the doctrine of the celebrated Theodore Parker, in her "Broken Lights," and other similar writers, give to the doctrine and institutions of Christ a power that is superhuman and that denotes the action of a superhuman intelligence. Those who prognosticate a new church, a new religion, a realization of ideal humanity on earth, cannot integrate their hypothesis in anything except the supernatural, and must suppose either a new outburst of supernatural life from the germ which Christ planted on the earth, or the advent of another superhuman Redeemer.
Dr. Brownson while yet only a transcendental philosopher on his road to the Church, exhibited this thought with great power and beauty, in a little book entitled "New Views." The dream of a new redemption of mankind in the order of temporal perfection and felicity was never presented with greater argumentative ability or portrayed in more charming colors, at least in the English language; and never was any thing made more clear than the necessity of superhuman powers for the actual fulfilment of this bewitching dream. [Footnote 126]
[Footnote 126: That is, bewitching to those who do not believe in something for more sublime, the restoration of all things in Christ, foretold in the Scriptures.]
Whether we look backward or forward, we confront the idea of the supernatural. This is enough to prove its reality. There are no universal pseudo-ideas, deceits, or illusions. That which is universal is true. We have {583} therefore only to inspect the idea of the supernatural, to examine and explicate its contents, to interrogate the universal belief and tradition of mankind, to study the history of the race, and unfold the wisdom of the ancients, and the result will be truth. We shall obtain true and just conceptions of the original, universal, eternal idea, in which all particular forms of science, belief, law, and human evolution in all directions, coalesce and integrate themselves as in a complete whole including all the relations of the universe to God, as First and Final Cause.
We must now go back to the point where we left off, after establishing as the first principle of all science and faith the pure theistic doctrine respecting the first and final cause, or the origin and end of all things in necessary being, that is, God. We have to show the position of this doctrine in the conception of supernatural revelation, and its connection with the other doctrines which express the supernatural relation of the human race and the universe to God.
The conception of the supernatural in its most simple and universal form, is the conception of somewhat distinct from and superior to the complete aggregate of created forces or second causes. In this sense, it is identical with the conception of first and final cause. It may be proper here to explain the term Final Cause, which is not in common use among English writers. It expresses the ultimate motive or reason for which the universe was created, the end to which all things are tending. When we say that God is necessarily the final cause, as well as the first cause, of all existing things, we mean that he could have had no motive or end in creating, extrinsic to his own being. All that proceeds from him as first cause must return to him as final cause. From this it appears that the conception of nature in any theistic system implies the supernatural; because it implies a cause and end for nature above itself. The supernatural can only be denied by the atheist, who maintains that there is nothing superior to what the Theist calls second causes, or by the Pantheist, who either identifies God with nature, or nature with God. A Theist cannot form any conception of pure nature or a purely natural order, except as included in a supernatural plan; because his natural order originates in a cause and tends toward an end above and beyond itself, and is not therefore its own adequate reason. As we have already seen, reason, by virtue of its original intuition of the infinite, is advertised of something infinitely beyond all finite comprehension. By apprehending its own limitation, and the finite, relative, contingent existence of all things which are, it is advertised of an infinite unknown, and thus has a negative knowledge of the supernatural. By the light of the creative act in itself and in the universe, it apprehends the being of God as reflected in his works and made intelligible by the similitude of created existences to the Creator. It apprehends that there is an infinite being, whose created similitude is in itself and all things; a primal uncreated light, the cause of the reflected light in which nature is intelligible. Therefore it apprehends the supernatural. But it does not directly and immediately perceive what this infinite being or uncreated light is, and cannot do so. That is, by explicating its own primitive idea, and bringing it more and clearly into the reflective consciousness, and by learning more and more of the universe of created existences, it may go on indefinitely, apprehending God by the reflected light of similitudes, "per speculum, in aenigmate;" but it must progress always in the same line: it has no tendency toward an immediate vision of God as he is intelligible in his own essence and by uncreated light. Therefore, it has only a negative and not a positive apprehension of the supernatural. God dwells in a light inaccessible to created {584} intelligence, as such. There is an infinite abyss between him and all finite reason, which cannot be crossed by any movement of reason, however accelerated or prolonged. Therefore, although there is no science or philosophy possible which does not proceed from the affirmation of the supernatural, that is, of the infinite first and final cause of nature, yet it is not properly called supernatural science so long as it is confined to the limits of that knowledge of causes above nature which is gained only through nature. Its domain is restricted to that intelligibility which God has given to second causes and created existences, and which only reflects himself indirectly. Therefore, theologians usually call it natural knowledge, and in its highest form natural theology, as being limited within the bounds above described. They call that the natural order in which the mind is limited to the explication of that capacity of apprehending God, or of that intuitive idea of God, which constitutes it rational, and is therefore limited to a relation to God corresponding to the mode of apprehending him. The term supernatural is restricted to an order in which God reveals to the human mind the possibility of apprehending him by the uncreated light in which he is intelligible to himself, and coming into a relation to him corresponding therewith; giving at the same time an elevation to the power of intelligence and volition which enables it to realize that possibility. This elevation includes the disclosure of truths not discoverable otherwise, as well as the faculty of apprehending them in such a vivid manner that they can have an efficacious action on the will, and give it a supernatural direction.
