man to a pig or a digestive tube open at both ends. It matters little whom we cite, in order to show that the rationalistic philosophy reduces man to a mere animal. Let us take Horace, that almost universal favorite with our polished classical scholars, - Horace, who owns that he is one of the swineherd of Epicurus, He tells us that "The first human beings sprung, like animals, from the earth, a mute and filthy herd, making war upon one another for an acorn or a den, at first with nails and fists, then with sticks, and afterwards with artificial arms. At length they invented speech, formed language for the expression of their sentiments, and gave names to things. They then desisted from war, began to build and fortify cities, and to found laws prohibiting theft, murder, and adultery. For even before Helen, woman had been the most shameful cause of war. Addicted to the pleasures of the flesh, without marriage, after the manner of wild beasts, they fought among themselves, the stronger overpowering the weaker, as a bull in a herd of cattle. But those men have perished unknown. Explore the annals and monuments of the world, and you will be obliged to admit that laws originated in the fear of the wicked, for nature is impotent to distinguish good from evil, the just from the unjust, and to separate what is permitted from what is to be avoided." So sings the polished Horace. same purpose: Cicero speaks to the fed "There was formerly a time when men roamed the fields, themselves, and propagated their species after the manner of "Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris, Mutum et turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilia propter, brutes. In the conduct of life they followed the instincts of the body, instead of obeying the dictates of reason. They observed as yet no religion, no law, no duty. Legitimate marriage was unknown, and fathers acknowledged not their own children. No one understood the utility of right and equity. All was ignorance, error, abuse of bodily forces, and under the shadow of these most pernicious satellites, blind and reckless passion domineered over the soul.” * Whether you consult the ancient or modern philosophers, this is what the rationalistic philosophy opposes, on the explanation of the origin of man and civilization, to the doctrine of the Church and the universal traditions of the human race. Father Ventura may well ask, "Can anything more shameful, more degrading for man be imagined than such an explanation of his origin, nature, and condition? Can there be anything really more absurd than this system, which assumes that man, while ignorant and stupid as a sheep, was able to invent what is most profoundly scientific, what is grandest and sublimest in his possession, that is to say, reason and speech? That man, ferocious, degraded, corrupt as a wild beast, was able to create justice, duty, laws, and voluntarily submit to them? That by its sole means, by its own efforts alone, the brute is able to make itself a man, and that barbarism and savagism can spontaneously and without extrinsic aid transform themselves into civilization? But once impudently admitted that men originally sprung from the vegetation of the earth, as onions, or from the corruption of other beings, as insects, that they have created for themselves ideas, sentiments, reason, language, truth, justice, law, and religion, it is absolutely necessary also to admit, that man has nothing in common with God, holds nothing from God; that God has revealed him nothing, and imposed upon him no law whose execution he has a right to demand; that man is his own reason and law, and in that which concerns them he holds only from himself; that the reason of each individual must walk alone, and should acknowledge no superior law, no authority, but should regard itself as free to do whatever seems to itself good. Here *" Nam fuit quoddam tempus cum in agris homines passim, bestiarum more, vagabantur, et sibi victu ferino vitam propagabant. Nec ratione animi quidquam sed pleraque viribus corporis administrabant. Nondum divinæ religionis, nondum humani officii ratio colebatur. Nemo nuptias viderat legitimas, non certos quisquam inspexerat liberos; non jus æquabile, quid utilitatis haberet, acceperat. Ita propter errorem atque inscitiam, cæca ac temeraria dominatrix animi cupiditas, ad se explendum, viribus corporis abutebatur, perniciosissimis satellitibus." (De Invent. 1.) THIRD SERIES. VOL. III. NO. IV. 66 is the doctrine which constitutes, as I have said, the philosophical reason. Here then is the ancient philosophical reason originating in a fable as absurd as degrading. Its origin is as ignoble, as abject, as that of the religious or Catholic reason is noble, worthy, and majestic."— Ibid., pp. 19–21. There is no difference between the ancient and modern philosophical reason, or, as we prefer to say, rationalistic philosophy. Waiving or denying the primitive revelation, it must suppose that man received no instruction, no rea son, language, or science from his Maker, and therefore that he began his career on earth through the ages as an untutored savage, nay, as a ferocious beast, living a purely animal life. Now if man began as a purely animal life, and is left to his own resources, to his own self-development induced by his animal wants, nothing but a purely animal life can be arrived at; for you can have nothing in the development not contained seminally in the prin ciple. Hence your modern doctrine of progress, of which you boast, and secretly or openly condemn the Church for not accepting, and which some few Catholic writers even take it upon them to inform her that she may accept with advantage to her cause, based as it is on the denial of the primitive revelation, and the assertion of the purely animal or vegetable origin of human beings, can at best be only a progress in the growth or development of the animal or vegetable life of man. It