In this sense, rationalists have no conception of the supernatural. None have it, except Catholics, or those who have retained it from Catholic tradition. When we ascribe to rationalists a recognition of the supernatural, we merely intend to say that they recognize in part that immediate interference of God to instruct mankind and lead it to its destiny which is really and ultimately, although not in their apprehension, directed to the elevation of man to a sphere above that which is naturally possible. Therefore they cannot object to revelation on the ground of its being an interference with the course of nature or not in harmony with it, and cannot make an à priori principle by virtue of which they can prejudge and condemn the contents of revelation. But we do not mean to say that they possess the conception of that which constitutes the supernaturalness of the revelation, in the scientific sense of the term as used by Catholic theologians. Even orthodox Protestants possess it very confusedly. And here lies the source of most of the misconceptions of several abstruse Catholic dogmas.
It is in the restricted sense that we shall use the term supernatural hereafter, unless we make it plain that we use it in the general signification.
We are now prepared to state in a few words the relation of the conception of God which is intelligible to reason, to the revealed truths concerning his interior relations which are received by faith on the authority of his divine veracity. How does the mind pass through the knowledge of God to belief in God; through "Cognosco Deum" to "Credo in Deum"? [Footnote 127]
[Footnote 127: "I know God." "I believe in God."]
We have already said that "Cognosco" is included in "Credo. " The creed begins by setting before the mind that which is self-evident and demonstrable concerning God, in which is included his veracity. It then discloses certain truths concerning God which are not self-evident or demonstrable from their own intrinsic reason, but which are proposed as credible, on the authority of God. The word "Credo" expresses this. "I believe in God," means not merely, "I affirm the being of God," but also, "I believe certain truths regarding God (whose being is made known to me by the light of reason) on the authority of his Word." {585} These truths must have in them a certain obscurity impervious to the intellectual vision; otherwise, they would take their place among evident and known truths, and would no longer be believed on the simple motive of the veracity of God revealing them. That is, they are mysteries, intelligible so far as to enable the mind to apprehend what are the propositions to which it is required to assent, but super-intelligible as to their intrinsic reason and ground in the necessary and eternal truth, or the being of God.
In the Creed these mysteries, foreshadowed by the word "Credo," and by the word "Deum," considered in its relation to "Credo," which indicates a revelation of mysterious truths concerning the Divine Being to follow in order after the affirmation of the being and unity of God; begin to be formally expressed by the word "Patrem." In this word there is implicitly contained the interior, personal relation of the Father to the Son and Holy Ghost in the blessed Trinity, and his exterior relation to man as the author of the supernatural order of grace, or the order in which man is affiliated to him in the Son, through the operation of the Holy Spirit. These relations of the three persons of the blessed Trinity to each other, and to man, include the entire substance of that which is strictly and properly the supernatural revelation of the Creed, and the direct object of faith. Before proceeding, however, to the consideration of the mysteries of faith in their order, it is necessary to inquire more closely into the process by which the intellect is brought to face its supernatural object, and made capable of eliciting an act of faith.
The chief difficulty in the case is to find the connection between the last act of reason and the first act of faith, the medium of transit from the natural to the supernatural. The Catholic doctrine teaches that the act of faith is above the natural power of the human mind. It is strictly supernatural, and possible only by the aid of supernatural grace. Yet it is a rational act, for the virtue of faith is seated in the intellect as its subject, according to the teaching of St. Thomas. It is justifiable and explicable on rational grounds, and even required by right reason. The truths of revelation are not only objectively certain, but the intellect has a subjective certitude of them which is absolute, and excludes all suspicion or fear of the contrary. Now, then, unless we adopt the hypothesis that we have lost our natural capacity for discerning divine truth, by the fall, and are merely restored by divine grace to the natural use of reason, there are several very perplexing questions on this point which press for an answer. Rejecting this hypothesis of the total corruption of reason, which will hereafter be proved to be false and absurd, how can faith give the mind absolute certitude of the truth of its object, when that truth is neither self-evident nor demonstrable to reason from its own self-evident principles? Given, that the intellect has this certitude, how is it that we cannot attain to it by the natural operation of reason? Once more, what is the evidence of the fact of revelation to ordinary minds? Is it a demonstration founded on the arguments for credibility? If so, how are they capable of comprehending them, and what are they to do before they have gone through with the process of examination? If not, how have they a rational and certain ground for the judgment that God has really revealed the truths of Christianity? Suppose now the fact of revelation established, and that the mind apprehends that God requires its assent to certain truths on the virtue of his own veracity. The veracity of God being apprehended as one logical premiss, and the revelation of certain truths as another, can reason draw the certain conclusion that the truth of these propositions is necessarily contained in the veracity of God or not? If it can, why is not the mind capable of giving them the firm, unwavering {586} assent of faith by its own natural power, without the aid of grace? If not, how is it that the assent of the intellect to the truth of revealed propositions does not always necessarily contain in it a metaphysical doubt or a judgment that the contrary is more or less probable, or at least possible? If it is said that the will, inclined by the grace of God, determines to adhere positively to the proposed revelation as true, what is meant by this? Does the will merely determine to act practically as if these proposed truths were evident, in spite of the lesser probability of the contrary? Then the assent of the intellect is merely a judgment that revelation is probably true, and that it is safest to follow it, which does not satisfy the demand of faith. For faith excludes all fear or suspicion that the articles of faith may possibly be false. Does the will force the intellect to judge that those propositions are certain which it apprehends only as probable? How is this possible? The will is a blind faculty, which is directed by the intellect, "Nil volitum nisi prius cognitum." [Footnote 128] There is no act of will without a previous act of knowledge. The will can not lawfully determine the intellect to give any stronger assent to a proposition than the evidence warrants. [Footnote 129] In a word, it is difficult to show how the intellect has an absolute certitude of the object of faith, without representing the object of faith as coincident with the object of knowledge, or the intuitive idea of reason, and thus naturally apprehensible. It is also difficult to show that faith is not coincident with knowledge, and thus to bring out the conception of its supernaturalness, without destroying the connection between faith and reason, subverting its rational basis, and representing the grace of faith as either restoring a destroyed faculty or adding a new one to the soul, whose object is completely invisible and unintelligible to the human understanding before it is elevated to the supernatural state. The difficulty lies, however, merely in a defective statement, or a defective apprehension of the statement of the Catholic doctrine, and not in the doctrine itself. In order to make this plain, it will be necessary to make one or two preliminary remarks concerning certitude and probability.
[Footnote 128: Nothing is willed unless previously known.]
[Footnote 129: This is the statement of an objection, not a proposition affirmed by the author.]
There is first, a metaphysical certitude excluding all possibility to the contrary. Such is the certitude of mathematical truths. Such also is the certitude of self-evident and demonstrable truths of every kind. The sphere of this kind of certitude is diminished or extended accordingly as the mind has before it a greater or lesser number of truths of this order. Some of these truths present themselves to every mind so immediately and irresistibly that it cannot help regarding them just as they are, and thus seeing their truth. For instance, that two and two make four. Others require the mind to be in a certain state of aptitude for seeing them as they are, and to make an effort to bring them before it. There are some truths self-evident or demonstrably certain to some minds which are not so to others; yet these truths have all an intrinsic, metaphysical certitude which reason as such is capable of apprehending, and the failure of reason to apprehend them is due in individual cases merely to the defective operation of reason in the particular subject. The operation of reason can never be altogether deficient while it acts at all, for it acts only while contemplating its object or primitive idea. But its operation can be partially defective, inasmuch as the primitive idea or objective truth may be imperfectly brought into the reflective consciousness. And thus the intellect in individuals may fail to apprehend truths which can be demonstrated with metaphysical certitude, and which the intellect infallibly judges to be absolutely certain in {587} those individuals who are capable of making a right judgment. In this operation of apprehending metaphysical truths there is no criterion taken from experience, or from the concurrent assent of all men, but the truth shines with its own intrinsic light, and reason judges by its inherent infallibility.
Next to metaphysical certitude comes moral demonstration, resulting from an accumulation of probabilities so great that no probability which can prudently be allowed any weight is left to the other side, but merely a metaphysical possibility. For instance, the Copernican theory.
Then comes moral certainty in a wider sense; where there is probable evidence on one side without any prudent reason to the contrary, but not such a complete knowledge of all the facts as to warrant the positive judgment that there is really no probability on the other side. This kind of certainty warrants a prudent, positive judgment, and furnishes a safe practical motive for action; but it varies indefinitely according as the data on which the judgment is based are more or less complete, and the importance of the case is greater or less.
Then come the grades of probability, where there are reasons balancing each other on both sides, which the mind must weigh and estimate.
To apply these principles to the question in hand.