is a homely but true saying, that one cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. It is, we apprehend, equally difficult for a sow to develop into a moral and intellectual, a speaking and reasoning, human soul. Hence it is that, when we analyze the boasted progress of man, we find that it is progress in provisions for the wants of the human body, or man as an animal, alone. Nothing but the animal being in the premises, nothing but the animal can be in the conclusion. But this is not the worst of it. The soul is, as the Church has defined, forma corporis, and the life of the body, the animal life itself, depends on the union of soul and body as one person, and derives from the soul itself; so that in proportion as man neglects the proper life of the soul he loses that of the body, and suffers equally in his animal life. We are not to live the life of the soul for the sake of the body, but sensible goods are in their highest degree attainable only by those who live the rational life of the "Seek soul for the sake of God. Hence our Lord says, first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things sensible goods after which the heathen seekshall be added unto you." So it falls out that by neglecting or denying the primitive revelation, and living not according to the law of the soul, but according to the instincts of the body, we retrograde instead of making progress in that order where we freely admit a large margin for human progress was left, namely, in providing for the animal life of man. You do the Church foul wrong when you blame her for opposing the doctrine of progress asserted by the rationalistic philosophy of the day, because that progress is divorced from moral and intellectual truth, because it is no real progress even as to the actual enjoyments of animal life, and because its tendency is to destroy the animal life of the body as well as the moral life of the soul. It is not progress in earthly well-being the Church opposes, as you foolishly imagine, but the attempt to effect that progress in disregard of the only conditions on which it can be a progress and not a regress. The multiplication of sensible goods, or the increase and accumulation of material riches, do not of themselves constitute a progress even in earthly well-being, unless preceded and accompanied by the higher life of the soul, by conformity, after the inner man, to the truth and law of God made known to us in the primitive revelation. The mere man of the world, the epicurean, the sensualist, is, as all experience proves, whatever his material wealth, the most wretched of mortals. We know well that no Catholic denies this; but those Catholics who accept the modern doctrine of progress, and seek to incorporate it with the doctrine of the Church, should know that this modern doctrine has for its basis the vegetable or animal origin of man, or the mere animal and savage state of the primitive man asserted by Horace and Cicero, or the ancient rationalistic philosophy, and cannot be accepted without denying the nobler part of man, without neglecting the moral life of the soul, and therefore not without losing that very earthly well-being that is sought. This well understood, no Catholic can for a moment countenance the modern rationalistic philosophy, fatal alike to soul and body, or feel that his Church does not well in rejecting it. Let any man, Catholic, or non-Catholic, study these volumes, and he will understand this, and understand it well. We have neither the space nor the ability to give a complete analysis of these volumes, for they are themselves only an analysis of the subject they treat. We have indicated a few of their more salient points, and that chiefly for the purpose of stimulating the curiosity of our readers to master their contents. What chiefly arrests our attention is the necessity demonstrated by the author of reuniting reason and faith, religion and philosophy, society and the Church. The divorce proclaimed by philosophy in modern as in ancient times has led, and could not but lead, to the most fatal results. Religion divorced from reason becomes superstition or fanaticism, philosophy divorced from revelation becomes immoral, licentious, and falls into scepticism and nullity. But we must not misunderstand the nature of the union demanded. Science must take its data from faith, not on the authority of faith. The primitive revelation, preserved in its chief elements by universal tradition and language, in its purity and integrity with the patriarchs, in the Synagogue, and in the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, solves all the problems which require solution in our present state; but it does so in the intelligible order, not by force of authority, imposing dogmas, and enjoining obedience, as is too often imagined, but by unfolding, so to speak, the grand scheme of Providence in both the intelligible and the superintelligible orders, which orders, though distinguishable, are never separable in that scheme. What pertains to the superintelligible, being above but not against the intelligible, is received by faith, and on the authority of the revealer. That which is thus received, shows us the real character and relations of the intelligible, and puts us in the position to apprehend it as it is; but it is affirmed by us, not on the authority of faith, but on its affirmation of itself in noetic intuition or rational demonstration to our understanding, in its principles as in its conclusion, as must always be the case with scibile as distinguished from the credibile. The doctrine requires us to reason, to philosophize in the intelligible by the light of revelation, by the light which faith sheds on the natural order, but requires us to accept nothing in that order on extrinsic authority, and leaves us free to accept or reject in the region of the intelligible according to the presence or absence of intrinsic evidence. |