First, we affirm that the being and attributes of God are apprehended with a metaphysical certitude. Second, that the motives of credibility proving the Christian revelation are apprehended, when that Revelation is sufficiently proposed, with a varying degree of probability, according to varying circumstances in which the mind may be placed, but capable of being increased to the highest kind of moral demonstration. Third, that the logical conclusion which reason can draw from these two premises, although hypothetically necessary and a perfect demonstration--that is, a necessary deduction from the veracity of God, on the supposition that he has really made the revelation--is really not above the order of probability, on account of the second premiss. It is not above the order of probability, although, as we have already argued, it is capable of being brought to a moral demonstration by such an accumulation of proofs within that order, that reason is bound to judge that the opposite is altogether destitute of probability.
From this it appears, both how far reason with its own principles can go in denying, and how far it can go in assenting to revealed truth. We see, first, how it is, that the truth of revelation does not compel the assent of all minds by an overwhelming and irresistible evidence. The first premiss, which affirms the being of God, although undeniable and indubitable in its ultimate idea, may be in its distinct conception, so far denied or doubted by those whose reason is perverted by their own fault, or their misfortune, as to destroy all basis for a revelation. The second premiss, much more, may be partially or completely swept away, by plausible explanations of its component probabilities in detail. And thus, revelation may be denied. The influence of the will on the judgment which is made by the mind on the revealed truth is explicable in this relation, and must be taken into the account. It is certain that the moral dispositions by which voluntary acts are biased, bias also the judgment. The self-determining power of the will which decides positively which of its different inclinations to follow, controls the judgment as well as the volition. This is an indirect control, which is exerted, not by imperiously commanding the judgment in a capricious manner to make a blind, irrational decision, but by turning it toward the consideration of that side toward which the volition or choice is inclined. This influence and control of volition over judgment increases as we descend in the order of truth from primary and self-evident principles, and diminishes as we {588} approach to them. In the case of truth which is morally or metaphysically demonstrable, its control is exerted by turning the intellect partially away from the consideration of the truth and hindering it from giving it that attention which is necessary, in order to its apprehension. In the case of divine revelation, various passions, prejudices, interests, or at least intellectual impediments to a right operation of reason, act powerfully upon a multitude of minds in such a way, that the mirror of the soul is too much obscured to receive the image of truth.
But, supposing that reason and will both operate with all the rectitude possible to them, without supernatural grace; how far can the mind proceed in assenting to divine revelation? As far as a moral demonstration can take it. It can assent to divine truth, and act upon it, so far as this truth is adapted to the perfecting of the intellect and will in the natural order. But it lacks capacity to apprehend the supernatural verities proposed to it, as these are related to its supernatural destiny.
The revelation contains an unknown quantity. The will cannot be moved toward an object which the intellect does not apprehend. Therefore, a supernatural grace must enlighten the intellect and elevate the will, in order that the revealed truth may come in contact with the soul. This supernatural grace gives a certain con-naturality to the soul with the revealed object of faith, by virtue of which it apprehends that God speaks to it in a whisper, distinct from his whisper to reason, and catches the meaning of what he says in this whisper. It is this supernatural light, illuminating the probable evidence apprehended by the natural understanding, which makes the assent in the act of faith absolute, and gives the mind absolute certitude. It is, however, the certitude of God revealing, and not the certitude of science concerning the intrinsic reason of that which he reveals. This remains always inevident and obscure in itself, and the decisive motive of assent is always the veracity of God. It is not, however, altogether inevident and obscure, for if it were, the terms in which it is conveyed would be unintelligible. It is so far inevident, that the intellect cannot apprehend its certainty, aside from the declaration of God. But it is partially and obscurely evident, by its analogy with the known truth of the rational order. It is so far evident that it can be demonstrated from rational principles that it does not contradict the truths of reason. Further, that no other hypothesis can explain and account for that which is known concerning the universe. And, finally, that so far as the analogy between the natural and the supernatural is apprehensible, there is a positive harmony and agreement between them. This is all that we intend to affirm, when we speak of demonstrating Christianity from the same principles from which scientific truths are demonstrated.
Let us now revert once more to Jesus Christ and the pagan philosopher. The pagan first perceives strong, probable reasons, which increase by degrees to a moral demonstration, for believing that Christ is the Son of God, and his doctrine the revelation of God. The supernatural grace which Christ imparts to him, enables him to apprehend this with a permanent and infallible certitude as a fixed principle both of judgment and volition. He accepts as absolutely true all the mysteries which Christ teaches him, on the faith of his divine mission and the divine veracity. We may now suppose that Christ goes on to instruct him in the harmony of these divine verities with all scientific truths, so far, that he apprehends all the analogies which human reason is capable of discerning between the two. He will then have attained the ultimatum possible for human reason elevated and enlightened by faith, in this present state. Science and faith will be coincident in his mind, as far as they can be. That is, faith will be coincident {589} with science until it rises above its sphere of vision, and will then lose itself in an indirect and obscure apprehension of the mysteries, in the veracity of God.